[from
Wired 12.06: How Can I Sex Up This Blog Business?]
[Nick] Denton's biggest play has been in the works for two years: Kinja, a "blog of blogs" that enables even tech-challenged clods to become master blog consumers. The idea is to present a single free site that lets surfers punch in their favorite weblogs and thereafter receive a steady stream of items from them. What's more, they can publicly post a digest of favorites for others to admire and learn from, or choose from preselected - and ad-friendly - digests of the most popular blogs. Denton's bet is that Kinja will draw more eyeballs than all his writer-based blogs combined, as well as synergistically boost the pageviews of his other properties. And, of course, snare even bigger advertisers.
Another possible revenue stream for Kinja might come from its ability to note the preferences and behaviors of blog readers. Companies like Technorati, a Web site that maniacally monitors blog consumption, are already exploring the idea that the big payoffs from weblogs might be their ability to act as cultural thermometers. Down the line, Kinja might sell temperature readings to research-obsessed corporations.
Denton hired Pyra cofounder Meg Hourihan to develop the product, which was set up early last year with the stealth title "The Lafayette Project." Denton chose to proceed gingerly, and the effort - apparently by some disagreements on direction - wasn't done until April of this year.
Kinja's tardiness exacted a penalty. Back in Silicon Valley, an entrepreneur named Mark Fletcher began Bloglines last July, getting the first rev up after only three months. His goal is similar to Denton's: create a way to organize your blog-reading that's easy even for nongeeks. Using a viral word-of-mouth buildup, he claims "tens of thousands of users" on a site that's been adding improvements month by month. Fletcher's take on Kinja? "Late to the game and not enough features."
Denton admits the early returns are "so-so" but thinks it's early in the game.
