Disqus - Latest Comments for John Blossom

Re: Wetpaint raises $9.5M for consumer wikis, meanwhile Jot is absent

John Blossom — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:43:26 -0000

Congratulations, Ben, spend it wisely!

All the best,
John Blossom
President
Shore Communications Inc.

Re: While Yang Won the Battle, Yahoo's Losing the War

John Blossom — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:31:48 -0000

Barry,

Wow, what a haircut week for Yahoo. Can't win for winning or losing.

I agree that good content is what saves the day for Yahoo - as well as very well designed user interfaces. What they haven't done well is to integrate all of their disparate holdings well. While the Silicon Valley pundits wring out endless Schadenfreude over the exits at Yahoo, some newer blood and lighter executive infrastructure is probably going to be a good thing overall. In spite of the good talent that's bailed there's a fair amount of ego that went out the door as well, which is probably a good thing in the long run. The main question mark in my mind at this point is Susan Decker, who knows how to manage a bottom line well but now has to convince new talent that she's worth working for.

At the end of the day there will be a Yahoo a year from now, probably still independent and bolstered significantly by Google ad revenues, and probably still very popular for the things that it does well. Hopefully they come to do more things better in integrating social media.

All the best

Re: Twitter Quitter Issue a Canard

John Blossom — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:47:56 -0000

Good post, Barry. Another factor to consider is how many new accounts are spam accounts caught relatively quickly by Twitter staff but not necessarily right away. It's harder to set up a spammer account on Facebook, and becoming harder to do so on MySpace. So although people not "getting" Twitter may be a factor in account abandonment, abuse that's eventually filtered out may be a key factor also.

Re: Why I Won't Make A Viral Video for You

John Blossom — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:58:58 -0000

Great post, Scott. It's a key point that many marketers just don't get. The "Fake Parker" blog for Microsoft's I'm Talkathon sticks out in my mind as a key example of what happens when you try to make fake viral content. It makes you feel unclean. http://tinyurl.com/5znhb8

Re: Documenting Kenya’s Elections using Crisis Mapping Techniques

John Blossom — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:28:09 -0000

Great analysis, clearly social media provides a complementary role in crises, spreading real-time news, then aggregating it when services like Ushahidi emerge to use social media aggregation tools that create a community knowledge bank. I highlighted some instances of this coordination in my book Content Nation, will highlight on the blog also.

All the best,
John Blossom

Re: There’s still room in the frontier

John Blossom — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 17:46:24 -0000

Thanks so much for the very kind comments on our News Analysis piece, it's rewarding to get this kind of feedback. The "art and science" of content is very much the value equation that needs to be explored by many who have been seeing it as an either/or equation.

Best Regards,
John Blossom
President
Shore Communications Inc.

Re: 2007/02/21/answertips/

John Blossom — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:19:31 -0000

Pete,

I think that you missed the boat on this one. The ads are not required to use the feature - if you look carefully the CBS site's popup box is co-branded and the ads are for CBS shows. Doesn't sound like a revenue-loser from my perspective. More at:

http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2007/02/answercoms-answertips-come-to-weblogs.html

Best Regards,
John Blossom
President
Shore Communications Inc.

Re: Five Things Wolfram Alpha Does Better (And Vastly Different) Than Google

John Blossom — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:50:49 -0000

With due respect, this is a pretty weak showing for a reference appliance that was supposed to be the second coming of search. All I am seeing is some table lookups that most well-stocked databases could handle with little difficulty. The only difference is that there's a non-SQL front end that (sometimes) can interpret requests with some semantic smarts. Mind you, it's early days, but editorially and technologically this product is a bust so far.

Re: Twitter on a Pepsi Can: Entering Mainstream or Jumping the Shark?

John Blossom — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:13:21 -0000

Come on, this is a little silly. At the same time that you have people goo-gooing over Facebook handing out personalized (branded) URLs for some of their hundreds of millions of accounts, why should we cry about Twitter becoming popular? I love Mashable, but sometimes the incessant desire to be doing what's coolest really doesn't speak to where the industry is going. The fact that people talk about a "twittersphere" the way they used to talk about the "blogosphere" is not necessarily a bad thing. Yes, silicon valley is moving on to the next bright, shiny object that catches their attention, but that doesn't mean that broadcast real-time messaging is any less important - be it via Twitter, Google Wave, or whatever.

Re: Comparison of Yahoo Pipes to Microsoft’s PopFly

John Blossom — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:23:04 -0000

We've been using Yahoo! Pipes for the back end of our FeedBlitz-based newsletter for a couple of months, it was relatively easy to build in spite of very limited documentation and operates very smoothly. It gets hung up on relative timestamps, though, which can be a pain. Take a peek here at how we do it:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/person.info?eyuid=...

PopFly sounds like a widget machine, whereas Yahoo! Pipes is a feed machine. Different strokes for different folks.

I agree that Google seems to be fairly clueless about interfaces at times, but it's not as if it's slowed them down much - so far.

All the best,
John Blossom

Re: Social Media - Connecticut - Courtney Crosslin | New Haven - Social Media Club | Open Call (for ideas)

John Blossom — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:22:05 -0000

Glad to help, I gave a presentation on my book "Content Nation" a couple of months ago in NYC.

Re: Soft Launch: Welcome To Our Newly Redesigned Sites

John Blossom — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:19:23 -0000

Great redesign, congratulations. Your comments on CMS are to the point: the weblog revolution is not powered by the greatest software in the world. And yet it's gotten us where we are today...

Re: NWS-DJ: No Action By DJ Board

John Blossom — Thu, 03 May 2007 02:25:57 -0000

Staci,

I agree, while this is far from a done deal it's a deal that's going to be done. There is no other deal for Dow Jones that's likely to make sense any time soon. That's not to say that it's a likable deal in some ways but it's the deal that shareholders have a right to consider seriously. The Bancrofts have faith in Zannino, Crovitz and Hart and it's not misplaced faith, but it is going to take more than they can deliver to keep up with the pace of change in business media.

All the best,
John Blossom

Re: EMI Releases First Album With DRM-Free Option; Artists Selling Direct from Site

John Blossom — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 03:20:10 -0000

Staci,

Hi, this may not be the Berlin Wall coming down, but it's not too unlike it. The Berlin Wall came down after it was rendered moot by the opening of border crossings between East and West Germany. The fact that a legal and DRM-free alternative now exists at a premium underscores that appropriate pricing can find a price point that reflects the true value of DRM-free music. DRM-bound copies at a lower price point helps to underscore the value point for DRM-free content quite effectively. DRM will not disappear overnight but as with the Berlin Wall there will come a day when it just won't matter any more. Further thoughts on ContentBlogger.

Re: News Corp. Offers $60 Per Share For Dow Jones; DJ Evaluating Offer

John Blossom — Wed, 02 May 2007 03:04:21 -0000

Staci,

You may want to update this, ABC News is reporting that the bid has been rejected already. Our post with links is
here

All the best,
John Blossom

Re: Times: Borg on "long and winding course toward irrelevance"

John Blossom — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:57:32 -0000

He's tried to adapt, but in his heart he's still old school. Time for a change, shareholders deserve better - and we do, too.