9rules - The best content from the independent web.

Weblog Empire strikes back against the notion that “one more weblog network is too many” by posting a list of 36+ weblog networks who all operate essentially in the same manner. Writers write, the networks own the content and the sites, and money is exchanged in a manner similar to a newspaper paying a guest editor. Our friend Jason Calacanis (no, really, he is our friend!) is nearly dominating that business model right now, so much so that many call the aforementioned network structure the “WIN Model” of weblog networks.

If you look carefully at the list you’ll see that 9rules is not included. It’s not because Duncan hates us or anything, but simply because 9rules doesn’t fit the criteria of all weblogs in the network being owned by the network itself. Another soon-to-be huge network not on the list is John Battelle’s Federated Media Publishing, which will run in a similar manner to 9rules in the sense that they (supposedly) will not own the content their sites produce, but rather “partner” with sites to build a community of the best weblogs on the planet.

We don’t pay our writers, in fact, we don’t even like to call them “writers” because we feel that pigeonholes them a bit. Our members aren’t just faceless weblog authors, they are captains of their industry, amazing web innovators, university professors, brilliant entrepreneurs and much more.

We’re not included in the same-old-same weblog network business model list, because that’s not who we are. We wouldn’t get this excited about what we’re doing if it had been done 36+ times over before we even got our feet wet. 9rules is about connecting the connectors and bringing together the best weblogs in the world under one umbrella. So far we’ve managed to find nearly 70 of (what we consider) to be the best of the best of the weblog world. Soon we’ll be unveiling our first round of 9rules Spanish members, which represent the most amazing talent in the Spanish-speaking world. And around that same time, we’ll also be releasing 9rules v2.0 — a full redesign of 9rules.com which better highlights our members and provides some other goodies we can’t mention yet.

Why are we adding more quality weblogs? Why are we redesigning our award-winning site? Because we’re obsessed with making 9rules the very best it can be, for our readers and our members. Our #1 goal is putting our members and the user experience above all else, and if that puts us in a different list than the rest of the networks, then that’s fine by us.