Just some random questions around our community and marketing. Feel free to post your answers…
1. What’s up with Dead 2.0?
Is Dead 2.0 really dead? For those of you following silicon valley blogs, you may recognize dead 2.0 as the eternal skeptic, posting about all things web 2.0, bubble and otherwise. However, ever since Nic Cubrilovic outed the anonymity of Dead 2.0, the site has gone down with a tentative “we’ll be back” sign.
Given the fact that the blog provided some juicy gossip mixed with some hard hitting analysis, too bad that investigative journalism got in the way of my daily cuppa tech valley gossip!
2. What does Mack think of Jason’s new Alexa test?
I know that Mack Collier, swears by the Alexa ranking for Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs. I’ve had that discussion w/ Mack myself and understand his position when it comes to why he considers Alexa more reliable.
However, Jason Calacanis has thrown a spoke in the wheels of Alexa’s credibility by proving that it’s possible to game the Alexa ranking with just 3 computers. What do you think, Mack? Still an Alexa fan?
3. Am I an Insular Blogger?
Do you sometimes “post content to your blog never linking to or talking about other bloggers, blogs or websites”. Oops…
Sometimes in the past, I may have neglected a more active participation (via comments) in fellow bloggers blogs. Here’s an interesting year-end conversation on David’s blog.
4. Can you create the SuperBowl ad of the year?
The Super Bowl. The Holy Grail for American advertising has been bitten by the social media bug. Blame it on YouTube. The NFL is one of three other corporate conglomerates asking users to create commercials that (if selected) will air during the game.
Here’s more in-depth commentary by Donna Bogatin at Zdnet Blogs.
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News Update:
1. Mplanet starts tomorrow with blogger coverage provided by our very good friends, Ann Handley and Eric Kintz. Here are other marketing bloggers covering the event: Linda, CoolZor, Rootly, Robert Kingston, Kim Klaver.
Are there any other marketing bloggers attending?
2. My good friend, Jeremiah, started his stint at Podtech as Director of Media Strategy shifting gears from Fortune 500 mode to startup mode.
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Mario Sundar's Speakeasy 
“2. What does Mack think of Jason’s new Alexa test?
I know that Mack Collier, swears by the Alexa ranking for Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs. I’ve had that discussion w/ Mack myself and understand his position when it comes to why he considers Alexa more reliable.
However, Jason Calacanis has thrown a spoke in the wheels of Alexa’s credibility by proving that it’s possible to game the Alexa ranking with just 3 computers. What do you think, Mack? Still an Alexa fan?”
Mario it’s not that I think Alexa is incredibly reliable, but that I consider it more reliable than Technorati. IOW, it’s the best we have, and the only source that uses the same service to track all blogs/sites. Jason is exactly right that the system is VERY easy to game, in exactly the manner he explains. But if someone does so, it is also painfully easy to tell that the stats are being tampered with by checking their Alexa stats on a regular basis, which I do for the marketing blogs I include in the Top 25. I’ve blocked some blogs from the Top 25 for this very reason.
I do think it’s humorous that Jason wants to take this test and use HIS blog as the guinea-pig.
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Mario- are you coming?
Eric
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Bless Mack’s heart for doing that list every week. I actually place it in my blogroll to help promote everyone on the list and refresh the link every week. So it works nicely in that fashion.
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CK,
I couldn’t agree with you more. The Top 25 does enthuse and motivate me to post more often.
Hi Mack,
I totally get your point-of-view vis-a-vis Alexa, but was wondering what you thought of Jason’s guinea pig!!
Eric,
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get away from work, but I’m looking forward to commentary & coverage from Ann and you.
Mario
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Hi Mario,
I think people should use Alexa for possible trends only. I’ve worked for web sites that showed our Alexa ranking going down, when our traffic was actually up.
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Hi Damon,
I also heard that sometimes Alexa screws up the rankings for SSL encrypted sites?! It just seems like we don’t have a reliable system to track trends in the blogosphere.
Mario
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