Word of Blog.net

Word of Blog.net is a free online service that helps spread the word about all sorts of cool stuff: events, worthy causes, new artists, interesting organizations, and more! We host a bunch of clickable ads (or “badges” as we call them) that anyone with a blog or online profile can pick up and post on their blog or website if they want to advertise and promote a specific cause or organization. We track and display all clicks so that everyone can see which badges get posted on which blog or site and who is the most influential and supportive.

The service is very, very simple to use. You don’t need to be web-savvy at all to create a badge for your organization, or to pick up a badge and put it on your blog. Takes a few minutes – everything is explained below.

a) If you’re an organization, a business, a nonprofit, a band, a blogger, etc., you can upload your logo, banner or image on Word of Blog.net. That way, can you make it available to all your fans, friends, supporters so that they can pick it up and put it on their blogs, if they want to support what you do and drive traffic to your website; by doing that, they basically advertise you for free because they believe in what you do. See below for instructions on how to upload your logo on Word of Blog.net.

With the obvious exceptions (pornography, racism, or any other inappropriate content), any organization should feel free to upload their logo, banner or image on Word of Blog.net. If you browse through the site, you’ll see that most of the badges we host are for nonprofits, worthy causes, upcoming events, political activists, artists, bands, podcasts, and blog carnivals. But everyone is welcome. We have a few commercial badges as well (for businesses), so we’re not exclusively for nonprofit stuff. We’re completely non-partisan; the service is open to everyone.

b) If you’re a blogger, have a website or have a profile in an online community like MySpace or Xanga, check out all the badges which appear on this site – feel free to pick it up and post any badge you'd like to support on your page. You’ll basically be advertising the organization or cause to your readers – all badges are clickable, linking to the organization’s website. Each time someone clicks on the badge, we track the click. If you go to the badge’s dedicated page on Word of Blog.net (either by clicking on the "Want This Badge?" tag or searching the site), you’ll see the name of your blog or website appearing in the blue column on the left side of the page, with the total number of click-throughs to the organization’s website you generated. (Please note that this is the ONLY information that is being collected here; we take privacy very seriously at Word of Blog.net.) See below for instructions on how to do pick up a badge. (Basically, you just need to copy and paste the HTML stuff appearing in the blue box under the badge).

Although it’s called Word of “Blog”, our service is not just for blogs. (So maybe we should think of a different name, huh?) The badges can be posted on any blog of course, but a number of people have posted them on websites and also on their online profile in communities that allow people to post HTML (such MySpace, Xanga, and LiveJournal).

Yes, everything is completely free. There is currently no commerce mechanism on the site, and no money exchanging hands. It’s all volunteer-based, to spread the word throughout the blogosphere about cool organizations and worthy topics.

We may introduce paying badges in the future, but there are no immediate plans to do so. If we do, then all badges for nonprofits, grassroot organizations, political movements, etc. will continue to be free.

Last but not least: There is no evil scheme here of any sort -- no pop ups, no “Google bombing”, no mailing list building ploy, or any other shady shenanigans. Please see our privacy policy.

At this stage, Word of Blog.net is essentially a labor of love. We’re primarily interested in developing an innovative “Web 2.0” service that is unique and serves a purpose. We think it’s really cool to help worthy causes and organizations get more recognition on the Internet through everyone’s goodwill efforts. We’re doing this very much in the Craigslist spirit – we want to build and grow a concept that serves the community and is useful to all sorts of people.

We hope that over time, every blogger will want to create a section in their blog’s sidebar called “Promoting Now” or “I support,” displaying one or several badges for stuff they believe in. We hope that this will become a part of every blog, just the way pretty much every blog has a blogroll section in their sidebar.

One additional clarification: Word of Blog.net is not just for nonprofits. We already have some commercial badges on the site (for businesses), and we may introduce a commerce mechanism at some point in the future for certain badges (possibly in a different section, or on a different site altogether). However, this is not the primary goal, and we have no immediate plans to do so.

We’re a small team of Internet and Web 2.0 enthusiasts, based in New York City. Matt Turck is our founder and has a solid background in Internet and technology entrepreneurship, having co-founded and grown a company that was eventually acquired by Oracle. Stefan Nobbe and Imran Ahmed are the tech wizards who built the site from Day 1 and strive to continuously improve it. The founding team also includes Sora Chung and Geoff Miller, who do the research and outreach. The best way to get in touch with us is to email us at contact@wordofblog.net (the email goes to everyone on the team).

We’ve been influenced by some of the leading minds in the blogosphere (including Fred Wilson, Jeff Jarvis and John Batelle in the U.S., and Stephane Lee in Europe), and their discussion around the concept of sell-side advertising.

Fred Wilson was our very first user, and posted about us at the very beginning of the project, here and here.

Deborah Elizabeth Finn also wrote about us in the earliest phases of the project, check out her post here.

We got plenty of praise, and exciting feedback! Thanks everyone for the kind words. Here are some excerpts:

“We are at an interesting juncture in the history of online advertising. Look around, and you can see signs of change slowly emerging. Bloggers cribbing about adsense, models like word of blog, MDHP and adbrite - definitely, something is changing. (Comment in http://www.internetoutsider.com/2006/02/okay_enough_alr.html)

"My "chance-visit" to Word of Blog, and that gave me an inkling of what the future of advertising might look like... I think this form of advertisement is going to change the ad-world in as few as five years. " (http://telecom-circles.blogspot.com/2005/10/beginning-of-circle.html)

"As momentum generates, Word of blog will have incredible reach - this is a perfect example of a great Web2.0 service" http://www.internetplus.com/thefunkstop/?p=36

"On my site and many others, there’s a good click rate on WordOfBlog ads..."... "In the longer term,... there is plenty of room for Google rivals – big or small – who can serve publishers and their readers better."
http://blog.tomevslin.com/2005/12/google_tale.html

"[Through Word of Blog], I have had 499 click thrus on my Grameen ad since then which is 10.4 clicks per day. For comparison, Adsense has only generated 399 clicks over the same time period. And there is no fancy contextual targeting engine working at Word of Blog. The reason this works is that I selected my ad because I believe in Grameen and I give it really good placement on my blog." http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/08/word_of_blog.html

One of them is advertising of a sort - but it's free, open, and based entirely on the individual publisher's tastes - and not on the ad reps from BlogAds or the formulas over at Google, which are a little too open, except in Communist China. It's called Word of Blog, and I got it from Fred (who treats his own blog like an experiment as well) a few months ago. I really like Word of Blog, because I control what sites and people I promote. Sometimes it's a political cause, sometimes it's a podcast, like Jason's great Down in the Flood. Sure, no money changes hands - but the interface is easy, and it feels good." (http://tomwatson.typepad.com/tom_watson/2006/02/index.html)

“What I love about this idea is that it delivers on the promise of the Internet from the 90s to be the great leveler, allowing smaller companies to finally compete with larger ones. Now small nonprofits can reach out to bloggers and receive help in driving traffic on topics they both care about. It's a great example of how the power of word of mouth marketing and consumer generated media can be amplified by simply making eAdvocacy and marketing messages available for use on blogs hosted by those who believe in those messages.”
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2005/11/the_word_of_blo.html

We call the images we host “badges” to reflect the specific nature of Word of Blog.net, but you can think of them as clickable ads. Each badge points to the organization’s website, just like any other ad.

Each badge has its own devoted page on Word of Blog.net (you can access that page by clicking on the “Want this badge?” tagline). On that page, you will find an HTML snippet (the stuff in the blue box under the badge) that makes it really quick and easy to copy the badge on any blog, site or online community profile. On the left side of the
page, we display the top 150 blogs and sites that have posted the badge, and how many click-throughs to the organization’s website they have generated (you need at least one click for the name of the blog or website to appear in that column).

Under each badge, there is a tagline that says, “Want this badge?”. Note that earlier on, the tagline said, “Heard the Word of Blog?” – we changed it to make it sound less self-serving and more explicit. The previous wording still appears on a number of blogs that posted the badge before the change, which is completely fine as far as we’re concerned. Anyone who wishes to update the tagline needs to repost the badge, which should take a few seconds (this will have no impact on the click tracking).

When readers click on the tagline, they get to the badge’s devoted page on Word of Blog.net, which displays the HTML snippet that people need to pick up the badge.

The tagline is a powerful viral marketing tool for the organization that uploaded the badge, because it makes it very easy and fast for anyone who sees the badge on any blog to pick up that badge and post it on their own blog.

If you know some HTML and wish to remove the tagline, feel free to do so. However, both the organizations that post the badge and ourselves at Word of Blog.net strongly prefer that you do not, because it limits the efficiency of a system that we’ve been spending countless hours working on.

Creating, Promoting and Monitoring a Badge on Word of Blog.net

How do I “create” a badge?

It’s a very simple process. Basically, you upload an image on the site, and voila – you have a badge. It’s all done automatically in a second.

All you need is some kind of logo, banner or image with your organization’s name on it. We accept pretty much all image formats (JPEG, GIF, PNG). We recommend using smaller images so that bloggers can fit in the badge in their sidebar – the suggested width is 160 pixels. Having said that, you should feel free to use biggers images if you wish; there are a number of larger badges on the site.

My organization is really not very web-savvy. Is Word of Blog.net something we could make use of?

Absolutely. If you have a website, just mouse over your organization’s name or logo, right click on it and select the “Save as an Image” option. You now have an image that you can upload on Word of Blog.net, following the steps above. That’s pretty much all you need to do.

Important question. It’s great to upload a badge on Word of Blog.net, but it’s not very useful if nobody picks it up to post on their blog, website or online community profile. Some of the badges we host on Word of Blog.net get a tremendous amount of traction; others don’t. What makes the difference?

Of course, there are factors that have an obvious impact. If your badge is for a well-known organization or a topic that people feel particularly passionate about, it’s more likely that a bunch of bloggers will pick it up. Also, while it’s better to have a rudimentary badge than no badge at all, having a cool-looking badge certainly helps – bloggers prefer to have pretty images on their page; it’s only natural. Finally, the size of your badge also has an impact – if your image doesn’t fit within the typical blog sidebar (160 pixels wide typically), then it’s likely that bloggers will choose to put your badge in a blog post (which will probably remain on their home page for a day or two before being buried) rather than give it permanent placement in their blog’s sidebar.

Having said that, there are key steps you can do to maximize your chances of having bloggers pick up your badge:

How can I monitor which bloggers post my badge? How do I ensure my badge doesn’t get posted on an inappropriate site?

As soon as they get at least one click, the name of each blog or website that posts the badge appears on the badge’s devoted page on Word of Blog.net (that can be accessed by clicking on the “Want this Badge?” tagline).

If you see any organization there that you don’t like and don’t want to be associated with, just let us know (contact@wordofblog.net) and we’ll pull it out immediately. We can do so because we serve all badges.

It’s extremely simple. Copy the HTML snippet (the stuff appearing in the blue box under the badge), then go to your blog template. Paste. You are done.

If you’re a MySpace user, copy the HTML snippet, go the “Edit my Profile”, choose whichever category you want the badge to appear in, and paste the snippet before or after the text you wrote. Click on Preview, then Confirm and you are done.

No, no need to register. Just know that, when the badge you posted gets one click, your blog name will appear on that badge’s devoted page (that you can access by clicking on “Want this Badge?”). That’s to show who posted the badge, and how many click-throughs to the organization’s website they generated – think of it as a ranking of the most influential blogs and websites. That’s it. We don’t collect any private information, or do any other evil thing (see our Privacy Policy).

Go to your template or “Edit my profile” section, and delete the HTML snippet. You can do this at any time, and it takes a second.

Yes. If you want to display several badges on your blog, website or online profile, you can either copy and paste several of them on top of the other, or use the “My Portfolio” feature, which is accessible by clicking on “Manage Account” on the sidebar. The “My Portfolio” feature enables you to pick and choose several badges, and have them rotate, i.e., change each time the page is refreshed.

When someone clicks on a Word of Blog.net badge, they get directed to the Word of Blog.net site for a fraction of a second before going to the organization’s website. This is for click tracking purposes.

We’d like to post a badge for our organization on Word of Blog.net, but we’re concerned that having our links go through Word of Blog.net may not help us with our SEO goals (that is, getting links to our website on interested/related blogs which help increase our free placements/links on the major search engines). Is this an unwarranted concern? Are the search engines able to see where the link is ultimately being redirected?

Great question. The short answer is yes, search engines are able to see where the link is ultimately being redirected.

The links posted on websites point to
http://www.wordofblog.net/redirect.php?id=XXX where XXX is the identification number of the post in our database. The redirect page sends the user (or spider in this case) to the URL as listed in our database using a 301 redirect. This essentially directs the spider that the link visited ( http://www.wordofblog.net/redirect.php?id=XXX) has moved permanently to the URL given for redirection ( http://www.mycompany.com).

In effect this will replace all instances in a search engine of http://www.wordofblog.net/redirect.php?id=XXX to http://www.mycompany.com.

It is important to note that each search engine handles thing differently, and it is expected that it may take varying amounts of time (days to weeks) for various search engines to associate the 301 redirect URL with the original wordofblog.net/redirect.php instance.

This practice ensures, that the links placed receive the correct contextual SEO information, including the domain name, and that wordofblog.net does not become a "googlebomb" in effect.

It is a self-resolving issue as soon as it appears. The only question is how long each search engine takes to resolve it.