In my recent post titled We Drink Their Kool Aid, I wrote the following:

At the Business Blogging Summit in San Francisco in August of 2005, we watched as Shawn Gold from Weblogsinc, Stowe Boyd from Corante and Paul Scrivens from 9rules debated business models for blog networks.  From our perspective, Weblogsinc seemed to have it figured out. Stowe Boyd from Corante really seemed to look down his nose (I guess we were some of those less mature attendees) at doing anything so demeaning as to try to make money from blogging.

Stowe Boyd respondes with this comment:

By "less mature" I didn't mean less intelligent. I just meant people with a shorter experience in the realm of blogging. It's not a criticism, just the facts, based on the growth rate of blogging. And it's likely to continue, so we all need to be aware of it. Good luck with the network!

Stowe, I got it wrong. I interpreted what you were saying incorrectly.  Thanks for the clarification.  Also, thanks for the gracious well wishes.

While we are talking, I've also got to tell you that I am still somewhat puzzled at where Corante is going.

Your page for advertisers states that you get 450,000 monthly readers.  We would be thrilled to reach those numbers.  Yet, I see very little advertising on your site and from your speech in San Francisco at Better Blogging Summit, monetization did not seem to be your primary focus.  Is this correct?  If it is, then what is your focus?  I seem to remember from the summit that you are interested in the type of people who would be considered the world's foremost expert in a specific category to be writing for you. As I look at the writers who contribute to your blogs, I see some very impressive resumes.  But I still see very little advertising.  I can see the value for the blogger to be part of your network - additional exposure, enhanced reputation, additional traffic from the network, but I don't see how that benefits you as the network manager.

I came across this interview from after you launched in 2001 (tough year to launch) and I thought you were quite forward thinking in your offering (maybe because it is a lot like what we think we are trying to be) :

What we're trying to provide is a service for time-starved industry professionals who need to get a quick read on their respective sectors and don't have the time to surf from site to site for the one or two articles they're interested in or don't have the time to follow a link to a site before figuring out if it's even something they're interested in the first place.

So we're a service staffed by experts in their respective fields who do the work for you, finding and pointing to the articles that matter regardless of source and providing the context and perspective decision-makers need to better understand developments and how they interrelate.

We align our coverage into eight categories - venture capital, e-business, e-commerce, personal technology, bio-technology, communications, law & policy and marketing & advertising - and will be adding several more in the next few months such as media and infrastructure to round out our coverage.

The next question was about how you monetize:

Q: With the online advertising market in the dumps, it's a tough time to be betting on a content-oriented play. How exactly will Corante make money?

Yes, it's a tough time for advertising but we believe things will eventually improve and that our targeted coverage will ultimately appeal to advertisers and strategic partners. But we also have three or four other revenue streams including syndication which we see as a more viable business in the near term as we build our audience and wait for the advertising climate to change. So the bulk of our revenues out of the gate will come from content licensing, private label services and customized offerings.

So, you planned to eventually make money through advertising, but at first from content licensing, private label services and revenue from syndication.  Yet today your model does not seem to be following this strategy.   Maybe I am just missing something and haven't explored it enough.  Maybe you have taken a very different strategy.  If so, I am interested in understanding where you are going and why you have changed your focus (because your original focus was similar to our current focus and it appears that you changed and that makes me ask why? And what should I know that you know?)