December 2008 Archives

According to a new survey by Junta42 of corporate marketers and publishing/agency professionals, 56% of respondents said they plan to increase their content marketing spending next year, with 31% saying they would increase spending on content significantly and 25% saying they planned to increase it slightly.

And I liked this quote by Joe Pulizzi, founder of Junta42, via the MediaPost coverage of the survey: "More and more marketing professionals now realize that tomorrow's marketing is all about developing a conversation with customers."

Exactly.

Thanks to Auren Hoffman for the pointer to this interview in The Australian with Professor Clayton Christensen. The discussion is along the similar lines of one I had with Kevin Maney a couple of months ago and expanded on here. It's also the reason why I think the assertion that The Economist made that "Gone... is any sense that blogging as a technology is revolutionary, subversive or otherwise exalted," is a premature judgement on the medium that may be proven wrong in 2009. Here's some of the interview, but the rest is worth reading too:

BUSINESS INSIGHT: Professor Christensen, tell us a little bit about what you think the effects of the financial crisis and economic downturn will be on the environment for innovation.

DR CHRISTENSEN: I think it will have an unmitigated positive effect on innovation.

BI: That's counter-intuitive.

Dr C: Well, it will force innovators to not waste nearly so much money.

One of the banes of successful innovation is that companies may be so committed to innovation that they will give the innovators a lot of money to spend.

Statistically, 93 per cent of all innovations that ultimately become successful started off in the wrong direction; the probability that you'll get it right the first time out of the gate is very low.

So, if you give people a lot of money, it gives them the privilege of pursuing the wrong strategy for a very long time. In an environment where you've got to push innovations out the door fast and keep the cost of innovation low, the probability that you'll be successful is actually much higher.

BI: In other words, what you're saying is that prosperity tends to insulate innovators from market realities and allows them to pursue their vision - a vision which is probably wrong, statistically speaking.

Dr C: That's a perfect summary of how I think the world works. The breakthrough innovations come when the tension is greatest and the resources are most limited. That's when people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.

I thoroughly enjoyed this post on GigaOm, but only partly because I'm interested in the topic -- the debate over network neutrality and Google's position on it. Mostly I enjoyed it because it's a fantastic example of great blogging. First, it started with analysis and opinion on a WSJ story by my friend Om, who was one of our most talented writers at Red Herring. Second, the comment thread has it all -- endorsements of Om's position, detractors, conspiracy theorists, and useful comments on all directions, ranging from policy prescriptions to technical prognostications. One commenter analyzes the Akamai comparison, another suggests that it's naive to think that Google won't try to secure faster access for its content, and an ISP chimes in challenging Om's "duoploy" assertion. And then, the plot thickens. Google responds, Om UPDATES, and the story turns on whether WSJ was or was not confused, and a media critique enters the foray. Some suggest that Om was too quick to judge Google and not enough of the skeptical ombudsman and Om admonishes himself for not being more careful. But taken as a whole, it's great content.

When Om was working for Red Herring or Forbes or other publications in the 1990s, he was only really held accountable by his editors -- not his readers. If he pleased his bosses, all was good, and neither he nor his editors heard much from his readers. Now, Om is holding WSJ writers accountable while in the process being very responsive to his readers. It's a thing of beauty. And it's an example of blogging done right and why Om is a credit to the medium.

On the heels of a scathing Congressional report that criticizes FCC Chair Kevin Martin of mismanagement and abuse of power, Sonia Arrison makes the case that the FCC needs more transparency, and warns of the perils of regulation by vendetta:

The FCC has problems with transparency, so now is the time to open things up to greater public scrutiny. It is also questionable whether the FCC should have as much power as it does over the marketplace. At a time when bankers and automakers are lining up to surrender chunks of control to government bureaucrats, everyone should consider the potential consequences. The results of political decision-making, as opposed to market demand-based decisions, often yield disastrous results.

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial that was extraordinarily critical of Kevin Martin's behavior in rigging spectrum auctions to the benefit of Silicon Valley VC John Doerr:

This is the second time this year that the FCC chief has attempted to secure a sweetheart deal for Mr. Doerr, who has personally petitioned FCC commissioners and Congress on behalf of the M2Z proposal. In January, the agency auctioned off coveted spectrum with conditions that favored Frontline Communications, an upstart headed by a former FCC Chairman, Reed Hundt, and also backed by Mr. Doerr.

Whether you tend favor market-based or regulatory decision making when it comes to the communications infrastructure, both sides should agree that any benefit of "experts" as regulators is severely diminished when they govern according to their personal animosities, rather than a sober analysis of the data and policy objectives. Transparency, discussion, and debate over key decisions would at least be some measure to curb regulation by vendetta.

UPDATE: more on this topic from TLF.

I am both flattered and mildly insulted by this piece in The Economist. Here's the nut graph:

Gone, in other words, is any sense that blogging as a technology is revolutionary, subversive or otherwise exalted, and this upsets some of its pioneers. Confirmed, however, is the idea that blogging is useful and versatile. In essence, it is a straightforward content-management system that posts updates in reverse-chronological order and allows comments and other social interactions. Viewed as such, blogging may "die" in much the same way that personal-digital assistants (PDAs) have died. A decade ago, PDAs were the preserve of digerati who liked using electronic address books and calendars. Now they are gone, but they are also ubiquitous, as features of almost every mobile phone.

One the one hand, I greatly appreciate someone putting to rest all this nonsense that because some early blog adopters have decided to use Twitter instead of their blog that this marks some kind of decline for blogging. The data just doesn't support that and anecdotes from the elite is no substitute for actual information. With apologies to Jason, the line that "The rest of the world may well have missed the unfolding of his tragedy," referring to his frustrations with blogging, and being crowded out by later adopters, made me chuckle. (In the end I'm envious: being personally dissed by The Economist is certainly a badge of honor!)

And, of course, I appreciated Six Apart, Movable Type, and TypePad getting a mention.

However, it's a little insulting for them to suggest that we are no longer subversives, isn't it? Are we so lacking in imagination and creativity that we, the blogging companies, don't have any more revolutions left in us? Is that all there is? Has blogging finally made it, and change is now reserved for other technologies?

Personally, I don't think blogging is done, in the sense that this article suggests. It may be true that blogs have indelibly disrupted mainstream media and changed the landscape of journalism forever. That revolution may have accomplished its goal already. But I suspect there are more revolutions left for blogging to lead. For example, I believe that today's mainstream social networks have a lot in common with yesterday's mainstream media. And I think blogging -- and bloggers -- will have something to say about that.

My thoughts today are with Yoani Sanchez and Claudia Cadelo, Cuban bloggers who, according to the Cuban government, have "crossed the limits of tolerance." We often take for granted than the freedom to blog, sadly, is not universal and is under assault in many parts of the world.

From today's Wall Street Journal:

On Thursday, Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo, was summoned to appear at the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of domestic security. A day earlier, Yoani Sanchez, the nation's most prominent blogger, was told by authorities that her activities had "crossed the limits of tolerance," and was told she couldn't hold a planned meeting this Saturday of local bloggers, according to Ms. Sanchez.

One of the great joys of working at Six Apart has been getting to know and work with our Japanese team at Six Apart Japan (SAKK). The closest I'd ever been to Tokyo before coming to Six Apart was Narita Airport, but I've now had the opportunity to travel there many times in the last couple of years - I even brought my family there earlier this year and took the girls to Disney Sea - and really admire the country, the people, and the culture.

I've always been impressed with the great people at SAKK, who are smart, creative and hard working, and they've done a great job being the undisputed leaders in what is clearly one of the largest markets for blog software and services in the world.

This week SAKK celebrated its 5 year anniversary and I wanted to say congratulations and thanks to Nob Seki (the GM of SAKK) and the entire SAKK team, as well as a hearty thanks to all of our partners and clients throughout Japan who have made Six Apart Japan what it is.

Joi Ito created a great video montage of the 5th anniversary party -- check it out!

UPDATE: Photos!

At Six Apart we've been working furiously all year to move TypePad to a new platform (the one we built for Vox). The migration was a huge effort and cost us much blood, sweat, toil, and tears, but as we enter the final stages we are starting to bear the fruits this labor. We've been working to improve the core capability of TypePad in many fundamental ways, but one big way is the commenting and community management capability.

That's why I was so excited by the TypePad Connect launch. David Recordon did a great summary post of the news but the basics are that in one day, we launched essentially three things: (1) we overhauled TypeKey and turned it into TypePad profiles.
(2) we launched in beta a new commenting system for TypePad. It's awesome and has a beautiful new design and user interface.
(3) we realize that many folks, like me, have non-TypePad blogs as well as their TypePad blogs (and I'm been informed that in some sad cases there are people who don't even use TypePad at all). So we created TypePad Connect, an easy way to bring TypePad powered comments and profiles to a non-TypePad web site or blog.

So now when you comment on THIS blog (which is powered by Movable Type), your comments and profiles will be powered by TypePad. From my point of view I can manage comments and commenters on my MT and TP blogs in one place, and have the same anti-spam protection.

And a really cool feature: when you create a TypePad profile and view it on *my* R21 blog, it's actually part of *my* blog - served on a page from my MT powered R21 site, with the same styling as my blog. This means my community feels like mine. This is a cool feature that I've only seen provided by TypePad Connect.

This is part of several larger trends from Six Apart. First, dramatic improvements to the TypePad service. The beta commenting service is just one of many steps we are taking to improve TypePad. The second is continuing the Six Apart effort to bring more social capabilities to blogging, as we did with Vox and Movable Type Pro. We now have a commenting and profile system that can go virtualy everywhere. The third is evolving what TypePad actually is as a service. With TypeKey (now TypePad profiles), TypePad AntiSpam, TypePad Blog It, TypePad Blog Link, and now TypePad Connect, the blog service known as TypePad has become a service that can support virtually any blogger, regardless of what their main blogging platform is. This is a way of breaking down walls, and I liked how ReadWriteWeb covered TPC:

Embracing the concept of community that has the ability to exist and live outside the walls of a given blog or proprietary product is definitely a step in the right direction. (For that matter, it doesn't take a huge intuitive leap to see the value of having a TypePad Connect profile as the endpoint for an OpenID URL.) TypePad Connect could be another step toward the realization of a truly distributed social Web.

The world of blogging is getting much more complicated, but, for my money, also much more interesting!

A huge thank you to Brad Whitaker and everyone who worked on this project -- you all did a fantastic job!