Blogs and Feeds

Search Blog Awards 2006 -- Congratulaltions

The Search Blog Awards have been published by Loren Baker. Readers were asked to nominate and rank their favorite search engine blogs in a number of categories. Congratulations to all of the individuals winning these awards. Maintaining a blog in the competitive search marketing arena requires real dedication, stamina and creativity.

One of the categories that readers were asked to nominate their favorites was Web 2.0 oriented blogs. I was thrilled to see that my "blog son" Frank Gruber's blog Somewhat Frank was rated third in this category, not far behind TechCrunch and ReadWrite Web.

Frank started blogging after hearing a panel that I did with Jeremy Zawodny at PubCon in New Orleans. How nice to see where Frank has taken this spark of inspiration.

The Media and Blogs

Don't let anyone fool you into believing that the media do not read blogs. Nothing could be further from reality. When I wrote Remembering George A. Smith IV almost a month ago, it was my intent to honor the memory of a special person.

Here is what has resulted. I have been contacted by tv producers, newspaper reporters and freelance writers all grabbing onto this story. They have been relentless, pursuing me by e-mail and even somehow contacting me at my spouse's cellphone number on a Sunday morning while I was out of town. As I have told them, it is not my wish to comment on this story.

It is my only hope that the law enforcement looking into the truth about what happened to George are as relentless as the media. 

Electronic Frontier Foundation -- For Freedom's Sake a Must Read

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published For Freedom's Sake: Legal Guide for Bloggers a must-read guide for bloggers, podcasters and others who write content. This online guide tells all -- what is fair use, libel, what are the responsibilities of bloggers for using content created by others? If you have ever wondered, if you, as a blogger, can get access to information or a press pass to cover events, this is the guide for you.

Ignorance is no justification for breaking the rules. In my opinion we as bloggers do ourselves a favor by knowing and paying attention to the such issues. Read it, if for no other reason than it is interesting reading.

Worldwide Blogs Number 60 Million or More

Even with BlogPulse is tracking 12 million blogs, the worldwide number is still much larger.  I worry a bit that we are trying to estimate the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin and that measuring size is not the metric we should be using. I do believe that influence is more important. I want to know the influence on music and dance the angels on the pin have, not how many were seen dancing.

That being said have come on some additional figures for size of blogosphere worldwide. Duncan Riley, using an interesting build-up method of estimation, has suggested that the worldwide size is closer to 60 million than the 12 million posted by BlogPulse. This still begs the questions: How many are spam blogs? How many are active?

Prefer the approach taken by the very interesting wiki on SocialText that gives insights into the European blogosphere on a country-by-country basis. Living in the US we tend to be too US-centric, particularly when talking about technology adoption. It is a sort of provinicialism, so sites like this wiki really give a broader view. I sure wish there was one for South and Central America.

New Size of Blogosphere - 12 Million Blogs

Have been tracking the size of the blogosphere for quite some time. It is always one of the first questions that I get asked when speaking on blogs. I use BlogPulse to keep my eye on the growing number of blogs. The new count is in an the blogosphere has grown to 12-million blogs, up from 10 million just 6 weeks earlier -- now that kind of growth plotted carefully may actually look like a hockey stick.

Now, not all of the 12 million blogs are active. Blogpulse reports between 3.8-3.9 million are considered "active" (meaning new information has been posted) in the last 30 days, 5.2 million are considered active in the last 60 days and slightly more than half have been active in the last 90 days.

I can hardly wait to see when the next million blogs will tick by. I'm doing my best to add to them.

CEO Blogs -- Where Angels(?) Fear to Tread

USA Today reports that CEOs are refusing to get tangled up in the blogosphere. Although there are a number of high-level senior executives who already blog (many are given in the story), it seems that most do not want the risks associated with the transparency-demanding blog-reading public.

Each of the cases cited by Del Jones, the USA Today reporter, confirms his assertion that:

The corporate sphere likes its skeletons packed away, or at least vetted through legal and public relations departments.

Most ardent bloggers take offense with the bland pronouncements of carefully scrubbed executive speech. They are looking for the inside scoop, just what corporate insiders are so eager to hide. But, who says that it is not possible to tell the story and not spill the beans.

It is interesting to read the admonitions about how blogs provide companies an excellent means of listening to their market -- Yes! Indeed, this is true, but the market would really like a dialogue one that has some honesty to it.

There is room for the right CEO blogger to create a groundbreaking blog, setting the way for a new transparency and dialogue. It would take a lot of work, but then again, I've taken days writing speeches for CEOs to deliver to much smaller audiences than a blog would garner. No one seems to question the time spent honing the message for an in-person event. There will come a time when no one questions the time spent buffing and honing the clear message of the CEO's blog.

My own advise is read first, listen to what is being said, then join the conversation. The rewards are far greater than the risks.

AOL Blogs Now Open to AIM Users

Mediaweek reports "that America Online is extending its blogging product, AOL Journals to the general Web market via its vast AOL Instant Messenger user base." AIM users can immediately set up blog pages and others downloading the AIM product can similarly gain access.

It is postulated that the AOL Journals will be ad-supported in the future. This is a direction that MSN is taking with its Spaces blogging platform.

It looks as though there is forming yet another tier in the blog platform market -- free ad-supported hosted platforms. The market is clearly separating into products and platforms built for the individual, the casual, user, those developed for more demanding users (who may or may not want hosted services) and full enterprise systems.

The market is quickly evolving. It will be fun to watch and report on.

Polarized Politics and Blog Readership

According to a report in the WSJ, two-fifths of Americans who are online have read a political blog, and more than a quarter read them once a month or more. The results of a recent Harris Interactive poll also indicate that individuals who report themselves as Liberals are most likely to post comments on a political blog. To what can we attribute this, I have lots of thoughts. but no answers. But, there is one thing for sure, our polarized politics are clearly visible here.

Greensboro, N.C. Newspaper Tries Blogging to Lure Readers

The Boston Globe reports that the Greensboro, N.C., News-Record, a daily newspaper with a 93,000 circulation has 11 bloggers. Hailed as a bold experiment, this story highlights many of the problems confronting the main stream media (MSM) today. MSM is challenged by non-traditional, citizen journalists, who are often passionate, opinionated and unfettered by a need to be objective about their topics. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a passion in the Greensboro, journalist bloggers, if this is any indication:

Night cops reporter Eric Townsend, a 26-year-old who also contributes to a blog about traffic, said he's happy to post to the blog, but he thinks declining newspaper readership among the young is more a symptom of a decline in civic engagement than anything else.

Can hardly agree with this assessment. Since the growth of the blogosphere shows an increasingly engaged population taking on the issues.

Also, the story reports News-Record bloggers have a reluctance to engage in being purely editorial in their blogs and don't touch the hot topics. If the slide in readership of newspapers is to turn around, they must provide something for the reader -- a viewpoint maybe?

 

Blogging Frontier too Wild for Advertisers

So the WSJ claims in an article published today. Although this article contains some interesting nuggets on the growth of blog advertising, I found several paragraphs particularly interesting.

Weblogs founder Jason Calacanis [states], customer-friendly companies need not be timid. "If you're hiding from your customers, you don't like their feedback, you treat your customers terribly, blogs are the worst place to be," he says, adding, "PR people and hype-based marketers are not doing well in the blogosphere."

Jason is a forthright and often controversial member of the blogging community. While I don't always agree with him, he is so right on target in this article that clearly focuses on the overall timidity of advertisers to stand up and be counted in a medium where "holy crow" they might even be criticized by an unfettered press.

I have grown weary of endless drivel about companies needing to be "market sensing" and then closing themselves off from their market by only seeking to see and be seen where soft, kind words are said. The message is clear.

If the blogosphere is hostile, that's your customers speaking. So ,listen up!!!

The second "chilling" paragraph is at the end of the article.

For now, many big companies are sitting on the sidelines. "We're in a wait-and-see mode," says Stuart Bogaty, senior partner and managing director of mOne Worldwide, a digital ad agency that is part of WPP Group. He thinks that companies will remain skittish until agencies can better monitor and control what individual bloggers are saying about them. On the other hand, that might undercut their renegade appeal. "If we were able to convince a blogger to do that," he notes, "it would reduce the value of his blog in general."

The most chilling comment is "monitor and control." I don't so much mind the monitoring part, since that is part of what good marketers are supposed to do, but the "control" part bothers me, for it calls into question the objectivity of all media that accepts advertising. Is the media in fact "controlled" by the advertiser. Ask many bloggers, and these citizen journalists would proclaim that mainstream media is not only not objective but has been bought and sold by advertisers.

One of the most interesting ongoing arguments that I have been following is about editorial responsibilities of bloggers. This statement would suggest that advertisers expect the journalist to be a "poodle on a leash" and that editors are merely leash holders.