mytropicalescape.com

Today starts the first in a new weekly series of interviews titled “Ten Questions With…” that will take place every Tuesday here at MyTropicalEscape. When I first read that NorthxEast, the site that produced the 50 Most Influential Bloggers post, was up for sale (and sold) I wondered who is the blogger/entreprenuer that made the purchase? Why did he/she buy the site? How do they hope to improve the blog that was known for “Unmissable Weekly Articles?” Additionally, it’s those initial thoughts that actually spawned the whole idea to do a unique series of interviews with bloggers, entreprenuers, travelers, and anyone else I find interesting, so for that I thought it would be fitting if Cameron Low was the first person to participate.

For some background information, Cameron Low is the CEO of a new internet start-up company called ‘Innovat3 Group.’ The company was founded by Cameron in early 2007 with his best friend and business partner, Alexei Berezner (who also acts as the CFO). Both Cameron and Alexi are students at the University of Monash (Melbourne, Australia), and were previously engaged in shares and futures trading.

Innovat3 Group is based in Melbourne, Australia, and they operate a web-development agency that goes by the same name, as well as a newly established blogging and advertising network. The company is well staffed with talented designers, developers and server administrators. You can read more about Innovat3 Group by checking out their web site www.innovat3group.com.

Question1: For people who are interested in learning more about you, do you currently keep your own personal ‘Cameron Low’ blog?

Answer: No I don’t, but I intend to very soon. I have purchased cameronlow.com and I aim to have it setup very soon. Needless to say, it will be powered by Wordpress.

It’s very useful to have a personal blog online, especially if you are a new web-entrepreneur; it provides you with some exposure to the internet world and can also serve as a place to rant about all the havocs and conquests of web-entrepreneurship.

Question2: How did you discover NorthxEast? Were you a reader first, or were you looking specifically to purchase a top blog?

Answer: One of my company’s (Innovat3 Group) growth strategies was to acquire popular and high-trafficked sites/blogs in order to establish a firm position in the industry. So we were in the market to purchase ‘top blogs’, and we are still in the market to purchase ‘top blogs.’

I’ve been a subscriber of NorthxEast since its debut back in April or May. Always loved the blog and its writing (especially Leo’s post), and Collis (the previous owner and founder) did a great job growing the site in the few months it was up. So imagine how I felt when the site was put on sale.

When the blog was put up for sale, Collis made a post about it on the blog stating it was on auction at Sitepoint. I believed the starting bid was $400. I jumped on it very quickly, but needless to say, the price shot up quite quickly due to the popularity of the blog.

Originally I never intended to spend more than $6,000 on the site. But I guess it couldn’t be helped when you are against people like Yaro Starak.

The funny thing is, Collis didn’t think he would receive any more then 2-3k from the sale. So how smart was he, not setting a buy-it-now price.

Question3: Why were you interested in NorthxEast? What about that site in particular made you want to purchase it?

Answer: Being a subscriber myself, I know the kind of content that NxE produces. With such good content came a very loyal user base, you rarely see a site that has been online for shorter than a year that has more than 2000 RSS subscribers.

The other thing that drew me to NorthxEast is its simplicity in transaction. ‘Simplicity in transaction’ is a phrase I like to use when describing a site where the users/visitors/readers will not be affected much if the owners/operators were to change. On the other hand, a site like ProBlogger, DoshDosh, or Seths Godin’s Blog would be sites that I consider not ‘simple in transaction,’ because readers consciously, or unconsciously, look for the unique voice in the content. And if this were to change, then there is a high possibility that you will lose a fair deal of the readership.

NorthxEast is so simple because it is established as a blog where industry experts post articles, as guest posters and part time bloggers. So no real ‘unique voice’ was established through the articles. With sites like these, as long as the qualities of the posts are maintained after the sale, you can expect little to no impact in the readership. This evidently is true, as NorthxEast has in fact grown in readership since the take-over by my company.

Question4: For those readers out there who might be looking to purchase a blog, was it a worthwhile experience? Did you have any glitches with SitePoint? Was it easy to work with Collis and Leo to close the deal?

Answer: I have to say that purchasing NorthxEast has to be one of the smartest business decisions I have ever made. Not only did I get an excellent blog, I also made a few friends along the way (Collis, Cyan, Leo, etc). The transaction with Collis was very smooth, although forgetting that since we are both on Australian soil, there was a 10% Government Service Tax. My financial officer was not very happy upon hearing this.

The auction itself was quite exciting, I believe the auction (although obviously ended) is still available for reading. The most anxious part of the auction came in the last 4 hours which went on to become 24 hours. Sitepoint has this system where if a bid was placed in the last 4 hours, the timer would reset back to 4 hours (in order to prevent auction sniping).

Collis and I decided not use a contract for this transaction, as we didn’t think it was necessary. This is because Collis has his reputation, and I have my instant bank transfer. I do not advise this to other people who are looking to buy and sell web-sites as contracts are very important in protecting your interests.

Collis wrote up a very nice article on NorthxEast on ‘10 tips for a successful blog sale‘ and Leo has also agreed to stay behind to remain as a writer for the blog, which helped with minimizing the impact of the sale on the readers.

Question5: When was the sale finalized? How is it going so far and are you still getting good traffic?

Answer: The sale was finalized 48-72 hours after the auction ended. A bank transaction and a few phone calls and emails later, it was complete.

Since the sale, traffic has actually increased and so has the RSS readership. We also went from a page rank 4 to 5 (just in case there are some people who actually care about page rank reading this article), although this is very much due to Collis’ efforts. So I am happy to say that this has been a very successful purchase and investment.

Question6: Is blogging or making money online your fulltime career?

Hopefully, making money online will be my fulltime career in a short-while, as I simply love doing it. However, at the moment, I am still a student at the University of Monash here in Melbourne, Victoria. I am a final year student doing Accounting and Finance.

Question7: What sort of plans and changes do you have in store for NxE? Do you have any announcements coming up?

Answer: As much as I love the current NorthxEast design, I plan to redevelop it in order to allow a more traditional blog to exist alongside the ‘feature’ article format we have going at the moment. So you can expect an announcement from me about the details of this re-development/design very soon.

Question8: With so many people blogging nowadays how do you plan to stand out and attract new readers?

Answer: I strongly believe in marketing, good content and timing (not exactly in that order). So I will focus strongly in getting and producing high-quality, detailed and useful articles on NorthxEast at a consistent pace. Some bloggers forget that consistency is very important when it comes to blogging. People expect a specific column to appear on the newspaper every week, and blog readers are no different.

Also, the current social media revolution is an excellent way to get traffic and new readers for your blog. I’ve been experimenting lately with StumbleUpon and lesser-known sites such as Sphinn.

Question9: What motivates you?

Answer: I guess very simply, I am motivated by my desire to get recognized, my competitiveness and my passion for the internet. My family has a long tradition of being in more traditional businesses, so I feel it is a challenge for me to establish myself and be recognized in an industry that is totally new and outside of the comfort zone I was brought up in.

Question 10: As an entrepreneur where do you see the future of blogs and online marketing heading?

Answer: Conversations and discussions will be the centerpiece of blogging in the future. Blogs will become the new forums. Each blog will act like a separate category in a forum. Services such as Gravatar and Open-ID will facilitate this, so that users can follow conversations from one blog to another while maintaining their identity.

I feel that a social media and network revolution is underway. Bloggers should take advantage of these new services in order to promote and assist in their blogging. Link building is no longer as important as it once was. What is important now and into the future is connection and building friends.

Cameron, thank you for your time and I wish you tremendous success in the future!

If you have any additional questions for Cameron that were not covered in the interview feel free to post them in the Comment section. I have asked Cameron to stop by and check for follow-up questions from the readers.

Stay tuned for next week’s interview when I get to ask Leo Babatau, of ZenHabits, what he would say to George W. Bush if he had the chance to meet with him. Or better yet, subscirbe to my RSS Feed.

This interview has been powered by the kindess of Cameron Low, the Culebra Blog, and the Palmetto Guesthouse.