So I didn’t think I would get into this kind of thing, but when Pete Cashmore of Mashable nominates you for a meme-ing game, who’s got the stones to say no? Without further ado, here are (some) of my predictions for 2007.

1. Pay Per Blogging Will Survive And Grow: As much as it churns some stomachs to think it, paying bloggers for their posts, opinions, or content will continue unabated throughout 2007. It took hold with deep grassroots in 2006, as marginalized d-list bloggers loved the idea of getting paid to blog. The entire category will, by the end of 2008, be a recognized and, amongst marketers, cheap and legitimate way of farming out grassroots buzz. As the category grows, we’ll see even more marketing companies try to grow a system like PayPerPost and ReviewMe; furthermore, A-list bloggers will continue to beat their chests over how wrong the idea is, not realizing that the reality is a foregone conclusion.

2. News aggregators will Thrive: With the idea that News-is-commodity as never more important, vertical algorithmic aggregators will continue to thrive, intermediating themselves between users and their news source. Although Google News heralded the way, sites like Techmeme, Tailrank, and Megite will all survive and thrive in their respective areas. Their growth will be covered by the mainstream media (ironically), and somewhere in the middle of the year, the entire category will explode. (more…)

So, it looks like Digg secured a little more funding in spite of accusations of gaming. In fact, Jay Adelson goes on record in the comments section of venture beat, saying that he trusts the systems and community in place, and gaming to his knowledge, hasn’t yet happened.

It got me thinking on a wider question, because in my opinion, there are plenty of things that are wrong with Digg, but Digg keeps on growing. Even if gaming was rampant, would Jay admit it? And even if it was (and I’m convinced it is to the extend that no one has yet picked up on it, or its gotten publicity) would it matter? In fact, in spite of all of its problems and recent negative publicity in the blogosphere, what could possibly dethrone Digg at all?

I think the majority of users do not care one whit about the drama that I’ve blogged about; its quite possible that out of its potential membership, only a tiny percentage of people actually register, comment, and even submit articles. Personally, I had used Digg for quite a while before I registered; for example, I’ve been reading stuff on Digg since Dec’04, in fact, but only registered this past summer.

Most, I think, are happy to use it to just find stuff that’s interesting to read.

And because of that reason, all of the internal corruption in the world probably won’t matter one bit with regards to “stopping” Digg; beyond having the “momentum” of over half a million registered users, dominating an expanding category of news / social sites (social bookmarking), and just continuing to grow, I’m not sure that even if clear evidence of “gaming” were to hit the mainstream news it would matter – to the point where it would be unsavory for potential suitors, or further funding.

So what would? At this point, I think only a couple of things could derail Digg:

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With the recent kerfuffle over Microsoft giving laptops to bloggers so that they might try out Vista — and then quickly letting them know that they were NOT gifts after all (but had to be given away, or sent back) has gotten the blogosphere all riled up during this quiet inter-christmas-new year time period. Quite frankly, in spite of all the righteous outrage that got Microsoft to retract their offer (or change it, as it were), I’m not sure where Microsoft was wrong in all of this.

First of all, as much as I agree that blogging should be above sullying, its unrealistic to get upset about it because its already happening. PayPerPost, ReviewMe and Creamaid are not going away as much as it is loathed by some bloggers, because they are loved by others. Some bloggers (I would even argue, most bloggers) are not above getting paid to blog about stuff, and that’s really what the whole Microsoft issue is about.

Secondly, giving gifts to opinion makers is an age-old tradition amongst marketers and PR folk. Whether its right or wrong, It happened before the Internets, and its going to happen after.

And, for the record folks, it is NOT the same as creating fake blogs, or fake personalities. Even though the intent is the same — to try and manipulate opinion for your own ends — giving gifts to opinion makers recognizes and respects the fact there is an existing network of reputations and trust. Creating fake blogs and personalities for the purposes of creating buzz ignores that, and tries to supplant it with something wholly artificial, which, to existing bloggers and people who they are trying to fool, is obviously insulting.

What the whole Microsoft issue brings up, however, is a question that I suspect most bloggers dare not answer, for fear that once they look in the mirror, they might not like the answer they get. The question, of course, is.
“What is my integrity worth?”

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UPDATE: PayPerPosts’s purchase only involves the stat tracking software, and not the ad network after all. Thanks to Nick and Clickz for clearing it up.

Mike Arrington has scooped things yet again with a news item that will no doubt dominate the blogosphere in some way for the next day or so — PayPerPost, once the bane of ethical bloggers everywhere, has bought out Performancing.com. As a recap, Performancing.com offers a free stats package to bloggers (that I’ve never really liked; its always gotten the titles wrong on my installation), a free Firefox plugin that allows you to edit posts and start new posts directly to your blog, but most importantly, the new Performancing Ad Network.

This was launched in a beta form some months ago, and it allowed bloggers to sign up and essentially sell ad space on their blog, matching ad buyers with prospective bloggy sellers of ad space. The breakdown, for the truly interested, is around 70/30, with bloggers getting 70% of the ad revenue sold on the ad network, and 30% going back to Preformancing.

So, let’s get back to the deal. What does the deal all mean?

Well, the details are forthcoming with a press release tomorrow — but irrespective of how much PPP paid for Performancing, there are some interesting inferences one can make, and I think they all have to do with Performancing’s Ad Network.

1) PPP has purchased lots of potential bloggers for its own network: This is the most obvious, but their purchase just bought them even MORE bloggers into their fold; more potential bloggers for them to blog about their publishers, means more dollars in their own pocket, and obviously plain ol’ growth. But that might not even be the most important part — not by far. (more…)

So up here in Canada, the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day, and its a shopping fiesta-stravaga-smo-rrific day that has an analogy stateside as “Black Friday”, the day after American Thanksgiving. Whereas the Christmas holidays are (or should be) about the great spirit of giving to others, Boxing Day is a day devoted to the indulgence of oneself. Mostly through purchases of stuff you delayed until after Christmas, like when you KNEW that $22 top you were never going to buy at retail is now discounted down to $9.

Two days ago great hordes of shoppers woke up groggily after a post-Xmas day feast and headed to malls and big-box stores around the country to gorge door crasher sales while trying not to trample any innocent children. And I have to say that I usually participate in this shopping fiesta-stravaga-smo-riferous event, mostly for the pure thrill of watching women (and sometimes, men) almost kill each other for almost-free t-shirts and technology.

This year was a bit laid back for me, as I sipped a coffee and played with my son while my wife dived in feet (and fists) firsts into the boxing day fray. My “Best Buy” was in fact a totally free T-shirt, as Old Navy was literally giving away graphic t-shirts for a period of time (any graphic tee — no buy one, get one free … just totally free). I picked up some DVD’s (including Denzel Washington’s Man on Fire, one of the finest revenge movies in recent memory — trust me on this one) as well since they were (quite) cheap … $10 a pop.

Anyway, with all of that out of the way along with some more eating and family time, its long past time I got back to blogging.

Some housekeeping issues, for those who give 3.5c:

• DJI is now fully part of b5media, as they have included DJI in the b5 blogroll, and finally (FINALLY), I’ve added the b5 blogroll to my sidebar. It was actually available for a week (or more), thanks to the seriously wicked code-ful skillz of Aaron “Techno-Admiral” Brazell. No, seriously — anyone who can code a working Wordpress Widget in an afternoon deserves a serious tip-and-a-half. The styling needs a bit work, but at least it DOES work. Thanks Aaron, and thanks to the b5 team. You can now find me under “technology” with other blogs such as Mark Evan’s own MapleLeaf 2.0, a look at the Canadian 2.0 scene, New Linux User (self explanatory), and the Gadget Blog (also, rather self explanatory).
• Being away for even a few days over Xmas does have its drawbacks. Namely, people who are trying to contact you with Real News tend to be disappointed when you don’t answer their emails. Who am I referring to? Matthew Chen of Megite tried to let me in on the fact that Megite has added a Video portion to their news aggregating site — but because I wasn’t around, the tip went to Rex Dixon’s blog; the whole thing was subsequently crunched on TechCrunch (including that Rex’s blog who helped ‘break’ the story). I guess I SHOULD get that blackberry for myself in the post-xmas boxing day week sales! Anyway, congratulations to Matthew on getting crunched — Megite’s really adding some unique value to the news aggregator space.
• My contact form is getting hammered with spam every day. And quite frankly, one of these days I’m going to hit “SPAM” rather than “DELETE” on one of these notices (it emails me with the result), thereby blacklisting my own URL. I know its going to happen soon, therefore, if anyone has any recommendations as to another kind of contact plugin for WP (that’s good at screening spam) let me know. Maybe I should add a captcha (or gotcha, or whatever those things are) to the contact form instead. Your thoughts, as always are welcome.

So, in lieu of a longer note, I’d like to wish every one a Merry Christmas and the very best of the season!

The New Year is bound to bring plenty of surprises, and I will be posting more on this in the days to come; however, one cat is out of the bag so far, and that is in the second week of Januray, I will be pinch hitting for Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net. That’s right — Darren’s sanity has some how left him, and will be leaving me the keys to the ProBlogger.net kingdom for a whole week! Its an awesome opportunity, and I hope to do him proud.

On the other hand, if anyone has any great ideas on what I should be covering, please let me know.  More lists?  2007 predictions?  News in the DJI style?  Who knows?

With that said and out of the way, wand ith Christmas right around the corner (and yes, I too will be participating in the wild commercial orgy that is Boxing Day) I might be taking some extended posting breaks while catching up with loved ones, and of course, plenty of eating.

Best of the holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you folks out there on the Interwebs. If the past six months has been one helluva ride, 2007 will see DJI going deeper, jiver, and even more interesting!

Merry Christmas everyone!
Tony Hung, DJI

So, in a quick bid to write a “Happy Holidays” post, I came across the Times’ news about a Google Rival built upon Wikipedia (photos courtesy of TC ).  Now, of course my own knee jerk reaction was, as I’m sure, similar to many.  A loud “wtf?”, followed by a condescending chuckle, followed by a click away to my gmail account.  Then, I thought — well, wait a second.  Is it that harebrained after all? (more…)