Tumblr's CEO doesn't like ads, but he's going to sell them
How do you monetize a publishing platform that's home to more than 50m blogs and 20bn blog posts? If you're the twenty-something CEO of one of the consumer internet's most popular properties, you might consider advertising is "a complete last resort."
That's how Tumblr CEO David Karp described the advertising business model to AdAge less than a week ago, but a week is a long time in the internet economy and a lot can change very quickly.
Rumour: CNN to purchase Mashable for $200m
The next big (read: nine-figure) consumer internet acquisition may involve an unexpected buyer - CNN.
According to Reuters' Felix Salmon, the Time Warner-owned cable news network could announce as early as Tuesday that it is acquiring Mashable, one of the most popular tech/social media blogs for a figure that could be north of $200m.
SAY Media acquires ReadWriteWeb
Yesterday ReadWriteWeb, a popular technology blog founded by Richard MacManus in 2003, announced that it is being acquired by digital publishing upstart SAY Media.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to TechCrunch's sources, the deal was under $5m.
SAY Media has been active on the acquisition scene, having snapped up web properties including Dogster, Remodelista, a digital agency called Sideshow and publishing platform company Six Apart.
The apparent strategy; instead of simply building an ad network for new media, SAY Media wants to consolidate the market and own the properties it sells against.
The five biggest benefits of a company blog
The popularity of social media has encouraged many companies to create accounts and profiles on popular services like Facebook and Twitter.
However, one of the earliest components of a social media strategy, the company blog, still has the potential to provide some of the greatest value.
And for good reason. While a company blog can't fix a product or service that's lacking, or send your site to the top of the SERPs overnight, it does things that may not be possible on third party services that determine the format of content and how it's distributed.
Facebook the king of shared content: report
Just how big a part of the link economy is content sharing? According to a study which looked at behavior across some 300m who share content monthly using the ShareThis button, sharing now accounts for approximately 10% of all traffic on the internet.
And when it comes to the source of this sharing, one site stands out above all others: Facebook.
Seven ways to be a blog content king
I’m sure you’ve already read a lot of articles advising you about the power of blogs. They provide fresh, content that search engines love, that you can farm out through social channels and use to engage and amuse your audience, share links, grow your network… the list goes on.
The problem is, you really aren’t sure how to go about it. First and foremost, running a successful blog requires a lot of hard work on your part, and maybe you just don’t feel you have enough interesting content to fill page after page.
The biggest mistake made is often the assumption that a blog is simply another promotional channel for your business.
The affiliate's guide to dominating big niches with SEO
Since discovering SEO at 15 years old, I've relied on search engines to enable me to make my living online. Like many internet marketers, I make the majority of my income with affiliate marketing, but unlike many, I don't go anywhere near PPC or any form of ad buys.
I'll save the reasons I've strayed from PPC for another article, as today I want to talk about dominating search engines and getting natural, free, search engine traffic.
Nokia upsets blogger due to marathon PR failure
Last week I wrote about how to engage bloggers, based on my experience as a (pro) blogger. I explained how I receive hundreds of emails every day, and how it can be difficult to make a message stand out amid that noise.
I also explained that campaigns – all campaigns – have budgets, and that it is highly lame for brands to expect bloggers to keep doing favours for them, for free.
Today I spotted a tweet by Malcolm Coles that makes for a fantastic case study in what not to do. He flagged up a real shocker between one of the world's biggest mobile companies and a humble blogger.
So on one side we have Muireann Carey-Campbell, who writes the Bangs And A Bun blog. On the other is Nokia. And in the middle is one of Nokia’s presumably expensive PR firms, Mission.
Gap listened to its customers, or did it?
The social mediasphere can be a cruel place for brands when they make a mistake. American clothing retailer Gap learned that the hard way when it unveiled a new logo on gap.com earlier this week.
The new logo didn't go over too well and received a hefty dose of criticism on Twitter and in the blogosphere. So yesterday Gap threw in the towel and reverted back to its old logo.
How to find bloggers relevant to your business
We are on the verge of a blog outreach campaign, to support our PR, affiliate marketing, linkbuilding and brand goals. We want to share the love where possible, and to hopefully receive a bit back.
Cultivating relationships with bloggers is vital for any serious brand marketer. They can be a real asset to help you spread word about content, products and services. They are more likely to link to you than mainstream media sites and they often link in the right way.
I’ll try to shine some light on the tools you can use to unearth the most relevant blogs to your business. You’ll find that there are many bloggers out there that will be receptive to working with you, you just need to know how to seek them out.
