29
August
2006
|
16:00 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Congrats to Good Morning Silicon Valley...GUBA turns to cash in vid hosting wars...Danny Sullivan shocks SEO community...Office 2.0 is coming mid-October

Congrats to John  Paczkowski from the San Jose Mercury's excellent Good Morning Silicon Valley for a finalist nomination in the 7th Online Journalism Awards from the Online News Association (ONA) and the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

Online Commentary (Small)

CJR Daily
“Get on the Bus,” Scott Elliot
“Good Morning Silicon Valley,” John Paczkowski
SeeingBlack.com

I was wondering why it was in the "small" category since it is part of San Jose Mercury, a very large news organization.

It is interesting that no journalist bloggers, independent of mainstream media organizations, were chosen by the ONA judges. Is this the opinion of ONA that other online news sites aren't online news sites because they are published by small/self publishers?

During a time when independent journalists bloggers such as Josh Wolf are standing up and going to jail to defend the rights of our commonly accepted journalistic practices, this sends the wrong message IMHO. Why not nominate Josh Wolf as a special show of recognition and support?

Link to ONA News: 2006 Online Journalism Awards - Finalists

 

GUBA offers cash to vid recruiters . . .

The battle of the video upload sites begins to get a little bit more expensive as Guba tries to rise above the white noise and offers money to users that recruit other users. 

Videos embedded in web pages and blogs allow people to click through to GUBA for a free account and the publisher gets paid 25 cents. There is no limit to the number of user-referrals a person can get paid for. To manage this transaction, GUBA will provide a cookie on the PC of each referred user. If the referred user decides to sign-up for a free GUBA account within 30 days of clicking on the users' link, that user will be credited for the sign-up.

Link to details on GUBA 

Danny Sullivan's sudden departure . . .

Danny Sullivan, a towering figure in the search engine community has left  his regular gig as an analyst at SearchEngineWatch, and the SearchEngineWatch Strategies conference series. He said that he was unable to reach an agreement on a new contract with the owners.

Everyone seems to be in shock and awe by the news. But people are down right supportive of Danny and his reasoning. Everyone was simply so accustomed to Danny always being there, always being with SEW, the baby he built up. Most are wishing Danny luck. Many are uncertain what the future brings to the search conference life. People are both excited for Danny but sad that SEW won't continue it's legacy. Some are just angry and mad that this can happen.

From Search Engine Roundtable.

I think it is very clear that he can set up under his own media brand in a New York minute. And I'd be happy to provide him with a regular slot on SVW should he need it.

He is already a big media brand in his own right and that was achieved through producing insightful analysis consistently. There aren't that many people that can do that day-in and day-out. I wouldn't worry about Danny Sullivan, he'll land on his feet.

Link to Reaction from the Search Community on Danny Sullivan's Departure

Office 2.0 is coming in mid-October . . .

There is lots of speculation about GOOG putting together an online suite of business apps to rival MSFT's Office. But we don't need to wait for Google to mashup its small collection of online apps because others are racing there anyway.

You'll be able to see some of them at the up coming Office 2.0 Conference October 11 to 12, in San Francisco at the St. Regis.  It looks very promising from what I've seen so far. It will be officially announced next week and it has a stellar speaker list,  with many people that I know and respect. I'll be attending and I'm hoping to get a special rate for SVW readers--so check back here in a few days.

Link to Office 2.0 2006 Conference - Conference