Repent, all ye bloggers; the end of the blogosphere is nigh

In the world of social media, nothing can ever be merely affected. It has to be killed. Slaughtered. Eviscerated. Massacred.

Google+ is the latest alleged killer. Search the phrase “will Google+ kill” and you’ll find nearly 30,000 results speculating whether Google will kill Facebook, Twitter, search engine optimization, email, Flickr, the list goes on.

Some of the rationale for these predictions are head-shakingly stupid. Quora was the last shiny new object deemed a blog-killer. Today, I routinely hear people ask, “Remember Quora? Whatever happened to it?” While Quora isn’t getting the outpouring of love it did a few months ago, it… Read More »

Children’s Hospital Boston taps someone else’s viral video to demonstrate thought leadership

Can you use somebody else’s social content to your own advantage without appearing opportunistic or self-serving?

Children’s Hospital Boston’s pediatric blog makes it clear that you can.

You’re probably aware by now of the YouTube video of twin babies babbling back and forth at each other as if their words comprised a real conversation. The video has garnered more than 18 million views. Ellen DeGeneris showed the video on her talk show (and later offered up a translation of the baby-talk).

The Children’s Hospital pediatric blogger Tripp Underwood found the video interesting enough to sit down with Hope Dickinson, coordinator of the… Read More »

Seven reasons to use lists in blog posts

I recently read a post taking issue with the number of blog posts that employ lists. You know the posts I’m talking about. Just today, Mashable offered, “Six Slick Ways to Customize Your Kicks Online.” Problogger recently offered, “5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence.” Copyblogger offers, “6 Questions to Ask Before You Spend a Dime on Graphic Design.”

Jay Dolan, author of “The Anti-Social Media” blog, argues that lists are little more than the lazy blogger’s approach to avoiding deep thought.

With a list post, a blogger doesn’t have to think about transitions and the overall structure of the post. Unless a blogger works very hard…

Read More »

10 reasons businesses should keep on (or start) blogging

It’s funny how The Pew Internet & American Life Project can release results of a study in December, but a late-February article about one of the study results published in The New York Times can create such an uproar.

The Pew study offered a broad overview of how members of different generations use the Net. Among many other things, the study revealed that teen and Millennial blogging have declined. Half as many teens said they worked on their own blog in 2009 as did in 2006 (a drop from 28% to 14%) while Millennial blogging has declined by 2%, from 20% in December 20089 to 18% in May 2010.

From the Times’ perspective, that spells… Read More »

A lesson for Etsy

UPDATE: Today, January 14, Etsy has announced policy changes that were sparked by the protest outlined in the post below. These changes prohibit the offending products. The post notes that the “intense debate” online led to the review of the policies and subsequent changes.

UPDATE: CNN Headline News has covered the tale of the cards for sale on Etsy.

UPDATE: Per Jonathan Mast, Etsy continues to respond to complaints with a canned reply. There’s now a petition with nearly 15,000 signatures asking Etsy to remove the cards.

A company-wide culture that embraces the customer experience, and community managers who reflect the culture, are… Read More »

A brief tale of an unsolicited, off-topic, embargoed pitch

I’ve written before that press embargoes are still employed effectively and can work well when implemented correctly. While TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington is leading the “embargoes are dead” charge, they continue to be a staple outside the world of tech journalism.

There’s a lot to doing embargoes right, but one of the most important dimensions of embargoes is an explicit agreement between the journalist or blogger and the organization providing the embargoed information. Not only is this a core requirement, it’s PR 101. I always shake my head when I get an unsolicited pitch that features prominent text like this one, which arrived in… Read More »

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