a proposal put forth by a French politician, Jean-Louis Masson, that would outlaw anonymous blogging (Google translation from the original French). The law says that anyone who "edits... a non-professional communication service online" must provide full identification information, including first and last names, full location and phone number.

Publishing the full name, location and phone number of a blogger? What a horrible idea!

Mitch Joel nails it with this piece called "Unlike advertising, Social Media can't save a bad product or service." He discusses how the brands that do well online are the ones who essentially look good naked- "in the buff". Being buff involves being ready for that transparency.

I can't say enough good things about this article in Mashable. While bloggers and publishers are trying to build their sites, the Social Web is quickly changing the whole game. Neilsen data shows that because of Social Media's impact on how we engage online, more and more people want to get their content in a news feed style or stream. Your content has to go everywhere, and this article helps you spread content in a smart way.

Distribute

---

 

 

Once you have identified your digital center, connect it to all your other social networks. Think of your digital center as the hub and the other networks as the spokes of a wheel. The idea is to create the content once. In today’s world of the siteless web, your customers are choosing their own digital centers, and chances are, they’re not the same as yours. You need spokes to make sure you’re reaching everyone you need to and, more importantly, everyone who wants information from you. And, since we’re all short on time, making this process automated and intelligent is key. Here’s how you can do this:

• Filter: The expectations on each social network are different. Understand your audiences on each and tailor your content accordingly. Twitter has a different vocabulary (hashtags, RT) than Facebook (). Your readers on Facebook may find it odd to see a hashtag in their stream.
• Control the flow: If you are creating multiple pieces of content per day, it is important to not send it out all at once. The half-life of a piece of content in social media is measured in hours. Things are flowing through your audience’s stream all day long. To keep their attention and increase the opportunity for them to see your content, regulate the flow, just like a dam. Hold some things back. Track the time of day you are seeing the most engagement and adjust your flow accordingly.
• Customize: With the amount of content your audience is seeing in a day, yours may go unnoticed as they scan their stream. The headline is now more than ever, the most important sentence you write. Add in some branding elements –- it doesn’t need to be over the top. Just let your audience know where it is coming from, especially if you are cross-posting.

I hope this article will stop all the people who import all their Twitter updates to their Facebook stream. Filter for the individual networks people!

Schmidt disses Blogging

Google CEO Eric Schmidt guest starred spoke at the American Society of News Editors conference recently where he tried to lull traditional media worrywarts into a false sense of security by telling them:

“There is an art to what you do. And if you’re ever confused as to the value of newspaper editors, look at the blog world. That’s all you need to see.”

Not only does that statement berate blogging and bloggers in general, including the millions pumping out content on Google-owned Blogger.com, didn’t he just dis many of the attendees as well? All the major media outlets have blogs, and bloggers, nowadays, don’t they?

Who knew I could like him less?

Twitter Presence- Twitter has to be present on your blog and you should use any and all of these methods: Option to re-tweet post, visible twitter stream, display your latest tweet… There are many twitter plug-ins and tools to twitterize your blog; your blog must have a twitter presence.

Don’t Sweat The Comments- Since twitter has become so popular the number of comments on most blogs has been drastically reduced.  Don’t let this bother you or think it’s an indication of fewer readers.  There is a good chance that the comments that you used to receive on your blog are now coming in the form of @replies, DM’s and Facebook replies.  Embrace these replies as the new blog comments.  Be sure to interact and always try to respond when questions are asked.  @Replies Are The New Comments.

Twitter has killed blog comment numbers. That is OK, it needs be be OK for new platforms to come and change the way we interact online.

ordPress fans, it’s here: the first beta of WordPress 3.0 has been released.

In a late-night announcement Jane Wells, the UX lead at Automattic (the parent company of WordPress ().com), laid out some of the many new features that are featured in version 3.0 beta of the popular blogging software. The first thing she points out is a new custom menus system, which she makes clear “is not quite finished.”

The big announcement of this release though is the merger of WordPress and WordPress MU (multi-user), a fork of WordPress that allows multiple blogs to be operated from one installation. In WordPress 3.0, these two are fully merged, although you should probably read the instructions before taking this feature out for a test drive.

There are other changes to the UI and interface, including the addition of a new default them (Twenty Ten) and custom post type functionality improvements.

If you’re brave, you can download the update

Will I be the first person to break WordPress 3.0? Quite possibly!

To publish a post on a specific date add “((publish: on mo/day/year))” or to delay publishing add “((delay: in x minutes or hours))” after your post title in the subject line of the e-mail. The “schedule later” option is also available in the Advance Settings portion of the bookmarklet or the Manage Page section on the web (see below).

The new feature addition is a minor upgrade with bigger implications as Posterous continues to make its simple blogging platform more business-friendly. It also comes just a few days after the introduction of a page break element, and further exemplifies how such a simple platform can support complex functionality.

I love Posterous more and more all the time!

Compared to Twitter (), Tumblr () is still a small dot on the radar, but it’s definitely growing fast enough to make an impact. The Tumblr team isn’t slacking on the features, either; they recently added the option to add static pages to your blog, as well as dead simple, direct video uploads.

Nice.

I think monetizing for a platform like this is smart.

I Love Blogging

And I hope you continue to do what you’re doing. We don’t need fewer blogs. We need more passionate blogs. We need more blogs that educate and inform and instruct and give us what we want.

Chris's love song to the blogging world. I dig it.