New Technorati Features

Technorati

Now that my link count problem has been at least temporarily fixed, I can resume my role as a self-appointed customer evangelist for Technorati.

Dave Sifry just announced some cool new features.

Technorati Favorites: You can add you favorite blogs (up to 50) to a personalized Technorati page. For some reason some of the feeds in my opml file wouldn’t import, but that may be a problem on my end, since I had to use Bloglines’ brain damaged export function.

Here’s my current Favorites page (the first 40 blogs in my opml file, plus 10 that didn’t quite make it). It’s a cool idea, but I wish you could have more than 50 feeds.

You can also search your favorite blogs via the Favorites page. Technorati has created widgets and buttons you can put on your blog to allow someone to easily add your blog to their Favorites.

OPML Exports: There are now little buttons at the bottom of each Blog Finder search that allow you to export those blogs into an opml file.

A New Memetracker Club?

Adam Green has announced his desire to create some sort of a group blog about memetrackers.

I have very mixed thoughts about this, but most of them are not positive.

On the one hand, I use the memetrackers a lot and would be in favor of anything that helps them become even better. On the other hand, Gabe and Kevin seem pretty active right now when it comes to talking about memetrackers whenever they are discussed (and I’m sure Matt and others would join in if asked), so why do we need a central place for them to talk about this?

I was a part of the conversation here and on Steve Rubel’s blog that Adam cites as the inspiration for this new group blog. If these conversations are already occurring naturally in the wild, why do we need to try to grow them in a lab?

Isn’t the nature and goal of the blogosphere to promote distributed conversations? Maybe if Adam allowed comments on his blog some of the conversation would be occurring there right now.

Would those guys really want to blog together about the future of a space they are battling to own? Would Coke and Pepsi do a soda blog?

The bigger problem I have with this concept, however, is the potential for exclusion. Perhaps unintentionally, but the potential is there. For crying out loud, they have formed an advisory board to decide who should be able to participate.

That takes a second, not a committee. Gabe, Kevin, Matt, Laurence and anybody else who has built a memetracker.

Not yet addressed, but looming large over all of this, is who else gets to participate in this group blog? Just the memetracker founders or a select group of other people? If so, who selects them? The same advisory board or another one?

What happens if we need to change a lightbulb?

I hate to rain on someone’s parade, but I don’t like where this seems to be going.

The Real Reason Blogging is Hard

We’ve talked about the gatekeeper thing.

We’ve talked about rules for good blogging.

And some of us have tried to add more voices to the conversation via “affirmative traction.”

But I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about the main reason blogging is so hard. We’ve talked around it. Others have probably addressed it in one form or another. But let’s just put it out there on the table and look at it for a bit.

Blogging is hard because of the grind required to stay interesting and relevant.

Day in and day out, day after day, night after night, you have to keep working. Read, write, comment. Over and over. A lot of the time, it comes natural and it’s fun, but sometimes it doesn’t and it isn’t.

Courting the Fickle Eyeballs

Fraser Kelton and I kicked ideas around about traffic and RSS subscriber numbers the other day. I did a little of the same with Doc Searls via email. My new conclusions are the same as my old conclusions. Readers are fickle and you have to work to stay relevant.

Yes, you can build a blog. I have sort of (though not entirely) disproved my own theory in that regard. If you write long and hard and interesting and funny enough, you can and will get links from Scoble, Om, Doc, etc. And those links will lead to readers.

If you build it, they will come.

But Will They Stay?

Some of your readers will become your friends. This part of blogging is really a cross-blog social networking thing that is, as I have said before, the natural evolution of the internet message board. We trade ideas, comment on each other’s post and generally carry on a conversation.

That’s a wonderful thing and it’s one of the main reasons I keep doing this.

But the other 98% of your readers don’t know you from Adam’s housecat. To them you are just a name in an RSS reader with a post or two to be scanned. They won’t keep reading because they like you. To the contrary, they may stop by once or twice, but if they don’t affirmatively like what they see, they’ll move on. It’s the same with blogs as it is with restaurants. You’ve got one or two chances to turn a visitor into a customer.

Going Up is Hard, Going Down is Easy

And just like any other upward climb, it’s not just about moving up the hill. It’s also about trying not to fall back down the hill, due to exhaustion, boredom or both.

Take Steve Rubel for example. He’s built a one-man blogging empire, because he follows his Four P’s. He’s a good writer, with demonstrated expertise in his area, and he seems like a nice guy. That and a ton of hard work on his part turned his blog into the destination site that it is today.

But what if he got lazy and stopped writing or decided to write only about his dog or something? Would he stay on top of bloggers hill? Almost certainly not. Over time, his thousands and thousands of readers would lose interest and move on to the next trendy spot. Of course he’d have a few dog lovers to take their place, but his blog would be a very different and a much less populated place.

And he’s at the top of bloggers hill. The exodus from this blog or another one still on the slope would be even faster.

Is the fact that my dog’s photo is at the top of this page the thing that’s keeping me out of the Technorati 100?

The Downward Spiral

The grind is exactly why so many blogs are abandoned after only a few weeks or months. It’s why even many of the blogs in Scoble’s feeds have fallen into the downward spiral of neglect.

It’s hard to have something interesting and relevant to say every day, much less several times a day. And if you’re still climbing up bloggers hill, the path is steep and if you aren’t moving forward, you’re probably losing ground.

So What Does It Mean?

It just means that like a lot of things, blogging is hard. It’s hard for all the reasons we’ve talked about over the past few months: because of the gatekeepers, because of the people who whine about the gatekeepers, because someone didn’t answer our email, because somebody else sent us an email, because of the blog networks, in spite of the blog networks, because some of our posts are boring, because the RIAA is suing dead grannies.

But mostly it’s hard because of the grind.

Citizen Media: Us TV

Susan Crawford has an interesting post today about the “me-TV” that has resulted from today’s wide selection of media outlets.

It seems Michael Powell, the former chairman of the FCC gave a speech yesterday at the University of Colorado. Susan talks about one of the themes of his speech: that there are so many media outlet choices that we have lost the communal media experience.

I’m not sure what communal media experience really means (it’s one of those “pre-owned cars” phrases), but I think it means that we don’t all get our news from Walter Cronkite. Which, for better or worse, is true.

The part that I do understand and agree with is the notion that there are so many targeted old media outlets that you can find news that matches up perfectly with your existing beliefs and preconceived biases and, as a result, avoid having to really think about the issues.

But this is nothing new. There have always been a ton of organizations, some with captive media outlets, that are happy to spoon feed beliefs to the masses. This is precisely why I stop listening to anyone who tells me, near the beginning of a conversation, that he or she is a republican or democrat. I don’t want to hear why the other side is wrong. I want to hear both sides of an issue and try to arrive at a solution that might actually work.

Too many people want to avoid the middle truth in favor of the lunatic fringe.

As Susan points out, the same thing has happened to a large extent with old media. She mentions Fox news as one example. Air America is another. You can find someone semi-famous to tell you you’re right, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But if you really think you’re right, shouldn’t you want to hear the other side of the argument just to make sure? Sadly, the answer seems to often be no. My take on it, of course, is that the political parties have conscripted the minds and mouths of far too many people who run around spouting off viewpoints they have memorized, but not tested.

There used to be this guy on the radio in Houston. He was the most right-wing, holier than thou person I have ever heard. His predictable responses and black and white approach to every issue made me not only dislike him, but also start to wonder if I should change my views on the things I agreed with him about, just so I would never be on his side in any debate. But I know a lot of people who thought he was the smartest guy around. Well, until he got indicted for indecency with a child. Then they didn’t think he was so smart.

This sort of extreme viewpoint is not limited to the right. You can find the same sort of gibberish on the other end of the dial. I quit listening to KPFT in Houston just so I wouldn’t inadvertently hear Democracy Now. It’s just as extreme, only in the other direction.

I tend to relate more to the liberal viewpoints, but someone needs to tell the liberal commentators that just because it can be said doesn’t make it feasible. In its continuing effort to discredit the right, the left has lost touch with reality. Their stories generally sound better, but in a fairy tale sort of way.

The actual solutions offered by both sides are few and far between. Most of the talking points force fed by the political parties are more about attacking those who disagree than trying to do any real good. And the content of the associated media outlets reflect this.

I had already written the part above when I noticed a discussion of another theme of Powell’s speech on David Isenberg’s blog. Apparently Mr. Powell believes partisanship is out of control too. David paraphrases:

The Washington DC political process is more broken now than at any other time I’ve seen in my life. It has collapsed in on itself. I went home and asked my father [Colin Powell] if I was missing something, and he agreed with me that the process has collapsed into pure partisanship. The power of the incumbency has grown. People are not concerned with what’s right or what’s in the nations interest, they are purely interested in killing their opponents.

This political and philosophical polarization is one of the major reasons why I remain hopeful and excited about the citizen media movement. The citizen media movement, by virtue of the way it is presented, forces a much needed move to the middle. Because there is not just one Walter Cronkite in citizen media. There are millions of them, and each of them has a roughly equal platform from which to be heard.

And unlike when I see a story on TV, if I read something on a blog that I don’t agree with, I can immediately add a comment and/or post a counterpoint here and link back for a cross-blog conversation. People who disagree with what I say here can do the same thing. And it happens. It happened last night and it happened over the weekend. And it’s happening right now.

Is it chaotic? Maybe, but it’s better to pick at the plate of many than be force fed from the plate of one.

Web 2.0 Wars: Round 7

It’s time for Round 7 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 7:

Jotspot
Frappr
Jeteye
Dabble db
Yedda
Writeboard
Shoutwire
iKarma
Kanoodle
Airset

Jotspot is a wiki host and creation service. It allows the creation of personal or corporate wikis that can be used as a de facto intranet. Prices range from $10 a month to $200 a month.

Frappr is an online tool that lets you map out the city where you live, work, vacation, or anything else! You can then share your Frappr page with friends. You can also share photos, private message them, or leave comments on their MyFrappr homepage.

Jeteye lets you save links, images and notes in what it calls a jetpak. Jetpacks hold and help organize your important links and data. Nice idea, but a crowded field.

Dabble db is another information manager. It’s not yet live.

Yedda is an expert driven knowledge base, similar to Yahoo Answers. It’s not live yet either.

Writeboard is an online application that allows you to build sharable text documents, similar to Writely.

Shoutwire is a community news tracker, similar to Digg. It doesn’t appear to be terribly current or deep in content. Nice design.

iKarma is a feedback and self described reputation and feedback system. Think of it as eBay feedback for the whole internet. I had a bit of a hard time finding any feedback content. Neat idea, but it needs more people to input more feedback.

Kanoodle is the “leader in targeted sponsored links.” It says it is affiliated with thousands of search engines (I didn’t know there were that many of them). It places pay-per-click ads in the search result pages for you.

Airset is yet another online calendar. The application looks nice, but there are way too many applications in this space.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

0 out of 10

And the Winner of Round 7 is:

iKarma, based solely on potential. Not a strong heat.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

What Makes a Business Real?

karnak-793130 In a post mostly designed to claim Karnak the Magnificent status, with a brief time out to praise another blogger who used to work for him for quoting him, Jason Calacanis explains to us why YouTube is “not a real business.” The circle is about to collapse on itself and we’re still in the first paragraph.

Anyway, for those like me who were bored with the story and didn’t really follow it, NBC made YouTube take down uploaded videos of the “Lazy Sunday” Saturday Night Live skit that got so much run recently- mostly because it was so available on the net. Many think, and I agree, that NBC shot itself in the foot by squelching the kind of buzz a dying of old show like the once hilarious SNL needs. This is exactly the kind of knee-jerk reaction you’d expect from old media, but some people found it compelling and there was much blogging about it.

Jason goes gives us all the reasons why YouTube is not a real business, primarily because it allows people to upload video that might be pirated. First, he compares YouTube to Kazaa and that file-sharing ilk. Then he takes a quick 180 and says that YouTube shouldn’t be shut down because it’s just like the phone company: it provides the dial tone (upload space) but what the customer does with it is up to the customer.

Does this mean that the phone company is not a real business either? Actually, it’s probably not, at least in its traditional form, but that’s not what Jason’s talking about.

Does this also mean that Flickr is not a real business? Good thing nobody told Yahoo that. How about all the file storage sites that people actually pay for (a novel concept in Web 2.0)? Does a pirated MP3 make those non-businesses as well?

I could almost get there on the argument that YouTube is not a real business, since I have said many times here that relying solely on ad revenue is not a good medium or long term business plan, mainly because you have too many players fighting over too few ad dollars in a very cyclical and fickle online ad market.

But then we get to the good part.

Jason tells us the good businesses.

Digg, Engadget and MySpace.

Engadget, of course, being one of the blogs in the blog network Jason sold to AOL, for allegedly big dollars. He still works for AOL, presumably over the blog network he created.

I wonder if he sees even a hit of irony here?

The others, while hugely popular and wildly successful by Web 2.0 standards, also rely almost entirely on ad revenue dollars.

Being at the front of the line when the limited ad dollars are passed out is a huge advantage. But it doesn’t make you IBM and, in my opinion, it doesn’t create the dangerous bubble valuations we keep getting hints of.

So these may or may not be real businesses, but just like “strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government,” the possibility of a pirated file is no basis for deciding that something isn’t a real business.

Bubble 2.0: Six Apart Gets Nutty Money?

Lots of huffing and puffing beneath the bubble as Om reports on a rumor (and he calls it such at this point), that Six Apart, the company that brought us TypePad, Moveable Type and Live Journal, has raised another $12M in financing.

The fact that the word another and million are both in that sentence is scary enough. The fact that there’s a 12 before the word million means it’s time to run to the store for water bottles, batteries and plywood. The bubble may be upon us.

Go read Om’s post for the details on what he has heard and to see any updates once he tracks down some of the players.

Om ends by wondering about the exit strategy for Six Apart. You can be sure if some supposedly smart money is investing serious money in this company they have one. And I can only think of two:

(1) get bought by one greater fool, such as Yahoo or Google or another company that has lots of money burning a hole in its pocket; or

(2) get bought by a bunch of greater fools in an IPO.

Generally speaking, there has to be an exit strategy because, sadly, few of these new tech companies really plan on selling a product for the long term- most of them are interested only in selling themselves.

I suspect there is a hush all over the VC world (to paraphrase Herman) because the first one of these one-trick ponies to actually admit it wants to go public will face token scrutiny by some old media and outcry by those stalwart few who remain committed to learning from the past.

But when one of these companies breaks from the pack and heads towards Wall Street, the rest of them will stop and watch closely. If the first one makes it without falling flat on its face, I fear the race will be on.

The Politics of Blogging

Guy Kawasaki has a post today that talks about the best ways to attract the A-Listers towards your product so they’ll write about it.

Mike Arrington and Om Malik respond by saying all that’s not necessary.

I’m going to defend Guy in a minute, but first I have to make a point.

I think it’s interesting that Guy talks in terms of the A-Listers. Does anyone think that if Guy wasn’t Guy (upper case) but was some equally smart but unknown guy (lower case) who’d been blogging for a whopping month and a half, Mike and Om would have seen his post and, even if they had seen it, bothered to read it much less respond to it? Guy, what do you think?

Om suggests simply saying:

“I got this story/idea I am pitching. Any interest?” Two lines – and absolutely no need to suck-up.

That approach works with me. I’m beta testing and preparing to write about several products right now that I wouldn’t have known about and certainly wouldn’t have access to if the developers hadn’t emailed me.

I don’t know, though, how well that approach would work with a card carrying A-Lister. I suspect it would work with Om, but I also suspect it would not work with some of the others.

Mike says two things of interest:

Some of the suggestions, like linking back to bloggers, are good ones.

Well, that’s never worked for me as far as Mike’s concerned. I’ve linked to him a ton. I’ve tried content and depth; I’ve tried humor. I can’t help but think he’s seen links to my posts via Technorati or on one of the memetrackers or even on a fellow A-Lister’s blog, but my attempt to reach out has so far fallen on deaf hands. Of course, I haven’t emailed him because I don’t want to violate the rule implied in the other interesting thing he said:

I don’t want people to be friends with me because they are planning ahead to the day when they need something from me. I want them to be friends with me because they like me.

Even though every single marketing person in the entire universe knows that one of the first things you need to do is become friends with your target audience, be it customers, readers or linkers, I agree with Mike on this point. It is a little creepy, and I don’t and won’t do it.

I have managed to become friends with a good number of other bloggers, some A-List, some not, simply by talking about the same topics and earning my way into the conversation. But a lot of people don’t respond to that, perhaps for a good reason (they don’t see your posts) and perhaps not.

But here’s the thing. If you’re Mike Arrington (who granted has earned his lofty perch in the blogosphere) or Guy Kawasaki (who got a free pass because of prior accomplishments and relationships), it’s pretty easy to make A-List friends. But all of us aren’t Mikes and Guys.

And even though he does it in a strange, roundabout way, Guy seems to realize that and offers advice for the rest of us.

Second Opinion Update

In addition to myself and Shane Ede, Doc Searls nodded approvingly at the Second Opinion concept yesterday, as did Dave Wallace (the LifeKludger).

Dave and Mike Seyfang talk about expanding the conversation in their latest podcast. I listened to it last night and the discussion is interesting and relevant.

Anyone else want to give it a go? How about some of my fellow Wagon Train members?

As an aside, are there any bad blogs in Australia?

Design, RSS and Internet Explorer

Fraser Kelton talked a little bit yesterday about blog design, the memetrackers and the effect of both (or either) on a blog’s RSS subscription count.

I’ve been thinking about and actually charting my RSS subscription numbers for a couple of weeks now trying to pattern out where my subscribers are coming from and why they do or don’t stick around. I haven’t arrived at any conclusions yet, but here’s what I’ve figured out so far.

First, My Tragic Template Tale

Fraser was responding in part to a post by Jeff Jarvis bemoaning the limitations of blog templates. In large part I agree with Jeff, but I think that limitation is really a function of the connected structure of the internet itself. By that I mean even if you didn’t use a blogging platform and hand created your web site and all the articles/posts thereon, you’d run into the same problem. Why? Because blogs by definition have to make it easy and efficient for search engines, other blogs and desired web applications to easily mine them for data.

For example, blog platforms have to know where to put and not put new posts, old posts and other content so the Technoratis, Googles and memetrackers can identify new content, index it and extract the relevant portions. I’m sure if you were a code writing guru you could accomplish just about anything you wanted as far as your blog template goes, but if you went too far into uncharted territory, none of the search engines could find your content. Those of us who have had problems getting indexed correctly by Technorati are exhibits aplenty for this proposition.

But there are other problems related to blog templates that make me crazy. My blog template is the result of hours and hours of work, both by me and a CSS-guru friend of mine. We worked very hard to get the 3 column layout to work the way I want it to. Now it does. But as a result I am highly resistant to any major changes to my template, because of the resulting change to the look and feel of my website. So I am a slave to my template in that regard. But that’s only because I like it.

There’s an even bigger problem.

Because of my occasional partial RSS-feed problem that I can’t get anyone at Bloglines to address, much less fix (and it happens to other people as well) and because there is some evidence that the problem is caused by Blogger, who I use to publish, but not host, Newsome.Org, I have been in the process of trying to move over to WordPress. Another friend of mine is helping me do that- the biggest hurdle being the mandate to preserve the prior posts, comments and look and feel.

Well guess what? We can design a template that looks just like this one. In fact we (by we I really mean he) have already done so. The problem arises when we try to import my old content. Because of naming conventions and other problems, it is very hard to do. We’ll probably figure it out, but it’s a lot harder than it ought to be.

Porting blog content around should be easier. There need to be standards here, and as of now there are not.

Now About Those Subscribers

I have not been able to fully pattern out my subscriber situation.

But one thing I know, which supports Fraser’s Internet Explorer theory, is that I get a lot more web traffic than I do RSS traffic. Probably 10 times more, though the numbers fluctuate wildly.

By fluctuate wildly, I mean my subscriber count goes up and down, sometimes by hundreds in a matter of a day or two. Maybe this is normal, but sometimes, for no apparent reason, my count goes up or down by the hundreds. The overall trend is up at a good rate, but the chart looks like a day traders’ dream.

I also know that when I get linked by one of the mega-blogs, like Steve, Scoble, Doc or Hugh, my subscription numbers spike way up and then recede like a wave. Not all the way back, but I estimate that I lose over 50% of my new subscribers within a week after the link. I don’t know if that’s just me or if this is representative of a larger trend.

My web site traffic spikes when I get a link from a mega-blog too. But it recedes even more. I often lose over 75% of my web traffic spike over the following week.

Maybe this means I can’t write or that my blog is boring, but, again, the overall trend is very positive. My numbers are growing very steadily. But it’s a pretty wild ride if you believe the charts- like riding a bucking bronc up bloggers hill.

Obviously, the answer to part of the web traffic loss is that the hurdle to an RSS subscription is higher, but retention is probably greater, since you have to elect to unsubscribe. On the other hand the hurdle for a web visit is very low (merely a click) but there is no subscription to automatically bring you back. Plus, almost all of the RSS subscribers come first via a web link and won’t need to come back that way once they subscribe to the RSS feed.

But it’s still a wild ride.

My Conclusions

Nothing particularly mind-bending, but here they are:

1) A lot more people visit my blog via a web browser than via an RSS feed.

2) Web browser visitors are less likely to return.

3) Mega-blog links provide significant traffic spikes (thanks guys, please keep them coming).

4) Well over half of the mega-blog traffic spike melts away within a week.

5) A link from a big but not mega blog that shares your target audience will result in more long-term growth than a link from a mega-blog that doesn’t.

What this tells me, of course, is that getting to the top of bloggers hill takes more than a link from a mega-blog. It takes a regular flow of links from both mega-blogs and other blogs that share a similar target audience and content that attracts that traffic back to your content.