Tuesday, December 20
Matt is going on full Automattic
by
Tris Hussey
on December 20, 2005 03:56PM (PST)
It is now official. Today, he has launched a new company, called Automattic, a bootsrapped operation (no, the company is not looking for venture capital) founded by a handful of folks (with a heavy Texas contingent) to manage WordPress, WordPress.com and Akismet (a service to help block blog spam). For now, Matt is working out of his San Francisco apartment. SiliconBeat This is excellent. I think this kind of business model is a truly good thing. We have a great, open-source, community-drive piece of software (WP), which has spawned several ventures that will bring in revenue. I certainly wish Matt the best.
Cool new Technorati features
by
Tris Hussey
on December 20, 2005 03:47PM (PST)
Technorati took it on the chin a lot this fall. Poor DB updates, blogs not getting claimed. Yeah,  not good. Well, things have improved over there. I've surely noticed and today David has announced a suite of new features. Me? I like the charts of the discussions on the Blogosphere. That's cool. Take a gander. I also had a chance to try the newer, faster blog claim features. Even with having to paste in JS (I couldn't remember my password) it took like <5 mins. Cool.
Monday, December 19
The Best of Blogs Awards are open ...
by
Tris Hussey
on December 19, 2005 08:47PM (PST)
One of the things Jim Turner did last year was to start the Best of Blogs Awards (BoBs). These awards are different. You won't see Scoble nominated for any of these awards, these are for the thousands of lesser known blogs. The chance for someone to get some traffic and links and attention. We all know there are millions of great, unsung bloggers out there. These are their awards. Today the nominations opened. I'm involved in two ways with these awards. First Qumana is a title sponsor and will be offering prizes for the winners. Second I'm a juror. I will be reading lots and lots of blogs come January when the nominations close. So ahead and leave a comment with the blog name and URL as a comment on a page. We already have over 50 nominees so get cracking!
RSS, Blogs and Ads ... it's not just about numbers
by
Tris Hussey
on December 19, 2005 12:13PM (PST)
 One of the things we have to deal with at Qumana and AdGenta is the age old advertiser question ... how many impressions are you getting? Now, while granted this is important, it isn't the whole story. One of the hallmarks of blogs are their ability to attract an audience of like-minded people. People who might be small in number, but have large influence.
Good thing I'm not the only one saying this ...
"When advertising, don't be concerned with the lack of traffic. If you reach your target audience a few hundred visitors to the blog may be great for you to advertise on," said Bill Flitter, Vice President, Marketing for Pheedo. Source
Tags: rss, online advertising
Thursday, December 15
Dave Taylor ... Blogosphere Mythbuster.
by
Tris Hussey
on December 15, 2005 02:28PM (PST)
Dave, your a good guy. I really likereading your stuff. Really. Okay and this piece on Kryptonite made methink and did clarify some of the myths surrounding thewhole saga, but ... First here's the intro ... I recently chatted with Donna Tocci, Public Relations Manager for Kryptonite, a company well-known in blogging annals for some damaging information that was disseminated through weblogs back in the early days of blogging, 2004. She kindly consented to answer a number of my questions, some of which will serve to acquaint you with the situation, while others offer great insight into how to address damaging information in the blogosphere. I'll admit up front that my bias is that the adverse effect of the blogosphere on corporations is much overblown, and as you'll see as you read this Q&A, Donna thinks so too. That's not to say that blogs and bloggers aren't an influential voice in the marketplace, but just to help clarify that there are still definite limits to its influence and it's well to keep that in mind as you craft your next marketing plan or public relations budget. [Link]  Fine, bias duly noted. Actually this is a good thing to do up front. Note to other bloggers ... sometimes getting that out of the way lets people read the article for the other things that are said and not just trying to find the bias. Regardless. I liked the detail and information of the piece. I didn't like the tone that the whole thing was overblown. I also don't like the condescending tone that Donna Tocci seemed to me to have. There are three important lessons here. First monitoring the blogosphere is important, even if you don't have a blog or want to blog, as a company. I know all of you secretly long for the blogger lifestyle ;-). In fact, Kryptonite was already doing this before the incident. Cool. Now the big lesson here related to that is building those relationships with bloggers so that when a crisis does come up to have friends who will hear you out. Hey they can still think you blew it, but at least they can help you get your story out. The last great lesson is, no matter what people tell you, not every company needs to blog. There I said it. Geez when I was a huge cheerleader from website (in the pre-blog/early-blog days) I once told our plumber he should have a website. He asked,why? I gave the standard reasons, SEO, showing expertise, etc. Then he said ... all my customers are here on Island, they use the phone book or ask a friend ... why go online? Good point. Blogs are the same way. Look they are fun. I love blogging and even started a new one just for fun and just for me last night. But not all businesses are suited to blog. Not every business can benefit from a blog. Lots of businesses can benefit, but not all. So there's the lesson for us bloggers. Maybe back off on the cheerleading and take stock. Sometimes when asking to blog or not to blog ... the answer is no (or at least not yet).
Using AdGenta for guest bloggers ... case in point
by
Tris Hussey
on December 15, 2005 10:48AM (PST)
See the author of the blog is taking a vacation. Of course he wants content to continue to flow. So he's put out the call for guest bloggers. Makes sense, of course, but what's in it for the guest blogger? Come on linky love only goes so far. Read this: All guest bloggers will be allowed to link to their blog/website on each and every post made, here. Guest bloggers are allowed to post on any subject, although individuals who are posting on the same general subjects as this blog will be considered, first. As an added incentive, guest bloggers will be able to place Adgenta (Qumana), Amazon Associates, CJ, and Zoundry affiliate ads/links within their posts, using their own IDs.
 Bingo! This is exactly what we're talking about! Guest blog, put your ads in your posts on their site and ... you get not only credit, but a little cash for your work. Heck with Qumana you'd be able to write a post for your blog and just cross-post it to another. This is it. This is one of the best example of what we're talking about. Thanks!
Tuesday, December 13
Mom, Dad, I want to be a professional blogger.
by
Tris Hussey
on December 13, 2005 03:02PM (PST)
 A while ago I was approached to be interviewed for an online publication for High School students planning careers. Thanks to Jim for letting me know that the article has come out. I'm blogging about this not only because there is really good advice in there, but also that Qumana's own Arieanna Foley is featured in the article as well. So, can problogging be a career? Time will tell. Will the skills required for professional blogging be required in the business world of the present and future? Certainly. This is how I put it:
Hussey describes blogging skill this way: "Okay, the bottom line is that you have to able to read a lot, quickly, follow memes [units of cultural information] and threads of patterns, condense them (I call it gisting -- from the novel Digital Fortress) and write them. Writing is key." Bottom line for students. That's right here ... Advice for Students At this moment, it is impossible to say whether there is or will be a career as a professional blogger. "A high school student should go to college, study what he or she wants to study, learn to write very well, learn computers and then see what happens," advises Halvorson. "I think you'll see blogging evolve as a career to some degree," says Chaney, "though I'd be reluctant to say it's something a high school student ought to set their sights on per se. However, I do think that having experience in blogging is an asset and something that students should be involving themselves with." How do you get this blogging experience? By blogging, reading blogs and working with blogging software. Start your own blog; you don't have to make it public. Then pitch an idea to a blog network and see what paid blogging is like. "Some topics are really easy for high school students to get into -- fashion, studying, clubbing, nightlife, celebrities," says Foley. "Lots of blog networks would be open to pitches in these areas." As for a career in blogging, the best advice for now is to follow a career path that's a little more clear-cut, and develop some expertise in subjects you're passionate about. In the meantime, hone your blogging skills and keep looking for those "ins" that could lead you down the pro-blogger path. Complete article
Monday, December 12
What is the sound on one ad tipping? Online advertising reaches the tipping point.
by
Tris Hussey
on December 12, 2005 10:09AM (PST)
Has it been decided? Has online advertising hit the fabled "tipping point"? Sounds like it (and I thought I had heard a bump in the night ... guess not). The "tipping point" for offline ad dollars moving online may be here in the second half of 2006, according to a report by Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. The speed of online advertising's growth, its benefits to offline campaigns, and recent online ad spending increases from major marketers all seem to be converging, according to Safa Rashtchy, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray. "We believe online media now receives about 5 percent of total marketing spending, up from 3 percent two years ago. However, online is on its way to a 10 percent share much faster then we anticipated, and we believe we are now approaching an inflection point when spending growth could accelerate," Rashtchy wrote in a newly-released report. "This point is likely to be in the second half of 2006, as the full impact of some of the recent allocation increases from major marketers becomes evident and creates a momentum that will attract more spending by advertisers who are on the sidelines now." Rashtchy's "conservative" estimate is that online advertising will exceed $55 billion globally by 2010, a 27 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over 2005. He points to large advertisers like Absolut Vodka, GM and Ford, all of which plan to spend 20 percent of their marketing budgets online next year, he said. "These allocations are now creating a new momentum in the online advertising space which we believe will be most evident in the first half of 2006, creating the background for the inflection point in the second half of 2006," Rashtchy said in the report. Source: ClickZ
A new report - 'The Changing Face of Advertising in the Digital Age' - claims spending on Internet ads will account for 10 per cent of all US ad dollars in 2010, from 5 per cent in 2004.
It also claims that almost 21 per cent of surfers consider Internet advertising as the most relevant ad format for them, outscoring more traditional media formats such as newspapers, magazines, and radio. Source MacWorld UK Why now? What is driving this sea change? We are. We're spending more time online. We look for products, we research products, and so on ... online. Makes sense, go where the people are. You don't advertise high-end watches in the middle of the Gobi desert ... there aren't many people to see them (not that they wouldn't buy them, just that you're not going to get very many eyeballs). What about offline ads? Will they fade away? Certainly not. Using interactive to facilitate the move from desire to buying or to help consumers get the best price at the point of purchase is what the Web is really good for. Interactive can grease the skids, but someone must be on the skids to begin with, something traditional advertising is particularly good at. By going too far either way -- rejecting interactive out of fear or rejecting traditional advertising for being too old fashioned -- we risk not utilizing each medium for what it's best at. Prada probably shouldn't stop advertising in "Vanity Fair," but it'd better make it a lot easier for someone to find its bags via Google. Source: ClickZ There isn't one way to do something like creating a buzz or advertising your products. Online ads are, finally, getting the investment and attention that they have long deserved. What's the next challenge? Making them work better and better. The rub, of course, is that as advertising become ubiquitous, it also becomes easier to ignore. So, to counter that ... bigger! Animated! Sound! Movies! No. Relevancy. Subtlety. Match ad to content ... not content to ad. Make the ads part of the flow. Not so people have to stop reading, but so while they are reading about a topic there is a related ad. Of course, the online ad world is going to get a lot more innovative. Attention, and cash, tend to help this. Personally I'm looking forward to this. I would even go so far as to say I might subscribe to a "deal of the day" RSS feed. I know I'd like to get information from the local grocery store on good deals (right now I just call my friend Bill who manages the freezer department or Mickey who runs the dairy dept. ... gotta love small town life). So ... 2006 ... the year of the online ad ... can't wait.
Yahoo!'s strategy is ... blogging?
by
Tris Hussey
on December 12, 2005 09:35AM (PST)
Last week Yahoo! announced that it has acquired Del.icio.us (for about $40 mil), late yesterday Yahoo! has announced that they have reached an agreement with Six Apart (interestingly, this isn't on the Six Apart site right now) that Moveable Type will now be offered by Yahoo! for it's SMB customers: "This is going to be our recommended (sales) channel for small business," he said [Anil Dash]. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said it will offer commercial blogs based on Movable Type as part of its existing small business Web-site management service. Yahoo provides customers with a unique Web address, blogging tools and business-class e-mail services with spam and virus protections for less than $12 a month. Movable Type is commonly used by businesses, Web designers and professional bloggers to create easily updated Web sites. Other blog software such as Google Inc.'s Blogger, WordPress, Xanga and Six Apart's own Live Journal, are more often used to create blogs for individuals. Yahoo hosts roughly 30 million individual Web sites, including hundreds of thousands of small business sites, said Rich Riley, general manager of Yahoo's small business unit. One in eight U.S. online stores are hosted by Yahoo, he said.
&Keywords=dsl&BANNER_STYLE=1&FOOTER_GRADIENT=0) While some might think this is an "also ran" news item, this isn't. This is a serious clue into Yahoo!'s plans. Flickr, Del.icio.us, now a close relationship with MT. These are three of the core tools in the Blogosphere. Things that make the Blogosphere tick. So in my mind I think Yahoo is going to be making a major play into the Blogosphere. Will Yahoo360 change to make it more open (and cooler)? Will they announce a new free blogging platform? Again, like the Del.icio.us announcement, Google is trying to get all of our attention, Yahoo is buying the tools that already have it. Like I asked last week ... what/who is next?
Wednesday, December 7
It's election time in Canada ... where are the party blogs?
by
Tris Hussey
on December 7, 2005 12:05PM (PST)
Here in Canada we're in the midst of a federal election. The Parliament was dissolved a bit ago and the campaign is starting to get going (sort of a semi-start since the Holiday Season is going to come in the middle of the campaign towards the late-January election). After the success of blogs in the American Presidential election, one might think Canadian Federal parties would wise up to this. Think again. They are totally missing the boat.  There should be great, witty, partisan blogs on each of the official party websites and links to un-official (but supportive) blogs too. How about a nice OPML file of all the blogs supporting a particular party? That would be cool. Politics is like business in many, many ways. Blogs work for this so well. Personal opinion, passion, wit, clever writing. This yells "Blog me!". Mathew Ingram of the Globe and Mail has a review of the main party websites. Only one kinda has a blog, but all are really missing the boat. Here's the intro to the article ... A few years ago, a political party might have been able to get away with a fairly static presence on the Internet -- a boring website with some stale speeches, candidate bios, and so on -- but not any more. Now, people want "Web 2.0," and that means blogs, podcasts, video, RSS feeds and all kinds of interactive hoo-ha. So, would I blog for a political party? Sure, not for free, but sure. Which one? Well that would be telling ;-).
Tuesday, December 6
Mark Evans of the Financial Post on blogging and advertsing
by
Tris Hussey
on December 6, 2005 08:36PM (PST)
This a great follow up to my article yesterday about the NYT article on blogging. Mark Evans wrote an insightful article in the Financial Post today expanding on the NYT article and echoing my statements from yesterday (which is pretty cool, IMHO). The two (web) page article [ page 1 - page 2] Mark discusses in depth the tipping point of online advertising and advertising on blogs. He outlines a basic quandary we understand extremely well: For bloggers who prefer to go it alone, it will likely be difficult to get advertising unless their blogs are extremely popular and/or resonate with an attractive niche. While there will be individuals who do well financially, many of these one-person blogs will be too difficult for advertisers to pursue or simply not worth the effort when there are easier and bigger targets such as Weblogs and Federated Media.  Enter Qumana and AdGenta. We feel that indie bloggers shouldn't have to join a network. Bloggers are the network. Keep your blog. Place ads in the posts. Earn money. This is how Mark closes the article ... works here too: There is no doubt, however, mainstream media will get into blogs and try to generate revenue from the growth of online advertising. BusinessWeek, for example, is already producing several popular blogs and running ads from companies such as SAS and Oki. This kind of activity and the Forrester estimate of the blog-vertising market's size suggest the blogosphere may be on the verge of new economic reality in which more advertisers start to experiment and spend. The only question will be who gets to be part of the action. Technorati Tags : AdGenta, Qumana, online+advertising, blogs, blogging
Audited AdGenta data is ready and payments will be coming soon.
by
Tris Hussey
on December 6, 2005 10:14AM (PST)
The time has come. After a lot of work we are now able to report audited AdGenta data. What does this mean? You can now see your earnings, by day and by month.
We've come a long way in our reporting, and are still working hard to make more improvements. Here's where we stand: - You can review full audited clicks, impressions and earnings since you signed up
- Audited information will come in with a 12 to 36 hour delay. After 12 hours, your clicks and earnings will start to appear, and go up from then until the auditing is complete after 36 hours.
- Live unaudited data, overall and per post, will reapper at a later date.
- Payments will be issued soon for all earnings over $20 up until the end of October. For those under, we'll roll over your earnings until the next pay period.
- November payments will come out in the first week of January
The auditing process. This is the hardest part of running an ad network, especially one that is breaking new ground like AdGenta is.  As I mentioned in my Chitika auditing post, there are a number of challenges we face when trying to match up clicks with potential fraud or other disqualifiers. We are, of course, working hard with our partners to match data accurately and to improve the overall time lag in reporting. We've made good progress so far, and hope to continue to report improvements to you over time.
Other improvements are on their way. You can expect your inventory to start improving soon, as we broker more deals. Over time this will mean an increase in what you can earn, and that gives us the opportunity to change your earnings structure for the better. We thank everyone who has tried AdGenta already. Thanks for the leap of faith! Questions? Shoot. We're ready to answer them.
Monday, December 5
Rebels with a (business) clue ... ads come to blogs
by
Tris Hussey
on December 5, 2005 02:09PM (PST)
"I never try to hide the fact that I am writing about an advertiser," she said in an e-mail statement. "But I also don't apologize for accepting advertising, and I make it clear that just like everyone else I have to earn a living and pay the expenses of keeping the site going." -- Anita Campbell as quoted in the NYT Right on Anita! In her post " Business Bloggers No Longer Rebels" Anita talks about the tremendous sea change in blogging this year ... we're mainstream. Not only are we mainstream, but companies like AT&T, Audi, and others have figured out that our blogs are great places for advertising. Anita, like me, has ads on her site. The ads bring her a little income to help defray the cost of business, maybe even pay for a nice dinner out.  Her ads are pretty targeted. Mine are keyword-driven. Bottom line ... we accept ads on our blogs and our readers, generally accept them too. As much as we talk about the growth in online advertising in 2005, we have to stress that while advertising on "general" websites is increasing, advertising on blogs is just getting started. To be sure, most blog writers do not make any money, and those who do often make only enough to pay their site fees. There are now at least 21.5 million Web logs worldwide, according to Technorati, a company that tracks blog postings. Many blogs remain primarily personal postings that Internet users pursue purely because of their own interests. Still, large numbers of online writers are interested in making money. -- NYT article "As Corporate Ad Money Flows Their Way, Bloggers Risk Their Rebel Reputation" True blogs are in many ways still the rebels of the Internet. Funny, though, that's why a lot of them are popular. Hmm. I don't think I'd call myself a rebel, but I certainly try to speak my mind (I sense Fred cringing at that). I think that might be the biggest challenge for advertisers to swallow. Bloggers don't stay "on message". Bloggers, generally, don't do well with being told what they can't say ... that will generally get blogged and that looks even worse. Let's look at the other side of the coin. Blogs are now the place to get expert analysis. Blogs are the place to read what some of the top thinkers in virtually any industry are saying about a topic or issue. Makes perfect sense to advertise on a blog. Bloggers who have a niche, say business or marketing, are great for related ads. Generalists might do better with keyword ads. The bottom line though, is that blogs are a virtually untapped advertising market. 2005, blogs go mainstream. 2006 ... blogs become vehicles for income. Who's ready? Technorati Tags : online+advertising, Anita+Campbell, professional+blogging, blog+advertising
Sunday, December 4
Online advertising, click fraud, and auditing
by
Tris Hussey
on December 4, 2005 11:08PM (PST)
It is a given that there is click fraud out there. That's why we (speaking of AdGenta) scan the incoming click data for obvious fraud then when we audit it goes through again. Come on sometimes it's obvious. Like the one user who clicked on the same ad over and over and over again, within minutes, from the same computer, without even refreshing their cache. I'm serious it happened, I saw the data. Dumb, plain dumb. So Chitika. Well they told everyone how much they might earn from their unaudited data. Hey I use Chitika eMiniMalls too. Heck there are even Chitika ads in some of my old posts (which makes me wonder how those are generating significant clicks). How does this work? Well they counted a click. The click is worth a certain bid price (cost per click) so they just went clicks x bid price = earnings. Great. Simple math. But ... But at the end of the month Chitika's ad providers come back and say ... okay you sent us 100 clicks ... we're only paying you for 45 of them, sorry. Ouch. So, I'm not blaming Chitika here. They have to audit their data, match it with the ad provider's data coming in (which btw is not fun ... ) and report. How can we make this better? Well, let's be realistic ... unaudited data should NOT be reporting earnings. I use the data as a barometer for how my traffic and ads are doing (with AdGenta data you can track down to the post/ad). I track the number of impressions and clicks. In fact, I scann all AdGenta users' data. I'm looking for patterns. Are impressions and clicks going up or down (you know there is a noticable pattern for the week, btw)? Is there a user who seems to be getting it right? Do I know how much the clicks are worth (in terms of bid prices)? Of course I do, that is part of my job. You'd be pretty cranky at me if I wasn't tracking that data. So for AdGenta we've been giving you unaudited data. Data you can use to help you track your ad impressions and which advertisments your readers respond to. Not how much cash you're making. We can't tell you that until we know which clicks will count and how much those clicks are worth. Yeah it's quite a matrix. Again, not fun. In the future we'd like to improve things. We'd like to be able to give you live, audited data. Can we? That all depends on the data we get. In the meantime ... We're auditing data. We'll tell you, as best we can, how it is done. We'll tell you what is out of our control. If you have questions ... fire away. This is new territory for not only us but advertisers too. I personally talk with them. I personally argue your case. That bloggers should be able to place ads they control into their posts. They should be able to post that article wherever they can. Some advertisers get it. Others don't. Regardless, we're working hard for you. Let me know how I can help you.
Chitika's auditing PR problem
by
Tris Hussey
on December 4, 2005 10:40PM (PST)
Ouch. Boy Chitika has certainly taken it on the chin this week. I'm not going to revel in their woe. No value in that. They've come out with a response that I, personally, think it weak ( Darren's take on their response). It doesn't go far enough to explain and say ... okay we blew it this is how we're going to do things differently. It's more like "more fool you for banking on the earnings in unaudited reports" how about just not put the earnings up? The coverage was fast and furious (and still coming): So, what's the lesson here, since I'm not here to skewer Chitika? On the blogosphere new breaks fast.  Really, really fast. The time stamps on these articles are within hours of each other. Hours. Man. When was Chitika's response? Next day I think. No. Bad. Blogs and PR ... they go hand and hand. Hey I know this because here at Qumana we do this. And with AdGenta, just we've had our own questions to answer. Yeah I know your big question ... soon. So if you're in this biz ... man you have to be able to react fast. Really fast. I'm going to have a separate post about the whole online advertising/auditing/click fraud thing ... Technorati Tags : Chitika, Chitika+auditing, online+advertising, click+fraud
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