2005年NPR美国国家公共电台七月-Bloggers Look for Profits as Medium Matur

On Mondays we focus on the business of techonology and today we'll hear about an effort to make money with blogs. Millions of people publish internet "weblogs" or "blogs" but among the few people who do it for profit is Jason McCabe Calacanis. A year and a half ago he started "Weblogs, Inc",which publishes and sells advertising¹ for a collection of more than 80 different blogs. Renee Montagne spoke² to Calacanis about why advertisers have been reluctant to buy space on weblogs and how he lured³ them in.

A car company doesn't want to advertise on your blog which only gets 100,000 pages a month and you only write about cars three times a month.So we went and found 15 car bloggers, put them into one place called it" autoblog", made it look like a nice magazine and it has ethics⁴ and, you know, correction policy, fact checking except that we said the content is unfiltered.We'll not tell the bloggers what to write,how to write,when to write and it was a very basic idea and it really works for the advertisers,coz the advertizers were just thrilled that with these audience, you know,the earlier adopters which was really nirvana for any advertizer.You wanna get in there with the people who are gonna spread your,you know, new phone around,you know, the new features in a Toyota Prius.

Well, how are they, the main consumers of your weblogs?

They tend to skew to the top five to twenty percent of the audience.So on our largest blog which is called "Engadget".It's a type of people who would replace their cell phones twice a year,the type of people at a dinner party who will, you know, advise you which phone you should get and why, what services you should use and why Varizon is, you know, not as good as Team Mobile, in this area but it's better with this feature and they're the obsessive⁵ compulsives of whatever space ,you know,they are unhelpfully obsessed⁶ with whatever the topic is.

As an investor⁷, you are making a bet that blogs will get really big, right?

Sure.

But as people are increasingly bombarded with information, is it possible though one better filters?

Yeah, I think that's why blogging actually occured. I mean I think people looked at the information they were getting from MSN as we called it "maintrain"Media, and they say:" I don't trust this information any more",you know ,whether it was Steven Glass or Jesson Blare or,you know, CNBC, you know, playing trumpets⁸ when Jack⁹ Welch would be on the show.You know, he's the guy writing the pay checks.

Right.

You know, I think consumers are smart and they realize: "Gee¹⁰, I don't know if I trust all this.Ah...you know, content out there.I would rather see some other voices and so what happens if the skills of a journalist go to the people with a domain¹¹ expertise¹².And that's really what's happening.You're taking journalism¹³ techniques and training the people who are normally interviewed by journalists to be journalists and it's gonna be a little bit of a rough process at first,but the person who is interviewed for the bio-tech story in the Wall Street Journal now has a blog. So if you wanna get the real information of what's happening in bio-tech, would you go to the Journal? Maybe you wanna a quick overview¹⁴. But if you really want to get to the nitty gritty,why not hear directly from the personel works in biotech everyday?

Jason McCabe Calacanis is the CEO of an Blogger for weblogs Inc.Thanks for joining us.

1 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 lured   

吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The child was lured into a car but managed to escape. 那小孩被诱骗上了车，但又设法逃掉了。
• Lured by the lust of gold,the pioneers pushed onward. 开拓者在黄金的诱惑下，继续奋力向前。

4 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

5 obsessive   

adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的

参考例句：

• Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
• He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。

6 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

7 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

8 trumpets   

喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花

参考例句：

• A wreath was laid on the monument to a fanfare of trumpets. 在响亮的号角声中花圈被献在纪念碑前。
• A fanfare of trumpets heralded the arrival of the King. 嘹亮的小号声宣告了国王驾到。

9 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

10 gee   

n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转

参考例句：

• Their success last week will gee the team up.上星期的胜利将激励这支队伍继续前进。
• Gee,We're going to make a lot of money.哇！我们会赚好多钱啦！

11 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

12 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

13 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

14 overview   

n.概观，概述

参考例句：

• The opening chapter gives a brief historical overview of transport.第一章是运输史的简要回顾。
• The seminar aims to provide an overview on new media publishing.研讨会旨在综览新兴的媒体出版。