of Brand Communication.

I just saw a mention of it on Digital Influence Mapping Project, so I headed over to Mr. Iqbal’s blog, and found the post where you can download it.

Now I have a 22 page white paper… and I’m going to read it.

I’ll let you all know what I think about it… whenever it is I get to finish reading it. It promises to be a thought provoking experience. Where provocation of thought doesn’t seem to be something I’ve experienced as of late.

We’re very version happy. We’re already up to IE7. Firefox is finally at version 2.0. How many incarnations of Windows has there been (I remember Windows 3.1 back in the day)? We like the new and more improved.

1.0 is always pretty exciting, but there always seems to be that extra oomph to 2.0.

Web 1.0 (that I’ve never heard of) must have been back at the birth of the commercial internet. The thing that I grew up on (literally) with dial-up AOL and the 30 min connection times. People were just happy to have information at their fingertips. Even with dial-up.

Now we’re at Web 2.0. User-generated content is king. Even TIME Magazine said so. Information isn’t just at the users’ fingertips. Information is coming from the users, shared, connected, commented on. Information is everywhere. From blogs (my personal favorite) to videos to Wikis to social networking to RSS feeds to pipes…  We are in an information saturated environment.

I use blogs, RSS feeds,  social networks (myspace, linkedin (see my button in the right sidebar), facebook), and social bookmarking (del.icio.us).

What do you use? 

If you’ve been living under a rock lately, you may not know what LinkedIn is. Simply put, its an online professional networking service. Note the word ‘professional’. This is no MySpace.

It’s more like a Facebook for the … professional crowd. I was about to say older — but I have myspace and facebook profiles — so that explanation wouldn’t work.

Feel free to connect to me. If you’re reading this blog, chances are it would be beneficial for us to be connected.

There is no doubt that blogs are picking up steam and moving forward as The Source for Information these days. Did you know that reporters and editors of influential media outlets read blogs for their information? It’s not just press releases anymore, kids.

For niche markets, there are niche bloggers. The niche bloggers could get noticed by major publications – and you can build out that way. The example given in Web Ink Now is Gizmodo, which is primarily a consumer tech blog – reporting on things such as the Zune, the iPhone, and Treos.

Pitching influential bloggers is sometimes known as blog outreach. This is mentioned in WOMMA’s guidelines for ethical blogging. However, WIN writes that it is possibly better to market yourself, in your own blog. Like corporate blogging. I don’t disagree. What better way to connect with your audience than by doing it yourself?

“Blogging gives me a place in the media community to stand out,” says John Blossom, president of Shore Communications Inc., a research and analysis company. Blossom has been blogging since March 2003 and writes about enterprise publishing and media markets. “In ways that I didn’t expect, my blog has allowed me to become a bit of a media personality. I’ve been picked up by some big bloggers, and that makes me aware that blogging is a terrific way to get exposure, because the rate of pickup and amplification is remarkable. The press reads my blog and reaches out to me for quotes. Sometimes I’m quoted in the media by a reporter who doesn’t even speak with me. For example, a reporter from the Financial Times recently picked up a quote and used it in a story—based on my blog alone.”

(edit: above is from Web Ink Now — I did not write that long blurb. Apologies to David M Scott)

According to Scoble’s definition — I’m a geek!

My comment (11.19.06):

So what is your definition of a geek then? Is it just people on computers? What about the words dork and nerd?

What do you call someone who was busy creating another blog on Friday night? (Besides answering: “me”)

His reply (11.20.06):

Corinne: So what is your definition of a geek then?

Someone who is ultra passionate about something, usually technology related. Extra points if it’s someone who builds things, but that’s not necessarily required.

This bothers me.

NY Law would ban iPods and other mobile devices while crossing streets

Mobile tech. MOBILE. Tech to accompany us while we are moving. Across streets. While driving. While nowhere near a payphone. I am in NY. I would be bothered.

State Sen. Carl Kruger’s bill would also outlaw the use of cell phones, Blackberries, video games or other electronic devices when crossing the street.

He cited the death of a 21-year-old man who was listening to music when he stepped off a curb and was hit by a bus in Brooklyn in September, and the death of a 23-year-old iPod listener last month.

I don’t mean to sound callous, but hell — pedestrians get hit when they’re NOT paying attention to their hand held tech devices.  Okay. So you’re on the phone, getting walking directions. But you can’t be talking to the person as you’re crossing the street. I don’t know, I’m getting a bit miffed with this restriction on technology.

Just what it sounds like. A documentary about blogs.

Excerpt from the site’s synopsis:

BLOGUMENTARY playfully explores the many ways blogs are influencing our media, our politics, and our relationships. Personal political writing is the foundation of our democracy, but mass media has reduced us to passive consumers instead of active citizens. Blogs return us to our roots and reengage us in democracy.

It looks pretty neat.

Video here. 

That sums up my previous post well:

JackHumphrey.com:

The only way to do proper keyword research for a niche is to build a site and develop content for it. You can get initial ideas from regular keyword tools about the popularity of a opic, but developing a site and watching real-time phrases being used to hit your site developes the real keyword list you want to work from.

…There’s always room to improve what other bloggers have said before.

How to get more traffic to your website

Before I actually knew what it was called, I had been doing long tail SEO on my original blog. I wanted to settle myself into a nice niche in the blogosphere. It wasn’t going to be very tech-based. I knew there was the desire to know more about the Quarter Life Crisis – I had done the searches myself. If you read the Thank You page, you can know more about the genesis of the blog.

Now, in the WP-admin of that blog – I’m getting consistent and frequent referrals from keywords like ‘quarter life crisis’, ’25 cents’, ‘QLC’, and ’25 cent life’. Between the title, subtitle, author name (I’ve since changed it), and tags – I’m fairly well optimized for someone who didn’t know SEO, much less about long tail, 7 months ago. It’s already got a first page ranking for ‘quarter life crisis blog’.

Now that’s something that works.

Squee note: I love the HitTail blog post because it comes with a nifty handwritten flow chart. Who does handwritten these days anyway?

Wikipedia has installed NOFOLLOW on all its articles/links/what-have-you

SEJ and Marketing Pilgrim

What does this mean? Well, you can’t boost your site’s PR with Wiki articles. But at least you can still crank up visibility and traffic.