There are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Blogs. Show #012 covers the questions of why should marketers consider Blogging, the opportunities that Blogs offer beyond the benefits of the standard website and how to market a marketing oriented Blog to build audience.

This ranging interview is with Susan Mernit who has delivered groundbreaking programs for Advance Publications, Netscape, AOL and now Yahoo! Personals. Susan is also well known for her very own Blog aptly named “Susan Mernit’s Blog.”

Some of the Blogging tools and websites discussed in this show are:

www.feedster.com

www.technorati.com

www.feedburner.com

www.hitwise.com

This Podcast is 33 minutes long.

By the way, this may be the one of the last of my twenty plus minute shows. I am thinking hard about moving more into Podlets (the sub four-minute Podcast structure that we “invented” on MosaicSF with the Pillow Fight video.) I am interviewing ADWEEK’s Contributing Editor Catherine P. Taylor tomorrow and I may record with podlets in mind. I am hearing that many people simply do not have, ah, long attention spans. I know I don’t unless I am on a car trip, on the plane or working out.

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Welcome to show number eleven. We’ve crested the Everest of ten shows and have beaten back Podcast fade with a stick. Now for eleven:

Podcasting is hot, right? Or not. It’s still hard to tell but we do know that it is at least heating up – right? Huge numbers are projected for the future, uh huh. But are they here today? We are in the hoping and wondering stage of Podcasting.

Well, if you listen to Kevin Agren of PhotoshopTV, the answer to the question “has podcasting arrived?” is a resounding…. Yes!

This week’s interview highlight’s the incredible success of PhotoshopTV and its audience which topped 1.5 million video downloads in March!

In addition to phenomenal audience growth, PhotoshopTV is raking in sponsorship dollars from a range of sponsors including B&H Photo, iStockphoto, Logitech and Epson.

I am going to stop talking. My suggestions: take a listen to this Podcast, take a look at PhotoshopTV on iTunes and check out PhotoshopTV’s parent’s MacLive show in New York in early May

This Podcast is 30 minutes long.

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I just got this email from one of our Senior Account Executives who specializes in financial marketing. Ann’s a major Mariners fan and is one of those fans that listens to baseball on the radio (a great thing to do outside with a beer in the summer by the way.)

“I’ve been hearing radio spots that simply recount bank customers horror stories and solicit people to go to a web site to submit their stories. Absolutely no branding - no idea what bank is running these. Can’t tell from the web site either. Check it out: www.mybankdoesntgetit.com

I’ve heard these on ESPN radio since baseball season began - so it could be a Seattle market thing if they did a Mariners buy.”

Ann is also a smart marketer who wonders just what this campaign is all about. Yeah, it has a “cool” factor (I like the design and sure, I like bitch sessions too) but it is of a type of bank advertising where a bank hammers on all of the fear and loathing of bank customers to then say… “Hey, we are different and better.”

I have seen banks kill each other for years. It is a somewhat rare and cruel campaign tool of the banking industry. I am not sure that there are many other industries that knock their own category with the same amount of gusto! Is this really a good idea? Do people really think that one bank is that much better at dealing with the major issues once they have highlighted them? Is this good branding?

We’ll wait and see which bank reveals its name — and the rest of the campaign. My bet is that it is Washington Mutual.

Yes folks, last week the 4A’s, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, held its latest annual food fest in Scottsdale. Once again the industry slapped itself around a bit. Kinda reminds me of what the newspaper industry is doing to its members.

I don’t know what goes on in big agencies any more. But, I do remember what a hellish place Saatchi & Saatchi had become by the time I left in 1994. Here is what I do know…the smaller shops are doing great work and are not crying into their martinis.

If you have no clue what I am talking about, watch the very smart Ron Berger’s criticism of his industry (not mine) at adage.com.

Google’s 2005 sales were $6.14 billion. The great majority of that came from search engine advertising sales. Google went public on August 19, 2004. Not too shabby.

To better understand the driving force behind online search engine marketing (SEM), I did the first in a series of interviews with leaders in the SEM world. Today’s interview is with Kent Lewis, President of Anvil Media in Portland Oregon. Anvil Media’s search engine marketing clients include Microsoft, Converse, InFocus, Shering Plough and PC World to name a few. We will be coming back to talk with Kent in the future.

This interview covers a range of SEM topics including the difference between SEM and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the elements of a successful SEM program, how can websites be optimized, how to work with a SEM company and the very high ROI of a smart SEM program. Believe me; we have just scratched the surface of this critical and effective marketing tool.

A few of the websites discussed in today’s Podcast include:

Anvil Media’s great list of resources: http://anvilmediainc.com/search-engine-marketing-resources.html

Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/

Marketing Sherpa: http://marketingsherpa.com/

This Podcast is 34 minutes long.

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