Tag Archives: wired.com

advice, blogging

Content Marketing: Here’s a Cat, and Here’s the Bag

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Wired.com has a section called the How-To Wiki. On January 10, 2010 an entry called Internet Article Marketing showed up there, detailing how you can market your blog by creating articles and posting them in places like Squidoo and Associated Content.

The idea is simple; put an article with a one-way link back to your low-ranked site from a higher ranked site and you can earn yourself more Google clout in the process. That potentially means better placement in search results.

This is nothing new, blog-for-money how-to sites like the Green Ninja talk about this stuff all the time.

What IS new is that the practice has finally crept into the mainstream with Wired letting the cat out of the bag.

What this tells me is that it’s entirely possible that “Internet article marketing” days are numbered. I have nothing concrete to base this on, just a hunch that those who don’t change their game in 2010 will end up on the losing team in the end.

Google has this funny habit of modifying itself to stay a step ahead of the masses. When certain “tolerated” practices became more widely used, Google just mutated and made those practices “sandbox” worthy. (As in, do those things and Google will probably dump your site at the bottom of the search rankings.)

Continue reading Content Marketing: Here’s a Cat, and Here’s the Bag →

lifestyle

Wired: Supreme Court Takes on Freelance Case

wired_logo In 2005, a group of freelancers thought they had won a lawsuit worth about 18 million. The issue? Whether a publishing group had the right to electronically distribute freelance material submitted by freelancers even though those rights were not part of the original freelance contract.

Later, the judgement in favor of the freelancers was tossed out by an appeals court. Now, Wired.com reports the case is under review by the Supreme Court. According to Wired, we shouldn’t jump for joy just yet–the Supreme Court will only review “Whether the law restricted federal court jurisdiction over copyright infringement actions.”

Further investigation into this story reveals the writers were not happy with the original settlement and appealed, which led to the original deal being thrown out. The publishers wanted to the deal reinstated, which leads us to where the case is now. It’s a very sticky issue…which leads me to an old bit of advice I remember reading somewhere. “If you need a lawyer, it’s already too late.”

I know, it’s a bit head-in-the-sand, but I do wonder if the writers should have taken the money from the original settlement and called it a day. Feel free to chime in here if you’ve got strong feelings either way.

editorial, lifestyle, resources

The Most Interesting Thing at Wired.com Today

Wired.com’s article on Henry Blodget begins, “Henry Blodget has never gotten used to the chorus of hate that follows his every move.” Believe it or not, that is NOT the most interesting thing about this article, at least not when it comes to writing. No, the most interesting thing about this villified former finance industry scapegoat (Wired’s words, not mine) is what is reported about Blodget’s approach to his new blog.

“Blodget tells his team to think of the site as talk radio.” Unquote.

Now THAT, friends, is a fascinating idea. One that bears thinking about. You might just see that mentality starting to evolve here. Dispensing with the “article” format in favor of the more stream-of-consiousness talk radio approach has definite appeal, no? Even blog style itself–which itself is decidedly loose and informal–could get an overhaul with that kind of thinking.

Talk radio, eh? Nice one, Blodgett.