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The last few days have been really hard on me. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually.

I’ve been putting in 18 hour days almost completely focused on getting Performancing back up to speed. Admittedly, I did very little of the sweat work. About four others were doing the hard stuff.

But the whole experience has really worn me thin.

Fact is, I love Performancing. While there were moments over the last few days when I just wanted to quit and walk away, I knew I couldn’t. We have something too good going here for me to let it go.

Thanks for your patience. Mistakes were made. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully lessons have been learned.

I’m shot.

Off to enjoy myself with a sweet game of Flyers’ hockey tonight (Rangers don’t stand a chance). Catch you tomorrow. And let’s hope that the trouble is behind us.

The EatonWeb blog directory, which attempts to order blogs in each category by “importance” according to a variety of metrics, has decided to devalue the role of PageRank in its algorithm.

The basic argument is this: PageRank no longer serves as a reliable indicator of importance. If EatonWeb wants to be a reliable indicator of importance, then it needs to devalue the role of PageRank in its algorithm.

So what are your thoughts? Is this a smart move? A bad move? A reactionary move? From an objective standpoint, does it make sense to start ignoring PageRank in favor of other more reliable indicators of blog value?

As 2007 turns into 2008 (yes, its more than a month away but you can’t fault me for preparing right now, can you?), it’s worth taking a hard look at our blogging and promotion strategies and how those will evolve in the future.

Today I’d like to cover 12 link building tactics that will be most effective in the coming year – like all such lists, there’s a good chance that I’ve left something out so if you have something to add, please let me know in the comments.

1- Linkbait Mainstream Media

Being picked up by the CNN, Fox News, BBC or the Guardian not only leads to plenty of traffic (the type that would crash your server) but also leads to other bloggers picking you up as a news source. Traffic, new readers, links from the blogosphere and links from highly trusted websites.

It’s not an easy target to achieve, but you can get there by doing the following:

• Network like the energizer bunny – before you can be recognised as an authority in your niche you need to make yourself known to everyone who matters.
• Establish a pattern for being the first – Quite often just being the first person to break the news can lead you to scoring dozens of links – and once you build a reputation for being first, you’ll have reporters and other bloggers turning to you to break the news. Position yourself so you can benefit from such opportunities.
• Linking to top news sources often brings in residual traffic (tech bloggers linking to Techcrunch‘s stories will confirm), and in several cases it also results in other bloggers picking you up as a secondary source on the issue.
• All of this only works if you have something valuable to offer – whether it’s analysis, exclusive images or your own research. Just regurgitating the news isn’t going to be of as much help.

And if you haven’t already, read this article on how to attract attention from mainstream media.

2- Contests and Giveaways

I expect the tactic of contests and prize giveaways as a means to generate links to be abused beyond reason in the coming year. As things stand, it’s an easy way to build links and once your site builds some traction and a readership, it’s also a good way to reward your readers and attract new ones.

The key with such contests is to:

• provide value to readers
• break from tradition and do something more creative than an ‘article writing contest’
• make a meaningful contribution to your blog
• engage the community, not just your readers

To expand on that last point – I think it’s very important to give readers – many of whom will have blogs / be active participants elsewhere on the Net – something that they can do offsite, preferably on their own site or whichever forum they frequent the most.

3- Blogger’s / Site Owner’s Personal Brand

Let me illustrate this with a real-world example:

If John Doe and his buddies had started Search Engine Land and pumped it with timely news and top-notch SEO news and analysis, it would have been a sensational new entry into the SEO blogging A-list, after a few months of consistency of course.

On the other hand, with Danny Sullivan’s reputation, SEL was A-list before it launched – not to mention that Danny’s rep also brought in other star bloggers, which in turn fueled the growth of SEL. Newcomers in the industry wouldn’t be able to achieve this level of success so quickly (if at all).

How can you build your personal brand ? Quality, consistency, networking, and timing.

4- Cherry Picking Bloggers

Jim Boykin wrote in May 2006 about cherry-picking links and while I think it’s still an excellent way to build links, the smarter way to do this going forward is to cherry pick bloggers in terms of building relationships.

By investing in relationships, you ensure that the next time you linkbait / launch a new site / do widgetbait, you’ll have a set of influential bloggers reading you and as a result you will get at least some coverage for that event. Once that happens a few times, promoting your site becomes that much easier as your network of friendly bloggers and site owners will be helping you along the way.

Surely that beats a one-time link-based investment?

5- Industrial Strength Linkbait

Linkbaiting, despite the proliferation of absolute crap in its name, is a valuable promotional and link building concept. While linkbaiting – especially industrial strength linkbaiting – will still continue strong in 2008, there will be an increasing trend towards more viral content and less dependence on traditional social media channels.

Expect that ‘industrial strength’ to be focused on creating quality instead of quantity, because as more and more people jump into the linkbaiting boat it’s getting harder and harder to promote your traditional linkbait. Either you’re already a celebrity, or you need to create something kickass.

An example of awesome linkbait.

6- Podcasting

Content is king, but alternative media – especially audio / visual media – is fast catching up in terms of attracting links. Of course, flame bait (the idiotic kind) doesn’t do you any favours, but then again I’m guessing Scoble knew that already?

7- Niche SEO

It stands to reason that someone who has prior experience in an industry will have more contacts and better inside knowledge than a newcomer. If you’re an SEO consultant, this is something you can use to your advantage. If you’re a site owner, learn to leverage your contacts and knowledge of what works (such as what type of content gets links) to differentiate yourself from your competition (and protect yourself against newcomers).

8- Prior Footholds in the Industry

If you’re launching a new website, having an established one in the same (or related) niche is a big bonus. On the other hand, buying an old site can also give the same sort of legitimacy.

Expect to see more and more consolidation happen in 2008 – and if you’re already established in a niche, branch out now rather than latter.

9- Offline Marketing

Offline marketing is a key ingredient for any online business and by 2008 you’ll see this as being one of the main factors differentiating between businesses going to the top, fast and businesses going nowhere, fast.

How are you expanding your promotion offline? Do you attend conferences in your niche? Are you (or your business) referenced in print media? Do you get published in print media?

Despite the importance of the Internet print media is still top gun when it comes to ‘making it’ and that’s one of the areas you should be focusing on next year.

10- Old School SEO

In case you’re wondering, all of it still works – smart site architecture, getting the right links at launch time, topical content, balanced internal linking, relevant link building, cherry picking links – all of that still works, so don’t marginalise it. However, knowing SEO basics isn’t enough to give you an edge in itself – you need to take advantage of all the different link building opportunities available to you.

11- Widgetbait

I’ll let Nick Wilson tell the story here:

The linkbait landscape of 2007 is different than two years ago, requiring some rethink and reassessment of strategies. Linkbait is the smart move everyone needs to be doing. However, the linkbait of 2005 may not cut it with today’s more desensitized audiences. The smart linkbaiters will pursue the holy grail of widgetbait.

and…

The holy grail of linkbaiting in 2007 will be the widget.

In late 2005 and early 2006, I came up with a linkbaiting concept to put my previous company, Performancing, on the social media map. That idea was the Performancing Blog Editor Firefox extension that has achieved nearly half a million downloads on Mozilla alone.

It was a high risk, high reward strategy that not only worked but worked so well that it went beyond mere “linkbait” and is about to become a standalone brand in its own right.

Widgetbaiting is a high-risk link building strategy because you have to spend a lot of time and money in developing it / having it developed, and that’s still no guarantee of whether it will be successful or not. On the other hand, when it IS successful, the results are often spectacular well-worth the effort.

12- Predictive SEO

While this is a strategy that has been used successfully for some time now, predicting search queries and traffic is going to be another one of those tactics you’ll have success using in 2008.

In David P’s recent research on ranking factors in Google, one of the things he didn’t mention was all things being equal, a page on a highly-trusted website would rank higher than a page on a newer, less-trusted website. Call it trust and authority, call it Google’s bias towards old sites, the bottom line is that well-established websites and blogs find it easier to rank high for 3-4 keyword search terms. I’ve personally used this strategy with a lot of success at Soccerlens – and as the old saying goes, the rich keep getting richer so if your site doesn’t have any T&A at the moment you should get busy getting it.

Also See: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Link Builders

Which link building tactic do you think will be most effective in 2008?

Earlier this week, Ryan Caldwell’s College Startup blog hit Digg with a story about successful entrepreneurs who didn’t get college degrees.

I clicked through and discovered some of Ryan’s other posts over here at Performancing, including one in which he suggests that readers who want to build their blog traffic “Target Powerful Eyeballs” such as journalists on FOX News Channel.

I commented on his posting.

It’s a great suggestion. But he didn’t tell us HOW to do it.

I’ve been in the businesses of “broadcast and electronic publicity” for about 11 years now, meaning I get companies, celebrities, authors, products, causes, etc. covered editorially by TV news.

I offered to write a few guest posts, Ryan accepted, and here we are…

So, let me start with the basics.

The single most important question that a TV news publicity-seeker must ask is, “Why would FOX News (or any other TV news outlet) care about my story?”

Another way to ask this is “what makes my story relevant to their audience?”

This may sound like an easy question to answer, but it requires a level of objectivity that doesn’t come naturally to many people.

Far too often, I find myself working with corporate marketing and PR professionals who have not only drunk the Kool-Aid, they’re swimming in it.

No matter what level of the game you’re at… getting out of your own shoes and imagining what the FOX News viewer wants to see is the best way to begin.

RELEVANCE is Rule #1… Now how do you apply it?

I landed a new client this week and rather than just tell you about how to get TV news exposure, I’m going to show you what we do for this specific client on this campaign.

The client is a medical technology company based just outside Washington, DC. They recently went public and their goal is to use broadcast publicity to sell more of their product and create interest in their stock.

It’s a bit of an unusual situation for my firm. Most of our clients come to us through our partners. This one became a client because my son had a medical condition that their product cured and I wanted to tell people about it.

So here’s the backstory…

When he was 5, my son contracted a viral skin infection called Molluscum Contagiosum Virus (“MCV”). It’s an uncomfortable viral skin infection that causes itchy lesions all over the body.

MCV is highly contagious, so my entire family was at risk of contracting it. But as it is considered to be benign, the pediatrician prescribed some topical cream (must be said with South Park intonation) which did nothing.

The lesions were spreading. My son was embarrassed by the condition. So my wife brought him back in to the doctor who said “go to a dermatologist.”

The dermatologist suggested that we freeze off the nasty little lesions (my kid had about 50 to 100 of them at the time). Well, she froze off the first one and my kid hit the ceiling. He was totally traumatized.

My wife took him out of the dermatologist’s office and back to the pediatrician who suggested we wait till the MCV ran its course… which could take 6 months to 4 years.

It wasn’t a great option.

Then he mentioned that one of his other patients had a positive outcome with a product they got online.

My wife contacted that patient and learned about the SilverCure. That night, I went online and ordered the biggest package they had for next day delivery.

For the next 4 weeks, I applied the product to my son’s lesions morning and night. And they all went away. I was very impressed and we were all relieved.

So I emailed the company, shared my kid’s story and offered to publicize their product.

It’s been about a year since then, and I kept following up with the CEO.

Finally, this week, the timing was right for them and we agreed to work together to tell the story.

First step, apply Rule #1 and establish RELEVANCE

Outside of my family, my kid’s skin condition is not news. It is an example, a case study.

How do I make it appeal to FOX News and the 1,000 or so other TV news outlets around the country?

Because it is a medical condition, I looked for a statistic that would demonstrate that this story affects a large segment of their viewing audience.

In this case, there are a number of statistics available. According to various online sources, the incidence of this viral skin infection ranges from 2% to 17% of all children in the U.S. between the ages of 2 and 12.

That’s a pretty big segment of the population but if I use this statistic as the cornerstone of my campaign, many reporters will see the 2% figure and pass on the story because they have a dozen other story ideas available to them that impact a larger segment of their audience.

Ideally, we want our story to appeal to the largest possible share of their TV audience.

How we chose to expand the relevance in this case is by using a technique called, the Tie In.

You don’t have to be a Doctor to see the similarities between MCV and MRSA, the skin infection that has been all over the news lately.

Both of them are skin infections. Both are antibiotic resistant. Both are highly-contagious.

We can use these similarities to draw a few comparisons, and lead with an accurate (albeit slightly misdirecting) headline like this…

“Doctor Discovers Effective Treatment for Highly-Contagious, Antibiotic-Resistant Skin Infection”.

Voila! We’ve tied our SilverCure story to MRSA, making it relevant to the millions of people who have crapped their pants for fear of contracting a “superbug” infection.

How many people have crapped their pants so far?

909,797,843

According to a research report pulled by a vendor of ours, MRSA has been mentioned over 20,000 times in the past year.

That microscopic organism has made nearly 1 BILLION media impressions in the US alone and Paris Hilton is starting to feel jealous.

So, approximately every American has seen a scary MRSA story on TV news 3 times or more.

Interestingly, the vast majority of those stories aired in the past few weeks since the CDC made its announcement that MRSA was causing more deaths than HIV/AIDS.

By tying my MCV story to the MRSA story (by citing the similarities) I have made my client’s story of interest to a huge universe of viewers. That’s the trick in creating relevance.

I understand that most of you who are reading this have not discovered a cure for a skin infection. But you can apply this lesson to just about anything.

Make your story appealing to the largest possible audience.

If the natural audience for your story is too small, look around for possible tie-ins with other, bigger stories that are more relevant.

Until next time,
– MEDIAHITMAN

If you work for yourself and spend a substantial portion of your day online, have you consciously considered how important your computer and Internet connection are? Do you have a contingency plan if something goes wrong?

While it’s nice to keep a positive attitude, sometimes things just go wrong. Consider: This past Wednesday night, for the first time in several years, I decided to write down some “affirmations”. After spending 10-15 minutes typing into a mindmap all the great things that would happen in my life for the next two years – and envisioning it all – my computer shut down on its own. It wouldn’t turn back on until Thursday morning, only to display a message about the CPU being shut down due to some “thermal event”.

Of course, my heart beat rapidly. My entire work life, passwords, contact info, online banking access, etc., was on there. And while I had intentions of getting another computer because of the way I work, I hadn’t planned on it financially just yet. Out of worry, I did buy another computer last night (thanks to my brother and a generous loan from Ryan). The service guy did manage to fix the old one, after nearly an hour of working on it, but I’m relieved to have a backup.

At this point, I have some redundancy in my equipment and accessories. While I don’t earn much in ad revenue, I do make a reasonable income freelancing. So like any business person, I have to protect my income-earning ability by ensure I have the necessary tools, even to the point of redundancy:

(1) Computers: Usable computers:

1. Two active desktops.
2. One old backup desktop.
3. One active laptop.
4. One old IBM thinkpad that some idiot friend of mine trashed but might be salvageable.

I have four functioning desktops but one is an ancient Linux machine that’s painfully slow and which I don’t have space for. Another desktop used to be part of my old home recording studio. However, after I blew away the 17 Gb drive where all my raw files for over 100 compositions lived, I stopped using it.  This happened between backup periods, and it put me off pursuing a composing career. Live and learn.

(2) Internet connection: Active connections [*] and additional options:

1. [*] Cable Internet.
2. [*] Wi-Fi to go.
3. Cellular data plan, for my Palm Treo.
4. High-speed dialup.
5. Satellite Internet.
6. Powerline Internet.
7. Municipal Wi-Fi

Cable Internet is my primary access, and as of last night, I activated a Wi-Fi to go modem as a redundancy measure. It’ll be costly but it’s a necessary measure for me. That’s because, when I move to Toronto next year, I want no downtime in access. With this modem, I plug it in in any large city here and I can get online. I mean, we all know how long it takes the cable company to show up, and I can’t take the chance that I’ll be offline for weeks.

Wi-Fi to go modems do use a cellular network, but there’s no phone involved. I did have a cellular data plan on my Palm Treo, but it was absurdly expensive – Cdn$100/mth for a maximum 250Mb /month of bandwidth. I’ll only reinstate it when I get back into photography or get into film school, since I’ll possibly need it for location shoots. When revenue permits and needs dictate, of course. [The hardest part of freelancing, other than the ebb and flow of income, is separating “want” from “need”, in terms of technology expenditures.]

I’ve tried satellite Internet in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was unreliable during storms (about every day in the summer). As for Muni Wi-Fi, Toronto is in the first stages of partial citywide coverage. The only other option I’d explore is high-speed dialup as a backup, but only when I’m at the point of hiring someone to work for me. I know that four types of Internet connection sounds like overkill, but I that over a single superfast point of access.

(3) Software: I prefer redundancy in various software categories as well – not just in terms of specific applications but also in platform (desktop, web browser).

1. Photo editing/ vector software /diagramming.
2. Screen capture/ video capture.
3. Video players.
4. Mindmapping/ brainstorming.
5. Text/ html/ blog editors.
6. Chat/ IM/ VoIP.

(4) Cashflow: This is a tough one. Because I do have a few small online partnerships, and because I usually pay the writers each month before I collect from partners, I need to keep a minimum level of funds in my PayPal account at all times. Then there’s funds in my bank account for personal use and a very low-limit credit card. (I don’t like debt of any form.)

Pretty much the only redundancy I don’t have is two phones. I haven’t owned a landline in about ten years. When I worked for the consulting division of Bell Canada, I did carry around two pagers and two cell phones. I looked like a doofus, but I had my own devices as well as those for work – a necessity of the job. I’ll admit, though, that I might succumb to an Apple iPhone sometime in the future.

Are you as redunancy-obsessed as I am? What do you to ensure that your web working will not be affected by some unexpected event?

My site has been informed of a copyright violation on pages where we hotlink images:

http://hiphop.popcrunch.com/kimora-lee-simmons-snags-doll-and-new-reality-show/
http://www.popcrunch.com/kirsten-dunst-determined-to-star-in-blondie-biopic/

Is hotlinking a violation of copyright and is it the publisher’s responsibility to deny access technologically, or the users responsibility to remove the hotlinked images if asked?

Earlier this week, I wrote about bloggers being great salespeople. Today, I’ll be talking about using reviews to sell more products.

Reviews are one of the best blogging methods to sell products. In my previous post, I wrote that established bloggers can sell well because they’re trusted by their readership. With reviews, you leverage that trust by recommending a quality product that meets the needs of your readership. This product could be an affiliate product or a product you created.

Here a couple things to consider when writing reviews.

If you’re reviewing an affiliate product, try the product out. This will help you write a quality, honest review. Honesty counts in the blogosphere.

Review products you actually like. It’s easier to sell stuff you like.

Review products your readership will find useful.

Write more words. Write an in-depth review. Too many reviews don’t say much. I think reviews should be at least 500 words. It doesn’t make sense to write a 250 word review for a 100+ page ebook yet I see those short reviews all the time. Know your product well and then write as much as you need to inform your readers of the product. I think most readers would rather have more information than less. The more information, the more likely they will buy. Check out some of Yaro’s reviews (1, 2, 3, 4). He makes a couple thousand a month on affiliate products. His reviews are longer than most blog posts.

Depending on your posting frequency, don’t post too many reviews or your blog will be too commercial. One review every 4-5 posts should be fine.

Have banner ads that link to your review. Many bloggers already put banner ads that link to a product. Take it a step further. Write a quality review and then have the banner ad link to the review instead of the product. This is a great way to actively recommend the product instead of just passively leaving a banner ad on your site. “Pre-selling”, or recommending, a product before sending the visitor to the sales page is a proven way to increase your sales conversion rate. Also, studies have shown that content-based text links (those in reviews) convert much better than banner ad links.

Don’t forget pay per click (PPC). Well-written, insightful reviews are perfect landing pages for PPC marketing. Do some keyword research and send some PPC traffic to your review.

Take out AdSense. Your review should have one goal: get the visitor to click on the product link with a buying frame of mind. If you have AdSense on the review, your visitors will get confused and distracted. This will cause your conversion rate to go down.

If you are going to do PPC marketing, publish your review on pages rather than posts. You don’t want to send PPC traffic to posts because posts get old. Pages, on the other hand, are timeless because they don’t have timestamps. Also, you can link to your review page from a post so that you regular readership, or RSS subscribers, will still get to see your review.

You know a business by its people, and when I encountered Christopher Hogg, I knew Digital Journal was something special.

A couple days ago I put up a Rajbait at College Startup. It was entitled 15 Successful Entrepreneurs Who Didn’t Need College and I thought it was a rock solid article. Apparently, so did the cool kids over at Digg.

But much to my dismay, a search on the title of that linkbait turned up a citizen journalists article over at Digital Journal as the top result in Google. Even to this day, College Startup’s original doesn’t show up anywhere on the front page of the Google SERPS. I visited the article, and though College Startup was mentioned, the link was not directed back to my site.

Initially, as you might guess, this disappointed me. Though I was happy that the article was noticed, I was not happy that Google had identified DJ as the source. So, I contacted Digital Journal, not expecting a response (I rarely get responses from online publishers). Much to my surprise, an extremely pleasant Christopher Hogg responded with the following message:

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the note. This was written by a citizen journalist and I’ve taken a look at the post and there is mention of College-Startup with a link at the beginning saying the list was created by you.

We take these issues very seriously, so I have updated the link to the one you provided, as we want to ensure proper attribution is there.

If you take a look at the article now, does it reference you in a way that you feel gives proper credit?

Please let me know.

Best regards,

Chris

Because of this great response, I knew immediately that Digital Journal was a rare breed as far as Internet sites go. So I decided to ask Chris for an interview. Here it is:

1. Tell us a little about your vision for Digital Journal. What are you trying to accomplish?

As a news hub, DigitalJournal.com aims to be an online resource for readers looking to discover the top news items of the day from a perspective that is different than that of the mainstream media’s. News published on DigitalJournal.com is a collection of breaking news, current events, Op-Ed and interesting news items written by citizen journalists.

While our approach is fact-based, as we believe all news media should be, our readers appreciate the diverse set of beliefs and mixed editorial range that only an open forum is capable of creating. Citizen journalists tie in personal anecdote, they are often in places around the world where mainstream media has no access, and the debate and conversation that comes from citizen journalist reports is engaging, lively and refreshing.

Our goal is to continue to provide a forum in which citizen journalists can be part of the news-gathering process so they can question facts, report on issues important to them and engage in a community of like-minded people. Everyone has a story. Everyone has an opinion. DigitalJournal.com is the hub in which anyone can contribute those ideas.

2. How is Digital Journal differentiating itself from other citizen journalist sites like Newsvine?

DigitalJournal.com takes a different approach than other social-bookmarking, or user-generated sites, in that, our goal is to produce and host content rather than link to it.

The Web has fantastic sites such as Digg or Newsvine that provide news-hungry readers with links to content on other websites, but the goal with DigitalJournal.com is to create a community and a website at which readers can come to read, debate and discuss news. While linking to outside facts or resources does play a vital role in collecting and reporting information on DigitalJournal.com, our primary goal is to minimize the clicks needed to get quality reading and news coverage.

3. What sort of person are you looking for to participate at Digital Journal? What’s your target audience?

The best part of a social news community like DigitalJournal.com is that anyone can be part of it. We do have a screening process in place whereby aspiring citizen journalists and bloggers must submit a sample of writing that must be approved, but the fantastic thing about DigitalJournal.com is that you do not need to be a professional writer or accredited journalist –- you just have to show a passion for writing and news. Our membership is comprised of everyone from 14 to 70 years old, and that diversity is what makes conversation, debate and reporting news interesting, as it appeals to a wide demographic and the opinions are an incredible mix-bag of unpredictability.

4. Why would a person want to write for your publication? What incentives do you provide?

DigitalJournal.com has a system in place whereby all citizen journalists are paid for their contributions. We take a portion of all advertising revenue generated on the site and split it up among all users. While we don’t disclose the exact mechanics of our formula, we do pay users based on how much exposure and activity their articles receive. The more a citizen journalist contributes, the more he or she can earn.

The most amazing thing we find, is that so many people flock to DigitalJournal.com because of the financial incentive. However, we find most people stay for the community, debate and alternative approach to news. That is a very unique aspect of DigitalJournal.com and something for which we are very proud and humbled.

5. How do you determine which sites get featured on the front page?

DigitalJournal.com is entirely by the people, for the people. All articles that appear on the site have a ‘Vote It Up’ button at the bottom. Readers are encouraged to vote for articles they find newsworthy and our entire site, including our front page is generated by what people want to read.

6. Can you tell us a little about your plans to monetize Digital Journal?

Like all media organizations, DigitalJournal.com is financed by advertising revenue.

7. What’s been your biggest challenge in launching and running Digital Journal?

Digital Journal began as an online publication in the late 1990s and evolved into a very successful printed publication in 2001. We focused solely on technology and digital lifestyle and distributed a glossy magazine coast-to-coast across North America for five years. However, as reading habits and interests changed, we went back to our Web roots in 2006 and expanded our focus from technology to include all beats and we opened DigitalJournal.com to citizen journalists and bloggers.

Over the last year we have evolved and grown a lot. Given that citizen journalism is still such a young field, we have focused a lot of our energy on creating a credible venue and we are constantly working to prove that the mainstream media is not the only source of information.

Habits have changed a lot over the last little while, as well, and a lot of people have shown they gravitate toward an open forum like ours that encourages the questioning of facts and pursuit of truth.

All of our work has focused on creating a viable business from a segment of the population that is too often talked at, rather than included.

8. Who do you see as your main competitors at the moment?

Citizen journalism is a very unique field because most people in this business are supportive of competition and growth of this nascent news concept.

There are sites such as Newsvine or NowPublic that offer a citizen approach to media and news, and while they would literally be classed as competition to DigitalJournal.com, we see them more as informal partners in a rapidly growing industry. We’re supporters and advocates of anyone who helps further the cause of citizen media.

9. I noticed that you have a TV domain. Tell us a little about your goals with video media.

Digital Journal TV was a natural evolution for our company, as we have a great deal of history in all forms of media. As I mentioned, we used to run a printed publication devoted entirely to technology so we wanted to continue that coverage through Digital Journal TV.

Also, we are increasingly in very high demand by TV networks, so we decided to start producing the content ourselves. We have now appeared on major TV networks hundreds of times and digitaljournal.tv is the place online where we pursue timely tech issues. DigitalJournal.com’s staff is mostly comprised of tech lovers who are also broadcast journalists, so it was a natural move.

Our goal is to continue exploring topical technology stories and bringing viewers a side they have not seen, and a side with no PR spin. Too often in technology, people in marketing over-hype a product with false promises and exaggeration. Our goal is to tell it like it is, no matter who it offends in the process.

10. What’s your favorite social media site? Digg, Stumble, Reddit, Propeller, Delicious? If you don’t have a favorite, then which one do you spend the most time using?

I am a hardcore Net junkie so pegging a favourite social media site for me is nearly impossible. I have been a Digg user for quite some time and I love the site, but I also do my best to scour off the beaten path into the blogosphere as often as possible.