In recent years, the line between blogger and industry analyst has been continually narrowing. For technology professionals in particular, much of the product and industry analysis that came from IT analyst shops has largely been replaced by blogs. That's not surprising. Many IT analysts now blog and others who have left the big shops like Gartner or Forrester have started independent blogs.
What's interesting is that now, as the online advertising market has dried up, a number of professional bloggers are now turning to paid research as an additional driver of revenues.
Today GigaOM announced the launch of GigaOM Pro, a subscription-based syndicated research site, that will be available at the modest price of $79 per year. GigaOM Pro will focus on a handful of tech sectors - Green IT, Mobile, Infrastructure and Connected Consumer - and will use both internal resources (newly hired Research Director Michael Wolf, formerly of ABI) and freelance analysts.
Last year, ContentNext, publisher of PaidContent, MocoNews and ContentSutra, hired ex-Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine to head up a proprietary research effort. They've released a few detailed reports, most recently a social media report called Following the Money.
Earlier this month, ReadWriteWeb released their first premium report - ReadWriteWeb's Guide to Online Community Management, a combination of case studies, best practices and an online component which aggregates relevant stories on the topic.
And, it's not just technology companies. Financial blogs are exploring the same paths. Footnoted.org recently launched Footnoted Pro, a subscription-only online newsletter which provides actionable research, augmenting the basic information on the free site.
Meanwhile, StockTwits (while not a blog) has announced StockTwits Premium, an a-la-carte offering of research and tools for its active trader community.
Blogs are morphing into traditional b2b media companies, with three revenue streams: advertising, paid research and conferences. And that's going to raise the bar on the traditional analyst research firms to deliver greater value.
