No, no, not the literal jobs like the up-to-17% unemployment rate. I mean the Savior-of-Apple Jobs, el Steve-O, The Turtlenecked One, Mr. One-More-Thing. What would our world be like if (gasp) he had never gone back to Apple at all?

Mike Arrington posits that very question today, and while he mostly comes up with “no iPhone, and no Android,” I think the answer is actually more profound than that.  Jobs is responsible for HP’s “The Computer is Personal Again” campaign, for taking mp3 players from the realm of “cute little gadgets that techies and some runners used” to ubiquitous device that no self-respecting person between ages 12 and 40 would be without.

Mostly, Jobs is responsible for returning Apple to mass-market products still driven by exceedingly high quality standards.  He riskily bucked the uber-customization trend: he had better taste than you, and there wre limited options (candy-colored iMacs notwithstanding).  He was a dictator, yes, but a benevolent one.

Jobs’ hyper-controlled and often-criticized ad campaigns transformed marketing strategies not only for the computer and technology industries but across advertising clients.  Everything he touched seemed to turn into a cultural touchstone, without most of the population knowing exactly why they knew what an iMac or an iPod was (remember how revolutionary the original candy bubbles and white bricks were?).

I am, admittedly, an Apple fangirl, but I’m not blind to the many many shortcomings the company has had in product development and brand management over the years.  And Jobs is hardly the Golden Messiah he is frequently (even in this post) trumped up to be – how much more profitable could iMacs have been if Jobs had never insisted on the hockeypuck mouse?

But missteps and egotrips aside, it’s hard to argue that the man has a certain Midas touch.  More importantly, he proved that consumer-driven can also be performance-driven, and beauty-driven, and simplicity-driven, and – the king of them all – highly lucrative.

I really can’t top that TechCrunch headline.

For most of us, the term ’smartbook’ (a device that’s somewhere in between a smartphone and a netbook) is nothing but the latest tech buzzword du jour. For German company Smartbook, however, it’s apparently a chance to score some free publicity by vigilantly defending a multinational trademark and threatening to sue everyone who dares use it in conversations.

Smartbook AG has also targeted media outlets who use the word generically to describe some next-generation devices. For instance, electronics industry newspaper EE Times has removed all references to the word, and even downright deleted an article that dealt with the legal threats put forward by Smartbook against the media company…Now it appears the company is actively going to pursue international bloggers and press too, no longer limiting themselves to those in German-speaking countries.

There’s a very technical marketing word to describe this situation: FAILURE.

Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook. Smartbook.   

Continuing on with the theme of News junkie or the future of journalism? I now want to take a look at the Business of Blogging.

24/7 Wall St has recently published a list of The Twenty-Five Most Valuable Blogs In America.

7 of the Top 25 most valuable blogs are tech blogs.

TechBlogs, as we all know, are an extremely competitive part of the online content business so it will be interesting to see how all that “Free Market” energy translates into Advertising Revenues and, more importantly, a return on Shareholder Investment.

Note: Important qualification. The top 7 most valuable tech blogs do not correlate with the 7 most popular tech blogs.

 They estimate the annual advertising revenues and monthly traffic for each of these Top 7 Tech Blogs to be:

• 5. TechCrunch. $7.5 million. (4 million uniques / 18 Million Page Views)
• 9. Boing Boing. $4 million. (3 million uniques / 24 Million Page Views)
• 12. GigaOm. $2.8 million. (1.7 million uniques  / 12 Million Page Views)
• 15. ReadWriteWeb. $2.4 million. (1.2 million uniques  / 10 Million Page Views)
• 16. The Business Insider. $2 million (1.8 million uniques  / 14 Million Page Views)
• 18. Apple Insider. $1.3 million.(1.2 Million uniques  / 8 Million Page Views)
• 20. SearchEngineLand. $0.6 Million. (0.4 Million uniques  / 3.5 Million Page Views)

Interestingly these figures indicate that the market leader is the least sticky (4.5 Page views per unique) while the 7^th spot is the stickiest (8.75 pages per unique). You’ll notice is there is no correlation between revenues and traffic. I guess the question also has to be asked how many of these uniques end up visiting all 7 blogs each month?

The average revenue per unique per annum (ARPU) across the top 7 sites is just $1.55. It doesn’t get much better at the top of the market. ARPU across the top 3 is just $1.64. While top spot delivers an ARPU of just $1.875.

So that’s the revenue side. Now let’s take a look at what it cost to run a top 3 tech blog. 

24/7 Wall St  suggest you will need around 30+ staff to generate the volume of pages each day to keep the blog hot and the ads streaming. So let’s say for arguments sake you need 30 people and that fixed cost per staff member (including the equipment and associated operating costs) is $100,000 per annum. So that would be an estimated $3 Million per year in costs. This means 2 out of the top 3 may be making money.

Based on these estimates TechCrunch makes an operating profit of just $1.125 per unique per annum.

So let’s put this into perspective. There are an estimated 130 Million Blogs on the web of which about 8,500 are TechBlogs (at least based on Technorati’s listings) and of the top 3 tech blogs the ARPU is just $1.64 and the top operating profit is just $1.125 per unique per annum.

A couple of thoughts come to mind here. Not least of which is Chris Anderson’s Long Tail prediction for media: “The head of the curve will be free and the tail of the curve will be paid.”

Pardon the pun but I guess these figures make the business of profiting from blogging a Long Tale.

The other thought is this. Clearly blogging isn’t where they make their money.

So what do they do to make it work? Well SearchEngineLand, Gigaom and TechCrunch all have conference programs linked to the blog. For example, they estimate that SearchEngineLand’s conference revenues are 3-4 times that of the revenues generated by the site. So clearly the blog is just a Freemium hook to get new business in.

You may recall that in an earlier posting What If: Journalism is the real reason Newspapers are dying? I made reference to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington and his mid-year post on What If: The New New York Times . In this post he redefines The New York Times online publish model in terms of the TechCrunch blog model.

Now let’s apply some MobCon theory to this whole Blogging Business and do a What If on the TechCrunch blog model.

What if: Instead of talking about iPhones TechCrunch went into business selling or even giving away iPhones to their 4 Million + readers? What would their revenue model look like then?

Well their ARPU would take a huge bounce. Up from $1.88 per annum to upwards of  $800 per annum. Their margins would also improve.

They would grow their annual revenues from$7.5 Million to $3.2 Billion. This would make TechCrunch’s revenues slightly higher than the New York Times. Why shrink to greatness after all?

In Australian terms this would make TechCrunch a bigger mobile telecoms provider than the newly merged 3 Mobile and Vodafone Joint Venture.

Now let’s apply the same logic to the New York Times. What if they also became a mobile publishing company? Issuing iPhones, or any other brand of smart phone, to their online audience and print subscribers? What would it do to their revenue model?

The New York Times, whose online business in 2007 had an ARPU of $3.80, has 10x the traffic of TechCrunch so they would quadruple their revenues and solve the original New York Times10% Problem.

Just for the record: Estimates put The New York Times offline ARPU in 2007 at about $330. Hence the 10% Problem where 10 times the readers online delivers 1/10 the revenues.

Well, I was quite surprised that the folks over at TechCrunch today took some interesting data from AdMob and blew it up into something it clearly is not! In the post “Apple and Android Now Make Up 75 Percent of U.S. Smartphone Web Traffic” TechCrunch makes leaves one important word out of the headline— “Ad” and gives the totally wrong assumption that the AdMob data covers all mobile traffic! They go on to say that RIM, Palm, Microsoft and Nokia are all losing lots of share in the US and globally. Comments on the site show that people are taking this data the wrong way based on the headline and the the way the post is written, thinking that the game is over for the other device vendors. Only a few people commenting on the site have realized the error.

So I need to point this out to the folks over at TechCrunch and others:

Share of Mobile Ad Requests/Impressions/Clicks

DOES NOT EQUAL

Share of Mobile Web Traffic

(ad traffic, browser traffic, media consumption over browsers, downloads, etc.)

Share of Mobile Ad Requests/Impressions/Clicks

DOES NOT EQUAL

Share of Mobile Device Shipments/Sales or Installed Base

With over 15 years experience in mobile, media, and market research I don’t have much tolerance for sites that twist data analytics, blow it out of proportion, and create misleading headlines to drive readership. I’m a regular TechCrunch reader, love their posts, and I’m frankly surprised that some editor over there didn’t check this out! Their headline is pretty viral in the blogosphere today. I also have a lot of respect for the folks over at AdMob and their great data. If you read the last page of their report, they clearly state what they track and what their methodology is!

I’ve attached AdMob’s last page below and their full report is in my Box.net box since they publicly posted it.

It’s interesting data as far as the current direction of mobile ad traffic in October. But that is all it is, ad traffic! And it’s backwards looking, which is what analytics is too!

Source: AdMob

Screening The News.

Some great advice from Mrinal Desai about how he “screens news” in order to stay current.

I like many of his ideas and I think you can learn some great tips about how  to learn more in less time.

Enjoy!

I am in love with Spotify - that’s all I have to say.

For all of you who currently do not get to enjoy this excellent streaming service, I would highly recommend Grooveshark. That is referred to as the ‘Spotify of the US’ by TechCrunch. I like the Spotify UI better, but I like the flexibility of a browser version that Grooveshark give me.

All in all – Spotify and Grooveshark are really two excellent Music streaming services, and both have a free account available.

Don’t stop the music!

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My Thoughts Enclosed…Rb

News24 reported that the web was literally ‘atwitter’ this week when TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com) discovered that a serial killer, known as dinner_guest, was tweeting about his murderous activities on Twitter. Speculation was rife as to whether the killer was for real; whether the tweets were part of a marketing campaign; or whether it was some type of sick joke. Not surprisingly, this unusual Twitterer gained nearly 300 followers in only 4 days.

It turned out that dinner_guest was a ‘fictional character born out of an artist’s mind’, who was “bored of the predictability of social networking conversations,” according to TheNextWeb.

This raises an interesting question: what if a real serial killer was to use Twitter to document their plans and murders? As blogger Zee puts it, Twitter’s immediate reaction would most likely be to shut down the account and notify the police, but at the same time, the microblogging site could quite possibly become a new way for the police to communicate with criminals and track them down. We’ve already seen how Facebook has been used as an alibi in a court case – no reason why social media couldn’t work the other way.

At the same time, this incident once again illustrates the importance of curating online information and not taking it at face value. As dinner_guest states – he was simply tired of the mundane nature of social networks and wanted to spice things up. We would do well to keep that in mind the next time we see ‘newsworthy’ content on our social network of choice – it may very well just be another ‘dinner_guest’ wanting to experiment with social media!

As the year winds down, Zoosk looks at the work we’ve done through 2009 with feelings of accomplishment. We’ve become the fastest growing online dating site in the world, and we’ve released some amazing new products like Zoosk Desktop, Zoosk Mobile, Zoosk Coins, and our new product, Boost Views. We’ve also brought people together from all over the world and helped so many of our users find love. We sincerely hope you’ve had as much fun with Zoosk this year as we’ve had, working for you. If that’s been the case, please vote for Zoosk for a 2009 TechCrunch Crunchies Award, and nominate us for Best Social Networking Application.

Nominations just opened, but you can vote each day until the ballots close two weeks from now. Each vote counts, so please remember to bookmark the site and vote for Zoosk every day from now until December 4 so that we can make it to the next round of voting!

The more you show your support, the more people will know about Zoosk. That means our user base, YOUR dating pool, will get bigger and bigger. We know you want your dating pool to grow so that you raise the chances of finding that someone special, so remember to vote for Zoosk this year. Our hopes are that Zoosk will grow so we have a better chance of matching every single one of our users up with someone who works for them. We’d love to win a Crunchie so that this can happen. Thanks Zooskers! Vote for Zoosk!

Wow, today was yet another big day for the tech world. Google announced its Chrome operating system, boasting of better security and speed than current OSs. What makes Chrome so significant is that it is a cloud-based OS which means it will depend on an Internet connection. Each application is also sand-boxed, brining with it greater security. If you want to catch up on the details, check out TechCrunch’s Live Blog of the event.

Google’s new OS will be available sometime in 2010 on new hardware only.

Catch another vid from TechCrunch after the jump.

(Video via TechCrunch)

I’m a sucker for anything free.  Almost anything that’s being advertised as being free, I want it.  Well for this next item, it goes without saying that I want it regardless of its price, but especially if it’s FREE.  Thanks to the lovely people at TechCruch, and moreover Photojojo, I now have that opportunity.

Photojojo is actually a REALLY good site, especially for aspiring photographers like myself.  Like any other site they offer an emailed newsletter.  I haven’t gotten my first subscription yet, but from what they say, it’s chocked full of tips, tricks, projects, challenges, and other information geared to push learning photographers to the limits.

Head on over to Photojojo and enter their contest to win a really, really sophisticated camera.  They’ve literally got 7 different ways for you to enter the contest so if you want that camera, there’s no excuse for you not to enter.

While your at it, stop by the good people at TechCrunch too.  Check out that article on the Google Phone! (no, not Android)

As we have oft banged on about mentioned occasionally, one of the joys of social media is that it let’s you hear what’s actually being said, and as we warn clients, what is being said is not always good. This is because our actions and interactions on the interwebz tends to accurately reflect real life, and unfortunately real life is not the place of pink fluffy warmth and kindness that we like to pretend it is. On a personal level, one of the other joys of social media is that it allows us to create rather effective filters so that we can easily avoid the iccky stuff that might put us off our cornflakes. Of course, when this self-created cocoon does occasionally get burst it enhances the shock value.

It’s not surprising that social media darling, Twitter, has a dark underbelly. We know about the spammers, who hasn’t been followed by a gaggle of horny Brittany’s at some point, but they are easy to block and ignore, making sure our filters stay intact. But it seems that Mike Butcher, over at TechCrunch UK has discovered an even seedier side, when he was tipped off about a user called Dinner_Guest, who appears to be blogging about the kidnap and subsequent killing of someone. Mike suggests that it could be a stunt, but also says:

Now, clearly this could all be part of some sick fantasy. The trouble is, should we take that chance, or do the Police in Brighton need to know that they have a potential serial killer on their hands who has taken to Twittering his killing spree?

It’s clearly not possible to know either way, until real-world events start to match up with Dinner Guest’s Tweets.

I hope that Mike did actually call the cops before posting, even though I do believe that it is a stunt. The account is only eight days old but has a professional background and its very second tweet was from Twitterlator. Most unusual behaviour for a n00b, unless of course this is not their first account, though why would they then ask how to follow people later on, unless of course they are pretending to be a n00b?Plus, what kind of serial killer realises that no matter who says it that 80 followers does not a viral make. In short, the whole thing smells worse than my rugby captains lucky socks by season end and I have a sneaky suspicion that all will be revealed by Saturday.

Stunt or not, it does raise questions about how we should react to incidents like this, and how we should then deal with the perpetrator if it does turn out to be a stunt. Mike raises a good point about how once the mainstream media finds out about this there will no doubts be calls for Twitter to be policed, which to me is equally as unpalatable as some of the stuff that appears online. It would also be practically impossible plus, if there is a serial killer operating in Brighton, wouldn’t it be handy if he kept tweeting about it so that he could be tracked down via his email and IP address? Must be far more effective than tracing anonymous notes and phone calls.

Also posted on Clicking & Screaming

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My Thoughts Enclosed…Rb

Hello Everyone,
Today I decided to research how much my favorite blog’s are earning every month and I wasn’t surprised to see some of them in the 6 figures! I hope from this list you will see just how powerful blogging can be and inspire you to create a blog, if you haven’t already! It is also worth noting that the top blogging network, Weblogs, Inc. earn about $30 million a month revenue from 13 million unique visitors.

Its not just the monthly income that rocks but when you want to sell out you can make a huge amount of money! Like 22 year old Johns Wu who sold his blog for $15 Million.

30 Blog’s That Make A Lot Of Money Online

* * * * *

The Longer You’re Not Taking Action, The More Money Your Losing

I have helped well over 4000 people start to make money online from blogging. The biggest issue I see across all my students is consistency and procrastination, if you want to make it in any business you got to actually start and then keep at it. Although I have had several websites that have made me a lot of money over night, this is not always the case, in fact quite the opposite with some blogs, so remember don’t give up to soon.

The first thing you need to do after visiting this page is free101biz.com, this basically teaches you how I created a website with step by step toturials and how you can do it yourself to make a full time income (and more) from your own blog. Next I recommend you check out some of the eBooks I recommend, educating yourself is so important, even now that I am somewhat a success, I keep re-educating myself, every single day. You might want to start with Rob Benwell’s Bloggers revenger or Yaro Starks Blog Mastermind membership website.

How They Make Money From Blogging

Their is over a dozen methods these top blogger’s are using to monetize their blog, different techniques for each niche. Some niche’s are easier to promote products to, some have high paying keywords and some are easy to drive millions of visitors easy month! Bellow is a run down on some of the techniques used.

Advertising Banners By far the most popular advertising method so far in 2009. A great new service called BuySellAds take care of finding you advertisers and takes care of all the process for a small 25% which is well worth it!
CPM Advertising This method is really popular for the website’s that receive a huge amount of traffic, advertisers pay you for impressions rather than sales or clicks! Check out Adtegrity for CPM Advertising.
Affiliate Sales Selling on commission depending on your niche can be a huge earner and is by far my biggest earner. You promote great products and then get great commissions. Affiliate networks include CJ.com and Clickbank.
Pay Per Click By far the easiest way to earn money from you website is getting paid per click you send to website’s. With programs such as Google Adsense and Netklix it’s so easy to add their code and start earning today.

To our success,

PS. I know their is a load of blogs not mentioned that should be, if you know how much other bloggers are earning then please share in the comments below!

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If you find any broken Tweets or Links, please report them in the comment section.

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1. A new set of rules for social games http://bit.ly/32VNhZ (via @tommytrc)
   21:16 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
2. Atlantis Space Shuttle Launch will be Twittered Live = http://bit.ly/SpaceTwitter by @Mashable (via @Jason_Pollock)
   21:20 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
3. “Assassin’s Creed 2″ hits stores on Tuesday
   (AFP) http://bit.ly/1AoATA (via @stevedriz)
   21:22 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
4. “10 Easy Steps for Twitter beginners” by @ProBlogger = http://bit.ly/LpBoh rt @Alyssa_Milano (via @Jason_Pollock)
   21:23 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
5. Egypt to apply for first Arabic domain name (AP via Yahoo! News) #Yahoo#news…
   http://tinyurl.com/yj8lfnl (via @SEO_Kat)
   21:24 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
6. RT @Alyssa_Milano The 50 best inventions of 2009 [Time Magazine] http://bit.ly/17pflP (via @nadeemd)
   21:26 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
7. RT @dave_carpenter: Newbie Tip#11 Understand different levels followers described http://bit.ly/2miL5g (via @cflanagan)
   21:29 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
8. Just saw a video on Animoto called “The 2.0 Adoption Council Rocks!”: http://animoto.com/play/jtf6I0kOUgbCPmosebw1HA (via @gialyons)
   22:26 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
9. 5 Simple LinkedIn Actions that Make a Difference http://viigo.im/1uHR (via @pgiblett)
   22:30 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
10. Rock Band played with a flute, awesome redefined (video) http://bit.ly/46mZpm (via @tommytrc)
    22:31 PM Nov 15^th from Twitterrific
11. Mark Cuban Has An iPhone App http://bit.ly/1GJaKh (via @stevedriz)
    0:28 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
12. What is Social CRM and why it is important: http://bit.ly/2W9RR0 (via @Bob_Thompson)
    0:29 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
13. QUESTION: would you participate in a global peace movement driven by the social web? rt @sarah_ross #peace (via @Jason_Pollock)
    0:31 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
14. @pgiblett You’re welcome
    0:31 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
15. IBM Furthers Investment In Business Analytics With Smart Analytics Cloud http://bit.ly/ZBjPO by @leenarao (via @TechCrunch)
    0:32 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
16. @dahowlett catches a key point about adoption and the range of skill sets in the audience http://bit.ly/31vmgH #ERP (via @rwang0)
    0:33 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
17. like @dahowlett Epicor has a shot at wowing the industry when they roll out Epicor Express #saas #erp #epicor (via @rwang0)
    0:33 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
18. YouTube starts high-def 1080p support http://bit.ly/2u0KBj
    (via @nzherald) (via @NeilSanderson)
    0:34 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
19. Guy Kawasakia s top Twitter tips for businesses: Club SumA mit in San Fran… http://bit.ly/AU12C (via @socialmediamind)
    0:36 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
20. How to use Twitter lists to build your brand http://om.ly/cAKo (via @GuyKawasaki)
    0:36 AM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
21. RT @Twitter_Tips 7 Ways To Avoid Twitter DM Spam Scam: http://j.mp/3RzlBM –Share: http://bit.ly/4fhRkv (via @denispaulvc)
    13:29 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
22. “Twilf” Enters the Twitter Vernacular [VIDEO] http://bit.ly/2S9bpP (via @TheCommonHoster)
    13:30 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
23. Comment Facebook tente d’attaquer Twitter ? http://j.mp/22oUBA (via @jeanlucr)
    13:30 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
24. 100 Twitter Marketing Tips to Promote your Business. Great article http://j.mp/NRJTo (via @jeanlucr)
    13:30 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
25. YouTube is the second most searched place on the internet after Google http://ow.ly/Ckms (via @LinkedInQueen)
    13:30 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
26. Wow. Seth Godin really has something cool here in this finance model: http://bit.ly/2HRzZY (via @chrisbrogan)
    13:31 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
27. “Unfriend” is Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year – http://bit.ly/1KcgYZ (via @adamostrow)
    13:31 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
28. ppl should stop telling others on Twitter what to tweet or not to tweet about-if u don’t like somebody’s tweets stop following (via @glfceo)
    13:32 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
29. CIO: Introducing New York’s Premier “Business Class” Executive Conference Center http://bit.ly/1JYbUG (via @stevedriz)
    13:32 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
30. My Blog / Personal Branding Interview: Jerry Springer http://bit.ly/37Ups1 (via @danschawbel)
    13:33 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
31. Google Wave Goes Twitter Route with Follow Feature – eWeek http://trcb.us/GQ8 (via @businesswaves)
    13:33 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
32. #E20 “The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary humans beings to do extraordinary things.” http://bit.ly/4dpxLN (via @mikojava)
    13:33 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
33. #E20 Published 12 Questions the Business Executive should ask when Implementing Social Media Solutions. http://is.gd/4Wqlj (via @pgiblett)
    13:34 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
34. See also Federation: “what you have to give up in order to be a part of something greater” (via @darylplummer) (via @mikojava)
    13:34 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
35. Google vs. Murdoch: Once again, the plot thickens. http://bit.ly/kvl8Y [Like Mr. Murdoch's skull.] (via @chrispirillo)
    13:34 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
36. Short URLs with analytics, social media monitoring, and geotargeting – Cligs http://bit.ly/TW1lk URL (via @delicious50)
    13:34 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
37. 80% of US Consumers Won’t Pay For Online Content http://bit.ly/16wMuq (via @rww)
    13:36 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
38. 3 Social Media Lessons From the Restaurant World – http://bit.ly/2Hc0Ij (via @mashable)
    13:36 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
39. Google poised to become your phone company: http://bit.ly/3y2SbB (via @w2scott)
    13:37 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
40. RT @mjayliebs: Is the Social Individual or the Social Customer more important – #customer #networks http://ow.ly/COce (via @ekolsky)
    13:37 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
41. How To Integrate Your Blog in Your Twitter Account.: http://digg.com/d31ABsm?t (via @drnatalie)
    13:37 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
42. Watch Atlantis (STS-129) Liftoff Live http://cli.gs/86Mee Launch Target 2:28 p.m. EST (via @PrateekThapar)
    13:38 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
43. #KM: helping people find the knowledge they need to do their jobs, that they can’t find on Google! RT @ithorpe (via @scotteverett)
    13:38 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
44. Social Media ROI: Socialnomics (via @jowyang) http://post.ly/CkBl (via @nikhilnulkar)
    13:39 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
45. Championship Talent On Display: Jimmie Johnson put himself in line to win his fourth straight Sprint Cups. http://bit.ly/v2dHw (via @SPEED)
    13:39 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
46. Nice. @rww had a good bit recently on how we’re trying to bring maturity to Enterprise 2.0: http://bit.ly/1Fqr4x (via @dhinchcliffe)
    13:40 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
47. RT @HKotadia: RT @customerthink: What is Social CRM and why it is important: http://bit.ly/2BULey #sCRM #PR #CMO #e20 #CRM (via @drnatalie)
    13:40 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
48. We have all become our own channel of what we choose to T&RT> @rlavigne42 Totally second that! Power to freedom of tweets (via @lammiia)
    13:41 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
49. Resistance to change: The real Enterprise 2.0 barrier http://bit.ly/iz6xJ (via @mkrigsman)
    13:42 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
50. New blog post: Two Key Factors To Your Social Media Success http://bit.ly/Xzh4F (via @OwenGreaves)
    13:42 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
51. RT @JohnFMoore: Good info on using Skype for your business: http://bit.ly/3mA4Bf #voip #cio (via @pgiblett)
    13:42 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
52. 2/3 of execs say online networks deepens relationships with coll and clients @stephaniemehta http://tinyurl.com/yhdjqjd (via @danschawbel)
    13:42 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
53. Thank you @draftkraft for listing me http://twitter.com/draftkraft/prophets
    14:44 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
54. How to Plan a Content Heavy Site http://klck.me/ABy #webdesign (via @KISSmetrics)
    14:45 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
55. RT @mikehenrysr: Great 6 minute video summary about #TribalLeadership http://bit.ly/g5WIS by @davelogan1 (via @RobJelinek)
    14:46 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
56. The War For the Web – O’Reilly Radar http://bit.ly/3HjnBj #twine (via @swiertz)
    14:46 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
57. You social CRM folks are not immune to change resistance either http://bit.ly/iz6xJ #scrm (via @mkrigsman)
    14:47 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
58. The History of the Internet in a Nutshell: http://tinyurl.com/ybuhadq (via @DesignerDepot)
    14:47 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
59. Twitter in the workplace, It’s power to the connectors http://bit.ly/4umVLY (via @harvardbiz) RT @evangineer (via @scotteverett)
    14:48 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
60. Mashable’s Guide to Social Media Events & Conferences – http://bit.ly/2gTLj0 (via @mashable)
    14:48 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
61. How Blogging Has Changed Over The Last Three Years (Stats) http://bit.ly/2eP6Lu (via @marshallk)
    14:48 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
62. Friendship does not break when your are out of sight for a long time. relationship does. (via @swiertz)
    14:49 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
63. Why Can’t I Pick the Technology I Use in the Office? http://bit.ly/4bb3ha (via @slmader)
    14:49 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
64. Community feedback on #e2conf speaking proposals is happening. Very cool to see: http://ow.ly/CPij #walkingthetalk #e20 (via @bhc3)
    14:49 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
65. Assassin’s Creed Lineage Full 30 Minute Short Film http://tinyurl.com/yg7d69o (via @g4tv)
    14:49 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
66. BULLSEYE: Target and YouTube Partner on Holiday Video Channel – http://bit.ly/3RRp4z (via @mashable)
    14:52 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
67. New Post: Social Media, Power & Metcalfe’s Law http://bit.ly/1okEqZ (via @shelisrael) http://bit.ly/2WSZxD (via @glfceo)
    16:45 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
68. How to overcome Gen Y stereotypes in the workplace http://om.ly/cBkx (via @GuyKawasaki)
    16:45 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
69. 85% of CMOs spend less than 10% of their budgets on social media http://bit.ly/fhe9Y <-fire CMOs??! (via @glfceo)
    16:45 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
70. Look Ma, I’m on video! Interview with Esteban Kolsky on Social CRM Analytics | Dr Natalies’s blog http://bit.ly/3ARSM (via @ekolsky)
    16:47 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
71. RT @Brandyourself Personal Branding on Facebook: The Do’s and Dont’s #PersonalBranding http://bit.ly/1bseCr (via @Rynge)
    16:47 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
72. Counter-intuitive listening principles. http://bit.ly/3XYh3y (via @ShalynHockey)
    16:49 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
73. #Hmm >Creating an RSS feed in Ruby on Rails http://bit.ly/ZeAvw (via @delicious50)
    16:49 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
74. #Hmm >Time Magazine is apparently torn between naming #Twitter or the Economy as its “Person” of the Year http://ow.ly/CRbB (via @bhc3)
    16:50 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
75. #e20 >Trash or Treasure? The New York Times Tries Crowdfunding – http://bit.ly/48ENDl (via @mashable)
    16:50 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
76. Agreed. I have learned quite a bit about #sCRM from both @drnatalie and @ekolsky http://bit.ly/3ARSM. @nenshad you are no slouch either.
    16:52 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
77. #sCRM Good customer service is more than good business, it’s a matter of survival… http://bit.ly/1sKKnf (via @thinkBIG_blog)
    16:53 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
78. A Conversation with Andrew McAfee http://bit.ly/1u4r2h (via @swiertz) #E20
    16:53 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
79. @mrboilermaker Resolved conflicts lead to Collaboration. Unresolved conflicts lead to more Conflicts. No Community without Collaboration
    16:55 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
80. United we stand. Divided we fall. Does anyone still feel that way? It certainly doesn’t feel that way anymore. It’s sad (via @mrboilermaker)
    16:55 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
81. Leonardo da Vinci positioned his younger rival Michelangelo as a mere sculptor, not a painter like himself. (via @CatherineKaputa) #PB
    16:56 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
82. Jealous> Just drove a Tesla Roadster Sport around the block. In a word: WOW! (via @hblodget)
    16:57 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
83. #Hmm Wonderful to see @foursquare opening up its API. Amazing who here is using it. @TechCrunch has the details. (via @Scobleizer)
    16:58 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
84. F1: Mercedes And McLaren Now Racing Rivals?: Mercedes’ step away from McLaren was a friendly transaction http://bit.ly/3GC4Cj (via @SPEED)
    16:59 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
85. #Hmm Google wants to make the Internet more SP(ee)DY. http://bit.ly/1jhgr5 [Or more SP(ud)DY. "What's 'taters?"] (via @chrispirillo)
    16:59 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
86. Interesting fact from our study: nearly 60% of our Council survey respondents say full deployment will be >10K seats. (via @ITSinsider) #E20
    17:00 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
87. #Psst 48% of Americans surveyed said they’d pay for online news http://om.ly/cBsN (via @GuyKawasaki)
    17:03 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
88. #Hmm How to Bullyproof Yourself on Facebook http://bit.ly/1YfA2F (via @TwtMarketerPro)
    17:03 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
89. Kindle edition of my #E20 book is now available – http://bit.ly/1Z02rh (via @amcafee) < Still would love to get a remote signed copy of HB
    17:04 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
90. Interview on #E20 with @jevon has just been posted – he asks great questions – http://bit.ly/1XGwfO (via @amcafee)
    17:04 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
91. #Psst Best US TV commercials of the decade – watch/vote (Adweek Media) http://bit.ly/2tmCe0 (via @jackschofield)
    17:05 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
92. Apple tablet speculation: high-end graphics, several models http://bit.ly/IYgrk (via @GregoryCollins)
    17:19 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
93. Twitter scraps controversial ’suggested user’ list http://bit.ly/5sF6p (via @nzherald) (via @NeilSanderson)
    17:19 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
94. Agile Architecture Deck & Code http://ow.ly/CKE6 #agile (via @Agilebuddy)
    17:19 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
95. A new look for #Google Translate http://bit.ly/3QnV51 (via @stevedriz)
    17:19 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
96. Fundamentals of Enterprise Search: #KM World Session Notes http://tinyurl.com/ye77z7m (via @hebsgaard) #E20
    17:20 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie
97. 10 Great Implementations of Facebook Connect http://bit.ly/3ZcCI #FB (via @delicious50)
    17:21 PM Nov 16^th from Tweetie

After my post last week about Mr Murdoch and his dislike of online content aggregation tools, specifically Google, I was interested this article on TechCrunch as to whether NewsCorp could indeed hurt Google.

My point of view, especially after my detailed chat with my colleague Ged Carroll,  is that he can’t beat Google, but I think he can scare the bejesus out of Google shareholders and then make Google do something it doesn’t necessarily want to.

Theoretically, as was discussed in the TechCrunch article, if Murdoch can convince Bing, Microsoft’s aggregator, to pay for the aggregation rights of NewsCorp material, it could be worth removing NewsCorp from Google’s online rankings. If he can show he is earning more money from Bing, other news companies might follow suit. Then Google has problems.

By stepping up to Google, perhaps he hopes it back down and deal. This would clearly benefit NewsCorp. Like him or loathe him, he’s clever and he must have something up his sleeve.

According to cash alone, despite his many billions of dollars, Google should win this war, but Murdoch is one of a few people in the world that just by saying his name can cause people, especially in the media world, to shake in their boots. Not many people can get through to whatever Head of State he/she wants, when he wants. Murdoch can and that means something.

Thoughts?

Spotify, the European on-demand music streaming service that has taken Europe by storm, will apparently delay a US launch. For several weeks now there have been reports that the major labels were putting pressure on Spotify to abandon a free, ad-supported streaming model. The New York Times recently reported that major labels, already involved as backers with free ad-supported services like MySpace and Imeem, aren’t eager to license their catalogs to Spotify on that basis.

And they have a lot to say on the matter. “On-demand services have to negotiate private deals with the labels – there is no compulsory license, and the deals are not public.” according to David Oxenford a legal expert in streaming audio licensing.

But how much is the new Google music platform impacting this? Google Music is now driving listeners to Imeem and MySpace/iLike – the two services that are licensed by the record labels to stream on-demand. With that deal in place to support the two services that the record labels are already invested in, would they want to see Spotify come in and disrupt the market for on-demand services? Given some time, and the preference they’re getting from Google Music, Imeem and iLike (owned by MySpace) should be able to build their brands as destination sites for on-demand music.

Instead, the record companies would like to see Spotify offer their service on a premium basis, to those that subscribe. “We like Spotify as our partner in Europe, but we would like them to move more toward a paid subscription environment,” said Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business at Sony Music, as reported by the New York Times. Word is, Spotify is not happy about coming to the US with a paid-only model, hence they have delayed their launch.

While none of the students I personally taught mentioned Facebook in my presence (except when I asked “What do you read? Books? Magazines?”), I did get accosted by some random kids on the playground who kept insisting that I needed to add them to Facebook and help them farm on Farmville.

Luckily, despite them constantly checking my mandatory name badge for my full name, none of them had the attention span or retention to actually add me, so I do not have to deal with that can of worms. I am still left with sister insisting last week that I join her farm, clan, sorority and/or kitchen.

So I find it this video a bit funny showing the CEO of Zynga (the company behind  Farmville, Mafia, Vampires, YoVille and all that other crap), admitting that he basically took every low channel possible to build up his capital in the early days. This came to light is just after TechCrunch complimented Zynga on its devotion to “clean up facebook”. It’s not quite as noble if you helped create the mess in the first place.

Disclaimer: While I have ditched my vampire/zombie applications, and will not be joining any of Zynga’s other projects, I am pretty hooked on it’s Texas Hold ‘Em app … join and send me chips

Hmmm. Let’s see, I’m wondering, what should I blog about?

I’ve been researching several topics recently with the help of Addict-o-matic and here are my options:

1. Page Rank
2. Netvibes
3. StumbleUpon
4. Forums
5. Commenting

Page Rank

Unlike most bloggers, Page Rank is not a huge concern for me.  For example, this post from Shel Holtz: ABC, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, tells why Technorati rank USED to be important.

Despite a wealth of channels for searching the blogosphere, Technorati remains important because it’s the only tool that offers a clue about the reputation and influence of each blog. By evaluating a number of factors, including inbound links on a rolling six-month basis, Technorati is able to assign a rank and an authority level for each blog. When identifying bloggers for outreach, these metrics have proven invaluable. You can’t find anything comparable on any other blog search engine, including the popular Google Blogsearch.

But like any tool, Technorati’s usefulness vanishes if it’s broken. And Technorati has been broken in a big way for some time. What’s more, they don’t seem to be very interested in fixing it.

via What the hell is up with Technorati?.

Alternatives for using Technorati and other tips, can be found in this post from Timethief. You can check your page rank at this site and check page rank alongside Alexa rank at Bulk Page Rank Checker.

Let me add that while I don’t care much about Page Rank, I realize that a good number of you do, so I feel better now that I have provided you with some resourceful links.

NetVibes

I was totally prepared to do my next screencast on NetVibes when I received an email inviting me to check out the new Wasabi Edition. 

You cannot imagine how disappointed I was to find that the “Test Wasabi” link turned out to be a page where I could sign up for the wait list for Wasabi beta invites.   Four days later I have not received the invitation. Even the site review from highly regarded TechCrunch added to the tease, us by using this title Netvibes Delivers A Potent Stream Reader With Wasabi (Beta Invites).

StumbleUpon

I first addressed the topic of Social Networking Resources back in the middle of August. I only began to scratch the surface of the topic. Since then, I’ve learned about social bookmarking sites and my two favorites at the moment are Diigo and StumbleUpon.

Please don’t confuse Diigo with Digg because they are too very different entities. My Mother always used to say, if you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say anything at all . So this is how I feel about Digg (silence).  On the other hand, I like Diigo so much that I started a group for WordPress.com users to share articles featuring tips and techniques for our blogs. Read more about it here.

I was so excited when I learned the benefits of using SU and the Su.pr link shortener, that I quickly published an article on Posterous called StumbleUpon Demystified and a review on Shvoong of the using the Su.pr link shortening site.

Forums

1. Website Babble
2. Blog Engage
3. Bevy Host

These are the three forums that I joined and for me, they are in that order of preference. I could go on telling you how fantastic the Website Babble and Blog Engage communities are. Or I could tell you that they have different rules and guidelines so be sure to read them before you join. Hey, I could even give you their Alexa Rank (just kidding). But, I’m not. You will have a different experience than I’m having, so why should I try to convince you how great they are? Just simply join them and see for yourself.  As for Bevy Host, I think I told you already what my Mother used to say…

Commenting

Over the last three weeks, if I wasn’t tweeting, stumbling, participating in forums, or bookmarking articles on Diigo I was commenting on other blogs. I made some new friends and heck, I know that I even made quite a few bloggers feel pretty good (they told me so). I made myself feel good too.  I also learned a lot and I hope you’ve learned something from this post as well. Now it’s your turn to speak. Go ahead, make my day!

Smooches!

Tumblr have revealed some stats that tell us a lot about their growth and how the service is used, taken from Techcrunch:

20 million unique vistors in October
420 million impressions in total
2 million Tumblr bloggers
40 million new posts per month
10,000 new users each day
85% of users are continually active after sign up
35% use Tumblr on Facebook
30% of Tumblr’s users have downloaded the bookmarklet
15% downloads the company’s iPhone application

And all this with just 10 full time employees.

I’ve had a play with Google Ad Planner to try and get some UK specific numbers, so here they are:

Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 840K
Unique visitors (users) 390 K
Reach 0.9%
Page views 13 M
Total visits 1.8 M
Avg visits per visitor 4.6
Avg time on site 9:50
64% of it’s users are male (36% female)

Age:
0-17 8%
18-24 27%
25-34 32%
35-44 16%
45-54 11%
55-64 4%
65+ 2%

Do you use Tumblr? What do you think of it?