The Underground Blogosphere

I picked up a meme on various blogs about the Underground Blogosphere. I caught it first at Publishing 2.0, and then it seemed to explode all over the place. Steve Rubel said it first here. Read it yourself first, if you’d like.

In a nutshell, the premise is that bloggers email each other about their latest posts, in search of link love and reciprocation. This is considered somehow bad by some and the norm for others.

My take?

If you’ve got something interesting to say, and it’s adding to overall conversations and the value of things in general, then by all means, please point me towards it. I use RSS. I surf delicious and Technorati, but you never know what I might miss by mistake. I’ve got lots of things in the air. By all means, share it.

So is this bad? Is it bad to say, “Hey, please go check out my post at Lifehack.org, because I think you’d really appreciate the premise!”

I don’t think so. In fact, I think that conversation marketing is the new black of the promotions and marketing business. If you’re a company and you want me to look at your thing, email me. Give me a conversation. Show me your blog. Foldera blogs. I think they’re the bomb. Hell, their Global VP of Word-of-Mouth Marketing and I have so much in common, it’s nutty. Well, except that he’s brilliant. : )

I think that this is the new marketing anyhow. Since I got into blogging and podcasting, I’ve been approached by folks who make energy drinks (see FGGF#11), by authors (See LifeHack Podcast 1, and upcoming LifeHack Podcast 5), by more authors (I’ve got a stack of free business books to read), and by all kinds of people promoting.

Further, *I* promote. I do it all the time. I pimp things my friends are doing all the time. Some of it comes to me via email and then lands on CB.c or LH.o. That’s bad somehow? I don’t think so.

The only important thing to me is disclosure around being paid or influenced to give a good impression of something. I make my own opinions. They can’t be bought. Besides, paid opinions already exist: they’re called commercials. Provided you know the difference, I think everything’s okay.

What’s your take?

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Dale Cruse

Perhaps someday someone will invent a tool to solve this problem and call it Twitter.

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Stephane Dube

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Brian Clark

I didn't know how smart a guy Chris is, and what great blogs he produces, until he emailed me one day. I really don't want to bash on Steve here, but I think the guy is in danger of losing a fundamental bit of perspective regarding what this blogging thing is all about.

Great post (as usual) Chris.

Bryan Person

I read Steve's post this morning, and I have to admit I was disappointed with the tone. I got the sense of ... "These e-mails (sigh) are so pedestrian and old school."

I like to find out about what other bloggers and podcasters are writing and speaking about. What are their passions and what gets them excited? We're still using e-mail as one of our primary ways for doing that. Embrace it.

I would agree with Chris that some form of "disclosure" is helpful. Tell me who you are. Do you listen to my podcast? Do you read my blog? Tell me why what you have would interest me, specifically, and I'll listen, respond, and be engaged.

--Bryan Person
Blog: Bryper.com
Podcast: NewCommRoad.com

Pascal Venier

I totally agree with you Chris.

After reading Steve Rubel's post, I cannot help but think that the irony is rather to see someone who is making a living in the PR and marketing industry, in other words a professional hired gun, lecturing bloggers, in such a patronising way.

A-List blogger Steve Rubel's conspiracy theory about the “underground blogsphere” does indeed make me smile.

Are the majority of bloggers really obsessed by their traffic statistics? Let's be serious! Many are a lot more interested in the quality of the readership than their volume, and in generating meaningful conversations.

Interestingly, I was until recently subscribing to Steve Rubel's blog, but it was axed last week together with a couple of other PR suits! I am determined to limit my feeds to 101 and no more, and I had come accross a lot of far more interesting authors! ;-)

Eric Allam

Theres nothing wrong with it. Hell, I WANT other bloggers to email me with interesting things to say. It shows me that they believe that my blog is influential enough to try to "pitch" too. Part of me thinks that article was written for traffic purposes. "Digg bait" if you will.