After having been scouted byBlogger’s Choice Awards for Best Marketing Blog, i’ve now been tagged by “The Marketer” and others, as part of the honorable mention list at Power 150, a global ranking of top English-language Marketing Blogs.

Another portuguese author is also there, the ever inspiring planner Sergio Santos of The Hidden Persuader, but way above me at #64. Hey, i’ve been around for less than a year, so i guess i’m doing fine for a rookie, don’t you think so? At least it’s been a hell of a ride so far, joining Feedurner’s Marketing and Advertising Network, becoming part of crew at Prt.sc, exchanging knowledge with peers and standing on the shoulder of some giants.

Having started more focused on digital marketing, this blog has gradually been expanding to broader themes, including the more mainstream “conversational marketing”, with some insights on traditional advertising and with special attention to what i like to call future marketing.

With online advertising playing an important role last year (specially the big deals by MS and Google), more eyes have been wondering around here. Except for those folks that keep bringing thousands of hits when searching for the “Heroes Soundtrack”. Well, no problem, i guess search engines are building their own long tail at this blog.

Back to the honorable mentions, Gordon Whitehead spreads some link love amongst the bloggers below #150. I’ve tried to do a bit more than that, and actually visited every single one of them (but skimming through the overcrowded PR ones), so here are my own honorable mentions:

• One of my favourite topics at Ageless Marketing
• If i was a agency planner, i would be reading this one
• but I’m more like David, with a little more restraining speaking about client work.
• Just in case any crisis comes along
• Novell’s CMO is blogging
• Poor template. Never mind. Great content
• A regular at my feed reader: Ogilivy PR
• Tasty marketing thoughts at eSoup
• Fine writing at BrandTarot
• Leo Burnett, blogging from Toronto
• Brand storms from the corporate blog of Durbin Media Group
• Well, that’s a fresh view:theclientsideblog.com
• Connecting the dots at Digital Influence Mapping
• Taking notes at the marketing community
• more hot-wiring ideas with mindblob
• Juicy posts at Influence 2.0
• Word-Of-Mouth turns academic with Walter Carl
• The movie of marketing or the marketing of movies?
• More free ebooks, Chip! (pardonthedisruption.com)
• More goodies from Canada
• More conversation
• Bryan know stuff
• Get your hands on these email marketing tips
• if i hadn’t a blog, i would be writing for you guys (specially with such a similar tag line)
• Ernie Schenck, calling advertising
• Adverlicio.us: a longtime favorite Online Advertising collection

I questioned Todd why some blogs sponsored by large media companies are included, and i have to agree with him when he says “every blog should be listed no matter who they’re sponsored by because all blogs benefit the reader”. But the real problem with this particular list is that it just ruined my feed reader, with a lot more blogs added and fewer sleeping hours.

So now I really have to THANK YOU, dear readers, for pushing me to keep writing and inspiring for almost one year. If this blog reaches the top 150 next year, then it’s because we both had fun at this humble place.

So don’t forget to visit the coolest blog from the list!
(Hey, sometimes we need to indulge ourselves a bit, right?)

Today’s marketers need to integrate crowdsourcing, co-creation and collaboration as part of their vocabulary, as Drew McLellan, Gavin Heaton and fellow co-authors seem to do, successfully releasing their book “The Age of The Conversation” yesterday, a 3 month collaboration between 100 bloggers.

The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication. And in the spirit of conversation, you can follow-up and extend your interest in the topics covered in the book at the Age of Conversation blog — www.ageofconversation.com.

With articles by personal favourites such as Greg Verdino, Cord Silverstein, David Polinchock, Richard Huntington, Tom Fishburne, Gareth Kay or Roger from Creative Think, the book has also some interesting contributions such as a google map with all the authors or the cover by the ever inspiring David Armano.

Over 100 of the world’s leading marketers contributed with a chapter, with part of the profits going to a children’s charity fund. As i’m inclined to save some trees (and it’s cheaper), i’ll get myself an electronic version at lulu.com/ageofconversation.

It’s not as big as Wikipedia, but it’s a damn fine example of “architecture of participation“.

You probably have already visited some of the blogs at 9rules or Weblogs, Inc but have you ever stopped to think about what makes a blog network ?
Let me answer that … well, I’m getting myself in trouble in trying to define a concept that even Wikipedia hasn’t answered, but at least I’ll give it a try.

Basic Conditions

First thing first, the network members should write blogs, in the form of a daily journal with original content updated regularly. If we agree on this obvious premise, that immediately excludes networks such as MyBlogLog or social bookmark services such as Digg. Also excluded are multi-author blogs since these are themselves a author network.

My second premise is they should have some sort of quality control, with a human authority determining which blogs are included and assuring premium content, leaving out networks such as Blogger.
Following the same line of thought, but with a more technical focus, the network should not enforce any platform or domain name, leaving out Wordpress.com or Instablogs for example. Both power and identity should be distributed across the community, so it makes no sense to require members to adhere to a particular set of tools.

One thing I’m not considering is the quality of blog content as a determining factor, since it’s subjective and biased to each network.

Having focused on the blog side of things I’m moving now into the network aspects. One thing that arises above all aspects is the community building, the conversational network, the bonds that establish between the blog members, way besides link-baiting or SEO concerns. I truly believe that you can only become a blog network if the members are passionate about it, help each other and feel responsible for the future of the network. One example that stands out amongst all them is 9 rules, that has a devoted community, greatly supportive of the network initiatives.

Being a network also means that you are able to aggregate information or have a global overview of content stream, whether through aggregating portals or tools such as widgets or rss feeds, allowing readers to browse the blogs from a nuclear location. That alone leaves a big player such as Gawker out, that I’ll rather classify as a media network.

As Duncan puts it, these are my basic criteria for being considered a blog network:

• network members are individual blog authors
• admission isn’t automated but based of human judgment
• network does not enforce publishing platform
• encourages community building
• nuclear aggregation of content

Classification

If a blog network complied with the previous conditions, then it could fit in one (or many) of these classifications:

• Category Network: network members write mostly about a particular topic. Examples include SBNation, a blog network discussing sports;
• Affiliated Network: that shares a common feature between bloggers: Example includes Prt.sc, where all authors are Portuguese;
• Local Network: members write about local subjects, geographically determined. Example includes MetroBlogging;
• Commercial Network:Network generating revenue to their members either through advertising revenues or paying their authors for published content. Examples include b5media.⁽¹⁾

Advantages

• For Blog authors: they apply or are invited to become part of a blog network with the perspective of increasing their audience and gain some additional advertising revenue;
• For Blog network owners/promoters: with dimension comes personal visibility and advertising opportunities;
• For Readers: they can find good blogs on a particular topic (by aggregation or hyperlinking between network members), a task increasingly difficult with today’s information overloa;.

One thing i must address here is that a blog network that doesn’t promote their own internal community (blog authors) has few chances of being successful, since no synergies or innovation occurs.

Ranking

Although some have tried to rank blog networks, there is much work to be done. Weblogs SL from Spain is in the right path by distributing metrics provided by third media parties (Nielsen Netratings), and it would be interesting if there was some way to judge blog network reach and frequency besides Technorati or Alexa.

List of Blog Networks

• 451 Press, http://www.451press.com
• 9 Rules, http://9rules.com
• Corante, http://www.corante.com
• Fodder Network, http://www.foddernetwork.com
• MetroBlogging, http://www.metroblogging.com
• Podcast Network, http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com
• Prt.Sc (Portugal), http://www.prt.sc
• SBNation, http://www.sbnation.com
• ShinyMedia, http://www.shinymedia.com
• Web2.0 Workgroup, http://www.web20workgroup.com
• Weblogs Inc, http://www.weblogsinc.com
• Weblogs SL (Spain), http://www.weblogssl.com
• TC Magazines Network (Germany), http://www.tcmagnet.com/

(*) Note: the list above is incomplete, so feel free to suggest any other networks that meet the criteria.

References

• http://tihane.wordpress.com/2006/12/24/3-blog-community-paradigms/

This is a work in progress and perhaps i’ll even submit it to Wikipedia, so let me know in what you think, and what other issues i should address.

(1) Deleted the Advertising Network (blog networks can exist without advertising, it’s not a common feature), and is now included in the Commercial Network, since by legal reasons no advertising revenue can be collected without a owner or company.

Interesting study by ZenithOptimedia, found at Julio Alonso’s blog, with several questions to proeminent spanish bloggers and more than 2.000 phone interviews.

Favourite insights:

• Most people get to know blogs through friends
• Users read mostly their friends blogs, followed by tech blogs
• 44% of interviewed users admit they might change brand due to comments read on blogs
• LiveSpaces and Blogger are the dominant publishing platforms
• Advertising is well accepted, as long as not too intrusive
• Users see blogs as an independent medium, with participation as the main feature

Link to study (4Mb pdf).

Many books have been written based on blogs, but few actually receive my respect. Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design is the result of many writings by Michael Beirut at the outstanding blog Design Observer, with 272 pages discussing design with no pictures at all (only 79 different typefaces).

Michael made an interesting point on why to write (a book or a blog) :

“I’ve found that writing is a way to slow things down again, to question my own premises, to force myself to pay attention to things I might otherwise file away after the quick glance. (…)  I discovered that putting the words on paper changes the claim those words make on your attention. Is it better? Is it worse? The answer may be different for every reader. As a designer, I am very grateful I’ve been given the opportunity to let you see for yourself.

I’m a sucker for soundtracks as they’re usually offer a great selection of music. And if you happen (as i am) to be a fan of Heroes, then you definitely have to check this blog: http://heroessongs.com/

It’s a great community work, and provides direct links to free MP3s. My favorite tune of all episodes still is Eyes from Rogue Wave, that you can listen at the band’s MySpace page. While you’re waiting for the next episode, how about listening to this heroic playlist?

Just in case anyone is interested in the singles, below are my favorite Heroes to tracks and albums by Rogue wave, Sigur Ros and Imogen Heap.:

© Gaping Void

From WalMart to Sony, we’ve witnessed lately a surge of blogs as a accessible medium to spread a marketing message. Even in Portugal, a relatively quiet country in digital marketing stunts, there was a timid essay on flogs by Vodafone, when their ad agency Brandia Central published a flog to spread a viral video, a copycat of the Marc Ecko/Air Force One Tagging Video by Droga5.

One of the reasons these campaigns seem to backfire is mostly a matter of speech since these brands just don’t talk the walk of blogs, and their traditional ad agencies haven’t figured out the right way to engage bloggers and their readers. If you’re a hip product or service, you might even get a positive return, but if you’ve never been trendy or socially responsible, as soon as bloggers spot you’re trying to fool them, you’re history.

My advice is much of the morale on the play by Oscar Wilde, “The importance of being Ernest”: you can even pretend a lot, but at least be amusing. You can’t fool them (bloggers) forever, so you’d better come upfront with disclaimers and let them play with your message. As in the character Ernest, sooner or later people will find the truth, so have your B-plan ready just in case anything goes wrong, with some spare Public Relations available.

As in the plot, Ernest has a lot of witty comments, so any brand should come up with interesting little breadcrumbs that provide leads to the website. Take for example the grassroots effort by music band Nine Inch Nails, that created a myriad of websites with obscure meaning and latter did some smart guerrilla marketing in their concerts (starting here in Lisbon).

After all, flogs aren’t evil, but their purpose might be. Consumers don’t appreciate being fooled our interrupted, but they enjoy a great story, a challenge or riddle, something that makes them curious. The bad press for flogs came mostly from companies that tried to push their messages into mediums that they clearly didn’t understood, viewing blogs as a cheap way to set some initial seeders for their viral marketing efforts. As in a theater play, we all know it’s fiction, but while they’re acting they’d better be damn good at it, or we’ll not going to spread the message to our friends.

As for bloggers, the well thought flogs might be a great opportunity to join into a profitable conversation. A well planed campaign, rewarding to bloggers as in a regular media plan, will surely make everyone happy. Advertising has long been using fake stories, way before blogs were born, so my advice to bloggers is that they should get used to these techniques as long as brands dont’t try to “bunbury” their true identity and respect the blog community.

I had to mention this today, since some of the authors are fellow bloggers.

Tubarao Esquilo went live today, being one of the most serious attempts as a federated content network of portuguese blogs. Nothing too pretentious at the beginning, but from an ad agency perspective i’m curious to see how this goes.

Not that i’m expecting anything too serious such as The Deck, Federated Media or 9 rules (although technically 9 rules is more of an aggregator). And while the mainstream portuguese marketing is still more comfortable with online display ads or AdWords, it’s a matter of time until some brands start innovating with micro-targeting in more specialized niche content.

Good luck, folks!

P.S.
- thumbs down to no only one women on the initial authors list
- i still don’t get the name (translated as Squirrel Shark). A really poor branding choice.

“If you can’t beat them, join them”, was perhaps the recurring thought at DuPont, one of the largest industrial companies in the USA, as they closed the deal to a series of science stories with Amanda Congdom, one of the blogs superstars and former videocast hostess at RocketBoom.

Everyday situations are narrated by the sexy voice of Amanda with several DuPont product placements in the videos. In a similar style to RocketBoom webisodes, they do not intend to be viral, but rather more educational and perhaps more in the tone of serious pro-bloggers, the ideal seeders to spread the word on DuPont Labs. I think they’ve got me, then.

As in any knowledge circle, those who are most listened tend to be a more credible source of information, so it makes all the sense that if you’re a company really interested in talking in the same language as bloggers do, you’d better off hiring someone who really “talks the talk and walks the walk”.