OK, ok, so we got bumped out of the Group Blog running. Congratulations to all the folks who won this year’s Marketing Sherpa awards – and well done to PSFK’s team of contributors for getting PSFK nominated! You’re the best.
Here’s a run down of the winners and our late night commentary:
Best individual’s blog on the general topic of marketing and advertising
Awarded to: Seth Godin’s Blog
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/blog.html
Honorable Mention: Adrants
http://www.adrants.com
PSFK Comment: Got to love the fella but Seth’s blog is updated infrequently at best these days. He punts out the odd tit-bit now and again,
but we think he holds much of his best thinking back for his books.
Don’t get us wrong, we love his site but if you compare Seth’s output
to Ask’s at AdLand you wonder why he ever got nominated and Ask didn’t get it. Then you
notice AdLand’s interface…. come on Ask!
Best group weblog on the general topic of marketing and advertising
Winner: MarketingVOX
http://www.marketingvox.com
Honorable Mention (Tie):
Marketing Genius http://marketinggenius.blogspot.com
Church of the Customer http://www.churchofthecustomer.com
Big BooHoo Looser:
PSFK http://www.psfk.com
PSFK Comment: How can you compete with a blog we thought was an online
magazine? Tig does a marvelous job at blinding us with journalistic flair. Congrats to the
other two… COTC:
Yeah, we pinch stuff from them from time to time, but isn’t it set up
purely to sell that book of theirs? Hmpff.
Best PR-topic blog
Winner: Media Guerrilla
http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media guerrilla
Honorable Mention: Strategic Public Relations
http://www.prblog.typepad.com
PSFK Comment: Both blogs have interesting commentary in poorly
designed surrounds (why does Sherpa applaud such poor interface in
2005?) – and we know BLetter PR blogs!
Best B-to-B marketing-topic blog
Winner: Guerrilla Consulting
http://guerrillaconsulting.typepad.com
Honorable Mention: B-to-B Lead Generation Blog
http://blog.startwithalead.com/
PSFK Comment: We wish we had the Guerrilla chap on our RSS earlier.
Best blog on small business marketing
Winner: Duct Tape Marketing
http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php
Honorable Mention: Small Business Trends
http://www.smallbusinesses.blogspot.com
PSFK Comment: Small Business Trends thoroughly deserves recognition.
Duct Tape? Well, it seems to have some good stuff, but it’s just not very clear what you get out of it.
Best blog on online marketing
Winner: Chris Baggott’s Best Practices in Email
http://exacttarget.typepad.com/chrisbaggott
Honorable Mention: Charlotte Li’s Blog
http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/
PSFK Comment: Baggott’s blog is another in-depth valuable resource
contained in a crap shell (wot no categories?). Charlotte Li’s blog
gets hon mention? WTF?! Does anyone read it or was it her Forrester clients voting? (joke, obviously)
Blogs on Search Marketing
Winner: Search Engine Roundtable
http://www.seroundtable.com
Honorable Mention: Brad Fallon
http://www.bradfallon.com
PSFK Comment: Never hear of them. They’re not the sites we use to get SE info from.
Best Blog on Niche Marketing
Winners (tie):
Ypulse – Media for the Next Generation
http://www.ypulse.com/
WonderBranding – Marketing to Women
http://michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing to women
Honorable Mention:
Lipsticking- Smart marketing to women online
http://windsormedia.blogs.com/lipsticking
PSFK Comment: YPulse is our Marketing Blog winner. We fell in love with YPulse’s Anastasia since we first
crawled across her site. We frequently pilfer from her. She’s
superb. We’re not so aware of the other blogs nominated – but a quick review
showed useful info in a niche category.
PSFK Overall Comment: We could argue until the cows come home about
who should have won but our last comment is about the quality of the
blogs’ interface – rather than their content. We just wonder if there’s a
little too much back slapping for mediocre sites. The content of many
of these sites may well be terrific but we’ve all been blogging for a
while now and PSFK can’t work out why so many of the blogs have such
poor interface design. How can these marketing blogs look so amateur? The Mainstream Media must be giggling as they begin to sharpen their knives…
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Blogs are great for getting opinions, expert knowledge and filtered (edited) news/information (trends).
Seth does an excellent job on the expert opinion part. Although not as “deep” on the blog as in his books (as you mentioned), his perspectives are very accessible to non-marketing types. He cuts through jargon well.
Blogs also excel at providing an exchange of ideas. I’ve learned more from resulting commentary exchange than the original post quite often. Isn’t it an example of what Seth and others (i.e. Cluetrain) talk about when they mention “markets are conversations”? Blogs work wonders when conversing with markets.
Seth’s site scores a “D” in the conversation department. He doesn’t allow comments except through trackbacks and private emails.
How can a semi-blog win an award? In my book, a blog is a Web-Log: Web=interactive Log=writing. Choke off the interactive capability of a blog and it’s a semi-blog or maybe a demi-blog.
June 14th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
OK – I’m the first to admit my interface stinks. It’s cookie-cutter, off the shelf from Typepad with no changes to the html. It’s one reason why I pop images into my posts.
But if you change my interface from green to purple, how different does it look from this blog?!
June 14th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
Interface– sminterface– puh-lease! I have a simple interface to focus on the important stuff. While I half-way agree with your comment — marketing is marketing and should look like it, after all, with blogs…it’s the content, not the design. I’m not a designer…would that web-designers would get on board and help design kick-ass blogs. (some are, I know…but only a few.) That said, Michele Miller at least updated her blog this year and it looks fab! Hope I can do the same, soon. Till then…I will get by.
July 1st, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Well I’m a bit late to this party, but better late than never!
I’m one of the designers designing kick-ass blogs. I am consistently struck dumb that the same smart people who are responsible for directing marketing campaigns for scores of successful clients should be so flippant when it comes to their own brand.
Your blog IS your brand. Your blog design communicates AS MUCH AS YOUR CONTENT. A blog is a tremendous investment in time and energy. Why would one not take the proper steps to maximize that investment?
July 5th, 2005 at 11:23 am