My Yahoo label on Google Reader is a bit of a wipeout. I'm going to have to move a lot of feeds to new employer labels. Lots of really good people have elected to leave Yahoo. Bradley Horowitz explains on this blog that he wasn't laid off, he just knew the time was right to go.
Salim Ismail also decided to go.
Bigmouthmedia benefited too. We've been very lucky to lure Isabell Wagner into the role of our new German MD. Isabell ran Yahoo Search Marketing in Germany. She was the YSM MD.
I've noticed that some of the local press have picked up on the story and are calling it a 'coup'. I suppose it is in many ways but it is also worth noting just how big bigmouthmedia are in Germany. :) People shouldn't be surprised that we could attract people of this caliber.
I'm buzzed about getting to work with Isabella and bigmouthmedia Germany as her reputation is phenomenal and we've a great team over there.
I feel sorry for the thousand who were laid off. I'm pleased that Horowitz comments on the generous packages Yahoo found for these ex-workers. I can tell that there must have been real discomfort in the air, MyBlogLog's Ian Kennedy, who survived the cuts, said; "Heads down is a common expression around here".
Friday, February 15, 2008
Yahoo's loss and others gain
Saturday, February 02, 2008
New MyBlogLog Widgets Come. Then Go.
It looks MyBlogLog got their timings a little mixed up. The MyBlogLog blog announced some shiny new widgets. Don't they look nice?
As it happens, the widget update isn't actually available from the widget page. The post announcing the new widgets has been pulled from the blog too.
So, what's going on? This isn't anything significant. Nothing to do with Microsoft lurking in the wings. I suspect it's just a simple matter of the post going up to launch the new widgets and then some last minute checks discovering a few tweaks that the MBL team would like to make before the let the likes of you and I get our grubby paws on the code.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Poor Schmoes
I thought I was being paranoid when I wrote that MyBlogLog seemed to call SMOs schmoes. I also thought I'd picked up on something that no one else would.
I was wrong about the latter. Techcrunch noticed. Then Andy Beal noticed - and that caused a ripple effect. (In this case Andy Beal's post seemed to influence the SEM world far more effectively than the Techcrunch post - respect to Marketing Pilgrim for that punching power).
We can see posts on SearchEngineLand (Danny's got a good eye for controversy) and David Wallace's SearchRank.
Back here on ARHG, MyBlogLog did the right thing as I approved a comment from Robyn Tippins within minutes of publishing my post. She said;
I love social media people, shoot I'm a social media junkie myself. Social Media Optimizer was a good way to explain what spammers do when they take social media applications and game them (optimize is a kind word).
No SMO hate here, I promise!
I believe her too. I don't think there was any intent to insult internet marketing consultants nor label them all as spammers. However, that may not have been the intent but that's been the result.
If we skip back to Marketing Pilgrim again and nudge down the comments we can see that Robyn's once again trying to set the record straight.
Here's one of the big debates in "Social Media Optimisation"; Do you get involved in a running argument?
If I was Robyn I would have posted one comment to clarify and then sat on my hands. It's hard for Robyn, I know, as the urge to put things right must be very high.
There's also a comment on SearchEngineLand from Robyn. She says;
There's no industry singled out... Unless you are saying all people who are involved in this space are spammers. I am a social media junkie and I don't attempt to spam other users or write software designed to make my avatar show up on sites I don't visit.
Ah... I think that's a much stronger reply. We're talking about writing software. We're talking about spammy comments.
My gut feeling is that if was the angle the original MyBlogLog blog post had taken then we would not have had this mini-outcry. It's tough on MyBlogLog because this is now old news - even if they change their blog post as Andy Beal suggests then that'll not make the news.
Yahoo themselves seem to focus on SMO as spam too. Yodel says:
MyBlogLog just launched a feature that’s more fun than calling people names. You can now tag MyBlogLog users and their blogs with descriptive tags. Find a spammy blog? Just tag it with “Schmoe” (short for Social Media Optimizer, of course) and the MyBlogLog team will tidy up.
This was published on the 25th and centres on the very paragraph which caused the kickback. The fact that MyBlogLog is tagging isn't given much limelight at all.
I'm not sure I like the phrase Social Media Optimisation. Just what are you optimising? Someone else's blog? That's not right. If you are 'optimising' what a digg.com summary to a news story on your site says (by writing it yourself) then... well, in many ways you are gaming the system and are a schmoe.
There is, however, a "white hat" approach to Social Media where you can let your clients know that in addition to doing a corporate press release (for the journalists) that they should write up an appropriate announcement and host it on their site and perhaps consider adding some social news buttons to it (for digg, etc) rather than letting a review site take the traffic for the news.
Gosh. There's certainly a social media consultancy when you can advise clients on the pros and cons of publicly debating your announcements or products with people on blogs.
I don't think MyBlogLog considers consultants who offer social media advice to be schmoes at all. I just think that they accidentally said that they do!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Does MyBlogLog dislike SMO?
Over at the MyBlogLog blog Robyn Tippins writes:
If you think someone is spamming you, tag it out loud! Internally, we like to call a user who games the system a SchMOe (Social Media Optimizer).
Ouch. When I read that first it sounded that Robyn thought any SMO actions were unwelcome spam. Hence the derogatory nickname.
That would be a shame. An ethical SMO is a consultant who points out community building assets like MyBlogLog to their clients.
In fact, Robyn's post was about tagging. An ethical SMO consultant working for MyBlogLog would have encouraged the startup to consider tags from the very beginning.
... or perhaps I'm just being paranoid. This is a little joke - schmoe is funny. It could well be the case that Robyn didn't mean to suggest that everyone who offers social media consultations is a spammer.
Friday, April 20, 2007
The MyBlogLog Link Report
File this one under the "new to me" category. I've dug up a fun little link report that MyBlogLog does. I can use it to see which blogs are sending traffic to other blogs. For example, SEOMoz seems to have had 7 visits from MyBlogLog enabled sites, SearchEngineLand has had 11 (most thanks to the funky SearchEngineJournal) and SearchEngineWatch has had 5. I assume the figures are for today - actually, I've not seem them change yet and they are low. They could be a snapshot report rather than a maintained and updated one. In fact, the style and branding of the page looks old-school. I suspect this is an old feature rather than a new feature.
Did you know you can access MyBlogLog via a Yahoo domain now? http://mybloglog.yahoo.com/
Monday, April 02, 2007
MyBlogLog should go after FeedBurner
I think it's too late for FeedBurner to go after MyBlogLog.
FeedBurner and MyBlogLog come from very different directions but are ultimately marching towards a meeting.
MyBlogLog lets you see who has been on your blog; either through standard web metrics or the canny photograph log. You also use MyBlogLog to help promote your site.
FeedBurner allows users to look after RSS feeds and track who is reading them. By an overwhelming majority most web sites that issue RSS feeds are blogs or blog-based platforms.
In essence MyBlogLog gives you stats about who is actually visiting your blog and FeedBurner gives you stats on who is viewing your blog remotely. FeedBurner would be enhanced with improved on-page tracking and if it had a quirky social media promotion style feature. MyBlogLog would be enhanced if it worked with RSS feeds. Most people subscribe to their favourite blogs via Google Reader, Bloglines or similar external source.
If MyBlogLog gobbled up FeedBurner then they would end up with a nice user base, Yahoo would have some tasty data to crunch through and a large database of RSS feeds.
As it happens Yahoo has a patent application called Integration of personalized portals with web content syndication. Yahoo could do a lot with a database of RSS feeds. This particular patent describes how the search engine first identifies pages with RSS feeds, presents that information to searchers and then allows users to add those RSS feeds to a personalised portal. This personalised portal is Yahoo's MyWeb. However, the personalised portal could so easily become a profile page on MyBlogLog.
My feeling is that FeedBurner is more robust than MyBlogLog. MBL will have to innovate and impress in order to avoid being a flash in the pan. Yahoo clearly has some ideas for it. I just wonder whether they are thinking along similar lines.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Banning ShoeMoney
Ah-ah. Allow me to make myself unpopular again (I must follow on why I support nofollow) and let me say that MyBlogLog did the right thing in banning ShoeMoney.
If you don't know the story then here's the five second re-cap. An internet markerter, moniker of ShoeMoney, posted the details of a MyBlogLog impersonation exploit and listed details of who to impersonate. MyBlogLog banned him for that added extra. The internet cliché of other SEO and internet marketers bloggers responded with an outcry and began a boycott of MyBlogLog.
I don't think it is wrong to post about exploits - though emailing the details to the effected service is the responsible thing to do. I do think posting the details of who to attack/effect/impersonate through the exploit is wrong.
Let's scale this up to the extreme. I find doing that sometimes helps to bring clarity. I know how credit card fraud works. It's an exploit of the system not of the technology. You, of course, need the details of the person you need to impersonate (one of the reasons I have a shredder at home), the credit card numbers and a list of internet sites that'll deliver to addresses that don't match the credit card billing details. There. It's not wrong to run through that scenario. If I list credit card numbers for "Mr John Smith of 123 Example Street, Exampletown, UK" I am now in the wrong. Even if Mr John Smith's own information security is dreadful and you could easily find out his details yourself - I would still be wrong for posting them here.
We can scale this back down again. Hotmail had a vulnerability which let people log in to any account if they had the URL unique to that account. Posting about that vulnerability isn't wrong. If I posted your Hotmail URL while the exploit was open and made it easily possible for people to log into your Hotmail account - I am wrong.
ShoeMoney shouldn't have posted the MyBlogLog unique IDs for those internet celebrities. I'm sure one of the reasons he did so was as proof of concept. Another reason was also to "ping" these people by mentioning their names and maximize the coverage of his story. Yet another reason was to pick famous names to help sensationalise the story.
It's worth pointing out that MyBlogLog have said they were wrong to keep ShoeMoney banned after they had fixed the exploit. ShoeMoney is no longer banned.
When you have a good story then there is that urge to sensationalise things. Reporters have guidelines and editors. Bloggers only have their sense of responsbility.
If you have a popular blog - and ShoeMoney's blog is popular because it's good - then , in my opinion, you have the extra responsibility that comes with that. I don't feel that ShoeMoney (who I don't know from Adam) was malicious at all. I just think he got this one wrong.
The reaction of the blogosphere is interesting too. It's easier to poke sticks at MyBlogLog now they're part of Yahoo. Even if you're an influential blogger you're unlikely to get any special attention from Yahoo. Why woo them? However, you could enjoy links, support and promotion from ShoeMoney (who's certainly influential) if you side with him. The more dramatic your support for ShoeMoney then the more likely you are to attract ShoeMoney's thanks and to be cited in third party posts (like this one) about the drama. Once again we can see how bloggers benefit from sensationalising things.
I think rather than rounding on popular targets (any of the main search engines) and jockeying to make contacts responsible bloggers should encourage their peers to be responsible. I'm trying to do that here.
Guys; be responsible.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
MyBlogLog updates homepage
MyBlogLog have updated their homepage. I like the look. The static sample of MyBlogLog output has been removed and the homepage now looks to be much more dynamic. I'm glad they kept the new members section but as I use MyBlogLog to watch my daily stats (and Google Analytics for trends) I'm shown Hot Communities (my members') all the time.
The WorldWide Top 5 link clicks is going to be a powerhouse. People will fight over this section for the traffic it could deliver. As a user I enjoy spotting break buzzes out the internet and often wish there was a setting in Google Reader to have it go fetch updates more often! With this uber-top five we have another way to spot KIBs (Key Influencing Blogs) for social media strategies. 
I assume the Top 5 in Edinburgh are the top five links clicked by users in Edinburgh. That seems like the only way .de sites could get there. Clicking on the "Edinburgh" or "United Kingdom" links takes us to maps.mybloglog.com. This is new. Well. New to me.
The new homepage seems to have come at a time where MyBlogLog's servers are struggling (Both Yahoo Pipes and MyBlogLog, the newbies, have this problem) and this second screen grab shows the MyBlogLog home as it is for me right now. It's the old style and most of the contents have crumbled into a small section in the middle.
With a bit of luck MyBlogLog's servers will recover and we can go see what MyBlogLog's Maps sub-domain is all about. Hopefully it's a geo-overview of blog communities. I predict a lot of MyBlogLog communities around the Philippines and Thailand.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Success?
Many years ago a made a New Year's Resolution to stop making New Year's Resolutions because they were naff. Last year, just before New Year, I made the determination to do something with this blog. Last year I posted 42 times. This is the 45th post this month. More in a month than in last year.
- Eric Marcoullier
- Graywolf
- rustybrick
- cre8pc Kim
- Dugdale
- Lisa Barone
- BHartzer
- AbleReach
- Bill Slawski
- Bradley Horowitz
- Jill Whalen ... well, nearly.
If you're starting a blog, if you're moving up a gear with your blog or if you want to make changes to your blog then really do consider MyBlogLog!
Next month should be good too. I'll be speaking at eWorld, Technology For Marketing and Search Engine Strategies London. There are a handful of e-Consultancy roundtables lined up too. All-in-all; there will be much to blog about.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
MyBlogLog Battles - MyBlogSlog?
Erk. Two heavy hitters are in the process of duking it out. Over at his blog Jeremy Zawodny takes a pop at Andy Beal for 'spamming' MyBlogLog.
I don't blame Zawodny for making the comment. I can see why Andy is furious though.
Why has Jeremy made this claim? He's a loyal Yahoo and a savvy guy. He's seen another savvy marketer use MyBlogLog's features to broadcast a commercial message. This is likely to be something that Eric Marcoullier and his team may not have intended their system to be used for.
Is it spam? It is an image that doesn't look like Marking Pilgrim. This is true. Is the chance to win a Zune representative of Marking Pilgrim? Gosh. I guess that's for Andy Beal to decide. He's certainly not the only savvy marketer to change their MyBlogLog picture.
SEO by the Sea isn't spamming. Bill Slawski is easily smart enough to know that that beautiful picture is going to attract more attention on MyBlogLog than all the other SEO blogs out there. Bill's still playing by the rules.
As a tangent I have to admit how SEO By the Sea has blasted on to my radar. I found it via Search Engine Land, commented at the time that I didn't read it - now I certainly do. Bill Slawski writes to an audience of intelligent optimisers. Too many SEO blogs write to an audience of rookie webmasters learning about SEM.
What we have here, with Beal and Zawodny, is a clash of netiquette. The manners expected from MyBlogLog users aren't yet clear. We don't yet have the ground rules.
You might say that you don't want to look at a Zune competition graphic on MyBlogLog but - c'mon - I don't want to look at the ugly mugs throughout most of MyBlogLog! My ugly mug included! Haha. On the other hand, imagine if every other community image on MBL was a commercial lure?
The debate (despite Andy's anger and Jeremy's annoyance) is good. We're having the conversation. We're thrashing out the ground rules in a new area. That's always needed.
I have to say that I'm impressed with MyBlogLog. This blog sat in "parked" for over a year. I've been active in the social media scene with this blog for just a month, am making progress and much of this is due to MyBlogLog. MyBlogLog drives a significant chunk of ARHG's traffic right now. Further to this you can see just how quickly and how well Eric and co respond to the blogosphere. Despite Yahoo making them a bit richer I can see that MBL senior management are still here for us. They're still hands on.
Eric will need to be hands on for a while longer. This won't be the only MyBlogSlog we see this year.
(The I support nofollow campaign reaches day 5 with 1 'heroic' supporter.)
