Earlier today, Marshall Kirkpatrick posted some great advice at ReadWriteWeb: Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way. Here's a quick list:

• Wrong: Email the wrong email address
• Wrong: Phone Calls
• Wrong: Twitter, Especially DM
• Wrong: Facebook
• Wrong: IM

Instead:

A Great Way to Do It: By RSS
...
PR people, please send us the RSS feeds of your clients' blogs and news releases.

That applies for most blogs, not just ReadWriteWeb.

Matt Craven adds some perspective at The Blog Herald:

To this day - almost eighteen month after leaving the editor position here, we still get stories pitched to us at that email address - often on topics that aren’t in any way, shape, or form what we’re interested in blogging about. I never once was sent a RSS feed or an OPML file. And I can’t remember a single story that we ran based on an email pitch from a PR firm - the quality was extraordinarily poor.

(They probably ran stories based on direct pitches from small companies; those tend to be more targeted.)

Alas, some commenters don't get it. Perhaps they've never been on the receiving end of such a flood:

It should NOT matter WHAT tactics people use to pitch something to you.

You both need each other to survive - so stop patronizing others when you yourselves are no less imperfect.

Posted by: SearcH◆ EngineS WEB | April 18, 2008 8:52 AM

I sounds as if you want everyone else to do your information management. It's true everyone is overloaded with information these days and finds it hard to cope.

But you shouldn't ever take it out on the people who are contacting you.

Posted by: Haniff Din | April 18, 2008 9:29 AM

I'll give sarahintampa the last word:

Everyone, Please Breathe. Chill.

It’s just a suggestion people. Take it or leave it.

Just…doesn’t it make sense that when you’re telling a blogger about a new service/product that you would also encourage them to subscribe to the companies feed(s)?

Bloggers are rightly suspicious of mainstream media sites that add blogs. The mechanics are just a starting point: reverse chronological order, a stable permalink, archives by date, etc. Much more important is the culture or philosophy of blogging.

Unwritten rule #1: link to your source.

Blogs are part of a conversation. They are (in part) a reaction against the old media model of a professional news organization deciding what stories to cover, and what information to include in each story. In the world of blogs, anyone is welcome to add to the conversation -- as long as they link to their source. That link is both a "hat tip" to give credit to someone who had the story earlier and an invitation for readers to dig deeper on their own. It overthrows the notion that the writer (journalist, reporter, blogger) is the sole interpreter and packager of what's important.

Today's violation: Martin LaMonica at CNET News.com's "News Blog": Gold-plated support comes to Amazon Web Services

Looking to take on more demanding customers, Amazon Web Services on Thursday rolled out two paid-support plans that give customers access to its engineers to resolve glitches.

OK, that's interesting. How much does it cost? Where do I learn more?

---

Not from CNET, so let's look at a few real blogs:

Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm has the prices:

It’s offering two different service levels: One starting at $100 a month and the other, at $400.

Josh Catone of ReadWriteWeb covers a related announcement:

Amazon is also beefing up support options for free customers with the release of the new AWS Service Hearth Dashboard that monitors the status of all AWS services. Amazon says that during outages, users can expect to see updates from the team every 15-30 minutes until things are fixed. Status updates can be accessed via the page or by RSS.

Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, offers his perspective as a customer:

I’d still like to see a pay-per-incident model, personally, even with an extremely high price-tag for each incident. We rarely use support for AWS, but at the same time, we’re very big customers of theirs, so the monthly price is quite high. But if we really come up against a big problem, it’d be nice to know I could pay for support just that one time. I imagine most of their customers will like their Silver and Gold monthly packages, but for us, they’re just not quite the right fit. Do they work for you?

Each of these bloggers linked to Amazon's detail page or to today's post on Amazon's very useful Web Services blog (or both).

That's how to blog. Maybe CNET should take lessons.

Sphere announced today that they've been acquired by AOL:

We think it’s a huge advantage to become part of a suite of services that understands how Internet users access/ consume content, and how to intelligently monetize in tandem with that content. This is a win-win for our partners, AOL and Sphere.

Speaking of "monetize", here's some background from their about page.

The four of us (Martin Remy; Steve Nieker; Tony Conrad; and Toni Schneider) founded Sphere in 2005. We originally built a blog search engine. We decided that wasn't very interesting.

My translation: "we decided that it was very hard to make money from a blog search engine".

Even after Sphere changed focus, their site included a search box. Did anyone notice when it was removed? Archive.org's records stop at Aug. 1, 2007.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch covers some of the history:

When Sphere first launched as a blog search engine they were already late to the blog search game. Technorati and others had been around for some time already, and even Google Blog Search was nearly eight months old. Sphere had some nice features, but it was in a tough and competitive space.

But CEO Tony Conrad, a former venture capitalist, quickly adapted to the changing market and focused on delivering blog results relevant to content delivered by big news and content sites.

Om Malik of GigaOm adds a personal note.

Here are some numbers:

#		Blog		Alexa
1		Google Blog Search		--
2		Ask.com blog search		--
3		Technorati		254
4		Icerocket		37,503
5		Sphere		27,533
6		BlogPulse		30,827
7		Blogdigger		49,933

Gawker Media has just gotten rid of 3 blogs:

#				Blog		T Rank		Alexa		Primary Category
1				Wonkette		91		23,311		Liberal
2				Idolator		1,431		47,937		Music
3				Gridskipper		1,603		43,171		Travel

Silicon Alley Insider has more numbers and is one of many blogs that published Nick Denton's internal email:

• IDOLATOR is going to Buzznet, a music-focused web and social network. Buzznet recently acquired Idolator's chief rival, Stereogum, and received a big investment from Universal Music Group.

• GRIDSKIPPER isn't going far: it's being taken over by Curbed, the network founded by Lockhart Steele, in which Gawker Media is a shareholder.

• WONKETTE is being spun off to the managing editor, Ken Layne, former founder of one of the web's very first news sites, Tabloid.net. The title will become part of the Blogads network of political sites, which includes Daily Kos, among others.

As for the rest:

The dozen sites that remain represent some 97% or our 228m pageviews per month, and an even higher proportion of our growth and advertising revenue.

Here they are:

#				Blog		T Rank		Alexa		Primary Category
1				Gizmodo		4		1,058		Gadgets
2				Lifehacker		7		1,597		Productivity
3				Gawker		26		5,103		Media News
4				Kotaku		27		1,336		Games
5				Valleywag		34		4,666		Business Gossip
6				The Consumerist		35		5,974		Consumer
7				Deadspin		85		15,775		Sports
8				Jezebel		88		11,562		Celebrity Gossip
9				Jalopnik		159		8,766		Autos
10				Defamer		265		15,650		Celebrity Gossip
11		a		Fleshbot		952		5,213		(adult content)
12				io9		18,409		10,458		Science Fiction
		Legend
				Blogcosm profile of this blog
a				Adult content
				Link directly to the blog

When a mainstream news magazine selects top blogs, it seems reasonable to expect that the article would have good things to say about each. When I first read Time's intro, I thought the "nothing" bit was a mostly-harmless throwaway line:

From millions of blogs about nothing, we've selected the 25 best about something...

I posted numbers and categories, and wasn't paying too much attention to the text. In fact, I didn't bother to click through to every page. It annoys me to no end that most "old school" publications split articles across several pages just to increase page views and advertising dollars. What they don't seem to realize: that costs them readers. Like me. And like Aaron Schiff of 26econ.com:

Time Magazine Doesn't Get It

Nevermind the fact that the list is highly subjective and excludes many great blogs. The problem is that the 25 different blogs are spread out on 25 freakin pages, plus an intro page. That's 26 clicks to view a boring list of blogs, most of which everybody knows about already.

(In case that's too mild, Valleywag has a stronger language from Fark's Drew Curtis.)

---

Anyway, back to the list. Once I read some of the coverage around the blogosphere (e.g. from Blog Tipz), it became clear that Time used the article as an excuse to bash bloggers. Here's a rundown. (emphasis added in all cases)

(BTW, thanks to Susan for clicking through all 25 pages so I didn't have to.)

Lifehacker

Sometimes, life throws so many problems at you at once that you just want some quick and dirty solutions. That's what makes Lifehacker one of the few truly — gasp — useful blogs on the net.

Metafilter

While the typical blog is written by one person wearing sweatpants reclaimed from the hamper, Metafilter lets any user — regardless of what they're wearing — contribute links and brief commentary highlighting interesting stuff he or she finds on the web.

TreeHugger

think of it as the Wal-Mart of sustainability, if you can imagine Wal Mart being sustainable...

One word of warning: steel yourself for plenty of guest appearances on the blog from eco-stars like Bono. Try to think of it as a form of recycling.

Freakonomics

Why are so many blogs attached to mainstream newspapers so freakin' lame? Maybe because the blogs wouldn't have been written in the first place if some frazzled managing editor weren't demanding it because his boss told him to.

(I can't resist a paraphrase: "Why are my descriptions of supposedly top blogs so freakin' lame? Maybe because I wouldn't have written this piece in the first place...")

Radosh.net

The blogosphere is overloaded with folks that write about pretty much whatever pops into their head at the keyboard. What makes Radosh.net stand out is that the guy at the keyboard — Daniel Radosh — knows how to write.

(Speaking of knowing how to write, isn't it "folks who" not "folks that"?)

Boing Boing

But since the vast majority of blog traffic comes from people sitting in their cubicles looking for diversion, BoingBoing is the rare blog that delivers exactly what its customers want. The blog has only a handful of regular contributors, and sometimes it can read like a cult of personality—with some particularly annoying personalities.

TechCrunch

TechCrunch is the quintessential insider blog: people read it because they believe other people read it and don't want to be left behind.

---

Most Overrated Blogs:

Since McNichol is so negative on "top" blogs, I'm sure it's too much to expect thoughtful analysis here.

Slashdot

Reading Slashdot these days is like visiting the IT guy at work. He's infuriatingly smug and cares passionately about stuff you don't care about, and views your lack of interest as further confirmation of his intellectual superiority.

(Hmm; looks like projection to me. McNichol clearly feels intellectually superior to bloggers.)

Ars Technica

Verdict: too much technology. Hardly any art. And lose the fruity name.

That doesn't even make sense. Last word goes to Kevin Doyle of Teckh, from a comment on the Digital Inspiration blog:

Is there such a thing as too much technology for a technology blog? STUPID!

Hot off the press from AOL corporate: (emphasis added)

New York – April 10, 2008 – AOL today announced the launch of the AOL Technology Network, which includes Engadget, Switched, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), DownloadSquad, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD. This will be the second largest technology news and information publisher online.*

Publisher? It's just a made-up name for a bunch of blogs that AOL already owns, plus another site (Switched) that has some undetermined mix of content pulled from the others. Why bother? The answer is in the press release's footnote:

* comScore Media Metrix, February 2008

The AOL ad sales staff can now brag about their #2 comScore rank, and spare simple-minded ad buyers the trouble of understanding what they're actually buying.

Am I being too cynical?

“One of our top priorities at Platform-A is to make it easier for advertisers to leverage the power of digital media, and the AOL Technology Network helps us achieve this goal," said Lynda Clarizio, President, Platform-A. “Combining these great technology information sites into one network lets us offer marketers the ability to more easily buy across these sites and reach some of the savviest and most engaged consumers online.”

We report, you decide.

---

Oh, and Engadget gets a new look.

I couldn't find much about the history of Switched.com (e.g. not much on archive.org). David Kaplan of paidContent.org has this tidbit:

In fact, Switched was previously part of AOL News.

---

Here are some numbers. These sites are in:

#						Blog		T Rank		Alexa		Primary Category
1						Engadget		4		801		Gadgets
2						The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)		39		7,405		Apple
3						Download Squad		83		7,926		Web News
4						Engadget Mobile		538		10,905		Mobile
5						Engadget HD		1,138		19,592		HDTV
6						Switched		2,031		25,850		Gadgets
		Legend
				Blogcosm profile of this blog
				Link directly to the blog

The international blogs aren't mentioned in the press release, but are linked in the headers (except at DownloadSquad and TUAW):

#						Blog		T Rank		Alexa
1				-		Engadget Japanese		481		21,219
2				-		Engadget (Traditional Chinese)		8,703		20,901
3				-		Engadget Spanish		100,045		--
4				-		Engadget (Simplified Chinese)		--		32,222
		Legend
-				We don't track non-English blogs

Yesterday, Time published their "First Annual Blog Index":

From millions of blogs about nothing, we've selected the 25 best about something—from politics and global affairs to shopping and sports. And, yes, we've got a few about nothing, too

(Yes, they forgot the trailing period.)

Here's our look at the numbers.

#						Blog		T Rank		Alexa		Primary Category
1						The Huffington Post		4		1,780		Liberal
2						Lifehacker		7		1,569		Productivity
3						MetaFilter		245		15,109		Esoterica
4						TreeHugger		26		13,176		Green Lifestyle
5						PostSecret		18		15,110		Life
6						Beppe Grillo's Blog		15		9,572		Liberal
7						Engadget		4		801		Gadgets
8						Freakonomics Blog		1,966		--		Economics
9				-		GIGAZINE (Japanese)		31		3,789		Non-English
10						Ace of Spades HQ		1,798		114,284		Conservative
11						Radosh.net		45,918		595,589		Pop Culture
12						Gawker		26		5,140		Media News
13						The Daily Dish		58		22,203		Politics
14						Velveteen Rabbi		63,834		--		Religion
15						Boing Boing		6		4,192		Esoterica
16						TechCrunch		3		1,113		Web News
17						Web 2.Oh. . .really?		199,700		--		Web
18						The Sartorialist		79		40,211		Fashion & Clothing
19						Daily Kos		13		4,162		Liberal
20						The Consumerist		35		5,862		Consumer
21						indexed		878		133,082
22						Threat Level		59		--
23				?		The dullest blog in the world		47,546		--
24				x		Bob Reno's BadJocks.com		64,393		240,961
25				a		The Reverse Cowgirl		122,734		338,933		(adult content)
		Legend
				Blogcosm profile of this blog
a				Adult content
				Link directly to the blog
-				We don't track non-English blogs
?				Arguably not a blog (what do you think?)
x				Not a blog (at least not by our definition)

---

Or, by category:

Last Thursday, David Pogue covered a remarkable new camera:(emphasis added)

In pre-record mode, you half-press the shutter button when you’re awaiting an event that’s unpredictable: a breaching whale, a geyser’s eruption or a 5-year-old batter connecting with the ball. The camera silently, repeatedly records 60 shots a second, immediately discarding the old to make room for the new.

When you finally press the shutter button fully, the camera simply preserves the most recent shots, thus effectively photographing an event that, technically speaking, you missed.

Or, let the camera do the work:

Then there’s the motion detector. In this mode, you put the camera down on something steady, press the shutter button and back away. It sits there, waiting for hours if necessary, until it detects movement in the scene — at which point it auto-fires 60 burst shots.

The above is at full resolution. But wait, there's more:

Most stunning of all, this camera can film at outrageously high frame rates: 300, 600, or even 1,200 frames a second. The result is incredibly smooth, extremely slow motion, like something in an Imax nature movie. No still camera has ever offered anything like this feature.

Want to see the exact movement of a bird's wings? Endgadget grabbed some examples from Impress in Japan.

Casio's EXILIM PRO EX-F1 site has more info and sample videos.

Back to Pogue ... the camera may not live up to its remarkable potential:

Unfortunately, this highly unusual, almost experimental piece of equipment includes nearly as many downsides as breakthroughs.

Read the article for details.

Hat tip: michael parekh on IT.

Marketing guru Seth Godin made an interesting point earlier this week:

Every time I write a post, I have a dilemma.

Am I writing for you, the one who has read more than 2,000 of my previous posts over the last five years? The one who has bought (and read!) so many of my books and is all caught up on my history?

It matters, of course, because I can take shortcuts, it changes the perception of my tone of voice and I can skip a lot of the preliminaries.

Or am I writing for you, the first-timer, the person who found this post on Digg or Delicious? If it's you, then I should take my time, write a bit more, put some background links in, etc.

There's no easy answer.

The DEMO conference has long been part of the VC-backed startup scene:

DEMO is the premier launch venue for new products, technologies and companies. For more than 18 years, DEMO has established a reputation for identifying and presenting to an elite audience the products most likely to have a significant impact on the marketplace and market trends in the coming year. Each product is carefully screened and selected by DEMO's Executive Producer, Chris Shipley, one of the top trend spotters in the personal technology product industry. DEMO is held two times a year; one in February, and one in September.

We covered it last September: Which DEMO companies have blogs?

This year, the second annual TechCrunch50 conference is running at the same time (Sept. 8-10) as DEMO fall (Sept. 7-9). Chris Morrison of VentureBeat has some details.

But let's go straight to Chris Shipley's blog post at The Guidewire.

A year or so ago, TechCrunch set its sites on DEMO and has been lobbing missiles our way ever since. Why? Honestly, I don’t know.

Honestly? Jason Calacanis spelled it out quite clearly on April 30, 2007:

Mike and I started the TechCrunch40 conference in large part to fight the trend of DEMO-style conferences for sticking it to startup companies by making them pay $18.5k for six minutes on stage--SIX MINUTES!!! Over three thousand dollars a minute. I still can't get my head around that number.
...
Are these companies being forced to pay? No. However, I believe that the trend was moving to pay for play and I'm really excited that the trend is now swinging back to the entrepreneur. In fact nothing would please me more then being part of the trend that shutdown the concept of startups paying to present on stage. ....

This is nothing personal against the folks who run the other trade shows. I know the folks ... and I think they are very smart, nice people.

Back to Chris Shipley:

For us, it’s about the entrepreneur. He or she comes first.

Er, no. The $18,500 comes first. Sure, that's a drop in the bucket for a VC-backed startup. But it's serious money for a bootstrapped entrepreneur. The DEMO conference is an established and (probably) very profitable business. Why should a competitor step aside when they can be successful by shrinking the market:

We love investing in technologies and business models that are able to shrink existing markets. If your company can take $5 of revenue from a competitor for every $1 you earn – let's talk!

(That's Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital in 2006.)