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Technorati Without Janice–We Won’t Have to Know

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In a most gracious manner, David Sifry came out to let me know that Janice Myint is well, and the problem was an email error. I never thought to try through another account. My error.

Thank you, Mr. Sifry. It says a lot about you and your brand that you took the time to offer your personal services and in such detail.

Thank you, also, for doing it with the class of a gentleman.

My sincere and large apology for a fearful response. I wouldn’t care, if I didn’t value your service so highly when it’s working.

I’m the nice one, but sometimes I worry too much.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

In response to

Put Your 2Cents In–What’s Technorati Worth–Without Janice?

Put Your 2 Cents In What’s Technorati Worth Without Janice?

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Where’s Janice Myint in Customer Service?

I wrote an email this morning to Janice. It was the first that I wrote in two weeks. My reason for writing was because I hadn’t heard from her. I didn’t want to bug her . . . I knew her load had to be enormous and I try really hard to be the nice one. So here’s what I wrote.

Janice,
I haven’t heard from you are you swamped under?
I hope you’re not sick or really under pressure.
Smiles,
Liz

A few seconds later, I received this response from my friend, MAILER-DAEMON.

—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to technorati.com.s5a1.psmtp.com.:
>>> RCPT To:<jymyint@technorati.com>
<<< 550 <jymyint@technorati.com>: User unknown in local recipient table
550 <jymyint@technorati.com>… User unknown

I know we know what we’ve lost here. Do you think that they do? I think they need to. Mr. Sifry, “looking into it,” hasn’t been enough. Janice made things happen. Now what?

The Technorati Brand

Customers decide what a company’s brand is and what it is worth. Heck, a business is not a business without customers. Would you take a moment to answer this question?

What’s Technorati’s brand value to you?

I think it’s time that we explain the situation in a calm, polite business-like fashion. Maybe then someone will hear what we’ve been saying.

After all, I am the nice one.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Technorati Without Janice–We Won’t Have to Know
Janice Myint at Technorati Is in Customer Support
Technorati Has a NEW Home Page–My Blogs Are Stuck Again

Technorati Has a NEW Home Page–My Blogs Are Stuck Again

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How many votes say this is a coincidence?

New Technorati home page today.

My blogs have been stuck for two weeks. One blog has lost 50 links in that time.

TEchnorati Home Page

Businesses do such things as make shiny new displays and forget their customers, when they are looking for capital or looking to be bought.

Last time I talked to Janice, she said her email had been broken. I sure hope that Janice isn’t sick. OR WORSE that she hasn’t gone the way that Niall Kennedy went. I like Janice. She’s our only hope.

Technorati, when it works, is a tool that helps my brand and provides promotion. I don’t like it when it is broken. I don’t want David Sifry to tell me he’s looking into it. Neither does anyone else I know.

I’m trying hard to stay the nice one here. This is month seven.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Want Technorati Fixed? Link to Janice. Give Janice AUTHORITY.
Janice Myint, It didn’t Work Right
Janice Myint at Technorati Is in Customer Support

Want Technorati Fixed? Link to Janice. Give Janice AUTHORITY.

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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.

Blog Herald Logo

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.

Explore the Magic Middle with Authority

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David Sifry posted The State of the Blogosphere–Part 2 at the Technorati Weblog today. Part 2 focuses on how information is handled both in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere.

Once again Sifry provides information and analysis that will serve you in your online business and in your personal life. Everyone who wants an understanding of the state of the national media should read this. Businesses should be keeping an eye on the data Mr. Sifry has to offer, particularly businesses that spend advertising dollars. Bloggers should pay attention because opportunities are replete. But bloggers be prepared. It will require creative bloggers that can recraft this information into persuasive messages to help businesses understand that the world is becoming an economy of knowledge and that the base of that knowledge is moving as we speak.

MSM, the Long Tail, and the Top 100

David Sifry discusses the Mainstream Media stalwarts in relation to the Long Tail Blogs telling the story with his usual graphic detail. He also speaks to the Top 100, and the network effect that seems to hold the same blogs in those 100 positions. He points out, that despite the network effect, new blogs have moved in and out.

The Magic Middle

Sifry also spends time defining a group he calls the Magic Middle–bloggers who are in niche publishing with 20-100 other sites linking to them–as sometimes radically changing the economics of trade publishing with their interesting, topical, and influential blogs. These are the blogs that people like you and I read and write. We might well know them better than Mr. Sifry does.

Technorati Explore

The first new feature David Sifry describes is Technorati Explore. I have to say, I’m not clear on how it works. I’ll let him explain it.

The idea is to use the bloggers that know the most about an area or topic to help spot the interesting trends that may never hit the “A-list”. We call this new section Explore, and we’ve seeded it with some of the most interesting topics that we could find. But one of the nice things about Explore is that there are no gatekeepers, and that anyone who writes interesting topical blog posts can get included simply by tagging his blog and tagging his posts.

Sounds great doesn’t it? The post says much more about it. I tried it out tonight . . . I’m still not sure how it works.

What’s Authority?

The second new feature Sifry introduced is Authority Filtering. A new green slide allows you to tune your searches to adjust your results to only those with a lot of authority. Authority is calculated on number of links.

What's Authority?

Why You Should Read This Post?

I hardly told you half of what’s in it. Here’s just a few notes–a taste–from the summary.

  • Blogging and Mainstream Media continue to share attention in blogger’s and reader’s minds, but bloggers are climbing higher on the “big head” of the attention curve, with some bloggers getting more attention than sites including Forbes, PBS, MTV, and the CBC.
  • Bloggers are changing the economics of the trade magazine space, with strong entries covering WiFi, Gadgets, Internet, Photography, Music, and other nice topic areas, making it easier to thrive, even on less aggregate traffic.
  • The Magic Middle is the 155,000 or so weblogs that have garnered between 20 and 1,000 inbound links. It is a realm of topical authority and significant posting and conversation within the blogosphere.

I sit in the Magic Middle. Tagged with Authority–if the sliding scale works the way it’s supposed to. The MSMedia is losing ground and hardly has a clue. The blogosphere is growing faster than most folks can contemplate how to make something of it. The information is here. The future is around the corner.

What will you do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
David Sifry Writes about the Future–Janice Myint Please Don’t Read It
Explore the Magic Middle with Authority
Want Technorati Fixed? Link to Janice. Give Janice AUTHORITY.

David Sifry Writes about the Future–Janice Myint Please Don’t Read It

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David Sifry posted The State of the Blogosphere–Part 1 at the Technorati Weblog today. This post is research and analysis at its finest. The post is deep, broad, and replete with solid information, graphic visuals, and links to take you even deeper. Anyone who wants to understand the blogosphere should read it.

The information and analysis in this post will serve you in your online business. It will serve you as a student. It will serve you in casual conversation–when a friend wants to discuss the future of the Internet, or when someone tries to tell you all blogs are trashy online diaries.

Just a few notes–a taste–from the summary.

  • Technorati now tracks over 27.2 Million blogs
  • The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5 and a half months
  • It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
  • On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
  • 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
  • Spings (Spam Pings) can sometimes account for as much as 60% of the total daily pings Technorati receives

I sure hope Janice Myint doesn’t read it. Any Customer Service Team Leader at Technorati has enough to worry about. This post could be just overwhelming. Janice we still need you . . . please keep going. (When I went to check the link on this post, I got the “Sorry we are unable to complete your search right now . . .” message. At least now I know why.)

Everyone else go read it. This is stuff you can’t buy at any price and you won’t get in business school. The name of this post is State of the Blogosphere–Part 1. But it tells the future.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
Janice Myint at Technorati Is in Customer Support
Explore the Magic Middle with Authority
Want Technorati Fixed? Link to Janice. Give Janice AUTHORITY.