I just learned that Mediahunter is ranked as one of the Top 150 Social Media Blogs in the World according to eCairn. Apparently this site is ranked 98th based on their formula of measuring various links:

• differentiating blogroll versus direct links,
• weighting the links based on the influence of the «source»,
• weighting more reciprocical links,
• counting links at blog or post level.

eCairn say, “The list is subjective and brought few questions and surprises – btw influence is subjective. It’s actually the list of influential bloggers in the social media marketing community more than a list of social media marketing blogs.”

That’s the interesting thing about online compared to other areas of influence. In most cases influence is hard to measure and opinions often come into play. But links are the major currency online. They determine your Google PageRank and a large percentage of your traffic. Links are a vote for your site, and hence a relevant measure of influence.

Quite rightly, the leading bloggers on this list are the heavyweights of industry. Chris Brogan, Jeramiah Owyang, Brian Solis, Seth Godin and David Armano are all there. These are people I read every week so its not surprise to see them there.

Australia has surprisingly fewer names on this list than I would have expected. Gavin Heaton is our highest ranked blogger here, and once again that’s no surprise to me. I read Gavin’s blog a few times a week and link to it often, as do many others obviously.

But there is once common denominator amongst these top bloggers (that doesn’t include me) – these guys all produce great, thought provoking content week-in, week-out. Their influence might be measured by links, but its created by sheer quality.

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A series of short posts with the latest facts about our digital economy and lives. Use them for your presentations, blogs, homework or trivia nights.

• 668,000 dotcom sites are registered every month. Source: BBC News

• Google responds to around 35,000 search queries every second. Source: The Economist

• Currently, the average life of a web page is somewhere between 44 and 77 days. Source: BBC News

• About 6% of books in America are now published via print-on-demand. Source: The Economist

• Mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. in 2010, it is expected to create 1,200 exabytes. Souce: The Economist

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I just had lunch at a popular Newcastle cafe that could seriously teach many larger businesses a thing or two about modern marketing.

Three Bean Espresso

Three Bean Espresso in Hamilton has been pumping out great food and coffee for about five years now, but returning there today for the first time in over 6 months I was impressed at some of the other initiatives Ben Armstrong and his team have undertaken.

Ben now has two blogs for the cafe. The main one includes menu items and the usual information, but it is led by an entertaining and informative series of posts about food, ingredients, suppliers and good living. Its wonderful story telling that even Servant of Chaos would be proud of. The site is simple and clean just like the cafe and makes you want to eat lots of delicious food.

The key here is that Ben isn’t trying to sell, he’s engaging visitors in an ongoing conversation about good food. Your salivating tastebuds will do the rest.

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Almost every week I am asked by a social media sceptic why I spend so much time on Twitter. For many, Twitter is seen as just a time sucking site to provide useful updates about your cat’s acrobatic prowess. However, for those of us who use the service on a daily basis it can be so much more.

In fact, I believe, and have often stated, that Twitter is whatever you really want it to be.

Here are the main reasons I use and benefit from Twitter.

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A series of short posts with the latest facts about our digital economy and lives. Use them for your presentations, blogs, homework or trivia nights.

• In 2009, revenues from mobile apps amounted to nearly $10 billion. Source: The Economist

• E-books represented about 1.5% of consumer book sales in 2009 in North America. Source: The Economist

• Sales of music in the form of digital files grew by 9.2% to exceed a quarter of total sales during 2009. Source: The Economist

• Google responds to around 35,000 search queries every second. Source: The Economist

• Google made a profit of $209,624 per employee in 2008. Source: Pingdom

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Is the television industry's glass half empty or half full?

The current state of the television industry can be compared to the idiom, “Is the glass half empty or half full? The pessimistic view is that the end is nigh and television is on a steady decline with internet technology as its biggest threat. But there are many who take the optimistic “glass half full” approach and are looking for opportunities for television online.

Television’s once unassailable mass media dominance has been significantly reduced in recent years as networks have been squeezed by falling rates and the fragmentation their once loyal audiences.

Viewers can now choose between a growing number of digital channels, subscription TV and internet downloads of their favourite programs. They can skip the ads using personal video recorders like FoxtelIQ and TiVo, or once gain by downloading the programs.

And that’s not to mention the multitude of other devices competing for viewers attention, especially as new generations are being raised glued to mobile devices and 2 minute videos on YouTube.

The sun has set on television’s glory years and many in the industry lament its steady demise. These are dire times.

Or are they?

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A series of short posts with the latest facts about our digital economy and lives. Use them for your presentations, blogs, homework or trivia nights.

• 37% of American homes have Digital Video Recorders. Source: The Economist

• More than 8 million visits were made to news websites every minute, on the night Barack Obama won the US presidential election. On the first day of the 2010 Football World Cup, there were 12 million visits per minute. Source: BBC News

• 668,000 dotcom sites are registered every month. Source: BBC News

• Apple recently announced that its App Store now offers 225,000 apps which collectively have been downloaded 5 billion times. Source: The Economist

• The amount of reading people do, previously in decline because of television, has almost tripled since 1986, thanks to all the text on the internet. Source: The Economist

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Announcement from Austereo:

The Hamish & Andy show will be a little smaller in size but equally as tasty in 2011.

Hamish & Andy and Austereo announce today the boys will do a free weekly podcast that will air a 2-hour radio show once a week on the Today Network and syndicated stations. There is also the option left open to pop up and work on additional projects with Austereo throughout the year.

Hamish & Andy said: “The idea of giving up the show completely was never considered as it is the most fun in the world. In addition to that, the listeners create the show just as much as us, so if we were to stop, we’d have had to consult every one of them. That’s an expensive phone bill.”

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A series of short posts with the latest facts about our digital economy and lives. Use them for your presentations, blogs, homework or trivia nights.

• Apple recently announced that its App Store now offers 225,000 apps which collectively have been downloaded 5 billion times. Source: The Economist

• In 2009, Facebook’s traffic grew by 66% and Twitter’s by 47%. Source: The Economist

• China’s internet population has reached 404 million, up from 384 million at the end of 2009, and the number of people accessing the internet with mobile phones there has reached 233 million. Source: AdAgeChina

• More than 8 million visits were made to news websites every minute, on the night Barack Obama won the US presidential election. On the first day of the 2010 Football World Cup, there were 12 million visits per minute. Source: BBC News Technology

• The number of members of LinkedIn with the title vice-president grew 426% faster than the membership of the site as a whole in 2005-09. Source: The Economist

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Source: Radioinfo

Those close to John Laws report that the radio legend is not taking retirement all that well and is desperate to return to his natural habitat, the padded walls of a radio studio. In all likelihood, that studio will be at 2SM.

Sources say that Laws has lunched with Supernetwork owner, Bill Caralis, on two or three occasions over the past six months and that a deal has been struck for golden tonsils’ return on the 39 station network that covers much of NSW and southern QLD.

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