FOOOOOO

Just back from a trip through 2/3’s of the US and heading out tonight to Foo Camp 2007. There are 250 Foo Campers getting together over the weekend to share ideas, hang out, etc. I’m flattered to get an invite and the attendee list is full of a bunch of folks that I’m excited to meet.

My tent is packed and my Mac is re-charged. The agenda for the weekend is pulled together tonight. I don’t have a particular agenda but if there is a topic you’d like to see surfaced, leave me a comment here or send an email to conrad@oddpost.com.

A Few Birthday Candles

Today is the one year anniversary of the first Sphere Related Content plug-in that ran on TIME.com. It’s been quite a ride since our first Sphere Related Content icon was deployed on TIME.com. To be sure, that plug-in was quite different from today’s version. But our passion to connect mainstream and conversational media content has only gotten stronger. We are strong believers in conversational media. We believe everyone has a voice, and our mission is to create exposure for a wide range of perspectives. By creating connections between contextually relevant mainstream media and blog content, we’re

WSJ’Sphere

In the next couple of days, we have a few announcements about new partner sites and how it’s going at Sphere. The first piece of news is that the Wall Street Journal recently introduced Sphere Related Content links throughout WSJ.com and WSJ Blogs. This is one of our favorite implementations to date as the results are shown in-line and supported with our plug-in. This means that every article page on WSJ.com and WSJ blogs displays both related articles from the online journal and high quality bloggers, resulting in more opportunities for bloggers to add their voice to the discussion. Always a good thing.

While an honor for Sphere to partner with such a venerable publisher brand, it’s also another great opportunity for bloggers to join the conversation as well as reach a broader audience of readers than the early adopter technology crowd that has been immersed in blogs since 2003.

Thanks to WSJ for embracing the blogosphere and for their unwavering support in partnering with us. And special recognition to Raanan, Rama (who also pushed us to create a set of links on WSJ blogs that aggregates all the posts on the index page – turns out to be a great idea) and their team for nailing this implementation. Please let us know what you think.

Also, check back the next few days for some additional announcements.

In the ‘Sphere – June 15th

Some of our favorite new partner sites to go live the past few days with our Sphere Related Content plug-in include: Apple Phone Geeks, Alimadzi, Sublime Wine, Truth&Opinion, Teft’s Blog, Black Educated Professionals, Evan DiBiase, Flim Geeks, If you don’t know these sites, give them a visit – it’s always fun to discover new sites and even more fun to discover sites using our Related Content plug-in. Thanks to each of these authors for joining the ‘sphere.

A Visit From Kara – I Feel Like a Movie Star

Kara Swisher (All Things D) stopped by our office on Monday. She had a little handheld video player and shot very funny some footage during her visit. You can see her post here. Sphere Related Content was graciously included in the new All Things D site and we’re really pleased with how well it’s working with their content. Give it a spin on any of their articles and let us know your input. And Kara, you’ve definitely got a future as a YouTube(r).

WP’sphere

It’s not our 5oth birthday nor our 50th anything. But Sphere Related Content is now one of the 50th most downloaded WordPress.org plug-ins after being available in the new WordPress.org Plug-in Directory for only 2 months. Over 5,000+ WordPress.org bloggers have added Sphere Related Content to their sites (2,200++ from WP.org and 3,100 directly from Sphere.com) . Thanks WordPress.org bloggers!

Cool Hunting in the ‘Sphere

If you like keeping up on what is happening at the intersection of art, design, culture and technology, Cool Hunting or “CH” is the blog to do so. I like Cool Hunting because they have cool stuff (no pun intended), it’s succinct, they have great taste and they always point me to interesting, unique products and ideas. I first visited the site after meeting Editor-in-Chief Josh Rubin at AdTech a few years ago when both of us were being interviewed by Susan Bratton. That night, I told my wife that I heard about this interesting site and she said “everyone knows that Cool Hunting is the place to go for keeping up with cultural impact on products”.

So when we decided to

In the ‘Sphere – June 10th

Our Sphere Related Content FeedFlare plug-in was adopted by a few thousand blogs in its first week, joining our list of great WordPress.org partner sites.

 

Some of our favorite new partner sites to go live the past few days with our include: Adivorblog, Grupenet, Zoobos, Ajay – On the Road Called Life, Wiki Music Guide, Diggings, What Would Dad Say, Jim Lyons Observations, The Most Important Blog Ever (nice title!), New Verse News, Right Wing Champ, Make Money For Beginners, My Camera Center, Intowit, and one of our personal favorites Raanan.com for truly thoughtful insight. If you don’t know these sites, give them a visit – it’s always fun to discover new sites using the Sphere Related Content plug-in. Thanks to each of these authors for getting the plug-in up and running so quickly and for letting us know.

Sphere A Top 100 Alternative Search Engine

If you haven’t checked out Richard MacManus’s / ReadWriteWeb’s new blog , Alt Search Engines (edited by Charles Knight), it’s a great read if you’re interested in staying on top of emerging search engine services.

I’m a big fan of Richard and ReadWriteWeb (a Sphere Related Content partner) and this new site is very informative and an excellent daily must read for our team. We’re even more pleased to be listed as a top 100 site, very cool.

Doing the Unthinkable

Scott Karp, author of Publishing 2.0 and a Sphere Related Content partner, has a great observation about how some of today’s most prestigious publisher sites are linking to other media companies’ content including blogs. This is a significant shift in the way publishers service their users. It signals that a publisher feels part of their offering is to make sure you, the reader, get what you need when you visit their site. If it happens to be a link to another mainstream media or blog article, that’s fine. As an avid on on-line content reader, I favor those sites that surface or point me to interesting content.

You can see Scott’s post here.