Blog Network gets $2 Million VC Funding

About four months ago, Om Malik announces that he’s gotten some VC funding for his GigaOm blog though he did not mention how much money he got to go fulltime.

Then, ealier today blog network b5media announces a $2PHP 117INR 169EUR 2CNY 15 Million VC funding — a well deserve amount to capitalize their growth and expansion. They really need this money for them to maintain their growth and excellent pool of bloggers.

Exactly a month ago, I blogged about ProBlogging Job: Fixed Pay or Revenue Share? with Filipino probloggers weighing in the benefits of each model. Will the b5media VC funding reflects a shift from revenue share model to flat salary? I guess so:

• Money is a great motivating factor. By shifting to a fixed rate (I heard $500PHP 29,343INR 42,375EUR 476CNY 3,639/month plus bonus per 1k pageviews), you are giving more perks to the newer bloggers (6 months or less) since they will definitely get a fixed amount at the end of their first month and not sometime later depending on the blog revenue.
• The network could fill in non-blogging fulltime employees to take care of the operations. A salaried Sales team (or person) will go a long way. You can’t hire great sales people thru revenue sharing.
• Network owners could actually cash in and get their well-deserved salaries. They won’t just stay in a titular position but a fulltime position. Again, see point #1.
• Check and balance — since the VCs will come in as partners or part of the board, there’s some sort of “meeting real expectations” money-wise. Yes, VCs will always watch for their ROI.

So, I’ll end up with giving props to b5media especially to Jeremy for pulling things together. With this good news, I guess our fellow Filipino probloggers over there are celebrating with some virtual mojitos.