Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

A Paid Subscription Success Story

ConsumerReports.org has hit the 2 million subscriber mark.  This article discusses how they achieved it.

[via PaidContent]

Who the Heck Listens to Podcasts?

Heather Green over at BusinessWeek's Blogspotting writes:

PaidContent and Techdirt dig through the two conflicting surveys from JupiterResearch and CLX on podcasts...and come up with the most logical line on who the audience for podcasts is....No one knows.

Biz360 Announces Lexis-Nexis Partnership

Press release:

LexisNexis U.S., a leading                           provider of news, business and legal information services,                           today announced the availability of LexisNexis® MarketImpact™,                           a measurement and intelligence solution that gives                           corporations insight into how their company, products                           and competitors are perceived in the market, so they                           can better manage global reputations and brands. LexisNexis                           MarketImpact is powered by Biz360®, the leading                         provider of market intelligence solutions.

BurrellesLuce to use Nielsen//NetRatings

Old time clipping service meets new media stats:

BurrellesLuce, the nation’s leading media monitoring company, today announced that it will include Nielsen//NetRatings global Internet audience reach figures on all press clippings retrieved from Internet sources.

Influencers Use RSS

Scoble:

I was over at Alex Barnett's blog this morning and saw he linked to a survey that said that 87% of influencers use RSS. This is PRECISELY why I've been telling everyone to get RSS feeds and why they should be full text. If no one else in society uses them, this is enough reason.

Makes sense.

AOL News

I admit I never even think about AOL as a player in online news search.  But I guess I should.  MarketingVox reports:

AOL News has sprinted into a leading position in online news search, joining Yahoo News, Google News and Topix.net, writes SearchEngineWatch, citing July Nielsen/NetRatings data, according to which AOL News has a unique audience of 16.5 million. Though that's some 29 percent less than for Yahoo News (23.2 million), it's also more than 2.4 times more than the audience of Google News (6.8 million) and almost 6.8 times that of Topix.net (2.4 million).

A Plea for Voluntary Registration on News Sites

More from Amy Gahran (I'm getting caught up on feeds tonight).  I have heard from a surprising number of people -- PR professionals even -- who refuse to register for all of these news sites that require registration to read content.

It's an interesting problem as more sites go to registration.

UPDATE: Mike Orren argues the solution is for publishers to make registration more valuable to readers.  As he points out, nobody balks about registering for services like LinkedIn, Amazon, or eBay because they truly customize the experience for the user.

TiVo: Ads, Subscriptions to Gain Momentum

MarketingVox:

Advertisers will flock to TiVo as it gains more subscribers, said TiVO CEO Tom Rogers during the company's Q2 earnings conference call, writes Adweek (via MediaBuyerPlanner) ...

TiVo has introduced an ad-tagging feature that allows sponsors to embed an interactive tag into their commercials, allowing viewers to interact with their spots. Ameriquest, E*Trade and General Motors are running commercials using the tags.

Commenting on Comment Liability

Amy Gahran looks at legal issues surrounding comments posted on your blog:

On Aug. 26, Dave Taylor posted an article concerning legal liability and weblog comments. Basically, Aaron Wall, who writes the SEO Book weblog, was recently threatened with a lawsuit because of something that someone posted in comments to his blog.

Podcasts from Above

NY Times today explores podcasting to the faithful:

Kyle Lewis, 25, missed going to church one Sunday last month. But he did not miss the sermon.

Mr. Lewis, who regularly attends services of the National Community Church in Alexandria, Va., listened to the sermon while he was at the gym, through a recording he had downloaded to his iPod. Instead of listening to the rock music his gym usually plays, he heard his pastor's voice.

Will Paid Subscriptions Take Off for Rocketboom?

Rocketboom, a nifty little daily web video news spoof site, plans to try subscription fees to monetize their content.  BusinessWeek reports that their current free approach is getting eyeballs.

The approach is resonating with viewers. Daily downloads have doubled in the past six weeks, to 50,000. If they stay on that pace, they'll soon approach the 200,000 viewers of an established cable show, such as CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer.

But will the eyeballs pay? 

I used to watch Rocketboom regularly myself, but as amusing as it was, it became harder to find the 5 minutes every day to watch.

[via PaidContent]

Salesforce Updates via RSS

An intriguing new service is available to allow users of Salesforce.com to get account updates via RSS feeds. 

[via Scoble]

UPDATE: This only works with Enterprise Edition accounts.

Tanking Technorati

Jason Kottke makes a strong case that Technorati is heading in the wrong direction.

That's it. I've had it. No more Technorati. I've used the site for, what, a couple of years now to keep track of what people were saying about posts on kottke.org and searching blogs for keywords or current events. During that time, it's been down at least a quarter of the time (although it's been better recently), results are often unavailable for queries with large result sets (i.e. this is only going to become a bigger problem as time goes on), and most of the rest of the time it's slow as molasses.

He goes on to detail to further detail their flaws.

Is this a question of someone trying to be too many things, as Jason suggests?  Or is it someone who grew too fast?  Or is the technology simply not that scalable?

At the end of the day, it won't matter if they can't refocus and stem the tide of discontent that seems to be rising in the blogosphere.

[via Fred Wilson]

Another Video Search Player

Another company targets video search, this time overseas:

Autonomy has just signed a joint venture with China Netcom Broadband (CNCBB), one of China’s biggest internet companies with more than 110m subscribers.

The pair have agreed to create a service that will allow Chinese consumers to search for news and video clips from 25 local and national TV companies over the internet.

[via PaidContent]

NYT Editor Complained About Opinion in News Stories

The Standards Editor of the New York Times,  Allan M. Siegal, made an interesting admission in an interview with his own publication today:

I'm supposed to be the recipient of any complaints and misgivings by the staff about how we're doing and what we're doing, the person who adjudicates differences of opinion about how we should go about reporting and editing stories.

By the charter that my job was given when it was set up, I have the guaranteed right to go not just to the executive editor with any misgivings I have, but directly to the publisher. On one occasion, when I thought that there was too much opinion seeping into the news pages, I went to both of them simultaneously. But that's the only time I've felt it necessary to involve the publisher.  [emphasis added]

As Jeff Jarvis asks, what was that occasion?

Innovative Book Marketing by Seth Godin

TechCrunch reports on an interesting approach by Seth Godin to marketing his new book:

As I mentioned in a recent weekly summary (see no. 6), Seth’s new book, The Big Moo, is coming out and he’s eating his own dogfood in promoting it. Seth has started selling batches of 50 galley copies to people if they promise to “sneeze” the book to other influential people. I purchased 50 copies, and am now offering them to TechCrunch readers.

Publishers Looking to Text Messaging for Teens

 USA Today: “Parents wringing their hands over their teens' incessant cell phone use should chill — they might be interacting with authors. Publishers are plugging into the technology whose ringtones and vibrations attract teenagers' undivided attention.”

 

Gartner Looks at Collaborative Tech

Steve Rubel reports:

Gartner today released its Goldie Locks-esque “2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” report. The research identifies the tech industry's “just right porridge.” It highlights the technologies that have moved from conception, to market over-enthusiasm, through a period of disillusionment, to an eventual understanding of its relevance in the market. Blogging, podcasting, RSS and wikis all made the list. This is a good sign. Gartner is telling IT pros to invest in these technologies.

Innovative User Verification from Google

Google’s IM client (Google Talk) has gotten all the attention today, but it strikes me that the bigger announcement is the way they will start verifying Gmail accounts – through SMS messages to users’ cell phones.  The rationale is that you can fake other ways of verifying a real person is creating an account, but it’s a lot more effort (and expense) to create fake accounts this way.

It will be interesting to see how the spam gods try to foil this one.  But I applaud Google for being creative.  Perhaps they could take the same approach to prevent splogs?  (That’s fake, spam blogs for my novice readers.)

Critical Mass for Broadband

An email from MediaPost reports: “Have we reached critical mass on consumer broadband penetration in the United States? Well, apparently JupiterResearch says we have. Jupiter reports that more than 43 percent of online households now connect to the Web via broadband, thus constituting critical mass. Jupiter projects that broadband adoption will reach nearly 80 percent of online U.S. households, or 69 million households, by 2010.”

Google Finance

PaidContent reports that Google is exploring creating a financial vertical, perhaps along the lines of Yahoo! Finance. Supposedly they are in an exploratory stage and have had meetings with many data vendors.

Cooking Up Content Readers Pay For

Speaking of paying for content, USC's Annenberg school has an interesting piece about a paid content success stroy: Cook's Illustrated: Stirring up synergy to sell online food content.

[via Online News Squared]

What Micropayments Mean for Content Producers

PaidContent reports that "Micropayments firm Peppercoin has received $8 million in venture funding."  As micropayments continue to gather steam and become easier (and more affordable) for content owners and readers to use, the opportunities to monetize even small pieces of content may increase. The question is: just because it becomes easier, will readers be willing to pay?

RSS for Entrepreneurs

The EntreWorld Weblog asks what entrepreneurs think of RSS:

Is RSS useful? What explanation is needed related to RSS and syndication? Is some other consumption method better like podcasting?

I find RSS invaluable in allowing me to read a lot of stuff relatively quickly.  As a serial entrepreneur, I'm always on the prowl for new ideas and new ways of doing things.  RSS lets me digest a lot more information than I would otherwise be able to.

But I have also argued here that RSS may not be right for everyone.  Those trying to read large volumes of info receive the greatest benefit.  I have also discussed problems with RSS that might help increase adoption among those who could be helped by using it.

Google Launches IM

Google Talk debuted today.  It allows instant messaging using its own client software, or can be used with third party products like Trillian that allow you to centralize all of your IM communications.  In addition, it has a voice component that sort of makes it like a light version of Skype.

Is Content Still King?

DL Byron says YES.

Jeff Jarvis says NO.

The Best Top 10 List I've Seen in a While

Stop what you're doing (including reading this blog) and read this: 10 Steps to a Hugely Successful Web 2.0 Company.

Charlie from Union Square Ventures hits the nail on the head.  He put a lot of my own philosophy to "paper" just in a much cleaner, clearer way.  Must reading for any entrepreneur or anyone who has given launching a product or company half a thought.

[via A VC]

How to Be an Entrepreneur

Marianne Hudson of the Kauffman Foundation's Entreworld asks:

What books or articles have been most helpful to you in your entrepreneurial growth venture?

Certainly an interesting question.  First, I second her recommendation of Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start, which I have suggested to a number of budding entrepreneurs lately. 

But I would also suggest another book that many entrepreneurs might overlook thinking it is a political and policy work: Tom Friedman's The World is Flat.  The second half of the book has plenty of the policy and politics, but the first half is a shrewd observation of the global economy, with a special focus on what high-tech evolution and outsourcing means for a level playing field.

That's an obvious oversimplification of the book, but trust me when I tell you it is very insightful and thought-provoking.

UPDATE: Read this, too: Charlie's 10 rules for building web services companies

New Blog Analysis Tool Coming Soon?

Here is a tantalizing tidbit about a new blog analytics tool called Measure Map.  It isn't live yet, but you can sign up for an invitation.

Dell Goes to Hell and Back

MediaPost reports:

DELL COMPUTERS, INC., WHICH CAME under fire this summer from blogger Jeff Jarvis, says it has new procedures for dealing with the blogosphere. The company's public relations department monitors blogs, looking for commentaries and complaints--and, starting about a month ago, began forwarding complaints with personally identifiable information to the customer service department so that representatives can contact dissatisfied consumers directly, said Dell spokeswoman Jennifer Davis. The move appears to have been triggered by a series of "Dell Hell" posts penned by Jarvis about his problems with a Dell computer. Jarvis first wrote about the topic in June, and continued posting updates through the summer.

Googling the Next Acquisition

Hollywood Reporter looks for Google's next move.  The item mentions potential acquisition targets: Infospace, AOL, and TiVO.  In addition:

Other analysts proposed a combination of public and private firms Google might be eyeing, including emerging search companies like Blinkx, TVEyes and Convera Corp.

I'm not an expert on all of these, though I do recall that TV Eyes is already partnered with rival Yahoo.

Fixing What Ailes Local News?

Jeff Jarvis fosters an interesting discussion about what Roger Ailes' new role in charge of local fox stations means.  As the man who spawned Fox News Channel, he clearly has demonstrated success at innovating.  And Jeff thinks he might do the same for local news:

What if, instead, a station tore into local issues and got some juices flowing? You might actually watch.

Love him or not, Ailes changed the business and grammar of national TV news. So I agree that it’s a good bet he could do the same to local.

Citizen Assisted Journalism

First, conservative bloggers followed Hugh Hewitt's call to "adopt a box" of documents about Judge Roberts and cull through them for interesting information.  And now Mark Tapscott takes his mandate as an advocate for Computer Assisted Research and Reporting to a new level by suggesting "Citizen Assisted Research and Reporting" through an examination of massive appropriations bills in Congress.

[via Beltway Blogroll]

Monitoring Beyond the Blogs

Matthew Hurst notes that David Sifry of Technorati appears to be making the rounds of major PR firms, likely to let them know about his company's professional blog monitoring product (reportedly soon to be released).  He also observes:

There is no doubt that blogs are an important part of the equation, but the world of message boards is very compelling

Certainly he's correct, though message boards present challenging technical and analytical issues because of the very volume and diversity that Hurst cites. 

I would also add that the growing wave of user-generated content (from reviews to wikis) should be of growing interest to companies.  What travel company shouldn't be monitoring what's said about its properties in TripAdvisor or IgoUgu for example?

Citizen Journalists Want Unnoticed News

MediaPost: A University of Missouri J-School experiment with a "citizen journalism" site found

Readers and potential contributors are not interested in a rehash of events and issues that are already covered ad nauseum by the city's other news media. Rather, they are interested in issues that go largely ignored on the nightly news

Google Launches Sidebar

Google has launched an app called Sidebar that sits on your desktop and monitors news, email, weather and other things. It self customizes based on what you browse.

I just installed it to test it out and will let you know what I find.

[via TechCrunch]

Alacra Opens E-Commerce Site for Business Professionals

InfoToday reports:

Alacra, known for providing a wide range of business databases to enterprise customers, has decided to open up its content to on-demand purchasing by individual business professionals and consumers. The company has just launched the beta of its new Alacra Store, an e-commerce Web site that taps into 30 of Alacra’s premium content databases to provide pay-per-view access to a wide range of content from top business publishers, including CreditSights, Datamonitor, D&B, EIU, Freedonia, Leadership Directories, Snapdata International, and Thomson Financial.

Does the Long Tail Threaten Subscription Services?

Steve Rubel should send a bottle of antacid to subscription services everywhere.  He raises the question of whether the Long Tail will diminish demand (and willingness to pay) for subscription services online.   

I would argue that the Long Tail will not threaten creative and innovative providers.  In fact, it will probably create new opportunities.  Just as Apple found that it could serve as a podcast aggregator (which led Steve to abandon Audible.com), others will do the same.

The wealth of innovation online causes me to increase my online subscriptions, not decrease them.  So which of us is the norm?

For the record, here are the paid online subscriptions I remember that I have: Audible, QuickBooks Online, Quicken BillPay, Xdrive, iBackup, espn.com, WSJ.com, TypePad, summary.com, eFax, and OnlyMyEmail.

News Traffic Tool

Akamai offers this fun little tool that shows volume of traffic to news sites around the world.  It’s more fun than useful, but Akamai could add value to it by trying to pinpoint the news stories that are causing upward fluctuations.  For example, at 6:45 PM ET tonight, it showed Australian news traffic was 200% above normal – why?   

[via MicroPersuasion]

Scripps and Shopzilla

Scripps bought Shopzilla recently.  This article addresses some of the synergies for the companies: “Scripps officials say they're happy with Shopzilla as a standalone business, but both sides clearly are excited about the possibilities of joining the two categories.  By the end of this year, they said, you could see a link to Shopzilla on Scripps' well-traveled Internet sites, such as hgtv.com. And you also could see Scripps video content - for example, product demonstrations or product reviews of the latest refrigerator - on Shopzilla.com.”

NY Health Dept Inspections Online

Curt Monash writes: “Perhaps the coolest of the applications Information Builders cited for me is by the NYC Department of Health.  This site provides a small amount of restaurant health information to tens of thousands of users per day.  As a former long-time Manhattanite, I can confirm that there’s a great need for this application. IBI (which, by the way, is Manhattan-based itself) says that full health compliance among restaurants soared after this system was implemented, from a 30%ish figure it had been stuck at for a decade and a half up to 70% or so, all over a relatively small number of years.”

This is a tremendous use of government information, though the application seems slightly clunky and not as user-friendly as I’d like to see it. 

"Masters of Information"

Forbes: “Every era has its prized commodity, cherished for its value and utility--gold in the 1850s, oil in the 1870s, water out West in the 1940s. Ours is data … we present the Masters of Information--those entrepreneurs and companies figuring out how to separate the gold from the gravel on the Web.”

[via PaidContent.org]

Opening Pandora's Box

TechCrunch profiles a new music matching service called Pandora.  Basically, it is a recommendation engine built on the components of a song, rather than what other users decided to listen to or purchase.  They apparently have human listeners who tag each song with a wealth of information about the sounds and style.  Then when a user plugs in a song or artist they like, the service will match up other songs with similar characteristics.

It certainly leads to some interesting results.  At one point I punched in Enya to see what it would pair it with and up popped a Bette Midler song and another from Kenny Loggins.  I was skeptical, but both songs had similar sound qualities to those in much of Enya’s music. 

The service is apparently set to go to public beta in just a few weeks.  Similar technology could have all sorts of applications in other sectors as well. 

Is Radio Dead?

Fred Wilson mentions on his blog that plenty of people are telling him that radio is dead.  He has some interesting data from JD Power on what consumers think about satellite and HD radio in their cars.

My own view?  Satellite threatens FM much more than AM.  Those who still listen to AM often do so for local reasons – news, traffic, weather, sports, etc.  FM has far less of a local connection, since much of it is generated by big radio conglomerates anyway.

Are Bloggers Journalists?

BL Ochman has gone on the warpath against the BlogOn conference and its PR firm, Porter Novelli.  First, she was irked that Porter Novelli's rep refused to grant her a press pass to cover the event.  Then she seemed insulted when BlogOn's marketing rep suggested a trade in which BL would agree to promote the conference on her blog in exchange for a complimentary pass.

Throughout, BL labels herself as a journalist.  Naturally, this merits some thought and a discussion.  I read BL's blog because she can be provocative.  As BlogOn and Porter Novelli have seen, she can also be abrasive in her criticism.  For example, she has decided to make an issue out of using Porter Novelli for the conference PR since they apparently have no blog.  (I'll hold that discussion for later.)

In her response to the BlogOn marketing person, BL states her credentials this way:

I am a corporate blogging consultant with Fortune 500 clients; a sought after and well-paid corporate speaker on the topic of blogging, and author of "What Could Your Company Do With a Blog," which has sold several thousand copies to corporations worldwide. In other
words, I am no stranger to the topic of corporate blogging.

Obviously, while she raises the journalist flag throughout, she clearly has other business interests at stake here.

I guess part of the journalist question comes down to whether you believe that blogs are a new medium or if they are a technological tool to accomplish things that have been done in the past.  For example, in
1999 and 2000, I wrote what I then called an online newsletter about the presidential primaries (called PrimaryScoop).  Today, most would call it a blog since it had various short blurbs posted daily to a web
site and via email lists.  I did it to promote my image as an Internet political consultant and didn't view myself as a journalist.

Fundamentally, I believe that blogs do not truly represent a new medium, but rather offer a simple way to communicate more effectively than in the past because of the ease of publishing.  In the past, someone like BL might have had a daily email with similar content.  Or pre-Internet it might have been a monthly newsletter to clients and prospects.

BL appropriately points out to a commenter that she has far more credentials than many who might start a blog to get free admission. But the conference promoters certainly have the right to determine who they want to credential for the event.  (And BL has the right to complain publicly as well.)

As a self-professed business blogging consultant, surely BL Ochman has reasons other than journalism to attend. Certainly she would learn things valuable to her consulting practice. Now, I may well have decided to comp her since she does have a wide audience, but it would be a marketing decision, not a PR one.

Journalist status should be a high bar to achieve for bloggers since most have other motives (which could be said of the MSM as well). After all, in the old days an email newsletter to clients and prospects wouldn’t qualify someone as a journalist, and many blogs serve just the same role today.

What to do about RSS

Robert Scoble takes a crack at the question of how to make RSS simple for users.  I agree that we should make things simple for readers whenever possible.  I have even argued in this space in the past to come up with another, more user-friendly name for RSS.

But then I got to thinking.  Are we in search of a solution for a problem that doesn't exist?  We diehards love RSS because we read a ton of stuff every day.  But what about the average user?  Do they read that much?  Do they want to?  Most people simply aren't voracious readers -- no matter the medium.

How different are RSS subscription rates to the old email subscription rates for news and information sites?  Aren't most web site readers casual visitors and not diehard devotees?

I don't know that there isn't a problem, but I'd like to hear a better case for what specifically that problem is. 

Free Ad for Slingbox

Got a Slingbox last week.  It allows place-shifting of your TV viewing.  Where TiVO allows for "time-shifting" (you can watch when you want), Slingbox lets you watch where you want.

The net effect for this road warrior is that I can watch Red Sox games from hotel rooms around the country.  Costs $250, you hook it up to a cable jack (or your cable box if you want access to premium channels) and your home network, and you can watch the same TV channels you have in your den.  You can even hook up to a DVD player, a TiVO or other DVR, or anything else that has a similar output.

Pretty cool.  No monthly subscription fees and it only took about 10 minutes to set up.  The picture quality isn't perfect (it varies based on the speed of your connection at home and wherever you are receiving the video), but it's certainly serviceable, even in full screen mode.

Blog Traffic Reports and Rankings

comScore stirred up a hornet's nest with its recent "Behaviors of the Blogosphere" report that attempts to quantify blog audiences.  Jason Calacanis went on a rampage against the report, alleging it was biased since a rival blog network founder (Nick Denton) was a sponsor of the report.

But now Jason raves about the Feedster 500, a new blog ranking that seems more to his liking than the Technorati 100.  The Feedster list is based on links to the blogs, but includes "subjective" analysis as well.

Then Robert Scoble enters the discussion by questioning whether links or feed subscribers is more relevant.  After all, those who subscribe to your feed are effectively casting a vote for your content, whereas a link could simply be ridiculing you.

BL Ochman says simply "It's hard to see the point of these lists."  And she may be right.

The truth of the matter is that everyone needs to take these lists and reports for what they are: snapshots based on the assumptions and methods of their creators.  There will never be a definitive list or report that makes everyone happy.

I say, the more lists and reports the merrier.  It's up to the reader to judge the value of each list for themselves, just as they do the content of every blog they encounter. 

I personally prefer a list that is largely subjective: created by someone or an organization I respect and can relate to to see who they're reading.  From that perspective, blogrolls and similar lists often are more valuable to me than the most read blogs.

After all, magazines like Time and People get great circulation, but I find Red Herring, Inc., and MIT's Technology Review much more illuminating.

Conservative Advocacy Ad Network Launched

Beltway Blogroll reports:

Down the hall here at National Journal, The Hotline's Blogometer reports on the newest advertising network organized through BlogAds. It is called Buy the Right Ads and caters to advertisers who want a presence on conservative blogs.

The network includes big-name blogs like Ankle Biting Pundits, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, PoliPundit and Wizbang, along with less-traveled sites like GOP Bloggers and Southern Appeal. Ad prices range from $10 a week to $300 at Hugh Hewitt.

Remember the Watchman

For all of those folks who can't blather enough about waiting for the "next generation" of iPod that has video or who are excited about video on cellphones or who insist on writing off today's audio podcasts as a mere stepping stone to video in the future, I have one message: remember the Sony Watchman.

Now, that's not to say all of these ideas are bad or that they can't succeed.  But let's remember that portable devices lend themselves much more to audio presentations than video.  After all, the whole idea of a mobile device is to allow you to be connected while moving about.  Hard to walk, run, drive, bicycle or do anything else safely if you're watching video on some device.  But you can certainly listen to audio.

It's vital to focus on the impact of innovation and not simply the innovation itself.

PETA Claims Victory from Online Advocacy

Online Media Daily reports:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said that its aggressive online viral campaign targeting trendy teen apparel retailer Wet Seal has led the company to agree not to carry fur this fall. PETA's initiative, which leveraged the membership of social networking site MySpace, illustrates marketers' newfound respect for online opinion, according to some analysts. PETA began its Wet Seal campaign last December by posting a video documenting the harsh treatment of animals on a "fur farm" to its Web site PETA2.com. This June, after an anonymous MySpace member began circulating the footage on the MySpace network, weekly visits to the page skyrocketed from an average of 24,000 unique visits to over 350,000, according to Noah Cooper, a "street team specialist" with PETA.

David Benjamin, PETA's corporate liaison, said he sat down with Wet Seal CEO Joel Waller on July 20 to talk business. Benjamin said that Waller gave him his word that Wet Seal would not carry fur this coming fall, as long as PETA would stop pressuring the company.

Most Blogging Takes Place During the Workday?

Steve Rubel offers an interesting chart from Technorati, the blog search engine, that seems to show that most spikes in blog posting volume occur around political events.

David Sifry also comments that "We see the largest number of posts each day between the hours of 7AM and noon Pacific time, meaning between 10AM and 3PM Eastern time in the USA."  Steve concludes that means there's a lot of posting from the office -- which I don't doubt -- but unless the data excludes foreign countries, it could be misleading.  (Just check out Matthew Hurst's data I blogged earlier today which suggests a high percentage of Chinese posts, for instance.)

24 Hours of Blogs

Matthew Hurst of BlogPulse offers some interesting insight into blog posts over on his Data Mining blog.  It comes in 3 parts:  here, here, and here.

He derives the data from 24 hours of pings to weblogs.com.

Business Podcasting Whitepaper Published

PodBlaze offers a white paper on the business impact of podcasting.  It was airplane reading for me recently and it does have a number of interesting nuggets, as well as some data on forecasted growth.  At times it is a little awkward to read and it veers between a business and a technical perspective -- it actually includes a complete RSS example, for instance.

Overall, though, it's worth a download and reading.

(Thanks to Steve Rubel for pointing this paper out.)

Comscore Measures Blogs

Fred Wilson offers some interesting data from Comscore about which blog hosts have the most visitors and which are most sticky.