that canadian girl

Category: Web & Technology

  • Five Years of Blogging: Celebrating with some giveaways

    In April, That Canadian Girl celebrated 5 years of bloggy goodness and, yet again, I nearly missed its birthday. Oops!

    In reality I’ve been blogging for nearly 10 years – a friend kindly hosted my first diary-style site back in 1999 or 2000. The Wayback Machine can see a site on thatcanadiangirl.co.uk from 2002, which is when the previous iteration of this blog was born.

    This makes me feel really old. In Internet terms, that’s an eternity. I mean… ten years ago, Geocities was still popular, Google was moving into its first office, the Melissa worm was working its magic on mail servers across the world, and everyone was still starry-eyed about the Information Superhighway.

    Oooff… sorry about that flashback, it was like being the old drunk guy from the Fast Show for a minute.

    As my memory is absolutely hopeless, I usually consider my blog’s current archive – which goes back to April 2004 – to be the beginning of Time As We Know It.

    Now for the giveaways: To celebrate this milestone birthday, I’m giving away goodies to my readership which match the topics I’ve written about over the years; geeky, funky, practical, food-related and artsy goodies.

    To take part, all you need to do is leave a comment and tell me which ones interest you: On Sunday, 10th May, Jack & Rose will pick out winners for each of the prizes!

    geeky

    A ticket to FUEL conference FOWA Tour, an excellent Carsonified event about online marketing and social media, held in London on June 23rd. Ryan kindly offered me a ticket for one of my readers, so entrepreneurs, marketers, this one is for you.

    Anyone can win this ticket, as long as you’re able to make your way to London for the event.

    [Update: As there have been some changes to the Carsonified calendar and FUEL has been cancelled, you will win a ticket to the FOWA Tour in a city of your choice: Cambridge, Leeds, Bristol or Edinburgh.]

    funky

    I love unusual art and beautifully decorate home offices. Stuart from Spin Collective is giving away three sets (up to a value of £30 each) of the superb wall stickers. They’re jaw-droppingly cool and I’m having to resist very hard the urge to keep them all for myself!

    Spin Collective will ship anywhere, so everyone is welcome to take part. If you win, you’ll get to choose from the website and they’ll be shipped to you directly.

    practical

    To satisfy the productivity nerd in me, I had to include a tool I’ve been using for a couple of years that changed the way I use my phone. James from SpinVox is giving away two SpinVox voicemail-to-text accounts.

    SV is available in the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany & Spain, so if you live in any of those countries and uhh have a mobile phone, go for it!

    foodie

    I’m a total foodie, so I thought it was only fair to include something food-related to the list. Of course, I’m not going to ship you a bowl of my awesome homemade chilli as it’d get messy and Royal Mail would give me funny looks (…yet again)

    Niall Harbison from Look & Taste (previously ifoods.tv, and yes he’s the guy who braved Dragons’ Den) is offering a few things:

    First, if you’re an iPhone user, there are 10 licenses for Twecipe (£2.39) and another 10 for Look & Taste’s own video recipes app.

    Secondly, Niall has agreed to create a pro video of a recipe of my readers’ choosing. Want to immortalise your nan’s best pudding or that wild recipe you made up the other day? You’ll get a mention, and Niall will let his viewers know where the recipe comes from.

    The apps are (obviously) for iPhone & iPod Touch owners, and the recipe video is open to everyone.

    artsy

    I love beautiful things, making cards & handmade gifts. I’m pretty much rubbish at it and my projects look like something out of a preschool classroom, but I still love it.

    Blurb.com have offered a £35 voucher for a Blurb book, so it’s a chance to create your own full-colour, beautifully professional-looking bound book. Whether it’s to remember your kids’ summer holiday or a special event, it’ll be unique!

    Blurb ships to lots of countries, have a look at the list if in doubt. Promise you’ll show me your finished product 🙂

    So what are you waiting for? All these awesome goodies are just one comment away!

  • Events Galore: SMCLondon & Cambridge Geek Nights

    Since organising the first SocialMediaCamp London in October, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I don’t have the event planning bug. No no no, I don’t need to spend time organising events. Must focus on running my new business. Right?

    Well… it’s not working, I’m finding myself daydreaming about hearing more people’s views on the weird and wonderful industry we spend our days (and nights, and weekends) immersed in. And somehow, I’ve found myself leading two upcoming events:

    First, a second SocialMediaCamp London, which we’ll be holding at the same gorgeous Wallacespace St-Pancras venue as last time on 25-26th April. The first round of tickets went out on Thursday morning, disappearing in all of 9 minutes. I feel like a mother who has to choose between her children, being contacted left, right and centre by people who didn’t manage to get a ticket but want in! Thankfully, there’s another round of tickets on Monday. I simply can’t wait for our two-day event, as last time, not only were presentations great, but the people I met were also brilliant. The challenge is to survive two days!

    The second event is only just beginning to take shape; Cambridge Geek Nights. There have been Geek Nights in Oxford for some years now, and replicating the evening gathering concept here in Cambridge seems to have some potential. No venue or date has been decided yet, but it will hopefully become an opportunity for geeks, entrepreneurs and freelancers to get together to exchange ideas, meet potential new connections and people to work with. I view it as an opportunity to get together, without suits or sales pitches. Plus it involves drinking beer. Geeks are always up for beer.

    In fact, if you’re interested in CGN, leave a comment or @vero me and I’ll ensure we keep you updated when we pick a date for the first one!

    I suppose it’s a bug I can’t fight – I love getting people together, whether it’s for dinner parties or social events, so hopefully you’ll join me at either of the above. But for now, I need some sleep!

  • Thmbnls: The Government is Screwing with Your Money (Again)

    thmbnls

    I had to resist the urge to use the first post name that came to mind for this one, or it simply would have been “What the f*ck is the government thinking?” But then that would have been too vague, and probably applies to at least two baker’s dozens of its recent policies.

    The reason for my gobsmackedness on this sunny Friday is the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ latest campaign to promote condom use amongst the youth.

    I’ve seen my fair share of poor decisions in choosing agencies – whether it be PR, web development, online marketing or otherwise – but how on Dog’s green Earth they are managing to spend a budget of £4.6 million of our hard-earned near-valueless-now pounds on this campaign yet fail so miserably?

    Some KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for the data nerds in the house:

    • The campaign is composed of 22 episodes, of which 8 plus a trailer have been released at this point, so we’re roughly a third through the series
    • Their MySpace page has 555 friends at the time of writing, many of which appear to be the usual spammers & none of which appear to have left genuine comments
    • Their Facebook fan page has 38 fans, which ain’t an awful lot (Prior to The Register’s coverage, it had 15 friends which, as someone rightly pointed out, is less than Hitler has on FB)
    • Prior to The Register’s article, “Thmbnls had been mentioned on Twitter, but only 14 times and half of those were notifications about the launch”
    • The Reg asked for some download stats on the video, but was told “that they would look into it, but that it was unlikely such figures would be available” so let’s not mention the fact that there’s Google Analytics on every part of the site, mmkay?
    • I wonder if they even do enough tracking to see this pop into their reporting on Monday morning… If so, sorry to be pissing in your cornflakes but the hard truth needs to be heard sometimes.

    On first glance, the quality of the video is reasonably professional – maybe too polished for its purpose? The characters are a bit tacky, but not half as cringing as I’d expected. So I suppose they get a B+ for effort on video production.

    Where they fail with an F- is on the targetting, the distribution methods, the themes, the social media approach and well… just about everything else. I get the impression that the agency brought on board writes a great proposal document, thorough and detailed, the kind government suits really like to read. But they can’t tell their elbow from their ass when it comes to actually interacting with young people. Looking at the fake MySpace page, it’s just highly condescending to think that teenagers won’t mind being friends with a fake identity that’s trying to sneak a condom in their backpocket.

    Oh and don’t get me started on the targetting & distribution channels. I work with two clients in mobile, I look at mobile stats on a daily basis, and I’m afraid the majority of phones used to browse the mobile web aren’t most suited for video distribution just yet. Sure it’s free to download the clips thanks to downloads being sender-paid rather than recipient-paid, but I’m not sure a large number of teens even have the appropriate phones to watch the 1-minute clips. And I really do hope they’ve got something better to do at 7pm on a Friday night.

    There is also seemingly no effort to interact with the young people; Facebook & MySpace were used to dump video files on and left there. The MySpace account, for example, has not been logged in to for a week now. They seem to have forgotten that at the centre of any social media strategy, it’s critical to socialise with the community & be genuine, transparent and human.

    When looking for a social media agency, it’s better to look for someone who WAS that tall when they started using social media, not someone who condescendingly says YOU were that tall when they started. The fact that an agency distributed educational CD-roms to career advisers in schools back in the 80’s does not make them the right person to run a campaign today. I certainly don’t want to downplay experience, but there’s a fine balance between being connected to the right social groups and having professional experience.

    I simply wonder at what point the agencies involved in the PR, production & distribution of the campaign will look back and say “You know what, Nancy? I think we may have misjudged our audience!” After SXSW last year, one of my key takeaways after attending one of the teen panels was “that these kids are clever and pretty discerning, we need to give them a whole lot more credit than we (or I) currently do!” That penny hasn’t yet dropped for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, clearly!

    What does this leave us with? Average content, a mediocre campaign and a Dog-awful hole in our pocket.

  • Heading to Texas next week for SXSWi

    I get the impression that a very large British contingent is heading to Austin, Texas for SXSW this year, based on the few conversations I’ve seen floating around Twitter. I’ll be amongst the masses, heading to my favourite event of the year.

    sxsw-logoSouth by Southwest Interactive is “Spring Break for Geeks”, with around 7,500 attendees; developers, designers, marketing people, social media folks like me, hippy dippy creatives… All there to learn, exchange ideas and have a lot of fun in the meantime. Not sure it’s much of a break, considering how much there is to do in only a few days.

    I’ll be blogging whenever I can and twittering as usual, so if you’re attending, drop me a line to say hi. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to meet face to face at the conference center, or over a drink at one of the many evening events.

    Texas, this time don’t disappoint me, I don’t want any snow. I want 25 degrees Celcius, sunny weather, a light breeze, oh and a cocktail umbrella on my drink too please!

  • Astroturfing & Disclosure: Where Do You Draw the Line?

    As more businesses start peppering their marketing plans with social media projects, activities that previously were reserved for the geeky early adopters are now coming under scrutiny when used for commercial endeavours.

    astroturf-belkinWith all this new media growth, there’s no clear rule book yet. We’re writing it as we go, and just like the Bible, there are an awful lot of different interpretations of the same guidelines.

    Certain aspects of blogging and online brand identity are seeing their limits pushed by certain brands lately…

    Belkin, the computer peripherals manufacturer, was caught red-handed recently when The Daily Background Blog uncovered that a Belkin employee used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and similar services to solicit paid reviews. An anonymous tip-off from a Belkin staff member seemed to confirm this wasn’t a one-off either.

    Belkin apologised publicly for the actions of its employee, but “Is that enough?” asks The Responsible Marketing Blog.

    The above is a clear case of astroturfing, but rarely is the line quite so clearly drawn into the fake plastic grass.

    Before I go any further, let me pause and let Wikipedia explain the concept of Astroturfing:

    Astroturfing is a word in American English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

    Back when I worked for Active Hotels, we prided ourselves in having a hotel review system that was much more fool proof than average; only guests that had stayed at the hotel, paid for their stay & been confirmed by the hotel would be able to leave a review. The site was engineered to discourage astroturfing on the part of overzealous hotel managers – while it didn’t stop them, each attempt would cost them a commission, which in most cases was enough of a deterrent. Trip Advisor couldn’t exactly say the same of their reviews. Ethically, again the line is fairly clear; you haven’t stayed, you shouldn’t make up a review about a hotel. Still with me?

    Via Simon Collister, I then I found a blurry line, one written by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (who often strike me as not “getting” the online world at all):

    “[CIPR] Members’ use of social media must be transparent, and they must make extra effort to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. … In this regard, members should be aware that ‘ghosting’ a blog is illegal”

    Woah, hold your horses there, Georgie! Surely, their definition of a ghost blog is different to mine then? A ghost blogger, in my experience, writes on behalf of the CEO, politician or other high-profile person, who may have called the PR team from across the country to give an outline of what they wants to say, letting them find the exact words.

    Marketing teams are used to committee-written press releases, so blog entries often get the same treatment. Circulating between the marketing team, the CEO and the legal time a few times in a three-way table tennis match, the watered-down, reviewed entry gets posted. It may not be the most genuine method of writing, but it certainly isn’t something I’d consider illegal.

    I suspect that what they refer to as ghost blogging is in fact the above-described astroturfing, which deserves a long stay on the naughty step and a spank to the bottom (not in a good way!)

    How does this scenario (not the bottom spanking, the ghost writing for the CEO one), and every other one in between, fit in alongside all other transparency issues encountered online?

    It’s not the first time I bring up my issues with non-disclosure & dodgy marketing practices, but as social media becomes a more mainstream interest for marketing bods of all walks of life, I truly hope that we’ll all take a few moments to think about the opportunities available to us. If organisations spent as much on building positive branding and community relations with their audiences as they do on being snake oil salesmen equipped with smoke and mirrors, the relationships could have a far longer shelf life.

  • Five tips to maintain your aluminium MacBook Pro

    Getting a new Mac is a great experience; Apple have worked for many years to make the unboxing experience memorable and special. People talk about it, document it in photos or in video. But what happens when you’ve had it for a few weeks, months or years? It gets scratched, damaged or dirty. That “yummy new shiny machine” feeling disappears.

    So why bother caring for your aluminium MacBook Pro? If you want to sell it after a year or two to upgrade to a newer model, having a clean and scratch-free laptop allows you to sell it for a bit more (money you can then put towards your new model!) Meanwhile, if you choose to keep it, you can show up to a meeting with a beautiful and fresh-looking computer.

    These top tips to keep your Mac from showing age are guaranteed to work an awful lot better than anti-ageing creams!

    1. Protect the case

    macbookpro_with_stickersWhichever way you do it, protecting your metal case from scuffs and damage is a great way to keep it from looking rough in the future.

    I originally covered mine in stickers to differentiate it from all the other MacBook Pros in the office, using stickers I was given from Digg, Lolcode, Soma FM, Laughing Squid and many more.

    Do the same to show some personality or, if you want to be more graceful, you can use one of the many amazing skins now available online:

    Alternatively, at least be sensible enough to use a laptop sleeve like the Black LaRobe sleeve to keep it protected when you’re carrying it around.

    2. Fix your mistakes

    Put tons of stickers on your aluminium MacBook Pro case and changed your mind about them?

    In my case, I had to hand the laptop back at work. Everyone sniggered it would look like hell after I destickered it. But fear not, you can very easily remove stickers from the aluminium laptop case with a small dose of WD-40 and a bit of patience.

    First, peel off the vinyl stickers that come off in a single piece; they’re the ones that feel rubbery and shiny. Then peel off what you can of the top layer of the paper stickers. These will leave a white paper layer or at least some sticky glue on the laptop. That’s when you get the WD-40 out; close the laptop lid first, spray WD-40 lightly on a white kitchen roll. Rub it in gently onto the paper or sticker glue area and let it “soak” slightly. Once the WD-40 works its magic, it should be very easy to rub off the sticker glue off. Buff the laptop cover gently with a soft cloth when you’re done to bring it back to its original shine!

    [If you’re worried that you might do damage, start with a small area of the laptop on the underside of it to check that it won’t stain or discolour it. This tip worked wonders for me, but comes with no guarantee. If you’ve done weird stuff to your laptop beforehand, don’t hold me responsible!]

    3. Take care of your screen

    Aside from the obvious care tips like not stabbing your screen with pens and dirty fingers, the best way to keep your screen, glossy or matte, in good condition is to give it a light clean every so often.

    As much as possible, I try to use the cloth that came with my latest pair of glasses and warm breath, but to remove oily marks, the best product (and afaik only one endorsed by Apple) is the iKlear screen cleaning spray.

    Follow the instructions and be gentle. You need to stare at that screen for days on end, so best take care of it!

    4. Don’t squeeze me too tight

    I’ve recently noticed a rising number of people who treat their laptops like they’re made out of steel armour plating. It’s still a fairly fragile construction, even the fancy latest unibody machines, so throwing it into a backpack or piling books on top of it can quite easily damage the screen!

    5. Get AppleCare

    This one is a question of personal preference, but ever since I’ve started buying Macs for myself, I’ve insisted on having AppleCare – Apple’s own protection plan, which covers you for much of the likely problems

    It doesn’t replace being careful (eg. dropping your laptop or spilling beer into it won’t get it replaced) but will cover you for most hardware issues. As far as I’m concerned, if your computer ever leaves your desk, it’s worth having insurance on it.

    Just be smart!

    If you want to have a throw-into-a-bag-and-go laptop, get an ASUS Eee PC or similar netbook, Hackintosh it if you must. Or use the tips above to keep your aluminium MacBook Pro in the best condition possible to resell later!

  • Twestival: Charity, Water and Music

    Tonight, in over 170 cities across the world, people are getting together for an evening of fun and to raise money for charity:water. After a first successful event in London back in September 2008, brave organiser and fellow Canadian gal Amanda Rose decided to take on the world. Rather than a single event in a single city, over 170 Twestivals have cropped up in cities worldwide, from Vienna to Sydney and Doha to Rio de Janeiro, like mushrooms after the rain!

    twestival-logoBut who are all these volunteer organisers and attendees?! They’re all active Twitter users.

    We’re talking about hundreds of self-organised volunteers who found a venue, sourced musicians, announced and promoted the event. Having organised the first SocialMediaCamp London, with a second one in the works, I’m amazed at the communal effort put towards this event which is expected to raise over $1 million USD for charity:water.

    One of the aspects I love most is the contributions from artists; Over 160 tracks donated by artists have been uploaded to Twestival.fm for people to download under a ‘pay what you want’ scheme reminiscent of Radiohead’s In Rainbows album.

    British singer-songwriter Imogen Heap (who I could listen to for days on end!) chose to donate an unfinished song, “The Song That Never Was”, for artists to remix and edit in their own way. It’s taking Creative Commons to a new level, and I simply can’t wait to see what creative minds make of it.

    Once considered to be a bizarre service used only by geeks, Twitter is now not only a mainstream tool, but it’s a communication tool that is underpinning powerful social events. Might it be worth considering signing up for it now?

  • Arriving Smarter: More Than 15 Ways to Get Busy During Dead Time

    london_underground
    Most of us spend at least an hour a day travelling; commuting to work by car, train, bus or flying somewhere for business. It’s time that’s often spent looking out of the window, texting mates or eyeing the cute guy/girl sitting across from you on the train. (Or if you’re travelling to London, wondering whether the leaves on the track are going to delay the train again…)

    It’s an hour or more that you should recuperate and use for your own benefits so here are a few suggestions for arriving smarter. [Credit to Christopher S. Penn for the “Arrive Smarter” theme & Tarek for pointing me to it originally.]

    Listen to an audio or video podcast

    Podcasts vary in quality, style, length and topics, so whatever you want to listen to, you should be able to find it. I tend to opt for a more focused podcast on the journey in; it wakes up the brain, gives some interesting ideas and motivation for the day. On the way home, I prefer the freestyle and slightly silly podcasts, which are sometimes informative, but always lighthearted.

    • TEDTalks video podcasts: TED offers some great food for thoughts from some fascinating people all over the world. Pick a topic you feel has little to do with your day job or industry and just listen. Some notable speakers for me have been Jill Bolte Taylor, Ze Frank and a number of people who spoke about creativity, imagination & education. [TEDTalks iTunes link]
    • BBC Radio 4 World of Business podcast
    • Heidi Miller’s Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter: Brits tend to be much too self-deprecating and rubbish at self-promotion, so this one’s for you, my lovely limeys! Heidi’s podcasts cover a range of topics relating to promoting your business, yourself, and smart networking. [DSSP iTunes link]
    • Look for audio readings of Cory Doctorow‘s books, it’s always good to listen to.
    • Poke around the Podcasts section in the iTunes store and let me know what discoveries you make!

    Tip: If you’re an iPhone/iPod user, set it to automatically sync a few “most recent unplayed” podcasts through the options in the “Podcasts” tab in iTunes. That way, you’ll always have fresh stuff to listen to even if you haven’t had the time to pick podcasts manually before travelling.

    Pick a book that will help you towards your goals this year

    If you’ve picked a themeword for 2009, to help you drive your year forward, browse the web for a list of a few books, ebooks or research papers that will get you closer to your objectives. Or just pick a book to make you think, laugh or cry!

    Here are some of mine, to accompany my themeword “Impact” for 2009.

    • Tara Hunt‘s The Whuffie Factor, which will be published soon is on my must-read list
    • Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom is half holiday fiction, half social critique. I’ve already read it but definitely recommend it.
    • Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational is proving to be a good read on why and how we take certain actions, and how we may think we’re rational, we’re in fact predictably working on emotions or subconscious cues.
    • If you’re a productivity buff, you’ll know this guy, but if you’re new to it, you might enjoy Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week. Or Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less (which will be available soon in the UK)
    • Sitting on my bookshelf for far too long is Charlene Li’s Groundswell is much overdue to be read.

    Keep offline reading material handy on your computer

    If you’re the type who uses a laptop on the commute in, you may not always have the luxury of an Internet connection so when you find interesting PDF ebooks, stick them in a “To read” folder on your desktop to dig into when you’ve next got some spare time.

    Alternatively, if you’re into that dead tree printing stuff,  carry a hard copy if you really must, but use the reverse side of paper you used before, or recycle the paper later by either giving it to someone else you feel would benefit or by chucking it in the recycling bin.

    A few great ebooks:

    • Leo Babauta from Zen Habits (same guy as above) recently published an ebook called Thriving on Less, which is rather appropriate in this year where much of our usual habits need to be re-examined to avoid excessive spending and keep us afloat through tough times.
    • 37 Signals’ Getting Real: While I don’t really go for the 37S Koolaid, I must admit it contains some great tips for working with small teams and producing quality apps.
    • Seth Godin’s Flipping the Funnel may be nearly 3 years old but it remains very relevant. Seth has created a number of ebooks over the years, so why not browse his site and download a few?
    • Chris Brogan wrote Using the Social Web to Find Work is highly relevant in this era of job uncertainty. A worthwhile read.
    • Finally, not so much an eBook but rather a Slideshare presentation you can download: Chrystie Corns, Social Marketing Manager at Where.com created a cracking presentation giving insight into what it’s like to tweet, blog and use social networks for a living.

    Make a conscious effort to relax

    Not interested in any of the above and prefer to snooze or stare out the window on your way into work? That’s fine, in fact, it’s great! Your brain needs that restful time. But let’s do a deal, if you’re going to go for zen, do it well.

    In other words, don’t let the train’s delay, the elbow in the ribs, the loud guy on his phone or the snow wrecking havoc piss you off. Take a deep breath and admire the glint of the sun on the buildings. Smile at strangers. Just enjoy the mental time off.

    [Image: Birdbath’s Piccadilly Filly (or 50 Things you never knew about London Underground) on Flickr, Creative Commons license]

  • RSS Feeds: Full Fat or Summaries?

    I love RSS and I hate RSS.

    It’s both one of the most useful tools I’ve ever used; it allows me to catch up with my favourite blogs, keep up with seldom-blogging friends and find inspiration for my own posts.

    google_reader-1It’s also the bane of my life; I turn away for a day or two and Google Reader sits there, laughing at me with its smug “1000+” in the toolbar, reminding me just how far behind I’ve fallen on my reading.

    Either way, it’s a way of consuming media that seems to have become routine so this morning, when I came to the realisation that I had just unsubscribed from my last summary-only RSS feed, I wondered if I was the only one to take such drastic action against those frustrating feeds, and wanted to understand why anyone would choose to publish them.

    I wrote about this topic 2 years ago with little conclusion so I thought I’d investigate informally whether things have changed by asking my Twitter followers.

    So what are their issues with the short summaries?

    The results were enlightening but roughly reflected what I expected; Out of 15 responses, 12 people expressed a strong preference for full feeds, to the extent where summary feeds were either not subscribed to or unsubscribed from.

    • Don’t want to click
    • Don’t want to be forced through to a site to read something
    • Full feeds get more readers and engagement
    • When using Google Reader on iPhone, RSS summaries are annoying. Clicking through is a waste of time
    • I never subscribe to anyone with summary-only feeds, why encourage them?
    • “Publications” opt for summaries to drive traffic and ad revenue
    • Summary on mobile sucks, don’t subscribe and probably forget to visit again
    • Would rather see a full feed with ads, than a summary feed

    One person seemed to stand up for the summary feed, saying that short post feeds are fine when reading basic news story while travelling. So that’s one for the summary feeds, but with the caveat that the summary must really summarise the story rather than simply be the first run-on sentence of a post where the author might not get to the point immediately.

    The publishers’ point of view

    Two publishers were kind enough to explain their side of the story; in both cases, it was a question of protecting their content against sploggers who previously stole their feeds on a regular basis. While summaries don’t fully solve the problem, it makes it more difficult for a spammer to copy their content.

    No one piped up with regards to summary feeds as a method to gain more traffic to the site, and more ad impressions as a result. Either that isn’t the motivation of most summary-feed publishers, or they’re aware that it isn’t a popular view and avoided responding to my question.

    Finding a solution

    Finding a solution to these publishers’ problem is tricky; it’s difficult to identify who is subscribed to your RSS feed and what they’re using it for. Feedburner makes a good effort of reporting “uncommon uses” of your feed, but in my experience it has picked up the legitimate uses of my feed (where I’ve used it on another site I own) but missed most instances of splogs “borrowing” my content.

    So if the flow can’t be stemmed, we need to make the flow smarter:

    • Add an automatic footer to a post in the RSS feed linking back to your site: Joost de Valk created a WordPress RSS footer plugin which takes care of the hard work for you.
    • Cross-link generously when writing your posts: Don’t go overboard and write purely for the purpose of linking back to your older content, as it’ll show in the quality of your posts. But when you do post, think of the relevant and useful content you could refer to, so that if your post is on someone else’s blog, there is still a reference to yours. This can be done within the content or as “related items” at the end of your post. Yes, some services or plugins can create related items automatically, but I don’t endorse those as I find the relevance to often be too poor. Take 5 minutes and do it manually!

    These benefit you from an SEO point of view as well, so why not put them into action? Remember, however, that creating value on your site and building your personal brand so that people recognise you as YOU rather than a generic blog-post churner is the best way to create a loyal readership and make the sploggers’ efforts (almost) pointless.

  • SocialMediaCamp London 09: Rallying the troops!

    smc_small

    Earlier this week, I announced that the planning for the second SocialMediaCamp London was beginning to take shape.

    In October 2008, 100 geeks, creatives and social media’ites gathered for the first SMCLondon, which was both a success and a hell of a lot of fun. So we’re doing it again in April, and we need you!

    Find out more about what’s happening on the SocialMediaCamp blog, but if you want to get involved, here are some of the responsibilities to be assigned; Sponsor wrangler, Backchannel boss, Venue scout, T-Shirts & Stickers master, Food czar, Badges & signs design artist, Evening drinks & Saturday night happenings rockstar, Video streaming guru, Event cheerleader & promoter, etc…

    If you want to help out, email me on vero@thatcanadiangirl.co.uk with a note on what you’d like to do, and remember that all help, whether beforehand or on the day, is welcome! I’ll be posting the sponsorship information soon, so if you think your boss (or you, if you’re the boss!) want to contribute a bit, get in touch and I’ll send you the sponsorship pack.

    Last time, tickets went like hotcakes and all hundred were gone in under 3 hours, so if you want to attend, be sure to sign up to the newsletter (in the left sidebar) so you can be first to find out when the tickets will be released!