In the heart of This Is Not Art’s Festival Club a handful of Australia’s most well-known and successful online publishers took to the stage early on Friday evening. As Newcastle’s Auckland St was fast being consumed by excited beer swilling festival goers spilling from the crowded footpath, Zac Zavos, Chris Barton, Barrie Barton, Jane Nethercote, Tim Parish and one of Danny Bos‘ mates kicked off the TINA Online Publishing panel discussion led by Penny Modra.
Covering topics ranging from how and why the bloggers got started to the value of blogs for advertisers, the panelists shared some insights on how to get started and attract readers and even shared some sins of the past for others to avoid. Perhaps the most interesting quote of the evening came from Barrie Barton when discussing why advertisers may be attracted to online culture/trend publications. This is far from verbatim, but Barrie asserted that if, say, 10% of the publication’s subscribers belong to the hipster crowd (a fair ratio), the other 90% are aspiring to become a part of the hispter crowd, so it’s the 90% the advertisers are interested in targeting. Great anecdote, I wish there was a podcast to share.
Audience participation was encouraged at all times, and it was cool discussing some of my own blogging experiences with the panelists during the discussion and particularly with Zac afterwards. Having everyone together at the one event was rather exciting, and we certainly should be aspiring to hold more events of this nature. There’s plenty of potential for further panel discussions, informal dinners and maybe some casual workshops too. Who’s keen?