Critical Success Factors - Blogging for Retailers annotations, part 4

PLEASE NOTE: This blogpost is part 4 of 6 the Blogging for Retailers White Paper annotations. Be sure to download “Blogging for Retailers - Why Blogging Matters and How to get Started” (complimentary) to follow along.

Critical Success Factors

[Excerpt] Dave Winer, a former Harvard fellow, noted curmudgeon and a software programmer who led development of key weblog technologies, puts forth this working definition of a blog: “The unedited voice of a person”

[photo of Dave Winer by Dave Olson at Gnomedex 2006]

He continues in his determination of what constitutes a blog, “If it was one voice, unedited, not determined by group-think — then it was a blog, no matter what form it took.”

The crux of the “Web 2.0” paradigm is sharing and, above all, authenticity. With many netizens becoming both producers and consumers of information, shoppers are growing more accustomed to reading critically and growing even more selective in the marketing messages they digest. Consumers expect straightforward, unfiltered opinions and can smell an “agenda” a mile away.

• Be interesting to capture an audience
• Be authentic to sustain an audience
• Participate in the community
• Establish editorial standards
• Write like your customer speak
• Get started now

Dave Winer - RSS/XML/OPML developer

• What makes weblog a weblog? (Harvard, May 23, 2003)
• Dave Winer on Wikipedia
• Dave Winer’s blog “Scripting News“
• Dave in Time and NY Times and at Essays
• Weblogs At Harvard Law (Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School)

Hockey fan blogs example

• Sore Excuse for a Punking (page is modified from original posting including logos removed)
  Posted by “bluerev1″ at The Blue Revolution, August 16, 2006, © 2006 St. Louis Blues

So, many of you Sherlock Holmes super-sleuth Blues fans have figured out that the Blues are actually the ones behind TheBlueRevolution.com. Congrats. Gold star for you. I can’t imagine what could’ve tipped you off. Was it the “Copyright © 2006 St. Louis Blues” line at the bottom of every page on the web site? Or, maybe it was the link on stlblues.com. I just don’t know how you did it. Oh well, our Da Vinci Code has been cracked. We’ll have to deal with it.

• This Blog Is Fake - Website for Blues fans is a hoax, including quotes from St. Louis Dispatch (original source page no longer valid)
  Posted by “brushback”at Sidearm Delivery blog, July 14th 2006

If the sub-par writing style– below the level of a Nike or Gatorade ad (”We will count off every goal scored by the Blues, and count high”)– and the “Copyright 2006 St. Louis Blues” tagline at the bottom of the home page isn’t enough of a tip-off to the average reader, then this article from today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch spills the beans even further:

From the same advertising company that earlier this year posted fake blogs about a staged Cardinals “bird-napping” comes a similar ad campaign. Last week, St. Louis-based Schupp Co. distributed everything from T-shirts to wristbands to a banner outside City Hall, all bearing a Web address of ambiguous origin.

“I’m just one Blues fan and the idea of The Blue Revolution is to include all fans,” declares a blogger on www.thebluerevolution.com. But the site and its blogger are nothing more than a marketing tool for the hockey team, a fact hidden on the Web site and in Schupp’s campaign so far.

“The intention was to make the site look like fans did it,” said Mark Schupp, president of the company. “If you come out initially and say this is the Blues’ Web site, it would become very commercial.”

The site invites visitors to submit comments about the blog entries, Blues-oriented video and additions to the “Fanifesto,” all to be approved and posted by the site’s owners. Site visitors can download a staged video from the blogger — an actor — who “crashed” a Blues press conference.

• Bloggers Perspective From the Press Box
  Posted by Ted Leonis (Washington Capitals President) at Ted’s Take blog, Nov. 28, 2006
  

It is good to see DC SportsChick take us up on our offer to attend Caps games as a member of the “media” - sitting in the press box and writing about the game from her unique perspective. We are encouraging bloggers to help us create a Caps related network - it seems to be working with two to five bloggers now attending every game.

• Comment Bloggers Perspective From the Press Box
  Posted by DCSportsChick, Nov. 28, 2006

It was a really interesting experience, and gave me a new appreciation for what the media does. It’s hard to watch a game, write something intelligent about it, get quotes after the game, and then file a story in time to meet a deadline! Thanks for the opportunity- I plan on doing it again soon! :-)

• Hockey Teams: Time to Meet the Blogs (includes comments by Ted Leonis and other hockey bloggers)
  Posted by Alanah Downie at Vancouver Canucks OpEd blog, April 5, 2006

Kukla’s Korner posted a story today of a phone interview he did with Washington Caps owner Ted Leonsis. An interesting read (well done, Paul!) but also a great endorsement of the new “importance” of hockey blogs. And a great endorsement of Ted Leonsis as well.

• Press(ed)
  Posted by John F. at Bolts Mag blog, Aug. 30, 2006

Last year after getting shot down for press credentials, I shot a letter off Eric McErlain over at Off Wing Opinion. Eric posted a story about it and a few things happened from there…

NHL rules stated that online media must be established press agents or companies - not bloggers. But that didn’t stop Eric from getting press credentials during last season. He also struck up a dialog with Capitals owner Ted Leonis and has now presented a proposal for blogger media credentials.

Eric is an outstanding journalist and a blogging institution. Ever still, and you can call it ego if you want, but I’d like to think I had a small hand in things by failing to gain credentials with the Lightning and sharing my story with Eric to begin with.

Carry on to part 5, … Getting Started in Retail Blogging including overview of blogging platform options and a glossary of relevant vocabulary …

PLEASE NOTE: This blogpost is part 4 of 6 the Blogging for Retailers White Paper annotations. Be sure to download “Blogging for Retailers - Why Blogging Matters and How to get Started” (complimentary) to follow along.