The Media Drop

This week, I’ve seen a few links to SCOUT’s tips for corporate blogging, which was a nice addition to the usual rigamarole of things that we’ve seen of late. (Although Waltham is spelled w-a-l-t-h-a-m, you’ve got your “h” and “t” flipped - just joshin’ with ya)

While those ten suggestions are very solid and I’d echo a lot of what was said there, I’d have to add some more thoughts to this, such as:

• Be consistent - which doesn’t mean you can’t retrace your steps if you own up
• Be a good blog citizen
• Transparency will bite you if you are all talk
• Add value

Back in November, I remember writing about how I thought it was a solid suggestion that if you’re trying to get bloggers to link to you, perhaps those on the “A list” or whatever it is being called at the moment, that getting linked to by bloggers that those folks read is a good thing. I still agree with that. Taking that a step further, I’d have to say that most bloggers, especially those who have more than one gig, are working a full time job totally unrelated (or related, even) to his or her blog, are in the same scenario, getting too many “link to me” emails. I mean, most of us are beyond spam at this point, for the most part - I probably get 100-300 spams per day that Gmail takes care of nicely, for instance - but between the main blogs I write for on a regular basis, I’m probably getting anywhere from 15-30 pitches from PRfolk (on a good day), plus a ton of link emails from other bloggers, plus general correspondence. On top of that, I have godknowshowmany RSS feeds in FeedDemon (once it got beyond 500 I stopped counting), and my IM is on blast all the time. I still read all my emails, even if it takes me until midnight or beyond. It’s not about anything except being interested in keeping up with what is going on, doing my job(s), attempting to keep up with the blogs I read (and write), and ensuring that various relationships built are able to grow. Multitasking in this sort of world is an obvious need as an ability. And yet, I just don’t get why there’s a need to talk about being on any particular “tier” or whatever. The *moment* any blogger thinks they’re more important than any other one, irrelevant of how many links in that blogger may have is the moment the whole thing turns into a house of cards. Oh, wait, the whole important thing has already happened. My bad.

(Wondering what my point is yet? Keep reading, it’s in here somewhere.)

Back to the consistency thing and favoritism. Lots of people like to talk about how they “don’t care” who’s on what list or whatever (I’m breaking a journalism rule here by not giving more background, but you can find it if you do a little basic searching), and how things like blogrolls are “on the way to extinction.” But something I saw over at Steve Rubel’s blog (and have discussed with others offline and on) kind of bothered me. A commenter on Rubel’s site, Mike Driehorst, said something about the lack of blogroll that was responded to with the fact that the blogroll at Micro Persusasion had been removed some time ago. Then, when Technorati Favorites showed up on the scene, Steve added that. What I’m wondering here is - what’s the difference? Is it some nifty functionality in that the Faves rotate based on update timing, etc.? It looks, smells, feels, and tastes like a blogroll to me.

In some ways, I don’t mean to point one finger in general here, but it just seems to be working out this way based on where the conversations are “taking place” to some extent. Want to criticize me and say that I’m attempting to starfuck (Heh @ Lauren) by linking over there? Sorry, I’ve got better things to do, and will play Internet Famous with you anytime (Thanks, Irina & Co.). If anything feels like the obnoxiousness of what was Bubble 1.0, it’s what is happening in today’s world of blogging.

Clearly, people like Scott Baradell know what’s up with this stuff. If anything, things like this are what disprove the value of a tool like Technorati’s Faves (or Technorati in general - which I use all the time), because a blog like Engadget is 8th on the list at the moment, when it probably has more combined pageviews - sans Boing Boing - than most of the blogs on that list, combined.

If you want to be base about it, then it’s kind of like this - there are two types of hot guys & girls in this world. Those who know they’re hot - and tell you about it - and those who know, but it doesn’t make them any different.