Google’s Blogger Users Can Now Customize Their Designs

Google has launched the Blogger Template Designer, a way to customize the look and feel of your Blogger blog.

"Over the past few years we've worked to scale Blogger and ensure that it is capable of handling hundreds of millions of pageviews per day," Google says. "But we also believe that blogging is about self expression and that an important part of expression is creating a custom design that expresses your unique voice. So last year we started working on a tool that would allow everyone to easily customize their blog’s look and feel, and today we’re proud to introduce the Blogger Template Designer."

Features of the template designer include:

- 15 new templates (with more on the way)
- Custom blog layouts with one, two and three columns
- Hundreds of background images courtesy of iStockphoto
- Customizable colors, fonts, and more.

"While alternative offerings force users to choose among a limited set of rigid template designs, Blogger provides an intuitive yet powerful interface so anyone to customize their blog's design & layout - putting the user in complete control," the company says.

It's interesting that this kind of customization has not been available from Blogger until 2010, as Blogger itself is over a decade old, and has been Google-owned since 2003.

The Blogger Template Designer is available through Blogger in Draft, Blogger's testing ground/sandbox site.

What if Facebook Added a “Blog” Tab?

Facebook wants to keep users on Facebook. So far, they are doing a pretty good job of that. More and more people are spending more of their online time on Facebook, not to mention, spending more time connected to the web in general (at least partially due to rising use of smartphones).

How much time do you spend on Facebook in a month? A week? Let us know.

Facebook recently made it a point to show users how to use the social network to keep up with the news. Users can simply become fans of their favorite news organizations' pages (feel free to include ours in your mix), and group them in a "news" list just as they would create a group for friends or co-workers. The bottom line is; spending more time on Facebook getting news headlines is spending more time on Facebook period. There is also talk of Facebook  working on its own web email service. Again, more time spent on Facebook.

One way Facebook could capture even more of its users' time, is if it introduced a "blog" tab. Facebook currently has a "notes" tab, and quite a few people do use this. It's a similar concept, but what if it was given more prominence and renamed "blog?" A blog tab might keep Facebook users even longer. First of all, the users blogging with it would obviously be sticking around to write their posts. In addition, their friends and fans would be sticking around longer to read those posts, which would generally be much longer and require more time than the average status update.

Would more people become bloggers?

I suspect that the word "notes" doesn't quite resonate the same as the word blog in the minds of many Facebook users, although for all intents and purposes, the feature operates like a blog. You can post longer-form content for your friends and fans to see, and they can comment on it, while it all remains in tact in one spot for future reference. Not only could the addition of a "blog" tab keep Facebook users around longer, but it could have a significant impact on the Blogosphere. Simply calling it a blog and having it available right from any user's profile page might just inspire.

Is social media killing blogs?

No, but it's hard to say that use of sites like Facebook and Twitter (and now Google Buzz) don't lend to less blog posts being created. If nothing else, it’s simply a time issue. It is easy to push out a quick status update if you have something to say. It's easier than blogging. For longer-form content, blogs are generally the better option, which is one reason they are still alive and well. But if Facebook had a blog tab, the social network could cut into the Blogosphere even more, given its huge userbase, while establishing itself as a go-to place for blogging (another area in which Facebook could compete with Google, I might add. Don't forget that Google owns Blogger).

If Facebook did this, it is very unlikely that all current bloggers would immediately go running there to do their blogging, but Facebook users who may not already be blogging may find the urge to do so when that tab is right in front of their faces. And frankly, I'm confident many current bloggers would go running there. Facebook is a powerful tool for building an audience or expanding upon one. 

It works on MySpace. Look at director Eli Roth's blog, for example. He gets a lot of engagement there (although he hasn't updated in several months). Facebook is another animal altogether, and its growth is unprecedented. Just look at Facebook's latest round of stats.

Facebook is frequently adding and changing features, as any user can certainly attest (for better or for worse). It is not hard to imagine them doing something like this. For the record, the company has made no mention of going such a route, to my knowledge. There are currently ways to blog within and around Facebook if you look hard enough, but if Facebook made blogging a focal point, I think it could take off, and perhaps lend to the concept of Facebook as a news source, and even add greatly to the Blogosphere by encouraging more blogging. 

Should Facebook Have a blog tab? Would you use it? Share your thoughts.

Google Deletes Blogger Posts

Update: This article is nearly a year old, but pretty much the same thing is happening again (or still). A number of popular music blogs have been removed from Blogger, some are saying without warning. When we covered this before, Blogger Product Manager Rick Klau left us the following comment (as seen in the comments section):

Hi - I'm a product manager on Blogger, and I wanted to clarify a few things. Google only removes content when legally obligated, and under U.S. law, we are required to take down content when we receive a valid DMCA notice. When we we do this, we send an email to the blogger using the address associated with their account and submit the original DMCA notice to chillingeffects.org. If a blogger wishes to challenge the DMCA notice, they can file a counter notice, at which time the original DMCA complainant has 14 days to file suit, or we will reinstate the removed content. The whole policy is explained in more detail here: http://www.google.com/blogger_dmca.html.

A good reminder for our users is to ensure that the e-mail address associated with their blog is valid and an address they check regularly; any DMCA-related notices we send are sent to that address. You can also find more info or ask questions in our support forum at http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help.

At Blogger Buzz, the official blog for Blogger, Klau says:

Last summer, we updated our enforcement of the DMCA. Our current policy is that when we receive a DMCA complaint, we:

• Notify the blogger about the complaint by e-mail and on the Blogger dashboard.
• Reset the offending post to 'draft' status, allowing the blogger to remove the offending content.
• Send a copy of the complaint to ChillingEffects.org.

When we receive multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner, we will remove the blog.

 

Original Article: Ryan Spaulding is a music blogger from Boston who runs the blog Ryan's Smashing Life, which is hosted by Google's Blogger. For some reason Blogger has been deleting some of his posts.

This story was unearthed earlier this month in an LA Weekly article that found the same thing happening to a number of Blogger users. I got in touch with Ryan to find out what he had to say about the situation, and the following interview is the product of that (Not all of Ryan's opinions necessarily reflect those of WebProNews).

Chris Crum:  First off, can I get a little background on the story in your words?

Ryan Spaulding: Beginning last summer, I slowly began to notice that several older posts were beginning to disappear. This didn’t come to my attention for some time since I wasn’t in the habit of reading old posts except when I pulled down the material. Sometimes I received emails from frustrated readers who were looking for a topic I had written on – only to find the post deleted.

I had no reason to think this was anything other than a software glitch at first. There were no takedown notices or emails in my inbox. Then the instances began stacking up – and I began comparing notices with other bloggers. What was initially a series of seemingly unconnected blog post disappearances – by fall, became the topic of discussion in blogger emails and chat rooms. The change of tactic of the industry and the poor handling of  it by blog-host Blogger (Google) was being seen as a conspiracy.

I have come to love blogging and the integration of a myriad of software add-ons to the blog. Like the vast majority of bloggers, I am not paid for my time, creativity or passion. It is because of my passion for this thing that many of us have come to feel betrayed when we learn that the host of our websites is now in the business of deleting our posts without warning! (It’s an issue of respect. Blogger has proven that they do not respect their own users. Despite the merits of our prior good conduct and years of loyal use of their blogging platform and software – we are considered guilty before having a chance to demonstrate our innocence or at the very least have a chance to pull down the offending material.) Yes, it’s an issue of respect.

CC:  How many other bloggers have you spoken with that have had similar experiences?

RS: About a dozen or more to start, but since the piece ran in LA Weekly, I have received email from dozens more vocalizing their support.

CC: Can you tell me exactly what the deleted posts consisted of?

RS: The types of posts removed break down into two basic groups:

The Deletion of Unsolicited Promotional Posts: A few of these missing posts were "unapproved" posts on signed bands. This means I promote a band’s project and use an mp3 I had seen given away in other locations on the web, and then wrote lengthy pieces, breaking down the songs into their themes and reviewed them based on merit. All pieces were positive and promotional in nature. I tend to not write negative reviews on music;  it runs contrary to the underlying theme of the blog – to support musicians whose work I enjoy. While it hurt to see these posts disappear (why wasn’t I simply contacted to remove the material? ), ultimately I understood the rules about such things.

The Deletion of Solicited Promotional Posts (They Ask Me to Support the Band): What was truly upsetting was the loss of material that was approved by the labels and the bands themselves. Since I do very few Unsolicited Promo pieces, this is the lion’s share of posts that are deleted. This is at the core of the problem: More than a dozen of these at last count – each requiring four hours or more apiece – were deleted out of my account and without warning.

Google chooses it’s bed and makes bloggers lay in It. Blogger/Google had the opportunity to choose its tactic when receiving notices. First of all, they could have delineated between longstanding reputable bloggers and those suspected to be leakers. They chose not to do this. Blogger/Google treats everybody the same (the good and the bad!) –They also could have chose the tactic to notify the bloggers of the demand and let us comply. They chose to not take this tactic either and simply delete the posts. Later, they altered this tactic slightly by going ahead and deleting the post and then, later, sent an email explaining their position. The end result is the same. To illustrate how utterly frustrating this is, I will outline what takes place start-to-finish: 

I’m a choosy blogger. Each month, I receive many, many albums – both in the mail and through digital. These are always accompanied by a press release asking to promote the band, their album project and tour. In the case when the bands/music labels/PR houses/publicists ask me to use a specific post when I publish the material then I comply. I use the material they request. 

All of these steps serve to make me an authorized agent for the label. [I fully understand that I do not own the material and need to pull it down immediately if ever asked. This is implicitly understood.]

CC:  Have you contacted Google about the issue, and if so, what kind of response did you receive?

RS: They never responded. An "opportunity" (in legalese, of course) offered a means to have the post restored – but like most bloggers, I didn’t have the knowledge or time to fight "city hall" on every post. Especially, since Blogger/Google didn’t even take five minutes to send a simple email response. Nothing professional, nothing courteous. Again, the tactic they choose belies their basic lack of respect for their users – which is why I took up the cause. They have a relative monopoly on blog hosting services and rule with an iron fist.

CC:  Are you concerned that your blog's reputation might be hurt when people click through to it from other sites, only to find that the content they're looking for has been removed? How has the removal of these posts impacted your blog's traffic?

RS: This is very hard to detect and prove. New people are coming in every day. But if you take a page out of economic studies, the value of "Opportunity Costs" are difficult to measure. If you are a first-time reader and you receive a dead link – you may never return.

CC:  Have you detected any loss in readership?

RS: Loyal readers were the ones to actually bring the deletions to my attention. I don’t think I could shake some of these people – they have truly become friends. But as with the prior example, some readers who have not been with the page long – predictably grow irritated at the absence of written material on the page when they repeatedly get dead links. And, they delete their bookmarks and go away.

CC:  Did you contact the RIAA? If so, what kind of response did you get from them?

RS: Actually, I firmly believe the majority of the posts weren’t pulled down on RIAA requests – the majority of these came through miscommunication at the label-level. The EU branch of the label doesn’t talk to the US labels. Sometime after the post goes live (with complete approval of the US label) the European branch contacts their legal department when they find the post promoting the band on my site. They choose to not recognize (or simply do not have visibility to the arrangement) and send an email to the IFPI (the British version of the RIAA). This group demands takedown from Blogger/Google.

I'd like to thank Ryan for taking the time to talk about this. Those interested in this story might also find Last.fm's story interesting.

Update: Blogger Product Manger has weighed in on the situation in the comments section.

Consumers More Likely To Pay For Professional Online Content

Not surprisingly, the majority (85%) of online consumers prefer free content, but some categories they would be willing to consider paying for access, according to a new survey from Nielsen.

Nielsen asked more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries about what types of online content they would be willing to pay for. The survey found consumers are most likely to pay for online content they would pay for offline including movies, music, games, and television shows.

Consumers are least likely to pay for content on social networks, podcasts, consumer-generated videos and blogs.

The survey found consumers worldwide generally agree that online content will have to meet certain guidelines before they spend money to access it:

    *Better than three out of every four survey participants (78%) believe if they already subscribe to a newspaper, magazine, radio or television service they should be able to use its online content for free.
   

 *At the same time, 71% of global consumers say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it.
   

*Nearly eight out of every ten (79%) would no longer use a web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost.
   

*As a group, they are ambivalent about whether the quality of online content would suffer if companies could not charge for it-34% think so while 30% do not; and the remaining 36% have no firm opinion.
   

*But they are far more united (62%) in their conviction that once they purchase content, it should be theirs to copy or share with whomever they want.

 

Google Makes it Harder to Hide from a Bad Reputation

Google is now including reviews from more sources on its Place Pages for businesses. They're no longer coming from just review sites. They're coming from news sites, blogs, and more.

Mike Blumenthal, who writes for the Understanding Google Maps & Local Search blog, has an in depth analysis of this change and received confirmation on its existence from Google Maps Product Manager Carter Maslan.

"This change portends a dramatically changed review landscape where both the volume of reviews for some types of businesses will rise and the dynamics of reputation management will change. It could very well shift  the balance of power away from centralized review sites and could be one more impediment to any recovery of the IYP sites," says Blumenthal.

"Google Maps is now using the new capability of sentiment analysis to better understand content and add 'reviews' from non traditional sources like newspaper articles and single blog entries that appear across the internet," he says. "This new capability will dramatically increase the reach of hyperlocal blogs, change how businesses manage the review process and could, over the long haul, change how and where reviews are generated and aggregated."



It is not particularly surprising that Google would reach to more sources for review-like content on Place Pages. Considering the breadth of information Google indexes, it seems fairly obvious that when Google brings together information about a business it would pull from a wide variety of sources.

Blumenthal is right in that this highlights a possible need for some reputation management adjustments for businesses. However, it doesn't seem like anything alerts won't be able to help you keep track of, and you should probably be using those anyway if you are concerned about maintaining a good online reputation (which can increasingly affect your offlline reputation).

Provided that they offer customers a positive experience, Google's inclusion of more sources in Place Pages could work to the benefit of businesses. It's hard to earn a good reputation if you don't deliver something positive to begin with. These new additions should only make it harder to hide from a bad reputation.
 

Related Articles:

> Google Adds Place Pages to Google Earth

> Critical Local Search Factors To Pay Attention To

> Will Google Eliminate the Need for Small Business Websites?

Rumor: AOL May (Not) Be Buying Mashable

Update: According to Business Insider, Pete Cashmore had this to say on the matter: 

We're very open to partnerships and always talk with those that get in touch. We've certainly spoken to lots of potential partners, some of those conversations more significant than others. But I don't feel that any of those conversations reached a point at which Mashable is likely to cease being independent.

Original Article: In mid-2009, all-things-social-media blog Mashable surpassed TechCrunch as the top tech blog in terms of traffic. Now, Mashable is rumored to be on its way to becoming an AOL property.

In late 2009, AOL revealed its new strategy away from Time Warner. That strategy is content, content, content, and that is something there is no shortage of from Mashable.

Gawker's Valleywag appears to be the source of the rumor after hearing from "a source at the Internet conglomerate" that AOL was interested in buying Mashable. Mashable owner Pete Cashmore has since told the publication:

"We don't comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts."

However, since then, famed tech blogger Robert Scoble has posted the following tweet:

It's still only a rumor at this point, but it will be quite interesting to see how this one unfolds. Valleywag thinks the only hold up might be negotiations.

Mashable certainly fits the profile of what AOL is trying to do these days. They cover a wide spectrum of topics (horizontally, if you will), while staying somewhere within the realm of social media, for the most part. One has to wonder if the writers would stay the same if such a deal were to go through.
 

Related Articles:

> TechCrunch Dethroned by Mashable as Top Tech Blog

> Increase Search Traffic with Horizontal Content

> The New AOL is Now Live

FTC Guidelines Raise Big Blogging Questions

Update 3: The new FTC Guidelines went into effect this week. A recent WebProNews interview with Wendy Piersall, Founder of the Woo! Jr. Network, looks at some interesting points about them that you may not have considered - some "gray areas" if you will.

Update 2:  Now Cleland says, "If people think that the FTC is going to issue them a citation for $11,000 because they failed to disclose that they got a free box of Pampers, that's not true. That's not going to happen today, not ever." (via)

Update: The FTC is now saying that the $11,000 fine is not accurate, at least for the first violation. Fast company got some responses from Richard Cleland, assistant director, division of advertising practices at the FTC, who says:

“That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law. To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?” [empahsis added]

Cleland addresses more of the concerns here.

Original Article: The Federal Trade Commission has released its revised guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The revisions include a focus on "bloggers" and social media users, requiring them to properly disclose when they have received payment in the form of either money or product from a company or organization and produce content regarding said company or organization. The word is that bloggers can be fined up to $11,000 per post for not disclosing.

Have you ever mentioned a free product you received online and not disclosed it? Comment here.

The reasoning behind the guidelines seems noble enough - provide transparency and keep consumers safe from hokey information. However, the concept of the government dictating how this happens does not sit well with a lot of people. The revisions (which can be found in this 81 page document [pdf], should you care to peruse them [they start around page 55]) have ruffled quite a few feathers and the conversation has become one about free speech.

Well-known author/editor/publisher Jeff Jarvis makes a really good point. He says the FTC assumes that the Internet is a medium. "It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking," he says. "So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media – as they explicitly do – is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed."

It's not hard to find echoes of Jarvis's sentiment all over the web. Although, I don't believe I've seen it as eloquently put as with the Denny's analogy. Still, not everyone sees the FTC regulations as a bad thing. In fact, Google's Matt Cutts stepped into the conversation with Jeff Jarvis, expressing a bit more enthusiasm for the guidelines.

"As a Google engineer who has seen the damage done by fake blogs, sock puppets, and endless scams on the internet, I’m happy to take the opposite position: I think the FTC guidelines will make the web more useful and more trustworthy for consumers," he says. "Consumers don’t want to be shilled and they don’t want payola; they want a web that they can trust. The FTC guidelines just say that material connections should be disclosed. From having dealt with these issues over several years, I believe that will be a good thing for the web."

Commenters essentially tell Matt the whole thing would smell a lot better if he were the one regulating it. The reasoning for this is that Matt is involved with the industry. He is not a government worker that has been one his whole life. He's been in the field. He knows the score. The argument coming from most of the opposition is not about the fundamental principle of making content more trustworthy for consumers. At the root of it, it appears that people are much more concerned about a government body of regulators who aren't necessarily involved with online content production telling them how it is, when there are many, many questions about what falls under the criteria.

A number of these questions are nicely placed in an "open letter to the FTC" from Ron Hogan at MediaBistro's GalleyCat. Here are a few of them:

 

- If an unpaid blogger at the Huffington Post "endorses" a consumer product without meeting the FTC guidelines for disclosure of "material connections" to the makers of that consumer product, who's liable: the blogger or the Huffington Post?

-  If a blogger prints out a series of blog posts and distributes those printed copies, is he now the publisher of a newspaper or magazine? If so, the Village Voice is distributed for free, so can a blogger/publisher distribute his newspaper or magazine for free, too?

-  What if a blogger confines herself to stating demonstrably proven facts about a book, its author, its contents, and the matter of its publication? Does the FTC consider that an endorsement? What if she confines herself to stating such facts and includes links to an ecommerce site? Has her writing somehow been transformed from a statement of fact to an endorsement? 

There are plenty more where that came from. The list goes on. You can probably think of a few yourself. It may be hard for the guidelines to be enforced. The FTC does acknowledge that its guidelines aren't exactly the law themselves. The FTC says:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

It should also be noted that the rules presumably apply to publications beyond bloggers and social media users, but for some reason it appears that "bloggers" are the ones with whom the FTC had on its collective mind when drafting these guidelines. You have to wonder if they are able to come up with a definition for "blogging" (others have had trouble in the past. Even those directly involved in the online content industry). The rules are scheduled to take effect on December 1st.

What questions do you have about the FTC's guidelines? Share them here.

Yahoo May Shut Down MyBlogLog Soon

Update: Yahoo has issued the following statment regarding MyBlogLog's future:

Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that’s an option. But there are other options as well. We know this creates some uncertainty for current MyBlogLog users. While we aren't quite ready to share more details, we promise to keep you posted.

Original Article: Yahoo will reportedly shut down MyBlogLog in January. Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb claims to have heard from "sources close to the project" that this is the case.

"Yahoo! has let the service atrophy for years and will now put it to rest," writes Kirkpatrick. "To think that this service offered publishers and developers access to personal, demographic, taste and activity data of a website's readers - and yet that offering has in the end gone no where - that's downright crazy."

MyBlogLog was originally developed by Cloudspace out of Florida, but was acquired by Yahoo in January 2007. The company paid over 10 million dollars for it. According to Wikipedia, there were over 45,000 blogs subscribed to it at the time, and it currently has 275,000 registered users.

It's no secret that Yahoo is cutting costs wherever it can. For example, earlier this year, they shut down the once popular Geocities. Just this week, they announced that they would be closing their offices for a whole week to save a little dough.

No mention of the demise of the service is mentioned on the MyBlogLog blog.

Related Articles:

> MyBlogLog - Still Relevant?

> MyBlogLog Looks for Higher Level of "Truthiness"

> Yahoo! MyBlogLog Gets Updated

Small Businesses And Social Media

Early this year, Burger King made waves with a "Whopper Sacrifice" Facebook app.  Google, meanwhile, has achieved Twitter omnipresence with 87 official accounts.  But not every company has tons of free hamburgers and/or employees lying around, so a like-named session at SES Chicago addressed the matter of "Social Media for the Little Guy."

(Coverage of SES Chicago continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Jennifer Evans Laycock, Search Engine Guide's editor-in-chief, started the session by expressing a dislike for the phrase "social media marketing."  She prefers to think of it as a dating experience - "social media dating for small business marketers," if you will - and went on to explain why.

Laycock believes there are seven common rules.  First, people must listen.  They must learn to be romantic (using what already exists for their own benefit), and not expect sex on the first date (think patience and persistence).  It's also important to be yourself (look at how Blendtec embraced its identity), to make yourself available, to seek out the right match, and to value long-term relationships.

Jessica Kornacki, the vice president of marketing for Endless Vacation Rentals by Wyndham Worldwide, spoke next.  She talked about brand awareness.  One good example of drumming it up involved YourFatChance.com and asking people to share stories involving bad luck.  Their stories were used to show that everyone needs a vacation.

Then Eric Brown, founder of Urbane Apartments, made his presentation.  Brown stressed, "You can participate in the conversation, but you can't control it."  You may not even want to.  After turning his blog over to the community, Brown saw site traffic go up 108 percent and actual rentals increase by 69 percent.

Finally, Brett Tabke, the CEO of WebmasterWorld.com, shared some thoughts (and numbers).  Tabke revealed that he spent absolutely nothing on marketing and ads for PubCon 2009, instead going all-Twitter-all-the-time.  Things went up 30 percent in a down year as a result, leading him to observe, "Retweet is a marketing arm."

Tabke also said, "Afternoons are disproportionately retweet heavy . . . time of day is everything."  And Tabke recommended Klout for Twitter analytics.

WebProNews Reporter/Anchor Abby Johnson contributed to this report.

Related Articles:

> Dell Attributes $6.5 Million In Sales To Twitter

> Tips For Getting Found In Real-Time Searches

> 20 Goals For Business Social Media Use

Technorati CEO Talks State of the Blogosphere

Update 2: Here is our exlcusive interview with Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra from the BlogWorld Expo this past weekend:

 

 

 

here. Original Article: Technorati's 2009 State of the Blogosphere report is due to come out Monday, but attendees at the BlogWorld Expo (including WebProNews) got a preview from Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra. First and foremost, Jalichandra says the "State of the Blogosphere is strong." Some have suggested that it might be dying due to microblogging services like Twitter, but he says it's not dying or leveling off. It's thriving. "Blogs are media," he says. The report is based on a survey of 2,900 bloggers and includes interviews with blogging pros like Steve Rubel and Arianna Huffington. Here are some key findings:         - 72% blog for hobby/fun and don't make money - 28% are professional bloggers - 2/3 of professional bloggers are male - 60% are 18-44 - 40% of professional bloggers have at some point in their life worked for traditional media - 7% are actually still employed in traditional media - 73% of bloggers use Twitter vs 14% of general population That last statistic is particularly interesting. Chitika just released results from a study finding that most Twitterers are looking for news. Jalichandra says, "There's a rising profession of professional bloggers" and that traditional media has given bloggers a bad name. "These findings prove that wrong." He says that all bloggers' number one use of Twitter is to promote their blogs. Famed blogger Robert Scoble said from the audience, that they use Twitter "to pimp their blogs." Either way, the main reasons deal with helping their blogging business. According to Jalichandra, 24-32% of professional bloggers blog over ten hours a week, and they invest seven times more money in their blogs. The top 500 authority bloggers generate almost 300 times more posts, and the top 5,000 generate 100 times more. 63% of bloggers in general say that they have become more involved with what they are passionate about as result of blogs and only 6% say relationships with friends or family are suffering. Pros monetize their blogs via: - display ads - 40% (up from 28% last year) - Search ads - 39% - Affiliate links - 36% - Paid postings - 8% According to the report, self-employed bloggers are most likely to sell their inventory through a blog ad network and use affiliate links. 70% of all bloggers blog about brands. Technorati itself just launched a big redesign. You can read more about here. WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report from BlogWorld. Tags: blogs and podcasting, marketing my podcast, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin Next Page » eNews & Updates Sign up to receive breaking news as well as receive other site updates! Featured Video Related Links Translator     By N2H Copyright © 2008 · All Rights Reserved · Podcast Marketing by Kaboodle Ventures · Designed by Web 3.0 Technology | Happy Hour | SEO Kung Fu | Secure ID· Log in