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.

Space Curses and the FCC

My latest media addiction is watching Battlestar Galactica episodes on my iPod. I love it in a different way than the 9-year-old me enjoyed the cheesy original series. Something that they picked up from the original series is the use of the word "frack." What's funny about the new series is that they use it as a direct replacement for the word "fuck." Whereas Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch used to occasionally use it as a general expletive in the original series, with the new series, they're flagrantly using it as a placeholder for "fuck."

For instance, Sharon says "Motherfracker," and numerous other characters say things like "You're out of your fracking mind" and "Quit fracking around." In one scene, which I've replayed four or five times on my iPod, Helo says "frack" but it REALLY sounds like he's saying "fuck." The first time I heard it, I quickly rewound it to hear it again, to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

I'm no fan of censorship, so I'm the last guy who would make a fuss about this. But what if the PTC or one of these other citizen watchdog groups that hounds the FCC decides to say, essentially, that "frack" is close enough? I wonder what would happen.

The real question is whether someone could actually try to argue that "frack" is just a placeholder word.

The PTC website (no link due to a desire to not give them Google Juice, but try parentstv dot org) doesn't have a review for Battlestar Galactica, so I'm not sure what their stance on it might be. I suspect if they've seen the show, they're probably upset about it. After all, isn't it the meaning of the word that hurts people and not the actual word itself?

:-D

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.

The "Corrosive" Cluetrain?

I disagree intensely with this statement:

Doc and Dave and Chris Locke thought they were writing something that told marketers how empowered, networked individuals made their messages and methods obsolete, powerless. Instead, they merely furthered the aims of marketers by blurring the lines between the social and the commercial spheres. "Markets are conversations," is one of the most corrosive ideas ever popularly embraced, in my opinion.

The result is "corrosive" only because marketers aren't yet marketing correctly. Many of them translate "markets are conversations" as "I should throw several million ad banners on blog networks and hope the 'cool factor' rubs off on my brand." Many others translate it to mean "I should pay people to shill." It is going to take a LOT of work to get marketers back on the right path. Along the way, we're going to see a shitload of aborted attempts, embarrassing gaffes and worse.

One of the things I've learned in recent weeks is that a conversational media idea can quickly be derailed by overzealous marketing types. Many ad agencies are happy to let the idea go awry if it means they get paid a commission to sprinkle blogs with advertising fairy dust. I've found that the best way to keep the idea from being polluted by broadcast model thinking is to say, in no uncertain terms, "We are not interested in faking this on your behalf. It will hurt both of our reputations. We're not prepared to take this assignment on if you're uncommitted to real, meaningful conversation."

Sometimes it makes the client kill the project. Other times, it makes them take things a bit more seriously.