Whatever your political persuasion — right, left, or center — the blogosphere is a great place for bloggers to share their political views and make plenty of friends and enemies. We try to follow the conservative, liberal, and everything in between of politics and political blogs/blogging — but only when it intersects with business blogging.
Have a read below of our latest entries on politics and political blogging…
Insanely dumb. Just imagine how much more interest in the Olympics and the Olympians athlete blogs could spur.
MediaPost columnist Mark Naples doesn’t think that blogs rock, but he thinks that I do. More to the point, he thinks I am “Rock Bruner.”
Okay, I know he doesn’t really think that, as we know each other. The “i” and the “o” are next to each other on the keyboard after all. But I can’t resist mulling over all the personal slogans it suggests:
Okay, it’s not that funny, but it’s been a long week.
As for the premise of his article — that he doesn’t see what the big deal is about blogs — needless to say I disagree. In fact, I’d venture to sound so 1997 as to say he “doesn’t get” blogs. (A sure sign: he thinks they’re pretty much like bulletin boards.) I’d love nothing more than to Fisk the article and point out all the reasons why blogs, and not I, indeed do rock, but I’m behind on a client deadline. So I invite all you other blog boosters to have a go at him.
MediaPost: On Blogocracy and Its Significance
BloggerCon is back, this time at Stanford University’s Law School, November 6th. Click the link in the headline of this post for details.
Real Networks just started this blog to influence spin in the debate over its recent enabling of its downloadable music files to be played on Apple’s proprietary MP3 player iPod. Real is undercutting Apple’s 99 cent MP3s by selling its music library for only 49 cents each.
UPDATE:
As usual, it seems that I’ve missed the actual story here (the difference being this time I figured it out, sort of, on my own before a bunch of you left comments here calling me dense). It seems that Real started this site as a petition calling on Apple users to support its effort open up its file format to play on the iPod. But it underestimated the fanaticism of Apple users, some 1,000 of whom signed the petition with vile abuse aimed at Real. Details at Micro Persuasion.
I noted the other day that I thought blogs and movies were a great match. Here’s another example: the arty looking film from Fox Search Lights, Garden State, has a blog written by the movie’s star, writer and director, Zach Braff (best known for his role on NBC’s hospital comedy Scrubs). Nice to see that the official movie site links to the blog. I haven’t seen the film yet (though I plan to, set as it is set in my native homeland of suburban New Jersey), but it appears to be popular with both critics and movie goers.
A few weeks ago, I linked to a survey that a student was conducting about business blogging. I haven’t yet heard back what were the results (though I did just send him a follow-up email today asking about it).
Meanwhile, here is another survey by a student on the topic of business bloggging. (That link is for people who have a business blog; if you don’t but you’re interested in the topic, there is another surve here.)
UPDATE:
I’ve heard back about the earlier survey I noted. Turns out they still haven’t gotten as many responses as they want, so they’re keeping that survey open. Be a sport, and give a click.
This sounds a bit dubious. The site’s funkily formatted homepage explains:
Blogversations are a new way to market. Here’s how it works: Advertisers sponsor bloggers to dicuss a topic or question. Bloggers earn $$. Advertisers engage turned-out audiences.
It continues on from there, but you get the basic idea. The homepage notes “advertorials not encouraged.” Not encouraged? How about not allowed? I’m not going to say this is necessarily evil; I’ll leave that to plenty of the rest of you, I’m sure. Certainly bears watching.
Not to be outdone by Google’s blog, Yahoo just launched its own blog. The first post, a bit of self-congratulations about how great Yahoo’s search is, was written by Jeff Weiner, SVP of Yahoo! Search & Marketplace. From the sound of it, however, others will also join in the blogging:
Be sure to check back here for news about new product introductions, updates and exclusive betas.
In addition, this blog is designed to provide a window into what our team is thinking and doing, in their own words (and maybe some guest bloggers as well).
Above all else we hope this blog enables you to share our excitement for the search industry and what the future holds.
Powered by Movable Type. Funny that they wouldn’t use Blogger, as it’s free
😉
Comments are turned on and filling up fast.
ClickZ offers additional perspective.
More of the usual evangelizism for everyone’s favorite “new” trend.
Globe & Mail: Blogs go big business
Hoot! Short of a “Kick Me” sign on your back, nothing quite says “I know nothing about the Internet” and assures that you will be soundly mocked online like an anti-deep linking policy. Apparently the folks behind Athens 2004, the offical site for the current Olympics, still use AOL or have only read about the Internet in airline magazines.
This is so 1996. These kinds of policies are laughably uninforcable — there has never been any legal precedent set in this regard — and they miss the critical point of the a web site: you want people to visit it, and other web sites that call attention to specific valuable content on your site (e.g., bloggers) are doing you a favor.
Just for giggles, here are some of their ridonkulous requirements for linking to pages of their site:
If you want to tap blogs to help drive more traffic to you site, read this policy statement and then do the opposite. (Oh, and don’t use frames. Frames suck for bloggers trying to link to you. In fact, frames just suck, and have done so for many years.)
The basic 411 on biz blogs. Trying to be cute, the writer uses subheads like blog date entries. She gets the reverse chronology right, but that doesn’t really make sense, because the flow of the story is top to bottom, but were the paragraphs at the bottom of the story really written earlier than the top paragraphs with later dates, the story wouldn’t make any sense. Just a gimmick, I realize, but kinda silly.
Entrepreneur.com: The Bottom Line on Business Blogs
Interesting example of the network effect of blogs. The About statement explains:
Using the power of weblogs for open-source charity. Don’t just fight evil: Strengthen the good.
STG is the nexus of a network of bloggers committed to raising awareness for small charities around the world. Every three weeks this space highlights a new “micro-charity”—a small, inspiring charity, one with a real face and where $1 makes a difference—and the bloggers in the network link to that post, sending traffic, and awareness, the charity’s way.
Syndicated political columnist Arianna Huffington has been blogging for some months (unfortunately, because she uses the terrible calendar metaphor for the blog’s archives, it’s not easy to tell just how long she has been at it, but it looks like less than a year).
WeatherBug Meteorologist Ryan Towell, whose bio informs us “is a former TV meteorologist who earned the American Meteorological Society (AMS) TV Seal of Approval in 2000,” started blogging aptly in the midst of covering Hurrican Charley. He’s been cranking it out in the last few days.
A morality tale of why it’s a bad idea to blog about your sex life with co-workers, especially when they work for Congress and the White House.
Washington Post: Blog Interrupted
Interesting blog focused on the “natural personal care products industry.” As much of the content appears to be straight-up press releases, I wrote the site’s editor for clarification about it. She replied:
Hi Rick,
In answer to your questions…
Most entries on SoapWire are a mixture of both press releases and news articles.
Those opting to submit press releases can do so free (which has a 2 day delay) or opt
to enhance their distribution level (same day/next day) through voluntary financial support.
SoapWire also offers expanded press release distribution options via its Natural News Media division.
There are several forms and levels of advertising on SoapWire- from top Sponsorships to graphical and contextual advertising.
Our target audience encompasses R&D, science, packaging design, marketing, manufacturing, distributors, buyers, company directors and journalists.
I hope this gives you a clearer picture.
Best,
Kathy L. Tarbox, Owner/President
RSS is new and neato. Et cetera.
More of the same about politics and blogs. Leads like this just bug me:
Forget direct mail solicitations and pleas made in person or on television. Savvy politicians trying to raise campaign money today are turning to the Internet.
No, don’t forget direct mail, TV and in-person politicking, for Pete’s sake. Why must journalists reduce everything to such simplistic binary choices. Blogs are good, but they will replace nothing. That’s just something new.
IndyStar: Savvy politicos turn to Web logs
A decent general overview piece about blogging (when is this kind of “What’s a blog?” story going to run it’s course, do you suppose?) that includes several examples of business blogs along with political and other types of blogs. Starts with a short profile of the Air Conditioning Contractors of America’s blog:
“Our members may not be your typical bloggers, but this works for us,” said Kevin W. Holland, the trade group’s vice president of communications and membership.
Deb Weil, who is featured in the article, provides behind-the-scenes elaboration on the story.
Washington Times: What’s all the blog about?
Interesting piece Reuters apparently wrote for Billboard about the impact that blogs are having on the music industry. On the one hand, hip new indie bands such as the Killers, Scissor Sisters, Fiery Furnaces and Franz Ferdinand have all benefited from blog-fueled buzz. On the other hand, record companies predictably don’t know what to make of the copyright implications of MP3 blogs such as Fluxblog, Scenestars and TofuHut, the likes of which have scooped the record companies recently with previously unreleased material from new works by Fiona Apple, Interpol and Bjork.
My favorite quote is Chiore Sicha, editorial director of Gawker Media, calling 18-35 year old “this shocking demographic.” Egad!
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Looking for a company that offers consulting on corporate and business blogging, including design, development and strategy? Consider Netconcepts.
Other stuff? Email us.
Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing
Andy Bourland of Bourland.com
Rich Brooks of Flyte
Paul Chaney of Blogging Systems Group
Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus
Josh Hallett of Hyku
Tris Hussey of Larix Consulting
Lee Odden of TopRank
Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts
Dave Taylor of Intuitive Life for Business
Jim Turner of One by One Media
Dana VanDen Heuvel of BlogSavant
Des Walsh of Thinking Home Business
Debbie Weil of WordBiz and BlogWrite
Jeremy Wright of Ensight
Rick E. Bruner is co-author and principal analyst on this report
Our own contributor Jeremy Wright is the author of this book
"The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right" with a foreword by GM's Bob Lutz..and the rest by Debbie Weil.
Produced by contributor to this site Debbie Weil. Rick E. Bruner is one of the featured experts in this report
This report is written by contributor to this site BL Ochman
I guess this was inevitable
