I’ve always wanted to be a magazine publisher. I think it stems back to the Judith Krantz mini series “I’ll take Manhattan” from many, many years ago. I watched it as a little girl, and fell in love with the main character’s career, which happened to be “magazine magnate”.

But then, somewhere along the way, I also fell in love with new media, and the immense (and immensely underutilized) potential that it brings to business communication.

And now I have mixed the two passions, and am the (online) publisher of the New Media Journal. This really has been months and months in the making. The idea went through countless drafts, business models and designs. Finally, I settled on the most common model online (free!). And in the true spirit of no free lunch, I hope to make (some) money through premium products, added consulting gigs and (maybe) some advertising. The premium products will follow shortly.

So, if you find the time to read it and if you happen to like it - please pass it on. And please subscribe to the blog, so that you don’t miss future issues (as well as my regular blog posts).

As a last comment, expect this blog to grow. I have re-launched it with the release of the New Media Journal and will make it my hub for all my new media thoughts.

(For those of you new to Scribd.com, the host of the Journal, mouse over the “More” button in the view below for options to print, email etc. To download, click on the red link below)

NewMediaJournal_01

Every time I open my Google newsreader, I am slightly annoyed by the incestuous nature of the blogosphere. Techcrunch writes something good, and 30 other blogs write posts about it, without offering much value add. The reason it’s annoying is because if I am subscribed to those 30 blogs, I am sure as hell subscribed to Techcrunch.

But that is highly hypocritical of me, since I do the same thing all the time (case in point is this very post). In theory, I try to add my own spin, or I write for those people who I genuinely think might have missed the content I am re-posting. In the past, I have even tried to aggregate top content from many sites to make it easier for others to keep up, (and I think I shall go back to doing that). And more than that, I love it when others link to *my* blog.

But guess who is not complaining? The Techcrunch’s of this world. Because of the way authority is measured in the blogosphere, the more people who link to your posts, the more popular your blog will be deemed to be by search engines and the like. The more popular the search engines think you are, the more popular they make you by offering your content at the top of search results. I guess it’s just the way that the cookie crumbles.

Technorati is the best known tool for measuring blog authority, and they have now started a monthly feature where they list the sites (not just blogs) with the most link-backs from blogs, in the past 30 days. Not really surprisingly, 61% of links on blogs are to other blogs. But what are bloggers linking to when they are not linking to each other? This is a list of the top 50 non-blog content sites:

• YouTube
• New York Times
• BBC News
• CNN.com
• MSN
• guardian.co.uk
• Washington Post
• Yahoo! News
• Reuters
• Los Angeles Times
• Telegraph.co.uk
• MSNBC
• The Wall Street Journal
• Time
• Wired
• USA Today
• boston.com
• FOX News
• Daily Mail
• ESPN
• CBS News
• Financial Times
• Forbes
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Chicago Tribune
• The White House
• New York Post
• New York Daily News
• International Herald Tribune
• PBS
• Salon.com
• BusinessWeek
• Slate
• Newsweek
• New York Magazine
• Economist.com
• CBC.ca
• San Francisco Examiner
• MarketWatch
• Chicago Sun-Times
• US News & World Report
• Houston Chronicle
• Yahoo! Sports
• Entertainment Weekly
• Seattle Times
• E! Online
• People
• Science Daily
• Style.com
• The Christian Science Monitor

I am not sure how this was measured, since a lot of these sites have blogs, or at the very least regular columnists. But there you go. Yes, Youtube is more popular the New York Times, but overall, I am impressed by the high quality of sites that made it into the Top 50.  I wonder if the list will change much in the coming months? I suspect not.

Chris Brogan is on one of those people who Just.Gets.It.

He understands social media, and he knows how it works best and when. If you don’t read his blog, then today would be a good time to start.

There is tons of information there, but this little e-book is a good place to start if you want to learn more about how social media should fit into your working like. It’s only 6 pages long, but packed for impact. Download it here.

Guess what? Conventional, in your face advertising no longer works. See this slide show to understand why, and how you can use Buzz to spread your message. Really, there is no other way.

If you are at all interested in marketing, and the place of the brand in an online world of communication, best you view this presentation.

Another good presentation re Web 2.0. Good examples and case studies help drive the message home.

A presentation given at the Social Network World Forum in London, 9 March 2009. The topic was about justifying social media spend in a recession to ‘internal clients’. Brilliant.