Category Archives: lists

Jun 14 Comments comments
iPhone apps, lists, social media

5 social media trends to watch

série de bureau 4
Creative Commons License photo credit: cycle60

There are some social and digital trends which seem to hit like an avalanche, and others that build quietly and don’t go away. I wanted to share this list, as a bit of a combination of both types,  originally written for The Communications Council of Australia. You can substitute “social” with “digital” because there’s not much happening in the digital world without social integration of some sort.
  1. Geo-locations.
    Since November 2009 geo location aware social services are hotting up. Foursquare, launched 50 cities (including Australia) outside of the US, it’s mobile app makes geo location social a fun game. Twitter has had a tweet your location also since Nov 09 and Facebook’s soon to launch “Places” tab has been described as a Foursquare killer Google is trying to catch up with Latitude while SimpleGeo rakes in the venture capital, describing itself as “iTunes for geodata”
  2. Social shopping.
    Facebook reworked Facebook Connect into a super simple to implement Open Graph and its already changing the way most destination sites interact with their users. The biggest innovations will be in “socialising” the online shopping experience – seeing what your friends like and buy. A great version can be seen at Levis US store.
  3. Using a Facebook Page instead of a microsite.
    After the launch of the the new logo and look in Australia and the success of Hit Refresh,  Pepsi Australia dispensed with their website and now run the Pepsi Australia Facebook Page as a customer engagement hub.
  4. Blogs are everywhere
    Blogspot, Wordpress, Posterous, Tumblr, the blogging platforms just keep getting easier and more flexible. The amount of blogs increase every year as brands, companies and individuals are using blogs to optimise their SEO and express their opinions. Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009 describes 4% of blogs as “corporate” while BlogPulse has indexed more than 126 million blogs.
  5. Would you like an app with that? iPhone and iPad apps go from strength to strength.
    The phone game changer is now the “tablet” device game changer. Magazine and newspaper publishers like WIRED magazine, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and GQ are hoping iPad and iPhone subscriptions will keep people engaged on new platforms, and boost interest in content that’s flagging in a printed format. So far, the initial edition of WIRED for iPad is outselling the print edition. iPads will change the way people consume content, whereas iPhone will continue to influence the way people create social content on the go. The most popular camera on Flickr is still the iPhone 3G
What do you think the other digital trends we should be watching?
Apr 25 Comments comments
blogs, lists

7 top Australian blog lists

Throwup
Creative Commons License photo credit: List

Blog posts of lists are really popular. Lists of top blogs are even more popular. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and compiling the definitive list of the definitive lists. You can call it Digital Tip’s 7 top Australian Blog lists

  1. Top 50 Australian Blogs on Writing
  2. Top 50 or 100 Australian Marketing Blogs
  3. The AdAge Power 150 (technically an international list but contains Australian blogs)
  4. Mumbrella’s extraction of Australian Blogs that make the AdAge Power 150
  5. Blogpond’s Top 100 Australian Blogs
  6. Smart Company’s 15 of Australia’s best business blogs
  7. Top 100 Australian Women Bloggers

[updated 4th May, with Mumbrella's extraction of the Australian Blogs of AdAge]

So how do you get onto one of the lists? No idea, but try this:

  • Search engine optimisation has a lot to do with the rankings. That means those on Blogger & Wordpress platforms will always have an advantage if you’re setting up a new blog and have no “link love” from incoming links. Those who have links from others have a big advantage, so if you have friends that blog, you can ask them nicely, or beg for them to put a link to your site. Being around for years helps your Google ranking as does a URL that relates to your key words. Just to prove how quickly SEO can work, this week Razorfish started a search competition to see who could get the highest Google ranking for “Razorfunfish”. One site from Australia is currently number 3, because they’ve done lots of the SEO correctly in terms of integrating a Twitter search stream, having search optimised keywords in every paragraph of text and then having external links coming from Flicker etc. They only got beaten by the sites with “Razorfunfish” in the root URL.
  • Be niche. It helps to be the only one blogging about a subject, and given that there are literally millions of blogs the more you can be the subject expert the better. Or alternatively, blog about how to blog, like Problogger, who is rated really highly because it’s a “how to manual”. Ditto Sydney Writers Centre’s blog another one from the lists.
  • Make up your own top list. When I hired a PR firm (in another life) they pointed out that you could get great PR for a company by creating or sponsoring an award. So if you’re a design company, sponsor a design award, if your an ad agency, sponsor an advertising award show, you get the idea. The web 2.0 equivalent is to create a useful list that people can refer to without having to trawl Google. Julian Cole almost more well known for his Ad Pioneers list than he is for his digital strategy, and it no doubt drives buckets of traffic to his site. And for the added bonus of being included on the list you are hosting, see Top 50 Australian Blogs on Writing
  • When you get to be a top blogger, you then charge money to put advertising on your site, like Neerav “..after I was listed in the Top 100 Australian Blogs Index several people asked me how much I earnt from my blogs”
  • My last thought on this is that just because you have a lot of links, and you’re on a “Top” list, does not necessarily mean that your blog is well designed and easy to read, or that the content is great or engaging. Sure you might hit all the key words for your topic, but are you writing stuff that inspires people or just getting Google bot interest? If you’re going to spend the time and energy doing it, blog for love not lists. Or do as Time Magazine suggests and ask yourself: does the world need another blog?