Greg Hartnett

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

Approximately six months ago, I was speaking with a friend about how much information I consume on a daily basis. There is so much to digest, and with my interest in RSS and blogging, the amount has only increased exponentially over the last year. As I come across useful and interesting material from authors across the globe, my feed subscriptions grow daily and I find myself getting my news from an ever-widening circle of sources.

Back in February, I decided to start tracking the stuff I read. Part reference for future reading and part mindfulness training, I use my linkblog as a quick place to log what I read online daily. Thus far, it has worked out pretty well. Unfortunately, I don’t use it quite as much as I thought I would. I typically only throw in a handful of the highlights on a daily basis - I find that I get too distracted throughout the day to keep a truly accurate picture.

While doing it the past few months, I have learned a few things:

Another reason I like using my linkblog: I think it’s much better than merely commenting on somebody’s blog. If the author has taken the time to write something from which I have benefited, I feel that the least I can do is repay the author with the little bit of web currency that I have - a relevant link. When you comment on a blog, while you participate in the conversation, you don’t really help the author with any link building. Instead of simply commenting on the author’s blog, by using my linkblog I can have the same participation in the conversation, and show the author my appreciation for the information with a link from my linkblog. Furthermore, I am creating content on my own blog, while sharing a snippet of the content on the author’s blog. So, it works out as a win-win for each party.

Some notable linkblogs:

Jeremy Zawodny’s Linkblog
Erik’s Linkblog
Nelson Minar’s Linkblog
More Linkblogs

Yahoo launched it’s video offering yesterday, Yahoo Video. Seems to be a similar offering to Google Video, with like features. From a quick perusal, they seem to have integrated their community a bit more, with a focus on reviews, and sharing.

I took a trial run by uploading the video of JR’s hockey fight, and had to switch computers to do so. Like most web applications, Safari compatible versions seem to roll out a few weeks after the IE and FF crowds get to play. The upload was quick enough, and unlike Google, I didn’t have to download any software to get it done. I simply logged in using my Yahoo account, and created a quick user profile. Users can add their channels, and stay up to date with other’s channels easily.

As a user, I am impressed. As a publisher, I am excited to see an additional player in the space. As a Yahoo fan, I am happy to see them take this chance, and am pleased with the product. I will be trying their embedding feature on this blog in the days to come. You can see more videos here.

Find out more:

Yahoo! Search blog
Yahoo! Video Revamped
YouTube vs. Yahoo
Usability - They Can do Better

I have decided to remove the rel=”nofollow” tags from the comments section of my blog. Having them in place does nothing to discourage spammers, and they only seem to punish the people who actually do participate in the conversation. If I have a user that reads my blog on a daily basis, and the user takes the time to participate in the conversation, why shouldn’t s/he be awarded with a link? I know that people have other things they could be doing with their time. I am fully aware that participating in the commenting on this blog is not a high priority on anybody’s list. So, if somebody spares a few moments to contribute, I view it as a professional courtesy to give them some love in return.

Wordpress blogs insert the rel=”nofollow” tag into all comments by default. Luckily, there are a handful of plugins available, and in a matter of minutes, I was able to get rid of the nofollow tags. The plugin I chose, the Dofollow plugin, simply replaces the “nofollow” tag with a tag reading “external” - which I assume is garbage, and ignored by the engines.

For more information on nofollow, and whether it is for you, see:

WP Codex - Nofollow
Wikimedia - Nofollow
The yesfollow Project
Nofollow No Good?
Support for Nofollow Crumbling?

I have been getting crushed with trackback spam for the past 5 or 6 days. Not as badly here as on the BOTW Blog. On my blog, I have been getting hit with only a dozen or so daily (one of the benefits of having little to no PR). Unfortunately, on the BOTW Blog, we had the options set up to accept trackbacks automatically, without moderation, so the spam cup runneth over. I spent a couple of hours of Saturday cleaning up, then another couple of hours Sunday. After which, I changed the moderation settings. So, while the tarckback spam continues to roll in, at least it is not rendering our blogs useles.

It would appear that I’m not alone in my troubles. Some of the blogs that I frequent seem to be experiencing similar issues:

Jim Boykin’s Spam Problems
Scoble’s Trackback Spam - a bunch of people in the comments report of similar issues

and others…

BOTW Blog search
Google Blog search
Technorati search

In what appears to be an ongoing saga, a new chapter has unfolded in my battle with CEO spammer, Matt Heaton. If you are jumping into the story here, you should first read the preceding posts:

Assuming you skipped over those links, the Reader’s Digest version is that Matt spammed his clients, requesting they come read his personal blog. I tried commenting, he deleted the comment, I posted about it. Repeat.

Last week, Bluehost sends out some announcement regarding some upgrade to service. At the bottom of the email, once again there is a link to his personal blog. Whatever… Trying to avoid the impression of being a complete ball-buster, I had decided to let it slide. Shortly thereafter, in what I can only interpret as an attempt to intentionally piss me off, Matt sent me the following email:

I just sent another mailing. Hurry and write a blog entry about it

Thanks,
Matt Heaton

So, this clown comes in and craps on my sandwich. He then elbows me in the ribs, and laughs in my face about it. I don’t understand it, but it provides for some fodder. Not how I would choose to deal with my clients, but to each his own.

Some people have recommended that I just shut up and move my sites if I don’t like it. Unfortunately, I don’t deem that a viable option. First, it would really piss me off that I’d have to be inconvenienced to move hosts for a handful of sites because this bozo can’t play nice. Secondly, the sites I have hosted there are prepaid for a year - with approximately six months left to renew. So, I am supposed to take a bath on a few hundred dollars worth of hosting because I don’t want to tolerate being spammed, then taunted??

Regardless of the money though, it comes down to the principle. Even when I decided to let it slide, he goaded me on. So the dance continues. Perhaps a few more of the following types of results will dissuade him:

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.

———————————————————————

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…

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??

Shimon Sandler, blogger and search engine marketer, interviewed me this morning about my experience with web directories. I really enjoy these types of interviews, as they get me thinking about the business at a macro level. Finding out what your users have questions about really helps to refine your product or service.

This most recent interview was more compelling than most. Shimon threw me a couple of questions that I wasn’t thrilled about - too much talk about Google and PageRank. But I guess that is what’s on people’s minds…

I like the preface, but…

(a) I haven’t been in the search industry since the beginning. I meandered my way into an existing space, saw a void in the market, and made use of some real estate.

(b) I don’t want anybody to be confused about the backrub thing - reading the preface might cause one to think that we actually had some involvement in the thesis or something. We didn’t. We were just fortunate enough to be cited by Page and Brin in their paper. Period.

(c) There are definitely other people that could be interviewed about web directories that would provide as much, if not more, insight into the model. Though I appreciate the kind words, I am not fully comfortable with the praise.

The rest of the conversation was pretty thorough - a good job by Shimon. He did some homework before the interview, and his questions reflect the fact. Thanks for the opportunity.

A bit over a month ago, I got all steamed over how the CEO of Bluehost spammed his entire userbase to announce the launch of his personal blog. On his blog, Matt Heaton claims that Bluehost now has over 100,000 customers - that’s a lot of users to send some unsolicited email. In hindsight, I was even more pissed off about how he handled the situation after the fact. Not enough to spam me, but then to not let me comment about it on his blog, and only approve glowing comments - pretty damn lame.

Just two days ago, I received another email from Bluehost, informing me of upgrades to their support and service. As a user, I appreciate such notices. At the bottom of the email, was a prompt for readers to visit Matt’s personal blog. Heading over to his blog to see what Bluehost may be up to, I am prompted to read Mr. Heaton’s account of the time he spent in a mission as a youth, and what he thinks of Dale Carnegie. All in a post entitled “How to deal with people…” - oh the irony.

I tried posting a somewhat tame comment, once again expressing my displeasure at Matt’s tactics. Knowing full well that the comment would not be approved, I grabbed a snapshot of it in moderation, here. Right on cue, Matt deleted the comment, and once again only approved comments that were flattering.

What is the deal? I hinted to Mr. Heaton in my comment that I wasn’t simply going to go away. If he had left my comment remain in his blog, that probably would have been the end of it. Instead, Matt chose to delete the comment and invite me to air my grievances here. History will prove to Mr. Heaton the error of his ways.

A simple search for spammer ceo or matt heaton blog or how about bluehost ceo amply show that dealing with aggrevated customers in a flippant matter will not fly in today’s day and age. The days of acting in such a manner without impunity are over.

So it seems the contest shall continue. I expect that Matt will continue to act in like fashion going forward, and I will continue to call him out on it. Game on.

What a pain in the ass trying to find a new Wordpress theme for this blog. I have known for awhile now that my current theme doesn’t function properly in IE, and it has been eating at me to get it fixed.

So I finally set some time apart this evening to find a new theme. I have run through all the resources that I can find, and still haven’t come up with something that I feel suits my needs. In my searching I did come up with more than a handful of sites that have some themes. Here are a few of the highlights:

I have narrowed down my search to a few that I think might fit the bill with a little modification. I am really looking for something very simple, with some Web 2.0 flavor. When I find a little more time, I will implement the new theme.

I love RSS. I think it is the greatest thing that has happened to the Internet since broadband. The ability to hand pick which information I want to receive in my reader is empowering, and in theory should increase efficiency. In practice, I find myself pouring through countless accounts of the same stories.

Perhaps it is due in part to the the fact that I read a lot of blogs - more than the average online user, to be sure. Probably more than most power users. I find that during my work editing the blog directory I stumble across a fair amount of stuff that interests me, leading me to subscribe to a number of feeds. Unfortunately, too much of the 482 unread posts in my NetNewsWire are talking about the same thing. And I have blogs from a wide variety of industries and topics, typically no more than a handful from the same industry. SEO blogs would be the exception to that rule, where I have always felt that the more informatrion I could get, the better.

Now I find myself in the predicament of once again having too much information to pour through on a daily basis. Worse yet, much of that information is repetitious. So, I have decided to purge my reader of the unnecessary noise. The bloggers who don’t say anything unique. Or only say something unique so infrequently that they lose me. You know what? When Matt Cutts has something to say, you don’t need to talk about it. I read his damn blog too. We all do. Or if he says something big enough, you know that threadwatch will have it - or SEW blog. So that’s it - I don’t need to hear it from you too.