Why Does Blogging Work?

September 9, 2008 in 1, SSPTMR2008 | by Kent Anderson | No comments

I gave a brief presentation on the Friday of the SSP Top Management Roundtable, talking about why blogging works. Here is a brief overview of what I had to say:
There is a media source that is known for polemicism, sporadic coverage, mimicry, factual errors, superficial coverage, and cronyism. It’s the mainstream media. Against this, accountable, linked, and often long-form writing like that in the better blogs does well.
Blogs are growing, from a traffic standpoint, at 4x the rate of traditional media sites.
Blogging is the signature written form of our age.
Blogging reveals hidden expertise, and unearths experts with perspective and access that the mainstream media can never replicate.

These are just a few comments from my presentation. I’m truth about enzyte a convert, as this blog and the Scholarly Kitchen show. Just look at the expertise we’ve unearthed on both blogs.

What are you waiting for, expert who is reading this?
From SSP, A Look at Authors Ascendant - Part 4

September 5, 2008 in SSPTMR2008 | by jabrieske | 1 comment

Beyond the Book’s Chris Kenneally Interviews Chuck Richard
According to the old Russian proverb, where there are crumbs, there will be mice. On the Web, content mice — that’s us, folks! — feast on information and leave trails revealing their interests.

Building on that basic observation, Outsell Inc. Vice President and Lead Analyst Chuck Richard suggested on Thursday that publishers can track these trails for important leads on how to build their online businesses. In a short chat following his talk with Beyond the Book’s Chris Kenneally, Chuck also cautions that re-thinking content leads inevitably to re-thinking staff and management assignments.

Commercializing Forms of New Media

September 5, 2008 in 1 | by jillmwo | 1 comment

Last panel of the afternoon. While the prior one was lively with plenty of questions, I’m not sure that this is engendering the same level of energy.

The initial speaker, John Lustina of Intrapromote, was actually the most informative of the three in making the key point that ideally publishers will begin to seed interest in their content by placing content assets (tables, diagrams, photos, podcasts, images, etc.) across a variety of social platforms. He was discussing the concept of the Social Media Timeline. Essentially, that plays out as follows:
Right Now - Distribution points for assets (links, Rss feeds, widgets, gadgets, applications, videos, images, etc.)
Near Future — objects in universal search (Objects as autonomous search results.) — known future; all of those things that exist outside of your blog or adjacent to your blog become searchable objects in an of themselves.
Long Term — social network as algorithm. Lustina suggests that this is the direction where Google is headed — Google may factor in how well-connected a content creator may be throughout a set of social networks and allow that to influence the ranking algorithm for pointing to information or content assets.

This is why syndication is so critical. Syndication of blog content, videos, photographic images is driving social media, according to Eric Olsen of DFJ Portage Ventures. It’s a basic building block and content providers at all levels should be leveraging it across a variety of platforms to drive traffic to your site. Olsen suggests that this promotes trust in your content and broadens awareness.

Finally, Ian Freed of Amazon Digital offers a demonstration of the Kindle device. While not necessarily saying anything new about the device, it is clear from the audience’s interest that they find the approach intriguing for electronic delivery of content. His best line was an off-the-cuff remark about what he tells his product managers “Your job is to make a great product, not necessarily add feature after feature”. Clearly they have thought through their approach. (My personal reaction to the Kindle appears here.) Others are asking if I have mine with me.
Interview with David Perlmutter

September 5, 2008 in SSPTMR2008 | Tags: daily show, new media, publishing, ssp, tmr | by Adam Weiss | 1 comment

David Perlmutter is a professor at the School of Journalism & Mass Communications, University of Kansas. He received his BA and MA from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is the author or editor of seven books on political communication and persuasion.

He has also written several dozen research articles for academic journals as well as more than 150 essays for U.S. and international newspapers and magazines. He has been interviewed by most major news networks and newspapers, from the New York Times to CNN and ABC and most recently, The Daily Show .

MP3 File
Interview with Fabien Savenay

September 4, 2008 in SSPTMR2008 | by Adam Weiss | 1 comment

Fabien Savenay is the the Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Seed Media Group. He participated in a panel called Editing, Branding, and Authority: What’s the Publisher’s Role?

As SVP, Sales & Marketing, Fabien Savenay directs company-wide sales and marketing activities since 2005.

Prior to joining Seed he was Global Head of Advertising & Sponsorship at Nature Publishing Group, as well as Publisher of Naturejobs, a classified career resource for professional scientists that won an EPpy award for Best Internet Classified Service under his leadership. Prior to that he owned the advertising agency Es Media in Paris.

Fabien was born in France and educated at the Grand Ecole de Communication et Marketing (Groupe INSEEC) in Paris and at the London Business School.

I caught up with Fabien by the fountain at the Opening Reception last night.

MP3 File

Interview with Terry Hulbert

September 4, 2008 in SSPTMR2008 | by Adam Weiss | 1 comment

Terry Hulbert is the Director of Business Development at the American Institute of Physics. We talked about how AIP is exploring social media and web technologies from two points of view: as a publisher, and as a content host.

MP3 File
From SSP, A Look at Authors Ascendant - Part 3

September 4, 2008 in SSPTMR2008 | by jabrieske | No comments

Susan Kesner Interviews Audrey Melkin
Taking the SSP TMR podcast microphone in hand next is Susan Kesner of Copyright Clearance Center and SSP’s immediate past president.

Sue speaks about the conference “takeaways so far” with Audrey Melkin, Atypon’s director of business development. Among other points, the two agree that scholarly publishing has a lot to learn from its B2B and trade publishing “cousins.”

From SSP, A Look at Authors Ascendant - Part 2

September 4, 2008 in SSPTMR2008 | by jabrieske | 4 comments

Bloggers vs. Journalists?
When blogging emerged in 2004 during the last presidential election cycle, many traditional journalists and media executives reacted skeptically – one going so far as to suggest that bloggers were to the media what fleas are to a dog.

Veteran reporter and Wall Street Journal health industry blogger Scott Hensley remembers those days, and four years later, looks ahead with enthusiasm to a world of co-dependency for bloggers and journalists.