Hitting a barren run in blogging

I apologise for the lack of updates this week, its been a little crazy with my summer term’s presentation and internship and catching up with friends… Quite honestly I haven’t touched my WOW in a week and haven’t walked my do for 4 days (Just did and he’s happily lying beside me keeping my feet warm)

I’ve been feeling way too tired, maybe I’m burning out but i would like to blog more about myself! ENOUGH OF MYSELF!!

Jon’s post on Don’t fret over the blogging dip has been nothing but a great reassuarnce and comfort for me. I was afraid for most of the reasons he mentioned on beating myself down for not bloggng but i guess i still contributed over the past week with del.lic.ious feeds and sharing stuff off my Googl Reader.

So while the buzz in the Tech industry has been about the iPhone launch, its applications store and its flaws (See, i ain’t outta touch), and how its gonna increase the usage of mobile net, i guess for us social media hardcores, the better news of the week is this article here, which talks about C-level CEO’s depending on the web more than traditional print. and some pretty good stats on some of them using social media.

So if the top is willing to change, its gonna be a lot easier to initiate change at the bottom, i hope to hell Asia is gonna follow this trend.

And i haven’t really hit a barren spell, i’m gonna be checking out Google’s Livley and see if its realy lives up to its hype.

Can Friendfeed kill off a blog?

Today’s entry is gonna be a short one, after watching supernatural with Vivian for about 2 hours, I’m pretty zonked out right now. Oh, just to let all readers know, I’m canning Monday “I’ts a wrap”. Why? Because its the time of the week where i get my lowest stats and secondly, my stats are kindda slipping… Ah well, the cost of not entertaining you all enough.

Anyways, I’ve been fiddling with friendfeed a lot and posing some topics here and there. The responses have been pretty decent and i’m loving the community in the Social Media room. However, one thing strkies me hard. Could Friendfeed actually kill off the blog you’re doing.

So take for example this post which I’m putting up, the organic discussions (Daryl, I’m borrowing this term from u) being discussed on such a post would usually be through the comments, sometimes a tweet. However, put it on friendfeed now and the entire conversation moves to friendfeed.

I’m mean sure, the stats would increase with a new group of people from friendfeed coming to see your blog, while stats are good, what I’m wondering is where the conversations are heading to? That is the main point of doing up your blog right? (Who cares about the advertisers who want your stats… right…)

My question now is

What’s gonna happen to the blog?

Are our blogs just used for posting up ideas and allowing the conversations to slip to Friendfeed? Or are the great ideas generated from the conversations still gonna be on the blog…

I don’t know, I’m still the new kid on the block with few followers, so those with mass followers, whats the response to your blog posts been like for u? In fact, any1 know of any company trying to monetize friendfeed yet? Would love to hear your thoughts (either here or friendfeed)

Empowering your brand through Web 2.0

I was attending the “Blogger Universe” today at AdTech and the topics discussed were similar to what I did this summer in social media class. There were a few notable speakers but I didn’t think too much of it. In all honesty, it seemed like the whole gig was a set up for a nuffnag ad….

It was the basic idea of 2 things:

1) Corporations using blogs to reach out to their consumers and not remain at web 1.0 with a static flash

2) How to empower your brand through a blog

While a noteworthy point from the panal was the lack of Asian companies using blogs to do an outreach to their consumers, i felt the empowering of brands through a blog was skimpish and not backed up with any examples…

Sure, empowering your brand through the bloggers isn’t simply placing a banner ad in their blog post. It’s about getting the right fit for your product, like Priscilla mentions here in Quality versus Quantity.

So what’re some examples then which were lacking in the discussion? Not just for blogs, but using web2.0 to empower your brand?

Daryl provides a great example with the HP campaign here and one of my favs today is the mashup youtube video between David Usher’s new single “Kill the lights” and one of the movies I can;t wait to watch, Batman, the Dark Knight. (What a wicked kick ass video)

What’s my point with these 2 examples? That if consumers are talking about your brand without you pushing it in their face, then leveraging on that, you can empower you brand in positive ways like those shown above.

Given the recent studies shown here about the influence of the internet, brands need to control. (Yes, same old argument the tadionlaist put up when thinking of using web 2.0. Like i said yesterday, the fear of falling due to ROI demands)

But ignoring it could be just as disastorous. Hey SMU, check this out. Universities need to take care of their online brand.

Since web 2.0 here to stay, leverage it, in a proper way. And the next damn discussin i sit in better show me some god examples and ROI to back it up… Geezzz… whats the point of sharing when we already knew all that…