SOMEWHAT FRANK

Technology Evangelist 'The Innovators' Series Visits Somewhat Frank

The Technology Evangelist team continued to hunt innovators as they swung into Chicago about a month ago to meet-up with for Episode 2 of online video series called The Innovators. You may recall Episode 1 which I highlighted recently which included the interview with Derek Franklin.

Episode 2 features me chatting with Ro Marth and Ed Kohler in a popular Chicago restaurant and bar just off of Michigan Avenue. We discussed blogging and I gave some tips for anyone that may be thinking about diving into the blogosphere by starting up a blog. In the video I mention a slide presentation on setting up a blog which is a 13 slide presentations below.

Steps to Getting Started In the Blogosphere - Part 1: Settng up a blog   PDF file

It was a pleasure meeting with the Technology Evangelist team.  I hope you enjoy the show.

Spam 2.0: Splog Examined

This past Tuesday (January 24, 2006) spam was the topic of a column by Tom Spring on PCWorld.com. The column explains the next generation of spam and in one section title "Spam Outside The Inbox" covers the emergence of splog or spam blogs online. Splog Reporter was mentioned in the article in saying:

"Many are fighting back with special software designed to combat splogs. Still others in the anti-spam community are taking action and creating anti-splog sites like SplogSpot and Splog Reporter, where you can report abuses."

In case you do not recall, I started Splog Reporter as a "grassroots" effort to combat splog back in August of 2005 with the help of colleague and friend Jeff Johns. Jeff and I continued to move the product forward by creating new ways to report splog, like a Firefox extension, bulk upload among other features. Through our efforts I found out first hand that the blogosphere is filled with "good-willed" bloggers willing to help clean up the blogosphere.

Recently, Jeff and I have become extremely busy with our personal lives yet we continue to receive praise, questions and requests via our SR feedback page just about everyday. To be quite honest with you we cannot keep up with all of the feedback.

In realizing our short-handedness, we would be willing to bring on some help in the spirit of the movement to continue to move the product forward in a positive manner by developing out some of the requested features that we have received as feedback. If you are interested in helping us out please let me know by either commenting on this blog post or emailing me directly at: frank at splogreporter dot com. Please let me know what your skill-set as well as what makes you interested in helping out with the effort.

Somewhat Frank: 2005 Year In Review

Two-thousand five, was a year of big expectations for me and for the most part it lived up to its billing. I felt it was in some ways a year I could do no wrong. Maybe it is because I am the fifth Frank and the five at the end of 2005 was going to align and somehow bring great fortune. Call it arrogance or maybe it was just pure ignorance for other years. Nonetheless, I used the following catch phrase far too many times then I would like to repeat at this time:

"2005 is my year!"

However here is a very quick month-by-month overview of some of the happenings in my life and the Somewhat Frank blog.

January 2005 : 

• I took a new position with Tribune Interactive in the national Business Development department.
• I met and started dating my extraordinary girlfriend.  She has been wonderful and has added lots of sunshine to my year.

February 2005:

• It must have been a cold month in Chicago and I must have been studying a lot for my Masters program because I do not remember much of February.  I do recall doing some skiing and celebrating Valentine's Day, that's about it.

March 2005:

• Completed a Master of Science in CIS from Northwestern University.

April 2005:

• Another cold Chicago Cubs opening day lose at Wrigley field.

May 2005:

• Trip to Florida for some sunshine, call it a late spring break.
• As explained in my SwF post, my Google Gmail account was hacked.

June 2005:

• Took my first steps on Wrigley Field for a charity event.
• Attended Webmaster World's SEO conference in New Orleans where Ian Turner went missing but then was found.
• Somewhat Frank the blog is born with this post.

July 2005:

• Who will be #1 in Blog Search?
• Google Maps API is released and the mash-ups begin to emerge.
• Google Earth and MSN Virtual Earth do battle.
• Tribune Interactive Producer training in Chicago.
• McCormick Tribune Foundation's Freedom Museum art competition winners announced.

August 2005:

• Splog Reporter is born as a grassroots movement to combat spam blogs and quickly improved.
• Somewhat Frank gets an updated look.
• Took a weekend trip to historic Galena, Illinois.
• A visit to an Alpaca farm ... if all else fails I could raise Alpacas!?
• Tried to answer the question, what is emotional cheating?
• Attended Ryne Sandberg Day at Wrigley Field.

September 2005:

• I got mono! September was a long very month.
• Katrina devastated New Orleans. Keith Oberman and Kanye West sound off and Google Maps give us satellite images.

October 2005:

• WSJ highlights Splog and Splog Reporter.
• Wired News highlights Splog Reporter.
• The Chicago White Sox baseball team make Chicago proud.
• A trip to Georgia for some rest and relaxation.
• A quick trip to my Alma mater Purdue University to watch some Big Ten football.

November 2005:

• Somewhat Frank gets blogged by Pluck.
• Tribune Interactive launches two new Metromix entertainment sites of which I was on the strategic planning committee.
• Attended a Chicago Bears football game on a windy Sunday ... little did I know the Bears would make the playoffs and get a bye!
• Nominated as one of Chicago's Finest and helped fund-raise for a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation event.

December 2005:

• Attended the Syndicate Conference in San Francisco.
• Gave the Gift of Blogging to my brother Jack.

With a year like 2005, what's in store for 2006? In 2006 on Somewhat Frank, I plan to stay more focused on business and technology and how it affects life.

Somewhat Frank del.icio.us Bookmarks (11.21.05)

del.icio.us bookmarks for 11-21-2005 by Somewhat Frank (a.k.a)  Frank Gruber

Journalists Who Won't Give Up : WashingtonPost.com

"Investigatory journalism" …  one of my favorite terms since it was used in a quote by Ben Stiller in the movie Zoolander.

The Playlist: Great Online Sources for Finding New Music

Some great places to discover new music.

Tis' the season for recruiting : Niall Kennedy's Blog

Niall has some interesting observations about employment and how the holiday season may cause some self-examination.

Study: Search Now No. 2 Among Web Tasks

Searching is now the second most used web task behind email.

Pubcon X Wrap Up : Online Marketing Blog

Webmaster World Pubcon 10 wrap up in case you were unable to make it out to Vegas.

API launches newspaper innovation initiative--spending $2MM on consultants' fees? : Susan Mernit's Blog

Will this whitepaper hold the secrets to the newspaper company's innovation strategy?

The answer to splog. : Websolvers Blog

This post gives a great overview on splog and mentions Splog Reporter. I appreciate the mention Rochelle and let me know if you have any specific questions.

The Google Maps API Gets Its Own Blog

The Google Map API is so popular that it is now getting it's own blog.

Instantly Hooked on Diggdot.us : TechCrunch

This new service combines Digg, Slashdot and Del.icio.us.

Somewhat Frank del.icio.us Bookmarks (11.14.05)

del.icio.us bookmarks for 11-14-2005 by Somewhat Frank (a.k.a)  Frank Gruber

It's showtime for Trib's quiet CEO

More talk of Tribune taking action.

A Breakthrough Few Months for Portable TV

A good recap of the feats of television in the last few months. Geez, times are a changin'.

Blogpulse Top List Spammed

Sounds like Blogpulse could use the services of Splog Reporter to assist in cleaning up their directory of blogs.

Tagging By Bloggers, A Small Study : Napsterization

This is an interesting post on tagging by Mary Hodder.

Press Release for Syntagma Media Launch : SYNTAGMA

New blog network recent launched by John Evans.

AOL to Have Reruns on Demand

Old TV favorites on demand via AOL.

Crack Down On Prostitutes Using Website

Is Craigslist acting as an online pimp?

Attack of the Blogs : Forbes.com

This is a thorough overview on blogging and the influential powers of the blogosphere.

Washington Post Reports On Splog

The WashingtonPost.com published an article today about spam blogs or splogs. I found the article interesting especially this quote by Anne P. Mitchell, president and chief executive of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy and a law professor at the Lincoln Law School of San Jose, explaining how Internet companies that helped create the blog phenomenon can also help keep it clean:

"From an ethical, moral, good Internet neighbor perspective . . . if they have the ability to do so, they should do so."

However, the article failed to dig deep enough to highlight the action of Splog Reporter recently highlighted by the Wall Street Journal and Wired News, among others.

If the raging splog battle is new to you, let me start by saying spam blogs or splogs are clogging up search engine search results much like spam emails have been clogging up your email inbox for years. Splog Reporter was created by me (Frank Gruber) and Jeff Johns in mid-August as the trash can for splog in the blogosphere. Basically, we have created a system for detecting splogs that are reported. We also offer the Splog Reporter as a service to help clean up our client’s data and detect splogs from regular blog URLs. For more information on splog, be sure to check out Splog Reporter and the definition of splog on Wikipedia.

For views from the blogosphere check out posts on TeleRead, By the Bayou and Turned Earth.

Splog Reporter Highlighted On Wired News

An article titled How to Fight Those Surging Splogs was written by Nicole Lee of Wired News and published online yesterday (October 27, 2005). I conducted the interview about a week ago and appreciate the mention of our splog efforts. I am also pleased to announce the creation of Freedom Jump, L.L.C. as the owner and operating limited liability corporation of Splog Reporter.

Splog Reporter is continuing to evolve and anticipate to see something new soon from Freedom Jump. Also please continue to send your feedback, we love to hear your perspectives as much as I like writing my candid perspective on Somewhat Frank so please keep sending us comments.

Splog Reporter Cited In WSJ Report

David Kesmodel wrote a very comprehensive article in the Wall Street Journal today in regard to the current splog problem in the blogosphere. It appeared in the print version on page B1 and on the WSJ online on the front right widget titled Blog Clog.

The article describes the splog problem and explains the roles of Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, IceRocket, Technorati, PubSub, Feedster, BlogBurner, and Splog Reporter.

David interviewed me a few weeks ago for the article which explains the Splog Reporter effort and brings to light the fact that Splog Reporter has anecdote for determining:

“...how "spammy" a blog is...”

So basically, Splog Reporter has the “special sauce” that can determine splogs from regular blogs.

UPDATE: Check out the blog of Troy Brumley for another perspective of the WSJ splog report.

Splog Causes IceRocket To Ban Blogspot

Splog, or spam blog, is at the forefront of the blogosphere again as indicated by the blog search engine IceRocket’s recent ban of Google Blogger accounts from its search index on Oct. 16. The issue has been mounting steadily, and Mark Cuban recently sounded off about Google’s free blog product, Blogger, on his blog post titled, “Get Your Blogspot Shit Together.”

I founded Splog Reporter a few months ago in an effort to help control the problem of splog clogging the blogosphere by taking the Web 2.0 approach of “empowering people” through providing “good willed” bloggers the opportunity to report URLs to Splog Reporter. Co-manager Jeff Johns and I developed a proprietary system behind Splog Reporter that determines splogs from regular blogs which marks them appropriately in our database.

It sounds like search engines are in need of help and the Splog Reporter system might be able to address this need.

For some other blogosphere perspectives check out RatcliffeBlog, BuzzMachine, Chris Pirillo, Tim Bray, The Modern Marketer, The J Spot, Strategize, and Bayosphere.

Sphere Offers A Better Blog Search?

I recently read about Sphere the soon to be released blog search in a post by Rob Hof of the BusinessWeek Tech Beat blog. I tried to get into the Beta group but was not able to at the present time but appear to be on the waiting list. I read more about Sphere on the Sphere About page and came away with these questions:

1.)    How does this new blog search going to work?
Is the search going to crawl the web or rely on pings from users? Sphere is supposed to work better then the current search engines and I am curious as to how this will be orchestrated to compete with IceRocket and Technorati and more recently Yahoo and Google. The about page talks of a relevancy based search as follows:

“Our new relevance-based algorithm discovers new blog posts as they're created, indexes them within minutes of being published, applies rich semantic analysis and makes them searchable by relevance or time.”

It will be interesting to see how that works.

2.) How will Sphere filter out spam?
It is mentioned in the About page but they do not go into detail. As co-manager of Splog Reporter, I am interested to see the efforts of other companies to combat spam blogs or splog.

3.) What other unique features does this new blog search have to offer? 
Obviously, the people behind Sphere know they have to compete with the big blog search engines and must have something unique to offer users. I cannot wait to see it in action.

Check out the blogosphere posts about Sphere on Web 2.0 Central, Jeremy Zawodny, Blogspotting, Changing Way, TechCrunch, and Tom Raftery's I.T. Views.

Has anyone else seen Sphere yet? If so, please comment on it. I would love to hear your feedback.

Sea Island Update

Beach Club originally uploaded via camera-phone by Somewhat Frank.

I made it to Sea Island, Georgia's Sea Island Resorts safely. The weather has been beautiful. I only have checked email once to receive feedback on a Tribune project I am currently managing. So I have definitely have gotten to relax. Though I have read the Wall Street Journal and NY Times everyday by the pool, where I read about the recent sale of iFilm to MTV and kept up with my sports teams via ESPN while lounging at the gorgeous beach club (shown above). I also caught some rays, swam some laps and got a wonderful massage at the spa from Melissa. She has strong hands! I also got to explain Splog Reporter and the effort to rid the blogosphere of spam blogs in a few conversations.

Unfortunately, I fly back later today. I should be just in time to eat a nice dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant and catch Family Guy the baseball playoffs and to get ready for the work grind tomorrow.

Splog Reporter Improves Features and Reporting Flow

I am happy to announce that Splog Reporter had added yet another way for users to report splog by adding a bulk import list feature. In response to several users requests we added the feature to allow users the ability to upload a comma-delimited file of splog URLs to Splog Reporter. This added feature should make splog reporting easier for splog fighters that have lists of splogs they want to report.

Additionally, Splog Reporter’s reporting flow has been changed a bit to make it a true one-click process by removing the required supplemental information fields from the Splog Reporter form. Users that use the bookmarklet or Firefox extension will now be able to simply click on those toolbar items and report the current page as splog. Just to clarify, not every URL that is reported is ultimately tagged as splog because of our back-end verification system we have in place.

It is our hope that these changes will help to make reporting splog even easier in an ultimate effort to rid them from our blogosphere. To find out more about the latest feature read our more recent news release.

Technorati To Host Second Web Spam Summit

Technorati is hosting the Second Web Spam Summit next week in Mountian View, California. Unfortunately, due to my geographic location (Chicago, Illinois) and my day job, I will not be in attendance to represent Splog Reporter. Jeff Johns is also unable to attend for the same reasons. However, I hope the summit goes well and addresses many of the issues that web spam and spam blogs or splogs cause to search engines, the web, and blogosphere. I hope that in the future Technorati offers these spam summits in the broadcast fashion so that more than just he Mountian View region can easily attend on such short notice. To learn more about the summit check out this link by Naill Kennedy on Technorati’s site.

Happy BlogDay 2005

BlogDay was created by Nir Ofir in this post which had to do with how the year 3108 somewhat looks like the word blog which somehow sparked the idea. The day was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. BlogDay was declared to be celebrated on August 31st every year.

So in observance of BlogDay 2005 here are my five recommended blogs:

TechCrunch – Michael Arrington and Keith Teare do a very nice job profiling new technology companies as well as giving weekly reviews of happenings in 2.0 web business.

Napsterization Blog – Mary Hodder focuses on positive, fair-use and legal examples of peer-to-peer file sharing, digital media as well the decentralizing effects on old analog systems and institutions, and news ways digital media can bring together users and experiences.

Syntagma – John M. Evans writes on many topics of contemporary interest including technology, business, culture and life.

Online Marketing Blog – Lee Odden offers up to date news, resources and information on the search engine industry as well as tactics ranging from search engine optimization to blog marketing and online public relations.

Fighting Splog – Helps to fight against spam blogs or splogs that are clogging up the blogosphere and search engines by exploiting them on the blog.

The last blog I mentioned strikes close to home since I created a site called Splog Reporter with the help of Jeff Johns. The site idea was inspired by reading a blog post by Mark Cuban and then authoring this post on Somewhat Frank. In the spirit of BlogDay please check out Splog Reporter and help us in the blogosphere battle against splog! We even have buttons you can add to your blog to help promote the cause.

For more information on BlogDay check out creator Nir Ofir’s post today. Also check out the wiki he has set up for BlogDay. Happy BlogDay 2005!

Splog Reporter Adds A Firefox Extension

In case you have not noticed it yet on your own, Splog Reporter has added another way for users to report splog by creating a Firefox extension. It is our intent that this extension will allow users to personalize their Firefox browser to allow them to more easily report splog. We thought this would be especially useful to our users since we found that nearly 60 percent of them are Firefox users.

Let me know what you think about the new Firefox extension. I want to know. You can download it by going here.  Also, do you have other suggestions on how to improve upon Splog Reporter? I would love to hear them.