At every blogging conference I've been to in the last two years we've all been talking about "blogging" as it exists today will be replaced by people using the tools, technologies, and techniques we think of as "bloggy". Strategic Business Advisors is certainly moving in that direction. Their site is built on MT (the blog engine) but looks just like a website to me. Paul Chaney has a great article about it on their website.
I ran into my old friend Paul Chaney last week at Blog Business Summit. He finally took the chance to try the newest version of Qumana while he was there. He was impressed to say the lest. His review says it all.
NEW ORLEANS — Online journalists warned a meeting of newspaper editors Thursday that their industry's survival depends on how well they can engage and excite the masses of readers on the Web.
While delving into the digital age may seem daunting, "it's not nearly as frightening as what will happen to journalism if we don't embrace it," Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, said during the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference.
The Internet provides opportunities for storytelling and interacting with readers that traditional newspapers do not, Brady and panelists at the conference said. From video and photo galleries to podcasts and blogs, the Web is opening new doors to entice in readers and otherwise build community.
"People are desperate for community," Jon Fortt, senior editor of Business2.0 magazine, said during a panel discussion on attracting young readers. That included jargon such as "widgets," which are blocks of information, and mentioned the value social networking sites can offer for finding story ideas and sources.
"They're looking to share ideas," Fortt said.
Some journalists view the rise of the Web culture as a threat to newspapers - and they should, Fortt said in an interview.
"It's a threat to our previous mode of packaging," said the 29-year-old Fortt, adding that he reads more news now than ever and gets most of it from the Web.
I found on Gadgetizer this morning a nice handy tip. You like putting YouTube videos on your blog? Now, when you embed the player, does it totally mess up your template? Yeah, mine too sometimes. Solution? Just a little math, and Qumana's Insert HTML function.
As Gadgetizer said the default width is 425 and height is 350. If you want to make the width smaller you also have to make the height smaller too or the player will look wonky. You could do as Gadgetizer said and open an image editing program, make and image 425x350 then scale to the width you want, but that's really too much work. All you need to do is multiply the width you want by 0.82 and you've got the right height. Perfect.
And how does Qumana make this easy? Simple, edit the code before you commit to it.
First let's look at the Insert HTML window with some YouTube code in it:
See the 425 and 350 bits? There are two of them. In the video I've embedded I wanted to make it 375 wide ... that makes the height 307 (okay it's 307.5 but I went for the small side).
In the graphic above you can see that I've replaced the bottom one first (actually I missed the top one before I took the screen shot, but caught it before I published). That's it. Really. Now if you want to do this after you've inserted the code, no biggie, just click the Source View tab and edit it there. Doing it in the Insert HTML is easier because you know that's the code and all of the code. No wading around the rest of your post.
So enjoy the movie trailer (I know it's old, but I liked it okay?)—in the nice, smaller size.
According the the Harris Interactive 2005 Survey, 85% of respondents said word-of-mouth communication is credible, compared with 70% for PR & advertising
65% of consumers trust their friends the most for product recommendations, while 27% trust experts, and 8% trust celebrities Source: eMarketer
26% of the top search results for the world's 20 largest brands are consumer-generated media sites Source: Jupiter Research
Online influencers will forward positive messages to an average of 11 people and negative messages to an average of 17 Source: Burson-Marsteller
Here's a brief and interesting white paper titled "Making the Case for a Social Media Strategy". It clearly lays out and reinforces that it's the end user - the personal publisher sharing their voice, ideas, or opinions - who is exerting more and more choice and control over the ways the media - including advertising - is being created and distributed.
This is an important element of Q-Ads' value to end-users ... the ability to exercise more choice and control over what advertising they use and where they place it alongside or within the content of a blog post.
Social media – online sites like blogs and discussion boards where consumers create and share information and opinions directly with each other -- are beginning to affect brands. Examples like the Kryptonite lock crisis and Intuit’s continued success have convinced marketers to incorporate social media into their plans. In many companies, marketers must convince their senior management executives who don’t understand the influence the social aspects of the Web experience is exerting on their brands.
Here’s the elevator pitch to give to a busy executive:
The influence traditional media and marketing have over consumer perception is waning as people use the plethora of digital technologies to circumvent traditional sources to obtain information and entertainment from each other. But these social media outlets are more than another channel through which to deliver messages to the marketplace. Companies like GM, Microsoft, Intuit and New Line Cinema are successfully using social marketing strategies to understand and engage their audiences more deeply – with demonstrable business results.
We've gotten some reports and have confirmed that the latest version of Qumana and the lastet version of OSX aren't playing nice together. We're working on the fix and will have a new version of Qumana for the Mac out as soon as possible.
Even though I'm using Qumana for this post, I do on occasion use Live Writer. It just depends on what I'm doing to testing. As you know, LW has a nifty plugin API. You also know that one of the things that makes Qumana special is Q-Ads. We've recently launched the Q-Ads Tool for IE and Firefox, now comes a brand new (like this morning) addition to the Qumana family—the Q-Ads plugin for Live Writer! This is so new that there isn't a page for it on the Qumana site. Because this is so new we'd like you to download it, try it, test it, and give us feedback. Qumana is a small team and we'd like to expand our testing pool to all of you.
GoogleTube, Yougle ... whatever you call it, it's been big news on the blogosphere. Heck it's been big news everywhere. Now the question is, you create a great video and post it on YouTube, what do you get out of it? Google now gets tons of eyeballs to look at (and click) ads. Hmm.
Here's a good case in point. This is my favourite YouTube video (okay I don't cruise YouTube much ... but I still love this one):
Now I know Chris (probably why I like it ... naw it's just funny). From the YouTube stats this vid has been viewed 403,789 times, received 1855 comments and has been favourited 2007 times. Wow, that's impressive. What does Chris get? A link to his blog. Now Chris is a smart cookie. He knows how to get the most out of Adsense, but still ...
Now here's an idea. Have a popular video and make sure you blog about it and then you put an ad in the post that you get money for. Kinda like this:
Hmm ... sounds like a good idea to me. How? Qumana lets you easily embed your video into your post (handy Insert HTML button let's you paste that embedding code), our Insert Ad button lets you put your ad in. Don't want to use an editor, that's cool ... we've got the Q-Ads Tool ... does the same thing as the Insert Ad button. Inserting the vid? Well ... I'll be a bit coy ... watch this space.
Everybody knows by now that Google has just acquired YouTube (Globe and Mail), adding the major play in online video clips to its arsenal of services where content meets advertising.
The deal is by far Google's most expensive in its eight-year history. The lofty price underscores how important Google expects on-line video to become as more viewers and advertisers migrate from television to the Internet.
While it has been able to extend its lead in the lucrative search market, Google hasn't been able to become a major player in on-line video.
“This gives Google the video play they have been looking for and gives them a great opportunity to redefine how advertising is done,” said Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
Regular readers of the Qumana blog will know that Qumana makes inserting YouTube clips into blog posts a two or three click operation ... copy the html from YouTube, paste it into Qumana's "Insert HTML" function and hit "Post".
Then, click on "Insert Ad", type a keyword related to the blog post content or the video clip, and click once more ... voila, a relevant ad is inserted into the blog post alongside, above or below the video clip ... wherever you placed the cursor.
Advertising meets blog post and video clip content. Qumana gives bloggers "choice and control", and functionality that is very closely aligned with Google's overall strategy.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The online hangout MySpace.com will organize 20 concerts featuring bands promoted on its site as part of a campaign to raise awareness and money for humanitarian relief in Sudan.
The site, which grew in popularity thanks to its early adoption by emerging bands and their fans, has in recent months taken a more active role in promoting social causes, such as environmental awareness and voter registration.
"The crisis in Darfur is a global concern and as a global community we have a responsibility to take action," Chris DeWolfe, MySpace's chief executive, said in a statement. "MySpace's reach gives us an extraordinary opportunity to spread the word and empower individuals to help address the horrors in Darfur."
Some 2.5 million people have been made homeless by three years of fighting between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in the vast, arid Darfur region of western Sudan. At least another 200,000 people have been killed since hostilities erupted.
Just last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that Darfur is creeping ever closer to catastrophe, with rape and violence on the rise and humanitarian access at its lowest level since 2004.
The concerts will take place October 21. Artists include TV on the Radio in Philadelphia, Alice in Chains in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Ziggy Marley in Medford, Oregon, Citizen Cope in Seattle, Gov't Mule in Spokane, Washington, and Insane Clown Posse in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Other concerts will take place in Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco, California; Melbourne, Florida; Atlanta; Louisville, Kentucky; St. Paul, Minnesota; Reno, Nevada; Baltimore; Asheville, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Milwaukee; and Washington, D.C.
