Leaves in the Gutter

The continuing conversation opportunity presented by blogs is threatened by the sheer amount of maintenance work it takes to keep the channels clear. I am, of course, talking about blog spam and what bloggers need to do in order to keep it at bay. First there's the notion of updating your blog CMS. Then there's the installation of plugins. Then there's cleaning up all the comment and trackback spam that the plugins and CMS don't catch. At times, especially if your blog is small, it almost seems like it's not worth the effort.

Remember that blogging owes a good deal of its success to the explosion of easy-to-use CMSes. If these are made tougher to use (constant updates that need to be installed on web servers), people will start to get pissed and they'll abandon blogging.

I'm not sure if we're yet ready for this discussion, but at some point folks are going to have to look at Google and Yahoo at not only the folks who created the problem, but the folks who continue to reinforce the status quo. (This is more the case for Google than for Yahoo, for a number of reasons.)

Google's reliance on inbound links as a major factor in their relevance algorithm created the problem. I don't think too many comment spammers would keep doing what they're doing if there wasn't a significant Google Juice reward in it for them. Further, the economic incentive to build search engine relevance is driven solely by profit motive, which Google's AdSense program provides. In addition, Google provides a safe haven for many sploggers on Blogger.

I'm not saying we should immediately blame Google instead of blaming the comment spammers. But it would be nice to get an acknowledgement from Google that its system is indeed being exploited by spammers and that it needs to be fixed. It would also be nice to see them take some serious action against splogs (especially on Blogger) and comment spam by applying some of that wonderful thinking they're famous for and fixing the problem.

A good deal of Google's future business depends on the unbundling and fragmentation of media. If we move more toward mass media, the big content developers will succeed. If, however, we continue toward media fragmentation, Google is in a much better place, with the ability to roll up the relevant audiences via AdSense. It also stands to capture more market share with Blogger and through the platform of tools it's already building.

That said, if I were Google, I'd be doing what I could to make sure bloggers continue to enjoy blogging, podcasters still enjoy podcasting and that the communities that form around this content can continue to be healthy. Easy content creation and easy community maintenance are the keys to that. If I were Google, I would be attacking this blog spam problem with significantly greater resource commitment and I'd be thinking about how to tweak relevance and ranking algorithms in order to remove the incentive for spammers.

Even if you didn't want to touch algorithms, there are a number of other things Google could be doing. Easier reporting of splogs would be one thing. How about a "report this site" function within Google site results? How about a distributed network of part-time employees who can earn beer money for helping Google identify and eliminate spam? There are a ton of ideas. Sadly, they don't seem to be coming from the company best known for innovation and ideas.

How Long?

How long does a splog need to be "flagged" before Blogger gets around to actually doing something about it? There's a splog called "SEO Services" that has been republishing not only posts from my blog, but also columns of mine from Mediapost in their entirety. And I flagged them months ago. Given that they rip off pretty much every writer in the interactive marketing space, I suspect many others have, as well.

It's not without irony that the company that's hosting the blog (and thus, the copyright infringement) is the same company indexing them highly in search results AND paying them for ad clicks.

Sprint Sucks

Can somebody tell me why one would pay for insurance on a phone as part of their regular monthly mobile plan if putting a claim in involved mailing the phone to a service center and waiting weeks, rather than just having the store where you bought it handle the problem? My Treo won't even complete voice calls anymore. As soon as the signal strength drops below four bars, it drops the call. I can't even use it to text half the time. It "Can't Communicate with Network."

So I took it to the Sprint Store. No dice. They want me to mail my phone to a service center and wait, with no loaner phone. I say screw 'em. They've lost a customer. Forever. The insurance deal was a scam and they knew it.

New Policy on Speaking

It used to be that if someone took the time to send a nice invitation to me to speak at a conference, I'd take them up on it. When I first started speaking publicly, I'd often do it at my own expense, picking up my own airfare and accommodations. After about a year and a half of doing that, I started asking conference directors to pick up travel costs and it was fine for a while. On a rare occasion, I'd actually get a fee from a conference for appearing, but that was the exception, not the rule. Since the interactive marketing biz has picked up again, there seems to be a breed of fly-by-night conference companies that don't specialize in dealing with our industry. They simply latch on to whatever's hot in a particular industry and start organizing a conference around it, hoping to attract sponsors and attendees along the way. Doesn't matter the industry or the area of expertise.

Let's just say I feel burned by a couple of these companies, and I'm starting to get tired of people asking me to fly across the country on my own dime so that I can get "more exposure and business" for myself. If you know me, you know that lack of exposure really isn't my problem. I tend to participate in these conferences to do something positive for the industry and to share some ideas with other people in the interactive and marketing industries.

It's telling when a conference company you've never heard of before asks you to speak without a fee and pushes back on covering the cost of your travel. Steer clear. In the future, if I haven't heard of the conference or the company putting it on, the new policy is that they'll have to pay me a fee and cover my travel costs. Nothing extravagent. Just enough to make sure they're serious and they won't end up canceling the show or doing a half-ass job.

Of course, if it's an established show like Ad Tech, the iMedia Summits or any of Mediapost's shows, I'm in without reservation. These conferences have proven track records, reputable companies behind them and one knows what to expect.