Darren’s got a great big list of professional blogging links over at Problogger today and instead of doing the work I should have been doing I spent some time checking out a few of the links, and discovered yet another blog posting tool, RocketPost for Anconia. It certainly looked interesting enough from their page to download the demo version, and I was looking forward to perhaps finding the next step up in blogging software from my current blogging tool of choice, Blogware. Sadly however, I was disappointed once again, because despite some fairly nice WYSIWIG features, they just don’t get the image handling right, for example I cant copy and paste an image into a post, and as much as I can drag and drop an image from a page to RocketPost, it doesn’t save it in the post, it just shows it from the original page, which as all bloggers know is a no-no. Oh well, back to BlogDesk.

Post note: no tags here, the feature didn’t work in RocketPost despite promising to.

Read this on Ben Barrens blog pointing to a new blog: Doomed Startup who is covering Gather.com. Can’t say I could recall the company so I checked out the site, all I can say is WTF? This is suppose to be something like Newsvive, but if you visit Newsvine it’s pretty easy to work out what is, Gather is well…hard to gather…and perhaps the Doomed Startup blog hits it on the head: “some people have no business running a business” because any business in which you can’t actually ascertain what the heck their business is, is most likely not going to last long.

Tags: Gather

Techcrunch reports on Chris Pirillo’s Gada.be changing its name to TagJag. Certainly I nice new look for the site, but what is it with Chris Pirillo and crappy names? Tagjag? Why not Tagfaghag, or Taggnome? 🙂 Sure, Lockergnome isn’t a pretty name but it’s easy to remember, and Tagjag meet’s the old marketing rules on being easy to remember, easy to spell, and more importantly short and sweet, but it’s still a bloody awful name.

Tags: Tagjag, Techcrunch, Gade.be

Scoble writes about the discussion at BloggerCon between those video blogging for love and those looking for a larger audience (and therefore advertising and money). He talks about it in terms of production values, but I think given the range of tools available to video bloggers these days that the whole “production values” argument is really superfluous, and the real motive behind this debate is the old money/ advertising equation again, which for memory was very similar to debates at previous BloggerCons circa 2003-2004 in relation to blogging in general when advertising first appear on blogs, and blogs started going professional. I’ve not had a chance to listen to the podcast yet (but I intend to) but given the crowds to Dave Winer’s BloggerCons usually include the same group of people (at the core anyway) I’m betting its the same people arguing against the dosh in video blogging in the same way they argued against money in blogging back then….and of course, we know who in the end one that debate :-)…but as they say, all that is old is new again.

Tags: BloggerCon, Video Blogging, Robert Scoble

Cat fight, cat fight, this from Jason Calacanis’ blog:

That’s Gawker’s standard blogging process–print a lie, admit you screwed up, but never change the error… sort of Jayson Blair style

I love these wars, they are sooooo much fun 🙂

Tags: Nick Denton, Jason Calacains, Gawker Media, Weblogs Inc

A bloke in the States is in strife for using a cafe’s free wireless connection without buying stuff from the shop….but all I can say from country Western Australia is I wish I could get any wireless here, anywhere, which of course with the exception of the local McDonalds outlet (which is pay of course, and very expensive thanks to Telstra), just doesn’t exist. For that matter I’m not really aware of there being free Wireless in pretty much any part of Australia for that matter….it’s one of the few things I can be jealous of American’s on.

I wrote yesterday that I wasn’t all that impressed with the new Opera browser, at least not enough to consider switching, but I did find a nifty feature that I think I’ll be using on a regular basis, and that’s the built in Bittorrent client that comes with Opera.

I wanted to download a video yesterday (I won’t say what it was…suffice to say it was an episode of one of my favourite shows I missed the other night…but for which the network that produces it gets plenty of revenue from me by my SMS voting anyways 🙂 ) and thought I’d give Opera a whirl….loving it…far better than the bloatware Azureus has become. It was quick (sure, it still took 6 hours to download, but on Azureus it would have taken 12), but more importantly for me it didn’t interfere in my other activities in terms of accessing the web, where as when I’m using Azureus it’s nearly impossible to visit other websites. So although you get the browser as well….you do get one very slick, clean, and feature free (which is good, I don’t know what most of the stuff on Azureus does other than take up space) Bitttorrent client. The fat lady’s voice just got better 🙂

Tags: Opera

Want an invite to SixApart’s new you beaut MySpace killer? I’ve got invites to Vox, at least to the starter version which doesn’t allow you to blog but atleast get’s you in the door (I think you get upgraded later?). Leave a comment with your email address included or drop me an email directly.

Also I’ve been upgraded to a standard Vox account so I’ve been able to play with all the extra’s on the service….and I’ve got to say: WOW! Not only is it pretty, it’s easy to use, something I cant say for MySpace (or MT installations :-p ). You can check out my Vox blog here. Great job from the SixApart team though. I’ve already got more blogs than I can poke a stick at, but there is enough little extra’s in Vox that I might find myself coming back for more 🙂

Tags: Vox, SixApart

Looks like Mike Arrington is under attack on two fronts: from Nick Denton’s Valleywag for Text Link Ads sponsorship, and by Adam Kalsey for a Zoho backflip allegedly due to a sponsorship.

I don’t know enough about the Zoho stuff, but the Valleywag attack is complete and utter sh*te. Text Link Ads are a legitimate form of advertising, indeed, you’ll see them over most b5media blogs under “marketplace”, because it’s a cost effective way for advertisers to advertise with us, and yes, they do result in links and traffic to these sites directly from the blogs. I couldn’t say that some people wouldn’t be using this as part of a search engine strategy, but you know, we can’t all hold swish NY socialite parties to get our links now can we Nick?

Tags: Nick Denton, Valleywag, Gawker Media, Mike Arrington, Tech Crunch

Big news overnight: Seeking Alpha has the scoop on Google testing an affiliate marketing program, or what they are calling a CPA (cost per action) program that many say will be a Value Click Media/ Commission Junction (CJ) killer.

Can’t say I disagree with this analysis. I’ve never liked CJ, from when they kicked me out of the program way back then because I apparently wasn’t earning enough, to today, where I have a CJ account and yet it would have to be the most cumbersome affiliate system I’ve ever worked with. For starters, you’ve got to apply to be an affiliate with most of the programs, and over half of the companies automatically reject you because you don’t have a US address (really clever this…after all, where does the traffic come from?), then there’s setting up an ad…it’s exactly the same system they were using in 1999.

Having said this though, I do have a Value Click Media account due to their acquisition of Fastclick, and that’s a reasonable service in terms of filling CPM inventory when you can’t be bothered selling it yourself (or you’re too small to really do it yourself).

But imagine Google entering this market. The ease of use of Adsense applied to affiliate marketing! Hopefully they’ll set the entry barriers low and support similar functions to say Clickbank and then the little guy can get a decent service as well, like Google has allowed with Adwords. This marketplace is well and truly overdue for a shakeup, and hence I welcome our Google overlords to it 🙂

Tags: Google, Google CPA, Valueclick