Much like a quiet herd of bears suddenly discovering a honey pot, the Internet Marketing crowd has turned its eager eye on user drive social content sites — particularly Digg.

While it may have received smaller attention in the past, wiley veteran Ken McCarthy stirred interest two days ago when he wrote about the potential disaster with ICANN deregulating the cost of .info, .biz, and .org domains. [update: apparently ICANN had their proposal overturned]

Ken Mccarthy is the founder of the System Seminar, a highly regarded seminar series focusing on Internet Marketing.  Mr. McCarthy has a pedigree.  Amongst other things he organized the first conference ever on the economic potential of the world wide web, enlisting the help of then-unknown Marc Andreeson (of Mosaic, then Netscape). to help present at the conference.

One alert digger, dkubb, posted the blog post to Digg — and it subsequently got a tremendous amount of attention.  Currently, it is sitting at just over 1300 “Diggs” with over 170 comments.

Its difficult to know what this portends for sites such as Digg, Reddit, Shoutit, Netscape and the many others that have sprouted up over the last 12 months.  

Traffic is the lifeblood of the e-commerce website, and with so much of it flowing through many of these new user driven news sites, one might expect that certain internet marketers may begin to take advantage of this. 

Unfortunately, with a prediliction towards heavy handed one-page sales letters, squeeze pages and the like, with their ebooks, guides, info-packages and so on, some members of those user-driven communities (such as Digg and Reddit) may regard these attempts as nothing more than quick cash grabs by merchants who deal in “get-rich-quick” schemes.

Will these sites get a deluge of hype masquerading as genuine newsworthy submissions?  Or will the community of Internet marketers at large approach these sites with caution and circumspect?  Although these sites such as Digg and Reddit a variety of policing and editorial methods, time will tell if the community is able to police itself in that regard — or even embrace them with open arms. 

• How to Market to Geeks
  Actually, one of the most important articles I have ever read on marketing in the post-marketing era. Period. Want to know how to deal with the “authenticity” chestnut? Want to avoid feeling like you’re selling out? Man — this article hits on ALL the
  (tags: authentic important geeks marketing)
• Interview with a Top Bookmarker for a Social Content Website (Reddit)
  Reveals what he does in real life, how he goes about finding articles to promote, and what he thinks of Jason Calacanis and The Offer.
  (tags: interview calacanis dig reddit)
• The Original Page Rank Algorithm
  Don’t let the scary equation scare you — its an interesting look at one of the most powerful metrics we have today
  (tags: google history pagerank)

So, as you may or may not have heard, there’s a bit of controversy about publishing full vs. partial feeds. A few very prominent A-listers have whined commented on how they don’t like the inconvenience of going to the actual blog, and one of their commenters likened it to having network television ram down distasteful programming they don’t like.

Well, I’m not sure where you sit on it, but I sit on the “partial feeds” side of the fence.

Here’s why:

1. Page views pays the bills:
While I recognize that some folks like being able to read all of their feeds in their feed aggregator, that’s an indulgence, that, unfortunately most publisher’s can’t afford to … well, for a lack of a better word, indulge. Its possible to insert contextual ads into your feeds, but they don’t pay the bills; for many websites, its the ads on the actual web sites themselves that do. By feeling that you only read the full published feeds, you don’t hit those websites, and you deprive the publishers of trying to pay their bills. Almost like getting the proverbial cow for free, don’t you think?

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Dead2.0 reports that less than 2% of the webgoing population uses news feeds — but I wager amongst bloggers, that percentage is closer to 98%. Probably because we’re keeping tabs on everyone else … and also looking to find stuff to write about and comment on. Certainly *I* do … I keep my eye on 50+ feeds (wow, did I just write that) every day — or at least I try to.

And I guess that’s the problem with blogging and citizen journalism.

Everyone who’s got a blog does it.

In the many a “how to write a blog post”, there inevitably is SOME bullet point about blogging about news, but in recent months there has been a resounding claim that there is a dull roar of an echochamber in the blogosphere. Probably about tech news than anything else.

When I scan across my news aggregator, when news breaks as it often does, almost every significant A-list blogger and news-blogging site comments on it. Which is fine, I suppose, since their role almost obligates them to.

But regular type bloggers, I think, contribute almost nothing when they report the same thing these larger blogs and news sites do.

So, do Bloggers have any role with reporting the news?
Yes — but only in certain circumstances.

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• How to Do a Product Review
  Courtesy of Liz Strauss at Successful Blog — If you’ve ever wondered about how to do a product review “right”, read this, print this, save this.
  (tags: writing review product)
• Paris Hilton Move Over — Here’s a Real Video Worth Watching
  Whistleblowing has now been elevated to the YouTube generation. A Lockheed Martin engineer takes his issue with critical flaws in some Coast Guard boats to the ‘net with one of the fastest growing sites on the ‘net after he’s exhuasted all other avenues.
  (tags: hilton paris whistleblower youtube)
• RSS stands for “Rareley Seen Sites”
  – the question is WHY? Apparently less than 2% of the web going population uses it and only 10% have even heard of it. Is it an issue of time? I’ve heard noises that with IE7 its popularity was going to explode since it supports reading feeds natively
  (tags: RSS)
• Buzzword Alert! “Web 3.0″ uttered by Google CEO
  And the Web2.0 bubble hasn’t even popped yet! Courtesy of MSNBC on how the Web2.0 is about “grand alliances”.
  (tags: hype web3.0 web2.0 buzzmarketing word buzz)
• Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns
  Capturing a lively debate from teh Search Engine Strategies conference earlier in August: linkbait –> focusing your brand –> measuring your buzz –> and so on with some interesting examples (the Lactivist, anyone?)
  (tags: marketing viral linkbaiting buzz)

Web1.0 Web2.0 sensibilities have merged with the Bit Torrent generation as Universal and Spiralfrog have joined forces to deliver free digital music — that is ad-supported. In a variety of reports around the ‘net, this new service, which launches this December, will have access to Universal’s entire catalogue of music which includes many popular artists such as U2 and be supported by advertising dollars …
… echoing almost every business plan of web2.0 startups.

I think that this plan is nothing short of seismic.
Clearly, they’ve got iTunes in their sites – and quite frankly, nothing is more attractive than being Free. And this isn’t just conjecture: the number one search terms in the AOL Data leak was, in fact, the word “Free”. People are looking for it, people want it, and to quote Paris Hilton, its hot.

Will an ad-supported service run into similar challenges that web2.0 startups run into?
I don’t think so. As I see it, ad-supported models run into problems when there isn’t enough traffic at the beginning to create enough revenue to support costs. When no one knows you, its hard for Adsense to pay the bills. Yet, when the business gets larger — let’s take an extreme example, such as AOL, which is moving to 100% free (no more subscribers), bu ad supported — its another dimension of the problem. Traffic is high, but will the revenue generated be *enough* to cover your overhead and capital costs?

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• A-Listers Answer the Existential Question: “Why Do I Blog”
  This is a page all bloggers MUST hit up. Wonder how your reasons stack against The Greats? This one features Mark Cuban, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, and Craig Newmark (of Craig’s List). Courtesy of the Bloggingtimes
  (tags: a-listers why blogging existential fantastic)
• Podcasting — Uses You Never Thought Of
  Serial Plays to Audio Tours, some really ingenious stuff here. Podcasting ain’t just to entertain your mom any more.
  (tags: web2.0 unusual unique cool podcasting collaboration)
• Bloggers on Blogging: Tiffany Brown
  Curtesy of Rebecca Blood: A fascinatingly frank interview touching on a wiley ol’ pro, and how she deals with regular postings, her favourite blog software and race issues in an environment where no one knows if you’re a dog, human or hippopotamus.
  (tags: issues race blogging interview)
• Science Proves: TV Rots The Brain
  … and in other news, water is wet, curry is hot, and stubbing your toe hurts.
  (tags: puzzles crossword alcohol memory tv)