We founded Shiny Media as three freelance journalists back in 2004 and the sites were born out of a passion for the internet and a belief that established publishers just weren't making enough of the medium. The early sites were launched because we loved blogs, we wanted to write about things that interested us, and we couldn't find sites like Shoewawa and Shiny Shiny to write for.
So we created those sites ourselves, and we quickly realised that we were on to something. We'd never set up a publishing company before, and there wasn't a UK blogging business template we could follow, so a lot of what we've built up has been learned along the way.
And we've certainly learned a lot since those early days of freelance. We now have a whole team of writers (eleven in house and many more freelance), some of whom have been with us since the very beginning. Fashion journalist and blogger Gemma Cartwright joined us back in November 2004 to start Shoewawa and The Bag Lady and now heads up our entire fashion team, bringing her own successful site, Catwalk Queen, with her. More recently, we have hired two more staff members this month, including Duncan, a staff writer on our oldest and biggest blog Tech Digest and Matt who joins us as an account manager, supporting our growing commercial team.
Revenue is going up month on month and traffic has increased 26 per cent over the last 12 months. So it seems 'rumours of our death' to paraphrase Mark Twain have been greatly exaggerated.
We read the article on Tech Crunch UK and the many comments below the feature and we thought we should respond to them here.
Design - Perhaps one of the biggest criticisms of our sites is that their design makes them difficult to navigate around and load. We hold our hands up. In a mad land grab last year, like kids in a sweet shop, we launched a large number of blogs in many verticals. We had tonnes of ideas, plenty of passion, and we couldn't believe that publishers weren't about to launch their own networks any day. In our enthusiasm to get our ideas online we were far too stretched to deal with very real problems around technology and design. But we've been working hard fix that, and a lot has already been done behind the scenes. Sheldon and Jess - our design team - have worked hard on updating and cleaning templates, fixing bugs and dealing with the vagaries of the Movable Type content management system. But with over 30 sites to deal with it's taken time. The good news is that we had scheduled in a redesign for September anyway (honestly we had). Please feel free to e-mail us on info@shinymedia.com with your thoughts and examples of sites you like that we can take on board.
Advertising - As any publisher will tell you, there is always a fine line between advertising and editorial. Getting that balance right is a constant challenge and, while reader experience is and will remain our absolute priority, the commercial reality is that advertising is a necessary part of our business. We don't just say yes to any advertising and work incredibly hard to maintain the balance. A key issue in our site re-design will be how advertising can be better integrated within the site without reducing the reader experience. Obviously an important concern of ours is the placement of Flash ads and the loading speed of the sites.
Text-based content - Perhaps one of the things we are most proud of is our high quality content. That's probably because of our backgrounds as trained journalists. Some of the comments criticised Shiny content, grumbling it wasn't as good as it used to be. But that's where we would have to disagree. We have some great writers on board, some of whom are trained journalists, some of whom have got into blogging by less formal means. To us it doesn't really matter. If you can write, have something to say and people want to read it then that's fine by us, and Katie has been there from the very beginning to keep an eye on everyone and set the Shiny tone.
Although we got plenty of negative comments on the Tech Crunch article, we've had an awful lot more positive feedback from our readers. And while we're always happy to take on board constructive criticisms, much of it seemed to stem from readers who just aren't that into the Shiny style, which is fine - there's plenty of space on the internet for everyone! We believe there are just as many bad print journalists out there as there are bad bloggers - though perhaps it's true that more of them are hiding behind good sub-editors who are cleaning up their articles for them!
Video-based content - For Shiny one of the most exciting new areas, and one where we have seen massive growth, is video. It is still very early days, but we think we are producing some great quality stuff. Sure it's not broadcast quality but it's entertaining, full of personality and informative content for the web user - in other words the very embodiment of Shiny values. Some people seem to think that we encourage our presenters to expose their cleavage which is just a ludicrous accusation! There really isn't any dress code, nor will there ever be. If staff want to wear a polo neck, a smock or a burka then it's entirely up to them.
Finally, we do have our supporters. With such a gloomy intro to the Tech Crunch post, it's not surprising that we attracted a lot of negative comments, and we're certainly not dismissive of them. But there were positives too. There were people who felt we had achieved a lot in building a brand and an audience, and we thank them! We haven't always got everything right, we know that, but we are working hard to deliver content that both readers and advertisers find compelling. We hope you'll excuse our lack of British modesty when we say we think we're doing pretty well at it!
No need to be apologetic, guys - you're doing an excellent job, to which your numbers attest. Fight the power!
Likewise - I was amazed at how quick everyone was to find fault with what is undoubtedly a successful and popular network staffed by people with passion. I think the 'tall popppy' syndrome was very much at play. Well done on your response, and best of luck!
Keep up the good work Shiny Media. You're doing a grand job!
There has been a huge improvement in the editing: when I started reding Shiny Shiny the posts were full of spelling and grammar mistakes, now they aren't any more. So: well done! If you could just introduce some variation in the "Hi, I'm ..., and I'm HERE, WITH!" spiel...
Advertisng wise, there are still lots of areas you just aren't exploiting. The revenues are there, believe me. But keep up the good work.
"we have just one designer cum developer across 30 sites"
This could be your problem with the site layouts, really they are quite a jumble. I like the content but as a user it's hard to look at the screen or find a story between all the adverts. I would suggest hiring someone to help with the redesign ( I'll hold off my rant until you release the new design) as even a very junior IA would be able to tell you where your going wrong. Sorry but content maybe be king, but not if you can't actually facing reading it on your sites.
It's good to see Shiny Media is doing well, I'm a UK blogger and have been for over five years now. I have a full time job however find my blog subsidises my income quite nicely. Most of it comes from private ad sales, I use services such as Adsense, TLA and Linkworth however these never pay as well as when I spend some time selling some links.
I find that British bloggers don't communicate as much with each other like US bloggers do and I often find myself networking with them rather than local UK blogs.
You are doing a great job and I have my favourite Shiny sites I read daily.
But I do hate the ads with a vengeance, especially the movies which slow down my connection and make me a frustrated blog reader. Sorry, but there you go.
I read one thing on Shiny Media -- Who Ate All the Pies. Great great footie blog. Very disappointed to hear Shiny Media is axing it, really hard to understand as it has worldwide appeal.
We loved Who Ate All The Pies too. The content was excellent and it certainly had a loyal readership but the truth is that we couldn't monetize it effectively. Advertising rates are low in the sports sector and we have taken the decision to focus on areas of the business where we get much better returns - particularly fashion and technology.
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TechCrunch Uk can make faults with whoever they want, they just need a story like we all do as publishers, My opinion on Shiny Media is that yes... Your designs are poor, dull + plain but your video content is great. Keep up the good work guys and dont listen to everything you read on the internet :P