Hola mi amigos y amigas!* Some pretty exciting news on the Next Generation Marketing front.  Well it’s not quite news yet - more like an embryonic news nugget. Jeff, Skip, and I got on the phone this morning to plan out our next dates.  One thing that looks more or less definite is a stop in Beckley, [...]

Guess who’s back / Guess again / Marketing Genius is back / Tell a friend / Guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back, [fade out] Looks like the Marketing Genius blog is back after the hijacking.  That was much quicker than anticipated.  Please continue to enjoy posts from our good friend Skip Lineberg, which [...]

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know that it hasn’t been updated in awhile.  Please accept my apologies.  The three of us have been pretty swamped since our spring conference dates around West Virginia.  We hope to have some announcements on new dates in the next month or so and we’ll update [...]

We are proud to share news that Marketing Genius from Maple Creative is now ranked among the top advertising and media blogs in the world, according to Advertising Age. We are presently ranked #393 out of 600 total blogs. Not bad ... even if you do have to scroll several times to find us on the list.

The Power 150 is a ranking of the top English-language media and marketing blogs in the world, as developed by marketing executive and blogger, Todd Andrlik. It's really as simple as that, except that the name isn't strictly accurate: It currently ranks more than 500 blogs written about all types of media and pretty much every imaginable marketing discipline. It's now housed on Ad Age, partly because we thought it'd draw some traffic and links for us, but also because both Todd and Ad Age figured it was a useful service to rank and showcase all these sources of information in one place, where thousands of readers could discover them. With more than 700,000 registered users on our site and a host of daily and weekly products, we also hope we can grow the traffic to Todd's creation and some of the blogs it highlights.

Methodology
What Todd came up with is a largely objective ranking, which is probably why it's already gained such popularity among marketing and media bloggers. It uses a basic multimetric algorithm to obtain a final ranking based on the sum of eight sources, seven of which come from Google, Bloglines, Alexa, Yahoo! and Technorati. The last is Todd's own personal subjective measure. In the case of a tie, individual scores for a blog are weighted in the following order (from highest to lowest):

Todd Points (1 to 15): As the only subjective measure in the Power 150 algorithm, 1 to 15 opinion points were assigned to each blog. Todd Andrlik values frequent, relevant, creative and high-quality content. The use of audio, video and graphics is also heavily weighted in the Todd Points.
Yahoo InLinks (1 to 30): Much like Technorati's InLinks count, Yahoo uses its Site Explorer to tabulate the number of links to a particular blog. We then scale this number down to a 30-point scale.
Technorati Ranking (1 to 20): Technorati ranking analyzes the number of sites pointing to a particular blog. The more link sources referencing your blog, the higher the Technorati ranking. Similar to the Bloglines Subscribers value, Technorati ranking ranges were determined (i.e., top 9,000, top 10,000, top 20,000, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 20) that was used in the Power 150 algorithm.
Technorati Authority (1 to 20): Much like the InLinks count, Technorati's Authority count is the number of blogs (as opposed to individual links) that link to a particular blog. This number is then scale down to a 20-point scale.
Technorati InLinks (1 to 20): Technorati tallies the number of links to a particular blog, and we then scale that number down to a 20-point scale.
Alexa Points (1 to 15): Alexa ranks sites with an algorithm that incorporates page views and reach (the percentage of all web users who have visited that particular site). For the Power 150, we take that rank and assign it a proportional score between 1 and 15 and factor it into a blog's total score.
Bloglines Subscribers (1 to 10): Bloglines displays the number of feed subscribers. Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., more than 20, more than 30, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 15) that was used in the Power 150 algorithm.
Google PageRank (0 to 10): Google PageRank is a link-analysis algorithm that interprets web links and assigns a numerical weighting (0 to 10) to each site. High-quality sites receive a higher PageRank. The actual PageRank number was used in the Power 150 ranking algorithm.
Collective Intellect (0 to 10): Collective Intellect is a social media analytics company that works with brands to evaluate consumer opinion, measure buzz, identify customer sentiment and manage corporate reputations at the industry, company, brand, campaign and messaging levels. For the Power 150, Collective Intellect's authority ranking uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate an author's authority on a topic, including such measures as link-analysis between on-topic posts, topic density, author's percent of contribution to the topic, number of comments and post quality.

This honor is to be shared by all of you, our entire community of marketing geniuses. It goes to show how important all of you are who comment, contribute, link to, recommend, tag and 'favorite' this and other blogs. Thanks! We couldn't have done it without you.

You've heard of open-source softwarein which "volunteer" programmers around the world collaborate on a piece of software code and release it to the community free. The "open source" model is also influencing other industries from bio-tech to marketing and product...

Unfortunately we’ve had to cancel the Martinsburg leg of the Next Generation Marketing tour. For anybody already signed up, somebody will be in touch over the coming days about your refund. We apologize for any inconvenience and ask you to keep your eyes peeled for any additional Next Generation Marketing dates in the future.

Now there's a snippet of advice you will rarely hear from an ad agency or marketing consultant. However, that's just what Gap, that historically ubiquitous purveyor or tragically hip TV advertising (here's a fun spoof), has done. Few brands invested...

Right. Now we look round a few sites in order to pound them into the mud for their marketing folly. (Not overly follysome you’ll notice) 1.Rosenbaum Question about video placement and click through rates - getting stuff noticed etc. Call to action buttons. Put the video in a prominent position. Build in a way to gather testimonials. [...]

Will it Blend Check the videos. We’re wanting raving loyal customers. Or loyal raving customers. Would you refer us to someone else? Net Promoter Great little example of advocacy of Zappos.com from Jenny in the audience in her explanation of her Zappos usage - “Any shoe you would ever need.” If you check their site you have have testimonials [...]

One way conversation is that old creaky dinosaur most beloved of the old creaky media. Nice. Charlie Brown’s teacher as the zoned out messenger. Good impression with hand gestures to boot. Justin’s flagpole - the story will happen and will you join the conversation. The conversation is uncontrollable. It’s the old Oscar Wilde quote about the only thing [...]