BlogBurst, a service which syndicates your blog across newspapers who have on-line components is a topic that I’ve wanted to blog for a long, long, time. But its one of those things you keep on shelving because something else pops up — well, its time to take it off the shelf.

At first glance, BlogBurst seems like a winning proposition — blogs to get potentially huge exposure on sites with real visitors; newspapers that are enrolled include the Washington Post and the Houstin Chronicle, get a chance to get plugged into the blogosphere on topics they chose.

Unfortunately, its a bit of a bum sell when it comes to blogs – until now.

Blogs make their content available. Then, the newspapers pick and choose which posts they’d like to put up. And while its true that blogs get “exposure” this way, for the most part blogs’ content is only represented by their headline. Furthermore, translating the actual “exposure” into real traffic has been for the most part, abysmal.

Its almost like the newspapers are getting content for “Free”.

For example, from my own personal experience, while my headlines get “clicked” on, I have gotten in the past 3 months only a single click to this own blog from the Statesman (a newspaper in Austin Texas) — and I’m pretty sure I did it myself just to see that it would register on Oct 18 (my birthday).

That’s a single click on hundreds of “headlines” view, and dozens of “post clicks”.

Ok — so if exposure isn’t rewarding, how about cold hard cash?

That’s where their new program comes in. (more…)

Dave Sifry once again reports on the state of the blogosphere today. Lots of interesting data, but here is the summary:

Of course, what’s fascinating is the data about A-list bloggers, or bloggers have a high rank and “high authority”. According to the Technorati data, one of the things which differentiate them is their posting frequency. They post, on average, almost “twice a day”.

This information is interesting for those keeping an eye on A-listers, or those who want to be A-listers.

So, is the secret to being an A-lister post frequency?

Should we all start pusing towards multiple posts per day — or at least once a day?

I think the answer is a little more complicated than that.

Clearly if you post only once or twice a week, I think you’ll get a dramatic increase in your rankings, exposure and traffic if you start posting more frequently. And I think this will be primarily driven through Google or search engine traffic as you’ll probably show up more in the SERPs — as my understanding is they like fresh and frequently updated content.

However, linking strategy also has to do with it. I don’t know if there is any data on this — but, if you’re posts were to start linking other blogs out there to increase your own visibility within a community of bloggers, they would get to know you, and hopefully start linking back to you.

Chris Pearson also has a good point. Above and beyond increasing your post frequency, changing blogging platforms and optimizing your theme for SEO has important implications for Google traffic — and probably increasing the frequency of links.

For the other end of the spectrum, post frequency also, I think is only part of the story.

(more…)

Well, if the unending torrential flood of email is any metric, Rob “Scobleizer” Scoble is clearly drowning in his success.

Mr. Scoble sympathizes with Mike Arrington:

If you aren’t a journalist or a blogger with an audience you have no idea what Mike is talking about. I get hundreds of emails every day, many of which are from people, companies, and PR firms asking me to blog stuff. …

I absolutely hate dealing with this stuff. For the most part I just simply don’t. I don’t respond. I learned that answering email causes even more email and I simply don’t have time. All I did yesterday was dig through email and I barely made a dent. That’s why I’m up at 2:40 a.m. editing videos.

I guess the question is “Why have an email address at all if you’re not going to bother answering – OR, find it hard to answer in any reasonable amount of time?”

[Aside -- think what you want of Richard Edelman, the dude answers the comments on his blog personally by email -- and THAT is classy]
We can look to Mike Arrington’s own admission that he recently deleted hundreds and hundreds of emails after one wild debauched weekend at the Online News Association Conference as an example.
Perhaps another way of looking at it is that when bloggers get so large they can’t answer their own emails in expedient fashion, should they have an email address to respond to – “disclosing” that people might never get a reply ….

… or do the media 1.0 thing, and just hire someone? 

A recent MSNBC article details how integrated bloggers have become in the political machinery in the U S of A — another arm of propaganda information no different than radio pundits or talk show hosts, it seems … and unlike bloggers of other interests, it seems that these ones are paid well.

Very well.

The best-known example is Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, the “blogfather” of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. Armstrong and Moulitsas rose to Internet fame together during the 2004 presidential race. But with the exception of the book “Crashing The Gate” that they co-authored this year, they have pursued different professional routes since then.

Moulitsas focused his energies on blog publications, in sports as well as politics, while Armstrong chose to make his money in political consulting for Democrats. He has earned a nice wad of dough, too — more than $200,000 in less than two years.

In light of the whole “disclosure” meme floating around the tech-side of the blogosphere, it sounds like the take home story is wear your affiliations on your sleeve — and proudly.

Then go fishing for paid sponsorships for corporations / interests with deep pockets.

Afterall, it certainly makes the $10/post at PayPerPost seem like peanuts, doesn’t it?