MobHappy

Overwhelmed and Del.icou.us

One of the things that stops non-bloggers from blogging is the old "what will I blog about?" chestnut. They're concerned that they'll start with a bang and end, a few days later, with a whimper.

While many blogs do end ignomiosuly within days, I can't help feeling it's down to motivation rather than not knowing what to write.

I find I'm completely overwhelmed with material - if the world stopped for the next two months and I devoted myself to 18 hours a day blogging, I'd still have plenty to write about.

Plus I frequently have to skip 100's of posts from favourite and important blogs.

This is actually quite frustrating, as I sometimes have to skip commenting on stories that I think you'll find interesting. And I don't often feature important stories at all, if I have nothing new to add, as I figure you'll pick them up elsewhere.

So I thought that I might start publicising my link at del.icio.us where I simply tag stories I think you'll like, but I haven't really got anything to add to them or, at least, time to add anything to them.

If you don't know about Del.ico.us, don't worry - all will become clear. But you should check it out as it's an important tool. Have a play and change your life :-)

The question is; would you have time to read them? Leave a comment and let me know.

Russell

Last Night's Munich BlogFest

Thanks to everyone who came to Munich's first (world's first?) BlogFest last night. There was a nice mix of bloggers and would-be bloggers who turned up. And thanks for being prepared to speak in English, for my benefit!

It was really interesting to meet the local talent, exchange ideas and just hang out in the balmy Summer evening. Even some Podcasters turned up!

I didn't get the chance to speak to everyone, but some interesting blogs were:

Minga.de - started in November last year and already number 22 in Germany. It's run by about 10 "citizen journalists" and just covers local news and issues in Munich. Patrick and Matthias.

Thomas is a "proper" journalist as a day job, working for a leading computer magazine. I like it when journalists join the blogging conversation instead of going into denial. Even if blogging is a threat to journalism, ignoring it, simply isn't a smart strategy. The link above is to his private blog. The professional one is here.

Our Podcasters were Kathrin and Arik (if I can read my writing) who work for Audible.com and write AudibleBlog, a publisher of audio books here in Germany. I guess this makes them a very natural Podcaster, but well done for seizing the opportunity.

We're planning to have another meeting in September, if anyone wants to come along. By which time the German blogging scene should have grown somewhat.

Patrick also tells me that Nico Lumma of Blogg.de is organising another meeting for bloggers in Munich. Details here. Nico probably knows more about the German Blogosphere than anyone, as Blogg.de tracks it and provides extensive stats.

Russell
PS And of course, no one did turn up in lederhosen. Oh well, maybe next time, I'll wear mine.

European Blogosphere

Loic Le Meur, Six Apart's top man in Europe, has been trying to find more about the European Blogosphere - which is fiendishly difficult to do, actually.

However, his Wiki makes very interesting reading and starts to shed light in the darkness. As a leading EuroBlogger myself, I'd ask you to check it out and contribute if you can help add to the knowledge.

You can drill down to country level and find out more, but it's all pretty anecdotal stuff.

I think the Blogosphere is desperately short of good analytical tools for bloggers. Once simple thing, for instance, would be an RSS Reader Aggregator. This could take the leading RSS Readers (BlogLines, FeedDemon etc) and provide you with one aggregated stat as to how many people subscribe to a blog.

Maybe this exists already?

Even better, this would add itself to stats showing blogs by visits and links. Links are interesting, but for me, I want to know how many readers I have, not how many other bloggers link to me. And I'd like that info for other blogs too.

I know that this is difficult to do, but in these days, surely there must be a way. Then after lunch, perhaps you can find a cure for cancer.....

Advertisers Want Blogs

According to research behemoth, Forrester, 64% of respondents to their recent survey said they are interested in advertising on blogs, 57% through RSS, and 52% on mobile devices, including phones and personal digital assistants.

While this is good news for bloggers (whoopeeee, we're going to be rich, rich I tell ye!!) I'm sceptical that 64% of advertisers even know what blogs are, let alone WFT RSS is.

I often have to explain to people who should be in the know exactly what blogging is. This includes people in mainstream marketing, PR and advertising and recently a senior honcho in a digital media buying agency said "I had no idea that blogs were that big" when I said I had 80,000 readers a month. And I'm only a middle ranker.

Overall, online ads are increasing by 23% per annum.

Story: ZD Net via John Battelle's FM Publishing, who got it from Lockergnome.

Blogging in Munich

I thought it would be a great idea to have a BlogFest in Munich - a gathering of bloggers from this fair city.

It's going to be very informal - no speakers or agenda. All are welcome, but personally, I'd be especially pleased to see people who blog about tech stuff.

If your English is nicht so gut, no worries - there'll be plenty of natives to chat to:-) And if you want to talk to me, we'll have to try GermLish.

Date is early evening 20th June - venue to be confirmed when we have some idea of numbers. If you want to come, please just drop me a line russell AT mobhappy DOT com, so we can gauge interest.

If you know anyone who might be interested, please forward this link.

Cheers

Russell

BBC Covers Blogs

The BBC has started to do a weekly round up of Blogs - Weblog Watch.

While you can't possibly ever claim any degree of comprehensiveness with a short weekly column, it is interesting evidence of blogs crossing the chasm to the mainstream.

One of the fascinating elements of watching blogging mature as a channel is observing exactly how big media is reacting. There's a very amusing video of Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show you can download via Crooks and Liars (spotted on Poynter Online). Stewart weighs into the likes of CNN as only he can, showing how their answer to blogging is to get correspondents to read various blogs live on air.

This is far from compelling TV!

Stewart's piece is very amusing. But it illustrates the point, very powerfully, that big media is bemused and running scared.

All this also seems to indicate that blogging is here to stay, for good or ill.

I'd be interested to know what you and what your company is doing about blogging? Are you getting with the programme or waiting and seeing? Leave a comment and let me know.

Image via Get Blogs.

Kensington Does a Kryptonite

I've posted a few times about the now infamous case of Kryptonite bike locks - it's become the classic case study of what happens when you ignore what bloggers are saying. In Kryptonite's case it's cost them $12 million so far - and maybe their future.

Now another lock company is suffering a similar fate and - unbelievably - are taking the same head-in-the-sand attitude. Kensington make PC locks - the kind you use to secure your PC to something immovable in an office or hotel room, for instance.

You can see the video here of how the lock can be opened with a bit of cardboard, some gaffer tape and no force at all. It's already all over the Blogosphere and there's no mention on Kensington's website about the problem at all.

It's obvious what's going to happen next - the company will have to capitulate and organize a massive product recall. Why don't they react immediately, with openness, honesty and some humility? "We screwed up, that happens sometimes and we're really, really sorry. Now, let's work together to fix it quickly."

One definition of madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. By that measure, Kensington must be completely out to lunch.

Story spotted on Loic le Meur.

The People's Media

Jeff Jarvis was interviewed by Ernest Miller on Corante last week, about the future of media. It's interesting as he's clearly come from "old" media, but has a strong foothold in the "new" one of blogdom.

If I had to summarise the interview, I'd do it thusly; the future is bright, the future is blogging.

Didn't you realise that reading this was part of a revolution?

Over the the interview. Here's some of the highlights, but it's worth reading the whole thing. He's also very excited about Podcasting - which is only about a month old, but is attracting a lot of attention. Read here for a "how to" guide.

The means of media are now in the hands of the people.

The people we used to call consumers, readers, or viewers (let's call them citizens now) will take more and more control of what we used to call media (I don't know what new name to give it, but now it's as much about conversation as it is about consumption). The elements of this upheaval:

* Control: I say the most revolutionary invention in media was not the Gutenberg press but the remote control. It and the cable box, the VCR, and the TiVo enabled us to control consumption of media -- and we took advantage of that. Bad TV died; good TV rose in the ratings; HBO was born; TV exploded; TV improved -- thanks to the good taste and newfound control of the American public.

* Creation: Now come tools that let us create media: blogging software (which is merely history's cheapest easiest publishing tool connected to history's best distribution network) and all those neat things that come with Macs today. They allow us to make text, photo, audio, and video media. And what we make has value. Jonathan Miller, head of AOL, told me that 60-70 percent of the time spent on his service is spent with content created by his audience. That's where the money is.

* Marketing: At the same time -- thanks mostly to Google and blogs turning links into assets with tangible value -- we the people have the ability to market content; we do every time we link to it. Jon Stewart's blockbuster appearance on Crossfire got a few hundred thousand viewers on CNN but ten times that online thanks to the links of Fark and bloggers.

* Distribution: And the means of distribution are getting cheaper and faster: BitTorrent shares the cost of distribution across the network; RSS automates it; broadband will soon be part of the public infrastructure like roads or even a fundamental right like voting. So look again at Stewart on Crossfire: That segment didn't need carriage on a cable network with big clearance to be seen by millions; it got there via BitTorrent and iFilm.

So now anyone can control, create, market, distribute, find, and interact with anything they want. The barrier to entry to media is demolished. Media, always a one-way pipe, now becomes an open pool. And, most important, the centralization of media -- the marketplace, the network, the monopoly -- is replaced by a decentralized universe. This changes everything. It changes the relationships. It changes the economics. It changes the power.

Nice to know others think the same :-)