"Tables Aren't Turning...They're Spinning"

Tom Biro over at the media drop adds his take to an article MediaPost ran today on micro media and this blog. Normally I would not use my blog to call your attention to a story on lil' ol' me, but Tom advances the discussion in a way only he could and I think he makes a point worth pondering.

Moral to the story? If you're a PR gal or guy, you are going to see a fundamental shift in who you pitch, what you're pitching, and how. Do blogs end up being a "news source" for a lot of individuals? Darn straight they do. While they're not a replacement for your newspapers and magazines - which are somewhat symbiotic to the blogging relationship - they will have importance in the near term. I can't reiterate enough how many times I've heard from PR people that they get really good traffic from blogs when products are reviewed, comments on a service are made, or a company/executive is profiled. One can't dismiss the whole medium just because there are a million blogs out there with people talking about their socks and that they don't like eggs with their breakfast - you don't dismiss magazines because there are publications that have lurid content, nor do you dismiss television just because you think public access channels aren't up to "your standards".

Friends Finale Gets Blogged

Missed the Friends finale? No worries, the St. Louis Dispatch Tivoed it for you with a blog.

Weblog Promotion 101

informIT has a good overview on how to promote a Weblog.

"Got a weblog? If so, you're joining thousands of people who blog daily. Whether yours contains humor, passages from your life, or political discussions (and even if you use your blog for updating news on a professional site), making sure that the blog gets promoted is key. After your weblog is up and running, promoting and aggregating content is the step that will help move you from anonymity to worldwide fame. Molly Holzschlag lets you know how to promote your weblog content effectively."

DNC Welcomes Bloggers to Convention

The Democratic National Committee is welcoming bloggers to cover the convention. I wonder how they're going to manage this. Which bloggers will get credentialed? What's to stop me from enrolling? That said, this is a very smart PR move on the DNC's part.

(Reblogged from anil's daily links)

BlogPulse to Open a New Window on the Blogosphere

Imagine if there was a way to pick the brain of the entire blogosphere to identify the ideas, trends and people that are top of mind among highly influential bloggers – ideas that will be big in the press, but are currently below the radar. Intelliseek, a leader in intelligence solutions, next week plans to do begin doing just that. [Note - Intelliseek is not a client of CooperKatz and Company, my employer]

Intelliseek's reps have informed me that on Monday they will unveil BlogPulse, an online discovery and tracking tool that measures and ranks “buzz” about key issues, people, phrases and links that occur daily in up to a million Internet blogs. The service will feature: pre-built links to the day’s key trends, phrases, people and links (updated daily and archived for 60 days); a search engine to find specific information in blogs; a search tool that graphically charts and compares key issues, trends, people and phrases over time. A rudimentary version of BlogPulse is posted here, but be sure to re-visit the site next week to see the new features.

BlogPulse is an outgrowth of Intelliseek’s existing services, which include the ProFusion search engine and the popular PlanetFeedback “voice of the consumer” Web site. The company develops machine-learning, natural language processing technologies that locate, categorize and analyze vast amounts of unstructured data, including public data found in Internet discussions and forums.

BlogPulse.com updates content daily, and can be used by bloggers to determine which blogs attract and generate the most traffic and to gauge interest in their own blogs. BlogPulse also serves as a useful and entertaining research tool for consumers, the media, observers, risk and reputation managers, pundits, politicians – anyone interested in tracking rumors, buzz, issues and trends, often before they hit the mainstream media.