Blogs Archives
A few blogs that hit my radar in 2009.
Continuing the year-end festivities, here are my top new blogs of 2009. I'm defining "new" here by whether the site was in my reading repertoire before this year. Anyway, here they are in no specific order:
- Snarkmarket: This one couldn't be easier. Over the year I've gotten to know Robin, one of the site's three writers, and they've managed to churn out one interesting post after another. For whatever it's worth, I linked to these guys quite a few times times: New Liberal Arts (Making Things and Iteration, Everything I Know About Life I Learned from My Search Engine (Are People Getting Better at Search?, The Starbucks API (Starbucks API), Technologies Don't Transform. Societies Do. (Socialness and the Inevitability of Technology) and Spaces Between Words, Spaces Between Souls (The Impact of Space). (Also, as a bonus link, Robin wrote a book called Annabel Scheme via Kickstarter.)
- Tumblr: A bit of a cop-out, but Tumblr became one giant blog I follow this year. A few of my favorites: rafer, msg, peterfeld, adamiss, The Daily Bunch, soupsoup, Jay Parkinson, Mike Hudack and cjn. (I'm heyitsnoah.tumblr.com if you're so inclined.)
- New Math and Learn Something New Every Day: I group these together because they feel like part of the same family (the elder statesman of the family would be Indexed. It's always a treat to see an image from either of these sites turn up in my feeds.
- Cheap Talk and ThinkMarkets: I tend to group these two together because a) they're both about economics and b) they're both hosted on Wordpress with minimal designs. Anyway, throughout the year both sites helped fill my fix for economics information, especially lighter fare "economics of real life" type stuff (like this Cheap Talk post on Ashton Kutcher's Twitter follower strategy).
- The Awl: This will make everyone's list (it's already started). To be honest I wasn't sure about it. I read it, and it was very good, but there were quite a few posts I skipped (I tend to judge these things on how much of a "must-read" something is). Then they did their End of the 00s roundups and they were generally outstanding and there was no longer a question for me.
- NYTPicker: My buddy Dave first pointed me to NYTPicker and I've been reading it ever since. For those that haven't checked it out, it's an insider view of the New York Times. Makes me wish more industries/companies had something equivalent, as reading entries always make me feel like I know something I shouldn't (which is fun).
- The Browser is some sort of weird aggregator. I'm not sure where the links come from (except that they pull links roundups from lots of top economics bloggers) and, to be honest, I don't care as long as the great links keep flowing.
I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that stand out as hitting my radar in the last twelve months. Hope you find some new reading.
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Tags: internet
Yet another attempt at quantifying influence. This time NYC style.
Really? (Of course not is obviously the answer.)
According to this list on NowPublic (using TinyURL to offset the linkbaitishness of it) that purports to be "a detailed barometer of the most public news influencers of today’s digital world" I am the fifth most influential person in this fine city. As Brian and Rex have written it's quite simply link bait from a company who is otherwise known as that site who sends you those weird Flickr emails where they ask to use your photos and then ask you to become a member to let them (who does that?).
A couple things about the list: It's fun to be on these things but there is no real merit behind them. Interestingly enough, though, they seem to have exposed their formula for the rankings (it's about 3/4 of the way down the page) and includes basically how much stuff you do, not how much you actually influence anyone.
As a side note, this seems to be the major issue with any discussion about influence: It's not usually about influence and tends more towards things like reach and frequency. I made this same argument two years ago and not much has changed. Influence happens on a personal level and changes depending on topic. One person is more influential on computers and another on music. This is how the world works, which is one of the big flaws with all these attempts at calculating influence.
On top of all this, I'm kind of annoyed because rather than linking out to people's sites, they link to a member profile which they've created for each person on the list. While I've written and asked them to take control of my profile, I haven't heard anything back yet. This generally feels like really bad form.
With all that said, the idea of a personal influence list is kind of fun and I thought I'd go through the list (and off it), to think about some people that influence me:
First those on the list
- 6. Anil Dash: Just about everything he writes is worth reading. He's really freaking smart.
- 10. Loren Feldman: He's a little crazy (which I said to him last time we had drinks), but he makes me laugh and says a lot more really smart stuff than people give him credit for.
- 15. Jason Kottke: How one man can read so much is beyond me. There's nobody better.
- 16. Rex Sorgatz: I'm pretty sure he's the only person I follow on twitter that I've never met in person.
- 18. Brian Morrissey: Brian's a good dude and writes about the ad industry.
- 23. Kyle Bunch: Kyle and I have grandiose plans to take over the online sports universe as soon as we find an extra five minutes.
- 40. Peter Rojas: He's a really smart dude and I like what he's up to at RCRD LBL.
- 46. Allison Mooney: Me an Alli met awhile back at a random coffee morning when Russell Davies was in town. She's awesome and will be co-hosting a party with me this Friday (which I will write up tomorrow probably).
So, there you have it, the 8 people who influence me out of the 50 New Yorkers they chose (I mean, I'm sure I've been influenced by some of the other people, but these are the ones that stood out for me).
And now, five more New Yorkers that influence me on the internet who didn't make the list.
- Rick Webb: Sure he has a tendency towards diatribes, but there aren't that many people who know how things work better than Rick. (And I don't just say that because I technically work for him. Also, while he doesn't actually live here, he spends enough time to count.)
- Faris Yakob: Rule number 1, if someone has as much hair as Faris, make sure you listen to what they have to say.
- Chet Gulland: Chet is a buddy of mine. He's got awesome taste in just about everything and he's super smart.
- Colin Nagy: Colin keeps a low profile, but our at-least-weekly breakfasts (that's right, in person) are a constant source of stuff (music, news, ideas, etc.).
- Aaron Rutledge: Aaron runs Poke NY (along with some other fine folks) and is always good for a link or some tech advice. Plus he cooks up a mean burger with bacon and cheese mixed in with the meat.
So I'm sure I've missed a ton of people, but I thought it was at least a worthy exercise. Lists are dumb.
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I kind of hate the term, but consumer generated media has been on my mind lately.
I feel like I've been going to a lot of conferences lately. I don't know whether it's true or not, but after going to Influx Ideas last week, I actually spoke at Nielsen Buzzmetrics' CGM Summit 2007. My panel was called "Are Brands Prepared for 2010?" and was moderated by none other than Max Kalehoff. Here's the description:
What are the leading brands doing to rewire their DNA for a world increasingly impacted by CGM? How are they changing the way their companies listen, the way they communicate, and the way they manage customer relationships? How have past CGM experiments and lessons informed marketing innovation and planning for the future? Where are we certain, where are our vulnerabilities?
Anyway, I had lots of thoughts about the future of CGM (consumer generated media), but didn't necessarily get them all out during the panel. So, I figured I would throw up some of my notes here:
In three years, CGM will be:
- Integrated into more and more major sites. This is already beginning to happen with Washington Post showing blogs that link to an article or to a lesser extent, Yahoo! including Flickr photos or the New York Times showing which articles are most blogged. Obviously this will lend it an air of credibility and further expose CGM.
- Much more about testing. I've had this theory floating around my head for a while that the future of CGM (especially from an advertising/marketing perspective) is going to be about making a whole bunch of really small investments, seeing which stick and then iterating/investing more on the fly.
- Accepted as a long-term relationship play rather than a short-term burst strategy. Clients are still focused on 'viral', however, CGM is best used as a longer term strategy for developing relationships with customers. (Also on the panel was Bruce Ertmann from Toyota who seems to get this.)
Also mentioned throughout my presentation: Brand as curator, big seed marketing and horizontal media. Although I didn't get to talk about it, I meant to mention the idea that I am ready to move past just looking at influencers and instead at the gauge of the community you want to influence. I haven't fully formed this idea, but after reading The Strength of Weak Ties (PDF via Bokardo), it's something you can expect to read about in the near future.
Finally, back in September I spoke at the Promo Live conference on a panel moderated by Herb Sawyer with the always brilliant Rohit Bhargava and David Armano.
Sorry if the presentation isn't self explanatory, I am happy to add some voiceover if necessary. Just let me know. Okay, that's it for now. Sorry for the slow posting lately.
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A few links along with my thoughts about blogging.
Things are still pretty crazy around here and my brain is still a bit scattered . . . Instead of a proper post, here's a few links and some thoughts on blogging. Hope to return to your regularly scheduled programming this week.
Finally, got an email last week from Tina (aka swissmiss) with a few questions about blogging. In absence of other content around here, I asked her if she minded me posting my answers. If anyone else feels like answering them in the comments I'm sure she'd appreciate any additional insight.
What drives me to blog?
I do it for myself. It's a place where I can think out loud. I never start with a conclusion, rather I use writing on my blog as a thinking exercise. It also gives me an excuse for constantly seeking out new things and reading with a critical eye. If I didn't have a blog I don't know that I would underline books and magazines, but having that outlet gives me a reason. I love that stuff.
Who is afraid of what the blogosphere has and will become?
Lots of folks are quite frightened. Big media is scared because they've never had competition from outside their walls. In this day and age I compete with Fox (albeit on a very small scale) for people's attention. Fox, however, is used to a world where they compete with NBC and CBS. In that kind of competition the goal may be to take out another station, but never at the expense of television or the business model attached to it. However, I don't care about their medium or business model. Us bloggers are kind of like the crazy guy in the room, we're scary to fight because we (literally) have nothing to lose (actual dollars earned directly from my blog over three years: $0).
What is its role of blogs as a forum for ideas?
Not sure I understand the question completely . . . so I will just give some thoughts. I absolutely love that I can throw up a half-baked idea and get back responses from a group of absolutely brilliant people. On occasion it feels a bit like opinion outsourcing: I take an idea I haven't fully developed and get feedback and viewpoints I never would have been able to amass before I had this forum. The quality of the comments never cease to amaze me.
Where's the medium going NEXT?
I think blogs are going to move even further into the community realm. At the moment most blog software doesn't have many community features beyond comments, however, I expect we will see that evolution coming soon (Movable Type 4 actually includes some of it). They're the perfect micro-communities: Super-targeted and sharing common interests. On a small level I find myself connecting different blog readers together and wish more of this were built in.
That's it. Happy Monday.
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Naked New York has a blog . . . Woohoo!
Over the last few months I've been working on a semi-secret project. Just about the first day I got to Naked I started working on a blog for our New York Office. Well, it's finally time to unveil it (since AdWeek did a bit of spoiling). Anyway, it's called House of Naked, it belongs to the New York Office of Naked Commications and I think it's pretty sweet.
Here's the entry I just posted over there explaining what the site is all about. As you'll see, it's a bit different than most other corporate blogs.
Well, it seems the cat's out of the bag. We've been putting together this site for a few months now and I guess it's just about ready for the prime time (or as just about ready as it will ever be). Part of the point of House of Naked is to continually refine and iterate, so I can't imagine it will ever actually be done.
With that said, we're pretty happy with what we've got at the moment and think it's worth doing a bit of explaining. You see, this site is a bit of an experiment in transparency. The aggregator (on the right side of the homepage) is actually pulling in links from across the web (blogs, del.icio.us, twitter and flickr). The basic idea is that the people who work here already do lots of blogging elsewhere. They post pictures and save links on other sites, so why not use that for our own site? This does two things I think, one it allows people to add content to the site without thinking about it and two, it gives this site some real personality. For the most part these are not run through some 'Naked filter', it's just us being us.
It's always struck me as slightly odd that companies try to make group blogs that have a single, 'corporate', voice. A large part of what makes a business run is the people who are part of it and those people don't all have the same personality (at least I hope not). Anyway, what I hope this will become is a place for people to bring their own thoughts, ideas and insights. To be honest, it's probably most interesting for us, but that's cool. If all this site turns out to be is a great tool for Naked, then we've accomplished something.
Anyway, that's enough from me. Welcome to the site. Feel free to poke around. If you find anything broken, please let us know. Thanks for coming by.
Oh, and big ups to Joe, Fangohr and Uncommon Projects for making this happen.
Just as a side note, I promise not to do a lot of cross-posting or any of that. Part of the wonder of the site is that I can contribute just by adding to this one. So please pop over to the House of Naked and if you've got any thoughts, leave them in the comments or drop me a line.
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Is the blogger code of conduct an analog solution to a digital problem?
I'm sure most everyone has heard the story of how Kathy Sierra had her life threatened. This was a nasty incident and everyone who's outraged has a right to be. However, I'm not sure that code of conduct, as suggested by Tim O'Reilly, is the answer.
The piece of it that stuck out the most for me was number two, "We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person." This seems like a very analog solution to a digital problem. Digital communication is different than the face-to-face variety. Part of what makes the internet wonderful is that you can say things you wouldn't say in person. Just ask the millions of people who are able to get beyond their shyness with the help of the web. I in no way condone hate speech or anything that happened to Kathy, but I don't think pretending the web has the same properties as the physical world is the answer.
The response many seem to have is that we should require more transparency of people. I don't think this is the answer. As I wrote in response to a very interesting post by Mark Lewis:
Would demanding transparency ruin the system, though? I know for myself I trust those who chose to be transparent more than those who don't. If it was required, that separation [between those who are transparent and those who aren't] would go away and I imagine many would find ways to game the system.
This is one of those questions for which an answer won't soon come. Every time the KKK marches around people wonder why no one can make it stop. The problem is that it's really hard to have it both ways. Ultimately digital laws and codes of conduct are unlikely to be the answer, just as there's no good answer for what to do about the KKK or hecklers.
In the end I don't have an answer. What I do know is that we need to accept that the medium carries with it a very different set of rules and protocols and try to build something from there. I am not a big fan of just shooting something down without trying to build on it, but at the moment my head's a little too clogged to think this through all the way. Would love to hear your feedback.
Update (4/9/07): Jeff Jarvis says much of what I'm saying better than I said it.
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I'm trying to give back a little more to all of the readers of this site.
I've been meaning to write this entry for a while but have been struggling with exactly what I want to say and how to say it. Anyhow, basically the point is I want to give something back to all you readers and I want to make this place feel a little more like a community.
One idea I had is to feature the blogs of commenters/readers more prominently on the site. I've also thought about aggregating posts from your sites (assuming you all agreed) and displaying them here. Obviously I need to work out some details, but just wanted to throw out the idea and get some opinions, thoughts and ideas.
I figure eventually this will require me writing some code and redesigning the site, but for now I would like to feature a few posts every week from your blogs. So in the comments or an email I'd really appreciate if you posted a link to a post on your site you'd like people to read. Don't feel self-conscious or anything like that (I know normally I feel a little weird about posting links to my site in comments).
I'll then update this post or add a new one with the links.
Is this a good idea? Has anyone else been thinking about this sort of thing? I know 9rules has its widgets and MyBlogLog helps with the community portion, but I'm not really a widget sort of guy (I like to control every pixel plus I hate the load time).
Anyway, just an idea . . . We'll see if anyone's in to it.
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A look at the success of Da Bears Blog.
Right now I've got one thing on my mind and it's Da Bears. In case you missed it on Sunday, they beat up the Saints and set themselves a date with Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl. Needless to say, I'm pretty damn excited about it, but that's not what this is all about. Instead I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about some of my learnings from running Da Bears Blog.
Just about a year and a half ago I started the site with a few friends. We didn't really have a plan for it, just wanted a place to talk Bears football. Slowly the site began to develop a voice as Jeff became the main writer. Since then the site has taken off and while the traffic isn't enough to pay my bills, it is a lot higher than NoahBrier.com.
Anyhow I thought a lot of the lessons would be applicable for building traffic on almost any website and especially blogs. So . . .
- Find a voice: Da Bears Blog is not a newspaper. That's because people have newspapers already. It's the voice of a serious football fan. It is also very well written.
- Post frequently (but not soooooo frequently): It's been my opinion for a long time that blogs don't need to post 5 times a day. Once a day will do just fine. Da Bears Blog is designed with that in mind: Only one story appears in its entirety on the homepage (just as on this site). People come back everyday to see what's going on. They keep coming back to keep up with the comments (which often reach the 40s and have topped 100 on occasion).
- Think about SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is your best friend when it's comes to growth. A few changes in title tags can mean the difference between 1st place and 30th place on a search you're really looking for. Da Bears Blog scores big on a couple key Bears searches and about 40% of the traffic ends up coming through that way.
- Consider SEM too: SEO isn't enough. With Da Bears Blog I've also bought a fair amount of keywords, including a number of searches that the blog appears number one organically. I first heard about this strategy awhile ago and it seems to be paying off. While we do pay for some people who we might get for free, the traffic from these keywords is impossible to ignore.
- Encourage email subscriptions: I recently started doing this around here as well (you can subscribe here), but for a site where the majority of the audience is not geeky email subscriptions are hugely important. These people get an update every day and make it back to the site. In the offseason, when Bears football isn't necessarily top of mind, this should allow the site to stay relevant. This has been a big push lately (subscription form on every page) and it seems to be paying off.
Now I know these aren't necessarily revolutionary, but I think there are some interesting tips. The site gets the kind of commenting that most blogs dream of (30+ comment average). Of course it's a passion topic, but shouldn't everything be?
Anyhow, hope you'll all be rooting for the Bears 13 days from now.
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Let's figure out what we're really talking about here: Audience size or the influence you have over them.
David Armano was kind enough to invite me to a presentation he gave at Digitas about the success of his blog. It was fascinating to be in the audience for a presentation by a blogger to his company about how to build something organically. David had lots of interesting points, especially the idea that once you've experienced the kind of authenticity you do in this online world, it's hard to go back to the bullshit of corporate communication.
One point I did take slight issue with was his depiction of how influence ripples in the blogosphere.
My question, which I also asked David, was whether what he was depicting was really influence or reach? What I was seeing was the sources with the largest reach spreading the widest. David's response was quite thoughtful. He suggested that what he was showing was the combination of reach and influence: A rare occurrence that is the holy grail of media.
The issue I have is that the wonder of the internet to me is the ability to have low-reach, high-influence. In an old media world, such a thing is not overly scalable, but online its an efficient and very real occurrence.
While I don't have the reach of the New York Times, for a small group of people on a small number of subjects, I am more influential (as scary as that may be). In the same way, I read the blogs of many people who are not widely read. Their ideas are what draw me to them, not the size of their audience.
As CK kept repeating, "it's about deep, not wide."
For someone like myself, there's no incentive to trying to appeal to a broader audience. People come here for a very specific reason and if I tried to write on more general things I'd probably attract no one at all.
Before I conclude, let me address one last thing. The question that always comes up with blogs is "how do you monetize?". I think the answer comes in the value of niche. "Imagine going into a room and asking everyone who's visited Yahoo! to raise their hand. Everyone in the room would have their arm in the air I assume. Now ask who's visited NoahBrier.com. Pretend one other person raises their hand. (Come on . . . use your imagination here!) The odds that you have something to talk about with that one other person in the room is far higher than you having something to talk about with everyone in the room."
This is not a brand new idea, niche publications have been doing it for years. But now that the cost of entry has dropped so low, it's awfully easy to enter a new niche and build an audience.
I guess what I'm saying is that a super-targeted audience who listens and thinks about what you say is the influence I want.
So thanks for being that.
PS David: Thanks so much for the invite, I really enjoyed the presentation and am in no way attacking you. Just bringing up some friendly debate.
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For the last part of the series I explore the blogosphere's hot new thing: Job Boards.
[Editor's Note: This is part two in a series of posts on how to make money off your blog. Part 1 was all about The Deck and Part 2 was all about Text Link Ads. Here's the description from the first post: Obviously there are a million different ways to try and make money off a website, the easiest of which is slapping a couple Google ads on there and calling it a day. These three ideas interest me because they're different. They're not your regular CP-whatever deal, instead they're tapping into what makes blogs unique/special and monetizing that.]
It's time for the wrap up ladies and gentlemen . . .
3. Job Boards
I actually first thought about doing a job board a few months ago. People ask me all the time if I know someone to fill so-and-so position. Lots of them sound great and I try to pass them along. I thought maybe it would be good to have a place to aggregate all these jobs, based on the criteria that it would only get posted if I found it interesting. Since then job boards have been sprouting up everywhere.
The way I see it, these job boards are the perfect companion to a blog. Think about it: Blogs tend to be about niche topics (say the future of media and marketing) and have highly targeted audiences. That means if an employer can find a blog they like and relates to their work, chances are it's a good place to find other like-minded people. What's more, by posting a job on a blog job board, it lends a certain amount of cachet to the company. After all, they've got to be somewhat in the know to be posting at this niche site.
Basically, they're the opposite of sites like Monster. As Jason Fried explained: "Big sites take a shotgun approach . . . You post a job. Anyone can see it. There’s no targeting, no like-mindedness. Our feeling is, if you want to hire the right people, you have to go where the right people hang out."
My favorite part about these job boards, is that unlike more traditional advertising, job boards actually help all parties involved. The site gets some cash, the employer gets a good employee and the reader gets a job. Obviously problems could arise if the site really takes off and the board becomes a job destination rather than a blog with a job board. It'll be interesting to see how these things turn out (I suspect it'll work out just fine).
The Lessons
1. Once again, recommendations, even if they're not explicit, are the most valuable resource a blog has (other than influence . . . which is really the same thing). In the case of jobs, just being listed on a site like 37signals can raise the coolness factor in the minds of candidates.
2. Advertising that serves a purpose is better than the noise of other forms of advertising.
3. Find a way to milk the niche nature of your site rather than trying to make it something it's not. A blog with 300 readers isn't going to do shit by way of CPM (cost-per-thousand), but if you're covering a small topic selling job posts might be just what the doctor ordered (plus it somehow seems less sleezy as selling recommendations).
The bottom line here is embrace your inner niche. Don't try to be something you're not. Find creative ways to exploit your blogs most valuable asset: A small targeted audience.
That about wraps up this three part series. Hope you enjoyed it. If you've got any more ideas, please drop them in the comments. Also, I just wanted to add that I understand the vast majority of people don't have any desire to make money off their blog. I'm actually (mostly) in that camp. However, I think whether you're interested in engaging in some of these tactics or not, there are a lot of lessons to be learned.
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Hi, I'm 