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August 29, 2005
Full disclosure in blogging
Design Public hosted a Baby Blogapalooza -- a weeklong blogfest to launch new baby and kids furniture lines -- and had several popular parenting bloggers write entries. In return, they some were given a discount on furniture. Design Public did not mention the discount in any way on the site.
Only one site voluntarily disclosed the arrangement: Mrs. Kennedy (the name she uses on her blog) at Fussy.org.
I'm on the Design Public blog this morning! They asked me to write something about children and design and in return I'm invited to buy something from their site at a discount. Which is clever of them! To think of a way for me to pay them. Seriously, though, we need lamps.
Alice (who doesn't use her last name on her blog) at Finslippy revealed the arrangement in her comments after someone asked.
Anonymous commenter: "In the interest of disclosure, I'd appreciate knowing if any of the guest bloggers are being compensated in any fashion."
And she responded: "Sure, anon-- I was offered the ability to purchase furniture at a discount, if I so chose. And...that's it."
Three guest bloggers (ZeroBoss, Suburban Bliss and CityMama) wrote about Design Public on their sites without mentioning any discount. They also wrote about the company at bloggingbaby.com, owned by Weblogs Inc.
If you're being compensated by a company to blog, should you disclose that? Yes. What if you're offered only a discount on merchandise? You might be happy with just the additional exposure for your blog without the discount.
If you blog merely as a hobby, you might feel that no one needs to know about a simple discount. Do you have more of an obligation to disclose any compensation arrangements if your blog accepts advertising? It seems to me that the answer is yes. Sites that have ads and accept comments have entered the citizen journalist/publisher arena. You have become a media outlet, however small, and should disclose any financial relationships that relate to your site.
In journalism and public relations, the answers are clear and usually stated in employee manuals and codes of ethics. But the ethical waters are murky for bloggers. Clarifying those waters by being up-front with commercial inducements is blogging the right way.
Posted by at 02:54 PM
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August 25, 2005
Confused curmudgeon
Charles Warner goes after GM and Chrysler for allegedly spamming his Media Curmudgeon blog with bogus trackbacks. Heather Green picks up on the topic in the Business Week blog Blogspotting. Mr. Warner chalks the trackbacks up to the companies' desperation to sell some cars.
But the whole premise is wrong, as Niall Kennedy points out in his comments on the Media Curmudgeon. The guilty spammers are clearly resellers of vehicles, like the used car dealer on the lot down the street from you. The Curmudgeon acknowledges that, but chooses to pressure the carmakers over it anyway. Umm, right. But how can automakers be held responsible for every person selling a vehicle? As Mr. Kennedy asks, is Mr. Warner blaming Pfizer for Viagra spam? And whom might we hammer over porno spam? God? (The truly original equipment manufacturer.)
Also, it's hard to even imagine GM or Chrysler setting out to spam Mr. Warner’s site. How would they go about pinging him? With what blog software?
While it's fashionable to bash away at the beleaguered American automakers these days, it would be nice if a blog that describes itself as writing "mostly about the media from a business, strategic, and management perspective" tried a little fact-checking before making wild-eyed accusations.
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 10:20 PM
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August 23, 2005
Best slides from the Blog Business Summit
Dutch blogger Frank Janssen couldn't make it to San Francisco for the Blog Business Summit last week, but presents the best slides from each presentation on his blog.
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 02:55 PM
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Compuware debuts developer blogs
Compuware launched 17 employee blogs, authored by the company's DevPartner and OptimalJ product employees. The portal page says:
These blogs are intended to stimulate thought, foster discussion and encourage debate. It is our collective hope that the Compuware Blogs become an important contribution to the software industry.
The site also sports a disclaimer:
The authors who post to this site are employed by Compuware Corporation. The opinions expressed here are the author's own and are not reviewed in advance by anyone other than the individual author. The opinions do not necessarily reflect the position of Compuware or any other third party.
The blogs are geared toward fellow software developers, and read as such:
UML is mainly geared towards OO technologies. UML is less suited for areas that are not OO-based, such as Relational database model, Web, Cobol-structures, etc. Luckily, for a number of these areas, there are other standard MOF-based model-languages available, such as the Common WareHouse Model (CWM).
Peter Karmanos Jr., Compuware's chairman and CEO, would make an excellent blogger. Karmanos has a history of colorful interviews with the media, and using a blog to promote his views and refute any negative coverage should be a no-brainer.
Posted by at 12:43 PM
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August 22, 2005
Interesting stuff from BBS 05
Now that the Blog Business Summit is over, and the strike by Northwest mechanics did not keep us Detroiters from flying home, here are highlights from the more memorable presentations I saw:
- Rebecca Blood and Matthew Oliphant presented good advice and good resources for those considering corporate blogging guidelines. Basically, since 7% of all U.S. Internet users are blogging, every company should let its employees know what kinds of things they might say on personal and company blogs that would get them fired.
- Anil Dash of Six Apart gave an overview of Movable Type 3.2, which is to be launched soon and offers simplified editing functions and (at last) automatic spam filtering and deletion.
- Janet Johnson of Waggener Edstrom and Robert Scoble of Microsoft talked about blogger relations. Johnson’s client Marqui got lots of negative publicity early this year by paying bloggers to write about it. (Marqui now has its own blog.) Her rules of engagement:
- Develop a thick skin
- Be absolutely honest
- Have a point of view
- Do your research
- Engage your detractors
- Drive to closure (meaning don't let the trolls get the best of you)
- I was on a panel with fellow PR practitioners and bloggers Lynann Bradbury of Waggener Edstrom and Rick Murray of Edelman, on the topic of "When Worlds Collide," the worlds in question being PR and the blogosphere. Lynnann had a valuable worksheet that companies can use to help them decide whether they’re ready to blog or not. Rick asked the intriguing question of how the highly regulated healthcare industry can participate in blogging. And I defended the press release as not dead yet and outlined some of our lessons learned from the GM FastLane blog.
- Paul Rosenfeld of Quick Books Online and I talked about the nuts and bolts of running corporate blogs in a panel moderated by Debbie Weil.
Technorati tags: bbs05, blogbusinesssummit
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 10:12 AM
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August 19, 2005
What should I blog about?
More updates from the Blog Business Summit in San Francisco. We did hear, via sirens and later on news sites, about an explosion nearby, but our hotel was unaffected. Meanwhile, the conference rolls on …
Molly Holzschlag and Darren Barefoot talked about the need to be open and honest while composing blog entries.
Molly said the companies who are interested in blogging should have an internal test phase to see who the best bloggers are before going public. The company could consider a test group or a few valued customers to gauge initial reaction.
Darren said if you are going to practice, it should be at full speed with the blog – real posts with real thoughts will give you an idea of what to expect.
Molly noted that a blog should accept negative comments. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” she said.
If your company is thinking about blogging or trying to get your thoughts together on what this blogging thing is, the best advice is to study – look, listen and learn. Start reading – search on Technorati for your industry. Read blogs that are talking about it. Participate. Comment on the blog if you like what is being said – and especially if you disagree. Let your point be known.
Sign up for an RSS service such as Bloglines. Once you figure out what RSS is, you’ll never look back. Learning how it works will save you time in the long run.
And try it out. Sign up for one of the free blogging services and post your thoughts. It’s all an experiment and can benefit your company in the long haul.
Technorati tags: bbs05, blogbusinesssummit
Posted by at 05:51 PM
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Honesty in advertising
Dave Taylor, an A-list blogger with several sites, told attendees of the Blog Business Summit how to get the most out of Google AdSense ads on your blogs: throw everything you know about Internet advertising out of the window.
"The more obvious [it is] the links aren’t part of your page, the less likely people are to click on them," Taylor said. Blogs tend to relegate their ads to the side of the page in a box that stands out as an ad. But readers are trained not to look at ads, he said.
He said the more he can integrate the ads into the content of his blogs, the better the ads perform. An audience member asked if it’s possible to take off the header "Ads by Goooogle." The answer is no.
In addition to Google AdSense, Taylor also uses affiliate links, such as audible.com and the Wall Street Journal, and has an ad for his own blog training event. His blog Ask Dave Taylor is his "big time revenue generator," he said.
Although Google prevents its AdSense members from giving numbers on how much they make, Taylor said it more than pays for his mortgage every month.
In my opinion, if you have a blog and you want readers to click on the ads, integrating them into the content somewhat is not a bad idea. However, you don’t want to deceive your readers into thinking it’s actually part of your content and something that you wrote. If you want to gain readers who will come back to your site again and again, you need to be honest with them, not only with your writing, but your advertising, too.
Technorati tags: bbs05, blogbusinesssummit
Posted by at 02:01 PM
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August 18, 2005
Do looks count?
I’m at the Blog Business Summit in San Francisco on a borrowed laptop that hasn’t cooperated well with the free WiFi system provided by AnchorFree. I finally got connected after two hours. And one more rant: hitting the “L” on this keyboard requires a heavy hand, so please forgive me if my typing ooks ike this (ironically, that turns "blogs" into "bogs").
The second session this morning focused on blog design, with DL Byron, of Textura Design and pugblog.com, and Chris Brownrigg of Boeing.
“Does design matter? Yes, even more so now, because content is king,” Byron said.
Brownrigg is the Boeing employee who designed Randy Baseler's blog with XHTML. Because Boeing wanted the site up quickly and Brownrigg wasn't a blogger, Brownrigg didn’t use blogging software but hand-coded each page and built each archive page by hand. The calendar was a .gif that had to be manually updated and image-mapped. Boeing later brought Byron in for knowledge about blog-publishing tools and did a redesign.
Interesting fact: The site is called Randy’s Journal because Boeing was uncomfortable with the term "blog." But Brownrigg put "blog" in each page title so if people searched for Boeing blog, Google would find it.
“We took no comments at first, then added an email link – we got flamed and peopled asked ‘Why can’t you use a comment system?' ” Brownrigg said.
The site now uses Movable Type and has RSS feeds, permalinks and comments. But Brownrigg said don’t expect a dialogue within those comments. "Randy is never going to answer his comments – he’s too frickin’ busy," he said.
Technorati tags: bbs05, blogbusinesssummit
Posted by at 04:18 PM
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August 16, 2005
Don’t send a blog to do a bankruptcy lawyer’s job
The question of blogging in a crisis has stimulated interesting discussions recently about the very public demise of an order fulfillment company for Internet businesses. Paul Purdue’s company, iFulfill.com, failed last month for a variety of the usual reasons. But the interesting thing was that its descent into chaos, mass firings, and angry customers was simulcast on Purdue’s blog.
On July 25th at 5:25 p.m., Purdue wrote cryptically :
Please stay tuned...
I will discuss the day's whirlwind developments here shortly. Thank you to everyone for the kindness we've been shown today.
Paul
Followed by more than 50 comments from angry customers, along the lines of:
So an email sent at 7:30am and a follow up email sent at 5:30pm that says you will update us soon.... It all makes sense now.
No phone contact, no email response, no update on your site. I wish I had more hands to give you more thumbs down.
Posted by: Shocked and Appalled at July 25, 2005 06:07 PM
Other comments gave links to other fulfillment services. Big ugly mess.
Stephen Baker of Business Week analyzed the role of the blog in iFulfill’s failure. Purdue had never hesitated to print angry customer complaints on the blog, on the advice of his consultant, blogger B.L. Ochman.
Purdue asked Ochman if he should publish such scathing comments on the blog. Her steadfast advice: Be transparent. She argued that readers and customers would trust him more once they saw that he didn't censor his blog. What's more, blogs with lively comments drew more readers. Purdue not only published the critique, he also mentioned it in his blog and linked to it, so that readers would see it.
Let’s review. Here are some things a blog can’t do:
- Fix a shoddy product
- Stop creditors from baying at the door
- Do a personality transplant for a boring executive
- Fix roaring incompetence by a company's managers
Blogs can:
- Engage passionate customers in a conversation
- Provide a community for brand loyalists
- Humanize a faceless corporation
- Provide fascinating reading material, including free books
Last word goes to a provocative comment by “Nombert de Plume” on Paul Chaney’s post about the debacle, “New Controversy stirs in the blogosphere”
“It’s crackers for businesses to create blogs where their competitors can tear them apart any day. Don’t expect that trend to catch on here in Singapore or anywhere else in Asia, ever. In fact I can’t imagine anyone anywhere outside the nut-case-packed US ever even coming up with such a cockeyed idea. . . . And now more shock and awe as Steve Baker of Business Week says he too thinks that the idea that companies with blogs should not censor critical comments makes sense. Only a journalist could think this. It’s stark staring insanity, mate. No company equipped with a brain will do this.”
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 11:54 AM
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Vote: Is the press release dead?
Robert French has a good essay on InfOpinions::Public Relations on Blogs as Placebos vs. Panacea. He has a poll on whether the press release is dead, but he’s only got 16 votes so far – go vote and tell him what you think.
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 11:34 AM
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August 10, 2005
New blog on the block
We're happy to announce MS&L BlogWorks' launch of a new blog covering the voluminous news of automotive suppliers, Auto Supplier News. Times are tough for auto suppliers these days, and several are believed to be on the verge of filing Chapter 11. MediaQuotient, the research division of Manning Selvage & Lee, compiles and summarizes the daily news of original equipment and aftermarket manufacturers. Check it out, and let us know what you think.
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 05:05 PM
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Blog news roundup
Apple employees can blog, but don't mention Apple
Not surprisingly, Apple retail employees are ordered not to comment on rumors to customers under any circumstances. Furthermore, while Apple employees are granted permission by Apple to create their own personal Web pages and blogs, they are not allowed to comment on anything related to Apple on such pages. Furthermore, they are prohibited from posting in any capacity on any Mac-related Websites or forums, whether they identify themselves as working for Apple or not.
Via Rubel.
Google blacklists news organization
Google has blacklisted CNet and its affiliates because a reporter "Googled" the Google CEO and added the information in an article.
And the New York Times article.
IFulfill.com CEO blogs as ship sinks
There's an interesting article in Business Week about the CEO of iFulfill.com blogging as his company crashed and burned.
Posted by at 01:29 PM
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August 04, 2005
50 million blog readers can't be wrong
By Charlie Kondek
As you read blogs, do you ever get the feeling that you're only one of a handful of people that does so? I often do. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows, however, that mine is a very wrong impression. According to Pew, 25% of internet users are blog readers. By my count, that's more than 50 million people in the U.S.
But that 50 million number could be even higher.
Another study, by Nielsen-Netratings, says that as many as 2/3 of the people identified as blog readers don't call what they're reading a blog. Some say they've never heard of blogging, or that what they're reading is not a blog.
What do they call it? That's not clear, but it does suggest the number of U.S. blog readers is even more staggering than 50 million. (I just want to stick my finger in my mouth, Dr. Evil-style, when I say "fifty million blog readers.") Buzzmetrics' Mouthpiece also takes this opportunity to suggest that "blogging" may be an industry term that never catches on with consumers, since they know what they're doing not as blogging but by another name.
To which Shakespeare might reply: does blogging by any other name still smell as sweet? To communications professionals that want to engage in the blogosphere, I'm sure it does. Though Pew says that blog readership is still a smaller audience than newspaper readership, 50 million – or more – is still an impressive number. I'll never feel like one of "a handful of people" ever again.
Posted by staff at 02:47 PM
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What's your policy?
Does your blog have a comment policy? Should it? Probably. If the blog is related to a business, definitely.
If you've been around the web for any length of time, you've seen how message boards and forums can get out of hand.
Debating is good. Difference of opinion is good. Meanness? Not good.
Robert Scoble, the Microsoft uber-blogger, has taken a break from blogging after being berated in his comments.
Scoble and Shel Israel are writing a book about blogging. On the accompanying blog, Shel announced a new policy.
The key points:
· From this point forward, this is what I will do. If I feel you are being abusive, hogging the conversation or otherwise discouraging the open exchange of legitimate points of view. I will ask you to be more polite. If you ignore the request, I will ban you from further Comments.
· From this point forward, I am banning all anonymous comments. If you have something to say, and you want to be credible, you will need to identify yourself, and I encourage you also to identify where you are coming from, so that others may assess how strongly they wish to value your opinions.
On the Blog Business Summit blog, DL Byron wonders if all comments turn ugly, like some Slashdot threads, that blogs could have a "slow death by comments."
Sure, it could happen. Just look at the ever-increasing blog spam on comments and trackbacks. And that's the moderator's role – someone needs to weed out the spam and the meanness and leave the rest of the comments open to foster spirited communications.
P.S. You can still register for the Blog Business Summit, Aug. 17-19 in San Francisco.
Posted by at 11:31 AM
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August 02, 2005
Your job or your blog
Steve Rubel is helping judge a contest for the best story of being sacked. Grand prize "loser" wins a trip for two on The Apprentice Legend Cruise, along with with cast members fired by Donald Trump. One of the first entries is Mark Jen’s, who was fired from Google for his blog, where he talked (vaguely) about confidential financial projections.
Other bloggers famous for being fired:
- Heather Armstrong put the word Dooced in the (urban) dictionary. Both Jen and Armstrong acknowledge they were foolish in blogging indiscriminately, and on the record, about their workplaces.
- Flight attendant Ellen Simonetti showed a little leg and cleavage in photos of herself. She plans to sue Delta Airlines for wrongful termination.
- Joe Gordon, fired from the bookseller Waterstone’s in the U.K. after 11 years on the job.
But let’s be honest, some bloggers are malicious. Here are other prime candidates for doocing, if their employers ever discover their identities:
- Pharmablogger: "I am an employee in the Clinical Development area of a large pharmaceutical company ("Pharma"), and I have attended an American law school. I've witnessed my industry manipulate, distort, subvert, suppress, and otherwise mangle facts in pursuit of increasing their consumption of the nation's wealth.”
- Disgruntled, a copywriter for an ad agency in Detroit, who writes rudely about her co-workers and her clients: "My job is sucking the life out of me. If you'd like to lament with me about jobs that slowly kill you, please, stay awhile. Misery loves company!"
Moral of the story: make it easy for everyone; come up with guidelines for employees who blog. Here are the ones Jen helped his new employer Plaxo develop, and here are Hill & Knowlton’s.
Posted by Laurie Mayers at 12:32 PM
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August 01, 2005
Polarization is good
By David Binkowski
A few weeks ago I attended and presented at Ad:Tech in Chicago and was moved. While several of the sessions were informative, there was one that was truly inspirational. In fact, after this keynote speaker's session, I immediately went to my laptop and e-mailed him for a copy of his presentation.
Guy Kawasaki's presentation, "Rules for the Revolutionary Marketer," took me back to my college days as a management student studying entrepreneurship. I listened to his rules and got giddy. The rule was simple: Polarize people.
Let me explain.
In an earlier post I wrote about how consumers feel about your blog, which should be an extension of your brand. Let's recap: Think about a product, then how that product makes you feel. Can't think of any? Then that brand or company isn't top of mind, and to take it a step further into your psyche -- you're not loyal to that brand.
So in essence, that company or brand doesn't polarize people. Love Apple or hate Apple, they sure do have some loyal customers. Love Starbucks or hate it, same deal. Nike has the same "problem".
So let's build a checklist of companies that are Revolutionaries. Apple. Starbucks. Nike. GM. Since GM is a client, I'd like to focus on 2 recent products that are polarizing people: Chevy SSR and Pontiac Solstice.
A husband and wife team recently reviewed the SSR, with one hating it and one loving it. Captain, we have polarization.
The Solstice conversations on the GM Fastlane Blog are filled with words like "love" and "want." Mission accomplished.
We know the 10 Commandments to blogging, and I'd like to add one of Guy's polarization rules to that list. Don't be afraid to speak your mind and stand up for what you believe. Sure, it might turn off a few people - but you're more likely to gain the respect of those who disagree and inspire those who are already on your side.
And I think Guy Kawasaki and corporate bloggers like Bob Lutz are OK with that.
Posted by staff at 09:12 AM
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