After two weeks soaking up the Hawaiian sun on holiday (and yes, it was delightful), it was hard for me to remember the Internet, let alone worry about blogging, but once you start focusing on business communications, it’s impossible to completely let go.

As a result, when we started hearing so much about the international Merrie Monarch hula festival taking place on the Big Island while we were there, I started to learn quite a bit about hula, not as dance, but as a communications channel, as a method by which the Hawaiians transmit their own oral history and culture, as a way of telling stories.

Hmm… blogging’s all about inventing and creating communications channels too, isn’t it, and the best bloggers are storytellers who are focused on the culture of technology, business and society just as much as on the specifics of their story.

And so…

The Surprising Similarities Between Blogging and Hula Dancing

I hope you enjoy it!

You know what “ego surfing” is, right? It’s when you look for references to yourself on various Web sites, in search engines, etc. What caught my attention today in this regard is that doing a wee bit of ego surfing on both MSN Search and Google really highlights to me the fundamental difference between the two search engines and shows why Google is still the clear market leader in this space.

Wait, don’t run away yet. The issue isn’t the search results, but rather the ability of the search engine to intelligently target advertising on the results page. If you do a random search, which site produces the best, most relevant, most contextually useful advertising and “sponsored links” for you?

I content – and demonstrate – that in this one instance, at least, Google far outshines MSN, with two out of the three matching adverts being very good matches, while MSN has a far worse result, with only two of its seven ads even remotely relevant for the search.

You can read more and see the specific advertisements here: Google still beats MSN on ad targeting.

Paul Gillin of “BtoB Magazine” is earnestly seeking non-tech company bloggers who are using weblogs for market research, specifically to collect research about customers and markets for an upcoming column. I know that there are companies whose blogs serve as market research – indeed, don’t just about all of these weblogs end up being customer research tools anyway, from which pages are most popular to the specific comments left?

Anyway, no pundits! He’s just looking for concrete, specific examples. Can you help him out? Please see:

    Are you using blogs for market research?

Surely a couple of you will step forward and help?

This is one of those great “some companies really ‘get it'” stories, the kind of thing I love to hear about as someone riding the very tip of the technology rocketship (think Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove and you’ll have my mental image exactly). Prentice-Hall Business Publishers have the same challenges that any company today faces, including motivating the sales force, identifying the key message or messages for marketing and making sure that the team stays on message rather than wandering off into pointless information that isn’t going to close any sort of deal.

But unlike most companies, PH decided to tackle the problem with blogs, podcasts and simulation games. It’s darn interesting:

  Blogs, Podcasts and Simulations Improve Sales at Prentice-Hall

What have you done to help your sales team succeed today?

I hear from a lot of different bloggers who are part of the Google AdSense program about their results, and it’s surprising to me how many say that they’re dissatisfied. Some even tell me “I earned $18 last month, so I’ve decided to just remove all ads from my blog and drop out of the program”. It’s their decision, but I have to say that a little bit of effort put into customizing your AdSense ad blocks and learning about how to fine tune your use of the AdSense system can really pay big benefits in terms of you truly understanding what is and isn’t working on your site.

A great example of this is Google’s “Channels” with AdSense. By using these channels intelligently, you can quickly differentiate between ad block layouts on your pages, different areas of your site, and even different domains if you’re running AdSense on more than a single site. And y’know what? It’s pretty darn easy to do, as detailed here:

    Maximize your AdSense Income with AdSense Channels

It’s well worth reading if you’re an AdSense participant, and if you’re not, well, maybe the figures in my example report could motivate you to sign up? Yes, it’s quite possible to earn some supplemental income – or more – as a blogger…

Google AdSense is the cornerstone of the Google empire in many ways and so it’s no surprise that lots of other companies, from Yahoo to Microsoft, are trying to hone in on the business with their own contextually sensitive text ad blocks. But Amazon? Who would have thought that the Seattle book company was busy building a sophisticated program of its own, called the Amazon Associates Sponsored Links Program. Never heard of it? You will:

    The Amazon Associates Sponsored Links Program

The information I share is all directly from Amazon. It’s a must read if you pay attention to the world of online advertising.

Google never stops experimenting and adding new features to its software systems, so it’s no surprise when major applications change without any notification or comment from Google. The latest? Google’s Gmail application now includes a convenient mechanism for you to browse and search through your Google Talk chat transcripts.

But are you comfortable with Google having an archive of not just your email and searches, but of your instant message transcripts too? I think there’s yet another privacy problem that’ll arise once people find that contextually-sensitive ads are displayed while reviewing chat transcripts:

  Google Gmail Chats Feature?

I’m less paranoid than some of my colleagues, but still, what’s next? A Gmail interface to comments you leave on weblogs throughout the blogosphere?

I admit it, most bloggers seem to really like the blogosphere tracking site Memeorandum, but don’t count me as one of that group. I admit that the concept is interesting, in the same way that Google offers interesting results based upon its academic reference citation model, but there are some fundamental problems with any site that’s built around popularity.

The site’s referenced in a lot of weblog postings – indeed, I’ve linked to it once or twice myself – but the more I look at it and the more I think about the implications of its core premise, the less comfortable I am with it:

    Why I don’t like Memeorandum

Maybe I’m clueless about how it really works or misunderstand the implications of popularity based on relevance, but I don’t like it. Do you?

One of the hot topics of debate in the media this week has been whether Google should have launched its new Google China service, a search engine built atop servers located within mainland China that have content filters based on the laws and requirements of the Chinese government. While many people have criticized Google’s decision, along with other firms that also opt to meet legal requirements for doing business in the Chinese market, I actually believe that this decision marks a turning point in the growth and maturity of Google as a corporation. It’s the beginning of Google the pragmatic corporation, and it’s a trait that suggests that the company is recognizing the difference between idealism and success:

    Google gets pragmatic and enters China

There are lots of interesting parallels that I draw in this article too, including companies that opted to do business in South Africa and helped destroy apartheid, and even eBay’s meeting the requirements of the German government in terms of Nazi memorabilia sales.

My friend and colleague Paul Chaney is working on a blogging book with another author and recently asked for some advice on schedules and how to work on a multi-author book. I responded and thought it would be interesting to pull the response here into the public eye too…

Paul commented:

“The book is scheduled for release in the fall and they want a completed manuscript by the end of March. Not having had this experience I have no clue as to whether that’s a reasonable time frame, but we aim to please.”

First off, congratulations! There’s little as satisfying as publishing a book and bumping into people who have read it! 🙂

Having said that, I do believe that a perfect egalitarian coauthorship doesn’t work and that there needs to be a lead writer whose voice ends up permeating the entire manuscript. That’s what Shel did with Naked Conversations, for example.

You need to balance the rewrites and work, of course, so it’s still equitable, but books that are collections of essays, for example, are always spotty and plagued by bad writing, making it hard to find the gems.

Further, I would assume that each chapter is going to go back and forth between coauthors at least twice. You brainstorm points and cases, your coauthor adds to it, you write a first draft, they add their content, you polish and send it in. (Or vice versa).

Once you’ve sent in the manuscript, remember that you’re both part of a bigger team of editorial folk and that you’ll have AT LEAST two or three more people adding their 2-3 cents worth, including a tech editor [1], copyeditor, and development editor. Value all their comments (it’s easy to get mad at them) and respond to each query with the question of “they represent the reader. How can I improve this for the reader?” rather than the more common, but wrong-headed “stupid editor. What do they know about this subject?”

Finally, once it’s all done, remember that’s when your work STARTS, not ends. Successful books are a success because the author(s) push them, not beacuse the company gets behind them. Most publishing companies assume everything will be mediocre and only put marketing $$ behind those books that are starting to demonstrate the traits of a success.

One implication: be extremely generous with review copies. Any visibility in your market segment makes it easier to get more marketing attention and, of course, is good for your book sales overall [2]

Hope this is helpful stuff!

Notes:

[1] I do tech editing of books, particularly those with a business focus if anyone’s interested, and have tech edited at least 30 books in the last decade. It’s fun and a nice chance to help improve a product. [References]

[2] And this is why if any one of you would like a review copy of my nineteenth book, Growing Your Business with Google, and have a legitimate outlet for a review, even just on your well-read weblog, please contact me and I’ll forward your request along to the publicists at Penguin. I’ve sent out at least 50 copies of the book to reviewers at this point in time.
by this point in time…

The big discussion right now in the blog space is whether the recent comments from Yahoo’s Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker mean that Yahoo has “given up” on the search space and “conceded” it to Google. The problem is, I think everyone’s misinterpreting what Decker said because they’re all succumbing to the “win or die” philosophy that’s so prevalent in the industry. But if you can put that aside, there’s nothing particularly concerning, alarming or even distressing about what Decker is exploring. It’s the Ferrari Solution:

    What do Yahoo, Apple and Ferrari have in common?

It’s far too early to write Yahoo off or somehow conclude that the company is irrelevant to the world of search. Search is the future of the Internet and there’s still lots of space for innovation.

It’s a question I hear with some frequency; how can you add an RSS feed to the pages of your own web site, home page or weblog? Many of the solutions are pretty complex, but it turns out that Newsgator Online – a free RSS aggregator and tools service – makes it incredibly easy for you to accomplish just this, even letting you customize the format of the content and intermingle multiple feeds rather than being constrained to just one RSS source.

Even better, the example i show also explains how to set it up and customize it, with detailed steps, meaning that even if you aren’t handy with a computer, you’ll be able to get everything up and running in no time:

    Add an RSS feed display to your Web site

It’s a very cool feature of a very nice application!

I’ve been watching the VOIP marketplace for months now as we get to see the evolution of telephones from fixed wires and crazy, confusing charges to Internet-based phone systems that offer all-you-can-call dialing for a flat fixed fee, or even without any charge if you’re lucky enough to have the person on the other end also using the same service. From Google to eBay/Skype, Vonage to Vbuzzer and Jingle, there are more VOIP solutions than you can shake a stick at. But what about Microsoft? Finally, in a classic Microsoft corporate maneuver, its intentions can be ascertained:

    Microsoft partners with MCI for its VOIP solution

Me? I use both Vbuzzer (they’re offering a free trial period too!) and Skype, for North American and overseas calling, respectively. It’s a brave new world and I like it!

Us bloggers have been debating whether we should get the same rights and be held to the same standards as professional journalists for at least a few years now, and it seems like whenever we’re about to end the discussion something else comes along to add oil to the proverbial fire.

This time the incident is the well-respected Toronto Star ripping off content from a friend of mine, writer Randy Cassingham, and publishing it in the newspaper without either fact-checking or any sort of attribution. Perhaps this isn’t an uncommon incident, but this time they were caught out by a blogger who tracks newspaper gaffes and that article was picked up by industry publication Editor & Publisher.

Read the article:

    Of Lazy Journalists and Wanton Plagiarism

The Toronto Star? No word from them yet, but I’d like to think they’ll publish some sort of retraction or apology. And journalists? Are you really going to claim that you’re the professionals in this situation?

I don’t really get it. The Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 development team, on their Team RSS Blog, announce that they’re going to use the same “RSS available” logo as the Firefox web browser (read their article). Okay, so I suppose that Apple will have to knuckle under and change the “RSS” icon it uses in Safari to match.

But here’s what I don’t get: why do people care what icon is chosen? I mean, go on to the “RSS blog” and you’ll see dozen and dozens of comments about this. Is it a harbinger of a kinder, gentler Microsoft that’s more willing to work with the open source community? I don’t think so. I mean, it’s an icon, for goodness sake. Just a little 50×50 graphic.

And yet, a quick Technorati search reveals that lots of people are talking about this, including the inevitable entry from Robert Scoble, along with his prediction that it would be hot news (e.g. appearing on Memeorandum), Neville Hobson, Alex Barnett, Asa Dotzler, Heiko Hebig and even publications have jumped on this invisible wagon: Gadgetopia and The Guardian.

What am I missing here? I just don’t have a clue why everyone cares about a single icon. There are plenty of bigger issues for us to wrestle with as a group of blogging thought leaders, why waste the energy on a tiny orange icon?

Just about every company has a bad day, an inferior product and some disgruntled customers. It’s inevitable, whether you’re running a restaurant or building million-dollar homes. What’s new is that unhappy customers now have a greater reach than they ever did in the past, and companies can no longer easily ignore these grumblers, but have to actively address their public comments.

I’ve been asked to help one company with just this challenge, to help them come up with a response to critical reviews of their service on some well-known blogs. The company knows it’s losing sales because of these critiques (the power of blogs!) but how to respond?

Here’s my article on the subject:

    Building a blog damage control strategy

Even the most rabid anti-business folk must agree that it’s best to have both sides of a situation presented, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Please, read what I suggest and add your own ideas on this topic.

There seem to be two major camps in the blogging world, one that believes strongly in the value and utility of “tagging”, whether through a third-party service like De.licio.us or directly on a blog through applications like Technorati, and a separate camp that believes that the lack of standardization in the keywording / tagging community dooms it to inevitable failure and that it’s a waste of time and effort.

Figuring out which side is correct might well be something that can only be accomplished from a distance, however, and that distance might well be in time, not geography.

But there are a few interesting data points that I’ve seen in the last few weeks…

    Is Tagging Growing in Importance?

Just about everyone who reads or writes for blogs has an opinion on this subject. What’s yours?

Most corporate blogs are pretty cheery places, with their message almost perpetually positive and the tone reflecting some of the best copywriting on the entire network. General Motor’s FastLane Blog has been an example of this, with interesting and engaging articles from various members of the massive GM team talking about auto design, car shows, features of specific models, and so on. But now that GM the company is facing extraordinarily tough times on the business side, it appears that its weblog is descending into cranky defensiveness, a tactic sure to backfire.

Read all about it at:

    GM FastLane Blog Gets Defensive

Even if you aren’t interested in the automotive industry ,it’s still an excellent chance to learn about how a business blog can backfire if not managed properly.

If you’ve been following the tech news for the last week, you already know that beleaguered Sony Corporation has another problem on its hands; it appears that music CDs from subsidiary BMG are being shipped with hidden Digital Rights Management software that automatically installs on your computer if you simply listen to one of them. Know as a “rootkit” because of how it ties into your Windows operating system, this situation is pretty astonishing and it’s another splendid example of where a large corporation needs to clearly think through its crisis management strategy, to identify the thought and opinion leaders who are basically dictating the community response to the situation, and communicate with them directly.

In the 21st Century, those thought and opinion leaders are online, and if they’re not writing their own weblogs, they’re certainly paying attention to the so-called blogosphere. Which leads to the question of Where’s Sony?

Personally, I find this entire topic quite fascinating for a number of reasons: First, some of the case studies I worked through in business school were on damage control and crisis management, so having something cause negative publicity and then being forced to respond shouldn’t be anyhing new to any senior manager at Sony. There are good and bad examples of this sort of crisis management, but one of the cornerstones of any approach is to take your response to the community most affected by the problem.

But it’s not quite that simple either, and a group of professionals from the group LinkedInBloggers recently tossed this question around, with some very thought-provoking results:

      Does Sony Need a Damage Control Blog?

You might well be surprised by what these active bloggers have to say on this subject…

Whether it’s the debate raging in the online professional networking community of LinkedIn about spammy waves of invitations received by LI members from competitor Doostang, the breathless hype about Web 2.0 or even blogging itself, I argue that many of the discussions in the tech industry parallel the societal debate about evolution versus intelligent design. Do things evolve, does change beget improvement, or do we all just spin our wheels pointlessly, foolishly thinking that creation is a series of small steps?

Read my thoughts on this topic for yourself at:

    Intelligent Design, Evolution and the Tech Industry

I tried to remain agnostic, but you’ll learn more about my own theological and philosophical viewpoint as you read the article too. And, please, don’t hesitate to add your own commentary on this topic!