My Name is Kate

links for 2010-09-15

• The Death Of The RSS Reader | paidContent
  I refuse to believe Facebook is replacing the RSS reader. Maybe for casual users, but for hardcore info consumers? http://ow.ly/2EMpG
  (tags: rss trend reader facebook googlereader bloglines insanity)

Like Poetry Recitations? Have You Checked YouTube?

Normally, I think of YouTube as a delightfully weird home for bad dance videos, bootleg partial episodes of TV Shows, cute cat videos, weird marketing shills, hilarious PhotoShop tutorials and lesbian web series.

I discovered today that it is also a gold mine of poetry readings.  Often set to music.

Earlier this morning I was reminded of a favourite poem of mine, Ithaca from C.P. Cavafy, by by Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project (one of my fav books I read this year - if you haven't read it, definitely check it out). Gretchen quoted a stanza from it which made me want to read the whole poem.  In doing a search, I discovered a cornucopia of readings of it on YouTube:

• A reading from this fellow who is doing readings of all of Cavafy's poems that he has translated from the original greek. 
• Sean Connery (SEAN CONNERY!!) giving a somewhat ponderous reading set to the music of Vangellis
• This charming version from PoeticTouch.com read by Lilly Hertz-Maahs

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when this three-year old's poetry recitation is the latest video hit (the YouTube link doesn't allow embedding so I'm using the Yahoo version where he has received over 2 million views).  John Lundberg has a nice little piece on this reciting phenom over at Huff Post.

3-year-old recites poem, "Litany" by Billy Collins @ Yahoo! Video

links for 2010-09-10

• A Facebook Page is Great But…. « Sysomos Blog
  One of the best posts I've read in a while. Mark really boils down some key things to think about vis a vis your organization's Facebook page and how it should work with your organization's website. And Judy adds a salient point in the comments. I am totally stealing this for my UBC class. Good stuff.
  (tags: socialmedia facebook website marketing integration)
• FarmVille vs. Real Farms [INFOGRAPHIC]
  My new fav infographic - Farmville vs Real Farms @mashable http://ow.ly/2CnHb
  (tags: infographic facebook)
• Seesmic Desktop 2 Launches: 40+ Plugins for Anything You Could Want
  Just reading about Seesmic D2 on @mashable http://ow.ly/2CnAD Sounds dreamy. Is it as awesome as it sounds?
  (tags: socialmedia desktop tools twitter facebook analytics)

links for 2010-09-09

• Google Instant - 10 Things Marketing Teams Need to Know @SEWatch
  Great overview. Start here to get up to speed on Google Instant.
  (tags: google search seo tips)
• Google Analytics Blog: Google Instant and Google Analytics
  Impact of Google Instant on Google Analytics - straight from Google.
  (tags: analytics google seo search)
• FCancer Join The Movement | LetsFCancer
  RT @somisguided: FCancer movement wld like some SocMed love 2 build awareness of benefits of early detection http://movement.letsfcancer.com
  (tags: via:packrati.us)
• SEO is Dead and/or Irrelevant With Google Instant? - Nine By Blue
  And counterpoint RT @thoughtfarmer and according to @vanessafox, Google Instant did NOT kill SEO: http://bit.ly/dnC5uY
  (tags: google seo)
• Google Instant Makes SEO Irrelevant - The Steve Rubel Stream
  Did Google instant kill search engine optimization? @steverubel says yes http://bit.ly/a5e2DZ #edelmandigital (via @krusk @armano)
  (tags: google seo)
• Seven Steps To A Better Twitter Daily | Waxing UnLyrical
  Nice piece on how to use Paper.li to create a Twitter Daily edition from a user or a hashtag. Paper.li is a very interesting tool and Shonali has some great insights in how to use it.
  (tags: twitter tools paper.li hashtag)
• Track Your Website Visitors and Their Behaviors in Real Time with SeeVolution - Mashable
  SeeVolution's Quick Pitch: A real-time analytics, heatmap and alert system that overlays all the data on the user’s website — so they never have to log in to another site.
  (tags: analytics tracking tools)

More on Choosing a Blogging Platform plus a Serendipitous Lesson about Graphs

Following on my post yesterday about choosing a blogging platform for small and medium businesses, Catherine Winters asked if I had any market share data about the different platforms.  Good question.  So I did a little searching and Señor Google did have a few interesting things to say ...

First, I liked this piece by Pingdom on the blogging platform of choice for the Top 100 blogs.  About 2/3 of them use a self-hosted service - so those aren't really relevant.  But a 1/3 or so use a hosted platform and it was interesting to see those results.

 

I liked the Pingdom piece (even if the data is from Jan 2009) because it included only "real" blogs - there are a lot of spam blogs out there.  This is what concerns me a little about the report from BuiltWith (a site I totally didn't know about that tracks technology changes and trends).  It looks at the whole universe of blogs and I feel fairly certain that a large number of them are spam.

Wordpress is certainly the most popular - especially in articles about which blogging platforms are the most popular :)  There are a lot of those articles out there.  This one from Fuel Your Writing was the best written one I found.  While he doesn't quote market share stats, David selected four platforms that he was familiar with (Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous) and shared his well-thought-out pros and cons.  I only wish he would have included Typepad since it would have rounded out my recommendation list nicely. 

David comes to one of the same conclusions that I did - you need to choose your platform based on your needs - which is why I was trying not to focus on "feature set" in my blogging platform recommendations, but on other "meta" issues around blogging.

Oh ... here's the other neat piece I discovered.  ProBlogger has done a survey of the blogging platforms used by his readers for the last few years. Great data - again, Wordpress on top.  What I was delighted to discover what this companion piece by Jon Peltier where he uses ProBlogger's data to improve the graphs used to visualize the data.  If you're interested at all in data visualizations and how to use graphs to improve your content, read Peltier's piece - I love how step-by-step and clear it is.

And I'm still looking for any "meta" criteria (vs features) that you would add to my list when choosing a blogging platform.

What To Look for in a Blogging Platform

Update: I've written a companion post about some of the market share info I found about blogging platforms as well as a bit about data visualization.

I'm teaching a class this fall at UBC on Social Media Fundamentals.  Very excited about it!  One of the areas we're covering is, as you would expect, blogging.  I wanted to put together a little comparison table to help people choose a blogging platform.  I'm making some assumptions: that the platform will be hosted (no Wordpress self-installs) and that the people who will be managing the blog are not super-technical.

So, I put together a list of criteria.  It includes:

• Cost (both initial and "add-ons")
• Allows a unique domain name
• Is there a theme library and/or a template designer
• Easy to Use for Non-technical users (1=easy; 5=hard)
• Allows you to export your content
• Analytics options

If you were a small or medium business owner, what else would be important for you to know.  I'm not doing a feature by feature comparison because I don't think it's necessary.  Most of the features are similar (e.g. offering both "pages" and posts) - to me, the true difference comes down to how intuitive and "friendly" the interface is.

Am I missing anything really important?

The blog platforms I'm including are:

• Typepad
• Wordpress
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Posterous

I've embedded the doc below (or follow the link) if you want to take a look. And I realise that the 4th criteria (easy to use) is completely arbitrary. So you Wordpress fans - don't jump on my case. My experience of Wordpress isn't delightful. And, I recognize that I have a bias towards Typepad since I've been using it for 5 years. I promise I will disclose all my biases to my class :)

links for 2010-09-01

• The Kindle, Nook, iPad, and Reader Compared
  For a detailed, topnotch comparison of eReaders, check out http://ow.ly/2xDPG from @MichaelHyatt though I wish it included the Kobo
  (tags: ereader ebook comparison kindle nook touch)
• Google Launches Blog Finder for Any Topic
  Will B nice to have something more up2date than Technorati - Google Launches Blog Finder for Any Topic http://bit.ly/9zAEPe (via @mitchjoel)
  (tags: google blog+directory search blogs)
• Blip.fm | mynameiskate | Listen to Darwin Song Project 'Clock of the World' – Krista Detor, Karine Polwart, Emily Smith Rachael McShane
  Haunting beautiful song. Love this whole album, but this piece is my favourite. ♫ http://blip.fm/~vl7he
  (tags: music darwinproject blip)
• PumpTalk - Petro-Canada
  RT @EriniF: Want to learn more about gas prices & fuel efficiency? Visit us at http://pumptalk.ca Check out my first entry!! (disc: client)
  (tags: pumptalk corporateblogging petrocanada suncor gas+prices blog)
• Addictive Versus Addicting : Grammar Girl :: Quick and Dirty Tips ™
  I hate the word "addicting". In fact, I don't really think it's a word. But Grammar Girl proves me wrong. Though I've read this piece a few times and I don't know that I can actually use "addicting" in a sentence correctly. And I'm pretty sure 95% of the other people who use it aren't using it correctly either.
  (tags: grammar writing language tips)
• How to Use Game Mechanics to Improve Your SEO
  Some interesting thoughts on how using game mechanics in your marketing contribute to positive SEO.
  (tags: content gaming howto marketing seo tricks)