There’s a new issue of the Law Spotlight: the biweekly email newsletter highlighting the best law stories from around the web, found automatically by OneSpot from over 500,000 different sources.

This issue’s stories include:

Top Lawyers Behaving Badly of 2009

High Court to Review Text-Messaging Privacy Case

Exam Stress Makes University of Maryland Law Students Catty

No “Friends” For Judges

To read these stories and more, check out our newsletter: Law Spotlight

Not yet subscribed? Sign up now to Get the Spotlight for our Law, Social Media Marketing, Health, or Fashion Newsletters.

It’s that time of year again, when bloggers reflect on the past year and experts make predictions for the year to come. This issue of In The Spotlight contains top content marketing and social media posts from 2009, as well as 2010 forecasts for social media, digital marketing, B2B marketing, interactive marketing and more.

Reflections on 2009:

What Matters Now

Top 12 most popular posts of 2009

10 Most Popular Content Marketing Posts of 2009

Predictions for 2010:

eMarketer: 12 Digital Marketing Predictions for 2010

10 BtoB Marketers Predictions for 2010

Trends that will influence 2010 and beyond

The Future of Interactive Marketing

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Not yet subscribed? Sign up now to Get the Spotlight for our Social Media Marketing, Health, Law, or Fashion Newsletters.

There’s a new issue of the Law Spotlight: the biweekly email newsletter highlighting the best law stories from around the web, found automatically by OneSpot from over 500,000 different sources.

This issue’s stories include:

Uniform Bar Exam In The Works??

Law blogs far from dead in this world of microblogging : Blogging is on the rise

Court to hear new Enron case

Former BigLaw First-Year Recounts His Path to Joblessness

To read these stories and more, check out our newsletter: Law Spotlight

Not yet subscribed? Sign up now to Get the Spotlight for our Law, Social Media Marketing, Health, or Fashion Newsletters.

There’s a new issue of the Law Spotlight: the biweekly email newsletter highlighting the best law stories from around the web, found automatically by OneSpot from over 500,000 different sources.

This issue’s stories include:

Sotomayor Takes Active Role on Court’s First Day

Scalia: ‘We Are Devoting Too Many of Our Best Minds to’ Lawyering

Court to rule on gun rights, terrorism law

William Safire, Political Columnist and Oracle of Language, Dies at 79

To read these stories and more, check out our newsletter: Law Spotlight

Not yet subscribed? Sign up now to Get the Spotlight for our Law, Social Media Marketing, Health, or Fashion Newsletters.

As voting for panels continue, we’ll focus on one of our panels every day. Today, it’s a content panel: Retailers = Publishers? Using Content To Connect To Customers.

Panel Description

Customers used to be loyal, buying from one store. In this online global economy, it has become harder to gain and retain customers. Content marketing is an avenue some retailers are exploring to add value to customers and drive sales. Come hear content strategies and how retailers participate online.

Possible Panelists

Matt Cohen, CEO of OneSpot

Al Gashi – VP, Strategic Marketing at OneSpot

Matt Corey – VP Marketing, Golfsmith

Justin Sewell - Founder/CEO, Despair, Inc.

    Senior Representative - JCPenneys

Senior Representative - Michael’s Crafts

Senior Representative - Martha Stewart

Questions this panel will answer

   1. What is “content marketing”? 
   2. How has retail changed from traditional to online? 
   3. How has retail changed online in the past 5 years?  
   4. How does social media play into a traditional marketing plan? 
   5. What is the benefit of providing content emails in addition to promotional emails for retailers? 
   6. How do you balance driving attention and adding value with spamming? 
   7. What retailers could use online content marketing?
   8. Who cannot benefit from online content marketing? 
   9. How has twitter changed the face of content marketing and retail strategies? 
  10. What does the new publisher-retailer relationship look like? 

VOTE FOR THIS PANEL

We are so excited to plan this panel and the other 6 we have submitted. We hope you like them enough to vote and attend! Voting ends September 4th!

See you at SXSW 2010 and thanks for your support!

As voting for panels continue, we’ll focus on one of our panels every day. Today, it’s a technology and content panel: Become A Vertical Media Mogul, Staff Of 1.

Panel Description

Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray have figured out the recipe for vertical media; now you can too! Without a silver spoon, staff, and industry connections, technology allows anyone to master the vertical media destination site. This panel explores content trends and technologies allowing a one-man-show to become a major player.

Possible Panelists

Matt Cohen, CEO of OneSpot

Guy Kawasaki – Alltop

    Tony Conrad – CEO, Sphere

Senior Representative – Glam Media

Peter Rojas – Co-Founder, Engadget & Gizmodo

Questions this panel will answer

   1. What is “vertical media”? 
   2. Why is vertical media important from an advertising perspective?
   3. What are the most valuable online audiences?  
   4. What are the mechanisms for building a vertical media audience? 
   5. How can these audiences be monetized?
   6. How do you keep a vertical media audience engaged once they find you? 
   7. How can you turn a vertical media blog or Website into a consumer destination? 
   8. What technologies are allowing these opportunities to go “mainstream”?  
   9. What are the practical steps you can take to pursue these opportunities? 
  10. What is the size of the opportunity and how much will it cost you to pursue? 

VOTE FOR THIS PANEL

We are so excited to plan this panel and the other 6 we have submitted. We hope you like them enough to vote and attend! Voting ends September 4th!

See you at SXSW 2010 and thanks for your support!

As voting for panels continue, we’ll focus on one of our panels every day. Today, it’s a technology and content panel: Newspapers vs. Content Aggregators: Fight Night! (You know you want to see what goes down between big media and aggregators!)

Panel Description

In the red corner, boasting over 200 years of experience and $38 Billion yearly revenue: the newspaper industry. In the blue corner, the rookie packing a major punch: the content aggregator. Called the “tech tapeworms” of the Internet, content aggregators have become the frienemies of newspapers. Round 1… Fight!

Possible Panelists

Matt Cohen, CEO of OneSpot

Guy Kawasaki – Alltop

    Tony Conrad – CEO, Sphere

Senior Representative – Newscorp

Senior Representative – NYTimes

Senior Representative – Google (the “original tech tapeworm”)

Questions this panel will answer

   1. What is “content aggregation”? 
   2. Why do newspapers dislike content aggregators? 
   3. Why do newspapers need content aggregators? 
   4. Do content aggregators need newspapers to survive? 
   5. Fair use: what constitutes as just ‘linking to’ versus ‘parasitic’ infringement? 
   6. What does the new symbiotic business model look like? 
   7. Who should be paying who: content aggregators for content or newspapers for offsite promotion? 
   8. How does content aggregation help large and small publishers tap into the long tail? 
   9. What does the NYT and Blogrunner relationship look like pre- and post-acquisition? 
  10. Why can’t we all just get along?

VOTE FOR THIS PANEL

We are so excited to plan this panel and the other 6 we have submitted. We hope you like them enough to vote and attend! Voting ends September 4th!

See you at SXSW 2010 and thanks for your support!

There’s a new issue of the Law Spotlight: the biweekly email newsletter highlighting the best law stories from around the web, found automatically by OneSpot from over 500,000 different sources.

This issue’s stories include:

A Turbulent Year for E-Discovery

JOBLESS GRAD SUES COLLEGE FOR 70G TUITION

Is Credit Card Arbitration Fair and Impartial?

Federal Court Orders California to Reduce Its Prison Population to 110K

To read these stories and more, check out our newsletter: Law Spotlight

Not yet subscribed? Sign up now to Get the Spotlight for our Law, Social Media Marketing, Health, or Fashion Newsletters.

There’s a new issue of the Law Spotlight: the biweekly email newsletter highlighting the best law stories from around the web, found automatically by OneSpot from over 500,000 different sources.

This issue’s stories include:

The Other Side of the Story on The Lawyer Who Represented Himself

Which Industries to Target Now in Law Firm Marketing

On Trademark Enforcement & Protection: Is Twitter on Target or Off the Mark?

Law Humor: Confirmation Hearings of Master Yoda, Day Two

To read these stories and more, check out our newsletter: Law Spotlight

Not yet subscribed? Sign up now to Get the Spotlight for our Law, Social Media Marketing, Health, or Fashion Newsletters.

The working title for this post was “The Mouse That Roared,” a riff on the mascot of ESPN’s majority owner, Disney. But there’s nothing mouse-like about ESPN. And, unlike the film of the same title, ESPN isn’t marching on newspapers’ turf with white flags at the ready. The 30-year-old network calls itself the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” a nearly irrefutable claim when one tallies the Borg-like reach of its cable channels, local radio affiliates, blogs, international sites and more.

Accordingly, tremors from Sunday’s news that ESPN is adding local sports coverage – with plans to go hyper-local (think softball leagues) – have rippled well beyond editors’ offices. With local readers and ad dollars in the crosshairs of sports media’s biggest, best-funded promotional howitzer, this is a vastly bigger worry for newspapers than Google News’ parasitical attributes.

Why? Consider this stat from the Times story: “In less than three months, ESPN Chicago has become the city’s top sports site, attracting about 590,000 unique visitors in June… Second place went to the Tribune’s online sports section with 455,000 unique visitors.”

What’s amazing is not that it happened, it’s the velocity with which it happened. The Tribune has been the authority on Chicago sports for 162 years; ESPN only needed three months to undo that.

And it’s not just the sports desk that should be worried. Last month, the Huffington Post announced its plans to expand into local news. Resistance is futile.

Of course, competition from ESPN, HuffPo and other national outlets isn’t news to newspapers, which have traditionally relied on the defense that national outlets lack the well-sourced local beat reporters to compete head to head.

Until now,as Dan Shanoff notes:

“Here’s an unintentionally funny quote from LA Times sports associate editor Randy Harvey: ‘It would be foolish to underestimate ESPN, but it comes down to resources. I don’t see them being able to replicate what we do.’

“Do what, Randy? Cut your hockey coverage? Let marquee columnists like JA Adande leave for…oh, let’s see, ESPN.com? … How about the way Harvey has let Bill Plaschke become more TV personality than newspaper columnist — on…ESPN? (Again: ESPNLA will have Plaschke video from Around the Horn. What’s LATimes.com got?)”

Indeed, ESPN has been poaching talent from local papers for years, a trend exacerbated by local newsrooms’ collapsing budgets. Now, it appears, these chickens have come home to roost.

Fortunately for newspapers, this is a war that can be waged on the cheap. According to the Times article, ESPN primarily will use existing resources and need only 15 new staff members to run the Dallas, Los Angeles and New York properties.

How is going local such a high-leverage move for ESPN, HuffPo, et al? In a word, aggregation. Check out ESPN’s Rumor Central pages, where ESPN culls non-ESPN content by topic area, bundles it with internally-generated content, and charges its “Insiders” subscribers for access. Per Shanoff:

“As quickly as a good nugget can be reported by someone like the Times, a quick-acting (and inexpensive) ESPNLA intern (or low-paid editor) can have it on the ESPNLA site.”

Actually, it can be more efficient, scalable and effective than that. Just ask OneSpot clients like the Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle or others. Instead of relying solely on the selection of a single editor, blogger or intern, these organizations tap into the hive mind of thousands of editors, bloggers, Twitterers and others who link to the best of the web. The key is quality content aggregation with smart curation to select the best of the best. And, as ESPN has proven, quality, curated content can also be monetized. Let us show you how.

ESPN’s blitzkrieg into local markets may resemble Amazon.com’s takeover of so many retail categories. Both are category-killer brands executing ruthlessly clever online strategies while incumbents, beholden to brick-and-mortar interests and budgets, struggle to keep up. But ESPN is winning by outsmarting, rather than outspending. With nimbleness and creativity, newspapers can fight fire with fire.

Facebook announced on its blog last Thursday that it was going to redesign the inbox.

Streamlining the Inbox - Posted June 18th on the Facebook Blog

While this may have excited a couple of tweens who are on Facebook 24-7, the majority of the response so far has been more apathetic: “So what?” Most users receive email alerts when they have a new message and, aside from spam and interest groups, many simply call or use the direct email address since Facebook is about “real friends,” not just “followers.” The only party benefiting from Facebook messages is Facebook: a user must visit the Facebook site, increasing page views, in order to respond to a message through its app.

Last Friday, Facebook made another big announcement: Facebook in Persian in response to the Iran Election.

Launching Facebook in Persian - Posted June 19th on the Facebook Blog

The translation of the site into the Persian language came nearly one week after the Major News Outlets versus Twitter scandal in which Twitter was able to report, react, and discuss the Iran Election faster and more effectively than Major News Networks, specifically CNN.

While I understand there is time needed to revise a website for a new market and even more time for a new language, this along with the inbox redesign begs the question: is Facebook two steps behind the market?

When Facebook first opened its network to everyone, MySpace found it difficult to keep up with the simplicity and ubiquity of Facebook’s functionality. Some would even consider MySpace dead (the extensive layoffs are not helping MySpace’s outlook). Now with Twitter booming and becoming the first stop for news and networking, it seems Facebook is having trouble keeping pace with Twitter.

No matter your business, it is important to: Listen to customers’ needs: survey customers to understand how they use the product and what features they would like the product to add or enhance. Watch the market: stay on top of trends and react quickly to the market; always have a few aces up your sleeve.

Listen to customers’ needs: It is important to touch base with customers, and even former customers, to learn how they use the product, what features are most important to them as well as least important, and what they would like the product to do in the future. There is no point spending time and resources adding or enhancing a feature that is not within the customers’ wish lists.

Now, I am not saying that Facebook did not do their research. they may have had multiple focus groups and email survey campaigns. However, based on its history for making a major change with customer backlash/boycotting, it would not surprise me if its focus group included only the marketing and development team. Whether you are B2C or B2B, it is important to look outside of your team to customers using your product.

Watch the market: In order to compete in today’s real-time global economy, you must stay on top of marketing trends large and small and react quickly to trends. I say stay on top of even small trends because you never know when a small trend will explode (after all, Twitter was a minor social network until 6 months ago when it started becoming the communications tool). By preparing for any small trend to explode, planning contingencies for those trends, you can react faster to the ever changing marketplace (I’m also talking about you, CNN…)

Facebook’s Persian language support is almost irrelevant: yes, it is great to have support for that language, but with even the White House supporting Twitter for Iran Election coverage and free speech, Facebook feels more like a copycat than a trend setter. In early 2008, Facebook started rolling out international language support and within 6 months, Facebook was in 55 different launguages through its translation app. While Persian is not in the top 20 worldwide launguages, there are 60-80 million worldwide native speakers. In addition, the region has been politically active and on the US News radar since the beginning of the Iraq war. With less government censorship than China (already on Facebook), Facebook should have been ready to deploy in Persian at a moment’s notice. With a higher barrier to entry for customers than Twitter, Facebook should have been ready before the Irani elections, regardless of the outcome.

It can seem overwhelming for some startups to do customer research, but a simple phone call or personal email can make the process easy. There will always be customers who want to share their opinion, the good and the bad, so just spend a few minutes asking customers. Or create a customer advisory board of key customers to periodically survey and test regarding new features.

Staying on top of trends is easy using social networks. By using a desktop Twitter client like Tweetdeck or Seesmic, you can set up search alerts and easily follow customers, competitors, and potential leads. You can also set up Google alerts or use a content aggregation service (like OneSpot) to stay on top of your industry.

By listening to customers and anticipating market trends, it is easy to stay relevant in a real-time global economy. While Facebook has many more issues to work out than just releasing extraneous revisions or arriving late to a market need, this past week’s updates have been a great learning lesson for any business participating online. Related articles by Zemanta Google and Facebook jump on bloodstained Iran wagon (theregister.co.uk) Tech giants rush Farsi versions (news.bbc.co.uk) In Its Rush To Offer A Persian Version, Did Facebook Violate Its Terms Of Service? (techcrunch.com) Twitter on the Barricades in Iran: Six Lessons Learned (nytimes.com) Google And Facebook Respond To Turmoil In Iran With New Services (mediabistro.com)

Recently, there have been quite a few interviews with traditional companies discussion social media. As an avid user of social media, for both personal and professional reasons, I am excited that stodgy companies are experimenting with social media… keyword here is experimenting.

It seems that with every interview, marketing execs at these companies feel they have figured out the formula. There’s a formula? Why didn’t someone tell me so I could have a winning game plan in my social media efforts? Could have saved me a bunch of time and energy!

Mack Collier: Q&A with IBM’s Sandy Carter: What’s the Recipe for Marketing Success with Social Media? Posted about 3 hours ago on Marketing Profs Daily Fix

Scott Monty of Ford Motor Company discusses social media Posted 1 day ago on Web Ink Now

The problem is, there is no formula: what works for a Fortune 500 company may not work for a bustling start up. More importantly, what works for one Fortune 500 company may not work for another Fortune 500 company. Above and beyond that, what works for one company in an industry might not work for another company within that same industry.

At SXSW this year, JCPenney discussed their “Doghouse” viral campaign. Using Twitter, YouTube, and a dedicated campaign site primarily, JCPenney targeted men and women for jewelry sales, focusing on men who “misbehave” and the women who then send them to the doghouse. The campaign was a huge success: less cost and more buzz than their traditional marketing. Would that style of campaign also work for other retailers? Nordstrom, perhaps? Even Wal-Mart? Probably not. It may not even work again for JCPenney if they repeat the same formula.

Social media marketing is still new, which makes it exciting and experimental. 5 years from now, it may still be experimental because rather than broadcasting to customers, you are connecting and communicating with customers, and rather than reaching a broad demographic, you can reach niches, tailoring your message to address diverse customer groups. No one person is alike; no one social media campaign is alike.

So let people interview Fortune 500 companies and their social media “experts,” but take everything they say with a grain of salt. Whatever buzzwords you use for it, social media marketing, viral marketing, grassroots online marketing, interactive marketing, etc., know that the field is still ever changing and experimental. There’s no set formula for success; so get out there, have fun, and experiment!

Related articles by Zemanta Diva Marketing Talks About Social Media Sponsored Conversations With “Auntie” Melanie Notkin and Scott Monty (marketing.blogtanker.com)B2B Social Media is Not One-Size-Fits-All Part 2 (myventurepad.com) Ford’s Smart Social Media Marketing Approach (viralblog.com) social media experts : myth or reality? (jburg.typepad.com)

It makes perfect sense for businesses to get into the business of blogging, and lots of them do. Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere reported there are 7.4 million active blogs (active being at least one new post in the last 120 days), and 12% of their respondents identified themselves as corporate bloggers. And the blogosphere continues to grow in leaps and bounds. As I submit this post, Wordpress’s running ticker reports a staggering 201,242 active blogs on its platform alone. (When I started writing this post, that number was 194,795.) If Technorati’s 12% holds true with this group, it suggests OneSpot joined about 24,000 other businesses when we launched our Wordpress-powered blog last month. Blogging is relatively inexpensive to set up and maintain, so it is no surprise that business blogging has increased during this economic downturn. You don’t have to buy any software to get started, it takes minutes to implement, and the tools are so easy that anyone can learn to use them. Multiple authors can write posts for the same blog, so companies can maintain decent post frequency by distributing the task across members of a team. Add a targeted content aggregation service that allows for your own commentary and selection, and a steady stream of relevant content for your audience takes little time and won’t break the bank. But the fact that it’s cheap and relatively easy isn’t the reason that businesses blog. Whether you’re building a media property, selling products and services online, or simply trying to market your brand, blogging can be a very effective way to grow your business. MerchantCircle, a U.S. social network of local business owners, showed a 190% increase in blogging between January 2008 to January 2009, totalling 15,676 blogs written by merchants on their network. In their study, they also discovered that merchants who wrote one blog received 30% more traffic to their website. Sharon LB of Sharon’s Marketing Missive has put together a great Small Business Blogging Basics guide to help businesses enter the blogosphere. She suggests three reasons that businesses should blog: increase SEO, establish thought leadership and relate to your customers. So how does a crazy-busy business blogger (who, by the way, didn’t need another ‘quick task’ on her to-do list) have any hope of succeeding? Lots of folks have lots of ideas about this, but in my opinion it comes down to 3 things: Focus on your customer, not your wares. The great business blogs do more than list product announcements and press releases. They show how well a business understands its customers. Whole Foods excels at this. One of my favorite Whole Foods posts this week has Scott Simons showing me how to cook and prepare a halibut with roasted tomato, garlic and olive relish. The picture and the video make my mouth water, and I learn something new about how to cook one of my favorite kinds of fish. And in the midst of a recent salmonella peanut recall, they also blog about every recalled product that is sold in any of their stores to ensure the safety and well-being of their customers. Their blog does more than push groceries — it teaches me things I want to know. Give them something useful. I appreciate blogs that post ‘really good stuff’ that helps me in my personal and professional life. Bazaarvoice does a great job with their blog overall, but this week’s post about their research with JupiterResearch and Rich Relevance will be particularly useful to retailers and manufacturers who are trying to win business in a tough economy. It makes a great case for their solutions by giving its readers new information that will help them address current business challenges.

Have a unique perspective. The blogs that I spend the most time on are the ones that have a clear and unique point of view. Huffington Post is the standard in this category, but my latest favorite example of a unique blogging perspective is Jessica Hagy’s Indexed. As a reader, her blog makes you want to buy her book because her stuff is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Her distinctive content also makes me read more/return more when I should be doing other things.

The OneSpot team is relatively new to the blogosphere. But we know that maintaining a quality blog will help us serve and understand our customers more, be a place to deliver ‘good stuff’ to online publishers of all shapes and sizes, and provide a platform to express our own perspective about the importance of content curation for every business. Take a minute to share some of your favorite business blogs with us — we’d love to learn from you.

Everyone, including myself, is running on all cylinders these days, trying to frequently post the best possible content for our sites. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have another able body to work with and take some of the pressure off, allowing time to make sure each original piece is the best it could possibly be? Most of the time, to get more stories, you need more people, more journalists. Major media publishers know how much a reporter costs. Perhaps the editors are not as aware, but the accounting team certainly knows how much it costs to support a single writer. I read this great post on ZDNet called “Let’s talk about the economics of great journalism” outlining how expensive a reporter can be. The fully loaded cost of a great reporter doing great work, then, falls somewhere in the $180,000 range:

  $130,000 salary and benefits
  $4,800 a year in subscriptions and other information sources
  $30,000 a year in travel
  $15,000 a year in legal and insurance coverage
  $179,800 total, and that’s before the cost of IT, telecom and office space

$180K. I know that’s more than I make. Granted, this is likely a celebrity journalist with a recognizable name and multiple awards. Most local journalists might rake in around $40-60K (not including benefits). So let’s say that you hire a journalist (and don’t pay them benefits… we’re in a recession, after all). He/she cranks out an average 2 high quality stories a day for you, or 730 stories a year. This means that each story costs you around $50-80. Wouldn’t you like to get paid that much for each blog post (or maybe you do… email me!) So hiring another body to get more stories is probably out of the question (unless you are a millionaire blogger… again, email me!) Syndicated content is now an option, as it is much less expensive than an employee. You might catch some dollar deals, and some articles may cost hundreds or thousands (depending on your topic), but let’s use the NYTimes a la carte price for the sake of argument: $3.95 per story. At only 2 articles per day, you pay over $2800 per year. A bargain compared to adding a reporter, but it seems a little high for 2 articles per day. Then there is OneSpot. Content aggregation overall will get you more articles, but not the same quality you would get from hiring a reporter or selecting syndicated content yourself. OneSpot is content curation, which allows you to have that element of hand selection and editorial voice, but with lots of stories. Your site gets titles and summaries of targeted stories that link to the original story. As Chris Brogan, ChrisBrogan.com, says: “Links tell Google what is important… enough pointers from lots of sites saying similar things [improves SEO].” You become a part of your Web community, not just a site that copies and pastes a story (more on linking in a later post). You can also have interactive discussion pages that encourage audience participation. You can even add your own comments to spark discussion and add your voice. Plus, you save time scouring the Web for stories. Depending on your topic, you may average 50 articles a day. That’s over 18,000 articles a year. At the current price point, that makes each article less than 10 cents. I think that sounds more reasonable. Then again, I’m not a millionaire blogger…