media landscaping

AlwaysOn Conference - How to be a Power Blogger

Stream of consciosness at this 9:30 panel...How to be a power blogger.

Steve Rubel is moderator:  Jeff Jarvis, Peter Rojas and Elizabeth Spier   (I would love to link out to one of Elizabeths sites from Dead Horse Media, but it seems that they are down right now...I think she has much more important things to do than be on this panel)

Rubel asks Rojas "what is a blog?"  He says who cares...sort of like the argument he had in High school about "what is punk rock". 

This room is way too small...I snagged a table, but now there are 50 people outside the room trying to get in and they just can't fit.

Elizabeth's Spiers turn: DealBreaker got launch sponsors who are taking a risk because they didnt know who the audience was until a survey 6 weeks in.  Dealbreaker.com audience is: 79% work in financial services, 12% makes over $2M.   Better than expected.  Gratuitous plug.

Jarvis:  Davos Kerfuffel about big bloggers linking to smaller bloggers and traditional media giving bloggers credit for breaking stories.  Jarvis says no one can tell you who to link to.  Blogger choice, but you could do better at linking.  Blogging is not an orthodoxy...links to what he sees and finds. 

Interacting with PR community.  How many contacts a day do you get? 
Peter says a few hundred to his group as a whole...he gets dozens directly to him alone.  2% are relevant and considers the rest of it spam.   Most don't even read the site.  PR people will call him after he posted about their product, not knowing that he already covered them.

Elizabeth - Fashion blog gets a lot of attention from PR.

Can a blogger start within a big company as an in-house blog and then become a huge brand on your own?  Jarvis says yes, siting Scoble as an example.  Jarvis' question is, can you be transparent with an in-house blog and he doesn't think you always can be.

Rojas: does being within AOL affect him and he says no...in fact he just trashed their personal video player and does bash Time Warner cable.  They have never attempted to effect his postings, but did say that Microsoft looked down on him a few times when he wrote for Slate (once owned by Microsoft) way back when.

Church and State:  a lot of bloggers are both...many take advertising from agencies (not just google) and how is this handled/balanced.  Elizabeth says that this is important for her news sites (so its OK on the other blogs???).  They will use keywords to prevent airline ads from showing up on a crash story.   Jeff says these conflicts happen in more places than just advertising.  It all boils down to personal integrity and transparency.  Disclosure of these relationships is a must.

Audio and Video:  Rubel thinks that blogs lean heavy to video/audio or not at all.  No one does both text and multimedia well.  Jarvis thinks its time to start and he is attempting it. 

Will we see bloggers on TV?  Not through networks but direct from Blogger to TV.  Rojas says yes and sites rocketboom as todays living example and this will continue to grow.  Video is much more difficult to create and manage and transcripts are required in order to maximize search for it.

What is your best tip for building audience?:

Elizabeth: Great content and a lot of it...publish 12 a day.

Jarvis: Link out or you are not a part of the conversation.  He taught About.com how to do it and they are happy with the results.

Peter: pick a niche to focus on.  Pick the smallest you can find and own that niche.  You will become an expert over time, even if you aren't now.  He wasn't a gadget expert when he started.

Question from audience about search.  Rubel talks about getting a lot of irrelevant traffic.  Jarvis said he wrote about a "big ass ad" once and still gets a ton of traffic from people searching for "Big Ass".  Very funny.

Rojas posts about products before they are launched and when the company finally announces it, engadget is always higher in google than they are. 

Another funny story, Rojas once posted "I'd give a kidney for X" and because of search, the comments in this post turned into a black market for selling organs.  Someone in the gov't contacted them to make them aware and they pulled down the comments.

Overall, very good panel.

UPDATE: for more coverage on this panel read this on ZDnet or CenterNetworks

Federated Media Launches Holiday Gadget Guide

Some say that John Battelle's Federated Media is just another ad network, but their launch of a Holiday Gadget Guide shows that they think much bigger (and more creative) than that.  According to the Press Release, 10 FM authors will contribute to the blog, which is sponsored exclusively by Best Buy.

I think this is a great idea.  FM is leveraging their authors talent to create a more specialized experience for an advertiser.  It creates additional ad impressions to sell and, having ten high authority blogs linking to one place, this site will be a search engine magnet for holiday shoppers seeking advice.

armano's presentation

On my blackberry in a cab and just left David Armano's presentation. I got to briefly meet David and spent a little time with Joe Jaffe. Very cool.   

It seemed to me that the whole point of the presentation was to help the people of Digitas understand the power of conversation and to challenge them to join in.   

He talked about a movie from a few years back called "the doctor" in which a very talented doctor learns from becoming a patient himself. Having been on the other side, he could empathize with patients in a way he never could before. This made him a better doctor.  Basically, there is no better way to understand the blogosphere than to join it. 

That is why I started this blog and exactly why anyone reading this should start their own as well.  If you don't have one...why not?  Go do it, you will be surprised what you learn.

NOTE: when I get to a computer later I will add in links.  Yomoblog doesn't allow me to add links from my blackberry.

UPDATE:  9pm...I'm back in DC and added links, categories and trackbacks

Blog's Eye View Presentation

I blogged about David Armano's blogging presentation back in August.  He was planning to do a roadshow on blogging and was putting out his diagrams for comments.  He got a lot of them.

Now the final presentation is done and it looks incredible.  David's visualizations of blogosphere are  extremely powerful.  The problem is that I want to hear what he is adding to this when presenting it...I want to be there!

David, I know you have some VIP's from Forrester and BusinessWeek attending...but how about hooking a brother up?  We go way back.  I will fly to NYC on Tuesday just to see this.  What do you think?

Offline Blog Editor Test - Qumana

I nearly jumped out of a window last weekend.  After spending 45 minutes drafting a post for the blog, I pushed "publish" only to be greeted with a "Page Cannot be Found" error....or something like that.  All I know for sure is that all of the work was lost!  45 minutes wasted.

A few weeks ago I drafted a post in Word and then pasted it into Typepad when it was done.  The result was this ugly post with a font totally out of synch with my default.  The code behind the post is so screwed up that I can't figure out how to change it back.

Today, Josh Hallett reminded me about a post he made a few weeks ago on "Blogging a Conference".  One of his tips was to use an Offline Blog Editor.  BRILLIANT!!!  This is exactly what I need.  In theory, this prevents all of my problems.

This is my first post using Qumana, an offline blog editor that Josh recommended.  My hope is that I won't have the same problems ever again. 

Payola is the Anit-Blogosphere

Stowe Boyd uses his investigative bloggerist skills to help expose the payola scheme that PayPerPost is running.  PPP just raised $3M in first round funding according to PaidContent, so this kind of crap is going to be around for a little while.  I think it greatly damages the reputation of the blogosphere at large.

Basically, PPP connects advertisers with bloggers who are willing to lower themselves to the point that they will blog about a product or service for a very small amount of money.  Stowe signed up for the service in order to find bloggers who were posting these pitches without disclosure.  Didn't take him to long to find that Sabrina's Adventures posted about a service called List'd without disclosure and did it for a meesly $7.  I would like to think that anyone who frequented this blog would abandon it the second they found out she pulled this kind of stunt.

The average American doesn't know much about the blogosphere today.  This is going to remain the same if the blogosphere keeps tarnishing its reputation like this.  VC's...please stop funding scams like this and focus on something sustainable. 

More discussion on HyKu

Harvard Law moves to Second Life

Harvard Law professor, Charles Nesson, really gets new media.  So much so that he has created a course that will live in Second Life and will require all students to make their arguments in the blogosphere, not just in a mock courtroom.

Of course, he created a video explaining the course, which was quickly posted in You Tube by an ivy league blogger who labels him as "insane".  This might not be far off, as Nesson admitted that he smokes pot before he teaches class.  His wikipedia page says he taught a class in Jamaica this summer.  Nice.

The course desription reads like this:

The subject matter of the course is the creation and delivery of persuasive argument in the new integrated media space constituted by the Internet and other new technologies. Our premise is that “First World” and corporate domination of entertainment media, laws, and news can be balanced by the voices of individuals, groups and universities who use new media intelligently. We challenge students to attempt this themselves by choosing an issue of concern to them and using the media we study to make their case for change in the court of public opinion.

Nesson could have easily just taught this in the classroom, but instead he will force himself and the students to make their arguments within the media they are debating.  The Blogosphere. 

The best part is that the course is open to anyone who drops by.  The Harvard Crimson says:

Although at-large participants earn no accreditation for the course, [everyone in Second Life] is invited to view lecture tapes and discuss class materials with professors and other students on Berkman Island, a space in Second Life that resembles Harvard Law School.

I have not spent very much time in Second Life, but this is enough to get me back in there.

Links for 9-30

Mobile ESPN to shut down at year end - Further proving that the world desires open systems, another proprietary system fails.  Their plan going forward is to sell live scores to people who already have a phone.  That makes sense.
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Stormhoek Wineries  - B2Day wrote an interesting summary of the success that Stormhoek Winery is having with its blog marketing strategy.  CEO Jason Korman says:

Bloggers are sneezers on steroids.  People talk more about the marketing model than the wine.  We don’t really care.  We think wine is the perfect idea amplifier.

I find it amazing that there are over 2,000 blog posts about Stormhoek and most of them are all about the marketing strategy, not the wine itself.
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Woodwards marketing plan got scooped and had to adjust by releasing early.  Not only did NYT expose details of the book before we did, they wrote this story to make sure everyone knew it.
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 My feedreader, Rojo, released a new look - but is still so slow I am tempted to convert.  Maybe the revamped Google Reader is worth a try.

WP Blogroll Update

I recently received some emails and comments on this blog asking for an update on the washingtonpost.com Blogroll program.  While Media Landscaping is only my personal blog and not the official voice for the Blogroll program, given the amount of interest, I want to update you on how its progressing.  My RSS feed subscriber #'s spiked after the original announcement and I can only imagine that this is due to interest in the Blogroll.

Needless to say, I am overwhelmed by the response to my post announcing the Blogroll program.  99% of the conversation was positive, with only a few lukewarms and one insult.

We received over 800 blog submissions, which is well over what was expected.  I have gone through and looked at most of them and am very impressed by what is there.  Now the hard part begins, reaching back out to you.  While we have a large force of online sales reps ready to rep these blogs, there are only a few of us working on building the membership.  So far we have been focusing on the automation of operational procedures and just started reaching out to blogs last week.  Initially, this will be a slow process.  As the systems come together, the speed will increase and bloggers can be signed on more quickly.

We are still accepting blogs, so if you haven't submitted yours yet you can do so here.  Blogs of all shapes, colors and sizes are welcome to apply.

On the advertising side, things are looking good as well.  All of the media attention caused a few agencies to inquire about getting involved.  With the initial 3 partners, we have over 1,000,000 monthly pv's to sell against in categories like Small Business, Travel and Technology and we are actively working on those opportunities.  If you are interested in advertising, send me a note (jeff dot burkett at wpni dot com) or contact your existing WPNI rep.

Fashion Bloggers Get Respect

Once shunned by corporate America as a flash in the pan, bloggers are gaining more and more respect every day.  WSJ writes a great article about the rise of the fashion blogger and how fashion shows have finally begun to treat bloggers as journalists.

Interesting quote:

"Public relations firm LaForce + Stevens, which organized shows for clients like Nanette Lepore and Baby Phat, drew up ad hoc guidelines for this week's invitees. Rule No. 1: Bloggers who post photos of themselves don't make the cut. "Self-promotion is a bad sign," says principal James LaForce."

Sorry Steve and Joseph.....you guys are not welcome!!!