Archive for the ‘Blogs You Probably Aren't Reading But Should’ Category

It used to be that you could get away with just a website. Then you needed way to collect email addresses so that people could subscribe to it. Then those forward-looking social media pros started saying that RSS was the future of communications, then Twitter. Whatever the medium, its always been about making it easy for your audience to get updates from your website.

With that in mind, I set up a Facebook Page for BlogCampaigning. All it will really do is pull in posts from here, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t become a Fan.

-Parker

Some of you may have noticed Ive been quieter than usual on BlogCampaigning. This is because I was neck deep in a site redesign and overhaul of my blog, Toronto Uncovered. Check it out if you haven’t already, and let me know what you think. I’m still working out a few kinks, but suggestions and feedback are always welcome!

One of the main features of the new design is to add visibility and prominence to different categories on the main page and in the menu bar. I’m hoping to grow out different sections and increase the amount and variety of content that readers have to choose from. I can’t do this alone—I need help! I’m looking for Torontonians who have something to say and need somewhere to say it. Come forward and help me uncover Toronto’s good, bad, and ugly. If you have a unique idea for a section that you want to take charge of, or just have a lot to say on one current category, let me know!

This is open to anyone who lives in Toronto, newcomer or born ‘n raised; all opinions and perspectives are welcome. You can contact me at hmorrison@torontouncovered.com or via Twitter at @hmorrison.

BoingBoing was one of the first blogs that I ever read, and it’ll always have a special place in my heart. (This post remains some of the best advice I’ve read on the internet.) I don’t subscribe via RSS or email anymore, but I still stop by once in a while just to see how things are going.

Over the past few months, they’ve been touting the BoingBoing Bazaar, a section of the Makersmarket website that features products hand-selected by BoingBoing staff.

More recently, they posted that they also have a BoingBoing online store on Amazon.

Presumably, the BoingBoing organization gets a cut of all products they sell through these online outlets.

So does that mean they sold out?

No. In a way, I think they did almost the exact opposite. While they used to offer their readers their opinions and thoughts on the weird internet ephemera that they found, now they can share the equally weird and cool physical goods

Better yet, by getting paid as affiliates (as I assume they do), they’re rewarded for all the work they put into the blog. I feel like by including these suggestions as part of the editorial content, the BoingBoing crew is walking a very fine line. However, if their users feel like they’re endorsing products strictly in order to make money, they’ll stop reading.

While micro-payment services like Flattr aim to make it easy for you to reward the sites or artist you like online, I think they are a bit idealistic (the world isn’t ready for this type of whuffie thinking) and don’t result in any reward for the person paying beyond a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Online advertising is dead and dying. The future of profitable websites is in their ability to develop content that they can turn into sales of actual, physical goods or services. Whether success comes in the form of the website selling branded goods related to its own brand (BlogCampaigning pogs, maybe?) or by setting up its own, shop like BoingBoing has remains to be seen.

This is an issue with all forms of digital media, from blogs and websites to music, movies and games so I’m definitely interested in seeing how it will turn out.

What do you think? Did BoingBoing sell out? Would you buy products that the BlogCampaigning crew recommended? What is the best way to reward your favorite website?

-Parker

Over the past few months, I’ve really come to enjoy reading Timothy B. Lee’s blog. The computer programmer, writer and think-tank worker bee is now pursuing a PhD in computer science, and is blogging his thoughts about “bottom-up” thinking.

What is bottom-up thinking? Its not something racy, nor is it about chugging beer. As Tim says:

“I’m convinced that Silicon Valley’s fundamental strength is the fact that it embodies what I’ll call a bottom-up perspective on the world. The last couple of decades have brought us the dominance of the open Internet, the increasing success of free software, and the emergence of the free culture movement as an important social and political force. More generally, Silicon Valley is a place with extremely low barriers to entry, a culture of liberal information sharing, and a respect for the power of individual entrepreneurs.”

For the most part, Tim’s posts have reinforced some of my own opinions about the way things should work. He has also occasionally caused me to second-guess my own actions; but never as much as a few weeks ago when he wrote a critique of the Public Relations industry (“The PR Firm As Anti-Signal“).

“PR people seem to be floundering in this new environment,” he writes, before going on to explain that hiring a PR firm sends the message that your company “doesn’t get the web.” Tim feels that if your product or company is good enough, you don’t need PR. People will talk about you, write about you, and do business with you. It was particularly tough to swallow considering I’d just made the move from Product Management to Public Relations (the two really aren’t as different as you’d think).

However, upon closer inspection, it seems that his complaint is about PR companies that also don’t “get the web”. You know, the kind that we always complain about, the ones that send the cookie-cutter pitches to thousands of reporters on the very off-chance that they might write about their client.

What Tim doesn’t understand is that PR isn’t just about sending pitches. Its about communicating.

Tim is fortunate enough to be able to write clearly, and I’m going to guess that this isn’t a skill that every computer sciences PhD candidate has. In fact, I bet that Tim is a bit of a renaissance-man rarity in his world.

But at the same time, there aren’t very many Public Relations professionals that know much about computers (seriously, as a group, we’re not as tech-savvy as we like to think we are).

Computer programmers (coders, developers, etc.) need PR pros to help them tell people about their product, explain what it does and communicate with the user base. They need designers to make it look nice. They need sales people to sell it.

And the patent lawyers that Tim talks about, the ones that he recommends start a blog instead of getting their PR people to offer to comment on various issues? If they’re really experts, they’re probably too busy with cases to start a blog. But a PR team could help lawyers set one up, and teach them how to write concise posts that draw on their knowledge but require a communicator’s skill to make them more palatable to a wider audience.

As I heard someone say about this same issue a year or so ago, “Sure I can paint my house myself, but why wouldn’t I just hire professionals who can do a better job?”

Tim, if you read this I hope you give PR a second chance. We’re not perfect, but we’re learning. And there are some public relations practitioners who are redefining the profession using the bottom-up thinking you preach.

-Parker

Its been a while since we last posted on BlogCampaigning, and I know that a lot of our readers are wondering what happened: PR message boards have been flooded with rumours and speculation, and Jens and I have been getting emails and phone calls at all hours from fans. Everyone has been wondering what happened to BlogCampaigning.

The short answer is that we don’t really know.

The long answer is that the site got messed up and that I’ve been super-busy with real life (work, soccer and summer drinking). Thanks to Tommy Vallier at Wordpress by the Minute, we were able to get rid of the spammy links and Javascript that had pervaded our RSS feed (if you need any blog work done, I highly recommend his services).

I haven’t been writing much for the site because I was working on a product launch for CNW Group (more on that in an upcoming post), Jens hasn’t been writing much because he’s been “working on his thesis” (which I equate to playing Xbox), and Heather has probably just been busy with her own blog, Toronto Uncovered.

We still don’t know where Espen is, but we hope you like the BlogCampaigning redesign and that you’ll continue to read our thoughts about Public Relations, Video Games, Technology and whatever we feel like.

But don’t spend too much time reading BlogCampaigning—get out there and enjoy the summer weather.

-Parker

Don’t.

If you want to start a blog, start one about something you’re interested in. Not only will you learn everything about social media and blogging that you might learn with a PR blog, but you’ll also learn more about something else. While I don’t doubt that you do care about PR/Communications/Social Media, I really like to think that you’ve got other interests (if not, then your problems are greater than my ability to help you with them).

If you’re young and think you want to get your start in PR or communications, that’s great. Prospective employers will be happy to see that you have a blog and are involved in the online space. They’ll probably be happier still to see that you’ve got enough originality to think outside this realm, and become an expert in something that interests you. You’ll also be able to demonstrate that you understand the other side of the media fence.

You can still be involved in the world-changing discussions about social media and the future of PR that happen all over the web these days by reading and commenting. In fact, by blogging outside the social media bubble you might even become more of an expert than some of those social media consultants and gurus.

UPDATE: Darren Barefoot wrote a similar post today called Writing About What You Know. Definitely worth a read.

-Parker

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post outlining some of my thoughts about corporate sponsorship.

Shortly after that, wine blogger Steve Heimoff wrote a good follow up post musing about what corporate sponsorship for a wine blog might look:

“This may work in the entertainment industry, but it’s not clear to me that it can succeed in wine. For one thing, why would a non-wine industry corporation sponsor a wine blogger?”

I don’t know a great deal about wine, but I do know that there are probably plenty of companies that would like to be aligned with a wine blog. For as long as there have been people reviewing things, there have been people providing them with free versions.  Movie reviewers get free passes to opening night, car magazines are frequently invited to test drive new vehicles and I’m sure that video game magazines and blogs are given consoles and games for free.

What I like about Steve’s blog post about wine sponsorship is the discussion it created, particularly one comment by Charlie Olken: “An online blog with sponsorship is a magazine.”

While part of me wants to disagree with Charlie and say “a blog is a blog, not a magazine,” I’m also inclined to agree with him.

As I’ve mentioned above, magazine editors and writers frequently receive free goods to review in their publication. They have to be ensure that their reviews aren’t unduly influenced by the swag, as they have a responsibility to their readers. Similarly, I think that Charlie is saying that a blogger has a responsibility to his readers as well.

He also makes a good point that unpaid bloggers blog for the love of it, adding that…

“….When someone is paying you to reach a set number of eyeballs on a schedule with minimum number of words, your world will change. For guys like Steve and me and others of us who comment here, we are already in that boat with out day jobs. When you get paid to blog, that becomes your day job.”

Related is the tale of Gawker Media allowing Blood Copy, an adverblog created by a PR/Advertising agency working on behalf of the HBO Television series True Blood, to “join” its network. This is clearly advertising content, not represented as such and generally seen as a huge fail by both the editors of the various Gawker blogs and their readers.

Annalee Newitz, the editor of i09 (“strung out on sci-fi” – part of the Gawker network and by far my favorite blog these days), writes of the debacle:

“I know it is wearying to see ads masquerading as editorial, and it’s especially difficult for us at io9 since we’ve been covering the show True Blood for over a year without any incentive other than the fact that it’s part of our beat…Blood Copy’s ads, however, are not clearly marked as advertising and that is the problem. We’re not happy with that, and you shouldn’t be either. But that isn’t going to stop us from covering a show that we think is worth critical attention. Please learn to be a critical reader yourself…The point is, we’re not going to change our coverage of a media property just because somebody paid to put an ad on our site.”

Gawker as an organization clearly agrees with this, writing that “Gawker the editorial staff and Gawker the advertising staff don’t tell each other much about what they’re doing. And they shouldn’t.”

I understand why some readers might be upset advertising copy making its way into their favorite blogs. But I also understand that someone needs to pay for the cost of keeping the lights on at these blogs and if HBO wants to foot the bill as a way of promoting their show, I’m glad.

Does this change your opinion of the way corporations should sponsor blogs?

-Parker

If you’re into downloading music, movies and software from the internet, chances are you’ve heard of BitTorrent technology (if you haven’t you need to get with the times – read the Wikipedia entry, then download a Torrent client and enjoy).

If so, then you know that Torrents are one of the easiest and most popular ways to download and share files over the internet. As our world becomes increasingly connected and we turn to the online world for our entertainment,  issues surrounding file sharing will become equally important.

While I think that eventually we’ll have a much larger selection of streaming, high-quality media and that we don’t need to download as much using things like torrents, TorrentFreak is still a great look at what is important right now and will provide some great examples of how free file sharing can benefit content creators.

Some recommended recent posts are “Five File-Sharing Predictions for 2009” and their series about the most pirated TV shows and movies of 2008.

Check them out at TorrentFreak.com or watch their online tv show, Torrentfreak.tv (most recent episode embedded below)

Do you use Torrents to download files, either legally or illegally?

Are there any other blogs or websites you think I should be checking out?

For more in this series, check out other blogs that I think you should probably be reading.

For a related article, check out this one about aXXo, one of the most prolific film pirates in the world.

-Parker

I recently wrote a post on this blog introducing you to Jan Chipchase’s Future Perfect blog in an attempt to introduce people to some blogs that might be outside their usual reading scope. Continuing with this series is a post about SEOMoz and why you should be reading it.

A concept that has been around for a long time in the web industry but only recently seems to be gaining steam amongst communications professionals is that of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). According to Wikipedia, this is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site via natural or “organic” search results. Basically, the more optimized your website is, the better traffic you’ll get to it.

For some reason, many of the people that I have spoken to in the past few months seem to think that there is some sort of alchemical magic or technological wizardry that optimizes a site for search engines.

Put aside those thoughts and start reading the SEOMoz blog, written by some of the world’s leading SEO experts. Some of their posts are directed at newcomers to the world of SEO and can offer a great introduction. Others are a little more complicated and technical, and the balance of the two types of posts lets you pick up anywhere and start learning or applying what you already know.

If you’re more of a visual learner, they also have a series of posts called Whiteboard Fridays where one of their team members will create a short, casual video explaining some SEO concepts.

One of my favorite posts on SEOMoz is about the Three Cornerstones of SEO. Even though it was published back in mid-September, I’m constantly referring to the great diagram they have that makes it easy to explain the basic concepts of Search Engine Optimization.

So head on over to SEOMoz and find out why can proudly say they’ve got more than 30,000 subscribers to their RSS feed.

-Parker

PS: Related is a great post from Ed Lee about why your site sucks in search engine rankings. As I commented there:

“I also think that too many people complicate SEO, particularly in our industry. They think that it is some kind of alchemical magic, when it really comes down to the three simple “pillars” that you mention. I’ve always heard that if you design a site that is easy to navigate by humans, the search engine bots/spiders will also be able to crawl it easily and find your content. If you’re creating relevant content and writing naturally using words that people are likely to search for rather than jargon, people will be able to find your site and are more likely to get something out of it, and subsequently link to it.”

If you’re like me, chances are you’ve got a big list of blogs in your RSS reader and don’t venture out beyond that to regularly read other blogs as much as you should. You get comfortable with the same authors and the same ideas. We’ve done posts here before where the BlogCampaigning authors update their blog rolls and write about why they’re reading what they are. Similarly, Over the next few weeks I’m going to highlight a few of my favorite blogs that fall a bit outside the regular ol’ social media and PR frame.

One of those blogs is Future Perfect, written by the amusingly-named Jan Chipchase.

Jan works for Nokia Design to develop new applications that if he does his job right, “you’ll be using in the 3 to 15 years from now.” From what I can tell, a great deal of his work involves travelling around the world and looking at the way people in different societies use objects. Fortunately for us, Jan shares his insights via photos and short observations on his blog. I like reading it because he is based in Tokyo, and a lot of his posts focus on that city (I lived in the Tokyo suburbs from 2004-2005).

On the about page of Future Perfect, Jan writes:

“Pushing technologies on society without thinking through their consequences is at least naive, at worst dangerous, though typically it, and IMHO the people that do it are just boring. Future perfect is a pause for reflection in our planet’s seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller and cheaper.

Somewhere along the way we get to shape what the future looks like.“

I highly recomend that you have a look at his blog and subscribe to it, even for just a few weeks, to see if he challenges your idea of how we use objects in the everyday world.

Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect

-Parker