One of the great things about checking traffic to your site is finding new links that have directed people to you and then exploring those sites. This week my online meanderings have unearthed a few sites I either hadn’t been aware of or hadn’t visited yet.

Laurel Papworth is a Top 100 Australian blogger, who is regularly interviewed about social networks in international press and on Australian TV shows and Radio National, Vogue Australia, The Australian and the Fin Review, SMH, Telegraph, and various magazines. Her Social Networks blog provides excellent insight into social media, participatory journalism and user-generated content.

Laurel recently posted about Australia’s most influential bloggers and was kind enough to mention Media Hunter. The post touches on some of the media and marketing lists such as AdAges Power 150 and AdSpace Pioneers. Overall its a good introduction to some of the best marketing content online.

Naked Bear Media is a new blog on the block by digital marketer Sean Smith. I have only just come across this one but I like what is see so far. Sean doesn’t seem afraid to make some bold statements and ask good questions. In just a few posts he has lined up Twitter, the iPhone and NineMSN. Good stuff.

Newcastle TV ratings week 33, 2008

Prime has enjoyed a massive Olympics ratings boost for the first week of their Beijing coverage winning their first Newcastle TV ratings in 4 years.

The first week of competition saw prime gain a commanding 11 point lead over NBN, while Southern Cross TEN was another 11 points further back.

NBN’s news proved to be too irresistible, however, for local viewers who switched over each night in large numbers. This would be a concern to Prime who would be hoping the Olympic coverage introduces more viewers to their news and upcoming programs. If they won’t even stay around for the news during the Olympics, how will they stay when its all over?

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Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

Did Australians watch anything other than the Olympics last week? Answer: yes, and the ABC reaped the benefits of offering an alternative to nationalism. Its most popular shows barely suffered a dent in audience — ABC Sunday news and Spicks and Specks drew 1.1 million, Dr Who drew 1 million and a repeat of Agatha Christie’s Poirot drew 994,000 on Friday before the great writer herself met Dr Who himself on Sunday night.

Channel Nine’s entries in the top 30 for the week were 60 Minutes , the Sunday news, and the weekday news (for the full chart, go here). Ten’s best affort was a repeat of NCIS. Picking up Seven’s leftovers, SBS scored with the women’s cycling road race (725,000) and Men’s Archery (399,000). And it was business as usual for Pay TV, with 224,000 for NRL Titans v Knights (Fox Sports 2), 208,000 for NRL Wariors v. Sharks (Fox Sports 2), 191,000 for Project Runway Australia (Arena) and 165,000 for American Dad! (Fox 8).

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Social media is all about discussion, transparency and a genuine voice. Therefore I feel its only right that I relay a very spirited debate that has taken place in our offices today.

Last night my partner in blogging crime Gordon, aka The Marketer posted about the forthcoming Nine Network television series Scorched. I happened to notice the post while doing the Olympics/laptop double and made a mental note: "must discuss post in morning".

We did, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

We love a good debate in this office, but this one really got passions stirring, so much so that everyone else had to leave their cubby houses to join in.

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Barrack Obama has changed the game when it comes to political campaigning. Using grassroots campaigning and a savvy online presence he has raised record amounts of funding and encouraged amazing voter turnout during the Democratic Primaries.

Now he is thanking his voter base by allowing them to be the first to know his Vice Presidential running mate via email and text message rather than in a traditional press conference announcement.

The following news clipping demonstrate this remarkable change in political campaigning

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Banking is one of the most conservative industries imaginable. The somber pinstripe suits of the finance world have traditionally been reluctant to engage consumers in non-traditional ways, usually sticking to tried and true advertising approaches that rarely make an impact.

Banking is also the last place you would expect to find a General Manager with a social media marketing agenda. Or is it?

Dutch banking giant Rabobank has been in Australia since 1990. In 2007 they launched RaboPlus as a new online banking service. RaboPlus operates exclusively online with no retail outlets or phone banking, with customers accessing and managing their accounts, and buying and selling managed funds, using the RaboPlus self-directed online platform.

Bryan Inch, GM of RaboPlus in Australia, has adopted a social media approach as part of the overall marketing and communications strategy for business. At this stage the strategy is built mainly around blogging from the RaboPlus corporate site and tailored newsletter, but it is encouraging to see the big end of town beginning to embrace a more open and conversational approach.

I recently interviewed Bryan for the Social Media Success Stories series. You can also read Interview 1 with Tim Jackson of Masi Bicyles here:

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Source: Mark Chenery, Adnews.com.au

Advertisers spent $1.524 billion on online advertising in the 12 months to June 2008, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) latest Online Advertising Expenditure Report.

The report shows strong growth across all categories of online spend during the 2007 to 2008 financial year.

In the 12 months to June 2008, search and directories advertising remained the fastest growing category of online spend - up 34% to $706 million.

General display advertising was up 23% over the 12 month period to $411 million, while online classifieds grew 21% to $407 million.

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Newcastle TV ratings week 32, 2008

Prime received a late week boost when the Beijing Olympics kicked off on Friday night. The Opening Ceremony and Day One coverage boosted Prime’s figure to their highest week result thus far in 2008, but still 8 points down leader NBN.

Amazingly, the most spectacular Opening Ceremony in Olympic history failed to win the ratings week, possibly due to the late start.

Southern Cross TEN look set to have a bad Olympics month with their audience plummeting to 14.4, their lowest 2008 result.

It will be interesting to watch the figures over the next two weeks, with Prime expected to win their first week of 2008 while the Aussies are racing in the pool. Week two of the Games could see the numbers back off though, and NBN will be ecstatic if they can limit the damage.

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The national TV ratings race, David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

If Seven’s programmers were worried that politics or pollution might put Australians off switching to Beijing, they can relax now. On Friday night an average of 3.3 million people in the mainland capitals watched the Olympic opening ceremony between 10 pm and 2am, with a peak audience of 4.4 million for the singing and 2.5 million still awake when the Australians marched in. (By comparison, the Athens opening in 2004 was watched by 3.04 million, Sydney scored 6.5m in 2000 and Atlanta scored 3.1m in 1996.

Then on Saturday evening, 2.2 million watched the heats. Seven estimates that 11.8 million Australians saw some part of the coverage on Friday or Saturday, offering some compensation for the disappointing performance of Make Me A Supermodel, which drew only a million viewers on Wednesday and Thursday and fell way behind Nine’s gloriously silly new game show Hole In The Wall.

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The Age of Conversation 2: Why don’t people get it? will be released next month and anticipation is building amongst the world-wide social media community.

Dave Armano has taken responsibility for the cover design once again, and has released a sneak preview of the new look for 2008.

Check out Dave’s Logic+Emotion site for a sneak peak.