Archives for February 2006
SOB Business Cafe 02-17-2006
Welcome to the SOB Business Cafe
We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the logo to enjoy each selection.
The Specials this Week are
This week Darren Rowse featured this guest post by blog designer, Peter Flaschner, in his series Blogging for Beginners. Don’t let the title fool you. It’s a classic post on blog design that everyone should read.
In this post from Freshblog, Greg explains how to check your blog against your user stats to make sure you’re meeting your baseline user’s needs and not losing readers by overstressing their systems or their patience.
Hock offers some straight advice on using Google to target a market.
Related ala carte selections include
SOB Business Cafe 02-10-2006
SOB Business Cafe 02-02-2006
SOB Business Cafe 01-27-2006
Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.
Have a great weekend!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Sustained Success
I read this today at Tom Peters blog.
The one thing you need to know about sustained individual success:
Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.Marcus Buckingham, from the book The One Thing You Need to Know
I’m glad I read that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Why Pete Townshend Doesnât Need to Do Promotion
Pete Townshend started a blog last September. He is writing a novella. As far as I know, his only promotion was to mention it on his website. Granted his website is more promotion than most of us could wish for, but the entire content of the blog–even more–is at at the website.
Go ahead. Check them out. I’ll wait here.
Pete Never Was One for Convention
From his days with The Who, it was clear Pete marched to a different drummer. When it comes to blog marketing and promotion, it seems the same way. As far as I can tell, Pete didn’t follow any of the recommended wisdom.
- He didn’t get his own domain name.
- He’s using an unadorned blogspot template.
- He didn’t list his blog in Robin Goodââ¬â¢s RSS Top55 – Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites.
- He doesn’t post consistently or often.
- He doesn’t read his comments.
- He rarely comments back.
- It’s probably safe to assume that he doesn’t comment on other blogs.
- Community doesn’t seem to be important on Pete’s blog.
- He doesn’t have an RSS feed or subscription button anywhere in sight.
- I suspect he doesn’t spend time thinking about keywords.
Well, he does have a picture, under the picture it says
What is well known is that I’m a rock star. You are not worthy etc. In fact you are worthy. And so am I. We deserve each other.
That’s how Pete writes.
I read four of his comments. One is a request to offer up prayers. One is a statement that visitors are reading the chapter wrong. One was a joke, I think. It was hard to understand. The last is an apology that the next chapter isn’t there.
Where Does that Get Him?
Pete Townshend’s first post–Sept. 24,2005–has 347 comments. Pete’s current post has 1,107 comments. His commenters are the same 30 or so people who talk to each other about all kinds of things. His site meter is locked, so I can’t tell you how many visitors he has had.
Technorati says he has 1,995 links from 529 sites.
His Wholinkstome profile looks like this:
Pete Townshend doesn’t need to do promotion for his blog.
Why Doesn’t Pete Townshend Need to Do Promotion?
Pete Townshend is a rock star. He doesn’t need promotion. He is a brand. He’s a big idea of his own. He can start something new, and his customers find him. He can ignore all of the rules and ride the interest on the quality music and the top-notch promotion that’s already been done. It’s been compounding year after year in his “virtual marketing account.”
But he’s Pete Townshend–definitely an exception to how things work.
Me? I have to do all of kinds of promotion like everyone else does. I figure I always will. So I do some every day. My virtual marketing account is barely open. Still I’m counting on the lasting value of every little investment I make.
What have you done lately to add to your virtual marketing account?
Sorry, Pete. I wasn’t talking to you.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
WhosWhoo?! at Yahoo?
And now for something completely different . . . and a lot more FUN!
Looking for an expert on anything?
Yahoo Search is powering a people search engine called “WhosWhoo?!” that’s currently under development by Daily Caffeine. It’s a cool concept. You can search by person or by category and get results in documents, news, talk, and images.
Be kind though, if you try it. It’s still in BETA testing. One search and you’ll start to realize how hard this must be to get right. It’s not quite there yet, but that could be part of it’s appeal. It’s fun to poke around in, just to see what comes up.
Daily Caffeine has a form asking for input, and you can suggest categories all day.
I did a search for Jeremy Wright.
Now I have to ask, “Will the real Jeremy please stand up?” For all of the email that Jeremy gets, he probably wishes there were that many of him–except for the guy who was in jail. . . .
Click the logo to play with WhosWhoo?! beta.
At this stage WhosWhoo?! beta is like mixing an ego search with a Quentin Tarantino Movie, possibly more fun than the real thing. Try it. You’ll probably be using it for real research one day.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want Technorati Fixed? Link to Janice. Give Janice AUTHORITY.
Yesterday I wrote about David Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere–Part 2 Message. I ended that post with the question, What will you do? I wasn’t really talking to Niall Kennedy, but he did something anyway.
Technorati’s Still Broken, Niall Leaves, and
We Get Bells and Whistles
This via Duncan Riley at the Blog Herald: Niall Kennedy left his job at Technorati. Mr. Kennedy doesn’t discuss his reasons for departing. Click the logo to get to the Blog Herald Story. Then come back to find out what to do about it.
Duncan isn’t the only one concerned. Martin is wondering in the comments here why Technorati is introducing new features when their basic engine and tracking service is broken. So are lots of other people. I’m getting daily emails on the subject.
Use a Whistle–Give Janice Technorati AUTHORITY
The way I see it. Janice Myint needs more than Janice to fix what’s wrong at Technorati. It’s time to get throw some real support behind her. So why not use the whistle David Sifry just handed us–AUTHORITY.
Let’s give Janice Myint Authority, by getting everyone to LINK TO JANICE.
We’ll need to do this with some saavy. We don’t want Janice to end up in the Google sandbox. I propose we work together on the honor system. Are you with me?
For SEO reasons, we need a variety of link types and a variety of link names. Keep these guidelines in mind.
- Not everyone should use the exact title of her blog.
- Not everyone should blogroll her blog. Some should be links to individual posts.
- Some should be comment links.
- Not everyone should link today, tomorrow, or the next day.
Choose one of the options below to pick your link day.
- 1. Choose the last letter in your last name. Count its place in the alphabet. Count out that many days from today and link to Janice’s blog on that day.
- 2. When you get your next link to your own blog. Link to Janice’s blog.
- 3. If a friend or family member has a birthday, anniversary or other occasions between now and April 1st, link to Janice’s blog on that day.
- 4. When you get the third, or fourth, or fifth, “Sorry Technorati is . . .” message, link to Janice’s blog.
Janice’s URL is http://janicetechnorati.blogspot.com/
This will get real attention, if enough of us do it. We have the power to make a difference.
I’d trade the bells and whistles for a smooth-working engine that tracks my links accurately.
Wouldn’t you? Link to Janice.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles:
Dear Niall Kennedy and David Sifry at Technorati
Janice Myint at Technorati Is in Customer Support
Explore the Magic Middle with Authority
Want Technorati Fixed? Link to Janice. Give Janice AUTHORITY.
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