After gargantuan growth into 2011, attendance at SXSW by advertising agency staff finally leveled off in 2012. Whew.

This year Digitas wins the King of SXSW prize, followed closely by Ogilvy and Razorfish. Last year’s King, Leo Burnett, fell to #9 in the SXSW agency list. (more…)

You’ve probably heard this question a dozen times in the last year: “Should an agency act like a startup?” Essentially, agencies share key ingredients of agile software companies, like designers, programmers and project managers, but do they have the patience to iterate and persist throughout a profitable product’s lifespan? And is coding products in-house just a great exercise, or is a viable new business model emerging? (more…)

South by Southwest Interactive, the Woodstock for geeks, kicks off next week. As the geeks at Blogads HQ combed the schedule of events, some keyword trends in panel titles emerged.

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Each year, when Blogads hosts #SUXORZ at Social Media Week NY, we think its the last. We naively believe that corporations, politicians and celebrities will finally learn how to do The Social Media right. Lucky for the mob of 150 social media fanatics that joined us at the Gershwin Hotel on Wednesday night, 2011 defied and our optimism and was full of spectacular social media screw-ups. (more…)

Book publishers vary widely in their use of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest, according to research Blogads assembled in advance of its February 15 Social Media Week panel, “Innovative ways to build community around books.”

Many publishers have adopted Twitter and Facebook, with Randomhouse dominating the former and Scholastic big on the latter. Only a small handful of publishers have started using the other growing social platforms of the moment, with three publishers Pinterest, the photo curation service popular with women, and five using Tumblr.


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For those looking for thoughtful reporting of news in the media, then Jim Romenesko’s self-titled site is one not to be missed. Romenesko is a well-respected and highly influential thought leader in journalism and media circles. College Media Matters recently said that “Romenesko is fast becoming a social media machine,” so join Romenesko’s Twitter and Facebook following in addition to making JimRomenesko.com one of your must-read sites.

When and why did you start professionally writing?

I started working at the Milwaukee Journal after graduating from the Marquette University College of Journalism. From there, I went to Milwaukee Magazine, where I was senior editor. I’ve specialized in crime reporting, technology reporting and media coverage at various publications and websites.

How would you describe the content of JimRomenesko.com?

The site covers what’s important and interesting in the media world, from my perspective. I try to make it of interest to both journalists and media consumers who don’t work in the news business.

What do your family and friends think of your blogging?

They think it’s the perfect line of work for me! They know I’ve always been interested in the Internet — I first went online in 1989 — and that I was blog pioneer, starting my own site long before the word “blog” came into being.

What blogs do you read?

I have dozens of them in my RSS feed and bookmarks folder — everything from Gawker to Slate to Gizmodo.

How much time daily do you spend writing for the site?

I am generally at my computer by 7 a.m. and try to shut it off at 5 p.m. I then switch to casual browsing on my iPad. If I see something that *has* to be tweeted or posted, I turn my computer back on and go to work.

How much do you correspond one-on-one with readers?

I get emails, Facebook messages or Twitter DMs daily. Sometimes they’re sending tips, and other times it’s just a compliment or criticism.

What joys did you not expect when you started blogging?

I never guessed that I’d attract such a large following; I remember (in the late 1990s) when I was happy to get 100 visitors a day. I now have over 41,000 Twitter followers.

What pains?

It’s my fault, but I’m rarely able to turn off the computer and take a vacation. I don’t feel I can let my sites go dark for an extended period of time.

What’s something your readers don’t know about you?

I was a family newspaper publisher at age 8, and still have those “newspapers” in my archives. I lost a tooth while producing one of those papers, and there’s blood on the paper as evidence of it. (“Actual tooth blood,” the story states, with an arrow to the stain.)

What’s been one of your favorite stories/topics to cover so far?

The  Jayson Blair/NYT saga was very interesting because it toppled Times editors and, quite frankly, put my site on the map in media circles. Here’s how the Los Angeles Times described my role in that scandal.

ADVERTISERS: For the next week, use Discount Code “Blogads50” to receive 50% off a rectangle, sidebar or square button ad on JimRomenesko.com!

OH at Blogads HQ: "Whoa, looks like i'll be sitting on a patch of grass!"

It’s hard to believe we’ve only been in Durham for a week an a half. Every day, our new office feels a little more like home. And what home would be complete without — carpet tiles!? (more…)

Update 1/29/12: Mashable names Jessica the #3 user to follow on their “21 Must-Follow Pinterest Users” list!

In the first month since Design Seeds‘ relaunch in Decemeber, Jessica Colaluca expects her blog to receive over 1 million pageviews. The popular design inspiration blog has been getting 35% of that traffic from Pinterest, the social sharing network that had its own surge in popularity at the end of last year.

While these numbers are incredible, they’re not completely anomalous. In December, AdAge reported that Time Inc’s RealSimple.com received more referrals from Pinterest than Facebook in the month of October.

So how are bloggers and media publishers making Pinterest work for them? We asked Jessica about her experience with Pinterest. (more…)

It’s that time again, when every media expert and opinionista looks back on the year’s advertising campaigns and lists the best, worst and/or freakiest. Or, in Vader Boy’s case, the most listed in year-end lists. Here are the top ad roundups of 2011, in no particular order. (more…)

For what has been a very innovative year for us, we’ve published some of the best Blogads we’ve seen since 2002. Many advertisers jumped at the chance to add YouTube videos or “tweetability” to their ads — sometimes both — while others continued to produce killer creative that followed (and sometimes broke) all the rules.

Here are our favorite Blogads from 2011:

Current TV – Countdown and The Young Turks

Why we love them: When Current TV launched the revamped Countdown with Keith Olbermann, they embedded custom videos that spoke directly to the readers of specific blogs. For maximum reach, they also made the ads tweetable. The campaign was so successful that, 6 months later, they took a similar approach for their newest show, The Young Turks.

Here’s a sample of the videos that ran in the ads:
Keith gives a shout out to Alternet readers
Cenk says hey to Crooks and Liars readers

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