Behind the Keyboard: Interview with Ben Koo, CEO of Bloguin and Writer for Bucknuts

It is time for another installment of Behind the Keyboard, our regular feature here at MSF where we help you get to know the people who make the sports blogosphere go.

Today’s guest is Ben Koo, who holds the official title of “World’s Greatest Chinese Jew” (more on this later). Ben is also a proud graduate of The Ohio State University who regularly contributes to the esteemed online Buckeyes sports tome Bucknuts.com. (KVB’s heart just started racing a little faster…).

Most importantly, and what we wanted Ben to shine some more light on this interview, he is the CEO of Bloguin, a quickly growing and innovative blog network that includes guest MSF contributer Brendan Bowers of The Stepien Rules.

As usual, we start out with some quick-hit questions and then delve into the series stuff. We appreciate Ben taking the time to participate in this interview, and definitely check out his blog Koo’s Corner to learn more about him.

Enjoy.

• Hometown: Mountain View, California
• College: Ohio State
• Favorite teams: Buckeyes, 49ers, A’s, Team RamRod,
• Favorite athletes: Steve Young, Santonio Holmes, LeBron
• Current blog: benkoo.com and Bucknuts.com
• Twitter: @bkoo @bloguin
• Contact info: ben [at] bloguin [dot] com

MSF: The tagline for Koo’s Corner is “The Unadulterated Gospel of the World’s Greatest Chinese Jew.” What exactly makes you the world’s greatest Chinese Jew?

Ben Koo: I was given that trophy in 2001 and was chosen out of the hundreds of millions of Chinese Jews. In the award presentation (on worldwide television), the Academy of Chinese Jews cited intelligence, sense of humor, ability to pick good movies, video game prowess, good looks, and “general awesomenss” as driving factors for my award win.
I am a humble guy, but it really was a special evening.

MSF: You are the founder of Bloguin. For those reading this who are unfamiliar with what Bloguin is, please briefly explain the history of its founding and some of the early success you have experienced.

Ben Koo: I actually didn’t start Bloguin. That accolade is all Derek Hanson the creator of Derok.net.. I was working at Yardbarker and had heard some rumblings about Bloguin before it launched. I checked it out when the network was just 4 sites and was really impressed by what Bloguin was doing.

I explored some ways for Yardbarker and Bloguin to work together and it set in motion me joining as CEO of Bloguin several months later.

Bloguin is very similar to SB Nation in that we are a blog network all built on one platform. We offer bloggers robust publishing tools, branding from professional creative designers, help with monetization, content promotion, and a community of writers to collaborate with.

We really try to cater to the needs of bloggers but have found a model that advertisers are also very comfortable with. Currently we have about 65 blogs that on a monthly basis reach half a million people.

We also recently launched Bloguin as a destination site for sports fans to find great content from around our network.

MSF: For bloggers just starting out, why is joining a network like Bloguin so important?

Ben Koo: If you can get into Bloguin or any similar network, I highly recommend it. I know a lot of people like the idea of being completely independent, but in most cases it’s just not worth it.

Bloggers for the most part need help in a) making their blog visually standout compared to all the others; b) finding advertisers for their website; c) promoting their content to new readers and a broader audience; d) technical abilities to improve and grow a site. Some bloggers can do all of these things independently, but many of these core needs are not areas of expertise for most bloggers, especially working with advertisers.

Some bloggers seem to think that major brands like Nike and Gatorade are just trolling the web reading blogs looking for a great blog to sponsor. The reality is that unless you have an audience in the hundreds of thousands or millions of unique visitors, your blog is going to have to partner with someone for advertising as well as promotion. Getting a cool redesign is also very valuable for many blogs on older CMS programs that are not as robust and look a little dated.

MSF:  What differentiates Bloguin from the other sports blog networks out there?

Ben Koo: That’s a great question, since there are some great ones out there.

There are a handful of sports networks that are really agnostic from the blog in terms of platform and design and are mainly or solely focused on just advertising programs.

While we share those core competencies, we also give our sites a really powerful new design and at times added site functionality. There are a handful of other networks that do that, but we think we really bend over backwards putting extra TLC into these new sites to ensure they will be successful. We also view Bloguin as a more flexible company then other networks where their model is more rigid in terms of how they work with network sites. We have several membership options.

MSF: Blogs With Balls 2.0 is taking place in October after a successful debut in New York earlier this year. What did you take away from the first BWB conference and why are these types of events so important?

Ben Koo: I loved BWB and you were actually quite the topic of conversation.

I learned quite a bit at the conference and expanded my understanding of why bloggers blog, what their needs are, and how to make a blog successful through a myriad of best practices.

It was great personally for me to meet so many people that I interacted with either through Yardbarker or Bloguin. I look up to a lot of these bloggers and I was in a Fan Boy state of mind to meet some and was floored when some of them came and found me to say hello.

That event fostered a lot of camaraderie and enthusiasm for sports blogs and got a great dialogue going on how to continue on all the momentum of the past couple of years.

MSF: What do you see as the future of sports blogs in the mid-term (6-12 months) and long-term?

Ben Koo: I have a very optimistic outlook on sports blogs. You see them being referenced as sources on ESPN, you have more and more athletes blogging, and the mainstream is beginning to realize there are other places to find great sports content.

The barrier to entry to start a sports blog is really nothing these days and there is a growing ecosystem of great blogs spanning multiple sports that are becoming as influential as traditional media websites.

More and more people are starting, reading, and advertising on sports blogs and that’s the bottom line.

MSF: What blogs (not necessarily sports) do you read on a daily basis?

Ben Koo: I try to make my way around the Bloguin network, in particular, to find content for bloguin.com. I think from a content perspective we have a lot of top-notch sites.

For technology I read Tech Crunch, Alley Insider, and Venture Beat.

Outside of Bloguin I’ll frequent Awful Announcing, Eleven Warriors, The Wiz of Odds, Every Day Should Be Saturday, Athletics Nation, and many of the Yahoo Sports blogs.

MSF: What is an up and coming blog that many people may not have heard of, but that you would encourage everyone to check out?

Ben Koo: I really like In The Bleachers, which is a fantastic college football blog with multiple talented writers.

If you are an NFL fan, Bloguin is launching a very comical blog called No Bathroom Breaks, which will poke fun at Andrew Siciliano (the guy who hosts the Red Zone Channel). That guy amazes me how sharp he is for 6 hours and the fact there are no commercials and it’s live. This blog will essentially be a fake diary for him.

MSF: Let’s backtrack for a moment. Discuss your own personal blogging history and activity. When did you start blogging, where have you blogged, and how often do you blog now?

Ben Koo: In 2006 I started writing for Bucknuts.com, a really large Ohio State website which is now affiliated with ESPN. Through this gig I actually interviewed a lot of athletes like Santonio Homles, Troy Smith, Greg Oden, and Mike Conley, and once had a field pass for a game. I really enjoyed doing it, but wanted an outlet for other areas that I thought I could write well about.

The domain name “Benkoo.com” was always taken but not a live site, which really made me mad. It became available in 2007 and I’ve been blogging about 3-4x a week ever since, mainly about sports and technology. The last 60 days, I’ve not been as active but I hope to keep my pace up in the fall.

MSF: SBNation recently raised around $8 million in funding, as you explained at Koo’s Corner. In the month since you wrote that post, have you learned anything more about what they plan to do with the money? What does it means for a platform/network organizer like yourself when you see that kind of money being invested in sports blogs?

Ben Koo: That $8 million dollars is really a remarkable amount of money and you have to tip your cap to something like that. It’s not only that they raised that much money, but also that investors valued their company at $30 million. That’s very remarkable for a sports blog network and really says a lot about what investors think about the future of sports media.

As for what they are going to do with that money, I really haven’t heard much. Right now they don’t directly sell their advertising, but that could change by hiring their own sales force, which is a popular guess among people I have talked to. Its funny because Bloguin and SB Nation actually share the same sales team and are at times packaged together. A lot of people think we’re really competitive, but we’re very happy they are doing well and think it bodes well for us that they’re doing so well.

MSF: In your opinion, are there/should there be different standards for bloggers and journalists? What are your general thoughts on the ever-blurring lines between the two?

Ben Koo: This is the murkiest topic that was brought up at Blogs With Balls. I definitely think bloggers can rightfully have more leeway than journalists on a lot of fronts. At the end of the day, if you want to be taken seriously and you want a broader audience and traditional media to respect you, you need to have substance.

If you just fly off and post ridiculous but sometimes entertaining stances on sports, it might attract an audience but you’ll never cross over to the core base of sports fans.

MSF: Blogs like Deadspin have always taken flak for running pictures of athletes from their private lives that show them in a “negative” light (i.e. Matt Lienart bong photos, and recently the Josh Hamilton). Where do you stand on this issue? If one of the bloggers from Bloguin received unflattering pics of an athlete and asked your advice on whether or not to run them, what would you say?

Ben Koo: I’d probably check our hosting provider to see if we could handle a traffic spike like that!

In all seriousness, we let the bloggers make those decisions. If I was asked for my advice, it would probably depend on the situation. Is there really a story here or just some cheap traffic because someone was at a bar having a good time?

I saw some pictures at David Garrard at a wedding posted somewhere. I think he was really sweaty in the pictures, but how that was news or interesting really befuddled me.

MSF: And finally, if you could round up any five people in the sports world (athletes, coaches, media members, bloggers, etc) for a tailgate, who would you choose, why?

Ben Koo:

1. Spencer Hall from EDSBS - Can he be that funny all the time?
2. Greg Oden – Funny, smart, blogger, and a Buckeye
3. Kenny Mayne – I would hope he is not awkward in person, but he really really cracks me up
4. Brent Musberger – You have no idea how much I love Musberger. His voice does things to me and he just always is in a good mood, knowledgeable, and excited about sports.
5. Lebron James – Added star power to my new entourage.

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Once again, my sincere thanks to Ben for participating in the interview. Definitely check out Bloguin.com, whether you are an aspiring blogger or just an interested sports fan. A lot of really good bloggers that I converse with regularly have moved to their platform, and the network shows no signs of slowing down.

Behind the Keyboard: Hannah Patrick of Sports Media Challenge Takes us Behind the Buzz

As many of you know, I started the Behind the Keyboard series as an opportunity for you and I to get to know some of the influential voices and personalities in the sports blogosphere. We kicked it off a few months back by profiling Barry McBride of the Orange and Brown Report and then last week we interviewed Sarah Spain of Mouthpiece Sports.

Today, Behind the Keyboard is highlighting an individual who is actually not a blogger at all (at least not that I know of, but you never know who is lurking in the dark shadows of their parents’ basement…) but who still has the ability to influence the sports blogosphere on a daily basis. That individual is Hannah Patrick, a Media Analyst with Sports Media Challenge.

If you are an avid viewer of the 10:00 am SportsCenter, you may have noticed a new feature that popped up a few months back called Blog Buzz. The goal of this feature is to highlight the five most important and talked about sports stories, as seen by the sports blogging community. As you will find out from the interview below, Hannah is the point person for submitting the editorial content for the daily Blog Buzz feature. This is actually how she and I were first “introduced” — when she emailed to alert me to MSF’s first appearance on Blog Buzz, back when we wrote about Mike Brown being named NBA Coach of the Year.

Because I am at the office when Blog Buzz runs on ESPN, I have never actually viewed the segment myself. (I did, however, receive many calls from friends who were watching when MSF was on there.) And while I think all sports bloggers like the general idea of Blog Buzz, it was met with some criticism upon its initial launch (for examples, here and here).

One of the main reasons I contacted Hannah about participating in this interview was to give her and Sports Media Challenge an opportunity to discuss their objectives with Blog Buzz as well as to get her unique perspective, as someone in the middle, on where the blogger-mainstream media relationship is headed.

I am sure that many other sports bloggers know Hannah from being contacted about Blog Buzz and her effective use of Twitter to network, as well as the recent Blogs With Balls conference that she attended (and that I wish I had too!). Hopefully this interview will allow you to get to know her even better, as well as understand the objectives behind Blog Buzz and some of the ways that Sports Media Challenge continues to be a pioneer in the merging of sports and online media.

My sincere appreciation goes out to Hannah for her diligence in completing this interview, which we conducted over email. As usual, a few quick background notes first and then we jump right into the interview.

Hannah Patrick Background Info:

• Education/College: East Carolina (Arrrghh!) with degree in Communications
• Current Company and Position: Media Analyst with Sports Media Challenge
• Favorite sport: I grew up loving baseball. But in recent years football has become my favorite.
• Favorite teams: Panthers, Bobcats, Hurricanes, and all ECU Sports
• Favorite athletes: Jake “Day light come and I wanna” Delhomme, keeping it local. We are both originally from Cajun country and ended up in the Carolinas. Plus, he has persevered and accomplished a lot regardless of all the scrutiny around him.
• Twitter: @mhannahp

Hannah Patrick Behind the Keyboard Interview:

Jerod: If you would, provide our readers with a quick background on Sports Media Challenge, how you got involved with them, and what you do as PR coordinator.

Hannah Patrick: Sports Media Challenge is a brand monitoring, marketing, and PR consulting company specializing in sports and entertainment clients. I got involved with SMC through networking while dominating in a kickball league. We were named “Balls of Fury” (pictured left, click for larger view) and were champions in Spring ’08.

As media analyst my responsibilities include monitoring our client’s reputations online. Currently, my responsibilities have shifted to leading SMC’s efforts with SportsCenter’s Blog Buzz, which means I am in charge of the editorial content that is submitted on a daily basis.

Jerod: How did the idea for Blog Buzz come about? Was it initiated by SMC or ESPN? How has the response been from fans, bloggers, and the Worldwide Leader?

Hannah Patrick: SMC used to do a section for the “Sports Business Daily” called Blog Hound. It was based on the same premise, where we submitted to them the top five most popular blog topics on a daily basis. ESPN came to SMC looking for a similar concept, thus Blog Buzz was born.

The response, other than the initial launch, has been mostly positive. We have seen both sides though: bloggers that are totally stoked to see their hard work on SportsCenter and others that just don’t see the value. In the end, our goal is to connect one of the world’s largest sports entities to some of the most intelligent, informed and passionate sports fans and writers.

Jerod: What other Blog Buzz-like initiatives is SMC planning for the future?

Hannah Patrick: In the immediate future we would like to see the segment in other SportsCenter show times, like the 6:00 pm hour for instance. We would also like to start doing an in-depth analysis one day of the week, where we give several different blogger perspectives.

Jerod: Time for a random question. If you had to bet your last $10 on a fight-to-the-death cagematch between me, John Gonzalez, and Ken Rosenthal, who are you picking?

Hannah Patrick: Definitely you. But you are going to need some sort of super power first. Like… the ability to walk through cages.

I polled the office on this question as well. Results were pretty entertaining and are as follows:

• “Ken Rosenthal would win because he is backed by the traditional media and he would squash Jerod with his huge budget.” @ryanstephens
• “Ken Rosenthal because he came on screen like the Hebrew Hammer or the Jewish Juggernaut. But no matter what… Buzz Bissinger would beat all of them.” @jakerosen
• “Kimbo Slice.” @jackieadkins
• “Jerod being a blogger wears underwear like cage fighters. So I am going to go with Jerod.” @matthewgarner
• “I would go with the guy asking you the question.” @brittanylane

[Editor's Note: While I appreciate Matthew Garner's trust in my willingness to wear underwear, Brittany Lane clearly had the right train of thought here considering I'm the one posting the interview...]

Jerod: Shifting gears to Blogs With Balls, what were you overall impressions of the event?

Hannah Patrick: Everyone has said this, but it was awesome to put a face with all of the talented names that I have been working with. For me, it was a great opportunity to talk to people about what they do and don’t like about the segment.

For example, Blog Buzz’s biggest fan, Chris Motram, and I finally got the chance to meet. That might have been my favorite part. Getting to pick his brain about the segment was great. I took some much appreciated notes that we plan on going over with the big guys in Bristol.

To me, that was the spirit of Blogs with Balls. Everyone was just out to learn something new, share information, and shake someone’s hand. I think it was a great success, and I look forward to seeing it evolve into something even greater in the future. The guys at HHR really did an outstanding job.

Jerod: Excuse me for a moment while I kick myself again for not going. What were the three most important things you took away from the event?

Hannah Patrick:

1. Bloggers can be professional without losing the spirit of what they do
2. Sports bloggers are just as eccentric, talented, and entertaining in person.
3. When they say wear comfortable shoes, they mean wear comfortable shoes.

Jerod: I would define your role as somewhere in between bloggers and the mainstream media. Would you agree? If not, to which side do you see yourself falling; and if so, how do you navigate through the sometimes choppy waters of bridging the gap between blogs and the MSM?

Hannah Patrick: I would agree with the statement that my role lies somewhere in between bloggers and the mainstream media. The line between traditional media and social media is being blurred more and more every day and SMC’s and ESPN’s efforts with Blog Buzz are another step in that direction. We have worked to establish a place as the communication arm between the two platforms. Blog Buzz has simply created another intersection between the MSM and bloggers.

Jerod: What is your most memorable personal sports moment?

Hannah Patrick: In 2006, when the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. I had just moved to a new city and didn’t know anyone but my roommate. When the Canes won, everyone stood up on the tables and on the bar and sang “God Bless America!” At that moment I felt like I knew everyone in the place. It’s funny how sports can unite a group of people.

Jerod: Coming from a PR perspective, I would love to get your honest thoughts (good or bad) on how the Raul Ibanez controversy was handled and played out publicly. Specifically, if you had been prepping me for the OTL interview, what would your advice have been?

Hannah Patrick: The Ibanez controversy really was an interesting case study about the dichotomy of bloggers vs. traditional media. This brought about a conversation that was inevitably going to surface. Blogs With Balls was a perfect place for the two sides to share their thoughts… and there were many different thoughts.

From a PR standpoint, there are times to take a lower profile until the heat dies down; this was not one of them. We would give you four stars on the way you handled the Ibanez controversy, specifically for three reasons:

1. You were gutsy for jumping on the issue.
2. You should always go into a media appearance with an agenda that is as strong, if not stronger, than the person asking the questions. You should be able to articulate your message easily and repeatedly. You successfully did all of these.
3. You should also craft your message so that people will first listen, then understand, then believe, and finally remember. Which you did!

Jerod: SMC appears to be one of the leaders in assisting athletes in managing and promoting their reputations. How much of your focus is shifting to the online world and what are the specific challenges/opportunities that athletes face when it comes online PR?

Hannah Patrick: The vast majority of our focus is online. We have been working to push our clients towards the social media landscape and we stress to them that social media has to be a single component of an overall media strategy. Many athletes are hesitant about getting involved in various forms of social media because they are afraid that they won’t be able to control their message. But the reality is that whether they are in the space or not, they are being talked about. Buzz Manager enables us to provide our clients to with critical information about “the buzz” on the web.

Jerod: We know that there is lots of hype around Twitter and that it is the new time-waster-du-jour for many people in many different industries. How do you use Twitter from a professional standpoint and what kind of sustained impact do you see it having 6 months, a year, 5 years down the road?

Hannah Patrick: We always tell our clients that whatever you put into Twitter is what you will get out of the experience. It has been compared to a river of conversation. You can step back and watch if flow on by, but at any time you can jump in and take part.

Professionally, Twitter has enabled me to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the sports blogosphere second by second. I think that will be the heart of Twitter when this initial explosion dies down. The ability to track current topics of conversation will have more of a sustained impact than the other uses of Twitter. I love that Twitter is championing citizen journalism and I don’t foresee that dying down. I think it will play a large role in future elections for sure.

As far as using Twitter as a tool to interact with and follow celebrities, I am more wary about the long term impact due to the high level of involvement that it requires. Other forms of social media, like Facebook, seem more likely to stand the pass of time because it doesn’t require such intense devotion.

Jerod: Time for another random question. You can play a round of golf with any three people relevant in the sports world (including the media, bloggers, etc.) today. Who are they? Why?

Hannah Patrick:

1. Skip Holtz, because I am a Pirate fan.
2. Shaq, because he would crack me up.
3. Jerod Morris, assuming his mom would let him out of the basement.

Jerod: Unfortunately, my mom only lets me out of the basement for dinner, yardwork, and White Sox games; so I’ll have to pass. Finally though, getting back to Blog Buzz and the slow but steady blurring of the lines between blogging and the mainstream media, where do you see it going? Where should it go? And what do you think are things that bloggers and the MSM should keep in mind to make this inevitable transition as successful as possible?

Hannah Patrick: Yes the process has been slow and steady, but I think that Deadspin implementing their new commenting policy will be a huge catalyst in this process. Also, the FTC has become more aware of the blogosphere and is making writers become more accountable.

As long as bloggers recognize that professional organizations are taking notice and giving bloggers a voice, there has to be some sort of give and take. The blogosphere is changing, and that means that those who are looking to make money from it will need to get used to the changes.

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Our thanks again to Hannah Patrick for taking part in the Behind the Keyboard series and for supplying me with pictures to use throughout. You can follow her on Twitter at @mhannahp and you can jump over to the Sports Media Challenge website to learn more about Blog Buzz and to keep your finger on the pulse of how sports and online media interact.

If you are interested in being the subject of Behind the Keyboard, follow me on Twitter (@JerodMSF) and shoot me a message. Let’s make it happen.