The story of two bloggers and blogs as businesses

I guess this is where things are headed.

Businesspundit which was one of the first business related blogs I started reading in 2001 and was written by Rob May was recently sold to Ryan Caldwell's firm and so now Businesspundit will have a group of bloggers at its helm.

Isn't this the way forward from businesses when they scale up. As Larry Griener stated in his seminal paper on organizational growth and development, when an entrepreneurial organization scales up it needs to pass through a period of change from being entrepreneurial to growth through direction.

On Twitter I was having a conversation with him that knowing when to quit when you're ahead is a tough one and even great people mess it up, so it was amazing for someone like him to do it so gracefully. He admitted it wasn't so easy. Rob will now be blogging at Coconut Headsets and I have already subscribed, because while he says he won't match the volume that he set at BP, I'll be looking forward to his irreverent and sceptical take on business issues.

What does this mean on how I will engage with Businesspundit? Well I will read the feed and make up my mind about whether to continue with it for sometime or to unsubscribe from it. The blog will come with not one but a diverse perspective of many bloggers. That can be a good thing, but for me Businesspundit was Rob May and his individualistic "voice" and perspective. It's a classical positioning issue that organizations face when trying to vary their products or diversify.


On the other hand there's Penelope Trunk (author of Brazen Careerist) who has announced that she has just started her own business- a site with 50 bloggers called (what else) Brazen Careerist.com

Penelope's approach is different. She'll continue to blog at her individual blog post, while launching a new site which is closely connected with her identity also. It's a different approach and ties up with her passion for writing which she's converting to a business while what Rob really wants to do an entrepreneurship and blogging for him is not so central.

Best of luck to these folks and the other new bloggers I haven't read on both BP and BC. Wish them all the very best !