Copyblogger Joins b5media

The official announcement goes out tomorrow bright and early, but I thought I’d give you the heads up first.

As of about two months ago, I accepted an invitation to join the b5media blog network, as part of the new business collection of blogs they have coming online tomorrow. Things took a little longer than anticipated for the business section launch, so that’s the reason for the lengthy lapse in time.

Don’t worry about drastic changes around here… there won’t be any. The few changes that needed to be made have already been implemented weeks ago.

Many of you might be shocked that I’m doing this. After all, I haven’t exactly been a big rah-rah supporter of many of the blogging networks out there.

Well, there was good reason for that. The whole point of Copyblogger is sharing techniques that any single blogger can use to build traffic and be commercially successful, with nothing more that the one big network we call the Internet as an aide.

And I suppose I could stay indie and it wouldn’t make that much of a difference when you think about it that way. So why then am I hooking up with b5?

It all goes back to the reason I started this blog in the first place.

…to meet cool people with great skills and great ideas and do business with them.

I can easily say that the biggest catalyst for my decision is a growing friendship with b5 co-founder and Problogger Darren Rowse. I often refer to Darren as “the nicest guy on the Interwebs,� and that persona is the real deal behind the scenes as well. I’m looking forward to working more closely with Darren to help the b5 bloggers sharpen their skills.

Jeremy Wright is a brilliant guy who I’ve respected well before I ever communicated with him directly. He impressed me by writing one of the very first high profile blogging books (Blog Marketing), and impressed me even more by showing up in Silicon Valley and doing the networking thing for b5 (better him than me).

What can I say about blog pioneer Duncan Riley, other than this is the type of guy you want to be on the same team with. Duncan’s the kind of guy who will take up for you in a bar fight, even when it’s completely your own fault. He may slap you around a bit himself in the parking lot later, but you know it’s for your own good.

Sadly, I have yet to have any interaction with the 4th b5 pre-funding partner, Shai Coggins, but I hope to rectify that soon. Next time I’m in Australia, lunch is on me, Shai.

I can’t leave out other b5 team members who have been extremely helpful to me this year, especially Liz Strauss over at Successful Blog, tech genius Aaron Brazell, and the new b5 business section editor Doug Hanna.

Here are the other initial b5 business section blogs:

• Business & Blogging: blogs for business: how to use them effectively for results.
• Digital Money World: everything you wanted to know e-currency and how it is transforming online commerce.
• Franchise Pick: secrets and information about franchises
• Home Biz Notes: the ins and outs of how to start and run a successful home business
• Pimp Your Work: tips, tricks and secrets on how to “pimp your workâ€? from best utilizing technology to how to survive cubicle life.
• Slacker Manager: everything from review books on management to talk about productivity tips and tricks.

Expect big things from b5 in 2007.

OK… press release over.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Copyblogger. 🙂