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The Secret to Original Blog Content: Hockey

March 31st, 2008 | 4 Comments | Posted in Blogs

It certainly wasn’t the goal but I stirred up a hornet’s nest yesterday with a post entitled “Why Original Blog Thought is so Difficult”.

Just a few more thoughts - with no intention to poke the nest again - in light of a lot of comments and blog posts.

1. It’s not that there’s a lack of original thought but it’s a challenge to generate insightful posts day in day out - just like it’s a challenge writing a great newspaper column every day.

2. Techmeme is a wonderful vehicle to highlight thoughts, ideas, trends and news. Sure, it creates bandwagons but it’s also fertile ground for ideas.

3. If you really want to know the secret to create blog posts with original thoughts, here it is: getting up 6 a.m. every Sunday during the dead of winter, and then drive for 15 minutes so you can play pick-up hockey for an hour or so. Then, drive home and write a blog post while drinking two or three cups of coffee (usually three) while everyone in the house is still asleep. Personally, it’s a formula that more often than not, works well…unless you don’t play hockey.

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Why Original Blog Thought is So Difficult

March 30th, 2008 | 57 Comments | Posted in Blogs

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Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about Ed Bott’s recent rant about Techmeme being a “template for a gazillion me-too bloggers who manage to write a dozen posts a day without ever expressing an original thought”.

Given Techmeme’s well-deserved reputation as being the place to quickly discover what’s going on in the tech world, Bott’s assessment is blunt, critical, perhaps unfair but not entirely without merit. He’s right; there is an awful lot of blog posts offering little or no insight other than referring to another blog. Rather than adding to the conversation, many of these posts come across as simply noise and bandwagon jumping.

The question that begs to be asked is why does there seem to be so much me-too blogging as opposed to people contributing different perspectives? Here’s what I think:

1. Writing original thought-provoking blog content is a challenge. It takes time, thought and effort. The problem, however, is many bloggers are often short of time, which means it is difficult to come up with insightful thoughts. As Louis Gray talked about in a recent post, many bloggers are time-strapped what with blogging and being on other social/content vehicles such as Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, RSS readers, etc. If you’re doing all that, when do you have time to think Big Thoughts?

2. Many bloggers just want to be part of the conversation before it moves on. Here’s what happens in many cases. You see a hot story and you’re keen to jump in but not willing to simply leave a comment on someone else’s blog. Solution: Pound out a quick, no-frills post that makes you feel good about being on top of the hot story even if it’s piling on. I’m willing to guess that 50% of the posts about a red-hot story on Techmeme (e.g. Microsoft making a bid for Yahoo) were posts that just parroted the news reports.

3. Writing original content often provides a low return on investment. Let’s face it, traffic is what drives many bloggers, which explains why checking your stats on a regular basis is a key part of blogging. When you write original content that falls outside the hot news of the day, there’s a good chance it’s not going to get much love or traffic.

How come? The biggest reason is everyone is spending so much time reading or writing about the big news of the day, your original, thought-provoking post gets buried. As a result, it’s easy to think “Why put so much effort into writing quality content when there’s instant gratification (and traffic) by jumping on the bandwagon”.

4. Unless you blog for living like Mike Arrington or Erick Schonfeld, or you’re a tech reporter like Mathew Ingram or a conference junkie like Robert Scoble, you don’t have steady access to people and new ideas that often spawn original blog posts.

5. Vanity and Envy. If you really want to see your name on Techmeme, write about the top news on Techmeme. If you want to talk about whatever TechCrunch is covering, blog on what Arrington thinks about something.

As much as writing original, insightful posts is every blogger’s goal, the reality is it’s difficult. Sometimes, the ideas aren’t flowing but you still need to feed the blog every day. Sometimes, jumping into the conversation of the day just feels good.

At the same time, however, writing original content is so much more satisfying because there’s a sense of accomplishment that you’ve been inspired by something you’ve read or talked about with someone about. It’s those nuggets of original content gold that make blogging so rewarding.

Update: Just by coincidence, I stumbled across a blog widget tool called Skribit, which provides a way for people who read your blog to make suggestions for new posts. One of the promises is it will “Cure writers block overnight”. I just installed it - let’s see if there’s any pick up.

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Will 2.5 Jump-start WP’s Publishing Tool?

March 30th, 2008 | 3 Comments | Posted in Blogs

From what I’ve read and seen on the demo, Wordpress 2.5 looks like a huge improvement, especially to the publishing tool, which has been one of WP’s big weaknesses IMHO.

The question is whether the publishing upgrades are enough to attract people like myself who prefer to user third-party software such Ecto, BlogDesk, Microsoft Live Writer, BlogJet, etc. I’ve been using Ecto for the past 18 months, mostly because it can handle the insertion of images (graphics, photos) in a more user-friendly way than WP.

That said, I’m looking forward to when my host, A Small Orange, offers WP 2.5 to see the upgrade in action.

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SearchMe: Search with a Visual Twist

March 29th, 2008 | 8 Comments | Posted in Search Engines

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One of the biggest problems with the search market is Google’s dominance. Nothing like having a dominant, aggressive player to deter new ideas and innovation from taking root, which explains why new and exciting search engines seem to be few and far between these days.

The major challenge is coming up with a search tool that is different enough from Google to attract attention. While excellent search results are absolutely necessary, there also needs to be something else to convince people to give something other than Google a try.

It’s a daunting task to take on Google - or, at least, play in the same sandbox - but SearchMe may just have a shot at becoming the new kid on the search block based on a private beta it recently unveiled.

What makes SearchMe different and particularly interesting is it search results are presented as screen shots of Web pages. It’s user-friendly and makes it quick and easy to browse through a number of different Web sites. You can search by using a category - e.g. a search for “hamburger” offers up cooking, restaurants, soccer (?), business news and astronomy (?) - or do a broad search.

Given SearchMe is in private beta, it’s impossible to measure the effectiveness of the search results but as long as they’re solid and useful, the sizzle of graphical presentation will probably be enough to satisfy the needs of most people willing to play with a new search engine. After all, who looks at search results in any search engine beyond the first page?

Based on initial impressions, SearchMe is a search engine that I could easily see as a solid alternative to Google, which is a high praise given the number of search engines that I’ve explored and thought about using - only to quickly abandon.

The other interesting thing about SearchMe is its investors, which include Sequoia, which was one of Google’s early investors. To date, SearchMe has raised $31-million, including $15-million last June. For more on SearchMe, check out BoomTown, which also has a video interview with co-founder Randy Adams.

As for SearchMe’s business model, that’s also impossible to assume but Rich Tehrani suggests an obvious route is being bought by Google or Microsoft.

From a bigger picture perspective, SearchMe is among a growing number of players looking to leverage visual search as opposed to presenting Web users with a wall of text. Another company to keep an eye on is Toronto-based Idee Inc., which is developing a cool image search engine code-named Tin Eye. Other players in the visual search market include Tiltomo, Riya and Quintura. Update: Thomas Hawk has a review on a new service called TagCow that provides photo tagging and recognition features.

For more details on how SearchMe works, check out the video below:

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Canada: Where Art Thou iPhone?

March 28th, 2008 | 10 Comments | Posted in Apple/iPod

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It’s hard to believe the iPhone has been out there for nearly a year…and there are absolutely, positively no signs that it’s coming to Canada.

This is getting ridiculous. I mean, the iPhone looks like it is going to be introduced in New Zealand - a place where there are more sheep than people - 60 million sheep vs. 3 million Kiwis to be exact. Come on, it’s not like Canada is half-way around the world (unlike New Zealand) or a digital backwater - although the alarming lack of real wireless competition, Pandora, iTunes video, NetFlix, SkypeOut et al makes us digital peasants.

I think it comes down to the fact Steve Jobs doesn’t like Canada. Think about it, when the last time Jobs visited the land of maple syrup, hockey, Bloody Caesar’s, beer with 5% alcohol content, hockey, snow, two months of summer, Bobby Orr and a Tim Horton’s on every corner?

The conspiracy theorists among you may contend Apple’s inability to bring the iPhone north of the border has something to do with the fact Toronto-based Comwave Telecom apparently owns the Canadian trademark to the name “iPhone”, and that a deal has yet to be struck. Come on, Comwave is a teeny-tiny, itsby, bitsy company while Apple is, well, Apple. Where’s Rogers’ domo Ted Rogers when you need him given Rogers will likely be the first Canadian carrier to offer the iPhone?

Not that I want an iPhone but all of us in Canada are starting to take the fact we are iPhone-less personally. Enough already, we want the iPhone!

Update: This is embarrassing. Fortune is already talking about iPhone 2.0 while Canada is still waiting for iPhone 1.0.

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Looking for the mesh Spotlight?

March 28th, 2008 | 1 Comment | Posted in Web 2.0

One of the most popular parts of mesh over the past two years has been 15 Minutes Fame - in which six entrepreneurs each get five minutes on stage to talk about what they’re doing and why it matters.

We’re doing 15MOF again this year so if you’re interested - and comfortable talking in front of 400 people - you can fill out a quick and easy online form where you can tell us in 250 words or less why you deserve the spotlight.

Not only will the six selected entrepreneurs get a shot at glory (well, at least five minutes of glory!) but they will get a one-day pass to the conference. More details can be found on the mesh blog.

If you want to attend mesh but 15MOF isn’t your cup of tea, you can buy a ticket here. As well, tickets for meshU (our new workshop-focused, hands-on event) are on sale here.

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Nothing Else is Working! Time for a Tax

March 28th, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted in Music

So, let’s look at what the music industry has done over the past decade to battle the emergence of P2P and declining CD sales:

1. Essentially killed Napster rather than leveraging it

2. Launched a nasty legal war against consumers

3. Embraced technology such as DRM that consumers totally dislike

4. Gotten into bed with Apple, only to get pissed off once they realized Steve Jobs was taking over the business

Now, Warner Brothers CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. has decided to take another controversial route: he’s hired industry executive Jim Griffin to lead a lobby charge for a - wait for it - music tax that would applied to ISP bills, and possibly raise $20-billion.

It’s simple; it’s lucrative and, darn shootin’, it’s going to save the music industry from dire straits (as opposed to Mark Knopfler’s Dire Straits). At least, it will be all these things in theory.

But as Mike Arrington enthusiastically rants about, it’s also “crazy” and “dangerously stupid”. It’s a move that smacks of desperation because the music industry has blown the last decade by trying to hang on to a business model that is antiquated and ill-equipped for new digital era in which we work, live and play.

For whatever reason, the music industry still believes consumers should pay for music even though consumers have been telling them for years, they’re only willing to pay a little bit or nothing at all. Look at how P2P services are still thriving, and how Russia’s AllofMP3.com was doing really well by selling albums for about $3 as opposed to $20.

So where is the money in music if consumers don’t want to pay for it? How about live performances - a neat concept dating back several centuries in which people pay for the privilege of becoming to see a musician(s). The amazing thing amid the glut of free music, consumers are happy to pay a premium price to see major performers. Hell, they’re paying $250 a pop to see The Police.

There’s also merchandise sales, access to special Webcasts, special boxed sets (Trent Reznor did pretty well recent by selling 2,500 copies of a $300 “ultimate-deluxe edition” while offering free downloads of nine songs from Ghosts I-IV), and other things that will require some creativity and risks.

In other words, there is life beyond selling CDs or digital tracks.

My friend, Mathew Ingram, makes a great point that if the music industry manages to somehow push through a music tax, how long would it be before the movie and television industries starting to look at a tax. And what about newspapers, magazines and photographers?

At the end of the day, I’m not at all surprised the music industry is exploring a tax. They missed the digital boat as it sailed away over the horizon. Sadly, they’re trying to force it to come back but using a tax but this approach is stupid, outdated and provides more evidence the music industry just don’t get it.

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What Does eBay Do with Craigslist Stake?

March 27th, 2008 | 4 Comments | Posted in M&A

Update: Silicon Valley Insider estimates Craigslist is worth $5-billion, making eBay’s stake worth $1.25-billion - not too shabby for an investment estimated at about $50-million.

With John Donahue taking over the eBay helm from Meg Whitman next week, I wonder if one of the key strategic issues on his plate is what to do with the 25% stake that eBay owns in Craigslist.

For the lack of a better word, it’s a “different” kind of investment given eBay does not seem to have any role in Craigslist, and there are no signs that founder Craig Newmark plans to sell or do an IPO any time soon. For eBay, the 25% stake, which has been estimated to be worth as much as $600-million, is pretty much dead-in-the-water money.

So, what does eBay do other than hold on for as long as it takes until Newmark feels it’s time to cash in and do something new and different. Perhaps waiting Newmark out is the best strategy given Craigslist’s strong brand, traffic (10 billion page views a month) and potential to generate a lot more revenue that Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster have chosen to currently pull in.

Of course, a lot depends on the terms of the agreement that Buckmaster brokered with eBay when it purchased the 25% stake from a Craigslist employee in 2004. This is entirely speculation but maybe eBay has a first right of refusal on the Newmark’s shares.

An intriguing question is whether anyone other than eBay would be interested in buying the stake? At face value, you have to believe there would be no lack of interested suitors looking to buy a stake in the world’s largest online classified player. The downside is they would likely have to deal with the same dead-in-the-water-until-Newmark-makes-a-move issue as eBay.

Another angle to the eBay-Craigslist relationship is how eBay’s own online classified business, Kijiji, comes into play. Despite the goofy name, Kijiji seems to be on a major roll (see the graph below that shows Kijiji and Craigslist had about the same amount of traffic last month), although it still lags far behind Craigslist.

If Kijiji emerges as a strong number two, does eBay really need its Craigslist stake? Or does eBay hold on to its Craigslist shares so it can have control of the two biggest players?

One more thought, if Donahue isn’t thinking about what to do with Craigslist, perhaps he’ll be focused on the future of StumbleUpon (I still don’t get why eBay bought it) and Skype (a great business bought at a rich valuation but not much of a strategic fit for eBay)

For more on Craigslist, check out this recent BBC.com story and video with Buckmaster.

Update: According to The Tech Chronicles, Craigslist is under fire from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal for brushing aside requests to stop running advertising for prostitutes. “I’m astonished and appalled by Craigslist’s refusal to recognize the reality of prostitution on it’s Web site - despite advertisements containing graphic photographs and hourly rates, and widespread public reports of prostitutes using the site,” Blumenthal said.

More: Craigslist has just added support for more languages, including Quebecois.

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FriendFeed Keeps the Hits Comin’

March 26th, 2008 | 1 Comment | Posted in Web 2.0

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You’re probably going see an awful lot of coverage about FriendFeed’s release of its API that will let third-parties create applications that link into the hottest social network aggregator (aka Louis Gray’s favorite service).

While the API is obviously interesting, what I find particularly fascinating is how well FriendFeed’s strategy has rolled out over the past six months. Whether by design or simply luck (right place at the right time), it seems that FriendFeed’s strategic moves have unfolded just as they should.

The company, started by a group of ex-Google employees, got the ball rolling when it launched last October with some great media coverage from places such as the New York Times and GigaOm. Then, it unveiled two major developments last month: its official launch last month along with a $5-million venture round.

This was followed by another interesting bit of news last week with the release of a search tool; followed by the launch earlier this week of a feature that lets people reply to Twitter posts within FriendFeed; followed by the release today of the API.

Bang, bang, bang, bang. FriendFeed’s not only the “It” service these days, along with Twitter, but its ability to keep the fire stoked with announcements on a regular basis is impressive. It suggests the company has a solid roadmap for growth that it’s following.

In many ways, FriendFeed could be a valuable case study for start-ups looking for marketing insight on how to launch a service. Far too start-ups come out with guns a blazing and attract a significant amount of attention only to quickly disappear from the landscape because they have nothing else to announce to keep people excited about what they’re doing.

FriendFeed seems to be demonstrating that if you look beyond Launch Day, there are lots of opportunities to capture the imagination of bloggers, the media and, most important, Web users.

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Is There a TechCrunch Without Arrington?

March 25th, 2008 | 6 Comments | Posted in Web 2.0

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….or, for that matter, is there a Huffington Post without Arianna Huffington or a GigaOm with Om Malik?

After reading a Fortune story yesterday about how Michael Arrington is the “wizard of Web 2.0″, one thing that struck me is how synonymous Arrington is with TechCrunch. He is TechCrunch. He’s the owner, the main writer, the PR machine and the brand. If Arrington, for whatever reason left TechCrunch, is TechCrunch still TechCrunch?

Frankly, I think the answer is “no”. This isn’t a slight against TechCrunch’s other writers such as Erick Schonfeld but the reality is TechCrunch is so closely aligned with Arrington that it would be impossible to envision TechCrunch being TechCrunch without Arrington actively involved.

I would argue the same goes for the Huffington Post and GigaOm because the founders behind them are the brand’s living, breathing persona. You take them out of the equation, and it’s just not the same.

It means that Arrington, Huffington and Malik are married to their online babies for a long time. While Arrington talks about the idea of perhaps selling the business at some point, how much is TechCrunch really worth is Arrington walks away to start something else? The easy answer is far less than it’s worth with him involved.

It’s not that I expect Arrington to sell TechCrunch any time soon but it does illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of having such a large and strong personality at the helm of a company where the entrepreneur and the entity as so closely intertwined.

Update: 24/7, which put together a list of the 25 most valuable blogs, suggests TechCrunch is worth $36-million based on traffic (uniques and pageviews), demographics, monetization and risks (including the dependence on star founders).

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