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To me, marketing through social media falls into two camps: Active and Passive.

Active is when a company disseminates information through channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs.

Passive is about spending time listening to what consumers are saying about your company, your products, your competitors and your industry via social media.

In their efforts toward active social media marketing, companies post press releases on Facebook, put commercials on YouTube and talk about how great their service is on their company blog.

The greatest challenge, however, is making sure you have a large enough audience to warrant implementing a social media marketing plan. Spending hours on your company’s Facebook page to market to 75 “fans” is not a good use of your time.

Creating a strong passive social media strategy, on the other hand, can provide you endless insight into your audience and help you develop a more strategic active strategy.

Tools like Tweefind, Technorati, BlogSearch, plus searching YouTube and Facebook, can help you find out what is being said about your company in social media.

Passive strategy is also monitoring your competition. Techrigy and Vitrue can provide you a picture of what your competition is doing in social media.

This type of social media monitoring will bring you closer to the consumer.  You see trends being created, identify problem areas and monitor consumer reaction to product changes.

This information allows you to improve your products and will drive your active strategy when, for example, you respond to consumers to help educate them on why you may do certain things.

Passive social media marketing in action:

A client of mine manufactured clay poker chips, so we monitored blogs, forums, etc. and found out people liked the chips, but didn’t like the powdery residue on the chips.  The powder was there to protect the chips during shipping and went away after playing with the chips a few times.  Upon our recommendation, they began including a note in the poker chip case explaining the residue and those comments went away.

If your company wants to develop a social media strategy, start with a passive strategy first.  Figure out what is being said and who’s saying it.  Once you have that knowledge your active strategy will be more compelling and successful.

Following on from last week’s Getting to know you post, this week I thought it would be great to share our blogging stories; after seeing these nine questions on John Connell’s blog. 

If you want to join in, copy the questions below and post a link back to this blog post and add a comment to this post with your link.  

1. How did you get into blogging?

2. What were (are?) the motivations?

3. How does your “private” blogging relate to your work?

4 How do you achieve a balance of personal voice and authority

5. What can be achieved through blogging that can’t through ordinary news/reporting routes?

6. How do you follow other blogs and other forms of “public conversation”?

7. How does your blog connect to others in a “conversation”?

8 Are there other bloggers you follow especially, others you think are exemplars of the practice?

9. How do you feel about “lighter” practices such as Tweeting, facebook status updates etc…?

If you’d like to join in, copy the above nine questions into your blog and add a link to your blog post in the comments here.

The answers to my nine are below:

1. How did you get into blogging?
I started blogging because of my work. I found more and more that blogs were a great way  to find writers and readers together in one place who were from similar professions or with similar interests. It was a great way to learn.

2. What are the motivations?
Given the time lag between writing and publishing a travel guidebook, for example;  it might be better to search for a blog, to get the very latest hints and tips on where to go and what to see. This is what I like about blogging most, is that it provides up-to-date and instant information. Blogs differ in tone and quality and I like the variety. Subscribing to blogs has given me a greater appreciation of blogs and I learn so much through reading blogs, which is a great motivator. There’s so much inspiration to be found from blogs.

3. How does your “private” blogging relate to your work?
I don’t separate the two because I feel that it allows readers to learn more about me as a person and connections develop through chatting about a variety of subjects. I intersperse blog posts about my work with subjects from other aspects of my life. I keep two blogs, one for each of the Companies I manage: Skillkick and Woollywotnots. You can visit both blogs from each of the home pages. I’m also going to shortly be starting a new blog, as I embark on my PhD.

4. How do you achieve a balance of personal voice and authority?
My blog is my personal voice and my own views. Blogging is a way to share and collaborate together, learn about new things, gain knowledge and develop skills.

5. What can be achieved through blogging that can’t through ordinary news/reporting routes?
Blogging brings people together from all over the world at any time. You can share thoughts and ideas with people that would never have been possible without blogs.Blogs are a great way to connect and network.

6. How do you follow other blogs and other forms of “public conversation”?
I use RSS feeds, added to my bloglines, social bookmarking, news alerts, Facebook and Twitter.

7. How does your blog connect to others in a “conversation”?
By linking to other blogs within my posts, subscribing to blogs, commenting on blogs, posting links to Facebook and Twitter.

8. Are there other bloggers you follow especially, others you think are exemplars of the practice?
There are lots to be found. It depends on your tastes and preferences. I think a good way of finding blogs are through blog-specific search engines such as

Blogdigger

Blogsearch

Technorati

9. How do you feel about “lighter” practices such as Tweeting, facebook status updates etc…?
I don’t see them as ‘lighter’ practices, but intrinsic to the blogging world. I often grab links from Facebook updates and Twitter updates; as well as, through RSS feeds and email subscriptions. All the social networking tools together make it easier for information to be accessed.

So, that’s my story, what is yours? I’d love to read your responses and if you enjoy reading this blog, please consider subscribing for free. The two RSS feeds are found under the two woolly lambs at the top of this blog.

You can use my RSS feed http://woollywotnots.wordpress.com/feed/

Read here, to learn how to set up RSS feeds
Or add to your social bookmarking sites using the button found in the top left hand corner of this post called Share/Save.

Read more about social bookmarking here.

Since we got such a good response from the last poll, let’s keep it going (it’s down there at the bottom) and talk a little bit about music blogs. I follow at least a dozen myself, and have found them to be a great source of new music, business news and new ideas. I like music blogs so much, that I convinced everyone at work that we needed to build a search engine just for music blogs! It’s been available for a little while, but I wanted to show it off a little bit. If you’re a uPlaya artist, you can search for your band across several hundred music blogs across the music spectrum or limit your search to certain genres and then add your favorite results to your “press clippings” (we have some cool features in the pipeline around press clippings, so get on it and add some!). Here’s are a couple example queries for some of my favorite artists: DJ Earworm, Movits! or Zero 7.

If you’re a music blogger and would like to be included in our list, post a comment and I’ll check out your blog and probably add you. If you’re an artist and find yourself on a music blog, let us know!

අද අපි මුලින් ම කතා කරන්නේ බ්ලොග් අඩෙවියක් හඳුනාගන්නේ කොහොමද කියන ප්‍රශ්නය. ඒ සමග ම කාර්යක්ෂම ආකාරයට විවිධ පාඨකයින්ගේ විවිධ අවශ්‍යතා අනුව සුදුසු බ්ලොග් අඩෙවි සොයාගෙන, කියවන විවිධ ක්‍රම සහ විධි ගැන කතාබහක්.

ඒ සාකච්ඡාව පටන්ගන්නේ බ්ලොග් අවකාශයේ අගනගරයෙන් - ටෙක්නොරාටි (technorati.com)වෙබ් අඩෙවිය, එහි සෙවුම් යන්ත්‍රය සහ ප්‍රජාව ගැන හැඳින්වීමකින්. විවිධ බ්ලොග් අඩෙවි ඉතා පහසුවෙන් විවිධ විෂය කාරණා අනුව සොයාගන්නත්, කියවන්නත් තවත් අය සමග ඒවා බෙදාහදාගන්නත් පහසුකම් එම අඩෙවියේ තිබෙනවා. ඔබ එහි සැරිසැරුවොත් මේ කෙටි විස්තරයට අමතර විවිධ අගනා සේවා ගණනාවක් දැකබලාගන්න පුළුවන්

Technorati.com

විවිධ විෂයයන් යටතේ ලොව වටා බ්ලොග් – http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/

වඩාත් ජනප්‍රිය බ්ලොග් – http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/

මේ අපේ ටෙක්නොරාටි පිටුව – http://technorati.com/people/technorati/Debasa ඔබත් පිටුවක් හදාගෙන අපවත් එක් කර ගන්න

ඔබේ බ්ලොග් අඩෙවිය අලුත් කළ පසු ටෙක්නොරාටි අඩෙවියට විශේෂයෙන් දන්වන්න මේ පිටුව යොදාගන්න : http://technorati.com/ping/

ඉන් පසු

RSS පිළිබඳ සරල හැඳින්වීමකට පසු ගූගල් කියවනය හෙවත් Google Reader නමැති පෝෂක කියවනය ගැනත් එමගින් පලදායී ලෙස බ්ලොග් අඩෙවි සංවිධානය කරගෙන කියැවීම් ලැයිස්තුවක් පවත්වාගෙන යාමේ වැදගත්කම ගැනත් අපි කතා කරනවා. මේ තියෙන්නෙ ගූගල් කියවනගේ ඇතුළත.

පහත දැක්වෙන්නේ පෝෂක කියවන කිහිපයක්. මේවාට බ්ලොග් අඩෙවිවලට අමතර ව විවිධ පුවත් සේවා හා නානා ප්‍රකාර වෙබ් අඩෙවිවල rss පෝෂක එකතු කරගත හැකියි :

Google Reader

Bloglines

පෝෂක කියවන ලැයිස්තුවක් (විකිපීඩියා වෙතින්)

විවිධ කියවන එකිනෙක සැසඳීමක්

ඉන් පසු

බ්ලොග් සින්ඩිකේටර - WordPress.com, සිංහල බ්ලොග් කියවනය, කොත්තු සහ අච්චාරු වැනි ස්ථාන.

Firefox බ්‍රවුසරය (මේ රූපයේ කවයකින් වට කොට දක්වා ඇත්තේ rss පෝෂකයක් අදාළ පිටුවට තිබෙන බවට බ්‍රවුසරය අපට දන්වන ස්ථානයයි. ඊතලයෙන් පෙන්වා තිබෙන්නේ පෝෂක කියවනයක් ලෙස බ්‍රවුසරය භාවිත වන අන්දමයි. විශාලය සඳහා රූපය මත ක්ලික් කරන්න)

Google Blog Search සෙවුම් යන්ත්‍රය සහ blog alerts මගින් වඩා පුළුල් ආකාරයෙන් බ්ලොග් සොයාගෙන කියවීම. ඔබ කැමති ඕනෑ ම පදයක් වදනක් හෝ වැකියක් බ්ලොග් අවකාශයේ කොතැනක හෝ ලියැවුණ සැණින් ඒ බව දැන ගැනීමට ගූගල් බ්ලොග් සෙවුම සහ Google Reader භාවිත කරන අන්දම. නිශ්චිත සෙවුම් ප්‍රතිඵලයකට අදාළ rss පෝෂකය කියවනයට එක් කරගත හැකි තැන පහත රූපයේ ඊතලයෙන් දක්වා තිබෙනවා.

අවසාන වශයෙන් Facebook සහ වෙනත් අඩෙවි හරහා බ්ලොග් වැඩිදුරටත් ජාලගත වන අන්දම.

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අහන්න :

බාගන්න | Download

mp3 ගොනුව 29MB [Right click කොට save as හෝ save link as විධානය දෙන්න]

ogg ගොනුව 12.MB අඩු බර නිකුතුව [Right click කොට save as හෝ save link as විධානය දෙන්න]

ධාවන කාලය මිනිත්තු 32.06

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So far, in the keeping up-to-date series, we’ve covered RSS feeds, Social Bookmarking and news alerts. Today, I’m focusing on blogs for those readers who haven’t yet taken the plunge! 

The word ‘blog’ is an abbreviation of web log, which is usually written ‘weblog’.

Firstly watch this short fun clip on blogging by Commoncraft. It explains blogs brilliantly!    

The BBC also provides a short introduction.

Blogs differ greatly in tone and quality. What the good ones do tend to have in common, however, is that they can help to create communities of like-minded people. Readers might be regular visitors drawn from similar professions, or with similar interests, or might be just passing by in search of a useful nugget of information on a particular topic. Given that blogs offer instant publishing opportunities, you potentially have access to a wealth of knowledge from commentators and experts (if they blog) in a wide range of fields.

Most internet searches will turn up results from blogs, but there are some blog-specific search engines such as:

Blogdigger

Blogsearch

Technorati

You will see that some of the blogs you find offer RSS feeds, so you can add them to your feedreader to keep abreast of the latest postings.

Why not start your own blog. Its so quick and easy. You can have your own blog up and running in 3 easy steps from this website – Blogger.   

One thing to bear in mind is that the content of blogs is likely to be as diverse and varied as the people who posted it. It’s therefore practical to apply the PROMPT (presentation, relevance, objectivity, method, provenance and timeliness) criteria if you intend to in any way rely on the information you find on blogs – in particular look for timeliness (How often is the blog updated?); provenance and objectivity (What is the blog for? Who put it there and why?).

In addition blogs have another benefit –  given the time lag between writing and publishing a travel guidebook, for example;  it might be better to search for a blog, to get the very latest hints and tips on where to go and what to see.

I look forward to receiving your blog links for those who give this a try and also learning about your findings on blog searches from the recommended links.  

Happy Blogging!

Other posts in this ‘Keeping Up-to-Date’ series:

RSS Feeds

Social Bookmarking

News Alerts

SWOT

We get so caught up in the day-to-day crises of our jobs we often forget the communications basics.

Use this checklist at the beginning of each week to keep tabs on your company and your competition.

Your Company

• Check all the links on your website to make sure they are still live
• Search your company on Google, Yahoo, etc
• Search your company on blogs through technorati or blogsearch
• Update Google Alerts
• If you are using paid search like AdWords, test different terms. Test ad content.
• Monitor web traffic
• Update your blog
• Determine what to post to Twitter this week
• Update your Facebook page

Your Competitors

• Check your competitor’s websites
• Check your competitor’s web traffic on Compete.com.
• Search your competitor’s on Google, Yahoo, etc
• Search your competitor’s on blogs through technorati or blogsearch

Starting the week off following this checklist gets this out of your way and, more important, gives you time to work on anything you might discover.

People are talking about you, your company, your brand. Do you know what they are saying?

Here’s a practical resource guide on how to find out what people are saying about your brand. Listening to what   people are saying seems to be a hot topic right now but most people don’t know where to start. There are some very good software companies that will help you achieve your goals but they can get expensive or simply are not in your budget especially when there are so many free tools already. I will share with you great tools that will do the job and are free. It will take you some time to set them up and see what works for you but you can’t ignore the conversations on the web. Listening to what’s happening is important because it will help you understand better what your customers want.

1. Google Alerts – free tool that allows you to subscribe for specific keywords and topics of interests. You get an email delivered to your inbox automatically when your search terms get ranked on Google. You need to sign up for this tool. You can monitor your  company, your competitors, any trends that you may be interested in, news or your own name. This one is a must!

2. BackType – another powerful free tool that tracks comments on the Social Web and emails you results. Every time someone mentions your company in a blog or a social news site you get an email. Another must if you want to save yourself time and want the essential information delivered to your inbox. You can view all conversations based on a trend, topic or an article and receive notifications whenever a conversation that you are interested in becomes active. Check it out and sign up today!

3. Tweetbeep – A free tool that works pretty much like Google Alerts but it searches the conversations on Twitter. Every time someone mentions your name, your product, your company and anything else you want to track you get an email. If you are in Twitter, you need to sign up for Tweetbeep. If you are not on Twitter but you want to know what everybody else is talking about on Twitter, again, you need to sign up. Another way to search the conversations on Twitter is with Twitter search.

What about searching all the blogs that are becoming extremely popular these days? Do you know that there are 2 new blogs being created every second! Here are some free tools to help you understand and track what’s important to you on the blogosphere.

1. Technorati – you can search the entire blogosphere with this tool and see what blogs are writing about you. For example, I just searched for “Lake Tahoe” and the site came back with 2,377 results for this keyword. You can also compare the noise about your brand with a competing brand and see who’s getting more exposure. Neat!

2. Google Blogsearch – another free tool for seeing what people are saying on blogs. On my search for “lake tahoe” it returned 297,428 “lake tahoe” related searches.A lot of blogs to go through!

3. BlogPulse – this is a free blog search service provided by Nielsen BuzzMetrics. You can search by keywords or URLs. You can create trends, check out popular trends, follow onversations or go deep into your favorite sites and authors. My search for “lake tahoe” brought back 14,181 results. I have the opportunity to see who’s talking about lake tahoe and I can track the conversation or see the blog’s profile. I really like the trend tool and I can see a lot of useful applications for it in the future.

And finally,there are aggregators that allows you to follow the conversation across various platforms.

1. Friendfeed – It searches across blogs, Twitter, Flickr and 50 other social sites.

2. Spy – Spy is a great tool that allows you to listen to tconversations on the web. It actually aggregates the comments from Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, BackType, and more social websites and RSS readers. Lois Gray wrote a nice article on Spy.

3. Trendrr – if you are interested in tracking trends, I would recommend Trendrr. You can create up to 20 trends for free. Lois Gray wrote another great article about Trendrr on his blog.

4. Socialmention – An excellent tool for monitoring your social exposure. They even give you a social rank and you can subscribe to daily email alerts.

Do you have any favorite tools that you use? Please, share.

Interested in more resources. Check these out:

Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation – a great list from Mashable

Twitter aggregators

How to get the most out of Friendfeed

How to measure online influence

Da, incredibil dar adevărat.

În Dashboard în WordPress, acel WordPress instalat la mine pe calculator, aflat la minunata adresă http://127.0.0.1/ cunoscută şi drept http://localhost/ apar multe incoming links.

De tot felul, în spaniolă, chineză, engleză, etc.

Printscreen:

Explicaţia?
În Configure avem ca sursă:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss&partner=wordpress&q=link:http://127.0.0.1/

Adică Flux Rss Blogsearch cu link spre 127.0.0.1

Oare băieţii care pun link spre localhost greşesc sau o mare parte din ei sunt spammeri de nişă?

Adevărul e undeva la mijloc.

Es soll ja vorkommen, dass man bei einer Suche nicht den ganzen kommerziellen Müll des Web´s bei einer Suche angezeigt bekommen, sondern nur Blogs durchsuchen. Das geht mit sog. Blogsuchen!
Hier mal ein paar aufgelistet!

Links:
Technorati
icerocket
Blogsucher
blogato
pointblog
blogflux

I don’t know the answer for real but in my observation even though you update your blog often it seems that Xanga Blogs are not listed in the search results of Google Blogsearch. I have an idea that may appear it in the result because right now Xanga Blogs was not RSS enabled and you must enable it and give a link for it to rank it and give some spider to it.

Hey guys I made an awesome discovery!!  I’m on google!

Just go to http://blogsearch.google.com/ and search CP Cheats and More then look for the definition CP Cheats and More and on the right it should say http://cpcheatshome.wordpress.com/ .  Bye!

für das Jahr 2008 hat Twingly veröffentlicht. Leider tauchen wir da noch nicht auf , aber die Kriterien nach denen das Ranking (Blog Rank, Linked_by_n-Blogs, Likes_Last_Month…) durchgeführt wurde, sind doch ebenso interessant wie die weiteren Infos zu:  Recent_posts, most_linked_posts, recent_linking_posts:

Und hier die Top 10 Blogs via Twingly:

1. TechCrunch –> Profile
2. Boing Boing –> Profile
3. Gizmodo –> Profile
4. Engadget –>Profile
5. CNN Political Ticker –>Profile
6. Mashable! –>Profile
7. The Official Google Blog –>Profile
8. ReadWriteWeb –>Profile
9. Lifehacker –>Profile
10. Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blo… –>Profile

Die weitern Plätze von 11- 100 (sowie ein länderspezifisches Ranking) gibt es dann wie gesagt beim Blogsuchspezialisten

Twingly Top 100 Blogs

Andy Bairsto came to us with a new problem today. How, he asked, could he create a combined Google Blogsearch for lots of different searches? He was interested in articles that talked about:

type 2 diabetes AND (pancreatitis OR "adverse reaction" OR (recovery AND drugs))

Andy likes his Boolean searches, but sadly Google doesn’t.

He couldn’t work out a way to do this in Google Blogsearch’s Advanced Search – which isn’t surprising. Nor can we.

Good news

However there is a way to do this using Yahoo! Pipes.

Here’s the way Andy and I answered the question.

How to do this in 8 easy steps (with pictures)

If you don’t already have a Yahoo! account, you should get one. Yahoo! has all sorts of interesting stuff, and you’re missing out.

Now here’s the trick (you can click on any of the screengrabs to get a larger picture):

1) Go to Google Blogsearch and perform 3 searches:

• "type 2 diabetes" +pancreatitis
• "type 2 diabetes" +"adverse reaction"
• "type 2 diabetes" +recovery +drugs

For each search, copy the RSS feed URL and paste it somewhere handy (we use Notepad++ a free and rather powerful text editor, but Notepad will do just as well.)

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

You should have something like this:

• http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=%22type+2+diabetes%22+pancreatitis&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss
• http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=%22type+2+diabetes%22+%22adverse+reaction%22&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss
• http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=%22type+2+diabetes%22+recovery+drugs&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss

2) Sign in to http://pipes.yahoo.com and create a new pipe.

Once the workspace opens, click Sources (on the left hand side) and drag 3 “fetch feed modules into the workspace. Copy and paste the feed URLs that you collected from Google Blogsearch into the spaces for the URLS

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

3) Under Operators on the left hand side, drag in the union module.

This will combine the three feeds that we’ve just dragged in.

Drag the little circle at the bottom of each feed module to one of the circles at the top of the union module to connect them.

Now drag the little circle at the bottom of the union module to the circle at the top of the output module.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

4) Now click on the Pipe Output module.

You should see a bunch of stories appear in the grey space at the foot of the screen. Congratulations! You’ve just built your first pipe. But we’re not finished yet…

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

5) Filter out duplicate stories

The problem is that the same story may appear in more than one search. For example it’s quite possible that the keywords “type 2 diabetes”, “pancreatitis”, and “adverse reaction” all appear in the same story. That way it will turn up in two places. We want to filter these out.

Fortunately, Pipes provides the “Unique” module to do this. Drag it in, then drag the circle at the bottom of the Union module to the top of the Unique module, and the circle at the bottom of the Unique module to the top of the Pipe Output module.

Choose to filter by “item.title” or “item.link” (I use the former — that way if the same press release turns up on several blogs, I only see it once)

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

6) Check that it’s working, and save your pipe

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

7) Click “Back to my pipes”

And click on your new pipe’s title to run it…

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Click the “More Options” link to get the RSS feed

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Alternatively, you could choose to receive updates by email – as they happen, or once a day as a digest

Hope this helps!

Google Blogsearch has relaunched. It is now in the style of Google News. Basically, you’ll be given all the headlines, be told how many blogs are writing about said story and links to these particular blogs. This type of service is not new to people like myself who use TechMeme. However for who blog about TV and Politics, this is something new.

Blogsearch protects turf against Digg?

Problogger released news of an update Google’s BlogSearch has added – one that allows you to view news listed in different categories while also seeing how many are blogging about the story and a graph to show the visual trends.  Handy feature in light of what strikes a chord with readers.

Amongst news that many are now using Digg and other similar social bookmarking sites for relevant news – is this Google’s way of pushing back to the front?

What do you think?

Dies ist die große Frage, die mir tagtäglich immer wieder begegnet – zu Recht, denn noch fehlt es uns ein wenig an Bekanntheit.

Nun also ein Post, der diese Frage beantworten soll. Feedback und neu aufkommende Fragen sind sehr erwünscht, also bitte gerne fleißig kommentieren, posten, verlinken, twittern etc.!

Twingly ist in in erster Linie eine Blogsuchmaschine. Obwohl wir Blogposts in der ganzen Welt indexieren, haben wir unseren Schwerpunkt in Europa. Vorteil: Wir indexieren vermehrt Blogs in europäischen Sprachen, nicht nur in Englisch. Da unsere Wurzeln in Schweden, genauer gesagt in Linköping liegen, haben wir einen im Verhältnis zu anderen Blogsuchmaschinen einen starken Fokus auf Skandinavien. Die nordische Blogosphäre (also Skandinavien und Finnland) ist zudem sehr stark entwickelt, kleiner als die US-Blogosphäre natürlich, aber qualitativ und in der Bedeutung von Blogs für die Medienszene gleichrangig.

Neben dem allgemeinen Index bieten wir auch einen spamfreien Index an. Der spamfreie Index ist eine Whitelist von Blogs. Die Whitelist enthält an uns direkt gepingte Blogs sowie als spamfrei identifizierte Blogs aus verschiedenen anderen Quellen. Um spamfreie Blogs aus anderen Quellen zu identifizieren, lassen wir diese durch einen von uns speziell hierfür entwickelten Algorithmus laufen. Dieser filtert dann Spamblogs heraus.

Unser Ziel ist es, diese Whitelist im Herbst und Winter weiter auszubauen, da wir dies als unsere absolute Stärke gegenüber anderen Blogsuchmaschinen sehen.

Unter Twingly.com hat der User viele verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Suchabfrage – Tipps erhält man unter der Help-Funktion sowie unter Advanced Search. Jede Suchabfrage kann auch als RSS-Feed oder Widget für die eigene Site oder den eigenen Blog heruntergeladen und personalisiert werden.

Wir nutzen diese Widget-Funktionen beispielsweise auch auf unserem Twingly Blog. Man kann sich zudem bei uns registrieren und anschliessend zu jeder Suchabfrage einen Email-Alert aufsetzen. Man erhält dann eine Nachricht per Email, wenn neue Ergebnisse zur Suche hinzukommen.

Einfach mal ein bisschen spielen, wäre da meine Empfehlung.

Die Blogsuche ist frei und wie Ihr seht haben wir auch bislang keine Werbung geschaltet. Einfach, weil wir nicht irgendwas schalten wollen, sondern Werbung mit Zusatznutzen für unsere Besucher. Dafür brauchen wir aber noch mehr Zugriffe auf www.twingly.com – ein anderes Ziel, das wir bis Jahresende umsetzen wollen. Ihr könnt hier also fleißig mithelfen, indem Ihr anfangt, Twingly neben anderen Suchen zu nutzen .

“Ja, aber wie verdient Ihr denn dann Geld? Wie überlebt Ihr denn??” war daraufhin berechtigt die nächste Frage.

Unser Geschäftsmodell basiert nicht auf der eigentlichen Blogsuche sondern auf einem Produkt, dass auf unserer Suchtechnologie basiert.

Es heißt Blogstream. Mit Blogstream können klassische Online-Medien wie beispielsweise Zeitungen, Zeitschriften, E-Shops und Portale zu Bloggern zurückverlinken, die über Inhalte dieser Sites gebloggt haben. Wir bieten dieses Tool Online-Medien auf monatlicher Abonnementsbasis an, der Preis richtet sich dabei nach den Unique User Zahlen der jeweiligen Site.

Die Site baut das Blogstream Widget beispielsweise auf Artikel-Pages ein. Wenn dann ein Blogger in seinem Post die spezifische URL des Artikels zitiert bzw. auf diese verweist, dann erscheint der Blogpost als relevanter Content im Widget auf der Page mit exakt dieser URL. Nur deshalb können wir diese Relevanz garantieren. Keywords oder andere Methoden bringen keine vergleichbar hochwertige Qualität und den damit verbundenen Mehrwert.

Es ist wichtig zu verstehen, dass das Widget nach diesem URL-Match sucht, um eine 100%ige Relevanz herzustellen. Mir begegnet immer wieder die Frage – “ach, und dann gucken Sie welche Keywords im Artikel und im Blogpost sind und stellen dies dann relevant zusammen?” NEIN. Keywords spielen bei uns absolut keine Rolle. Wir arbeiten ausschliesslich mit URLs. Keywords oder andere Methoden können diese Relevanz und Qualität der Links nicht bieten.

Warum nur exakte URL-Matches? Wir wollen sicherstellen, dass sich die Diskussion zwischen Bloggern und Site genau um diesen spezifischen Artikel dreht, und nicht um das allgemeine Thema des Artikels.

Warum wir dies machen? Einen Austausch zwischen Sites und Blogs über 100%ig relevant verlinkte Inhalte hilft beiden Parteien in mehrfacher Hinsicht.

Vorteile für Blogger:
- durch unseren (automatischen) Pingback-Mechanismus sie sind automatisch präsent auf Sites, die Blogstream verwenden.
- dadurch bekommen sie mehr leser von der Site
- dies trägt positiv zur Entwicklung der Traffic-Zahlen eines Blogs bei
- was sich wiederum positiv auf werbeeinnahmen auswirken kann

Vorteile für Sites:
- Leser bekommen 100%ig relevanten Zusatz-Content
- Die Site positioniert sich damit als Ausgangspunkt für Informationen und für Diskussionen zu einem bestimmten thema in der Blogosphäre
- Blogger verlinken vermehrt zu Sites mit Blogstream. Grund: Sie wissen, dass sie dort automatisch präsent sind.
- Die Site hat die Möglichkeit, eine Community von externen Bloggern zu bilden und somit im Mittelpunkt von Diskussionen zu stehen
- Dadurch bekommt die Site vermehrt Traffic von Blogs und deren Fans
- Dies unterstützt die Traffic-Zahlen einer Site positiv
- Verlinken zu 100% relevanten Blogposts beeinflusst SEO-Ergebnisse und das Ranking in Suchmaschinen positiv. Das Verlinken zu relevantem Content außerhalb der eigenen Site und hereinkommende externe Links zur eigenen Site werden immer wichtiger, wie beispielsweise diese Quellen zeigen: ”Linking out of your Site is good!”

Nach unserem großen Erfolg mit Blogstream in Skandinavien und mit Kunden in insgesamt 7 verschiedenen Ländern wie LaVanguardia (ES), Publico (PT) De Telegraaf (NL) und The Times (Südafrika), launchen wir Blogstream nun auch auf dem deutschen Markt. Interesse von verschiedenen Seiten gab es bereits – und obwohl einige Leute sagen, dass der deutschsprachige Raum vielleicht noch nicht so weit ist, dass klassische Medien zu Bloggern verlinken besteht eine sehr gute Aussicht, dass sich dies recht schnell ändert.

Aus vielen persönlichen Gesprächen mit Online-Medien, nicht zuletzt auf der OMD, kann ich sagen, dass das Interesse bereits vorhanden ist, zu Bloggern zu verlinken. Unser Konzept und die Technik kommt also zum richtigen Zeitpunkt.

Was fehlt, ist noch etwas Mut auf Seite der Sites, diese Strategie zu verfolgen und das Vertrauen, dass Blogstream tatsächlich eine cooles Marketing-Tool ist, wenn man zu Bloggern verlinken will. Diese Skepsis kann ich allerdings niemandem verdenken, wir sind ja noch neu und müssen uns Vertrauen und Bekanntheitsgrad noch erwerben.

Dem Zögernden kann ich allerdings entgegnen, dass wir Partner wie LaVanguardia, Publico oder Verdens Gang nicht an Bord hätten, wenn die Technik nicht für diese großen Medienhäuser und deren Online-Präsenzen funktionieren würde.

Genauso kann ich akzeptieren wenn jemand sagt, dass das Thema Blogs noch keine Rolle für ihn spielt.

Wir haben allerdings die Technik und die Möglichkeit, klassische Online-Medien und Blogger zusammen zu bringen, so dass diese die daraus entstehenden Synergieeffekte jeweils für sich nutzen können. Und es gibt aus unserer Sicht absolut keinen Grund, warum dies in deutschsprachigen Landen nicht funktionieren sollte.

Wie schon eine Esso-Werbung in den 80ern sagte: “Packen wir es an – es gibt viel zu tun!”

Blogger: Blogs bitte an uns pingen und wenn möglich am besten den automatischen Pingback nutzen. Je mehr Blogs wir in der Whitelist haben umso besser.

Sites: Wenn Ihr Interesse habt Blogstream einzusetzen, fragt mich bitte gerne. Unsere Partnerliste zeigt unsere Vielseitigkeit. Auch dies wird noch ausgebaut, denn Blogstream ist für alle Online-Auftritte geeignet, die zu Bloggern verlinken wollen.

Dies wurde ich im Workshop auf der OMD gefragt – und zu meiner Schande konnte ich dies nicht eindeutig beantworten. Deshalb nun hier wie versprochen die nachgereichte Antwort:

Es sind auf den heutigen Tag genau 393.996 deutschsprachige Blogs, die wir verzeichnen. Davon sind ca. 24.000 als spamfrei in unserer Whitelist.

Insgesamt scannen wir weltweit ca. 26 Millionen Blogs, davon sind rund 850.000 spamfrei.

Im Herbst wollen wir unseren spamfreien Index weiter ausbauen. Das heißt, dass wir unseren Algorithmus verbessern, mit dem wir unsere Quellen nach Spam durchsuchen und diesen herausfiltern. Zum anderen zählen wir darauf, dass noch mehr Blogger ihren Blog direkt an uns pingen und wenn irgendwie möglich auch die automatische Pingback-Funktion einbauen.

Alle Blogger können uns also dabei helfen unsere Whitelist zu erweitern, indem Sie ihren Blog auch an Twingly pingen.

Martin hat Kanal 14 vor der OMD ein Interview gegeben, dass noch mehr Infos zu Twingly Blogsearch und Blogstream gibt – in englischer Sprache.

—————————————————–
UPDATE 04. Dezember 2008 – aktuelle Twingly Blog-Index-Zahlen:

Unique Blogs weltweit: 26.310.188
davon spamfrei: 915.039

Unique Blogs Deutsch: 430.211
davon spamfrei: 24.836

Deutschsprachige Blogposts: 1.870.715
davon spamfrei: 558.448

OK, ich habe mich entschieden. Deutsch für Arbeit und Englisch für privat. So macht es Magdalena auch, nur umgekehrt. Danke für den Tip, Magdalena!

OMD – Mann, die Vorbereitungen waren ja schon ganz intensiv, der Tag des Bloggerabends und der erste OMD-Tag fühlten sich wie ein Marathon an. Allerdings ein richtig guter! Anton und ich waren beide am 16. um ca. 17.30 im Hotel. Um 18.15 ging es dann schon wieder los, Bar Konvex suchen. Natürlich sind wir erst einmal dran vorbei gelatscht. Und ich dachte noch, es war keine hohe Hausnummer… Na, aber mit diesen Dingen bin ich nicht gut. “Teflon-Brain”.

Also, angekommen, aufgebaut (war ja nicht viel), was beim Grill um die Ecke gegessen – und dann die ersten Gäste begrüßt. Der Rest war ein unglaublich netter und unvergesslicher Abend. Um 1.30 ca. im Bett gewesen, um 6.00 wieder aufgestanden. Ich musste ja schon vor Beginn auf die Messe, um unsere Pressebox aufzufüllen – eine Idee unserer PR-Agentur. Man könne ja versuchen auch was im Print zu starten. Naja, die Response war dann im Print wohl nicht so hoch, aber mir ist es ehrlich gesagt auch viel wichtiger, dass Blogger mehr über uns wissen – und das ist uns glaube ich auch zu einem guten Stück geglückt.

Der erste Tag dann doch recht anstrengend durch den Schlafmangel – ich merkte es zwar nicht so wirklich, da es ja soooo viel Neues zu entdecken gab. Auch Meetings standen für mich auf dem Programm, die mir weitere gute Gespräche und viel Feedback bescherten, die Mut machen und zeigen, dass es doch ein großes Interesse an Twingly und unseren Konzepten gibt. So hoffe ich, dass wir im Herbst nun auch die ersten deutschsprachigen Partnersites für Blogstream an Bord begrüßen dürfen und dass sich noch andere gute Kooperationen ergeben. Schaun mer mal, wie Kaiser Franz schon richtig sagte.

Mittwoch Abend war ich dann allerdings so erledigt, dass ich meinen Körper und meinen Kopf nicht mehr auf den Weg zur omClub-Party bewegen konnte. Es gab da diverse Alarmglocken die den Ton “Schlaf – Schlaf – Schlaf” von sich gaben; tja, und manchmal hört man besser darauf. Ich freute mich aber sehr zu hören, dass die Party wohl ebenfalls ein voller Erfolg war!

Donnerstag war wesentlich besser. Klarer Kopf, gute Treffen und Gespräche und nicht zu vergessen der Workshop am Nachmittag zusammen mit Peter, Vasco, Nico und Djure. Ich hatte ja echt nicht erwartet, dass die Stühle nicht ausreichen würden! Von daher ja meine eingehende Vermutung, ob wirklich alle wegen des Vortrags oder vielleicht  wegen eines freien Stuhles für 50 Minuten gekommen waren oder beidem? Es war, glaube ich, eine sehr interessante Diskussion, da wir alle mit Blogs zu tun haben aber doch aus sehr unterschiedlichen Richtungen kommen und unterschiedliche Ziele haben. Es gab vereinzelt Kritik, dass meine Beiträge vielleicht manchmal etwas zu steif waren – mag sein, ich wusste jedoch nicht, dass ich den sogenannten Unternehmenskommunikationsstil beherrsche, von daher sehr interessantes Feedback  Für alle, die dies ähnlich empfunden haben sollten – wha’ever, das nächste Mal ist immer besser.

Sammy von Radio4SEO wollte nach dem Workshop gerne, dass ich das Konzept Blogsearch und Blogstream seinen Hörern erkläre - hier ist das Resultat, falls es jemanden interessiert. Hat Spaß gebracht, Sammy, Danke!

Ganz super fand ich, dass Anton und ich auch in der Bloggerarea sein durften und dies quasi als unser Basecamp hatten. Und das alles inklusive erstklassigem Kaffee, Limonade, toller Musik und netter Gesellschaft! Viele meiner geplanten und spontanen Gespräche fanden hier statt, unter anderem auch eines mit Markus Jakobs, der mir mit seinem Expertenwissen über Microblogs und Social Media sehr weiterhalf – und mir unter anderem erklärte was eigentlich ein Barcamp ist. Sebastian hat vorgeschlagen, dass wir bei soetwas ja auch mal mitmachen könnten – Gute Idee und Danke! Werde die nächsten Daten definitiv checken und vielleicht sieht man sich dann ja auch mal vor der nächsten OMD wieder!

In diesem Sinne – so long und bis bald!

Hey Everybody,

Whether you are actively tracking a recent campaign or just interested in what the chatter online is today, searching the world of blogs and micro-blogs is becoming increasingly important. But with so many different outlets and so many different searches, what is the best. Well, I don’t know if there is a best. But here are a few that I use, I hope that they are helpful to you as well

1. The nine-hundred lb. gorilla, Google. Google tends to find almost everything, big and small. I use it’s blog search function a lot more than its news search function. Google Blogsearch seems to be the most thorough. It’s downfall is in its sorting and ranking. You can only search by post, not by blog-theme and you can only sort by relevance or date. Not a real ranking system. But overall, if you need a lot of hits, this is the first place to shop.

2. The sorting king, Technorati. Technorati is a blog search engine. It is pretty nice. Sometimes, Google will find a few hits that Technorati misses. It also takes Technorati longer to index then Google and sometimes will be a little slower on the uptake. But, Technorati is my favorite, because it allows you to evaluate blogs by their authority ranking and by who has made this post or this blog their favorite. Technorati also allows you to search blogs (not just posts) search for blogs devoted entirely to a subject.

3. IceRocket, is a pretty nice little blog search engine. It returns pretty solid results including a strong images and video search. It also allows you to search by cloud. Another cool feature is that allows you to enter a Blog’s URL and you can see its usage stats, they call this BlogTracker. Another feature is that you can search MySpace. This sounds pretty great, but as anyone who tries to search MySpace on their own knows, it is pretty unsearchable. This feature suffers the same fate. IceRocket has some great bells and whistles, but it is not a thorough as the two big boys above.

4. BlogCatalog, is a very large social network for bloggers that allows you to search posts, blogs and other info that bloggers offer up (their other social accounts). It is pretty nice, but it is a social network, not a powerhouse of search. It is a lot of fun though and I really enjoy how it aggregates all of your presences. If this were a post about social networks, I would definitely recommend it. It is a lot of fun. But for blog searches, it is only okay.

5. Twitter, this microblogging site is often the pulse of the hot issue of the moment (literally the second). But you can go back and search what has been said by keyword. Do this by visiting www.search.twitter.com. Again these posts are limited to 140 characters, but they often provide links with in depth information. And it is an easy way to get a quick reading on whether the world hates, loves, or doesn’t care about you at the moment.

Two others of note are Blogsearch.com, which offers a good starting point by listing a variety of searches and what they provide, and Yahoo! blog search.

Hope you enjoy and if you have any others that you like, please let me know.

Thanks,

Will Flavell

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Ryan Stewart’s Flex SEO contest (also known as the “Fleximagically Searchable” contest). As I posted earlier, I believe the best and correct method for “making Flash indexable” is not to index Flash at all, but rather to index the data. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could get Google to index my content but link to my Flex application and I finally found a mechanism to do this! However, upon very close reading of Ryan’s rules I see that he specifically does not want this solution—he wants the content to be indexed by Googlebot “interacting” with the application.

That’s just silly.

For data-driven sites—which would be most Web sites with Flex front-ends—this is an completely artificial restriction. The only place where this would make any sense is for applications that do not dynamically load content, but rather dynamically generate content, such as for client-side mash-ups. Additionally, according to Google “if your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource, but it will not yet be considered to be part of the content in your Flash file.” That implies that dynamically loaded content must be RPC-based (and binary?) to be considered part of your SWF (as Ryan Stewart desires) instead of a separate resource. Yuck!

I will continue with my planned solution because demonstrating the technique and learning how well it works for SEO will provide valuable information for the community.

Finally, I’d like to announce that I’ve purchased the domain fleximagicallysearchable.com for this contest¹. There is nothing there now, but I would like to turn it into a blog or user forum for discussing Flex SEO strategies and make it a resource that lives beyond this contest, continuing to be useful in the future by providing tutorials and covering the emerging best practices for Flash and Flex SEO.

¹ Not to be confused with fleximagically-searchable.com, which is owned by zedia.net.