Today, the Associated Press took bloggers to task by stating that they do not allow anyone to quote excerpts from their articles. They specifically went after The Drudge Retort, a left-leaning political site that aggregates short bits of content from around the web as selected by their readers, and told them to remove remove seven items that contained quotations from articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.
The Drudge Retort
Many sites and blogs on the web, like The Drudge Retort, link to articles of interest on other sites by displaying the title and a short excerpt of a few lines from the original article, with a link to click through to read the rest of the article. This is considered accepted practice under the laws of fair use, which state that people can quote from other publications without asking for permission from the creator in certain circumstances. The New York Times gives the example of a book reviewer, who does not need to ask permission from the publisher in order to quote parts of the book in their review.
Bloggers Rebel
The blogosphere has not taken AP’s actions lightly. In a post titled “Here’s Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They’re Banned,” TechCrunch says that AP should consider all these links a favor, and that they can’t make their own rules. TechCrunch says that AP has taken this type of behavior too far, and as a result AP is now banned on TechCrunch until further notice:
So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.
Plagiarism vs. Fair Use
I am strongly against stealing content. People work hard to create intellectual property, whether it’s movies, music, or writing, and just because it’s easy to steal doesn’t mean that it’s ok. At the same time, the web is about sharing content, and sites enjoy greater success the more their content is recommended and linked to by others. Sites like The Drudge Retort aren’t copying content - they are linking to the original source with short excerpts. By threatening people who share their content, AP is causing themselves damage two-fold:
- They look like the big, bad corporation who looks down upon the plebes from their ivory towers.
- People will think twice before sharing their articles with others on the web for fear that they will be sued.
The big bad corporation is an unsavory character that doesn’t mesh with today’s web. Instead of shunning its audience and those who want to share its content, AP may want to consider learning what the web is about today, and working with it rather than against it.
A new group has been formed for Israeli women in the hi-tech and web industries. The group, F5 Refreshing (get it? F5 is the button your press to refresh your browser) is sponsored by Sun Microsystems’ Sun Startup Essentials department, and is organized by Liat Vardi.
The first event will take place on June 26 at a loft in Tel Aviv. The agenda includes dinner, networking, and a short lecture by yours truly on Using Blogs and SEO to Promote your Business.
For more information and to register, visit Liat’s blog here. You can also see the facebook event here.
Hope to see you there!
I rarely use the Stumble! button on the StumbleUpon toolbar. Basically, what it does is when you press it, it offers you a random site that others have “stumbled,” or voted for, as good sites. It’s actually pretty fun to discover these sites that you’d never come across otherwise.
Well, today I decided to test my luck, and StumbleUpon showed me this cartoon, which really spoke to me because I grew up with Cookie Monster, and now I deal with big-people cookies.
Oh, Cookie Monster, you are so…consistent.
What do we learn from this (since everything must have a purpose):
- Social media can be fun.
- Social media can be a huge time waster, so be careful.
- If you use StumbleUpon enough, and/or you write good blog posts that others will want to “Stumble,” you too can enjoy surprise visitors and increased traffic to your site.
More information on using StumbleUpon:
Getting Started with Stumbleupon - from StumbleUpon
A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website - from the amazing Dosh Dosh
More and more studies are showing that internet users do not engage with conventional online ads. Users have developed a type of blindness to the flashing, blinking, google-type ads that clutter pages, and no matter how invasive and annoying the ads are, we have learnt to ignore them.
So marketers are desperately searching for new ways to advertise to customers, one of which is the strategy of authenticity. This is when marketers create a video, or some other marketing piece, that looks real but has actually been carefully staged.
In most cases, the marketer lets the user in on the secret by telling them that the ad is fake, either directly or with hints. However, one marketer recently was so successful that he duped the entire internet into believing that his piece was real, to the embarrassment of almost everybody involved.
13 year olds steals Dad’s credit card to buy hookers - NOT!
A popular story ran on May 9, 2008 on money.co.uk about a 13 year old boy who stole his Dad’s credit card and ordered two hookers with it, only to be convicted of fraud and given a three year community order. This story was so popular, it reached the front page of Digg. It was also covered in other leading social media sites, as well as several online publications, resulting in 6,000 links to the article.
Well, it turns out the story was a fake. The writer, Lyndon Antcliff, says that he tried to make it as ludicrous as possible so its fakeness would be obvious. The story is indeed ludicrous; here are some excerpts:
- The credit card company involved said it was regular practice to send extra credit cards out as long as all security questions are answered.
- The escort girls who were released without charge, told the arresting officers something was up when the kids said they would rather play Xbox than get down to business.
- Police said they were alerted to the motel by a concerned delivery clerk…delivering supplies of Dr Pepper, Fritos and Oreos…
- Ralph had reportedly told police that his father wouldn’t mind, as it was his birthday last week and he had forgot to get him a present. The father, a lawyer, said he had been too busy, but would take him on a surprise trip to Disneyland instead. [my bold]
The goal of the story was to get attention from social media sites, generate backlinks and increase rankings on search engines for keyword phrases like “Credit Card,” and draw in hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Now that we know it was fake, you can’t help but wonder how people bought the story. But anyone who follows the top stories on digg can tell you that this story is actually mild compared to some of the other true stuff posted there.
lonelygirl15 - the fake/real video blogger
This episode is similar to that of lonelygirl15, a series of video blogs by a 16 year old girl named Bree, that became extremely popular on YouTube. Bree even had a MySpace page:
At first, the videos covered normal, everyday subject matter, as the title character dealt with typical teenage angst (and the ridicule she received from her deformed cheekbones), but quickly morphed into a bizarre narrative that portrayed her dealings with secret occult practices within her family and included the mysterious disappearance of her parents after she refused to attend a “secret” ceremony prescribed by the leaders of the family’s cult. (from Wikipedia)
Fans began to wonder if Bree was real in August 2006, pointing to small inconsistencies within the videos as evidence that the story might not be genuine. Eventually it was revealed that the whole thing was staged.
Lying in advertising is not allowed - you cannot claim your product will do something that it cannot. The same should go for online reality advertising - ethical guidelines should be developed for “reality” marketing that ensure that users are informed that what they are viewing is not real.
But of course, what is real anymore? If France 2 TV can stage the al-Dura shooting and get away with it, then who’s to say what’s real and what’s not?
Here’s another example of “reality” marketing:
Privacy by doc18
This week Emily Gould, former Editor at the mega-gossip-blog Gawker, published a stunning and moving description in the New York Times of her experience as a blogger who exposed all, both with regards to her own personal life, and those of celebrities. Her piece is fascinating and disturbing, and raises a lot of questions about the boundaries we set up and break down between our real-life identities, and those of our online personas.
One of the questions that I’m often asked about blogging is about how far bloggers should go in exposing their private lives. This aspect of blogging makes people nervous, since blogging is obviously a very personal endeavor, with people exposing their personal experiences, opinions and agendas.
In addition, many bloggers have seen that posts relating more detailed personal information are often more successful and engaging than those that just relate their opinions. So the question becomes: do I have to write about my personal life in order to succeed as a blogger?
You need to be public. And private.
In my opinion, the answer is yes and no. If you are blogging for professional purposes, it is very important that you stick with the main topic of your blog, and not deviate with whole posts dedicated to your dog’s antics or your spouse’s new haircut. People are reading your blog because they perceive you as an expert in your field, and they want to learn from your wisdom in that area. By writing about subjects unrelated to your main topic, you’ll make your readers wonder if it’s worth their while reading your blog post when there are five gazillion others out there that won’t waste their time.
Also, as we all know, exposing too much can actually be dangerous. There are unsavory creatures prowling the web, looking for juicy personal tidbits that they can use to harm you, whether it’s by stealing your identity, stalking you until you are too afraid to even leave your house, or in other unpleasant ways.
At the same time,you must be personal (and personable) when blogging. Personality is the main difference between conventional journalism, which is supposedly objective or, in the case of opinion pieces, sophisticated and controlled, and blogging, which is emotional, temperamental, and highly subjective - and way more fun to read!
Striking the balance
Here are three tips to help you maintain that balance between publicity and privacy:
- Make sure to use the word “I” when writing as much as possible.
- Stay focused on the topic of your blog. Remember that your readers are there to hear your words of wisdom, and that should keep you on course.
- And most of all: if you wouldn’t want your friends, parents or coworkers to read it, don’t put it on the web! There’s this company called Google that works hard to expose your web content.
I’m excited to announce the launch of a new course I’m giving on blogging and social media marketing strategies.
About the course
The new web, also known as web 2.0, is changing the way we communicate. With people spending more and more time online as active participants in the consumption and generation of content, companies and brands who wish to engage with online customers must adopt a new way of thinking.
“Corporate Blogging and Social Media” is a 3-day seminar that will take place on Thursday June 5, June 12, and June 19, 2008. During the course, you’ll gain a solid background in blogging and social media, start your own blog and write and optimize your first post for social media and search engines. We’ll also cover the following:
- How an effective blogging strategy can be an amazing way to market your brand and/or company
- How to set up and promote a blog with the various social media tools available
- Creating and monitoring an online social media profile that delivers results.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) basics for better blogging
- Digital PR/PR 2.0 - moving beyond the conventional press release to the Social Media Press Release
Where and what?
The courses will take place at Beit Shmuel in Jerusalem, conveniently located off of King David Street, near the David Citadel Hotel. Each day will begin at 9 am, and continue until 6 pm, with short breaks and a lunch break. Participants will receive printed material as well as access to a password protected part resource section on the illuminea site. Refreshments and a dairy lunch are included in the cost.
Find out more about the course, and see the agenda, click here
For more information, please contact us at info@illuminea.com, or at (02) 566-0297.
The following is a guest post by Heather Johnson. Her details are at the end of the article.
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In order to maximize sales and improve marketing tactics, each small business must learn the fine art of bootstrapping. There are many ways to cut costs in order to leverage your assets. Some of these methods are complex and only gradually save money, which is fine if you have the luxury of waiting.
However, many businesses resort to bootstrapping out of urgent necessity and there are certainly ways to cut costs immediately. Below are eight bootstrapping tips that will show you quick results.
- Switch to VoIP - Many companies are saving thousands each year by using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) providers like Skype. All phone calls are free between Skype users around the world and Skype-to-landline calls are cheaper than traditional long distance services.
- Sell Your Unnecessary Frills - Did you get overexcited when you opened your office and purchase some unnecessary goods? If you need to free up some cash for more important ventures, then you can certainly do without your hip decorations. Sell them on eBay or Craigslist.
- Stop Faxing Everything - Are long distance costs rising because of your constant faxing? There are cheaper alternatives, such as scanning documents and emailing them. Most companies will have no problem with receiving a PDF instead of a fax.
- Go Easy on the Thermostat - Energy costs are hard on everyone these days, not just small business owners. While you don’t want to create a terrible work environment for your employees, there is nothing wrong with asking them to bundle up a bit in the winter and dress cooler in the summer. That way, you can be a bit more sensible with the thermostat.
- Outsource That Open Position - If you are struggling to cut costs, then the last thing you need to do is hire more employees. Outsourcing is a preferred method of saving money for companies both small and large. Sites like Elance and Get a Freelancer are brimming with eager, virtual assistants who will save you time and money.
- Buy Secondhand / Refurbished Goods - The fact is, you don’t need a new desk or copy machine. You can find secondhand office furniture at many stores, as well as refurbished electronics. Conduct some research beforehand, however, and make sure you are buying from a reputable source.
- Go Open Source - There are numerous open source alternatives to the commercial software you may be considering. In case you haven’t heard, open source = free. Free is good, so find out more about open source software at osalt.com.
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Stop Paying for Lunch - Are you the type of boss who likes to buy lunch for everyone several times a week? That ends now if you want to leverage your assets to the max. Yes, even those pizza deliveries are adding up. For those of you who run a one-person operation, the same rule applies. Stop eating out and start packing your own lunch.
Great companies have been built with very little money and efficient bootstrapping skills. Don’t be afraid to start cutting costs on a smaller scale with the above tips. You will be surprised at how much money you will save… money that can be put toward marketing, for example.
Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for business credit card and best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.
About a month ago I spoke at the Techshoret Conference for technical writers. Techshoret is an active mailing list for technical writers in Israel, but it includes many members from overseas as well. The people on the list are very supportive and helpful, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the best email groups in the world for technical writers.
Techshoret holds an annual conference in Jerusalem, and I was invited to speak on the topic of Blogging and Social Media as Marketing Tools for Hi-Tech Companies since they decided to add some non-technical writing lectures to the mix.
My lecture covered case studies of businesses and their successes and failures in the blogosphere, and how the world of marketing is changing to the point where blogs and social media are a necessary part of today’s marketing strategy.
I promised the participants that I would upload my presentation, and here it is (finally)!
Hollywood on a Shoestring Budget
I am also including the great presentation given by Benjy Caplan who works at ECI Telecom. Benjy spoke about how to create great videos without being a professional videographer. His presentation was interesting because he explained how his company uses video as part of their user manuals. I think this is brilliant, because so many Israeli companies have overseas customers who don’t really speak English, and the best way to communicate in that situation is visually. In addition, his company saves the costs of sending technicians overseas to help clients by sending them help videos instead.
Benjy gave us one real example of how his company used a video to help clients in India install one of their products. The clients sent ECI a picture of their installation, which was a jumble of wires. Instead of sending technicians over to fix things up, Benjy produced an Oscar-worthy video with step-by-step visual instructions of where to put which wire.
With so many Israeli companies exporting overseas, I think many should learn from Benjy’s example and save themselves a lot of time and money by adding videos to their customer support services.
Enjoy!
Bill Gates has just joined LinkedIn, and I can see why. I just visited LinkedIn and was pleasantly surprised to see their amazing new interface. The modifications to the interface, and the addition of new options and features has made it into a serious business networking tool that I could see myself visiting on a regular basis.
Before the changes were made, having a LinkedIn profile was like being at a party where everyone was deaf and mute. You could wave at people and/or shake hands (i.e. create and view connections), but aside from moderate signing (”I recommend you,” “Will you be my friend?”), nothing much happened. You couldn’t see your friends’ activity, the groups feature was weak-to-non-existent, and communication was sparse. The open bar (free membership) could only keep people interested for so long.
Now, LinkedIn has added a lot of the features that people look for in social networking sites, thanks to the innovations made by facebook in this area. As a result, LinkedIn is now a full-fledged social networking site, with all the goodies that can make it fun…I mean a good tool for developing productive business relationships.
Here’s an overview of the new features and design:
A more usable interface
With two simple menu bars, one horizontal and one vertical, the LinkedIn user can now reach all the information and participate in all the social activities with ease. You can find people, jobs, ask and answer questions, and find and recommend service providers on the top menu bar. On the sidebar, you can manage your profile, contacts, Inbox - which has many more features (see below), and groups.
Network Statistics
This page is under Contacts on the vertical sidebar, and gives you an overview of your network. You can see your first degree, second degree and third degree connections, where your network is located, which networks you have access to, and more. This information is cute, but not really useful. For example, my Network Statistics page told me that my connections are in 23 industries, but my network gives me access to 147 additional industries, such as…Ranching. If I ever buy a farm, I’ll know where to turn.
Better organized Inbox
Your Inbox is now organized according to sub-topics. The most interesting and useful ones in my opinion are Introductions, Invitations, Profiles, Q&A and Recommendations. Introductions is a way for people to get introduced to people they’re not connected to on LinkedIn via that person’s direct connections. Invitations is where requests to connect appear. Profiles enables people to send other people profiles of people they think they’d be interested in. Q&A allows you to organize and track your questions and answers, and Recommendations is a place to see who has recommended you, and easily recommend them in return.
Network Updates let you see what your network is up to
The new Network Updates that appear on your home page allow you to see what your network has been doing lately, like who has added new contacts, joined new groups, changed their profile picture, etc. This is very similar to the facebook news feed that we all love.
Status
You can now have a status in LinkedIn! This is like the facebook status, and is a way for all your connections to see what you’re up to. This can be a very powerful way to passively announce new business developments, requests for meetings, and other notifications. I just hope there’s some way to eventually import my twitter updates automatically like I do for facebook so that I can update everything at the same time. Also, it’s pretty annoying now that every status automatically starts with the user’s first name, not even “Miriam is,” so the status doesn’t make sense unless you make sure your status starts with a verb like “is” or “thinks.”
LinkedIn emerges as the true business networking site
Until now, I and many other people were using facebook for business. Thanks to facebook’s news feed, events, status, posts, and more facebook is a great way to communicate and connect with business associates. The drawback to using facebook for business is that it’s not intended for business. On facebook, my “friends” include family (even my Dad is on facebook), old school friends, and other friends, along with business connections. That means that it’s hard to strike the balance between a profile that is both professional and personal. For example, I’ve hesitated to post photos and news about my kids and family on facebook because I don’t want my non-personal “friends” to see that kind of stuff.
In short, LinkedIn has just moved up a notch in the social networking world. Based on what I find useful in facebook for business, I’d like to see LinkedIn eventually add the following features:
- Importing blog posts and other feeds - my blogs are an important parts of my business communications, and I’m sure that’s the case with many other people. I would want my connections to be able to see my new posts as they are published, as well as my activity on other social media sites. Plaxo Pulse got this right with their ability to add unlimited feeds of your activity around the web. With our web identities becoming increasingly fragmented as we participate in myriads of sites, the ability to unify it all in one place for business could be very useful.
- Events - The option to add business events, and RSVP so that others can see if you’re attending could help people publicize events to a broad audience, and connect to people they’re interested in meeting. If done properly, LinkedIn could potentially take over all business events from Meetup.com.
- Photos and videos - I love seeing pictures from events, whether I’ve attended them or not. Videos from events, as well as business related videos could provide useful content to my network.
- Documents - Here’s where LinkedIn could stand out in the business networking world: documents are an integral part of running a business. If there was a document sharing area of LinkedIn, people could share and recommend templates for contracts, MOUs, NDA, letters, emails, invoices, work orders, and more. In addition, authors could share their e-books or articles on business topics.
LinkedIn has come a long way, but it has a lot of potential beyond adapting facebook’s features in a business setting. facebook succeeded by thinking outside of the box, and I’m sure there are ways that LinkedIn could become a leading business networking site in ways beyond copying facebook.
Oh wait, is that a question for me from Bill Gates? Bill, I’m flattered, really.
So what’re you waiting for? Connect with me on LinkedIn!
I know this is way overdue, but I actually have to work sometimes. So apologies.I already wrote a general overview of SphinnCon Israel. The next four posts will cover the sessions, and the information that I thought was most interesting and useful.
Barry Schwartz from Rusty Brick and Search Engine Roundtable kicked off the event with an introductory presentation. He explained that he was here for his nephew’s bar mitzvah, and the event was planned around that. So a big thanks to his nephew for being born 13 years ago. Also, as I mentioned in my previous post on SphinnCon Israel, he is hoping to hold a much bigger event, on the scale of SMX, in Tel Aviv.
Here is a summary of Barry’s introduction. Scroll down to see it in video:
Google’s secret for good SEO: good content
As I mentioned in my previous post, an Israeli Google representative in Dublin sent a little video to us to wish us luck at the conference. He gave us the official Google “secret” for getting good search engine results
- Good content
- Use Google Webmaster Tools to make sure your site is running properly.
The people on the panels seemed to think there’s a bit more one can do to rank better in the SERPs.
Paid Text Links
Matt Cutts went on record for the first time in September 2005 saying that he doesn’t like text links. In October 2006, he warned about a possible penalty for text links. The penalty came in Oct. 2007, when many bloggers and sites saw their PageRank drop.
Google PageRank
Barry said that the Google toolbar shows a different page rank than Google actually uses in their algorithms. So it’s possible that you see a public PageRank of 4, but in fact your value according to Google may be higher or lower. So in fact, we could just ignore PageRank, and go along doing our best to build up our sites with good content.
PPC and Adwords
PPC is seeing steady inflation. The cost per keyword increased 25% over the past six months. Why?
- Click fraud, which is increasing. Click fraud in content networks is higher.
- More competition, which means more people don’t know what they’re doing and are bidding too high.
- General economic factors - things cost more.
- New PPC algorithms
Virality
Barry spoke a bit about things going viral, and said that the first ever viral success was the The Hamster Dance, a little video of dancing hamsters that was sent around via email. This brought to mind the most watched video on YouTube: The Evolution of Dance, which currently has been viewed over 74 million times. I think these two examples of what humans are attracted to is an interesting (worrying?) commentary on human nature.
That’s all for now. I hope I’ll get the next part up next week. Here are the videos:
Part 1
Part 2
And…The Evolution of Dance (I couldn’t resist)
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