SOMEWHAT FRANK

Election 2.0

With a number of political candidates creating MySpace profiles, YouTube videos and Second Life avatars it appears that the Internet and web 2.0 technology are being leveraged for political campaigning.

TechPresident, a project of the Personal Democracy Forum, launched recently to aggregate the activities of U.S. presidential hopefully on popular web 2.0 social media sites. Aside from a blog which gives perspective on the presidential race, TechPresident also tracks each candidates MySpace friend counts, YouTube videos, and Technorati mentions and Google and Yahoo ads. I would love to see it add Second Life (virtual world) and Twitter (micro-blog platform) to the mix as candidates also appear on these sites.

The video below titled, Election 2.0, explains just how the 2008 United States election will be like no other election as web 2.0 takes on an unprecedented role. My only critique of the video is that it breaks the "context before detail" rule which would have made the message more powerful. Nonetheless, I think it is well done and worth watching.

IceRocket Resurfaces with Blogger Stats

IceRocket, a blog search engine that gets mentioned less and less in the blog search discussions, has begun to offer a new blog metrics feature which might attract bloggers back. Similar to BlogBeat, which was acquired by FeedBurner, IceRocket is offering blog metrics.

Offering bloggers metrics might help IceRocket to reverse the downward decline in traffic over the past year (shown below). I recall almost two years ago IceRocket was a rising star along side Technorati in a very open blog search race. Technorati has continued to grow and companies like Sphere have been created and stolen some of the spotlight. I remember getting lots of referals from people finding my content via IceRocket blog search and have mentioned IceRocket a number of times on Somewhat Frank. What happened to IceRocket?

It will be interesting to see if IceRocket can use the metrics feature to delieve blogosphere reporting on the state of the IceRocket tracked blogosphere. Or is too late to stop IceRocket's downward traffic spiral?

Blogosphere 50M Strong: NPR Discusses

Earlier this week, chief executive and founder of Technorati, David Sifry released his quarterly, State of the Blogosphere report. David revealed that Technorati is currently tracking approximately 50 million blogs which means the blogosphere is still doubling every five to six months. This is pretty amazing growth and one would think it would eventually start to trail off. The report was summarized as follows:

• Technorati is now tracking over 50 Million Blogs.
• The Blogosphere is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.
• Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months.
• From January 2004 until July 2006, the number of blogs that Technorati tracks has continued to double every 5-7 months.
• About 175,000 new weblogs were created each day, which means that on average, there are more than 2 blogs created each second of each day.
• About 8% of new blogs get past Technorati's filters, even if it is only for a few hours or days.
• About 70% of the pings Technorati receives are from known spam sources, but we drop them before we have to send out a spider to go and index the splog.
• Total posting volume of the blogosphere continues to rise, showing about 1.6 Million postings per day, or about 18.6 posts per second.
• This is about double the volume of about a year ago.
• The most prevalent times for English-language posting is between the hours of 10AM and 2PM Pacific time, with an additional spike at around 5PM Pacific time

As a follow-up to the report, David Sifry discussed the numbers on NPR in a conversation with Scott Simon. You can listen to the discussion here.

Video Tries to Answer: What is Web 2.0?

The question "What is Web 2.0?" among other things was pondered recently by Mike Arrington with a number of startup CEOs and executives on a video filmed deep inside the Silicon Valley echo-chamber. Here are some interesting tidbits which were blended into the 24 minute video: 

• TV is being eroded by Web 2.0.
• Web business models need to be advertising based.
• "Word of net" is far faster than the "word of mouth."
• Friendster created the market of social networking and crushed the idea you pay for personals.
• Content is king but if you are a publisher you need to fuse together the long tail.
• Blogging is a superset of publishing.
• Publisher are going to be packaging content.
• Firefox AJAX, Flash, consumers, producers and user generated content were all discussed.
• There was even on interesting Star Wars analogy (the republic vs. the empire).
• VC money, the bubble and business models were also discussed.
• The IE vs. Firefox browser debate.

Everyone has their own definition of Web 2.0 - so what does web 2.0 mean to you?

Crack The Technorati Top 100 Blogs

David Sifry, founder of Technorati, offers some advice on breaking into the Technorati top 100 blogs list:

1) React quickly.
2) Make your posts easy to read.
3) Link, link, link!
4) Optimize for search engines.
5) Post, post, post!

Additionally, I would recommend writing compelling content. Here is the list of the current top 100 most popular blogs by link count, according to Technorati.
 

SEO of Technorati Tags and Flickr Photos

Technorati, the blog search engine, has made some changes to the way that they have optimized portions for search find-ability (SEO) in web search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com. Steve Rubel's recent post pointed out the new title being used by Technorati to catch the attention of a searcher and potentially draw them into the wonderful world of the blogosphere. Here is an example of what the old and new titles would look like in a search result for Technology:

OLD TITLE:  Technorati Tag: Technology

NEW TITLE:  Technology - See what people are saying right now on Technorati.

Obviously, the new title is more catchy and intuitive since the mainstream searcher may not know what Technorati or a Tag is. In performing the search for Technology on Google, I found that the Google has yet to index the page with the new title format. However, it is only a matter of time and I think it is a super improvement.

Flickr, the online photo sharing repository site, has a similar SEO (search engine optimization) strategy that places the user generated title of a photo as the title tags for search engines to index. I noticed this last week so I am unsure as to how long Flickr has been optimizing its photos based on user generated titles but I would not be surprised if this has been the case since its creation. To better explain the SEO of Flickr I performed a search on "My New Coffee Mug" on Google since I know I have a photo in my Flickr account that has a similar title. In performing the search I found a Flickr photo from my account as the first item that appears in the search results since my search keywords are in the title of the photo on Flickr.

So if you want your Flickr photos appropriately indexed by search engines you should be sure to create a descriptive title that search engines can index. However, if you do not want your photos not to be found you should make them private or make sure to not title your photos - most likely the search engines will then ignore your photos.

Search for Contacts, Events & Reviews

Technorati has unveiled some new features in the Technorati Kitchen recently which adds microformat search to the mix. This means that you will soon be able to search contacts cards (hCards), events (hEvents) and reviews (hReviews) via Technorati. For more information on microformats you might want to check out microformats.org. Most simply put, microformats are:

"Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards."

Technorati has also introduced Pingerati. According to are recent article by John Battelle, Pingerati is supposed to:

"…provide a channel to translate human-directed announcements into microformat-ready html."

Tantek Çelik, Technorati Chief Technologist, posted last week about the new features and said this of microformats:

"Microformats are the key building block, the lingua franca, that make structured information open and sharable on the Web."

I think this service will come in pretty handy in the future as more people adopt its usage. Just yesterday a colleague asked me if I knew of a way to search for someone’s contact information and the new microformat search for an hCard may been the solution we were looking for. This is making the assumption that the person we are looking for has placed their contact information online somewhere to be found by Technorati. Nonetheless, it is a step in the right direction.

Tags: microformats, search, pingerati, ping, liveweb, realtimeweb, hCard, hCalendar, hReview.

Blog Search Added To Ask and Bloglines

Ask.com and Bloglines, which are both owned by Oakland-based IAC/InterActiveCorp, have added blog search functionality. I think the blog search results on Ask.com look better than that of Bloglines however, it turns out both Ask and Bloglines each has its own implementation of the same search functionality.

The Ask.com blog search is loaded with a number of features which include saving a search result, posting a search result to Bloglines, digg, del.icio.us or Newsvines and subscribing to the feed related to the search result. My favorite feature is the binoculars feature (similar to the binoculars on web search) which allows you to hover over the icon to see the details of a post without actually having to visit the blog itself.

The Bloglines blog search offers the same search results as Ask.com but since the search is being performed in an online feed reader a result can be expanded to see the full content of the item. 

Mike Arrington recently posted about the new search on TechCrunch and mentioned how it has been a longtime coming. In addition, Mike points to an issue with the way that many of the current blog search engines operate. For example, Technorati measure the authority of a blog based on the number of inbound links. This means that anyone with lots of inbound links can go into Technorati and post about something they are not familiar with (i.e. basket weaving) and become the instant authority.

The new Ask.com blog search engines does not appear to remedy this problem since it bases its rankings on the number of feed subscribers a blog feed has. Sphere, another blog search engine, which launched last month takes a different approach by creating digital fingerprint of every since piece blog content and then uses an algorithm similar to a Google page rank to determine relevancy. Therefore, I believe Sphere offers the most relevant blog search results.

88Slide For A Daily Trivia Challenge

88Slide is a video blog  or vlog produced daily by Rock Creek Park Productions which uses a sixty second format to convey a trivia question. Views can call or text message the answer to the daily trivia question and be entered to win a prize, usually a ten dollar gift certificate to one of a handful of locations.

At first glance 88Slide draws immediate comparisons to RocketBoom which is hosted by the talented Amanda Congdon. Amanda Congdon recently spoke at the 2006 Syndicate NY conference shown here. However, the 88Slide cast is hosted by Racheal (shown to the left) and uses a shorter format to target one specific trivia question a day. The trivia questions keep you on your toes but sometimes challenge the average viewer. I would highly recommend checking out 88Slide, especially if you are a RocketBoom fan and have a love for trivia or are just looking for a daily challege. Not to mention you could win!

Be sure to check out the 88Slide Behind the Scenes blog for additional details related to the production of 88Slide and good luck playing along.

Technorati Beefs Up Rep Tracking

Technorati, blog search engine, has added yet another interesting feature today by rolling out additional reputation tracking features under the Blog Finder search. The new feature is a mashup of Technorati metadata, recent posts, authority statistics (based on links) and Alexa traffic information. To access the new feature visit the Blog Finder tab and put in a web address. Here is the profile for Somewhat Frank. Steve Rubel is calling them blog baseball cards.

Sphere Blog Search: Needs To Train Dogs

Sphere, a blog search engine, finally launched today (May 2, 2006) after much anticipation with a new look and logo since first hearing about Sphere in October 2005. My first impressions was that it presents a very simple interface with a clean layout. The site was designed with the help of Adaptive Path and Ryan Freitas had this to say on designing the search site:

"The question for the Adaptive Path team was how to iterate the search experience without alienating users. More importantly, we wanted to do so without messing up the elegance of the search box."

The search features were a little different than what I am used to but they were manageable once I took a quick look at the search tips. One interesting thing I noted was that Sphere keeps tabs on a few blog metrics like average posts per week, average words per post and number of posts this week under a blog profile page. Also Sphere provides a media search which pulls together a news, photo and book search all in one page. The photos appear to be pulled in from Webshots.

There were a number perspectives given in the following Sphere reviews:

• TechCrunch
• The Search Engine Marketing Blog
• Search Engine Watch
• Venture Voice
• Elliott Back

Overall, I liked Sphere and think it has a chance to compete with Technorati, Google Blog Search and IceRocket.com for the blog search engine crown but its biggest obstacle is going to be to teaching old Technorati trained dogs new tricks. Sphere has a solid braintrust with past successes which include WordPress and OddPost so I think they might just be able to make this blog search engine race interesting.

Blogosphere Speaks Many Languages

David Sifry, CEO and founder of blog search engine Technorati, has released a second part to his recent yet reoccurring State of the Blogosphere report focusing on the various languages of the blogosphere. Apparently, English is no longer the primarily language of the blogosphere as David Sifry states:

"Something that may come as a surprise (at least to the English-speaking world) is that English isn't the biggest language of the blogosphere."

Here are the rest of the details of the report:

• The blogosphere is multilingual, and deeply international.
• English, while being the language of the majority of early bloggers, has fallen to less than a third of all blog posts in April 2006.
• Japanese and Chinese language blogging has grown significantly.
• Chinese language blogging, while continuing to grow on an absolute basis, has begun to decline as an overall percentage of the posts that Technorati tracks over the last 6 months
• Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and German are the languages with the greatest number of posts tracked by Technorati.
• The Korean language is underrepresented in this analysis.
• Language breakdown does not necessarily imply a particular country or regional breakdown.
• Technorati now tracks more than 100 Million author-created tags and categories on blog posts.

So does this mean English speaking bloggers need to start taking Japanese lessons? 

If you are interested be sure to check out the Japanese Language School Database for a location near you.

BlogBurst Public Launch

BlogBurst, a product by Pluck  that repositions bloggers content for use by mainstream media companies, according to TechCrunch is said to be officially launching tomorrow (May 2, 2006). I first was demoed BlogBurst back in December 2005 and mentioned it publicly in February of this year. Since then the Pluck team has been busy locking up mainstream media companies like SFGate.com and WashingontonPost.com as well as signing up over 1,000 bloggers. Not to mention, they have been putting the finishing touches on the BlogBurst Workbench management tools.

The large amount of blogger buy-in does not surprise me but I am surprised that more media companies have not yet jumped on board and become Lighthouse Customers - since it seems like a no brainer win-win situation for bloggers and publishers alike.

I am happily looking forward to Somewhat Frank being part of the BlogBurst program. Congrats to Pluck on the public launch. For additional information check out the BlogBurst blog.

Technorati Adds Feed Reader-like Tagging

Technorati already uses tags to assist find-ability in the real-time search however, as I viewed my Technorati Favorites today I noticed the interface changed to add a new tagging feature. The feature can be found via a new "Blog from Favorites" tab which displays your select favorite blogs. This information was previously presented in the right rail. Check out the screen-shot above for visual details.

Up to this point, Technorati only allowed a blog owner to tag their own blog but now you can tag your favorite blogs too. The tags can then be used to help search via tags within a Technorati user's favorite blogs section. Is Technorati creeping ever so cautiously into the online feed reader space?

Google SketchUp For 3D Is Free

Google has taken its recent acquisition of @LastSoftware  which was snagged up with 3D dreams last month and offered it via download to the masses as Google SketchUp. This new version makes it easy for users to create 3D drawings of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects - among other things. Google will still support a more sophisticated version for architects and engineers called SketchUp Pro 5 via plug-ins.

The Google blog offers up a  warning to new Google SketchUp users as follows:

"Warning: don’t start messing with this stuff after dinner because your first experience could be an all-nighter… making an idea come to life in 3D can be very addicting."

I will keep this in mind as I look to give it a whirl but in the meantime you can see other SketchUp user creations by visiting and searching through the newly created Google 3D Warehouse. I assume Google is looking to benefit by empowering the online community to pitch in with developing 3D models of landmarks which could then be added to Google Earth.