Sep 09
27
The Disagreement about Blogs
There are two point two new Blog sites created for every second
of every day of the year. (around 175,000 per day.)
The blogosphere doubles every 236 days! Presently, there are around 77 million blogs,
It has been predicted that within three years, 50% of all content online will be user-generated.
One viewpoint is that :
From TNS Global website
NEARLY A THIRD OF OUR LEISURE TIME IS SPENT ONLINE
LONDON.
December 8th 2008: New figures released today reveal the staggering
amount of time Brits now spend on the internet in their spare time – with the
league table topped not by students, but by housewives.
And from Blogher
The majority of people consider Blogs are rated between
somewhat reliable and highly reliable as sources of empirical data and product
purchasing advice/recommendations.
Blogs as a Source of Information
Source: The BlogHer/Compass
Partners 2008 Social Media Study P15
And contrarily, from a leading Psychologist:
Now we discover people don't believe blogs – so stop
blogging…!
A major survey of over 27,000 people has discovered that
blogs are the least credible source of information online. Coupled with similar research on the trustworthiness of blogs, this most
recent study suggests the end is nigh for blogging.
According to the study, we believe “word of mouth” over and above
everything else. The TV news comes next, then online news with newspapers just
a little bit behind. Blogs are way down the bottom, with only one in every ten
people believing them.
And another contrary opinion – this time from Businessweek, headlined:
Only 16% Trust Corporate Blogs: Are They Worth Doing?
The response from Forrester Research is it depends. But
the bottom line is that based on survey research the firm released
a report today, it’s time for some rethinking of corporate blogs. (To get
the report you have to hand over some contact data).
Forrester found that 16% of the people who read company
blogs trust them—less than every other form of content they asked about, including
print media, direct mail, even corporate emails.
So we understand that half the experts say Blogging is not
worthwhile and the half saying it is.
BTW, the half whom claim that blogging was worthwhile seem to represent
the female population rather strongly. This is inline with our discovery over
the last two months that a great majority of the game players in Zyngas
Facebook based Farmville game were averagely aged as being 27 year old females.
Because of our experience in online data usage (since 1987)
we believe that wherever the girls are – the boys are sure to follow and that
observation can now be confirmed with our recent stats collection on Farmville player
sexes.
Chris and I both blog on this website, Our backgrounds are
not dissimilar except that I entered the computer field once I completed uni
and Chris entered the music business. We then both spent a considerable period
of our lives being extremely entrepreneurial with some success and a couple of
failures (on my part).
So Chris is our expert social networker and I am our
spreadsheet guy.
You can tell the difference between our styles by reading
some of the blogs. Chris is careful with his spelling, grammar and sentence
structure, carefully hunting for the right balance of adjectives, verbs and
nouns to present his views.
My online style is rather raw by comparison. My previous
attempts at writing were always edited, so this new role of self-editing is
obviously beyond my capacity.
The words flow and the fingers try to keep up, usually
failing.
Chris is always asking me to be more careful with my
presentation, grammar and spelling. And I respond (jokingly), “Do you want quality or
volume?”
His reply is usually dismissive of my cavalier style but somehow
we get through each of these editorial discussions and the Perceptric blog
grows and grows.
During one of our “editorial quality” conversations recently
I retorted to the repeated grammatical structure and spelling entreaty with an
almost flippant, “It would appear that regardless of the poor layout and my bad
spelling, we are doing better than the newspapers in retaining readers attention”.
“We don’t have many readers (less than 100,000), but the
ones that we do have are connecting with us in a more meaningful and much
longer time than any of the major Australian Media sites do”.
“Are you sure?” asked Chris.
“Well, if you look at the time that the average reader
spends on our little irrelevant blog and compare that to nearly anyone that has
a few million bucks to run their blog – we appear to be creaming them. Do me a
favour – pull up the Alexa
ratings for Perceptric.com”.
“Yep, done”.
“OK, now add-in some premium media content – like
ninemsn.com.au smh.com.au. afr.com.au and to balance the results include
another Blog site like crikey.com.au, and then click compare and then Daily
Traffic Rank”.
Chris and I then discussed the aspects of the different
stats available on Alexa.
According to the Daily Traffic Rank it would seem that the
field is dominated by Ninemsn almost neck and neck with the SMH with Crikey in
third place, followed closely by the AFR and trailing invisibly at the back is
Perceptric.
So if that’s all it takes to get advertising, then I think I
will do a deal with Microsoft and get my name on the top of every Internet
Explorer browser,
So now dear advertising reader, it’s your cue to ask, “But
Koltai – how do we know they’re reading our ads”.
Ah, there’s another little tool in Alexa that allows you to
see how long individual peeps stay on a site.
It shows a totally different picture.
It would appear the Perceptric is leading the pack.
Then, in daily page views per user, there is a battle royal
for attention, but again with Perceptric gaining on the field..
So, should you, dear reader, spend your advertising dollar
with Perceptric?
“Um, no, we don’t do advertising.”
But the evidence is clear that major media, while they have
the initial attention of the consumer, also seem to lose it fast.
“Do you mean that people actually stay longer on the
Perceptric blog than the leading Television and Newspaper sites of the land?”
“Well, yes. They do.”
“Why?”
Well this might be a reason….
“At Perceptric, we tell it like it is with very little spin.
Neither Chris nor I have political aspirations. We have nothing to sell except
our knowledge and we give away a lot of that knowledge for free.”
“But are you qualified?”
“You mean beyond our both being over 50, both entrepreneurs
and our university studies?”
Yes. What qualifies you to broadcast your views to the world
at large.
“Well nothing really. We don’t believe that one needs to be
qualified to obtain user attention. If one however then gets users attention,
then obviously one is giving the users what they want.”
“And what’s that, Koltai?”
“Read the Blog…”
Oh, and keep in mind, it doesnt matter if a site has 10 million users or 20 users. If the users only stay online long enough to leave, the user numbers dont really mean much.
Internet destinations that engage their readers/players/users for long periods of time should be your media buying target. (Per impression of course.)
Postcript:
We talked earlier about an article from Businessweek. Entitled,
“Only 16% Trust Corporate Blogs: Are They Worth Doing?”
“It would appear that Businessweek, is up for grabs,
according to http://www.dancewithshadows.com/business/bloomberg-among-potential-bidders-for-businessweek/
Bloomberg, the financial news agency, is considering a
bid for BusinessWeek, the business magazine published by McGraw-Hill.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the
interest shown by Bloomberg in buying BusinessWeek has “further crowded” the
field of potential bidders, and also indicates Bloomberg’s intentions in
continuing to expand beyond its core business of providing financial data,
news, and analytics to professionals.
Quoting “people familiar with the matter,” The Wall
Street Journal reported that the other potential bidders for BusinessWeek
included Bruce Wasserstein, the chief executive of the investment bank Lazard
Limited and who owns the magazine TheDeal and New York Magazine; ZelnickMedia;
Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar; and private equity firms Platinum Equity,
Warburg Pincus, and OpenGate Capital.
The bids for BusinessWeek will take place on September
15, 2009.
In July 2009, the United States-based publisher
McGraw-Hill, which owns BusinessWeek, had said that it was “putting on the
block” its financial magazine and also “exploring strategic options” for the
magazine.
BusinessWeek, founded in 1929, has a circulation of
936,000 copies in the United States.
The magazine’s main competitors in the national business magazine-class are
Forbes and Fortune, both of which are published bi-weekly.
So the company that depended on the Forrestor Research
report that said that only 16% of the world listened to Corporte Blogs is now being
sold. Possibly consumers don't really trust the big Corporations anymore.
We wonder if the following has anything to do with McGraw-Hills decision? 
PPS: That’s all folks, until the next badly written, badly
spelt, atrociously laid out, irreverent Blog article. Thank-you and it’s
goodnight from me, and goodnight from him.
(Two Ronnies circa 1970)
PPPS
Damn I forgot the all important title – where should you advetise?
We think you should take a couple of adverts on facebook – and our suggestion? Place them next to Farmville for maximum bang for your buck.
But with that said – this advice is only good in Internet time. Next week? It will probably be a different Game.
This gives you the greatest access to 34% of the female game playing population most likely to be aged 27 years old and a housewife.
And I'm sorry I published this because I guess Farmville will be now be one of the most expensive words on Google.
References:
ALEXA
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perceptric.com%2Fblog
Digital Divas
http://advertising.microsoft.com/WWDocs/User/en-us/ResearchLibrary/ResearchReport/Digital-Divas.pdf
NEARLY A THIRD OF OUR LEISURE TIME IS SPENT ONLINE
http://www.tnsglobal.com/news/news-6A7B1D614B284E20B26AA3A75601275B.aspx
Youtube Video Promotion for StopBigMedia.com