Round-up: State of the Blogosphere, Nike CGM and Desperate Search Engines

After a period of shameless distraction from MarketerBlog, I’m back in the saddle and getting caught up. Today’s post is a round-up of several things I found of interest.

Dave Sifry posted his quarterly State of the Blogosphere report today. In addition to the astounding statistics that Technorati now tracks over 35m blogs and that the blogosphere is doubling every six months, there is good news in terms of blog retention. The report says that 55% of bloggers continue to blog after the first three months, up from 50.5% last quarter. Not only is this indicative of the stickiness of blogging activity, it also might indicate that people are finding real value in the conversations. That’s good news for marketers as we look for ways to join in those conversations. And as Mack Collier notes, at the very least it indicates healthy growth of the blogosphere. 

Last month Nike and Google joined forces to launch a social networking site for soccer fans worldwide: Joga. According to an article in ClickZ, they are now launching a new “Internet TV” channel called JogaTV. JogaTV will automatically download new content each week, notifying users when it's available. It seems like old broadcast habits are dying hard at Nike, who started the Joga site in an effort to engage in consumer generated media. If this were a true CGM site, Nike would be cultivated user created content, versus shoving their own down the pipes. Still, it’s early days and maybe they’ll figure that out and make the switch sooner rather than later. 

Late-to-the-CGM-party Microsoft is now hopping onto the Social Search bandwagon … or at least they will be when they release their unnamed social search tool on a yet-to-be-determined date in the near future. According to a report in BusinessWeek, Microsoft is planning to launch a question-and-answer social search tool in the coming months. Given the continued growth of search marketing and MSN’s persistent drop in market share, it makes sense that they would try to ride the next trend to gain momentum. Call me crazy, but social search just seems like another way to automate referrals from trusted sources. In order for it to work, you have to have the trusted sources (e.g. friends, family) in the network. Until Microsoft creates reasons for people to engage in social networking on its sites, the success of its social search engine will be limited. 

Finally, there’s a great article in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about cautious consumer packaged goods marketers finally making substantial commitments to online advertising. General Mills intends to double its online media budget this year, while Kraft plans to double the number of campaigns. The article credits a relatively new research service called Consumer Direct with the growth in CPG marketing online. Consumer Direct is a service provided Yahoo! in collaboration with AC Nielsen. It allows CPG marketers to see the impact of Internet advertising on sales through the use of a custom version of Nielsen’s Homescan panel which includes tracking of consumer behavior on Yahoo! as well. Having participated in a somewhat elaborate experimental program of this nature in the late ‘90’s, I know this is a big deal for the CPG companies. The question I would ask is when Nielsen will expand tracking beyond Yahoo’s site and into CGM. Given their acquisition and consolidation of Intelliseek and BuzzMetrics earlier this year, it seems like a logical next step and one that will bring CPG’s that much closer to their consumers. 

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Blogosphere, CGM, Joga, Marketing, Social Networking, Web2.0