Gartner Is Recommending Investment In RSS, Blogging, Podcasting and Wikis

Read the press release

Latest Jupiter Research Blog Readers Survey

eWeek reports:

The average consumer of blogs, RSS/XML feeds and Podcasts is male, earns big bucks and, in the case of Podcasts, is a youngsterÂ?all good to know if your company is thinking about jumping into the blogosphere...

Using Blog Tools for Content Management

According to this infoworld article as blog tools become more advanced they are being looked at as an option for site content management.

...Deploying a full-blown ECM (enterprise content management) system to address basic corporate content publishing and workflow needs has been likened to trying to kill a fly with a rocket launcher. A more suitable solution may lie in souped-up blogging tools, which by design simplify content publishing.

Welcome AAAA Members!

Be sure to post a comment to let me know if you found The Mason Technologist from the link in the latest AAAA newsletter. I would love to get some feedback from other agencies to see what cool things they are doing with their clients in the online world. I hope you enjoy your visit. Come back often, you're always welcome.

Rise In Broadband - Bad News for TV

eMarketer reports on a recent study by Forrester.

By 2010, 62% of US households will have broadband access to the Internet, 53% will own a laptop and 37% will use a digital video recorder (DVR) to gain control over how and when they watch TV.

The Forrester survey, of nearly 69,000 people in the US and Canada, found that broadband Internet users watch just 12 hours of TV per week, compared with 14 hours for those who are offline. Those using a dial-up connection watch 12.5 hours of TV.

Blogpulse InfoPorn

Check out Matt Galloway's graphs on Tom and Nicole
To use Wired's term, this is some serious InfoPorn.

Matt takes the simple little search I did back on 7/12 and blows the doors off of it!
This is a really good example of how to use Blogpulse to accurately measure buzz !

National Geographic Special on 9/11

Check out this video trailer. I wish I had this channel on my cable system...

Dell Modifies Their Blog Policy

Well, according to Jeff Jarvis, Dell will now be monitoring and replying to bloggers. I wonder how long it will take them to contact this guy.

Talking About how 'Google Is Talking'

I just installed GoogleTalk, Google's long-expected entry into the IM and VoIP market, has arrived. Google Talk is a full-fledged IM client based on the open Jabber protocol with VoIP thrown in for good measure. According to Google, you can access Google Talk's servers with any Jabber-compatible client like Trillian, Gaim, Adium X, and iChat.

Have a GMail account? Let's chat...
I'm really curious to hear how it sounds.

The Value of the Press Release in Search Engine Marketing

In a recent post from Paul Chaney, he discusses the importance of optimizing press releases. He states:

"The real value of press releases these days is how they help you with the search engines. If you use a service like PR Web and pay the $30 '?donation'? you get picked up in Google News, Yahoo! News and others."

Stacy Williams reports that keyword-optimized press releases are read five times more than non-optimized releases. Not only that, the average cost per read is less than one cent.

Larry Sivitz has these SEO PR pointers on writing your presreleasese for PRNewswire and PRWeb :

• In the top portion of the page in the first sentence of the first full bodied paragraph (plain text: no bold, no italics, no style)
• In an H3 or larger heading (H1, H2) on the page
• In bold Â? second paragraph if possible and anywhere but the first usage on page. In italics - anywhere but the first usage. In subscript/superscript
• In the URL We will advise on directory name, filename, or domain name
• In an image filename used on the page
• In the Alt Text tags of any image file(s)
• In the Title Attribute of the image file(s)
• In the Link Anchor text to another site
• In an Internal linkÂ?s text to another page within the site

Pandora Rocks The House



What do Greg Brown, Martin Sexton, ColdPlay, and Supergrass have in common? Hmmmm, I don't know, what DO they have in common? Well, I plugged these singers into a new website that just launched called Pandora to see how they handled the mix. Thanks to an invite from Michael Arrington, I was able to get a sneak peak at the new music service that calculates my musical preferences based on data collected as part of the Music Genome Project.
The best part is it streams the whole song in high quality audio without any plug-ins needed!

This is the coolest service. It kept me entertained all day. It started getting a little off track at one point, but I clicked the button to tell them I didn't like the song and it kept me groovin without one repeat! Even cooler, it gave me a chance to hear some bands that I always wanted to listen to such as Apples In Stereo and Red House Painters. One thing I wish it had, was a way for me to tag an artist in my 'clips' list so I could check out more of their stuff later. I found that I ended up writing down new bands on a sheet of paper, but it would be cool to tie all this to my Pandora profile online! The other suggestion I have is to make it easier to send feedback. Right now there is a link to an email address off on a subpage somewhere. It would be easier to have a support form to help us report any bugs, errors or suggestions that we have as we test out the system. But over all this thing totally rocks.

I have already forwarded this to 5 'music lovin' friends and they are literally dancing in the isles! My wife is listening to it right now as I type this and is LOVING it.

You have to check it out! I have 20 more invites so shoot me an email if you want one.

Excellent List of Essential Free Windows Software

If you are a Windows user, you will definitely want to book mark this site: http://nedwolf.com/
All of this software is completely and totally free. No shareware, no nagware, no adware.
Reviewed constantly, categorized conveniently, with always-current links and versions.

I've downloaded quite a few utilities off of this site and added them to my USB Thumb drive just in case I need to install virus scan, antispyware, or personal firewalls. All free!

New Era of Participatory Public Relations

Steve Rubel posted his
10 Commandments for The Era of Participatory Public Relations. The take away message the PR folks: Embrace the new era of the empowered consumer

The Changing Face Of Influencer Relations

I was reading the article: Jeff Jarvis vs. Dell: Blogger's Complaint Becomes Viral Nightmare

In it, they interview Steve Rubel who states:

"Every company is going to have evangelists and vigilantes in the blogosphere, and they need a group of people focused on influencer relations, who are kind of watching all these different conversations and figuring out how to amplify the evangelists and how to calm the vigilantes."

Influencer Relations - Interesting term, isn't this what Public Relations firms do? Well, yes, but in the world of RSS and Blogging, the definitions of "Influencers" is changing. Influencers used to be primarily the media and industry analysts, but the list of influencers has expanded. Today, the purchasing process is influenced by a broad array of friends, colleagues and peers, pundits, academics, authors, researchers, and many others.

In an Article by David Kirkpatrick at Fortune Magazine he talked about how Google and Apple don't understand the importance of the new influencers. How will this affect them in the long run? He contrasts this to Microsoft's comparative openness with employee bloggers.

Free Wi-Fi? Get Ready for GoogleNet

According to Business 2.0 Google may be up to something.

"What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user's precise
location? The gatekeeper of the world's informationon could become one of the globe's biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. "

This really makes a lot of sense! Read the rest here.

Want a $50 iBook? - Better Bring Your Brass Knuckles!

Yikes! It's an iStampede :-/

Richmond VA -- A near riot broke out when a crowd of 5,500 to 11,000 people rushed through a gate to buy used iBooks being sold by the school district for $50. Only 1,000 iBook were being sold, and people were in a rush to get to the sales counter first.
See a second-by-second slide-show here.

How To Protect Your Computer

Invariably, the most common question I get goes something like this:

"Jack, I just got a new laptop, and I've been hearing all kinds of things about virus' and spyware. What do you recommend to protect my PC from being infected?"

Well, here is the answer:

1. You need to install an Antivirus program. I recommend AVG Antivirus from GRISoft. It's quick, its small, it updates itself automatically and best of all its FREE! Download it here.

2. You need to install a personal firewall. There are a number of them out there, but the one I recommend is ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs. It monitors and blocks malicious traffic both trying to get into your computer as well as programs trying to connect to the internet without your consent or knowledge. Download it here.

3. You need to install a Antispyware program. I used to recommend installing AdAware and Spybot to work in combination with each other. (This is still the best free antispyware for windows 98). But lately I have been recommending either installing Sunbelt Software's CounterSpy ($19.95) OR installing Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta for FREE.

4. You need to regularly install the latest Windows Updates. I recommend setting XP to automatically download the updates for you. You can get the instructions on how to do that here.

U.S. brands have an image problem

CNN reports American icons such as Coke, McDonald's and Disney are losing luster with global consumers. Only 4 brands out of 16 increased their score.

FedEx Miss The Mark

Wired News reports that Blogger Jose Avila is being sued by FedEx to take down his website where he shows how he made all the furniture for his apartment out of FedEx shipping material.

Bad move FedEx! This guy is your biggest fan, you should hire him for a FedEx Ad. Or how about a gift certificate to IKEA instead of slapping him with a lawsuit?!?! Come on!

15 Chapters of Naked Coversations

I will be buying a copy of Shel's book when it comes out, but in the mean time, here are the links to his the drafts on his website:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Re:think the Agency

Joe Jaffe has posted chapter 10 of his book. He has some great insights on the state of the agency today. Worth a read...

Future of Advertising - here today

Inc.com has an interesting article on new advertising techniques. I thought the Elevator TV screens for advertising is a GREAT idea! People would LOVE something to focus on while in the elevator.

Another interesting part was the list of new media providers:

Name	Location	Specialty
Claria	Redwood City, Calif.	Behavioral targeting service tracks the online habits of Web surfers and hits them with relevant advertising.
Enpocket	Boston	Sends ad messages, coupons, and branded video files to mobile phones -- in some cases tracking the phone's location.
Pulse	San Francisco	Online tools turn a photo of any person or animal into a lip-synched talking head for viral ad campaigns.
Zebra Imaging	Austin	Produces large promotional holograms that make images of objects or people stand out in 3-D -- no glasses needed.
Experian	Costa Mesa, Calif.	Collates consumer data to predict which people are likely to be in the market for particular products.
Reactrix	Redwood City, Calif.	A motion-sensitive projector turns any surface into a crowd-drawing, brandable interactive display.
Massive	New York City	Inserts ads via an online connection into video games while they're being played. Coming is technology that will adapt the ads to individual players.

Straight Forward Blogging Policy

Many of our clients are either starting a blog or thinking about it. Generally, its a good idea to write up your company's stance on blogging with a clear understanding of the boundaries. Buzz Marketing With Blogs posted the Hill & Knowlton blog policy which is easy to understand and seems to cover all the bases:

• I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly
• I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes
• I will never delete a post
• I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic
• I will disclose conflicts of interest (including client relationships) where I am able to do so
• I will not publish anything that breaches my existing employment contract
• I will distinguish between factual information/commentary and advertising
• I will never publish information I know to be inaccurate
• I will disagree with other opinions respectfully
• I will link to online references and original source materials directly
• I will strive for high quality with every post - including basic spell checking
• I will write deliberately and with accuracy
• I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly
• I will restrict my posting to professional topics
• I will write on a regular basis, at least once each week

Automated Pinging Service

OK, so you write all these cool blog posts, but how do you promote them? Well one way is to use a pinging service.

There are many weblog sites which keep track of updates for thousands or hundred thousands of weblogs. To announce your weblog updates to these sites you have to ping them. This technique is described here.

Simply put, a ping is only saying to weblog sites: "hey, I have something new for you". After such a ping weblog sites will visit your website and index new content. So, pinging or registering your weblog in as many sites as possible is a very good solution to get more visitors.

I've been using www.pingomatic.com to ping the major weblog index sites such as Technorati and Feedster Well, I found another ping service called Pings.ws that will allow you to add code to your blog template so that it will ping the service automatically.

I'm not sure how to test if it works or now, nor am I sure how they prevent multiple pings in a row, but I am testing it out on my blog and I'll keep an eye to see who comes to visit.

Has anyone else found an easy way to automate blog pings? Let me know.

The latest figures from Nielsen/Net Ratings for the top online news sites

I was just talking to my wife about how I NEVER read a news paper anymore. And it looks like I'm not alone:

• Yahoo! News (24.9 million visitors in June 2005)
• MSNBC (23.8 mln)
• CNN (21.4 mln)
• AOL News (17.4 mln)
• Gannett Newspapers (11.4 mln)
• New York Times (11.2 mln)
• Internet Broadcasting (10.9 mln)
• Knight Ridder Digital (9.9 mln)
• Tribune Newspapers (9.0 mln)
• USA Today (8.6 mln)
• Washington Post (8.5 mln)
• ABC News (7.7 mln)
• Google News (7.2 mln)
• Hearst Newspapers Digital (6.9 mln)

Google News adds RSS feeds

This is very cool! Now this means you can subscribe to your google news search terms and read them in your news reader. You can read more here.

Here are is a few of our client feeds you can add to your news reader:

Bruegger's: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=bruegger%27s&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

New Alliance Bank:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=%22New+Alliance+Bank%22&output=rss

Connecticut Sun:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Connecticut+Sun%22&output=rss

Bigelow Tea
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22bigelow+tea%22&hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

Free Video Hosting
Check out this site called YouTube . YouTube is 'flickr for videos'. You can upload videos in a number of different formats ( .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG ). Videos can be of any length, but must be less than 100 mb in total size.

The service is completely free to users (publishers and viewers). YouTube converts video to a flash format, and therefore upload and playback is extremely fast.

This could be a quick and easy way to publish and share the Mason PR video library. They include code to include the videos on your own website as well.

Here's an example of a video interview with well-known blogger Halley Suit on how to get noticed in the blogosphere. Video interview conducted by JD Lasica at the BlogHer conference in Santa Clara, Calif., on July 30, 2005.

Adverblog Reports "Search engine advertising will generate more revenue than standard display advertising by 2010"

More good stats to keep in mind as we move forward in the online world!

Jupiter Research forecasts that online advertising will continue to growth in the next five years, reaching $18.9 billion in 2010, compared to $9.3 billion at the end of 2004. Search engine advertising will generate more revenue than standard display advertising by 2010. Rich media spending will grow at a 25% compound annual growth rate (to $3.5 billion) and streaming media will grow at a 30% compound annual growth rate (to $943 million) by 2010.

Fortune Magazine interview with Chrysler Director of Marketing

Interesting snipet from Fortune Magazine:

Julie Roehm has more than $2 billion to spend this year...

...Chrysler's director of marketing communications, Roehm, 34, oversees a budget that Advertising Age ranks as the sixth-largest pool of ad dollars in the nation.

...Roehm rarely misses a chance to talk about how delighted she is with online advertising. Last year she spent 10% of the budget online; this year she is allotting closer to 18%; next year, she says, she will allocate more than 20%. Do the math: In 2006 roughly $400 million of Chrysler's money that used to go into TV, newspaper, and magazine ads will be spent on the Internet. Says Roehm: "I hate to sound like such a marketing geek, but we like to fish where the fish are."

17 Mistakes Professionals Make with Their Blogs

How To Build A Better Blog Posted the following suggestions:

1. Not posting frequently enough. (Recommended: 2-3 times a week.)

2. Content is not focused, and the target audience is not clearly defined.

3. Posting articles that are too long, instead of using extended post features.

4. Not linking profusely (because the professional isn’t researching their field on the internet).

5. Poor spelling, bad grammar and typos.

6. No name of author in tag line or on side bar.

7. No author photo.

8. No signature or name in the footer; no way to tell who wrote post on a multi-author site.

9. No subscription form; no way to get blog updates through RSS or email.

10. No way for readers to leave comments and use trackbacks.

11. Too many categories or none at all.

12. No information about their business services and products.

13. Calendars for no reason at all (what is the point of those calendars anyway?).

14. Blog isn’t submitted to blog directories.

15. Not pinging each time a new post is published.

16. Not using trackbacks referring or linking to other blogs.

17. No blogroll or list of favorite blogs or websites.

I Read A Cool Acronym for BLOG

I was reading a posting on Pheedo that talked about the standard reasons for your company to blog. I liked the acronym they use for the fact that blogging is GREAT for search engine Ranking.
They said blog stands for Better Listing On Google. :-)

The frequency of updates, trackbacks, pings, comments, blogrolls and RSS all add to the search engine juice. Additionally, RSS alone is great for link building. Paul Chaney explains how to deploy a Blog to compliment your search strategy. Stephan Spencer goes into greater detail how you can use RSS to improve your organic search results.

Take-away is blogs help with organic search. To achieve higher results with search engines, incorporate keywords/phrases in your posts on a frequent basis.

Free Stats Counter - Looks Pretty Cool!I've been using Hitslink.com for stats tracking and it's got a pretty slick interface and very cool reporting features, but I just noticed that Russell Beattie is using a free stats counter from statcounter.com. Looks cool! I installed it so I'll let you know how it works alongside hitslink.

Ani Won't be touring much anymore :(

As I mentioned previously, I went on our annual trek to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival at the end of July. Of the 4 days I really only got to hear one complete set (having 3 kids under 5 will tend to make that happen). But I did everything I could to make sure I could see Ani DiFranco's set. I even took my younger two for a drive at mid-day to get them to nap. I ended up Driving back and forth from Great Barrington Massachusetts to Hudson New York just to get them to sleep!
It was well worth it. Well anyway, this posting in kuro5hin just caught my eye:

Sadly, Ani will not be touring much in the near future.
Age is finally catching up with the diminutive troubadour, leaving her with tendonitis, and other repetitive stress injuries. As the show progressed, the degree of the injury became clear, with Ani shaking her arm often to relieve cramping. At one point, this was so noticeable the crowd hushed (maybe expecting an end to the concert) a lone voice called out "we'll miss you". Down front, we could see the tear in the eye, as she began the next song, warrior-like, dropping to her knees in front of the adoring audience.

I'm even more appreciative that I got to see her maybe for the last time live! Thanks for such a great show Ani!

Medicare To Offer Free Electronic Health Records System to All Doctors

Frank Hayes reports that Medicare will be giving away an open source version of Vista that has been paired down and simplified for small doctors offices.

Perhaps our client Hartford Medical Group would find this of interest.

Textbook example of the "Complete Brand Experience"

Norm told me he was going down to the city last weekend to show some visiting friends all the sites NYC had to offer. When I asked him where they were going, I found it interesting that he was excited to visit the Apple store in Soho. When I asked why, he explained that "it just gave him a good feeling to be there" (The same thing my wife tells me when she goes to Starbucks)

Apple has done an amazing job of becoming a lifestyle. We all think of the same things when thinking of the Apple brand, stylish, easy to use and innovative. I asked Norm to take some pictures and write down how the Apple Store fulfills the brand promise of Think Different. So he did. :-)

Norm Writes:
When Apple created the store in SoHo they did a spectacular job. The
outside of the building (except for the window advertisements) has been
unchanged except for the addition of what I would consider a beacon of hope, an Apple logo cut out of black metal hanging above massive glass doors. You walk through the front doors and you are greeted by a soaring ceiling that holds all the electronic toys you could possibly imagine. There are stations to play with the latest and greatest Apple products. There is an area for education (the second floor theatre where they offer free wifi and demo software products all day). They offer software and peripherals and even their infamous Genius Bar where you can get those difficult questions answered. It is not just the beauty of the store that makes it the greatest place in the world for me though. The people make it an even better experience. Apple has staffed out the store to the gills, there are always people on hand in every department to answer all of your questions or direct you to someone who does know (although I have found that most of the people know the answers to questions you didn't even realize you wanted to ask). These are just the people on staff though, the patrons are about as ecletic as they come even for SoHo, there are computer geeks; jocks; the elderly; young students; professionals and tourists. Everyone has been drawn in either by the brand (in which case they already knew it was going to be an experience to remember) or by the wonderful exterior.

Norm posted 20 pics, check em out here.

64% would advertise in blogs, 57% would place RSS ads

Norm Morneau just forwarded me this stat from a report that Forrester released in June. Good stuff. These are the kind of numbers our clients should be aware of:

Forrester says total US online advertising and marketing spending will reach $14.7 bln in 2005, a 23% increase over 2004. Online marketing and advertising will represent 8% of total advertising spending in 2010. Search engine marketing will grow by 33% in 2005, reaching $11.6 bln by 2010. Display advertising, which includes traditional banners and sponsorships, [...]

I Love Al Jaffee's Cartoons.

For those of you who know me, you know I am a HUGE Mad Magazine fan. And of all the amazing artists, Al Jaffee was my all time favorite. I loved the fold in and his inventions were the BEST.

I just had to post this because it is so funny!

Here is his cartoon from 1975:




Here is the recent winning invention at this year's student of the year contest at London's Central Saint Martins College:



Dog Poo Spray freezes your dog's poop to a stick so that you don't need to scoop it up with a baggie and feel it squish revoltingly between your fingers.

Mr. Jaffee was 30 years ahead of his time!

Yahoo! Launches its Adsense Killer: the Yahoo! Publisher Network

As of today there is now an alternative to AdSense.

The new Yahoo! Publisher Network platform is now in beta and it enables you to:

* Generate additional revenue from your site. Display ads related to the content on your site. You'll earn revenue from qualified clicks.

* Take advantage of Yahoo! Publisher tools, services and programs. Integrate other Yahoo! services into your web site, including Add to My Yahoo! (RSS), Y!Q and much more to come

* Help shape what Yahoo! offers the publishing community. This beta program is just the beginning. Our mission is to deliver products and services based on the needs of the publishing community.

The increasing influence of the blogosphere intrigues me

I am still trying to catch up on the latest buzz since returning from Vacation in the Berkshires last week. I was staying in a hotel with a phone system that didn't allow me to connect to the internet with my laptop and my cell phone only worked on a 1/2 mile stretch of road between Hillsdale and New Lebanon, NY. Off the grid! Anyway....

The latest discussion that has caught my eye is the buzz on the downward spiral of Dell product quality and customer support. This immediately caught my attention since we too have historically had problems with Dell laptops and I vowed never buy a Dell system for my company again.

A number of influential bloggers have gone on record as saying they too will never buy a Dell again including Jeff Jarvis, BL Ochman and Shel Israel . Why does this matter? Because many people read these blogs and a good number of them have blogs of their own. This is the new electronic buzz/word of mouth. And the buzz for Dell ain't good!

What's Dell's response to all of this? Well.... not a thing. Their official policy is to not respond publicly. Dell -- burying your head in the sand isn't going to fix the problem! The Mason PR team would NEVER recommend to 'look but don't touch'!

As an interesting aside, Matt Galloway attempts to use blogpulse to track if there is any up-swing in negative comments for Dell. His technique should be added to any crisis managment as another way to track buzz in the blogosphere.

#2 in Yahoo for Quick Boys Moving

Got some response to the Quick Boys story. Shel Israel sent me a nice email this morning thanking me for letting him know about this story. He said it was too late for him to add this example to his book, but that he would continue to follow the story as it unfolds.

Also, I started noticing some traffic from yahoo today. It turns out I am #2 in Yahoo for the term Quick Boys Moving! Very interesting.