Getting Granular: The DigitalGrit Blog

Google Buys Feedburner

Rumors have circulated for weeks, and now the headlines: Google has acquired Feedburner, the quintessential RSS tool.

Has Yahoo! Bought Technorati?

Dave Berlind at ZDnet Blogs got this funny error message while trying to access Technorati:

If you zoom in, you'll see a Yahoo! 404 message. Berlind admits, it could be a browser bug...or the cat's gotten out of the bag a little early!

It would be a smart move on Yahoo!'s part. By integrating both del.icio.us and Technorati in their "My Web" Web 2.0 offering, they'd be getting the heart and soul of the social web under one roof, so to speak. Both sites are considered best-of-breed and both have ridiculously loyal followings. By acquiring these established sites, rather than reinventing the wheel, Yahoo! would be building a strong following for My Web.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Berlind was not able to repeat the above error, and fully admits that it may be a bizarre browser error. But what if it's not?

[Cheers to Ben Barren and The Blog Herald for the tip.)

Has Yahoo! Bought Technorati?

Dave Berlind at ZDnet Blogs got this funny error message while trying to access Technorati:

If you zoom in, you'll see a Yahoo! 404 message. Berlind admits, it could be a browser bug...or the cat's gotten out of the bag a little early!

It would be a smart move on Yahoo!'s part. By integrating both del.icio.us and Technorati in their "My Web" Web 2.0 offering, they'd be getting the heart and soul of the social web under one roof, so to speak. Both sites are considered best-of-breed and both have ridiculously loyal followings. By acquiring these established sites, rather than reinventing the wheel, Yahoo! would be building a strong following for My Web.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Berlind was not able to repeat the above error, and fully admits that it may be a bizarre browser error. But what if it's not?

[Cheers to Ben Barren and The Blog Herald for the tip.)

Best of the Blogosphere (from the RSS Blog)

Randy Morin of the RSS blog  reminds of all of the bloggy goodness of the world.

When you're done cursing all the sping and splogs of the world, remember this list of the "best of breed" in the blogosphere:

1. Weblogs.com - This is the oldest and most reliable part of the blogosphere. It works! It's not very interesting. It's not like I go there every hour and check the latest updates. But, much of the blogosphere was built on this simple, scalable piece of genius. Thanks Dave!
2. RSS - Another gem from Dave. This is the envelop of the blogosphere. Without it, the blogosphere would not exist.
3. OPML - Dave, stop that right now. This is why I'm not still using Radio. At one point, a better RSS client came along and I exported my subscriptions from Radio to X, from X to Y, from Y to Z. OPML stands for No Vendor Lock-in.
4. IceRocket and Google Blogsearch - Blogosphere search engines that actually work.
5. BlogPulse Profiles - Blog profiling tool that actually kinda works (it could be better).
6. ehlist - The SEO tool from hell. If you're not using it, then you're simply not trying.
7. Alexa - This is the best no touch traffic tool ever invented.
8. Analytics - I love Google.
9. AdSense - Thank Google for making blogging a paying hobby.
10. Amazon Web Services - Make that a good paying hobby.
11. Google Reader - My online RSS reader of choice.
12. GreatNews - My offline RSS reader of choice.
13. Google - The index of our lives.

Feel free to add to this list the things that make you happy to blog.

Best of the Blogosphere (from the RSS Blog)

Randy Morin of the RSS blog  reminds of all of the bloggy goodness of the world.

When you're done cursing all the sping and splogs of the world, remember this list of the "best of breed" in the blogosphere:

1. Weblogs.com - This is the oldest and most reliable part of the blogosphere. It works! It's not very interesting. It's not like I go there every hour and check the latest updates. But, much of the blogosphere was built on this simple, scalable piece of genius. Thanks Dave!
2. RSS - Another gem from Dave. This is the envelop of the blogosphere. Without it, the blogosphere would not exist.
3. OPML - Dave, stop that right now. This is why I'm not still using Radio. At one point, a better RSS client came along and I exported my subscriptions from Radio to X, from X to Y, from Y to Z. OPML stands for No Vendor Lock-in.
4. IceRocket and Google Blogsearch - Blogosphere search engines that actually work.
5. BlogPulse Profiles - Blog profiling tool that actually kinda works (it could be better).
6. ehlist - The SEO tool from hell. If you're not using it, then you're simply not trying.
7. Alexa - This is the best no touch traffic tool ever invented.
8. Analytics - I love Google.
9. AdSense - Thank Google for making blogging a paying hobby.
10. Amazon Web Services - Make that a good paying hobby.
11. Google Reader - My online RSS reader of choice.
12. GreatNews - My offline RSS reader of choice.
13. Google - The index of our lives.

Feel free to add to this list the things that make you happy to blog.

Predictions: Online will beat Outdoor, Blog ads will top $50 Million

Some big predictions today:

First -- Online spending will beat out outdoor:

Research from Zenithoptimedia predicts global online advertising will attract 6.5 per cent of all advertising in 2008, which is up from 4.5 per cent in 2005.

The company said: "The internet is now firmly established as a mainstream advertising medium in developed markets and in many developing markets too.

"We predict it will overtake outdoor [advertising] in volume in 2007, even though outdoor is gaining share itself. By 2008 it will be catching up with radio too, which will have a 7.9 per cent share, down from 8.5 per cent in 2005."

Should we be surprised that a medium that catches people sitting and reading will be outperform a medium in which people are attempting to read and drive at the same time?

Secondly, BtoB online reports (from a new study) that spending on blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds will close in on the $50 Million mark in '06. We suspect that blogs will make up the lion's share of that for this year, but expect RSS advertising to gain popularlity quickly.

Predictions: Online will beat Outdoor, Blog ads will top $50 Million

Some big predictions today:

First -- Online spending will beat out outdoor:

Research from Zenithoptimedia predicts global online advertising will attract 6.5 per cent of all advertising in 2008, which is up from 4.5 per cent in 2005.

The company said: "The internet is now firmly established as a mainstream advertising medium in developed markets and in many developing markets too.

"We predict it will overtake outdoor [advertising] in volume in 2007, even though outdoor is gaining share itself. By 2008 it will be catching up with radio too, which will have a 7.9 per cent share, down from 8.5 per cent in 2005."

Should we be surprised that a medium that catches people sitting and reading will be outperform a medium in which people are attempting to read and drive at the same time?

Secondly, BtoB online reports (from a new study) that spending on blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds will close in on the $50 Million mark in '06. We suspect that blogs will make up the lion's share of that for this year, but expect RSS advertising to gain popularlity quickly.

What Search Engine Feeds has done RIGHT with their best blog contest - besides nominating us!

Search Engine Feeds has proven they're worth their salt by launching an SEO-friendly, viral campaign...and they've nominated us as one of their "Featured Feed Sources" in the process.

Before I go any further with this post, be sure to vote for us.

The SEF blog has employed a time-tested and always smart marketing tactic -- the contest. This is the kind of marketing idea I love. It's clever, it's easy, it's cheap (or free) and it's effective on so many levels. Just a few of the things Search Engine Feeds has done -- and that anyone can do -- to make an online contest work.

Capitalizing on the fact that everyone wants to win something, SEF made their contest a battle for "most useful" engine marketing blog. Here are some of the crafty tactics they've employed. Read and learn:

1. They created a hyperlinked list of contestants -- Outbound links are an SEM staple, and key for attracting spiders.

2. They asked everyone to include a link to the contest post on their blog. Assuming their request is honored by all nominees, this brings in the ever-so-important inbound link, the "ying" to the outbound link's "yang."  By having an abundance of both, your site becomes very attractive to spiders. Lots of relevant inbound links also raise your Google page rank, which brings me to ....

3. They've kept they're contest extremely relevant. This is a Search blog creating a contest (and inbound and outbound links) for other Search blogs. Does it get anymore SEO-smart than that?

4. Of course they've syndicated their contest post via RSS, which will ensure that the contest appears in any relevant searches in both Google and Yahoo news.

Add the fact that they've created a viral element by emailing notification to the nominees -- and encouraging us to email it to our friends and colleagues...and you've got a very clever and no-cost marketing campaign.

When you get down to it, good marketing boils down to creativity, hard work, and common sense. This campaign just reminds me of how much fun it is to roll up your sleeves, put your thinking cap on, and create something from nothing.

What Search Engine Feeds has done RIGHT with their best blog contest - besides nominating us!

Search Engine Feeds has proven they're worth their salt by launching an SEO-friendly, viral campaign...and they've nominated us as one of their "Featured Feed Sources" in the process.

Before I go any further with this post, be sure to vote for us.

The SEF blog has employed a time-tested and always smart marketing tactic -- the contest. This is the kind of marketing idea I love. It's clever, it's easy, it's cheap (or free) and it's effective on so many levels. Just a few of the things Search Engine Feeds has done -- and that anyone can do -- to make an online contest work.

Capitalizing on the fact that everyone wants to win something, SEF made their contest a battle for "most useful" engine marketing blog. Here are some of the crafty tactics they've employed. Read and learn:

1. They created a hyperlinked list of contestants -- Outbound links are an SEM staple, and key for attracting spiders.

2. They asked everyone to include a link to the contest post on their blog. Assuming their request is honored by all nominees, this brings in the ever-so-important inbound link, the "ying" to the outbound link's "yang."  By having an abundance of both, your site becomes very attractive to spiders. Lots of relevant inbound links also raise your Google page rank, which brings me to ....

3. They've kept they're contest extremely relevant. This is a Search blog creating a contest (and inbound and outbound links) for other Search blogs. Does it get anymore SEO-smart than that?

4. Of course they've syndicated their contest post via RSS, which will ensure that the contest appears in any relevant searches in both Google and Yahoo news.

Add the fact that they've created a viral element by emailing notification to the nominees -- and encouraging us to email it to our friends and colleagues...and you've got a very clever and no-cost marketing campaign.

When you get down to it, good marketing boils down to creativity, hard work, and common sense. This campaign just reminds me of how much fun it is to roll up your sleeves, put your thinking cap on, and create something from nothing.

relevantNOISE will be joining us for Blog Webinar

relevantNOISE's Lori Arnold will be joining us for our Business Blog Webinar next week.  Don't know who relevantNOISE is? Do you live under a rock?? Kidding. Here's the company description:

relevantNOISE™ is a technology company dedicated to mining web logs, or blogs, for business intelligence. Using proprietary data mining, natural language processing, and tone extraction technologies, relevantNOISE helps clients monitor the quickly growing "blogosphere" in real time to track the level of volume around key topic areas -- including industry, brands, products, executives, and competitors. The company further assists clients by determining whether those conversations are positive or negative and how that changes over time.

Here's some info about Lori Arnold. And I can personally attest to the fact that she's really smart, really cool, and an excellent speaker. (Lori, you owe me lunch.)

Register for the webinar -- it's free!