Why is it that in every niche, any time there is any news/post about their niche, certain companies feel compelled to say ‘oh look at us.’ It doesn’t contribute to discussion. It doesn’t do anything for anyone. It is a self-appraising ‘look at me’ cry for attention.
Case in point: TechCrunch’s post on Judy’s Book shutting down. There are six companies plugging themselves. Without really saying much. Kudos to JD Amer from Lopico for saying how Michael is off (without having to plug his own site).
And then of course you get the more extreme version – multiple employees all plugging the same damn company.
After my post on how much I love Gothamist, I emailed Greg Sterling saying that he is totally overlooking the local-blog scene. He emailed me back asking for the players to note – and the only two I could really think of were Gothamist and Metroblogging. Sure we have our own – but it is not important enough to warrant inclusion in the discussion.
Sheesh. The world doesn’t always revolve around your website. Let other people have their moment in the sun.
6 Responses to Always self-plugging
JD Amer
October 30th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
And Kudos to you for getting involved intelligently without having to mention iBegin. There is still a ton to do in the local space and innovation is coming from a number of places – but mainly those not focused on pure local review sites.
And now for the shameless plug request: the link for Lopico is missing the .com.
Ahmed
October 30th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
*bow*
I try to share the love. I think I mentioned in my lovepost for Gothamist how I emailed both Greg Sterling and Peter K that they really need to cover them (and Metro Blogging). Same thing with Kudzu – that is a nice engine that no one is paying any attention to – and they should be.
Oh crud will fix the link
JD Amer
October 31st, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I’m a big fan of Chicagoist, I definitely think that local blogging is going to be a growing market. Certainly creates an identifiable voice. I also think it would be interesting to take the concept of local blogging and add in a yellow pages aspect – so, I would search for a business, then instead of reading reviews, I would read all the blog posts that mention the business. Much more to the idea than that, but that’s the essential element.
Kudzu is a nice site, but the focus is Atlanta. As huge of a market as that is, it’s tougher to get good press/attention if you’re not playing to the market of the person doing the talking.
Ahmed
October 31st, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Ah JD – don’t forget we have our own local blogging network
We have the beginnings of ‘blog posts on business X’ at iBegin Source – when our local blog network gets going and Blog Flux Local arises – it will become a lot more tight.
Kudzu expanded into the full US a while ago – and comparing it to Insider Pages: http://tinyurl.com/yrxxmn
JD Amer
October 31st, 2007 at 5:06 pm
True, you do have the pieces for what I described — but, the idea I have for the way this would work is a little more complex than what I would leave in a comment… and I’m sure yours is too.
Ahmed
October 31st, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Indeed – it will be 8-12 months to get where I want it to be.
If not more