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.

WOMMA Issues Guidelines for Business Bloggers and the Marketers Who Contact Them

In the aftermath of the Edelman/Wal-Mart fiasco, WOMMA has been scrambling to save face (Edelman is on their board, after all) and issue a new code of ethics (Edelman was instrumental in penning the existing code). Edelman's membership is currently in review, and WOMMA has taken quick action to put a new code of ethics -- now referred to as a "tool" -- in place.

They've actually created two sets of guidelines: One for business bloggers (including agencies in the blogging space) and one marketers attempting to "leverage" blogs and contact bloggers.

Both are up on the WOMMA site. The first, the WOMMA Ethics Assessment Tool, consists of the Ethics 20 Questions is up as a "Discussion Draft for Public Comment." If you work in this space, read it and comment. It's a pretty reasonable ethics code, but there's always room for improvement.

The second set, The Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines is also in discussion draft mode. This tool is a little fresher, and basically seeks protect bloggers from spam and block paid blogging without disclosure.

This document is a public draft of guidelines for marketers to follow when doing outreach within the blogosphere. It is neither a "how to blog" nor a "what to blog" document. Rather, its intent is to give clarity and guidance to marketers who are working and corresponding with bloggers, and to ensure that their efforts adhere to the standards set by the WOMMA Ethics Code.

These guidelines are designed to help marketers embrace specific practices that are deemed ethical within the blogosphere. Adopting them will empower marketers to quickly identify issues within existing communications and will help ensure that future efforts at communicating with bloggers are ethically sound.

It's a lot to take in, but definitely read and comment. If you're doing any work with blogs for your own business or for clients these rules WILL AFFECT YOU. Take the time to provide feedback.

We need some best practices established out here in blog land.

Yahoo Pulls Blog Search to "Retool"

Yahoo has pulled it's blog search engine for now, although, according to Micro Persuasion, it is still featuring larger blogs in its news results (Gizomodo, Huffington Post, etc.).

But don't jump to the conclusion that they've acquired Technorati or Sphere (that's where my mind went), per Amit Agarwal and the NewsBlog, they're "retooling" their offering and the disappearance of blog results from the SERPs was only temporary.

So we'll keep our eyes peeled for Yahoo Blog Search 2.0....

[UPDATE: Remember this? Hmmmm....]

Yahoo Pulls Blog Search to "Retool"

Yahoo has pulled it's blog search engine for now, although, according to Micro Persuasion, it is still featuring larger blogs in its news results (Gizomodo, Huffington Post, etc.).

But don't jump to the conclusion that they've acquired Technorati or Sphere (that's where my mind went), per Amit Agarwal and the NewsBlog, they're "retooling" their offering and the disappearance of blog results from the SERPs was only temporary.

So we'll keep our eyes peeled for Yahoo Blog Search 2.0....

[UPDATE: Remember this? Hmmmm....]

How Search Engines Blog: Ideas and Tips from Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN (Courtesy of John Battelle)

John Batelle recounts a panel at SES hosted by Danny Sullivan featuring Matt Cutts (Google), Jeremy Zawodny (Yahoo!), Niall Kennedy (MSN), and Gary Price (Ask). Since each of these guys actually blogs, Danny asked them to share their "unofficial" thoughts and views on the topic of blogging.

The whole post is work reading for a lot of reasons, but I found the section on Syndication particularly eye-opening.  Here's a nearly-complete reprint of Battelle's great post.

On keeping perspective:
Gary says he tries to walk the middle ground, blogging about MSN, Yahoo, and Google more than Ask—and the company encourages him to do so. All four say don’t let the PR department hinder them, though they sometimes give PR a heads-up. Also, though they write with independent voices, letting the company know a critical post is coming out will sometimes solicit more candid company updates. Gary says he tries to make Resource Shelf all things to all people—for the search companies, the SES crowd and library/reference professionals.

When company bloggers are the news:
Danny Sullivan asks if they avoid press coverage. Cutts says he just tries to be so monumentally boring and technical that the media won’t cover it, and says he’s been largely successful (though this editor disagrees that engagement quality is the cause). Zawodny says he keeps a news alert on his name, so he can sigh deeply every time a reporter attributes his comments in a Yahoo exposé. Kennedy says his blog has become one more end-point in a 72 million person company—helping people with specific needs connect with the company.

Are they PR guys?
Matt and Gary say no—Matt uses non-Google products (wordpress not blogger, etc) and Gary’s post up today is a positive piece on Google. While Matt says Zawodny is ballsy for listing out failures of Yahoo Finance, Jeremy follows up that indeed in some sense he is a PR guy. Once he let it slip that he hadn’t gone through media training, within a week that’s where he found himself.

“My exercise in figuring out where the line was repeatedly crossing it and then be told that I crossed it. Lawyers have come into my office three times.”— Zawodny.

Syndication
Price says weekly emails are still crucial to distributing blog content, aside from an RSS feed—which is rising but still not familiar to the larger audience. Zawodny likes to schedule postings – rattling-off a few and letting posts distribute automatically. Gary, self-described as not the biggest fan of RSS syndication, says Ask is now playing with displaying the last three updated posts from a related feed above the organic results. Zawodny says he likes the feature and has been using it.

Vlogs, Podcasts
“You can write for 45 min. and say what does and doesn’t work. Or you can talk for five minutes and if you’re lucky someone will transcribe it for you,” says Cutts on the advantage of video (in reference to his recent foray with vlogging). He says there have been 80,000 downloads of Cutts’ random SES video Matt did on a weekend while the wife was away, but he’ll primarily stick with his blog.

Gary says Jim Lazone and he are going to start a podcast. Perhaps one aimed at the SES crowd, and another at the K-12 crowd who need so much help in familiarizing wtih search.

How Search Engines Blog: Ideas and Tips from Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN (Courtesy of John Battelle)

John Batelle recounts a panel at SES hosted by Danny Sullivan featuring Matt Cutts (Google), Jeremy Zawodny (Yahoo!), Niall Kennedy (MSN), and Gary Price (Ask). Since each of these guys actually blogs, Danny asked them to share their "unofficial" thoughts and views on the topic of blogging.

The whole post is work reading for a lot of reasons, but I found the section on Syndication particularly eye-opening.  Here's a nearly-complete reprint of Battelle's great post.

On keeping perspective:
Gary says he tries to walk the middle ground, blogging about MSN, Yahoo, and Google more than Ask—and the company encourages him to do so. All four say don’t let the PR department hinder them, though they sometimes give PR a heads-up. Also, though they write with independent voices, letting the company know a critical post is coming out will sometimes solicit more candid company updates. Gary says he tries to make Resource Shelf all things to all people—for the search companies, the SES crowd and library/reference professionals.

When company bloggers are the news:
Danny Sullivan asks if they avoid press coverage. Cutts says he just tries to be so monumentally boring and technical that the media won’t cover it, and says he’s been largely successful (though this editor disagrees that engagement quality is the cause). Zawodny says he keeps a news alert on his name, so he can sigh deeply every time a reporter attributes his comments in a Yahoo exposé. Kennedy says his blog has become one more end-point in a 72 million person company—helping people with specific needs connect with the company.

Are they PR guys?
Matt and Gary say no—Matt uses non-Google products (wordpress not blogger, etc) and Gary’s post up today is a positive piece on Google. While Matt says Zawodny is ballsy for listing out failures of Yahoo Finance, Jeremy follows up that indeed in some sense he is a PR guy. Once he let it slip that he hadn’t gone through media training, within a week that’s where he found himself.

“My exercise in figuring out where the line was repeatedly crossing it and then be told that I crossed it. Lawyers have come into my office three times.”— Zawodny.

Syndication
Price says weekly emails are still crucial to distributing blog content, aside from an RSS feed—which is rising but still not familiar to the larger audience. Zawodny likes to schedule postings – rattling-off a few and letting posts distribute automatically. Gary, self-described as not the biggest fan of RSS syndication, says Ask is now playing with displaying the last three updated posts from a related feed above the organic results. Zawodny says he likes the feature and has been using it.

Vlogs, Podcasts
“You can write for 45 min. and say what does and doesn’t work. Or you can talk for five minutes and if you’re lucky someone will transcribe it for you,” says Cutts on the advantage of video (in reference to his recent foray with vlogging). He says there have been 80,000 downloads of Cutts’ random SES video Matt did on a weekend while the wife was away, but he’ll primarily stick with his blog.

Gary says Jim Lazone and he are going to start a podcast. Perhaps one aimed at the SES crowd, and another at the K-12 crowd who need so much help in familiarizing wtih search.

MarketingSherpa Publishes Ice.com Blog Case Study

I've always thought that Ice.com's blogs were the blog marketing pioneers. While most of us were sitting in webinars, wracking our brains trying to figure out how to "monetize" blogs, Ice.com was out their doing it with Just Ask Leslie and Sparkle Like the Stars -- effectively affiliate blogs that were written and managed by their own marketing team.

The blogs are smart in that they include fun, useful content, they use keyword effectively (no stuffing) and they updated frequently. "Sparkle" is particularly fun in its use of photos of celebs dekced out in stunning Hollywod bling -- juxtaposed with photos of Ice.com's similar rocks.

MarketingSherpa reveals how successful the blogs have been in a comprehensive Case Study.  The results are pretty much what I was expecting: The blogs perform as well as a good affiliate -- but not as well as Search.

The article also includes some use-now tips on blog marketing -- including one or two I'll be talking to our Web Dev team about tomorrow.

Read the Case Study while it's free!! (presumably through 8/19/06)

(BTW, still feel really weird using the word "bling." Is it because I'm over 30, because I live in the 'burbs, or both?)

MarketingSherpa Publishes Ice.com Blog Case Study

I've always thought that Ice.com's blogs were the blog marketing pioneers. While most of us were sitting in webinars, wracking our brains trying to figure out how to "monetize" blogs, Ice.com was out their doing it with Just Ask Leslie and Sparkle Like the Stars -- effectively affiliate blogs that were written and managed by their own marketing team.

The blogs are smart in that they include fun, useful content, they use keyword effectively (no stuffing) and they updated frequently. "Sparkle" is particularly fun in its use of photos of celebs dekced out in stunning Hollywod bling -- juxtaposed with photos of Ice.com's similar rocks.

MarketingSherpa reveals how successful the blogs have been in a comprehensive Case Study.  The results are pretty much what I was expecting: The blogs perform as well as a good affiliate -- but not as well as Search.

The article also includes some use-now tips on blog marketing -- including one or two I'll be talking to our Web Dev team about tomorrow.

Read the Case Study while it's free!! (presumably through 8/19/06)

(BTW, still feel really weird using the word "bling." Is it because I'm over 30, because I live in the 'burbs, or both?)

Blogs Fuel Record-Breaking Internet Growth in July

From TG Daily (via Micro Persuasion):

The Internet added 4.4 million new hostnames during July - the single largest gain of new sites in a single month, according to Internet services firm Netcraft. The growth surpassed the previous records set in June of this year, which saw a 3.96 million site gain.

The main reason for the quick growth, Netcraft said, is the battle between Microsoft and Google to attract users to their blog services. Both firms contributed significantly to drive the Internet to a new record number of websites, which now stands at 92,615,362 websites. According to the firm, Microsoft added about 858,000 new sites, while Google gained about 568,000 during the month.

(Yes, it ends up being about Microsoft and Google again.)

Blogs Fuel Record-Breaking Internet Growth in July

From TG Daily (via Micro Persuasion):

The Internet added 4.4 million new hostnames during July - the single largest gain of new sites in a single month, according to Internet services firm Netcraft. The growth surpassed the previous records set in June of this year, which saw a 3.96 million site gain.

The main reason for the quick growth, Netcraft said, is the battle between Microsoft and Google to attract users to their blog services. Both firms contributed significantly to drive the Internet to a new record number of websites, which now stands at 92,615,362 websites. According to the firm, Microsoft added about 858,000 new sites, while Google gained about 568,000 during the month.

(Yes, it ends up being about Microsoft and Google again.)