Social Signal Blogging Workshop

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/25 at 03:26 PM • Blogging Events

Alexandra Samuel and Rob Cottingham of Social Signal have put together a blogging workshop that focuses less on the technical side and more on the strategic, communications and writing aspects of blogging. It’s a four-day intensive workshop at the Hollyhock Centre on Cortes Island. We’ll focus on blogging as a key element of an integrated communications strategy, and work with participants to help them create an authentic, distinctive online voice for themselves or their organizations.

Tuition for “Word Power: Finding Your Blog’s Unique Voice” is $395 (accommodation and meals are extra). You can get more information at http://www.socialsignal.com/hollyhock.

Check out the event brochure (PDF).

 
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Blogosphere Spreads Cannibalism

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/24 at 02:34 PM • Blogs

Anil Dash of SixApart put up a hilarious post today about Daniel Henninger’s critique of the blogosphere. Go read it!

The truth is, it is still an open question whether the growth of cannibalism around the world is due to the blogosphere, or whether this growth is in fact due to instant messaging.

 
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L.A. Times Blog Suspended for Ethics Violation

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/24 at 01:59 PM • Law and Ethics

L.A.T blogger and Pultizer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik’s Golden State blog has been suspended, pending an editorial review of Hiltzik’s recent disclosure that he posts using pseudonyms on the L.A.T. Web site, and others.

 
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Bad Buzz for GoDaddy

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/18 at 12:42 PM • Blogs -- Marketing

For an example of why businesses need to pay attention to the blogosphere even when they don’t start a blog, check out this post on Wired’s Monkey Bites blog today:

As the user GoatMonkey2112 (no relation) points out, he performed a little test of his own design at GoDaddy.com. He went to the domain registrar’s site, found an available domain name, added it to his cart, and then cancelled his shopping cart. He returned the next day to find the domain name parked, and thus available only by paying an inflated fee. ... If GoatMonkey2112’s story is true, then GoDaddy is yet another company to put on your “sneaky business practices” list.

Commenters on the post speculate about just which business might be responsible for the purchase, which most folks regard as underhanded. Ryan left this comment:

I have experienced this more than once with GoDaddy: I actually warn people that if they are fairly certain of their purchase, they should not hesitate to “invest” the nine dollars in buying an avaiable domain.

My thoughts were always that the same people who buy expired domains had some insider information from godaddy on recent searches/shopping cart leavings, not that godaddy themselves were the vultures. Still, this would suggest the existence of some official (or cloak and dagger) way to scrape this data.

I suppose it could also be old-fashioned packet sniffing, though, so who’s to say GoDaddy is playing Big Brother?

This is actually a great opportunity for GoDaddy—assuming they aren’t actually engaging in the suspect behavior—to make it clear what kind of business they are and clear up the rumor. For kicks, I sent the link to the post in via GoDaddy’s customer support email system. I’ll be keeping an eye on this post to see whether a GoDaddy rep shows up.

UPDATE: Wired Monkey Bites reports that GoDaddy, rather than being engaged in shady business practices, is conducting business as usual:

One of the things everyone should know is that when you submit a query for ANY domain name, it is sent out across the interenet to ALL the registrars and registries. That means everyone knows that it is a potential quality TLD. The reason they send the query out is due the amount of expired and waiting to be deleted domains. Registrars want to get you the domain that you ask for, so they query everyone to see if it is available.

The number of comments on the post has doubled, but there’s no GoDaddy representation visible.

UPDATE 4/20: Yesterday, Wired Monkey Bites wrote a new, clarifying post based on the comments and feedback received on the original. Happily, there was a long comment from GoDaddy VP Tim Ruiz:

There are many companies doing domain “tasting” on the Internet and many millions of domains being grabbed each week as a part of this process.

While we appreciate those of you who have vouched for GoDaddy.com in this thread, there is an important correction to be made.

When an availability check is done on a domain name, the information is sent to only registries, NOT registrars. When this is done, secure communication methods are always used by GoDaddy.com.

We believe our communications with the registry are secure and that it is 99.99% impossible to check our availability list through those communications.

I’m glad to see GoDaddy finally adding their voice to the discussion, even this far in. And for demonstrating my point—companies, especially those that work in the tech sphere, need to be monitoring blogs so they can be part of conversations like this, rather than a corporate monolith.

 
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BlogHer Speech

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/17 at 09:10 AM • Blogging Events

If you haven’t already registered for BlogHer (July 28-29), time is of the essence! Organizers have increased capacity for Day One, but there are a limited number of seats, so don’t dawdle!

This is the second year of the BlogHer conference. I was present at last year’s event, and it was by far my favorite tech event of the year. Organizers Elisa Camahort, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone did an amazing job of breaking the usual conference paradigm it large and small ways, from getting panel moderators out into the crowd with microphones to allowing time to self-organizing sessions of like-minded bloggers. And no, it wasn’t all women.

This year, I’m excited to be attending, as well as speaking on a panel that is going to be really fun: “So, You Have This Crazy Idea…”

You want to start a community-based blog site, but aren’t sure where to start. Melanie Morgan, Nancy White, Susannah Gardner & Lauren Gelman are among those who will help you examine what’s out there, define what you can do differently, and create a plan to develop content, promote your efforts and watch your back.

There are tons of other terrific sessions, too. I’m really looking forward to Day One’s sessions on Audience Building and Design/Style/Customization, and the Day Two sessions Is the Next Martha Stewart a Blogger? and Is Your Blog a Gallery or a Canvas?

Hope I see you there!

 

 
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It’s Hard Out Here for an Email Marketer

Posted by Travis Smith on 04/10 at 04:28 PM •

Earlier today I received this lovely offer:

“I would like you to be our guest for the 2006 Email Insider Summit. As a Summit VIP, the cost of your airfare, hotel accommodations and conference registration will be paid for by MediaPost.  The Email Insider Summit Advisory Board has identified you as a senior level marketer or agency executive decision maker within your company. You are among a select few to whom we are extending this special VIP opportunity.”

Nice, eh? All expenses paid three day trip to Arizona.  What’s not to like?

This afternoon, I received this email:

“We apologize if you received an email from MediaPost earlier today inviting you as our VIP guest to the Email Insider Summit.  That email was intended to be sent to a list of 50 top brand marketers in the industry, that have already agreed to attend the event. The email below is the email that you were intended to receive. ... Again we apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that error may have caused you.”

Well, that first one certainly doesn’t sound like it was supposed to be sent to people who’d already agreed to come! But I think more interestingly, it shows how hard it is to get email right and how easy it is to make mistakes—even for the people who are the ones teaching the rest of us how to market via email.  They found their mistake quickly, and apologized contritely.  Sometimes, that’s the best you can do.

 
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Trackbacks, How I Hate Thee…

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/10 at 10:15 AM • Blogging Tools

After a weekend offline (gasp!) I return to a Monday morning wading through the email notifications that I have a trackback on my blog. 178 of them. Of those 178 trackbacks, only one was a real trackback. I’ve been pondering turning off trackbacks for about a month now, mainly because it’s irritating to have to download and delete all those email notifications, not to mention the impact of the spam on the blog, but then that one real trackback comes along and I think, “Well, see, they are useful.”

So, I’m trying something new this week. My blog software (Expression Engine) allows me to randomize the trackback URL. Up until now, I’ve had this turned off, for no particular reason. This morning I turned it on, and I’m hoping it makes some kind of difference for me. Here’s what it does:

A random code number will be added to the end of each Trackback URL displayed on your site. This code will be stored in the database. When a Trackback is received the code must match in order to be accepted. This feature works similar to the Captcha feature in the comment preferences. It’s purpose is to prevent “throttling”. Only one trackback per code number will be accepted.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

 
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Increase in Fortune 500 Companies That Blog

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/05 at 12:02 PM • Blogs -- Blogs and Business

The Long Tail blog posted yesteday about the number of Fortune 500 companies that are blogging: 27 out of 500, or 5.4%. It’s not a great number, but it is an increase from when The Long Tail first compiled its list:

In the four months since we set up the site, the number of Fortune 500 companies with public blogs has increased 50%, from 18 to 27. That’s a significant increase, but it’s still not a lot in absolute terms.

There’s a wiki set up to track the companies that are blogging. Remember, this is a list of “active public blogs by company employees about the company and/or its products.”

The Long Tail is written by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson.

 
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