Archive for February, 2006

Technorati’s CEO David Sifry posted another of his excellent “State of the Blogosphere” reports today. Being CEO of the leading blog search engine gives this man the ability to truly keep his finger on the pulse of the Blogosphere. Here is a summary of his report.

• Technorati now tracks over 27.2 Million blogs
• The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5 and a half months
• It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
• On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
• 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
• Spings (Spam Pings) can sometimes account for as much as 60% of the total daily pings Technorati receives
• Sophisticated spam management tools eliminate the spings and find that about 9% of new blogs are spam or machine generated
• Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
• Over 81 Million posts with tags since January 2005, increasing by 400,000 per day
• Blog Finder has over 850,000 blogs, and over 2,500 popular categories have attracted a critical mass of topical bloggers

Its been said here before that with blogs, its all about the conversations. The way conversations happen in the blogosphere is via comments and to a lesser extent, trackbacks. The problem is that when you start conversing in the blogosphere, keeping track of what you said and where you said it becomes cumbersome. That was until came along.

How do you know how well your blog is doing? One of the things you can do is to monitor the number of page views your blog is receiving with the idea that the number of page views should increase over time for successful blogs. There are two problems with that approach. The first being that the total number of page views and growth there of does not accurately correlate with the ?Äúsuccess?Äù of a blog. It is possible to have a very successful niche specific blog with a small target audience with not much growth over time. The second problem with this measurement is that it doesn?Äôt quantify the most important variable in blogging ?Äì conversations. If you don?Äôt have conversation in your blog then you don?Äôt have much. So what we need is a formula for measuring a blogs conversation coefficient.

That is precisely what Stowe Boyd did the other day in his blog. You can read the original post here with the follow up post here. The crux of his theory is that successful blogs — ones that were currently viable and vibrant, and those that were on a growth trajectory from their start — shared a common characteristic: The ratio between posts and comments+trackbacks. Thus the Conversational Index (CI)= (Comments+Trackbacks)/Posts. This means the CI gets larger as the conversation gets richer.

While this may not be a perfect algorithm to measure a blog?Äôs true success, I do think it does provide a good picture of a blog?Äôs general health.

If you?Äôre going to be blogging, you?Äôd better know what you?Äôre doing because a poorly run blog is worse than no blog at all. The Post-Gazette ran an article that was kind of a corporate blog primer for newbies. The best part of the article was the 5 blogging tips listed below:

Blogging is an informal medium, usually made up of informal phrases. If you blog, don’t use corporate-speak.

Don’t try to get one over on the audience. This might go without saying, but is worth saying anyway because it is particularly important in the blogosphere, which tends to penalize marketing spin.

It’s important to monitor blogs, even if you don’t participate in discussions. They’ll give you feedback about your product or service. You’ll also learn about your competitors and how their customers view them.

The kid in Australia with five readers could be just as important as the larger blogs, because the media scours blogs to learn about subjects when researching articles and broadcast pieces. I can vouch for that.

Even if you don’t publish a blog, have a blog policy. If you don’t blog officially, somebody in your organization probably will do it informally.

Meme – (Source: Wikipedia) one can roughly define ‘meme’ as any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods. Different definitions of meme generally agree, very roughly, that a meme consists of some sort of a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics).

With the near ubiquity of online communications (email, blogs, usenet, etc.) memes in the 21st century have been turbocharged, but with this ubiquity comes information overload. In order to manage this information, one must have a reliable system of filters in place. And if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of the colective online psyche, then you are going to need meme filters.

This is just brilliant….

BLOGUE, by Owen Thomas (apologies to Madonna)

By Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin:

Owen “Ditherati” Thomas shares the following original monstrosity masterpiece of pop music parody with BoingBoing. “If you film the music video,” says Owen, “I’d gladly pay $1.99 on iTunes for it.”

“BLOGUE”Strike a post
Strike a post
Blogue, blogue, blogue
Blogue, blogue, blogue

Surf around, every page you load is tragic
Tripe everywhere that you go [surf around]
You try everything you can to escape
The mainstream media you know [media you know]

When all else fails and you long to read
Something better than your feeds today
I know a place where you can have your say
It’s called the blogosphere, and here’s what it’s for, so

Chorus:

Come on, blogue
Let your fingers move to the music [move to the music]
Hey, hey, hey
Come on, blogue
Let your fingers go with the flow [go with the flow]
You know you can do it

You don’t have to do real reporting
Link to it, that’s what it’s for [that's what it's for]
Stay inside, for your finest inspiration
No need to open the door [open up the door]

It makes no difference if you’re black or white
If you’re a boy or a girl
If the server’s pumping it will give you new life
You’re a microstar, yes, that’s what you are, you know it

(chorus, substituting “groove” for “move”)

Traffic’s where you find it
Not just where the AdWords mine it
Hits are in the trivial
That’s where I feel so pivotal
Whimsical, like Justin Hall
So get up on the blogosphere

(chorus)
Blogue, [Blogue]
PageRank’s where you find it [move to the music]
Blogue, [Blogue]
PageRank’s where you find it [go with the flow]

Mark Cuban, Malik, Om,
Nick Denton, Doctorow
Calacanis, Weblogs Inc.
Written up in Wired magazine

Daily Kos, Wonkette, Kaus
Fierce with a computer mouse
Metafilter, Dave Winer
Peter Rojas, gadget finder

They had style, they had grace
Kottke had the interface
Arianna, Ana too
Robert Scoble, Bill loves you

Ladies with an attitude
Fellows that were IMterviewed
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it
Strike a post, there’s nothing to it

Blogue, blogue

Oooh, you’ve got to
Let your fingers move to the music
Oooh, you’ve got to just
Let your fingers go with the flow
Oooh, you’ve got to
Blogue

(c) 2006 Owen Thomas with apologies to Madonna

So I was reading an article on corporate blogging in the Hindustan Times?Ķ..uh, did I just say that? The Hindustan Times? That?Äôs the beauty of the times we live in. You can find great information from the most unlikely of sources and with the explosion of blogs, both personal and corporate, over the past year we have really been inundated with massive amounts of information. If you are an active blogger, you have to have asked yourself just how you effectively can get your message heard by the people you want to hear it. It really is a small miracle when someone from your target audience (client, industry experts, competitors, etc.) actually finds your blog.

The article from the Hindustan Times talks about the relationship between successful blogs and their ?Äúthought leader?Äù authors. The article identified the following traits of successful blogs:

1. Ability to connect

A corporate blog is a conversation the company has with its customers. A thought leader needs the ability to connect to its customers. Remember its a two way conversation and the better you connect with your customers, the better the influence.

2. Honesty

In an information world its easy to distinguish a pseudo from a genuine expert. Corporate blogging isn’t some cover-up exercise. It’s about an honest expression, something the readers would genuinely trust and believe.

3. Individual creative signature

Thought leadership through corporate blogging is your creative expression. Your individual creative expression that distinguishes you from others, your unique signature.

4. Sharing

Thought leadership is about sharing your thoughts to guide, lead and influence your audience.

The following is an article from iMediaConnection. I chose to post the article here because it illustrates how corporate blogging can earn a company huge amounts of consumer goodwill by diffusing a potentially nasty customer service issues.

In November of 2005, Wired’s Editor in Chief Chris Anderson raved about his new Xbox 360, particularly as an “extender” for his Media Center, linking TV, PC DVR and the game console.

Anderson is interested in the Media Center PC as a “Long Tail video platform.” The term “Long Tail” is a three-way title: it is an influential article that Anderson published in Wired in November of 2004. “The Long Tail” is also the name of Anderson’s blog and the title of his forthcoming book, due out this year from Hyperion. Anderson argues that “our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of ‘hits’… at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.” (You can learn more about the theory of the Long Tail here.)

After the positive Xbox 360 review in November, Anderson discovered that the console had disabled his older extenders in his home network. Several bouts with Microsoft tech support proved fruitless, so Anderson reached out to Charlie Owen, a Microsoft blogger, who got Anderson in touch with the right Microsoft team and together they fixed the problem. You can read Anderson’s post about this experience here.

Anderson’s experience was in sharp contrast to BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis’s negative experiences with Dell, so I reached out to Anderson to chat about his experience, dealing with companies that blog and that don’t blog, and what this holds for the future of corporate blogging and marketing. (more…)

DelawareOnline recently ran an interesting article about corporate blogging. Rather than posting the article in its entirety, I thought I would just post the highlights (as I see them) and comment where appropriate.

Technorati, a search engine for blogs, reports that 70,000 new blogs a day join the 23.7 million already in existence.

Corporations are joining the blogosphere to take part in the online debates that involve their brands, products and industries. David Sifry, chief executive at Technorati, says corporations are worried by the idea that a disgruntled customer can reach thousands or millions of people with a blog.

“In the world of the Internet, you don’t own your brand. Your customers and your users own your brand. You’re lucky if you get to shepherd it. That loss of control is very scary,” Sifry says.

I think that this is the seminal reason why companies need to be blogging. As they say in Cluetrain Manifesto, “markets are conversations,” and blogging is the best way for companies to join the conversation.

Wladawsky-Berger says that even when he writes about technology, what’s distinctive is his own perspective. Even if you’re writing about mainframes or you’re writing about XML, it’s your personal style that comes across. What you choose to write about is which of the contents of your head are you sharing with the world,” he says.

This is an important point ?Äì be honest, unique and give your blog a personal voice. The worst thing that you can do is to use your blog as the ?Äúcompany mouthpiece?Äù.

Creating a theme blog is smart because customers are more likely to enjoy reading about a topic important to them than an overt sales pitch, says marketing strategist Steve Rubel, a senior vice president at CooperKatz & Co. in New York and author of the Micro Persuasion blog.

“The secret to a good corporate blog is that it has to be high interest, and if your subject matter isn’t, you have to figure out a way to connect with subjects that are,” he says.

I think this goes hand in hand with giving your blog a personal voice. If your blog isn?Äôt interesting, no one?Äôs going to read it.

With all of the hype about blogging, it?Äôs nice to see an article like the following put things back in perspective.

Seven myths about making money from a blog

Niche blogging tries to generate enough content and interest on a continual basis to get traffic

More and more business people are realizing that a blog can be a viable marketing tool in building readership, attracting traffic and prospects to their websites. But there is a simpler use for blogs: to build and manage standalone and content rich websites.

Marketers call them niche blogging – and using blogs in this way has become very popular in the last year. The business model and purpose behind this blogging application is quite different compared to other blogging applications. For instance, instead of supporting your product or service, you use a blog to generate enough content and interest on a continual basis to get traffic.

And the great thing is that of course, you can do anything you want with the traffic, including monetizing it.

And that’s where this article comes in as we look at Seven Myths regarding making money from a blog, and which will continue next week in an article on how to get started in niche blogging:

1. Blogging is the shortcut to website traffic

I can dump any content I wish to the blog and get some immediate traffic. Ok, I am exaggerating a bit here, but really, people are expecting a shortcut to website traffic as a result from blogging.

The fact is, building readership is a gradual process just like a conventional website. Blogging takes some aspects of them, like syndication, remote notification, interactivity into an easy or almost seamless process.

There are some advantages of using a blog — as we have covered in previous articles — but still the whole process takes time.

2. Making money from blogging is easy

This is another myth popularized by aggressive marketers. Usually they are trying to sell their product to a group of clueless individuals.

It?Äôs true, if you have a lot of time and own some knowledge about researching keywords, building link popularity, do joint venture, and other marketing stuff, you can use a blog to drive traffic to your blog faster, but still it takes some effort. This is true especially if you are building a long term business, not just a blog that will be banned by search engines because of low quality content (spamming).

3. Building a blog is fast

Fast, easy, simple, instant. All of them are strong words that can hypnotize you to buy a product. Don?Äôt expect your weblog to be an instant hit. Most popular blogs have been there actively building content for at least a year. Even those who get a lot buzz usually have a head start, either by the readership they?Äôve already owned or through some other marketing methods.

4. Blogging requires little to no work
(more…)