Kathy Sierra death threats are no basis for blogger code of conduct

Kathy Sierra, a prominent blogger, has received what she sees as death threats from other bloggers-- and takes them seriously enough to cancel speaking engagements and call on law enforcement. If you aren't already familiar with the story, I urge you to visit her post, which has attracted 1000+ comments in just a few days. But carry a strong stomach -- this is seriously ugly, offensive, putrid stuff. That some of the offenders -- or facilitators -- may include other famous bloggers simply makes the story worse. I am deliberately not linking to the alleged offenders/facilitators because, quite literally, this is a case for the police.

But the inevitable calls for blogger codes of conduct miss the mark. Tim O'Reilly calls for one in a BBC interview, but with tens of millions of bloggers, in every country, he's farting in a hurricane. No code of conduct will ever be agreeable to all bloggers -- 99% will never hear of the topic, anyway -- and no code would ever be enforceable.

I posted a Code of Blogging Ethics more than two years ago. That code gets a lot of traffic, and I hear, from time to time, that it inspires new bloggers. But I am particularly happy most read why I posted it. In it, I argue that any "code of blogging ethics" is pretty much a contract between the blogger and the reader -- enforceable by the reader's very powerful tool of dismissing the blog on the spot.

At the time, I quoted Jeff Jarvis:

"We don't need a committee. We don't need an authority figure or moral guidepost.

"This is a distributed world, a world owned by the whole. We are ruled by the wisdom of the crowd."

To that, I would add we are also ruled by law, another application of the wisdom of the crowd.

The alleged offenses against Kathy are already covered by law, if they did happen. If I threaten to kill someone on this blog, Danish law is way ahead of any blogging code of conduct. If I let a comment threatening the same stand, the law is ready for me. If I encourage, tacitly or not, an environment where threats are made, the law is ready for me. The possible sanctions of the blogosphere pales in comparison.

For that very reason, supporters of a collective blogger code of conduct overreach. You can legislate, set rules, set standards only in a closed group -- the sanction being punishment by the group or exclusion from it. The blogosphere hasn't the ability and never will.

The sort of thing Kathy reports is disgusting. But there is law in place to punish it, if true, which is something no code of blogging conduct could ever do.

Technorati : allan jenkins, code of blogging ethics, code of conduct, desirable roasted coffee, kathy sierra, online death threats

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:37pm in Blogging, Desirable Roasted Coffee, Ethics, Law | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

Communitelligence has feeds after all (mea culpa)

Weelll... I sure stepped in it.

Yesterday, I wrote about Communitelligence, the pretty cool communication portal set up by John Gerstner.

Readers will remember that I had some nitpicking to do about the blogs: smart writers, but no RSS feeds.

John quickly pointed out that they do all have RSS feeds & there's a subscribe button at the bottom of each blog.

Ooops. I don't know what happened there, since I looked once, twice, thrice and sure didn't see it the first time around. After John's note, I spotted it right away.

He also takes pains to stress that Communitelligence is not a "for pay" site. That was a bad choice of wording on my part; you don't have to pay to go there and read. However, it is a commercial enterprise.

At any rate: it's a smart stable of communicator/bloggers over there. Well worth a visit.

Technorati Tags: Communitelligence

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 03:53pm in Bloggers, Blogging, Communication, Mea Culpas & Outright Retractions | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0)

Communitelligence: smart people, but no RSS

What do you do when smart people write blogs, but don't provide RSS feeds? Well, if you're me, that special effort to go read them can be hard to make.

Today, I wandered over to Communitelligence, a "for pay" communication portal run by John Gerstner, a prominent IABC'er.

To my great surprise, I found any number of IABC friends and colleagues blogging at the site: Robert Holland, Ayelet Baron, John Gerstner, Michael Rudnick, Barbara Puffer...

These are some of the smartest IABC communicators working, and normally their joining us would be of great interest to the rest of us. Perhaps the news got out while I was looking the other way, but I think I would have heard something out there.

Here's what I think has gone wrong:

• Very few of them comment on other people's blogs. Robert Holland does once in a while, but I've never seen a comment anywhere by the others.
• Incredibly few links.
• Highly polished writing: these are, for the most part, carefully crafted, entirely neutral -- and -- given how spirited I know these people to be in person -- a bit bland.
• Infrequent posts.
• No comments allowed on their blogs.
• No trackbacks allowed to them, no trackbacks offered from them
• No RSS feed, guaranteeing only the most voracious of readers will visit often.

In short, while these look "like" blogs, they are anything but. What John has put together is a nice little Web magazine on communication, in format similar to a blog.

Let's hope it becomes much more than that.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 05:28pm in Bloggers, Blogging, Communication | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

Goodbye RocketPost, Hello again, Ecto!

Neville Hobson and I were on the same wavelength, today. [Update: I see Lee radiated the thought yesterday from Australia... are we all joined at the brain?]

I've been mentally composing this post about why I am dropping the utterly abominable Anconia RocketPost as a blog-post editor. But I see Neville Hobson has beaten me to the punch. In fact, he beat me to the punch weeks ago in a post I (to my bitter regret) did not notice.

I installed the demo version of Anconia RocketPost when I saw Lee Hopkins get so excited about it. At the start, I was pretty happy with it. For one thing, it was WYSIWYG, which Ecto wasn't; for another, it just felt easier to use. I was a little disturbed that it never seemed to be able to download all my posts from the server, but I decided I could live with that since I never touch the old ones.

RocketPost also had one other problem: inexplicably, it would start a cycle to install Microsoft Office Premium, whatever that is (I have Microsoft Office Pro). Clicking "cancel" let me move on, but it was disturbing.

What possessed me to buy the damned thing when the trial expired, I'll never know. Cheap, for one thing (Neville says he paid $99, but my CC receipt says $29). I liked it, for another, except for the quibbles I've mentioned.

So I downloaded the "paid for" version, and my life went to hell. Crashes, lock-ups, faulty screen painting, utterly inexplicable error messages. More and more as the days passed. Not one -- not one -- of my pleas to customer support has ever been acknowledged, much less answered.

Finally, in frustration, I decided to uninstall the whole thing and reinstall. It seemed to uninstall. But, when I reinstall, I'm told it must uninstall every old version and then install -- and then it tries to do this, and collapses in a heap of exhaustion.

Now, I've been around computers since 1980, so I know how to really uninstall -- delete every trace of registry keys, etc. But where Anconia RocketPost is hiding theirs will forever be a mystery to me, because the damned thing simply will not install again.

If you are tempted to try Anconia RocketPost, do yourself a favor. Go get a beer, instead. Because you'll need a case of beer if you install it.

[Clarification: No, Lee, this will not imperil  your FOACADRC.]

Technorati Tags: Anconia, RocketPost, Ecto

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:27pm in Blogging, Social Tools, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (6)

Common Sense Blogging Thoughts from NewComm Forum

Shel Holtz has written a great summary of Debbie Weil's Corporate Blogging Case Studies at the New Communication Forum (wish I was there soaking it all up).

It's all good, but one line I like came from Paul Rosenfeld, general manager of Intuit Quickbooks online notes:

[We have] posts to the blog from the employee who keeps the server up and running talk about server problems. Makes us human, imperfect, which people understand and appreciate (vs. companies that behave as though they're infallible). [Emphasis mine]

That's what I wanted to say today. Flemming Wisler and I were giving a presentation on social media, and while I believe I managed to make the same point, it sure wasn't as pithy as Rosenfeld's. But from now on, that's what I will say.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:52pm in Blogging, Communication, Management | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0)

Social media & PR education

I've signed on again to be a contributor to the Marcom blog, the blog of Robert French, his PR students at Auburn University and a handful of lucky contributors. It's a terrific initiative that must be getting Robert some serious credit at the Bank of Karma.

Earlier this week, Robert threw out a few questions to the contributor team, asking us to consider them. Like many pretty good questions, they are simple to ask, harder to answer. Like trying to hold down a drop of mercury.

Here's my take. I hope readers -- professional communicators or no -- will comment with their angle.

(a) Do you believe college PR students reading and blogging about PR practices is a viable and valuable endeavor?

Two parts to this question: 1) reading about PR practices and 2) blogging about them.

On the first part: I'd call it required. Not only for students, but for every communicator. And not only blogs -- podcasts, books, seminars, conferences. Can anyone ever know enough about his or her profession or craft?

Blogs are a valuable new source of new thinking. I used to have to go to conferences, at great expense, to hear what my international colleagues were thinking. Now, many of them blog. My advice to every communicator: take advantage of that.

The second part of the question: do students need to blog about PR practices? It's not essential, but how can it hurt?

New PR practitioners need to master, and I mean master, many skills to succeed. Skillful writing. Succinct, moving storytelling. Intelligent pitching.  Having a "nose for news".

Those skills are not widely doled out,  I am sorry to say, judging from the pitches I get. Running a blog demands them all.  Running a blog can only make you better.

(b) What are the key concepts/lessons that should be included in such an exercise?

By following the leading PR/communication blogs, all communicators are exposed to fairly interesting debate about the future of the communication profession or, more correctly, how technology, media consumption habits, politics, shop-floor attitudes, and street attitudes will affect the future of our profession.

Now, some of the ideas flying around -- "the press release is dead" -- seem silly to me. But it's an idea floated by some serious people, and blogs are where it's being discussed.

And, best practices in corporate blogging are, surprise, talked about most on blogs.

(c) How might a future employer react to a student's PR blogging efforts?

In 2006? Positively for the lucky few. Indifferently for the rest. In 2008?  "You don't have a blog? You got nothing to say, or what? We'll get back to you, don't call us."

(d) What tactics by the students will best exhibit PR knowledge through their blogging efforts?

It loops back to (a).  No one will fault students for not yet being masters of PR. But now's a good time to demonstrate mastery of the underlying skills. Tell me a good story, a relevant story. And tell it well.

That's the take from Copenhagen.

Technorati Tags: PRedu, Auburn University, marcomblog, marcom blog

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:46am in Blogging, Business, Career management, Communication, Communication Skills, MarComBlog | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

Model Corporate Blog

Via friend Shel Holtz (apparently, Holtz got a little Kryptonite on his recent vacation; at any rate, he's finding the gems):

Niall Kennedy has seen enough of both to cobble together a demo blog to display the way a business can launch an effective blog dedicated to a product. He selected a real company and product—iRobot’s Scooba—and has developed an impressive blog to show what the company could do and to serve as a model for others considering a blog as part of a marketing effort. (Interestingly, this concept integrates quite well into a larger marketing strategy, contrary to Shel Israel’s contention that blogs don’t fit into an integrated marketing strategy.)

The demo blog is good... and it's a good idea to have one. This goes right into the toolkit. Thanks Shel and Niall.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:57pm in Blogging, Communication, Management | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

Want to get the most out of Technorati? Rubel cleans house.

Say what you will about Technorati -- it still thinks Desirable Roasted Coffee is not a "PR" or "public relations" or "Copenhagen" blog despite my repeated admonitions it's all three and more --  it's a pretty good tool for finding stuff in the blogosphere.

In Ten Technorati Hacks, Steve Rubel has codified pretty much what every blogger, journalist, PR practitioner and general news-head should know about using Technorati. I'd sussed most of this out, to some degree, but it's nice to see it all in handy-dandy format.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:43pm in Blogging, Taxonomy of Cyberspace | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Is this Corporate Cluelessness Week? Ask Amy Gahran and Tosh Bilowski

[Update: I published without proofreading, which is always a mistake. The version you see below is an edited version of the original. The message is the same.]

Tipped off by John Wagner, I pointed the feed reader at Amy Gahran's Contentious at my first break today... Now, I'm not for a moment going to say Panasonic holds a candle to Bacon's for sheer bloody-mindedness, but it's close.

Amy has been gently, but firmly urging Panasonic to come clean about its Tosh Bilowski character blog.  Like most of us, Amy believes the character blog, in theory, can be a good thing. But,  like the rest of us, she's seen no or, at best, few, examples of character blogs that work.

And Tosh Bilowski isn't one of them. For me, it's mainly because Tosh isn't an "obvious" character (such as Captain Morgan); instead, he's being passed off as a real person (and a boring one, at that).

But what's teeth-jarringly clueless? The snooty and short-sighted responses Gahran gets from Tosh Bilowski's "handler", Jan Crittenden Livingston.

Amy noted on her own blog -- that is, in her own space, not Panasonic's -- that "Tosh" apparently wasn't accepting comments she'd posted to the blog. She pointed out that it is Panasonic's right not to publish comments, but wondered if Panasonic was "getting" the concept of conversation.

In response, Jan Crittenden Livingston shows she doesn't get it .. she writes Gahran:

Hi Amy,

The reason we are not posting your commentary is because we do not have to.... We are hoping that it can turn into a nice site where people can come and learn about all things Hi Def. We do not have to run it like any Blog or Website that you have seen before, it will be run the way we choose to run it...

Bad enough? Livingston uses the Tosh Bilowski GMail addy to sign the thing. Tacky or what?

Some people -- me, for example -- would have joyfully skewered Panasonic. Amy patiently and wonderfully turns the episode into a set of guidelines for companies contemplating character blogging.

Really fine stuff, Amy!

Technorati tags:
Panasonic
Tosh Bilowski
Jan Crittenden Livingston
Character Blogs
Amy Gahran

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:01pm in Bizarre & Amusing, Blogging, Communication, Corporate Communication, Is Tedious in the House?, Marketing, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

Feedburner Launches PingShot

FeedBurner, the RSS-feed manager used by many blogs, including this one, has added a pinging service: PingShot. That's a nice feature, because now I don't have to trot over to Ping-o-Matic to ping everyone.

FeedBurner seems to be doing little to promote the new service, though. So it's a good thing Josh Hallett at hyku spotted it and let the rest of the world know.

By the way... are you subscribed to Desirable Roasted Coffee? If not, here's my FeedBurner link.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:32am in Blog Management, Blogging, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

Desirable Roasted Coffee is not Tripe...

On Monday afternoon the first in a series of three debates hosted by the European Parliament on the implications of the information society highlighted a number of issues in the use of so-called weblogs. Major concerns were the accountability of "bloggers" and the protection of privacy - or rather the lack of both.

I enjoy living in Europe, my home for over 20 years. Since I get back to the American South fairly often, I'm able to feed my desires for the best of that region, without being overly irritated by the things that prompted me to leave.

If I could ever be prompted to leave Europe, it would probably from a fit of pique sparked by the distrust European officialdom has always shown innovations in media.

Example: 15 years ago, it was illegal to have a satellite dish in Denmark. Why? People might watch who knows what all! And while that "what all" might be as innocent as a Turkish soap opera, it wouldn't be Danish.

Example: 7 years ago, I was on an IFPMA panel discussing the intersection of health care and the Internet. I was seated next to a  functionary of the Belgian health ministry, who sputtered so vehemently that all online discussion of pharmaceuticals and treatments should be illegal, even jailable, that my notes today are even wet with his spittle.

I naively thought we were past that.

But now the European Parliament is holding hearings about blogging. And... they are getting pretty poor advice from the usual suspects: journalists frightened to death, who are willing to drag in any red herring rotting behind the fishmongers.

Here's a quote from the "debate".

"As Karlin Lillington, a technology journalist of the Irish Times pointed out, "journalists face libel laws, whereas some bloggers behave as if they're in the Wild West. Bloggers will state things without saying where they got them from. And increasingly, blogs are used to promote products without making this clear"."

This is fairly easy to parse. Wild West (or cowboy, or John Wayne) is a code-phrase for the US. Americans roar with laughter when I tell them this, but that's just how it is. So what Lillington is really saying is "[European] journalists face libel laws, whereas some [European] bloggers behave as if they're in [the United States]".

Well, that's bullshit. Libel laws apply to everyone. To the extent that those laws  and court precedents differentiate between two classes, it's journalists, not "private" citizens who get the better break.

And bloggers are suspect because they promote products? Well, Desirable Roasted Coffee doesn't and doesn't intend to. But what if I did? What business is it of the European Parliament or the Irish Times? Not much.

We bloggers had at least one ally:

Thomas Burg, of BlogTalk.net, saw things very differently, saying "weblogs are not about content but about sharing, learning and connecting with other people". Blogs should thus be seen as free conversations between people who do not need to adhere to specific rules, rather than as news postings on the Internet.

But he was quickly shot out of the saddle (obligatory cowboy metaphor) by Aidan White, General Secretary (note to Aidan: Socialism is dead... get a new title) of the International Federation of Journalists:

"a democratic society sets certain norms and standards which should not be thrown out of the window. He deplored the lack of a global legal framework to combat child pornography and libellous or hateful weblogs on the Internet."

Note, students of rhetoric, how deftly Aidan White connects your unregulated blog to abhorrent crime, libel, hate, the discarding of democratic norms. You'd look positively anti-social... even criminal... if you object now to having some "norms" and "regulations" put on your blog.

And Karlin Lillington is also quick to question your values, your morals, your stand-upness for the law if you happen to be a citizen journalist:

"As regards privacy, Lillington acknowledged that weblogs after last December's tsunami were a useful source of information and that pictures taken by passers-by after the bomb attacks on the London underground were posted on the Internet quicker than by any established news organisation, but she also stressed that these did somehow damage privacy. However, she added, "these are not new crimes, there are just new tools to commit them"."

Well, Karlin Lillington, that makes it clear. Now I know exactly the difference between a paid Irish Times journalist and a blogger who both witness....  no, hang on... I'll get it right in a minute! Bear with me...

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:55pm in Bloggers, Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Civil Liberty, Communication, Expatriate Life, Journalism, Politics | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Blogging Katrina

Most Southerners share an affinity for New Orleans: Depending on your point-of-view and your religious bent, she's either a deliciously wicked sister-in-law or the wicked aunt who should have been put in rehab ages ago.

So I watched CNN and the Beeb much of today, and kept checking in on the Times-Picayune website, esp their bunker blog. What I couldn't find were many on-the-spot bloggers (no surprise there; I sure has hell wouldn't have been blogging).

This site lists some who are.

Update: the Wikipedia article.

Update: A map

Update: A blog from the front lines.

Update: IABC's leadership gets out safely.

Update:  Tom Keefe reports communicator looking to go back in to help with crisis comms.

Update: a Slidell Blog.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:27pm in Blogging, Current Affairs, History, South | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

Jeff Jarvis Hears From Dell, Gives Up

Jeff Jarvis heard from Dell, yesterday, and despairs of ever teaching Dell anything.

I'm about to advise a friend on buying a laptop... How can I in good conscience recommend Dell?

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:00pm in Advertising, Blogging, Marketing, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

PRblogs.org: Free Blogs for Practitioners, Educators, and Students

Robert French, who teaches PR at Auburn University in Alabama, USA,  has enough ideas for two people. His latest is PRblogs.org, a free ..  I love that word  .. free .. blog hosting setup for PR students, educators and practitioners.

How inspired is that?

After we spoke earlier today, Robert sent me some background on the idea.

"It is a free blog hosting service aimed at PR practitioners, educators and students.  Free blogs.  Non-profit.  Ad free.  Very niche. 

"This project now allows anyone to sign up with ease.  Just fill in three simple boxes and click one button. Automatic blog.  It uses WordPress Multiuser 1.6 (version 1.6-ALPHA-2).  That is, by the way, the same thing recently launched at WordPress.com

"I am very grateful to James Farmer of Melbourne, Australia. James, through BlogSavvy.net, is our partner in this  project.  James is an innovative advocate for CMS in education.  Please visit his site and blog at:  http://blogsavvy.net  and http://edublogs.org"

I love the idea, and I hope it blossoms and booms (note to IABC/ PRSA/ AAF members: take notes; your new hires are going to know all about social media, and they are going to eat old  media, cold media.. and old agencies for  lunch. It'll take awhile -- You haven't hit the iceberg, yet.)

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:03pm in Advertising, Blogging, Communication, Education, IABC, Marketing, Online Media, PRSA, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (1)

The Ripple-Effect of Reputation: Why Dell A/S Denmark Lost A Sale (And Probably Doesn't Even Know)

I'm not a tech fetishist. Now, I hear it's very in not to be a technology fetishist, but I assure you that I am not that calculating (or trendy).

It's simply that most acts that start tech fetishists trembling with delight fill me with dread. Not "root-canal" dread, but "standing in line at the property-tax office" dread.

That's right, I can think of few things more tedious than buying a new laptop.

So a company like Dell should have an inside track to me. I can put together my "own" system with a few clicks on line. Or call them and they'll do it. Coach me, even.

And Dell Denmark loses no opportunity to let me know this.  Dell A/S Denmark sends me a personalized ("Kære Hr. Coffee", which always makes me smile) snail-mail every month with great offers for SOHO consultants like me (one just came through the slot). Moreover, they send our household a glossy little catalogue every month and manage to slip a brochure or two into the biz section of our newspaper a couple of times a month.

In short, they should have me by the short-and-curlies: I don't have to waste time in computer stores dealing with people who were in Pampers when I had my first email address (big plus), I save time (small plus), and, since I buy as a business, get a pretty good deal.

So why did I eschew Dell Denmark? And buy my rig elsewhere? Two words: Jeff Jarvis.

But I only realized this later. At no point did I say "Well, Jeff Jarvis is having trouble with Dell, so I'd better avoid them." But throughout the summer, the blogosphere that I read murmured with "Dell... problems... falling down on customer service... " Nothing you could put your finger on, except for Jarvis' posts; it was just the word on the street, the hum of the market.

Dell Denmark approached me a half-dozen times over the summer, at least. At minor expense, to be sure, but it adds up. But the hum started by a guy 4000 miles away, whom I don't even know, who had a bad experience with a Dell subsidiary I'll never have to deal with, was enough to wave me off. The hum got into my subconscious. And Dell Denmark could do nothing to get back into the front of my brain.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:59am in Advertising, Blogging, Marketing, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (4)

IABC Blogs Conference

Warren Bickford, IABC's incoming Chairman, "gets it".

When he took over the IABC Chairman's Blog a couple of months ago, he immediately renamed it the IABC Café. And let it be known that he was just the barista at this "gathering place for professional communicators".

Since then, a stream of posts about communication and IABC: mostly thoughtful, some quirky, some both.

I'd been wondering how he would handle the upcoming IABC conference. Conference is when incoming chairmen swell up a little. Get formal. Get serious. (Actually, it's worse for incoming vice-chairmen. They really swell-up. They shouldn't; and I refer them to Cactus Jack for insight).

Warren's approach is to gather a blogging team to cover the conference on his behalf. A Press Corps.

And it should be interesting: his team ranges from Blogging-4-Benjamins pseudo-blogger Debbie "it's nifty!" Weil (that Weil is leading a panel discussion on blogging at the conference is frightening) to PR-blogger A-lister Jeremy Pepper. If he's  letting them post whatever they write, it should be a highly entertaining show.

Update: When I screw up here on the blog, I like to do so spectacularly, in a truly big way. Anything else would be the easy way which, as Dick Nixon always liked to point out, is seldom the right way.

So when I mentioned Debbie Weil in my post, I really screwed up. I did so having always ignorantly and wrongly thought she blogged here. In fact, she blogs here, and does so with great aplomb. My deepest apologies to Weil.

And now that I have fully emptied my Karma account for the day, I think I'll go mix a G&T.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:12am in Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, IABC | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4) | TrackBack (0)

More Reboot 7.0 Notes: Loïc Le Meur on the European Blogosphere

I know, I know, Reboot 7.0 has been over for three days, and few notes from me.

On Day 2, Loïc Le Meur, the European guy for SixApart (makers of my fine blogging platform), gave us a run-through on the state of the European Blogosphere.

Or, rather, tried to. Loïc is one of these super-enthused speakers who, in the flurry of thinking faster than he can speak, tends to start down one fascinating trail, only to abrubtly choose another. Five trails followed to completion would be great content; 10 trails started and abandoned is like going to a tapas bar and not being allowed to eat.

Further, he was using his wiki as both the presentation to us and speaker notes for himself, which always means a lot of cursors flying around the screen, three-four pages in quick clicking succession, only to have the wrong page show up. Followed by furious back-clicking and re-clicking. I don't know about the rest of the room, but by the end, I was a twitching bundle of nerve.

But... he had some cool notes to impart.

The best way to get at them is to visit his European Blogosphere Wiki, where you can, of course, make corrections and additions.

A few notes:

• Note the differences in the number of bloggers in different countries: 3 million in France, 600,000 in the Netherlands, and 5,000 in Denmark. He may be right (after all, he sells blog platforms), but the numbers seem hinky to me. Accepting his arguments about France, for now, it's still hard to imagine there are 120 times more bloggers in the Netherlands (or 120 times fewer in Denmark): the countries are somewhat similar in population, cultural attributes, and adaptation of technology.
• He argues France is heavy in bloggers largely because of French culture and tradition of debate. Well, I don't know if you've been in an Irish pub lately, but if tradition of debate were a criterion, Ireland should be thick with bloggers. Mystery to me.

Le Meur gave us several case studies. The one that caught my eye was that of La Fraise, the brainchild of Patrice Cassard.

Cassard likes tee-shirts. Likes odd tee-shirts. He started showing his best ones on his site... and people started asking where they could buy them. A problem, since they were custom-made.

Now, most people would rapidly come up with the idea of starting an online tee-shirt store. But Cassard goes further: he lets readers come up with designs, and lets readers vote on the ones they like best. Cassard creates the winners in limited, and pricy, editions (and a few lucky voters get theirs for free).

And who generates the buzz? The lucky tee-shirt wearers who now have begun sending Cassard photos of them in their shirts.

How quirky is that?

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 03:57pm in Bloggers, Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, Blogging for the Sheer Hell of It, Citizen Journalism, Reboot 7.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

B.L. Ochman Argues Full Posts in RSS Feeds Don't Make Sense; I Beg to Differ

While my back was turned at Reboot, B. L. Ochman, bless her heart, came up with five reasons she doesn't like full posts in RSS feeds.

She titles the post "Why Full Posts in RSS Feeders (sic) Don't Make Sense"

Most of you, if you are professional communicators (and, if you are not, this is how we think), will be asking "Whoa... makes sense for whom? Who's reading the communication? What's their take?"

If you're a reader, and you think B. L. is arguing your case when she prompts for truncated feeds... think again. She's thinking entirely after her own interests. Not your  interests, dear reader:.

1. She notes you can't add comments to a post on a feed reader; only if you visit the site.

Exactly... but the reader won't comment unless he (and I'm being generic here) reads the full post. So.. by giving a truncated post, you're taking your chances. You'd better hope you are compelling.

I suppose if you were a bestselling writer who had the gift of inserting a little "gem" in the lower half of your posts, you would be entitled to ask for click-through. But.... not here.
Takeaway: Don't make your audience work for your content!

2. Feed-aggregators don't allow graphics or design elements to show up.

That could be a problem for bloggers whose photographs or art are integral to the blog. And I would love to hear from them. But, B.L. your graphics are a) icons of the reports you want to sell, and b) (if I remember) some photos of some hawks or something that live on your building. You might want to show those things (and I am all for it) but you text has to argue for me to click through for that.
Takeaway: Substance, not style

3. It's ridiculous to write long posts into RSS, which is meant to speed up reading. And bloggers should write less.

Aggregation means "bringing together" not "giving you a USA Today 50-State News Bite".
Takeaway: USA Today is popular. The Economist is influential. One publishes sweet little snippets. The other doesn't.

4. Hey, I need to make a living. So I'm keeping my content free with advertising.

Not if I have to click through to see your content or, in other words, spend time getting at it. Does my time have no value?

Readers and listeners always pay a price for content. Ask for a hour of radio or TV, and you will get it, if you pay the price of watching commercials or (here in Europe) paying a license fee. Ask for the content in a newspaper and you will pay $1 for 120 pages of newpaper, of which perhaps 3 or 4 full pages actually interest you. About 90 pages will be advertising.

And you are saying "That's me, too". No offense, but it's a stretch. It's a stretch for A-list bloggers. I've listened and talked to a number of them this weekend and... I don't see a market for AdSense and "buy my updated report" sites.

Takeaway: MSM publishing is already about razor-close margins. If you want to jump in that space, be my guest. Just don't bitch about MSM anymore.

5. The blogs with the best content are the ones we'll still be reading years from now.

That's right!.
Takeaway: Even if your rhetoric and logic classes are at 8AM, don't sleep in.

I'm happy to consider short feeds when I hear one argument against for them that makes rational, economic sense. So far, I've not heard anything close to one.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 03:29am in Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, Economics | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (6) | TrackBack (5)

Reboot: We Don't Have the Tools is OUT as an Excuse

Yesterday and today were given over to the Reboot, a European meet-up of the mash-up of society and communication and technology (with a fairly strong tilt to technology). Two days of bang bang bang sessions punctuated networking, getting acquainted and getting to grips (sort of) with where micromedia is leading us.

I didn't blog directly, but many others did (not all results will be about the conference but pick around). I do better waiting for the serendipity to happen.

I'll post highlights as I get my head around them. Here's the first in a series:

We don't have the tools is OUT as an excuse

Dina Mehta's presentation used as its case example the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog Dina helped organize. Incredible. The team used free (or nearly so) collaborative tools (Skype, IM, IRC) to put together a blog that attracted 1 million visits in the first week. And as the contributions and comments to the blog began (quickly) to become unwieldy, they created sub-blogs, and then a wiki to categorize the information.

The team was flat, without titles, with immense passion and, apparently little recourse to sleep. What's key here is that drive and brains and a willingness to collaborate, not expensive tools and committees, created this site.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 11:05pm in Bloggers, Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, Blogging for the Sheer Hell of It, Citizen Journalism, Communication, Copenhagen, Reboot 7.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (2)

Cover Your Ass: Who Owns Blog Comments?

Through Amy Gahran's OPML file, I ran across this gem by Charles M. Smith, an attorney and board member of Pheedo (and, no, I am not in any way endorsing Pheedo)..

"Who owns blog comments?

"The question of who owns comments has recently come up several times in conversation. This is a fairly straight-forward copyright issue.... Under copyright law, the blog comment author is the owner of the comment and his/her copyrights are triggered at the moment the comment is added to the blog."

Then, and you have to love Smith's understatement:

"The consequences of this simple analysis could be painful for blog operators."

"Why on Earth", I hear you all asking... Well, Smith lays it out (I've added snide emphasis):

"First, the author of a blog comment could request that his/her comment be removed from a blog. While it is an easy process to remove a comment, the harm to a blog could be substantial. Especially if the comment removed is central to the community discussion/dialogue around a given topic. This could severely impact the value of a blog and reduce its following/readership.

"Second, many blog operators make money by running contextual display ads on the same page as comments. The author of a comment could claim that a portion of the blog’s advertising dollars belongs to him because his comment is helping to generate the ad revenue.

"Third, in the course of performing maintenance on a blog or when a blog is moved to a new server - there is likely an additional copy of blog comments made in the transition. While this can be viewed as a trivial matter, it could technically constitute a copyright violation. This issue becomes the more problematic for companies with deep pockets. Keep in mind that authors may seek compensation from those who make unauthorized copies or reproductions of their works."

Not only do I find this instructive, I find it highly amusing. Now the Blogging for Benjamins crowd needs to worry about whether their revenue will be sucked off by some litigious commenter.

Unfortunately, (and isn't always just so?) Smith gives an out to the B4B folks by posting a Terms of Service clause for bloggers. And it's a piece of work. I can see all sorts of advantages, and I am considering its merits. Is it time for bloggers to Cover Your Ass?

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 11:59am in Blog Management, Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, Law, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

Blogger and Blogspot Do Not Exist for me Anymore

Blogspam -- fake blogs -- at Blogger and Blogspot has grown so rampant that one is reminded of kudzu.

From now on, Desirable Roasted Coffee will not link to blogs on free platforms.

Update: My ire was stoked when, after doing a Technorati search on a serious topic, I was directed to 3 blogs, all on Blogger, and all spam. As Lee and Stephen point out, refusing to link to Blogger blogs might be an overly-draconian measure. My point, of course, is that Blogger is becoming to blogs what Hotmail became years ago to email: the refuge of spammers.

Naturally, I am not going to delink the friends and colleagues who have Blogger blogs, but I am going to counsel them to move out of the slums. And, of course, I will link to Blogger blogs when there's reason to do so. But I will be seeing far fewer Blogger blogs, as I see no reason not to ignore them in search results

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:09am in Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, In Defense of Elitism | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (8) | TrackBack (3)

How to Use Comments to Win Friends and Influence People (in 10 Easy Lessons)

Note: I was going to link to sterling examples of both camps, but decided it would be impolitic and tacky.

I find it distressing, but instructive, to realize my blogging peer group -- the people who write about professional communication and technology -- can be divided into two groups:

Blogging-for-Benjamins & Blogging-for-the-Sheer Hell of It

The Blogging-for-Benjamins crowd is all about site traffic. These are the people who are stingy about full RSS feeds because they hope you'll click-through (and then click on the ads on their site). These are the folks who obsess about how Technorati views them (Lord knows I do).

Some of these people write great content... but that's incidental to eyeballs (and ad-clickthroughs) and getting on the "A-List" (almost better: getting an A-lister to link to them). Some were taken in by the recent Blogebrity joke.

Before blogging brought them public, these people were high-school hall monitors, active in college student government, and could always be counted on to collect the boss' bag from the baggage carousel ("No, let me get that, R.J.").

The Blogging for the Sheer Hell of It Group might also worry about site traffic and blego, but you'd never know it. They just crank out good content about our profession, eschew ads and truncated feeds, and go on their merry way. They might be deeply troubled by their Technorati standing, Lord knows I am, but you aren't going to hear about it.

They are also about community. Conversation. Cluetrain. Let's talk!

A roundabout approach to the troubling, though amusing, posts at James Farmer's Blogsavvy. James is Blogging for the Sheer Hell of It guy, which is ironic since he writes  entirely for the Blogging for Benjamins crowd. His posts "Arguments for Getting Rid of Comments" and "Arguments for Keeping Comments" will surely become well-thumbed pages in the Blogging for Benjamins playbook.

Let's take a peek at why James says you should not have comments on your blog:

Argument number 1: The more comments you have the less links you’ll get - Comments lose you ranking

I’m quite serious about this. Do you really think that Dave Winer would get so many links if he allowed comments of his site? To take this down to a smaller (and perhaps more important) level, say there’s a writer who you’re really into who posts some really interesting material but doesn’t allow comments, if you want to respond then you’ve gotta do it on your blog, which gives you more links, a wider audience and…

Well, no, actually, I think Dave Winer wouldn't get so many links if he were not Dave Winer. And, to take this down to a more important level, I sometimes comment on someone's blog, sometimes post about their blog, sometimes do both. Comment facility rarely plays a role (indeed, I'm less likely to read a blog, in the first place, that does not allow comments).

Argument number 3: You’ll look the opposite of a loser - pseudo a-listing yourself

Again, I’m quite serious here. The majority of blogs that don’t allow comments are ‘A’ listers. If you don’t allow comments you are genuinely giving out the impression that you have such a significant audience / group of people wanting to interact with you that you just don’t have the time for them or the stress that all that fame brings along. Plus (and this is a pretty big plus) you won’t have that big ol’ list of (0 comments) one the majority of your posts… not a good look!

Let's parse Farmer: a) set up a blog, a website whose only purpose is to allow you to converse with others; b) turn off the conversation function; c) presto, you appear to be so popular that you can no longer take time to converse. What am I missing here?

The idea, apparently, is that it's sufficient to appear an A-lister. But who is so easily fooled? Anyone who's moved to Washington, DC (or any other capital), single, and is in need of a social life (and self-validation), will inevitably learn of the "send your card to the embassies" trick. That is, send a polite note praising the policies of an obscure country and the playful antics of its leaders to the local embassy. About a week later, you will begin receiving invitations to its receptions. Now send the same note to 100 other embassies. You'll get about 500 invitations a year to embassy receptions. You still won't be a Washington A-lister.

Let's take a look at why Farmer says we should allow comments:

Argument number 3: I’m feeling a little emotional - the value of “Thanx :o)”

How do you feel when you get an SMS? Probably pretty subliminaly excited and contented (someone is connected with me, is taking the time to communicate with me) and almost certainly not well informed (well over 50% of SMS contain no ‘valuable’ information whatsoever). That’s because the major value SMS has given us is allowing us to send emotional messages to each other really really simply with minimum hassle (quite different to the challenges of a phone call). Comments do this to. That someone has taken time out to read what you’ve written and respond to it is an incredible emotional buzz and something that, without comments, you’ll be missing out on.

I don't know about the rest of you, but most SMS's I get a) give me no frisson whatsoever and b) generally contain valuable, even vital, information such as "I hope you did not forget my mother is coming for dinner; you should start the grill now if you did." I am, generally, also up to the challenge of a phone call, having mastered the telephone during the Johnson Administration.

Another thing. I invite comments, and am pleased that commenters were moved or irritated enough to take the time to comment. But I've never gotten an incredible emotional buzz. Clearly, my commenters lack EQ and imagination.

Argument number 5: Validity and growth - what is it that you want?

I argued yesterday that there there was nothing more likely to turn a potential reader into just another surfer than a plethora of (0 comments) tags attached to your posts. However, conversely there’s nothing that say interest / authority like a ton of (15 comments) tags. Add to that the fact that you’re missing out on the chance to develop on your posts with your comments and in doing so develop your own understanding of the area… and why on earth would you want to turn off comments on your posts?

Sign me on for validity, every time.

Frankly, I wish the Blogging for Benjamins crowd would just go away. But, failing that, I hope they continue to amuse me.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:40am in Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, Blogging for the Sheer Hell of It, Is Tedious in the House? | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4) | TrackBack (0)

"Blogger" Becomes a Job Title

Another step from "Do you know what a blog is?" to "Where do you blog?"

The Wall Street Journal writes about corporate bloggers, those bloggers whose job is to blog for the company.

Among others, the Journal talks with Christine Halvorson, whose suite of blogs at Stonyfield Farm is a corporate blogging case study: "It's wonderful to write every day", says Ms. Halvorson.

Related link: How Blogging Helped the Yoghurt Company

Link: WSJ.com - Blogging Becomes A Corporate Job; Digital 'Handshake'?.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:31am in Blogging, Communication | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

PubSub LinkRanks looking Pretty Good!

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that PubSub's LinkRank (now called LinkCounts, apparently) feature was back up but buggy. Almost immediately, PubSub's Mark Wagner and Bob Wyman were Johnny-on-the-Spot with news of fixes and requests for feedback.

Today, Mark sent me this mail. And it's true, the site is looking and working as it should from where I sit.

"We have been continuing to work on our LinkCounts pages based, in part, on your previous feedback. We have "quietly" slipped out an update of the pages.  Several things that you had mentioned have been addressed. We have started tracking Shel's blog and we have fixed the "Site Converter" so that it now properly identifies Warren's blog.  The other main change that was inspired by your comments was that we hooked the "Look Up a Site" box to our Site Converter code.  Now you can enter a URL and we will "resolve" it to our entry for said URL. Thus you no longer have to guess what we may "call" the site.

"If you have some time and would like to run through the pages we would welcome any additional feedback, suggestions, etc that you have. Please note that the "start" page has changed and can befound here:  http://www.pubsub.com/linkcounts.php"

Bob Wyman has more on LinkCounts.

I've worked with programmers for much of my career, and so understand well that it's hard to get it right the first time. What I like about these guys is that they respond to criticism and follow up when the problem is solved. That's just common business sense -- and all too uncommon these days.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 05:33am in Blog Management, Blogging, Gadgets & Toys, Taxonomy of Cyberspace | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)