Glam: The success of the network
I have been arguing for as long as anyone would listen that the future of media is less about products and more about networks. It’s so nice to be proven right.
Recently, Samir Arora, CEO of Glam, visited to talk about his success story as a network and a platform. As he flipped through a PowerPoint spiel, he said excitedly that I’d really like this slide. I did. I dined out on it in London all last week.
The chart requires some explanation. Bear with me; it’s worth it.
The yellow circle on the right represents iVillage, which had been the largest women’s site in the U.S. After only a year and a half, Glam has overtaken it as the new No. 1 with 23 million uniques (vs 18m for iVillage) and 600 million monthly pageviews.
iVillage was our deadly competitor when I worked at CondeNet and we often sniped that much of its traffic was junk. This illustrates that: The largest circle inside iVillage is astrology traffic and the dark circle in that represents people who come to iVillage for horoscopes and nothing else. That may bulk up your traffic numbers, but it’s not saleable to advertisers. iVillage is built in the Yahoo model of sites it owns or controls; it tries to lure people in and then bombards them with ads.
Glam, represented by the larger circle on the left, is a network. You’ll see clusters made up of smaller circles, representing their content areas: fashion, beauty, fashion, lifestyle, celebrity, teen. Inside each of those clusters, if you squint, you’ll see a small yellow circle. Those are Glam’s O&O (owned and operated) sites. All the many purple circles around those in each cluster represent outside, independent blogs and sites in Glam’s network. That is the secret to Glam’s quick growth without the cost and risk of doing everything itself.
Glam finds the good blogs and creates a relationship. It features good content from them on Glam and also sells ads on the blogs, sharing revenue with and supporting those bloggers. It now has about 400 publishers creating about 600 sites and Arora said that some make multiple six figures a year. They’ve fired only one.
Glam exploded by being a network. It asked the question, WWGD? What would Google do? Google, by the way, earns about 30 percent of its revenue through its O&O properties, Arora said. [LATER: See Capn Ken in the comments for more complete figures.] Glam earns 20-25 percent through its O&Os. Arora claims an advertising CPM of $15-35 for the O&Os and $8-15 for the network ($50-120 for the dreaded advertorial). Arora brags that they are “100 percent transparent” in their ad network, unlike someone else we know.
So Glam is a content network. But they don’t create all the content. They curate it. So we should curate more as we create less. That’s another way to say what I’ve said other ways: Do what we do best and link to the rest. Also: We need to gather more and produce less, so we also need to encourage others to produce more so we can gather it. That’s a festival of PowerPoint lines there.
Glam is also and advertising network that supports the creation of content. That’s how you encourage others to produce more.
So in the end, Glam is really a platform. That’s the key.
Glam is a rare example of that and I say other media companies would be wise to follow suit. A few days after meeting Arora, I also met Adam Bly of Seed magazine and ScienceBlogs. It’s a bit different, in that they curate the best science bloggers but then put them wholly on the ScienceBlogs platform. They sell ads and some of the science bloggers can make good money (not as good as those Glam figures but still good for a science academic; high fashion pays better than high science). And this allows Bly to build more around that (more on that later).
So in addition to asking what would Google do, I say that media companies should be asking what Glam would do. WWGD, the sequel.
: LATER: A platform, indeed.
I’d been sitting on this post, not quite done with it, and it so happens I published it coincidentally with previously embargoed news that Glam is starting a network for Lifetime. From the press release:
The new Lifetime Glam network will expand upon each company’s position as #1 for women — in TV and online, respectively. Today’s announcement is part of Lifetime’s broader expansion of its digital business including the relaunch of its website as www.myLifetime.com. As part of the agreement, both companies will also syndicate content – including a Glam-powered Beauty & Style channel on Lifetime’s website and Lifetime’s broadband video, games and other original content on Glam.com. . . .The Lifetime Glam distributed media network will be built on the new Glam Managed Vertical Network platform –designed to manage display advertising and content distribution for media companies. Glam’s new platform offering enables large media companies like Lifetime to rapidly create their own vertical distributed media networks in collaboration with Glam.
That’s thinking like a network. That’s smart for both.
: LATER: Michael Arrington argues with my argument. More on that above.
: UPDATE: Glam just sent me better figures on them v. Google: “30-40% of Glam’s revenue is O&O, and 20-30% of Glam’s impressions are O&O . . . . 30-35% of Google’s Impressions are on Google.com, 60-50% of Revenue is Google.com vs its network.”
Tags: bestof, glam, networkedjournalism, newarchitecture, wwgd
November 12th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Jeff:
Good points on the network v. O&O models, but the Google figures are wrong - or at least not clearly stated - and I think not that relevant to the question.
Google makes 65% of its advertising revenue (99% of total revenue) from Google properties and 35% from its network sites. And that trend is growing in favor of Google properties - network sites used to be more than 50% of revenue. Google likes that because they don’t have to share revenue with network partners if users are coming straight to Google.
The vast majority of that revenue is search, not content, related. Perhaps Arora was talking about content ad revenue at Google, not total revenue. And that wouldn’t surprise me because Google is not a big player in content creation. They have very wide distribution of AdSense for Content (including here), but they really don’t have a Glam-type relationship with content creators. Google’s really just serving ads on any site that wants them.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:07 am
[...] Jarvis talks of the success of a network and a platform in the context of Glam. Glam, represented by the larger circle on the left, is a network. You’ll [...]
November 12th, 2007 at 10:13 am
What a fantastic slide! Thanks for sharing! But at the end of the day, how would you propose Glam maintain their audience and their network in the face of competition from a similar but more lucrative competitor?
November 12th, 2007 at 11:21 am
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November 12th, 2007 at 11:21 am
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November 12th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
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November 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
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November 12th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
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November 12th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I have to agree in theory that sounds beautiful. In reality glam is not very impressive.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
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November 12th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
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November 13th, 2007 at 4:13 am
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November 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am
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November 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
One of the issues you don’t address much in this article is the economic model around ad networks. Ad networks exist because of the natural inefficiency in a massively fragmented market. Most ad networks take 40-60% of an ad sale as their commission, which is an astounding number. As a result, many of the sites will only allow “remnant†or “unsold†inventory to be pushed out to the ad networks…in a sense creating the same problem you’ve called out with the traffic from iVillage. To be successful, ad networks need to create value, not only through aggregation of audiences, but through differentiated technology (behavioral targeting, retargeting, geographic distribution) that allows for a premium advertiser experience. You can learn more regarding our perspectives on the future of ad networks here: http://blog.balihoo.com/index.php/2007/10/25/the-future-of-ad-networks/
Conversely, advertisers can also just go directly to the sites to purchase ad inventory (and sometimes that’s the only choice to purchase the non-remnant inventory). In this case, the biggest challenge for media buyers is simply finding what’s out there. That’s where tools and services like Balihoo come in - a centralized database of all advertising opportunities (online and offline) to help media buyers find specifically the advertising opportunities they’re looking for. We think tools like this will be a big part of the future for media buyers and advertisers, helping them find what they need and essentially creating their own ad networks that can be shared throughout the enterprise.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
[...] is worth two in your network. Or maybe ten. Anyhow, I’m enjoying Niki’s criticism of Jeff Jarvis on Glam. Not saying an ad network isn’t a fine business, especially if it’s got a large [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
[...] Veja o artigo completo –> Glam, the success of the network! [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Interesting, but darn if that chart doesn’t look like a really bad mammogram!
November 14th, 2007 at 9:27 am
There are countless stories like Glam’s emerging in the marketplace that demonstrate the industry is finally, after a dozen years, seeing the Internet through the eyes of the users. That is the underlying significance of the Glam slide: it’s not about them. This is why they will succeed vs. iVillage, as will everyone else that puts the consumer first in the new media equation.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:33 am
I wouldn’t count iVillage out just yet, assuming they can alter their business model quickly. Even if they can’t there are many advertisers who place a great deal of stock in the business model they’ve created. After all, Yahoo is still in business…
Still, the Glam model is an excellent one and follows the path of good common sense, with regard to reaching users. It provides a valuable service, keeps them active and interested, and ultimately that provides value to advertisers.
Unfortunately, advertisers are still primarily looking for numbers. Glam has reached a point where the business model is delivering these numbers. Many other networks are still not there yet, and may never be. That doesn’t make the model wrong, it is clearly an indication of good execution.
As a non-fan of the Yahoo model (bombardment with advertising is a terrible turn off in the web experience), I have stated for years that Yahoo “poisoned the well” for web advertising when the bubble burst the first time. They ramped up their ad clutter to a degree which allowed them to drop rates and steal total revenue. Unfortunately, they haven’t gone back to fix that. As a result, many sites still work on the premise that adding another ad position or increasing their promotional capabilities is the way to go. I’d prefer to sell a clean site, or network of sites, with reduced clutter and a clearer message. While it may not generate the MOST revenue, it will generate the best CPMs (and ultimately an optimal amount of revenue).
Shane Vaughn is correct about the fragmented nature of many sites needing to reach advertisers, as well as the need for the network to add value. Most networks do NOT add value, and are created to generate revenue for sites. Nothing more (though they may claim more).
The concept of reaching a broad audience via a network is good concept, it just has to be applied properly.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis wrote an excellent post about Glam. He argues that more social networks would be smart to follow the Glam model. Do what you do best and link to the rest. Curate “best of” content from the blogosphere and other content sites. Develop a platform. Watch your network explode. [...]
November 17th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
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November 19th, 2007 at 10:47 am
[...] November 2007 · No Comments I read about this is today’s printed Guardian. The original post by Jeff Jarvis is a very interesting piece. The model that Glam are using sounds like a very solid one for all [...]
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:29 pm
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November 27th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
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December 10th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Thanks for your post Jeff. I’ve been thinking along similar lines, with respect to the need for tools that enable and emphasize the work of curating content vs. creating it. I wonder if the shift will happen first with businesses deploying a networked content model and then be applied to users?
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January 2nd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
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Seit heute ist Glam auch in Deutschland etwas bekannter, nachdem sich auch Burda an Glam Media beteiligt hat.
Das 2003 gegründete Media-Netztwerk Glam Media bündelt eigene Internetseiten für Frauen und Lifestyle wie z.B. Glam.com mit einem sogena…
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