January 2006

Adding “Google yourself” proof to the ongoing and contentious SEO v. blogs debate, Mike Davidson posts on Lessons From The Roundabout SEO Test. Mike answers the questions about the factors that “most affect search results in the real world?” Good reading for anyone considering hiring an SEO optimizer or just not clear at all why Google loves blogs.

We’ve posted on this topic several times and anyone that’s seen my lectures has probably heard my 0.37 second SEO case study (your speed may vary) where I show the Google results on my name and compare traffic to the other DL Byron, an 80s rockstar who wrote hits for Pat Benatar. (I also note that I’m sure in the battle of Byron v. Byron, the rockstar wins on recording contract royalties v. blogging for business).

Hey whoa! Sorry! I was doing some housekeeping on the site, moving entries around and our subscription service apparently recognized the import as new entries and sent them out, all 27 of them. I apologize, have no idea why it would do that.

Please note: we don’t spam and in those emails there is an opt-out. We have no plans to move more entries around, so that shouldn’t happen again.

Everyone over here at the Blog Business Summit is getting geared up for our Essentials of Business Blogging seminar - which we’ll be bringing to Los Angeles on March 16, 2006.

I’m particularly excited that Anil Dash of Six Apart will be delivering the seminar’s closing address. As one of the first influential bloggers, Anil is uniquely qualified to discuss the future of the blogosphere and the Web. I absolutely can’t wait to hear what he has to say.

Sometime in the near future, I’ll be sitting down with Anil for a sneak preview podcast interview for our weekly podcast series, The Blog Business Summit Report.

And speaking of podcasting, I’m excited to report that I’ll be podcasting from the event - interviewing all the exciting speakers and experts who will be presenting, like Janet Johnson of Marqi who is back by popular demand!

Los Angeles may be an amazing city, but it hasn’t seen anything yet. Register today.

I’ve wanted to post for some time now on the topic of fact-checking. When I watch television or listen to the radio, I frequently hear the traditional press deride bloggers as not checking their facts properly. I would argue that the fact-checking on the blogosphere is far more robust than the traditional system. Comments, trackbacks and counter-posts make up one the best feedback systems possible.

You put something flawed out there, you’ll get swarmed and your credibility will be affected. It’s a self-regulating system that works. Compare that to the “closed” model we saw with A Million Little Pieces as detailed in today’s Wall Street Journal article Publishers Say Fact-Checking Is Too Costly. Here are a few relevant quotes from the piece:

“Editors and publishers say the profit-margins in publishing don’t allow for hiring fact-checkers.”

“They rely on authors to be honest, and on their legal staffs to avoid libels suits.”

“An author brings a manuscript saying it represents the truth, and that relationship is one of trust.”

Hmmm. What if the author blogged much of a book before it was published? Scoble and Israel put chapters of Naked Conversations up on their blog for review by the blogosphere, and according to them readers “did a vigilant and superior job” of finding areas that needed correcting. And it cost nothing.

If publisher Nan Talese had posted chapters of the book prior to printing, it’s likely some or all of the inaccuracies would have been caught early. Also, it’s possible that this “Pre-Publishing” could have minimized their legal liability.

Former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox’s first book Dog Days is among the funniest novels I’ve read in a long time. Cox gives her readers the insider’s-eye-view of two worlds: D.C. and the blogosphere as only a wildly successful political blogger can.

The novel is based very loosely on the adventures of Jessica Cutler, who enthralled the famous-for-D.C. types with her Capitol Hill sexcapades which are archived here and have earned her a book deal.

But despite its prurient theme, I’d say this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the blogosphere and communications. It’s definitely not a how-to manual, nor is it a substitute for one but you’ll pick up a lot of information in a vividly entertaining way.

Word on the street is that Kanoodle will be entering into a deal with MSN Spaces that will allow Spaces users to draw revenue from topic-sensitive ads placed on their blogs.

According to E-week, Amazon.com may be playing a role in the advertising push, but details are not forthcoming.

Kanoodle also recently began placing ads on blogs generated with Six Apart’s hosted TypePad blogging platform.

From [Normblog](http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/) via [Popbitch](http://www.popbitch.com/) comes a list of [writers writing about books](http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2005/08/writers_choice__2.html). Also see [Bookslut](http://www.bookslut.com/blog/).

Not a day goes by that I don’t read about an [iPod](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2&path=ASIN/B000BQR2EA&tag=texturadesign-20&camp=1789&creative=9325) killer from Microsoft, a Korean manufacture, or creative Zen. Today it’s the [Mustek PVR-H160](http://www.mustek.com/) — suggest a better name like, Musk-Tech’s Musky 3000. We just finished the design chapter of [Publish & Prosper](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2&path=ASIN/0321395387&tag=texturadesign-20&camp=1789&creative=9325) and used the success of the iPod as an example of why design matters. “The iPod is a device with great features, utilizing a highly approachable interface, presented in a form that is visually appealing,” and that’s why it is the dominant player. If the would-be iPod killers designed a better player, it’d sell and in droves.

Stewart Landefeld is an attorney with Perkins Coie in Seattle, WA who specializes in issues pertaining to publicly traded companies. He had some excellent legal advise for publicly traded companies about how the SEC rules apply to the new Web.

Click here to listen to the file or here to listen to the file and subscribe to the feed. This podcast is also available via the iTunes Podcasts Directory.

Brendan Hodgson of Hill & Knowlton and Liz Cox Barrett of the Columbia Journalism Review have some harsh words for Chris Elliott over his recent column about business travel blogs.

Now maybe I’m just a teensy bit biased because he mentioned inFlightHQ - our Connexion by Boeing-sponsored blog about business travel - in the piece. But the critics are pretty off base on this one.

Elliott’s response to Hodgson hit the nail squarely on the head. In a recent e-mail, which he gave me permission to share, he wrote that “[Hodgson's blog] appears to [come from] a PR firm. Seems ironic that any firm responsible for ‘creating’ trends in order to place its clients in a story would criticize me for reporting on a perfectly legitimate trend.”

As for the Columbia Journalism Review, nobody ever said that this piece was a revelation. If Barrett expects that every piece to hit newsprint should reveal another Watergate scandal, she’s in for a lot of disappointment. What’s more, the her piece rants all over the place without much of a point. Ok, so some of the issues in the article are obvious. Does that mean it’s not a worthwhile thing to cover?

Furthermore, Elliott reveals that Barrett, “couldn’t even spell my name right. I had to ask for a correction, and she didn’t even make a notation that my name had been misspelled in an earlier version. I just can’t take anything she writes seriously.”

I think the original intent of Elliott’s piece was to explore business travel as a bloggable subject and the possible reasons why it wasn’t being paid more attention in the blogosphere. The article also draws attention to resources that might be beneficial for Elliott’s frequent readers, many of whom are business travelers themselves.

Sometimes I wonder if people do these sorts of things just so they can have something to criticize.

Take that, detractors!

We’re launch a new blog to support the book as the publication date nears. It’ll replace this one and be another blog in our small network.

The buccaneers that have been pirating inFlightHQ’s RSS feed to republish our content with their own ads aren’t backing down. Despite my callout, the snarky post, and Byron’s follow up, the lubbers continue to steal from us.

This is a problem blogosphere wide and there’s nothing good about it, aside from the fact that it allows me to break out the pirate lingo. But swashbuckling aside, there are a lot of sites out there that do this. Business Logs has a couple of great posts [1, 2] about the issue.

So we’ll be taking the advice of one of our readers and including copyright notices in our RSS feeds from now on. And if those mangy sea dogs try to edit out that copyright notice, they may just have to deal with a crew of miscreants that would shiver the timbers of Bluebeard himself.

I am in the process of trying to dig up a top-tier copyright attorney who would be willing to do a podcast interview with me about companies’ legal rights are when this sort of thing happens to their blog. If anyone knows someone who would be good for me to talk to, leave me a comment and I’ll get in touch with them.

Watching the championship [Seahawks game](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/football/256670_hawk23.html) yesterday, my son blurted out, “wow, I can see them sweat.” I saw blades of grass, every expression and the grain in the football. Fox’s HD coverage was the best [high-definition](http://www.hdtvpub.com/) production I’ve ever seen. It was also one of the best sports performances I’ve ever seen and the blogs are talking about it

* [Talking Hawks](http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/football/)
* [Seattle Seahawks Blog](http://blogs.king5.com/seahawks/)
* [The 12th Man](http://seahawks.mostvaluablenetwork.com/)
* [Seahawks Insider](http://forums.thenewstribune.com/seahawks/)
* [Hawk News Daily](http://www.squidly.com/seahawks/)

The New York Times reported today on the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s meeting, at which is was asserted that the 30-second television spot was all but dead.

It may seem ludicrous that a mainstay of the advertising world could be so easily overturned - but it appears that the Web is changing everything. Experts at the conference talked about evangelism both on and off the Web and encouraged companies to talk to people who already love their products and encourage them to spread the word.

“People engage in word of mouth because they want to look good,” said George Silverman, the author of The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. “Word of mouth is the most honest advertising medium there is. People don’t want to hurt their friends and family and colleagues with bad information.”

The conference touched on the blogosphere briefly, emphasizing some good points like, “always mention that you are an employee of the company that produces the product in question,” and “don’t try to be sneaky” - but they tended to oversimplify the blogosphere. Better blog marketing tips can be gleaned from my podcast interview with Suzanne Donahue.

I was surprised that the Times piece didn’t mention one of the most important reasons that the Web is making the 30-second ad obsolete: online television downloads. It’s pretty easy to envision a not too distant future in which all television all television content - from the news to Desperate Housewives - will be available on demand. And there won’t be any commercials.

Had a great time at the Naked Conversations [launch party](http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/party_time.html) last night, got the book signed, congratulated Robert and Shel and the crowd enjoyed [Broback's magic](http://www.flickr.com/photos/vikman/89625068/). Blog posts are rolling in and [Robert posted about the party this morning](http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/01/22/what-a-party/). We’re mid book now, and appreciate the effort those two put in, especially finding that one [book voice](http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/advice_to_new_c.html) - it’s a Herculean task, writing a book.

Speaking for the wives, the quote of the night was from Maryam Scoble who said, “The book is all about naked conversations and doesn’t mention Paula (Shel’s wife) or me!”

For more see the Technorati naked_conversations tag.

I’ve been talking to my colleagues about the irony of writing a book about blogging is that I have to stop blogging to get it done. In order to write and not just post and read RSS, I go into the Book Writing Bunker, as I call it. I sequester myself from the scene. The 2.0s, AJAXes, and whatever else Flash has reinvented itself into.

In his post, [Web 2.0: Our Own Little Echo Chamber](http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2006/01/web_20_our_own_.html), Jeremy Wagstaff notes how outside of our echo chamber, the world goes on working and finds the Internet and blogs to be a distraction. At the beginning of last year, around [SXSW](http://www.sxsw.com/), I was still complaining about how exactly was [RSS making the world more productive](http://www.texturadesign.com/archives/fear_of_bold.htm) — are 1,555 unread headlines more valuable that scanning the Google news homepage?

Jeremy’s right and from my perspective, to grow business blogging beyond a marketing and conversation tool, it has to become integrated, mission critical, and less time consuming. Our book is focused on practical blogging and part of what we have to explain is how a company is going to prosper from their blog. I’ll talk with Shel and Scoble about that tonight at their [book launch party](http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/party_time.html) and will go back into the Book Writing Bunker on Sunday.

A few more items on the book

* As the publication dates nears, we’ll launch a new blog to support the book
* Shel posted [great advice to authors](http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/advice_to_new_c.html), including how to find the elusive common voice
* Publish and Prosper is showing up in Google, on [Peachpit's site](http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321395387) and [Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2&path=ASIN/0321395387&tag=texturadesign-20&camp=1789&creative=9325)

Simon Dumenco thinks that all the distinctions between blogging and the mainstream media are hooey. With the 24-hour news cycle and RSS feeds for most newspaper sites - Dumenco argues - all that separates bloggers from regular old writers is a cooler name.

It’s a lot more than just a cool name. As Shel Israel said in our recent podcast interview, bloggers will never replace, or meld into the mainstream media. Nobody could put a CNN reporter aboard Alaska Flight 536, and there are very few bloggers who will ever be put on location in a war zone.

What Dumenco is right about is that the architecture that is now generated by such blogging engines as Movable Type and Wordpress will eventually be so ubiquitously intertwined with all Web platforms - especially those used for newspaper websites - that mainstream media and the blogosphere will be indistinguishable.

But his interpretation of that change is way off base. He confuses evolutions in technology with evolutions in perspective and content. No matter how much blog architecture becomes a part of the mainstream Web, there will be no equivalency on those fronts. Journalists will still have huge news organizations that send them on location, edit their work before it is published, and give them health insurance. Their writing may appear on the Web, but it will still be delivered to people’s doors on rolled up sheets of newsprint. Bloggers will still be Web-based freelancers who sell ad space for a living or else hold down other jobs. Their work will be edited and fact checked by the blogosphere after it is published.

I don’t see these distinctions changing. The lines may blur, but I predict that 30 years from now, bloggers and journalists will still be separate entities.

As noted in Teresa’s somewhat snarky posts this week, zombie blogs are an increasing problem. She took those posts a bit over the top to illustrate just how sleazy blogging someone else’s blog can be. Aggregation blogs built entirely with great reblogging tools are meant to syndicate someone else’s content and give them as much credit as possible. Sites like Digg and new services like Newsvine offer linking, sharing, citing, and quoting other blogs and that’s essential to the blogosphere. Adding to the conversations is what it’s all about, but it’s also like sharing music online where it can be outright theft. Creating an evil zombie blog is like, well, being a sleazy brain dead, ad-spewing, zombie.

(ed note: updated the paragraph to not imply Digg or Newsvine were zombie like. They’re not.)

Been caught stealing

The Creative Commons was created to address copyright in the blogosphere, so “Other people can copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify here.” Fair use absolutely applies to blogs. Just creating a blog out of someone else’s blog is appealing for someone wanting to make money on ads, but if you’re not fully attributing it with permission and sharing those profits, then no it’s not OK. That’s stealing.

I’ve seen even worse examples than what we found on inFlightHQ. For a while we tried reblogging, but found it diluted the original voices and editorial in the blog, was confusing, and eventually killed it. Reblogging like the good people at EyeBeam do is great and yes that’s what syndication is all about, distributing content, citing it, and everyone is happy. I can see how it’s easy to conclude one day that, “hey! I can automatically suck up all these feeds into my blog and make some BIG money (a blog zombie).” Sure zombie blogs are going to occur, there’s little we can do, but it doesn’t mean we’re not going to say something about it. I hope more bloggers speak up like these posts.

• The evils of reblogging
• Using WordPress for Evil
• Protecting RSS Feeds from Theft

[From Wired](http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70037-0.html?tw=rss.index), a new [study shows](http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/tbit/2006/00000025/00000002/art00003) that in “less than half the time it takes to blink — people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an internet site.” The report comes just as we’re finishing up a book chapter on designing a blog, choosing a layout, features, and color. Much of design is “I know it when I see it.” You can apply techniques like [Eyetracker](http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=64), [heat maps](http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html), and consider the vast amounts of research on usability that companies like Amazon.com do, but here (as I’d suspect) it comes down to that critical first impression — that [blink Gladwell writes about](http://www.gladwell.com/blink/).

The study doesn’t show what makes a difference, what users like or don’t, but concludes that, “designers have to make sure they’re not offending users visually” and to not give them a negative impression.

The study didn’t cover it, but my guess is that RSS doesn’t give a great first impression, especially those RSS icons I call the little badges of courage.

The Seattle PI’s Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist, David Horsey has cartooned the Microsoft-shutting-down-Chinese-blogger incident.

Another example of the blogosphere reaching the mainstream media? I think so.