New definition of a blog

There is plenty of confusion about what a blog is. And that is OK since blogs are still so new, despite the fact that blogs have become the preferred publishing medium during recent months.

What a blog is not? A blog is no longer just an online, public, but personal diary. Those days are long gone. Since the blog technology evolved, blogs are slowly being used as another publishing platform for content. In fact, Blogger, the leading blog provider, calls blogs simply as "easy-to-use web site, where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people."

Surprisingly enough, there is a lot of philosophical discussion going on among publishers and bloggers if blogs should have advertisement or if there should be blogs developed with a very narrow focus, for instance, weight loss or supply chain management or the Tsunami disaster. Many early bloggers appear to be disappointed that yet another technology that was supposed to be the domain of techies has now entered the mainstream and suddenly blogs are commercial.

In our understanding, a blog is simply another way to publish content. We have used Microsoft Front Page for years and we still do but now we have another option. We use both platforms and make our judgment which platform is better for each piece of content. In fact an average user does not even realize what is a blog post and what is a standard web page. We do not want our reader to bother with the underlying technology; what we want to do is to create value for our readers.

Proposed new definition of blogs: "A website that you can have if you know how to type."

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Online advertising forecast to grow 11% in 2005

There is some great news for online media companies like eCreativa. Advertising spending is expected to increase 5.1 percent in 2005 to $150 billion, according to full-year forecasts released today by TNS Media Intelligence. This increase follows the estimated growth of 10.6 percent in 2004, as the U.S. economy continues to show signs of stability. (Related article: Strong forecast for ebusiness and nanopublishing)

Indeed 2004 was a stellar year for online publishers, but the number that we have to look at more closely is the online advertising, which is expected to grow at 11% in 2005. TNS Media Intelligence is also forecasting that Spanish language television advertising will grow at 9.4% a year. While no information is available on Spanish online advertising, it is a fair assumption to make that advertisers will see an opportunity in advertising on Spanish language websites with Spanish copy and Spanish landing pages (it will be wonderful if they also provide at least some customer service in Spanish). This is going to help one of our media properties - Lindisima.

Another interesting statistic is the pathetic growth rate in business-to-business magazines advertising. This is understandable since today's business professionals are no longer reading business magazines since by the time they are published they have already read about them on the Internet. (Related article: Guerilla marketing for B2B space) We are expecting that there will be more online advertising on business--to-business magazines, and that will benefit one of our properties iProceed Management Consultant & Strategy.

The tremendous growth in both sales and income seen by Google in 2004 is a clear indicator that online advertising works. Google's enormous success with its AdSense program is another reason that those advertisers who complain about AdSense program and would like Google to only show their ads during search results should now accept the fact that AdSense is the only alternative in many cases to attract the right kind of visitors. (Related article: Google's robust strategy and business model)

Let us take the example of recall issues with drugs like Vioxx and likely recalls of Celebrex and Bextra. There is so little useful information on the web for these drugs and on their recall process. However, our dedicated news center on Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra recall is a great way for advertisers to attract Vioxx litigants. Without AdSense, they would be helpless.

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