Dipping into the Blogpond

1. New blogs debuting in the Top 100 Australian Blogs

• Just Make Money Online
• Flying Solo
• Sueblimely – Discovering Blogging
• Alpesh Nakars Blogosphere
• Car News @ MotorDude.com
• Laketrees
• Infotropism – Kirrily Roberts Blog

2. New blogs on the Australian Blogs Community
Lost in Australia
absoluteLeigh (URL Update)
Your Second Identity – Your Second Avatar
Social Cult

Reminder: Anybody who would like to add (or update) the Aussie blogs from Bumpzee to their blogroll can find an A to Z list and a downunder version (Z to A). Snoskred keeps these updated weekly.

We now have 128 members, 153 blogs, 8544 entries and some really great discussion. Is your blog there?

3. Aussie Blog Post of the Week

Dan Warne wrote a fascinating piece entitled The PR industry Meets Journalism: down the Rabbit Hole. It’s a long post, but an easy read and quite an intriguing look into the PR industry from a journalist’s point of view. Dan talks about the allure of the PR professionals:

These people, who, in some PR practices, charge as much per hour as lawyers, are usually absolutely stunningly good looking, charming, charismatic people. They’re impeccably dressed, they know all about you even though you may not have a clue who they are (apart from a vague glimmer of a memory that you might have met them some time in the past), and they are deadset focused on making you feel fantastic about how good you are.

And talks about some of the perks that journalists receive:

And aside from travel, if a journo ever has any sort of problem with a tech company on a personal level, it only takes a call to the PR to have it sorted in no time flat. I know from my history in corporate affairs that often, when a journo calls up with a personal request, it’s met behind the scenes with incredulity and irritation (after all, a highly paid, busy reputation consultant is going to waste an hour on an irritating customer service issue), but the journo never sees any of it. All they hear is purring consolation from the PR and a promise to get the problem fixed instantly.

Dan also covers bullying and threats received my journalists, and recounts an interesting tale that starts:

And then there are the companies that try to get to the journalists through the most commercial avenue of all — by cancelling all their advertising.

I’ve read the piece a few times now, and I just find it really interesting, I hope you do too.

4. Spotlight on an Aussie Blogs Community Blog (Bumpzee)

This week, I’d like to spotlight Andrew Boyd from Facibus on Blogging. Andrew, from Canberra, maintains quite a few blogs. At Facibus on Blogging and On Blogging Australia he writes predominantly about blogging, the latter with a more Australian focus. Andrew recently wrote about Competitiveness in the Blogosphere and points out that we need to be remarkable to stand out.

How do you become remarkable?
This is the hard part – if I could tell you how to become truly remarkable in your niche, then chances are I would be doing it myself

Needless to say, both blogs quickly made it into my RSS feed reader.

5. Other News (Hoax Email Alert)

Seems I’ve been very busy the last few day joining up to a lot of new services (no wonder I’m suffering from Information Overload) –

Resume Hunters, Job Search Pros, Web Joker, Net Jokes, Entertaining Pros, Fun World, Online Gamers, Net Gambler, Poker World, Web Tunes, Free Ringtones, Ringtone World, MP3 World, Mobile Fun, CoolPics, Free Web Tools, Downloader Heaven, Bartenders Guide, Wine Lovers, Web Cooking, Pet World, Cat Lovers, Dog Lovers, On-line Hook-up, Internet Dating.

The confirmation emails for these services usually looks something like this

New Member,

Are you ready to have fun at Resume Hunters.

Membership Number: 48281895
Login ID: user4774
Your Password ID: [deleted]

Please keep your account secure by logging in and changing your login info.

This link will allow you to securely change your login info: http://71.XXX.135.100/ [xxx is replacing numbers]

[sometimes the ip address is also displayed as words like “internet dating”]

Welcome,
Welcome Department
Resume Hunters

It typically comes with one of these message subjects

Registration Details, Dated Confirmation, New Member, Secure Registration, Internal Support, Member Confirm, User Verification, New User Confirmation, Member Registration, Technical Support, Thank you for Joining, Login Info, User Info

Seriously though, while I haven’t clicked on a link, I could imagine that these are pretty obnoxious type sites, just looking to boost their traffic. Be WARNED and be WARY about clicking through on anything you haven’t signed up for.

See Symantec for more information, and most importantly do NOT click the link and do NOT download the Secure Login Aplet.

6. From the Aussosphere

Last reminder for the Carnival of Australia which is being hosted here next week. Submissions close at 5.00pm on (Monday 27th August). If you haven’t submitted before, it only takes a minute. Don’t be shy!

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Megan from Imaginif is running a Blogging Relay for Child Protection week 2007. She writes:

Imaginif invites you to join the global relay of bloggers who care for kids and are willing to make a statement about keeping kids safe. Use our cyber blog baton to help, not hurt kids. If you care about child friendly cyber communities, keeping kids safe and child protection:…

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Controversy – Fairfax blogger Jack Marx got the sack this week and had his satirical post, about what might have happened to Kevin Rudd during his visit to the “shady” place, pulled off the site. And all on his birthday. Clubtroppo have the “offending” post, and Cameron Reilly an interesting interview with Jack. Hat tip – Freedom to Differ.

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Facebook – Facebook got slammed by both News and Fairfax during the week, for being a major drain on the economy. This resulted in a resounding response from the blogosphere and a satirical post by Cam Reilly equating Facebook with newspapers. It seems the Australian Traditional media can’t seem to write a positive piece about social media, unless they are serving their own needs.

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Note in this last link, about how TrueLocal plans to enter the local business review market, contains the following quote:

Truelocal is not the only local search competitor ramping up its offer. Search behemoth Google has relaunched Google Maps with local business listings from Truelocal, and already includes a review option.

A-hem. dLook introduced local business reviews in May, powered by RaveAboutIt, who have been providing a reviewing function since October 2006. But never let the whole truth get in the way of press release news story.

For a more balanced review of websites in this space see Mark’s Local Business Search / Review Scene in Australia, where he lists eight websites already providing this service.

[disclosure: I am a founder of dLook).