In a surprising twist to the Pirates versus Ninjas the MPAA story, the FBI and MPAA have joined forces to train a special group of Swedish anti-piracy police. Techdirt raises some important questions regarding this move, not the least of which is “How will the Ninjas and the Robots react to this move by the MPAA?”

First of all, which part of the “botching” required this response? Perhaps it’s the collateral damage issue — but, if that’s the case, why would the MPAA be involved at all? Even more importantly, why are the Swedish police taking its lessons from a private entity that is clearly biased, has been consistently wrong about the impact of piracy (remember when it insisted that VHS tapers were the Boston Strangler to the movie industry?) and doesn’t follow its own rules anyway? On top of that, why then is the FBI helping the MPAA if this is really a civil dispute rather than a criminal one?

The original site has been overwhelmed by Digg. View DuggMirrored version here.

Originally posted on February 20, 2007 @ 9:40 am

And the award for the most concise definition of Digg goes to…Scott Karp!

Digg is the apotheosis of niche media — of the niche, by the niche, and for the niche. Never has another media company so perfectly captured the interests and ethos of one defined group of people — in Digg’s case, under 25, male, liberal, interested in tech…

If you look at the list of top 10 stories from which Scott derives his definition, it’s abundantly clear that the communities interests lie in technology news, how-to’s, offbeat news, and liberal news.

…no single editor could compile such a perfect list. Digg could not be further afield from a mainstream audience, but for the Digg niche, it is perfection.

Perfection, while it may be for the niche, this also means that Digg has little chance to expand beyond this niche and become mainstream. At least not without irking the niche.

Beautiful words Mr. Karp.

Originally posted on February 20, 2007 @ 9:19 am

Love him or hate him, Al Gore, The Man Who Would Be President, is probably doing more good for the world in his current role as environmental awareness raiser than he might have done as President. Even though Americans hold global warming as low priority, there are those who hold Al Gore as a visionary. That’s not likely something he would have been called as a President, even if he’d done pretty much the same thing.

So in terms of achieving something, he’s probably better off as he is. Sure, there are still politics and he has naysayers. As Prez doing the same things, he would have had to defend himself against his critics else be viewed as weak – whether he’s correct or not in his stance. As environmental watchdog, he could choose to ignore critics and merely let the facts speak for themselves.

In the current role, his agenda takes on a wholly different, non-political bent – provided he isn’t planning on throwing his hat in the Democratic candidate ring after all (now or in the future). On the other hand, would you be more likely to vote for a person who has already proven themselves on the world stage?

I’m inclined to do that, regardless of political affiliation. I’m also inclined to read a blog by Al Gore, were he to do that, or have someone ghostblog for him – with his express sign-off. On the other hand, I’m not necessarily sure I’d read blogs by presidential candidates John Edwards, Rudy Guiliani, Hilary Clinton, etc. I’m not sure. Then again, Senator Edwards can’t seem to decide whether keep or fire his blogger. Or did she quit?

And then there’s Senator Barack Obama, whom Muhammad Saleem declared on our pages as the Websident so far, what with having over 4,000 members create blogs on his social network. Yes, social network: myBarackObama. As well, there’s the 3,000 bloggers who have also created campaign pages.

Can you imagine how buzz and much content 7,000+ eager supporters -cum -bloggers can create for you? Do any of the other candidates have that much backing? I doubt any SEO company could build such positive, valuable content. (Assuming it’s all done with some coherence.)

I’m laying my money down that the Candidate Most Likely To Be Dugg is Senator Barack Obama because of how much his campaign crew “gets” new media. Of course we can’t vote for the next President using Digg, given that the bulk of the Digg community seems to be 25, tech-savvy, and liberal. Obviously, that doesn’t represent the entire American populace equally. But imagine if we could.

Originally posted on February 21, 2007 @ 7:05 pm

Over the weekend, thanks to a feed refresh (again) in Bloglines of the Performancing.com feed, the owner of this very blog, David Krug wrote a post titled Becoming a Professional Blogger was Never as Easy as Today. Naturally before I start this editorial, I’m on the payroll here, from David, so there is a preexisting professional relationship. Lets hope I’m not about to destroy it…but having said that I know he’s got thick skin, unlike some others of late.

Becoming a Professional Blogger was never harder than today, except maybe 3-4 years ago when the revenue wasn’t there.

[Read more…]

Originally posted on February 19, 2007 @ 10:50 pm

Headrush, a blog about “creating passionate users”, had a post last week entitled The real secret to a successful blog/ book/ business… The two hand-drawn Venn Diagrams reveal the secret.

Headrush, if you’re not familiar with it, is in Technorati’s Top 100 blogs list. But unlike some of the politblogs in the A-list, it doesn’t breed any controversy. It’s success, or so Kathy Sierra says in her post – and illustrates in diagrams – is due to concentrating mostly on content that is both good for users and for the business.

The site is aimed at people who have the role of creating passionate users in a particular tool (as well as the users themselves). In her case, she’s the author/ co-author of a series of computer programming books from O’Reilly called Head First. There’s no other advertising on the site (that I’ve seen) except for the books.

So here, what’s good for the “business” is to get people to read more of the Head First books, presumably by blogging about similar and related topics – not the books themselves.

It’s kind of an a-ha moment. You already sort of know that her “secret” really is straightforward. But are you doing that yourself? What about the blogs you read that are associated with a business? Are they talking about themselves/ their products/ their services, or are they getting you to use their products and services by giving you valuable content?

It’s an educated guess that weblogs will become even hotter properties in the next few years than they have been in 2006 and 2007. (At least, before any tech bubble burst that may or may not happen in 2010, like it has at the beginning of every new decade since 1970). But if you’re in the blog speculation game, ask yourself which type of blogs are going to be hot?

I don’t mean, for example, how real estate blogs are hot, but niche matters, too. What I mean is the style of blog:

• Does the blog build a conversation with readers, including commenters and other bloggers?
• Does it build additional dialogue by linking to and discussing relevant posts elsewhere?
• Does it answer more questions than it asks?
• Does the content advance the business? I.e., does it satisfy Kathy Sierra’s “secret” of being good for both reader and business?
• Is the readership reacting? Are you gaining subscribers, even if they don’t all leave comments?

Those are the types of blogs that will likely be hot. And yes, is it in either a profitable niche or add value to a particular market/ industry? A blog does not have to earn advertising dollars to have value to the blogger/ business, as Headrush and, for example, Seth Godin, shows.

We might even start to see a new breed of talent scouts and blog brokers (if they’re not out there already) whose sole role is to scour the blogosphere looking for bloggers and blogs, and then broker deals with buyers, possibly in niche industries.

I’m sort of skirting around that role myself, having brokered a few blog sales. It’s a good role for the right person, and as the blogosphere matures, we’ll see more big deals like ESPN’s purchase of NBA blog TrueHoop. And this could all be part of a new American dream for those fed up with the rat race and commuting to work everyday.

Originally posted on February 19, 2007 @ 9:55 am