James Key Lim (dot) Com

‘KEY’ TAKE AWAY: If it’s too good to be true, it is! So just remember that the best way to high Google site rankings is still simply write content that people want to link to.

WHAT IS IT?: Article: SEO 3.0 - How to get your site ranked on Google in 2008 by Laura Creekmore

Here are the notes that Laura Creekmore took from Bill Leake from Apogee Search’s presentation on SEO.

Pay per click is moving to cost per action.

Use bid management to hit your users when they’re searching…don’t pay when your prime users aren’t there.

Target particular sites with your keyword buys.

Be sure you are testing your PPC buys.

Use the Proctor & Gamble strategy: Own an out-sized share of the shelf space.

This point is great: Good content matters. It makes a difference in your link ranking. About 80% of your ranking on Google is probably what other people are saying about you. Maybe 20% is what’s on your site. But your title tag is the most important part of that. Keyword density on your own site is very, very far down the list. Don’t let your SEO write content!! You need real content that inspires other people to link to you–because that’s what gets you links and pushes you up in Google.

PR can really help SEO. A press release that gets picked up is your content, posted elsewhere, linking back to you. Release frequently. Send some smaller distribution. Use good keywords in the release. Use Internet wires. Train management to understand that Internet-only mentions are actually good, sometimes better than offline.

Manage your online reputation well. What shows up when people search for you? How are you addressing negative sites, comments?

Use Google Local.

Video, products, etc. are starting to be blended in with text search results. Make sure ALL your products/services are listed, especially multimedia. Video converts well. Your #1 ranking is irrelevant–what matters is getting conversions.

MORE LINK(S) WORTH YOUR TIME

• SEO 3.0 Notes

‘KEY’ TAKE AWAY: Setting up an feedback website can help guide your entire corporation.

WHAT IS IT?: Many including Dell have done it well and now Starbucks is in the game with their new MyStartbucksIdea.com website that encourages customers to share their ideas to improve Starbucks.

HOW DOES IT HELP MY BUSINESS?: Like a 24×7, global focus group you can get fresh ideas that can help drive your business.

PROS: Free focus group from your most influential customers (those who are online and active)

CONS: Be careful to understand who the customer is that is actively participating in these feedback communities. They may not be representative of your masses, but it does give you insight where you may have had none and will be for you to decide what to apply and what not to apply to your entire business.

MORE LINK(S) WORTH YOUR TIME:

• My Starbucks Idea by johnmoore
• Starbucks’ Bright Idea: Launch a Social Network by Kristen Nicole

‘KEY’ TAKE AWAY: California Closets banner ad offers a very compelling ‘gain’ by taking away your daily ‘pain’ of looking at your cluttered closet. What is the big ‘gain’ or the big ‘pain’ reduction of your product?

Click #1

Click #2

*Unfortunately, it failed to show me a confirmation after I received my email.

HOW DOES THIS HELP MY BUSINESS?: It shows us that the ‘gain’ or ‘pain’ reduction must be big enough to overcome the perception of risk. Who doesn’t want to organize their closet. I sure the heck do. Think carefully to address the very ‘pain’ that your customer feels in their daily lives and get their attention to act and maybe even submit their email. Even I came to concluded that submitting myself to email spam was overcome by the ‘gain’ of turning our closet into a closet you see on MTV Cribs or at least a humble version of it.

PROS: Understanding the true ‘pain’ or ‘gain’ of a product for your customer can increase your ad success rate exponentially.

CONS: Be very careful not to misrepresent your ‘pain’ or ‘gain’. If you push that boundary too far, you will loose the trust of that customer forever.

MORE LINK(S) WORTH YOUR TIME:

• Best Practices for Conversion: The New Engagement Funnel in 7 Steps - from Omniture

‘KEY’ TAKE AWAY: Finally got a chance to read AARF’s Digital Outlook Report 2008. This is a MUST read for the latest trends in digital marketing. Full of great information that I will look to summarize in the future and post.

PROS: Be a pro after you read and understand the trends in this report.

CONS: I literally could not put it down and ended up reading it all on a flight instead of going thru emails.

MORE LINKS WORTH YOUR TIME:

• Avenue Z Razorfish 2008 Digital Outlook Report - Guy Kawasaki
  
• Ad spending moving from portals to search, entertainment sites
• OgilvyOne China President Chris Reitermann: The Digital Outlook for 2008

Here’s a new book out that should be an interesting read:

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide - Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations. By Amy Shuen
First Edition April 2008

Web 2.0 makes headlines, but how does it make money? This concise guide explains what’s different about Web 2.0 and how those differences can improve the bottom line. Whether you’re an executive, a small business owner, or an entrepreneur, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide illustrates through real life examples how various businesses are creating new opportunities on today’s Web. This book is about strategy rather than the technology itself.

More link(s) worth your time:

• A Web 2.0 Strategy Guide

After an 8 month intense project to develop a new global web strategy and infrastructure at Magellan GSP with regular 16 hour days filled with technology evaluations, ecommerce vendor due diligence, developing road maps, design development, IT strategies, world class web consultancies, and many, many discussions with a great web team internally within Magellan, I’m very happy to say that I’ll be blogging again. It’s good to be back on the blogging board!

Previously, this blog was titled ‘Web 2.0 Evangelist’. The title will now simply be on ‘Web and Ecommerce Strategy’ which will focus on the ideas, people, technologies, and companies that will drive exponential revenue growth and brand awareness online for businesses big and small.

There have been ‘generations’ of change within the last 8 months online. I think the keyword for today is ’saturation’. People simply don’t have enough time or mind share for most of what the internet has to offer. More and more it’s a human limitation and not a technical one that is in the way of marketing and messaging online. In order to overcome this fact, I believe the new strategy for ecommerce and online awareness is ’shock and awe’.

Shock and awe can come in the form of amazing customer service with FREE overnight shipping for every order as Endless.com does or a video of an iphone being shredded in your company’s powerful blender as Blendtec does.

What can you do to create the ’shock and awe’ required for your ecommerce and web strategy to be heard above the saturation? Feel free to send me your business model and I would be happy to think of some with you.

WHAT IS IT: I’d like to call it, ‘username branding’. Username branding relates to the creation and usage of a unique username that you can use across all social networking sites to build brand awareness.

HOW CAN IT HELP MY BUSINESS: By standardizing your username, you increase the ability to surface to the top of search engine results and build a recognizable brand online across various social networking sites.

PROS: Something simple to do, yet could be valuable in building online brand awareness.

CONS: It’s not easy to come up with a unique username that closely matches your branding and have it be available on all the various social networking sites.

BOTTOM LINE: More and more, your brand is only as good as its searchable. It’s very important to recognized that online search results are more and more a part of who you ARE to the world. Username branding is a simple yet highly effective practice that all businesses should follow.

Basic rules to coming up with a powerful username brand:

1. Make it unique so that it will more likely be available on all sites.
2. Be sure it’s a username that you think will be timeless for your branding. Example: Don’t use the username ‘likeits1999′.
3. Make sure it coincides with your company name or brand. If it’s identical, that’s obviously the best.

3 Simple steps:

1. Get Gmail invitation from Google. I can send you one if you don’t have access to one. Email me at jameskeylim [at] gmail [.] com.
2. Sign up to Gmail using your username. Example, username@gmail.com.
3. Sign up to the following websites:

Sites to sign up to:

• Yahoo (for Flickr and instant messaging, I don’t use their email anymore)
• Myspace (be sure to create the ‘MySpace URL)
• Facebook
• Delicious
• Digg
• MSN (for instant messaging)
• Skype
• Slideshare
• Youtube
• GizmoProject
• AOL (for instant messaging)

MORE LINKS WORTH YOUR TIME:

• How Branding Scores Traffic from Social Media

NOTE: Sorry, typed this live. Please excuse the typos and errors.

• link to session description
• philosophy from internet seen more and more
  • podcasting blogging applied to audio
  • unconferences - discussion with audience is like a blog
• not ’smart’, just use the technology
  • focus is first is being a user
  • always a lot better when you actually use the product
  • when products go wrong is when they loose that perspective of never had it
    • that’s why wordpress is great; it’s pragmatic
      • comes from being user and wanting product to be better
        • it’s that simple
          • but often not as simple when people loose track
• story of how got involved in blogging
  • don’t claim to have first blog
  • first blog
    • info.cern.ch
    • there never was a time on the web when there wasn’t a blog
  • first 1996
    • leading editor at wired
    • leading a fight for communication decency act
    • no blogging community at the time
    • gov trying to destroy it before it even started
    • 24 hour of democracy
      • in 24 hour period wrote about what democracy meant
      • had a mail list
        • mail list flamed out
    • people had weird theories
      • problem with mail list is that people are ’self important’; people want to feel that they do it the right way or else
    • did reverse link to article in reverse chrono order
      • remembered it was interesting idea and noted to come back to it
    • started frontier news page
    • germ of idea is that mail lists are one kind of thing
      • things like mail lists
        • comment thread
          • techcrunch for example
            • flames out quickly and people get personal
            • people always getting defensive
            • because everyone has the final say and veto power and everything gets veto’d
              • blog is different since only one person and no veto and if someone wants to contradict you they have to do it in their space
                • no one can say you can’t do it
                • that’s why RSS gaining traction
                  • because there was a way to communicate without objection i could use RSS despite objection
                  • preserve basic idea: it’s one person’s voice and can not be prevented to say what you want to say
• 3 or 4 things to think about
  • top 2
    • link blogging
      • 2 forms blogging developing
        • 1 is what wordpress
          • title, link, description model
            • like an essay on to itself
              • wordpress rich set of features
          • is RSS model
        • another is link blogging
          • human aggregation
          • or micro blogging
            • twitter is microblogging
      • few months ago switched totally to long form
        • reason did it was to want to fit into netvibes pageflicks
        • mixed 2 forms and aggregators didn’t know what to do with my feed
      • love twitter
        • twitter picked up my slack entirely
          • ‘go here and look at this thing’ this is interesting for the following reason
          • acting as a directory
    • why should wordpress embrace that [micro-blogging]?
      • e.g. mark canter’s? blog uses links and little description
  • another topic
    • future-safe archives
      • had this problem
        • use case: 2004 donated RSS 2.0 spec to harvard law school
          • idea was to get it off of company server and put it on university server and change to creative commons
          • idea was it would be reference source for anyone and everyone
          • RSS 2.0 didn’t need to involve and lots of building
          • so needed to be in place where it could survive for the future
            • 2 years later being hit by spam comments and 1/2 time go to site couldn’t get thru
      • there should be a place with some degree of assurance that it will stick around
      • why shouldn’t your blog be around for 100 years?
        • people think it’s arrogant and be humble
          • strongly disagree
            • prior to revolution there were essays about life in america
            • you can triangulate from all points of view
        • if there’s a hemingway how much you want to bet he’s writing a blog
      • what do you need to do to future-safe
        • is mysql a good enough way to do it
          • didn’t think so
            • not sure what will be around 100 years from now
        • we don’t have the answer, but we should be thinking about it
        • news.com, salon.com is great and they are thinking about the future
          • never seen a broken link at salon.com
        • archive.org
          • it’s not a long lived organization. it’s good, but not enough
          • archive.org could partner with harvard university
            • would you pay them a 1x donation for the purpose of archiving.
              • micro endowment
              • now getting to what i’m talking about
  • open source identification system
    • like twitter
      • not feature bloated
      • like api
        • easy and isn’t missing anything
      • really stuck their neck out and give you everything and give you one crucial thing
        • an identity system
          • he can build on to twitter a whole application onto twitter and take own data storage
          • great so can create more apps
    • also understand facebook
      • swear don’t understand facebook
        • at friends parties yesterday
          • she’s making parties out of facebook
        • friend likes looking at the faces
      • don’t like it because it’s a walled garden
        • siloed
        • go in, but can’t go out
        • wonderful web of relationships
        • and it’s not open architecture
      • 10x more interested
        • something there need to understand
        • can’t go on w/ life until can figure it out
    • since this is open source
      • want to build something that can take all identify systems
      • same thing wordpress.com is not only place you can have a wordpress site
        • not being forced to use server is very important
• ? questions
  • mail lists
    • sure mail lists have value
    • work up to a point
    • for x months or sometimes x years
    • someday some scientists will study and come up with a theory
    • i have comments still on my blog
      • have thing ‘comment on today’s post’
        • keeps it to how people understand how scripting works and don’t get hit and run, idiots
          • we get it but not so much of it
    • but also believe in other tool
      • that you don’t worry about what you think

• 100 blogs
• 30-40 active blogs
• primarily use 1 blog template
• run off of wordpress 2.0.5
• 13 million pvs/mo.
• over 500 blog users in our db
• each blog 3-8 writers
• blogs about continuous conversation
• we are teachers
  • documentation is very important
    • creates value and creates smarter users that can tackle problems on their own
• we teach a process
  • majority used to email
  • where people feel most comfortable
  • make them feel comfortable with wordpress
• we’ve design platform for creative expression
• adaptation
  • basic elements
    • name
    • about
    • blogroll
      • who’s doing similar and learn and link from them
      • it’s all about community
      • it’s important, people don’t understand that
        • people been publishing at paper, it used to be one way
    • text
• cityroom launched recently with great success
  • [showing blogroll]
    • blogroll is very important
      • broken to relevant sections
      • well organized
      • meaningful
    • think it’s an effective use of the blogroll
• encourage the conversation
  • most readers have something to say
    • want to bridge gap
    • they think that no one is listening
  • fantastic way to get comments
    • misspell words
      • correct and say thanks; let readers know that you’re listening and safe environment for readers to leave future comments
• built tool: comment of the moment
  • teach writers to pay attention to comments
  • plugin built
    • highlights given from given post and bring back to post itself
    • really interesting
      • writer got thank you so much for highlighting your comment and sent it to all friends, but then friends said that couldn’t click on it… and NYTimes then was able to make it clickable.
• Tags clouds
  • visual representation of the conversation on your blog
  • at one time, told readers that we’re going to move categories into tags
    • readers didn’t like it
      • told them that things you talk about most are big and things least talked about small
      • readers afraid that it would reveal that they were talking about republicans most
  • actively linking to posts
    • really active way to keep current with community

NOTE: Sorry, typed this live. Please excuse the typos and errors.

• link to session
• plugins i use
  • akismet
  • math comment spam protection
  • google analytics
  • feedburner
  • democracy (polls)
  • SEO title (swap name <> title)
  • love/hate: wp cache
• SEO tips
  • not put blog at root of domain
    • people will link to your root domain and your blog so want to focus it
    • also want to leave room for future expansion
    • call it ‘blog’ vs. ‘wordpress’
  • what do SEOs know that bloggers may not know
    • keywords
      • helps to think of words that you are typing
      • type in ‘keyword’ tool in google you’ll get a tool
    • if you know people are going to type in ‘funny pictures’ type it in your post
    • e.g.
      • URL had ‘change’ in post title ‘changing’
      • using synonyms in natural way makes you more rounded
      • use this knowledge only for good
        • if you cultivate community your users will give you synonyms
      • wouldn’t go as far as misspellings
    • use singular and plural
  • use categories that are good keywords
    • but don’t use it if it’s not real
  • domain.com/my-words
    • use dashes
    • used to treat underscores as a part of the word, ‘a_b’
    • no spaces is worst
    • should i change if i’ve done the wrong thing?
      • no, wouldn’t re-work site
  • ALT tags are handy (3-4 relevant words)
    • don’t forget image search, videos, etc.
    • ? if do full sentence won’t get penalized
    • ? does having .php, .htm,… effect ranking
      • no
      • only extension not recommended is, ‘.exe’
    • ? what about question marks or hash marks
      • google truncates at the hash
      • treat dynamic URL’s the exact same as the static URL
      • advice: keep the number low though to 2-3
  • should i do a video or do a podcast
    • ask yourself how handsome or pretty your are
      • if not sure use, hot or not
        • if 7 or above do video
  • usability
    • make sure site is crawlable
      • if wordpress it’s most likely crawlable
      • hierarchical is the best for crawlability
      • if you can use netscape 4.7 and see the entire stuff then you’re good
    • check out your site on an iphone
      • recommend using the same style sheet
      • for mobile browsers use w.b. kanes?
    • make sure post creation dates easy to find
    • recommend full-text RSS feeds to get loyal users. partial feeds get more page views, but not as much love
    • you blog should do standard pings
    • ? if put date in URL that adds more slashes
      • it doesn’t effect google
        • he doesn’t put date in the URL
  • moving to new IP address
    1. reduce your DNS to time-to-live
    2. back up your site. bring it up on new IP
    3. Watch Googlebot & user traffic until they fetch the site from the new IP address
    4. take down the old site
  • moving domain
    • user a 301 (permanent) redirect
    • pick one sub-directory and do 301 on the one sub-directory
    • then do 301 for entire site
    • people shoot themselves in foot with www. and half no www.
      • write to everyone and ask them to update their links
      • ? www. is technically different sites
    • even if doing 301 redirect
      • google provides a way to get all the backlinks to the site
    • recommend, do audit of site
      • am i splitting where index is going
      • standardize to get google and all search engines to give credit
• google services
  • webmaster console
    • test out robots.txt before pushing live
    • report spam
    • URL removal URLs / directories for 6 months
    • See your backlinks
    • see crawl errors
      • you can make 404 re-direct to your home page
  • feedburner
    • feeds.mattcuffs.com instead of feeds.feedburner.com
      • if you change from feedburner to your own domain it will not break anything
  • adsense
    • <!–google_ad_section_start–>
      • ? can you add multiple sections
        • he thinks so
• ? does installing analytics lead to a crash
  • no
• creativity is king
  • lonleygirl15
  • million pixel home page
  • mac vs. pc
  • free hugs campaign
  • sold mustache on ebay
  • “say google fast”
    • got 8 people to do it and got 500,000 views
• getting known
  • tutorials
  • less spam with gmail or yahoo
  • liveblogging
  • make lists
    • 13 reasons why something
  • mention robert scoble
  • use controversy use it sparingly
• tips
• vary keywords
• metatags are not used for weighting
• if can get key words more in the title it helps a lot
  • journalist get most important words at the top
  • go for something more newspapery’ as far as titles
  • don’t bury your story
• DON’T vary the content you send to Googlebot; it will get you kicked out of the index
• go for some hook
  • social engineering
• Google knows about these synonyms under the hood
• if you want to sell links make sure they don’t effect search engines you’re polluting the pool and making it harder for people

Here is a good summary of the session from Amit

NOTE: Sorry, typed this live. Please excuse the typos and errors.

• link to session
• reducing design elements, form elements, focus a page
• what makes an ‘obvious’ blog?
  • 2 principals. building only what is absolutely necessary
    • 1) ditch what is not essential
      • each screen lot more focused and easier to use
    • 2) surfacing important elements
  • blog essential elements are different
    • make sure in blog pages that you have elements on page that are essential to make point clear
    • that’s what blogs about
    • make sure take all out that doesn’t have to be there
• audience question: what are the essential elements
  • essential elements
    • search
    • comments
    • post title
    • the post itself
    • about page
      • what is this blog about
      • reader may not know what site is about
      • what is your bran
    • link to permanent URL
    • most popular posts
      • and short list of related posts
    • good writing
      • e.g. guy works for adaptive path
        • turns out that todd put up post usability path to failure. he talked about companies focused on business model but if you focus on usability it’s going to be a failure.
          • robert wrote back why narrow mindedness is a path to failure
            • have to have good value proposition
            • have to understand user
          • todd responded to feedback, here’s what i really meant and turned it into a conference
            • got attention by being controversial
        • need to say what you mean
    • speed (extremely important)
      • google did a study
        • instead of 10 results they did 25
          • taking longer to load
            • growing impatient
          • lost something like $3M in small time with small sliver of people
  • not essential
    • comment count
    • author
      • they’re looking for content not looking for me
    • blogroll
      • matt: personally disagrees and likes blogrolls as a way to discover other sites. act of sending people elsewhere is part of the nature of blogging
• surfacing the important elements
  • make sure right things in front of user and wrong things are not
  • make it easy for people to glance at page
  • userinterfaceengineering.com
    • 5 second test
      • show for 5 seconds and ask them to remember what they saw
    • robert does same for task oriented process
      • give user task and show them screen for 5 seconds and see if they can figure out
• blogs aren’t not about action, but want to inspire them to get them to thinking
  • what can you do to encourage comments
    • instead of using word ‘comments’ using something that is more a call to action statement.
    • trackbacks
    • ideas, the post themselves
      • thought provoking topics
• ? from audience: how can we graphically encourage comments
  • they are informative, the move you. emotive
  • it’s not about pretty pink flowers
  • it’s about getting people to react
• from a business perspective
  • you put a blog up
  • you want to build your community
  • want people to come back to your site
  • wouldn’t want to send people off their site
• why do bad designs succeed
  • e.g. myspace
    • it’s all about the history that helped them get famous
    • friendster had slow speeds and myspace had the speed
• tumblr.com
  • an interesting thought streaming example that takes out some of the key elements of a blog

NOTE: Sorry, typed this live. Please excuse the typos and errors.

• link to session description
• intro
  • Im in ur blogz grabbin’ ur kash
  • first to do blog consulting
    • sold himself on ebay
• b5media
  • blog network
    • 250 blogs
    • find people who are passionate about whatever they love
• quick look at blog advertising
  • started 2003ish
  • bloggers are pretty creative
    • people know when you are faking it
  • 2004
    • making $1500-1800 mo.
    • using direct ads
  • 2005
    • adsense
    • textlinks
    • direct acts
  • today
    • reality making more money from blogging than from blog
      • consulting
      • speaking
      • books
      • magazines
    • blogs biggest purpose is finding your dream job
• [pulled ad hoc pane]
  • pro
  • average
  • person
• introduction
  • erik nakagawa (en), cheeseburger
  • michelle leader (m)- footnoted.org
    • sec filings
  • judy nelson (jn)
    • recreation properties
    • community of cottagers
• (en)
  • finding funny stuff and people started coming
  • if looking to make money it’s not that fun
    • don’t advertise and people will come
• (m)
  • started 4 years ago
  • to promote first book, she’s journalist
• (jn)
  • needed business idea
  • couldn’t get published, but wanted to write
  • social network
• re: ads what drives them away?
  • (en)
    • if make $ off of eyes, go cpm
    • adsense may have you blogging to make more money
    • try to find advertisers that are contextual
      • if women focused blog work with blogher
    • map advertisers to demo
      • instead of randomly
    • if you really want targeted ads, go to where you can pick and choose what you want for ads
  • (m)
    • find matches with advertisers
• it comes down to the context of your site
  • how much do you need?
  • don’t want to just sell out
  • if want to make $2000/mo.
  • but if you really want authentic blogging experience you may take a big hit
• (m)
  • she’s been offered money to buy list of 500 names
• (jn)
  • started off how do i make money bloggin
  • challenging facing now, it’s new
    • how do it get traffic
      • without viewers don’t have value for advertisers
      • video taping wake board content so shooting videos
• more money to be made
  • people work full time as full time blogger
    • average bloggers does less than 30,000/mo.
    • that’s a few hundred bucks
  • but what do you want to do
• questions
  • i’m making $15/mo.
    • • personal blog about 10-12K page views
      • 2 ads per page
      • do you want text links
      • do you want to review products and get paid for them
    • $15/mo not that bad
    • can make $100/mo text links
    • $200-300/mo is average range
    • if want more
      • find what you’re passionate about
      • write 2 posts a day
  • how do you get more traffic
    • post about stuff that you really like
    • test: would you read your own blog if it wasn’t your own blog
  • enclosed referral fees are big money
  • advertising model is still tied into print
    • what’s the future
      • in blog ad market
      • shift towards 125×125 boxes, but click rate is 10% less
• quick tips and thoughts
  1. have lots of valuable content
  2. host your blog yourself, on your own domain
  3. adsense is the crack of blog advertising - get’s get hooked
  4. do 2-3 things really well instead of 10-15
  5. cpa/cpl typically performs poorly outside of product blogs
  6. consider syndicating your content (newstex, etc)
  7. partner with someone who’s doing it well (network, bloggers, whatev)
  8. be smart about text links (esp with google coming down on them
  9. don’t sell out (post about celebs) just to get traffic
  10. if your audience supports you, reviewme-style things (properly disclosed) my kickstart your earnings

NOTE: Sorry, typed this live. Please excuse the typos and errors.

• link to session description
• To get someone’s attention you need to 1) show them something they’ve never seen before or 2) in a way they’ve never seen before
  • real picture of big foot
  • UFO
• look for the missing subjects
  • find the missing pieces
  • not everything has been said, and even if it has it can be said simpler, easier (in a new way)
  • find a new angle
    • don’t regurgitate
• ex. how to install wordpress
  • millions of results
    • do you really need another article
• husband is a aero engineer
  • he looks for what’s missing
  • is it the problem or are they describing the symptoms
    • that’s what to write about
      • fill in that blank
        • if can’t identify it then you’re missing something
    • in school, if you ask why?
      • they said because or that’s the way it’s been done
    • there’s always another way
      • need to understand why
• Ask the ‘why’ and fill it in
• traditional publishing industry
  • editors see the whole picture
  • you are now the editor and publisher of your blog
• where are you holes? when did you really look at your blog
• just like a blogger who thought they wrote a post, but can’t find it because they never really wrote it
• how many hit feeds before you start your day
  • read the feeds at night and sleep on it
• be sensible blogger and absorb the information
• psychology of readers
  • holding off on blogging you can potentially be the sane voice
  • people read blogs in the moment and the readers perception may be different
    • calmer the reader is the calmer they read and they believe you have
  • be the wiser blogger
    • that’s when you make the connection
• word of the year
  • relationships
    • diff b/t website and blog
      • comments
        • it’s the conversation - this is the key difference
• e.g. liz straus - successful/blogger.com
  • SOB - successful, blogger
    • writing a book on 200 of the most unique blogs
    • puts a badge on it
    • when you blog you blog for one person
      • you blog for you
        • it’s not about your passion or what makes you happy
          • e.g. when you go on a trip and you come home and you’re on your toilet being home…
          • successful blog is one that you arrive on with intent of finding information
            • it’s familiar
            • it’s safe
            • and it looks like me
              • you want your readers to be you
              • you want them to be you
              • you want that personal connection
                • get comments, ‘you’re so right’
          • when you design your blog
            • that first impression
              • this is the place that has the answers i need
              • as you working on blog
                • what are you saying to people
                • what emotion
                • what feeling
                • make your blog meet that for you and to you
                • it’s a mirror reflection
                • i have the content you want to hear
• if you have cell phone content
  • have a picture of a cell phone. not purple flowers
• how do you know when a blogger is faking it?
  • tons of affiliate links
    • money
  • just linking to excerpts
    • ‘block quoters’ and linking
• what you write is preserving a moment in time
  • do you think about that when you write
    • dedicated blogs to niece and nephews
• write for the future
• when you fake it your readers know
• how do you get the conversation going
  • who says, i don’t get any comments
  • too many people are still writing for your 8th grade teacher
  • we’re taught to write in complete thoughts complete sentences. don’t do it
    • don’t blog the whole idea
    • don’t finish the idea, let your readers do it
    • instead of 10 tips; give them 7
      • chose to forget
    • incomplete thoughts help create conversation
    • let the readers play the missing game
      • e.g. liz strauss does this excellently and gets rows and rows of comments
• do you respond to every single comment
  • DONT. it’s crap
  • but the secret is to make readers think that you do
    • they have to believe that you do
      • how
        • stop faking it
        • blog your passions
        • show that you care
          • say thank you
• how many guilty of ’so what do you think?’
  • stop it
    • you might get an answer
    • you might not like what you get
    • pretend you and your reader are best friends or you’re a married couple
      • you’re finishing each others sentences
        • make your readers finish your sentences
• participate in a conversation
  • if late into a conversation
    • extend it
  • memes stupid
    • don’t challenge people to blog about something
      • you may be interrupting flow
• link to other blogs
• sobfcom (chicago)
  • attend next year
    • healthywebdesign.com
      • every 5th word find noun and links to a blogger that talks about that noun
        • you get caught up in the conversation
        • all these single voice and blogs on a single topic
• circularcommunications.com
  • writing blog posts about what other bloggers wrote about a subject
    • he did a virtual conversation
      • and dug through blogs to answer the question
    • new, novel way of presenting information
      • interview without him being there
      • (showing how to do something in a new way)
• ways to create conversation
  • comment on other blogs
    • ‘how not to comment on comments’
      • say something intelligent
        • make your comments make people want to click on your link
          • people are checking those comments
            • the point is say something intelligent
  • our comments sets an example for other bloggers
    • job for fellow bloggers to help other bloggers continue the conversation
      • readers help other readers
• intro
  • blogging since 1994
  • write for the codex
• questions
  • timeless content? is what latest bestest’?
    • you never know what’s going to popular
      • the masses are fickle
    • write timeless
      • like having readers repeat and comes back to me
      • like making readers happy
    • make it like the old western days
      • the community comes together to build a barn
  • blogotainment
    • entertainment blogs
      • goes back to faking it again
        • it’s like what people hate, pay for post
      • disclosure
        • tell them who you are?
          • tell the world
            • if 40 years old, i’m going to learn again what it is to be 14 years old again
  • if too many do’s and don’ts aren’t you traditional media
    • i live with a lot of rules
      • but she doesn’t talk about her private life
        • but don’t tell intimate stories until related to things
  • how did you get started with wordpress
    • before make decision research to death
      • like everyone was talking about it
  • how do you manage spam. use these 3 tools. to fight comment spam we need to do it together. fight as working as team and stop at root.
    • akismet - hit spam, not delete
    • spamkarma -
    • badbehaviour

NOTE: Sorry, typed this live. Please excuse the typos and errors.

• Om says he’s a Mac and John is a PC
• (J) Difference between bloggers and journalist
  • Debate
    • Bloggers aren’t seen as credible by
  • ZDNet blogs are doing quite well
  • Lack of sincerity, John Marcom, NY Times
    • don’t have the same level of enthusiasm when made to blog
• (O) amount of passion is the difference that can bring to topic
  • As a reporter you can’t compete with passion
  • every single time you have a shift in distribution a new kind of media forms
    • print to radio
    • radio to TV
    • cable to internet
    • internet to broadband
  • as new media forms they become ancillary. don’t replace mainstream, but have different property
  • believes few differences b/t bloggers and journalists
    • if look at bloggers that blog about topics it’s like we are doing what mainstream reports would do, but more hyperactive and believe the story is fluid vs having an end to it
• (J)
  • new media comes along and suplants old media and makes old media have to change to it
    • like radio from 30’s and 40’s sitcoms
      • radio today not just music or one guy ranting about something
  • blogging is a publishing system to do it without anyones help that makes everyone have to adopt
    • starting to see business magazines shrinking
      • predicts forbes may be sold within next 24 months
      • all magazines being effected by this
• (O)
  • having worked in big media company
    • fiscal accountability is not there
      • whole business model
        • people who wrote piece at bottom of period
          • morse law making it free to publish
            • internet instant distribution
              • media controlled before
            • newstands
    • same thing happened in storage and mainframe now happening in media business
  • will see blogger better reporters than any reporter can be
  • makes life tougher for traditional
    • competing against 10,000 of people dedicated to topic
    • if big media is looking at it
      • big media use bloggers as early warning system
        • see what people are interested in
• (J)
  • but point have to draw line
    • digg for example
      • paris hiltons lost pda
        • problem because it trivializes media
  • problem
    • one of things blogosphere does better than anything
    • provides institutionalized ankle biting
      • take clip and block quote and have picture of something idiotic
        • post is ‘what is this guy thinking’
          • to ridicoul mainstream media
            • drop ball
          • bloggers like to find errors
          • driving main stream media nuts
            • constant criticism of a community
              • new york times, a ‘TH’ was analyzed to death
            • interesting ball of controversy
              • had to drive main stream media up the wall
              • big media was like ‘who cares’
    • blogging world an annoyance to an extreme to main stream media
    • he worked at forbes
      • there was thinking that can’t link outside site then people will see how screwed up we are
      • big media said, ‘once you link outside you’re lost’
• (O)
  • the biggest change
  • blogging is special in that comments
    • you have to take it in the spirit they are given
    • you have to assume that the person actually cares about the subject but also tries and has spent time on the site
    • have to start respecting that
    • when you thinking about comments. that is the big difference.
    • audience engagement is more important than anything today
• (J)
  • does create a laziness on writers
    • you can write something and not have all the facts and have readers fill in the blanks
      • ‘i don’t know when’
      • ‘i don’t know who did it’
        • then experts come in and they fill it in
    • the information lies in the whole post/blog
• Questions
  • What’s happening in other places in the world?
    • (O) 4% readers come from india and getting it from mobile phones
      • but out there it could be a very different blogging environment
      • can not emphasize the importance of blogging enough
        • get collective intelligence of readership
          • get smarter from readers and get better as you get on
          • biggest crucial difference
            • single biggest lesson have to learn
    • (J)
      • you can moderate without killing the conversation
      • there can be idiots
        • posting guidelines
          • non-contributory comments like ‘you suck’
      • recommend moderation
        • to eliminate unvaluable spam
      • but need certain amount of readers to get good comments
      • i think moderating is the key to success
  • [Times blogger ]asking question
    • moderationg comments can be a chore
    • (J) we filter profanity so nothing to moderate there
    • filters will filter ‘dick cheney’
    • (J) if your filter worth anything it shouldn’t filter dick cheney
    • writers do moderation, but it’s the biggest chore
      • (J) it’s the writers job to read them
      • (O) i agree. you set the tone. if you bring it back to the post. there are good bar tenders. if bar tenders listens well then go to lounge people trying to hook up then there is no conversation. as a writer you set the tone. if you keep discourse to the point. people are inherently nice and no one says stupid things for the hell of it. maybe 1-2%
    • how many comments on a daily basis? and how much time it takes up
      • (J) average 25 comments a post
        • record is 550
    • ever find can’t keep up?
      • (J) just forget about it. you’re not getting a grade. let it goes. who cares. it’s not that a big of a deal. washington post couldn’t deal with it. calling reports, ‘idiots’ and they got all crazy.
  • comment ratings?
    • (J) rating comments
      • don’t look at them. look at them for restaurant reviews, but not rating comments on opinion
      • book reviews i read on amazon
      • don’t use it
    • (O) taken top 10 comments for last 6 years and make them authors
      • brought them in as sections
      • being rewarded for their comments
  • permanence of articles?
    • slip stream upgrade
      • just change it out of the blue
        • started doing these changes on the fly on pc magazine
          • wrote column
            • someone says that’s wrong
          • then change the article and then comment back to guy and say ‘what are you talking about’
          • (O) how about strike through
            • (J) forget about it. with mainstream you do have advantage when editor calls you up and says are you sure you want to say that.
    • (O) when you write a post
      • step away for 15 minutes
        • that prevents massive screw ups
      • (J) old news paper trick
        • based upon how brain works
          • read it outloud. don’t pretend. have your ears hear it. ears trying to bust the eyes.
          • read it outloud. or read it to somebody
          • you’ll be amazed with errors
            • catch the stupidest errors
        • (O) or you can have your mac read it back to you
  • no difference between bloggers and journalist?
    • (J) one problem bloggers have is that bloggers present themselves as bloggers, and that has to change if you want to be a serious writer
      • neo-blog; new style of blog
        • old: last in first out
        • new: designer brightman
          • he and other people have layouts that are much more stronger
          • bad: people hit the URL and recognize as blog and loose credibility
            • Ex. onion
              • done in drupal
              • new york times is designed after the onion
          • there’s a magazine
            • maybe XXl mag (he’s actually at the conference)
        • credibility goes way up if not seen as blog
          • even though it was a 1 man shop
        • it’s a small number of guys
          • same old templates
          • same crappy calendar, archives, blogroll
    • ? do you think it comes down to templates
      • (J) problem is first impressions. when you hit nytimes you get an impression and you hit a blog different impression
  • citizen journalism?
    • dan gilmore book book inspired him
    • people affraid to talk about certain things
      • in this climate where do people network; don’t have
    • (J) something that has to be fought
      • repulsive apple suing site
        • fact of matter, the realization of citizen journalism movement has not caught on
          • all bloggers are citizen journalist
            • notion is artificial of citizen journalism
            • all bloggers are journalists
        • there’s way of cheating the system
          • don’t keep notes
          • slough of ways to protect sources
    • (O) other thing to protect themselves is to make the phone calls and talk to your sources
      • good thing to do and try to call
      • so you didn’t make this thing up
    • (J)
      • all bloggers should study a little bit of journalism and study libel law
      • (O) or you can call them a ‘flim flam artist’
      • (J) or douche bag
        • you can’t imagine going to court and them asking ‘are you a douche bag?’
      • (O) many ways to say the same thing
        • use the language that’s funny and gets the point across
      • (J) bloggers haven’t gotten lecture on libel law
        • never been sued
        • but had exposure to lectures about it
        • be aware; don’t want to get sued
    • ? for clarification call apple
      • call and check the source
  • (J) livejournal is a great resource
    • tries to find a blogger or someone at the story
    • (O) mainstream media role is to bring together the voice instead of creating more bloggers
      • should aggregrate to consumer
      • they have the audience they should bring it all together
  • ? trust with readers. from TIME what were trying to do is to build trust with writers as well.
    • (O) TIME does not use their audience effectively

LINKS WORTH YOUR TIME:

• Blog post to event
• Om’s blog
• John’s blog

WHAT IS IT?: Dan Kuykendall speaks about his WordPress plugin podPress

HOW DOES IT HELP MY BUSINESS: If you podcast, podPress can be an additional tool to help you handle your podcast files and other media files on your blog.

It’s 9:57am. It’s a full hall at the Swedish American Hall here in San Francisco.

Matt is just started the event. This will be my first live-blogging entry.

The first session is Podcasting and podPress by Dan Kuykendall (podcasting luminary). Here are my notes:

• Podcasing is about content in consumable ways via feeds
• Enclosure tag specifies the URL of the podcast
• Equipment
  • Microphone with pop filter ($100) - AKG perception 100?
  • Exteral sound card and allows you to plug into mic ($100) - Maudio mobile pre?
  • Software
    • Audacity (Window and Mac)
    • For Mac garage band even better
• Podcast whatever you are passionate about
• podPress developed specific to WordPress
• Questions
  • Do you monetize?
    • Kuy gets PayPal donations, but day job is ‘app security’ and spends day breaking into websites

MORE LINKS WORTH YOUR TIME:

• What Is Podcasting?