OurielOhayon

Cracking a blackbox - or how to get your PR on Fire

The past 72h have been for me a business case on how you can with zero budget generate a stunning PR campaign.

Most Startups believe you need to hire a PR firm to get your PR coverage. This indeed can help. But the key is not the coverage itself but the message. The stronger the message, the stronger the impact on the coverage.

A post on TechCrunch or an article in the NYT will get you awareness and traffic but that's not enough. If the message is not strong enough, it won't trigger the wave effect you expect from a PR campaign, usually called BUZZ.

What we have done with AppsFire this week can illustrate that. What we realized is that actually the App Store is a fantastic engine but a terribly closed one. The most critical aspect of it: analytics. There is no data on the App store dynamic. Apple has it, but except top ranks and high overview data, there is nothing.

So we thought it would be a powerful idea to use our AppsFire intelligence to produce data that no one has produced before, like the average price of a paid app, the average spent per app...

We put that in a slide format and forwarded it to a few blogs. TechCrunch was the first to take it. The effect was immediate. Before that, i want to mention that i have been covered on TC many times and observed many times startups being covered on TC not generating this wave of impact. Again. Coverage is not Buzz

Some data

• We became top slide of the week in SlideShare (all categories included viewed 6k times +/- * 47 embeds)
• We were on Digg.com home page for 24h
• We were on Digg.com/Apple top news for 48h
• We received coverage from at least 50 tops blogs
• hundreds of mention in Twitter
• our blog traffic has exploded (X 20)
• Today we released some  more data and again ReadWriteWeb has covered us, and the buzz moves on..
• our service is exploding in traffic and adoption

So what is the take away?

Find a black box in your field. A critical one. Find a way to crack it. Make it first and fast. And push the news. Cost of this operation. ZERO.

OutBrain.com is a top20 source of this blog

Actually i should have looked at my Google analytics before writting my last post about OutBrain rating system. For me the killing value proposition is that now outbrain has become one of the major source of smart traffic (smart because i see that the traffic stays on the site, opposite of Digg.com) to this blog and i see that growing over time. It is not just a great rating system and content recommendation for your readers, it drives you traffic as your blog becomes recommended outside your blog.



If you put aside media-related sources (techcrunch, the marker) and of course google (which is still the #1 individual source - but not in aggregate type) outbrain would appear in the Top10. Note the position of Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. Interesting...

Are you still blogging without outbrain.com?

Technorati Tags: outbrain source rating traffic blog

Portraited by Benjamin Boccas

Thanks to Benjamin from ZeFlog (The photo blog) who took some time to shoot a few pictures with me. I nearly felt like a model for 15 min. Those are the most stunning pictures someone ever made of me, although i am not a big fan of my own pics. Benjamin he s a professional photographer that became famous by shooting portraits in natural light of some bloggers and web celebrities (Orange CEO, ..) in France and now in the world. He will soon come to the valley to pursue his mission

This is very rare but Benjamin allowed me to shoot a portrait of him (with my iPhone camera, hmmm). i also video interviewed him on Qik (in French). I had a good time chatting with him and it was interesting to discover how blogs (once again) can change someone's life (in this cas his)





Technorati Tags: benjaminboccas photos portrait blogger

[execution is the key] Apture, my new blog companion

I rarely get excited by a blog plugin; But i have been trying apture on this blog and on TechCrunch France for a week and all i can say is that this is a must have. I wish snap.com could do that. It allows you simply to add rich content to any content on you blog, directly from your blog. I covered Apture extensively on TechCrunch France (first reactions from readers are really good too) today and invite to see the video below. It is a great example of how execution is the key. Apture is * way better * than Zemanta, trying to, unsuccessfully, solve the same need. Apture enables you to add content bubble just like on this example here with John Coltrane

See the video below to better understand

Technorati Tags: apture zemanta snap.com contextual content blog plugin

The Copy/Paste Web

I have been observing that for a while hesitating to publish the thought, but today, i decided to push the button. Since i am the web industry (nearly 10 years) i realized that very few companies are really innovating. They basically drive the industry which is simply following up, creating variations or simple copies of the original model. Yahoo invented the portal, ICQ instant messenger, Amazon e-commerce supermarket with their famous tab structure, Google re-invented search (Inktomi and Altavista were the pioneers)...Sometime you don't invent a practice but you set a standard: Facebook for example with social networks or Skype for Voip

The same goes with smaller companies but also with blogs. I have just read an article of ParisLemon on ArsTechnica copying other blogs (there are many other examples like this). Since i started with Techcrunch, i have seen around me this happen so many times, including people that are trying to follow the same path as i did, by writting for big blogs or just taking what i do on techcrunch france and replicating it on their own blog. I have no problem with that (i also "copy" when the idea is good). This is how it works. Other get inspired by others.

I have no problem with that unless you don't mention the credit to the original model or standard, and unless it starts to hurt your own business.

There are clear cases when the law can interfere to stop someone from copying what you do. That's what copyrights law are made for. There are also some cases when it is not so clear it is worth launching a legal war and sometimes an email/ conversation can solve the issue. I see that happens all the time: a logo that is too close, a website design to similar.

I'll give you an example of the copy/paste nature of the web with a company we have invested in. Outbrain is providing a rating system with a block or related posts for bloggers and readers. You can see that block in my own blog at the bottom of most posts (You can also see it on VentureBeat, CenterNetworks and other big blogs). Here is a screenshot below



It was launched about a year ago. I discovered less than 6 months ago that a startup called Zemanta was offering exactly the same feature, with the same design, in the same real estate. It is hard to believe they did this without copying Outbrain's model. Here is below a screenshot of Zemanta's widget you can see from Fred Wilson's blog (note Fred Wilson has nothing to do with that of course).


I hope Zemanta will change that in order to avoid user/partner's confusion. Again i don't care if someone get inspired by someone, as long as it is done correctly without a clear intention of ripp off and of course without consideration for legal rules but also for respect for users and business partners. Doing business honestly is important on the web also.



Technorati Tags: zemanta outbrain copycat copy blogs

Blog Comment: Happy with IntenseDebate

Very quickly i got frustrated with Typepad comment system because it misses so many features i like: for example the ability to track a conversation via email or RSS, or the possibilty to easily manage a white list/black list of commenters. In the past year surged many new alternatives for blog comment systems the main 3 players are SezWho Disqus and IntenseDebate. I only tried IntenseDebate on this blog because this is the only one that enables zero code manipulation set up which is a major driver for adoption in my view. however i do recognize that Disqus is well done once integrated.

I was not happy with it at the beginning and played back and forth with it to see, until their last version which was stable and reliable. I have been tested the new IntenseDebate for 2 months and it is working well. There are bugs from time to time but the team behind the service is super reactive when i shoot them an email. They have a nice comment widget that i have added on the left.

For a reader their are several advantages to this type of solution:

- one time login: multi blog usage so you can post from other blogs using the same system without having to post your details again
- easy track of conversation with RSS or email
- reputation system: to see whether other commenters are "long timers"
- comment rating
- comment ranking by date or rating (for long comment lists, so not relevant for most blogs)
- Good thread system to reply to a specific comment
- zero spam: i have not a single spam in 3 months

For editor it is a no brainer:

- zero code install, 3 clicks install
- super dashboard monitoring
- great widget tools
- perfect template integration with no bells and whistles


My only complaints to IntenseDebate?

- Comment link at the bottom of the post takes too long to display vs the rest of the blog
- no integration with FriendFeed which they should work on ASAP
- integration of html code for rich commenting

Technorati Tags: comments blogs intensedebate

Off to Italy with Alfa Romeo

Here is the reason i am taking a few days off: i am invited by Alfa Romeo to test a new upcoming car called Mito. This is why i posted the teasing the other day. I am not sure why they picked me (along with a few other guys). Probably because i write TechCrunch France which is one of the biggest blogs in Europe and maybe because they are and will use strongly the web and its ressources to push this car smartly to its potential users as you may see from their website.

I any case, this is going to be fun. I will report a few details as i can connect to the internet

Technorati Tags: alfaromeo mito italy

Seesmic-ed

We just hit a comment record both text and video on TechCrunch France thanks to an operation i called "Killer Startup" which was about posting a 30 sec video about an internet startup idea (serious or not). More than 220 comments including 65 videos. Seesmic the partner of the operation is mentioning it today in their daily show. See below

Engagement is to me the most important form of reward as a blogger. A blog that does not engage is not really a blog. A post should provoke a reaction. A rating, a comment, an email, a trackback, a video comment,...whatever.

Silence means either that that you don't have readers (not very rare), that it is boring (not very rare), that it is not written adequately and that readers do not perceive the necessity of a conversation (not rare). It can also mean your blog post is so perfect it does not need more (extremely unlikely)

Technorati Tags: blog conversation videos comments reaction engagement

ScribeFire little imperfection

I use more and more ScribeFire for blogging here. it has 3 small problems missing for me

• there is not possibility to do a copy paste of a picture or video from the browser to ScribeFire, which should be possible since ScribeFire is part of Firefox. This is forcing me to find the link location of the picture and add it to the editor which is not long but requires too many clicks (or worse, saving the picture on my computer and then add it to the post)
• Flickr and Youtube integration is not really useful as it does not tap in my account but just offers a general search. In addition i would like to have the possibility to type and save the default size of the pictures/videos i add in. Right now this has to be manual drag and drop resizing.
  
• If you want to modify a post you already published the process is confusing. DO NOT make the modification from the open windows of the post you just write and press "Publish to YOUR BLOG". If you do that it will publish you post a second time... Instead you need to go to "Entries" select the post you just published and then "Publish as edit".

ScribeFire is getting better every day. i have no doubt this will be solved soon




Technorati Tags: scribefire blog post

What the hell is SixApart is doing about Spam!! [update: SixApart is on it+ TIP]

Just a short note to say that i am not happy at all with Typepad Lately. I have been under a huge wave a spam comments. I have flagged them, i have notified their team, i have talked even with some people there that tell me they do everything they can. But i still receive spam comments every single day. Worse: i am not even notified when that happens. Worse: i don t even receive notifications when someone post a regular comment (or better said, i receive them randomly)

So Sorry about that, i know if affects your reading (this is why i am writting this note), but that goes beyond my control. If this goes on i will have to either close all my comments on this blog or migrate to an external commenting system like disqus or intensedebate (i tried half happy in the past)

bottom line: Six Apart wake up...this looks really bad. Spam should be priority NUMBER 1 before anything else

update: SixApart has taken my request very seriously. Several guys contacted me in the hour and are putting special attention to my blog to monitor the spam activity. I appreciate this kind of reactivity, i just wish for other bloggers that are on typepad could see an improvement without any "special attention". I do not expect 100% improvement, it is impossible with spam, but this should look better soon.

i actually have a suggestion for blog plateforms. Most spam come from comments of posts that are 30+ days old. would be good to have an option to close comments automatically if a post is more than 30+ days old

update 2: i assume this was not a bad suggestion, Typepad just released an option that enables that. You can see it for yourself here. It is available in the configure tab, in the feedback section

Technorati Tags: spam, typepad, sixapart, comments