John Campea’s “The Movie Blog”: Model for blogging success?
Posted by Brendan on:
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 7:31 pm
A little bit after finishing high school in about 2003 my brother sent me a link to a small little blog that discussed upcoming movies, reviews and anything else relating to the world of film. At first it was just a link here or there but after a while I found myself coming back on a weekly, then even daily basis. Pretty soon, The Movie Blog, became a part of my daily routine. While I stopped in for movie news and reviews, I also came for the extensive discussions going on in the comments section of every post.
The site’s founder, John Campea doesn’t have a particularly amazing writing style, though it’s good enough- the reason I read is because his opinions on the film industry, Hollywood and sometimes TV are extremely well thought and never feel like they’re coming from a ‘Critic’. Campea acknowledges that we each have our own tastes and in his writing is able to walk the fine line between personal opinion and critical analysis.
The point of this post, however is not to flatter but to look at themovieblog.com as a model for successful blogging. Here is a site that started from a personal passion, grew a great community and established a name for itself by the hard work of its contributors and editor. Since its inception, the Movie Blog has evolved, publishing extensive podcasts, interviews, video reviews, and most recently opinion videos on various topics.
Eventually the Movie Blog was bought out by the Peerflix Media Network, and Campea was able to stay on as main editor of the site, therefore keeping creative as well as benefiting from the sale. Campea has also recently begun working as a Senior Editor of AMC Theatre’s blog, as well as his (second?) feature film titled “The Anniversary”.
Looking at the crazy path that themovieblog.com has been on, I have to wonder what exactly has created the success. I have tried to narrow it down to a small-ish list. Here it is:
- Nearly constant blogging- The site posts anywhere between 4-8 blogs per day. I realized there’s some sites that post a lot more but the amount isn’t the only thing that matters.
- Insightful, smart topics- The Movie Blog doesn’t post trivial stuff and they don’t relink twelve times a day. Sure, as with any blog there’s a decent amount of links but with enough opinion and content that they nearly go unnoticed. Beyond that, the amount of featured blogs and original content that comes out of here is staggering.
- Not afraid of cameras or mics- Video reviews and podcasts add a lot to the site’s personality and general interest in the contributors. There’s a reason I call it John Campea’s Movie Blog instead of ‘XYZ movie blog run by who the hell cares’.
- A returning community- Few posts go without 50+ comments, even that is a little low for some. I find this essential for a successful blog, and really the only blogs I revisit are ones I have active comments on. Does anyone out there disagree? Anyone?
- Balls- Most of the contributors to the site, mostly Campea himself, are not afraid of posting blogs that they know will get ripped apart by countless readers. Many a time have I shaken my fist at opinions I couldn’t begin to agree with, but it kept me coming back and commenting. It takes a lot to choose the unpopular opinion, but it presents another side to consider and sometimes will surprise you when finally end up agreeing.
So there you have it, a short list of why I think themovieblog.com became successful. Feel free to add or disagree in the comments below.
I have also noticed that John has all but disappeared from his own blog.
I posted this graphic for Rodney the other day but he removed it cause it was “off topic”. It was hard to find a suitable place for it:
http://imgurl.filetac.com/img/04223470.jpg
Maybe John can convince his new boss at AMC Entertainment to help preserve and repurpose TMB. Extend an olive branch to Doug and get those podcasts going again.
TMB was quite entertaining for a time regardless of one’s opinion of John, Rodney, Doug and assorted guests…
Yeah now that it’s just Rodney my interest is really waining… especially since TMB lately has been really slow on news, so by the time they post something I have already seen it on a couple of other blogs. That just leaves the opinion posts, which have been rare and uninteresting…
Great graphic by the way, I can see how it might be off topic but Rodney removes almost any link, so don’t feel too bad. I sometimes post links when new info is out (new trailers, posters, etc.) but when TMB finally gets around to putting it up on their own site those links are promptly taken down…
Thanks! What other blogs are you following now that TMB is starting to slide?
Actually, I have been getting a lot of movie news from io9.com lately, even though they aren’t a movie site. They have been consistently breaking stories faster (and better) than TMB, but they also mainly only focus on sci-fi or action flicks.
I also sometimes stop in at aintitcool.com (though I hate their site design) and cinematical.com.
Campea barely posts any more, he leaves it up to Rodney, who I’m not sure is even seeing a dime.
Balls? Campea dishes it out, but he can’t take it, as evidenced by his hypocritical comments policy. Campea has the most fragile ego of all the major movie website webmasters.
A returning community? Campea is losing more and more readers every day because of the loss of Doug Nagy, and Campea’s absence. he barely does podcasts anymore, and is clear he takes his audience for granted while he tries to pursue other projects.
Smart topics? The Movie Blog is the lowest common denominator of the online movie community, and personally, I think Campea’s taste is shit, loving tripe like Mr. Brooks and hating the Wrestler, for example.
You’re right that TMB has been going downhill lately… John hasn’t been around almost at all leaving Rodney, who I almost never agree with, picking up the slack.
Actually you’re right about the comments section too- I wasn’t going to post it because it seemed off topic but I had a few comments that were deleted simply because I questioned John’s impartiality. I was disagreed with his criticisms of the Cloverfield’s Marketing, yet in the weeks that followed he himself was shamelessly plugging Pathology and Midnight Meat Train, who he got interviews with. All I said was that he seemed awfully eager to throw stones at the big studios marketing campaigns, but has no gripes with shamelessly plugging B movies like those two.
Keep in mind too; I’m talking about what made TMB popular, not all of those things are still true (lack of content lately, Johns absence, declining readership)