b5media: building global neighborhoods

Jeremy Wright, b5media

Last week, my Naked Conversations book partner--I forget the guy's name--ran an interview with Jeremy Wright on the Scoble Show. Last night, my friend and soon-to-be travel buddy Rick Segal announced that JL Albright, his venture firm and Brightspark, where my former client Mark Skapinker is a partner have co-invested $2 million in Jeremy's b5media.

So with all that disclosure, you need to understand I'm talking family when I gush about how much I like b5. But I'm also talking business, when I predict that b5 is going to become a very successful global media enterprise. I've met a couple of times with Jeremy recently. We have become much closer friends than we were a year ago, when he was publishing the first business book on blogging and Robert and I were feverishly finishing up the second.

In fact, we've both done quite well withour books. Amazon has promoted then as a "better together"  combo and longtime readers will recall how much respect I have for Amazon's wisdom. In fact, Jeremy's Blog Marketing is the second best-selling book in the Naked Conversation Amazon bookstore.

We are better together. We share a passion for writing and people and blogging.  We both love entrepreneurialism.  He has the drive of a young man and I have the wisdom of someone who has been around the block so many times, it has become an oval. I like giving him advise and he seems to enjoy taking it.

There is no financial relationship between us, but if one develops, I will not cry my way to the bank.  I think b5networks is going to be very successful for a good number of reasons, and I wouldn't mind hitching a ride on b5's long coattails.

b5 is a network--a community--of bloggers, covering a great many subjects, some of which interest me and some of which do not, but may interest you. When I visit the home page, it is easy for me to find the subjects that are relevant to me.  The writers are passionate, informed and prolific. When you visit, you may have entirely different interests, but it is likely you will find the same quantity and quality of information on what you like without ever looking at the blogs I follow.

This is precisely what happens every Sunday morning when the New York Times thuds onto my doorstep.  I read the book reviews while my wife tears through the theater section.  I read the editorials getting food for thought. She reads the cooking section choosing food for dinner. We both read the International news. 

But loving the newspaper is a generational thing and it has become sooo yesterday for a huge percentage of emerging adults who have gone online for faster-better-cheaper, more environmentally respectful and more interactive information sources.

Move forward a few years, and newspapers are likely to be even further on the wane. Not just young people, but people everywhere will have moved further and deeper into the internet as a primary information source. And advertisers will continue to follow their customers and prospects.

Then there's the Global Neighborhoods angle. The internet is allowing people to build geographically irrelevant neighborhoods based on topics that interest them more than on their geographic boundaries.  We may all still care about what our locally elected scoundrels are up to, but we also care about issues without borders--stamps, knitting, hummingbirds, curing AIDS, global warming and so on. The internet lets as talk with people like ourselves all over the world.

These are the pioneer days for new media networks. They are just nosing out into the old west or outer space or to the edge of the flat world of Christoper Columbus. b5 is one of a very few new media networks now forming. The potential for each of them over the coming decades is huge.

In many ways, it's like the late 1920s when there was once just one electronic broadcast network--NBC (started by David Sarnoff to sell more RCA radios).  Then two more followed then hundreds.  but through the eight decades of the Golden Age of Broadcast Networking, the original three remained in dominating roles.

Now that Golden Age is not so shiny and a new one is just forming. We are entering the Information Age networking period and b5 seems to me to be ideally positioned because it conglomeration of verticals makes one huge horizontal--just like newspapers, with their various sections and columns did.

I love their position. Next Friday, I will start Chunk #1 of the world tour that we have been talking about. Jeremy has asked me to keep an eye out for talented bloggers in Europe and I will be happy to do that for him.  I will also be happy to do that for the talented bloggers I meet.

Comments

[Jeremy Wright]

Shel, it's an absolute honor to be working with you. I've said it privately so I'm sure you know I mean it when I say it publicly, but your wisdom, ability to chat with me without talking down to me and honesty are like gold.

Thanks mate :)

[Tris Hussey]

Hey did I take that picture? Any way, Shel I hope to see you around b5 more.

[Aaron Brazell]

Shel--

I haven't had the chance to meet you yet, but given this turn of events, I hope I'll get the chance soon.

Cheers.

[Toby]

Shel - congrats! to you and the entire b5media team. Very exciting news for the biz blogosphere. Guess it beats selling shoes, eh?

[shel israel]

Yep. Beats Nordstrom by a country mile

[Eric Eggertson]

"I like giving him (advice) and he seems to enjoy taking it."

Hah! Nicely put. Self-awareness, as they say, is the first step to wisdom.

[Joseph Thornley]

Hi Shel,
I read Salim Teja's "Let the Sparks fly" post that, "We are also pleased to announce that Shel Israel will be working closely with the company as well."
And you point out that, "There is no financial relationship between us, but if one develops, I will not cry my way to the bank."
Hey Shel, Get them to PUT MONEY ON THE TABLE!! ;-)

[shel israel]

All in due time, Joseph. All in due time.