BlogRank claims its algorithms are better than anyone's etc etc. If you want to know more about the methodology try here.
What I should point out is that it only tracks 20,000 blogs at the moment. I'm sure there are plenty of worthy publishing blogs which should be appearing. Scott Karp's Publishing2.0 springs immediately to mind.
Anyway - we'll be happy with the No7 spot for now. Thank you magic algorithm.
Still happier with a personal recommendation from one person who cares to another one that also cares though, to be honest ;-)
"... when people go online they know what they want and how to do it... This makes them very resistant to highlighted promotions or other editorial choices that try to distract them."
... all the rest is spam.
Users don't put up with being interrupted or distracted. They find a way around the control you would impose. It's a network, not a one-way street, stoopid.
And Scott says: "Online advertising must create value for users or it will create little or no value for advertisers."
While it's worth reminding ourselves not to take all this (or ourselves) too seriously (read JP Rangaswami's Applauding Our Own Behinds) I do think it's worth considering why people are getting their knickers in such a twist (if only because I'm one of Robert's 5000 friends - whose email address, date of birth etc have been 'plundered' by the plaxo app he was testing).
Scott Karp at Publishing2.o sums it all up quite nicely, referencing Dave Winer, Nick Carr and Paul Bucheit. I'd also recommend a quick squint at Jeff Jarvis (who in turn refers to Mike Arrington at TechCrunch).
I have two thoughts. First is a response to Scott's post. Scott says the fuss over Scoblegate(tm) serves to reveal a coming war over the control of data.
War implies mighty armies clashing. I think this will end up much more a free-for-all. Perhaps Scoble is going guerilla? Seriously; what I want is an ID key which opens the safety deposit boxes of my choice. And when I leave that deposit box, I take the whole key with me. You only get to access the data I choose to share while your application does something useful for me. Then I’m gone and you’re back to doing your best to keep the conversation going between us.
Persistent conversation rather than owned/farmed/harvested data will win. The battle, for me, is not about owning data but about owning relationships.
And relationships are not based on what I did last year or even last week. They are based on engaging with me about things I care about, and doing it regularly.
Those applications/institutions/things that are good at that will win digitally just as they do in the real world.
My second point seeks to untwist knickers. The main force in twisting knickers in the Scoblegate affair appears to be who 'owns' the personal data. ie My name, email address and date of birth is MINE. It is not SCOBLE'S!!!! (followed by much gnashing of teeth, wailing etc)
Calm down.
It's hardly For Your Eyes Only stuff is it? Your dob (and I'm speaking from the UK) is a matter of public record, my email address is far from secret (it's a business one). And isn't it about time we lightened up about email address sharing? I mean, why is it any different from letting someone know your physical address. You can get junk mail at both. So what? Bin it.
Oh, and what was that third element? Oh my gosh - Robert Scoble now knows my name. Call the cops.
If other people (or applications, if you will) knowing this much about you sends you into palpitations I suggest you buy a campervan and head for the desert.
And if knowing this is enough to unlock something meant to be truly secure and personal - go back and redesign your bloody lock!
Buying and selling links to influence search traffic — a practice Google is cracking down on to protect its own consolidation
“Citizen media” sites like the NowPublic, AssociatedContent, and the recently acquired Newsvine, which consolidate independent content creation activity
New York Times bringing the Freakonomics blog onto its domain and cranking out new blogs (over 40 now) in order to crank out more and more content at a fraction of the cost of its traditional print content operation
Vertical ad networks that comprise mostly niche sites you’ve never heard of but that get tons of traffic from search
These represent one of two principal new media consolidation trends, i.e. the consolidation of content creation. The second trend is consolidating the power to decide WHICH content gets attention."
Both Scott Karp and Badger Gravling have posted about Facebook's plans to make your profile searchable outside of facebook (eg by google) in recent days.
Scott's concern is that facebook has started opening up its network without consulting with that network - and even went so far as to test and implement without a nod to their nodes! Scott points out that the default mode is to make your (it has to be said, very limited) profile available to search engines.
Personally, I don't have a problem with making my node on the facebook network also a node on the wider network of the internet. But then, you'd expect me to say that, wouldn't you? I expect it to be another way my connections with interesting people and thoughts will be amplified - with all the emerging value that entails.
That said, I do understand why some people would NOT want to be involved in that widening. It's clear from recently successful networks that control over how closed or open your personal group within a network is, is very valuable to many. Think Cyworld (Korea), think LinkedIn, and (usually) think Facebook.
Seems to me facebook is scrabbling around trying to work out how to monetise its huge community (note this is a community, or series of communities, NOT an audience). Increasing the potential traffic and page impressions (a result of opening up to search engines) is a very standard interruptive advertising response.
It's attempting to gauge success in terms of Sarnoff's Law: ie The more viewers, the greater the value.
But it's a serious under-estimation of the true (Reed's Law) value being created in the facebook network.
I had the pleasure of dinner with Alan Moore (co-author Communities Dominate Brands, and the man who coined the term 'engagement marketing') last night.
He had just returned from time spent working with Xtract in Helsinki. And it occurred to me that the combination of facebook, Alan and Xtract could prove very powerful.
A quick snapshot of how great the potential, is demonstrated by Robert Scoble's 5000-strong facebook group and explained by him in this video. (watch here).
An aside: Robert's video is pitched as exclusive content available only to his facebook friends - yet when I add it to my vodpod (see left navigation) it seems that content is made freely available outside of the facebook wall!).
So I took a look on Facebook to see how I might go about contacting the right person to get the conversation going.
I ended up having to pretend I wanted to place an advert in order to be able to send any kind of message to HQ at all!
Seems like facebook values its privacy...
If anyone has any clue as to how to crack the 'contact a human being at facebook' code, please do share.
Scott Karp at Publishing2.0 (see recommended blogs, left) has some interesting comments on Nielson's new engagement panel.
It finds that only a third of the 1000-strong membership can recall a TV advert they've seen - while 79% could recall the shows they'd seen.
Personally I guess that depends on the time frame. I can't remember ads I saw last night - that's because I didn't watch TV last night. I can recall the Cadbury's Smash commercials of the 70s. That's because I did watch TV then. An extreme example - but you get the point.
The issue reminds me of one of my favourite questions of the moment:
"Describe the last three TV commercials you saw".
Can you?
It's a simple illustration that the value of interruptive broadcast media models has collapsed.
Scott Karp's post 'Is Content Still a Business?' (on Publishing2.0) poses a very logical question and one drawn from a series of trends anyone can spot.
These raise critical questions that content creators - should they wish to remain such - should ask themselves as they go forward in a granular content, rather than mass media, world.
Scott argues: "...the most striking consequence of digitizing media and distributing it online is that all content is now available in a discrete, granual form. Music file. Article page. Video clip. Podcast. Photo. There are very few places on the web that require you to buy a whole package in order to get one item.
"This is a radical transformation of the content business. Think about it.
"How many CDs have you bought for just one song? How many magazines have you bought just to read one article? How many cable channels do you subscribe to in order to watch just one show...?
"The media business has always been about selling you content that you don’t really want by stapling it (literally or figuratively) to the content that you do want. The digitization of media on the network has obliterated this model?"
He concludes "...content platform and content aggregation businesses (think Google, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Digg) are the only real media businesses left.
"Oh well. If Google has its way, maybe the content business can transform itself into a direct marketing business."
While this final line appears to be a bit of a throw away - it is exactly what some media businesses are attempting to do by moving themselves along the supply chain. But - as discussed previously - Google's cost-per-action model puts even this quite radical approach in jeopardy.
So what future for content creators in a granular context? If you insist on mass producing media, you have to allow people to extract the one piece of content you've created that they want - eg I don't want Sky, but I do want to watch Lost.
Impact: Goodbye distributor/package creator (who needs Sky?). Hello content creator (I want your programme).
Isn't this the logical impact of IPTV? The end of impersonal scheduling also means you don't need the likes of Sky 'packaging up' the rest of the content for you. You go direct to the point of creation (and this is what we're seeing with social networking, citizen journalism etc. It's logical we'll see this with TV and other forms of media, too.
What future for Media Brands? Currently you need a go-between to find each other - and as the web gets cleverer the networking becomes more natural and the fit between what you want and what you get gets closer.
Perhaps the best hope for a role for media brands is what Alan Moore is referring to when he considers 'curation' in this post
We bring together the best content that fits our brand - you know what the brand is about (and as part of its community contribute to what that brand is about and evolves into) and therefore look to us to offer you the right stuff and (critically) you choose to help co-create, rate and share the right stuff.
And you get to choose at a granular level exactly which article, which picture, which video, which service you want.
The community element of this is essential for the media brand to have any value.
Why? Google's returns are heavily weighted towards mass (lots of use, lots of links in) at the moment (which means there's a role for a bit of content curation and choice editing, at least in specialist markets) this ain't going to be the case for ever.
You can be sure Google has worked out that niche communities organised around shared interests will take over from mass - and their search mechanisms will strive to keep up (see the custom search engine on this blog, for an example).
And if the user can find exactly the granular element of content they want (from which ever content provider) they will be happy.
But I'd argue that if they do that in isolation, they will not be happy.
This is the lesson we learn from the return to 'we species' that the success of social networking has revealed. We want to be together...
Therefore the community aspects of what your media brand can offer becomes its primary function.
The community co-creates, rates, shapes the content, the content defines the brand.
The brand is the shared interests and values of that community. And community has a huge value for the future.
...and relax... pause for breath. That was a bit of a stream of consciousness. Please add your comments, pull it apart, whatever... below
Google has put its much-awaited pay-per-action ad model live (in beta at least). Take a look at the details for yourself here.
So, what's the deal? Google says: "Pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows you to pay only for completed actions that you define, such as a lead, a sale, or a pageview, after a user has clicked on your ad on a publisher's site. You'll define an action, set up conversion tracking, and create ads that publishers in the Google content network can then choose to place in new ad units on their site."
I agree with the risks Scott identifies for the web. But for publishers I think there's an even greater potential risk - the final nails in the coffin for mass media.
This closes a loop for advertisers. If I understand it correctly, it removes all risk on their side.
Now they can say "I'll only pay when I make a sale". They have to pay bigger than for a straightforward "I'll pay when you click my link" model. But it's a 100 per cent efficient model.
This has an obvious impact on those media companies who are trying to move their position in the value chain by 'taking a cut' on purchases - rather than charging for ad impressions or clicks.
But its greatest impact is in the way this must absolutely destroy the value of accruing (any old) eyeballs that mass media has delivered and ad buyers have fallen over themselves to buy.
Huge ad impressions, giant page impressions, masses of unique users - they all impress the advertiser who can't measure how many will buy his product when he places his ad.
The cost-per-click model gave that a severe kicking.
The cost-per-action model (if it's per sale) kicks it into touch.
And so what is the value of mass media in this world? What is it for?
Mass (produced) media is well and truly over, mass micro media may have a chance (focused on communities with shared interests).
Now that those communities have no (cost) barriers to entry they can organise, produce and share their own media. 'Media' companies must understand their new place in this world.
The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
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