Andrew Lark

Cool Wiki Preso

If you are looking to get up to speed on the value of Wikis and related best practices, look no further than this preso from Mike over at Atlassian.

Take A Skill Pill

Good friend Gerry gets some ink for his cool start-up - "Skill-Pill". Need a few of them for sure!

Among the speakers at the iDesign conference in London this week was Gerry Griffin, CEO of training company Skill-Pill. Skill-Pill have a just-in-time learning system that uses short videos (the ‘pills’ of the company name) to reinforce lessons learned in conventional training courses. The Skill-Pills are delivered to the user’s mobile phone over the wireless Internet as 3GP files that can then be watched just before a crucial presentation or negotiation, giving a quick skills top-up

Cool Site | BookTour

Been playing with BookTour - a site that enables you to connect with your favorite authors and keep track of them. Smart idea for us book obsessed.

Why Code-of-Conducts Don't Have a Role to Play

It's simple really, because it is a conversation and conversations by there very nature should be free ranging expressions of interest.

While I do believe that anonymity breeds irresponsibility, leave that up to the Blogger to decide. Some blogs might benefit from anonymous posts.

I have a real problem with any formal codes of conduct. And screw civility. I expect people to be very uncivil regarding some of my views. Some very useful conversations can be very uncivil.

But I do draw the line, no hate-speech, nothing nutty or abusive. And, I get to make the call in the context of the conversation.

Code of Conducts exist outside the context of the conversation. The conversation that takes place here, might be very different to that to takes place elsewhere. Why subject them to a common standard?

I also find it particularly concerning that we would somehow, someway subscribe to a group policing mentally in which a few could potentially get together "When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.". This is deeply troubling. Who, for instance, gets to define the "believe" part of that? Sometimes it might be self-evident - such as the attacks on Kathy Sierra. I suspect most won't be. And the attacks on Kathy aren't a job for a bunch of self-appointed "blog vigilantes" - they are a job for the Police.

Blogs ultimately should be about transparency. We should revel in what they expose, not seek to limit or hide it. And lets leave the policing to the real police.

:: Backreading ~ ComputerWorld; Scoble; Techmeme; Jeff Jarvis

Soundbites & Links

• Are blogs headed for a slowdown? "Research by Gartner, according to the magazine, found that the number of blogs will top out at about 100 million this summer. But it also noted that some 200 million blogs are no longer being updated--many of them abandoned by their authors." What a terrible measure of the health of blogging. Lets look at the growth of posts, comments, video content. This is the equivalent of measuring the health of the Internet on the basis of URL registrations. Garbage.
• I've got some Joost beta invites if you'd like one. Still can't get it to work on Vista though.
• Interesting: Scribd. Scribd is a free online library where anyone can upload. Use our embeddable PDF player to publish and view documents right in your web browser.
• Like this from Nick:

"I like to think of the blogosphere as a vast, earth-engirdling digestive track, breaking down the news of the day into ever finer particles of meaning (and ever more concentrated toxins). Another word for "parasitic," in this context, is "critical." Blogging is at its essence a critical form, a means of recycling other writings to ensure that every nutritional molecule, whether real or imagined, is fully consumed. To be called a literary parasite is no insult. It's a compliment."

• Rod Launches Xero (beta) and scores a Kiwi sports star. Brilliant move.

Getting Back On Deck... Thoughts On Corporate Blogging

Haven't been blogging much later - just very busy and on the road in Europe for a week with customers and partners.

Interesting pointer from Stowe to an interview by Paul Dunay with Jack Welch about corporate blogging. Jack's advice? Be authentic.

[from Buzz Marketing for Technology: EXCLUSIVE: Jack Welch Discussing Web 2.0 by Paul Dunay]

Buzz Marketing: So what is your advice for companies adopting new Web 2.0 technologies like RSS, social networking, podcasting and videocasting?

Jack: Just be authentic. Be clear in your vision, and have one message and one view that are authentic. I worked somewhere once where they had different messages for employees, analysts and the press. There should be only one message for everyone, and fight like hell to get that message across everywhere you go.

I was asked some similar questions on corporate blogging (which I've always thought was a bit of an oxymoron).

1. Is "ghost-blogging" a no-no: At the heart of any blog is authenticity and the writer's voice. Ghost-writing runs against the very point of a blog which is to engage in a conversation with the community that surrounds you and your company. You can't ghost a conversation...
2. Is there a place for anonymous corporate blog posts (like the Economist?): No. It's hard to have a conversation with an anonymous person. The intent of a blog is not to publish but to converse. I do see room though for participatory blogs where a diverse range of bloggers blog to a single site. I think this is practical for most companies and more interesting for the readers. The Economist is an anomaly in the publishing world.
3. PR person says blogging is “reputation management”. Right or wrong? That PR Person doesn’t understand blogging or the blogosphere – they are contextualizing it through their own lens. And, they are taking a relatively hackneyed descriptor – reputation management – and applying it to a world in which it has little relevance. Various marketing niche’s have tried it with their thesis – brand managers are doing the same with “brand management”. You only have a reputation in the sense that others assign it to you. You earn it. Of course, it could be argued that everything a company does from a communications standpoint is “reputation management” – and that is the problem with the notion. You would hope that blogging would improve and not destroy your reputation right? But does that mean blogging is in fact reputation management in disguise – not at all.
4. How about internal editing of blog posts? This is common. I encourage executives to keep others involved in their posts. They have legal and HR risks associated with every conversation so why not mediate some of that risk. What they do need to do though is time-bound others involvement and be clear on the kind of feedback they are looking for. Blog posts are like bananas – they bruise easily and are best served ripe. They need to let folks know they have but a couple of hours to respond – or a day. This shouldn’t be a highly iterative process that people take a week or so to get done. Too many companies treat the blog post like a press release – at least initially.
5. Other tips: First, participatory media and platforms – from blogs to wikis and podcasts – represent one of the most significant opportunities available to companies to transform their relationship with customers. They represent one of the most significant transformational opportunities since the Internet. Don’t constrain your engagement. Drive it into every corner of your business. Many of the companies I’ve worked with have seen as much value internally as they have externally.

Second. Just do it. Get going internally and let it evolve. If you get it, get going. Don’t spend hours on consulting fees or hanging with PR people, web teams and lawyers. The technology is available as a utility. A blog can be created in minutes.

Third. The rewards significantly outweigh the risks. But the biggest rewards come not from writing blog posts but rather the comments and resulting dialogue. You shouldn’t look at this as a publishing mechanism but rather a “conversation machine”.

Other tips:

• There are no corporate bloggers – there are just bloggers. Be real. Be authentic.
• Blogging is a conversation. You need to move from transmitting to participating.
• You don’t need a blog to be blogging. Start contributing to others blogs with comments and thoughts.
• Never, never, never spin, lie or pour smoke into the blogosphere. Straight-talk will win you kudos.
• Give it time. Don’t expect raving fans at day one. In fact, expect the opposite for a bit. The blogosphere is very critical and self-correcting. Take feedback and tune accordingly.
• Have fun. This is a relatively informal medium. Revel in it.

Thoughts... Comments...

The Amateur Gourmet: Chutzpah, Truffles & Alain Ducasse

This really is a terrific post.

Do Start-Ups Need A Business Plan?

Yes! The WSJ also has some other thoughts -subscription required. I look at lots of business plans in my other life as a VC. My main message keep them simple and focus on illuminating the idea. Only include data you really understand. Some highlights:

• Matt Coffin, founder and chief executive of LowerMyBills.com, a Web site sold to Experian Corp. in 2005 for $330 million, says he used a 10-page PowerPoint presentation that he spent four to six months gathering research for instead of a formal business plan when pitching his idea to investors in 1999. He succeeded in raising $4 million in venture capital by convincing them that the market for people needing a one-stop place on the Internet to refinance was ballooning.
• Tim Petersen, managing director of Arboretum Ventures, a health-care venture-capital firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. says he generally prefers getting five-to 10-page summaries of business ideas or PowerPoint presentations over lengthy business plans.
• Benson Honig, a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, says his research of 396 nascent entrepreneurs in Sweden from the late 1990s also found no correlation between business planning and profitability. Instead, his study found the biggest predictor of success to be knowing customers in advance. Mr. Honig says he teaches "contingency planning" to his students -- or thinking about a business as constantly progressing, changing and making decisions based on the market climate -- instead of traditional business planning.

The WSJ also includes links to some relevant research:

Plans and Performance

Study: "Pre-startup formal business plans and post-startup performance: A study of 116 new ventures" by Julian E. Lange, Aleksandar Mollov, Michael Pearlmutter, Sunil Singh, and William D. Bygrave (all Babson), June 2005.

Summary: The study compares the success of 116 ventures started by Babson College alumni between 1985 and 2003, using performance measures such as revenues, employee numbers and net income. Researchers found no statistical difference in performance between those businesses launched with formal business plans -- roughly half of the 116 -- and those started without them, and concludes that "there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan before opening a new business" unless the entrepreneurs needs to raise substantial amounts of start-up capital. Instead, the researchers say start-up entrepreneurs should generally just make some financial projections, especially cash flow, and open the business.

You'll need a plan to get funded but it's like the old saying about memos "I didn't have time to write a short memo, so here is a long one". Make the time.

Prediction Markets at confab.yahoo

Good read over at Read/Write web and the Software Abstractions Blog. Quick summary.

1. Prediction Markets are a great mechanism to extract knowledge already present within the organization and to make better predictions
2. These markets highlight both the collective wisdom which no one person knows individually, and common knowledge which no one is willing to talk about openly
3. They work properly only when they have an adequate number of knowledgeable participants who work individually
4. Participants must have reasonable incentives (financial or social) to make their efforts worthwhile
5. If the group is large enough, the ratio of experts vs amateurs does not have much impact; often, the real experts are unexpected
6. The results of a Prediction Market are probabilities; they must be confirmed through other, external, means

Loved the idea of tracking team progress against a goal using collective wisdom and predictive markets theory. This should be a feature in all project management software.

No More Ninja Press Conferences

Journalists have never been ones for press conferences - that's why this whole "lets hold a press conference in Second Life" thing has been kind of baffling to observe. First, it's really hard to serve good food and alchohol in Second Life (the only real attraction of a press conference). Second, most journos can't abide PR people, let alone virtual versions of them. Third, what journalists really want is a combo of utility and speed - "give me the news now - in a really simple way (phone or paper will do) and let me get on with my day". Bottom line is that if the news is strong enough, it will move itself. No gimmicks needed.

Larry Dignan writes at ZDNet, "It's all a bit much. Yes, we all know Second Life is interesting. It must be since every PR/ad agency/news-outlet-that-wants-to-look-hip/wannabe-kewl-corporation is setting up shop in Second Life. Second Life has gone from zero to cliche in record time as people sit around admiring their avatars. The dirty little secret: It's a productivity drain." He goes on to lash out at Sun:

Memo to Sun: Stop trying to be so damn trendy. Taking Java open source is a big development, but then you muck it up with having a developer Q&A in Second Life. No parallel Webcast. No conference call dial-in. No alternate means to drop in. Ask yourself the following: Would any of your peers (grown-up IT companies) have held an earnings call only in Second Life? How about a merger? New development platform? Didn't think so.

Ross has the best response:

To further advance the state of the art, the next Socialtext press conference will be held in World of Warcraft.

• Time: December 1st, 5pm server time
• Location: Goldshire, Elwynn Forrest, Eitrigg Server
• Rules of Order:
• No ninjas.
• Questions will only be taken from journalists in PvP mode   
• We have developed means of determining if you are a Chinese Gold Farmer, so do not outsource your participation
• Safe passage will be provided to Horde characters, but your questions may be lost in translation
• Keep your armor on, do not /dance unless you are an orc, use of other emotes are encouraged
• If the spokesperson is not forthcoming, you may duel for information
• Those that survive the experience will gain 1 gold piece and a Socialtext tabard

Classic.

Dell participating in Second Life is one thing - pretty smart actually. But companies continuing to use Second life as a vehicle for self promotion and press conferences is something I'm not so sure about. At least Dell had a reason to be there.

Reuters To Distribute Blogs....

According to CNet...

Reuters Group has taken a stake in Web media-syndication site Pluck and has agreed to distribute blogs worldwide as part of a new media strategy.

Reuters, a news and information company, has invested $7 million in the Austin, Texas-based company in return for an undisclosed ownership stake, Pluck co-founder and Chief Executive Dave Panos said.

Pluck operates a blog syndication network called BlogBurst, which connects newspapers and other media sites to 2,800 selected blogs, helping traditional media supplement their journalism with blogs.

One of the interesting issues this might pose - at least over time - is what if I don't want my blog distributed or syndicated? What if it is being written for a relatively narrow audience of colleagues, clients, friends or family? While the simple answer might be joining one of the online blog communities and password protecting the site I might not want to bother with either the supplier or the administration. Rather, some might prefer to revel in absolute obscurity. How will they seek permission to repurpose and republish?

When Your Name Becomes A Verb and Universally Used...

Avoid doing a really, really stupid thing and discouraging people from using it as such. Not that you'll be able to anyway. So really, don't be stupid. We Kiwi's call it "pissing into the wind" - something every Kiwi lad learns at a young age to be futile. Today, Google starts "pissing into the wind", asking all of us to watch how we use their name.

So, to spite you I'm going back to Yahooing everything. Actually, Yahoo could probably make hay while the sun shined on this one... Ben says it pretty well over at his blog... Here are Google's pearls of wisdom...

"A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device that identifies a particular company's products or services. Google is a trademark identifying Google Inc. and our search technology and services. While we're pleased that so many people think of us when they think of searching the web, let's face it, we do have a brand to protect, so we'd like to make clear that you should please only use "Google" when you're actually referring to Google Inc. and our services.

Here are some hopefully helpful examples.

Usage: 'Google' as noun referring to, well, us.
Example: 'I just love Google, they're soooo cute and cuddly and adorable and awesome!'
Our lawyers say: Good. Very, very good. There's no question here that you're referring to Google Inc. as a company. Use it widely, and hey, tell a friend.

Usage: 'Google' as verb referring to searching for information on, um, Google.
Example: 'I googled him on the well-known website Google.com and he seems pretty interesting.'
Our lawyers say: Well, we're happy at least that it's clear you mean searching on Google.com. As our friends at Merriam-Webster note, to 'Google' means 'to use the Google search engine to find information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.'

Usage: 'Google' as verb referring to searching for information via any conduit other than Google.
Example: 'I googled him on Yahoo and he seems pretty interesting.'
Our lawyers say: Bad. Very, very bad. You can only 'Google' on the Google search engine. If you absolutely must use one of our competitors, please feel free to 'search' on Yahoo or any other search engine."

Outside In

Intersting idea... The latest blogregator/Google mashup, outside.in takes your zipcode and brings all the location-pertinent blogs and news to the screen. A quick search on Los Gatos reveals our skateboard park is getting a new lease of life. So, idea needs some content to be useful. Will watch it though as the idea has merit.

Links & Blinks

• CNNMoney on bloggate Walmart.
• Corporate Blogging: What Could Go Wrong? :: CIO Insight
• To Blog or Not to Blog: Report from the Front :: Knowledge@Wharton
• Corporate Blogs Split Cyberspace :: silicon.com
• Movies in a flash.
• New Yahoo bookmarks service... Do we need another... Great screencast though.

Eureka! Personalized Search...

I've been using personalized search across a variety of sites for sometime now. Eurekster has been my favorite - and not just because I am an advisor to the company.

Google's entry into the market looks a bit like Rollyo with advertising, customized look and feel and a bit of Eurekster's keyword flavoring. Overall, a good start and good for the personalized search market. You want to see the traffic boost that Eurekster gets when someone like Google enters the market... Very much like when Yahoo! took a swing. hard to buy that kind of lift as a start-up.

Comparing Google to Eurekster I don't see anything missing on the Eurekster side. What is missing on the Google side is the learning, buzzcloud and community engagement (they do have a variation on this but only allowing users to suggest sites to add to the index). The buzzcloud is key for drawing users into use the search and the community stuff will be key to improving the search results.

Eurekster should be thrilled that the two search leaders are in fact following their innovations. It's about the 5th time someone has come out with something that has looked to threaten their business but typically it seems to encourage more growth (e.g. Wink, Rollyo launches, Yahoo Search builder, Google Flavors, Google Co-op).

So what happens next? Maybe Google becomes the Gorilla in the market. Maybe, much likewith the acquisition of Blogger, they become another player and in fact contribute to accelerating awareness and adoption across the market. Either way, this is a great move for personalized search and supports the few that becoming your very own Google is a good thing.

LinkedIn or LinkedOut

I was extremely skeptical of LinkedIn but unlike Stowe and Jeff have found it to be pretty valuable. First for recruitment - the quality of the candidates I have seen through advertising on LinkedIn are fantastic - and I like the fact that some of them come recommended by people I trust. Second, it has proven to be immensely valuable in connecting with old colleagues and keeping my current network humming along.

Sure, the spam is annoying. I view that is the price we all pay for participating in relatively open communities. So, to answer the question -" has it been useful" - absolutely.

But I also agree with Jeff that if you can't see direct benefits, you probably should opt out. Doesn't that apply to anything and everything?

SlideShare

This is a terrific new service that's going to solve a major pain point for me - how I share fat .ppt presentations. Love the look and feel and some of the presentations are brilliant.

Evolution of Cisco.com

Cisco's got a new look and done an upgrade to their site. In a quick vote around the office most didn't like the new ID but I do - pivots well off the previous look and feel. While the use of blogs, RSS and podcasts is there, I'm surprised they didn't drive subscriber buttons onto the home page. Seems like an opportunity missed. Same goes for the visibility of blogs and the like.

Buzzlogic Interview

Richard has an interview with Buzzlogic founder Mitch Ratcliffe.

R/WW: Why did you start this company?
It actually began with a question about how to deal with a blogger, from a friend who is the CEO of a public company. I found myself drawing maps to explain not just the connectedness of a blogger to others in the market, but the way that a blog's influence varies from topic to topic. It was a short step from that to deciding, with Todd Parsons, to start the company in early 2004 - in order to find automated ways of analyzing influence.

Basically, I was doing something with those maps that is analogous to building a spreadsheet with pen and paper. There had to be a technological solution to gathering the data and a methodology for processing it into meaningful insight. We started by drawing maps with a project called MyDensity, which let bloggers display a fairly rudimentary social map around their blogs. It got some traction, but we ran through our crawling/hosting capacity without coming up with a business model to support it. That quickly evolved into a business built on providing much more detailed data to paying customers, since the backend processing was awfully expensive. We've always been focused on actually building a business, which is why we brought on a team and CEO Rob Crumpler, all who worked for next to nothing while we made progress toward the launch.

Now, the company has built an infrastructure that is both more powerful and much more efficient - so we are able to launch our first product, which is a hosted influence monitoring and tracking service that combines our analysis with tools for interacting with influencers, so that marketers can measure the results.

Google Blog Ping Service

Google has just announced a new blog ping service joining an already very crowded space - I've been using Pingoat.

Today we’re launching the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, which is a way for individual bloggers and blog platform providers to inform us of content changes. Blogging providers who syndicate RSS/Atom/XML and want to be included in our Blog Search index can now ping us directly. We’ll continue to monitor other pinging services and will contribute change notifications to the community.

Blogs Big in Japan

A recent Wall Street Journal story by Yukari Iwatani Kane suggests that blogs are a bigger cultural phenomenon in in Japan than the US:

Blogs, in particular, are contributing to the vast reservoir of online content. Stories that incorporate the Internet and that unfold in its anonymous, abbreviated writing style are proving to be especially popular -- perhaps because they represent real, spontaneous conversation, not an author's massaged prose.

Blogs are even more popular in Japan than in the U.S. It may be that they represent an appealing outlet in a culture that discourages public self-expression. Japan produced 8.7 million blogs at the end of March, and the U.S. an estimated 12 million blogs -- making blogging far more popular in Japan, taking the countries' relative populations into account. An estimated 25 million Japanese -- more than a fifth of the population -- are believed to read blogs.

Books based on blogs -- which some people have dubbed "blooks" -- appeal to Japanese who rarely go online as well as to heavy Internet users. "Even people that are on the Internet regularly buy books to read on trains," says Taichi Kogure, a marketing specialist for Ameba Books Ltd., which published "Demon Wife Diaries."

Thanks to Stowe for the pointer.

Survey: For big news, consumers bypass blogs

Well yeah!

For many Americans seeking news during important events, blogs are just about the last place they look, relying instead on traditional outlets, a survey says.

Fifty percent said they turn to traditional media like television, radio and newspapers as their primary source for information during major events such as hurricanes over "emerging media," according to a survey of 333 business professionals and 1,167 consumers between the ages of 25 and 64. The survey was sponsored by LexisNexis.

Link to Survey: For big news, consumers bypass blogs | CNET News.com

Searching The Trust Circle or, "The Wisdom Of My Crowd"

Searching the blogosphere isn't of that much interest to me. Neither is what was last written. What is of interest is searching my circle of trusted commentators, pundits and friends for topics of interest - I want to know what they have collectively found interesting. I want to tap into "the wisdom of my crowd". Extend this and you get to an interesting notion for corporations.

Who would you recommend to your customers as the "trust circle" they should turn to when considering a purchase or something tangential to a purchase - say a travel destination, or mountain biking routes? This is a serious opportunity for someone to go tackle. How, when joining a new community can you plug into a new trust circle.

Ross Mayfield also wants a version of Techmeme focused on his trusted circle. He hits on the point well: Cue up not what is popular, or what the people I subscribed to produced. Cue up what my social network has found interesting.

Apparently there is a personal meme tracker buried in Feedburner that I am going to hunt out.

Great Corporate Blog | Telsa

Like Rod, I'm enjoying the Telsa blog. Has really got me thinking about electric vehicles. Some of the things that make it work:

• well written by a variety of people
• well integrated within existing corporate site
• informal tone (got them in trouble a bit on battery safety...)
• plenty of visuals
• plenty of comments

What needs to be improved?

• design is ugly, unlike the car
• navigation sucks - hard to swing through the articles
• comments - there are lots of them, but I don't need them presented this way
• when you find RSS you find it, but it could be easier

Saying that, who cares, the car looks hot and the content is really interesting. I want one!

Gartner As A News Source...

I find Google news pretty frustrating, primarily because when searching on topics like MSSP, it is generally out of date and doesn't touch many of the sites I really care about. On this little search I was surprised to see Gartner appear as a news source and for a number of those news sources to actually be event announcements and the like on vendor sites.

Chocolate Blog

Paul highlights the blog behind the phone. This is a terrific example of a PR blog. Like Paul, the transparency here is great. It describes the program and highlights their intent. Love the links etc. Great work by H&K.

The blog is definitely a "blogvertisement" or PR blog ("Prlog") that uses blog features to promote the phone. What is missing here is community activation (as far as I can tell) - that is, activating the community of early "chocolate phone" adopters by providing them with a platform on which to engage and participate. It also doesn't link to citizen recommendations on the product.

That said, it's a great example of what it is and not ashamed to be that. It does highlight - in case anyone was confused - that their is a difference between commercial and marketing blogs and citizen blogs.

Web 2.0 Marketing is, well, different...

In case you were wondering how different, Murdoch sums it up well:

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHAT HAS SURPRISED YOU THE MOST ABOUT THE MYSPACE EXPERIENCE?

Rupert Murdoch: The speed at which it has grown. It has had no marketing. Not a penny has been spent marketing it before or after the purchase, and it just grows faster and faster every week. Now we're taking it out to other countries.

Thanks to Mark for the pointer. If his story was a few days late, mine is ancient... Oh well...

The point I think is that brands that have communities can establish stunning momentum and marketing efficiency over those that don't. But all brands have communities. For so many those communities are sleepers or false in nature. (For some of my purchases I just want to buy, for others, I want to join -- the vast majority of companies today miss the join bit).

One of the priorities then becomes activating the community - and a big part of that comes from empowering communities with tools and platforms on which they can participate. Activated communities have a low cost of customer acquisition.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn't Know Who to Ask

Lots of great tips here from Guy. The key one for me is admit your mistakes. It's tough moving through an interview - if you don't answer a question well, don't hesitate to take another swing at it. Some others:

• Get on Linked-In. So many of the folks I know are now recruiting through it.
• Don't use a goofy email address.
• Be early for the interview. Guy makes this point well. Being late due to traffic means you didn't plan or you aren't that interested.
• Show massive enthusiasm.

You've Seen the Cover... Now Reality

BusinessWeek's cover on Web 2.0 zillionaires irked me. Total hype and lousy reporting. All about selling mags on the newsstand, not informed commentary. Seems Kevin Rose is bringing the story back down to earth himself:

"I'm not a multi-millionaire, I'm not a millionaire or even a thousand-aire. ... I can't even afford a couch in my new apartment."

Another View On Technorati's Numbers...

Kevin Burton has an alternate view on Technorati's numbers. He makes some fair points - there is no way that there are 50 million active blogs.

But I don't agree with Kevin that for a blog to be active post needs to happen every day: "lets be generous and say that a blog has to post at least once per day to be considered active". Why? I'd be OK with a couple of times a week.

Technorati : Blogs, PR

Nice tool...

Great time tracking tool over at Tickspot. A big deal for those of us who need to keep track of time. Even if you don't have a commercial need, keeping track of your hours worked on community and charitable projects can be of real use when assessing if it was time well spent.

Got this via the new and improved Styleboost...

Peerage Production

There has been plenty of talk in the blogosphere about the power of peer (or, community) production. The notion being that by virtue of us all coming together and creating/contributing the product is defined and created.

I've often wondered the extent to which this is actually happening. There might be plenty of participants but few contributors. Richard has some sats on Digg that seem to reinforce this notion:

• Of Digg's 445,000 registered users, only 2,287 contributed any stories to the site during the last six weeks.

• The top 100 users contributed fully 55% of the stories that appeared on the site's front page, and the top 10 users contributed a whopping 30% of the front page stories.

Nick chimes in with a great descriptor: "Peer production? I think a better term for it would be peerage production." Digg's stats are here.

All of this points to one of the core questions we ask in building any community - "to pay or not to pay for participation - that is the question".

Answer - it all depends on the nature of participation. In the realm of those participatory 'platforms' that depend on light contribution and content aggregation (ranking things for instance), incentivized networks will ultimately win over those that depend on the enthusiasm of the community to contribute - a group which while sparking the initial flame of enthusiasm often shrinks back to the core over time. Compare that to communities and networks that depend on hardcore participation and engagement - think Java or Wikipedia. Much more stickiness, less incentive required.

Anyway, that's a theory I'm developing and testing and this set of data seems to point to it. If you want to build a community and keep them engaged, make it sticky and get them engaged.

The Long Debate...

The Long Tail is finally spurring debate. It is refreshing to see some pretty big brains going at the notion and debating it. Lee Gomes took a swing at the notion in the WSJ to which Chris has responded. Nick weighs in, publishing a more detailed email from Lee.

Where do I sit? The Internet is changing everything (still). I'm not totally getting the math that the majority of sales come from the long tail though.

The Trend Thing | Podcasts

A new report from Nielsen/NetRatings gives some interesting demographics of podcast listeners. Generalizations aside, the report has some interesting results:

• 51.6% of people who listen to podcasts pay their bills online. But, podcasting is not yet nearly as popular as viewing and paying bills online, 51.6 percent, or online job hunting, 24.6 percent. 24.6% have participated in online job searches.

• 6.6% of adults have downloaded a podcast and the the 18-24 age range is twice as likely as the average adult to download podcasts.

• Apple users are more likely to download podcasts as Windows users. Audio and video podcasters are over three times as likely as the average Web user to use Apple's Safari as their primary Internet browser.

Is Apple the platform of choice for the Web 2.0 generation?

Big Trends Done Quickly

Keith over at PRWeek asked for some thoughts on the most important trend, tool, service, company, or whatever will be in the second half of 2006. Here are my quick thoughts done late at night and on the fly. Caveat - when it comes to predictions I am normally wrong... Let me know your thoughts...

1. Trend: Communities and their citizen editors reassembling the fragmented media and conversation space creating powerful micro channels to which millions flock.
2. Company : The one with the biggest community. Think Nike, Apple, VW, Lego. …ok, so I wimped out… Apple if they can integrate the iPod, video and phone fully. And Microsoft - the degree to which key technologies such as RSS is implemented in IE7, Vista and Office 2007 is fantastic.
3. Technology : The Wiki & Community creation platform (think FiveAcross).
4. Service: SixApart, (TypePad, Vox). And, Dabble db - finally we can build our own applications in real-time! And iTunes - what AP/PR Newswire was to the press release, iTunes is to the Podcast.
5. Person: . The blogger, podcaster, vcaster and participatory communicator.

Saying all that… some expanded thoughts... No company matters as much as the community. Communities are ascending as defining force. Nike matters less to me as a soccer fan than the Nike community Joga.com. The companies that matter to consumers will be those with rich communities. Other thoughts on what might happen:

1. Fortune 500 corporations hire their first "conversationalists" - staffers dedicated not to transmitting information (PR) but rather, igniting conversations.
2. Media continues to fragment and reassemble around citizen editors.
3. PR continues its rapid evolution from transmission of content to igniting conversations.
4. Measurement takes a backseat to monitoring as communicators efforts to keep track of the blogosphere and citizen media kick into overdrive. In background mode, measurement practioners start working on new metrics that track participation. (There is an absolute difference between monitoring and measurement).
5. Major agencies launch new press release formats, following hot on the heels of tech boutique Shift. BusinessWire and PRNewswire wake from their slumber and assemble these fragmented efforts into a compelling Web 2.0 offerings.
6. Having discovered the power of technology to add value to their clients, major agencies step-up their efforts with branded RSS readers carrying highly customized content to audiences and customers.
7. As media fragmentation accelerates, media planning starts to raise its head as a critical communications function. Once the purview of advertising departments, communications practioners deliver media planning as a means of hunting and communicating with elusive audiences.
8. More than half the PR profession is still in catch-up mode. They don't listen to podcasts, use RSS readers or blog. Therefore, the most important technology isn't the technology, it's the adoption of it which will continue to accelerate.
9. The Wiki & Web 2.0 technologies such as Writely and Dabble db. They will change the way PR practitioners work internally and share with clients. I'm using Quickbase today - which is pretty expensive but very good.
10. OMPL files finally start getting integrated into marketing offerings.

Big Trends Done Quickly

Keith over at PRWeek asked for some thoughts on the most important trend, tool, service, company, or whatever will be in the second half of 2006. Here are my quick thoughts done late at night and on the fly. Caveat - when it comes to predictions I am normally wrong... Let me know your thoughts...

1. Trend: Communities and their citizen editors reassembling the fragmented media and conversation space creating powerful micro channels to which millions flock.
2. Company : The one with the biggest community. Think Nike, Apple, VW, Lego. …ok, so I wimped out… Apple if they can integrate the iPod, video and phone fully. And Microsoft - the degree to which key technologies such as RSS is implemented in IE7, Vista and Office 2007 is fantastic.
3. Technology : The Wiki & Community creation platform (think FiveAcross). Service:SixApart, (TypePad, Vox). And, Dabble db - finally we can build our own applications in real-time! And iTunes - what AP/PR Newswire was to the press release, iTunes is to the Podcast.
4. Person: . The blogger, podcaster, vcaster and participatory communicator.

Saying all that… some expanded thoughts... No company matters as much as the community. Communities are ascending as defining force. Nike matters less to me as a soccer fan than the Nike community Joga.com. The companies that matter to consumers will be those with rich communities. Other thoughts on what might happen:

1. Fortune 500 corporations hire their first "conversationalists" - staffers dedicated not to transmitting information (PR) but rather, igniting conversations.
2. Media continues to fragment and reassemble around citizen editors.
3. PR continues its rapid evolution from transmission of content to igniting conversations.
4. Measurement takes a backseat to monitoring as communicators efforts to keep track of the blogosphere and citizen media kick into overdrive. In background mode, measurement practioners start working on new metrics that track participation.
5. Major agencies launch new press release formats, following hot on the heels of tech boutique Shift. BusinessWire and PRNewswire wake from their slumber and assemble these fragmented efforts into a compelling Web 2.0 offerings.
6. Having discovered the power of technology to add value to their clients, major agencies step-up their efforts with branded RSS readers carrying highly customized content to audiences and customers.
7. As media fragmentation accelerates, media planning starts to raise its head as a critical communications function. Once the purview of advertising departments, communications practioners deliver media planning as a means of hunting and communicating with elusive audiences.
8. More than half the PR profession is still in catch-up mode. They don't listen to podcasts, use RSS readers or blog. Therefore, the most important technology isn't the technology, it's the adoption of it which will continue to accelerate.
9. The Wiki & Web 2.0 technologies such as Writely and Dabble db. They will change the way PR practitioners work internally and share with clients.
10. OMPL files finally start getting integrated into marketing offerings.

Your Attention Please

BusinessWeek has a terrific piece on how Web 2.0 is pulling the fragmented mass market together. It starts with a look at how we now allocate out attention - less on the media's schedule and more on ours (time and place shifting).

Some nice quotes from Nike who are fully embracing communities with sites like Joga for soccer fans.

"Gone are the days of the one big ad, the one big shoe, and the hope that when we put it all together again it makes a big impact" - Trevor Edwards, vp global brand management, Nike.

Technorati : PR, Public Relations

Cool tools...

Another great list of Web2.0 productivity applications. Well worth a look. I also liked Giffy and Mayomi.

Things Delicious

Here is a big list of things to enhance your delicious experience which points to another great resource.

Technorati : Delicious

Blogging & RSS on Windows

I'm into Week One of using my new Sony. I've got Zoundry running for blog posting and am using Outlook and IE.7 for my feeds. Couple of things I've discovered.

1. No issue importing my OPML file from NetNewsWire (running on my Mac) into IE - and it automatically synced with Outlook. The folders didn't carry over, so I have a massive list of feeds now.

2. Not sure how Microsoft will do it, but they need to get delicious fully integrated into IE7. I really miss it and it is the one thing that keeps me coming back to Firefox.

3. I like Zoundry as much as Ecto. Good engine for posting to blogs.

Technorati : Blogging, RSS

Aussie Blog Search Engine Launches

Aussie outfit Gnoos has launched a blog search engine. Haven't played with it too much yet.

Meanwhile, Ask is doing the same, but as a new feature that better integrates and enhances Bloglines. Richard McManus and TechCrunch have more.

Technorati : gnoos, search, technorati

Comet Coming

TechCrunch has the scoop on Comet - Typepad's new blogging tool. Buzz has been about for awhile on this so great to see it finally coming.

Technorati : Comet, Typepad

On OPML Feeds

PR Week has a short but good piece on OPML in which I'm quoted along with Steve who touts their value in demonstrating that influencers are reading the blogs they are targeting. The assumption of course being that we read the all blogs in our OPML file :-) Steve also points to a good peice over at Techcrunch.

Technorati : Marketing, OPML, PR, shareyouropml

On the Hunt For A Channel & Community Marketing Pro

Not sure if you know anyone but I am on the hunt for a great channel & community marketing person to join LogLogic. We're 100% committed to our channel partners and developing a global community of log management experts. You'll use your 8 plus years of marketing experience to ignite channel and technology alliance partners globally - and contribute to the implementation of our marketing programs. You can read more here .

LogLogic is a red hot Silicon Valley-based start-up We're a Red Herring 100 winner with multiple awards under our belt and are growing at upwards of 300% per quarter. LogLogic offers attractive compensation, and excellent benefits including pre-IPO stock.

Any thoughts would be appreciated and all hires via you are rewarded with an iPod! Drop me an email!

    Technorati : Jobs, Marketing, PR

Apple Ruling...

Apple lost in its effort to hav