Micro Persuasion

Visualizing Yahoo News

I love the new mashups that the creatives are building with Web APIs (definition). Here's a new visual way to navigate Yahoo News.

Technorati Tags: mashups, Yahoo

Ten More Wikipedia Hacks

About a month ago I blogged about my 10 favorite Wikipedia “hacks.” (Some prefer I call these tips.) Here are 10 more I've unearthed since then...

1) Subscribe to The Wikipedia Signpost
Wikipedia's been in the news quite a lot lately. And since they're one of the most dominant forces in Internet-driven change, you may feel a need like I do to keep up with their latest developments. While it's easy to use Google News to create an RSS search feed, there's another resource that's worth reading: The Wikipedia Signpost. The Signpost is a community-written and community-edited newspaper that's published by Wikipedians. It covers events and stories related to the English Wikipedia. A new issue is published on Monday of each week. You can pull the feed here.

2) Tap Into the Power of Special Wikipedia Bookmarklets
There are a whole bunch of Wikipedia bookmarklets that you can add to your browser that are quite handy. I couldn't get these to work, but I am sure some javascript jockey will have no problem at all fixing these. However, if you scour the web you will find many more. For example, drag this one to your bookmark bar to make Wikipedia more readable.

3) Listen to the Audible Wikipedia
Many of Wikipedia's articles have been converted into spoken word format. You can find them here. The one catch is that they're in OGG format. There's a feed for this page too.

4) Download the Complete Wikipedia and Put it on Your Mobile Device
Erik Zachte offers a downloadable version of Wikipedia that you can access on many offline or web-enabled mobile devices, including Pocket PCs and Palms. It comes in TomeRaider format. You can find instructions on how to get the files and the updates on his Web site. Another alternative is Lexipedia, an abridged version.

5) Track Wikipedia's Importance to Google
How important is Wikipedia to Google? The answer is very. According to this page, there are 349 million Wikipedia pages in Google. In addition, as you can see from this table, Wikipedia references indexed in media stories on Google News are also rising dramatically.

6) Mash Up Wikipedia, Flickr with Wikr
BlinkBits has a cool tool called Wikr that pulls together a Wikipedia-Flickr mash on any topic in the open source encyclopedia. It can be accessed from any Web site with a bookmarklet. Just drag this link to your toolbar. Then highlight any word on a web page and click it. The result is a nice page like this that pulls together Wikipedia and Flickr results into a page that just also happens to have an RSS feed.

7) Track Wikipedia Articles with BlinkBits RSS Feed
While I am on the subject of BlinkBits. I should also point out that they are hosting RSS feeds for literally millions of Wikipedia articles. Just search for an article on Blinkbits Wikifeeds page and it will show you the way to your feed. For example, here's a feed you can use to track the ever popular podcasting article.

8) Juice Up Your Wikipedia Experience with Greasemonkey
I recently started using Greasemonkey and I don't know how I lived without it. Greasemonkey lets you download scripts that add functionality to Web pages that the publisher did not include. There are a bunch of Wikipedia Greasemonkey scripts. However, my favorite is the Wikipedia Inline Article Viewer. This script adds a button after all article links on Wikipedia pages which, when clicked, opens the article inline in a mini frame. Another script that's popular is AniWiki.

9) Unencyclopedia
If you ever get fed up with Wikipedia, check out Uncyclopedia - a parody site that's like Superman's Bizarro.

10) Download the Wikipedia Lookup Firefox Extension
Last but not least, if you're a huge Wikpedia fan, go download the special Firefox extension that makes lookups easier. It will even open results in your sidebar or a new tab.

Technorati Tags: Bookmarklets, Firefox, Greasemonkey, Hacks, Wikipedia

Transit Union Uses Blog to Communicate As Strike Looms

As I mentioned earlier, the big talk in NYC this week isn't the Giants but whether or not the MTA will strike. The MTA runs the buses and subways that each day transport some seven million of us around the city. It's like our bloodstream.

Anywho, the local station here was digging around the blogosphere for news - a common tactic among journalists these days - and they found a blog that some in the union are using to organize themselves. Right now, it's still alive. So how long will this blog stay online now that it's been found? Would you communicate like this if you knew everyone was watching? Memo to PR people - journalists like to find blogs. Find them first.

Technorati Tags: MTA

BBC Opens Their Archive to Mashups

The venerable BBC has opened portions of their vast video archive for consumers to not only download, but create new video projects. What's taking so long for advertisers to release components of their campaigns, such as jingles, graphics and more to citizen marketers? If the BBC can do it, so should marketers.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, BBC

Topix Opens All News for Comments and Contributions

Topix.net, a news aggregation site and a CooperKatz client, today unleashed not only a new design but a bunch of new features. One notable one is that every single news story and blog post that it aggregates and categorizes into topic pages can now be commented on and augmented with citizen journalism. For example, take this one on the Yahoo/Six Apart tie-up, which for some reason features my mug.

In addition, Topix has launched a new page that streams the Top Stories in the Blogosphere. It's broader than sites like memeorandum (which I love by the way) in that it goes beyond tech and politics while also showing more blogs beyond the top 10%. You can grab the feed for that page here. For more, see Mike Bazeley's report.

PubSub, Viacom Affiliate TV Stations in RSS Alert Deal

PubSub and Viacom have inked a deal to integrate PubSub's RSS alerting technology on all CBS local affiliate news pages. You can see a sample here on the WCBSTV web site.

The local news sites now have a feature called TrackIt, powered by PubSub. TrackIt is described as “a matching service that tracks topics that matter to you, then notifies you when new content is created that matches your topics.” On story pages throughout the affiliate news sites CBS has sprinkled recommended topics that users can start tracking with a single click. These are added to the TrackIt area at the top-left of every page. They also can be delivered via RSS.

This is very useful stuff. In New York City, where I work, a transit strike is looming. Well, thanks to this new technology, I now have a feed to alert me whenever there's news on this subject. Even better, users don't need to know their RSS from their, um, well you get it. (Disclaimer - PubSub at one time was a CooperKatz client.)

Technorati Tags: CBS, PubSub, Viacom

The New York Times Podcasts Columns

The New York Times continues its push into social media. It has launched two podcasts. One is on science and its widely available. The other highlights Op-Ed columns and is available in two editions. Every Monday, an audio version of one Op-Ed column from the previous week will be available via podcast for free. However, individual columnists' podcasts, are also available to TimesSelect subscribers in podcast form through a partnership with Audible. The latter features professional announcers.

Technorati Tags: new york times, newspapers, nyt

The Guardian Launches a Feed Reader

The Guardian, one of the largest newspapers in the UK, has launched a branded feed reader powered by Newspoint. More info in the quick guide.

Technorati Tags: Guardian

NY Times Ed. Says Blogs Are Just Technology

Jon Dube says The New York Times is launching several blogs as part of its new Red Carpet entertainment awards site and, in that context, Deputy Managing Editor Jonathan Landman sent a memo to the staff about the paper's approach to blogging. “A blog is nothing more than a piece of technology... We’ll use the technology our way.”

Technorati Tags: Media, newspapers, new york times

London Telegraph Podcasts Portions of the Paper

The London Daily Telegraph newspaper has started podcasting selections from the print edition. Each day, the podcast features three key articles selected by the editor.

This model could become a revenue generator for some newspapers if it clicks with younger “readers.” I would gladly pay my local paper if they offered a customized podcast summary of all of the articles I care about. Long term, in the distant future, customized paid RSS feeds (audio or text) will erode print completely, especially once flexible e-paper becomes a reality.

Technorati Tags: newspapers

Video Podcasting Picking up Steam

Billboard reports that iPod-friendly Rush Limbaugh video clips are on the way. Meanwhile, Broadcasting and Cable says Disney will roll out a massive effort to use iPods to promote the upcoming film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Technorati Tags: vidcasting, Vodcasting

Microsoft Exec's Internal Blog Gives BusinessWeek a Big Scoop

BusinessWeek is reporting that the next version of Windows - Windows Vista - may ship on August 31. What's notable here isn't the scoop itself, but how they got it. Someone sent them an internal blog post written by Chris Jones.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows Vista

WaPo Jumps Into Mashups

The venerable Washington Post just launched a site that shows how individuals can mix up their content into new creations. For example, Frank Wiles made this News Cloud, which is a tag cloud of Post stories that lets you browse stories by keyword. The BBC was the first major media outlet to go “API.” Where are the marketers? (Via Cyberjournalist)

Technorati Tags: Web2.0

Wikipedia Cracks Into the Top 10 News/Info Sites

Amazing! Wikipedia was among the top news and information sites for the week ending November 6, according to Nielsen/Netratings. I believe that's a first for any open citizen-powered site. (About.com is a closed citizen-powered site). This a milestone. Kudos to Nielsen for auditing them. Gannett is seeing a bump there too. The Topix effect?

Technorati Tags: Wikipedia

Audible's Black Friday: A Case Study in PR vs. BR

At Jeff Jarvis' suggestion, in this post I am going to take a closer look into the recent blogosphere blow-up over Audible's podcasting efforts. This is a case study that perhaps others can learn from. I am not here to admonish or praise Audible for their efforts. Rather, I want to track down where they went wrong and advise how we can learn from their good moves and their bad ones.

The whole shebang started with an exclusive article that ran in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, November 11. The article talked about Audible's Wordcast service - a tool that will measure podcast listeners for advertisers. The Journal wisely made the piece available on their free site. It was fair and straightforward. More importantly, it set the tone for the press, which took the same tack. So Audible largely won in the eyes of the media - the sole basis for how we used to define PR.

Of course, we no longer live and die by traditional media alone. In the blogosphere it was an entirely different story, as this IceRocket trend graph shows. Many were outraged that all podcasts on Wordcast will have to use the Audible .aa format, as Staci Kramer summarizes. A lot of words flew around between Mitch Ratcliff, Jeff, Dave Winer and others. You can track this for yourself on memeorandum. So if you're keeping score at home, Audible does well in traditional PR (or MR - e.g. media relations) but largely loses in BR (e.g. blogger relations).

In hindsight, Audible and its consultants should have recognized that the proprietary file format would be an issue in a blogosphere culture that thrives on showing love to open standards - RSS, MP3, etc. They also I am sure knew from prior incidents that Dave Winer would not be on their side. What's worse, they didn't care what one of the Founding Fathers of podcasting had to say.

Audible should have anticipated these issues and tried to brief these vital influencers in advance of the announcement, putting them on the same level of importance as the WSJ. They should have been out there talking to influencers like Doc, Dave and others way before the announcement. The goal here would be not only to solicit allies, but to actually get input that will make for a better product. This is exactly what Microsoft did before Gnomedex when they announced their support for RSS in June.

Audible didn't go this route and now they are in a hole with the very early adopters they were trying to court. This is because podcasters - who are very active in the blog world and can be swayed by it - may not want to have anything to do with this program now that the big gorillas in the jungle are against it. So the lesson here is: 1) anticipate the issues, 2) pre-brief the influencers while you're developing your product and 3) put the MSM and the blogosphere on the same playing field.

It's not too late for Audible to turn this around. If they pull together the respective parties and try to reach a solution that will please everyone, they will be back on track. If they don't, then their new service is toast.

UPDATE: Jeff asks me what I think of a consultant jumping in. Jeff, maybe Mitch he was the front man because he's the only one there who's a recognized blogger. I will tackle OSM later this week.

Technorati Tags: Audible

Kevin Maney Blogs

USA Today tech columnist Kevin Maney is now blogging. Yes, this is the same Kevin Maney who once wrote that blogging does not really represent “a radical departure.” (Via #67 - just kidding Mike Manuel!)

Technorati Tags: Kevin Maney, USA Today

Niall: Google Has Purchased Riya

Citizen journalist Niall Kennedy: Google bought Riya - done deal

MSM staple CNET: We hear ya, Niall. Boo yah!

Technorati Tags: Google

Gawker Media Lands Yahoo! News Syndication Deal

The gap between big media and micro media is narrowing. First AOL bought Weblogs Inc., then Topix.net (a CK client) started fusing blogs and news items together on the same pages, now Yahoo News will syndicate blog posts from Gawker Media, MediaPost reports. You can check this out here.

Yahoo! News today will begin stocking content from Wonkette, Gizmodo, Defamer, Lifehacker, and Gawker itself. Scott Moore, Yahoo!'s head of news and finance, told MediaPost that the idea to add Gawker came up over dinner with its founder and publisher Nick Denton. “It seemed like a natural thing to do, because it's a very complementary relationship,” said Moore.

Technorati Tags: Gawker, GawkerMedia, Yahoo

Blogger Takes on NYT Chief Food Critic

AP introduces us to Julia Langbein, who mocks the chief restaurant critic of The New York Times. Check out what they have already done to her traffic in just one hour since the story came out.

Google Print Cites Blog Endorsements

It's interesting how on this page Google Print is choosing to highlight blogger endorsements as well as media kudos.

Technorati Tags: Google

Ten Technorati Hacks

If there's any one site I use more than others (with the exception of Gmail), it's Technorati. This site is a fantastic window into the psyche of the more digitally inclined. Here, in another in my series of hack postings, are 10 ways I get more mileage from T'rati.

1) Subscribe to Tag Feeds
Need something to blog about? Cat got your tongue? Don't worry, Mama Technorati can take care of you. Simply find some Technorati tags you care about, subscribe to their RSS feeds and stick them in a Firefox menu. You'll be full of ideas in no time. Every Technorati tag has its own feed.

2) Use Technorati to Search Individual Blogs
Are there certain blogs you visit more than others because they are great connectors or simply because they propagate great ideas? I know I do. The great thing is you can use Technorati to search individual blogs. Click on the search tab and then enter the blog URL you want to search. For example, here's what a search for Microsoft on Robert Scoble's blog would generate.

3) It's All in the Watchlist
Technorati lets you set up as many watchlists as you would like. These are basically persistent searches. Simply register on the site, construct your search and then click on the “Add to Watchlist” button. Each Watchlist also generates an RSS feed.

4) Integrate Technorati Into Your Browser
You can dramatically speed up your Technorati-ing (is that a word?) by adding downloading some Firefox search plug-ins. For example, Firefox users should click here to add Technorati to your Firefox search box. Or click here to add way to search Technorati tags.

Don't stop with just search plug-ins. Be sure to add a few Technorati bookmarklets.

5) Put Technorati in Your OS
If you love Technorati so much that you can't stand not getting closer to it, the good news is that you can. Mac OS X users can download this Technorati Dashboard widget. Windows lovers, you achieve the same by downloading Konfabulator and then picking up this widget. Or, try this Goowy widget.

6) Ping Technorati
Everytime you update your blog, tell Uncle Technorati that you want to show him something. He'll spider your blog right away. You can do this here or by using a pinging service (definition) like Pingoat. I use ecto, a cros-plaform blogging tool, to ping Technorati every time I post and integrate Technorati tags.

7) Take Technorati to Go
Believe it or not, I spend a fair amount of time away from my 'puter. That doesn't stop me from taking T'rati with me. I use their mobile service on my Treo. It works on any browser-capable phone. Just bookmark m.technorati.com on your celly, Nelly.

8) Put Technorati Backlinks Right Into Your Blog
OK, this one's geeky. It's even beyond my TypePad skills. However, some folks put Technorati backlinks into every blog post they write. Here's some instructions on how to do this pretty much for every platform.

9) Put Technorati Into Your RSS Aggregator
Who here lives in the Kingdom of Greg? In other words, who here uses NetNewsWire or FeedDemon. I do, on occasion. Good news. You can stick some nice Technorati tools right into your reader. For example, Niall Kennedy has a way to check Technorati backlinks with NetNewswire. Not to be outdone, Nick Bradbury has done the same with FeedDemon. If you're a Sage fan, the basic RSS reader template has backlinks built in.

10) Conduct a Real-time Focus Group
I am interested in what people are pointing to and discussing. It's a good window into the minds' eye of the consumer. There's no better way to do this, perhaps than to see what people are saying when they link to corproate Web sites. For example, a search for links to Dell.com, generates this search. Be sure to sort by authority as well as by date. Journalists, this trick works equally well for you. It can help you track companies and products. PR pros, this is a must if you are working on any brand that is discussed.

Technorati Tags: Dashboard, ecto, Firefox, Hacks, Konfabulator, Goowy, Technorati

Bullish on Blogs

Former Forbes writer Michael S. Malone: “Let me make a prediction. Five years from now, the blogosphere will have developed into a powerful economic engine that has all but driven newspapers into oblivion, has morphed (thanks to cell phone cameras) into a video medium that challenges television news, and has created a whole new group of major companies and media superstars. Billions of dollars will be made by those prescient enough to either get on board or invest in these companies. At this point, the industry will then undergo its first shakeout, with the loss of perhaps several million blogs — though the overall industry will continue to grow at a steady pace.”

Technorati Tags: Media, newspapers, Bubble 2.0

Forbes' Daniel Lyons Backs Off a Bit on Blogs

Sam Whitmore has snagged a podcast interview with Daniel Lyons, the author of Forbes' controversial cover story on blogs. In the interview, Lyons appears to backpedal a bit off the harsh tone of the story, but he remains consistent with his remarks on CNBC. (MP3 download)

Technorati Tags: Forbes

The Blogging Enterprise: Citizen Journalism Panel

Participants:

Lorraine Branham, Director, School of Journalism, The University of Texas (moderator)
Hal Straus, Editor, Newsroom Technology & Site Tools, The Washington Post
Fred Zipp, Managing Editor, The Austin American Statesman
Brian Oberkirch, author of Slidell Hurricane Blog and Principal, Weblogs Work, Inc.
John Lebkowsky, author of Weblosky weblog and CEO, Polycot Consulting

* Straus from the WaPo takes issue with my earlier “moment of silence” for the big media ecosystem. Says “We pretty much ignored blogs for a number of years.” Said their eureka moment came in 2004 with the fundraising successes of Howard Dean. They've launched 18 blogs. The newspaper has an initiative where it is encouraging bloggers in the high school community to blog on their platform. “We don't consider ourselves old media.”

* Zipp says Statesman started with blogging two years ago. The blog that has taken off for them was put together by the sports staff about the U of Texas football team. “The staff blogs are not a conversation for the most part. The editor's blog is more of a conversation than any of the others.” Partnering with Pluck to empower readers to blog. They are aiming to find the sweet spot for conversation.

* Oberkirch wows the crowd. He runs a blog for a town that's near New Orleans and was impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Says there was little mainstream media reporting on the town right after the storm. Out of desperation, he started the Slidell Hurricane Blog. CNN producer called within 45 minutes amazed by how they were able to compile information. Big media and small media began to collaborate. He says he was careful in confirming rumors about structures in the town. They had 85,000 readers within the first few weeks. The entire town had 25,000 residents. Spread visibility through Fred Wilson and David Parmet.

* Lebowsky's up next. He says that bloggers are not journalists. We're changing from a scarce number of channels to a real abundance, he says. This is not the same media we grew up with. “There were three channels and they all went off at media...We can now read all day long just from the blogs that are in our aggregators and we're never going to reach the end of it.”

* Branham asks the panel about accuracy when content does not go through the editing/verification response. Lebowsky answers that other bloggers are the fact checkers. Zipp says (the blog content) not good enough for publication in the newspaper or the part of the news site that they package as journalism. Straus from the Post says it's important to label content as edited vs. unedited. Oberkirch says there's an expectation that bloggers can go back and edit a story.

* Branham asks will citizen journalists would have done a better job on covering Iraq? Straus says that “Bloggers didn't do a good job at poking at the weapons of mass destruction.” Branham notes that the Post circ is down 3% - the size of OhMyNews' readership. Straus says that Post is committed to getting people in the Washington area contributing. “I am not 100% convinced that community journalism is going to sweep away professional journalists.”

* Audience q - will pro-Am journalist collaborations hurt the credibility of the MSM? Oberkirch says it might help them. Cites Kevin Sites' presence on Yahoo.

Technorati Tags: Austin American Statesman, Blogging Enterprise, BloggingEnterprise, newspapers, Journalism, Washington Post

Wikipedia Traffic Is Trouncing The New York Times

Check out this graph...

Technorati Tags: newyorktimes, nyt, nytimes, Wikipedia

Forbes Cover Story Blows It, Calling Bloggers Lynch Mobs

Earlier tonight I was on a four-minute segment on CNBC that largely focused on Forbes' new cover story - Attack of the Blogs. Registration is required or the bugmenot login/password "forbesdontbug" worked for me. The article's author, Daniel Lyons, was in our interview group.

The gist of Lyons' soon-to-be maligned story is that blogs are “the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective.”

If that's not bad enough they also squarely put the blame here on Google and Yahoo as our “potent allies.” It's so ridiculous that two companies that have done so much to democratize media are being chastised for it.

Forbes, I am very disappointed that you chose to take such an unbalanced POV when BusinessWeek and Fortune told us both sides of the story. With all respect to Lyons and the magazine's editors, bloggers are not Corporate America's Boogeyman. They can be a company's greatest allies and evangelists if AND only IF we take the time to take them seriously and engage them in dialogue. Instead of telling us about both opportunities and threats, you paint the blogosphere as the Wicked Witch of the West. With a a few hours of reading excerpts of the forthcoming book on business blogging, Naked Conversations, you would have seen both sides of the story.

My message to Corporate America is simple. Don't listen to Forbes. Take a look around the blogosphere for yourself and you will find real humans - good, bad and ugly. What do you know? It's just like in the meatspace. There are some who mean well, others who are more nefarious. And all want to be heard. Listen to them. Work with them. Live with them and get over this fear mongering because they're here to stay. And some companies -probably your competitors unless you act - will prevail by treating them with respect and engaging them in genuine unfiltered conversations.

Technorati Tags: FUD, Google, Forbes, Yahoo

What If Marketers and Journalists Published APIs?

In the technology and Internet industries, a lot of companies publish what's called an application protocol interface, or an API for short (definition). These special “hooks” enable software developers to build new fangled tools on top of existing platforms. For example, this mashup of Google Maps and Craig's List was created using APIs. Same thing applies for this Flickr Sudoku game.

The same model could be applied to better journalism and marketing in the rip, mix, burn economy we live in. In fact, some are already experimenting. The BBC recently set up the Creative Archive License Group. The BBC hopes to foster innovation by letting anyone re-use its material for personal and educational purposes under the Creative Archive Licence. Currently some 100 clips are available for mixing.

This is just the beginning. Consider the following scenarios...

Imagine if Fidelity Investments released video/audio snippets of their new ad campaign featuring Paul McCartney for mixing. Citizen marketers could come up with new creations using components of the ad campaign, such as the music or even just images, provided they adhere to certain guidelines set forth by Fidelity. This could generate even more word of mouse.

Or what if BusinessWeek published a story that had half the factual reporting covered. Let's just say they can't confirm a certain fact with a secondary source. They could publish the article online and ask the community to corroborate the story or even take it in a different direction if that's what the facts show.

Marketers and journalists need to take a page from the tech industry and start releasing “the bones” of what they produce into the wild and then wait and see what comes back. They might be surprised to find that what consumers create is far better than what the pros produce, fostering more innovation and better content. Whether they will try this is another story entirely. This is something Joseph Jaffe and I will take up on our next podcast.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Media

ABC Affiliates Are Video Podcasting on iTunes

Some of ABC's affiliates, including WABC-TV in New York and (iTunes link) WLS-TV in Chicago (iTunes link) have started vidcasting (e.g. video podcasting) some of their content. Could Nightline be coming on board next?

Technorati Tags: ABC, iPod

Another All-Star Blogging Site Opens

ZDNet: “A group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process. Operating initially as Pajamas Media--a play on criticism that bloggers are ”just a bunch of guys in their pajamas“--the site will offer original content and links to affiliate sites written by more than 70 bloggers, as well as basic news feeds from sources like The Associated Press, said novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, one of the founders.”

CNN Seeks Blog Guru to Work with Blitzer

Like to read blogs? Are you into politics? Got TV experience? Well, two out of three aint bad. If you had all three then you could apply for a blog daddy job at CNN. The 24-hour news network is looking to hire a Blog Producer to work out of their DC bureau. This individual will "locate, research, and report on blogs and web sites that include news, politics, policy, commentary, and other information of value to viewers. The results will be daily television segments reporting on this area of the media." The individual will also report on-air as needed on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

Yahoo! Blog Search Puts News and Blogs on Equal Ground

Yahoo! Blog Search is now live. Go test it over here. What I love about the Yahoo! engine is that it's integrated with their news search. I also like how it includes Flickr and My Web results. That's a big endorsement for blogs. Yahoo is putting them on the same playing field. This means that millions of consumers are going to start dipping into blogs for news content - and then start adding these sites to their My Yahoo pages. (By the way, they're not the first to do this. Topix.net and Google News also include some blogs in their databases as well.) For further explanation, see the Yahoo! Search Blog. This is a watershed moment for citizen journalism. We're not the opening act anymore. We're now live on stage with the big boys. My only nit is that I wish it included more blogs. Blog results feel light to me compared to other blog-specific tools.

Technorati Tags: Flickr, Google, Topix, Yahoo

ABC Blog Takes Heat

PRWeek UK: “What was meant as a satirical posting by ABC News' political blog, The Note, has drawn criticism from some in the blogosphere for compromising the integrity of the ABC News brand.”

Readers Hunt for NY Times Columnists on Blogs

The Editors Weblog reports that readers loyal to New York Times columnists are increasingly searching for their works on blogs ever since the columns went up behind the TimesSelect paid service. A quick look at the top blog searches Technorati's home page certainly backs this up. How long until someone starts a wiki up with all of their columns inputted?

Technorati Tags: Journalism, Media, newyorktimes, nyt, nytimes

Is Big Media Liable for Hosting Consumer Generated Content?

When I spoke at the OMMA conference this week someone from a top 10 magazine asked me how news organizations such as the Austin American Statesman, Advance Internet, MSNBC, etc are dealing with verifying the legitimacy of the citizen journalism content they use. They are concerned about potential liability issues. For example, it's fairly easy for a consumer to use Photoshop to create and submit faked photographs. This particular media company I am talking to believes this is a huge issue for pro-am partnerships like these. If anyone out there can help, please leave a comment or link to this post from your own blog. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, Media

Podcasting for Dollars

Wired News: “The podosphere may be virgin terrain for the online world, but already the race is on to figure out whether there's any real money to be made through the new medium.”

PR Week Goes RSS

Hallelujah! PR Week now has RSS feeds.

Technorati Tags: publicrelations, PR Week

Text or Audio? Increasingly, It's Up to Us

While a lot of the attention around consumer generated content focuses on text (e.g. blogs), the spoken word is coming on stronger than ever. And it's not just podcasts and audiobooks we're talking about.

Matt Galloway, for example, has launched an audio version of Seth Godin's free ebook on blogging.

Also, I just learned about a service called Talkr that converts any RSS feed into audio. This comes on the heels of Reuters' new initiative.

I find all of these services attractive because they save me time. I get to consume the content I want “to read” while I am in my car or commuting to work by train or even running errands. Text, although “scan-able,” requires that you divert your attention from other activities to consume it.

Will the big newspapers make their text available as spoken word? I sure hope so with Apple projected to sell 43 million iPods in 2006. It seems like it could be a good revenue stream to capture dollars from advertisers who might be interested in reaching us in places they currently can't.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Audio, Audible, Radio

The Chron Blogs Hurricane Rita

The Houston Chronicle is pvoding blow-by-blow updates on Hurricane Rita via blog.

A Sign of the Times

With its new beta site, CNET News.com has also changed its tagline from “Tech News First” to “News of Change.” I am sure the blogsophere - particularly pressures from Engadget and Gizmodo - is a factor here. This isn't just marketing speak.

Before...

After...

Technorati Tags: CNET

Travel Editor Tells PR Pros to Make Blog Buddies

If you think that reporters on the tech beat are the only journos reading blogs, think again. National Geographic Traveler Editor Christopher Elliott offers advice for PR pros when dealing with blogs (scroll two-thirds down the page). Here's some sobering words from Chris...

“If I Google a blog reporting a rumor, for example, I’m likely to pick that up as a reporter”

Blogs: A Global Conversation

James Torio has written an outstanding paper for people who have a basic understanding of blogs, but hunger to know more. It's called “Blogs: A Global Conversation.” In particular, Torio looks at how blogs have impacted business and communication. He includes some proprietary research by as well. Check it out here (PDF)

Reuters Launches Text to Speech Initiative

Reuters has launched a new program that converts the text of its news reports into podcasts. This is something I have been experimenting with on my own through a Mac tool called iSpeakIt, but this program sure makes life easier. (Via Scoble)

Radio Program Hosts Fire Station, Take to Podcasting

According to this press release, two radio program hosts are firing their radio home, WTAN in Clearwater, and plan to turn to podcasting because the station cut off their 800 number.

Across the Sound Podcast #3

Recorded Sunday September 18

49 minutes, 5 seconds (MP3 download)

Theme Music: That Podcast Song by Crusiebox

Audio feedback: acrossthesound@gmail.com or dial 1-360-365-9834 and leave a voicemail.

(Note - We are joined by a special guest for much of the show - a very noisy Long Island cricket! Apologies.)

00:17 - Introduction/Listener Feedback: Lego/Legos. Alan Jenkins' on Lego/Blogging for "Benjamins," Seth Godin's three kinds of bloggers; Adam Curry plugs our show and his comments on Soundvertising
on Daily Source Code; anonymous blogging/mini-Microsoft, Robert Scoble, moodcasts, Apple and iPodcast and more

15:30 - What We're Blogging About: Homemade HP Ad (Steve), CGC Takes One in the Gut (Joe), Blog Search Shootout (Steve), 30 Seconds on American Idol going for $705,000 (Joe)

30:50 - Theme of the Week/Transparency (Thanks Gary Cruze)

40:31 - Ask the Podders: Andrew Denny (our fan of the week!) asks about "Lighter Blogging Ahead," Nino Z asks about guests hosts

43:15 - Winners and Losers
Joe: Winner - Coke; Loser - Sprint/Nextel (Steve mentions that Sprint bought him dinner this week - oops!)
Steve: Winner - Skype; Loser - The New York Times for charging for content

47:00 - Wrap-up, Go Jets!

Google Silences Media/Bloggers Attending Corp. Event

Search Engine Watch reports that Google is hosting an event for press and bloggers but all speeches and discussions are off the record. Why invite them at all?

Technorati Tags: Google

CBS Rolls Out Public Eye Blog

CBS has launched a new blog called Public Eye with the mission “to bring transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News.”

Technorati Tags: CBS, TV

The Castle is Crumbling

InformationWeek reports that newspaper companies and business trade publishers are seeing their revenues erode. A new report from Outsell says that blogs and other free content sites are having a significant impact on big media's growth prospects. The analyst group advises the traditional publishers to acquire social networking and blogs. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. (via IWantMedia)

Technorati Tags: Journalism, Media, newspapers, Magazines

Placing a Big Bet on Citizen's Media

MediaPost: “Cox-owned Austin American-Statesman today plans to launch a free community blogging service on its group of sites. Jim Debth, the American-Statesman's Internet general manager, said the paper hopes the addition of citizen journalists will supplement coverage of large, multifaceted stories, and eventually boost site traffic as well as ad revenue.”

Across the Sound Podcast #2

Joseph Jaffe and I have posted our second Across the Sound podcast.

Recorded Saturday, September 10
45 minutes, 15 seconds (Download the MP3 )
Audio feedback: acrossthesound@gmail.com or dial 1-360-365-9834 and leave a voicemail.

Theme Music: That Podcast Song by Cruisebox

Show Notes:

00:18 - Introduction: FedEx Furniture yet again, including Andrew Denny's feedback

03:30 - Feedback: Audio comments (our first) from Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson from For Immediate Release and Jeremy Carnell

05:33 - What We're Blogging About: Truth in Advertising (Joe), Wikipedia's Rising Influence (Steve), Consumer-Generated Gap Ad (Joe), Music Mashups (Steve)

20:33 - Theme of the Week: Branded Entertainment/Product Placement (Advertising Age article)

29:00 - Ask the Podders: Nike consumer generated music, how we produce our podcast, is Jaffe buying Rubel or Google?, other questions

36:21 - Winners and Loosers: Steve - Ad Council is a winner for their Hurricane Katrina PSAs for podcasters, everyone trying to break tech news in an all Apple news week is a loser; Joe - NBC is a winner, Lego or is that Legos is a loser.

People/Brands Mentioned: Dove Soap Campaign for Real Beauty, Adam Curry, Senseo, Mashuptown/Muppets Mix, Public Relations Ramble blog, Magna Global, Nike, Kevin Smokeler, JD Lasica, Gizmo Project, WireTap  Pro, GarageBand, FeedBurner, Skype, HotRecorder, Podcasting Hacks, Blake Barbera (the Tiger Woods of PR), Horn Group, Jeremy Pepper, iPod Nano, Kauffman Foundation.

Bloggers Stay One Step Ahead of CNET

Have you noticed that much of what CNET has been reporting lately is coming directly from the blogosphere? Take Apple's free Mac Mini promotion, which I blogged about yesterday. I learned about it from The Unofficial Apple Weblog way before CNET reported it. Now I am hearing - again from the blogosphere first - that Apple has cancelled the promotion. I am sure that CNET will follow this up with a story later today, but the whole episode (and others like it) illustrate that it's pretty darn tough to compete with an army of millions of citizen reporters. Maybe CNET needs to revisit their tagline “Tech News First.” Really, no one can legitimately make that claim that anymore.

Technorati Tags: CNET

WaPo Partners with Technorati

MediaPost: “WashingtonPost.com has entered into a deal with blog search engine Technorati that will make it easy for readers to find blog entries about Post stories.”

Technorati Tags: Technorati

Radio Demonstrates How it Will Remain Relevant

Cory Deitz makes a good point. It wasn't podcasting or satellite radio that reached out to Katrina victims. It was radio.

Technorati Tags: Katrina, HurricaneKatrina, Radio, SatteliteRadio

Blogger Scores NYT Op-Ed

Congrats to blogger Jeremy Blachman. He scored the opportunity to write an op-ed for the New York Times. I believe he may be the first.

Brian Williams is Blogging

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is blogging. (Via the NYT)

BusinessWeek Nominates Blogs, Podcasts for Best of the Web

BusinessWeek magazine has opened its Best of the Web Awards for reader voting. There are ample nominees to choose from, including several of my faves ...

For best @Work blog - Robert Scoble among others

For best @home blog - Gawker among others

For best @Home podcasts - IT Conversations and Adam Curry and more

For best Podcasting tool - iTunes, Podcast Alley and more

For best Blog Tools (i.e. aggregators) - Bloglines, Newsgator and more

For best collaboration tool - BackPack (which I nominated), Socialtext and more

If you're not happy with any of these choices you can write in your own. Good luck everyone!

Technorati Tags: BusinessWeek

MediaPost is Podcasting

MediaPost has launched a MediaDailyNews Podcast feed.

Mark Cuban Blogs His NYT Email Interview

Mark Cuban: “But rather than me guessing how (the New York Times) got from interview to headline and article, I will just let the interview speak for itself.”

This won't be the last time we'll see this. Interviewees and interviewers will increasingly blog the full text or even the audio of what once was a private discussion.

Locked Out of Their Jobs, CBC Journalists Elect to Podcast

Podcasting News: Podcasts are helping locked-out Canadian broadcasters route around the broadcast towers. Five days after being locked out of their broadcasting jobs, the broadcasters are creating shows again, with podcasts and a new website CBCUnplugged. On August 15th, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation locked out 5,300 employees represented by the Canadian Media Guild, as a result of a standoff in an ongoing labor dispute.

Blogs Helping Microsoft PR vs. Google and Apple

David Kirkpatrick at Fortune says that Microsoft is doing a better job than Google and Apple in adapting to the changing role of media covering business.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Google, Media, Microsoft

BBC Sees Big Gains in RSS Clicks

BBC News Editor Pete Clifton: “In July, with all the major news events that went with it, the RSS feeds of our news indices delivered 26.7 million click-throughs to the site, a 30% increase on the previous month.” (scroll down the page two-thirds of the way)

Tracking News Consumption in Real-Time

Akamai has unveiled a nifty new site that allows you to watch how online news is being consumed around the world - all in real-time. Unfortunately it doesn't include blogs at all. (via MediaPost)

Podcasting Will Be a Losing Game for Most Big Media

Right now you can't go a day without hearing that yet another member of the mainstream media has joined the podcasting train. Whether its BusinessWeek, the Merc, MSNBC, your local radio station or newspaper or favorite trade rag, everyone seems to be getting into this game.

So far, big media podcasts look like a winner. Approximately half of the most popular podcasts on iTunes (as of this writing) are produced by mainstream brands. Consumers get to listen to their favorite shows on the go and enjoy them devoid of any advertising. The media, meanwhile, build brand loyalty by enabling them. Some folks like Frank Barnako are even saying that the incumbents has moved in and killed the indies. The fact is that over the long haul, if they keep shoveling out the same content they do now, podcasting will be a losing game for big media. The key reason is money.

Media companies don't dabble in new technologies just to serve consumers. They make an investment and expect to see a return on it - and quickly. This is how they differ from the vast majority of indies. The latter create podcasts just for the love of it.

As podcast listening becomes more popular, big media will try a few avenues to monetize their investment. Some will eventually try audio ads. However, this will lead many listeners to revolt and unsubscribe. Those who do stick around will certainly fast forward passed the ads. Others will try paid subscriptions. Personally, I doubt anyone will pay for podcasts from the MSM when they can get the same content free through other channels. Would you pay to listen to Ebert and Roper on your iPod or just simply TiVo it and skip the ads?

Big media will need to get creative if they want to monetize their podcasts. For example, I think the Texaco Star Theater approach works here as does product placement. I offer other advice here. A few will get this, but the majority won't. So if you're a little guy, take heart. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Technorati Tags: Advertising

Niche Sites Encroaching on the Big Boys

American Consumer Satisfaction Index (last item): “As consumers have been offered a larger number of alternatives, once-dominant news sources have begun to lose disaffected customers to smaller competitors.” (via Podcasting News)

AdAge Gets RSS Feeds

Advertising Age has finally added RSS feeds. The only catch is, the pretty page is behind their registration firewall. However, for now, you can also find them here.

Technorati Tags: AdAge, Advertising, AdvertisingAge

Blogs Give You News You Can't Find Anywhere Else

One reason I turn to the blogosphere for news is that you find gems that you can't unearth anywhere else. For example, my interest was piqued this morning when I saw on Technorait's top searches a spike in queries for Christopher Walken. Sure enough, I found out that he's running for President. As of right now the news media hasn't really picked up on this one yet...but they will.

UPDATE: Some are saying this is a hoax. Anyone know for sure?

Technorati Tags: 2008, Campaign2008, ChristopherWalken, President, Technorati

Paper Invites Readers to Critique It on a Sponsored Blog

Other newspapers have invited their readers to blog, but the Times Argus in Vermont is taking a different approach altogether. The paper's editors invited their readers to critique their news reporting on the very same web site that publishes it.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, Media, newspapers

Fast Company Jams with Bloggers

Fast Company invited 65 citizen bloggers to blog on their site this week as part of BlogJam 2005.

Technorati Tags: FastCompany, BlogJam2005

Blogging Googlers Battle on the PR War's Front Lines

Googler Jason Shellen blogs on the whole CNET flap. Dan Gillmor responds. The words will continue to fly around on this for a few days. Meanwhile, lots of questions are open. For example, does this ban include the entire CNET empire? What about Computer Shopper or Release 1.0? Is Esther Dyson banned too?

Respond or Die

This was bouncing around in the blogs last week, but now it's in the New York Times. Google PR is not talking to CNET until July 2006 because News.com published a story with personal details on CEO Eric Schmidt gleaned from, where else, Google.

This is so old school. I'd like to take this as an opportunity to talk about the increasing need for the PR community to swiftly react to all media inquires - both professional and civilian - in the era where the definition of “journalist” is anything but defined.

Let's start with what CNET Editor Jai Singh told the Times . He said he couldn't recall a similar situation...

“Sometimes a company is ticked off and won't talk to a reporter for a bit,” he said, “but I've never seen a company not talk to a whole news organization.”

Don't believe this for a second. Maybe it's true for Jay personally, but not the rest of us. For years companies, particularly in the Valley and even elsewhere, have had “do not call” lists of reporters and even news outlets they won't talk to. I even learned long ago to let calls from certain reporters go to voicemail if necessary. This forces journalists to write such-and-such “didn't return calls” as opposed to “didn't comment.” (It's subtle, but it sounds better.)

In the blog age, it's really not feasible to blacklist media or operate the way I once did earlier in my career. The world is more transparent. It operates 24/7. And, yes, it's flat. Instead, as hard as it is, the PR community needs to facilitate rapid dialogue by all means necessary. This includes blogs, but the usual tools as well. Don't believe me? Read what David Berlind at ZDNet wrote on Friday about the new pressures bloggers have put on him and his difficulties in getting PR people to respond - and he's ZDNet. If I represented Continental Airlines, I wouldn't wait around to contact him. But I would have applied this equally to any blogger.

Now imagine you have a blogger at your doorstep with a similar request. All of us in PR need take this person seriously and respond. Yes, it means our jobs will get harder, but there's no escape in this new age. What's worse, it may strain the talent shortage that the PR community is already suffering.

Sports Blogs Rising

The Lowell Sun Online reports that sports journalism is being “invaded” by blogs.

“It's like the Wild West,” said Boston Red Sox director of public relations Glenn Geffner. “Anybody can do it so everybody wants a part of it.”

Technorati Tags: Media, Journalism, Sports

ZDNet Rolls Blog-Powered Government Site

ZDNet has quietly rolled out a new site called ZDNet Government. What I like about it is that it's basically a blog at heart. ZDNet Government is a news site that appears to be powered by a blog content management system. That's smart. However it's missing comments and trackbacks.

Technorati Tags: Government, IT, ZDNet

NYT Says Take Blogs Seriously

In a 367-word editorial The New York Times editors told the world today that it takes the blogosphere seriously. The underlying message is we all should follow their lead. The editors wrote...

It's natural enough to think of the growth of the blogosphere as a merely technical phenomenon. But it's also a profoundly human phenomenon, a way of expanding and, in some sense, reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in. Every day the blogosphere captures a little more of the strange immediacy of the life that is passing before us. Think of it as the global thought bubble of a single voluble species.

BL to BW: You're Full of BS

Last week when iFulfill.com went belly up, the company's CEO started blogging its downfall. BusinessWeek chronicled the whole affair in the issue out tomorrow. But wait, hold on just a second! BL Ochman, who works with iFulfill.com, says her quote in BW is all wrong - and she's blogging it Mark Cuban-style! Pass the popcorn.

Technorati Tags: BusinessWeek

Big Media, It's Time to Go All Blog

Big media - particularly online media - are in a race against time. While their brands remain venerable, their readership and revenue base are eroding.

Perhaps the biggest thorn in their side is the content aggregators - make that the “content aggravators.” Craig's List, Google, MSN, Bloglines, Yahoo and even Apple are all moving fast down the Long Tail. Don't believe me? Read this week's Fortune cover story. All of these players are giving the little guys - be they blogs or small business advertisers - power they simply did not have in the old days.

At the same time, a new way of communicating is beginning to resonate with audiences. As blogging and other forms of consumer generated media surge, people will begin to expect the same tone of voice from all the sources they “consume.” What's more, they will also expect to have a say in what media covers and the ability to give transparent feedback. The Cluetrain is going to hit big media just as hard as it hits corporate communications.

As a result, it is my belief that media companies that are heavily invested online need to consider going to an all-blog format. Social media is not an add-on. It's not a feature. It's a way of life that evolves journalism from monologue to dialogue.

So who's going to be the first media outlet to go all-blog? My bet is on CNET. John Roberts (not the Supremes nominee) has his team already moving quickly in this direction. I also wouldn't bet against the New York Times and their About.com purchase, with Jeff Jarvis consulting.

Technorati Tags: Media, SocialMedia

Yahoo Bets on Citizen Journalism

Over the past few months Yahoo has been recruiting a slew of veteran online journalists. In many cases these hires have a particular expertise in social media. The latest, according to Matt McAlister (one of these smart folks), is pioneer Elizabeth Osder. He's pointing to a PaidContent.org report that she reported to work yesterday at the Yahoo Media Group as its senior director, social media, reporting to Neil Budde, executive producer of Yahoo News. PaidContent writes...

“She'll be responsible for what Yahoo Media VP Scott Moore tells me is one of his top three initiatives. (The other two are broadband and the user experience.) Moore said Osder's hiring is 'a clear indicator of our intention to go deep in social media and user-generated content.' Her initial task will be to set up a plan that integrates Yahoo's growing phalanx of social media tools -- Yahoo 360, Flickr, etc. -- with an emphasis on interesting user-generated content.”

So what's going on at Yahoo? Here's my bet. The company - at least in news - has never been one to succeed by creating a lot of content of their own (who remembers Yahoo! Finance Vision?). What's more, Fortune reports that the company's relationships with content partners is tenuous at best. Finally, Yahoo is dabbling in news blogs. I think you're going to see them turn to citizen media and blogs to continue doing what Yahoo does best, differentiating through human aggregation.

Technorati Tags: SocialMedia, Yahoo

How a WSJ Reporter Uses Blogs

The Bulldog Reporter talks to the Wall Street Journal's Nick Wingfield about how he uses blogs in his day job (scroll down halfway). Nick tells Bulldog...

“Certain industries and beats have embraced the medium more quickly than others. For example, the reporter who covers agriculture and farming probably isn’t going to find as much information for reporting in blogs. But in tech beats — it’s become part of the job. There are a lot of superb blogs out there and many [of us] are cherry picking out interesting stories there.”

Nick is right - but don't let that fool you. Blog use among reporters is going mainstream. Be sure to also note Bulldog's four takeaways ...

* Journalists use blogs as tickler files when researching stories

* Journalists use blogs as sounding boards

* Journalists use blogs as digests of the day’s news

* Journalists don’t “flog the blog” — they see blogs as useful websites

Newspaper Warns Younger Readers to Beware of Blogs

Newspapers are in a precarious situation not only as they cope with bloggers/citizen journalism, but with the Internet overall. With any major change in the way consumers get their news, it's only natural that some will diss it.

The latest is The Missouri Valley Times. They are pleading with their younger readers to "not believe everything you read-especially if it is in a blog. Hold your favorite writer to a standard of truth you'd expect from us."

Unfortunately I find this unrealistic. It's not right to uphold bloggers to the same standard of truth as the mainstreamers. They're not trained in the 5Ws. Bloggers are simply using the online media to share. As more consumers read blogs these silly admonitions will eventually subside and big media will learn to live with blogs they way they are.

CNET Starts Linking to Blogs

CNET News.com has a new blog called Blogma. They characterize it as "a special portal designed to highlight the most popular technology topics discussed throughout the expanding universe of Web logs." The blog is co-written by editors, reporters and readers. Each day they determine which technology issues are creating the most buzz among bloggers and then link to them.

Journalists Using Tags

Infoworld's John Udell writes that tagging will alter the information landscape in a fundamental way. What's notable for PR professionals is how Infoworld puts tags to use in the newsroom. The editors are using del.icio.us to learn. Udell writes...

"At InfoWorld, for example, we've been tagging the stories we publish. In a progress report on the experiment, I showed how it's not only helping InfoWorld editors to work collaboratively toward a common vocabulary, but it's also enlisting readers to enrich and refine that vocabulary.

There's more. The set of InfoWorld items bookmarked and tagged by our editors leads, indirectly, to del.icio.us users who have bookmarked and tagged those same items. When I checked today, there were 5,644 of them. These are people whose interests, by definition, intersect with ours."

10 for 10

Recently, a few people asked me over lunch: what's next after blogging and podcasting? Jeremy Zawodny is also posing the same question. This has all got me thinking about what technology-driven trends will revolutionize how companies communicate. Here's my list of 10 trends to keep an eye on for the next 10 years. They are in no particular order...

1. The Long Tail - small players can collectively make up a market that rivals the giants. As Seth says, small is the new big. This applies equally for journalism as well as for marketers.

2. The Read Write Web/Web 2.0 – technologies like Ajax will make the web more dynamic, turning it into a full-fledged platform. Wither the desktop.

3. Timeshifting – consumers will increasingly want to devour media on their own time, on the mobile device of their choice and without commercials

4. Collaborative Categorization – consumers, using technology, will create their own taxonomies that make it easier to find information. This is sometimes called tagging, social search or folksonomies. However, this is just the beginning.

5. Citizen Marketing – consumers will organize – either on their own or with the help of companies – to evangelize products they love and vilify those they don’t

6. The Daily Me – it’s finally here; RSS, AI and personal search tools will make it easier for people to seek out only the news they care about and tune out all else

7. It’s All a Conversation – as journalism becomes a conversation, so will marketing - just like Cluetrain said.

8. What’s Inside is Outside – mobile devices and consumer generated media mean that whatever a single eye beholds so can the world.

9. Trust Marketing – people will increasingly use social networking technology to tune in messages from individuals they trust (including citizen journalists) and tune out everyone else

10. Decentralized Communication – armies of individual employees will use technology to become the voice of every company; like it or not. The solo singer is dead. Long live the chorus.

What's on your list?

AdWeek Pulls Down a Blog Post

Nick Newlin writes in that AdFreak - AdWeek's blog - has pulled down a blog post that mentions the recent hacking of SpreadFirefox.com in the context of the browser's overall security. I have confirmed that this post was indeed up at one time, according to my Bloglines feed.

Newlin sent me this PDF screen capture via email. It clearly shows the post in question and the negative feedback AdWeek received from readers. It's not clear why AdFreak pulled it down. What they should have done instead left the post up, revised it and say why they're doing so. Pulling the post down outright doesn't exactly beget trust. I'd love to get their side of the story.

Readers Decide Which Comment Gets the Heave Ho

The Journal Times in Racine, Wisconsin is letting readers suggest which comments get removed from their Weblogs. Why not leave them all up or just let people grade them?

Big Magazine Editors Discuss Blogging

Nial Kennedy attended an event last night at Stanford with the editors of Time and Newsweek. They discussed blogging among other topics.

CNET is Podcasting

Daily audio reports from CNET News.com are now available for your iPod. Here's da feed.

MSM and RSS Ads: a Match Made in Heaven

AdAge reports that the Washington Post has started integrating advertising into its RSS feeds. They're saying the WaPo is the first major news site to do so. Lots of others will move in this direction especially as media companies launch their own RSS aggregators.

Matt Hicks Joins the Dark Side of the Force

Congratulations to Matt Hicks from eWeek. He's leaving to go into PR. May the blog be with you.

Fragmented Attentions

Mark Deuze has written an interesting paper about how the Web is fracturing attention into millions of disparate pieces. Mark writes...

"We are using more media than ever before in history, yet this intensive engagement with media does not translate into more attention paid to the stories told by the two archetypical media professions: journalism and advertising"

(Via Hans Mestrum)

Gannett Paper Recruits Teen Bloggers

The Green Bay Press-Gazette is recruiting teen bloggers.

It's Alive!!!

This just in. Newspapers have found a way to reinvent themselves online with a revamped tool called PressDisplay. Using the site you can read the actual pages of your favorite daily - all for free. Worth a look. (Via Scoble)

CBS News is Podcasting

CBS News rolled out a bunch of podcasts as part of their site overhaul, which was announced today. They even have one for Harry Smith.

Blogging Brings Risks and Rewards to Newspapers

WSJ: Some worry that newspapers put their reputations at risk by letting reporters blog

What's in a Name?

Frances Flynn Thorsen is asking a good question - what's in a blog name? She's noting that BusinessWeek's new real estate blog - Hot Property - shares its name with a corporate blog on the same topic that has been around since last year.

Most bloggers do not trademark their blog names. However, media companies usually trademark their brands prior to their launch. I am not sure if they're doing this with blogs, but one would think they are. In addition, having once worked inside a big media company, I can tell you they protect these trademarks aggressively. So what's a media company or a blogger to do here? Can two blogs - one from the MSM and another thats a corporate blog - share a name? This sounds like one for super trademark lawyer/blogger, Marty Schwimmer.

Tags: media, law, trademark

Citizen Journalism is Changing News

The Salt Lake Tribune: Welcome to the world of citizen newsgathering, where technology and the age-old desire to communicate hot information, be it hard news or soft gossip, are converging and forcing traditional news outlets to dramatically change the way they cover big news events.

Yahoo News Rolls Out a Blog

Newly hired news vet Neil Budde and his team at Yahoo! News have launched a London bombings news blog. A first for Yahoo! News.

Technorati and the Giant Blog Beanstalk

Steve Baker at BusinessWeek got the scoop on why Technorati's been so slow lately. Apparently, Technorati is struggling to keep up with the explosive growth in blogging. Like Steve, I smell an opportunity for Google. By the way, Steve has blogged his reporter's notes (Word doc) for this blog post as well. Fascinating.

A Free New Tool for Measuring Online PR

Chip Griffin points to a free and very cool new tool from CustomScoop that lets visitors see how two search terms do in head-to-head competition in the online media (including newspapers, mags, blogs and more).  Sample searches: Robert Scoble vs. me (hey Scoble we're neck and neck - and I have an unfair advantage!), Bill Gates vs. Warren Buffett, and Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain.

Citizens Share Their Stories from London Terrorist Attacks

Jeff Jarvis is linking to London bloggers who are blogging about today's terror attacks. The BBC is reporting that Technorati is filling up with posts, but I can't access the site. Lots of sites are slow. The BBC is also blogging the bombings. Flickr is starting to fill up with photos from citizens. Here's one from Adam Tinworth...

OoOoOps!

London was selected this morning to host the 2012 Olympic games. Just don't tell my hometown. New York City is still advertising for the games on Yahoo News and their ad ran right alongside the story on London's selection. Check out the screenshot at left from Yahoo! News.

HonorTags Help Readers Gauge Content-Creator Intent

Dan Gillmor's Grassroots Media has launched a tagging system called HonorTags that allows any content creator - be they journalists, bloggers, PR folks, enthusiasts, etc. - to label/control over how their content is identified. Gillmor's hope is that the tag system will make it easier for readers to gauge intent, while at the same time helping "birds of a feather flock together."

For starters, Grassroots Media is launching six tags - journalism, professional, advocate/enthusiast/fan, personal, fiction and one called "untag." All tagged posts will show up in Technorati. Here's the page of posts tagged to date as works of journalism.

I am throwing my support behind the HonorTag system. I believe that as the majority of Web pages are created by consumers, rather than corporations, it will be harder particularly for those who do not create content to read the intent of its source. This system - while far from foolproof - will make it easier for people to seek out the content from sources they deem credible.

What HonorTags really lacks right now is some sort of editing/policing system. This way, the community can weed out tag offenders who are inappropriately spam tags. In other words, if Grassroots Media can somehow recreate the same kind of self-policing community that watches over Wikipedia, HonorTags will become a more reliable system. Perhaps some merging with social networks will help facilitate this.

HonorTagProfessional

Get on Board the Podcasting Bullet Train

Steve Outing: It's time for news organizations to jump on the podcasting bandwagon.

CNET Introduces Tags

CNET News.com editors are now tagging each published story with one or more topics, all of which are now displayable in a tag cloud.

Citizen Journalists Report Cheney Taken to Cardiac Unit

At least two bloggers are reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney "was taken to the cardiac unit of the Vail Valley Medical Center Friday." This directly contradicts AP reports that he went to see an orthopedic surgeon for a knee injury.

Soldier Uses RSS to Correspond with Reporter

Here's another interesting use of RSS. A solider in Iraq is using a blog to write home, allowing all his friends to subscribe to his entries via RSS because military mail is notoriously slow. One of the folks who reads his feed regularly - a reporter friend.

(UPDATE: This story is no longer online for some reason. But it was there.)

Study: Majority of Journalists Use Blogs

ClickZ reports that a new study by Euro RSCG/Columbia University shows that more than 51 percent of journalists use blogs regularly, and 28 percent rely on them to help in their day-to-day reporting duties.

What's more the study found that journalists mostly used blogs for finding story ideas (53 percent), researching and referencing facts (43 percent) and finding sources (36 percent). And 33 percent said they used blogs to uncover breaking news or scandals. The only nit is, despite their reliance on blogs for reporting, only one percent of journalists found blogs credible, the study revealed.

That last stat doesn't concern me. Clearly, journalists are hanging out in the blogosphere looking for sources, scoops and more. There's no excuse - no excuse - for not monitoring blogs. And clearly those companies that choose to start positive blogging conversations and maintain them will get more press.

Reporters Blogging Their Notes

Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek got into a bit of a a debate with his colleagues because he blogged his interview notes. He explains why. His interaction with PR professionals and gatekeepers is one factor in his thinking. But, Steve, what if we as PR professionals turned the table on you and blogged our own interaction with reporters? How might that be received?

Yahoo Exec Spills Beans on His Blog

Jeff Boulter, engineering manager for Yahoo! News, spilled the beans about "a new Yahoo! site focused on technology--cell phones, cameras, computers, and other nerdly gadgets." The press has already taken notice.

Just Follow the Long Tail

PR Week: Some PR professionals are beginning to argue that targeting niche publications or communities or blogs (on the Long Tail) can be more effective than taking a mass-market approach.

Blog to Get Your Name in the Paper

Michael Kanellos at CNET has written a great column on how to get your name in the paper. As I read down his list of to-dos, I cannot help but feel that blogs address many of these, particularly...

• Every day is a new day
• Criticize your enemies
  
• Don't take it personally
• Rarely claim to be first
  
• Let the execs speak
• Don't make up words
  
• Leak like crazy

Where Should You Put Your Marketing Dollars?

       

Public Trust in Media	Declining
Public Trust in Bloggers	Growing

NY Times Debuts Blog Column

The New York Times has launched a print column featuring snippets from the blogosphere.

French Blog Post Sparks Skype/Yahoo Rumor

A report on a French blog is sparking rumors of a tie-up or merger between Yahoo and Skype, according to Om Malik. Right now the press is quiet on this.

Infoworld Moves to Ad-Supported Full Feeds

InfoWorld is putting its full stories in their RSS feed, along with inline rectangle banner ads, a text ad, and related links, according to VP/GM Matt McAlister. (Via Rafat)

Newsweek to Integrate Technorati Blog Links

Poynter reports within the next few weeks Newsweek is going to publish links to relevant weblog entries next to its articles from Technorati. The search engine tracks 11M weblogs.

Wired Tries to Adapt to the Blog Age

Blogs are forcing journalists and journalism to become more accountable. And those who can't beat the bloggers at their own game (news/opinion), really better join them in adopting their best practices. Consider what Chris Anderson blogged recently. He's the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine.

Chris says he prefers good blogs to most traditional journalism in the niche domains where his interests are greatest because they support comments, correct mistakes, back facts up with links and more. However, what's even more notable is he hints at why it's so hard for a big media brand to change on a dime. He writes...

(Quickly heading off the obvious question--why don't we do all this at Wired?--the answer is that we do some, we should certainly do more, and someday soon I hope we will. But it's tricky, because the print version exists independently from the website [see this Wikipedia entry for the complicated details] and we don't want the two versions of each article to diverge too much, for fear of confusion over which one is the "right" one. Meanwhile, nobody else in print media has really solved this problem yet either. And yes, I am aware of the irony that this is another distortion caused by inefficient distribution, exactly what I spotlight in other industries. Let's just say I know of what I speak.)

All I can say is, thank God Wired has a progressive editor. What about the countless other media brands that face huge challenges and may not even see them clearly.

My Prediction: Publishers Will Launch Premium RSS Feeds

Steve Outing is saying there's a raging debate about ads in RSS feeds as they become more popular. He sees a hybrid model for media companies: a full-content feed that includes ads plus an abbreviated headline-only or headline+blurb feed with no ads.

I agree with Steve but there's one tweak I want to add. I think publishers should make the full text of their complete print and online content available as RSS feeds to paying subscribers. This includes folks who use Zinio and the like. Also, I offer this prediction: this year both publishers and high-traffic bloggers/citizen journalists will offer premium content available only via a full-text RSS feed.

Small is the New Big

Seth Godin has one of the best blog posts I've ever read. He says small is the new big. This line sums up my blog's raison d'etre ...

BoingBoing (four people) has a readership growing a hundred times faster than the New Yorker (hundreds of people).

Top 40 NY Radio Station Podcasts

Z100 - a popular Top 40 station in New York - has debuted some podcasts. To my knowledge, they're one of the few Top 40 stations that have done so. They may even be the first. What's unique is that they include interviews with big stars like Kelly Clarkson and J-Lo.

It's Not a Tumor, It's a Webzine

The Digital Journalism class at New York University in Spring 2005, lead by Patrick Phillips from I Want Media, has launched a webzine called "This Is Not a Blog." It explores online journalism and blogging and features interviews with thinkers. One article covers how PR professionals say they are shifting more attention from the mainstream media to blogs

Barnako Blogs In-Progress Reporting

MarketWatch's Frank Barnako is blogging the news that a deal between NPR and Audible is fading, even as he continues to work on reporting the story.

Citizen Meteorologists

WeatherBug is forming a nationwide network of citizen weather reporters, who will collect, report, and share weather information from their own WeatherBug Backyard Tracking Stations. They have a blog on this subject as well. (Disclaimer - WeatherBug is a client of CooperKatz & Co., my employer)

Newspapers Dig Podcasting

NPR: Desperate to reach a more mobile audience, some newspapers are turning to podcasting. A growing number now offer Internet radio programs, sending stories from their pages to iPods and other players.

Fast Company Editor Takes to Blog to Respond to Rumored Death

Fast Company editor John Byrne is using his magazine's blog to respond to a negative column by David Carr of the New York Times. The column is "silly and completely inaccurate," writes Byrne. (via IWantMedia)

Blogebrity Fools Time Magazine

Time magazine has a blurb on Blogebrity in this week's Blogwatch column that makes it all seem very real. Amazingly, they seemed to neglect that it was all part of a big viral marketing campaign. Hey. some are even calling it a hoax. Did Time drop the ball here?

French Media Companies Launch Branded RSS Reader

PaidContent.org: About 15 French media/online media companies have joined together, under the umbrella of GESTE, the Online Publishers Organisation in France, to launch a branded RSS newsreader called AlertInfo. The reader is built on the open-source Feedreader.

TV Guide is Podcasting

TV Guide has launched a weekly podcast on TV shows, movies and celebrities. (Via Podcasting News)

CNBC Launches MSN Spaces Blog

CNBC Squawk Box has launched an MSN Spaces blog. (Thanks Thomas!)

Blog Advertises on News Site

To my knowledge this is a first. MarketingVOX - a blog for media buyers - is currently advertising on MediaPost, a news site for online marketers that's staffed by professional journalists.

Peter Predicts a Big Dead Tree will Fall

On his new blog PR pro Peter Shankman is predicting that in the second half of 2007 we will witness the death of the first "big" newspaper from the convergence of blogs, podcasts, and the like. He's not talking here about the Peoria Journal Star. He means the big boys like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

There's no doubt that blogs are forcing newspapers to change. In fact, OJR reports that the LA Times is rolling out blogs and more. But I have to disagree with Peter here. First of all, mid-2007 is just two years away. Yes, technology is advancing rapidly. However, consumer habits aren't - just look at how many folks are reading RSS feeds right now. It's 5% of the total online audience, according to Pew. RSS usage will grow, but it's going to take time.

Also, the fact is that many people just love to read newsprint. Maybe in twenty to thirty years as the Baby Boomer population declines we will see the generations that grew up on the Net eschew paper. However, in the meantime I am not betting that print will go away so fast.

What may happen is that more people will begin to access newspaper sites throughout the day as an adjunct to what they read in the paper that morning. Blogs, podcasts and other forms of new media will help facilitate this thanks to their dynamic, conversational nature. Net, it's not a zero sum game - yet.

NY Daily News Starts Up RSS Feeds

The New York Daily News has launched RSS feeds. If my grandpa we're alive today he'd be signed up. (It was his favorite paper.)

Newspaper Blog Exposes Inner Workings of Editorial Process

For several weeks, The Spokesman Review, a Spokane, WA daily with weekday circulation of about 100,000, has been offering an inside view into its decision making through twice-daily blog synopses of news meetings that include editors' critiques of the current day's paper and previews of what's under consideration for the next day. The Boston Herald digs into the newspaper's motivation. Transparency, of course, is at the top of the list.

How Journalists Use Blogs

PR Newswire recently held a forum on the impact of blogs on corporate communications. Their takeaway: Journalists are using blogs more and more for information gathering, and corporate PR professionals should use blogs to get their message to key audiences.

NBC News to Podcast

Julio Zepada says NBC News will deliver hourly updates and portions of its network and cable-news programs as podcasts beginning in June. More info at Digital Spy.

Tribune Interactive Debuts a Blog

Tribune Interactive, a unit of Tribune Co. has taken its once private blog, called Online News Squared, out into the public domain, according to the site's "About" page...

In mid-2005, Online News Squared was opened up to the public in hopes it would be a resource for the online news industry in general (and still one for Tribune, of course, Which is why there sometimes will be items that may tend to skew more to Tribune's sphere of interest).

Online News Squared was started by Scott Anderson in late 2003 to help Tribune Interactive staffers keep up with trends in the online news industry. Over time, the audience grew and access to the blog was expanded to other parts of Tribune Company. The blog is an official Tribune blog, according to the site's TOS.

For All its Benefits, RSS Threatens News Sites

Infoworld's Matt McAlister: "The day InfoWorld's top news RSS feed received more requests than our home page, I started thinking a frightening thought - RSS is doing to the Web today what the Web has been doing to print for the last several years. We have disintermediated our Web site by offering our news in an easier to access format...again."

Newspapers as Conversation

Investor's Business Daily has a story today on how newspapers need to evolve to grab the attention of consumers who are turning to the Web in droves. For a model, look to the Houston Chronicle. In today's paper Dwight Silverman explains how the media needs to evolve and what the Chron is doing to turn its web site from a news delivery channel to a place where conversations take place. The paper today is launching three trackback-enabled blogs. Dwight hits it out of the park with this passage...

It's important that we do this. While the vast majority of people still get their news through traditional sources — newspapers, TV, radio — more and more are turning to the Web. And because getting news via personal computer implies that the experience is going to be more than just one way, the smart news organization will begin meeting that expectation.

This is particularly true of younger audiences for news, which find little relevance in traditional media. My own 13-year-old daughter is a great example. She gets most of her news from her friends, who communicate via e-mail and instant messaging, pointing out sites and news stories that appeal to their collective interests.

Internet audiences don't want news to be a lecture. They want it to be a conversation: "Tell me what you find, then let me tell you what I think."

Rush Limbaugh to Podcast

Billboard: Subscribers to Rush Limbaugh’s “Rush 24/7” service will soon be able to download his daily shows to a portable MP3 player.

News Had Bigger Impact than Blogs on 04 Campaign

A Pew/BuzzMetrics study found that the media had a bigger influence on last year's presidential campaign than bloggers did. The report also correctly characterizes bloggers as amplifiers. (Via MarketingVOX)

Houston Chronicle Blogs Open Up

The Houston Chronicle has opened up their blogs to comments and trackbacks. And the people in Yao-land rejoiced.

Yahoo News Categorized by Tag

Yahoo! News Tag Soup uses the Yahoo API to categorize news into folksonomies.

ABC News Debuts Political Podcast

ABC News has launched a podcast featuring a round-up of news from the world of politics. Here's the feed to add to your podcatcher. Further info is here.

Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side?

Mick and Cam from G'Day World chat it up with BusinessWeek reporter/blogger and all around FOS Heather Green about the state of journalism, the impact of blogging and podcasting and more.

I Want My Podcasted TV

The NBC affiliate in Chicago is now podcasting audio of its news segments, including Access Hollywood.

Elgan Has Left the Building

Mike Elgan writes that while the mainstream media are obsessed with blogs, they seem unable or unwilling to truly understand their appeal - or to grasp that blogs have already transformed the public.

NYT to Widen Blog Coverage

Marketwatch (via IWantMedia): The New York Times Company plans to introduce a redesigned Business Day section on Monday 16 May. It also plans to expand its coverage of new media and blogs.

Workaholic Journalists Blog All Weekend

I've noticed an interesting trend. Journalists are bloging during the weekend, even while their news sites lay still. That's good for news junkies, though not so ideal for PR professionals looking to take five.

Big Media Has the Hots for Blogs

Reuters: Established media don't regard blogs as a direct threat to their ad models -- yet. But they are flirting with the format, fearing their news could be upstaged by the unbridled mix of opinion and humor offered by individual bloggers.

BusinessWeek: We're Wildstrom About Podcasting

BusinessWeek, like Forbes, is also planning podcasts. They're launching their first podcast May 23rd to go with cover stories. Tech Maven Steve Wildstrom is also going to do a show.

Newspapers That Podcast

The Seattle P-I has a list of them.

Dan Gillmor Interviewed

PR Face2Face is Jeremy Pepper's special series of interviews with the top public relations and publicity professionals in the country, as well as with people involved in the public relations world. The ninth installment is a Q&A with Dan Gillmor, founder of Grassroots Media Inc.

Embargoes Are More Important Than Ever

Yahoo corporate blogger Jeremy Zawodny wonders if media embargoes are overused, thanks in part, to the role of corporate blogs...

What some journalists have figured out is that we almost always post something on the Yahoo! Search blog when we launch a new Search related service. When do we post? Usually at the same time the embargos on traditional journalists are lifted. If there's a press release, it usually hits the wire the next morning. None of this s secret--it's a pattern that we've followed many times.

What I'm hoping for is the day that we can be bit less uptight about who knows when, who gets the early call, pre-briefings, and all that stuff. Sure, for a really big launch we should do that. But I think for the incremental enhancements, launches, and so on it's overkill. We should just publish something when the feature or service is live, and let the world figure it out. They will.

Well, if only it were that easy. Maybe for Yahoo it is. When they breathe everyone cares. But for lesser known companies with announcements that are "on the bubble" when it comes to breaking into the press, exclusives and embargoes are even more valuable currency nowadays. That's because of the competitive pressures journalists are feeling from the blogopshere.

Bacons Says I'm a "Top Journalist"

Wow, I guess I've moved up in the world. The Bacons media directory folks now say I'm a "top journalist" and they're asking how I want PR people to pitch me. I told them how. Think they'll include this?

Forbes Starts a Podcast

Forbes.com has launched a podcast for Forbes On Radio - a new weekly on-air program where Forbes editors, experts and opinion leaders discuss an business issues. Each Monday, Forbes will release a podcast version of highlights from the latest edition of the radio program. Here's the RSS audio feed to add to your podcatcher. Will the ever bloggy BusinessWeek be far behind?

Calacanis Slams CNET

Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. has penned an open letter to Molly Wood from CNET who claims that Engadget and other blogs lack ethics.

Koppel Hints Bloggers Are a Headache for TV News

An interview with Ted Koppel in the New York Times Magazine turned up this item...

NYT: What's the biggest problem with network TV news today

TK: That they're giving up some of the very things that can differentiate them from the bloggers and other groups that are getting into journalism. They're giving up, for the most part, on overseas coverage. A lot of it is now being done just on the basis of video that comes in from APTV or Reuters Television, and then some guy sitting in London does a voice-over. That's not the smartest thing in the world.

MSM Sees Cash in Blogging

AFP: Traditional media such as newspapers and radios are casting an increasingly covetous eye over the growing number of Internet blogs, hoping to cash in on a slice of the action.

Blogs Are Not Journalism, But They're Changing It

Dana Blankenhorn: "To say a blog is journalism is like saying web pages are journalism."

Page Six May Go Blog

Richard Johnson, editor of the Page Six in the New York Post, was asked by IWantMedia if/when the gossip column might become a blog. Check out his response...

"When would we have time to write a blog? We are too busy gathering info, reporting and writing Page Six. And we find ourselves increasingly busy reading all those blogs out there, some of which actually contain new and accurate stories. Most don't. They are filled with criticism and opinion. I'm sure when there is a market for a Page Six blog, the Post will launch one. It's probably only a matter of time."

Clearly Johnson recognizes that there is good gossip to be had in the blogosphere.

Infinity to Debut Citizen-Powered Radio Station

Here's another sign that the citizen media and the mainstream media worlds are already converging. Infinity Broadcasting announced the May 16 launch of launching KYOURADIO. They are calling it "the world's first-ever podcasting radio station." KYOURADIO's content will be created exclusively by its listeners and available in San Francisco at 1550 KYCY-AM and streamed online. Radio is being decimated by iPod usage and podcasting. This is a wise move by Infinity to embrace citizen's media and retain listener eardrums.

Newspaper Gives School Official a Blog

The St. Petersburg Times in Florida has given a local newsmaker his own blog on the paper's Web site, E&P Online reports. Clayton Wilcox, the Pinnellas County superintendent of schools, has written an education blog for the Times since March 13. This sounds in theory like a great idea, but why limit it to one school official? Why not just give everyone a blog?

The Era of Transparent Media Interviews

Up until now, the media interview has been a fairly closed process. Interviewer and interviewee connect via phone, face-to-face or email. There's no way we can get in on the conversation. Sure we'll all eventually read excerpts of these conversations once a journalist publishes his/her piece, but much of the best stuff is often left on the cutting room floor.

Fred Wilson and Mark Cuban are already changing the interviewing process, and with it, how news is produced. Read Fred's post today about being misquoted. Both these high-powered execs are choosing to air their gripes about being misquoted via blog. I can see a day coming soon where other senior execs will say, "Mr. Reporter, send me your interview questions and I will post my responses on my blog." This won't fly for everyone, but it will for those who have been burned and are powerful enough to exert such control.

Report on the Future of News

The Media Center has published a new report on the future of news. Here's the introductory blurb...

"It's mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. This briefing summarizes key findings from Media, Technology and Society, a multi-disciplinary research project on the media landscape conducted for professionals engaged in strategies, research, thinking, education, policy and philanthropy related to the future of journalism and media."

(via Rex Hammock)

Firefox Manager Accuses TechWeb Journalist of Lying

Firefox product release manager Asa Dotzler is using the Spread Firefox blog to accuse TechWeb of lying about the Firefox 1.0 downloads. He also says CNET (which has since corrected their story, according to a comment on Dotzler's post) is "falling down on the job, too, claiming that it took us five days to hit 1 million downloads." Asa continues...

"This so-called journalist needs to hear from you all too. Please quote C|Net's original article that refutes this new one about as directly as anything else. The incompetence just amazes me."

Blogs are the new letters to the editor.

(UPDATE 5/4/05: TechWeb Editor Stuart Glascock has informed me that as soon as the news site learned about this error they immediately corrected the story the same day it went out.)

Rafe Opens Up His Columns

Tech journalist Rafe Needleman (he writes for Release 1.0 and CNET) is using his blog  to open up the research he is conducting for future columns. Rafe writes...

I used to keep the topics of upcoming writings secret since I didn't want somebody to scoop me. But now I find that I'd really rather have the conversations about what I'm thinking before I commit it to a column.

Clearly, Rafe gets the new world of journalism. If you're in technology PR there's little excuse for not subscribing to his RSS feed.

Major League Blogging

Om Malik reports that Six Apart might have snagged a deal with Major League Baseball to launch weblogs. From what I can tell, Om, a reporter with Business 2.0, is using his blog to "break" stories that he hasn't quite nailed yet. This might be a new modus operandi for journalists: float an indisputable factoid on a blog (in this case a DNS record) and then follow it up with the real story once the rest of the facts come to light. Pros like Om may even be trying this to initiate a collaborative investigation with citizen journalists who might have more information. Now that is brilliant.

Stand-Alone Journalism

Jay Rosen at NYU and Chris Nolan (a former Merc columnist) have written a great post about the coming age of "stand alone journalism." Stand-alone journalists differ from bloggers and citizen journalists in that they are professionals who are using the same technology to strike out on their own. Chris sums it up well...

These are not bloggers. They are people who are using blogging technology--software that allows them to quickly publish their work and broadcast it on the Internet--to find and attract users. They understand that the barrier to entry in this new business isn't getting published; anyone can do that. The barrier to entry is finding an audience. That's why their editorial product is consistent, reliable and known. Readers have expectations and stand alone journalists understand this and put that understanding into practice.

Marketplace Using Flickr Photos

Much like the BBC, Marketplace Radio is running Creative Commons-licensed Flickr photos to enhance stories posted on their website. Note the attribution to the photo that goes with this piece.

Brian Williams, Katie Couric to Blog?

NBC may launch blogs for its top news anchors and celebrity interviewers as it seeks to maintain the appeal of U.S. network news among active online users, President Jeff Zucker said today. What took so long? I would have thought they might have started blogging as soon as Rathergate hit.

NY Times Lags Blogosphere by Months

BL Ochman: "I've decided to start an unscientific project tracking how long it takes a story to get from the blogosphere to The New York Times. In the case of bloggers getting fired for what they write on their personal blogs, it's been about five months, according to this BlogPulse conversation tracker."

Newsweek is Podcasting

Newsweek.com has launched a new podcast called Road Test, which covers car reviews. They also have another podcast called Newsweek On Air.

Feedster, Boston Globe Partner

Feedster and The Boston Globe have partnered to launch a new site that aggregates what bloggers are saying about the Boston Red Sox

Looking at the Bright Side of the Latest Blog Study

CNET is reporting that Hostway polled 2,500 Americans on blogging. The headlines tonight and tomorrow will parrot what CNET said - that 80% of respondents support at least some censorship. I am choosing to look at the bright side. I have worked on enough PR surveys to know that the sponsoring companies typically write the questions to generate sexy, media-friendly findings. Look deeper however, and I think there's a lot to be excited about...

• 30% of those surveyed read blogs. That's a lot, people.
  
• The majority, 52% of those surveyed, said bloggers should have the same rights as traditional journalists, while 27% did not express an opinion. Whoa!
  
• A minority, 39%, said that they found blogs less credible than newspaper articles. However an additional 32% said they either did not know or had no opinion. To me, this means that there is an opening for bloggers to be respected.
  

Call me pollyanna, but I think there's more here than meet headlines screaming Americans Support Censoring Blogs. It will be interesting to see how the blogosphere reacts to this.

CBS RSS

CBS News and CBS Sportsline are now RSS enabled. That's news to me.

65 Local TV Stations Now RSS Enabled

Some 65 local television stations in the IBS network, including WNBC in New York, NBC4 in Washington, KNBC in LA, and KTVU in San Francisco, now have RSS feeds. Just visit this page find the station in your local market and click on the RSS link either at the bottom or top of the station's home page. Here, for example, are WNBC's RSS feeds.

Mark Cuban, Why Do You Blog?

Shel Israel interviewed Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban on why he blogs and out came this gem...

What made you decide to blog?

"It was in response to the media primarily. I was tired of 4-hour interviews being turned into 500-word reports that mischaracterized the interviews. I sat down with Fortune Magazine for what I thought was a serious interview, and it turned into something completely different. Those types of situations were the catalyst."

Reuters Panel on Blogging's Impact on Journalism

Earlier this week Reuters convened a panel of experts at its Times Square headquarters to discuss the impact of blogs in journalism and the media. The evening forum was moderated by Paul Holmes, Reuters global editor for political and general news. It featured Bryan Keefer, Asst. Mng. Editor, Columbia Journalism Review Daily; Jeff Jarvis, president, Advance.net and prominent blogger for BuzzMachine, John Fund, columnist, OpinionJournal.com; Paul Holmes, Reuters; Halley Suitt, Halley's Comment blog; Stephen Baker, senior writer, IT Group, Business Week; Garrett Graff, FishbowlDC.com. Tom Hespos live blogged the event. A video is online here.

Guardian Blog Adds Tags

The Guardian is now using tags to categorize posts on its Observer weblog. This is just the start of mainstream media interest in tagging growing. (Via Matt McAllister)

Read RSS Feeds on Your PSP

I just got a Playstation Portable today. Apparently, Engadget has already figured out how to use it to read RSS feeds. Cool! I gotta try that. In addition, the media are scouring blogs for other PSP hacks - including how to read ebooks and more.

Blog Puts the NY Times Under the Microscope

Wow. This is perhaps the most incredible blog/aggregator that I have ever seen and I have seen lots. The Annotated New York Times is a fascinating new blog that tracks weblog postings citing articles published by The New York Times. The "blog fragments" are grouped by author, by topic or even by source. Together they form virtual, distributed conversations that span multiple blogs. Wow, I may unload my regular NYT RSS feeds for theirs. The site is apparently part of a network of sites called BlogRunner that track conversations on marketing, media, politics, and more. Here are some great links from The Annotated Times worth checking out...

• Articles by Author/Journalist
• Site Overview
• Top Articles from the Last 30 Days
  
• Topic Index
• Thousands(!) of RSS Feeds

Google to Host Vlogs?

InternetWeek reports that Larry Page said today that the company will soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google's servers, partly in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data.

"It's an experiment we want to run," said Page of the video-uploading service, which he said the company will formally announce "in the next few days." Page made the non-announcement announcement during Monday's opening panel discussion at the National Cable & Telecommunications Show here, upstaging his luminary fellow panelists John Chambers of Cisco, Brian Roberts of Comcast, Jon Miller of AOL and Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks.

My expectations are this will go far beyond today's Current announcement. (Al Gore today said his IndTV project will become an open media project produced in conjunction with Google.) I wonder if this is the pre-cursor to Blogspot-hosted video blogs/vlogs.

CNET Buys Photo Tagging Site

Rafat hinted at it yesterday, but now it's official. CNET bought HeyPix - a photo-sharing site that incorporates tagging. Obviously, tagging is indeed "it" in 2005.

Pope's Death Generates 22,000 Blog Posts and Counting

The death of Pope John Paul II generated 35,000 news stories since the event, according to AP. However, a similar cursory analysis I conducted using BlogPulse shows that it also spawned 22,000+ blog posts since his death - some 4.5% of all blog postings. That's a lot of content!

Newsday Adds RSS Feeds

My hometown paper, Newsday, has finally launched a slew of RSS feeds.

Turnkey Podcasting for Radio Stations

New evidence that podcasting is gaining steam. First, CNN covered it. Next, Billboard Radio Monitor reports that Loyal Ears, a Michigan-based radio vendor that specializes in listener rewards programs, announced a new service that will enable stations to offer free or revenue-generating podcasts for their audience.

The Long Tail Will Rise If the Media Charge for Online Content

According to Reuters, a Dow Jones & Co. Inc. executive predicted yesterday that more U.S. publishers likely will try to wean readers off free Internet versions of their newspapers by starting to charge online subscription fees. If this happens, then you can be sure that more consumers will gravitate down the Long Tail of Content to blogs for free, unfiltered content. Newspapers who go down this arrogant path may not be able to return to prominence online ever again. New media brands will emerge in their wake as leaders. Just look at how MarketingVOX and AdRants are already eroding the walled gardens of AdAge.com and AdWeek.com

Podcasting Now Mainstream

PC World: Simple Web audio broadcasting adopted by some media giants.

MSNBC Deploys Citizen Journalists in Quake's Wake

MSNBC.com has launched a special earthquake eyewitness weblog written by readers that bolsters its coverage of the massive quake that struck Indonesia today with on-the-ground reports. They also have an entire section of their site for citizen journalism.

Bloggers Invade Gossip Columnists' Turf

The New York Times today has an article on famed gossip columnist Liz Smith and her struggle to dig up new celebrity dish now that virtually every citizen journalist can also do the same.

BBC Taps Flickr for Photos

The BBC ran an article on podcasting this week that generated some subsequent chatter, but did anyone catch that the story included two photos of Adam Curry that came from a Flickr user? To my knowledge, this is a first. The article did not credit the photographer, camoby, so it's unclear if the BBC purchased these images or if he works on staff or he simply let them use the photos gratis. His web site, however, does feature a BBC ticker. What's known is that these images were not published under a Creative Commons license. Now I am not accusing the BBC of any wrong doing. However, I do find it fascinating that the BBC may be pulling in consumer-generated images from Flickr rather than shooting their own work. If anyone has more information, it would be appreciated.

Elephants and Mice Dancing Together

Mark Glaser reports on "the new animal in online newsrooms" - the editor in charge of citizen journalism and blogs.

Topix.net$

Congrats to CooperKatz clients Rich Skrenta and Chris Tolles of Topix.net. This morning, three of the nation's biggest newspaper publishers, the Gannett Company, Knight-Ridder Inc. and the Tribune Company, announced they are buying a 75% stake in the company. More from the NYT and on Rich's blog. We're looking forward to continuing our terrific relationship. Oh and isn't it ironic that my own friend Susan Mernit (via Tony Gentile) broke the story before anyone else? WTG Susan and Tony! You're putting us out of work!

Blogs Force PR Pros to Put Their Journalist Hats On

There's a fascinating article on PR and blogging in today's Globe and Mail (hat tip to IWantMedia). In the piece, Richard Edelman comments extensively on how blogs and other on-line tools that enable companies to speak directly to consumers are pushing the news media out of their central role in public relations. He openly encourages PR practitioners to think more like journalists. Gee, what a radical thought. PR isn't about going to cool parties after all.

Richard is spot on, but he doesn't explain - at least in the article - how our industry should train the troops to think like journalists. Truth be told, this is something we should have been doing all along. The best PR professionals are doing this by rote, day in and day out.

My feeling is that the best way to teach PR pros to think like journalists is to encourage them to become bloggers. I have learned more about journalism through one year of blogging than perhaps anything else over my entire career in this business.

Every PR agency large and small should be giving their employees the "keys to the blog." Let your employees dabble in the blogosphere and learn. Even an internal blog is better than no blogging at all. Will the big PR agencies rise to the occasion in such manner? I highly doubt it. Many of them are risk averse. Is Edelman doing this? One hopes.

This is why I feel for the first time in perhaps years small and mid-size agencies have a chance to use blogs to their advantage to showcase their talent, acquire new clients and grow. Just look at how well known agencies are like Voce Communications, Blodgett Communications and, yes, my own employer, CooperKatz. We're all training our teams to get on the Cluetrain and it's giving us an edge. Can we hang on to it? I bet we will. We're more nimble.

Blogs Get Prime Exposure on CNN

USA Today: Mainstream media continue to be wary of Internet bloggers because the reporting and opinions on their Web sites are often not subject to journalistic checks and balances, such as editing and rules on sourcing. But Jon Klein, a former CBS News producer who jumped to an Internet venture before being tapped to run CNN a few months ago, says that there's no sense in ignoring the "blogosphere," which is why he has created a daily, four-minute segment on Inside Politics.

PBS Enables Trackbacks

PBS has enabled blog-like trackbacks (definition) on its Web site, according to John Keehler.

Blogspot Eclipses NYTimes.com in Traffic

More fun with Alexa, this time from Rick Bruner. Collectively the blogs hosted on Blogspot (e.g. most Blogger blogs) get more visitors than NYTimes.com.

Reaction to Yahoo Flickr Merger

Doc Searls:

"Technorati finds 1853 yahoo flickr results, mostly about Yahoo buying Flickr. Google Web finds 350,000 results, starting with old reports, mostly on blogs, of rumors that Yahoo might buy Flickr. Google News finds 22 results, of which only this blogcritics item has current news on the matter. That's at 5pm, Mountain time, today."

I find it fascinating that the whole deal was announced via blog on a Sunday. There's nary a press release to be found. And Yahoo is a publicly traded firm.

A commenter on my last post thinks that this means Six Apart could be next. Maybe that's what Yahoo meant by Yahoo 360 - going in circles??

RMN Editors Call on State to Protect Bloggers

The Rocky Mountain News published an editorial today embracing the notion that bloggers deserve the same shield-law protections accorded to other journalists. (Thanks Stephanie for the link!)

Is CNN Paying Yahoo for RSS Subscribers?

As you can see from the image below, Yahoo and CNN are running small text links on My Yahoo! that encourage readers to add CNN.com's main RSS feed to their personalized page. Is this advertising or is Yahoo! simply recommending feeds based on what you read? It's unclear. If this is indeed advertising, it's a brilliant move on CNN's part to attract readers, mindshare and traffic.

UPDATED: Helena Maus from Yahoo corporate PR wrote in to explain...

Saw your post regarding CNN and My Yahoo! today, and just wanted to clarify. The link to CNN in it was based on an editorial decision, not a specific agreement between CNN and Yahoo!. You have probably noticed that the content in that link rotates on a daily basis, and you'll see other content available via My Yahoo! displayed there, from Yahoo! Personals to Craigslist and more. The third party sites we've included are culled from some of the most popular RSS feeds available on My Yahoo! and again based on editorial decisions.

So there you have it - it's editorial, not advertising.

Measuring the Blogosphere's Influence

Technorati's David Sifry writes that the following chart shows the most influential media sites on the web are still well-funded mainstream media (MSM) sites, however, a lot of bloggers are achieving a significant amount of attention and influence. Blogs like Boing Boing and Instapundit are highly influential, especially among technology and political thought leaders, and sites like Gizmodo are seeing as much influence as mainstream media sites like MTV.com.

Knight Ridder Adds RSS Feeds

UPDATED 3/18: Tribune points out in comments that some of its papers indeed have RSS feeds.

Susan Mernit says Knight Ridder is getting on the RSS train with feeds for the Mercury News. If I am not mistaken, this leaves Tribune Company as the last major newspaper company holdout. I am sure they will get on board soon. Ok, so the publishers are RSS heads. Still, my sense is that we have a lot of evangelizing to do to get users on board. According to Pew, some five percent of online readers use RSS aggregators. Most people don't know their RSS, from er, well you know. It will take time.

Bott's Blot Never Runs Dry

Professional journalists who have embraced blogging are wisely using it to own-up/fix minor errors they make in their weblog postings. After all, this is the hallmark of a good blogger - when he/she makes a mistake, they fix it. And as human beings the pros are just entitled to make mistakes as the bloggers are, despite what anyone may say to the contrary.

Real-time editing is a big change for some of the pros. Usually when a journalist needs to make a correction to a dead-tree story, the "corrections" editor handles it and it runs the next day. These days, editing occurs in real-time - particularly as social media and traditional media converge. All a journalist needs to do when they learn they have erred, is edit and re-publish.

Two pros who have embraced this are journalist/author/pundit Ed Bott and Houston Chronicle columnist/new blogger Dwight Silverman. Yesterday Ed blogged about what he thought was a stealth Google personalized search tool. I posted a comment pointing to evidence of the contrary and Ed changed his post. Good for Ed. He's listening and is more than happy to make sure he's telling the truth. Bott's ink blot never ran dry. Similarly, over the weekend Dwight incorrectly attributed an opinion to me on the AOL/TOS issue on his new blog, but when I pointed out that it came from someone else's comment on my weblog, he changed his post. New evidence that listening and blogging are changing journalism.

The Buddha of Blogging Speaks

iMedia Connection has posted oodles of Jeff Jarvis' blogging wisdom in two parts. Go read it if you're interested in citizen marketing/journalism and blogging. You wont be sorry.

Newsweek Adds More RSS Feeds

Newsweek has added a slew of RSS feeds, including a feed just for its star tech journalist, Steven Levy.

Whoops

Ben Silverman says the bloggers made a big boo-boo yesterday when they rushed to chase Slashdot down the AOL TOS story foxhole. Slashdot today posted issued a mea culpa a follow-up with AOL's side of the story.

UPDATE: This post has been edited after listening to reader feedback.

The RSS Opportunity

Susan Mernit writing in the digital edge: The growing popularity of RSS among information-hungry consumers is having a direct impact on publishers' audience acquisition and Web monetization strategies. Although journalist/blogger Tom Biro reports that 160 newspapers in the U.S. are offering RSS feeds of their content, only a few have comprehensive strategies for distributing and monetizing the feeds. Most, like the Ventura County (Calif.) Star, are experimenting and watching carefully to see what’s next.

Study: Non-Traditional Media Attracting Eyeballs

According to the second annual State of the News Media report, blogs and other alternative sources are increasingly caputring eyeballs, USA Today reports. The study, conducted by The Project for Excellence in Journalism, was released today. Key quote...

"Blogs and 'so's your mother'-style talk shows are distorting news in America beyond what anyone could have imagined 10 years ago," (Joe Angotti, a former NBC News executive who now teaches journalism at Northwestern University) says. "The public is finding it more difficult than ever to distinguish between legitimate news and unverified drivel. The problem is that most news consumers don't realize that mainstream media reporters work within strict policies and guidelines that these other outlets don't require."

(via IWantMedia)

Seven Bloggers Named to Media 100 List

Seven bloggers have been named to The Media 100 (PDF) - Media Magazine's annual list of the people "to know" in the media world. They are: Jessica Coen (Gawker), Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette), Nick Denton (Gawker Media), John H. Hideraker and Scott W. Johnson (Powerline), Glen Reynolds (Instapundit) and - believe it or not - me. Personally, I think others are more deserving than I am - Jeff Jarvis, Dan Gillmor, Jason Calacanis, Henry Copland, etc. - but I would like to thank the editors at MediaPost for this honor. It's great to see so many bloggers making a list that includes such luminaries as Oprah, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, the Google Guys and more. I feel like Forest Gump.

Who Is a Journalist These Days?

NYU journalism professor Jefferson Flanders asks a question that's on a lot of minds - exactly who is a journalist these days? However, he says that some of this responsibility falls on the reader ...

Readers and viewers should ask simple questions. Is a story accurate? Is the proper context provided? Are the facts in the story pursued, without fear or favor, even when they lead to unpleasant conclusions? Is the reporter or commentator open about methods and motives? And, most important, is there an acknowledgement of what isn't known, of events or possibilities ruled out by conventional wisdom?

Romenesko Now Has RSS

Todd Bishop writes in that media watcher Jim Romenesko now has an RSS feed. And the people rejoiced!

Why Attention.xml Could Change PR Forever

Attention.xml is a new technology standard that's being proselytized by influencers like Steve Gillmor, David Sifry, Robert Scoble and Jeremy Zawodny. Basically it is metadata that records and shares information on the "attention" users give to their RSS feeds and blogs.

Scoble said that by the end of 2005 we'll all know what attention.xml is and why it's important for the services we choose to support it. Listening to this podcast with Steve Gillmor and Chris Pirillo today, I could not help but agree.

Aggregated metadata (definition) projects like attention.xml and Richard MacManus' collaborative Feedburner stat project, could have a lot of value for PR professionals. Attention.xml could tell us who looks at a blog or feed, how often they look at it, where those viewers come from, and more, according to a piece Gillmor wrote for Release 1.0. If it really gets off the ground, it could have a massive impact on the PR professional because it will solve some of the industry’s measurement issues (we still have to talk about how we boost the bottom line!).

Before attention.xml can get going, however, there are some stumbling blocks such as privacy/technical issues and questions over who should own the standard that need to be overcome first.

One of the questions I get often is "how can I tell how influential a blogger is/isn't?" As Scoble says, you can look at how many subscribers they have on Bloglines, how many in-bound links they have on Technorati, etc., but we need more. Now imagine for a moment you can look at an RSS feed on My Yahoo and see how many people have read the same post you’re reading or how many page views it is getting, etc. What if you could get an RSS feed that notifies you every time there are blog posts that are read by more than 100,000 people? Attention.xml as I understand it could make that possible (correct me if I am wrong please). I don’t know about you, but I would subscribe to that feed.

Going a step further, consider the possibilities if the mainstream media (MSM) adopted attention.xml as well. This could happen if the big RSS feed aggregators get behind it.

The MSM is increasingly merging with the blogosphere into one unisphere. Some blogs break news stories and have thousands of subscribers. Meanwhile, media sites are launching branded RSS readers, blogs, podcasts and even adopting trackbacks and comments. It is conceivable that if there is a groundswell of love for attention.xml from the blogosphere, it could tip the hand of the big guys towards adopting it.

So, go with me for a moment. Let's say this happens in a year or two's time. Imagine how valuable this aggregated information would be. PR professionals and marketers could spec out the exact number of people who saw an article online – including both the site that generated it and the blogs that linked to it. There's no guessing. Attention.xml or whatever becomes the standard would go a long way to helping the public relations industry measure the value of media placements, but it has to get off the ground first. I support aggregated metadata if it's a true standard (e.g. no one single company owns it) and the privacy issues are solved and urge everyone in PR to do the same.

Remaindered Links

• Congrats to Marc Orchant who was named editor of The Red Couch - the working title for Robert Scoble's and Shel Israel's forthcoming book on business blogging
• Speaking of Scoble, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson grilled Robert via podcast 
• Fired Google blogger Mark Jen got a new gig with Plaxo
  
• Shayne Bowman notes that Craig Newmark has big plans for citizen journalism
• The Online Journalism Review introduced new wikis on journalism
• Kurt Andersen writes in New York Magazine that journalism today is sooo 19th Century
• Jason Calacanis' Weblogs Inc launched Divester - a diving blog
  
• Nooked is running two surveys to measure PR professional and journalist adoption of RSS (via del.icio.us/tag/micropersuasion)
  

Dan Fost Analyzes Apple v. Bloggers

Dan Fost at the San Francisco Chronicle: Bloggers may be pushing the boundaries of online communication, breaking news and waylaying politicians and corporate executives, but are they journalists?

Where We're Going

This Non-Sequitur comic shows where things might be headed. Click it to view... (Via Peg)

Podcasted by Chris Pirillo

Chris Pirillo, his lovely fiancee Ponzi and his trusty sidekick Jake Ludington stopped by our offices one late afternoon last week to chat for a one hour podcast. You can listen here.

Newsweek Adds BlogWatch Column

Newsweek has launched a new column called BlogWatch - a weekly mainstream-media snapshot of what's hot (or what's not) in the ever-widening world of Weblogs.

Reader Challenges Scoble to Give Up Blogs for Trade Mags

An interesting debate is taking place in comments to my last post on BurrellesLuce. David Scott Lewis said ...

"Frankly, I'm surprised BaconsLuce found 1,000 blogs worthy of monitoring!! I think it's important that we take a step back every so often and stop viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.  
 
For the most part, blogs -- as information sources -- are irrelevant. It's great to receive blogs published by friends and family. That's personal. And VERY relevant. But bloggers who think they are replacing or even supplementing the Fourth Estate are kidding themselves."

Robert Scoble commented back ....

"I'm monitoring nearly 1,300 blogs. I share that clipping with everyone for free at http://www.scobleizer.com

Oh, and David, I totally disagree with you. I've found 1,300 blogs that are very high quality. I find them invaluable for bringing me new things and new ideas."

David then issued a challenge to Scoble...

I suspect that you'd get a lot more ideas from reading printed trade magazines than from blogs....Try an experiment. Here's my challenge to you (and it applies to Steve as well): Read 100 trades versus 1,300 blogs.... Do you still really think that you'll get more valuable insights from blogs?
 
~~ Snip ~~
 
Robert, maybe for your job and in your specific role, blogs are better. But for most of us, printed trades are still all the rage. I'd even challenge the folks like John Battelle who think the Wall Street Journal is becoming irrelevant."

Them fighting words! Will Scoble take the challenge? I doubt it. For one, I know he will miss his blogs. More importantly, I bet Scoble read the trades religiously in ye olde days but he now favors blogs because he can consume far more relevant information faster than ever before thanks to RSS. As for me, I tried the inverse experiment already and found that blogs enabled me stay up to date on current events nearly as well as the mainstream media. Is anyone willing to give up blogs for mags? I don't think it's really an either/or situation. I find myself needing and reading both.

Most Americans Don't Read Blogs, So What?

A CNN/Gallup Poll finds that more than three-quarters of Americans - 76 percent - said they use the Internet, but only 26 percent said they were "very familiar" or "somewhat familiar" with blogs. This is hardly surprising. But don't for a second let it fool you into thinking that blogs aren't important. The fact is blogs have a major influence on the press. Just look at MarketWatch's Frank Barnako, for example, He lives in the blogosphere because he knows there's news in thar hills. So even though most Americans don't read blogs, they do read/watch/listen to the media and THEY are certainly influenced by bloggers. Net, blogs are a force of influence on the American psyche. They just may not realize it.

Dude, Where's My Blog?

Porland Oregonian Public Editor Michael Arrieta-Walden tells Cyberjournalist his readers routinely call or write "to cite stories they've seen blazing the Web but that are missing or downplayed on the newspaper's news pages."

"The gap goes to the heart of what is journalism. Opinions, commentary or simply rumors dominate many of the blogs. Yet blogs also can break legitimate stories, such as the one that led to the downfall of Dan Rather. Newspaper and wire-service journalists grapple with distinguishing between the rants and the real news, and must confirm the information using standards of accuracy and verification rarely applied to blogs...."

Get enough readers calling in and newspapers will turn their Web sites into blogs.

Branded RSS Readers

Pamela Parker from ClickZ interviewed a host of experts on the latest and greatest media trend - media-branded RSS readers.

Feds to Regulate Blogs?

Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith tells CNET that bloggers and news organizations could soon risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines, he said.

"The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.

Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals like CNET?"

Lawmakers are going to get involved in these and other blogging legal questions quickly. I just hope the Feds do so before the states start setting precedents like they did with spam. Thankfully the Can-SPAM act was signed last year, ending the confusion - thought it did little to stop spam.

RSS on Us

Susan Mernit reports that the Denver Post is offering their own branded version of Newsgator. They are following in the footsteps of other big media brands that now offer RSS readers. This is definitely an emerging trend for 2005.

The Vanishing Newspaper Webcast

The Media Center is taking a good, hard look at the newspaper-business model and its viability in a digital world. This online event will be lead by Jeff Jarvis, well-known blogger and president of Advance.net. You can register here.

Did Blogs Kill the NYT Tech Section?

Rumor has it, according to the New York Post, that The New York Times is said to be planning to end "Circuits" as a stand-alone section covering the high-tech world by the end of April. My immediate thought is - did the rising influence of the major gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo play a role? This may be a sign of a coming shakeout in tech media.

Watchers Say Reporter's Pro-Bush Blog Comments Went Too Far

Media Matters for America is a not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. They are claiming tonight that veteran Boston Globe technology reporter Hiawatha Bray "apparently wrote posts for several weblogs in which he declared his support for President Bush, attacked Sen. John Kerry, and bolstered discredited allegations by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (now Swift Vets and POWs for Truth)" while he was reporting on the 2004 presidential campaign.

They point to a long trail of evidence and then end with this zinger...

The Boston Globe is owned by The New York Times Company, whose ethics handbook, Ethical Journalism: A Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Editorial Departments, lays out specific guidelines for the political behavior of its journalists, such as: "Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. In particular, they may not campaign for, demonstrate for, or endorse candidates, ballot causes or efforts to enact legislation."

Now, I am not saying Hiawatha is guilty. You're innocent until proven guilty. He is a veteran reporter who has been around the block a long long time. However, it will be interesting to see if he and/or others react to these allegations.

Bloggers and Reporters Partying Together

Today during Search Engine Strategies I talked about how many bloggers are becoming "reporter's assistants." Well, here's a golden example. Today Wall Street Journal reporter Jim Carlton (an Apple watcher) turned to iPodLounge to find users for an upcoming story. Jim told iPodLounge...

"I am finishing up a story on how folks are using more computer gadgets these days while on vacation. I'd like to include iPod users in this story, and in particular am looking for someone who has used an iPod while on vacation for something unusual - like listening to a book on tape, or learning to speak French, rather than for just listening to music. If anyone has a story to share, please email me at: [link deleted]. My deadline is the next couple of days, and I'd ask that you include name/age/occupation/hometown, and details such as when and where you took the vacation. I'd be sure to email you copy of story once it is published. Thanks again."

The request was so successful that iPodLounge updated their post, saying...

Update: Jim received so many responses in the first five minutes of the news story's posting that he's overwhelmed. Thanks to all who responded!

Reporters are turning to the blogosphere to find subject-matter experts. If you're selling yourself as an expert to the press, you need a blog.

Blogger FUD

Jon Friedman at MarketWatch says bloggers frighten him...

Now that bloggers have gained a measure of credibility, what are they going to do with their newfound acceptance?

The danger is that bloggers are going to embrace the worst aspects of tabloids. That means, as the saying goes, they'll throw their content against a wall, and if it sticks, they'll publish it, no matter how wild or trivial it might be.  

As important as a freewheeling world of opinion is, an irresponsible writer can endanger reputations within society at large and within journalism as a profession.

Despite tone of the headline, Jon says he is also keeping an open mind.

Thinking Outside the Media Box

One of the more interesting developments in online news over the past year has been the rapid adoption of conversational media tools - e.g. blogs, RSS and podcasting - by the traditional mainstream media. While not everyone is on board yet (e.g. Forbes has no blogs and Newsday has no RSS feeds), I do feel that most of the big media does see the forest growing around them and are rapidly adapting.

However, a story that has not been written yet is how the big media will use social media to transcend the boundaries of who they are. For example, I would love to see more newspapers producing podcasts much like the Ventura County Star has done (registration required). In addition, on the flip side, I would love to see more radio personalities writing weblogs. Media companies would not only be wise to embrace these "bottom-up technologies" but to use them to redefine who they are. A newspaper need not only consist of the written word. Newspapers should be podcasting, TV and radio stations should be blogging and bloggers should be writing books. It's hard to be a one-trick-pony in this new media world.

AP News Search Feeds

Rex Hammock reports that AP is experimenting with custom news search RSS feeds. Take a gander at this Customwire page on the AP site.

AP Launches RSS Feeds

Welcome news from Susan Mernit - the Associated Press has launched RSS feeds. This is the first time AP stories are available directly on the web in RSS (as opposed to running through Yahoo News.) The seventeen feeds include Top News, US, World, Business, Sports, and Technology.

The Ivory Tower of Babble Comes Crashing Down

Media watcher Steve Outing tells newspapers...

"The citizen-journalism movement is where journalism is heading. Newspapers, if they want to stay in the game, need to acknowledge the 'lecture' model of journalism is dying, and join in the "conversation."

I did an interview with a magazine today. I told the reporter that I can envision a day - 50 years from now - when the way journalists wrote will feel as stiff as 1770 English does today. The era of conversational language is here. Long live Cluetrain. (Via Dan Gillmor)

NY Times Editor: "We're Under Attack"

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, was the keynote speaker at Columbia University's Blue Pencil Dinner last Friday night. In his talk, he made it abundantly clear that the flagship of American journalism doesn't think much of the rise of the alternative media. Reports here and here.

Bloggers as Enemy of the Fourth Estate

The BBC reports that with the abrupt resignation of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan, the American media are struggling with how to respond to bloggers.

Some see the bloggers as an explosion of free speech, a democratic counterbalance to media arrogance and a much needed call for greater transparency in the media, while others see bloggers as vigilante partisans bent on discrediting and destroying the media.

I think the truth is somewhere in between. There are certainly bloggers out there that want to go big-game hunting and they make it their mission. And then they're others who simply want to engage in conversation. It's the former group that scares people from embracing the latter. (Via IWantMedia)

Blogs are the Heart of the NYT's About.com Buy

Rafat Ali and Staci Kramer at PaidContent.org say that the New York Times' purchase of About.com yesterday is all about blogs...

In short, this is NYT's blog strategy, on the editorial side. Whether they want to characterize it as such, that I doubt...

Noonan: Blogging Has Changed Journalism

Everyone's talking about this today, so why not me? Peggy Noonan wrote a brilliant column in the Journal on how bloggers have truly changed the media. Send it to everyone you know who is still unconvinced that weblogs are a force to be reckoned with. She ends with several salient predictions. Key quote...

Blogging changes how business is done in American journalism. The [mainstream media] (MSM) isn't over. It just can no longer pose as if it is The Guardian of Established Truth. The MSM is just another player now. A big one, but a player.

TV Anchor Says Citizen Journalism Killing Newspapers

Jason Salas, a newsanchor with KUAM in Guam, writes that newspapers are on their last legs thanks to the rise of blogging and citizen journalism. Unfortunately, Jason fails to recognize that as vlogging/video publishing gets cheaper, easier and a lot more mobile it will put local TV news at risk as well. Guess he can't see the forest from trees in Guam.

Newspapers as RSS Aggregators

Reuters UK: An increasingly popular technology called RSS is changing the way consumers get their news online, spurring several newspapers to launch their own customized software in an attempt to stay ahead of the curve.

CNET to Launch Web-Based RSS Reader

As far as I know this is a blog exclusive. CNET News.com is launching a Web-based RSS news aggregator called Newsburst. The site, now in preview, will compete with Bloglines and Rojo. CNET's move comes on the heels of the LA Times and Guardian, which launched desktop RSS readers last week. This is the beginning of a trend where the big media launch branded RSS aggregators to make sure they retain reader loyalty.

The copy on the CNET Newsburst preview site reads...

Newsburst is a personalized tool that tracks virtually any type of information on the Web: news, blogs, shopping lists, weather, search results, alerts, auctions and more.

• Follow the sites you care about
• See the newest content in one glance

Information is everywhere, and Newsburst lets you access it from one place. Read differently.

Here's a screen grab from the site...

Analyze This

MSNBC.com introduced a new feature called "Blog This" that is designed to help readers write blog posts related to specific news stories. Its older siblings include the illustrious Mr. "Email This" and Miss "Print This." The service only works for MSN Spaces members. EIC Dean Wright said in the press release...

"Being a top online new source is about much more than providing a place for people to find up-to-the-minute information. It's about helping people use and share that information. MSNBC.com's Blog This gives individuals command over the news. They can post commentary and sway opinions -- bring a new level of vibrancy and activity to standard reporting. It's a form of editorializing that really brings news to life at the personal level."

Does this strike anyone as simply a cheap gimmick to drive traffic and Google juice not to mention MSN Spaces sign-ups?

Does the Press Work Weekends Anymore?

Have you noticed that lately when major industry news breaks over the weekend it gets a tremendous amount of buzz on blogs, but it doesn't hit the press with any gusto until Monday morning - even online? What happened to having skeleton weekend/standby crews?

Mary Hodder's post on Bloglines and Ask Jeeves tying the knot has already generated more than 126 in-bound links. Meanwhile, the mainstream press have barely noticed this important development. There are some exceptions, however. At least three major news organizations chose to note the Bloglines/Ask story on their weblogs - BusinessWeek, the San Jose Mercury News and eSchool News. Everyone else is out to lunch. This episode typifies today's Long Tail news cycle.

When Local TV Personalities Blog

Terry Heaton says that local television personalities and staffers are beginning to get serious in the blogosphere, and he thinks that's a good thing. I do too. Terry writes...

Local TV needs to get involved in what people are talking about in their communities, and a great place to start is with bloggers. And what better way to get involved than to join the discussions by blogging?

Terry played a role in John Dwyer's new blog. The sports director for WKRN-TV in Nashville, has started a blog to break what he calls the "3-minute habit," referring to the time limitations of the sports segment.

Blogging makes a lot of sense for TV/radio personalities and staff. It helps them engage in a dialogue with readers and viewers in a way that radio sometimes delivers through talk radio, but nowhere near as efficiently as the way the web enables.

Readers and Editors Partying Together

Susan Mernit reports that the Ventura County Star, a Scripps paper, has created a position for an editor whose job it is to "guide them in the world of 'journalism as a conversation.'" The paper's director of new media told Susan...

"Our current plan is to grow organically in this area rather than push any one big initiative. We have blogs, forums and photo blogs now. We will work to grow these and help promote citizen journalism in Ventura County."

LA Times Launches RSS Aggregator

The LA Times has launched a branded RSS news aggregator in partnership with Consenda. You can find it here, however the service is invitation-only right now. The launch comes on the heels of the Guardian's RSS newsreader, which like the LAT is also called Newspoint. PaidContent reports the Guardian has started offering Newspoint as a test download for about 250 users.

Blogs and Magazines - Friends or Foes?

Folio has a piece on the potential threats/opportunities in blogs for the magazine industry. Jedi Master Rex is quoted.

A Peek at Disney's Blog and RSS Plans

Last year Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman and Mike Pusateri from the Walt Disney Company gave a presentation at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference on their aggressive adoption of RSS over a diverse set of applications, both internal and external. They write...

By standardizing on XML, and now more specifically, on RSS for content feeds, we have opened up new channels of communication both within our company and to our customers. This talk will discuss how we brought about change within our company, how it is enabling new products and services, and how we are still working to help our employees and business units think “standards” and “content syndication” when they are generating data.

Deep inside the presentation, slide 9 to be exact, Disney also hints that it has big blog plans, including a forthcoming Ebert and Roper movie blog on Movies.com. You can read their full presentation here (PDF). Good stuff from the Mouse. The presentation shows they have been getting this for quite awhile now!

Reporter Asks Bloggers for Story Assistance

Again here's more evidence that reporters and bloggers are collaborating on stories. Rick Broida posted a request on SpreadFirefox.com via one of their bloggers looking for help for a major feature story he's writing for ZDNet on medium/large companies and organizations that have switched to the Mozilla Firefox Web browser or are considering doing so. Rick says...

I would still like to hear from IT managers and/or company execs who are dealing with the switch. I would also appreciate any known stats/research studies regarding Internet Explorer/Firefox penetration, usage, etc.

Rick is smart to be going this route. He's tapping into the power of one fervent online community. Last week I wrote about how wikis may disintermediate the costly media directories that PR pros rely on daily. Now I am wondering, could Profnet - a service that feeds journalist's story needs daily to PR teams - become the next service to become Napsterized? So far, Dan Forbush is working diligently to evolve the service he founded for the new age of disintermediation. So I am hopeful. Still, this post could be a harbinger of things to come.

FT Columnist Says He Scans Blogs for Scoops

James Altucher, a columnist from the Financial Times, writes that every day he reads several blogs written by hedge fund managers, analysts, venture capitalists and researchers for the latest news that might not be hitting his radar screen from traditional sources. He lists his top seven favorites.

With the pro journos actively swimming around the blogosphere waters like sharks in search of dinner, there's absolutely no excuse not to at least monitor what people are writing on blogs. What more proof do we as communicators and marketers need?

Journalists Evangelize Blogs as PR People Doze Off

VC Jeff Nolan sat in on a panel discussion yesterday hosted by Burson-Marsteller with Business 2.0's Om Malik, "stand-alone journalist" Chris Nolan (a longtime friend o'Steve and no relation to Jeff), Reuters reporter Duncan Martell, and Fortune reporter Fred Vogelstein. The topic was how blogs are reshaping corporate communications. Just listen to what Jeff wrote...

What struck me about the discussion is this:

1) despite all of the press, very few of these communication people are actively reading blogs and RSS feeds. Even fewer are actually writing blogs... 2 hands went up when the question was asked

2) the tendency is to boil down entire groups of blogs to the top few that are widely read, which ignores the greater mass  

3) there's a fixation with blogs versus the media. The media business is just that, it's a business that is going to have to evolve in order to compete effectively in the future with electronic media. It's not an ideology and it's not going away.

My advice to professional marketing communication people is to get engaged with blogs now by reading and observing. Learn the etiquette and patterns before deciding to tackle strategy for dealing with blogs.
 
The creed of the professional communications executive over the years has been to control the message. Get over it because their is no chance you can do that in today's world. At best you can shape a message by guiding and honestly responding to blog content where appropriate.
 
Putting press releases out as blog material isn't going to work either. I know this won't surprise many people, but NOBODY READS PRESS RELEASES ANYMORE. In fact, in many of the companies we are invested in we don't bother putting out releases on PR Newswire anymore, they just go up on the website and maybe somebody searches on it, but even if they do it's not like a PR is going to be taken seriously.

Sure sounds like I could have written this post! Nevertheless, it really saddens me. Despite all the buzz about blogs and their tremendous potential, it seems like many PR professionals and marketers even in the Valley are fast asleep. What's worse, those who at least read blogs are trying to apply old-school metrics like the number of subscribers a blog has to what's really a new world of micro influence. Pulllease. Somebody get me a bigger megaphone!

Is it Real or Is it Memorex?

Mark Glaser asks the million dollar question in his thorough analysis of Apple v. Citizen Journalists (2005): is it good journalism or breaking the law...

In all these cases, Apple is intent on getting the site proprietors to turn over information on their inside sources. However, shield laws generally protect journalists from giving up that information in the interest of public service in investigative journalism. So the first question is whether these sites are considered journalistic endeavors.
 
"I use the same, legal news gathering techniques that any other reporter uses," said Nick Ciarelli, the 19-year-old Harvard student who runs ThinkSecret and is an editor at the Harvard Crimson. "It's worth noting that large publications and major newspapers frequently publish news scoops about Apple, but Apple has never sued any of them, and is instead attempting to silence a small online publication."

So, will the courts step up to the plate to validate citizen journalism or stifle it? If they go by what Kevin Maney wrote in USA Today, they will validate it since blogging is really nothing new. Tom Paine was at it years ago. It's just easier, faster and more distributed than ever before. This is a landmark case for citizen journalism and one that every PR pro and journalist should be watching closely.

Blog Crisis Communications Planning 101

At the Blog Business Summit this week my blogging Yoda's Robert Scoble, Buzz Bruggeman and Anil Dash tackled the thorny topic of crisis communications. They emphasized how blogging can help when things get bad by projecting a human face or voice for an organization and by providing a forum for soliciting specific feedback from customers. In the immortal words of the Hulkster, "Amen brother."

These thoughts directly reflect several conversations I had today during a private meeting with the Internet Manager's Consortium at Coca-Cola Headquarters in Atlanta. The group's members all hail from Fortune-500 companies and are charged with running their global Web sites. They are just beginning to fully appreciate just how blogging and citizen journalism are changing their jobs. With this in mind, here are five steps every company should take to prepare for a PR crisis that might emerge from the blogosphere... 

1. Continually Listen and Analyze - Use the various tools to listen to what people are saying about your company, brands and/or clients in the blogosphere and on sites like Flickr and del.icio.us. Figure out which bloggers have the greatest potential to become your vigilantes and group them into hubs. Analyze their tendencies and those of their readers. Watch the time stamps of their in-bound links and comments to assess who reads them and how quickly they respond to posts. Map this network out like the FBI charts the mafia.
 
2. Develop a List of Vulnerabilities - Conduct a thorough group audit of all your organization's vulnerabilities. Be honest with yourself. Are there people who blog who might already have a beef with you? Find out for sure if any of your disgruntled employees are already blogging - or have blogged.
   
 
3. Build a Lockbox Blog - While times are calm, build a special crisis communications blog and keep it locked down under password protection. Figure out your key messages (based on your vulnerabilities), which employees will write the blog and under which kinds of circumstances they will be tapped. Consider how moblogging and vlogging (video blogging) might be used to vividly depict how your company is responding to a crisis - particularly in a product recall. Also be sure to address where the blog fits into your broader crisis PR efforts with the mainstream press. Blogs are not a panacea.
    
4. Build a Network of Blogging Allies - As the trio suggested today up in Seattle, continually nuture your network of blogging allies. This will make it easier to turn to them in the event of a crisis. Regularly feed them news links in good times that are unrelated to your company or cause. This will earn you points in the "favor bank." In addition, consider developing a network of non-blogging influencers who you might be able to call off the bench to blog on you behalf when lightning strikes. Again, blogs aren't the only place to wage the battle. Don't ignore Flickr and del.icio.us networks either.
    
5. Ride the Long Tail - Last but not least, don't forget the law of the Long Tail when planning for a blog PR crisis. As the Kryptonite example showed us, bloggers typically have the greatest impact at the beginning and end of a story's lifecycle. Use this to your advantage. If you're in a crisis and you have generated some positive mainstream/blog coverage that hits your key messages, be sure to feed those links to the bloggers who are on the "back nine" of the analysis tail.

These are just some tips to get your started. Just like with the big media, the key to surviving a blog PR crisis is preparation and detailed planning.

CNET Suffers from Trackback Spam

Jason Dowdell says that CNET News.com is being pelted by trackback spam and he wonders if any of the bloggers are actually generating any traffic from it. I have trackbacked CNET a few times and have seen nary a click through in my server logs. Perhaps it's because CNET doesn't list its trackbacks right underneath the news stories, but on separate pages that garner few visitors.

Frank Bajak to Big Media - Ignore Blogs at Your Peril

AP tech editor Frank Bajak: The sovereignty of Big Journalism is eroding.

Blog Post Rekindles Google Browser Rumor

Ben Goodger, the lead developer on Firefox, announced on his blog today that he is joining Google. This will only fuel the rumors that Google is developing a browser based on Firefox. Ben writes...

As of January 10, 2005, my source of income changed from The Mozilla Foundation to Google, Inc. of Mountain View, California. My role with Firefox and the Mozilla project will remain largely unchanged, I will continue doing much the same work as I have described above - with the new goal of successful 1.1, 1.5 and 2.0 releases. I remain devoted full-time to the advancement of Firefox, the Mozilla platform and web browsing in general. I'm sure you have many questions. While I will be spending more time at Google, I will work out of the Mozilla Foundation offices regularly as the need arises. For all questions regarding Google, I ask that you contact Google directly, rather than myself.

You can keep an eye on how the press responds here.

As Sites Add Tags, Tagtextual Advertising Will Follow

Here's new evidence that 2005 will be the year of folksonomies - commonly known as tags. Metafilter, a popular community weblog that anyone can contribute to, has just incorporated tags. Metafilter's tags are simply free-form keywords people have used to describe their posts. They are launching tags to create "a great bottom-up way of organizing everything that has ever been posted to MetaFilter." The larger a word is, the more times it has been used to tag a MetaFilter thread. The site has also posted a page that breaks out the top 150 tags.

This year many web sites will incorporate folksomic structures to make it easier for users to find and share information. Currently, tags can be found on Furl, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati and now Metafilter. By the end of this quarter I bet that other social media sites like OhMyNews, Kuro5shin and even Slashdot will incorporate them as well. By mid year the bigs will join the fun. At least one major news outlet - perhaps CNET - will also start use tags to organize their stories and feedback. (John Roberts, you listening? I just gave you a free idea!)

Tags are a natural complement to search because they empower users to create structures that organize unstructured consumer-generated media. Last week I wrote about the need for marketers and communicators to monitor folksonomies. However, the online marketing opportunity here is actually much greater. As tagging takes off, the next step will be for all of these sites to monetize this content by launching contextual advertising programs, perhaps powered by Google Adsense. This will give the marketer new ways to reach engaged consumers by sponsoring tags across one or more sites that carry folksonomies. I call this "Tagtextual Advertising" and it's a coming.

Radio Columnist Dabbles in Open Source

Canadian Jeremy Wright notes that CBC Radio's Tod Maffin has decided to do at least one of his audio columns in an “open source” way. He is producing one of his upcoming national technology columns completely transparently, via the open source/blog community.

Bloggers Bust ABC News Over Planned Inauguration/Military Funeral Story

Cybercast News Service reports that on Wednesday bloggers were quick to pick up on a message posted on the ABC News website soliciting information about any military funerals that might be taking place on the same day President Bush was being sworn in to a second term.

The ABCNews.com request seeked to find families who were burying military serviceman from Iraq on Thursday, Jan. 20 and would be willing to talk. One blogger, anticipating that the ABC News message would be taken down, saved the page.

During my talk today at the AMA blog seminar an attendee asked me if I thought bloggers are journalists. I described them as a separate entity - citizen journalists - who co-exist with the media in symbiosis, much like the Tick bird and the Rhino. This is the perfect example. ABC News put up a post on their site for a brief time but the bloggers were watching. The bloggers are always watching.

Weblogs Inc. Sends VW Ad Packing

Congrats to Jason Calacanis - our winner of the week. One of his blogs, autoblog, turned down the opportunity to run VW's suicide bomber ad. Increasingly I believe that the big blog networks - Corante, Nick Denton's Gawker Media and Calacanis' company - will begin to distance themselves from other bloggers. They will operate more like mainstream media outlets with profits (yes, that's right - profits) and reader/advertising franchises that they will do anything to protect. This will also mean they will take fewer big risks - both with their editorial and their advertising - at least until the laws give them the same protections that the mainstream press have had for years.

Bloggers Break Big Apple, HP Scoop

Watch this space. It's relatively empty right now, but it will fill up with dozens of news stories over the next few days. Citizen journalist/enthusiast site AppleInsider (a blog precursor) is reporting that Hewlett-Packard, which recently entered into a strategic alliance with Apple to deliver HP-branded versions of the iPod under name 'iPod+ HP', has stopped placing orders for the digital music players with Apple Computer due to a dispute over price protections. The bloggers recognize this is big news. Where's the press? Patience Danielson, patience. They'll be here soon.

J-Bloggers Still Revolve Around the Mother Ship

Adam Penenberg at Wired News has a fascinating story about the challenges journalist bloggers face - should they break news on their blogs, or on their employer's sites. Business 2.0 reporter Om Malik is the poster child here. Adam writes...

For all the press that bloggers have received for revolutionizing journalism by bringing Gutenberg's printing press to the digital masses, when push comes to shove, journalists who operate personal weblogs face an inherent conflict of interest. In the end, it's the blogs that usually get short shrift.

Friend o'Steve Mary Hodder wonders what if journalists were held to a fairness standard, both in their paid work, for legacy media, and in blogging, would this issue would dissipate?  Good questions!

BusinessWeek Launches Tech Blogs

BusinessWeek Online yesterday launched two tech-focused blogs as part of its redesigned tech and science channel.  “The Tech Beat,” a blog covering the innovations, trends, and dustups in the world of technology, is written by BusinessWeek Online’s Jim Kerstetter and Olga Kharif, and BusinessWeek Magazine’s Stephen Baker, Peter Burrows, Steve Hamm, and Rob Hof. “Deal Flow” is a blog where BusinessWeek Magazine’s Justin Hibbard and Online’s Sarah Lacy comment on dealings inside the venture capital community.

NYT Analyzes Apple v. Bloggers

The New York Times: Against the backdrop of the Macworld Exposition in San Francisco this week, a series of legal actions filed by Apple Computer over the last month highlights the difficulties of defining who is a journalist in the age of the Web log.

Blogs are the New Journalism

O'Reilly and Associates: Blogs are the new journalism and "this blogging thing" is starting to look interesting. (Via the Blog Herald)

The Truth, Ruth

Recovering PR pro Shel Israel and my good friend, Microsoft super-blogger Robert Scoble, are co-writing a book via blog called The Red Couch. The book explains the why and how of blogging to business people. Bookmark their blog or simply subscribe to their RSS feed.

Using recent case studies throughout its 250-300 pages, the Red Couch will demystify this disruptive technology and explaining why it is more efficient, credible and effective than traditional business communications tools and explains why it is likely to change or destroy the usual marketing mix of ads, PR, websites and collateral materials.

In today's installment, Israel ponders whether blogging is part of or a replacement for journalism and PR. His conclusion is that blogging will become part of both. As my regular readers know, I could not agree more. Cut out this passage out and stick it on your fridge. Send it to all your colleagues and plaster it on t-shirts, because it's 100% true...

"Blogging today has superior credibility, adheres to better rules of self-governance and reshapes how and why PR will be practiced if it is to survive. PR people cannot just treat blogging as another channel down which they will toss the same old crap. Their new role will be to teach company officials to speak for themselves, in a plain language and adhering to the rules that makes blogging a more credible communications channel. This creates a huge opportunity for the very best of PR practitioners. I think blogging is indeed part of a new PR that has only now just begun to form, but will take shape and offer value in the not too distant future--but blogging and PR practitioners need to approach each other with the same caution as two amorous porcupines." - Shel Israel, genius

Nolan: Blogs' Power Stretches Far Beyond Politics

Political blogger Chris Nolan writing in eWeek says that blogs' power stretches far beyond the Beltway.

USAToday.com Blogs CES

USAToday.com has launched a blog covering the Consumer Electronics Show, which last year dissed citizen journalists.

News 2.0: The Empire Strikes Back

Over at Business 2.0 Om Malik sees a new news network rising, powered by individuals:

I think what we are seeing is the rise of a new kind of news network, thanks in large part to technology. Average Joes and Janes are now armed to the teeth with technology that can capture and distribute news almost anywhere.

This has hardly gone unnoticed by the big boys. They want their share of the fun too - and they'll get it. Jesse Oxfeld at Editor and Publisher writes that many editors of newspaper Web sites are looking at how to effectively integrate blogs into their content offerings — and how to capitalize on the readership outside blogs often send to articles and features posted on newspaper sites.

Starting soon, (WSJ.com editor) Grueskin plans to target bloggers more specifically, "engaging" them, as he puts, in a variety of areas — technology, business and finance, media, and others — with appropriate content.

Six Apart Buying Live Journal - Om

Business 2.0 journalist Om Malik once again uses his personal blog to break a pretty big news story - Six Apart will buy Live Journal merging two major blogging platforms.

BBC Sees Major Interest in Podcasting

MediaWeek UK reports that BBC Radio is apparently seeing big interest in its podcasting service. They had 70,000 downloads of Radio 4’s In Our Time program in November alone.

Painting A Vision for the Future of E-Paper News

Vin Crosbie paints his vision of the 2010 newspaper, seeing a portable, wireless and flexible electronic paper devices that streams enhanced RSS feeds...

These wouldn't be today's plain-text, graphically empty RSS feeds. Instead, this future form of RSS would encapsulate publisher's or broadcaster's entire daily report in full graphical, interactive layout. This would include all hyperlinks to video or other multimedia. Imagine a hybrid of digital edition and website; all the graphical capabilities and layouts of the former, plus the interactivity and multimedia of the latter. Click the photo, see the video, etc. Click the links embedded in texts and related stories appear, etc.

If RSS can be adapted to encapsulate radio or video programming into Apple iPods (as is now beginning to be done), then future versions of it should be capable of encapsulating entire, hybrid 'converged' editions.

ESPN.com Testing Trackbacks

Tom Biro reports that ESPN.com is testing trackbacks, following in the footsteps of CNET. This will become increasingly common in 2005 as big media adopt blog-like features and converge with social media.

OhmyNews Interviews Dan Gillmor

OhMyNews International has posted a lengthy exclusive interview with Dan Gillmor. It was conducted yesterday at Harvard Law School in the middle of the final day of the College's Berkman Center-sponsored 2004 Internet and Society Conference. In the Q&A Dan talks at length about the prospect of changing careers and his motivations for doing so.

Studios Invite Bloggers to Screen Oscar Hopefuls

United Press International: The major studios have had a change of heart about movie-themed Web sites - going from disapproval of early reviews by unaffiliated Web critics, to reaching out and inviting bloggers to see Oscar hopefuls even before they are screened for mainstream entertainment press.

Gillmor Leaves Merc to Start Citizen Journalism Project

Dan Gillmor announced last night that he is leaving the San Jose Mercury News next month to work on a citizen-journalism project.

I hope to pull together something useful that helps enable -- and demonstrates -- the emerging grassroots journalism that I wrote about in my recent book. Something powerful is happening, it's in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out.

This is a not too subtle reminder that citizen's media is not conceptual, it is here and now and happening. Dan, it's been great working with you all these years. I can't wait to see what comes next and I will be sure to chronicle it here.

Magazine Blogs Trade Barbs Over PR Gifts

Competitors Fast Company Now and the Business 2.0 blog are in a little tiff over PR people sending holiday cards and gifts. It's nothing big, but note the snippy barbs flying back and forth.

The Role of Blogs in Sports

I am convinced that many reporters across all beats are reading/monitoring blogs. It's not just the reporters who are covering the Internet, media, politics or technology. Take baseball for example. The Dodger Thoughts weblog yesterday posted an in-depth interview with Los Angeles Times baseball beat reporter Bill Shaikin. The post reveals quite a bit on how Shaikin feels bloggers fill a need that newspapers simply do not have the space to fulfill...

The seed planted by a blog can lead a writer to use his access and ask questions of the appropriate parties. I agree with the Dodger Thoughts perspective that the blogs that stand out offer original reporting - not just a “take” and not necessarily comments from players, agents or general managers - but insight and commentary not found elsewhere. I also agree that the site of the late Doug Pappas represented blogs at their best - “baseball news you can’t get anywhere else,” to borrow the motto of Baseball America.

Podcasting News Roundup

The Greenboro News and Record has an excellent overview of how new technology is poised to redefine radio's existence. The article talks about podcasting. In related news, podcasting also made it into Time magazine this week.

NYTimes.com Seeks Fresh Talent as it Preps for Redesign

The New York Times today put out an internal call via email to the newsroom staff in search of an experienced editor to manage the day-to-day operations of the hard-news sections of the NYTimes.com site. The email also notes that the Times in 2005 will roll out its first redesign in four years. The email, penned by Glenn Kramon, Associate Managing Editor for Career Development, is notable because it shows how the online news environment has changed and how big media recognizes the need to adapt...

"Next year, the site will embark on its first redesign in four years in an Internet environment that has changed dramatically. Back then there were no Google News or RSS feeds, or even much broadband outside the workplace. Also, video's time on the Web hadn't really arrived. The growth of new technologies like Google News and RSS represent major challenges and opportunities for our storytelling. How we respond will be critical for the long-term health of NYTimes.com."

For as long as I can remember, the New York Times has been an online news innovator. They were one of the first major newspapers to launch a Web site back in 1996 and a pioneer in RSS, thanks to their partnership with Userland. I am sure this is a sign that they will continue to innovate. If you're a journalist interested in learning more about this opportunity, email me and I will send you more info.

iPods Blamed for Denver Radio Stations' Decline

The Denver Post reports that the hours people spend listening to radio are in steep decline as younger audiences switch to iPods, CDs mixed at home and subscription satellite signals. The newspaper reports several local stations are taking steps to address this by cutting ads per hour, jumping back into Internet streaming, and emphasizing live local shows to restore the "companionship" factor in commercial radio. Incredulously, no one is talking about podcasting. What a shame.

eBay and Craig's List Will Merge in 2005 to Create a P2P Media Giant

UPDATE - This post is speculative, not actual reporting.

What does a 21st Century media company look like? What should it embody and who, if anyone (or maybe that’s everyone), will run it? These are certainly good questions and they are being discussed this week by sages like NYU Journalism Chair Jay Rosen, the Online Journalism Review's Mark Glaser and others on Rosen’s influential PressThink weblog. The question comes down in my mind to what is a sustainable media business model. While Rosen points to a couple of stealth projects that will try hard to create a profitable business around hyper-local citizen journalism when they launch next year, I believe they will face massive competition from a successful company that's already right under our noses - eBay.

eBay and Craig's List are already the leaders in facilitating person-to-person commerce. They have also been steadily growing closer together - in August eBay acquired a 25% stake in Craig's List. In 2005 they will take this to the next level when eBay acquires the rest of Craig's List it doesn't own and then enables customers to blog right on their unified site. This will usher in a new era where citizen journalism is directly funded by person-to-person commerce. eBay community bloggers will be able to earn revenues either from their own auction listings or from classified sponsors who choose to advertise on their eBay weblog. In short, eBay will empower consumers to establish a micro version of the media business model that has been around for generations, but only accessible to the big boys.

The two companies have already eaten away at one of the core underpinnings of big media - the classified advertising dollar. So it's not hard to imagine them getting closer, empowering their customers to blog and thus closing the advertising/commerce/content circle. Consider what Dan Gillmor said earlier this year at the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Forum ...

"The real threat to traditional journalism isn't blogging. It's eBay, the largest classified ads publisher."

Dan is right. We have been trained to categorize Internet companies into little discrete buckets. Yahoo is a portal. Google is a search site. eBay is an auction site. Amazon is an online retailer. That's all well and good, but I bet the the brilliant executives who run these innovative firms, however, are taking a much larger view of where the online medium is headed and they're watching blogs create trusted communities that can spur future revenues. You should too.

The Remains of the Day

Lots of good stuff going on today, so here in no particular order is an assortment of interesting links from the day...

• Darren Barefoot has put together a three-part tutorial for becoming a Newsmaster. It includes using PubSub to track your URL, name and keywords and using Feedster to search retrospectively for your name and keywords
• 37 Signals, the geniuses behind Basecamp, are running an online survey that reveals the power of word-of-mouth marketing
• Friends in High Places: Susan Mernit is now writing for Engadget
• Friends in Higher Places: Mary Hodder was profiled on Wired News. Sounds like we are separated at birth, Mary. You should see my paperless office. You'd be jealous.
• Friends in the Highest Places: Rex Hammock drops in on George W for the holidays!
• Renee Blodgett reports Firefox made ABC World News tonight in a big way. Excellent!
• Loic Le Meur says Le Monde has become one of the first newspapers in the world to offer blogs to their readers, under their brand. They have also published a ranking of the 10 top blogs, mixing their journalists blogs and their readers blogs, showing them at the same level, based on blog readers recommendations.
• Last but not least, Mark Glaser and Jay Rosen outline their vision of Journalism 2.0. I will have more to say about this in the coming days. I have a company in mind who I believe is in the best position to make this happen.

Comparing a Citizen Journalist's and Pro Journalist's View of a Story

Yesterday there was a subway fire here in New York City. For an inside look at the future of media, compare and contrast what Newsday wrote about the fire with this first hand account from Dawn Summers, a citizen journalist who was actually on the train! Tip of the hat to PunditGuy for the pointer.

Citizen Journalists Deserve Freedom of the Press Protections

Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at U.C.L.A., who writes the Volokh Conspiracy blog, has a real provocative op-ed in today's New York Times. He writes that bloggers deserve the same first amendment protections the press is entitled to...

Because of the Internet, anyone can be a journalist. Some so-called Weblogs - Internet-based opinion columns published by ordinary people - have hundreds of thousands of readers. I run a blog with more than 10,000 daily readers. We often publish news tips from friends or readers, some of which come with a condition of confidentiality.

The First Amendment can't give special rights to the established news media and not to upstart outlets like ours. Freedom of the press should apply to people equally, regardless of who they are, why they write or how popular they are.

Pay Per Click Journalism

Techdirt notes an an age of “Pay Per Click Journalism” is ushering in down in Chile. Could it come here? Maybe with sites like Findory, in a way it’s already here?

As news rooms continue to try to adjust to a world in which the internet exists (yeah, it's taking them quite a while to come to terms with this), there's an interesting experiment happening down in Chile. The publisher of the paper set up a system where everyone in the news room gets real time stats about what stories readers on the newspapers' website are clicking on, and those clicks drive what news stories will appear in the next day's print edition. In other words, the website acts as market research for what stories people