Community Building is really what this site is all about. If any of you have further interest, take a look at some of the links below. Tor Hought from Edict.com suggested these links as a good introduction to the web-based community building concepts.

Community Building on the Web http://www.naima.com/community/

Cluetrain http://www.cluetrain.com/

David Wineberger http://www.hyperorg.com/

Doc Searls http://www.searls.com/

Christopher Locke http://www.rageboy.com/, Gonzo Marketing

Derek M. Powazek http://www.powazek.com/zoom/log/, Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places

Web Log Resources http://www.informationweek.com/blog/resources.htm

Thousands of Blogs Fall Silent 

By Michelle Delio  |   Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1

12:00 PM Jun. 15, 2004 PT

Elise.com has a very interesting overview of the weblog tools market and how it is developing... I thought this may be of interest to our friends at EDICT Inc.  It would be nice to see EdictSpaces added to the list! Here's part of what she has to say...

...Weblog Use Index

Since actual share numbers are impossible to come by, I have combined the Google Link To and Contain URL numbers to come up with what I am calling the Weblog Use Index, an index of market influence based solely on Google results. Clearly a problem with this approach is that it weighs more heavily the hosted services where each weblog created contains the URL of the service. Weblogs that use the standalone tools may not cite the tool used and therefore would not get counted with this method. However, when we look at the overall results, they seem to fit what we would expect in general. Blogger, Google’s free service, has the lion’s share, followed by Live Journal, the most active weblog online community.

This view of the blog market is certain to generate criticism. I am very open to suggestions for an improved methodology using publicly available information. I am surprised by Typepad's importance on the Use Index given that it is a fee-based service. However, considering that I know of and read countless Typepad blogs and virtually no Live Journal or Diaryland blogs, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.

The Emerging Business Market

As more businesses find valuable uses for weblog technology, there will be increasing demand for professionally-oriented tools, hosted services, and professional support services. Six Apart and pMachine serve this market now with their Movable Type and Expression Engine applications, but they have barely made a dent given what the opportunity is. Expect a whole new wave of products, services, and companies to be created over the next 12 to 18 months to cater specifically to the business market.

Blogging Tools

Here are some links to weblog tools mentioned in this article and a few others as well:

Hosted Blog Services
Free:
Blogger.com
Blogdrive

Fee:
Typepad

Hosted Blog Communities
Live Journal
AOL Journals
DiaryLand
Xanga
AlwaysOn Network

Blog Software
Fee:
Movable Type
Expression Engine
Radio Userland

Open source and free:
Wordpress
b2evolution
Drupal
Greymatter
Textpattern
Blosxom
Nucleuscms
Roller Weblogger
Pivot

Blog Indices and Search Resources
Technorati
Feedster
Blogdex
Blogpulse
Blogwise
Blogstreet

Websites Focused on Blog Market Sizing
Blogcount
bsentinel
BlogCensus

If you want to see where you fit in the context of the history of advertising, you must see the Advertising Age website on "The Advertising Century".  Here you will find the Top 100 Campaigns, the Top 100 People, the Top 10 Jingles, the Top 10 Slogans and the Top 10 Ad Icons.

If you're a history buff, you will be amazed at the Advertising Timeline that stretches from 1704 to 1999.

Adrants finds another clever ad agency using videos to promote there own message about advertising...

"We've all worked with those pompous, obnoxious, self-important brand managers who just can't keep there hands out of the creative process, offering nothing but useless brand blather. In this new video called Transformational Marketing, part of Aquent's Design Out Loud series, this full-of-himself brand manager goes through an interesting transformation of his own while berating his creatives, butchering a perfectly good ad and, at the same time, calling attention to some of the more annoying creative practices such as the insistence on using fancy, hard to read type, tiny logos and a lot of white space. It's not clear whether he's a bad trick or just the treat this creative team needs."

Adrants reports on two competing ad agencies finally collaborating to define viral marketing...

Following a grueling debate between viral marketing firm DMC Founder Justin Kirby and Britain's Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Danny Meadows-Klue, the International Viral + Buzz Marketing Association has announced a viral manifesto which cut's through the clutter and clearly defines viral marketing. Basically, it calls for clear target identification, enjoyable and valuable delivery of message and encouragement to share messages with others. Additionally, the manifesto calls for fostering genuine enthusiasm for a brand, acknowledging it is the recipients themselves, not the marketer, who spreads the message and the treatment of consumers as partners in the marketing process.

PVRBlog points out a study by BackChannelMedia discussing how new media technologies are causing "attention fragmentation" in the former mass media markets...

"Backchannelmedia, who is in the business of selling direct-response tv advertising (bias beware) has compiled a lot of data showing the fragmentation of attention due to new platforms and technologies, be it the Internet, game consoles, DVRs, etc. Media companies, according to the Financial Times, have responded with either, "horizontal integration, vertical integration," or, "the search for new sources of revenue." The article argues that the marketplace is moving towards a mass customization future, an argument that Sippey disagrees with due to the costs involved (and I would agree.)

The combination of atomized consumer markets and digitized media technologies are spreading and speeding this process. When tens of millions of consumers live individualized lifestyles, and utilize individualized media and technology (PCs, PDAs, DVRs, iPods, cell phones, etc.), we are well on the way from mass markets to mass customization - markets of one."

...Is this the equivalent of  "attention deficit disorder" for the advertising world? 

Wired reports today that the Kerry campaign is pumping more advertising dollars into the web channels.

In a related story, Wired also reports that the industry is flying blind! There are still no adequate statistics on who does what, when and where on the web.

Kelly Dragoo at Alexa has a great graphic showing the "Daily Traffic Rank Trends" for the online networking sites including: orkut.com, myspace.com, friendster.com and tribe.net.

It's all about the traffic.

A recent proposal at pc4media, explores the concept of "distributed novel writing". 

"...want to explore whether this can be done via weblogs and with multiple authors.

Here's how I think it could work.
1. Someone starts a story on their weblog.
2. A person reads that story and decides to continue it on their weblog.
3. They use trackback and/or leave a comment with something to the effect: "If you'd like to see Joany break up with Johnny, read this. (link)"
4. Original authors can update their post with pointers to the alternative next steps.

Of course, the story would grow in lots of directions, which would be cool. Most likely, the blog posts that took the story in the most 'popular' ways would get the most traffic and would have the most people build off of it.

I know a wiki could accomplish a similar objective of distributed authorship, but I think this proposal is different in the following ways:
- Authors still have ownership of their pieces.
- Unpopular or poorly written excerpts are routed around. (Kind of like a self healing network.)
- People don't have to go to a centralized place to do distributed authorship. (Seems more natural to me.)
- This is a cool way for aspiring authors to show off their talent. (which would be lost in a wiki)"

Jim MacBeth at Blackfrogcreative thinks "this may be a great idea for creating the next "trunk monkey"! Imagine a virtual blog advertising agency using this technique to create a proven, blog tested advertisement...only the most entertaining creative material would prevail.  The blog traffic would point in the direction of the winning storyline."

Over 17,000 respondents to  Blogads  May '04 survey of the Blogsphere reveals the distribution of bloggers by age, sex, income, occupation, political affiliation, country and more.

"...blog readers are more cyber-active than I'd hoped: 54% of their news consumption is online. 21% are themselves bloggers and 46% describe themselves as opinion makers. And, in the last six months:

• 50% have spent more than $50 online on books.
• 47% have spent more than $500 online for plane tickets.
• 50% have contributed more than $50 to a cause or candidate, and 5% have contributed more than $1000. (Only 25% of NYTimes.com readers have contributed anything online in the last year.)

Blog readers are media-mavens: 21% subscribe to the New Yorker magazine, 15% to the Economist, 15% to Newsweek and 14% to the Atlantic Monthly.

They are also far more male -- 79%! -- than I expected, versus 56% of NYTimes.com's readers."

Adrants.com posted this today:

Marketers Can No Longer Ignore Weblogs

Anyone who doubts the power of blogs should probably reconsider. ADRANTS reports the following:

Gawker Media Launches Second Custom Publishing Weblog

A nice article at Autoweek about how automakers are utilizing viral marketing campaigns to get the word out.

"Get a viral campaign right and the rewards are great. The person who forwards the joke, gossip or video clip effectively promotes the brand.

But there's a catch: If everyone is doing viral marketing, one auto executive warns, none of it will work."

[via Autoweek]

This is also the first article I've seen that has talked about downsides to viral marketing.

Additionally there is some excellent commentary over at Seth Godin's weblog on the honesty and paid success vs. natural sucess of campaigns.

'Webisodes' are the new frontier for Internet ads. Crispin Porter + Bogusky are at the center of it.

"After years of relying on conventional banner ads and showy Web pages driven by the latest technology, ad agencies are working to create branded content consumers want to watch -- and hopefully pass on to their friends.

"We had sort of lost focus on the content and the concepts behind the sites. Now I feel like we're at the beginning of a Renaissance," said Jeff Benjamin, interactive creative director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky."

[Globe and Mail]