What do bloggers want?

With British bloggers threatening to claim what's left of John Prescott's scalp, this may be a good time to work out what these blogger types really want. John Battelle, founder of the blogging ad network Federated Media, thinks he knows. In part, of course, they want to be famous, but more importantly they want to quit the day job and blog full time. His company aims to make this happen by taking the rising stars of the blogosphere and tricking out their Web sites with the kind of blue-chip advertisers who would normally be lavishing their ad spend on more traditional Web sites, such as this one. The good news for bloggers is that it just might work. The bad news is that it still takes a long time to be an overnight success…

Federated Media employs about 17 people in Sausalito, California, and has more than 60 different blogs in its stable, including some of the hottest blogs out there: BoingBoing, Metafilter and Digg. Batelle came up with the idea after working with BoingBoing's creators to help them sort out a way to get money from advertising on their blog. The process involved thinking in new ways about the relationship between blogging talent and the marketing types with the money who might want to reach their audience. Instead of thinking writer/publisher, why not writer/agent -- or even rock band/band manager? Battelle took the title 'band manager' and rolled up his sleeves.

For Battelle, the defining moment was when Boing-Boing asked it readers whether they would be comfortable with advertising on the site, if it meant that Boing-Boing's founders could go full time and devote their energies to the site. The answer from Boing-Boing's decidedly belligerent audience was a resounding and positive yes, so Battelle knew he had a gig. Since then he's been putting into place the commercial infrastructure and the management team required to select, recruit and market a whole bunch of other blog sites as part of the Federated Network, covering everything from parenting to cocktails. His goal is to try to pick blogs that already look like winners -- blogs that are already publishing great content, that have a distinctive voice, and that have already built up a loyal following.

Battelle's challenge is that the peppery individualists whom he's trying to make successful are not the humble salaried employees who normally work on the lower decks of the publishing pyramid: they're rock stars. And when rock stars see that they're putting bums on seats, that traffic is going through the roof and that the media are covering their success, they get understandably frustrated when the limos and big cheques don't start flowing at once.

There is definitely a weary note in his voice when he describes the intricate, messy, nuts-and-bolts process of building up what is essentially a traditional ad sales business, with long lead times, six-month marketing plans and clients who must be courted, briefed and booked -- while his hungry bloggers look on impatiently, some of them no doubt champing at the bit to fire off that "Sod you! I'm off!" email to their current employers.

One definition of drama is that it occurs when two processes moving at different speeds collide: the boy racer and the Sunday driver, the sleepy waiter and the caffeine-fuelled type-A businessman. Given that the always-on Web 2.0 blogosphere moves pretty much at the speed of thought, there is no doubt some drama involved in bringing together sales-in-suits with bloggers-in-bathrobes. And while Battelle has been working on the ideas behind Federated Media for several years (a process which he has blogged throughout the company's evolution), the company has only been open for business for the last six months, so it's still early days.

Battelle has form as an Internet visionary. Before chronicling the historic rise of Google via his own Web site and book, he rode out the last boom as publisher of the Industry Standard, a business magazine and Web site chronicling the evolution of the business side of the Web, which became hugely successful and then went horribly bust. As someone who worked on the Standard I could see there was always a strong element of the grandiose American dream in many of the first generation Internet businesses that Battelle's magazine covered. The idea was to come up with an amazing internet business plan, get funding, sell out and never have to work again -- a dream that quite a few entrepreneurs realised. After the bubble burst, thousands of other entrepreneurs got hosed, and millions of investors were left broken-hearted and with a nasty taste in their mouth. Yet we now live in a world transformed by the Internet into something far beyond the most hyped-up Industry Standard acid trip, a place where social networking and online gaming are the hottest things in town, and Rupert Murdoch is on the cover of Wired magazine.

Whatever Battelle's ambitions for Federated Media (and I'm sure they're extensive), there's something a bit more down to earth about this next evolution of Silicon Valley's Internet drama -- forget dreams of millions, just work hard on your blog and you may one day quit your day job. It almost smacks of humility. And yet, and yet... What will keep Battelle's bloggers in his network? Like movie stars and Hollywood agents, the big talent can walk at any time if it gets a better offer. And like any ad network, it will take time to see if the deals are flowing, and the whole wheel is turning in a way that is agreeably beneficial to all parties.

It's amusing to note that in a rapidly moving landscape, blog networks such as Federated are the new media's newest media, and are trying to do to big Web sites what big Web sites have done to big publishing companies: that is, make off with their lunch. The future is anything but clear, but I hope the dream of giving up the day job comes true for more bloggers -- and that fewer hearts get broken in the next phase of the Internet dream.