Yes, I've been conspicuously absent for the past few weeks. Pumping out a couple chapters of a book will do that to you, unfortunately. I am also realizing that I was working ever-harder to find news where there just wasn't all that much news. A few things have happened - more on the Yahoo mess shortly - but the industry was definitely in a bit of a real-news slump for the most part anyway as far as I could see.

What I did see was the New York Times article on blogger burnout. Blogging can give me headaches sometimes, but I am grateful that I didn't keel over with a heart attack like some. Humbly I have to take this at my own pace: I love being there for ya, but the NYT article reminds me that there's gotta be a me first and foremost for myself and my paying customers. My feeling from the beginning is that ContentBlogger should be an unbiased source of industry analysis, so I have avoided the commercial route - knowing also. of course, that this frees me to be somewhat neglectful of my blogging duties sometimes.

In the meantime I will catch up with some posts that I owe you and I thank you for your patience. I love doing ContentBlogger, but sometimes I need to balance that love with other things.

Labels: blogs, burnout, ContentBlogger

It didn't start out to be a vacation from blogging, but all of a sudden I began to realize that I had been doing ContentBlogger for nearly five years without a break.
A few days off turned into a few weeks off as holiday time slipped by. I cannot say that I was under the palm tree sipping cool drinks for my time away, but it I was definitely enjoying a change of pace - and now I am looking forward to resuming the pace. I hope that you had a good holiday season and that you will all have a happy and prosperous New Year - and enjoy another great year of industry insights from ContentBlogger.

Labels: ContentBlogger

When Techobabble 2.0 ranked information and communications technolgy (ICT) industry analyst weblogs recently I was pleased to discover our own ContentBlogger in the top ten of all ICT weblogs. More specifically, sandwiched in between Forrester and Jupiter's top weblogs and several notches above Charlene Li. The blog acknowledges that heavies such as Charlene came in low in some objective criteria such as Technorati rankings, but still, this is a very cool thing. Especially cool is that ContentBlogger was tying the very top analyst weblogs in TB2.0's own ranking criteria.

Wow.

Our heartfelt thanks go out to Jonny Bentwood over at Edelman for his analysis and for his recognition of our efforts. It's rewarding to see how our efforts rank amongst the leaders in the industry. Our heartfelt thanks go out also to everyone who tunes in to ContentBlogger online or via our ShoreLines newsletter. It's a privilege to be of service to you and an honor to be amongst such talented peers in this recognition. We'll just keep on doing our thing here at Shore, and make it only better as we go along.

Labels: analysts, ContentBlogger, ICT, Technobabble 2.0, Technology, weblogs

Industry awards are not a recognition that you are the best of anything in any absolute sense: this I know from being a judge for the SIIA CODiE awards for a few years running. Companies eager for recognition come forward, get weighed by industry experts and then are presented to the membership of the association sponsoring the awards for voting. So the CODiEs are above all a recognition from peers who have come to know you and your work in very specific contexts.

It is in the full knowledge of this that we are truly humbled and honored by the judgment of our peers in the Software and Information Industry Association that ContentBlogger is the Best Media Blog for 2007. The team members and affiliates of Shore Communications Inc. who have labored for more than four years to produce this weblog do so to provide unbiased insight into the content industry that is valued by thousands of professionals like ourselves worldwide. Social media is above all other things a tool that allows peers to communicate effectively without the worry of whether what we are saying is the most influential word on any given topic in the eyes of the world as a whole. What really matters is that the people who we really care about and who value our opinions as peers and colleagues perceive and understand the value of what we do. From this standpoint, there could be no finer recognition for our efforts than a peer award such as the CODiE.

Our thanks go out to the Board of Directors and the staff of the SIIA who work so hard on these awards, as well as to all of the judges who work very earnestly to filter the many prospective candidates for these awards. Our thanks go also to the many nominees who were up for this and other awards: it is an honor to be judged alongside your many fine efforts. Thanks also to Newstex and LexisNexis who distribute ContentBlogger to enterprise subscribers. But most of all we thank you, our loyal and passionate readers who come here to find insight, information and, on a good day, some wit and wisdom that might help you to know your markets, set your strategies and implement them with success. We are honored by your appreciation of our efforts and will bear your strong appreciation in mind as we continue to improve our communications with you. It's been a hoot.

Labels: award, CODiE, ContentBlogger, SIIA