The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell reviewed Chris Anderson’s most recent book, Free!, and it is an interesting read (with commentary across the web). Just like Anderson’s response on his own blog.

Welcome to the era of blogs, where reviews can be applauded, questioned, and picked apart not only by the masses (aka the readers), but also by the publishers and producers.

It used to be a straight forward thing, reviewing a product. Not anymore, because when anyone can publish a commentary on their own ground (aka the blog), it also means that reviewers suddenly find themselves being constantly reviewed. read more

The discussion around the Chris Anderson goof episode raises an interesting issue.

Is WordPress.com bad for the WordPress brand? read more

The New York Times has a piece on orphaned blogs, as in blogs started and then abandoned. It is an inane article bordering to sensational journalism, masking itself in NYT’s legacy. I’m sorry, but this is just stupid. Some quotes for your enjoyment.

Like Mrs. Nichols, many people start blogs with lofty aspirations — to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?

That’s referring to disappointed (self-proclaimed) soccer mom Mrs. Nichols, who had lofty dreams about $4,000 monthly revenue. And there’s more! read more

I’ve been watching the BloodCopy debacle for some time. BloodCopy is a new blog in the Gawker Media blog network, about vampired. Problem is, it is a big ad in itself, the whole blog is a HBO promo for the TV series True Blood.

There’s disclosure, hidden away in the Gawker Media footer. There’s no “sponsored post” text or anything. The campaign is, at the very least, balancing along the edge of what is deemed OK within the blogosphere.

We’d better get used to it. read more

Got a Twitter account? Then give me two clicks and you could win tickets to this years hottest online conference :) Got a blog? Even better, you could be in line to win the grand prize!

Check it out right now or read on to find out more details … read more

Those of us who use WordPress know well the power of its plugin system. WordPress plugins can help you do everything from spell WordPress correctly to adding a full-fledged message board.

However, everyone has a collection of Wordpress plugins that they feel are essential. They’re the plugins that, when you set up a new blog, you install right away, before even tinkering with the theme.

On that note, here’s my list of WordPress Plugins, other than those that come with the installation, that I instantly install and activate on every new version of WordPress before pushing it live. read more

I’m happy to see that Automattic has been able to acquire WP.com, from Yahoo incidentally, who also sold the blo.gs domain to the creators of WordPress and Akismet not so long ago. Matt is thrilled, and rumor has it* that he spent a full day just typing in wp.com and watching it resolve to wordpress.com (*not confirmed).

Naturally, he blogged it as well, on the WordPress.com blog, asking the world what they should do with the new domain, and urging people to make suggestions in the comments.

My reaction to that: Whaaat?!?!

Are you mad? read more

April 1st. You know what that means: You can’t trust the news. Not online, and not in print. Everyone and his mother tries to trick you into believing some preposterous story. All in good fun.

It’s also utter nonsense.

I’ve pulled a few April Fools pranks myself, on both a personal level, and as a publisher. Some was so good that they reached trade magazines, reported as real news. That was a lot of fun, especially since anyone buying it would, in one particular case, visit a website which clearly showed what kind of a joke it was. read more

Twitter. Facebook. MySpace. Flickr. YouTube.

Are these and other social media hangouts hurting or helping your blog?

No matter what your answer is, you must admit that blogs no longer dominate the social media landscape as they did in, say, 2006. While blogs still form the center of many companies’ social media marketing efforts, they’re now joined by a wide variety of other platforms and services.

2009: A Crossroads of Social Confluence

We stand at a crossroads of sorts. The online world is undergoing so much convergence that blogs and other so-called “social media” tools are becoming quite difficult to distinguish from each other.

We used to publish and discuss material at our blogs, reaching out on fledgling online social networks to find readers and approval. We still do that, but we now have more options and more reasons for holding substantial conversations outside of our blogs. read more

Buzznet, which operates the web’s largest community of pop culture web sites with an audience of 40 million unique monthly users, has changed its name to Buzz Media. The newly-named company will focus on the continued growth of its socially programmed web sites, including Celebuzz, Buzznet, the Superficial, SocialiteLife, What Would Tyler Durden Do, Stereogum, Idolator, Just Jared and Absolute Punk.

Buzz Media announced that it has secured a new round of financing totaling $12.5 million. Focus Ventures joined the latest round. Existing investors, including Anthem Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures, also participated in the round.

Buzz Media will use the funds for the continued growth of its portfolio of leading pop culture properties. More than 40 million people worldwide visit Buzz Media properties every month. The company’s pop culture focused portfolio includes leading online music and celebrity destinations.