by Jason Preston on June 7, 2007
If you’re interested in business technology and the internet, and you’re not reading Fred Wilson’s blog, you should add him to your reader right now.
He has a knack for understanding where technology needs to go, and a knack for agreeing with me, both of which are important.
Today he wrote a post about web ad functionality, and as usual he’s 100% correct:
The advertising industry needs to take some lessons from social media. Clicking isn’t the only engagement with media that matters on the web. Commenting, favoriting, tagging, sharing, and many more engagement actions are important.
I remember a while ago there were DICE ads that let people add their own job complaints to the flash-based ad-bar. It was way cool, and memorable because of the interaction.
Fred thinks that advertisers should look for ways other than clicking to interact with the audience, and I think that doing that will dramatically raise your impact.
Imagine if FM served ads on two sites - mine and Fred’s - and I saw an ad I liked on his page. What if I could tag that to show on my own blog? What if I could send it to a friend like a NYT article? What if anyone could vote on how cool the ad was, and the coolest ones would get more screen time?
The best ads will automatically get the most exposure. What a cool idea.
by Teresa Valdez Klein on May 1, 2007
A recent Wall Street Journal Report covered how much blogs bring to the table when it comes to search engine optimization. In fact, you can accomplish most of what they recommend with a well put-together business blog.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- Why blogs beat regular Web sites
- Which blog platforms have an edge
- How to craft post titles with keywords in mind
- Why your URLs, permalink structure and post slugs matter
- Categorization and tagging techniques
- Plugins that add value to SEO efforts
- Tools for researching what people are searching for
- Optimal layout and feature considerations
by Teresa Valdez Klein on October 11, 2006
One of the coolest parts of “Web 2.0” is the tagosphere. Tag clouds (we have one!) are mega-cool. And don’t even get me started on the crunchy lime-green goodness that is Technorati.
That all raises the issue of what tags we use when we talk about the Blog Business Summit. Here are a few of the ones I’ve seen/used:
I’m guilty here of creating WAY too many tags about the same topic. I guess I’m too excited about the conference for my own good. In the interests of keeping the conversation all in one place, I think we should agree on one primary tag.
Since BlogBusinessSummit is the most popular thus far, I think that’s the best way to go.
That said, you can never diminish the value of your post by adding too many tags. If there’s another tag you think is appropriate, feel free to tag away.
And if there are any tags I’ve missed mentioning here, please leave me a comment.
Tag, you’re it!
Yes, I know I’m cheesy.
by Teresa Valdez Klein on September 14, 2006
Yesterday, I wrote about the need for PR and IT professionals to collaborate and innovate on new uses of technology for the benefit of business communications.
If anyone lives that spirit, it’s the people at PR Squared. Their latest idea to pitch reporters by tagging their names on relevant blog posts is inspired.
Obviously, people who used this technique would need to institute some best practices. The people at PR Squared list several, but I would like to include that the practice would need to be explained to bystanders.
After all, if we started tagging New York Times columnist Chris Elliott–who has written about us before–in many of the posts over at our inFlightHQ business travel blog, many readers and searchers might be truly confused.
by Teresa Valdez Klein on July 28, 2006
Charlene Li and Marnie Webb are talking right now about using tagging and microformats to organize and provide meta data about your blog.
Steve and Byron wrote about microformats in Publish and Prosper. And I’ve always found them very exciting - but Charlene and Marnie’s presentation is bringing me a new level of understanding of how to use them practically. I’m really looking forward to downloading the Movable Type plugin that makes using microformats super easy.
I know that microformats haven’t yet reached critical mass on the Web, but this presentation convinced me that I really want to be an early adopter of this exciting new technology.
Here’s the wiki from their presentation for your review.
by Teresa Valdez Klein on May 8, 2006
I got two great headlines from Steve Rubel today. One is about Dave Winer’s new platform for sharing OPML files. In a nutshell, an OPML file is an exported list of all the RSS feeds you subscribe to. When you upload your exported OPML file into Winer’s database, others can browse through your list of feeds and find new and interesting feeds to subscribe to.
Anil Dash talked about OPML in his talk at our seminar. He thinks they’re a big part of the future of the Web, and it seems like Rubel agrees. I like his conclusion that OPML aggregators like this one will allow marketing types to get a better read on what blogs are influential. The problem with this of course is that so far the site’s top 100 list is all “big head” and not Long Tail. I’d like to see people be able to tag each individual feed, creating a folksonomy that will hopefully help the real gems of the “Long Tail” rise to the top.
The other headline from Rubel today announced that the BBC had launched its own API for developers and creators of mashups. This is something we talk about at length in Chapter nine of our upcoming book. Part of offering content on demand is giving developers/mashup people the opportunity to create new ways of using and cross-referencing that content.
Way cool!
Update 9:11 p.m. PST: Neville Hobson has a great post about OPML and its uses.
by Teresa Valdez Klein on November 23, 2005
…when they say that publishers rather than ordinary users ought to be given the new power of the tag. Being a blogger, I’m all about power to the people - I’m just not in favor of power to the spammers.
Amazon may have to learn this one from experience.
