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You’ll not want to miss this business blogging interview of my pal Des Walsh. I just listened to it myself, and it’s a great interview and it gives you an inside look at how businesses are using blog consultants to navigate the blogosphere.
Here’s the direct download link.
We had a chance to interview Debbie last year on the PodcastRoundtable and she’s a treasure trove of information on business blogging herself.
In an effort to piggyback on the user generated video revolution, Reuters is partnering with Yahoo to buy user generated content for use on their news sites.
Users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites. But people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment.
This seems oddly timed given the CurrentTV and Yahoo falling out. Do the two have anything at all to do with one another or is this just baseless conjecture on my part?
With great pride, I’m happy to announce that later this month, I’ll be starting a new role at Podtech as Director of Corporate Media Strategy.
Jeremiah is a great friend and PodTech is lucky to have him. I know he’ll have great time there. I can’t think of any better place for him, than at PodTech. Good luck friend.
Finally, I’ve added podcasts. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is Where are the podcasts? What can I say, life is busy (you have that problem too?).
However, here are a few podcasts I did last week:
Roy de Souza, CEO, Zebo: Zebo is a social networking site that has gained some fame because they just started in 2006 (Jan) and have already hit 4.9M (with a little help early on from AdWords buys). If you’re counting, that’s almost half of Facebook’s users. MySpace claims 112M, but experts are guessing the number could be as low as 50M.
Zebo is a site that revolves around consumerism. You list the jank you own and then you meet up (virtually) with other people who have the same jank (or even just want the same jank). Seems absolutely far fetched, but has obviously gotten off to a great start.
The potential monetization with this site is exciting. With user-gen product reviews, you really have some options. I’m watching Zebo closely.
Zebo – Interview with CEO, Roy de Souza
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Imbee – Safe Social Networking
Imbee is one of the coolest sites I’ve seen lately (and the only one I’ve allowed my kid to join). Designed with the tweenager in mind, you’re not going to get far w/o parental involvement. In fact, even though you can sign up w/o a credit card, the social features are inactive until you activate them with a cc. No, they don’t charge you, but you do have to have some type of credit on there (yep, found that one out the hard way 😉 )
Their potential partnerships with educators (already have a growing base of teachers), book sellers, education media, etc. are especially exciting to this parent. They won’t tackle video games as they want the site to be less of a ‘waste-your-brain’ locale, but more geared to learning. I was told a little something, off the record, about an upcoming partnership. Y’all will love it.
Say it aint so Apple, say it aint so… Are we really going to have to pay for music AND see adsense ads? You mean I’ll still get the ever-annoying quicktime inclusion when I download iTunes AND the almost-spyware music store suggestion AND adsense?
According to my favorite gossip rag, Apple is poised to place Google Ads on iTunes:
Apple will soon run loads of Google ads on its online properties, according to an outside source.
That’s part of Apple’s plan to break into online advertising. In a deal that should bring in several hundred million dollars off the bat, the company will run ads, most notably on its iTunes store.
To handle all this, Apple’s secretly hunting for an ad sales director. Industry stars, polish your resumés.
With Eric Schmidt joining the Apple board, 3 of their 8 board members are either on Google’s board or are advisors to the search giant. One of the Apple/Google guys, Bill Campbell, was even the former CEO of Intuit and is still on the Intuit board (see last week’s Google+Intuit announcement).
It’s official, adsense is truly everywhere now. Get ready to see a tremendous increase in ad blindness. More is not always better…
Add OneUpWeb to the list of companies trying to get in on the podcasting action. However, they are really targeting the corporate market (virtually untouched at this point). They offer voice talent, copy writing, podcast tracking (interesting), hosting, SEO, etc. for companies that want to reach podcast listeners.
Potential clients are often clueless as to how podcast marketing can help their business. We’ve all been in the position of trying to explain this to a cost-conscious client and it can be difficult at best. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a cost conscious client. Fiscal responsiblity is enviable in business, so I surely don’t want to suggest there’s anything wrong with that.
However, podcasting is so new, and podcast marketing can be passive (advertising on an existing podcast) or proactive (creating an original podcast), so there is much to explain. I want to point you to Podcast360. I first came across this virtual iPod presentaion via Steve Rubel’s blog and I was very impressed. The site is clean (nothing to distract) and works just as a real iPod (ie the click wheel is the navigation apparatus and the menu takes you back to the beginning). Of course, had the thing had a few crappy games and a sample podcast or two on the player, I’d have booked him myself. LOL
As it goes, this is the best way, I’ve seen thus far, to encourage someone to podcast. Video presentations are often a smart way to get across a difficult idea (sit 30 preschoolers around a TV and tell me any human can entrall them like that cartoon can).
And, as human communications goes, people are more willing to listen to a presentation, not aimed at them directly, than to your individually focused words. A presentation won’t put a client on the defensive as a face-to-face discussion might. And, because this video is so innovative and smart, he’s getting great buzz in the blogosphere and his clients will see how successful his own advertising campaign is thus far.
Ralston has definitely come up with a winning one here, and because of that he’s gained me (and probably hundreds) of new subscribers to his blog. Kudos to the team behind this great idea.
Participants Martin McKeay, Dan Sweet, Jeremiah Owyang, Dennis McDonald and me
Summary: HP demands workers on site –smart or stupid? Are corporate marketer’s going extinct? and exactly how many logins and IDs do we need to use the web –is there a solution?
In this episode, (one of our best ever) we’ve tackled issues on the new policy that HP has demanded on reduced Telecommuting. Is this an effective way for employees to work? or does the office 2.0 empower and enable workers to connect online and by using collaborative technologies?
With the ability for customers and prospects to connect and build networks and communities, are Corporate Marketing Departments, even relevent? If possible, what can corporate marketing departents do to stay relevent? We explore this issue from multiple sides and issues –dial in to hear.
Too many gateways mean we all end up with far too much information to keep up with. When a beta tester and geek like Ismael Ghalimi ends up getting frustrated, then you know it’s time for Identity 2.0. Rather than having to keep up with 30+ passwords/logins and having to worry about APIs and the technical specifics of multiple platforms, Identity 2.0 would streamline all of this into one gateway that shared your data with the applications you allowed.
Martin seems to think we are up to 10 years off from this. The discussion goes from why Passport didn’t work (um… it was from Microsoft) to the possibilities of a web without walls. Dennis asked if there were enterprise implications here. All in all it was a fascinating discussion of a fairly complex subject. We’ll devote a future full podcst to the topic. Check out OSCON’s Identity 2.0 online resource.
I wanted to give you a heads up that the next AD:Tech Podcast will feature Dr. Cliff Kurtzman from MyCityRocks, among other movers and shakers.
“ad:tech Connect” brings global ad:tech audiences together, keeping them connected in between local, national and international conferences; “ad:tech Connect” normally broadcasts every Thursday at 12:00 noon, EST. Broadcast coverage of the ad:tech San Francisco conference is currently in rotation on WebmasterRadio.FM. All WebmasterRadio.FM shows are available in podcast, mobilecast and archived format at www.WebmasterRadio.FM, ensuring the availability of the expert opinions of industry insiders on a consistent basis. The extensive list of featured guests for the “ad:tech Connect” Wrap Up special includes Toby Gabriner, Chief Executive Officer of [x+1; Michael Shehan, Booyah Networks Founder, President and CEO; Keith McAllister, CEO of Mochila; Jeffrey K. Hirsch, ValueClick, Inc. Senior Vice President of Business Development; Dakota Sullivan, Chief Marketing Officer of BlueLithium; Bill Urschel, ExperClick Founder; Bill Frister, Pheedo Founder & VP of Marketing; and Dr. Cliff Kurtzman, PhD, MyCityRocks Executive Director.
MyCityRocks is one of those rare Web 2.0 companies that have actually ramped up their offline promotion to such a degree that their website is less important than their offline stuff. In fact, MyCityRocks promotes on places like MySpace and the like, really touching the teen community. If you could see the pics that Cliff sent me earlier this year, those kids are having a blast and virtually every event is designed to give back to the community in which it’s held.
MyCityRocks could certainly be a social networking powerhouse as it grows, and their current expansion is seeing them perform well in this market already. Take a look at MyCityRocks’ website (www.mycityrocks.com) and listen to the podcast (probably archived here) to learn more about them. I also interviewed Cliff here.