Greg Hartnett

It would appear that Sifry and company have completed the anticipated redesign of the popular blog search engine Technorati. Though they are a competitor of our blog search engine, I must admit that Technorati is definitely the market leader in technology, quality of product, and market share. They definitely know their shit, and continue to make advances in their offering.

I like the overall layout of the new site, and am digging on the new bells and whistles. While the core functionality remains the same, there are significant upgrades to services, as well as some new features. Instead of trying to go over everything here, simply take a look at the screencast they put together.

Kudos to the entire Technorati team. I look forward to trying to catch you.

Have you heard about WordCamp yet? If you use WordPress to power your blog, you may have seen mention of it on your dashboard (what an awesome feature for those guys) - there has been ongoing discussion for the last two weeks on the WP Blog. Between the off-track posts from the WP hipsters, there seems to be some useful information.

I have decided that since I am now only a couple hours away from San Francisco, I will try to make the trip down on the 5th. I love the idea of meeting some new people and finding out about all the cool shit going on at WP. I have been a huge fan of the WP platform for awhile now, and the WP community intrigues me as well. The people behind the whole project seem particularly smart and interesting, and it will be nice to put some faces with the names that have become so familiar to me.

The only wrench in the works being my pending trip to San Jose on the 7th. The SES show starts that Monday, and I was hoping to just cruise down early that morning. We have a new booth that is going to kick ass (goodbye to the bed sheet booth), and I’d like to arrive in time to help with the assembly. So, if I can figure out what to do about the time gap, and the extra days away, I will definitely make sure to attend.

If you plan on attending WordCamp, let me know. I’d love to get together and talk shop, and/or anything else that you find interesting. Additionally, if you plan on being at SES, please make sure to stop by the BOTW booth - we’ll have a cool new booth, lots of t-shirts, and discounts on all products and services. Hope to see you.

The big news throughout the social networking crowd is the launch of what some are dubbing “AOL’s Digg-killer”. While I doubt that the launch of the new Netscape will spell the demise of Digg, it is indeed an impressive entry to the social arena.

I signed up for an account and have spent a couple of hours giving it a test run this afternoon. Here are 10 impressions that I have picked up from a cursory run. In an effort to show both sides, I have chosen 5 good things, and 5 things that need further work.

The Good:

1. Lots of categories. While Digg appeals to the geek crowd, Netscape promises more diversity of content with categories including Sex, Celebrities, Money, Sports, Videos, Technology, and many more.
2. Personalization. When you are signed in, the page displays the local information based upon the zip code you provide during the sign up process. Local information includes weather, and local news.
   
3. Pictures with Stories. It’s nice to see the picture to the right of each story that makes it to the front page. Used properly, a picture is worth a thousand words.
4. Usabiity. I like the simplistic colors, the navigation, and the use of the technology. Everything comes together nicely for a good overall experience. The “Related Stories” and Tag Cloud are both nice touches.
5. Anchors. Netscape’s version of an editor, the anchor serves to keep things moving along nicely, moving stories to the front page, helping with the conversation, and fostering the community. With Anchor Chat (soming soon) users will be able to “Chat live 24/7 with Netscape anchors on the day’s top stories!”

The Bad:

1. Owned by AOL. Even though the brass brought in 2.0 poster boy Jason Calacanis to run the show, the campy smell of AOL is hard to shake, and it permeates through here as well. Case in point - the cheesy avatars.
2. Limited Commenting. Current commenting does not allow for insertion of any HTML. Additionally, you can’t reply to other’s comments, making a coherent string of commenting nearly impossible.
3. Exiting to Story. It’s a bit cumbersome to get to the site that is being discussed. There is no access from the main page - you must navigate to the story’s individual page on Netscape, and then follow one of two little links. The more prominent option leads to a horrendous framed page. They definitely need to lose this.
4. Who’s Voting? There is no way to determine who is voting for any given story. you can see what stories a user has voted on by looking at the profile, but there is no way to see all the people who voted for a particular story.
5. Us and Them. Historically, most social networking sites tend to be very clique-ey, and Netscape’s offering doesn’t promise to break the mold. Already the flame wars begin, with a divisive attitude taking hold. Hopefully they will succedd here, while so many others have failed.

See what others are saying about the New Netscape:

Jeff Beckham The New Netscape - The New Journalism?
Steve Rubel First Look: Netscape’s Hybrid Journalism Site
Silicon Valley Sleuth AOL Takes a Shot at Social News
Search Engine Journal Netscape Relaunched as AOL Digg
Mashable Netscape’s Digg Clone - Good, but Needs More Ads

We have been pretty quiet on the publicity front, focusing our collective efforts on development and strategic business opportunities. While it is good to get the word out, it is equally important to make sure that things are running smoothly, and work on things to position ourselves for future growth.

However, there have been a couple of media appearances over the last month. This past Friday evening, I had an interview on eMarketing Talk Show with Cindy, Todd, and Brooke. We spoke about blogging, the current state of the blogosphere, marketing, and what the future holds in store. I had a good time, but felt that I babbled a bit too much here and there. I got caught up in the discussion, and lost my train of thought once or twice. Blogging may be my favorite industry related topic of discussion, and in an effort to shed as much light as I can, I tend to get a little long-winded. If you have some time to kill, you can check out the interview here.

Additionally, Brian continues to shine on television, with a guest spot on ABC. A couple of weeks ago, Brian was invited in as a guest for the Sunday morning news program. The spot was on Memorial Day travel, and once again Brian was able to talk about some good holiday destinations. I think he appeared more comfortable than his previous appearance, and I would imagine that he will be even more polished in the months to come. He did Hotel Hotline proud. Check out the video at YouTube.

My wife, Lily, has wanted to get back to work for awhile. As a mother of two young children, she has become adept at multitasking, crisis management, negotiating, time management, budgeting, planning, and the thousand other tasks that come with successfully running a family of four.

Fortunately, we are in a position that the decision is more of a lifestyle choice than a financial necessity (though the money definitely helps). As such, she has the leisure to apply her skill set to something that she enjoys doing. Additionally, she wants to be able to do something that provides her with the flexibility that she’d like. And, of course, she’d like to be the boss.

After putting our heads together, and with the advice of some friends (thanks Roger), she has decided to start her own online venture. We are in the process of getting the legal paperwork together (LLC stuff, EIN, bank account), and smoothing out the rough edges. Next up, some domain name purchases, site(s) set-up, and initial business model launch. Pretty exciting for her. While I look forward to helping her find her way around internet marketing, I anticipate that I will learn a thing or two from her as well.

I’m sure that you’ll see links here in the future, provided that her content doesn’t suck

Best of luck Lil, though I am sure you will do splendidly.

For inspiration see You, Inc.

This morning, Brian was interviewed at ABC studios in NYC. With the recent rise in gas prices, the travel industry has taken some hits, and as a principal of Hotel Hotline, who better to opine on the subject?

I tagged along for moral support, and to step into the spot should he have gotten hit by a truck or an uncontrollable case of stagefright. Luckily, neither transpired, and I was more or less a groupie

The whole thing was really a blast. It was my first time in a national news room, and the entire experience was a bit overwhelming. I was ready to do my Snoop Dogg imitation in the green room with some gin and a blunt, but they stuck us in a conference room until show time.

I sat in the main news room while Brian was on, and tried to get as many pictures as I could. The security guy asked me to stop taking pictures, because some of the ABC brass were meeting behind me, and would not like me taking pics. Luckily, I was able to grab some pretty decent shots anyway.

I took a lot away from the event, and should I get called on for a future TV spot, I think I will be less anxious that I would have otherwise been. Kudos to Brian - and viva la Hotel Hotline!

Check out my pics here - Prince Goes Hollywood
See the interview here

I am picking up on a nice trend - still subtle, but gaining momentum.

People are finally beginning to realize that content truly is king. I know that we have all heard that catchy little phrase a couple hundred times or so. However, I think that the notion is finally beginning to sink in. Kudos to the efforts of link development moderators, search engine marketing professionals, conference speakers, and other industry influencers. Through their collective endeavors, more and more, site owners are realizing that the quick and dirty route often leads to mediocre results.

Webmasters are learning that their users crave good content. What good is the traffic you generate if the user is going to bounce when they see that you have craptastic content? Why spend all the effort and money to lure users in, only to piss them off with a lackluster offering? Instead of obsessing on how the user can help them, webmasters are looking at how they can help the user. Sweet!

So what’s behind this transformation? Did webmasters drink the kool aid to spread this message of altruism? Probably not. More likely, they have learned through positive reinforcement that the quality content is what gets links, and tends to gravitate towards the top of the SERPs. That’s not an accident. You see, the engines need your quality content as much as your users thirst for it. In an effort to provide relevant results, engines will seek out, and reward your quality content with prominent listings, and lots of visitors. Webmasters and bloggers will link to your content because it provides value to their users. Your users will return to your site because they value your content, and they may even become evangelists, telling friends and co-workers about your site.

It’s a pretty dramatic change, and it takes some introspection and experience to fully appreciate. However, once you see the true picture, the pieces really begin to fall into place. You’ll find your work more enjoyable, your marketing efforts less demanding, and your resources spent more effectively. Additionally, your site should now be higher caliber and less prone to a whammy or other algorithm tweak. Building something that will endure should help you to sleep a lot better at night.

As a web enthusiast, internet business owner, and technology evangelist, I hope that this progression gains steam.

Further Reading:

Normally, I don’t make use of my personal blog to tout the virtues of my company - we have the BOTW Blog to do that. However, today I will make an exception.

Two years ago, BOTW launched it’s first promotion - a handful of dollars off each submission. We use the promotions as a way of giving back to the members that support us. It has worked out very well, for both our users, and for BOTW. So, we have been doing the promotions on a somewhat regular basis for the last two years.

This month, in recognition of our second anniversary of promotions, we are offering a slight discount, 10% off all submissions. However, for each submission using the special promo code, you will be entered to win a new Apple 17″ MacBook Pro. That’s right - the mac daddy of the laptop world. Just use the following code to save, and enter to win: WINMAC. Using this promo code in Step 2 of the submission process will automatically deduct 10% off the submission price, and will enter you to win. The offer is good through the month of May, with the winner being drawn on Friday June 2. So head on over to BOTW, and start submitting. Good luck!

If you happened to catch my presentation at PubCon, hopefully you were able to walk away with some useful information. For those of you that didn’t attend, or were in another session, I have provided the accompanying text below. Is is a pretty long post, so I’ll end the preface here.

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So the Big Question - How can I get the most out of the blogosphere?

My short answer to you - the more you put in, the more you’ll get out. The more active you are, and the more you contribute to the Whole, you more you will flourish. You will find a direct correlation between what you put in and what you get out.

Now, it’s not an easy undertaking, and any successful blogger will tell you that it takes a LOT of work. Probably more than they had expected.

So assuming that you have the fortitude, let’s discuss the first step in the journey - Laying Your Foundation.

Your readers are going to judge you by the quality of your writing. So… brush up on your writing skills. You don’t need to be William Shakespeare, but if you want to be taken seriously, you should have a pretty firm grasp of the language. Pay attention to grammar and spelling and don’t be afraid to use the dictionary and thesaurus. You are bound to lose credibility with consistent misspellings and other grammatical errors. Two books on writing that I have recently read, and would recommend, The Book on Writing and The Dictionary of Concise Writing.

Now for step two of laying your foundation - Optimizing for Performance

As is the case with managing any online marketing campaign, you need to optimize your blog for peak performance. Pay attention to proper title and descriptions for the blog, making sure that they will help you pull for the terms you are targeting. I would recommend that you do a URL rewrite to remove the script, and replace it with title of the post - all things being equal, it will help. Categories and archives should be created - the more the better. Both from a usability standpoint, as well as for the engines. Bill Hartzer wrote an article for Search Engine Guide last month covering blog SEO tactics - some useful nuggets in there. Mare sure that you set up your pings - Setting up your ping services is a quick and easy way to mass distribute your blog.

The Corporate Website Marketing Blog has a nice list of ping services for WP blogs, and Elliott Back has a pretty comprehensive list as well.

Now that you have your blog optimized, and ready for action, it’s time to Get on the Map.

Start by submitting to Blog directories and search engines. Yahoo and DMOZ both have blog specific categories where you can submit for free (those links will take you to the appropriate categories). BOTW has an entire directory for blogs, and there are other smaller and niche directories that you should consider as well. Top Rank Results has a great list of places to submit your blog. Make sure to head over to Technorati to claim your blog, and set up your blog to ping them each time you update. Getting your blog into Technorati is a great way to drive some initial inertia, and get on the radar - there is a good read at Technology Evangelist of some “lesser known tips” on how to optimize for Technorati.

Don’t forget to submit your RSS feeds - it is becoming more and more adopted by the general public, and will only continue to do so. There is a pretty comprehensive list of places to submit your RSS feeds at RSS Specifications.

Now that you are on the map, and you have good content that others would surely enjoy, it’s time to spread the word.

Immerse yourself in your area and read voraciously - get your feed on. Subscribe to as many feeds as you can manage. Find out what other bloggers in your area are saying. When you come across good resources blogroll them - the benefits are twofold. First, your users will benefit from, and appreciate exposure to other valuable resources. And secondly, it helps to get you in front of those bloggers. Bloggers tend to be a vain group - frequently performing ego searches, and checking their backlinks. Blogrolling them, or posting about them, is a sure way to get them to check you out. It is a nice, unobtrusive way, to show up on their radar.

I know of one instance in particular, where this strategy worked wonders. Shimon Sandler posted about a bunch of high profile bloggers, who in turn came to check out what he had said. Shimon provides some good SEO related content on his blog, so these readers tuned back in. Shimon followed up with a killer post a couple of days later on the latest Google app, got mentioned by a handful of said A-listers, and his traffic has skyrocketed. Without the quality content though, the post would have been for naught.

Another important aspect of being social is Participating in the Conversation.

Comment on other people’s blogs - that’s what the comment section is there for. By commenting on other’s people’s blogs, you are able to piggyback on their distribution. Commenting on some quality, high traffic blogs, will expose you to thousands of potential visitors daily. Now I am sure that some would disagree with this, but I will assert that nowhere else is what you say more important than in other people’s comments. A comment is typically a sentence or two, so you have a small window to grab the reader’s attention. Additionally, your comment is bound to be one of many, so you need to say something that not only contributes to the conversation, but is insightful, witty, or compelling enough to grab the reader’s interest, and prompt her to see what else you have to say. By participating in the conversation in a productive manner, you are, in essence, beckoning the reader to come to your blog.

I am not inferring that you need to agree with what the author has to say. Feel free to present a dissenting point of view - they are often the most interesting. However, keep your insults to yourself, and ensure that what you have to say propels the conversation in a constructive manner. If you don’t have something smart to say, keep your thought to yourself.

Now that you are part of the community, it’s time to tap into the power of the Community Sites.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have undoubtedly heard of these community-driven sites. Tapping into the power of these community sites will bring your blog to the next level. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us are a great way for you to share your blog with others that have similar interests.

If you haven’t yet developed a strategy to exploit the traffic available at MySpace, I would highly recommend it. They are currently doing 1.5 billion pages views daily. That’s a lot of traffic - some of it could be yours. For free. Roger Monti, Martinibuster, recently wrote an excellent article on the MySpace land grab.

I had never really bought into the power of Digg, until I got dugg. It drove thousands of visitors to my blog in a matter of hours, and I didn’t even make it to the front page. While Digg tends to favor geeky, tech, or science related news, you don’t need to have a masters from MIT to write for the Digg crowd. The Wolf Howl blog has two very interesting posts on Digg - one about the Digg userbase representing the perfect storm of mavens and connectors, and another with some tips on how to write to help get your non-tech blog dugg. Another tip for Digg - there is a feature that let’s you “blog this story” onto your blog. Doing so places a link to your blog in the right hand column of the Digg story. Doing this alone will help to bring hundreds of visitors to your blog. As long as you are providing valuable content, some of those visitors will grab your feed, bookmark your blog, or make a mental note to return. Incremental steps like this over a period of time equate to thousands of visitors daily.

Next let’s discuss some multimedia - The Power of Pictures

The beauty of pictures is that they appeal to a user’s emotions. An emotion that you are trying to convey make take paragraphs of text to transmit, but can be easily captured with a snapshot. Additionally, pictures cross cultural and language barriers, exposing your content to users that may be otherwise inaccessible. Flickr is a fantastic social tool. Huh - you may be asking yourself. How can uploading some pics of my kids bring be traffic?? Flickr allows you to insert hotspots, notes, and links within your picture and descriptions of the picture. So by joining a couple of groups within Flickr that you are interested in, and making sure that you place your links into the picture or description (I recommend a note in the pic with a link, and a link in the desc) you will drive additional visitors to your site. Once you get involved with the community, you will learn how to tell which types of pictures drive eyeballs.

YouTube and Google Video take it to the next level. Nothing will attract eyeballs more than some video. With the proliferation of digital video, and the advances in technology and broadband, the current climate is a multimedia marketers dream. With some creativity, and a little bit of time you can reach tens, or hundreds of thousands of visitors. While neither of them allow for hyperlinks within the video, with a basic multimedia editor, you can enter your url or any other credits you’d like to add, directly into the video. Also, of course, include your blog url in the description. Once again, this should provide some incremental traffic, and will help to grow your userbase.

I recently had a great experience with my video camera, one that has brought me tens of thousands of visitors. I was able to take my son to hockey parctice, and capture some hilarious video of him brawling with some of the other four year olds. I brought it home, threw in some System of a Down fight music, added my url and credits at the end, and submitted the clip JR Hockey Brawl to YouTube and Google Video. Since doing so, I have attracted tens of thousands of visitors via those channels.

In closing, follow the steps I prescribed here, mix in some time and persistence, and you are bound to get heavy volume to your blog. Ensure that you are providing valuable content, and now you are not only poised to get a ton of traffic, but you have positioned yourself to retain those visitors once you reel ‘em in. And that’s really what it’s all about.

So hopefully, you have seen that if you give to the blogosphere, she will repay you, tenfold.

However….be careful what you wish for. With all that traffic comes a ton of comment spam. But that’s another conversation…

I spent the better part of my evening loading up some new pictures. I have taken a lot of pictures the last couple of weeks, and they were beginning to fill up my camera. I imagine that my picture taking will grow more fervent in the months to come - I am in the market for a new digital camera.

To view the latest photosets, see:

Additionally, I know that Brian loaded some PubCon pictures. See them here - BOTW Media PubCon Boston. I noticed that there are a handful of other pictures tagged “PubCon” - if you have a Flickr account, amke sure to tag your photos so that they get into the photostream. I even saw some in there from Vegas ‘05. Should prove to be a pretty cool collection of photos. At somepoint, I’ll tag all search conference pictures accordingly - that way we’ll be able to see pics from every show.

Postscript - I modified the permissions on the PubCon pictures to allow for anybody with a Flickr account to leave a note. Feel free to hop in and mash it up. Remember to play nice…

I returned from Boston yesterday afternoon, after attending PubCon Boston. As a presenter, this conference was a bit different for me, and I learned some different things. I typically try to sit in on as many of the sessions as I can, picking up tidbits of info here and there. This time, I spent the first day preparing, and the second day recovering, so my session attendance was minimal. Each opportunity presents different chances for learning. Some of what I brought home this time:

Additionally, I met a lot of interesting people, most of whom operate blogs. I added a bunch of new feeds to my reader, so I look forward to seeing what all these people have to say. In the days to come, I will be uploading the contents of my presentation for anybody that wasn’t able to attend my session. It turned out to be a very cool session, with Matt Cutts and Jeremy Zawodny hopping up on the panel at the end to participate in some Q&A.

I am definitely happy to be home - these conferences are tough on the body and mind. It’s nice to sleep in my own bed, wake up to the sound of my kids playing, and spend time with the family. I’m looking forward to being off the conference junket for a few months - next stop, SES San Jose in August.

After arriving at the Sheraton (not too bad of a trip, even accounting for marathon traffic), we successfully deposited all our shirts, and assorted materials at the booth. Brian and I spent a couple of hours unwinding, and talking shop.

Earlier, I was lucky enough to be able to go through my presentation a couple of times in front of a small, and hospitable audience. Brian and Rob were able to give me some very good feedback, and I feel even more comfortable about my speaking engagement tomorrow. Maybe that is the magnum of Jordan cabernet that we drank during dinner at Morton’s.

Regardless, I am confident that my preparation, and knowledge of the subject mater will be enough to keep me from getting booed off the stage. At a minimum, I have been able to learn a lot about public speaking, and I am happy to have the opportunity to expand my personal achievements.

I am really looking forward to meeting some new people at this conference - expand my horizons a bit. If you happen to see me here, and we have never met before, please take the opportunity to introduce yourself. I am anxious to meet as many new people at this conference as I can, so please don’t be shy.

If you happen to sit in on my session tomorrow, please let me know what you thought. I’d love to hear some feedback to make future engagements better. I’ll do a follow up post with more of what I have learned through this experience. Maybe better suited after less vino.

Google Video launched a new feature today, the Google Video Top 100. While I don’t normally try to report on breaking news, and I loathe the idea of regurgitating information, I will make an exception here. This instance is actually a bit self-serving.

The video of my son’s hockey fight debuted on the list at #27. When I shot it, I definitely thought it was funny. After inserting the music, I thought it was even better. I had no idea that so many people would agree. I knew something was up this morning after a pretty big spike in traffic, and upon investigation I learned that not only has the clip been added to the G Top 100, but somebody seems to have embedded the clip from YouTube, and it has been viewed a ton of times today.

The power of pictures…

All of us now spend so much time online. At times it is difficult to remember that there is a person attached to the other end of that email, forum post, or blog comment. In our world of near anonymity it is so easy to flame. When you don’t have to see the expression of pain, frustration, or anger on the other person’s face, it almost isn’t real. It is important to remember that there are real people “out there”.

Nowhere is this more important than when dealing with customers. Lose your cool with a customer and it could cost you. A lot.

But there is more to it than just not pissing off your customers. In today’s marketplace, you need to protect your customers. Protect their data, protect their privacy, protect their secrets. And often, protect them from themselves. This can prove the most difficult of tasks, because you are usually trying to convince them to do something that is contrary to their established beliefs.

Most business owners are impatient, scared, and less than experts in your field. They make decisions based upon fear. They wants results yesterday. They heard someone say at a cocktail party this is the way that it needs to be done.

It is your job - dare I say your duty - to steer your client down the proper path. Do all that you can to help your client recognize your wisdom, and proceed accordingly. If you are unable to effectively persuade your client to take the right course of action, then walk away. Politely inform the client that you would rather lose the account than be associated with a practice or action that you know will harm him.

Chances are once he hears your conviction, he will come around. If not, then let him go down on his own. When it comes to doing it the right way, there should be no compromise. After all, it’s for their own good.

Looks like Alexa has added some additional information to their charting. Now offering a “Max” amount of time, that seems to go back to late 2001.

I love site metrics - can’t get enough of ‘em! BOTW’s rank chart, since late 2001 - pretty cool. Slow and steady trend, for sure.

Update: Things seem to be a little whack over at Alexa currently. I can’t find the Max tab anymore, and their stats seem to be way off. Check our weekly average - 1,202,534. WTF??