Marketing Hipster

An interesting thing happened yesterday that I wanted to get your opinion on. I received a comment on this blog that read:

“That cartoon is funny, espcially the PH with the ghostbusters sign through it. Like you, I am competing in the Bloggers Choice Awards, although not in the same category. I hope my email is not an intrusion.

Anyway, I would like it very much if you would go to URL and vote for me for best _____ blog and best overall blog as well, if you feel my blog is of a high quality. I really think I have a legitimate shot at winning. If you are open to spreading the word, that would be cool as well.”

Now this comment was left from a blogger who has NEVER commented on my blog before. I do not know this person and have never been to their blog. I really felt like the author was just going from blog to blog trolling for votes and that this comment was nothing different than the thousands of other comment spams that I and every other blogger get everyday.

So I immediately deleted his comment and posted the following comment:

“I have removed your comments from the site which is the first time I have ever done this. I think you are pretty sad to come to someone else’s blog and beg for votes for your blog… Grow up and realize that begging and spamming will not get you where you want to be.”

Needless to say, the blogger in question was not particularly happy with my response. He sent me several emails questioning my “hostility” and why I was so mean. 

I tried to explain to him that blogging is about creating and developing relationships and coming onto someone’s blog that you do not know and have no relationship with and immediately start promoting your blog and asking for votes is nothing more than comment spam, in my humble opinion. I added that if he does with other blogs, he will get similar responses. He of course, disagreed.

What do you think? Is my thinking wrong here? Was I too hostile? I would love to hear your opinions.

Technorati Tags: blogger, comment spam

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to write an article for an upcoming book called, “The Age of Conversation“. This great idea was the brain child of Gavin Heaton and DrewMcLellan.

A hundred or so bloggers were asked to write no more than one page on anything we like that had to do with the “Age of Conversation”. What made this project especially appealing was ALL of the books’ proceeds will be donated to Variety, The Children’s Charity.

I was notified that the release of this book is about a week away. The cover of the book is the picture highlighted above. The book is going to be available for purchase via an e-book or hardcover. I will keep you apprised on when the book has officially been released.

I am very excited about this for a couple of reasons. I think this is a wonderful idea that benefits a great charity, but also, you cannot find a better or more eclectic group of bloggers than the 100 or so they got together for this book. I can’t wait to read what everyone has written for their articles and I am just hoping mine does not totally suck compared to some of these incredibly talented writers.

I will definitely post information on how to purchase the book when it is released. In the mean time, I have listed all of the bloggers who have participated in this book below.

Gavin Heaton
Drew McLellan
CK
Valeria Maltoni
Emily Reed
Katie Chatfield
Greg Verdino
Mack Collier
Lewis Green
Sacrum
Ann Handley
Mike Sansone
Paul McEnany
Roger von Oech
Anna Farmery
David Armano
Bob Glaza
Mark Goren
Matt Dickman
Scott Monty
Richard Huntington
Cam Beck
David Reich
Mindblob (Luc)
Sean Howard
Tim Jackson
Patrick Schaber
Roberta Rosenberg
Uwe Hook
Tony D. Clark
Todd Andrlik
Toby Bloomberg
Steve Woodruff
Steve Bannister
Steve Roesler
Stanley Johnson
Spike Jones
Nathan Snell
Simon Payn
Ryan Rasmussen
Ron Shevlin
Roger Anderson
Bob Hruzek
Rishi Desai
Phil Gerbyshak
Peter Corbett
Pete Deutschman
Nick Rice
Nick Wright
Michael Morton
Mark Earls
Mark Blair
Mario Vellandi
Lori Magno
Kristin Gorski
Kris Hoet
Kofl Annan
Kimberly Dawn Wells
Karl Long
Julie Fleischer
Jordan Behan
John La Grou
Joe Raasch
Jim Kukral
Jessica Hagy
Janet Green
Jamey Shiels
Dr. Graham Hill
Gia Facchini
Geert Desager
Gaurav Mishra
Gary Schoeniger
Gareth Kay
Faris Yakob
Emily Clasper
Ed Cotton
Dustin Jacobsen
Tom Clifford
David Pollinchock
David Koopmans
David Brazeal
David Berkowitz
Carolyn Manning
Craig Wilson
Connie Reece
Colin McKay
Chris Newlan
Chris Corrigan
Cedric Giorgi
Brian Reich
Becky Carroll
Arun Rajagopal
Andy Nulman
Amy Jussel
AJ James
Kim Klaver
Sandy Renshaw
Susan Bird
Ryan Barrett
Troy Worman

Technorati Tags: The Age of Conversation, bloggers

Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg, has launched his next start-up, Pownce. Based on my initial walk-through, I would describe Pownce as a communication network that brings together IM, email and Twitter all in one. Essentially, it is a social network where you connect with friends and use Pownce to easily and quickly communicate to these friends. This communication can be done via text, pictures, audio and video.

Presently, Pownce is registering users by invitation only. And thanks to my good friend Meg from down under, I got a chance to register and take it for a run. I am going to hold off giving any kind of review until I get some more time using it. Though I do have 4, count them, four invites that I can share with Hipster readers if you would like to have a chance to register and take it for a test drive yourself.

So you want a invite and get past the velvet rope? Here’s the deal. In the comments, I would like anyone who is interested in an invite to define what social media means to them. BUT, the definition cannot be more than one sentence. Anymore than one sentence and your answer no matter how good it is, will be disqualified. Also, please do not write a sentence with thirty-seven comma’s and semi-colon’s, poorly written and run-on sentences will not win.

That’s it, define social media in one sentence or less and I will choose the best four and they will receive Pownce invites. If you have a question, leave it in the comments and I will answer. Good luck!

Technorati Tags: Kevin Rose, Digg, Pownce, social media

Let me start this post by saying that I am coming to the party a bit late on this one, but this weekend I finally got to catch up on my feeds and had to comment on this.

MyBlogLog launched towards the end of May, a tagging system within MBL that users can tag blogs with keywords that can identify what specific blogs are all about. To be honest, I had not read MBL’s blog in a while, but when I logged into MBL and saw it, I thought it was a good, but pretty basic idea. What I did not realize until I read a post Andy Beal had written that MBL asked their users to tag blogs they believed were spammers with the term, “Schmoe” which stood for “Social Media Optimizer”. Yea, see you use the S and the M and the O and the rest of the letters don’t really matter other than that it helps spells the word Schmoe, whatever…

So Andy on his blog asked when did Social Media Optimization become spam? Which I thought was a pretty good question. MBL really did not have an answer for that, but I would like to ask another question. If MBL wants to actually put in some safeguards to stop spamming, wouldn’t you think the first thing they would need to do is actually define what is spam on MBL? I went over to MBL’s blog as well as their help section and I could not find anywhere what MBL defines as spam.

I thought that I would give them a hand so they might actually stop putting the cart before the horse and layout what I consider to be spam on MyBlogLog.

1. A blog that does not have any original content of their own. If a blog is just pulling content from other blogs and not adding any of their own content and are just doing this so they can have five layers of Google Adsense ads on their site. That be spam!
2. Any MBL member who signs up for a community and then posts a message on that users community which says something like, “Hey, great blog. Come check out my blog at www.ineedattention.com”. (Oh by the way MBL, I see the spam link for messages is still just a mailto.) Definitely spam..
3. Any member that has a scantly clad woman as it’s community picture. This is spam except if the blog is about scantly clad women then it is just fine.
4. A member that just goes out and joins communities and becomes contacts with hundreds of other users without having any interest in their blogs. Spammer…

To be honest, I can’t think of anything else. Can you? If you think I missed anything or you disagree, please let me know in the comments and I will update.

MyBlogLog, I really think this issue is more a semantic issue than anything else. Your “Schmoe” term is just bad. All Social Media Optimizers are not spammers. That is just like saying that all Search Engine Optimizers are spammers. More importantly, it seems that using this term is a direct insult to many people who have played a part in making MyBlogLog what it is today.

Technorati Tags: MyBlogLog, tagging, MBL, keywords, blogs, Andy Beal, spammers, Schmoe, Social Media Optimization, spam

Hey folks – as you probably noticed I have changed the look and feel of the site.  I have been playing with it for a little while and I thought this look and feel would give me an opportunity to do a few things I have planned for the site in the coming weeks.  Any thoughts or feedback you might have, please do not hesitate to speak up.

I also finally updated my blogroll.  I have been meaning to do it for quite a while, but I didn’t get to it till now.  I have added a number of new links to some great blogs and authors that I have gotten to know through both them commenting here as well as the great writing they are doing on their own blogs.  I definitely recommend you checking out some of their great work.

If just by chance, I have not listed your blog and you believe that is a mistake, please feel free to add a comment below and I will absolutely take it into consideration.  Thanks.

I feel like a little school girl, someone pinch me cause I think I might be dreaming. Seth Godin, I am sorry, I think I should refer to him as Mr. Godin actually mentioned my name with a link to this site on his The Dip blog today. If it was not obvious enough already, I am a big fan of Seth Godin. I think that every marketing blog out there is working towards the incredibly high bar set by Seth with his books and blogs. I find Seth’s writing intoxicating at times and he absolutely has been a huge influence on me when it comes to the creation of this blog and my writing. I know you probably can’t tell that, but that is not Seth’s fault, it’s mine.

Anyhow, Seth not only mentioned me, but he also “completely” disagreed with me… Seth felt that Paul the singer in the video I posted yesterday absolutely had confidence and as Seth said, “His posture on stage makes it clear that he has completely mastered his craft.”

Seth, I agree with your point that once he started singing he was absolutely in the zone, but making it through the Dip includes more than just when Paul was on stage. The Dip includes Paul actually having the guts and courage to go down to the competition, sign up, wait for hours till his turn, get up on that stage and then finally show off his incredible talent. And if you watch the whole video, the actual getting to that stage, I believe was the bigger challenge for Paul not the actual singing. He knows he has talent absolutely, but I don’t think he knew until that moment when he starting singing whether he had what it takes to actually make it up to that stage.

Let me know what everyone thinks and Seth thanks for your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Seth Godin

Well after 37 years of being on the air, well it was only 9 years, but since they did like 3 episodes a season before they took 15 months off, it seems like 37 years since the Sopranos started airing on HBO and on Sunday night we said goodbye to them. And in classic final episode fashion, the last episode was almost exciting as watching paint dry. Many people thought that Tony was going to get wacked or as my buddy Jud bet me, the ending was going to show that the whole thing was a dream and Tony would wake up and be an insurance salesman or something, so sorry Jud… The final episode answered no questions other than for me that the show should of been off the air like 2 seasons ago.

I have been checking out a bunch of discussion boards where people are non too pleased about how Creator David Chase ended the show. Here are a couple of my favorites:

That made the Seinfeld ending look like the greatest series ending ever. Seriously. My stomach was in KNOTS for ten minutes for THAT??? — Wanda Overthere

Maybe if I watch it again at twelve, and at the end during the black part, if I tap my TV with a stick, it might explode into something this time. — MattyDucks

I hope the cat gets an emmy next year. He gave the best and most committed performance of the episode. — C-Span

It’s such a shame that so many people have been left with a bad taste from this final episode. Because in it’s heyday, the Sopranos was the best show on TV hands down.

My favorite episode is the finale for season one when Tony had food poisoning and he is dreaming about Pussy being a fish. You remember that one? That was such an amazing episode, I still enjoy watching that today.

What did you think? Were you as disappointed as everyone else or do you have a different take on it?

Technorati Tags: Sopranos, HBO, David Chase

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a very well organized protest going on in regard to CBS canceling the TV show Jericho. There has been a windfall of coverage with online groups sending emails, letters and thousands of pounds of peanuts to CBS in New York. Well, the power of the people still has some juice as CBS announced last night that the once canceled show has now gotten a second life and will be back on the air next season.

Hooray! One happy Jericho fan posted,

“I will be wearing my ‘Jericho’ shirt all weekend long to events such as the Belmont Stakes so that the whole world (well at least tens of thousands of people) can know about ‘Jericho’ and tune in next season!!!!”

Boy is that special. Let’s take a quick look at history shall we? Back in the day, people banded together to fight for things like civil rights, womens rights and fought against the likes of the Vietnam War, Watergate and corruption. Now we are fighting to get our favorite TV show back on the airwaves. Man, I was so born several decades too late. *Tear* Oh well…

Technorati Tags: CBS, TV, Jericho

I have been a member of LinkedIn for a quite a long time. Presently, I have 2,228 connections in my LinkedIn network. I have always been an evangelist for LinkedIn and have referred numerous people to the network. Though recently, I have to say that LinkedIn is really starting to annoy me and I am getting to the point that the hassle of LinkedIn is just not worth the value I am getting out of it.

If you are not familiar with LinkedIn, it is a business network where people can connect with others through companies, positions and schools they have worked or attended. For example, when I put in that I worked for Dell, LinkedIn shows me every person who also did or still works for Dell whom I can send an email to and connect with.

From the beginning, LinkedIn asked users to only send an invite to people they actually know, but if you worked for a company, LinkedIn showed all of people who also worked there and myself like a great many other people would at times send invites out to more people than just the people we knew. If I saw a person’s profile who I thought might be an interesting contact, but I did not know them, I would send them an invite to connect.

Recently, LinkedIn has begun cracking down on this tactic and if someone receives an invite from someone they do not know, they can click on a button that says I do not know them (I also think we should have this button say, “I am so anal that if you would stick a lump of coal up my butt, in a month it would turn into a diamond”. Maybe a bit too much, but I digress.) If a specific user gets several of these I don’t know clicks from invites they send out, LinkedIn is now restricting their account.

Now I do not have a real big problem with any of this. If LinkedIn has decided to finally start enforcing a rule that they let slip for several years to build up their membership, fine. What I do have a problem with is how they are going about doing this. When LinkedIn restricts your account they ask you to send an email to their customer service which then you have to wait anywhere between 3-10 days to actually get a reply.

If you look at any discussion boards about LinkedIn, the number one complaint about the company is the poor customer service and long response times. My question is why would you force more users to contact a customer service department which is already doing a poor job? LinkedIn, all your success is 100% because of the users who joined your network and then recommended your network to others growing it to over 11 million users. So now that you have gone big time are you forgetting about the people who got you there in the first place? What would happen if half of your users stopped using your service? Your traffic would drop by half, your advertisers would start seeing a dramatic drop in impressions and click-through’s and you would have a serious problem.

You are not bigger than the game and it is time that you start remembering who is most important to your long term success – THE PEOPLE – your users. Start treating us the way we deserve to be treated or you will suffer the long term consequences.

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn, Dell

I have gotten tagged a couple of times recently and I have been behind in responding to them, my apologies. I thought I would bang out all my tag responses all in one post. Ok, here it goes, in order of when I was tagged.

Antman tagged me on a Magazine Meme asking what magazines do you read on a daily basis. Here’s my list in no particular order:

1. Time
2. Newsweek
3. Wired
4. BusinessWeek
5. AdvertisingAge
6. OMMA
7. Red Herring (Now online)

That’s about it, most of the stuff like many others, I just read all online and don’t get the actual magazine. Thanks for the tag Antman and thank you for your kind words in your shout-out.

Marty tagged me for a 5 Goals Meme. My top 5 goals at the moment again in no particular order:

1. Get off the ground the couple of start-up ideas that I have been thinking and mapping out for WAY too long.
2. Move into the next phase with several of my clients so that we could really start doing some interesting things.
3. Spend more time in the personal life and spend less time thinking about work or other things when I actually am enjoying my personal time.
4. Be healthier! Start taking better care of myself. I am not a young pup anymore.
5. Start going to more conferences.

Thanks Marty for the tag!

And finally, Matt tagged me for the 5 Top Reasons I Blog. Here’s my list:

1. To be apart of an incredibly interesting and exciting community.
2. To continually learn and improve my skill sets in any number of different ways.
3. A reason to write, without this blog I would not be writing close to as much because I am lazy and that is not good.
4. I love the opportunity blogging provides me that on any given day I could meet someone new who will interest me and hopefully teach me something.
5. I like holding both people and companies accountable for their actions. Blogging allows me to share my opinions when things are done right and when they are not.

Thanks Matt for the tag.

UPDATE: I am sorry, I missed Meg’s tag. I think my link checker skipped over Australia. I am sorry Meg. Meg tagged me to choose 5 blogs that make me think. That is a tough one as so many do, but here is a list off of the top of my head.

1. Andy Beard – Great content, well written articles, but he makes me crazy with this PPP stuff.
2. Sean Howard – CrapHammer is always well written and makes me think even though he is in Canada.
3. Steven Phenix – 10,000 Marshmallows is a site I was recently introduced to and Steven provides some good insight and articles that make you ponder.
4. FranticIndustries – Another recent addition to my RSS Reader. Well written and knowledgeable posts that I have been enjoying recently.
5. Brains on Fire – A blog that I have read for a long time, but for some reason never really mention. I like how many of their authors provide great information, but do it with heart.

I am going to do this. Instead of tagging specific people, I am going to have an open invite to any and all who reads this to take a meme! If one sounds interesting to you, you’re tagged, run with it, make it yours. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: tagged, Meme, magazine, Goals, community