The Inquisitr » chris pirillo

Are Paid Posts now acceptable on blogs? (poll)

Duncan Riley — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:13:42 +0000

Izea (formerly PayPerPost) has launched yet another social shopping campaign, this time with bloggers given $500 to spend at Department store Sears and then asked to write about the experience.

The new campaign repeats the K-Mart campaign we wrote about twice yesterday, and captures an even wider list of well known and respected bloggers. This may not be the full list, but from what we can gather, those participating were Chris Pirillo, Tamar Weinburg, Aaron Brazell, Liz Strauss,Steve Spalding, Joseph Jaffe, Chris Heuer and Jim Kukral.

As I noted in my earlier post, that they have participated makes no difference to me, nor should it to others, but that ignores the reality that some will consider this poorly, and it will, even in the eyes of a few people damage their credibility.

Ted Murphy (Izea’s CEO) jumped in the comments on one of the earlier posts and argued that these campaigns don’t tarnish the credibility of bloggers participating, although his definition of credibility seems to be traffic; he argued that each participant recieved more links and traffic by participating. He also noted that these campaigns are Google friendly now, and pointed to a quote from Matt Cutts saying that as long as the links in the posts are marked nofollow, there isn’t an issue, so the Google risk factor is obviously less as well.

I can’t help but consider, looking at this list of names, that perhaps the tide has turned in favor of paid posts. I still consider the $500 small change to do one of these, but if guys like Chris Pirillo in particular who isn’t short of money feel comfortable enough to take $500, perhaps for some its just another way to make money from blogging which doesn’t come with the baggage of old.

What do you think? Are paid posts now acceptable on blogs? Leave a comment or vote in our poll.

Sarah Palin baby name generator meets new media

Duncan Riley — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:30:28 +0000

From the election that keeps on giving comes the Sarah Palin baby name generator.

Now I’m not one to judge Sarah Palin’s choice in names for her children, but others have called trailer on her selection. The question for me is how some of new media’s leading names fare in the service.

Without much ado, here’s a few new media/ web 2.0 names added to the Sarah Palin baby name generator.

Louis Gray: Duct Idaho Palin
Chris Brogan: Hose Hotrod Palin
Darren Rowse: Khaki Salmon Palin
Brian Solis: Molten Contra Palin
Chris Pirillo: Barrel McRaven Palin
Joel Comm: Hump Gizzards Palin
Michael Gray: Tarp Lazer Palin
Matt Cutts: Bullpen Cola Palin
Michael Arrington: Blowhard Conflicted Palin*
Pete Cashmore: Gamebird Kelp Palin
Om Malik: Drink Hack Palin
Mona Nomura (aka Mona N): Knife Pile Palin
Gabe Rivera: Suckhole Groupie Palin*
Zee: Snowshoe Man Palin
Loic LeMeur: Blitz Harden Palin
Kyle “night krew” Lacy: Shoulder Frontier Palin
Dave Winer: Icepick Motor Palin
Robert Scoble: Hen Waffle Palin
Loren Feldman: Beans Harpoon Palin
Steve Gillmor: Nutty Mumbles Palin*
Owen Thomas: Thump Hummer Palin

Just for the record, I’ve got the same Sarah Palin name as Pete Cashmore: Gamebird Kelp Palin, so I’m in good company.

* actual results may vary

What Gnomedex teaches the conference world

Duncan Riley — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:21:50 +0000

This afternoon Gnomedex 8 finished for another year and over 300 people departed company. As a notion for a conference, Gnomedex is a little different. Wikipedia claims that the conference is “a technology conference tailored to the computer enthusiast” and yet from what I’ve seen, it’s an odd label, because strictly speaking it is nothing of the sort.

There is a common thread in the most part around technology, but the speakers list this year was more eclectic again. From lolcats through to the Mars Rover, with virtual rendering to the most amazing and inspiring tales of making the world a better place, Gnomedex had it all. Despite the variety, or perhaps because of it, Gnomedex worked, and people have walked away not having attended a conference, but having experienced something unique, so unique that it may have opened their minds and inspired them to greater things. One person I spoke to tonight said that the only thing that comes close is TED, which has a 2 year waiting list and starts at $9,000 a head.

In a sea of sameness, in the echo chamber of the tech community, Gnomedex teaches the world that there is a common thread of humanity and interest that binds us all. It teaches the conference world that the same old speakers and the same old topics may sell seats, but it never delivers a remarkable experience. Chris + Ponzi Pirillo, and the whole team (and a big hi to Kat) dared to be different, dared to challenge the audience instead of pander to the accepted norm, and it paid off in spades.

I wrote on my personal blog yesterday that perhaps I was drinking the kool aid, and maybe I still am, but if I ever see another enriching line up, combined with a great group of people attending I’ll be a very lucky man. It worked, and it worked better than good. As I told Beth Kanter tonight, my only challenge now is whether I can now find my path to make this world a better place.

PS: if anyone is interested in organizing an Ignite in Melbourne, drop me a line.

See also our coverage: Scott Maxwell, Boxee, Sarah Lacy + the day one Gnomedex wrap.

QMeme Day One

Duncan Riley — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:29:44 +0000

It has been 24 hours since I whipped together and announced the still very much alpha version of QMeme, The Inquisitr’s (and by extension my) very own memetracker based on data from FriendFeed. Aside from acquiring XML and Java for dummies from Borders today I haven’t made any further progress on a native WordPress version so it’s still running via Sprout, with both the positives (easy to design) and negatives (can be slow) that provides.

I was initially concerned as to how the XML feed from FriendFeed may be parsed in terms of updates, I’m happy to report that the page refreshes in full and provides ongoing updates in order as well as providing new stories as they reach the list (vs placing the new stuff on top like the same raw feed does in Google Reader).

I though I’d compare the list on QMeme as I write this post to Techmeme. Now I love Gabe and I’m still a Techmeme addict, but at the dawn of the personal memetracker there are some significant differences in what one delivers over the other in terms of my personal likes.

Lead stories

The top story on Techmeme now is about Google developing an ISP throttling detector. The top story on QMeme is Chris Pirillo saying that he’ll never use BrightKite and that he values his privacy. Now remember QMeme is based on the best content on FriendFeed as voted by my friends, associates and others I follow, so not surprisingly I much prefer the Pirillo item. It’s a little bold, out there, but more importantly there is a really interesting discussion on FriendFeed as well (the link in this case is a FriendFeed entry). Google measuring Comcast throttling BitTorrent traffic…bit to nerdy for me.

Next Two posts

Techmeme: yet another Microsoft-Yahoo post, this time Tim O’Reilly having ago at Michael Arrington, then Andrew Sullivan trying to argue that Google makes us all brain dead in the Times of London. Qmeme has two FriendFeed posts: one discussion based on people’s positions for their name in Google, then an item about reciprocal following on FriendFeed. Honestly none of these overly excite me, however I got more out of the two in QMeme because the discussion was there. But admittedly it was tight call.

4th
Steve Gillmor on TechCrunch seeing dead people vs Scoble responding to people suggesting that he is a paid shill. Scoble wins hands down.

There are more I could compare, but testing this in the middle of the weekend isn’t really fair on either because fluffy items tend to rise to the top when news is quiet. I might try this again mid-week when big stories are breaking to see whether Techmeme has the upper hand.

Not everyone will like content on QMeme as they won’t like the content on Techmeme, but as we enter the age of personalized memetracking there will be many more QMeme style memetrackers out there than there will be versions of Techmeme. FriendFeed users already have this feature from within FriendFeed now, I’m just the first person to take it out of FriendFeed to share it with the world, and I most definitely won’t be the last.

Update: if anyone would like a QMeme widget for their own site or homepage there is now a 300×250 on the right hand side here on The Inquisitr. Click on share for the various options, including support for iGoogle and Netvibes.