Six Apart has partnered with Major League Baseball to create MLBlogs.com, a new service that lets baseball aficionados use TypePad to blog about their favorite team with branded templates. Also, MLB has contracted some big names in baseball to start blogging — I highly doubt they’ll keep it up with any sort of passion, but who knows.
One thing I do know is that through MLBlogs, Major League Baseball is simply pitching a service to its fans and trying to make a buck. If you love the Boston Red Sox then why should you pay a fee to Major League Baseball for the opportunity to blog about them? This entire deal reminds me of the team-branded crap you get free from Sports Illustrated if you signup for a subscription.
I think this deal turns weblogs from a publishing medium trying to gain traction within mainstream media, to a mass-produced vending machine trinket, and I don’t like that one bit. Remember those football team collectible pencils from back in the day? Yeah, this is about as cool as those were.
And I really hope that the Six Apart design team didn’t work on the actual MLBlogs.com website, cause it’s really, really awful. The logo has some ugly double bevel thing going on and the site’s background image looks like a Gaussian-blurred tire tread. Nothing like a vomit-inducing first impression to make me fall in love with the service.
I wonder what Markos Zuniga thinks of this idea, considering his new baseball blog network just launched recently. I bet he’s not too pleased.
About Mike Rundle
There’s a market for chocolate covered ants… there’s a market for river dancing… there’s probably a market for this too. So you’re not in that demographic (neither am I)… but somewhere somebody is probably thrilled about this. Maybe even someone who’s never heard of blogging or even a kid who never took an interest in writing before. I think this is a good thing… although I agree it could be done better.
It really amazes me what some people are willing to pay for. Do we not make them rich enough with the stuff we buy? Now we should pay to talk about them too???
I think its crazy but I also think there are people crazy enough to think this is a great thing.
Wait, you pick on mlbblogs for being ugly and then link to baseballblogs.org? talk about fugly…
anyway, people can blog about baseball for free anywhere, people pay $60 for an official team jacket, this is nothing compared to that
This is perfect for the not-so-computer-savvy sports fan. A great angle to usher a whole new audience into the bloggersphere (and keep them in a sandbox of content). It’ll be interesting. Watch, someone will rise up and get paid work in the MLB or ESPN corner of journalism
Baseball blogs, and sports blogs, have been around for a while. Our network has been going for over a year and now more people are jumping into the fun. I don’t see what mlblogs offers over blogspot, except for the URL. I guess we shall see how things go over time.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem that different from paying for a Typepad-hosted blog, of which there are a few already in the Red Sox blogosphere (although they’re far dwarfed by the number of Blogspot ones). I’m intrigued, though, by the way Six Apart has moved into co-branding – with Friendster, now this…
1. Yes, the front page is ugly as all hell, but the actual blogs are fine. I can tell you that Six Apart did not have any part in the design of the front page.
2. I think the concept is fine, but the fee is not. I give that fee less than a year before it goes down to zero.
Actually, the MLBlogs site is priced at a DISCOUNT to Six Apart’s regular offering, so, if I want to blog about baseball, I might as well use their site, because its cheaper than Typepad, or as cheap as their lowest offering. So, its about me paying MLB to market for them… its me getting a discount to blog on their domain if I want to blog about baseball. Sure, I can use blogger if I wanted to, but that’s comparing apples to oranges.
Dude, your link for Markos’s network is all wrong. No idea what that ugliness you linked to is, but it ain’t no Markos.
Todd Muchmore runs baseballblogs.org and related sites like sportsblogs.org, and they aren’t related to Kos.
As he noted: “Because of the name that [Kos] chose, there is going to be lots of confusion coming up I believe.”
I think they will just be asking people who have great passion on the said sports, Been surfing for this kind of blogs and I must say it’s not bad and that I can feel the heart.
I know it’s all about money. But speaking of the Red Sox, I’m gonna share with a select few, the 2006 World Series matchup. It’s the Cubbies vs. the Red Sox. And this is coming from a Mets fan.
:/
Since it’s now more than a year since this was posted and it can be discovered on a Google search, just thought I would report that the first year was fabulous and the MLBlogs community is growing strong and has been receiving a great deal of positive press. Your one correct premise in the article was the phrase “who knows.” It’s the only place where millions of baseball fans can find your blog (linked from MLB.com and 30 MLB club sites as well as mlbplayers.com); MLBloggers of the Week appear each Friday on MLB Radio; the only place where you can use the official marks and logos; and much more benefits.
Just wanted to let you know it worked.
Mark
http://mlblogs.mlblogs.com