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C'est officiel, Steve Rubel, l'un des auteurs les plus prolifiques dans la communauté des blogueurs marketing/relations publiques, vient juste de me donner l'autorisation (et m'a remercié) pour la traduction de ses 10 bricolages technorati. 'Bricolage' pour traduire hack, je ne suis pas encore très sûr.

En bref, l'article extrait de Micropersuasion est ainsi désormais disponible en français et réadapté pour le compte d'une marque automobile germanique.

Hé, merci Steve.

Toutes ces petites astuces seront bien utiles pour nos plans de formations.
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Linda Zimmer, CEO de MarCom:Interactive (agence qui se concentre sur les 'médias modernes') a publié le mois dernier une série de trois excellents billets pour mieux comprendre les fameux tags (mots-clés en français). Même si vous connaissez très bien les tags, je pense que vous pourrez trouver quelques idées d'usage pour vos marques ou votre organisation. J'ai donc commencé à traduire ses posts avec son autorisation sur le site elanceur.org. N'hésitez pas à me faire part de vos commentaires tant sur la traduction que sur le contenu.

A quoi ça sert de taguer ? (partie 1)Nous rencontrons beaucoup de professionnels de la communication qui ne savent pas encore ce qu'est que le tagging. Aussi, ceci est une première série de trois articles qui je l'espère expliqueront le tagging et ses usages pour la communication marketing et ses implications pour pousser vers des médias de communication modernes.Cliquez ici pour lire l'article - 1038 mots.

A quoi ça sert de taguer ? (partie 2)Seconde partie d'une série de trois billets pour les professionnels de la communication qui, nous l'espérons, aidera à expliquer le tag, l'utilisation du tag dans des applications pratiques pour les communications marketing et leurs implications à migrer vers des communications 'sur des médias modernes'. Cliquez ici pour lire l'article - 938 mots.

A quoi ça sert de taguer ? (partie 3)Ainsi, simplement à quoi cela peut-t'il servir en pratique de taguer ? J'espère que la Partie 1 et la  Partie 2  ont bien planté le décor pour répondre efficacement à cette question, je vous propose désormais de discuter des manières dont le tagging fait évoluer la recherche en ligne et représente une façon émergente et puissante tant pour organiser et partager les documents web.  Maintenant, la prochaine étape est de simplement mettre en pratique les usages dans votre communication et votre marketing.Cliquez sur ce lien pour lire l'article complet - 1430 mots.

Après le rachat de blogger par google, il est peu surprenant et amusant de voir Google venir titiller les terres de quelques vieux ancêtres. Je pense notamment à blogdex, daypop, Feedster et au célèbre Technorati (devenu de plus en plus poussif !). Sans oublier les plus récemment arrivés comme l'excellent blogpulse, le francophone blogouaf, etc.

Mais attention, selon cet article de Chris Sherman publié dans Search Engine Watch, la nouvelle bête de Google a ses limites. Le nouveau moteur ne balayerait pas la totalité du billet de blog - mais seulement ce qui est présent dans le fil RSS du site.

Ceci pourrait présenter quelques problèmes parce que beaucoup de blogueurs francophones et internationaux ont opté délibérément afin de ne pas de se faire piller leurs contenus, de ne publier qu'un résumé de leur billet dans leurs fils RSS.

Par conséquent, le moteur de recherche de blogs de Google pourrait rater beaucoup de contenus.

Initiative intéresante remarquée hier chez Steve Rubel pour tester les différences capacités des moteurs spécialisés à balayer le plein-texte d'un blog. Steve veut simplement observer si la totalité du billet se fait indexer. Aussi, a t'il créé un blog dédié à produire quelques tests sur la recherche de blogs. Son intention est de mesurer rapidement la vitesse à laquelle la phrase 'ms. mxyzptlk' s'affiche dans les différents moteurs de recherche - et si elle s'affiche d'ailleurs...

Certain que Steve Rubel - même s'il voulait rester seul sur son test _ ne s'agacera pas de me voir utiliser le même terme que lui à savoir l'étrange 'ms. mxyzptlk'.

A vous de cliquer sur ... IceRocket, Technorati, BlogPulse, Google.

Et observez vous-même les résultats et les différences entre moteurs...
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Lancé le 8 janvier 2004 durant les rencontres d'Autrans, le iGenerator connaît un bel amorçage : déjà 47 contributeurs et plus de 570 pages produites...

Mais rien n'est gagné ! Le groupe se constitue et l'architecture (floue) de l'espace reste encore à ébaucher.

Destiné à fournir aux innovateurs les moyens d'accélérer les idées pour les mener jusqu'à réalisation, je reste toujours persuadé que les rencontres seront le facteur-clé de pérennité de notre nouvel espace de PubliCoopération.

Mais le principal défi reste l'animation. Assurée à titre bénévole par l'ensemble des contributeurs, elle demeure néanmoins un vrai sacerdoce pour transformer le projet en une réelle force communautaire apte à créer un espace de dialogue respectueux.

Pour être franc, cette ?uvre collective produite nécessite quelque soutien financier. Nous avons besoin de mécènes pour financer le travail de compte-rendu (on les appelle les scribes) et transformer le projet en Intelligence Collective.

Alors si vous avez des idées, venez-nous rendre visite et n'hésitez pas à nous contacter.

Contact iGenerator :

Online visibility and online traffic are, quite naturally, of paramount importance to everyone and anyone marketing or conducting business online, period.

While RSS will not perform as your key tool to improve online visibility and generate more traffic, its importance for helping you do so cannot be disputed.

It will help you:

• increase your traditional search engine rankings;
• improve your online visibility by making your content available where people are increasingly searching for new content, such as RSS search engines and content aggregation sites;
• drive traffic from other websites covering your topic, by helping you make your content available at these websites more easily.

Deliver Your News to Where It's Searched For: Generate Traffic From RSS Search and Content Aggregation Sites

The fundamental media shift is not only happening between offline and online, but within online itself as well.

Just a few years ago the search engines, the largest portals and news sites, were more or less the central hub of where online users got their online information. They still are today, but are now challenged by the growth of new online search engine and content aggregation website categories.
It's quite simple.

Go to Google, Yahoo! or MSN and do a keyword search. What you get are somewhat the most relevant results for what you're looking for ? but without a timestamp. Search engines provide results based on universal relevancy and not on recentcy.

But what if you're looking for the latest relevant content, instead of just the most relevant content?

Enter the news engines, content aggregation sites and RSS search engines. Instead of providing results by universal relevancy, these sites provide results by actual recentcy, with of course a better or lower level of relevancy.

The point is that these websites are starting to become the central hub of searching for news online and latest content online.

Google and Yahoo! know it too ? their own news engines are among the top of breed.

But what if you don't want to search for specifically the latest news or the latest general content, but just want to search for the latest blog posts pertaining to your topic of interest?

Enter blog search engines, which will only return results from blogs. And Google has one as well, although this one is not on top.

And so on ?

Why this matters to you?

If you want your latest content to be found where people are actually searching for the latest news and other latest content, even video and audio content, you need to start using these new search and aggregation site categories to increase your reach and attract new traffic ? traffic that is interested in what you have to say right now.

And the RSS connection?

Most of these new services, although not all, rely on RSS to receive the latest content just as it becomes available and then offer it to their visitors.

In many cases, RSS is the key tool that will get you indexed and then found and read, being used to get your content from your website to the service, which will then make it available to the world.

And additionally, you can expect to receive extra traffic from RSS directories, used by people who are proactively searching for new RSS feeds to subscribe to.

Publisher Surveys

I've recently been invited to participate in two surveys. One was from Google, the other from Yahoo. Both are very obviously looking for ways to increase their presence on sites like this, and to find out what we publishers think about them.

OASIS this week approved SAML (Security Assertion MArkup Language) as an OASIS Standard. 

Eve Maler at Sun Microsystems has a quick post about the role and eventual impact, plus a plug for Son ONE Identity Server.

SAML allows for interoperable exchange of security information about subjects, focusing on describing three kinds of things: authentication acts, attributes, and authorization decisions. You can request "assertions" in these forms from "SAML authorities" that you trust.

One especially useful scenario for SAML is single sign-on (SSO), where a user can log in to one website but then proceed to use resources at a website in a different domain -- because SAML assertions are being exchanged that tell the second site that the user's okay. This was the focus of the selection of SAML as an underpinning of the Liberty Allianceidentity federation work and for Sun's SAML support in its Sun ONE Identity Serverproduct. Another scenario is to use SAML assertions to secure a SOAP message, which is achieved by the OASIS WSS(Web Services Security) SAML Token Profile work.

From the “John does Linux” files (see the last episode; okay, so that was Unix)…

This site is now running on a Virtual Private Server from RimuHosting. Who cares? No one but me.

What a deal!

RimuHosting is a nice upgrade from my TotalChoice account, both in terms of sheer “horsepower” as well as flexibility. Not only do I get 4GB of disk space and 30GB bandwidth for $20/month, but I have root access to the VPS and all the privileges that affords me.

DIY hosting

Well, almost.

I’m used to web hosts that include Cpanel and/or Web Host Manager. RimuHosting gives you nothing of the sort — which is fine by me. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent hours pouring over Apache documentation and testing various configurations. I only had to ask Joe for help a couple of times.

Amazing support

None of this would’ve happened without RimuHosting’s friendly and helpful support team. I’ve emailed them at all hours of the day and night, and they always get back to me within a few hours. Keep up the good work, guys.

Late, late, late on a Tuesday night almost two weeks ago, we re-launched FeedBurner.com with much-needed updates to the design, content and overall direction.

Traci already commented on the strategic importance of the new site, while Rachelle provided a more personal account.

But as the designer and half-developer (Rachelle did the other half — actually, probably more than half — with great skill and speed), I’m going to share a couple of “behind the scenes” details that I find super neat. Hopefully you’ll feel the same way.

Powered By FeedBurner

Going in to this project, two requirements became clear:

1. Traci (our marketing director) needed the ability to make content updates without routing all changes through the design team.

2. Many types of content needed to be reused in slightly different settings and formats around the site.

To address these requirements, we came up with the idea of modular content — basically, little nuggets of content that can be randomized, subscribed, inserted and updated anywhere.

For a couple of content types — blog posts, publisher buzz, press releases — we used feeds and our very own BuzzBoost service to repurpose content wherever we needed it on the site (mmm, dog food). For others, we generated custom blocks of static HTML or Javascript and included those in the JSPs that contain forms, session information (“You are signed in as…”) and other application components.

Of course, we had to generate all of this content somewhere…

Powered By MovableType

We’re using MovableType to store and publish the press releases, in the news, events, corporate backgrounder, stats, Publisher Buzz, and of course our blog, Burning Questions. Our MovableType installation is rigged up with a variety of templates that publish static files in HTML, Javascript and Atom formats — all of which are then pulled into the pages like I mentioned above.

One of the complaints people have about MovableType — that it creates static files by default — is actually a huge advantage here. We’re able to publish flat, lightweight static files to a single server, then pull in these files in a variety of ways across our distributed server environment.

Elegant, dual-float layout

When I was first learning CSS, doing multi-column layouts was always the hardest part. Even two-column layouts seemed tricky, weighing the pros and cons of various approaches and never being totally satisfied with the end result.

Then I got floats. Like, really got them. It was Doug Bowman’s slides from this presentation that secured my understanding and I haven’t fretted about CSS layouts since.

On the new FeedBurner.com, everything but the home page uses a classic dual-float, two-column layout. I set a width on both columns in the CSS, then assigned float:left on the left column and float:right on the right. Finished with a clear:both footer, it’s a solid layout that works regardless of which column is longest.

A new approach to navigation

While many sites feature massive navigation (practically a site map), we took a page from Flickr’s design books this time around and divided our navigation into two sections. A high-priority “primary” navigation and a lower-priority “secondary” navigation are based on prominence, not hierarchy, which helps focus the page and not overwhelm people with choices.

We also made heavy use of in-text hyperlinking across sections, to encourage exploration without forcing folks to grok and traverse our site architecture via the navigation.

Coming soon

Perhaps the best things to come out of this redesign process haven’t arrived yet. As a result of our extensive brainstorming and planning, we have tons of ideas and a general roadmap for web site improvements over the coming months.

And now, with the addition of Rachelle Bowden to our team, we have the manpower womanpower to get it done.

Questions? Comments?

Use the comment form. As always, I love to hear from you!

Michael van Swaaij, eBay's chief strategy officer, told a conference of software developers here on Saturday of plans to allow eBay's army of auctioneers to run contextual ads on other Web sites in exchange for a cut of the resulting eBay sales.

EBay's system differs from existing pay-per-click advertising systems offered by Google and rivals Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. by linking only to eBay auctions rather than serving as a generic advertising network.

The world's largest e-commerce site said it plans to provide hundreds of thousands of eBay auctioneers with simple snippets of code they can embed on other Web sites that showcase items that are for sale on eBay's site.

A test of the program, dubbed eBay AdContext, is set to be introduced early next week, Swaaij said. What goods appear in any particular advertisement will be determined by the keywords on that Web page, a technique known as contextual advertising.

I love my RSS reader. I have a gazillion website, blog and news feeds set up in there, and I get the latest information from all of my favorite sites. That means I can be one of the first to share it with you. And RSS Reader 1.0 has a doorbell sound effect that rings when there are new feed entries to read. So wherever I am in the house I hear it and take a look. I also get the additional bonus of six barking dogs to announce the new feed entries.

As an aside, I noticed something very interesting. Because of my RSS reader I was one of the first to cover adsenseblacklist.com, a terrific new web site that will help you screen out the cheesy AdSense ads. Because I was on it first, I popped up in the first five Google search results for this keyword for a while, which drove traffic to this site. So watch your RSS reader.

All that being said, we are beginning to see RSS used as auto update feature for websites and blogs. The first application was RSS feeds that automagically update your site with articles in your subject area from a free article site. The rationale is that this will give you fresh content that search engines will eat right up. They call it spiderfood. I call it a dumb idea. Have you read some of these articles? There's a wide disparity in quality from one to another, and I would never allow articles to be put blindly on my web site without my approval. For crying out loud...you spend hours and hours of time getting your site to a certain level of quality to build a certain level of trust with your visitors, and then you're going to allow some hack to put his content on your site without your approval, just so maybe a search engine will come a few extra times? That's just stupid.

Need more content? Turn off the football game and write some.

Seriously...if you want to use articles as supplemental content, hand pick them. Just like famous Internet marketer Wille Crawford did on his blog when he picked my article Chitika - What Went Wrong (a little humor there). I have at least 20 - 30 articles in an Outlook Folder that I'm going to post on the site as soon as a I get a chance. That's the good news - the bad news is I went through 500 or so articles to get those.

Closer to home, affiliate merchants are starting to get into datafeeds, which are sort of like file-based RSS feeds. Datafeeds provide direct access to merchant products using text files. The file contains a list of products, services, special offers, coupons or other information that you can display on your site. You then upload that information to your server and use some kind of tool or script to display the different items in that file. There are programs on CJ, LinkShare and Shareasale that have datafeeds.

While others are absolutely gaga over this, I look at it with the same jaundiced eye as the whole article thing - it all depends on your niche, the level of trust you want to maintain with your customer, and how technical you want to get.

If you have a niche that has a well-matched affiliate program, you might try a product feed. If you want to put up an occasional coupon or special offer, you can probably do it by hand rather than going through all of this mumbo jumbo.

We are starting to see products that convert merchant datafeeds to RSS, allowing you to auto-display products from affiiliate programs. Again, if you can maintain relevance across the entire affiliate line, it's a good idea. If not, you're not going to get conversion anyway, so you're wasting your time. Personally I want everything including the advertising, to have relevance to my visitors.

There's always a shortcut - in this case you're shortcutting the time and effort involved in finding relevant offers for your visitors. That may work with some sites.

If you want to know more or give it a shot, here are some resources:

1. FiveStarAffiliatePrograms - They love the idea, but I think they're plugging their own tool.

2. Smartsville has a nice synopsis. Oh...they also have a tool.

One last thing - while I was out looking for links and information, this is what someone said about using datafeeds:

Soon, I will let you know how I put this all on autopilot and never have to think about the blog again after I spend a few hours setting it up!

How do you think that blog is doing?

About the Author

Matt DeAngelis runs AffiliateBlog.com - A resource for Affiliate Marketing and Internet Marketing. Matt is the former CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet revolution, Matt devised the technology behind many of the most successful ad campaigns of the time.

AffiliateBlog is his latest venture, and was started as a resource to help site owners and bloggers get more revenue from their sites.

Myth #1 - "It's easy, just put up a website and you're set for success"

Many perceive the sheer numbers of people online equates to enough of them coming to your site and making it consistently profitable. It doesn't quite work that way because if your site is out of sight, out of mind, then nobody knows it even exists.

Remember, when you search for something online, you go to a search engine, type in your phrase and you get pages of results. This is exactly what your customers do! Not only do you need to register on search engines, you need to be prominently registered - aiming for top ranking or at the least, second page results. Anything less will considerably diminish your chances of being found.

Now if you don't even register on the search engine radar, how will your customers find you?

Myth #2 - "Anybody can do it"

Very few people can do it right.

Attempting website promotion services on your own is disastrous. It is extremely time consuming and will greatly frustrate and disappoint if not done correctly. A lot is involved - the entire website promotion process is composed of several components that must fit together in a synchronised way in order for it to work properly.

Let's take just three of the many aspects of website promotion to illustrate this myth:

1. Keyword research
2. Copywriting
3. SEO Marketing

These form the backbone of any website promotion strategy, but how will you devise effective techniques for each of these when this area is not your company's expertise? Where will your company begin to research for keywords? Are they the correct ones? At what optimum density levels should they be used?

Your copywriting is crucial as is your SEO marketing. Who will write compelling and effective content to capture search engines, rankings and sales?

These are just three of the many components. All it takes is just one aspect to be done incorrectly and it can retard the whole process.

Myth #3 - "Presentation Is Everything"

In website promotion services, this couldn't be further from the truth. Content is what makes or breaks a site's effectiveness. If you put up a site with nothing except amazing graphics and flash, you have zero chance of selling anything. But if you put up a site with nothing but sales-pulling copy and rich content, you have every chance of securing business.

Presentation is part of the process; it's not the process itself. There's a fine balance that must be struck between visual appeal and effective copy. Professionals know how to integrate the two at just the right levels.

Myth #4 - "Sending Your URL to Thousands of Search Engines Is A Good Way To Get Business"

It's actually a good way to have your site banned or de-listed from search engines. Any company that offers to blast your site to thousands of search engines is a company worth putting on your blacklist. Unfortunately many businesses register thinking this technique works. All you are doing is spamming the search engines and they don't like it at all.

The best way to get business is having a results proven company put together a well planned website promotion campaign using the best experts available.

Myth #5 - "Website promotion is fast and yields quick results"

Whilst some aspects of website promotion are relatively quick, most of it is an extended process that takes time to research, develop, test and implement. It's not about getting a quick sale. Building trust and credibility with your customers takes time and often results in longer term relationships. Results are always contingent on the quality of the website promotion program. Naturally, profitable programs will yield much higher results over the same time period as mediocre programs.

The Author has put together a resource website strictly to educate potential and current business owners about website promotion. You can visit it at http://www.1web-site-promotion.com.