The USA TODAY is one mainstream media company that “gets it.” Here’s an example of why:

Back in December Blogger & Podcaster Magazine teamed up with USA TODAY to launch The Blogger & Podcaster Guide (think TV Guide for blogs/podcasts to a mainstream audience). The motivation was for us both to make some money ($49.95 per month) while helping bloggers/podcasters to build their audiences by tapping into the 10,000,000+ mainstream consumer readers of USA TODAY.

After 2 months it became clear that while we had hundreds of paying customers, our $49.95 price point (a bargain by traditional USA TODAY standards) was too high for most of our industry to be able to participate.

What happened next has truly amazed me.

USA TODAY has figuratively “torn up” our original agreement and has voluntarily agreed to do the following for us:

1) Given us permission to reduce the price of from $49.95 per month to just $5 per month. They told me that they hope that this new price point will make The Blogger & Podcaster Guide accessible for everyone, no matter how niche or new to the industry. (If you’re already a customer of the guide no worries, the new pricing will happen automatically at your next billing cycle. You don’t need to do anything.)

2) Their going to help drive even more traffic into the Blogger & Podcaster Guide (beyond the franchise spot on the home page of USA TODAY.com they’ve already given us) by giving us 2,000,000 premium placed advertisements (leader boards, skyscrapers etc.) each month. That equates to just shy of 67,000 ads per day. We’re going to be all over USATODAY.com.

3) Perhaps most significantly and selfless of all, USA TODAY has given us permission to work with other media partners beyond themselves. Our agreement was originally an exclusive arrangement for them. This generous act has allowed me to already work out partnerships with 15 additional magazines/publishers with a combined audience of many more millions of pageviews per month. So now if you get a listing in the Blogger & Podcaster Guide you get The USA TODAY and ALL of the new publications for that same $5 per month rate.

I’m having conversations many other publishers and expect to add new ones to our network every month. You’ll be able to keep tabs on the complete list to date at www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/register.

When the mainstream media does something right, I think it’s important to acknowledge. Thank you USA TODAY, you’re helping the little guys, and we appreciate it.

- Larry
Publisher
Blogger & Podcaster

This morning TechCrunch reported our plans for the creation of The Blogger & Podcaster Media Network (BPN). I’ve been getting a bunch of questions, so let me share some of the specifics:

1) USA Today- Blogger & Podcaster Guide. There’s been a big development with USA Today. Thanks to their support of our industry we can now offer inclusion in the USA Today Blogger & Podcaster Guide (think TV Guide for blogs and podcasts to a mainstream audience) for just $5 per month…it was $49.95 monthly. In addition, beyond the position on the homepage of usatoday.com they have also committed to 2,000,000 premium placed ads each month, driving even more traffic to the guide. Perhaps most importantly, they’ve given us their permission to include other media partners in the Blogger & Podcaster Guide. Later today we’ll be announcing 15 new media partners beyond USA Today, making the $5 per month value proposition even stronger. Based on initial interest I anticipate having deals with over 100 media partners within the next few months. This will, for the first time, allow bloggers and podcasters to promote their content to a significant mainstream audience cost effectively. All current members will automatically be switched to the new pricing, you don’t need to do anything. If you are intersted in being included you can register at www.bloggerandpodcater.com/register (the page may not be live until later today, so check back if it’s not up when you go there.)

2) Eligibility. All bloggers and podcasters are eligible to join The Blogger & Podcaster Network. We make no requirements as to subscriber count, unique visitors or any other such restrictions. And, we don’t require exclusivity. You can be part of The Blogger & Podcaster Network at the same time you’re a member of another network, if that’s what makes sense for your business.

3) Healthcare. We are working hard on a group healthcare plan. We know healthcare (especially in the US) is a big issue for those looking to leave their “day jobs” and blog/podcast full time, so we are actively working on a group plan solution that will eliminate this obstacle. As you might imagine, this is a complicated endeavor, however I’m confident that we’re going to be able to work this out.

4) Earning You Money. This summer we will be rolling out the advertising portion of our program. We’ll provide members with the option of including useful content widgets (that can be simply installed on your web page) such as: polls of the day, video players (on topics of interest to your audience), news feeds, etc. The content widgets will have advertising embedded in them and we will share revenues from these ads with you. We prefer this approach, in contrast to a program like Google AdSense, where you schlock up your site by having ads stacked on each on top of each other. When all is said and done between this advertising and our affiliate program bloggers & podcasters will be able to earn a living from being a full-time blogger/podcaster.

There’s even more exciting news still to come, but I’m going to try and keep those details under wraps for now. Hopefully Scoble, Jason Kottke, Michael Arrington or some other intrepid journalist won’t scoop us when the time comes.

- Larry
Publisher
Blogger & Podcaster

Another year, another reason to talk about Facebook. And about Robert Scoble. Sigh.

Seems that Mr. Scoble, blogger and serial friend-collector, is on the wrong side of Facebook and has gotten his account suspended. His crime? He used a script to extract his Facebook contacts list from the service. That is a violation of the social network’s terms of service, according to an email Scoble reprinted.

Those in the blogosphere who have engaged in the ensuing debate are arguing over whether Scoble has the right to control his data: his social graph, versus Facebook’s right to prevent automated scripts from scraping its property.

But are Scoble’s contacts (he famously accepts every one of the thousands of friend requests he receives) really his to do with as he pleases? Or is the information, voluntarily shared with him by his friends, but understood to be within the structure of Facebook, actually the property of those who gave it to Scoble? The way I see it, the question is not whether Scoble or Facebook has the right to control friend data, but whether the people whose information actually forms the social graph should have a say.

Facebook members agree to (whether they read them or not) terms of service under which the information they provide can be used or disseminated. But if you friend Robert Scoble, he doesn’t offer you a TOS. You know that your information is indirectly available through his public friends list–again, within the confines of Facebook–but you haven’t authorized him to repurpose, blog with, sell, or generate social graphs with your data, now have you?

Leaving aside whether you specifically trust Robert Scoble or not, data scraping, which allows him to use or deliver that data in ways decided by him, potentially compromises the privacy of his friends without giving them options. His most recent post describes how he intended to use the data: to compare his Facebook database with that of Plaxo, whose tool he was alpha testing.

If Scoble succeeds in mining his Facebook profile, we’ll need to add one more to the long list of warnings to Internet users: if you value your privacy, and don’t wish to be socially graphed, much less sold to, or munched into a company’s database of potential customers, don’t friend people who know how to scrape data from social networks.

My Twitter feed this morning is full of links to a very inspiring story of how a woman faced with breast cancer is using her blogger gifts to raise awareness, and how her friends are using theirs to raise funds.

Blogger Susan Reynolds learned earlier this month that she has breast cancer. She is in surgery today. She blogs about the suddenness of her diagnosis, her understandable fear of what could happen to her, and about how she dealt with the physical pain of the biopsy that was required to determine whether the mass she found in her breast was malignant. Reynolds, who is a well-known presence on Twitter and in Second Life, tells the story of how frozen peas eased her pain.

Organized by Reynolds’ friends on Twitter, The Frozen Peas Fund raises money for Making Strides, the breast cancer campaign of the American Cancer Society. The group has declared the first Frozen Peas Friday on Twitter, as a catalyst for the fund-raising, and a weekly encouragement to contribute “the cost of two bags of frozen peas” to cancer research.

those of us who use Twitter daily have already seen how the service can be a source of information, comfort, and inspiration, because of the way in which it connects people in almost-real-time. I hadn’t heard about Susan’s struggle, or about Frozen Peas Friday until I checked in with Twitter this morning. But judging from the variety of people who are talking about it, and taking action, and sharing links, I think we’re seeing something really powerful that has its roots in a very organic means of communicating.

If you ever wanted to get your name on the silver screen now’s your chance. Blogger & Podcaster has partnered with actor/director/producer Bret Carr (also a B&P advertiser) to help market his fantastically inspirational movie RevoLOUtion (www.revoloutionmovie.com). Anybody who blogs or podcasts about will get a producers credit in the theatrical release. Even better, you can watch the movie online for free…and only pay what you think it’s worth after. Check out the story for complete details of the program.

- Larry
Publisher
Blogger & Podcaster

There is a rumor on TechCrunch that Robert Scoble will be leaving the troubled PodTech to join Fast Company (where he currently writes a column) to form a TV channel. Scoble’s current PodTech show features interviews with entrepreneurs, CEOs and other people with new stuff to show off.

Scoble has not commented on his blog as yet. Like a bunch of other blogging and Web 2.0 (sorry, I hate it, too) heavyweights, Scoble is currently in Paris at the Le Web3 conference, so, what with the time zone difference and the conference and all, it’s unclear whether he’s being deliberately silent because the rumor is false, deliberately silent because it’s true and shouldn’t have leaked, or hasn’t had time to blog up a response.

This isn’t the first time rumors have swirled regarding Scoble and PodTech parting ways since his well-publicized move from Microsoft. In the past, he’s vehemently denied them, and stated that he would be sticking with the videocast startup until a planned career re-evaluation in the spring of next year.

After our 3 week technical issue “sabbatical” I’m happy to announce that we are live again and visible to the 10,400,000 daily readers on the front page of usatoday.com. (We’re in the “Marketplace” section at the bottom of the page)

To thank you all for your patience (and just in case there are any other technical glitches) I’m making this whole week free too. Your billing period won’t start until next Monday, December 17th. We’ll make sure you’re notified well in advance before each new billing cycle, just in case you want to suspend your account and avoid billing.

One challenge we still have is making sure the user experience is a good one. The key here is having enough critical mass of listings that people can find blogs/podcasts on the topics that interest them. If we accomplish this people will bookmark the site and return again and again. We’re off to a really good start, but I’d like to ask for your help. Please go to any blogger or podcaster you know and let them know that they we’ve arranged a free month in The USA TODAY Blogger & Podcaster Guide for them.

There’s no catch other than after the first month there will be a charge if they want to continue promoting to the USA TODAY’s audience. However, we’ve also arranged a 20% discount for them if they find value in the program and choose to continue on. Worst case, they’ve helped us all out and have taken advantage of the USA TODAY traffic for a month for free.

To get started, here’s all they need to do:
1. Go to http://www.bloggerandpodcaster.com/usatoday
2. Select “New User” and go through 6 Step registration process
3. Be sure to enter ‘BP’ in Coupon Code box under Option #4. Click Option #4 button.
We’ll notify them well in advance of the date they’ll be billed, so they don’t need to be worried about cancelling.

Thanks again for your patience & support. This program should be a big help in marketing our industry’s content to mainstream America. I’m excited to get this program rolling.

- Larry
Publisher
Blogger & Podcaster Magazine