Micro Persuasion

Blogs, Podcasts Among Top Tech Marketing Tools

Podcasting and blogging are two of the most effective tools for generating sales leads in the technology industry, Podcasting News reports. The data was fielded by Marketing Sherpa as part of their annual survey of marketing executives. The top five tools in order are free trials, webcasts, white papers, blogs and podcasts.

iTunes Podcast Directory Gets Channels

Apple has added category pages to the podcast section (iTunes link) of the iTunes Music Store. Categories include arts, business, comedy, health, news, TV/film, technology and more. Each section lists the top podcasts in each vertical, as measured in iTunes downloads, some featured podcasts and links to sub-verticals.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes

Hands on Podcasting

Is there a better way for marketers to learn what podcasting is all about than by viewing/listening to them on a virtual ipod? What a clever idea. Kudos to Peter Levitan who created the site.

Blog Puts Hall of Famer Fingers at Keys

Last week I mentioned Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers and his pain relief advervlog. Now he's also blogging on his own too - sans his sponsor. He's promising to keep it updated every day. So far he's doing well. More linking, Rollie! Link!

Technorati Tags: Baseball, Rollie Fingers

AOL Video to Welcome Public Content

America Online on Friday will unveil a retooled video site that will compete with YouTube, according to the Washington Post. The site will also include an improved video-search tool.

Technorati Tags: AOL

links for 2006-07-31

• Blogger Stories: Blogger Stories: Richard Edelman
  (tags: edelman PR blogs CEOs)
• Stream Distribution
  Stream Distribution allows you to easily create RSS feeds and iTunes compatible podcast feeds using a web based RSS generator.
  (tags: RSS podcasting)
• FeedPopper - Internet Utilities
  The latest headlines from a feed will simply pop-by on your desktop without your intervention
  (tags: RSS apple mac osx)
• SAN JOSE / Advertisers circle realm of blogging / Web journals could become the next marketing frontier
  "Web journals could become the next marketing frontier"
  (tags: blogs marketing advertising)
• Northwest Indiana News: nwitimes.com
  Many young entrepreneurs favor doing business on MySpace.
  (tags: myspace entrepreneurship)
• IBM ShortCuts Podcast
  A new show from IBM on how to maximize technology.
  (tags: Podcasting)

Flickr Tag Shootout

Who's bigger? Elvis or the Beatles? Cats or dogs? Flickr knows and now there's a tool to easily compare two Flickr tags. The site supports permalinks for all battles.

Technorati Tags: Flickr, Photos

WeatherBug Launches Weather Video Community

WeatherBug has launched its own video sharing community that allows any citizen meteorologist to upload their own reports and/or severe weather videos. This is a natural extension of what the company has been doing for years with photos. All videos can be rated and you don't need to use the desktop product to participate or watch vids. There are additional features, including professionally produced content, on the broader video site.

The WeatherBug video community is lacking in some key features. It should have tags, geocoding and RSS feeds. So it's no YouTube. Speaking of which, they should also find ways to link to the great weather videos that individuals are posting to YouTube and Google Video. Still, it's a good start. Severe weather, citizen journalism and video go together nicely.

Also new in WeatherBugland is an Ajaxy personalized weather page. I found this less useful. I would love to see a partnership between WeatherBug and Netvibes so I can view these gadgets on my own personalized page.

(Note: WeatherBug is one of my former clients. I haven't worked with them in over a year. They haven't approached me to write this post. I am writing on my own because I think these new services are worth pointing out.)

Technorati Tags: Weather, WeatherBug

CEOs Should Not Go Into the Blogosphere Alone

According to the New York Times, CEO blogging should not be viewed as extreme sport, but part of their duties. They cite Sun's Jonathan Schwartz as the textbook example of how blogging fits into an executive's day.

When done well, and its rare, CEO blogs are great. My own CEO's blog played a big role in attracting me to Edelman. However, I am going to argue that - at least in a perfect world - just as CEOs surround themselves with smart people in the executive suite, they ideally shouldn't venture into the blogosphere alone. It's not because they need nannies. They don't. They should also have people blogging from the gut of the company to demonstrate that their entire workforce is fully engaged in dialogue.

Don't get me wrong. I would rather see a company have a CEO blog than none at all. However, having multiple online touch-points, not just at the executive level, is the best scenario. It lets readers find individuals they can relate to. Sun does this quite well. (Via Jeff Jarvis)

Google is Blind to Shifts in 2006 Like Yahoo Was in 2001

In a wide-ranging piece on MarketWatch, Ben Charny talks to a number of researchers and financial analysts who are worried that Google is getting trounced by upstarts in three of the hottest sectors of the web - blogging, video sharing and social networking. In particular, the analysts interviewed are concerned that once Google's search revenues cool off, there will be nothing to fall back on. The article also notes that Google has had no home runs outside of its core search offerings, a common meme in the media these days.

If this all sounds familiar, it should. Back in 2000 and 2001 Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle took heat on a similar topic - Yahoo's dependency on banner advertising. He waited too long to diversify the portal's revenue stream. Then, the bottom dropped out of Internet advertising and he lost his job. In 2002, incoming CEO Terry Semel set a course to add new revenue streams beyond display ads, which Yahoo did through subscriptions, partnerships and acquisitions. Most notably, Semel was able to turn Yahoo quickly so that it capitalized on a brand new form of advertising - contextual search.

History is repeating itself and Google would be wise to learn from Yahoo's experience. The cacophony over click fraud has never been louder. At the same time, marketers are beginning to pony up huge sums to reach audiences that are gravitating towards social networks. The center of gravity in online marketing is beginning its slow shift to an entirely new format that Google is currently not monetizing. It has some great assets here, but it better figure out how to start making money from them. For now, Google seems to be asleep at the wheel much like Yahoo was back in 2001.

Technorati Tags: Google, Yahoo

links for 2006-07-30

• Med Ad News: Lost in the Blog
  "The Internet has empowered consumers through blogs and social networking Websites, forcing the pharmaceutical industry to face daunting regulatory hurdles to join the conversation."
  (tags: blogs pharma)
• Coca-Cola Asks Users To Provide Site's Content
  Coke urges consumers to upload personal content including video clips and thumbnail images through a number of bi-weekly and monthly "challenges."
  (tags: cocacola wordofmouth CitizenMarketing)
• Apple denies 'four years' iPod report, clarifies 'for years'
  It depends on what the meaning of the word "for" is for.
  (tags: apple pr ipod Journalism)
• PodCamp Boston, 9/9-9/10
  (tags: events podcasting)

Mark Cuban's Blog Front and Center in New HP Ad

Mark Cuban and his blog are featured front and center in HP's new ad campaign. What's even cooler is that you can play with Mark's computer. You can view the campaign here. Once you hit play, click the small link underneath the streaming video to surf Mark's desktop. Once you're in, try to click on the folder that says "Things to Buy." This is a neat online extension to a TV advertising campaign. It's just silly though that they made the best part so hard to find.

Technorati Tags: Mark Cuban

links for 2006-07-29

• Beacon Journal | 07/27/2006 | How to navigate Wikipedia
  Some tips for new Wikipedia contributors
  (tags: wikipedia)
• Charlene Li's Blog: Generosity and Dell's new blog
  How a company could be “generous”
  (tags: blogs forrester generosity)
• Technorati Weblog: What is Popular?
  Screencast showing how to use one of Technorati's features.
  (tags: technorati screencasting)
• Podcasting News: BBC Intros Video Podcasts
  (tags: BBC video Podcasting)
• 3pointD.com » Blog Archive » Lionsgate Teases Superhero Film in Habbo Hotel
  The first ten minutes of its animated Ultimate Avengers 2 feature film are being released in the Habbo Hotel metaverse.
  (tags: metaverse habbohotel movies marketing)
• Netvibes introduces Meebo and Alexa modules - Netvibes.com Blog
  (tags: meebo alexa IM netvibes)
• BlogBridge: Announcing BlogBridge 3.0!!!
  Nice array of features including, among other things, support for Growl in OS X.
  (tags: OSX blogs RSS Web2.0)
• Apple - iLife - Tutorials - iLife ’06 Multimedia Tutorials
  (tags: Apple GarageBand macbook OSX Photography podcasting imovie itunes iphoto idvd iweb)

Wikipedia Data Added to Google Co-op

Wikipedia has been added to Google Co-op, although in a somewhat limited way. If you subscribe to the Wikipedia module, you will get links to relevant articles from the open-source encyclopedia on certain types of searches - like world leaders. (Note the top-most link in the screen capture below.)

It's not clear from the documentation which searches trigger results. Some of the triggers listed - like sports figures - are not working on my end. Google Co-op is a program that allows you to prioritize select third-party results in your Google searches.

Technorati Tags: Google Co-op, Google, Wikipedia

Social Media Power Players

The Wall Street Journal profiles the Moguls of New Media. We're not talking about the entrepreneurs here who created galaxies like YouTube and the like, but the stars who populate them. 

Vlogs and Video Podcasts Come to the Sony PSP

Video blogs and podcasts now have another distribution channel - the Sony Playstation Portable. According to Podcasting News, all you need to do is update to the latest firmware. The update supports video clips attached to RSS feeds.

Technorati Tags: PSP

How to Optimize Your Blog

Speaking of building blog traffic, David Sifry from Technorati outlines some terrific tips in Wired on how to generate more interest in your blog:

1) React quickly
2) Make your posts easy to read
3) Link, link, link!
4) Optimize for search engines
5) Post, post, post

The same article also talks about how to improve MySpace pages and set up a reblog. Also, check out these similar tips from former Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox. (Edelman, my employer, has relationships with both Technorati and MySpace)

The Underground Blogosphere

Deep underneath the blogosphere lies a network that's just as big and powerful. It has a lots of participants, yet it's completely invisible to those who do not blog. It's the Underground Blogosphere.

The Underground Blogosphere is an intricate web of hundreds of thousands of emails that bloggers send to each other every day. In essence, they are "pitching" their latest posts in hopes of getting a link. Sometimes, bloggers are genuinely looking for good feedback, but more often than not all they are just looking for traffic.

There's a lot of irony in the Underground Blogosphere! For starters, I get more email pitches from bloggers whom I have never met than I do from PR professionals. Many of these same bloggers probably hate PR pitches, yet they're happy to dish it out themselves. What's even more interesting is that the Underground Blogosphere carries lots of emails from reporters. They too send links to their stories/blog posts. Now that's role reversal only a psychologist could love!

Some high profile bloggers (who I won't name) absolutely love the Underground Blogosphere. They find lots of links that are relevant to them. Others, are not fond of it at all. I sit in the middle. I find some gems in there that I might not normally see. However, I still prefer and thank those who continue to feed me links through del.icio.us. I never miss those. (To be completely honest, when I started this blog I was one of the most prolific members of the Underground Blogosphere. I sent my links to everyone. However, over a year ago I kicked this habit. Today I use it sparingly.)

I'm not sure what to do with the Underground Blogosphere. However, as bloggers, I do think it's important we start a conversation about it. Sometimes I wish I could expose my Underground Blogosphere to the world by publishing these emails to a digg-like site where you can tell me what's interesting. This might lead to all kinds of new things to blog about. Other days I want to set up a great filter that moves them all to a spam folder.

I am eager to hear how you feel about the Underground Blogosphere. Maybe there's a way we can pool all of our emails together into a new site that creates value.

Technorati Tags: Email, Underground Blogosphere

links for 2006-07-27

• Basecamp - Dashboard - Business
  Conveniently access your Basecamp projects.
  (tags: basecamp osx dashboard apple mac)

Netscape Needs to Find its Calling

I was too tied up last week to blog about the whole Netscape debacle. Kevin Rose from digg weighs in on it here. I have, however, discussed it with the media on a couple of occasions so I thought this would be a good time to share my thoughts.

Overall, I do think Jason Calacanis' attempt to court the influential residents of his competitors' sites with cash, while noble, screams desperation for Netscape and appears short-sighted. My reaction today is consistent with how I felt initially: AOL is not giving Jason the time he needs to build a community and they are impatient. Such impatience leads to poor business decisions.

Nevertheless, I do think the new Netscape will succeed, but it's going to take time. Although digg's rise is nothing short of remarkable, it was spurred by the community. The digg team didn't grow it. The people did. What Kevin and crew did was create the means for the community to do its thing. In this case that "thing" was a desire to coalesce around a common passion - technology - in a unique way that was simple, yet engaging.

Netscape needs to find its calling. What will it be - politics, health? Who knows? The community will tell us. Once it appears, Jason and the Netscape team then should quickly build new enhancements that help the audience share content in that vertical in a way they can't anywhere else. Once this happens, Netscape will become a successful site. But paying people to come over is not the answer. That's like bringing Dom Perignon to a frat house party. It might look good, but it's out of place.

Technorati Tags: digg, Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose, memediggers, Netscape, AOL