• Geekiest. WordPress. Theme. Ever.
  Command line interface for blogs? Check it out right here.
  (tags: console line command theme wordpress geeky)
• Chinese Pirates Make Swift Work of Vista
  Engadget breaks it down with a photo. Want to guess how much it goes for on the streets of China? Don’t bother, I’ll just tell you — the “low, low price of about $2.50″. Yikes.
  (tags: china engadget microsoft vista piracy)
• Christiaan van der Klaauw’s Astronomical Watches
  I heard that “young people” wear watches less and less because they can just whip out their cell phones and iPods. Maybe if they saw watches like these they’d wear’em more. Astro-licious!
  (tags: design coolhunting expensive constellations astronomical watch cool)
• All Wikipedia Links Are Now NOFOLLOW
  For individuals looking for low hanging high PR links, it looks like they’re out of luck if they want to use Wikipedia for that purpose. Links with a “nofollow” tag are ignored by Google. I think.
  (tags: news google pagerank links searchenginejournal wikipedia)
• 10 Things You should Know About WordPress 2.1
  Aaron Brazell gives it the once over for all us WP fans. Know what I’m looking forward too? Auto-save, the improved image handling, and editing. Interesting tidbit? “Nonces”!
  (tags: 2.1 technosailor update wordpress)
• Web 2.0: Buzz-Monitoring and Tracking
  File it under “Old But Good”. Awesome resource to track “buzz” on the web, and keep up to date with key phrases and memes. Its too big to digest at once. Grab a beverage, and read it slowly.
  (tags: smashmagazine web2.0 howto resource buzztracking tracker buzz)

So, once upon a time, I also used to think “why bother with social media press releases? — why not simply blog?“  In fact, with Edelman’s SMPR product “release” some weeks ago, the whole meme had been bounced around for a while — and with Stowe Boyd’s post yesterday, it has once again made the rounds [my original thoughts are over here].

I think that its probably natural for bloggers to wonder why there are still press releases, and wonder at the seemingly oxymoronic existence of “social media” press releases.

After all, if one of the ideas of press releases are to put a certain amount of spin on information being presented — and the existence of “social media” is to put an honest, de-spun look at things, the two concepts seem … well, mutually exclusive.

My own totally unprofessional opinion is this:

The social web evolves fast.  Really fast.  And I think marketing and PR agencies are terrified (and their clients doubly so) that they’re going to miss the gravy train — like, perhaps, some missed with the first bubble in 1999. 

The paradox, however, is that many seem to be paralyzed with that fear.  Or, if not fear, they seem to be stunned into paralysis by something.  Maybe its inertia.

In a study that I blogged about a month ago, it looks like while many PR firms RECOGNIZE how important blogging is (such as, how it can influence opinion and how people are reading them), very few are blogging for their clients, and fewer still have a blogging policy.

So, where am I going with this?

Only that if the AGENCIES can’t work up the gumption to even develop a POLICY on blogging, what makes their clients get the chutzpah to start blogging independently of their high priced agencies?

Some might.  Most won’t.

And in the absence of an existing blog, with existing content, and existing authors — who presumably aren’t pumping thrice signed off pap as ‘content’ — it would seem enormously clumsy and heavy handed to START a blog to merely announce the contents of a press release.

Can you imagine the blogger reaction from *that*?

So, that’s where the social media press release comes in. 

Now, I’m not saying that its the ideal situation.  In my opinion its a clumsy “solution” at best.  The best way to approach it would be to get companies blogging honestly and transparently in the first place.  Well before any press releases need to be made in the first place.

But because many don’t — they’re forced, when they look at how important blogs are, and the “Digg Effect” amongst other things — to suddenly say: “Hey, I want some of that!”

And that’s where social media press releases live. 

They are the ungainly misbegotten children of blogs, trying to live in both a spun and yet the same time un-spun world. 

I know some firms are trying to get it “right”, and I’m the kind of guy who believes that intentions are worth something — but hopefully not so naive to believe that things are going to happen over night.

Social media press releases are far, FAR from perfect.  But, as long as they’re used as a bridge to further conversations with clients about a blogging strategy that is honest and not filled with malarky … then you know what?

I’m willing to stomach it.

• Weblogs Shutters Some Niche Blogs … A Warning to Blog Networks?
  Reported by Nick Denton of Valleywag, anyway. A nice rejoinder by Jason Calacanis as well. Looks like AOL is focusing on “winners” … 1M pages / month. Wow. Wish I could be a “winner” too. ;)
  (tags: calacanis weblogs blognetwork valleywag)
• Finding Those Local Blogs
  Dave Cohn at Newassignment.net breaks it down if you want to find local blogs, and gives a rundown of some of the places where you might find them. Topix I knew — Outside in? Interesting.
  (tags: blogging newassignment cohn blog local)
• BlogBurst, ScooptWords, and Newstex; A Guide to Blog Syndication Services
  An exhaustive review of the controversies, terms of service, and much more. Wow. I’m tired just skimming through it … but important for all would be syndicate-ees.
  (tags: thewelltimedperiod guide network blog blogburst)
• The Digg story life cycle
  Breaking down exactly what happens after you submit a potentially successful digg — the “upcoming stories” section is a new, critical, measure of how its doing. A meaty contribution to Digg lore.
  (tags: details submission digg)

• Marriot’s Chief Exec Starts Blogging … At Age 75
  Looks like its not meant to be a corporate blog at all, but a personal blog with a view to the happenings in corporate. Always interesting to see bloggers out of the usual demographic. Nice.
  (tags: septagenarian washingtonpost marriot blogging)
• Apple set to make 50% margin on iPhone
  Yes, Jobs is set to make a killing when it comes out — as DRM’d up, and non-open sourced as it is, people will buy it by the bucketload. ’nuff said.
  (tags: obscene profits apple theinquirer)
• Be on time with the Procrastinator’s Clock
  Randomly accelerates its time up to 15 minutes at a time, so you don't actually know what the time is. If you play by its rules you might actually be on time. If ;)
  (tags: cool tool procrastination lifehacker clock)
• 901am — New Media News Every Morning
  Looks like David Krug and co are finally out of “beta” with a new theme and daily podcast. If new media news is your thing check these dudes out. Muhammad, Thord and Dave bring it fresh everyday.
  (tags: beta news thord muhammad krug 901am)

So, there’s a great little piece by Nick Wilson up on Search Engine Land about Linkbaiting, sort of as an update to his 2006 article. Go ahead and read it. I’ll wait.

For the impatient, Nick is basically saying that if links are the currency of search engine optimization, SEO consultants ought to work to create excellent “link bait” so people will naturally link to their sites, and therefore, naturally, and organically, improve their search rankings — rather than begging to be linked to.

You know what? It makes sense to me.  In fact, its always made sense to me.

Linking to intersting, link-worthy content?

What an idea. 

What’s confusing is why the jargon-y type of term like “Linkbait” is still being used. I mean, why don’t we just call a cow a cow, and call it “creating great content”?

Brian over at Copyblogger mentioned as much a few weeks ago, but creating compelling, great, original, newsworthy content will grab attention, and by definition be link worthy, and therefore, get links. And it can be all kinds of content.

News.

Research.

Reviews.

Tips.

Lists.

Interviews.

They *all* count.

Stuff that doesn’t get linked to? The mediocre stuff. The echo chamber qualifying pap that stands for content. Dry, unintelligible prose. Stuff that means nothing to no one in particular.

Or, all of those things I mentioned done in a boring way.

Boring interview questions. Reviews that add nothing to the conversation. Lists everyone knows about.  Research on a question no one cares about. Tips about stuff a six year old could deduce. News that is stale.

If we all took a minute to create something fresh and interesting, and do so frequently, you’ll increase your own chance of being linked to. And it doesn’t necessarily mean pandering to your audience, (geeks love Apple, girls, linux, and the Daily Show — why don’t we combine all four for an unbeatable combination! — the fact you’re selling laptop cases? Who cares!) or necessarily acquiring the services of high priced SEO consultants.

They’ve got their role when you don’t have the time or inclination. But if you’ve got more time than money, grab your own blog at any number of free places, roll up your sleeves, rub those brain cells together, and start writing.

Sure, it might take a few tries, but you know what?

You just might surprise yourself.

Good question. In fact, its not a new one, but its one that gets a new look over, thanks to a report published by Nielsen yesterday. The substance of it is that blogs on newspapers have tripled their traffic over the course of the year. Reuters summarizes:

Blog pages accounted for 13 percent of overall visits to newspaper sites in that month, up from 4 percent a year earlier. Total visitors to the top newspaper sites rose 9 percent to 29.9 million.

I guess the issue was brought up some months ago when Business2.0 got a whole passle of journalists to start blogging, and has further received a little more momentum given how CNet discussed how ZDnet’s blog-authors will get paid, (many of them are veteran journalists) in small part, due to their pageviews.

Well, I remember asking a journalist of two (maybe even a former journalist) on what they thought about this.

I believe the opinion was that journalists COULD probably blog, as their occupations put them in front of breaking news, and they have the excellent opportunity to report on it; alternatively, it could give them the opportunity to put their own salty spin on what goes on in a particular industry.

Moreover, many of them might have the TIME to pursue such extra-curricular activities, and I think that at this point someone discretely pointed in the direction of Om Malik (who created a fabulous blog in his spare time that is on its own way of becoming a mini empire).

The question that was brought up, however, was if any WANTED to blog.

(more…)

So, the idea of widgets gets pimped in a big way over at the New York Times today. For the lay person they describe how widgets can pimpify your blog, and yes, shocking, how some widgets might go from free to some sort of pay-per-something model.

Can someone explain what the big deal is?

With all due respect to the pimpalicious treatment Om Malik gives widgets, I just don’t see why they get the amount of publicity they do. Sure, they extend and add functionality to a blog. But you know what? With one single exception there is a widget that I find useful when I go and visit a blog as a reader, and furthermore, as a blog owner.

Quite frankly, I think that all of the pub that widgets have gotten and continue to get (2007 the year of the widget? Playa, please!) distract from bloggers creating great blog content in the first place. The emphasis on bling detracts from bloggers focusing on what matters most: creating fresh, interesting, passionate content which is the REAL reason why people come to read any blog.

All of this is compounded by the notion that a significant portion blog readers read their blogs exlusively through RSS feeds anyway. Yes, that means that they can’t see your widgets!

Blogs have the reputation as being the providence of self indulgent teenagers and navel-gazing introverts. Some of that is warranted. But we all know that the reality is much different, and for some of us evangelists (and funnily enough, I do consider myself a ‘blogging evangelist’) it can be an industry and game changing reality.

Any time the mainstream media focuses on the trivialities and frivolities of blogging gives one more piece of ammunition to the public consciousness that yes — that’s what blogging is all about. The flash, pizzazz, bling and bluster. And that’s a disservice to every blogger out there who busts his hump creating something that is worthy of their readers time.

* the only widget I’ve found useful is the MyBlogLog “recent readers’ widget
** yes, I’m aware of the meebo and other IM ones … but I’ve found they’re pretty much useless as any time *I’m* looking for a blog author, they’re always offline. An email will suffice in that circumstance, thanks very much.
*** no, I don’t consider Wordpress plugins “widgets”
**** no, I don’t find Sphere-it useful