DISQUS

alan pelz-sharpe · 7 months ago

Interesting piece, as an analyst and a blogger I think that there is a distinction to be made here. Bloggers tend to be commentators on events in the industry (not exclusively - but most typically), in that regard they are replacing traditional analysts 'research notes'. But bloggers cannot and do not replace deep research initiatives by the likes of Gartner or for that matter ourselves at CMS Watch. Deep research such as the work we undertake (evaluating enterprise class technology products) requires a lot of time and investment (far more investment than many realize) and this by default demands a decent revenue stream for it to make any sense.

There are some uber bloggers out there who actually have brands and label themselves as analysts - their income though is derived from consulting, often to and for the very subjects they write about. That too is a valid business model, but is not really what one might call traditional industry analysis.

IMHO there is more than enough room for smart bloggers and industry analysts, broad discussion and commentary and the need for extensive deep industry analysis are not mutually exclusive.

Best
Alan

graubart · 7 months ago

Thanks, Alan.
I agree with your comments. About 95% of bloggers are simply the echo chamber, repeating news. Of the remaining 5% a bunch of them are newsbreakers (think Mashable, TechCrunch, etc) while a handful are truly doing analysis.
I also agree that anyone doing analysis should provide full disclosure as to their sources of revenues. Even among traditional IT analysts, there has long been a divide between those who generate the bulk of their revenue from the client side and those who primarily sell services to the vendor community which they follow.
And even those, like Gartner, who traditionally get their revenues from the corporate side, still generate large revenues from the vendors which they cover. A VC who was an investor in a prior company of mine once calculated the exact amount of $ a tech company needed to spend with Gartner each year in order to be included in a Magic Quadrant. He had no proof of such, but much anecdotal evidence from looking at more than 30 portfolio companies.
Regardless, the world of traditional media, alternative media and analyst firm are converging with each adapting business models and delivery services from the other. It creates interesting opportunities for players on all sides.

Mike Wolf · 6 months ago

Hey Barry - good piece. Just happened across it in Linkedin. Let me know if you have any questions about we are doing at GigaOm.

Mike Wolf
Twitter: @michaelwolf