What not to do when your blog is featured in a magazine

18
Posted on 13 June 2006 blogging South Africa

I received my copy of Vodacom’s quarterly magazine last night, and as always I don’t normally pay much attention to it, since its free. By free I mean tons of ads, write-ups on advertised phones, services etc – not much content to speak about…

Anyway, I came across the featured websites section, and low and behold, Lusharazzi, a Cape Town fashion blog, was one of the sites being featured. Now the thing that really got to me about this was that the Lusharazzi crew stopped writing on the blog before their “Easter break”. (The screenshot in the magazine highlighted the post about it.) It has been dead ever since. Until today.

They obviously caught wind of the write-up and well, from what I can’t understand, canned their entire archive, and put up 3 extremely meaningless posts, just to look like its “updated daily from the streets of Cape Town”. It looks more like a 2 day old blog, than a website worthy of being featured in a magazine.

So here are my tips on what Lusharazzi should’ve done:

  1. Posted on the magazine love from Vodacom, and thanked them.
  2. Posted on the reason why the blog seems dead, and give readers a glimpse into what to expect soon. With dates!
  3. Definitely NOT erase the entire archive, and begin from scratch.

It seems a real pity what they did. Although the blog doesn’t tickle my fancy, I think a blog about fashion and whats hip-and-happening would really do well. The fact it comes out of Cape Town makes it even better.

It seems that Lusharazzi got caught by the paparazzi with their pants down. Sad really.

  • sooo

    It’s a great site and deserved it’s blurb in the vodacom magazine. I’m really pleased to see it’s up and running again and looking forward to more news from Lush for us CT gals. Keep reading and I think you may find you will enjoy it.

  • http://www.jasonbagley.com Jason

    It’s not that I don’t like the site or think it’s not worthy of the magazine review. It’s the way they have gone about publishing it.

    Another thing to note, It doesn’t look like they have any other authors except Guy N. The lovely ladies that used to post on Lusharazzi left on Easter vaction, and have never returned! =)

  • One of the lovely ladies

    we were informed that our services were no longer required. The Vodacom insert was about what the site used to be. Under new management it’s a whole new concept. The archived content was exported to create a new blog under the same guidelines and writers as before. It’s a sad day when things sour but that’s life. Watch this space. Coming soon to a blog site near you.

  • http://www.jasonbagley.com Jason

    Great news! Please let me know once you girls are up and running again.

    I’ve seen this happen way too much. You start writing for someone else’s blog, and when the blog starts to smell of success, you get thanked, and told to go on your merry way. Success and money always make people greedy.

    I’d love to hear Cherryflava’s version on why they dumped you girls. So?

  • Adding a lovely lady voice

    The easter holiday unfortunately turned into a “we want to take the site to the next level without you??” break and we were sad to leave Lush behind. Unfortunately we were not granted the opportunity to let our loyal readers know what was in the pipeline…. or where we had gone.

    The Vodacom insert was without our knowledge and yes, we are grateful for them choosing our lifestyle site to feature.

    But watch this space, we’ve taken a breather and are consolidating to start up anew… maybe you can write about it another time – how to launch a revamped blog… that would be most kind… :D (even though it’s not your type of thingie.. heeheee)

  • One of the lovely ladies

    Good luck getting the other version you’re after – it won’t be easy.

  • http://www.jasonbagley.com Jason

    hehe. Well if Cherry don’t want to give us reasons, we will leave it as, “greed got the better of them”.

    If you girls need any help setting up a domain and blog for yourselves, give me a shout. I’d be glad to help. =)

    On the writing tips on “re-starting / re-vamping” a blog, I’ll see what I can do!

  • AC

    No sooo, i must disagree with you. Lusharazzi does not deserve its blurb coz it is a misrepresantation. It is a very very different site now which i do not enjoy reading now. I beleive in giving credit where credit is due and i agree with Jason about the meaningless posts.

  • drew

    Having been a keen (male. go figure) reader of lush for many months, I was also quite confused by what happened and quite displeased with the new format.

    Deciding to say my bit, I commented on the site how I wa not at all keen on the new style, new writer etc. Okay, fair enough, maybe I shouldn’t have been *quite* as wordy as I was, but the next reply was very interesting.

    “If you don’t like it, don’t read it”

    That sort of ‘We don’t need you’ attitude stunned me, especially seeing as it’s supposed to be a blog based on service, new trends and information TO THE PUBLIC.

    Of course they need the public, and telling the fans of the site to go away if they don’t like the changes seems to me to be quite a bad move.

    Pity, I quite liked the inside look it gave me into the female psych. Especially when it came to… erm, gift buying.

    Good luck to the girls though, and all the best for the future!

  • One of the lovely ladies

    Ah, a true gentleman Jason, thank you. There’s nothing like a healthy dose of support and goodwill to round up a dreary wednesday afternoon and envelop us in a furry ball of fuzziness (“,) We’ll be in touch x

  • http://www.jasonbagley.com Jason

    It seems that Lush as turned into a copy and paste affair of late. There is no personality associated with the blog, which is exactly what the girls brought, and that’s partly why I’m really disapointed at the current state of affairs.

    Heres to the new Lush! (without the cherry in my cocktail, please barman)
    Cheers.

  • One of the lovely ladies

    ROTFLMAO :)

  • http://www.cherryflava.com Cherryflava

    In our defense – we didn’t ask to be featured in the magazine. Obviously press coverage is nice, but out of our control.
    Lusharazzi was started as blogging project aimed at a specific market, featuring niche content. The result of the project was that the site didn’t deliver the results we were hoping for. Not sure how this equates into greed, but its unfortunate that our well intended experiment is now seen as such.

    We’re waiting in anticipation for the girls to start their new site – hopefully with more success.

  • http://www.jasonbagley.com Jason

    Thanks for clearing things up Cherry. I definitely jumped to conclusions, but to see a blog dump its writers and then start writing on its own without no explanation, smells fishy.

    If it didn’t deliver the results you were looking for, you should’ve said so, and just maybe your readers could of helped out. If it was an experiment, you also should’ve let everyone know that from the start, and maybe the dissapointment of the change of writers / content etc would’nt have had such a negative effect. =)

  • http://www.cherryflava.com Cherryflava

    Agreed – part of the lessons learnt.

  • One of the lovely ladies

    aaah – group therapy y’all.

  • http://www.defza.com def

    Nice one Dr Jason :)

    —-
    Not Found

    The requested URL / was not found on this server.
    —-

    Seems like it’s really gone now…

  • http://www.jasonbagley.com jbagley

    Yeah, Lush decided to call it a day.

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