by Shelly Brisbin

During his closing keynote speech at BlogWorld Expo, Mark Cuban told the story of how he started Blog Maverick, his personal blog. He explained that he had been interviewed by The Dallas Morning News and misled about the content of the story the paper intended to write. To set the record straight, he created a blog and published the chain of emails between himself and the News reporter. And so was born an outspoken blogger who takes on peo­ple (and media outlets) that give him a hard time, promotes his business interests, and comments on the tech industry.

For Cuban, and for the reputation of billionaire-sports-team owners in general, Blog Maverick (www.blogmaverick.com) has been a very good thing. Cuban gets to share his ideas with no filters or editors. He has a ready-made platform for promoting new ventures and fielding criticism, and more people around the world know his name. They call that personal branding. Based on the blog’s generally down-to-earth style, I would guess that Blog Maverick has also helped Cuban, who allows and receives lots of comments, staying in touch with people in walks of life from which he is far removed.

Readers benefit, too: would-be Cuban-imitators and other fans have a window into how the man thinks, what gets his goat, and how he man­ages a far-flung empire of businesses and personal interests.

Great! Awesome! Terrific! It’s cool that Mark Cuban is a prolific blogger; that he writes in an interesting style, varies his content enough to inter­est basketball fans and tech-industry followers. And it’s likely that a lot of people who don’t count billionaire sports-team-owner types among their friends are getting a vicarious window into a different world. For Cuban himself, and those who admire him, it’s great that he has created a forum where he can articulately spar with his critics. It’s also just plain entertain­ing. Finally, his example has probably influenced other “big shots” to blog, and to do so honestly.

For some in the blogosphere, though, it is the Blog Maverick cre­ation story that delights; the idea that one guy who had been wronged by a media outlet could expose a reporter’s treachery and turn that action into an important blog that survives long after the entrepreneur’s dust-up with his local paper. With no significant financial or technical barriers to publishing, bloggers can control their own messages, whether personal or business-related.

That’s great for the blogger, and for the blogging fans who harbor suspicion of the press on principle. But what does a blogging culture that prizes branding and message control over the old-fashioned values of fairness and fact-based storytelling actually provide the reader?

Now before you get riled up: I’m not accusing Mark Cuban or other opinion-based bloggers of untruthful­ness, nor am I questioning their place in the blog pantheon. These guys and gals have invented something entirely new in media, and forced those who previously had a monopoly on infor­mation dissemination to do their jobs better, and compete for attention. These are good things. I’m simply suggesting that a medium whose my­thology is so heavily dependent upon taking down the mainstream media runs the risk of becoming as myopic as it believes its predecessors to be.

Newspaper subscription rates are down because people want to con­sume information digitally and, un­fortunately, via video more than text. They aren’t suffering because people are tired of factual reporting of the news. Even bloggers quote and link to newspaper stories prodigiously, never seeming to be aware of the irony that the background information, or even the investigative sleuthing they use to bolster their arguments, have their source in the mainstream media, where reporters still have the resources (sometimes) to apply shoe leather to a story.

As social networks, online video, and other new media attractions cause bloggers to ponder where the medium is headed, I sincerely hope that the good things about old media — fact-based reporting, diversity of content, commitment to ethical standards — will take their natural place along­side the blogging virtues of interactiv­ity and transparency in the hearts and minds of new media practitioners. If they do, our readers will thank us.

by Larry Genkin

USA Today (the largest circulation newspaper in the US) is about to get behind blogging and pod­casting in a big way. In collaboration with Blogger & Podcaster magazine USA Today has just started publishing the Blogger & Podcaster Guide (think TV Guide™ for blogs and podcasts) from the front page of usatoday.com, and in print.

This will give Blogger & Podcaster access to 16.1 million readers, many of whom have heard of blogs or podcasts, but don’t really know how to find them. This is the great mass of people — very different from the early adopters — who’ve never even heard of Technorati, Podcast Pickle, Google Blog Search, et al.

This partnership came about because a good friend of mine at USA Today was looking for ways to open up new revenue streams that would replace (and hope­fully exceed) declining print advertising.

During our conversations I explained that: (1) There are over 100 million blog­gers and podcasters; (2) Serious bloggers and podcasters will be motivated to increase their audiences by tapping into USA Today’s massive readership; (3) Most couldn’t afford to pay anywhere near even the lowest rates USA Today offers to its largest customers.

The solution we came up with is a pay-to-play guide, where listings cost $49.95 a month, a fraction of the price USA Today typically charges. Normally,

a few thousand dollars is the price of entry for the smallest of promotions. At usatoday.com, the Blogger & Podcaster Guide will appear on the front page and be embedded within relevant content.

Every experienced industry exec I’ve spoken with agrees that being able to reach this audience for less than $50 per month is a substantial value, especially considering you can blow through 50 bucks in click-through advertising in a nanosecond. I had to laugh when I was speaking with Michael Geoghegan at Podcast and New Media Expo (where we offered a one-month trial for $24.95). At the Podcast Pickle party he remarked, “So let me get this straight. For under twenty-five hundred bucks a month I can promote on usatoday.com?” In all fairness, I’m not sure if the mispercep­tion came from the program value or the beer we were drinking at the time.

But there is a catch. This is a big risk for USA Today.

The newspaper risks pissing off advertisers in other segments who pay higher rates than Blogger & Podcaster Guide advertisers. It’s risking $42,700 a week to run our guide in print. It’s risk­ing a 24/7 franchise spot on the front page of usatoday.com. It’s risking con­textual ad inventory adjacent to many online stories, where relevant links into our guide will be promoted.

USA Today is hoping that bloggers and podcasters will get behind this effort and that volume will make this a viable venture for the newspaper. USA Today is giving us some rope, but we’ve got to take it, or collectively we’re going to lose out on the best opportunities to date to expose and involve a mainstream audience with blogs and podcasts.

How It Works

Creating a successful Blogger & Podcaster Guide requires four elements:

1. Readers can easily find content they’re interested In: The reason a guide like this is even necessary is that the average person trying to find a blog or podcast would cur­rently approach this task by going to Google, typing in a topic, and getting 237,873,011 results they’d need to sort through. The Blogger & Podcaster Guide is designed to be simple, clean, and nonintimidat­ing to a mainstream reader.

2. Quality content must bubble to the top. If readers can find the blogs and podcasts on the topics they’re interested in, but they don’t find the content useful, they probably will not return to the Blogger & Podcaster Guide over and over again. To make quality content more transparent, we’ve added features like ratings (thanks Netflix!) and comments. Readers will be able to help their peers find the content that has been valuable to them. There are also direct links to your Web sites, and for podcasts, users will be able to listen and watch the latest episode so they can judge for themselves.

3. Quantifiable results for bloggers and podcasters. To justify spending even $49.95 per month, it’s critical for you to be able to see and test how well your listings are working. To start, since we offer easy RSS subscription options (including iTunes) from your listing, you’ll know how many new subscribers you’ve added. We’re also working on a comprehensive stats package that will provide you with in­formation including podcast listens, page views, subscriptions, ratings, and click-throughs. You’ll have the ability to change every aspect of your listing so you can test which key­words and copy perform best. Finally, we believe you can count on substan­tial Google “juice.” This site should score high with search engines, making your link from the Blogger & Podcaster Guide helpful in boosting your organic search results.

4. Critical Mass. We’re off to a good start (350 listings in the first 72 hours, with promotion coming only from blog posts), but for the guide to have lasting utility for the end-user, we need critical mass. (I’d like to offer personal thanks to Wizzard Media for supporting this effort at launch by purchasing listings for many of its shows.) Our category hierarchy is designed to scale by splitting into subcategories as the volume of list­ings increases. This will make it even easier for readers to find content that is directly relevant to them. By coming into the guide you’re not only helping market your blog or show, you’re helping your peers as well. This is not a zero sum game. What’s good for us individually is even better for us collectively.

The First Month Is on Me

To help reach critical mass and to give you a chance to tap into USA Today’s massive audience, I want to offer you a free month in the Blogger & Podcaster Guide’s online edition.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/usatoday.

2. Select “New User” and go through the six-step registration process.

3. In Step 2, be sure to enter “BP” in the Coupon Code box under Option.

4. Then click Option 4. If you don’t enter this code, you’ll be charged the regu­lar price.

It takes only five minutes to sign up, if you have a 400-character description, logo/album art, RSS feed address, and up to 10 keywords ready in advance.

While we hope to make a few dollars from this venture (which will certainly help offset our startup costs) making USA Today happy is the key. If we can make Blogger & Podcaster Guide worth its while, USA Today (and probably its laggard MSM brethren) will get behind our industry. This will be a beautiful thing for us all. So take advantage of the free month, and if it works for you, know that your contin­ued support will be doing more than just helping your blog or podcast.

LARRY GENKIN is the founder and publisher of Blogger & Podcaster Magazine.

First BlogWorld Conference a Mixed Bag

Monetizers, famous people, and a pair of comfy PJs

By Shelly Brisbin

Las Vegas played host to the first full-on trade show/conference for bloggers of all genres. BlogWorld Expo brought an estimated 1,600 attendees and some 100 vendors together to discuss hot blogging genres like politics and milblogging, and hosted a handful of keynote speakers who blog famously, and others who were famous before their blogs.

In one of those “he said/she said” arguments that was not made more transparent because blogs were involved, advertised panelist Michael Arrington did not speak at BlogWorld, saying his participation had not been confirmed. His appearance had been heavily promoted. BlogWorld organizer Rick Calvert ultimately took the blame for miscommunication with Arrington. Meanwhile, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington was another last-minute no-show, citing scheduling conflicts, while Om Malik, who had been scheduled to be on the panel with Arrington, stayed home with a bad back.

Attendees did get to hear from Mark Cuban, Leo Laporte, Matt Mullenweg, and Michael Medved, among others, as well as a heavy-hitting roster of cor­porate bloggers, political pundits, and marketing gurus.

On the show floor, traffic seemed sparse at times, often coinciding with popular sessions. And some vendors complained of slow or expensive Inter­net access in the convention center. Many of the vendors hawked blog adver­tising networks and monetization tools, while others sought to recruit new blog­gers, or to promote services like GimpTV, Utterz, and Yahoo.

Perhaps because this was the first incarnation of BlogWorld, it was a bit difficult to identify a zeitgeist for the show. Organized social gatherings were less prevalent than is typically the case at similar events, and it’s safe to say that while bloggers who knew others working in the same genre tended to congregate, the community aspect of BlogWorld still has a way to go. There did seem to be a large number of people and companies intent on monetizing blogs, or telling others how to do it. Some of the salespeople and authors had blog-specific marketing advice on offer, while some were attempting to convert general-purpose marketing theories into offerings that addressed bloggers.

At the annual Weblog Awards, presented during a pajama patty at the Hard Rock Hotel (cosponsored by BlogWorld and Pajamas Media), top vote getters in categories ranging from Best Individual Blogger (InstaPundit’s Glenn Reynolds won) to Best Music Blog (Stereogum.com) were honored. Other winners included RealClearPolitics for Best Political Coverage; Jammie Wearing Fool, Best New Blog; Above the Law, Best Law Blog; Joe My God, Best GLBT Blog; and This Week in Tech, for Best Podcast. Announcement of the winning blog in the Gadget Blog category was delayed for a time because Weblog Awards orga­nizers were looking into alleged voting irregularities. Engadget was declared the winter. For a full list of award winners, go to 2007.weblogawards.org.

PodCamp Marks One Year of Unconferencing with Changes in Course

By Shelly Brisbin

The actual one-year anniversary of the PodCamp unconference occurred in late September, but PodCamp Boston 2, held October 27 and 28, marked the movement’s “spiritual” anniversary, and seems to have signaled a time of reassessment by its leaders.

Last year’s Boston PodCamp, the first of nearly 25 that have been held around the US, and in several other countries in the year since, was a rootsy, DIY affair, held in a community college building. PodCamp Boston 2, on the other hand, took up residence in the sprawling Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, wel­coming double the number at the first event (but half the expected 1,400 attendees) to the cavernous space. Sessions were planned in advance, and sponsors gave demos in the hallways outside the session rooms.

The changing size and shape of PodCamp brought about the weekend’s most sur­prising happening, the repeal by founders Chris Penn and Chris Brogan of one of the seven rules the two wrote before the first PodCamp, to define what an event must be in order to call itself a PodCamp. The former Rule 4 stated that all events must be free to attend.

Brogan and Penn point out that organizers of future PodCamps do not have to charge admission or other fees, but say that dropping the rule gives flexibility for those who don’t want to be beholden to sponsors, or who want to insulate their events against the high no-show rates experienced in Boston.

While Boston PodCampers were listening to presentations by Julien Smith, Mark Blevis, Whitney Hoffman, and C.C. Chapman, Australian campers were descending on Perth, for that country’s first PodCamp. The following week, PodCampAZ attracted an enthusiastic crowd, and speakers including Justine Ezarik of iJustine.tv, and Ask a Ninja’s Kent Nichols. Podtrepeneur Evo Terra talked about podiobook publishing, and Clintus McGintus held forth on video blogging.

FeedBurner Integrates AdSense with Feeds

By Shelly Brisbin

The first fruits of the Google acquisition of FeedBurner are available to bloggers and podcasters who use the service. With a quick click, you can integrate AdSense into your feed. When you activate AdSense within your FeedBurner account, you have the option to choose a 300×250 or 468×60 text or image ad block.

The FeedBurner blog offered details: “The ad will appear below the first item on your site and archive pages once you have installed the necessary code.”

Current FeedBurner Ad Network users can add AdSense, in which case AdSense items will appear only when no FeedBurner ads are available. Non-ad-network mem­bers who use FeedBurner can also integrate AdSense into their feeds.

Splashpress Media Acquires Bloggy Network Blogs

By Shelly Brisbin

Adding to its 100 existing offerings, Splashpress Media (www.splashpress.com) has acquired five well-known blogs from Bloggy Network. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The new Splashpress blogs are:

» Blogging Pro (www.bloggingpro.com) is a blog for serious bloggers, which covers both news and technical aspects of blogging.

» Forever Geek (www.forevergeek.com) is a collaborative geek blog whose tagline is: “nerds are for dorks.”

» Celebrific (www.celebrific.com) is pretty much what it sounds like: a blog cover­ing celebrity gossip and events, and featuring star photos.

» Filmsy (www.filmsy.com) is a wide-ranging film commentary and review site, featuring both current and classic movies.

» bFeedMe (www.bfeedme.com) is a food blog with recipes, reviews of restaurants, and general food information.

As part of the deal, Bloggy Network’s director of communications, David Peralty, has joined Splashpress Media.

Utterz Simplifies Audio

Microblogging

Utterz didn’t launch its audio microb­logging platform at BlogWorld Expo, but the show provided a perfect showcase for the new tool, which debuted in Sep­tember with some well-known bloggers seeding the site with posts. The company, whose cow-themed branding makes some (like us) laugh, and some cringe, also showed off enhancements to the two-month old service at BlogWorld.

Using a cell phone, you can post audio messages (Utterz) to the service’s site, and/or to a Twitter account or blog. You can also follow other Utterz users’ posts: Utterz users can listen to their contacts’ Utterz, or all submissions via their phones, and even reply with text or audio.

Using Utterz Connections, you can tell Utterz to post your messages to blogs using WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal TypePad, and Tumblr. Uttered blog posts feature a flash player, and allow viewers to play an Utter in their browsers, or even download an MP3. Subscribers to your Utterz-enabled blog can receive Utterz as audio enclo­sures when you add Utterz as a widget.

The company was in fast-update mode in early November. The Utterz blog showed an almost daily string of updates, including support for tagging of Utterz posts, and plans to allow selective posting to multiple blogs on the same platform. For example you could send an Utter to your personal blog and another to your business blog, while a third could be delivered to both.

Utterz is free, and the company says it eventually hopes to pay the bills by offering premium services. You can get an Utterz account at www.utterz.com.

Free Speech and Facebook

By Elisa M Welch

Political blogger and self-described “reasonable conservative” Jon Swift (not his real name) attempted to log in to his Facebook account recent­ly only to find himself on the outs. The reason: his use of a pseudonym. “Fake accounts are a violation of our Terms of Use,” read Facebook’s email to Swift. “Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.”

To be fair, Facebook has established a reputation for the authenticity of its users’ identities. However, Swift was, to employ a bit of understatement, perturbed. He wrote in his personal blog jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/11/facebook-declares-war-on-blogosphere.html “Would Bob Dylan be banned if he didn’t sign up as Robert Zimmerman? Would someone searching for their friend Carlos the Jackal have to know that his ‘real name’ is Ilich Ramírez Sánchez? Would Malcolm X have had to sign up under his slave name if he were still alive? Would Eric Arthur Blair have been banned from joining Facebook under the name George Orwell if he weren’t dead, too? Or is Orwell actually alive and well and running Facebook?”

Fierce debate ensued, including support from A-list bloggers such as Robert Scoble, Dennis Howlett, and Stan Shroeder. Users created a group named “Let Jon Swift Back into Facebook.”

The result? Facebook relented: “Since others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don’t appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these Terms. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Score one for free speech, at least in the form of satirical pseudonymic writing.

CLIQ for Bloggers

Hanging out with the cool kids, and maybe making some money too, is as sim­ple as adding CLIQ to your blog. At lease that’s how StepChange, the company that built the new blog monetization system, hopes it will work.

Bloggers using the CLIQ widget promoter other bloggers in their clique, and receive promotion in return from bloggers posting on similar topics. CLIQ users control which posts are featured, and can track which posts within their group are achieving the best results. Clique members share revenue generated by the widget’s recommendations. Find more information at www.cliqin.com.

Automatic Plans WordPress Theme Marketplace

Automatic Media, developer of WordPress, announced WordPress Theme Market­place in November. The store, hosted by Automatic, and available to bloggers with wordpress.com blogs, will allow developers to upload original, link-free, GPL-compli­ant themes for sale. Automatic will take a reported 50 percent of the proceeds from each sale.

Automatic founder Matt Mullenweg wrote on his blog that the themes would have to meet quality standards, as well as the basic technical ones. Because of the GPL requirement, marketplace themes will be available free to wordpress.org users.

In another example of blog-based cross-pollination, it’s worth noting that we first heard about the Theme Marketplace on Read/Write Web (www.readwriteweb.com), which got the news from a Twitter post, and a Spanish-to-English translation of a report about Mullenweg’s WordCamp Argentina presentation, where the mar­ketplace plan was unveiled.

Zune Directory Opens

Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace podcasting directory began accepting submissions in November, in order to seed the directory for the Zune 2 launch on November 13.

To submit a podcast, producers must download Zune Marketplace software for Windows. Microsoft says a Mac option will be available, but no timeframe has been set for that option, which would likely be accessible via the Web.

Zune users can browse or search the Marketplace directory to find podcasts, or they can use a personal podcast feed to add shows of their choosing.

Learn more at www.zune.net.

New Blog System for Neighbors 2

WebCrossing offers a new blog system within its private-label social network system, Neighbors 2. The new system provides group blogs, and sports com­pletely redesigned personal blogs with a new WYSIWYG editor. The new system was made automatically available in mid October, with no installation required, on all WebCrossing Neighbors networks.

Group administrators can activate blogs for their group members with one click in the Group Settings panel. The Group Blog feature lets private groups use blogs for group news and updates. Public groups can allow entry posting by group administrators only, by qualifying group members only, or by any system member. Group administrators can also designate who can add comments to blog entries.

The new system archives entries auto­matically by month and by year. Complete tagging capabilities let members categorize their posts for easy retrieval. RSS support is available for blogs in publicly available spaces. A new Related Links feature allows authors to add supplemental URLs for information associated with the blog entry. The new Blog system supplants the simpler Journal system, and automatically retains the Journal archive.

WebCrossing Neighbors is available immediately as a server hosted package for maximum uptime, priced based on traffic and member storage capacity, starting at $195/month. For more information visit webcrossing.com/Home/webcrossing_neighbors.htm.

Bloggers Unite to Do Good

Social network BlogCatalog (BlogCatalog.com) will launch its fourth social awareness campaign on December 17. This Bloggers Unite campaign challenges its more than 80,000 members and other bloggers to do something good offline — an act of kindness — and then post about it, using words, pic­tures, and/or videos to tell the story.

In previous campaigns, Bloggers Unite raised money for students across the US via the Omidyar-supported DonorsChoose.org; significantly increased organ-donation awareness; and prompted more than 10,000 bloggers to call for an end to abuse.

Bloggers Unite does not specify which nonprofit organizations will benefit. Instead, the organization will solicit and coordinate companies that will pledge a donation to the blogger and/or to the charity of the blogger’s choice. Prizes will be awarded to bloggers based on their posts, pictures, or videos.

Preeso Premium Podcasting

SubscribeCast Technologies announces the release of a Web-based premium podcast­ing application: Preeso is a redesign of SubscribeCast’s first premium podcasting application, which currently is the backbone for paid podcasts including Mysterious Uni­verse (mysteriousuniverse.org) and the Ed Schultz Radio Show (bigeddieradio.com).

Podcasters who sign up for Preeso can host their media on any server they choose: Yahoo, Libsyn, AOL, and so on. Preeso is also server-OS independent. Once Preeso knows where your media is located, it creates and manages RSS feeds for subscribers. When the application senses abuse, such as a sub­scriber attempting to share his or her feed, it responds automatically in a variety of customizable ways, including sending email to the abuser, or shutting off the RSS feed.

The application hides the original Web location of the delivered media, so sub­scribers cannot use their old RSS feeds to mine the URL and access media after their subscriptions have ended. For pricing and further details, visit www.preeso.com.

A New Way to Comment

The intriguingly named Intense Debate (intensedebate.com) has launched a public beta release of its blog-comment­ing plug-in.

Intense Debate Comments are embed­ded into a user’s blog like widgets. Users can set up profiles to include easy access to their social networking pages. They can also follow comments across other blogs from specific users, through RSS feeds. Basic stats, on both commenters and publishers, are available, and users can arrange for threaded comments to keep track of the conversation.

Bloglines Rankings

Bloglines is the latest site to offer blog rankings to its readers. The Bloglines Top 1000 is still a beta feature. The listings include the most popular sites among users who subscribe to RSS feeds via Bloglines. The list is updated each Monday evening, and includes current position, +/- positions, and a graph showing rankings over time for each entry.

Bloglines says ranking blogs by the number of users who subscribe with Bloglines has created a list that includes more than the “usual suspect” tech and mainstream news sites. The most surpris­ing top ten blog in mid-November was The Shifted Librarian, a blog for librarians transitioning to the digital age. Tech blogs including Slashdot and Wire Top Stories also appear in the top ten, along with mainstream news sites from the BBC and CNN. The Bloglines Top 1000 is at beta.bloglines.com/topfeeds.

SharedBook Updates Blog Printing Tools

SharedBook released the latest version of its Blog2Print widget. Blog2Print, which allows Blogger users to turn blog posts into printed hardback or paperback books, offers enhanced photo and text-wrapping capabilities. SharedBook also provides com­merce tools to let bloggers share in revenue from the sale of their books. The bloggers’ share is 20 percent of the sale price.

SharedBook provides an open API for Blog2Print, and recently demonstrated its use with AllRecipes.com. Members of the recipe site can publish cookbooks for sale, using the customized version of Blog2Print called Create-A-Cookbook. Details at blog.sharedbook.com.

by Paul Colligan

Most people take their podcast content, attach it to a single RSS feed, and hope for profits from ad insertion or lead generation. It’s the model that 99 percent of podcast­ers follow. While some will do well by it, they’re all leaving serious money on the table. I mentioned “expansion” in this column in the last issue, and I’ll provide some concrete options here.

Watch a movie on PBS and you’ll notice something funny at the end of the program: They’ll offer the option to pur­chase the show that people just watched for free. Yes, friends, some people will pay for what they could get for free.

Take a look at www.Kunaki.com. This great company will produce CDs and DVDs in full four-color glory for just $1.60 per unit (and with no minimum order). Go ahead and make CDs or DVDs of your podcast content and sell them to your audience. You’ll be surprised how many will buy. Consider options like “extended editions” or “director’s com­mentaries.” You’ll be amazed at the op­tions you might come up with. Does this work? Go ahead: look up “Ask A Ninja” at Netflix or Google and see how many people are paying $1.99 for episodes they can get for free.

Want to get out of the business of filling landfills with plastic? Why not just charge for your content directly and pocket the money you would have put into the pressings? At the Podcast Part­nership, we built PremiumCast.com to let podcasters sell their content directly to their consumers. And we aren’t the only ones out there. Products like Show Taxi (www.showtaxi.com) and Subscribe Cast (www.subscribecast.com) do the same thing. Does this model work? Ask Cornelius Fitcher of the Project Manage­ment Prepcast: he sells access to his podcast at $40 per person (many times – each and every day of the week).

How about taking your content and getting it transcribed and placed into book form? With print-on-demand services like www.LuLu.com (or, heck, the local Kinkos), there’s no reason why a year of episodes couldn’t be the content for a top-selling book.

Did I mention that my book The Busi­ness Podcasting Bible came from tran­scripts of a series of teleseminars I did with my coauthor, Alex Mandossian? Why not think about content expansion with the very act of content creation? With services like www.PhoneAndWebcast.com you can stream a telephone call to 2,000 users at the same time (while keeping them all at your site). If you don’t need to own the entire branding process, services like www.Talkshoe.com and www.NowLive.com will let you host a show with nothing more than a telephone.

Some people like the idea of being there “live.” You gotta record your content at some point; why not invite others to attend?

So now you can perform an event for a live audience, let people participate at the time and place of their choosing via pod­cast, charge for the content via a CD or premium content delivery, and sell a book or manual made from the transcripts.

See where I’m going here? See how you’ve just expanded one media option into multiple choices? Can you see the options for profit here? Now that you have a teleseminar, podcast, physical and premium content, and printed-word media empire, consider expansion again.

Maybe you can charge a fee for access to the live recording. Some people want to be there when the “magic” happens, and at the very least, participate in the product creation process. PhoneAndWebcast.com not only lets you stream to 2,000 people at once – you also have 200 phone lines that you can use. Consider the options.

A few issues back I talked about Ad­Sense and blogs (see Blogger & Podcaster, June 2007, page 13). Do that right and the checks from the San Francisco Bay Area can be more significant than any­thing you’d get from an ad insertion order that others work so hard for. Where can you get great content to put around Ad­Sense ads? Consider getting transcripts of the same podcast content you already got people to pay for. Heck, pay for the transcripts with the money earned from selling the content on CD. Finance one profitable channel with another.

People consume content in many different ways – a live teleseminar, a streaming webcast, a time-shifted podcast, a physical CD or DVD, a book or magazine, or a Web site with ads.

With an audience as diverse at that, you might consider live events or high-level training. I’m talking about big-ticket items here.

Next year my Podcast Secrets class (www.Podcast-Secrets.com) will see hun­dreds of people paying very, very good money to learn how to use their pod­casts to reach the very audiences (and profits) they’ve dreamed of. They’ll sign up because my content has expanded to all of these different media formats.

And it’s all done on purpose.

And that is what media consumption expansion is all about.

Paul Colligan (www.PaulColligan.com) can be reached at paul@blog­gerandpodcaster.com.

by Shel Israel

There are an estimated 1.3 billion people in China. I got to speak to only one of them when I was con­ducting my SAP Global Survey. As I wrote last month, I have interviewed 45 people in 24 countries about social media in their cultures. But I found Isaac Mao — a serial entrepreneur, software architect, researcher, social media pioneer, venture capitalist, and free-speech advocate — to be both the most enlightening and most inspiring of all the interviews I conducted.

I interviewed Isaac the first time back in 2005 in research for Naked Conversa­tions. Government was already nervous about bloggers back then. In fact, at about that time, he realized they were monitoring his calls. He could hear them breathing when he talked on the phone.

A short while later, a car started fol­lowing him around Shanghai. He knew it was a government car. Government cars over there, like here, pretty much look alike. This irked Isaac. One day, he made an abrupt U-turn. He bee-lined toward the car and rapped on its window. The window rolled down and he demanded to know why he was being followed. The window rolled up and the car sped off.

Next came the two government men knocking on his door asking to come in for a chat. They told Isaac that while they had no evidence he was doing anything illegal, they did want more information on anyone Isaac knew, who were conducting activities “risky to our government.”

Isaac stood his ground. “I don’t know anyone like that. That is not my inter­est. I don’t want to improve our govern­ment. I just don’t want you to harass me,” he told them. They said they would back off, but politely suggested he not leave the country. He had been sched­uled to speak at Les Blogs 2 in Paris in December 2005, but decided that it would be prudent to comply.

That was then. The story was far dif­ferent when I met Isaac in a San Francisco café in September 2007. The Isaac Mao I met was confident that he need not fear his government. Not that his government wasn’t still capable of doing fearsome things, but because the numbers were on his side and because Chinese bloggers have consistently demonstrated they are faster and smarter than the government enforcement bureaucrats.

Besides, Isaac is good for busi­ness, and China, according to Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat, needs to create 17 million jobs a year to stay even. Isaac is a spearhead in China’s ef­fort to join the global tech community, something China wants desperately. Also, his VC activity brings foreign dol­lars into China, creating jobs for young, bright Chinese. He may cause officials some discomfort, but one would think China wants Isaac to keep on doing what he is doing.

The numbers are with Isaac and the bloggers: back in 2005, there were 1.2 million bloggers; two years later there are at least 20 million, Isaac told me. They are diverse in age, economics, and business, although there remains a pau­city of middle-age business bloggers.

Twitter is the rage and it makes government nervous, but because of the way it works, government simply can’t monitor it. The government keeps trying to curtail the free speech and mount­ing government criticism on blogs and in social media. You can go to Flickr in China, but instead of pictures, you’ll see only black squares. That’s because a while back a Chinese blogger posted something about Tiananmen Square and it embarrassed the government.

The government wants all bloggers to register their IP addresses and to publish with their full names, so they can be tracked. But nearly no blogger complies. The government sees all the content posted on Chinese servers.

But most Chinese bloggers now un­derstand how to simply post from MIME servers located elsewhere in the world. It is legal to do this and government can­not stop or censor it. Chinese people also know how to access Six Apart or CNN or Google from remote servers.

In China, Google voluntarily censors content, and Isaac thinks less of them for it. But it doesn’t matter. He gets to Google via a server based in Seattle, or Berlin, or wherever.

Back in 2005, Isaac was one of a very small handful of Chinese bloggers and therefore the government could watch him closely — or delude themselves into thinking that was the case. Now there are thousands of popular Chinese bloggers, producing tons of content on blogs and in IM and on Twitter and even Facebook.

Government efforts to command and control it are about as effective as trying to bail out a sinking boat with a lawn rake.

Shel Israel writes and consults on so­cial media issues for business audiences. He is coauthor with Robert Scoble of Naked Conversa­tions: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers (Wiley, 2006). Send email to shel@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

by Tee Morris

While I was in Ontario, Califor­nia for the 2007 Podcast and New Media Expo, a fellow podcaster (code name: Peacekeeper) got wind of my disdain for another podo­sphere personality (code name: Dink). Dink had pulled a stunt at Dragon*Con 2007 that can only be described as self-serving and unprofessional, and he pulled this stunt at the expense of a good friend of mine. Peacekeeper was shocked. “Dink is a great guy,” she insist­ed; and later that evening, Peacekeeper took the initiative and brought me and Dink together to make “nice-nice” with each other. Words were exchanged, and these were words I don’t regret. They were honest, sincere, and said with conviction.

They were also being recorded. With­out my knowledge or consent.

Dink proceeded to take this private conversation to a podcast (code name: Amateur Hour) where they proceeded to give a snarky play-by-play commentary, both Dink and Amateur Hour enjoying a good time at my expense with their one-sided spin on this unexpected (and did I mention private?) chit-chat with me.

There are some things you just don’t do in podcasting, and recording another person without consent is definitely in the Top Two. We cannot ignore stan­dards that are currently in practice on the professional broadcasting level. Oth­erwise, we are no better than Dink and Amateur Hour, a group of geeks in the basement of the science building armed with recording equipment.

An argument of “But Tee, it’s a pod­casting expo. You should have expected to be recorded…” holds no ground here. Here’s why.

Recording without consent is un­ethical. For some, “true” podcasting is slice-of-life audio, completely raw and candid. It can be, but there are times when people want to talk off-the-record. If a friend confides his or her deepest, darkest secrets and you podcast them, it is a betrayal of trust. Show hosts who regard all dialog as potential show con­tent — even content recorded without consent — can make it harder for others to conduct interviews both inside (and outside) the podosphere.

Recording without consent carries consequences. No matter how juicy the audio, some things are better left unsaid. If you’re recording conversations without the other party’s consent, you open the door for damages against the people you are covertly recording. End results could be anything from profes­sional reputations tainted to personal relationships ruined. Words, particularly in audio, carry weight and repercussions in people’s lives. Open honesty is not always the best policy, especially if the honesty is intended for your ears only.

And I’ve saved the best for last…

Recording without consent is a crimi­nal offense. Dink and Amateur Hour were probably unaware that each state has its own law that prohibits recorded conversations without consent. Califor­nia law makes it clear: all parties record­ed must have prior knowledge and give permission. If the matter does make it to court, fines can be as low at $750 (eh, not so bad), to as high as $10,000 along with jail time up to five years (yeeikes!). Hire a lawyer clever enough to make this a slander case in which you sue based on an episode’s downloads, and you can start shopping for some serious studio upgrades.

So, let’s say you have an H2 within reach and (oops!) the record button is “accidentally” pressed. And let’s say you have captured some gripping audio, ready for a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 treatment. Ask yourself if this kind of content is worth the risk, not just to your own podcast, but to the commu­nity on the whole? While the FCC does not govern podcasting in any way, state and federal laws still apply. If enough podcasters believe that what they do is above the law, this will catch the FCC’s attention and usher in an influence none of us wants.

And from the one “punk’d by pod­casters,” you should also ask yourself if the offenders are worth going after. I have legal options. Is the time and trou­ble to file litigation worth it? Chances are pretty high I’ll be vilified on their podcast and they’ll make themselves martyrs. Even if I deem the potential fall­out an acceptable risk, such legal battles are difficult to win in a court of law. And if I win, will the payoff really happen? This matter would be tried in civil court, and victory there is no guarantee of a payoff. (Just ask OJ.) Is the trouble, time, and stress of pressing charges really worth it?

I’ve heard Dink’s music and Amateur Hour’s podcast. No, they are definitely not worth it.

Tee Morris is the creator of the Bil­libub Baddings and MOREVI podcasts and is the coauthor of Podcasting for Dummies. Find out more at www.teemorris.com. Send email to tee@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

by Rob Walch

Back in my 20s I used to date this girl — let’s call her Heather. I was living in Kansas and my family was all back on Long Island so thankfully my mom never got to meet the girls I dated. Heather and I were together long enough for me slip up and mention her to my mom, and like all nosy Italian mothers she asked lots of questions including what Heather did for a living. I said she was a dancer. My mom was excited because she used to be a dancer, and my sister was also at the time a dancer. Heck, my grandmother was a dancer when my grandfather met her. See my mother, my grandmother, and my sister had all been ballet dancers. But let’s just say that Heather was a slightly different type of dancer. So what does this have to do with podcasting? Well, I’m now starting to think the term “new media” has the same breadth of meaning that the term “dancer” has.

Today I see a vocal minority in the podcasting space trying very, very hard to generalize themselves as “new media” and shed the term podcast. I’m not saying podcasting is not part of new media — it clearly is — but then, so too is YouTube with the dramatic prairie dog and the leave Britney alone “guy”. It seems to me that podcasting is a niche in the new media space — but one that holds much greater value than most others. If you were an advertiser, who would you want to use to get your mes­sage out or do a call to action: the prai­rie dog or the host of a show that is pro­duced on a regular basis and has a very loyal audience? For some reason many of these people fighting for the new media moniker seem to think it is best for us to be generalized down and as­sociated with the YouTube and myspace crowd and other fringes of new media. Have you ever really looked at what is on YouTube? I mean really looked. Most of it is either stolen content, one-hit wonders, or videos with deceptive tags and thumbnails. There are only a very, very small number or real good repeat­able content (Hot for Words, Chad Vader, LisaNova, Will It Blend) — the type of repeatable content that flourishes over in podcast land — you know, the type that builds up a loyal audience, the type advertisers covet.

I recently exchanged some emails with Leesa Barnes, author of Podcasting for Profit. [Ed. Note: See our third excerpt from this book, “Joining Forces,” on page 32.] And for the life of us we could not figure out why so many people were working so hard to generalize what they do and try and get themselves thrown in with the laughing baby and the history of dance. Leesa made a great point: She said you don’t see bloggers running away from the name blog. I know some people have proclaimed that podcast­ing, or at least the name, is dead. Really? Based on what? In November Microsoft launched the revamped Zune Market Place with “podcast” support. Seems to me the two biggest companies in the computer OS world have both planted a stake in the ground and accepted the name podcast. If it was dead, then the phoenix has risen from its ashes. But I digress. For more on the name issue of podcasting, please read my August 2007 article in Blogger & Podcaster magazine.

Here’s what I think is happening — some people are upset, worried, jealous of the “success” of YouTube and other video-sharing sites and they need someone or something to blame for video streaming taking off faster than podcasting. So they jump on the band­wagon of the next big thing, and seem to think calling ourselves podcasters is somehow holding us back. But how many YouTubecons, Expos, or camps have you heard of or been to? There is a community here in podcasting (be it audio, video, or both). And you see that at events like the Podcast Expo (sorry, that’s the name to me), the original PodcasterCon in North Carolina, and the PodCamps everywhere. The people put­ting up their videos of getting smacked in the crotch by a rogue skateboard just don’t have a connection to other producers or their audiences like we do in the podcasting community.

If you performed for the NY Ballet, would you call yourself a dancer, or would you say you were a ballerina? If you produce repeatable content people can subscribe to and/or have download­ed automatically to their computers, would you say you were a new-media producer or a podcaster?

I know what I am: I am a podcaster and I am damned proud of it.

Rob Walch is VP of Podcaster Relations for Wizzard Media, host of podCast411, and coauthor (with Mur Lafferty) of Tricks of the Podcast­ing Masters (Que, 2006). Contact him at rob@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

by Lorelle VanFossen

Bloggers and would-be bloggers, allow me to cut to the chase and begin this article with two important questions:

1. Are you really a good writer? If you know you’re weak in this area then you need to get some help. Take a writing course at a community college, or at the very least have someone proofread your work before posting it. A poor writer can make the most interesting topic boring, while a great writer can turn the most mundane task into a true joy to read. (Example: Dr. Seuss on morning breakfast.)

2. Do you enjoy writing? Trying to be a blogger without a fundamental love of writing would be like trying to be a dentist who finds halitosis repugnant. These things just don’t go together, and eventually you are going to quit.

So says John Pozadzides in 16 Tips for Blog Idea Brainstorming, on the two most important tips to consider for successful blogging. Iagree. In order to blog well, you must know how to write well. In order to blog better, you must enjoy the process of writing, thus the blogging experience. (By the way, you’ll find links to all the sources quoted here in “Blogging Links and Leads.”)

While blogs are many things, includ­ing podcasts, videos, and galleries, a blog is about writing. Search engines collect words into their indexes. People search using words, even when searching for images, podcasts, and video. It’s all about the words. If you lack good writing skills, or if writing is a pain and a bore, then blogging is going to be painful.

As you consider your career or hobby in blogging, whatever the format, ask yourself if you are a really good writer and if you enjoy the writing process. If the answer to both questions is yes, then you’re on the right track.

The Art of the Written Word

Ask a published writer what it takes to be a successful writer and he or she will likely respond with the Carnegie Hall cliche: practice. Writing is a skill. It’s also an evolving and ever-changing art form.

In “The right word without pause,” Jaded Listener explains:

Each time Iread a British politi­cal biography Iam struck, as Iwas recently by William Hague’s life of William Pitt the Younger, by the importance of oratory in British politics. The ability to speak well on one’s feet is the most important prerequisite to exercising power in that country. In the House of Commons, where the only real power exists outside the judiciary, nobody achieves prominence who has no capacity to express himself — or herself — lucidly and extemporaneously.

Without the skill to express yourself well and lucidly, your blog may lack the energy and clarity needed to convey your message, as well as attract and keep readers. You must hone your blog writing skill to talk with, not just to, your readers.

When it comes to developing story ideas into published blog posts, it’s constantly a question of whether or not you write well and if you enjoy the writing process. The two questions at the beginning of this article are critical to the success of your blog. Let’s look at the second question first.

Do You Enjoy Writing?

Once you’ve gotten past the stumbling blocks, you will start to enjoy writing. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it will come with practice and determination. In Pozadzides’ article, he makes another important point:

I’m always blogging — even when I’m not at my computer. When I’m not connected, Imake notes. Lots of them. Reminders of URLs Iheard mentioned on TV or by someone in passing. News that Iheard on the radio while driving. Topics of interesting discussions Ihave with people which are intellectu­ally stimulating. There are note pads and pens in the arm rests of my cars, and Itry to keep a little pad of paper in my back pocket at all times. Iguess I’m just like a reporter in this sense.

If you enjoy writing, then story ideas come calling at your door. Anything is a potential blog post.

Or should Isay “everything” is a potential blog post.

No matter what you blog about, any­thing and everything can be turned into a blog post. You start with a concept, which turns into an idea that you can then turn to match your blog’s content.

Ideas for blog posts can come from reading your feeds, the news, comments on your blog, searching the Web, reading books and magazines, or even walk­ing down the street. Ideas can just pop into your head or be triggered by some incident or overheard conversation.

When your mind is open to the thought that anything and everything can be a potential blog post, writing becomes exciting.

I’ve read powerful posts written in response to a conversation heard during lunch at a nearby table. Or stories that had me laughing in tears over the act of bending over to pick up a penny, which was easier when you were 10 than it is now that you are 60. Or had me crying as the blogger shared feelings over the loss of a pet, something that all of us go through, but this story gave it new meaning — just in the telling.

I’m often asked how Ican write so much about blogging. Once you’ve covered the basics, what’s left? Because Ilove the concept and ability blogging offers any human being in the world to share thoughts and ideas, Inever run out of story ideas. There is so much to write about blogging — from every angle and perspective, some of them my own, and some of them found through the eyes of other bloggers — that Iwant to share with my readers.

When you’re passionate about your blogging topic, you’ll find that everything is a blog post, and there are stories everywhere you look and listen.

Engtech of Internet Duct Tape shares an important point for writing blog posts in 7 Ways to Find Your Muse:

You have a hidden weapon of mass communication in your blogging arsenal: no one else is living your life and the unique point of view that it gives you. Having multiple interests lets you see something common in an entirely different light.

If you enjoy what you write, then use your weapon well and share your unique perspective on the subject.

Each of us comes to a subject from our own point of view, with all of our experiences, life lessons, and knowledge that brought us here to the “now” in which we blog. We must honor those experiences as we write, sharing what we’ve learned as we develop our blog posts.

For those who really enjoy writ­ing, their passion for the written word inspires learning more about how the language works. About how to turn a phrase to make your point stronger. About choosing the “right word” in the right way, even pulling from foreign languages and current language fads to stay au courant. To paraphrase a famous quote by James D. Nicoll, “English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other lan­guages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.”

To write better, you have to dig through those pockets of learning to improve your blog writing skills.

Are You Really a Good Writer?

Anything that gets between you and your blog’s publish button can halt the idea on its way to being a published post. If you’re not a good writer, the process of writing the story can slow you down, and even stop you.

If you don’t have the writing skills to publish your thoughts, ideas, and knowledge, then the process of blog­ging isn’t fun as you struggle over words, spelling, sentence structure, and how to get your idea across. The more frustrated you get, the less enthusiasm you have for writing, thus, the faster you lose interest in blogging.

Good writing skills come with prac­tice. They also come through learning, educating yourself, or taking classes on how to write in your chosen language.

Here are some tips for improving your writing skills:

» Get a Word-a-Day Calendar: A simple thing like learning a new word every day, especially how that word is used in a sentence to convey an idea, and then using it yourself through the day, enriches your vocabulary. It also stimulates your brain with how words work.

» Take on a Carnival, Meme, or Blog Challenge: Many bloggers who blog about blogging and writing offer writing challenges to their readers. Most have a theme or a question to blog about. These help you practice your writing skills with directed top­ics. They also create invaluable link and personal relationships with the bloggers and fellow participants.

» Take Online Classes: There are tons of schools, classes, workshops, and even university-level classes you can take online to expand your writing skills. The more you learn about how writing works, and the more others evaluate and test your writing skills, the better you learn to write.

» Take Classes and Workshops on Writ­ing: Try human contact for a change and take classes and workshops on writing within your community or region. There are many writing work­shops at community centers, book­stores, and local schools. Or consider turning your vacation into a writing holiday at one of the many writing workshops, writers’ camps, and week­long seminars around the world.

» Read: Few things teach you more about writing than reading what others have written. Read books, magazines, newspapers, online publications, and other blogs. How do they develop their characters? How does the plot flow through the story? How are things described? What do you like about how they use words to convey thoughts, meanings, and descriptions? By reading books, especially books with subject matter similar to your blog’s content, you can study how others say the things you want to say.

» Read Books on Writing: I recommend two types of books on writing worth reading: books about the technical aspect of writing, and books about the enjoyment of writing. Stephen King’s book, On Writing, is a great look at his writing technique and how he writes. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, by Lynne Truss, is a funny look at the per­ils of punctuation, a cross between a technical guide and an enjoyable novel. Strunk and White’s Elements of Style is a must-have on your desk, as is the Reference Manual for Ste­nographers and Typists, The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation, Grammatically Correct: The Writer’s Essential Guide to Punctuation, Spelling, Style, Usage, and Grammar, and other technical writing guides. Check out the many magazines on writing and poetry in your local bookstore or online. The tips and techniques they offer each month will help you learn how to write, and how to improve your writ­ing skills.

» Learn to Edit Yourself: Learn how to edit your own work by studying how others edit. The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself and The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Writing Fiction and Nonfiction are two of the many books that will help you learn how to edit your work, so that you say exactly what you want to say. Use them to help you sift through the words to clean up the ums and ahs of your written language, and refer to them as reference guides. If in doubt about a bit of grammar or punctua­tion, look it up.

» Subscribe to Writing Magazines: Subscribe to a writer’s magazine and each month tips and techniques arrive to help you improve your writ­ing skills. Such publications also list workshops and classes around the world and other educational pro­grams for writers.

» Join a Writer or Blogger Group: When you spend time with others who write, you learn more about writing. You can’t help it. You share ideas, you challenge each other, you ask questions, and you learn about how writing works. There are also writer’s critique and review groups within many metro communities, and online. These groups exchange written material in a variety of forms, providing an opportunity to review and critique, and possibly even edit, each other’s work. It will help you learn more and improve your writing by having others review your work, and you will improve your editing skills by edit­ing the work of others.

» Learn a Foreign Language: Few things teach you more about your own language and its structural elements than learning another language. Living or spending extensive time visiting an area where few speak your native language pushes you even fur­ther with your language skills as you struggle for each word to communi­cate. It teaches you how a language works, and how important words are to communication.

The more you learn about writing, the easier it becomes. It’s a never-end­ing process to improve your communi­cation skills, learning equally to write pithy blog posts and lengthy diatribes on your blog.

Lorelle VanFossen is a veteran blog­ger, host of one of the longest running blogs on the Web, Taking Your Camera on the Road (www.cameraontheroad.com), and the popular blog about blogging and WordPress, Lorelle on WordPress (lorelle.wordpress.com). She is a contributor to many blogs and magazines, and writes daily for the Blog Herald (www.blogherald.com).

Blogging Links and Leads

Here are the links to the blog posts quoted in this article.

John Pozadzides | onemansblog.com

16 Tips for Blog Idea Brainstorming | lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/16-tips-for-blog-idea-brainstorming

Jaded Listener’s The Right Word Without Pause | jadedlistener.wordpress.com/2006/01/02/pitt-the-younger-and-the-right-word-without-pause

Engtech of Internet Duct Tape’s 7 Ways to Find Your Muse | lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/7-ways-to-find-your-blogging-muse

By Michael A. Banks

The following is an excerpt from Blogging Heroes (Wiley, 2007).

The book features interviews with well-known bloggers.

As cofounder and editorial director of Engadget, Peter Rojas is respon­sible for keeping millions of blog readers up-to-date on the latest in consumer electronics, personal technology, and gadgets in general.

Rojas, who is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Sussex (UK), has an extensive background in print jour­nalism. He’s also the chief strategy officer for Weblogs, Inc. As a result of AOL buying Engadget and the rest of Weblogs in 2006, he’s also a programming director with AOL.

As a freelance writer in 2001, he started a personal blog, in part as a public notebook for article ideas. Two years later he founded Gizmodo (www.gizmodo.com), a weblog that focuses on the latest in technology. In 2004, Rojas created Engadget as a move toward his vision of what a dedicated team of bloggers can accomplish. In the interview that follows, he relates some of his personal experiences.

Michael Banks: What inspired you to start your first blog?

Peter Rojas: I started the blog just after I was laid off from my job at Red Herring maga­zine, where I was a technolo­gy journalist and editor. Forty other people lost their jobs the same day as I did. The technol­ogy industry had sort of melted down in California.

I had a good friend who was an editor at Wired. He was sort of playing around with blogs, and he sug­gested that I start a blog. “Here’s your chance to get your writing — and your voice — out there,” he said, “and at the very least, you’ll be writing and coming up with ideas for stories that you can pitch.”

And so that’s originally what my blog was — sort of a public notebook of ideas for stories that I wanted to pitch to magazines. I never was very good at the personal blog. I didn’t write for it very often. Because I was freelancing, I spent a lot of time writing pitches for magazines and newspapers, which cut into my blogging time.

MB: You weren’t in it to make money?

PR: When I started blogging with my personal blog, it was definitely not to make money. I got into it very early, when it wasn’t clear that there was any money in blogging. The idea that some­one would advertise on a blog seemed kind of absurd. It was just unknowable.

And the idea that advertisers would want to associate themselves with something so loose, free form, and chaotic — the consensus was, “People will never advertise on blogs, at least not on a large scale. You will never get big advertisers, because they won’t trust it, they won’t want to be associ­ated with that kind of stuff.” But people came around. When you have seven or eight million readers, it’s kind of hard to wonder where your audience is.

And blogging grew up a little bit. People started to trust it. They realized that just because it’s free form doesn’t mean that there aren’t sites that are more trustworthy, have better reputa­tions, and have better concepts than others. As the medium grew up, people started to see the nuances, and it became less black-and-white and more gray. And that’s when it really started to come into its own and became some­thing that one can do professionally.

When I started Gizmodo in 2002, it wasn’t something I thought would ever really make money. I thought it would take off, but I never thought it would become as big as it did. But I was better able to work at it professionally and focus on it very intently.

MB: When did blog advertising really get going?

PR: It really was 2004. Google AdSense had a lot to do with it. Around the tail end of 2004, we started to see serious advertisers.

MB: How did you go from Gizmodo to Engadget?

PR: Well, I wasn’t actually happy with the situation I had at Gizmodo. Nick’s [Nick Denton, founder and proprietor of Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo] vision was for more of a casual site that would be done by one editor, part-time. At the time, this was the dominant mode of blogging.

I saw greater potential in blogging. I knew that if this was my full-time job, and I had other people working with me, I could do much more. I decided to take the chance and partner with Weblogs, Inc. We really took off from there.

MB: You have an extensive background in print media. Can you contrast blogging with editing or writing for a print magazine?

PR: Blogging is a very differently structured media, in the same way that episodic television is very different from a film. Blogging is something that you do in real time — it’s very fast, and it’s much more intimate and con­versational. A magazine has a slower editorial pace — a weekly is a little more hectic. And you can’t update things in real time.

With a magazine, each week you have a certain number of boxes you have to fill, depending on how many pages you have, depending on how much advertising you have. Stories have to fit certain formats and have certain links, and there has to be a distribution of certain kinds of stories.

At Engadget, we don’t have to worry about that. We do what needs to be done. We usually make between 30 and 50 posts a day, but if there really wasn’t anything to write about, we would do tech posts. I don’t really see that happening any time soon, given how intense the consumer electronics field is. I would love it if it slowed down to just 10 posts a day. But we do what makes sense.

We don’t have any sort of a target, and we don’t have quotas. For example, the weekend after the iPhone release, we went overboard with the iPhone coverage because we have unlimited space. We could be as com­prehensive as a 10,000-word review of the iPhone, and as casual as a photo of an iPhone with a Newton. Audiences really respond to that. And that’s what’s great about blogging and all niche media — you can really go in-depth. You go deep, not wide.

MB: Is there more room to be personal in blogging?

PR: Absolutely. When I started, Engadget wasn’t about me, but it was my sort of perspective as an enthusiast. We are the audience that we’re writing for. And I think that’s sort of the critical difference between magazines and blogs. I come from a journalism background, and when I was at Red Herring, we weren’t the audience. We were journalists who were never going to be venture capitalists.

So there was always this sort of idea that we were really different and set apart and that we were these arbiters. And with Engadget, it’s like we’re the audience, and our job is to be honest with the audience. Why would we lie to ourselves?

And this was a thing that I found very liberating about blogging. I am not an engineer, and I’m not a programmer. A lot of the technology sites before I started Gizmodo were very hard-core. On the other hand, you had these CNET [and] New York Times “circuit” sections that were very broad market, for people who were just looking for information about what to buy. They weren’t neces­sarily that interested in the market itself.

What I realized was that there was a market for people like me who are just really passionate about this stuff and want to be able to follow it. Engadget’s not a good place to just drop in on once every six months because you want to buy something. It’s a place to go because you’re interested in following the gadget world, just like some people follow the sports world.

MB: What do you do to bring in readers? Does Weblogs, Inc. or someone involved with Engad­get work on search engine optimization (SEO)?

PR: No. We don’t do any SEO. I don’t believe in SEO.

The blog world is very meritocratic. If you don’t have consistently good posts, your blog is not going to go very far. There are tricks you can do to get some traffic here and there, but by and large, the cream rises to the top. The most successful blogs are generally the ones with the best writing, run by people with the most hustle.

You can see someone come out of nowhere and become a huge force in the industry. I was nobody, right? And now I’m a big voice in this world. And Mike Arrington [of TechCrunch]? I never even heard of this guy when I worked for Red Herring and covered venture capital in Silicon Valley. And he’s been successful because his site is good. He works really hard.

You know, people talk about the A-list this, and the B-list that, and to be honest, it’s a very fluid world. The people that work really hard and produce good work are successful, by and large.

MB: You keep an eye on other blogs, then?

PR: At Engadget, we have a collaborative newsreader with about 700 sites. I per­sonally read about 200 a day. I add some sites, and I delete some, but I’m still satu­rated. It’s like having a second job, just keeping up with everything! It’s worse than email. People talk about email bank­ruptcy? I’m on top of my email. I don’t have a backlog of email to answer. It’s the RSS feeds that overwhelm me. There’s so much going on. It’s exciting.

When I decide I want to learn some­thing about a field or an area, Ijust sub­scribe to blogs in that area, sometimes at random. For example, about a year ago I decided to learn about widgets. I literally Googled “widgets blog” and found a bunch of blogs. As I read and linked to more blogs, it became obvious what the best blogs in that field were.

MB: Aside from time manage­ment, what is the most difficult part of blogging for you?

PR: You have to get used to the fact that people are going to be very, very critical. Grow a thick skin and be prepared to accept legitimate criticism. When you’re a very popular blogger, you have to be prepared to be treated as a public figure.

You also have to learn to chill out a little bit, and not take everything per­sonally. People are jerks, and people are going to shoot their mouths off and say awful things. I’ve gotten death threats. You just have to realize that it’s not the end of the world when someone emails you and says they’re going to chop your head off. You have to be prepared to deal with a lot of that stuff — blogging can be a contact sport.

Another thing about blogging is that it is very, very competitive, and you have to constantly raise your game. And I think at Engadget, we’ve done a really great job of constantly raising our game, of consciously pushing our­selves to do better. We’ve never gotten complacent. We’ve never sort of leaned back and said, “Well, you know what? We’re number one, and now we can sort of drift and hang out.” We owe it to ourselves and [our] readers to constant­ly be doing a better job.

MB: What do you find gratifying as a blogger?

PR: One of the things I really love about blogging is that I’ve always been able to write up for the audience. I made this decision that the audience was very smart and wanted a lot of very in-depth, very thorough coverage. They didn’t want just a cursory overview of things or watered-down coverage.

There are so many amazing things. Like the reader meetups we hosted, having 500 people show up for an event. Going outside and seeing the line stretched around the block. Hon­estly, that blew me away.

In some ways, blogging still feels like just this goofy thing that I do in my apartment. We don’t have an office, so it’s sometimes hard to get my head around the fact that this is something that millions of people read — millions of people love Engadget.

Things like interviewing Bill Gates are also good. But I think covering CES [the Consumer Electronics Show] in 2007 was one of my proudest moments, because I feel like I’ve really been able to transform the show.

When I started covering CES, it was a big show, but there was not a lot of awareness of it on the consumer level. But I think we’ve really helped turn CES into a really big event — some­ thing that not just the attendees care about, but something the rest of the world should pay attention to as well. I think we have, hands-down, the best coverage of CES that’s ever been done anywhere by anyone.

MB: As you read other blogs, do you get some feeling for the gestalt of the overall blogo­sphere?

PR: You know, there isn’t one. It’s so big, and so much stuff is going on now that I find it hard to make sense of anything but the little corner that I’m a part of. I know other tech bloggers — like Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Kevin Rose, and Steve Rubel — and this is kind of my little corner of the business.

But there are other universes out there where those names mean nothing. And I think that’s actually good. I don’t really know any of the people in the political blogosphere, of which there are many smaller politi­cal blogospheres. There is a celebrity gossip blogosphere, and many others. I have my little perspective on things and where things are going in my sphere, and I focus on that.

MB: Any advice for somebody who’s starting a blog?

PR: My number-one piece of advice is [to] find something to be passionate about. I know that sounds really obvi­ous, but it is not obvious in some ways to a lot of people. And a lot of people think, “Oh well, I want to have a suc­cessful blog, so I should do a blog about something that’s already successful.” Like doing a blog about gossip because that seems to do really well.

But the thing about it is that what makes a blog really successful is the passion of the person or the people who are writing it. If you have that passion and you’re blogging about something, it will be very, very obvious. The readers will pick up on that, and you will have a successful blog.

Another piece of advice is don’t be afraid to start slowly. I wouldn’t neces­sarily try to attract too much atten­tion too quickly, because when you start blogging, you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to do something that someone is not happy with. You might not link to someone properly or whatever. There’s sort of a blog eti­quette that you have to figure out.

You want to sort of give yourself a chance to acclimate to the pace and the writing style, to find your voice. And that can take a little while. It took me about six months at Gizmodo to find my voice. And really enjoy that time, because once you have an audience you cannot ever go back to posting anonymously. So don’t necessarily feel pressured to have a successful blog right away. You’re going to be doing stuff that’s going to make your blog worse, like trying to write stories just to get on Digg or just to get a link from Engadget.

And that is really, ultimately what doesn’t make it. There are blogs with everything like top ten this or top five that, and those blogs get traffic just because people link to them from Digg, Technorati, or a similar site. But they’re not going to have an organic reader­ship. No one actually thinks, “Oh, I love this blog!” It’s more like this is a site that gets linked to on Digg every week.

That’s not the kind of site you want to have. You want to have the kind of site where people say, “I am a part of this community. I am a passionate reader of this site. This site gives me something that I love, and I have to read it every day.”

It’s all about finding a subject. When I started Gizmodo and Engadget, gad­gets seemed like such a narrow niche. I was thinking, “OK, I’m not going to do a technology blog. I’m going to do a something-of-value gadget blog. It’s going to be so narrow.”

But gadgets turned out to be this huge category. If I was going to start a blog now, I would go very, very, very niche — as niche as you can get.

The thing about it is, no matter how niche you go, there will always be too much to write about. But if you pick something specific and maybe that’s not so heavily covered yet, you have a chance to really establish yourself as a voice in that area.

Enthusiasm makes a huge, huge difference. And readers can tell. When I read a blog, I can tell when someone really cares about the subject matter. And if you think about it, when you really care, you actually start to ask the kinds of questions and do the kind of writing that creates something of value for the reader. There’s a difference between being an Apple fanboy and someone who really cares about the products they’re buying from Apple. For example, the Apple blogs that I read that have a lot of value — the people say, “I care so much about this stuff that I am not going to shy away from criticism, or shy away from saying what I really feel, or being honest when I think Apple screwed up.”

It’s the people who love Apple — who actually care enough about it to say what they really feel and to criticize — who are doing a great job. And that’s the thing about Engadget that people like — I am not afraid to call it as I see it, to really level with the audience.

Finally, remember that the blogging entry barrier is so low that your credibil­ity is the only thing you have to differen­tiate yourself from everyone else.

For example, I worked at Red Herring but wasn’t necessarily that interested in venture capital. I was just happy to have a job and work in a magazine and get paid. But I wasn’t really that inter­ested in the subject. And so I ended up trying to write stories that I was interested in. They were about technol­ogy, but they didn’t necessarily fit in with what Red Herring was about. They wouldn’t let me do a story about Nap­ster, and I told them, “This is going to be a huge thing!” But they said, “There is no business model.”

MICHAEL A. BANKS has written more than forty books, and chronicled online activities for a variety of magazines including PC World and PC Magazine. An enthusiastic blogger, Banks has participated in online communities for more than a quarter-century.

The following is an edited excerpt from Podcasting for Profit. This is our third and final excerpt from Leesa Barnes’ recent book.

By Leesa Barnes

Many podcasters choose to add their podcast to an advertising and sponsor­ship network instead of seeking these types of deals on their own. For sim­plicity, I will use the term podvertising network to refer to directories that buy and sell advertising or sponsorship deals on behalf of podcasters. Podvertising networks are powerful because they make many small squeaks sound like one booming voice. Individually, the numbers that each podcast carries may not make media buyers bat an eye. For example, my podcast audience for Podonomics stands at 5,000 and this may not be attractive to anyone except me. However, if there were a hundred technology podcasts, each with a podcast audience of 5,000, those numbers would cause media and ad buyers to clamor over each other for a piece of the pie.

Cali Lewis, coproducer and host of Geek Brief TV, and her husband who also coproduces the show, left their full-time jobs in January 2007 as a result of belonging to a podvertising network called Podshow. Lewis has no desire to seek advertising or sponsorship deals on her own:

One of the reasons is that it is a full-time job in itself. That takes contacts, the know-how, and experience that I don’t have. I didn’t go to school for that. That would take up so much of my time that I could use instead to work on the show. So, that’s one of the reasons I chose Podshow to handle that. I will handle my show and I will make it the best show I know how.

These podvertising networks represent a variety of themes, topics, and podcasters. Some will need you to sign a paper contract that’s faxed or emailed to you after your applica­tion is approved. Most have a much looser acceptance policy. All you need to do is fill out a form asking for your contact information, podcast details, and audience information and click on the button where you accept the terms and conditions. In all cases, once you’re in the network, you then wait for the opportunities to come your way. Payout is done either by check or via PayPal.

At this point, your only require­ment is to ensure that you update your podcast frequently. Most podvertising networks will not police you, nor send out emails reminding you to update your content. The onus is on you as the producer to ensure that you’re deliver­ing fresh content on a regular schedule. One of these networks, Blubrry, sends out an email to its network of podcast­ers whenever they receive short cam­paigns. Blubrry will request that only those who will have new content in the next three, five, or seven days take part in the campaign. Some podvertis­ing networks will remove you if you go 30, 60, or 90 days without any new content. It pays to update your content on a regular schedule so you don’t miss out on opportunities.

Curious to know which podvertising networks you should consider joining? Whether you plan to launch a video or audio podcast, here’s a sampling of podvertising networks that buy and sell advertising on behalf of the podcasts that are in their networks. Most of the networks listed here not only share advertising and sponsor­ship revenue but also offer tools to let podcasters publish, promote, and listen to podcasts.

PodShow

Founded in 2004 by Adam Curry and Ron Bloom, PodShow aims to:

Help people to podcast and publish their podcasts, and to help listen­ers to find podcasts that suit their interests. It also plans to use the marketing potential of podcasts by allowing advertisers to find the podcasts their target audiences will listen to and allow those podcasts to put commercials on their pod­casts and receive money for it.

PodShow features some of the oldest and most popular podcasts, such as The Daily Source Code with Adam Curry, The Dawn and Drew Show, Managing the Gray with C.C. Chapman, and Soccergirl. Although those signed under PodShow are sworn to secrecy and can’t reveal the details of their contracts, what is known is that some owe their financial success in podcasting to PodShow. Both Cali Lewis, host of Geek Brief TV, and Julien Smith, host of In Over Your Head, reported that they live off the income they receive through PodShow without having to rely on being employed full-time by someone else.

Podtrac

Podtrac offers podvertising services to both podcasters and companies that want to advertise in them. Podcast pro­ducers have to fill out a lengthy form that asks for the name of the podcast and how often it’s updated, among other questions. Podcast producers are encouraged to ask their audiences to fill out the Podcast Audience Survey, developed by Podtrac. The data col­lected through each individual podcast is used by Podtrac to tailor advertising that meets the needs of the advertiser and to help the advertiser reach the right audience. Podtrac doesn’t insert ads without the podcast producer’s knowledge. [The producer] can turn down any offer or ad for any reason. Podcast producers receive 35 percent commission through Podtrac.

Blubrry

Blubrry is a social podcasting commu­nity that connects podcast producers, advertisers, and anyone looking for great independently produced content. Podcast producers benefit from joining a network that negotiates advertis­ing deals on behalf of the collection of podcasts. Advertisers benefit from the wide variety of choice and new content. There are two features that set Blubrry apart. First, podcasters get 70 percent of the revenue from ads that appear in their podcasts. This is the highest among all podvertising networks [that we know about]. Second, if you intro­duce Blubrry to an advertiser that even­tually signs a deal with the network, you’ll receive a 10 percent finder’s fee.

Podango

With Podango, you can become a station director and manage a col­lection of podcasts that all have the same theme. Station directors earn 10 percent of all ad revenue generated by their stations, as well as a 50 percent commission on any podcasts they pro­duce. My own podcast, Podonomics, belongs to a station on Podango called Podcast Mastery that is managed by Jason Van Orden, author of Promot­ing Your Podcast. Podango also offers unlimited hosting, as well as podcast production services.

Blip.tv

Called by Fortune magazine “media on the cutting edge,” Blip.tv is a video podcasting service that offers free hosting for video podcasts. Founded by Dina Kaplan, Justin Day, and Mike Hudack, Blip.tv will meet with media buyers and negotiate sponsorship deals if you have a hit show. Revenue is split 50-50 between the content producer and Blip.tv.

Revver

Revver is a video-sharing platform on which video podcasters can upload their video for free and share it with others. As people share your video with each other, you make money based on how many people view your video. Ads are placed at the end of your video and the revenue is split 50-50 between the content producer and Revver. Those who share Revver videos can make some money as well. [If you share] someone else’s video, Revver will pay you 20 percent and split the rest with the person who created the video.

Talkshoe

Talkshoe allows podcasters to produce and share interactive podcasts. The host creates a show, invites people to listen and interact live via a chat tool or telephone, and the recording is pro­duced to be played back later. Talkshoe lists a schedule of upcoming live shows on its front page to drive more listeners to individual podcasts. Podcasters make money two ways with Talkshoe—by being hosts or by referring a host. As a host, every time someone listens to, downloads, or subscribes to your podcast via Talkshoe, you make money. When you refer a host, you get a 25 percent referral bonus.

This list is just a sample of the pod­vertising networks that exist. New ones are being added regularly to the Podcast­ing for Profit companion Web site, so check there regularly for updates.

Watch Out for the Fine Print

When signing up with a podcast network, it’s important to be aware of the fine print. While all podcast networks will support you and your podcast goals, you may be surprised at how much you’re giving away just for the privilege of using their service to distribute your content and make some money. I’m not a lawyer and if you have any concerns about the terms and con­ditions, run it by a lawyer first before signing up. In most cases, however, hiring a lawyer may be overkill, so here are some things to be aware of:

» Owning the content you create. Otherwise known as exclusive rights, whoever holds these rights owns the content. [If a podvertising network wants] exclusive rights to all content you upload to their service, go some­where else. This is similar to a courier service telling you that they now own the vase you’re sending to your great-aunt just because you’re using their distribution service. Make sure the podvertising network explicitly tells you in its terms of service that you own whatever you upload to its server. If it’s not spelled out, ask.

» Requiring you to use only their feed and podpage template. On the one hand, this is a good thing consider­ing that most podcasters want to get up and running quickly. Also, you won’t have to log in to several different areas to read your stats or upload your content. The drawback is that if you decide to go on your own, the podpage and feed created by the podvertising network will be deleted or put into an inactive state. That means you’ll need to create your own blog and feed, and then figure out a way to redirect your fans to your new spot so they continue to get your new episodes. What’s convenient in the short term may become messy in the long term, so just double-check that you can create your own feed and pod­page separate from the one created by the podvertising network.

» Insisting on any type of exclusivity. If the terms state that you can’t join another network or that you can’t negotiate other advertising deals on your own, think long and hard before joining. There are so many income possibilities in podcasting and you should have the freedom to explore other advertising deals, whether on your own or with another podvertis­ing network. Look for podvertising networks that allow you choices.

All the podcast networks Ilisted here and in the companion Web site will let you review their terms before you’re officially part of their network. The good news is that the people who run these networks are more than accommodating and will answer any questions you may have.

Advantages vs. Disadvantages

As we look back, there are many advan­tages and disadvantages to pursuing your own advertising deals or letting someone else do it for you. Whether you’re like Lewis, who chooses to let Podshow bring those deals to her, or if you’re like [Andy] Walker [cohost and coproducer of Lab Rats TV], who seeks them on his own, here’s a snapshot of the benefits and drawbacks to each approach. The table above illustrates that an advantage with one opportuni­ty is a disadvantage on the other side.

LEESABARNES is author of Podcasting for Profit. She helps individuals and businesses make money using pod­casts. Visit www.podcastingforprofitbook.com to download a free chapter. You can order the book online at New

MediaTycoon.com.

Rankling Catblogs, Momblogs, and Gadget Blogs

December is gift-giving time, so we’re highlighting blogs that will help with your shopping: gadgets! Shiny toys are always popular choices around the holidays, and our selection of blogs will be sure to give you ideas for that special someone on your list. We’re also zooming in on that most purrrfect segment of the blogosphere, catblogs, where you can find feline friends in all shapes and sizes. Last but not least, we honor those dedicated souls who aren’t simply mothers, but blog about it, with our featured momblogs.

Blog Ranking Methodology

Blog Scorecard uses the technology infrastructure developed for the Truth Laid Bear blog-tracking and -ranking portal. Category rankings are deter­mined using several objective metrics, including the number of links that each blog receives from other blogs — which indicates the relative popularity of a blog — and the number of posts a blog contains on a given category’s topic. This shows the relevance of the blog to that particular topic. Rankings are finalized using good old-fash­ioned human experience. The hu­man element provides a last sanity check on the category rankings, and ensures that the technical gimmicks and tricks that some bloggers inevi­tably use to raise their profiles do not distort the rankings.

Spotlight: Gadget Blogs

There’s no commandment against coveting thy neighbor’s gadgets, but in today’s blogosphere, there probably ought to be.

The granddaddy of all gadget blogs is Gizmodo, one of the anchor blogs of the Gawker Media network. With Giz­modo, you get your gadget fix served with a side of snark: pithy headlines are the rule; the more pith the better. (See, for example, “Wi-Fi Detector Shirt, Self-Detects Geeks” (gizmodo.com/gadgets/fashion/wi+fi-detector-shirt-self+detects-geeks-307516.php).

Engadget is yang to Gizmodo’s yin — or perhaps, just more yin. The lore of gadget blogs tells of a time in the dim past when Engadget’s original editor Peter Rojas (see “Gadget Gold,” page 28) was Gizmodo’s editor, before being recruited by competing blog network Weblogs, Inc. to found Engadget. Now, Engadget forms its own miniature empire within the Weblogs stable, with subblogs devoted to topics such as cell phones (Engadget Mobile: www.engadgetmobile.com) and HDTV (Engadget HD: www.engadgethd.com).

But above even these two stands Bo­ing Boing, which is a gadget blog with a focus that goes beyond the typical shiny consumer toys, declaring its mission as being “A directory of wonderful things.” Boing Boing ranges a bit further afield than what you’ll find in your local Best Buy. The site covers burning issues such as the opening of a new restaurant in China (“Chinese restaurant MFC is a mashup of Mc­Donald’s and KFC”; www.boingboing.net/2007/10/05/chinese-restaurant-m-1.html). A wonderful thing, indeed.

But shiny toys are most definitely not just for geeky boys. PopGadget (www.popgadget.net) focuses on “personal tech + innovative lifestyle for women”, while Techie Diva (www.techiediva.com) bills itself as a “technology blog with an undeniable feminine twist.” And as if to confirm that gadgets are no longer the sole province of socially maladjusted males, Geeks Are Sexy (www.geeksaresexy.net) provides a comforting dose of self-affirmation. (Recite while standing in front of your mirror: “I’m a geek, I love gadgets, and I’m sexy, darn it!” Repeat until convinced. We’ll wait.)

Even “traditional” media has got­ten into the gadget-blogging act. Venerable online fixture CNET has ventured into the gadget-blogging realm with Crave (crave.cnet.com), a “blog about gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff,” and Wired magazine offers up its Gadget Lab (blog.wired.com/gadgets). Yes, Wired and CNET qualify as traditional media when viewed from the blogosphere. It’s a brave new world.

Rounding out our list of go-to gadget blogs are Shiny Shiny, which deserves a spot on the list if for no other reason than having an entire section devoted to Hello Kitty (www.shinyshiny.tv/hello_kitty), and Uber­gizmo, which brings the gadget news straight from Silicon Valley where its founders proudly declare “we blog from our kitchen.”

SPECIALTY GADGET BLOGS

Gadget blogs have grown so popular that now, specialty blogs are popping up that focus on particular subcategories within the general gadget realm.

GoodCleanTech (www.goodcleantech.com) is a technology blog focused on environmentally friendly, “clean” technologies. Topics range from a $200, low-power-consumption PC avail­able at Wal-Mart to ecologically friendly drywall.

In another niche entirely is medGadget (medgadget.com), which describes itself as an “Internet journal of emerging medical technologies.” Translation: it’s about cool medical gadgets, and you’ll find info on topics such as virus-killing lasers, electronic tweezers, and even the latest about the Robotic Articulating Endoscopic Linear Cutter. No, I have no idea what that is, either.

CATBLOGS

1 | Cat Blogosphere www.blog.catblogosphere.com

2 | Watermark www.sbpoet.com

3 | Skeezix’s Scratching Post skeezixthecat.com/scratchingpost

4 | Purrchance to Dream daphnex.blogspot.com

5 | Daisy the Curly Cat daisythecurlycat.blogspot.com

6 | The Scratching Post ktcatspost.blogspot.com

First, let’s get something out of the way: we will highlight dog­bloggers in a future issue. The last thing we need is a pack of dog-loving bloggers cancelling their B&P subscriptions in disgust, due to perceived feline favoritism.

To grasp the depth and breadth of the catblogging com­munity, the place to start is easy: the Cat Blogosphere. This site is the go-to spot for all things kitty in the blogosphere, featuring an aggregator that includes posts from many other catblogs. You can then continue on to Purrchance to Dream, home to not one but four blogging cats (Spooker, Chloe, Jazper, and Daphne).

Not enough? Drop by Watermark, Daisy the Curly Cat, and Skeezix’s Scratching Post, and your feline hosts will make you most welcome.

MOMBLOGS

1 | MotherBumper motherbumper.blogspot.com

2 | Her Bad Mother badladies.blogspot.com

3 | An Ordinary Mom anordinarymom.wordpress.com

4 | MotherGooseMouse www.mothergoosemouse.com

5 | Mommy off the Record mommyofftherecord.blogspot.com

Motherhood: what could be more noble? And it may not surprise you to find that many bloggers are moms — and vice versa.

This month we’re highlighting some of the shining stars in the momblogosphere. Start your journey at MotherBumper — the blog of “one tired mommy and one tireless baby” — where a Toronto mother describes the joys and trials of raising the aforemen­tioned “Bumper.” If you’re feeling slightly naughty, grab some motherly self-validation from Her Bad Mother, where “bad is the new good.” Or drop by An Ordinary Mom for tales of “an ordinary mom doing ordinary things but hopefully making an extraordinary difference in the lives of her children.”

Our last two recommended maternal bloggers clearly have something in common. MotherGooseMouse declares “we could all use a drink now and then,” while Mommy Off the Record leads with a cartoon of two stylish mommies sipping cocktails:

Mommy #1: “Here’s hoping my kids won’t need therapy.”

Mommy #2: “I’ll drink to that!”

As will we all!

GADGETS

1 | Boing Boing boingboing.net

2 | Engadget www.engadget.com

3 | Gizmodo www.gizmodo.com

4 | Shiny Shiny shinyshiny.tv

5 | Ubergizmo www.ubergizmo.com

6 | PopGadget www.popgadget.net

7 | Wired Gadget Lab blog.wired.com/gadgets

8 | Crave crave.cnet.com

9 | Geeks are Sexy www.geeksaresexy.net

10 | Techie Diva techiediva.com

ROB NEPPELL is a blog industry consultant, providing proprietary blog monitoring and new media strategies to businesses. He is the president of Kithbridge, Inc. (kithbridge.com) and the creator of the Truth Laid Bear (truthlaidbear.com) blog-tracking and -ranking portal. He can be reached at robn@bloggerandpodcaster.com.

Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine had an idea: create some short videos about ninjas — and how they like to kill — and put them on the Web. Today, Ask a Ninja is so successful in video podcast form and on DVD, that the guys have created their own social network for fans.

Blogger & Podcaster: You recently launched a social net­work, and what else is going on with Ask A Ninja?

Kent Nichols: We’re launching a new fan site for our community at fans.askaninja.com.

Douglas Sarine: It’s going to have forums, videos. You could upload videos, pictures.

KN: MP3s, the whole thing.

DS: It’s going to be a phenom­enal place for Ask A Ninja fans to meet up, talk about anything.

KN: And for us and for the ninja to interact with the fans. A lot of it is going to be allowing fans [to] create little clans based on their own interests. As it evolves, we’ll probably put more content just for the fans on that site, like maybe outtakes. And in every ninja episode there’s at least a good minute of high-quality comedy that we just cut for pac­ing reasons.

We’re also working on a book right now, deep into that. That’s coming out in … late summer ’08. It’s going to be a parody of The Boy Scout Manual. It’s The Ninja Handbook: A Guide for Non-Ninjas To Become More Ninjalike. That’s really fun, but boy writ­ing a book; that’s not a metaphor.

DS: Some people reached out to us and then for some reason we thought, oh, that’d be a great idea.

KN: That’s a great idea! Let’s write a book! Some publisher came to us. We got a great literary agent in New York and we wrote a sample chapter and basically based on that we got a lot of interest in the New York publishing community.

B&P: Are you going to build new media content around it, with lots of illustra­tions and fun stuff like that, too?

KN: We’ll probably build some new media, but then also use the social network for people to create their own groups so they can actually try to start becoming more ninjalike and work through the merit-badge system.

DS: Yes, they can actually go through the book and track it on the social networking site.

KN: And the illustrator came through the fan community, actually. We hired him originally to do the DVD artwork, and now we’ve brought him on to do the ninja artwork in the book. And it’s a huge project and he’s a great guy named Mike Lee out of New Orleans.

B&P: How did Ask a Ninja get started?

KN: Well, we’d started writing this long animated screenplay, like it was going to be an online series. And we learned so much about writing for online in that process because…

DS: And we learned that neither one of us are animators.

KN: Or can draw. But we learned [that] shorter is much better, cramming as [many] jokes in there as possible. So, we started Ask A Ninja as kind of a way to reinvest ourselves into that ninja world that we’d created, and it was this rich, lush ninja situation. It was just kind of a side project, something that was easy for us to do and then it took off.

DS: And Kent came up with a way to do it for free, or nearly for free. Shoot it at his apartment against a wall that was painted chroma-key blue. And using — the first episode just used his dirty laundry.

KN: Yeah, as the ninja costumes. I had really become like a self-taught expert in digital filmmaking. So I knew how to do all the production aspects. My goal was always to do short films and more filmlike cinematic things. And that we shot to success with just a ninja yelling in front of a wall. It’s kind of antithetical to what we had been trying to do.

B&P: What is the division of work like?

DS: It’s actually a nice creative flow between us because each one of us gets to make enough creative decisions. But also, at the end of the day, it’s only the two of us. We don’t have a network or a studio telling us you have to cut this or you can’t do that or it needs to be this, that, or the other. We can have an episode that’s two minutes. We can have an episode that’s four minutes. It all depends on what we find amusing. We’re the only gatekeepers; like Kent says, when he hits send on it, there’s nothing stopping it. There it is. It’s out there for a million people to look at.

B&P: They’re obviously mostly short, but do you have a target length? You don’t want 20 minutes, maybe?

KN: Doug wants everything to be two minutes and I’m happy when we get them under four. Closer to three min­utes is probably our sweet spot.

DS: Yeah, but there are judgment calls, like the movie-pitch one. How long is that one?

KN: Yeah, some, like the movie-pitch one, I let go basically all the way just be­cause it was so intricately constructed and it just amused me, the whole thing. So, I was like, you know what, let’s just keep …

DS: It’s just trusting his judgment on it.

B&P: How about advertising? Are your audiences OK with that? I remember you used to just have an ad at the end. I don’t recall when you started the lower third.

DS: We took time and we explored a couple of options. Revver worked very well for us for a while, with the clickable ad at the end. And then [the lower-third ad] was the one we found that was most acceptable to us as content creators, palatable to our audience, and that was advantageous to advertisers, as well.

KN: And it’s actually pretty slick. We just had a meeting with someone in Hollywood and she was like, you’re sponsored by ask.com, but where do you have advertising? She was totally aware of which brand was sponsoring us, what was going on, but she had no idea — our advertising was so seamless that she was unaware of where it was.

DS: And the Ask campaign had, on aver­age, an 8.4-percent click-through rate, which was 400 percent higher than any other one that Federated Media had ever had.

B&P: What partnerships or alliances have you guys done to get the show going?

KN: Federated Media, you know, we’re all Hollywooded up with adult supervi­sion to kind of help negotiate deals and [help] with time management and things.

DS: People doing the things we [don’t necessarily] want to do. Amplifier’s been great for helping us blow out our store a little bit.

KN: And we’ve partnered with Ning to launch the social network, which has been great. We’ve been able to get up and running with a full social network in under a week.

That’s the great thing about Ning: you can totally customize it. Their back-end powers it all, but you can fully customize the front end.

B&P: Could you talk about numbers in terms of downloads?

KN: Yeah, we’re [at] about 2.7 million video downloads a month. It’s definitely been growing. It’s funny: during the college summer hiatus, our numbers went down a little bit. And then the last two weeks of August, when school was back in session, it went zoom! I think [because] kids are coming back and they have broadband.

B&P: You talked about being “Holly­wooded up” earlier. I know you’ve done some stuff with film, but is going into traditional media what you want to do, or have you had offers from mainstream media?

KN: Probably. We just want to be a creative team, and the representation that we chose, we’re fortunate enough that they were passionate about us. They had a tradition of taking pre-You­Tube-generation Internet-video creators and helping them create careers in Hollywood. That’s why we were excited about signing with both United Talent Agency and Mosaic [Media Group], the Miller Company, because they had expe­rience in growing talent. And we don’t want to be just the ninja guys. We want to have rich, robust careers.

DS: And like you just said, going into traditional media, those are both com­panies that don’t see it that way. They just see it as are you a quality content creator. They don’t [care] whether you’re traditional or new media, though they have support mechanisms.

KN: And we educate them on new media all the time. We had to say, look man, we can get money from an adver­tising deal here. We don’t have to be so dependent on Hollywood money. And so, that was a first for them, honestly, because…

DS: And then they got a big check and they’re like oh, OK, yeah, absolutely. We show them a business opportunity and then they enhance our ability to optimize that business opportunity, and they get their piece of it.

B&P: A lot of people have aligned themselves with networks. I assume that you’ve had those kinds of opportuni­ties and you’ve stayed on your own. What was your thought process about whether to join up with other organi­zations, whether through networks or partnerships?

KN: Oh well, honestly, by the time we — we were too big. We were growing throughout 2006 and we would talk to some people and they’d be like, “We will give you this bag of magic beans if you join our network.” And it was just like, “Well, why would we give away rights for that?” And so, we were in kind of a painful adolescence for a little bit there, where we were too big for a lot of things, but too small for other things. We’re not big, big, media, but we were way too big for some of these early networks and things.

DS: Yeah, and that being said, I don’t think we’re opposed to future partner­ships with people, depending on — for other projects and new things that we’re developing.

KN: Absolutely not.

by Miles Durfee

The United States National Anthem ends with the famous phrase, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” However, at the time of the deadline for this article, the land of the free didn’t necessarily extend to taxing Internet access in the United States of America. The Internet Access Tax Ban (an amendment to H.R. 3678, the Internet Tax Freedom Act) was set to expire on November 1, 2007. Without Congressional passage and signing into law by the president, prior to that date, state and local governments would have been given authority to approve new taxes on Internet connections and some Internet purchases of products and services.

With the House of Representatives’ passage of a four-year extension, approved 405 to 2 in October, it is likely that by the time you read this the Senate will have taken similar action and that another four-year extension will have been signed into law by the President. This is the third time the tax ban will have been extended for four years. Congress previously had extended the tax moratorium in 2001 and in 2004.

While a permanent ban has been introduced in Congress and is supported by the President, apparently the US is only the land of the free in four-year increments. It appears that the most active groups working against a permanent ban are state and local governments and the telephone companies. For governments, a permanent ban would restrict their ability to add a new tax-revenue option in times when it becomes necessary to resolve potential budget shortfalls. It’s also easy to understand why phone companies and other providers are watching the definition of Internet access very closely, to ensure that competitors like Voice over Internet (VoIP) providers don’t have the ability to charge consumers lower rates because taxes are not included in their services, when they are included in traditional telephone company services. The International Blogging and New Media Association (IBNMA) believes that the reasons to support a permanent ban far outweigh the reasons not to support it. IBNMA will continue to advocate for the approval of a permanent tax ban on Internet access during the likely four-year extension.

Another issue that some believe is tied to our freedom is the right to access to broadband services. For many years Internet service providers (ISPs) have reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) based on five-digit zip codes. If any person had broadband access in a particular five-digit zip-code location, the area was considered covered by broadband. Access to broadband is becoming more and more important as new media becomes a combination of video, podcasts, Web calendars, maps, and blogs: one integrated communication tool for Internet users. Without reliable connections, or even basic service in some parts of the country, the flow of information could stagnate and hinder the natural advance of new-media opportunities.

Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, has introduced legislation that would direct the FCC to require service-provider information regarding broadband penetration down to the zip-code-plus-four location and to define second-generation broadband as services that “reflect a data rate that is not less than the data rate required to reliably transmit full-motion, high-definition video.” (Refer to the Broadband Data Improvement Act, S. 1492, for more information.) These two provisions are vital to continued access to better broadband services, which will allow the public to quickly get better information. While the ability to transmit reliable high-definition video may seem to be a goal for individuals who use the Internet for entertainment (rather than an integrated information tool), the real need for second-generation bandwidth will make possible a complete new wave of Internet services and products. This wave will not only drive the new-media industry, but will also better inform the populace and improve every individual’s quality of life.

Some would argue that S. 1492 is just a way to get sensitive, competitive information about service providers’ broadband capabilities. I contend that only through accurate reporting of broadband, and second-generation broadband gaps in certain geographic areas, will we be able improve access in parts of the country that now are being underserved. IBNMA supports S. 1492 and I encourage you to look closely at this legislation, as well as Representative Edward Markey’s (D-MA) legislation H.R. 3919, which similarly directs the FCC to require broadband service providers to provide information down to the zip-plus-four location level, but does not redefine broadband or second-generation broadband.

Miles Durfeeis president of the International Blog­ging & New Media Association. Send email to miles@bloggerandpodcaster.com.