July 09, 2005
Reasonable Man Humor
Posted by charles at 07:46 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2005
AMA Blogging Conference: Chicago
I had the honor of participating in AMA's Blogs: Marketing Beyond the Website conference in Chicago last week. I rate this conference among the most valuable I've attended in terms of a) quality and quantity of information presented and b) dynamic, engaging speakers
Even as a weblog + RSS industry insider, I walked away with a tremendous amount of new, actionable information. Highlights included:
- Toby Bloomberg's Introduction + Key Takeaways
- Ben McConnell's Intro to Blogs
- Bill Flitter's Discussion of RSS Marketing
- Dana VanDen Heuvel on Marketers Using Blogs Intelligently; and
- Wayne Pelletier of 360i on Blogs and Search
Rumor is this event may come to San Francisco soon. Marketers who want to effectively and intelligently implement
a blog and rss strategy need to attend.
Posted by charles at 07:44 AM | Comments (1)
February 22, 2005
The Best Chicago Steakhouse
What is the best steakhouse in Chicago? In my quest to experience Chicago's top steak dining experience I posed this question to dozens of Chicagoans over the weekend. The two clear favorites among locals were Gibsons Steakhouse and The Chicago Chop House. I decided to try both and make my own assessment.
I applied the following methodology to my research:
1) Enter steakhouse.
2) Order a martini at the bar.
3) Proceed to table and ask the waiter to recommend the best steak in the house. Order the steak medium rare with a side of creamed spinach.
4) Request a fine glass of red wine to accompany my meal.
5) Savor the experience.
I rated each steakhouse in five categories:
1) The Martini. Ice cold, generous pour and bone dry.
2) The Ambience. Classic, seasoned interior enhances the charm.
3) The Steak. Thick cut, perfectly aged and cooked to a perfectly juicy medium rare.
4) The Creamed Sp inach. The perfect blend of spinach, cream/butter, salt and nutmeg.
5) The Staff. Attentive, courteous, opinionated without being overbearing. Bonus points awarded for seasoned, experienced staff (adds to classic ambience, above).
Here's how Chicago's favorite steakhouses fared:
1. The Martini
Both delivered solidly on this front. Though the glasses seemed larger at the Chophouse and the garnish more exotic -- the two olives were attached to the toothpick in the shape or a barbell, and the barbell/toothpick perfectly balanced on the rim of the glass - one olive in the gin, one olive dangling outside the glass.
**Advantage - Chicago Chop House**
2. The Ambience
Hard to compare. I enjoyed dinner at the Chophouse and lunch at Gibson's. Hard to make an honest assessment. Each had 100's of signed pictures of the celebs who had dined there hanging on the walls - always charming to see ex-Presidents, mayors and movie stars smiling and shaking hands with the proprietor after a satisfying steak dinner and martinis. Chophouse had fewer architectural and design updates -- and that scores high in my book.
** Slight Advantage - Chicago Chop House **
3. The Steak
Chop House: Bone-in Filet Mignon. Gibson's: W.R.'s Chicago Cut (Bone-in Ribeye). No doubt here -- the Bone-in Filet may very well have been the best steak I have ever eaten. About 2 inches thick, perfectly cooked and loaded with tender juiciness. W.R.'s Chicago Cut came out medium well -- and I had to send it back. That said, the second draft was cooked perfectly and was a great steak. But if I had to choose again, I'd head back to the Chop House and do the filet all over again.
** Advantage - Chicago Chop House **
4. The Creamed Spinach
Hard to screw this up. Gibson's delivered enormous over-sized portions. Though, I must admit Gibson's was a little too creamy for my taste. The Chophouse delivered the goods.
** Advantage - Chicago Chop House **
5. The Staff
Highly efficient and courteous staff at both restaurants. After my first steak was over-cooked, Gibson's brought out fresh sides and a complimentary glass of wine. At the Chop House, I dropped my knife, and before I could turn around to ask for a replacement, the waiter had already placed a fresh knife on the table. The only differentiator here: The Chop House staff was older and more seasoned. Again, this suits my taste for a classic, old-school steakhouse experience.
**Slight Advantage - Chicago Chop House**
And the winner is…
Chicago Chop House
60 W Ontario St
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 787-7100
A highly recommended runner up:
Gibsons Steakhouse
1028 North Rush Street
(corner of Bellevue and Rush)
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 266-8999
Posted by charles at 01:03 AM | Comments (5)
February 15, 2005
Who owns blog comments?
The question of who owns comments has recently come up several times in conversation. This is a fairly straight-forward copyright issue.
The law of copyright gives the authors of original works exclusive right to publish or reproduce those works. Furthermore, copyright protection arises the moment an original work (a web page, ad copy, essay, blog comment, etc.) is published.
The copyright analysis here is pretty simple. First, the author of a blog comment creates an original work when he/she writes the comment. This, of course, assumes that the comment is in fact original and does not infringe the copyrights of another. Second, copyright protection is triggered once the comment is published, or in this case, posted to the blog. Contrary to popular belief, no additional steps (for instance, recording a copy of your work with the United States Copyright Office) are required before authors gain copyright protection. Thus, under copyright law, the blog comment author is the owner of the comment and his/her copyrights are triggered at the moment the comment is added to the blog.
The consequences of this simple analysis could be painful for blog operators.
First, the author of a blog comment could request that his/her comment be removed from a blog. While it is an easy process to remove a comment, the harm to a blog could be substantial. Especially if the comment removed is central to the community d iscussion/dialogue around a given topic. This could severely impact the value of a blog and reduce its following/readership.
Second, many blog operators make money by running contextual display ads on the same page as comments. The author of a comment could claim that a portion of the blog’s advertising dollars belongs to him because his comment is helping to generate the ad revenue.
Third, in the course of performing maintenance on a blog or when a blog is moved to a new server - there is likely an additional copy of blog comments made in the transition. While this can be viewed as a trivial matter, it could technically constitute a copyright violation. This issue becomes the more problematic for companies with deep pockets. Keep in mind that authors may seek compensation from those who make unauthorized copies or reproductions of their works.
There are likely many other scenarios where blog operators are vulnerable because they do not own the comments on their blogs.
One possible solution is for blog operators to obtain a license to all blog comments. A Terms of Service that provides the blog operator a license to blog comments is one potential way to accomplish this. Under this approach, the authors of blog comments retain the copyright in their original works, but the blog operator obtains a non-exclusive, royalty free license to use and publicly display all blog comments posted to his/her blog. Here is a sample Terms of Service - see Section 6 for more on licensing.
Posted by charles at 12:01 AM | Comments (9)
February 14, 2005
Fired for Blogging: Public, Persistent & Viral
Techdirt points out that bloggers are not getting fired for blogging per se. Rather they are getting fired for what they say on their blogs.
This point is well-taken -- bloggers are not getting fired simply because they are blogging. They are getting canned because their blog posts contains a) sensitive company information or b) comments that damage the company's image.
However, it is important to point out the firings are happening precisely because these statements are made on blogs - which are highly public, persistent and viral.
Had the same statements been made in traditional pencil and paper journals, the employees would still be working for their respective companies. Furthermore, had the same statements been made verbally - at the water cooler, or even to a company manager, these employees would likely still have their jobs.
A statement made on a blog is fundamentally different than a statement made through other channels. First, a blog post is a very public statement - meaning that anybody with a computer + internet can access it. Second, the statement is persistent -- meaning that it is available for viewing in its raw, undiluted state forever (or at least until it is deleted from a weblog). Third, the viral nature of weblogs means that a blog post can be viewed/reviewed by thousands of people in a very short period of time.
Yes, people are being fired for what they say on blogs, not because they are blogging per se. However, it is the public, persistent and viral nature of weblogs that makes companies especially edgy and sensitive about what their employees are blogging.
Posted by charles at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
Hey Blogger, You're Fired!
More reports of bloggers losing their jobs. The most famous firings to date involve a Delta Airlines stewardess, a Microsoft temporary worker, a Friendster programmer, and a Starbucks barrista.
The growing number of blog-related firings emphasizes the need for companies to implement blogging policies. Just as company email policies were uncharted territory ten years ago, blogging polices are uncommon today.
To date the reported firings seem to fall into two categories: a) blogging that reveals cofidential/sensitive corporate information and b) blogging that casts a negative light on the company. These two issues need to be clearly addressed in any corporate blogging policy.
Charlene Li's sample blog policy covers the basic issues.
Posted by charles at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)
February 07, 2005
The Decline of NetNewsWire and the Rise of RSS
Feedburner recently published a wonderful set of statistics on the RSS aggregator market. One of the most interesting aspects of this report, as noted by Richard MacManus of Read/Write Web, is the extreme popularity of NetNewsWire, a Mac only RSS aggregator.
Depending on how you slice it, Macintosh has somewhere between 1.8% and 3.5% of the overall pc market. In Q4 2004, Mac had 1.8% of world market sales and 3.8% of US sales. Additionally, Macintosh recently accounted for 2.7% of all online activity. Interestingly, as of 1/10/05 NetNewsWire (the most popular Mac RSS aggregator by far) has nearly 16.95% of the RSS reader market as measured by Feedburner. This disparity between overall Mac market share and Mac RSS market share is perhaps best explained by the early ad opting tendencies of Mac users. It’s no surprise that tech-friendly Mac users adopted RSS ahead of the curve.
What is perhaps more interesting is the decline in NetNewsWire’s reach over the last year. Based on the reports of two well-read blogs and supplemental data from Mark Fletcher of Bloglines (total sample size = 4401 subscribers)*, NetNewsWire held over 43% of the overall market in December 2003. Based on Feedburner's 1/10/2005 report that number is now just south of 17%.
Two forces are simultaneously working to reduce NetNewsWire's reach. First, online RSS aggregators are gaining in popularity. Second, RSS is moving out into the mainstream, well beyond the early adopting Mac crowd.
The 12/2003 numbers suggest that online RSS aggregators accounted for 19% of the market. The majority of this was made up of Bloglines at 15.5%.** The 1/10/2005 numbers indicate that online aggregators represent 39.9% of the overall aggregator market (Bloglines 32.86%, NewsGatorOnline 4.45%, and MyYahoo 2.58%). That’s more than a doubling of online aggregators in just one year.
NetNewsWire certainly lost some of its users to Bloglines and other online services. This migration explains NetNewsWire’s declining reach to a certain degree. Unfortunately, there is no available data to suggest what percentage users of online RSS aggregator are using Mac or any other platform.
However a closer comparison of the 12/2003 and 1/2005 client side numbers illustrates a more important trend: RSS market is rapidly shifting away from Mac user and toward later adopters and the mainstream.
As stated above, online aggregators made up 19% of the overall market in 12/2003. That means that 81% of the overall aggregator market was client side RSS readers. NetNewsWire accounted for 43.1% of the overall aggregator market, me aning that NetNewsWire represented 53.2% of the client side aggregator market at the end of 2003. As of 1/10/2005 NetNewsWire represented only 28.3% of the client side market.***
NetNewsWire’s declining share of the client side market (53.2% to 28.3%) is significant. Furthermore, it is important to note that no other Mac only application is stealing substantial client side market share from NetNewsWire. Rather, NetNewsWire appears to be quickly losing its overall market position to Windows users. This is clear evidence of just how far RSS has progresed through the adoption cycle.
These numbers provide a means to quantify just how quickly RSS is surging into the mainstream. As of 12/2003 NetNewsWire accounted for 53.2% of client side market – that’s 19.7 times higher than the 2.7% you would expect based on Mac’s portion of overall online activity. One year later NetNewsWire made up just 28.2% of the same market – 10.4 times higher than would be expected upon broad adoption. If this rate of decline remains constant, NetNewsWire and other Mac client apps will fall to approximately 15% of client side reach by early 2006 – with mainstream normalization (Mac clients reaching the 2.7% range) arriving sometime in early 2008. Based on historic precedent, however, the rate of change will likely accelerate, bringing RSS into primetime in the middle of 2007.
Fasten your seatbelts. The RSS future is coming at us fast.
* In December 2003 two well-read weblogs published statistics on the RSS aggregators reading their feeds. In one instance NetNewsWire comprised 37.2% of the RSS aggregators (sample size = 2519 total subscribers), in the second 51.2% (sample size = 1882 total subscribers). The weighted average of NetNewsWire usage across the two blogs was 43.2%.
** NewsGatorOnline can be estimated to account for approximately 3.5% of the market. The 12/2003 numbers lump NewsGatorOnline together with NewsGator client subscriber for a total of 5.14% of the market. Assuming the 1/2005 ratio of NewsGatorOnline to NewsGator (.0445:.0223) was the same as the 12/2003 ratio, NewsGatorOnline accounted for an estimated 3.5% of the market in 12/2003.
*** The 1/10/2005 numbers indicate that online aggregators repre sent 39.9% of the overall aggregator market (Bloglines 32.86%, NewsGatorOnline 4.45%, and MyYahoo 2.58%). That leaves the client side aggregator market at 60.1%. NetNewsWire accounts for 17.0% of the overall RSS reader market. So as of 1/10/2005 NetNewsWire represents 28.3% of the client side market.
Posted by charles at 02:31 AM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2005
Sony + Weblogs = $$$
Ad Age reported that Sony, through its Consumer Electronics e-Solutions Group, is spending $75K over three months on two weblogs. Sony will be the exclusive sponsor of Gawker Media's new personal gadgetry LifeHacker blog. The buy will also get Sony exposure on Gawker's more established Gizmodo (1.3M montly visitors) -- a safety valve in case Life Hacker stumbles out of the starting gates.
The $75K spend is tiny by the consumer/media conglomerate's standards, but reflects big companies' growing acceptance of blogs as a serious marketing channel. The milion or so visitors to Gizmodo, while relatively small in raw head count, are considered leading influencers who help direct emerging tech trends.
Look for more sizeable advertising deals in blogs and RSS with other Fortune 500 companies.
Posted by charles at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2005
RSS Reader Statistics
Feedburner's thoughtful discussion of the state of RSS feed readers illuminates several critical issues. Two of the biggies are a) the growing fragmentation of the RSS reader market and b) the need for standardized measures of circulation.
In January 2005 FeedBurner's top 800 feeds are getting requests from 719 clients, that's up from 409 clients in September 2004. An increase of nearly 80% in the raw reader count in a mere 4 months. This reader fragmentation further exagerates problems for RSS publishers whose feed can suffer from unfriendly formatting in unfamiliar readers.
Perhaps more importantly, the absence of reliab le, industry standard circulation calculations will impede the grow of advertising in RSS. Without a reliable, trusted set of metrics to measure the risk, reach & return on their ad spends, advertisers will stick with standard online media buys.
Posted by charles at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)