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When Seth Godin announced recently that he was leaving his publisher to promote his own books, it was easy to suggest that as a best selling author, he was in a unique position to do this, but after giving it some thought perhaps, he's onto something more profound.
Read my full commentary on FierceContentManagement.
Image by Raelene G via Flickr
My newest blogging gig is at Internet Evolution. In my first post, I look at Diaspora, the Facebook alternative from 4 recent NYU grads. Could some upstart kids from NYU give Facebook a run for its considerable money? You never know.
Read my full post on Internet Evolution.
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I read with more than a passing interest that Associated Press (AP) has renewed its deal with Google to host AP content. Curley you may recall, along with Rupert Murdoch of NewsCorp, has been shouting from the roof tops for the last couple of years, screaming at the top his voice, to anyone that would listen, that Google was stealing his content.
Curely had also famously had trouble with linking, you know, that process by which we share content. I've gotten to the point where I won't link to AP content if I can avoid it because of his public position on the matter. Yet now Mr. Curley is willing to make his deal with the devil (as he sees it).
Who knows maybe it was a negotiating position and Curley never believed the crap he was spewing or maybe he and Murdoch really don't get the Internet. Whatever the reason, AP is back on Google and I really hope he shuts up about them now for the foreseeable future. Hard to complain about a company you're in bed with, yet Curley has managed to do just that.
Image by Search Engine People Blog via Flickr
I've been spending the morning studying my Google Analytics statistics today and I've found some interesting data. Bear in mind this is a small blog, written for my own pleasure and as a professional outlet. It may be hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions from my data, but there are clearly some very interesting patterns in place here.
Social Media View
For starters, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook don't buy me much. I spend a lot of time on these sites partly because I enjoy the interactions, partly because I get a lot of good information from my trusted social network and partly because I hope to drive traffic to my various properties. But judging from my social media stats I'm not sure I'm getting much of a traffic lift if that's one of my goals.
For the last month, my organic traffic directly from Twitter and Facebook was:
Twitter: 58 visits, Facebook: 53 visits
One thing to keep in mind is this: it's not clear to me if Google Analytics does a good job of tracking traffic from social media sites, which might come from many sources such as HootSuite or TweetDeck, or one of the myriad of tools out there, but on its face it's not generating a ton of traffic, that's for sure.
Search View
Search also tells an interesting story. For those who think Bing is challenging Google in any real way, if my stats are indication, it's just not even close. For the last month, my stats read as follows:
Google: 7,867 visits, Bing: 148 visits
Bing is barely registering. Oh, you want throw Yahoo! to be fair. I got 171 visits from Yahoo!
I'm not a big numbers guy, but as a blogger I'm obsessed with my traffic numbers. I study them and fret over them. One thing is clear, Google generates the vast amount of traffic to this blog, which means as a publisher I'm dependent on them, which for me (and I'm sure many others) is not a very comfortable feeling.
Where does your traffic come from? Leave a comment and let me know.
Image by Son of Groucho via Flickr
Let's face it, Facebook is going to lose face with its Face Trademark suit reported on TechCrunch this week. At the very least, Facebook will fall on its face or get egg on its face. If they want to save face they really need to think about being less two-faced, but on the face of it, Facebook should face the truth before it faces an embarrassing face-off in court.
This is a fascinating look at the power of Steve Jobs as a public speaker. This video from the 1997 launch of the 'Think Different' campaign shows Jobs at his best. Remember, this is before the company made a come back, years before the first iPod. At the time, Apple was reeling, yet Jobs' passion for his product comes shining through. This is great theater and a text book lesson for anyone who hopes to be an inspirational public speaker.
And you have to love his outfit.
Originally found on All Things Digital Blog.
Image via Wikipedia
Some people are complaining about the term 'Cloud Computing,' but would it really matter if we called it something different?
See my full commentary on Novell Cloud Formations Blog.
Image by minifig via Flickr
PaidContent.org was not the only media outlet this week to trumpet Apple's so-called mystery event scheduled for September 1st. But you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what Apple will be announcing that day.
It's elementary my dear readers. One just need look at a little Apple history to figure it out. According to Wikipedia (I know, not always the best source, but serviceable in this instance), Apple announced the first generation iPod Touch on September 5, 2007, the second on September 9, 2008 and the third on September 9, 2009.
You do the math. It's an event scheduled for September 1, 2010. You think it might have something to with an iPod Touch announcement? Sure, they're a little early this year, but I'm still fairly confident they will be announcing the next generation of iPod Touches next week.
What else they announce is up in the air, but if rumors are true (and let's be honest, there are always a lot of rumors flying ahead of any Apple announcement), we could be getting the $99 Apple iTV box and new .99 movie purchases on iTunes. Now, I wouldn't necessarily bet the farm on these latter two announcements because Apple rarely announces everything rumored.
I know Apple likes to shroud itself in a cloak of mystery, but I really don't think the announcement next week is all that hard to figure out. All it takes is a little understanding of recent history.
Image by kxande2 via Flickr
I called AT&T the other day about getting an iPhone 4. Weeks after its release and the initial wave of demand from the crazy early adopters who wait outside in all kinds of weather to be first to have an Apple product, there is still a 2-3 week wait time to get one. How could this be?
One thing Apple has to be clear on is that their products are going to be in demand and they are going to have to crank up production. If they think they need a million, they probably need twice as many. After the initial burst of desire, you would think they would have the production flow straightened out.
That's why I'm a bit miffed that I can't simply walk into a store at this point and get one. Some may suggest they are building desire with this approach, but I say hogwash. If you want to sell phones, you have to make sure they are in stock. At some point people will get fed up with waiting and find something else.
For me, if it were there I would buy it right then and there, but if I have to order it, I get second thoughts about saving the money and that my iPhone 3G is just fine. What Apple loses with this approach is shopping serendipity. Unless there is some kind of worldwide parts shortage (and I suppose that's possible), there really is no excuse for Apple to be in low supply months after the iPhone 4 release. Time to get it together and get them in stock before customers tire of the waiting game.
Last week Chris Anderson got a lot of attention when he declared the web was dead in Wired. This week, I break down his piece and find the Web might actually be resting comfortably after all.
Read my full post on FierceContentManagement.
Photo by Bernt Rostad on Flickr. Used Under the Creative Commons License.
