Bloomsbury buys Tottel for £9.96m
July 4, 2009
Bloomsbury, publisher of the Harry Potter series, enlarged its footprint in the world of academic publishing with the purchase of Tottel, a leading independent for £9.96m
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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What friends are for
July 4, 2009
Facebook: With its leadership as an online social network more secure, Mark Zuckerberg’s company aims to build both revenues and an enduring presence on other sites – no easy task
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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Trinity Mirror to close nine Midlands newspapers
July 4, 2009
The newspaper group that owns the Daily Mirror has announced plans to close nine local newspapers in the Midlands, with the loss of up to 120 jobs
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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My Stats Reflect How the Web Is Changing
July 4, 2009
See and download the full gallery on posterous
Robert Scoble is back to blogging, investing more time and attention this week there as opposed to Twitter and Friendfeed. He linked to me this week, which sparked my curiosity and encouraged me to dig into my Google Analytics archives to see a) how my traffic drivers have changed and b) what, if any, broader trends can be discerned.
For the purpose of this experiment I looked at two times when one of the web’s most influential voices - then and now - linked to me: his post from earlier this week and another from December 27, 2006. While not entirely scientific, what they have in common is that a) Robert put the link at the top of the post and that b) both came during holiday weeks when web traffic typically slows. (In theory, to really test this I should track referrals from Scoble’s Friendfeed/Twitter accounts - I suspect that they drive tons of traffic. However, that’s hard to do given the way the sites are structured. Perhaps we can use Bitly stats to run a test)
Here’s are my three takeaways from this little experiment (I am discounting the links from my old blog to this new one. It’s an anomaly since I just switched) …
- I suspect that Twitter and Friendfeed today are major traffic drivers to many sites. I have heard this in meetings with execs at major media companies. What this means is that you must to syndicate your content where the people are and then engage in conversations around it in order to influence.
- Yes, having a place you can call home online still matters. But you better make sure that it is dynamic and socially connected the social hubs. Louis Gray says your blog is your castle. But the problem is the big blog platforms like Blogger and TypePad have really fallen behind the curve. Blogs are fragmenting. They’re virtually isolated from the social hubs. Posterous lets you post everywhere at once plus it syndicates reader comments into Twitter, Facebook and even Friendfeed if you use Backtype. Tumblr I believe can do the same. These companies are redefining publishing by making a blog format more social. The blog needs a reboot. I am excited to learn more about Tumblr when I meet with them later today.
- I am curious about the word “Direct” in my logs. My gut is that in 2009 it reflects Twitter desktop clients while in 2006 it was more about desktop RSS readers.
From: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MicroPersuasion
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Google Knows You
July 3, 2009
Here’s a fun little find for a Friday. If you have a Google Profile and you’re logged in to your Google account, search for the word me. Your profile will come up as the top result. This is great if you get amnesia.
From: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MicroPersuasion
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Jackson sales surge outstrips Presley
July 2, 2009
Increased interest in Michael Jackson is forcing people around him to revise their initial assessment that his assets could be overwhelmed by the debts attached to them
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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Facebook’s privacy changes to mimic rival Twitter
July 1, 2009
Facebook will begin encouraging users to make more of their personal information public to everyone on the web, a shift that moves the company into more direct competition with micro-messaging service Twitter
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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Corporate fraud losses soar to £960m
July 1, 2009
UK corporations lost £960m to publicly reported fraud in the half year to June 30, the highest six-month total since at least 2003
From: http://www.ft.com/rss/companies/media
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Google Wave Is On My Radar
July 1, 2009
I keep a massive list on my computer called “Discovery.” These are products and services I am evaluating both for potential Edelman use as well as to satisfy my own personal insatiable curiosity for new technology. I thought I would use the lifestream to open this up a bit.
Here’s what I am checking out this week: Google Wave Preview, Slinkset, feedly, Evernote (particularly their new sharing features), Remember the Milk, Trendr, Chartbeat and an early beta of Mindmeister for the iPhone.
I am most intrigued by Google Wave (for more, see Gina’s preview). I received an invite last night. However, I don’t see anyway in the sandbox to invite others. Are any of you in the the sandbox? Maybe we can connect to each other to experiment.
What else is cool that I should be checking out? My “Discovery” gallery for this week follows.
See and download the full gallery on posterous
From: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MicroPersuasion
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Immediacy vs. Reflection
July 1, 2009
My move from a blog to a lifestream format has elicited two kinds of
responses so far: approvers and doubters. I don't think this has anything to do with me, but rather it's reflection of how we're adjusting to the broader shift in media.
The web is slowly moving from an architecture of pages, to one that
looks like a stream. Such models favor immediacy over reflection.
This was something John Borthwick from betaworks and I discussed this morning over breakfast. It's definitely front and center in his mind. Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, Tumblr and Posterous are all platforms that embrace the stream metaphor. Blogs, RSS, static news stories are remnants from the era of pages.
The stream is where the web is going. Does this mean thoughtful
analysis is dead? No. However, the ubiquity of the stream and the tools
to filter it, the increasing consumption of content on mobile devices
and finite attention spans means there's a greater focus today on
immediacy than reflection. This was a major factor in why I shifted how
I publish and embraced a tool that lets me contribute more in a
streamed format, yet still have a home base on the web.
Perhaps I am wrong, but it feels like those who are most critical
of the transition from blogging to lifestreaming perhaps are not ready
to embrace such a format. Maybe there's room for everything. What's
your view?
From: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MicroPersuasion
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