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I’m very happy to start a new month with Round One of The Pitch, a new Upstart Blogger initiative designed to help bloggers, both virgins and the more experienced, develop their ideas into flourishing blogs.
The concept is simple, and I’m accepting entries for round one now.
Each round will have one winner. I’m looking for a combination of originality and potential. The successful candidate for this first round will be chosen on June 1st 2008 and receive a custom blog design and one years professional blog hosting, promotion and consultancy.
To enter simply pitch your idea in the comments below.
Good luck.
Ok, here’s my pitch. A blog for single people. Multiple authors all reviewing singles bars and events in different areas. Once started the blog would practically write itself since the content would be user generated. Revenue could be generated by dating affiliate programs.
What if it’s a blog network? :D
I am a web/graphic designer and I’ve started working with my existing clients on e-marketing with more of an emphasis on social media outlets and sem. I’ve decided to start a blog that will give them specific information on the latest news, trends, etc. in marketing specifically online using the latest and greatest technology. It will also cover seo.
A blog network sounds like a great idea…;)
A blog for mobile workers. Nomadic workers. Café worker culture. A network. We’ve already got a domain, and have begun to set up a blog,but haven’t launched it yet. Just putting it together as a concept.
I am writing on behalf of a friend who just came up with a beautiful idea to document the current gentrification issues happening in a historial American neighborhood — Harlem, New York.
A recent bill was passed to rezone the area that includes 125th Street, a major thorough way in Harlem and a street that is very much a part of American history.
Her plan is to start a blog to document the process of change of this historical neighborhood from the common people to influx of upper middle and upper class residents and businesses (Trump has bought land in the area and will begin development soon). She would like to do this through video interviews, photography and regular commentary on the blog.
We have started planning for the project today, but, as fan of Upstart Blogger, I thought we could definitely benefit from The Pitch.
Thanks!
Okay, I vote for a girl names rock and the Harlem regentrification blog. I wanna read it now. :)
I’m a sucker for houses that need rehab. I’m living in my second. :D
OK, here’s my pitch…
My current job involves developing a partnership between three charities in Scotland. I run our website, develop an e-newsletter and I recently won a Google Grant which allows us to advertise our counselling and family mediation services online.
Something I’ve noticed in the charity sector is the poor understanding of how ICT and social media can have a really positive impact upon society. From creating an online support group for cancer patients to using Twitter to promote your good cause.
So…my idea is to start a blog highlighting innovative practice in the Third Sector (charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises) across the globe, with a strong focus upon ICT and social media. I’ve got the domains and some hosting sorted (ThirdSectorLab.co.uk and .com) but I really need help getting the blog itself together.
Hopefully Third Sector Lab will really push innovation in the charity sector, enabling people to think cleverly about how they use ICT and social media to enhance their good work.
I really hope Ustart Blogger can help!
Pitch: New Market Survival Guide: A definitive guide to getting rotary club businesses into a 2.0 space with elegant and lightweight tools to help them reach out better online and off. Let’s make the high touch main street businesses flourish by being also high tech.
Hey,
My idea is basically a blog, with a touch of social networking. The idea is sort of the step before your blog (partnership?). The site gives away ideas for websites in full and then helps anyone who wants to pursue it.
It would have 3 pages in the post which would contain overviews, sketches and maybe a mini business plan with graphs.
Hope you like it!
Cheers
I am a web developer/designer and a teacher (I teach web design and development for a digital media college program). I have always wanted to build a video blog that featured very simple web development and design tutorials for beginners.
I have spent a bunch of time building video tutorials for my students so I have the process and the delivery perfected.
What I think I could definitely benefit from is your advice and expertise on marketing and promoting the blog.
I have been toying with this idea for quite some time, I have even registered numerous different domain names and designed some custom WordPress templates for the site so like I said, I’m ready to go.
Anyway, I enjoy your blog and I would love the chance to learn from you.
Thanks
I have several ideas that I’ve been mulling over. To be fair, I may go through with them independently if they’re not picked up here.
Escapology
I’ve owned the domain for over a year now. I had a faint idea of what I wanted to do with it (showcase art/writing), but only relatively recently did I figure out how I wanted to do it. The concept is for a webzine which would showcase talented, unknown writers. The design should focus on usability to make reading easier: I’ve been experimenting with a number of layouts so I have some ideas to go on.
The-Automath
I’m a lifelong student in a very literal sense. I’ve always been constantly trying to learn new things; constantly reading any variety of guide or manual I could get my hands on. I transfered to home study sophomore year of high school and ended up teaching myself through constant reading, and not just my textbooks either – everything from basic evolutionary biology to classical piano to sketching caricatures. I spend most of my time reading and learning new things – I’ll see something interesting and decide I want to know how to do it or learn more about it. Not to boast, but I’ve developed something of a talent for picking up new skills in a short time and I think it would be interesting to document my endeavors – start knowing next to nothing on a subject and following my progress. When I’m reasonably knowledgeable, I could then recap with a tutorial and suggested reading. I could even take suggestions from those who want to learn a new hobby or more about a subject but don’t have the time or patience to go sift through the local library picking out what they need or don’t need.
Fact-a-Day
A very simple concept, but something that I know there’s an audience for. Every day, I’d post a surprising, engaging, or possibly useful fact or figure somehow relevant to the day’s top news story.
Yeap, great oportunity
Pitch One
As a person with Multiple Sclerosis I can attest to how lonely, isolated and useless one can feel during times of illness. Add that to dependency on others, it can be rather diminishing to one’s self esteem.
My blog would cover the benefits of how social media and social networking can be used to help again feel like a useful member of society.
It would feature stories on how-to set up social networking tools such as Twitter to keep in touch with friends/family and carers.
To setting up live broadcasts on Ustream or similar to like minded PwD (people with disability).
I see articles too from guest bloggers such as mental health workers on dealing with depression, motivation and attitude.
Spinoffs would/could include networks for carers, family and information services world wide.
I think we should pull our resources together and create a replacement for eBay. Not an original idea, but there’s a need in place.
A good honest parenting blog with real advice from real parents, not advertising driven fluff. As a parent I’m sick and tired of searching for parenting related discussion and only finding sponsor soaked search engine bait.
I’ve lived in Prague for a little over 5 years and have watched it become the city on which my friends would comment, “Where’s that? Why Prague?” to being the second most popular destination in Europe for Brits, after Paris.
And yet, there is still no good web site addressing the needs of visitors. Most of them are far too general and suffer from very stale content, poor design, or bloat, or all three.
I would like to start two blogs: One focused on the budget/hostel/backpacking market and one focused on the high-end. From watching my friends in the apartment business, I’ve intuited that these two markets are basically shielded from temporary fluctuations caused by currency changes and the varying price of airline tickets. Now that Prague is so well-known, there will always be backpackers, and there will always be those, particularly foreign investors, who really don’t care how much they pay for an apartment or a hotel room, or a night on the town.
The backpacking blog will focus on maximum fun for the dollar, and the high-end blog on luxury, maximum class for the dollar, with a subtle attention given to business readers and investors, always looking for a good tip. Each blog will have a look and feel that reflects that particular market.
I plan on having two unique domain names for each blog, one that points to the main blog for each market, and the other that points to a single page that aggregates the best tips for that day and for that week. Something very quick to load and digest and act upon. I also have an idea for using twitter to present a frequently updated page that depicts the diversity of Prague life, 140 characters at a time. I’m not a developer, so I can’t implement this myself, but it’s an idea I’ve been thinking about, mostly has an experiment to see how much traffic such a page would generate. Incorporating some aspects of social media is also an option. I would definitely use Disqus, or a similar service for commenting, and KickApps’ recent forays into Wordpress integration are also intriguing.
Revenue would not primarily be through advertising but through commissions through bookings.
I also think that this model can be easily transferred to other cities in Central Europe, particularly Budapest, Krakow, Talinn and Riga, all cities were I have some contacts already.
My pitch:::::::::::
My blog will be mainly be like a social network who would help budding bloggers with everything.
We bloggers can certainly spend some 2-5 hours a week on the blog(not daily) and attract new bloggers to our site and provide them help through chats,mails etc.,.
I don’t think that will be impossible……Infact,does a lot of good to newbies.