MEDIA > Mags drop print for Web to reach teens

NEW YORK - This fall, teens who want the 411 on skinny jeans will have fewer teen monthly fashion bibles to flip through. But the moves by Elle Girl and Teen People to pull the plug on their publications and focus on their Web sites don't seem to bother 14-year-old Devon Brodsky.

"There are so many other ways to read about fashion," said the Harrison, N.Y. resident. Aside from Teen Vogue, Brodsky gets her fashion fix from entertainment weeklies like In Touch, the Internet and television's E! Entertainment.

Such a blase attitude contrasts sharply with the heated interest among teens back in 1998, when Teen People catapulted on the scene, spawning a new genre of teen fashion magazines like CosmoGIRL!, Teen Vogue and Elle Girl. But as teens are finding new alternatives in other media, the teen magazine market is undergoing an adolescent crisis.

YM magazine, whose assets were purchased by Conde Nast Publications, closed in early 2005; Hachette Filipacchi Media's Elle Girl and Time Inc.'s Teen People both announced this year they will suspend publication to focus on their Web sites. Executives at Hearst's CosmoGIRL! and Seventeen as well as Conde Nast's Teen Vogue all vow they'll continue publishing, but all are reinventing themselves to follow where teens are going. That means relaunching their Web sites to make them more interactive as well as offering fashion and beauty information through teens' mobile phones.

Meanwhile, Conde Nast's Internet division CondeNet will be unveiling a teen content Web site in early 2007, though company officials declined to comment further.

Officials at Teen People, which is suspending its publication after the September issue, declined an interview.

"You can't just be a magazine editor sitting in your office. You can no longer dictate. It is a two-way street," said Atoosa Rubenstein. Since joining Seventeen as editor-in-chief in July 2003, she has been spearheading a revival of the once-tired 62-year-old publication, which still leads in circulation among teen rivals. Rubenstein had helped to launch CosmoGIRL! as editor-in-chief back in 1999.

Last fall, Rubenstein produced and starred in a reality show called "Miss Seventeen," which aired on MTV. Another television project will be announced soon with a major network, she said. Seventeen is also relaunching its Web site later this fall that will further develop it as a social networking site.

Some analysts are not upbeat about the overall teen magazines' outlook, given competition from online social network sites like MySpace.com. Editors at teen magazines argue that their authoritative voice in fashion sets them apart from other sites out there.

"I think they're overplaying their authority card," said Jon Gibs, director of media analytics at Nielsen/NetRatings Inc., an Internet research company. "As consumers generate media themselves, the idea of an authoritative voice becomes more diluted. What is an authoritative voice? Is it a popular teenager, a brand, a magazine, a journalist or best friend? The whole thing is very fudgeable."

Brodsky noted that while she still loves magazines, she would be more open to getting her fashion information from interactive teen magazine sites than a community site.

Consumers' migration to the Web has hurt overall magazines, but teen publications have been the first group of major consumer publications that have "fallen by the wayside," said Martin S. Walker, chairman of Walker Communications, a magazine consulting firm.

While the overall magazine industry is suffering, industry observers note that teen magazine publishers have their own unique challenges.

First, with their readers outgrowing the magazines every couple of years, publishers have to spend money to replenish their subscriber base.

The fragmented pop culture has also hurt, according to Anne Zehren, who helped launch Teen People as publisher in 1998 and left in 2003. In the late 1990s, the hot teen music idols were few, like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. But teens now have more varied musical tastes, from hip hop to heavy metal, a trend that has diluted magazine newsstand sales.

Moreover, in recent years, kids are spending less time reading magazines, as chatting with their friends on their cell phone or on the Internet have taken center stage in their lives.

"Magazines are part of this one-way media," said Anastasia Goodstein, a San Francisco-based writer who publishes Ypulse, a blog about Generation Y for media and marketing professionals. Media is now about teens "being in touch with their friends all the time.... We have to follow where teens are hanging out."

Experts say the first big test online comes when Ellegirl.com relaunches its Web site this fall. Anne Sachs, executive editor of Ellegirl.com, reports the Web site has seen traffic increase in July, the month the magazine disappeared from the newsstands.

With the relaunch, the online community will take center stage, Sachs said. Teens can customize parts of the site and stories online will be more focused on their comments, she said. Ellegirl.com is also creating a mobile site called ellegirlMobile.

Other rivals aim to further integrate their publications with the online world.

Seventeen magazine will feature pop star Hilary Duff as a guest editor on its October issue, and will show videos of her putting the issue together on AOL's RED and KOL interactive service for teens and kids, respectively, as well as selective versions on Seventeen.com. Teenvogue.com will feature video podcasts on its site and clips of an October event where about 700 teens will learn about the fashion business from seminars with designers and executives.

CosmoGIRL!'s website, which is set to relaunch this year, will air a reality-based "Webisode," featuring graduating college seniors starting Sept. 19. It's also considering offering video based on such magazine fixtures as Project 2024, which spotlights celebrity interviews by college students whose career aspirations match their subjects'.

"Of course we do makeup... but we really do respect our reader," said Susan Schulz, editor-in-chief of CosmoGIRL! "She has bigger plans for herself and we want to feed that part of her soul."

______

On the Net:

http://www.cosmogirl.com

http://www.ellegirl.com

http://www.seventeen.com

http://www.teenpeople.com

http://www.teenvogue.com

MEDIA > Advertisers unleash new web tactics

At first glance, few companies smack of Web 2.0 hype more than Dogster, a social networking site for dogs and their owners.

Yet, since its launch in January 2004, the site – which allows users to create free web pages to share photos and tell stories about their canine companions – has attracted an affluent and growing audience.

“When I started I was hoping to make $500 a month from the small advertisers who were going to pay $50 a month for an ad,” says Ted Rheingold, Dogster’s founder. Today, he says, the site boasts an inventory of 10m paid ads a month.

Dogster’s story taps into a familiar mantra doing the rounds in Silicon Valley and other entrepreneurial hotspots where companies are trying to cash in on the social networking craze.

Do not worry about revenues, the saying goes: Just build a website that attracts a desirable audience and the money will follow.

“This is very similar to what we saw in 1995-1996,” says Dan Nova, a partner at Highland Capital, a venture capital group.

“It’s all about audience-building. I remember what people were saying in 1996. They were asking ‘Well, how can you make money?’”

Now there is a difference, however. In the years since the dotcom bust, a vast advertising infrastructure has sprung up, allowing entrepreneurs to outsource their revenue streams.

The recent deals by the popular social networking sites MySpace, which this month made a $900m advertising deal with Google; and Facebook, which last week announced a similar tie-up with Microsoft; underline the shift.

When Dogster was getting its start, Mr Rheingold relied on Google’s AdSense programme, which scans websites to places text advertisements next to relevant content, to pay the rent.

“I didn’t want to lose $25,000 on something which may or may not have been popular,” Mr Rheingold explains. “[Google] really created that buffer which allowed this to happen.” AdSense paid for office space and servers during Dogster’s first year.

Text ads from Google were not a permanent solution, however. As Dogster’s audience grew, Mr Rheingold found that the returns from Google advertising were not as high as he liked. He experimented with advertising resellers, which sell banner ads across large numbers of websites, but again found that returns were lacking.

“We’ve found that the best way to get ads that are relevant to our members is to have our own inventory,” he says.

By selling its own inventory of banner ads to companies that specifically wanted to target dog and cat lovers, Dogster is able to charge $5 or more for every thousand impressions on this site.

Although this required an in-house advertising team, it was a far more lucrative proposition than the 12 cent CPMs he was getting with banner ads or the few cents a click he was getting from Google.

Michael Sanchez had a similar experience with ClubMom, a community site geared towards mothers.

“In our case, it was very worthwhile to set up your own sales force and sell ads,” says Mr Sanchez. “The more niche or valuable the audience is the more likely an advertiser will want to advertise on your site.”

Sensing an opportunity, companies have begun to spring up that allow advertisers to bid for space on specific web sites read by their target audience.

Henry Vogel, head of sales at Quigo, one such advertising group, says platforms such as Google’s AdSense or Microsoft’s AdCenter still make sense for companies that are just getting started, or for companies such as MySpace, which has a huge but demographically diverse audience. “Google and AdSense are great solutions,” he says. “They’ve given all these bloggers and new sites ways to monetize from day one.”

But as companies begin to refine their offerings and attract a more focused audience, he says, they could find that the lack of transparency and control that comes through outsourcing an entire advertising effort is no longer worth it.

Mr Nova at Highland Capital says the boom in web advertising is not set to slow down anytime soon. “The fact is there are more and more advertisers out there than there are logical places to place ads,” he says.

The web is simply a better, more measurable platform than television, which relies on estimates of audience numbers, or cruder methods such as billboards, which target no one in particular. “It’s not just throw a billboard or a banner ad up in the hope that you get a click now and then,” he says. “It’s all about measurable return on investment.”

Emily Riley, an analyst at Jupiter Research, agrees. “After the bust, what ended up happening was online advertisers started to shift to an advertising model where pricing was driven by lead generation and sales.”

“Now people are targeting audiences and measuring performance according to content, demographics, customer location, and customer behaviour.”

Some companies are beginning to push the technological envelope in advertising by offering services that track users from website to website.

The reasoning is that a car dealership would pay more money to reach a web surfer who has just visited five web sites about cars.

Although such technologies are rife with privacy concerns, they are a further sign of the depth of advertising options available to today’s web entrepreneurs.

MEDIA > Web ads sector lacks experienced staff

The difficulties of hiring people who know how to create, sell and measure internet advertising are limiting the pace at which marketers can shift money from traditional media to hot web properties such as MySpace, YouTube and other video sites.

According to advertising and media industry executives, one of the biggest obstacles towards even more rapid growth in the online advertising industry – particularly online video advertising – is the lack of experienced staff.


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Much like during the 1990s internet boom, there is no ready pool of experienced staff because online media uses are so new. This particularly applies to finding staff to manage the explosion in user-generated content which allows people to copy, edit, communicate and share text, audio and video with ease.

For advertisers, shifting spending from traditional media such as television to online alternatives can result in a much bigger workload, further compounding the staff crunch.

“The internet is a less linear space controlled by the consumer, and that makes advertising strategies a lot more complex than those used for television,” said James Kiernan, associate digital director at MediaVest. “There is a dearth of talent on the agency and marketing side and the online publishing side.”

The web is the fastest-growing advertising sector.

In the US, spending is expected to increase by nearly 30 per cent this year to $16bn. In the rest of the world, growth is expected to reach 35 per cent this year, raising spending to $11.6bn, according to Merrill Lynch estimates.

The amount spent on television and other advertising is much bigger – reaching $292bn in the US alone – but online spending is growing the fastest.

The proliferation of high-speed internet connections has fuelled the growth of social networks such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo and video sites such as YouTube. Some of these have become the web’s most popular destinations in a short space of time, resulting in a rush of start-ups hoping to gain similar audience share.

The business models of many of these start-ups is based around attracting advertising. Staff shortages mean this is easier said than done.

“There is a shortage of talented people out there,” said Robin Kent, the former chief executive of Universal McCann Worldwide.

BLOGS > Valley voices find their value

Is it a way for mono­maniacs to grab their 15 minutes of fame, somewhere to hang out between jobs and just shoot the breeze, a tool of the marketing industry or a new business model for the publishing world?

Blogging is turning out to be a malleable art form.


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In the popular imagination, the leading exponents of this new medium are often re­garded as opinionated amateurs, highly idiosyncratic and occasionally deeply knowledgeable; they are driven to write by a passion to broadcast their views to the wider world.

Success, however, is challenging that image. As the online audiences for the most prominent bloggers grow – and the opportunities created by their new-found fame multiply – their differing motivations are becoming more apparent.

The writing may have started as an end in itself for many, but other interests have started to take centre stage. Successful bloggers, it seems, often find themselves under pressure to do anything but blog.

Nowhere has this transition been more obvious than among the select band of A-list bloggers who pontificate about the state of the technology industry. Having been among the first to take to blogging, these commentators have also been among the first to find themselves drawn to other things.

Most still maintain some involvement in blogging, but almost all have cut back on their writing as new jobs or businesses have started to dominate their attention.

To some extent, it is a natural transition that can occur in any career. “People fall in and out of things all the time,” says Dan Gillmor, a journalist who became one of Silicon Valley’s best-known early bloggers before trying his hand at business and, more recently, founding the Center for Citizen Media, a joint initiative of the University of California and Harvard University Law School.

Yet it seems that their very success is starting to draw some away from the medium that won them prominence.

For some, blogging has turned out to be a useful way to advance a campaign, a way to launch an idea into the world. Success may reduce the need to keep campaigning, or it may lead to a deeper involvement that extends beyond writing.

This year Dave Winer, credited with creating the really simple syndication technology used to distribute internet media content, announced that he would end his Scripting News blog, probably by the end of this year. The RSS technology he had championed had become widely adopted. “Blogging doesn’t need me any more,” he wrote.

“He’s declaring victory and moving on,” says Steve Gillmor, Dan’s brother and himself a prominent tech blogger who just dropped his latest blog to focus on building a business around the technology idea he had promoted. He adds that while traditional journalists value their objectivity, bloggers often see themselves as waging a political campaign that extends beyond the writing.

For others, meanwhile, blogging has been a stepping stone to new employment, part of a career progression that may or may not have been consciously planned. Robert Scoble, who attracted a considerable following as a full-time blogger employed by Microsoft, was lured away in June to join a Silicon Valley start-up.

“A lot of people use blogging as a way to get consulting work or their next job,” says Mike Arrington, found­er of TechCrunch.

Success in attracting a sizeable audience has led others to consider turning their amateur passions into full-time businesses. With 500,000 unique users a month and 1m page views, Om Malik, a journalist who specialises in broadband issues, says his pastime is now attracting enough of an audience to become a business in its own right.

“I could either have continued what I was doing or taken it to the next level,” says Mr Malik, who recently took in outside capital to hire full-time reporters and expand his blog, GigaOM. “We are coming to the point where a lot of people will be asking themselves that question.”

While amateur bloggers such as Mr Malik become accidental entrepreneurs, others, such as Mr Arring­ton, have been drawn to the medium from the start by its commercial potential.

In at least one respect, though, the tech bloggers have something in common: the predicament of how to continue to nurture the very blogs that in many cases accounted for their success.

By its nature, blogging is time-consuming. “My frequency of blogging has dropped some because of all the things I’m trying to do,” says Dan Gillmor. “It’s a hard thing to keep doing. It’s a beast that demands to be fed.”

For those who have tried to build a business around their blogs, this raises a particular danger. Drawn into becoming entrepreneurs and hiring other writers to extend their reach, they risk losing their personal connection with their audiences.

“I have to write – the thing will die if I don’t write,” says Mr Malik. He argues, though, that this is nothing new in the publishing industry: newsletter writers have long faced this predicament, and the successful ones are those who strike the right balance between their entrepreneurial and journalistic jobs.

Most say that they will not completely abandon the medium, even if they have less time to write. Echoing the comments of others, Steve Gillmor describes blogging as a “conversation”, one that has created a connection with others online, and one he intends to maintain in some form.

Asked to comment on his own plans to give up blogging, Mr Winer said he would reply only through the medium of his blog. “Blogging is a lifestyle, not something you do in between things,” he wrote. However, he says he is also ready to switch his attention to what comes next.

“If I’m blogging every day, I won’t have the incentive to create new software. Blogging is good enough, but it may be possible to do something richer and more powerful and I want to find out.”

Gateway to a serious venture

Mike Arrington, a serial entrepreneur based in California, spent part of his time between jobs last year researching ideas for his next start-up. As it turned out, the research ended up becoming his next business venture.

“I was really burned out,” he says now. “I had enough money from the company I had sold to take a year off. I lived on the beach [in Los Angeles], I worked out, I had a great time.”

To try to spot promising business openings, Mr Arrington says, he set out to research the wave of new web 2.0 internet companies that were being set up. That research became a website, TechCrunch, which has risen during the past year to become probably Silicon Valley’s hottest new blog.

Like many bloggers these days, Mr Arrington thinks big. He has set his sights on creating a technology publishing empire out of a collection of low-cost websites. His target: to create a web 2.0 version of CNet, an online technology publisher that was one of the biggest publishing ventures to emerge from the dotcom days.

For now, TechCrunch claims 30m-40m page views a month, barely one-tenth of the traffic generated by CNet. But by launching a range of narrowly targeted blogs, echoing the spread of subject-specific sites run by the more established online company, Mr Arrington aims to create something of comparable scale at a fraction of the cost.

“In a year and a half I will get to the scale of CNet,” he declares.

The initial burst of interest in TechCrunch already demonstrates the commercial potential. The blog generates about $10,000 a month from advertising and $60,000 from sponsorship, says Mr Arrington. A recently launched job board has added “a couple of thousand dollars a day”.

Of rival bloggers who are also out to turn their writing hobby into a serious business, Mr Arrington says: “I don’t think anyone has come close to monetising on the scale I have.”

SOCIAL NETWORKS > YouTube pushes Paris as the way to go

YouTube, the fast-growing video website, is to roll out its first branded “channels” aimed at offering advertisers the chance to promote specific products and services.

YouTube, which has become one of the most visited websites over the past 18 months, said Paris Hilton, the celebrity hotel heiress, would spearhead a push to offer “brand channels” to advertisers that wanted to promote their products to the You-Tube community.

The sites are similar to profiles created on MySpace.com, now commonly used to promote films, music and consumer goods.

YouTube’s efforts to make money out of its online audience by allowing advertisers to promote brands through customised “channels” and by encouraging users to create their own ads is a further sign that social networking sites are becoming powerful branding platforms.

YouTube, which was created just 18 months ago by two friends in California, has become the main place for viewing videos on the web, especially clips created by people themselves.

So far, advertising has been limited, partly reflecting advertisers’ caution about being linked with inappropriate home-made videos or illegal copies of professional material.

In addition, YouTube has not wanted to reduce its popularity by bombarding users with commercials.

Roisin Donnelly, marketing director for Procter & Gamble in the UK, said social networking websites such as MySpace and YouTube were “a very exciting, emerging channel. If it is relevant and the consumer is there and the content is there, there is no reason why we would not use it in the future.”

The move marks the most ambitious attempt yet by YouTube to monetise its huge and rapidly growing audience.

YouTube had already been exploring partnerships with companies such as Nike, which have experimented with uploading short advertisements or other video clips to the site for users to view.

YouTube claims that its users view and comment on as many as 100m videos each day – many of them home-made amateur videos uploaded by fellow users.

“This new medium requires finding a balance between traditional online advertising and new creative approaches that engage consumers in an active way,” said Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder and chief executive. “Advertisers now have a highly targeted opportunity for aligning their brands alongside the entertainment experience people are enjoying on YouTube.”

Mr Hurley said the brand channels were one of several features YouTube was planning to promote this year.

On the Paris Hilton channel, Fox Broadcasting – part of News Corp, which owns YouTube rival MySpace – has paid to include a two-minute ad for Prison Break, a US television series.

BROWSERS > IE 7 release closes on finishing post

Microsoft released a release candidate for the next version of its browser on Thursday. Internet Explorer 7 RC1 for Windows XP features improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility over beta versions of the software.

WEB 2.0 > Google welcomes Writely sign-ups

Five months after being bought by Google, the Writely online word-processing application is now open for anyone who wants to sign up and use it.

MEDIA > Finding Car Buyers At Their Home(sites)

AdWeek.com - Auto advertisers looking to get more mileage out of their online ads may want to pick up a copy of J.D. Power & Associates' "Online Media Study--Wave 1," a survey that offers insights into buyers of specific brands and where on the Web they may be found.

SOCIAL NETWORKS > Friendster gains $10m funding

Friendster, the website that pioneered online social networking, has received $10m in funding in an attempt to help make up ground lost to younger, more successful rivals such as MySpace and Facebook.

Friendster, which emerged as an internet phenomenon in 2002 and 2003 and then fizzled out, received the money in a round led by DAG Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

BLOGS > Gawker's Snarky Success

Nick Denton's media company dominates the blogosphere

By Abram Sauer

If content is king, then Gawker Media is Henry VIII, changing the rules so that it might emerge victorious.

Launched in December 2002, the weblog Gawker.com focused primarily on New York media. Sarcastic in its gossip, it wasn't afraid to curse when necessary; it was an instant hit. "Snark" was soon a household word, provided your household was located on the island of Manhattan. Founder Nick Denton, a dot-com-era success story, soon created Gawker Media, which today controls (depending on when you read this) around 15 online blogs specializing in everything from porn to Hollywood to travel. In 2005, Time magazine named Gawker sites Lifehacker, Jalopnik, and Gridskipper three of the 50 Coolest Websites.

Seemingly ahead of every curve, Gawker is an interesting case study in both online survival and profit. A perfect example is the recent re-engineering of several titles' layouts. The switcheroo probably seemed innocuous to readers, but not to online ad professionals. Where banner ads had once been on the right, they were now found on the survey-shows-the-eye-looks-here-first left. Gawker's work with Nike and Evian should be taught in business school.

Gawker Media's approach to reportage makes it especially difficult to pin down or combat on any common ground. This is due to its humorous, sarcastic dismissal of any takers. Case in point, Gawker's FAQs:

"If you go to all the parties, you must be as compromised as the rest of them. If not, how the hell do you know what's going on?"

Parties? Did someone say party? Where? Is it open bar? Can we use your name to get in? Anyway, we don't know what's going on — but you clearly do, so why don't you drop us a line at tips@gawker.com and tell us?"
Another example of the voice and attitude is the Gawker Stalker Map, which tracks celebrity sightings in New York City. After reportedly drawing criticism from actor George Clooney, Gawker called for every Clooney sighting. Then it started selling a T-shirt: "George Clooney Stalked Me."
There are four positions from which to regard the Gawker "empire." The first is uncaring unfamiliarity. (This is the vast majority of the nation.) The second is sincere fandom from a loyal, if fickle, readership. The third, jealousy. (This is a small inner clique of blog-cestuous entrepreneurs.)

The fourth position from which to regard Gawker is abject fear (and probably consequent loathing) from brand owners. Of all Gawker Media's titles, Consumerist.com has the most fear-provoking potential. This is because Consumerist.com is a brand killer.

"Capitalism is broken. We'll help you fix it," reads the closing to the "about us" section of the Consumerist site. Billing itself as a guide "through the delinquencies of retail and service organizations," Consumerist promises to highlight "the persistent, shameless boners of modern consumerism" along with "the latest hot deals, discounts, and freebies." But mostly it does the former, and its favorite targets are cellphone companies, fast food joints, airlines, hotels, and computer manufacturers — all capital "B" Big Brands.

On June 13, 2006, Vincent Ferrari made a recording of his tragically hilarious attempt to cancel his America Online (AOL) account. Despite rumors that he went fishing for such a bad example of customer service, Vincent was soon all over the Internet and the televised news. Consumerist smelled blood and has since made AOL its whipping boy. Recently the site got its hands on an AOL customer retention manual. You can imagine how that went.

To Consumerist, and all blogs that compete for eyeballs, publishing first is a necessity. What good is an Internet medium if it follows print publishing's schedule? But in this rush to be first, mistakes are often made. These kinds of mistakes make brand owners "Gawker" in their pants.

On July 24, 2006, Consumerist acted on another website post, reporting that Dell computers contained equipment that secretly recorded a user's every keystroke. The site made reference to Homeland Security and the Freedom of Information Act, and yet, the sky did not fall. Consumerist soon added a very minor note to the bottom of the post: "Edit: D'oh! This is much ado about nothing. Snopes debunks." (Snopes is a site specializing in confirming or refuting urban legends.)

(Traditional media does this too. On July 27, the Chicago Tribune misquoted an Apple spokesperson as saying that iPods lasted "four years," instead of, as intended, "for years." This mistake was duly noted at Gizmodo.com, a Gawker title.)

The danger of course is not that the Internet can contain misinformation, and no rational argument will soon be made against the Internet being good for consumers. The hazard, in Consumerist's case, is that so much accurate information creates an environment of credibility and consequent trust. In this, it should assume a higher level of responsibility.

The flippant "D'oh! This is much ado about nothing" could not be more disserving. And while "D'oh! This is much ado about nothing that concerns us any longer despite what lasting damage it may have done" is honest, it's still too late.

But Gawker Media's future looks bright as it aims to continue to give readers what they want. Readers want dirt, and because Gawker has greater reach, it gets better dirt. Better dirt means more popular content. And (as we've established), in online media, content is king.

Abram Sauer writes about product placement for brandchannel.com. He lives in New York where a movie ticket costs US$ 10.75.

BLOGS > Update aims for a friendlier Blogger

Blogger, a self-publishing platform owned by Google, released on Tuesday a beta with features such as tagging, friends-only posts, and templates designed to be easier to use.

The site has long been a fixture of the self-publishing world. But now that blogging has become a genuine cultural phenomenon, Blogger has had some catching up to do.

The beta, or test version, has three major components:

• Blogs now feature labeling, which is more generically known as tagging. This means people can categorize their posts with keywords in the same manner of Flickr or Delicious.

• Posts can be "locked" and viewable only by readers whom the blog owner designates.

• Some drag-and-drop capabilities have been added to Blogger's template-editing functions--previously only controllable by a few yes/no buttons and HTML.

Only a limited number of existing Blogger users will be able to immediately download the beta, according to the company. Newly created accounts, however, will have access to beta features. So if existing Blogger users want to test-drive the beta, the company said, they can try it out with a new account that can later be merged into an existing one.

The makeover for Blogger--whose parent company Pyra Labs was purchased by Google in 2003--comes at a time when blog software options are not only expanding, but also changing to accommodate Web users who want to blog but don't have a full suite of HTML skills.

In October, San Francisco-based software company Six Apart plans to launch the full version of another blog network called Vox. Six Apart, which also owns blogging platform TypePad and online journal software LiveJournal, is marketing Vox toward the growing sector of the population that's older than the MySpace.com crowd but nevertheless still wants an easy-to-use self-publishing service with social-networking features.

Microsoft, too, has jumped on the easier-blogging bandwagon with the beta of Windows Live Writer, a piece of desktop software that aims to make the entire blog-authoring process entirely HTML-free.

BLOGS > Microsoft blogging software available in beta

Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows Live Writer, a new blogging software designed for users with no HTML skills.

Most blog-authoring services--including Blogger, LiveJournal and WordPress--assume a bit of HTML knowledge on the part of their users. But now that it seems as if everyone has a blog or two these days, the market has opened up for software that allows Web users who are less tech-savvy. That's the niche that Microsoft's Windows Live service hopes to fill with Windows Live Writer, now available for a free beta download to Windows users who have installed XP's Service Pack 2.

The new software, which claims to be easy to use, features a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface as an alternative to the tag-laden HTML coding found in most Web-based blogging clients. Live Writer also is designed to facilitate the addition of pictures, maps from sister service Windows Live Local, and a variety of video and audio players.

Easy-to-use blogging software is nothing new. Earlier this year Apple Computer introduced its iWeb software, which lets users use templates and drag-and-drop functions to make Web pages and blogs, as part of its iLife '06 suite. But iWeb is specifically tailored to Apple's own Mac.com hosting service, and consequently doesn't mesh with other providers. Windows Live Writer, on the other hand, boasts compatibility with not only Microsoft's own Spaces network but also other major blogging services such as Blogger and TypePad.

Because it is still in the early phase of a beta release, it's not clear what, if any, glitches may pop up--either in the software itself or in its compatibility with other self-publishers. Spaces itself has already encountered problems. But if Windows Live Writer is as easy as Microsoft says it will be, blogging could become a whole lot simpler for the HTML-phobic crowd.

MEDIA > Google, MTV in video content deal

MTV has struck a partnership with Google in which the internet company will distribute the music video broadcaster’s video programming to a series of niche websites and blogs.

Some of the content the company will make available includes video clips from MTV’s Laguna Beach reality programme and its popular video music awards show as well as the Nickelodeon cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. The two companies plan to share revenue from advertising sold alongside the video.

The deal underlines the popularity of internet video as high-speed broadband connections make it easier for audiences to download television programmes, “webisodes” and other content.

It also represents a strategic shift for MTV Networks. The company’s internet efforts had been focused on its own branded broadband sites, such as MTV Overdrive, launched last July. The arrangement with Google marks the first time that it will cede some control over its content by making it available to other websites and blogs.

As part of the deal, MTV Networks will also sell episodes of its programmes through Google’s video store. It has similar agreements with AOL and Apple’s iTunes.

As MTV celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, analysts and investors have begun to question its prospects. The cable advertising sales that propelled the business have begun to slow after years of double-digit growth. At the same time, a brand that has been synonymous with youth culture is struggling to remain relevant in an internet era that has spawned new stars.

MySpace, the social networking site acquired last year by News Corp, has gone on to gain more than 80m registered users. Meanwhile, YouTube and other community sites have become popular by allowing users to post video on the web.

MTV Networks is hoping that the deal will allow it to reach more young consumers, who may be spending time on niche sites and blogs affiliated with Google, and build greater awareness for its content. The company, along with Google, is also hoping to cash in on the surge in internet advertising.

Judy McGrath, chief executive of MTV Networks, said: “Our brands are great navigation tools for our audiences, and this deal with Google will enable us to follow and lead them to new places.”

WEB 2.0 > 10 Ways to make yourself a YouTube Star

Top 10s brought to you by Britain's leading gadgets blog Tech Digest and gadget review blog TechReviews
I'll spare you the blurb about YouTube being a revolution in online media, a truly democratised broadcasting platform, and the pinnacle of user-generated content. You know this, and if you didn't, 768 high-brow articles in the press have already told you so.
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More importantly, it's become the prime outlet for camcorder and cameraphone users to make an arse out of themselves, and win praise/wonder/disgust (delete as appropriate) from millions of their peers.
But what are the prime ingredients for YouTube success - what separates a viral hit from a barely-noticed miss? Poking around the top rated videos provides a few answers.
1. Lip-synching
YouTube has single-handedly killed off karaoke (almost) in favour of lip-synching. If you can leap around your bedroom miming along to a suitable hit, you're guaranteed a big audience. Well, you are if you do it right - the standard needs to be considerably higher even than you'd see from actual pop stars on TV. Extra points are scored for wildly unsuitable clashes (young girls doing gruffy-voiced grunge males, blokes doing Barbie Girl etc). Examples: here and here.
2. Animals do the funniest things
If it's popular on cobbled-together Saturday Night clip shows, why shouldn't it work on YouTube as well? And, thankfully, you don't have to put up with a presenter mugging between vids. Cats seem to do particularly well on YouTube for some reason (that reason being they reliably fall off things or go mad when you point a camera at them). Obviously, the most common way is to nick footage from the TV, but that's just lazy. Examples: here and here.
3. Have an original idea no-one else would bother to do
One video this week epitomises this - a girl who's taken a photo of her face once a day for THREE years, and then strung them all together into a video-montage. With music. It's actually quite spooky when you watch it, the music's a bit "serial killer". The advantage to this strategy is that if anyone wants to copy you, it'll take three years before they get their version up on YouTube.
4. Fight strangers in the street
Works best of all if you're homeless, for reasons that sociologists will be puzzling over for centuries to come. No-holds-barred fighting competitions are hugely popular on YouTube, so if you don't mind a few cuts and bruises (or shattered femurs, wrenched-off ears...), it could be the way to go. One street fighter, Kimbo Slice, has actually turned his vids into a lucrative merchandising business. Examples: here and here.
5. Get your camphone out at gigs
Seeing a good band? Don't dive into the moshpit or crowd surf from the upper balcony to the stage. Instead, stand at the back ABSOLUTELY still and record a song or two using your cameraphone. It doesn't sound much fun, but plenty of people are doing it, then sticking the results on YouTube the next day. Particularly popular when a band is playing new tunes, or haven't played live for a while. Record labels don't like it, but YouTubers most emphatically do. Examples: here and here.
6. Be bloody good at videogames
Games never did live up to their billing as the next big spectator sport, despite a slew of mooted TV shows which'd let you watch Unreal Tournament geeks going about their shooty business. Funny, that. But on YouTube, amazing (or amazingly silly) gaming feats will gain you plenty of attention, especially when they involve making Halo characters dance about to a song about cats. Obviously. Examples: here and here.
7. Corrupt innocent childrens' characters
An old favourite here, harking back to making your Sooty and Sweep puppets hurl four-letter abuse at your He-Men when you were younger. C'mon, surely that wasn't just me? Oh. Anyway, spoofs and parodies of popular kids TV shows are ever popular on YouTube, whether it's Pokemon miming to Since You've Been Gone (neat cross-pollination with category 1 there). Examples: here and here.
8. Drink. Lots.
Fratboy antics rack up views like no one's business, dude. So grab yourself a bottle of cheap beer/spirits/cleaning fluid, set your webcam going, and prepare for fame. If you can manage to be sick at the end of it, so much the better. So there's people downing pints, bottles and yards of ale, and in one memorable case, a chap playing the Jeremy Kyle Show drinking game with snakebite'n'black, and the guy learning to speak French while chugging white wine. Now that's stupid brave. Examples: here and here.
9. Rip obscure Japanese cartoons off the telly
Maybe it's because this stuff is hard to get on DVD over here, but YouTube is packed with episode-length cartoons called stuff like Great Teacher, Ayashi no Ceres and Ouran High School Host Club (I don't think that's as seedy as it sounds. At least, I hope it's not). If you've got a supply of this stuff and know your way around DVD-ripping software, you'll never be short of a few thousand viewers.
10. Make high-quality one-minute vids reviewing hot gadgets of the day
Oh, come on. You didn't think we were going to get through this post without a big fat plug for the video reviews on our sister TechReviews blog, did you? We've got no shame.

Ruby on Rails derailed by URL glitch

Developers are being urged to update their Ruby on Rails software following the discovery of a potentially serious security vulnerability. Ruby on Rails is a popular open source framework for developing database-backed web applications. Users are urged to update to version 1.1.6 of the software after checking that this upgrade is compatible with other software they may have installed.

Earlier versions of the software are vulnerable to a bug in the routing code of the software which exposes the development environment to possible exploitation. An earlier fix for the problem, contained in a 1.1.5 release, only partly closed the hole, necessitating the release of a further update. A posting on the Ruby on Rails weblog explains the seriousness of the bug, which "means that you can essentially take down a Rails process by starting something like /script/profiler, as the code will run for a long time and that process will be hung while it happens. Other URLs can even cause data loss."

The posting provides links to software downloads along with a warning the the upgrade might break applications using third party engines. Developers are urged to apply URL blocking as a workaround until compatibility issues with other software in their environment are ironed out.