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Category: Social Media

It’s Time to Rethink the Permalink

It’s Time to Rethink the Permalink

The permalink – nothing could be more core to the concept of blogging, and indeed, content management.  In it’s early inception, it was the one link to rule all others.  The problem is that with the advent of microblogging systems like Twitter, the permalink has been devalued and now faces possible extinction. From Wikipedia: A permalink, or permanent link, is a URL that points to a specific blog or forum entry after it has passed from the front page to the archives. Because a permalink…

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Money for Nothing and Your Chicks for Free…

Money for Nothing and Your Chicks for Free…

(Disclosures: I work for Namemedia, who is technically a competitor of Internet Brands, owners of vBulletin.  I also run several sites that use vBulletin and spend a significant part of my work week working in vBulletin code…) Over the past month, there’s been a slowly erupting feud in the vBulletin community over the new pricing structure that was announced for vBulletin 4.0 by Internet Brands. You see, back in the day, the original vBulletin license cost $185 (originally $160 I…

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Forget Disclosure and Transparency – We Crave Honesty

Forget Disclosure and Transparency – We Crave Honesty

That’s right you heard it here first …the darling of the noveau marketing is “transparency” and unfortunately, it’s the wrong answer.  Transparency and disclosure simply aren’t enough.  For some crimes, Mea Culpa simply won’t cut it. Yes, if you are accepting payment from outside entities in return for writing that blog post or tweeting that little tweet, you need to disclose.  For me, all the “disclosure” in the world isn’t going to absolve you if you’re writing a disingenous post…

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The Death Knell of Paid Posts

The Death Knell of Paid Posts

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission issued it’s first change the policy on endorsements in over 30 years.  From this point forward, if you accept any form of payment for a post, you need to disclose it.  PCWorld.com sums it up: Bottom Line: If you receive gifts, money or any other type of compensation from a product manufacturer or service provider you have to disclose it. For the record, it’s always been my policy that if there’s any possibility of conflict…

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Social Media Vampires & the Death of Spam

Social Media Vampires & the Death of Spam

Some fun facts for this wonderful Monday: 94% of all email traffic is spam, according to this article from the New York Times.  Think about that – 94% – if you were to round that off, you might as well just say that all of it is spam. InformationWeek estimates the cost of spam in terms of lost productivity has reached $21.58 billion annually. ISPs have used the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 to try to sue to recover the cost…

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What is the next Wave?

What is the next Wave?

For some time, I’ve been looking for the next compelling thing in social media sites. For that next development that transforms the way we interact, that re-envisions forums, chat, photo galleries, articles, etc; in fact a redefinition of the way in which we communicate online altogether. For the past couple years, I’ve watch as vBulletin, my favorite forum software, basically did minor incremental releases, remaining essentially the way it was in 2001.  Wordpress has done better, yet still, the fundamental blog/cmslite experience remains pretty…

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Google Sidewiki – Because we haven’t made your life hard enough yet…

Google Sidewiki – Because we haven’t made your life hard enough yet…

Let’s say you own a business.  It’s a small business, and you’ve tried very, very hard to build it into something.  Along the way, like most businesses, there have been bumps, but for the most part, you’ve got a bunch of customers who love you.  Then one day, right in front of your door, someone puts up a huge billboard, and on it, they will allow anyone with anything to say about your business to put up whatever they want. …

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A New Forum User Experience?

A New Forum User Experience?

I’ve been a huge fan of vBulletin forum software since I first installed it on Reel-Time.com in 2001.  In the intervening years, I’ve seen software come and software go, but vBulletin continues to chug along. Over the past 10 months, I’ve spent a lot of time working on a massive vBulletin site, http://www.splitcoaststampers.com and I’ve got to admit, I’m finding the vBulletin experience somewhat lacking.  Perhaps it’s just that so many of the same old foibles remain in the core…

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The Advent of the Micro-Celebrity

The Advent of the Micro-Celebrity

Welcome to our brave new world…it is a place in which style triumphs substance, and appearance supercedes truth.  A place where the personal myths we create become truth, and are rechristened as “personal branding.” We are in the age of the micro-celebrity. The era in which we don’t need to be fully rounded individuals, where simply being the “thought leader”, guru or expert in a certain online niche is enough.  Warhol was right, we indeed will all have our 15…

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News Has Always Been Free…

News Has Always Been Free…

I read an interesting post this morning by Michael Hickins on The Faster Times that posit that “Internet Isn’t Killing Papers, We Are“.  His basic premise: that the tech industry, and the web in particular with with the dotbomb era and sky high salaries and insane stock packages, inflated journalist salaries well beyond their regular levels. Why? Because salaries had to be adjusted for the stock options that artificially inflated the potential compensation packages offered by the dot-com start-ups. How…

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