Steve Rubel reports today on a new, experimental Sponsored Blogroll service announced by the Washington Post today:

Basically, the way this works is that the WaPo is building a network of bloggers who want to participate in the program. Like BlogAds, advertisers can browse the network and find blogs to advertise on within their verticals. The bloggers and the Post split the ad dollars. The Post has put out a call for blogs that focus on technology, business, health, automotive and travel topics. Nevertheless, they are interested in all submissions.

However, there’s more. Where it really gets interesting is that the bloggers who opt into the program don’t just earn dollars but also a rotating link to their site in a special Sponsored Blogroll box that sits right on the Washington Post home page. Three blogs are already in the pilot, Jeff says. The box, below, is already on the WaPo home page in the lower right.

Micro Persuasion: Washington Post Launches Blogroll Ad Network

This is fascinating in a number of ways:

1. It further calrifies that blogging, and it’s other social media kin, are not only important to the media landscape but that those we look to most for it increasingly recognize the value.
2. It furthers the agenda that the content created has not just informational value, but also monetary. Too often, the tendency is to hang the “traffic carrot” in front of those less connected in exchange for their intellectual property. The Post has, gratefully, not chosen this route. A win-win doesn’t need to hurt.
3. The landscape for social media “monetization” has broadened in a significant way and now begs some new questions for lots of the upstarts in the business - myself included: How do we work together? Who’s the next visionary?

I’ve been considering these things quite a bit as of late so it makes me happy to see it quickly becoming reality. We’ll be launching next month and extending this universe even further. More details in future posts.

technorati tags:blogroll, sponsoredblogroll, washingtonpost, blogads, steve+rubel, newspapers, advertising

You know you’re spending too much time some place when the locals don’t know you’re not from here. That’s what the experience has been like for me here in the Bay Area. Quite frankly, I love it out here - it really feels like the home I never had.

As we continue to grow things with SocialRoots, it’s becoming more and more clear that my time here is not just enjoyable but required. I anticipate that I will be committing anywhere from 1-2 weeks per month for the remainder of the year - going live is a real pain in the arse.

The problem, of course, is that Starbucks doesn’t scale all that well. I’ve been working from Starbucks for the last 2 years or so - I even work there despite my office in NYC. Sometimes you need some quiet, other times you just need some space to write on the walls. I’ve found that space.

Starting September 1, I’ll be joining friends like Chris Heuer, partners like Stowe Boyd, and a league of other very cool and innovative startups who will remain nameless. It’s a sweet location 2 blocks from the ball park and 2 blocks from South Park. I’m one block away from RubyRed Labs as well as 21st Amendment - great beer.

Ironically enough, I’m also leaving today - back to New York, the proverbial “home”. I’m not sure when I will be back actually. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, but it seems unlikely.

There’s some interesting discussing surround the nature of “deals” in this current generation of web applications. I believe it was Caterina Fake who first called it BizDev 2.0, quickly picked up by Fred Wilson.

As Caterina nicely summarizes, there’s the old way:

Traditional business development meant spending a lot of money on dry cleaning, animating your powerpoint, drinking stale coffee in windowless conference rooms and scouring the thesaurus looking for synonyms for “synergy”. Not to mention trying to get hopelessly overbooked people to return your email.

Caterina.net: BizDev 2.0

And then Fred drills down with the new way:

The bottom line is that web 2.0 offers a new way to get integration with leading web services and you don’t have to waste your time and the time of other busy people trying to craft deals that will probably work out badly anyway.

A VC: Business Development 2.0

I’ve noticed this in much the same manner - though it works only when staying inside the chamber. Once you go outside, you’re back to many of the old rules - there’s just a handful of us that actually understand and embrace the new rules, unfortunately.

But I digress. I actually do like the notion of BizDev 2.0 since I think it is very tangible. Personally, I prefer to think of it as the Wet Edge. In painting, you move from one side to the other, maintaing the edge at all times so as not to get streaks and other artifacts when everything’s done. I don’t think this is all that different from how we are developing our businesses now.

The Wet Edge in the Web 2.0 world is the Open API. The edge is constantly moved by the developers that come along and increase the surface area - extend the reach and use of the underlying system by innovating the brush, so to speak. The survival of this enterprise assumes that the mixer (system developer) constantly adds new colors (features) to the palette, hence keeping painters (web developers) interested in the offering.

Wow. That’s one hell of an analogy, haha. Ultimately, though, I think this is the complex dance now labeled as BizDev 2.0. In many regards, it’s potentially just as much R&D as it is Business Development - just depends on the circumstances of the system developer.

Where’s your wet edge? How are you enabling creative folks from all walks of life to participate, extend, and enhance your message and offering?

technorati tags:socialroots, bizdev2.0, business, apis

There are more and more examples of just how compelling the next generation of marketing can be for not only the marketer, but the marketed. I’ve been making the case more and more lately that we are now active participants in the process of marketing and publicity as things get more and more difficult to discern.

Certainly, I’m not advocating painting numbers of all of our backs (we did that years ago), but more engaging people in new and interesting ways.

Need some proof? Here’s something MINI just did with their customers.

This campaign falls in line with what Shine’s CEO Greg Sturn said last December about their proposal, “[that] It is basically about the evangelical community of owners (of Minis) and creating technological platforms that recognize those owners and allows them to do what they do — which is be evangelical about the brand,’’ Stern said. He said the agency’s pitch to the company was titled “Evolving the Mini brand without screwing it up.’’

Everything’s Better With Brentter » A MINI community

UPDATE: A new report by McKinsey discusses the drop in TV reach.  One interesting tidbit from the AdAge coverage: “CMOs have to step up to a larger role and question a host of historical assumptions of how marketing works,” Mr. French said. “They have to continue to build rich, robust and proprietary customer insights, but they have to do it from a bunch more sources.”

technorati tags:marketing, media, pr, customers, evangelism, MINI

This is the question that was posed to me last month by Trevor Stafford of RedCanary.  I first met Trevor at the Mesh Conference and am glad he included me in this article.  If you want to see the answers from the other 13 other CEO’s, view it here.

Here’s my nightmare:

Vultures. A small company is like a nest of eggs. We’ve got new ideas in a quickly emerging industry. I worry most about how much inspiration I give the circling patrol above. I’m always trying to fi nd new ways to hide my eggs so they have time to hatch — increasingly diffi cult when you also need transparency
to survive.

I’m at ad:tech today and tomorrow exploring some opportunities in the adverising space for SocialRoots.  Harper Reed, my fellow intern from the Squidoo days, has been kind enough to host me for the duration - sure is nice to see him again.

Chicago really is a beautiful place - though the train system is not my favorite by far.  If you’re in the area, leave a comment and I’ll try to catch up with you.

Next stop, New York home.

While I was out in Portland last week, I had a chance to re-connect with Brian Oberkirch and Jeremiah Owyang. I had previously met them both on past trips out to the Bay Area. Brian is a nomad-in-training, much like myself (still aspiring to the true zen my cohort Stowe has achieved).

Brian had some interesting news about his future - which he revealed only after peeling away at the layers that are SocialRoots. Jeremiah has a wonderful mission as well and it was good to hear again.

The ironic thing - I actually missed working around the mic from the Beercasting days. Sometimes I wish I had the time to podcast more often. Usually, though, that’s followed by sweeping pains as I reconsider everything else I haven’t quite yet finished.

More over at the guy’s blogs: Brian, Jeremiah.

There’s some interesting chatter going on at TechCrunch currently surrounding the purported rejection of a $550M offer to purchase Bebo. Nestled in the comments, one reader, Devin, is building a very interesting case against these high-flying valuations:

A company is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it. Basic economics. Facebook thinks they’re worth $2 billion. The market, so far, says otherwise. It does not matter that the user sessions are extraordinarily long and that users have multiple sessions per day if you can’t monetize that and make it profitable. You’re arguing for the “eyeball” economy, and we saw how that turned out the first time around. Funny how quickly we forget.

TechCrunch » Blog Archive » Bebo Shuns $550 Million Acquisition Offer

It makes me think, at the same time, about the way that we value ourselves and our creations. As a consultant, I’ve faced a number of different clients in countless different situations and circumstances. One of the most critical things when you are going to walk into a room and demand $200 an hour for your time - you sure has hell better be able to quality (maybe quantify) the value you’re providing your customer.

I remember a week or two ago, PayPerPost came out with their service and it made some big splashes. One of the many threads in that discussion focused on the pricepoint. Some were arguing that the prices were too low. That gave me pause for a moment - not because I agree or disagree but because there was no explanation as to why. If you’re getting paid $10 to post 10 words - that’s $1 a word - on par with the copywriting industry standards I believe. Of course, you just wrote 10 words :) What’ the hidden part that gives you more value?

If we as a whole want to demand more for the value we create, well, I’m all for it. It does require, of course, that we start to figure out how to measure that value and how to convey that data as information that others will be able to use.

technorati tags:valuation, markets, bebo, facebook

The World Cup is over, but there are many lessons that still remain to be learned. I’ll leave you to find the others, but the Times has an article about the one we can all learn about Big, Bad Mainstream Media.

At a time when many viewers are turning away from mainstream media, the World Cup demonstrates the continuing power of live sports events to pull in the mass audiences that advertisers crave.

Old Media, Not New, Is World Cup Winner - New York Times

When I hear things like this, it always makes me smile a little. On the one hand, there’s still the perception from the mainstream that large audiences are the valuable ones - we know that’s not entirely true though it’s simpler to convince certain types that millions of folks = something compelling and connected. At the same time, however, I’m chuckling as I think of all the folks that are bloggers flying the journalist flag that can’t or don’t want to recognize the business of journalism and media.

I guess, from both directions, there’s a lot to not like about the other end of the rainbow. Fortunately, one of my favorite maxims still rings true: “When seeking the truth, look in the middle”.

P.S. This was my favorite quote from the article: “Another Portuguese-speaking squad that was sponsored by Nike, Portugal, fell in the semifinals. That left the final to be contested between Puma and Adidas, er, Italy and France.”

[update: Brian Oberkirch has a very relevant pointer here.]

technorati tags:media, msm, worldcup, sports, entertainment, business, socialroots

This weekend at BloggerCon, there was lots of interesting discussion. I ended the first day Dave Winer asked us what we’re all doing to change the world. When I had my chance at the mic, I noted that I’m very mindful of the leverage that other companies are creating around the things WE create. Doc dug a little deeper on my point which I quickly whipped out the “user-generated content” banner. My thought, as I’ve noted before, is that we are not users, we’re Active Publishers - reacting to an new environment of swift media.

My main point, however, is that when someone asks us to create something for them and doesn’t pay us, or worst, patronizes us with tokens of their sincerity, that we’re being put in the vice grip and leveraged into larger markets and networks that we can’t easily see from our seats in the nosebleed section.

Today, ShopWiki made a very interesting gesture towards our community:

ShopWiki, an incredibly innovative online shopping community, will announce today another step to expand their service’s offerings. The company will pay users $50 per video for the first 500 submitted product review videos selected for inclusion on the site - that’s $25k total. This site is nuts already and paying people to add video reviews is going to take it over the top in terms of usefulness. Or maybe it’s just really cool. I’m not Mr. Online-shopping by a long shot and even I think ShopWiki is loads of fun to use.

TechCrunch

One interesting counter to my argument was offered by Mary Hodder of Dabble towards the end of the day. She seemed to take a position that I made too sweeping a generalization with regards to those using that term. Her point being that she views herself as a User - referencing her prior role in usability. I went to her afterwards to clear the air a bit - and that conversation is important.

First, I noted that I have no problem with any company that recognizes the value in what they’re asking for and creates a pathway for rewarding the participants. There’s not as many as there should be yet, but there’s quite a bit of activity in this arena and more en route. We’ll never have equal footing if we don’t continue to assert our value.

Second, I still reject the term User-Generated except in the context that I am explicitly requested to create it - at which point I am a user of a system designed to collect something from me. On the other hand, while I surely am -using- Wordpress to make this blog, I am certainly not a user of SocialTwister - I am the publisher, editor, and janitor. Mary’s vantage point that, as a usability person, everyone’s a user simply isn’t sufficient for the range of participating and interaction we have in the world today.

Nothing like winding down a whirlwind trip to San Francisco with a blinking exclamation point, huh?

[full disclosure: I am the CEO of a startup dedicated to getting us all paid for our creativity and ability or to go broke trying]

technorati tags:socialroots, bloggerconiv, mary+hodder, napsterization, dabble, monetization, socialmedia, blogging, videoblogging, podcasting, activepublishing, crowdsourcing