Not long ago I attended a call with some of the top journalists working today. And I learned that not only do 79% of these editors find their sources and their story ideas from blogs -- a healthy number start their day by reading their favorites. An editor from Wired said he actually spends TWO HOURS PER DAY reading blogs.
Wow!
So that means, platform builders, we need blogs that are media savvy. Here's my Top Ten list of Things the Media Savvy Blog Must Have. (Remember, our job is to make the media's job ridiculously simple!)
1. Use keyword-rich headers and descriptions, And make sure you make those same keywords your categories. This is why I'm always harping on how important it is for folks to spend time building their keyword list -- and researching it on sites like Overture and www.wordtracker.com
2. Feedblitz. Gotta have that little subscribe box in your upper right hand corner. Then Feedblitz sends the subscriber an email with an excerpt every time you post. Available at www.feedblitz.com
3. Sitemeter. The preferred counter among those who know because it spits the only number that matters, Unique Visitors, your way once per week by email. How convenient! www.sitemeter.com
4. Link to your Media Page. A simple typelist link in the margin will do it -- there's a great example at Andy Wibbel's blog/site at www.andywibbels.com I love how Andy is a master of simplicity. Link this to your media room on your regular site. (What's a media room? Where the media find you, of course!)
5. Set up a sign up form that downloads a digital freebie. Find a system that supports it -- my favorite is 1shoppingcart.com, which collects the data and then delivers an autoresponder with download links in it. This is a great list building tool.
6. Use pictures. I think they make the blog seem more readable, and appealing to the visual types. I get good fr.ee.graphics from Google (just click the Images link after you do a search.) Also there are some great cheap shots to be head from www.istockphoto.com which are only one dollar apiece.
7. Lots of links in posts. It's not only blog etiquette, it's a way to attract SE spiders and bots to your blog posts. They love content rich blogs with lots of outgoing links.
8. Write with brevity. I'm working in this. Make shorter, more frequent posts to drive SE traffic. And keep your blog as casual and 'free wheeling' as it's meant to be.

9. Typelists -- copy in the margins -- that have visuals and important short captions drive traffic to site. I get a great sales conversion rate from my blog because people like my product shots in the margin. Small, snappy covers will do with a bit of short descriptive copy.
10.Audio clips. In this, the age of podcasting, it can't hurt! You can create audio links through sites like www.audioblog.com

© 2006 Suzanne Falter-Barns LLC

Download Suzanne's free list of 50 Top Publishing & Media contacts at www.getknownnow.com . Drop by her blog at http://www.painlessselfpromotion for almost daily tips on how to get known now … the easy way!


The Future of Podcasting - The Life of a Wannabe Pirate
For anyone who isn't aware what Podcasting is, be advised that you are missing out on one of the biggest technology trends since this little thing we like to call "The Internet" first got started!
Yes, despite all the nay-sayers the popularity of Podcasting is increasing at an astronomical rate. The question is no longer whether Podcasting is a fad, but on how large an audience this new media can sustain!
If you peek back in time, it was around 1994/1995 when the National Science Foundation opened its main backbone to the Internet, giving way to the flood of popularity that followed.
Similar to Podcasting now, people in the mid 90's claimed the Internet was just a fad and would never amount to more than a fancy means of research. Of course, with advances in software and technology, we began seeing pictures, graphics and yes, even streaming video crop up and it was only a matter of time before it was adopted by tens of millions, and eventually hundreds of millions of people.
Podcasting Is Not The Internet!
No, you're right. Podcasting is NOT the Internet... technology-wise. They're like apples and oranges. However, they're cut from the same mold and if you were to draw comparisons between their lifecycles, you will see that Podcasting has already surpassed the Internet in its meteoric rise in popularity.
The technology that makes Podcast deliverability possible was first developed back around 2000, but the first real Podcasters didn't surface until the fall of 2004. Yes, 2004! The format was developed and pushed by two notable Podcasters, Adam Curry and David Wiener before it was quickly picked up by hundreds of others and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now, barely a year after Podcasting exploded onto the scene and was embraced by Podcasters, Bloggers, and Marketers alike, you can find over 10,000 Podcasts and over 100,000 episodes at popular online Podcast Directories like PodcastEmpire.com.
In Fact, the adoption of Podcasting has been overwhelming. The allure of the People's Radio becomes quickly obvious when you listen to Podcasts such as 'Dawn and Drew' or '5 Minutes with Witchita' - a real entertainer!
Listeners around the world are speaking out and clearly DO prefer the frank conversations, great information and raw emotions that are delivered via Podcast MP3's!

There Be Pirates In Them There Waters!
Maybe it has something to do with a generation who is still longing to have their own pirate radio station, like Christian Slater in "Pump Up The Volume"… Perhaps it's just that more people have something to say, desperate to climb above the masses and make their voices heard…
Either way the 'Waters of the Podverse' are filling up with self-proclaimed pirates, and why not? There is no policing of the Podcast airwaves, it costs very little to get started and anyone with something to say can find an audience!

The reason so many of these Podcasting rebels succeed is the same reason why so many traditional radio stations are beginning to fail. With no FCC regulators knocking at their doors, Podcasters don't need to hold anything back. You can say anything you want, whenever you want, as loudly as you want. And listeners are flocking to the raw, honest format.
X Marks The Spot! Arg!

After a solid year (Podcasting was even named Word Of The Year in 2005!) and a drastic increase in popularity, advertisers are slowly beginning to come out of the woodworks, enabling some Podcasters to see a return on their efforts.
Unfortunately though, Podcasting is not yet a medium where you should expect to become rich overnight and this may be one area where terrestrial radio stations have an advantage over the Podcast Upstarts. With gold in the coffers already and more advertisers lining up each day, it doesn't really matter what they do in the medium, traditional radio stations have all the money they need to keep their Podcasts in the game indefinitely!
Also, the entire concept of commercializing Podcasting has become a heated debate, splitting the Podverse in two ever since advertisers began trickling in last year. The same issues that we saw in the '90's around commercialization Online are starting to crop up. Podcasters and Podcast listeners alike are refusing to conform, and many are refusing advertisers outright.
We are slowly starting to see changes in this mentality though as more and more Podcast Creators are adding commercials and name drops to their shows to help keep costs down and keep their content online. And the pervasive fear, that listeners will go so far as to stop listening if they hear any advertisements, have so far, proved unfounded.
Walk The Plank, Ya Filthy Skallywag!
Where does Podcasting go from here? Can it survive? Well it was back in May of 2005 when Bill Gates commented in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
"As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run. You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field, with its Macintosh and graphic interface -- like the iPod today -- and then lost its position,"
The comment was realistic, but does it also offer some insight into Microsoft's own plans?
Microsoft has a proven track history of moving into an existing and established arena and quickly slaying the dominant forces! So was Gates simply foreshadowing his own companies venture into this industry? With the success of Windows Captaining their ship, Microsoft could be the ultimate pirate, sailing the seas looking, not for simple treasures, but for entire colonies to conquer.
So far Microsoft has not made any moves although Yahoo!, one of Microsoft's leading competitors in the Online Search world has jumped into the fray with their own solution for Podcasting and in typical fashion has released their own directory.
Meanwhile, Apple remains unphased and continues to roll out new incarnations of their wildly popular iPod players.
You Have The Power!!!
At the end of the day the emerging Podcast Industry will evolve as it does, without ever consulting any of us, but the continuing appeal of Podcasts and Podcasting is that, for possibly the first time ever, you and I have a very real opportunity to influence mainstream media, or at least, bypass traditional media and influence the masses; which really amounts to the same thing anyway.
Overall, you should expect to see sustained growth in Podcasting in 2006. So, if you have something to say, anything at all, pull out your eye-patch, slap a parrot on your shoulder and dive into the world of Online Pirate Radio while the Booty is still good!
About The Author:


What Is This Blogging Thing Then?
Everybody is raving on about blogs, it seems everyone has one, and it seems that everyone is telling you that if you want to get on in Internet Marketing you need one too!!
But what exactly is this Blogging Thing??
OK well like everything else, theres the Long answer, the short answer, and Martins Answer(often quite similar to the long answer, only, well, better:-) )
Blogging, Like MOST of the other New Trends, isnt actually new at all. Blogging has actually been around for quite some years now, I would probably say its Infancy was pre-2000 if I really wanted to push it back.
A Blog, or Weblog, is qute simply an Online Journal or diary.
BUT, Thats not what people Nowadays mean, when people talk to you about Blog and Blogging, they are *Really* talking about using this Blogging software to run your sites.
The Simplicity and Design of the software enables even the most technically challenged to add updated fresh content to their webpages, basically if you can type and use Word, you can run a Blog, this in turn is why it is becoming ever so popular, and also why most people do use it for, or at least most people *Were* using Blog and Blog software to run little Personal Diary Blogs.
However, what it really is, is a way to have a Regularly updated website related to your Business or Theme at the push of a button.
Here are the three most popular "blogs" at the time of printing this, they probably will remain like this for a long time, but although these are "Blogs" they are more along the lines of an actual real content website, rather than a Personal Diary type blog
# 1
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things
67,001 links from 19,265 sites.
# 2
Engadget
65,581 links from 14,884 sites.
# 3
PostSecret
PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.
By frank warren
21,503 links from 12,892 sites.
The MAIN Difference between a blog and a standard website, is the fact that Bloggers tend to be more Personal, tend to leave more of a Personal Stamp on their work. Thats why those first two sites above are WAY more popular than if they had just been a standard Impersonal Website.
DONT Let this Blogging Craze Confuse you, its really not that complex, or infact that different to things you may already be used to, dont worry about this whole "Blog Revolution" thing, it is more of an Evolution than a Revolution, and the evolution involves Websites and Online Business in general, not Blogging on its own, Blogging has simply become a tool to enable the following things -
Through Free services such as Blogger, anyone anywhere anytime can start a website, without having any technical knowledge.
Through Blogging software, it has become easier and easier to add fresh orginal content to your website on a regular basis,
Bloggers Share information, ideas and thoughts with eachother through reading eachothers blogs and talking about them on their own blogs,
Those are the Simple Elements of what Blogging is.
When you start looking at the Software running the Blogs, and the Functions it has, you can see even more benefits, and why it is Much Much More than just "a Weblog" I am talking about, I want you to understand that Blogging is an ESSENTIAL Part of your Entire Marketing Campaign, along with Article Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and all the other aspects I cover, blogging is essential.
BECAUSE, Not only does your average Blogging software enable Push Button Content Updates, BUT it also has the ability to do a MULTITUDE of the Mundane tasks we have to undertake to build our traffic up to our websites.
Your Blogging Software can pretty much take care of all your On Page Search Engine Optimization AUTOMATICALLY!! All you need to do is post new content!!
Blog Softwares can automatically reformat your content into different Code Types readable by Different types of technology, with a little help, your blog could kick out pages viewable in Web Browsers, Palm Pilots, Mobile Phones, and perhaps the best one at the moment is RSS!!
Yes, your blog will easily produce a Reformatted version of your webpage that can be Syndicated by other sites, read by people directly on their desktops, and much more!!
I do cover a Wide Range of Advanced Blogging Tactics which I wont go into here as I would be here for TOO Long!!
Quite Simply, a Blog, is a Software to Power your websites, how you decide to use it is up to you, but one thing I WILL STRESS here at the end is that The Whole Idea behind the fact that blogs are easy to use is to use them Well, and update them regularly, to see the full benefit. Its because of this fact, that a *Good* Blog should be updated Regularly to get the most benefits, that Most Blogs are really qute a Personal Type Weblog but DONT let that start to limit your thinking about what you can do with a blog, look again at the Top 3 blogs, go to Technorati.com and look at the biggest blogs,
Dont you think, actually, that Most of the Big blogs look more like a Magazine now, rather than a Journal or Diary?
Remember what I said about Evolution and not Revolution?
You can use a blog for whatever you want, all I stress, is MAKE SURE you use it, and use it every day(or as often as you possibly can regularly)
Thats it for that, more will come soon, thanks for reading!

After being involved with Internet Marketing for some time, Martin has decided to share his Ideas and Experiences on Succesful Online Marketing.
Read More Marketing Tactics Here
Be sure to check out Martins tips and Tricks, and follow his experiences in Success @ More Traffic Please