The Blogertize Blog

Part 1 of 2

Blogertizers - Real risk takers!

It just had to happen. Those who've invested in our company are the ones who truly believe that this experimental business model could do wonders subject to a near-perfect implementation of the business plan.

Here are the results of the poll

Total no: of adspace registrations - 1,876
No: of members who participated in this poll - 1,714 (91.3%)
- Option A - No acquisitions/collaborations - Launch on May 31st - 187 (10.9%)
- Option B - Go ahead with acquisitions/collaborations - Launch on Sep 01st - 1,527 (89.1%)
No: of members who did not participate in this poll - 162

Well, without even second thoughts, we've decided to postpone the launch date until Sep 01, 2009

Those who've selected option A and those who've not voted will have an option to cancel their registration. 100% of the amount invested by these registrants would be returned back. A separate email communicating the same shall be sent across to all the Blogertizers by 20th May 2009

Once again, thank you all for such a tremendous response and a very brave decision.

Team BLOGERTIZE

Letter from the Founder – “Tough decision to be taken – Need your help”

Hello Blogertizers,
Well, for the very first time a startup is asking its members to decide upon it’s future course of action. Please go through the letter from Mr Dushyant Bhatia, Founder, CEO, Blogertizeworld.com

"Dear all

First of all, I’d like to thank you all for the tremendous support that you’ll have given to this unconventional venture. It’s been a fabulous (though hectic) journey since launch and we’re quite happy with the way things have been shaping up.

As you all know we’re scheduled to launch on 31^st May 2009

Some stats that might interest you all
Blogger advertiser registrations – 1,876 (as of May 9th 2009)
Non-blogger advertiser registrations – 1,400+ (which includes normal registrations, forum member registrations and all 11 newsletter subscriber base)
We’re expecting to reach the magical figure of 2,000 (blog adspace registrations) by the end of next month
All the web development work is very much in place, all the bugs have been taken care of and we’re all set to launch.

Now comes the interesting part
It was on one fine day in the first week of April when one of my team members (doesn’t want to be named) came up with a thought that seemed quite difficult to implement. I personally was not very keen on implementing the idea but nonetheless my team somehow convinced me to give it a try. The thought was that instead of using a chunk of the adspace proceeds on marketing the website, why not use these proceeds and acquire a couple of cash strapped startups with a loyal user base. The primary objective here was to make sure that when we launch we have a 5 digit member base which in turn would ensure a good amount of constant traffic for our blog advertisers from day one.

We approached (and in some cases were approached by) 17 startups out of which around 12 startups were keen on relaunching under our brand. Here’s an avenue-wise breakup of the startups that showed interest in collaborating with us
- Micro blogging service (2)
- Blogger ad network exchange (2)
- Games, contest & quizzing portal (3)
- Online shopping portal (2)
- Online market place (2)
- Podcast facility services (1)
All these 12 startups have a cumulative member/subscriber base of over 1,60,000+ and are based in five countries, UK, US, India, Malaysia and Israel

We are currently in talks with all of them and our objective over here is to start with atleast 30-40K members by the time we launch (acquiring 3-4 startups).

So now, we have 2 options
A - Forget all the acquisitions/collaboration and let’s start from scratch. A good marketing campaign is all this startup needs. Lets launch on May 31st
B - Acquire these startups and wrap it up under our operations, why spend money on aggressive marketing when we can have a good subscriber base to begin with.

It’s quite obvious that such negotiations and collaborations take a couple of weeks followed by integration process which may take another couple of weeks and so if at all you blogertizers decide to go with the second option, we’d postpone the launch date to Sep 01, 2009 (which by the way would be our first anniversary)

It would be quite unfair for those early investors who invested with us when we were still embroynic and so we have decided that if the second option is chosen-
o A certain proportion of the adspace amount would be returned back to those who have purchased adspace b/w Sep 08 – Dec 08 and Jan 09 – Apr 09. The figure for the former would obviously be higher than the latter
o Note that this does not affect the profit sharing aspect and the bloggers who have purchased adspace prior to Dec 08 would be treated at par with those who’ve purchased adspace of a similar size a little later
o The sales will stop once we reach 2,500 members and the remaining 360 blog advertisers will have to pay double the existing prices once we launch

I personally would opt for the first option since I believe a success of a venture depends upon the execution of the business plan but my team members have a different opinion and so we’ve decided to leave it upto you

Since this is a last minute decision, we’d require a majority of 80% votes in case we implement the second option i.e. in case we have more than 20% of the blog advertisers favouring the first option, we’d go with what was planned.

So think about and it get back to us by May 16th 2009 (23:59 GMT) and we shall announce the result of the poll on May 18th 2009

Sincerely
Dushyant Bhatia
Founder, Blogertizeworld.com"

Note that this poll is only for bloggers who have purchased pixel adspace prior to May 9th (1,876 bloggers in all). The bloggers are requested to follow the following instructions while mailing us their choice
o The mail should be sent to "contact at blogertizeworld dot com"
o The mail should be sent from the email id which was used while purchasing the pixel adspace
o Subject of the mail – POLL
o Contents of the mail
          - Name
          - Blog URL
          - Option - (A or B)
o A reminder shall be sent everyday starting from today onwards.

Have a good one
Team BLOGERTIZE

Blogertize.in is now Blogertizeworld.com

Yes… That’s right!!

Most of the bloggers advertising with us from all over the world were quite apprehensive about the .in extension and so we decided to surprise you all with our new domain. Our new BETA version aims to answer all the queries that Blogertizers have had since our launch date i.e. Sep 01, 2008. It includes our business model, near future plans and revenue generating avenues that Blogertizeworld would be exploring in coming years. Hopefully, all the queries have been answered. If not, feel free to drop in a line or two an our representatives will get back to you.

The launch of this BETA version (announced in our previous blog post) comes exactly six months after our launch. Blogertize started off an experimental venture but the confidence shown by all the advertisers is quite overwhelming.

Thank you all for your patience and support.

Will keep you all posted about the developments, if any.

Until then – Spread the Word

Team BLOGERTIZE
P.S. We have decided to leave the pixel adspace page for all of the twelve categories untouched. The same shall be transferred to new domain when the adspace images are activated i.e. on the launch date

New BETA launch!!

Hello Blogertizers,

Last two-three weeks have been quite productive. Blogertize was written about in mid-day, a daily newspaper of India and it also featured on rediff.com, India’s leading internet portal. We’ve made our presence felt and this exposure (coming within a short span of less than six months of launch) proves the same.

We’ve been receiving quite a few queries from bloggers worldwide regarding the business model of our website. We’re pleased to announce that Blogertize will soon be launching its new BETA version which would disclose its business model, future plans, and revenue generating avenues that’d be explored in the near future.

What’s in store for the bloggers and how we help bloggers help monetize their blogs??
All this and many other queries would be answered once the new BETA version is up.
So stay tuned…

Team BLOGERTIZE

Blogertize up and running!

Apologies for the lack of updates during the past few days. Due to an overwhelming traffic on 1^ST of Jan 2009, the site crashed and was down for over 30 hours. As a result we’ve moved our site to a much more powerful server. The site is up and running now with no issues.

Thank you all for bearing with us and we apologize once again for the inconvenience caused to Blogertizers.

Hopefully, this is just an indicator of the times to come ;)

Team BLOGERTIZE

Wishing all a very happy and prosperous 2009

Blogertize takes this opportunity to wish all its esteemed Blogertizers a happy new year and a prosperous 2009. We would like to thank you for your support and wish that it will continue as we keep on growing.

We’ve been receiving tons of emails asking us to elaborate on the future course of action. Well, patience has its own reward. We’ll keep you updated about the developments, if any, but cannot reveal much as to what we plan to do in the near future. But yes, we intend to make Blogertize a success globally and not in a specific region or a particular part of the world and have achieved success in doing so to a greater extent. As a matter of fact, Blogertize will be even more aggressive in the months of February and March.

We truly hope that all the Blogertizers make the most out of http://www.blogertize.in not only in 2009 but in the following years as well.

Team BLOGERTIZE

1,000 bloggers think smart and turn into Blogertizers

Yesterday morning, Blogertize welcomed its 1,000^th Blogertizer – Ms Elizabeth Barlaan. Elizabeth who is from Hoorn, Netherlands, has the honour and as a gesture we’ve offered her another adspace button in any segment of her choice free of cost.

Elizabeth, who reserved adspace for her blog (http://mizdemeanor.net/), enjoys shopping, blogging, chatting, networking, watching movies and dating though she is yet to try online dating. She came to know about our site from blogcatalog – a community for bloggers worldwide.

When asked as to why she decided to invest in Blogertize, this is what she had to say
“Why not? The concept is simple and logical. With all its gears running, this website would have more visitors, which means more traffic which in turn would result in more revenue and it doesn’t cost much either. It is actually cheaper than me buying another pair of jeans that would end up snoring on my already bulging wardrobe...so I decided to invest in Blogertize. If everything works out well, I shall shop for jeans later and maybe lay my hands on some pairs of rubber shoes, a new backpack, a nice top. hmmmm.. what else?”

We truly hope that not only Elizabeth but all the Blogertizers make the most out of http://www.blogertize.in

Team BLOGERTIZE

On Public Demand – Blogertize to launch the html version of the homepage

As you all know we had a poll where the visitors and the members were to review the layout of the homepage. The poll had 3 options helping us understand what the visitors/members desire

Well, here are the results:

-      Amazing flash work and a novel layout – No need to change – 28%

-      Not a broad band user, Load time slow – I need html page – 11% 

-      Visitors should have an option to choose – 61%

Results are quite clear.

We would be launching the HTML version of the homepage by the end of this month. For when one wants to see the page faster, one will have an option to view the homepage as HTML website.

We’ve been receiving quite a lot of queries about our forum and whether Blogertize would delay its launch. Absolutely not - Launch schedule is still on track and the forum would be officially launched on 20th November itself.
Until then – KEEP BLOGGING 

Team BLOGERTIZE

Blogertize to partner Fulmarxx Shorts Fest 2.0, India’s largest short film festival

We are pleased to announce that Blogertize is now an official partner of Fulmarxx Shorts Fest Ver 2.0, India’s first ever people choice awards in the arena of short films.

FulMarxx is a "new model" integrated filmed entertainment company, with its wings spread across motion pictures, entertainment marketing, short films and film festival with robust worldwide distribution capabilities.
Blogertize, with this collaboration, aims to recognize and encourage new talent in the field of film industry. With an endeavour to promote budding and wannabe film directors we, along with Fulmarxx, will provide them a platform to showcase their creativity.

The inaugural edition received 189 entries from 18 countries in 16 languages (59 were international entries). The second edition promises to be magnificent extravaganzas wherein films of more than 1,000 short filmmakers will be judged/ reviewed by an esteemed 100-member jury panel, including Bollywood bigwigs, well know film critics & academicians, media journalists and entertainment entrepreneurs.

FulMarxx Shorts Fest 2.0 will take place on April 25-26, 2009 in Ahmedabad, India
For more details about this short film festival, visit http://fulmarxxshortsfest.com/

Team BLOGERTIZE

Blogertize Blogger Membership Surpasses 600 And Is Still Going Strong

We, at Blogertize, are thrilled to announce that we now have a blogger base of over 600 and are expecting to sell off the remaining ad space by May 09. 
It's pleasing that more and more bloggers are joining this group everyday. We reached this milestone of having crossed the benchmark 500 members within 51 days since its launch and today we've had 600th member registration. The website now has a room for another 2,400 bloggers. We're proud to announce that we're planning to introduce some extensive features on this site, with the intention of making it a full-featured site to better serve the needs of the bloggers advertising with us.

We would be having daily and weekly quizzes for our visitors and have been in collaboration talks with a couple of entities in India for the very same purpose. Prizes would include laptops & latest gizmos, jewelry, watches, bikes and many other goodies.

The company has roped in the services of RaAstudios, a rich internet media house in India, to work on its second phase. The website is scheduled to launch its forum on November 20, 2008.

This one of a kind forum is likely to encourage the empowerment of its members by providing them with a rich access to information and resources. i.e. A member who’d like to keep himself/herself updated about the latest in the tech circuit could sign up for the monthly tech newsletter, the content of which will be provided by the bloggers advertising with the site. The link to the blog from where the content has been extracted would also be mentioned in the newsletter to give the latter the exposure it requires.

We would be launching our very own Blogertize online shopping portal by early next year, the products of which would be sold by the bloggers advertising with the site. In return these bloggers would get commission (certain % of sales) for their services. The main idea is to create an online trading store and have distributors i.e. bloggers all over the world. The payout to the bloggers could go upto 75% of the total profit earned by our website obviously on pro-rata basis.

So please enjoy your 3 year adspace with BLOGERTIZE