The document discusses the evolution of blogging and its impact on communication, highlighting the transition from simple web logs to a significant marketing tool influenced by social media's rise. It emphasizes the importance of long-form content and storytelling, illustrating how well-crafted narratives enhance engagement and memorability. The author, Roger Wu, advocates the need for contextual advertising and the value of storytelling in connecting with audiences.

1. The Evolution of Blogging
How Dark Skies, Lucas from Venmo,
and Batkid changed the way we communicate
Roger Wu
Co-Founder, Cooperatize
@rogerwu99

2. In the Beginning

3. What is a Blog?
• Blogging (a web log) was a simple way to
publish one’s thoughts on the Internet
• It was typically a semi-private diary.
• Traffic was attained by sending links to
friends.
• There was no way to monetize these blogs;
there were no ad networks back then.

4. The Very Beginning
• The only sites that got real traffic were
those that had real estate value.
• Real estate value could be from a name
brand URL, news.com (CNET), or the New
York Times (nytimes.com)
• A directory site like Yahoo could also drive
meaningful traffic to sites.
• Blogs were not indexed in directory sites
and thus were virtually invisible.

5. • Blogging had advantages over traditional
journalism with what they could cover
• Blogs had opinions that traditional
publications didn’t want to have
• Blogs could publish much faster (although
there were occasional errors).
• Early names like Drudge Report,
Mashable, TechCrunch
Early Adopters

6. Search Engines
• Search engines were the sole source of
majority traffic besides email subscribers
• RSS, now deprecated, was another way to
subscribe to a blog’s posts
• Only big names showed up in search due
to page rank algorithm.
• Blogs still had little visibility..

7. • 2005 – Platforms
aggregating user
generated content
exploded.
• The Year of You
according to Time.

8. Social Media
• Thousands of social sites showed up,
these ranked well on search but also
became platforms in themselves
• Millions of blogs now could be found
through “social media”
• Content is now truly democratized

9. The Golden Age

10. Social Media: Changing the Guard
37%
2%
38%
23%
9%
26%
26%
39%
$1.9b $1.7b

11. More Blogs

12. Blogs as a Marketing Tool

13. We’ve become better searchers

14. The Dark Ages

15. And then the bubble bursts
The Bubble Bursts: Why?

16. Too much contentContent creation is growing - FAST

17. Lots of Inventory, RTB, Rising Spends

18. Too many ads

19. Our day is still finite, so who
consumes this content?

20. Robots account for a lot
of web traffic and thus
look at a lot of ads …

21. While humans are blocking them

22. The Comeback

23. Who are we?
• Cooperatize, the best of PR,
influencer, and advertising:
• Influencer: influencer creates long
form content and promotes it
• Advertising: Cost per read model up
to a capped amount
• PR: Excess beyond cap is earned
media

24. Do what you are good at
We let publishers do what they are
best at, creating content, not selling
advertising

25. Long Form Content is Alive!
There’s been a huge emphasis on
social media, but it all ties back
to long form content. There is
only so much that can be
conveyed in 140.

28. • Smartphones like the iPhone let us
Google anything anytime
• Amazon let’s us buy anything we
want, whenever we want it
• It is not about seeing an ad and
converting, it is all about being top
of mind.
Getting into the Consideration Set

29. Dark Sky
An app that tells you when it will rain and for
how long? Too good to be true!
Then why aren’t you
downloading it now?
Because it’s not raining, but when it does, as
long as I remember the story (and not the
name), its only a Google search away!

30. A Future of Better Stories

31. Story Elements that work – Numbers or Narrative
Patients were given the choice between a 50%
effective drug and a 90% effective drug:
When the 90% drug was coupled with a:
Positive story: patients chose it 88% of the time.
Neutral story, patients chose it 81% of the time.
Negative story, patients chose it 39% of the time.
ONE data point trumps many when it is personal

32. “I was moving to NYC from LA after I broke up with
my boyfriend. My flight was inevitably delayed at
O’Hare. While at the bar, a guy struck up a
conversation: he was going to Fargo, ND to run the
marathon, had an extra bib, and asked if I’d like to
join. I realized that I didn’t have anything waiting
for me in New York so I said Yes. I’m glad I did, the
Fargo marathon was amazing ….”
**Turns out this was fiction but
regardless but Fargo into my head

33. Story Elements that work – What vs Why
• Steve Jobs, a masterful storyteller, illustrates
the difference between why and what
• What is the new iPhone? 5MB camera, 64GB
storage, A8 processor, retina display etc
• Why the new iPhone? Front facing camera lets
the hearing impaired make a phone call

34. • Newcastle, England wanted to publicize the new
non-stop United flight from EWR to NCL.
• Some wrote about the what: the new flight
• The memorable powerful stories focused on the
why: without a stopover, weekend trips are
possible, bachelor/ette parties, Birthday parties,
sporting events, special events, etc. are all
possible because of the saved time

35. Story Elements that work – Context
• Display advertising will not likely go away in
the short term. However, “targeting” does
not work. With new products, the lack of
context asks more questions than it answers.
• What is the story behind say, “Lucas uses
Venmo” versus “two cavemen with a broken
car behind them.” We know that story cold,
since we’ve been told it so many times,
without the story we are confused

36. • We provided context for a country in
Southeast Asia who was running cryptic
display advertising.
• Readers of the stories were retargeted with
display ads which changed their entire
meaning in the context of the story.
• Display advertising works, if the right story is
behind it.

37. Thank You!
Roger Wu
roger@cooperatize.com
@rogerwu99
1-917-549-0188