TechMeme on … TechMeme

Posted on October 10, 2007 by JoeDuck

Gabe Rivera’s TechMeme is a favorite info destination for thousands of technology enthusiasts and news junkies all over the world. However Bobbie Johnson over at the Guardian has taken a mini-swipe at TechMeme, suggesting that the relative low traffic from the site shows that people are overrating TechMeme’s importance in the scheme of things technological.

Robert Scoble, in response, has a great summary of how he gets very different traffic depending on the source. Although he does not focus on the *topic*, clearly that matters a lot as well. Scoble’s blog is influential enough that it would often send more traffic to a linked site than TechMeme. I’ll have to check my own stats to be sure but I the times I’ve had links from “A list” bloggers like Robert Scoble, Jeremy Zawodny or Matt Cutts it has sent more traffic than my frequent links at TechMeme – though I have never had a post be a “headliner” at TechMeme. In fact I don’t think Gabe’s algorithm would allow his “second tier” sites to have featured posts. My (wild) guess is that TechMeme has at least two lists of blogs/sites, and only sites and blogs on his top tier list can have the posts featured prominently – others are relegated to the comments section even if it’s a more detailed, more linked, or better post.

I think this “small stable of premier technology sites” may be a potential defect at TechMeme that keeps the Tech echo chamber very loud but not very diverse, though Gabe may have learned that this helps keep irrelevant posts out of the mix. At SES I was talking with Matt Cutts about how the TechMeme algorithm might work, and how it might be applied to a broader set of blogs as a ranking mechanism.

Nick Carr jumped on this TechMeme traffic bashing bandwagon suggesting “juicelessness” which is a cleverly coined phrase but misleading because TechMeme clearly reaches a lot of key technology folks and that’s a juicier kind of audience in terms of advertising and influence than, say, 16 year old Diggers.

So, I’m sticking with TechMeme and redict it’ll get bigger and better.

Social media frenzy may kill high quality content. Somebody fix this!

Posted on October 7, 2007 by JoeDuck

The news last month that Microsoft may wind up offering Facebook $500,000,000 for a 5% stake is great news … for the tiny number of Facebook insiders who stand to gain from this move which would effectively value the social media giant at about $10,000,000,000. For the millions of Facebook folks like me who provide the content and faces that drive Facebook it means … um … more advertising.

Gee, thanks Facebook.

When people wake up they may start to realize that we’ve got a potential crisis as small numbers of “info intermediators” like Google and Facebook scoop up the lion’s share of the online ocean of cash while the “info creators” are distinctly second class citizens in the big show. Small time web publishers and mom and pops are in this group. So are major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post and most other print outlets who tend to make relatively little online despite offering much of the web’s best content to date, especially now that the foolish paywalls of some newspaper outlets like NYT are coming down. Having no paywall will allow them to make more, but it’s not clear to me they’ll make enough to keep all that high quality content coming.

Print and newspapers are hurting and that is going to continue. That’s OK as long as websites and blogs continue to provide great insight and breaking news, but it’s about time the big players in the online world start working *a lot harder* to feed the hands that are feeding them. It’s about time they realize that the best web ecosystem encourages high quality content and not just socializing for the sake of hanging online with friends.

Yes, it is true that revenue sharing programs like Google adsense give publishers a nice share of revenues that come directly from activity at their websites. However lost in this debate is the fact that *most* of Google’s money (and virtually all of Myspaces), goes into the pocket of Google and Fox (owners of Myspace). This is because most of the cash comes from searches done at Google.com rather than publishing affiliate sites, and Google keeps all that despite the fact it’s generated *indirectly* from the ocean of content Google has categorized. Sure Google should make *a lot* from categorizing *your content* so effectively, but should they make 100%? You can argue this arrangement is fine if the big players turn around and do things with that money that make the internet ecosystem thrive and grow in ways it could not without their involvement. I think that argument was far more valid a few years ago than it is now. Literally thousands of startups are dying off as the Youtubes and Facebooks – built squarely on the shoulders of other people’s content – scoop up the super gigantic big money. It is not a problem that startups die – in fact it’s a good part of the ruthless evolution of things – but it’s problematic when the lion’s share of online resources from the work of so many are redistributed to so few. Not because this is “unfair”, but because this type of inequity does not lead to optimal system efficiency and growth.

Social media in all its various and sundry forms is a wonderful development. Finally we see clearly that people, not computers, will be at the heart of future online developments – probably for some time into the future. Facebook users are now leading the innovation in this area, though Alice at NYT thinks this could lead to unintended consequences.

To protect this new socially charged online environment from the ravages of our silly, stupid and prurient human interests we’ll need better incentives than the big players currently offer to quality content producers. Those incentives will ultimately shape the quality of online content for years to come.

Reinventing Yahoo

Posted on August 29, 2007 by JoeDuck

Kara Swisher at the Wall Street Journal is reporting on Yahoo’s trials and tribulations as CEO Jerry Yang works to regain the glory days Yahoo enjoyed years ago when Yahoo, not Google, was the internet wonder company whose upward potential seemed to know know bounds according to many stock analysts and tech watchers.

Here’s more from PaidContent on what some seem to think is a Yahoo mini-bloodbath.

At an SES Conference lunch table I was sitting with several well connected tech watchers and warriors and asked about Yahoo’s prospects. “They are dead” said one search marketing insider, noting that Yahoo search results remain easy to spam, leading to inferior quality and search problems. Another thought Yahoo needs to become the king of videos, essentially working to become “the” online network, monetizing with extensive advertising embedded in the videos. However the concensus seemed to be that Yahoo needed to move “sideways” and simply consolidate their second place search status in the hopes of stopping the hemorraging of morale and stock price.

On balance I’m a lot more optimistic than most about Yahoo’s prospects, though I think they need to get more comfortable copying Google in several respects. Also, given Google’s accelerating dominance in the online sector it seems an MSN buyout is the most logical course for Yahoo and probably MSN as well. This would allow MSN to continue to focus on their bread and butter with Office and Vista while bringing their clever LIVE staff in line with Yahoo. Yahoo would continue much as it does now but be an MSN “brand” for online stuff while MSN would seek to connect as tightly as legally possible their offline dominance with their current online weaknesses. Despite the fact that Yahoo is the clear number two in online search, it’s currently capitalized at about 30 billion, less than 20% of Google’s massive 158 billion market cap and only about 11% of MSFT’s 265 billion market cap. Is the Yahoo online empire worth a mere *fifth* of Google’s? Sure seems to me the answer is yes. Microsoft what’s wrong with you and

Yahoo – what the HECK is wrong with YOUHoo, too?

Disclaimer: I have some Yahoo Stock. Yes, I’m still proud of that!
No, I’m not making money on it. Wake up Yahoo!

Accoona

Posted on August 24, 2007 by JoeDuck

Spelling challenges aside Accoona has been plagued by performance and corporate scandal challenges for some time. IPO backing now looks weak and I’m thinking you’ve got trouble when the company has to issue the following statement:

“I can assure you that Accoona is a genuine company with legitimate operations …”

Oh, OK then. Everybody line up to invest now.

Wrapping up day 3 of SES San Jose Search Strategies Conference

Posted on August 22, 2007 by JoeDuck

For great session coverage of SES see the following sites:

Yesterday’s “Is Buying Links Evil” was by far the most interesting and heated of the sessions. Google’s Matt Cutts was under heavy fire from Todd Malicoat and Michael Gray regarding Google’s aggressive policies on paid linking and the application of the NOFOLLOW tag. The best question came from Rand Fishkin who asked Matt Cutts if it would be preferable to do without NOFOLLOW and have better, scalable, algorithmic ways to determine link relationships. Matt indicated it would and this gets to the huge middle ground in the paid linking debate. I think SEO folks, especially those who worked back in the gravy days of massive paid linking, should have expected Google to crack down on the practice but I would *strongly* criticize Google for not bringing more transparency to this issue by clarification of their paid link penalty structure and what appears to be a lot of leniency for paid linking in many situations. Many links, such as those a brief aquaintance might give to another person who opens a new website, are probably in line with guidelines but are essentially identical in structure to a paid link. In this case adding nofollow is totally inappropriate since the goal is to indicate a mild endorsement of the new site. I suspect this type of link is treated favorably by Google and I’m wildly guessing that they err on the side of not penalizing this type of link, but that is not clearly indicated in the policy statements or in the talks I’ve had with Google search folks. This failure to clarify, combined with Google asking for “help” in finding paid links, has led to more frustration in the Webmaster community than Google thinks it has caused. One indication of this was the huge applause given to parts of the “anti Google” presentations yesterday. As always Matt Cutts handles this with great composure and I think a very sincere desire to make things work well for all players, but I’d recommend that Google really examine the linking policies carefully and issue a detailed and full clarification of “legitimate linking practices” with, literally, thousands of examples. Will this be reverse engineered for SEO benefit? Yes, but if it’s written correctly it can improve the web rather than leading to confusion about linking and the rampant continued use of paid linking schemes.

Links are a big theme here and I’m now off to Danny Sullivan’s session on “Search Engine Q&A On Links”

Pligg for sale, Searchmob, and Arabian Horse Breeding

Posted on August 14, 2007 by JoeDuck

TechCrunch reports that Pligg is up for sale. The clone of the Digg project was a great way to easily and effectively set up a user community where people could submit, review, and rank articles. John Battelle used it nicely over at SearchMob in an attempt to enhance his excellent search news coverage at Search Blog.

Unfortunately at SearchMob it seemed to me that the reviews became more of a breeding ground for SEO tactics than a clearinghouse for quality search news. Several participants would primarily list stories at their own sites that were referencing *other* source stories. This is not necessarily bad but I found at SearchMob that only a fraction of the stories were “high quality”. That said I’m not a big fan of Digg either because my interests still don’t seem to match the normal onliner demographic very well.

Pligg may not be the best example of how to make money on Web 2.0 because it was an open project and an advanced concept used by tech-savvy folks more than mainstream people. Mainstream is where the numbers are and therefore, usually, where the money is. Still, Pligg had buzz, traffic, and a community. This should be enough to do well enough to keep building the project. It’s possible the owners really *could* keep running the site and quit their jobs but want to try for a big payoff now while VC money is still flowing briskly into startups. In fact this makes a lot of sense and if true it means my analysis here is probably flawed – ie they are selling at opportune time rather than for the stated reasons of “too busy to run it”.

Pligg’s founders suggest that they are selling because they have real jobs and don’t have time to manage the growing and thriving Pligg community. I find this very interesting because they clearly have done Web 2.0 “right” – they created a useful service, got lots of people actively involved and developing for it, and have a powerful community of users. So why can’t they quit their jobs and just work on Pligg and rake in lots of money? Don Dodge’s mini-analysis of some time ago has part of the answer. Even most VC funded startups don’t appear to return enough for the average VC to break even on the investment. If true this is a really provocative notion – rich people are funding companies and losing money. Like Arabian Horse breeding or Casino gambling it may be that playing the startup game is so enjoyable – and the potential deceptive enough for many wealthy folks that they continue to fund companies that, on average, will only return a portion of their investment over time. Are Startups , on average, a bad investment?

The rumors of PodTech’s death may not be greatly exaggerated?

Posted on July 27, 2007 by JoeDuck

Update: As far as I know PodTech is doing fine as of December 2007, and the rumors back in July were bogus or exaggerated. Just heard from John Furrier that PodTech will again host a “bloghaus” at CES, one of the neatest “social tech” ideas last year in my opinion. I’m a big fan of all that Robert Scoble has done to evangelize quality corporate blogging and really wish PodTech the best.

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Mike Arrington is reporting that PodTech is in trouble. I think this is consistent with the idea that content is no longer king – it’s a pawn in the big game to leverage the flood of free content and social networking activity, a game where the winners will NOT be the product of doing the “right thing”, rather winners will be the survivors of the evolutionary process that drives our rapidly changing digital ecosystem. Biological evolution works *away from failure* rather than towards success, and it seems clear to me this is also how internet company evolution works.

Mike suggests that PodTech might survive in modified form by scaling back and lowering their “burn rate” and focusing almost exclusively as a production and advertising house focusing on their own clients. I wrote over there:

Good insight as usual Dr. Mike.

“… get their burn rate very low” ummmm – can you cite any examples of a companies that did this in time to survive?

I enjoy Robert’s perspectives and consider him a real blogging leader and a digital inspiratation to the rest of us, but I don’t have the time to invest in his videos or PodTech’s other rich content. (just the facts please!)

Producing quality content is now playing with pawns rather than kings, and for some time it will be the companies that leverage the flood of free content or help people process the maelstrom of content that will win. e.g Facebook, Google, and your personal favorite winner, TechCrunch!

The painful thing if PodTech dies is that they did so many thing exactly “right”. They saw video and blogging as sweeping new online paradigms, they hired Robert Scoble who is nothing short of a digital inspiration to bloggers and video folks – he’s one of the elite onliners who puts his blog, money, reputation where his mouth is and actually engages non-elites regularly and with gusto and stays about as Web 2.0 connected as you can without exploding. Also, PodTech sponsored what looked to me like CES’s best new idea – the Bloghaus.

But planning and quality don’t necessarily breed success in biology or business, and PodTech may be just one more example of the harsh new evolutionary realities facing any digital animal.

As Paul K infectiously notes business plans are overrated. Twitter’s lack of a business plan may be the flip side of the evolutionary challenges – disorganization won’t hurt them and might even be part of the reasons it’s looking like Twitter will be …. hugely successful.

Waiting for OnRebate ‘s “no wait” rebate?

Posted on July 27, 2007 by JoeDuck

Update: OnRebate replied to this post, and I think that is nice of them.

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My son just assembled a new and very fast PC from parts we bought at TigerDirect, but suffering through the rebate submission process is sure diminishing the educational value of this for me. Even though he’s doing much of the paperwork himself I just spent close to an hour figuring out the silly details and going offline, online, and printing the various forms required.

I suppose it’s teaching him something, though so far it is mostly “why is dad cursing at the rebate people?”.

Onrebate.com is processing 2 of the 5 rebates we are due. From a technical point of view the system seemed to work OK but the “no wait” rebate option that offers what they say is an “almost instantaneous” rebate is a lesson is how OnRebate is using deceptive doublespeak marketing BS. This “instantaneous” rebate will come to me after they process all the paperwork rather than after they simply match my input to the existing sales records (that would be neat, and it’s clearly what they implied they were going to do).

Sure the stakes here are low with $40 and $20 rebates but I resent how companies like this effectively prey on the inexperience of their customers and the complexity of the rebate process to lower the response rates as well as tag on extra charges. Good rebate systems (Staples comes to mind – Kudos to them) are still an inconvenience but I respect the fact that fraud is a big issue now. Bad rebate sytems are usually immoral attempts at marketing ripoff schemes or reduce response rates (a multi-billion dollar scam that is perfectly legal). I’m not putting OnRebate in this category yet but they are sure on my list for potentially seeking to reduce response rates. Incredibly they also wanted to charge a sneaky $4 “no wait” fee for the rebate that would still require weeks of waiting, just not their normal wait time of several months.

Summary: Beware rebates in general and beware sneaky marketing doublespeak from OnRebate.

Update: Here’s an interesting thread about OnRebate problems. Note that the helpful OnRebate rep no longer works there though it looks like she was great in dealing with complaints. http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/149/ripoff0149417.htm#217843

Forbes “Tech Boom, Media Bust”

Posted on July 16, 2007 by JoeDuck

Brian Caufield has written a great Forbes piece about the impact of new media on … old media. He notes the rise of GigaOm and TechCrunch and the demise of Red Herring and CNET.

My take on much of the new game is that *keeping expenses low* is far more important than *generating big revenues*. We may be seeing a 180 degree turnaround in many industries where we return to small business, entrepreneurial modes of production that use the internet as the mechanism to cheaply scale from small to large. Scaling up in media industries used to take substantial capital but now it takes almost nothing. Info based industries have only begun to reel from the coming changes.

Joe Duck

Have Blog. Will Travel. Vaccinate!

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