BasBasBas.com

Tag: blogging

  • Catching Up: Ecosystem Music Marketing, Internet Filters, The Clouds and DIY Tips

    Just like a few weeks ago, it’s time to bring you up to date with what I’ve been doing. Showcasing some articles I wrote for Official.fm, Techdirt and Hypebot.

    I did some more writing, but these are the most relevant. Enjoy!

    Keep up with me on Twitter or Tumblr (or Facebook if we have ever physically met).

  • Recent articles + news about my thesis!

    Hi everyone!

    I recently started blogging for Techdirt, so keep an eye on that blog or my profile to see more articles by me. Of course, I’ll throw out updates like this one every once in a while, so you don’t have to follow me in 3 different places.

    Two articles I recently did for Techdirt:

    There will also be an expansion of The Ugly Dance case-study soon, so keep your ears and eyes open (I suggest by following me on Twitter).

    The main reason many of the readers of this blog found me, is my thesis on digital communication strategy for the new music business. I am almost ready to publish it and send it out, so if you’re not on my distribution list already, put yourself on there. I promise not to spam you too much. 😉

    Also, I’m moving to Sofia, Bulgaria next week and I would love to find a job that let’s me apply my knowledge and expertise in digital communication strategy and leveraging the power of the ecosystem. If you can help me out or know anyone that can, please get in touch.

    Twitter: @Spartz
    My LinkedIn profile
    Email:

  • Companies, employee blogs and the ecosystem

    I’ve been writing a lot about the concept of the ecosystem lately (don’t worry if you haven’t been following, it’s explained again in this post), but only applied to the music business. Obviously, this can be applied to any type of brand, service or product which has a ‘fan’ potential.

    A good example of this application of the ecosystem is with companies stimulating their employees to blog. In a reply to a question about this on Quora (GO SIGN UP!), I wrote the following:

    What has been enabled in recent years, is the socialization of brands.

    It’s no longer about one-way communication via TV and other media, not even about two-way communication (like customer service, mail, emails), but about non-linear many-to-many communication. This creates a new situation.

    What few companies could successfully do pre-digital age, almost any company can do now. Starbucks had a massive following and ‘fanbase’ before the digital age, but now all of the members of this following (or ecosystem as I like to call it) can be connected to each other.

    The following can be turned into a community. Now, why is it good that large organisations encourage their employees to blog?

    These organisations have to be part of their own ecosystem. This works best when it’s done authentically and genuinely (such as via employees). This will strengthen the ties between your ecosystem and the brand, which adds tremendous value for the brand (as well as the customers). It’s a bit of a cliché phrase, oft-repeated by ‘social media experts’, but one has to be part of the conversation.

    A brand that is well-connected with their users or customers, is a flexible brand. In times of rapid change, the greatest strength if flexibility. No matter how strong your pillars are… If they’re rigid and get torn down, they will break and shatter.

    James Hargreaves made a good addition, which simplifies it even further:

    Just to add in more laymen’s terms, a blogging employee adds the ‘human’ element to the ‘face’ of the business, showing a non-corporate means of communicating with consumers, clients, etc.

    I firmly believe that anything that can be done digitally will change the system it’s part of, whether that’s a political, economic or social system. The ecosystem is one of the basic rules and models for success in the digital age (if one thoroughly understands the concept, which is easier for digital natives than others). This is not just about the music industry; if your industry has not been impacted yet and part of it is digitizable, then it will be impacted.

  • Politics 2.0

    The influence of new media on current day politics

    An essay by Bas Grasmayer

    The 20th century was the age of mass media. The impact of radio during the first half of the century and that of television during the second brought politics closer to home. Starting from people grouping around the one radio in their neighbourhood, to the radio in their street, until the point that everyone had a radio in their home. The same happened for television and through these media politics entered the living room. Through sound at first, but later through moving images which became more detailed and more accurately coloured over the course of the last century.

    We’re now close to ten years into the new century. Television and radio are still important, but there is a new player in the field of mass media: the internet. This essay will look at how the internet has already influenced politics and hopes to answer, in part, the following question:

    How is the World Wide Web as a medium influencing
    politics and the government right now?

    New Media

    In the 2008 US Presidential elections, politicians were seen embracing new media. Barack Obama became microblogging service Twitter’s most followed user and YouTube set up a site called You Choose ’08 dedicated to the elections. On the latter, campaign teams posted videos hoping they would go ‘viral’, a term used to describe the phenomenon of certain content on the internet being spread out through huge networks of users, which is often initially an exponential process. Ron Paul, who was running to become the Republican presidential candidate, had so much support on the internet that TIME magazine at one point commented that due to “his  success  recruiting  supporters  through  new  social  media  channels” he was “the  new  2.0  candidate”.

    (more…)

  • So long, and thanks for all the drops! (8 Reasons to Quit Entrecard)

    I am leaving Entrecard. For a while now, I’ve been thinking about it and recent events have made the decision all the more easier. I’ve turned off advertising on my blog. When my last ad finishes, on the 16th, the widget goes. Until that time I’m still returning drops.

    Entrecard is a social network for bloggers who can drop by each others’ blogs and earn credits in return. With these credits, they can advertise on each others blogs. A nice system, but in the end it’s not worth it for me.

    8 Reasons to Quit Entrecard

    If you’re a blogger using Entrecard, don’t take any of the following points personal. If any of them insult you, please keep reading on until the end of this article.

    1. Poorly invested time. Unless you’re on a very fast connection, it’s going to take you a considerable amount of time per day to get the best out of Entrecard. To get the best out of it, 300 drops per day is a must and its results are spectacular then. However, your time is better invested in discovering and commenting on relevant blogs, using Twitter and more actively engaging the blogosphere, because…
    2. Entrecard traffic has low value. Much of the traffic generated through Entrecard just inflates your statistics and increases your bounce rate. Many people just “drop and run”, as it’s dubbed in the Entrecard community. In the end, the traffic has more value than that of most social bookmarking services, but is for the most part still of low value.
    3. Bad quality blogs. I’ve had it with low quality blogs. There are too many of them. Poorly written content, grammar and spelling mistakes all over the place, lots of sponsored posts, bad designs. Stay away from me.
    4. Non-interesting blogs. I suppose making a blog about your cats is fun, and I’m sure it’s fun for many others to read it, but I’m simply not your target group. You don’t need me on your blog and I don’t want to be there to be honest. There are many other types of blogs I am not interested in that I had to visit because of returning ‘drops’.
    5. I don’t care about your ‘hubby‘. Dear Stay/Work At Home Mom (SAHM/WAHM) bloggers, please erase this word out of your vocabulary. If I see it one more time I will puke. Never thought this word would end up on my own blog. Refering to your spouse like this in every one of your blog posts is like two ugly people making out right in front of me. My stomach cannot help but revolt. Sorry. I guess Entrecard has brought me to your blog, but I doubt you really want someone like me there.
    6. Linkback building obsession. My God, is there an immense obsession with getting linked back on Entrecard. It’s good to get links back to your blog, because it helps to build your status in search engines. Google Bombs are proof of this. Entrecard is a BAD place to build your linkback. Firstly, you want to get linked back from blogs and sites that are relevant to your site. I don’t need topdropper links back to my page from blogs about cars.
      Secondly, I don’t want to give “link juice” out to unrelated blogs. It’s unfair to the related, relevant or highly interesting blogs that I link to. More about this on SeoBlogr. I read a better article about it recently, found it via Entrecard, but forgot to bookmark it. Doh! 🙁 So stop caring about your Google PageRank (PR) people, I have zero PR and I get a LOT of search engine traffic. Start worrying about writing good content, writing some linkbait and having high keyword density (but not too high or you’ll get flagged as spam 😉 ).
    7. The captain is drunk. I’ve put a lot of energy into the community on the Entrecard ship and we’ve sailed far and become friends, but the captain has been making poor choices and I suspect he’s incapable of taking this censorship much further. I love the community on board, but I’m getting off before we hit an iceberg. Graham, the owner of Entrecard, is childish and yesterday banned one of Entrecard’s top users. As you can see in the comments, many people are outraged. I think this was the final proof of Graham’s immaturity and incapacity to make the right decisions at the right time. Although Turnip‘s tweet wasn’t a great show of maturity either. 😉 While Graham is saying the negative publicity is only good for Entrecard, his poor leadership is not and new and current members will soon realize that.

      8. (more…)

  • Digiturk causes Turkish ban of Blogger/Blogspot

    Since Friday, it’s been impossible to access popular blogging platform Blogger or any *.blogspot.com domain from a Turkish IP address, due to a ban imposed by a court in the south east of Turkey.

    Previously it was rumoured that Adnan Oktar, by some considered the leading Muslim advocate for creationism, might have caused the new ban, since he successfully got WordPress and Google Groups banned in the past, as well as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ website. However, this rumour was refuted by someone pointing out that Oktar operated in Istanbul courts and the verdict banning Blogger was passed in Diyarbakır, at the other side of Turkey.

     

    Blogger's banned in Turkey screenshot 

    Click to enlarge.

    It’s now reported that it is not Oktar that got Blogger banned, but Digiturk, a subscription based digital TV platform that owns the rights to the live broadcasting of Turkish football league games. Apparently, Digiturk asked Blogger to take several blogs or blog entries down containing links to pirated transmissions of the live games. Blogger did nothing, Digiturk went to court and under Turkish intellectual property law, they managed to get Blogger banned completely, effectively banning millions of websites that have nothing to do with Turkish football or pirating.

    Digiturk’s court cases in the past have managed to block Justin.tv and MyP2P TV for the same reasons.

    Turkey’s NATO membership and EU ambitions seem paradoxical to the infringement on the freedom of press and speech of its citizens, residents and visitors by banning sites like Blogger and YouTube. The EU’s making a blacklist of censoring countries and are creating software for people in these countries to use to bypass the censorship (see: Global Online Freedom Act).

    Thanks to safak for his tip about Digiturk!

    Some useful links to unblock YouTube/Blogger (blogspot)/other blocked pages in Turkey:

    Help get the news out. Stumble, Digg, Slashdot, Reddit or Tweet it!

    Stay updated. Follow my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.

  • Turkey Bans Blogger

    UPDATE!! — It is now known why Blogger is banned in Turkey. Click here for the new article.

    Since today, whoever tries to access Blogger or any *.blogspot.com domain from Turkey will get the following message on my screen:

    Blogger's banned in Turkey screenshot

    Click to enlarge.

    This is the same message we get if we try to visit YouTube, which is also banned in Turkey. In the past blogging platform WordPress.com has been banned as well (read more), to much dismay of many Turkish bloggers.

    It was suspected that the reason for this has something to do with Adnan Oktar, by some considered the leading Muslim advocate for creationism, who has in the past managed to get WordPress, Google Groups, as well as Richard Dawkins’ website banned. It was then suggested however, that Oktar was active in Istanbul courts and this verdict was passed in Diyarbakır in South East Turkey.

    UPDATE – It is now known that it was Digiturk, not Adnan Oktar, that caused the ban. Read the new article here: 
    http://www.basbasbas.com/blog/2008/10/26/digiturk-causes-turkish-ban-of-bloggerblogspot/

    Turkey’s EU ambitions seem paradoxical to the infringement on the freedom of press and speech of its citizens, residents and visitors by banning sites like this. This is not China. This has to stopped. Good thing the EU’s making a blacklist of censoring countries and are creating software for people in censoring countries to use to overcome the censorship (Global Online Freedom Act).

    The court order of the ban on Blogger is also in very stark contrast to yesterday’s court approval of gay and group sex. Turkey’s a country of opposites.

    Some useful links to unblock YouTube/Blogger (blogspot)/other blocked pages in Turkey:

    Help get the news out and Digg this article or Stumble it or Buzz it!

    Stay updated. Follow my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.

  • September Topdroppers!

    For those of you that are not familiar with Entrecard, click here.

    Ok, time to do a roundup of this month’s topdroppers. With the moving abroad and the travelling, it’s been tough to always drop back, so an extra thank you!

    Topdropper: Wonderful Pic Collection (you get 500 ECs!)

    Second place: iWalk,U2? (you get 300 ECs!)

    Third place: Juliana’s Site (you get 200 ECs!)

    I think most of you are aware of the 12.5% tax introduced by Entrecard for the credit transfers. I won’t deduct that, I’ll pay for it myself! Keep dropping and earn credits!

    Other topdroppers:

    Picturing of Life – My Imaginary Travels – Beyond Taiwan – From a Yellow House in England – Zen Tricks – Iconz World – WebFrap

    Go check out my Entrecard page and leave a recommendation/review!

  • Expat Experience Blog Carnival!

    A blog carnival is like an online magazine with a collection of the best (usually recent) blog posts on a particular topic. For examples you can just Google “blog carnival” and any given keyword of what you’re interested in, such as “travel” and you’ll find quite a few of these. It’s a great way to get your blog out there and it’s also nice to discover other bloggers in your niche, and network with them. Besides that, it builds traffic and pagerank, because of linkbacks (if that’s what you’re interested in).

    I haven’t been able to find any expat blog carnivals, so I decided to set one up myself. Therefore, I’m calling for all expat bloggers to submit their materials for the first edition of the Expat Experience blog carnival!

    How to participate? Simple. Just go to the Expat Experience submission page, select one of your most fascinating, well-read, recent posts and submit it for the next issue! Piece of cake.

    When the next issue is posted, I’ll link every article back to the original blog posts (and main blog page), but I also expect people to show off their submission in the blog carnival and link back to the carnival. If you think the quality of the carnival is sub par, then don’t link it. It’s all up to you, but it would be nice to create a buzzing community. 🙂

    Want to earn 300ECs (or a 2 week 125×125 banner on my site) and public recognition in the next issue of the blog carnival? Design us a cool banner that communicates the global expat experience with a width of 475 pixels! Whoever’s design is picked gets the prize!

    So what are you waiting for! Submit your articles and leave your link below to show your participation!

    Visit Expat Experience on BlogCarnival.com.

  • EntreCard my way

    EC LogoWhile using EntreCard, I’m doing a couple of things to add even more value to my actions or drops. Since it’s rainy and grey outside (can’t wait to go to Turkey), it’s a perfect day to write about it.

    Firstly, I’ll explain what EntreCard is. Secondly, I’ll go through some of the basics for all the readers who are not members yet. Thirdly, I’ll explain what I do in the form of some tips and pointers, so hopefully the whole EntreCard experience will become better for all of us. 🙂

    I find it extraordinarily hard to explain what EntreCard actually is. It’s a blogging community, it’s an advertising system, it’s a way to network with other blogs… On the main page Entrecard talks about themselves as “your businesscard 2.0”. The most essential thing about Entrecard is surfing to other community members’ blogs and “dropping” a card on their Entrecard widget (see top right sidebar). By dropping cards, you earn credits, which you then can spend to advertise on sites that are on Entrecard.

    Entrecard partnered with SezWho, a comment tracking system, so that it can give you credits every time you comment on another person’s blog. Great way to stimulate community-forming on members’ blogs! So as you’re going through your daily dropping, be sure to leave comments! Maybe you get tons of comments nowadays and they don’t mean much to you, but remember that time when one or two comments did matter. Comment on other blogs and experience the gratitude and reciprocation.

    Something else I do regarding comments on my own blog is I generally give them 5 stars through SezWho. What can I say? I love every one of them. This helps people to build their rep on the net.

    If you like a certain post on someone’s site, or like the whole overall site… Stumble it! Digg it! Whatever you use… Just do it! Write a Tweet about it, it doesn’t matter. When using Entrecard, many people are so wrapped up in it, that they forget to give a “thumbs up” for content they like. Start Stumbling content you like of other Entrecard users and you’ll notice that the next time people you stumbled visit your blog, they might leave a stumble before leaving.

    If you place an ad on a site… Stumble or Digg the site! Either when you apply for it, or on the day it’s actually running. Increase your chances of visitors in any way you can.

    Reciprocate drops. Check your inbox and reciprocate. That’s the easiest way to get a basic reader community on your site via Entrecard.

    Put some statistics on your website. I generally check for three things:

    • Number of subscribers to the site.
    • FEEDJIT. Since my blog’s about Istanbul, Turkey, it helps me to assess where most people’s visitors are from. I find that Europeans are generally more interested in my site than people from Indonesia or the Philippines.
    • BlogCatalog. It allows me to see how often the blog gets visitors. It shows the names of BlogCatalog community members and shows how long ago they visited the site. It gives me an indication of the traffic the site gets.

    When none of these are present, I can be a bit wary about spending my EC credits, but not always of course. A lot of Entrecard is about experimenting! After all, it’s just credits you’re spending, so spend away.

    Monitor your EC statistics, award your top ten droppers publically (giving an incentive for others to drop on your site regularly), and make friends! Because EC offers such a friendly environment, if you’re the least bit active, it’s impossible not to make friends. 😉
    If you liked this post, consider subscribing by RSS or email.

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin