Forced swith to new Blogger creates havoc
Blogger users have had the option to convert to new Blogger for a while, but about three weeks ago Blogger started to force some users to switch to the new version. So although I had resisted as long as I could, I had to take the plunge this weekend.
I have been afraid to switch because many bloggers have experienced major problems with new Blogger. At the Blogger Help Group you can find hundreds and hundreds of posts where people ask for advice because they are unable to publish or something isn't working properly. This blogger even compares new Blogger with new Coke.
And unfortunately my worries were well-founded. After the conversion my permalinks don't work anymore, either in the Atom feed or on the blog. Posts used to be archived in a folder called 'arkiv' and the permalinks to each post previously looked like this:
http://www.kullin.net/arkiv/2007_02_01_mc.html#654503616037586102
But now the /arkiv/ part is missing and I don't know how to change it. The new URLs (that don't work) look like this:
http://www.kullin.net/2007_02_01_mc.html#654503616037586102
I really hope I can solve this, but at the moment I don't know how. The only solution I've found so far is to give all the 1,000 blog posts a new unique URL. That will mean that any incoming links to one of my blog posts will stop working and I will lose my Google Page Rank (PR6), Technorati rank and any other blog rank worth its salt.
Any help with this issue is much appreciated.
When I looked for solutions to the permalink problem, I noticed that several bloggers have found themselves, at least temporarily, thrown out of Google after upgrading. Apparently Blogger had inserted a "NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" tag to every page of this blog. Check this and this.
Tags: new Blogger, switch, bloggar. Ping.
I have been afraid to switch because many bloggers have experienced major problems with new Blogger. At the Blogger Help Group you can find hundreds and hundreds of posts where people ask for advice because they are unable to publish or something isn't working properly. This blogger even compares new Blogger with new Coke.
And unfortunately my worries were well-founded. After the conversion my permalinks don't work anymore, either in the Atom feed or on the blog. Posts used to be archived in a folder called 'arkiv' and the permalinks to each post previously looked like this:
http://www.kullin.net/arkiv/2007_02_01_mc.html#654503616037586102
But now the /arkiv/ part is missing and I don't know how to change it. The new URLs (that don't work) look like this:
http://www.kullin.net/2007_02_01_mc.html#654503616037586102
I really hope I can solve this, but at the moment I don't know how. The only solution I've found so far is to give all the 1,000 blog posts a new unique URL. That will mean that any incoming links to one of my blog posts will stop working and I will lose my Google Page Rank (PR6), Technorati rank and any other blog rank worth its salt.
Any help with this issue is much appreciated.
When I looked for solutions to the permalink problem, I noticed that several bloggers have found themselves, at least temporarily, thrown out of Google after upgrading. Apparently Blogger had inserted a "NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" tag to every page of this blog. Check this and this.
Tags: new Blogger, switch, bloggar. Ping.
Happy three years and 1,000 blog posts
Cause for celebration! On Thursday 1 February I published the 1,000th blog post on this blog and today Media Culpa celebrates three years. Glad that so many of you are still around reading my little blog.New report on new media
IBM will present a somewhat gloomy report later today about the effects of new media on old media. The report "Navigating the Media Divide" predicts that MSM might lose billions of dollars if they don't adapt to the changing landscape quickly enough. The Australian has the story.
Tags: media, research, media. Ping.
Tags: media, research, media. Ping.
The other guy blinked - how bloggers "won" the news war
Last week I compared three different tools for tracking blog links, Twingly, Technorati and Knuff. Twingly is a new service that for example the daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet use to show most blogged articles.
Since Twingly was so new, my last post did not do the service justice. Primelabs, the company behind Twingly, now say that the numbers visible on DN.se should be more accurate. And a new search shows that Twingly tracks as many posts as Knuff.se, and far more than Technorati. The articles listed below are the five most blogged articles at DN.se as of yesterday.
Please note that these numbers only reflect links visible on DN.se. There could be links that Twingly track but are not publicly visible for one reason or another.
It would have been interesting to include Bloggportalen.se in the table above, but I have not found a way to easily calculate how many links there are to a specific article. Maybe Sigge can bring some light on the matter?
The introduction of blog tracking at DN.se and SVD.se has caused quite a stir in the Swedish blogosphere, and most bloggers support the initiative. Some raise concerns that bloggers will increase the number of links to Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet in order to drive traffic to their blogs. I can't see that this is neither surprising or very negative. Bloggers who's main goal is to have a lot of visitors and be on top of different top lists will do whatever they can to add a few hundred readers to their stats. Others will manage their brand and build a reputation based on their integrity and link to these papers when they feel a need to do so, while refraining from doing it when it is not in line with the theme of their blog. None of these choices, or variations in between, are wrong in my view. These are just citizens that exercise their newfound rights to speak their mind. So instead of critizising bloggers who pimp for visitors, let's rejoice at the fact that the leading newspapers of this country voluntarily invite YOU to be a part of the dissemination of news.
Maybe you've read Roger Enrico's book "The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars", about how the invincible cola giant Coca-Cola was pressured into changing the formula to the much disliked new Coke, a gigantic fiasco. Well, I think you can look at the introduction of Twingly and similar services (like Aftonbladet/Bloggportalen) as a historic shift where media as the sole gatekeeper has become a thing of the past. With the introduction of blogs and other social media, resisting to invite readers/bloggers into the conversation in the end was meaningless. This is what we've been waiting for all along - the breaking up of MSM's monopoly of news distribution. MSM blinked, in a positive manner of speaking. Sure, a lot of crap will float to the surface, but readers will learn over time where to go and who to skip (as they do when they read blogs in general), and Twingly's ranking system might help bring the most relevant links to the top of the lists.
And regarding the supposed increase in links to DN and SVD, among the top blogged articles, a majority are from DN and SVD according to Knuff. But according to Twingly, there does not seem to be a huge increase in links to these two sites. So, no need for panic just yet.
Tags: Technorati, tracking, Knuff, Twingly, Dagens Nyheter. Ping.
Since Twingly was so new, my last post did not do the service justice. Primelabs, the company behind Twingly, now say that the numbers visible on DN.se should be more accurate. And a new search shows that Twingly tracks as many posts as Knuff.se, and far more than Technorati. The articles listed below are the five most blogged articles at DN.se as of yesterday.
| Article | Twingly | Technorati | Knuff |
|---|---|---|---|
| "V försöker kringgå las" | 30 | 17 | 29 |
| "Lagrådet ger grönt ljus till avlyssning" | 25 | 13 | 27 |
| "Upphovsmän kan få jaga fildelare" | 35 | 28 | 35 |
| "Fortsatta turer kring Anna Nicole Smith" | 23 | 20 | 22 |
| "Arkeologer hittade 6.000 år gammal kram" | 21 | 8 | 11 |
Please note that these numbers only reflect links visible on DN.se. There could be links that Twingly track but are not publicly visible for one reason or another.
It would have been interesting to include Bloggportalen.se in the table above, but I have not found a way to easily calculate how many links there are to a specific article. Maybe Sigge can bring some light on the matter?
The introduction of blog tracking at DN.se and SVD.se has caused quite a stir in the Swedish blogosphere, and most bloggers support the initiative. Some raise concerns that bloggers will increase the number of links to Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet in order to drive traffic to their blogs. I can't see that this is neither surprising or very negative. Bloggers who's main goal is to have a lot of visitors and be on top of different top lists will do whatever they can to add a few hundred readers to their stats. Others will manage their brand and build a reputation based on their integrity and link to these papers when they feel a need to do so, while refraining from doing it when it is not in line with the theme of their blog. None of these choices, or variations in between, are wrong in my view. These are just citizens that exercise their newfound rights to speak their mind. So instead of critizising bloggers who pimp for visitors, let's rejoice at the fact that the leading newspapers of this country voluntarily invite YOU to be a part of the dissemination of news.
Maybe you've read Roger Enrico's book "The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars", about how the invincible cola giant Coca-Cola was pressured into changing the formula to the much disliked new Coke, a gigantic fiasco. Well, I think you can look at the introduction of Twingly and similar services (like Aftonbladet/Bloggportalen) as a historic shift where media as the sole gatekeeper has become a thing of the past. With the introduction of blogs and other social media, resisting to invite readers/bloggers into the conversation in the end was meaningless. This is what we've been waiting for all along - the breaking up of MSM's monopoly of news distribution. MSM blinked, in a positive manner of speaking. Sure, a lot of crap will float to the surface, but readers will learn over time where to go and who to skip (as they do when they read blogs in general), and Twingly's ranking system might help bring the most relevant links to the top of the lists.
And regarding the supposed increase in links to DN and SVD, among the top blogged articles, a majority are from DN and SVD according to Knuff. But according to Twingly, there does not seem to be a huge increase in links to these two sites. So, no need for panic just yet.
Tags: Technorati, tracking, Knuff, Twingly, Dagens Nyheter. Ping.
The newspaper is not pushing up the daisies yet
Who killed the newspaper?, the Economist asked last year. This was just one of many death sentences the last few years for the newspaper as we know it. But WAN, World Association of Newspapers, is not ready to throw in the towel. New data from WAN show that newspaper circulation is growing and new newspapers are being launched "at a remarkable rate".
- Global newspaper circulation up 9.95 percent over five years and 2.36 percent over twelve months
- Daily newspaper titles surpass 10,000 for first time in history
- More than 450 million copies sold daily
- In excess of 1.4 billion paid-newspaper readers
- Total free daily circulation more than doubles in five years
Tags: media, WAN, media. Ping.
- Global newspaper circulation up 9.95 percent over five years and 2.36 percent over twelve months
- Daily newspaper titles surpass 10,000 for first time in history
- More than 450 million copies sold daily
- In excess of 1.4 billion paid-newspaper readers
- Total free daily circulation more than doubles in five years
Tags: media, WAN, media. Ping.
Google fined in Belgian court case
This news just broke: Google lost the Google News copyright suit in Belgium. AP writes:
"A Brussels court ruled in favor of Copiepresse, a copyright protection group representing 18 mostly French-language newspapers that complained the search engine's "cached" links offered free access to archived articles that the papers usually sell on a subscription basis."
Tags: Google, Copiepresse, Belgium, Belgien, Google. Ping.
"A Brussels court ruled in favor of Copiepresse, a copyright protection group representing 18 mostly French-language newspapers that complained the search engine's "cached" links offered free access to archived articles that the papers usually sell on a subscription basis."
Tags: Google, Copiepresse, Belgium, Belgien, Google. Ping.
Sydsvenskan buys island in Second Life
Riding on the hype from a potential launch of a Swedish Embassy in Second Life, the first Swedish paper has bought a piece of property in the virtual world. Last Friday, the Swedish daily Sydsvenskan launched its own island in Second Life in co-operation with communications agency Good Old.
Writes Good Old:"The island is called Sydsverige which translates to “Southern Sweden”, which is the area of Sweden that Sydsvenskan covers. The plan is to create a place where Swedish people can meet, and create their own projects if they want to. The planning will take place together with the visitors that are interested."
Tags: second life, sweden, second life, sydsvenskan. Ping.
Writes Good Old:"The island is called Sydsverige which translates to “Southern Sweden”, which is the area of Sweden that Sydsvenskan covers. The plan is to create a place where Swedish people can meet, and create their own projects if they want to. The planning will take place together with the visitors that are interested."
Tags: second life, sweden, second life, sydsvenskan. Ping.
Swedish dailies track [some] blog links
Sweden's leading daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet have started to include links to blogs who comment on articles on the papers' websites, Washington Post-style. Blog posts are tracked via a tool called Twingly and a list of the most blogged articles at DN can be found here. Example at SvD here. Twingly was just recently launched and has currently indexed about 2.8 million blog posts, which of course is a small number compared to the 1.6 million blog posts that the blogosphere spits out daily. The accuracy will of course improve over time as more and more blogs are tracked by Twingly.
Currently, the Swedish blog portal Knuff is far better att tracking blog links than both Twingly and Technorati. Here is a comparison between the three services and how they track the five top blogged articles at Dagens Nyheter.
UPDATE: The comparison above is a bit unfair, as Martin from Primelabs explains in the comments to this post. Apparently DN does not show all the incoming links that Twingly has in its database. In the Help section on the site, DN writes that you can find "a list of all blogs that link to an article on DN.se". For some reason DN chooses to list only a selection of links. If this process turns out to filter out negative articles, then I expect an uproar in the blogosphere when bloggers find out they are being "censored". Should DN continue to leave out a large part of the conversation they will most certainly open up for criticism.
Tags: Technorati, tracking, Knuff, Twingly, Dagens Nyheter. Ping.
Currently, the Swedish blog portal Knuff is far better att tracking blog links than both Twingly and Technorati. Here is a comparison between the three services and how they track the five top blogged articles at Dagens Nyheter.
| Article | Twingly | Technorati | Knuff |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 24 | 19 | 26 |
| #2 | 1 | 10 | 23 |
| #3 | 2 | 2 | 18 |
| #4 | 0 | 6 | 13 |
| #5 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
UPDATE: The comparison above is a bit unfair, as Martin from Primelabs explains in the comments to this post. Apparently DN does not show all the incoming links that Twingly has in its database. In the Help section on the site, DN writes that you can find "a list of all blogs that link to an article on DN.se". For some reason DN chooses to list only a selection of links. If this process turns out to filter out negative articles, then I expect an uproar in the blogosphere when bloggers find out they are being "censored". Should DN continue to leave out a large part of the conversation they will most certainly open up for criticism.
Tags: Technorati, tracking, Knuff, Twingly, Dagens Nyheter. Ping.
Simultaneous media consumption a challenge for advertisers
According to BIGresearch's Simultaneous Media Usage Study, media consumers spend a lot of time multitasking when they use media. Almost 7 out of 10 use some other media while watching tv.
Joe Pilotta, VP, Research of BIGresearch, concludes that "The intermittent usage of media which occurs during simultaneous consumption creates a serious problem for marketers who rely on exposure to media models since the anticipated exposure is being shared with many other media options and may never occur."
Percent who use other media while:
Watching tv: 67.9%
Listening to radio: 56.4%
Reading newspapers: 68.9%
Going Online: 70.7%
Tags: media, advertising, reklam, media. Ping.
Joe Pilotta, VP, Research of BIGresearch, concludes that "The intermittent usage of media which occurs during simultaneous consumption creates a serious problem for marketers who rely on exposure to media models since the anticipated exposure is being shared with many other media options and may never occur."
Percent who use other media while:
Watching tv: 67.9%
Listening to radio: 56.4%
Reading newspapers: 68.9%
Going Online: 70.7%
Tags: media, advertising, reklam, media. Ping.
Web 2.0 companies prefer YouTube to Super Bowl
Super Bowl ads [tv commercials, that is] this year may cost as much as $2.6 million per 30-second spot, which is too expensive for the more well known web 2.0 companies like Technorati and Plaxo. Instead, six of these companies have joined forces to create a series of "viral" spots that run on their own YouYube channel: YouTube "SuperDotComAdsXLI".
Tags: Super Bowl, advertising, reklam, sport. Ping.
Tags: Super Bowl, advertising, reklam, sport. Ping.
Saab accused of cloaking - Media Culpa is not convinced
Saab is accused of manipulating search engine results via cloaking, a technique which generates one page for search engine's web crawlers and another page for visitors, with the purpose of increasing search engine ranking. This practice may lead a page to become penalized in search engines. There are also of course legitimate reasons for showing one page for crawlers and one for visitors.
Wil Reynolds, an internet marketing consultant, made the allegations in a speech at a marketing conference in Las Vegas last week, according to BrandWeek. What made Reynolds react was that Saab was ranked in the top ten in Google for "luxury car". Saab denies any illicit behaviour.
By checking Saab's site with Webcab.de we can find this textual information, see below. I cannot see how this can be described as cloaking, but I'm no expert on the subject.
Luxury Car - Saab USA - Luxury Vehicle
At Saab USA, we pride ourselves on building a Luxury Car around its driver. Our Luxury Vehicles offer some the best safety features and first class options made available. Check out Saab's newest 2005 Luxury Car Selection.
Luxury Car - Luxury Vehicles from Saab USA
[Saab USA by GM Motors]
Vehicles
Shopping Tools
Certified Pre-Owned
About Saab
Owners
9-2x AWD
Build Your Saab
About Certified Pre-Owned
Who Are We
Owner Center
9-3 Sport Sedan
Side-by-Side Comparison
Find Your Car
Saab Heritage
Owner Benefits
9-3 Convertible
Request a Quote
Vehicle Specifications
News and Events
Saab Clubs
9-5 Sedan
Financial Tools
Limited Warranty
Get Saab Email
Accessories Catalog
9-5 Sport Wagon
Payment Calculator
Request a Brochure
Gifts and Gear
Gifts and Gear
9-7X SUV
Financial Services
Current Offers
Concept Vehicles
Current Offers
Request a Brochure
Request a Test Drive
European Delivery
Military Sales
Corporate Sales
Dealer Locator
[Via SpinThicket]
Tags: Saab, cloaking, Saab, SEO. Ping.
Wil Reynolds, an internet marketing consultant, made the allegations in a speech at a marketing conference in Las Vegas last week, according to BrandWeek. What made Reynolds react was that Saab was ranked in the top ten in Google for "luxury car". Saab denies any illicit behaviour.
By checking Saab's site with Webcab.de we can find this textual information, see below. I cannot see how this can be described as cloaking, but I'm no expert on the subject.
Luxury Car - Saab USA - Luxury Vehicle
At Saab USA, we pride ourselves on building a Luxury Car around its driver. Our Luxury Vehicles offer some the best safety features and first class options made available. Check out Saab's newest 2005 Luxury Car Selection.
Luxury Car - Luxury Vehicles from Saab USA
[Saab USA by GM Motors]
Vehicles
Shopping Tools
Certified Pre-Owned
About Saab
Owners
9-2x AWD
Build Your Saab
About Certified Pre-Owned
Who Are We
Owner Center
9-3 Sport Sedan
Side-by-Side Comparison
Find Your Car
Saab Heritage
Owner Benefits
9-3 Convertible
Request a Quote
Vehicle Specifications
News and Events
Saab Clubs
9-5 Sedan
Financial Tools
Limited Warranty
Get Saab Email
Accessories Catalog
9-5 Sport Wagon
Payment Calculator
Request a Brochure
Gifts and Gear
Gifts and Gear
9-7X SUV
Financial Services
Current Offers
Concept Vehicles
Current Offers
Request a Brochure
Request a Test Drive
European Delivery
Military Sales
Corporate Sales
Dealer Locator
[Via SpinThicket]
Tags: Saab, cloaking, Saab, SEO. Ping.
Trifle matters
File under ego-surfing. Just noticed that Media Culpa and Beta Alfa, one of my must-read blogs, today both are ranked at exactly 21,398 by Technorati (based on number of blogs that link to our blogs). And by the way, what happened to "2.0", Beta Alfa?
Tags: Technorati, betaalfa. Ping.
Tags: Technorati, betaalfa. Ping.
Super Bowl buzz is climaxing
On Sunday it's Super Bowl time in the US and the blogosphere is all abuzz about the game. Technorati has a chart of posts that contain Super Bowl per day for the last 90 days.
Click on the chart to get a better view.
As always, there is lot of talk about the advertisements during the game. Frito-Lay's snack brand Doritos is being promoted through a contest where users create their own online videos and the winning entry will be aired as a spot during the show. Voting has now closed for the five remaining videos which can be watched here (haven't seen them myself yet, doesn't work on my PC right now).
And, viewing at your own risk, here's Kevin "K-Fed" Federline's tongue-in-cheek (?) spot for Nationwide.
Tags: Super Bowl, advertising, reklam, sport. Ping.
Click on the chart to get a better view.
As always, there is lot of talk about the advertisements during the game. Frito-Lay's snack brand Doritos is being promoted through a contest where users create their own online videos and the winning entry will be aired as a spot during the show. Voting has now closed for the five remaining videos which can be watched here (haven't seen them myself yet, doesn't work on my PC right now).
And, viewing at your own risk, here's Kevin "K-Fed" Federline's tongue-in-cheek (?) spot for Nationwide.
Tags: Super Bowl, advertising, reklam, sport. Ping.
