Paul Gillin has posted the results of New Influencers blogging survey on his website.

The numbers here aren't huge, with only 159 completed responses, but it's better than no data.

So, I just took the 2006 MarketingSherpa blog survey. What fun. It was great and humbling to see the company I was in. However, the survey was a pain in the ass, and here's why.

I've read nearly every english language blog in the survey at some point in their life, however, I might not have read them recently, and my memory is quite short.

Wouldn't it be great if for surveys like this, you could take the RSS feed from each of the blogs in question and on an AJAX survey page, click on a 'twistie' or dropdown to see the latest headlines from the blog to get some sort of refresher on their content and to better inform my decision on whether or not to vote.

That would be a great way to use RSS - powering surveys.

RSS could also be a trusted delivery mechanism for surveys for companies that run ongoing customer panels. For example, I just signed up to receive more information from Best Buy on doing their compensated customer surveys and panels. I would gladly subscribe to an RSS feed from them (lest the emails from them get caught in a spam filter) to ensure that I get all of the surveys they send my way. (I love Best Buy, by the way)

<ShamelessSelfPromotion>

Well, what do you know, I made the MarketingSherpa Best Marketing Blog nomination stage in the B-to-B blog category. In fact, this happened in spite of the fact that I missed the deadline and never even nominated myself.

Anyway, if you're reading this, why not click over here and register your vote!

</ShamelessSelfPromotion>

I think Seth Godin's policy on "no comments" on his blog is a brilliant one. Why?

Simple - it promotes other bloggers and get's them to tell the story on their own site. (He does have Trackbacks enabled)

Really, it forces lazy bastards like me, who would have lobbed off a half-baked comment to actually come back to my blog, trackback to his, and compose my thoughts a bit more clearly.

Not to mention that it's great not having to deal with all that comment spam. I really think that MovableType is in the crapper. No new updates now for several months and comment spam is raging out of control with no end in sight, in spite of their "junk comment" tools in 3.2, I don't see any curb in comment spam activity.

Technorati Tags: seth+godin

The Wisconsin blogging seminars just keep coming! This time, the Northeastern WI PRSA group is running the show.

The Program:

The Northeast Wisconsin Chapter of Public Relations Society of America features "Blogs, Podcasting, Wikis, O My!" at its next meeting, Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at Liberty Hall in Kimberly. All communications professionals are welcome to attend.

Our presenters:

Don’t miss your chance to listen to this group of techno-savvy speakers enlighten us on the latest in blogs, wikis and podcasts.

Erin Leffelman, host of Milwaukee's "Play in the City" blog will inform us on what the blog has done to increase attendance at Milwaukee area events: and
Will Van Epern, interactive director at Infusion Inc. will share his expertise and creative insight on the future of Internet communication.

Date, Time & Place:

Tuesday, April 25, 2006
5:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Registration & Networking
5:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Dinner & Business
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Program
Liberty Hall
800 Eisenhower Drive, Kimberly
Directions...

Reservations:

You can e-mail your reservation by Thursday, April 20, 2006!

Meeting fees:

Are payable at the door by cash or check:

PRSA Members: $20
Students: $18
Non-members and Guests: $40

B.L said so in her press release:

"Now you need to hire us to bring your clients into the world of social media. That way you can stop wasting everyone's time and money on your education. Otherwise, by time you get with the current program, the next big thing will already be passing you by."

Am I just cynical about this? Maybe tomorrow I'll issue a press release about myself, for myself, quoting myself, telling folks to hire myself... Or, maybe the hell not.

Full disclosure, for what it's worth... B.L and I both write for BusinessBlogConsulting.com

Technorati Tags: blogging for business

Just a quick thank you to the Rotary Club of Green Bay for having me today as a speaker at their Monday meeting. The topic of the event was blogs and blogging...of course.

Download the program notes outline [pdf]
***
Download the blogging resources handout given at the meeting [pdf]

Technorati Tags: blogging for business, Green Bay, Rotary Club

Stowe Boyd on Advisory Capital
- Simply brilliant. Really. Read it.
***

Reminded of an SNL skit with Mike Meyers during a Scotland bit during the Olympics
"If it's not Scottish -- it's CRAP!"
***

Technorati Tags: advisory capital

Interesting report from the Onalytica blog, measuring who the top 25 most influential business bloggers are, with full disclosure on their methodology for defining 'influential.

Not sure I agree with their results, purely because they have a mix of blog networks (Corante), multi-author blogs (Businessblogconsulting) and famous single bloggers like Steve Rubel @ Micropersuasion.

Download the PDF of the report here.

The Results

Cross-posted to Businessblogconsulting.com.

Technorati Tags: blog research, blogosphere, business blogging, influence

Just got a nice, semi personal email from Jeff Veen at Adaptive Path stating that their newest project, Measure Map, had been acquired by Google.

So I said there was news, and here it is: I'm writing you to announce that Measure Map has been acquired by Google, effective today. For the near term, you will see no difference in its operations. In the not so distant future, you can expect great things from this acquisition. We couldn't be happier to find such an ideal home for Measure Map, and are thrilled at the possibilities.

Read more on the Google blog.

Technorati Tags: analytics, blogosphere

Download The Virtual Handshake for free
* The best business book I've read in 5 years is now available for free on the web. Good luck printing...
http://thevirtualhandshake.com/free-book-download.htm
***

Rich at Trade Show Marketing Report quits blogging. Apparently, his continued attempts to give a damn about the trade show marketplace have sputtered and stalled.
***

State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 2: Beyond Search
* Dave Sifry talks about the "magic middle" and the beta feature on Technorati allowing you to filter by "blog authority".
***
Building A Successful Corporate Blog Survey With Northeastern University
* Backbone Media, John Cass & Dr. Walter Carl are partnering on some spectacular research on business blogging. With these guys behind an initiative like this, watch out for some groundbreaking findings.
***
The Participant economy strikes at Amazon & BN.com according to this post on BlogRevolt.
* ..."consumer reviews on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com had a potent effect on sales of the products reviewed."
***
The Secret Cause of Flame Wars
***
Linkology - Top 50 sites by links
***

Technorati Tags: authority, blog research, blogosphere, flame wars, technorati, The Participant Economy, thought leaders, trade show marketing

Finally got around to creating a blogging resources handout for speaking engagements and other times where you just need a good leave behind. If you're new to blogging, this will likely be helpful. If you're an A-lister...pass this on by.

Download Blogging Resources PDF

Technorati Tags: blogosphere, business blogging, handout

Jonah Bloom of AdAge took notice of the WOMMA bloggers that were in Florida for the WOMBAT conference a couple of weeks ago. Truth be told, bloggers love a little recognition now and then!

Just outside the conference hall at last week’s Word of Mouth Marketing Association basic training conference was a blogging station -- a.k.a. a few computers on a table -- and a huddle of real, live bloggers blogging about such issues as how word-of-mouth marketers should pitch information, to, you guessed it, bloggers.

Why is this a big deal? Well, that depends on your perspective. At the end of the day, all forms of media were represented at the conference - bloggers included. From the 'conference coverage' perspective, bloggers have a unique ability to get the blow-by-blow coverage of each session, as we heard in some of the post-conference testimonials of people who read the blog, or decided not to take notes because the bloggers' coverage was so good!

By bringing bloggers into discussions of word-of-mouth marketing, highlighting their work on the WOMMA Web site and being generous with the association’s content (i.e., giving information away free to all, rather than only to paying members), Sernovitz and his team have built a culture of trust between bloggers and the word-of-mouth marketers who seek their attention.

Technorati Tags: blogging, conference blogging, wombat06, womma wombat

DIY Network recently launched a two-month internet-only marketing campaign designed to drive DIY Network tune-in via targeted impressions, and drive DIYNetwork.com clickthrough for relevant content.

They did everything online. Site-specific banners, ad networks, blog advertising, RSS advertising (no podcasting, though), contextual ads and paid search.

Not only did they do online marketing proud, they got results from their two-month effort to boot!

- 67.9 million impressions
- 580,000 clickthroughs
- 80 percent of site visitors were new to DIYnetwork.com
- Visitors viewed an average of seven pages
- Rich-media banners average interaction rate was around 10 percent
- CTR for paid search increased 183 percent during the campaign, reaching 4.25 percent

They were even so kind as to share a diagram of their success with iMediaConnection.

Source: DIY Networks via iMediaConnection

Technorati Tags: Advertising, DIY Network, Pheedo, RSS

Chris Hoyt, president, Hoyt & Company wrote a compelling article on the HUB magazine website about mining the blogosphere for comments and content on your company.

According to a November 2005 Reveries.com survey, over 60% of companies surveyed weren't monitoring the blogosphere.

On the heels of the WOMMA WOMBAT conference, the emergence of Nielsen Buzzmetrics, and the venture funding flowing into the word-of-mouth marketing space, its never been more apparent that monitoring the consumer media (blogosphere) is an essential function in every marketing department.

So, what might you listen for on the blogosphere?

1. General consumer understanding
   Find your evangelists & vigilantes
   Early warning signs on issues
   Consumer specifics - likes and dislikes
   Competitive intelligence
   Product/service improvement ideas
   Campaign tracking
   WOM tracking

What would your company listen for?

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogging survey, business blogging, womma+wombat

Well, now that was a conference!

First of all, thanks to the fellow WOMMA bloggers who helped me bring the conference coverage to everyone last week:

- Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing and the Diva Marketing blog.
- Josh Hallet of hyku - another pro blogger and blog consultant
- Marianne Richmond of Resonance Partnership, LLC and the Resonance Partnership Blog

Thanks also to WOMMA for bringing us all to Orlando to be part of such as great thing. It was a pleasure working with such fine folks covering such a monumental event.

Technorati Tags: bloggers, feedback, Josh Hallett, Marianne Richmond, Toby Bloomberg, wombat06, womma wombat

In just a few days, Toby, Josh, Marianne and I will all converge on the WOMBAT conference to do some pretty heavy conference blogging. We've worked very closely with WOMMA do put a great blogger program together to make sure that we're setting a good example of how comp'ed conference blogging should be done, but at the end of the day, what do we know.

I'm more interested in what you all know. What are some of the "Best Blogged" conferences you've been to or read about? Have you conference-blogged yourself and have some good posts to show off?

I'd love your take on what you feel makes the best conference blog and conference blogging experience (and reader experience if you're consuming conference blog posts)

Thanks!

Technorati Tags: conference blogging, womma+wombat

Bill Flitter posted a great summary of the year in RSS activities over at his ReveNews blog. Full links to each of he events can be found in Bill's original post.

A few highlights:

1/10 – CNBC presents an introduction to RSS segment on Closing Bell. Welcome Wall Street!

1/12 – John Robb presents the idea of a Global RSS Subscription Repository to make subscribing to RSS a universal function that eliminates automatic subscription buttons from large vendors.

1/18 – Rok Hrastnik releases the most comprehensive electronic book on RSS.

2/23 – The Associated Press begins to deliver content via RSS feeds. Can you say mainstream?

4/3 – Feedburner gets second round VC funding.

4/28 – Dave Winer calls for RSS ads on a subscription basis.

6/24 – Microsoft announces that it will support RSS in Longhorn (now Vista) and Internet Explorer 7.

7/5 – The New York Times reports on the growth of RSS and the resulting RSS marketing opportunities.

9/27 – Forrester announces that 6% of consumers are using RSS, up from 2% in 2004.

10/2 – Feedburner announces partnership with Feedblitz to give publishers the capability to deliver content to readers via email.

10/7 – Google releases RSS aggregator: Google Reader.

10/10 – Yahoo releases whitepaper: RSS – Crossing Into the Mainstream. Key findings include:
• 12% of users are aware of RSS and 4% knowingly use it.
• 27% of internet users use RSS without knowing it.

12/4 – Target offers weekly ad via RSS.

12/12 – RSS Industry Night Roundtable, hosted by Rok Hrastnik, brings RSS industry leaders together to discuss the future of RSS.

12/14 – Pheedo releases second Pheed Read report.

12/15 – Microsoft announces use of orange RSS button in IE and Outlook.

Check out the rest of the RSS 2005 highlights here.

If we're in the era of 'web 2.0', then it stands ti reason that we're also in the era of 'conference 2.0', doesn't it? No, I'm not saying that we're going to go un-conference on everything, but I would like to see a bit more in the area of 'social & technological awareness' around conference communications.

I'd like to get your thoughts on what makes a good social media toolset for conferences.

I've come up with these tools so far, please add your thoughts in the comments:

1. A blog (of course)
2. A wiki
3. A Frappr map (like Loic's) of conference attendees, speakers and followers
4. A del.icio.us account tracking links about the conference
5. A flickr photstream with conference photos, tagged with the appropriate keywords
6. A technorati link to the conference keywords & tags
7. Buzznet Buzzwords

What else have you all used to bring social media to your conference?
What else would you try if you had the chance?

[UPDATE] LesBlogs did a great job using social media for conference coverage.

Technorati Tags: womma+wombat

I'll be posting this on the WOMBAT blog later, but I wanted to introduce y'all to the WOMBAT Bloggers who will be covering the WOMMA WOMBAT conference next week in Orlando. In true ethical WOM fashion, we'd like to fully disclose our involvement as quasi-compensated blogging pro's who happen to be just mad about WOMMA!

Seriously, our mission is to bring the conference out of the seminar rooms and into your living rooms (or offices, or basements, or wherever you happen to dwell in front of the screen).

And...the bloggers are:

- Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing and the Diva Marketing blog.
- Josh Hallet of hyku - another pro blogger and blog consultant
- Marianne Richmond of Resonance Partnership, LLC and the Resonance Partnership Blog
- Me

If you're going to the conference, look us up! You're sure to be blogged!

Technorati Tags: wombat, womma

Toby is looking for some ideas on what folks are seeking from the blogosphere in 2006. What do we want to see 'more of' and what could we do with 'less of'. Here are my thoughts:

1. I'd like to see more people move beyond 'blogging' and reach deeper to the 'metaphors' that blogging represents like customer-to-corporatation (read: people-to-people) connection and the role blogging plays in the participant economy.

2. I'd like to see less uncivil blogging. People starting blogs just to trash companies or trash other people. If you can't say something to someone's face, you shouldn't see it on a blog.

3. Let's see more bloggers realize that they are part of changing the world as we know it, even if only in some small way in a little corner of the world. Online conversation is a beautiful thing.

What are your thoughts on what you'd like to see more of and less of in the 2006 blogosphere?

Contact Toby with your thoughts.

Todd referenced this story in the Marquette Warrior about a dental student who was suspened for some comments he made about a professor and the university on his blog.

Personally, I did not get to read the blog by the student, but based on the excerpts from the Marquette Warrior like this one, I'm inclined to think that the blogger/student was just ranting w/out thinking of the consequences. Not a wise idea on his part, but an EASY mistake to make when you forget, even for a moment, that other bloggers, and non-bloggers who read are HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS.

This VERY TOPIC was the point of much discussion yesterday at LesBlogs 2.0, largely due to Mena Trott's opening remarks on civility in blogging and Ben Metcalfe's staunch difference of opinion. I'm inclinded to side with Mena, but it's like saying 'can't we all get along'. Which, as evidenced by certain world events like war, is not always a strong enough argument. People are going to be nasty, and that's the way it is...or not. Really, in the aggregate, bloggers are a helpful lot. I couldn't help but notice the 'change the world through words' sentiment at the conference. I've drunk the kool-aid and believe it.

As this Marquette student learned, and as evidenced by Ben's rightfully standing up for his position, if you're going to blog about something, take responsibility for your words, your actions and the consequences, intended or unindented, that result from putting your thoughts onto the permenant web.

As a cyclist and former bike shop owner, I've longed for more marketing folks and cyling industry mavens to talk about the bike industry, something I've loved and followed now for 16 years.

Great to hear (via Johnnie Moore & Kevin Briody) Donna of Kryptonite is contributing to a group blog about the bicycle marketing industry at Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid where she is clear about her role at Kryptonite. Thanks, guys.

Amanda talks to random strangers about firefox vs. IE. Obviously, it's done in an urban location where there are enough folks to know the difference. Seriously, and nothing against Green Bay here, but if I did this at home, I'm betting that over half of anyone I acosted for an opinion would not have the slightest on what FireFox is. In fact, many are still using AOL.

Scoble gives a shout to the guys at Cognitive Daily who highlight a report on how mood affects your ability to remember and make word relationships. Bottom line on the study. If you're looking for creativity and ideas, check you mood!

I'm in Paris for LesBlogs 2.0 this week. Had a chance encounter with Mark Fletcher of Bloglines yesterday when we checked into the hotel at the same time. Went to the LesBlogs meetup last night and realized that I don't know too many European bloggers. (surprise...)
[Note to self: expand international blogging horizons]

Rok gives you 11 Reasons For Using RSS Marketing. As if you needed that many. I always think about RSS, but was thinking more after our presentation at SRI last week. Elaine O'Gorman of Silverpop hit home that RSS is a channel. When put in marketing terms - RSS is a marketing channel.

Scott Allen was at The Blogging Enterprise in Austin put on by Steve Rubel and others this past week. He has a great series of summary posts here, on the sessions that he attended. Most noticable is the panel on Character Blogs, which still gets blog purists' undies in a twist and Steve Rubel's keynote.

Also check out the Blogging Enterprise category at Technorati.

Toby tipped me off to the Blogging Family Tree. Apparently, I'm a blog daddy.

Thanks to Karen Post for this link to the latest "blogs will ruin your life" article on AdAge.com.

WHAT BLOGS COST AMERICAN BUSINESS
In 2005, Employees Will Waste 551,000 Work Years Reading Them

I say, so f--ing what. We've been screwing off for years with junk emails and funny videos and other crap like that. Blogs are just replacing that, and more.

Apparently, there's a lot of blogging going on during the workday that shouldn't be...

Some employers are more draconian than others in their blockage of blogs. I recall as early as January 2005 that my former employer had blocked all things blogs, and lots of other useful content on the web.

Edelman and Technorati have published the results of their recent survey.

If you’re interested in survey methodology and how the media are reporting on surveys, check out Constantin Basturea's analysis. He also provides a thorough list of links to related discussions on the Edelman/Technorati study.

[via Kevin Dugan]

I haven't personally tried this one yet, but it looks as if FeedShot has a 'blog search submission' service that gets your blog/feed URL into all of the 50+ blog related or specific search engines.

http://www.feedshot.com

Anyone have experience with this one yet?

[via PRWeb]

Hope you're all tuning in! Great stuff so far!

[via PRNewswire]

Google has finally launched it's official blog search engine. http://www.google.com/blogsearch Of course it's in Beta. Isn't everything in Beta over there?

I did some searching this morning and found a few of my favorite Movable Type blogs that would normallly turn up in Technorati to be absent from the Google results. According to Google, this will be remedied soon.

[via Charlene Li of Forrester]

As a former Internet marketing director, I was tied to a few key metrics each month, not the least of which was sales that the website generated. Running both a B2B lead generation site and a retail e-commerce site, I got to see both sides of the house from a 'sales metrics' perspective, and if Iearned one thing, it's that a website (or blog, for that matter) does nothing if it doesn't net you increased sales.

I'm a bit concerned about the conversation going on between Betsy Richter of OneByOneMedia, and John Cass of Backbonemedia.

Betsy says:

We argued the same thing about websites in 1997. In the end, we had to put up, or shut down. We'd never have gotten a damn thing funded if we couldn't show revenue from it. Is showing positive sales growth from all of your marketing and advertising endeavors too much to ask from such investments? Blogs are good for a lot of things, but if conversion, and whatever that entails for you, isn't at the top of the list then they're good for nothing. (OK, before you jump all over that one, I know that they're good for a lot of other things too, but IMHO sales have to increase or some costs have to decrease for them to be of any value at all. Period)

Come on John, you can't agree that we don't need to show sales

Had a nice mention yesterday, along with some great folks from Gourmet Station, Stone Creek, REI and the Diva Blogger, Toby, in Internet Retailer Magazine.

But if you really want to know how I feel about things...

Read Into the Blogosphere

Just a quick pointer to let you know that Rick Bruner's BusinessBlogConsulting.com has been re-energized by none other than Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing and a cadre of business & marketing focused bloggers intent on seeing the site become a directory for news and advice on business blogging. I'm delighted to be part of the team.

Got a quick plug in an article today on blogging called "Business blogs increase customer interactions" on the WTN website, along with my friends at Stone Creek Coffee.

Umbria, a Colorado company that's taken up intellegence gathering from weblogs published a simple chart and a statment on the good will expressed for McDonalds in the blogosphere. Interesting data - interesting tactic on their part, putting out this data as a show of what their system can do.

I've had some communications with Umbria and have mentioned them in my presenations on blogging as one of the services, along with Intelliseek and BuzzMetrics, that can give you more intelligence on the blogosphere than you can get yourself by doing your daily Technorati, Google and PubSub searches.

Glad to see that some firms are making some sense out of all the blather in the blogosphere.

The Green Bay Press Gazette is looking for teen bloggers. Who knew?