August 2005
Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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Rex Hammock talks about the need for hyper-local blogging in emergency situations.
In times of local crisis, the importance of having an active blogging community becomes very apparent. There are so many people outside an area who are desperately seeking information -- any information -- from the ground, so even if power and web-access is out in a city, the information being shared is much needed.
My wife was the public information officer (PIO) for our local county for a number of years. During hurricanes or other emergency situations (remember Y2K) she would spend countless hours at the emergency operations center doing media updates.
Like Rex, I feel it's important for PIOs to be connected with their local blogging community. When a PIO sends out an update to the media they should include local bloggers. The best case scenario would be for the county/local agency to have a blog/rss feed of such content.
I was asked by one power company spokesperson, "if you don't have power how can you blog or read a blog?" Easy. During Charley last year I:
- used my Blackberry to browse the internet and post (like Kaye is). One of the benefits of my Blackberry last year was that it's GSM based rather than TDMA or CDMA. Nobody else in the area could get calls out, but I always could.
- Even with no power I was able to login via dial-up on my laptop and browse the web as long as my battery lasted. Worse case scenario I could start the car up and charge the battery via the cigarette adapter.
There are other issues as well. My neighbors knew I was getting updates online so I became the local news source. Getting a message to me helped inform 20-30 people. The other factor is relatives and friends not in the disaster area. I might not be able to view a power company web site but I can call somebody who can.
Now the question to all the local PIOs....can you list the prominent bloggers in your area?
Update 9.3.05 Kaye Trammell referenced this post in her Washington Post op-ed today.
It's always fun to see what Google searches come my way. Currently this blog is the number one result for coke blog and newsroom design. Each of these searches draws a few people my way each hour.
My friend/client Wendy is wondering why a search for her full name does list her at the top of Google. Perhaps a link to Wendy Kurtz will help her out.
Turning 33 today. Ho-hum. Not as big a deal as 30. Go over to my wish list and buy me something. Just kidding, well maybe not.
What's significant is that when I was 30 I was in the best shape of my life. I was riding about 300 miles per week and running 5K's in the sub 18 minute range. Then on February 1, 2003 (the day of the Columbia disaster) I did a 85 mile ride with my knee-cap out of alignment. I've never been the same since. Tomorrow I start with a specialized physical therapist to get my knee operating properly. Looking forward to being able to spend 3-4 hours per day back on the bike.
Kaye Trammell has created a Hurricane Update Blog from her location at LSU, 65 miles west of New Orleans.
Update 08.30.05 I am getting quite a bit of inbound search traffic looking for Katrina Blogs. Here are a few resources:
Josh Britton
Terry Teachout's list of hurricane blogs
Rex Hammock's list
NOLA.com Everything New Orleans
Times-Picayune Blog
Update 8.31.05 This post is still pretty high in the search rankings so to better serve all the people coming here I'll continue to post items. I 'borrowed' this list from DailyKos. It's all the various relief agencies and how you can donate.
The American Red Cross
Donation Link: Click here and select 'Donate Now'.
Relief focus: The Red Cross provides a full spectrum of services to disaster victims. From assistance with shelter, medical care, food, clean water and cleanup efforts, the Red Cross is an organization poised to assist in circumstances such as this.
Feed The Children
Donation Link: Click here and follow the donation link.
Relief focus: Feed the Children has long been competent at mobilizing and distributing supplies to disaster victims and victims of famine and disease. They are currently mobilizing a massive relief effort by gathering needed supplies and getting them to hurricane devastated areas.
The Salvation Army
Donation Link: Click here and follow the donate on line link.
Relief focus: The Salvation Army is prepared to provide 400,000 hot meals a day to displaced disaster victims and emergency personnel working to aid those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. They also provide a means for individuals to physically volunteer their time and assistance in the relief efforts.
United Jewish Communities
Donation Link: Click here and choose upper-right Katrina relief links.
Relief focus: Community organized and administered humanitarian relief for disaster victims.
Catholic Charities USA
Donation Link: Click here and follow instructions to donate online, by mail, or by phone.
Relief focus: Community based relief efforts focused on the long-terms needs of disaster victims and affected communities.
United Methodist Committee on Relief
Donation Link: Click here and follow the 'Donate Now' link.
Relief focus: Although they provide general community-based disaster relief, they are also focusing on the creation and distribution of "flood buckets", a more hands-on relief item for those who prefer to donate with a personal touch.
Noah's Wish
Donation Link: Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Relief focus: Noah's Wish is a not-for-profit, animal welfare organization, with a straightforward mission. We exist to keep animals alive during disasters. That's it.
Humane Society of the United States
Donation Link: Click here.
Relief focus: Dispatching Disaster Animal Response Teams (DARTs) to rescue animals and assist their caregivers.
ASPCA
Donation Link: Click here and choose the type of giving you prefer.
Relief focus: Although they do not yet have anything specific to Katrina up on their site, the ASPCA sends emergency relief to animal shelters when natural disasters occur.
North Shore Animal League America
Donation link: Click here and select 'Donate'.
Relief focus: NSAL America has an emergency response team that is ready to respond in the event of an emergency. In 2004, we responded to the devastating hurricanes in the south.
United Way
Donation Link: Click here and follow Katrina donation links.
Relief focus: United Way is leading response and recovery efforts by working hard to identify the most serious needs of devastated communities and is committed to helping not only with front-line disaster relief but with long-term recovery—those needs that are often not addressed in the days, weeks and months following a disaster.
America's Second Harvest
Donation link: Click here.
Relief focus: They expect at least ten food banks and hundreds of related agencies will be hit by hurricane 'Katrina'. Their Network is in great need of funds to transport food to victims and secure additional warehouse space to assist our Member food banks in resuming and maintaining operations.
Direct Relief International
Donation link: Click here and select 'Support Us'.
Relief focus: Because of the organization’s extensive medical inventories, Direct Relief serves as a private back-up support to official emergency response efforts in the United States.
Habitat for Humanity
Donation link: Click here and follow the Katrina link.
Relief focus: Helping disaster victims rebuild piece by piece and house by house.
Interest in a recent Euro RSCG Magnet survey on journalists' use of blogs for reporting has picked up again. Shel Holtz, Editors Weblog, the Blog Herald and Brian Oberkirch all blogged about it recently. The study states that their research:
shows that more than half (51%) of journalists use Weblogs regularly—with 28% relying on them for day-to-day reporting
I will repeat what I said back in June when the report was first announced. I don't believe it. At least when it comes to regional and local newspapers. Yes, as Nick Wingfield says a majority of tech journalists probably use them and political reporters in DC do, but not in Florida.
I say, "who are they talking to?" The overwhelming number of journalists I talk to don't use them. I have had a number of interactions with large newsrooms in Florida and in almost every case the number of reporters using blogs is little to none.
After the initial announcement of the report I asked my contacts at PRNewswire and BusinessWire who interact with newsrooms about their thoughts. Their impressions echoed mine. The majority of journalists they talk to know very little about blogs, let alone use them for reporting.
Kaye Trammell and I traded some e-mails over this study back in June. Her comment:
Do I believe it? Ehhhhh .... I need to look more in to who their sample was first. I can't tell you how many journalists still call me to say, "I've been assigned to write this story about blogs & I don't know what one is ... can you help."
I have requested a complete copy of the report to see if it details the methodology of the sample. The PDF from the announcement does not provide those details. If the survey was web-based I think that would automatically skew their results to more tech-savvy reporters. Does anybody have the specifics of the survey they can share before I receive my copy?
On Sunday I posted that the Sprint Business Blog was password protected. As of today, the blog is back again, but the original author, Rob Slusher, is nowhere to be found. In fact any trace of Rob has been removed. All the previous posts have been deleted and his bio is gone.
The blog is now written by Vicki Warker. It looks like Vicki started blogging in late July, but has only managed four posts since then.
Update: I posted a comment on the blog asking what happened to Rob and all the previous posts. Vicki responded:
Rob is still a valued member of our solutions team. We are relaunching the blog and I will take over to engage the business community in discussion about the evolution of wireless services for business.
Good enough, but why delete all the previous posts?
MetroBlogOrlando is a client blog that launched a few weeks ago. The blog is run by METROPLAN ORLANDO, the transportation planning organization in Central Florida. The blog is meant to be: 'A Forum for Discussion of Transportation Issues in Central Florida.' As expected there has been quite a bit of commentary on issues such as commuter rail and tolls.
From Kevin:
Man - when your social life picks up, the blogging goes straight down the tubes! :)
This has probably been mentioned somewhere else before, but I just noticed it the other day. The University of Florida News web site is run on WordPress and features a podcast of recent news items.
Kudos to Mark Trammell and his UF Web Team.
Rex Hammock pointed the way to Nick Bradbury calling Apple 'opaque'. I like that word. It's a good contrast to 'transparency'. Which is not my favorite word.
On Wednesday, August 31st from 2 - 4 p.m. I will be holding a blog seminar at the Orlando Marriott Downtown. Normally I charge for these seminars, but I need to have a session taped for a DVD so it's open for free to a small group of people. You need to agree to be taped to attend. At this point the session it about half-full (or I guess half-empty if you look at glasses of water).
Interested in coming? e-mail me.
During a blog presentation last week one participant asked, "I run a small graphic design firm in the West Palm Beach market, how would I use a blog in such a small, non-tech market?" My first response was, "You don't want clients outside of West Palm Beach?" He quickly realized my point. He was thinking too local. Yes a blog could help him engage potential and existing clients within his market, but a blog offers him the opportunity reach outside his current market.
One of the often overlooked aspects of blogs is the ability to find customers. This is especially powerful with specialized topics. Remember blogging is not always about writing! It's about listening.
I have a friend that sells support materials for women who have suffered a miscarriage. She was advertising via Google AdWords on the keyword miscarriage. Now she can do a blog search for miscarriage and find thousands of women talking about the subject. That's her target market. She can directly engage potential clients via their blogs. Yes, she must approach carefully, but leaving comments offering some basic suggestions and support is the start.
In many cases when I am speaking to organizations about blogs I show them how tools like Technorati, PubSub, Feedster and IceRocket can identify potential customers/partners.
At a recent lunch-n-learn a company executive said, "I don't see how we'd use a blog for any marketing purpose." Before he could finish his sentence I did a search for a keyword within his industry and identified a few hundred bloggers. I then asked how they currently market their product. They were using traditional advertising in a number of publications. How much was the advertising costing? and what were the sales returns? I didn't really matter, becasue in 30 seconds and at a cost of $0.00 I identified 160+ leads. What other method can match that?
I, like many others, am tired of all the talk about blog lists and rankings. Technorati has the Top 100, Feedster has the 500, BlogPulse offers a ranking as part of their Blog Profile.
How about these lists:
- Bottom 100 Blogs Nobody Reads But Should
- Top 1000 Overrated Blogs
- Top 10 Blogs From Bloggers Who Shouldn't Blog
Or on an individual level:
- Blogs I Don't Read Anymore and Why
- Blogs I've Never Heard Of (kinda tough to make that list)
Yes there will always be the top blogs in certain sectors, but the power of the blogosphere is that the next great idea can come from a blog ranked 675,214 by Technorati.
During BlogNashville Dan Gillmor said, "Just think if people in nursing homes could blog, what would we learn?" At first my thoughts were of exposing nursing home abuse, but I think Dan was talking about knowledge transfer. All those people with all that knowledge and experience, but nobody to share it with.
Update 9.1.05 Technorati has launched Blog Finder, a tool to rank blogs by category.
Jeremy Pepper has re-posted his blogs & libel article from earlier this year. It's a good refresher.
Continuing from the previous post on employee blog issues...
2. If You Didn't Own Your Posts Would You Blog?
This does not apply everywhere but imagine you were a brilliant mind in a knowledge industry such as programming, law, medicine, etc. You also have a definite career path in mind, i.e two more years at Firm A, three years at Firm B then off to your own start-up. Spending the rest of your life with a company is not for you. A blog is a great way to build your own brand. If you start a personal blog then you will always own your posts. If your initial blog is within your employer's blog framework then you don't own your posts. What do you do?
What happens when your employer says, "Hey Steve, you're really knowledgeable in the intellectual property law field why don't you blog about that on our corporate blog?" You can't really say no to your boss. If you start blogging do you hold back the really good stuff for your personal blog? Then what happens when you leave? (See previous)
Last week when I had the opportunity to meet with Constantin Basturea in Ft. Lauderdale, one of our conversation topics was about who owns the posts in a corporate blog? The obvious answer is the company since they are providing the blog platform and allowing an individual to blog on company time. Anybody have a different view on this?
This quick answer brought up some interesting points:
1. What Happens When an Employee Leaves the Company?
Does the company delete the blog and forfeit any links and commentary that may have been built up? In some cases, "there may be gold in them thar hills!" Is the employee allowed to post a 'goodbye' message with a link to their personal blog? Once an employee blog becomes fallow the traffic would slowly die off with the only future traffic the result of inbound searches or old links.
This example really only applies to individual blogs within a corporation rather then a collaborative blog written by a group of employees. Clif Bar recently faced this issue and said 'adios amigo' to an employee on their blog.
Another alternative? In the spirit of corporate indifference the person who replaces the original employee takes over the blog. Just imagine a telecom rep blog, there would be a new blogger every three months.
Many of the corporate blog policies address what an employee should and shouldn't blog about, but do not address what happens when an employee leaves.
A friend pointed out that the Sprint Wireless Blog I discovered back in May, 2005 is now password protected. I don't know when the blog was taken down or why. Perhaps the blog's author, Rob Slusher, Senior Marketing Manager for Customer Solutions at Sprint Wireless will clue us in.
Whenever Jeff Jarvis mentions Adrian Holovaty he has nothing but good things to say, and he's right. In the past few weeks Jeff has said:
Adrian Holovaty, the single most creative person I've run across in online news..
Who's Doing it Right?...Anything Holovaty touches.
In Jeff's new role with About.com I see him hiring or working with Adrian. Just a prediction.
Toby points out that Earthlink is looking for a Blog Master. The job listing says:
Many people can write, but only a few can write in an engaging conversational style. And, even fewer can combine that skill with keeping their finger on the pulse of the industry and new technology. If you have this unique blend of skills and are a self-motivated, creative individual with a passion for accuracy and commitment, we have a full-time writing opportunity for you: establishing, managing and nurturing multiple Blog sites for us.
There is quite a bit more at the job listing.
Doreen points to a blog software comparison chart that Online Journalism Review published back in July. It's a great chart comparing Blogger, TypePad (all levels), Blogware, WordPress, Movable Type and Expression Engine. The chart does note that it: reflects only standard features of the tools' installation, and not every possible extension, plug-in modification... or hack.
I have used all the tools with the exception of Expression Engine. I do plan on setting up an EE install and playing with it just to be familiar with it (similar to what Neville is doing with MT).
I will post more thoughts on my comparisons between the blog 'engines' later.
Just a quick post from ArtServe the location of a presentation I did for the Ft. Lauderdale Advertising Federation. (a few photos)
What was interesting for me is that ArtServe is located in a Ft. Lauderdale Library building. A library I visited when I was very young and staying with my grandmother who used to live in Hollywood, FL. I walked in, looked around and said, "I've been here before."
We recorded the session, I'll post some highlights over the weekend.
I've been slowly working on my blog/web site redesign for a few weeks now. Slowly being the operative word. Meanwhile, great new blog designs are popping up all around. A few weeks ago Allan launched a great new look, now this week Toby debuts a new Diva look.
It's great to see some people digging into TypePad to do some custom design work.
Each time I see a new design pop up I say, "need to get back to work on my revamp." I've been busy on a number of projects, so it's the old 'shoemaker has no shoes' line.
Like Jeremy Zawodny and Ross Mayfield, I have been playing around with Plazes. This little geo-locator application is cool. Right now there are not many people using it so it looks pretty lonely out there.
I'll be travelling quite a bit over the next few days. Be on the lookout for quite a few new plazes mapped out.
Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson of the For Immediate Release podcast have posted an interview with Constantin Basturea. To quote Shel's intro:
he has become a one-man resource for the global public relations profession, building tools that make it easier for PR practitioners to understand and apply the tools of social media. These include a wiki called The New PR, an annual online professional development event titled Global PR Blog Week, a PR headline service, and a comprehensive PR-focused del.icio.us bookmark listing.
I'll be lucky enough to meet up with Constantin next week when I am in Ft. Lauderdale for a few days.
Jonathan Maus talks about his idea for the perfect blog. I agree with most of them, but disagree with this one:
A tastefully integrated revenue stream (text ads, banners (no animation), merchandise, etc...)
This really depends on the blog. In the case of many businesses or consultants, the blog is the ad.
While writing this post I went to NFL.com to see if the NFL was offering blogs to fans. I did a search for blog on their site. Here is a screenshot of the results I received (click for larger version).
All the visible results are from advertisers. I had to scroll down to find the real results to the search. Now remember two things:
1. I chose to search NFL.com and not 'the web'. I can understand providing me a list of external links for a 'web' search, but not when I am looking for something on NFL.com.
2. I have a high resolution screen and the section title NFL.com results is barely visible at the bottom. Anybody coming in with 1024x768 resolution would not see that.
I know the NFL is trying to pay the bills but this is ridiculous. This would be like calling the NFL corporate offices, asking to speak to the legal department, then being placed on hold and hearing advertisements for law firms for 10 minutes.
Ahh homonyms, they'll sneak up on you sometimes. The other day I was checking the tag branding on Technorati. On the results page, pictures tagged branding are pulled in from Flickr. If you are used to the term branding in the marketing and communication sense, you will quickly be reminded that branding also means:
A type of body modification that is applied to the body with heat with the goal of producing an artistic and aesthetically pleasing scar.
Kevin points out that Coca Cola now offers personal blogs on their MyCoke site. Why you would do this who knows. I guess it's the ultimate statement of the Coke vs. Pepsi argument. Major League baseball offers blogs to devout fans as well.
I wonder, if I create a blog on MyCoke.com will I get a lame Flash intro for my blog?
Quite a few speaking engagements lined up over the next eight days. I'll be flying out to Pensacola tomorrow for a blog presentation at the Pensacola Ad Fed on Thursday.
Next week it's off to Ft. Lauderdale and then West Palm Beach.
In the latest of his 'State of the Blogosphere' posts, David Sifry of Technorati addresses Spam Blogs and Fake Blogs. David talks about why he differentiates spam blogs from fake blogs:
I should note that some fake blogs may very well contain interesting and relevant content, which opens a debate onto how useful or valuable they are. This is why I don't include fake blogs in with Spam blogs (as defined above) because it is debatable that these systems are actually providing readers some value.
I find the fake blogs to be more aggravating since they often get you to click-thru from a search result, only to find you've wasted your time. His highlights from the article:
- Along with the explosive growth in the blogosphere, there has also been a growth in spam blogs and fake blogs
- These blogs are almost always created by automated programs, not by people
- They are usually created with an economic incentive - to get better search engine rankings, or to create affiliate or advertising revenue
- Technorati has been working closely with major toolmakers, search engines, and hosting providers to quickly identify and stamp out spam and fake blogs
- The key to reducing blog spam is to eliminate economic incentives, and we are working with major advertising and affiliate programs to create roadblocks for spammers and creators of fake blogs
- Industry players including Amazon, AOL, Ask Jeeves, Drupal, Google, MSN, Six Apart, Technorati, Tucows, and Wordpress and others are getting together in the second half of September for the second Web 2.0 Spam Squashing Summit.
Related Posts: Spam in RSS, PubSub's Thoughts, Tag Spam in Technorati, RSS and Blog Spam: A Losing Battle?
Media Insider has a post about creating an effective online newsroom. The article has quite a few good tips. However, there is no mention of creating RSS feeds of your releases. Yes I realize that only a small percentage of visitors might utilize RSS, but adding it to a content manager is a quick and easy job and requires no additional upkeep.
In the article, this item brings up a common issue:
DO provide a link to your consumer FAQ page and an e-mail link for customer service to give non-journalists a place to go to get their questions answered. This will save you a great deal of time responding to messages from non-journalists asking, "Why am I looking at a press release? How do I download a new driver?" or some such thing. Here's what Gateway says, "Gateway press contacts are only able to provide assistance for qualified members of the news media. They are not qualified to respond to product or technical support needs... If you are not a member of the news media, please feel free to visit our pages for Product Service and Support."
Unfortunately the product service or support sections of many web sites offer no contact information. Many people 'just want to talk to a person' and they'll look for any person they can find. If your media contacts are the only ones that list contact information or respond, guess who is going to get contacted?
Rather than being upset that your media contacts are getting outside calls and treating it as an 'issue', why not investigate why the people are calling. Chances are you might be doing a poor job of customer support.
My favorite situation is when I call a firm for some information that I can't find on their web site and the person on the phone says, "Just visit our web site!" My response is usually, "I am at your web site and I can't find it."
Google News has added the capability to create custom RSS feeds based upon searches. Like many, I've been waiting for Google to do this. Not sure why it took them so long.
Up until today, all we've had is the solution that Justin Pfister created last year.
Thanx Justin.
Update: Dave Winer is having some issues with their feeds.
Jennifer was not that impressed with the blogging session at the FPRA Annual Conference. When the presenter has not updated their blog in about one year, that can be an indication of their 'expertise'.
She also says the hotel hasn't even heard of wifi.
How can you spot a computer novice? They're the ones at Starbucks or Panera Bread using a Dell or HP laptop that still has all the promotional stickers on the palmrests.
Stephen posts some thoughts on PageRank. The inspiration for his post was a recent Clickz article. Stephen says:
What I am certain of however is that the PageRank values shown in the Google Toolbar are imprecise, months old, and not the same as the PageRank as what is used in Google's ranking algorithm.
My long held belief has been if your entire marketing/business plan is reliant upon Google traffic based upon SEO it's not the best solution.
Looks like I'll avoid the Holiday Inn Airport at Buffalo for any future trips. These Dear: Company blogs posts are always interesting to read.
I can't remember who said it, but I think it was Chris Pirillo at Blog Business Summit last year...he said something like, 'it's our obligation as consumers to blog, for too long we've put up with poor service.'
Jeneane telling the Holiday Inn manager about her poor experience does nothing. Jeneane blogging about it will do something.
If I lived anywhere near Dallas I'd go to this lunch. PRSA Dallas will feature Michelle Milford, assistant director of public relations, The Lance Armstrong Foundation. Michelle will talk about the LiveSTRONG campaign at the August 11th meeting.
The presentation will include a discussion of the strategy, the tactics and the unforeseen hurdles of the Wear Yellow Live Strong wristband campaign, as well as a view from inside a media frenzy. The discussion will also briefly examine the changing brand of the LAF and the challenges and opportunities a PR person faces when your famous namesake breaks a world record.
Plenty of other LiveSTRONG posts here.
The Florida Public Relations Association has been developing a new web site which was planned to launch in combination with their annual conference next week. Three days before the annual conference they took down the old site and put up a placeholder (shown below). Anybody looking for last-minute information about the conference was out of luck.
Hopefully they'll get the web site launched soon or at least post some information about the conference. For now here is a link to the basic information and the student track.
Update (8/5 - 3:50PM): The new site is up. Doesn't look like if offers anything new compared to the old site. More of a redesign than a revamp. We'll hold off on the usability review for now :-)
RSS2PDF is a service that will convert any RSS feed to a PDF document for printing. (Here is hyku in PDF format)
I can see a few interesting uses for this service. If you know you'll be away from the computer for a while you could print some of your favorite blogs or watchlists to take with you. It might also have some interesting internal uses for providing documentation or news to staff that need printed material.
Of course looking over a few blogs in PDF it once again shows a benefit to providing a full feed.
One of the problems with many independent podcasters is their lack of interviewing skills. I guess that is to be expected since many podcasters are not journalists. I am learning this myself :-)
Do you want to avoid having your podcast interview sound like a segment from the Chris Farley show on SNL? Dan Gillmor has posted some interview basics over at Bayosphere.
I've had this bookmarked for a week or two but just getting around to posting it now. Jeneane Sessum posted a well-written white paper on business/corporate blogging. To Blog or Not to Blog is the title of the paper. You can download the PDF version here.
While waiting this morning for some lab work at Bond Clinic I was wondering if there are any hospitals or clinics that offer free wifi in the waiting areas? At Bond there is a wifi network but it’s for the staff and is locked down. I'd love to be able to connect to get some online work done during the 20-40 minutes you wait in a doctor's office.
I know that Glenn Reynolds blogged about using his Verizon EVDO card in waiting rooms, but not wifi.
I drove to Fort Myers, FL today to speak at a seminar. On the drive I took some photos along US 17 and US 98. The back-roads of Florida. This photo is rather surreal, Santa's 'abandoned' Toy Workshop of the South:
I thought of a Jack Handey-esque segment... "Sorry Johnny, there will be no toys this Christmas. Santa closed his toy factory."
David Sifry of Technorati has posted the most recent State of the Blogosphere update. This new update comes six months after his previous update. His summary:
- Technorati was tracking over 14.2 Million weblogs, and over 1.3 billion links in July 2005
- The blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months
- A new blog is created about every second, there are over 80,000 created daily
- About 55% of all blogs are active, and that
