The Panelist
Rating: 
What do they say it is?
“The Panelist understands that social consciousness and the bottom line are not mutually exclusive ideals, but rather a necessary union. This website is a forum for sharing knowledge where what you know will be challenged by what you learn.”
What do I say it is?
A niche publication for upper-middle class do-gooders, where a bunch of financial bloggers advises parents worried about the world and the assets they leave their children with.
The Panelist brings together the usual suspects of the self-righteous stock exchange, such as the solar energologist, the wind turbinologist and the hilarious Christian investor, who knows his Bible like his portfolio (except for Luke16:13, of course).
What’s great about it?
Besides its content, the quality of which can be assessed by its 1k backlinks (says Google, CNN Money’s got only 32 times as much), The Panelist excels at web-publishing. The design’s clean, everything’s RSS’d and sharing features pop up everywhere. As a result, the snowball effect works at its best, with articles picked up by SeekingAlpha, Yahoo Finance, The Huffington Post’s Business section and Treehugger.
What could be better?
Audience involvement doesn’t really remind you of a forum’s liveliness. A few months before its first anniversary, The Panelist failed to build a strong community. Maybe readers don’t feel passionate about stocks and prefer charts to chats.
How is it going to make money?
Not through AdSense! Google just can’t provide contextual advertising for news content. The site knows that and favors display ads. According to Michelle Haimoff, Executive Editor, The next steps include building a direct sponsorship and/or a membership model (Ford is said to be on the line).
Should I pay it any attention?
The Panelist aims at entering the top 100 in the ‘ethical investment’ category and at making enough cash to pay its bloggers. If it succeeds, The Panelist could be a blueprint for long-tail publishing, despite its narrow subject and its so-non-revolutionary concept.
Sphere: Related ContentAdd comment February 2nd, 2008