Here is one I made earlier: food for thought from controversy served daily

Some of you may know that I have taken a blog post residency over on Mediapost’s Online Spin. Every other Monday I am sharing my take on “controversy served daily”, alternating with my “Z.E.R.O.” co-author Joseph Jaffe. Other contributors include Max Kalehoff (SVP Marketing at Socialcode), Dave Morgan (CEO, Simulmedia), Joe Marchese (CEO of true[X]), Cory Treffiletti, SVP Marketing BlueKai and others. Yeah, I know, what the heck am I doing in that group, right?

Anyway, I have been at it since December of last year, and I have noted a few things:

1. Writing a short and preferably controversial point of view in 600 words is not easy. At the same time, it does teach you to be concise. It is a very different discipline from the posts I write for my own private blog you are on now, where I can be lengthy and add in lots of external links and fun pictures (well, I think they are fun).

2. MediaPost has a lot of readers. More than I can ever hope to gather with my own blog. At the same time, they are heavily US biased whereas my blog is much more global in its reach - per Google Analytics, which I use to track you, my dear reader!

Below is the total audience distribution of this blog to date, and as you can see this blog, too, seems to have a strong US base. But the non-US base makes up about 40% of the audience of the Top 10 scoring countries, which is higher than Mediapost, where I am guessing it is more like 90/10 in favor of the US.

Which brings me to this post. Given that there appears to be little overlap between the two platforms for my writings, I thought I would offer you a synopsis of what I have written for Mediapost’s Online Spin. And to help you, I will give you a high-level summary of each post, so you can choose and read what you think might interest you.

I have also calculated a Gross Impact Point (GIP) for each Online Spin post by adding up the number of comments made, the number of people who recommended the post on Mediapost, and the number of Likes, Tweets, In-shares and G+’s it generated. I know, that is hardly scientific but better than nothing.

December 2, 2013: What’s in name. GIP score: 31 (3rd highest rating).

In this first blog post I take issue with how start-ups and “new media economy companies” apparently have a silent code as to how to name their businesses. That code is apparently “be stupid about it”. For a first post, it immediately got 10 comments which, I have been told, is high.

December 16, 2013: Mary Meeker is right/Mary Meeker is wrong. GIP score: 18.

I thought it would attract attention to include the name of Kleiner Perkins’ digital goddess Mary Meeker in the title. It didn’t, at least not as much as I expected. I take issue with the relevance (not!) of budget share for various types of digital media as a proxy for success or importance in the marketing mix.

December 30, 2013: 2014 Predictions? Bah, humbug! GIP score: 17.

I found myself in the difficult position to close out the year. I have always been very ambivalent about all the prediction articles at year’s end. So I decided that the best way to demonstrate the futility of these predictions is by showing what came of predictions made for 2013 by end of 2012. In short: not much…

January 13, 2014: OK Glass, I’m disappointed. GIP score: 53 (2nd highest rating).

Following my Glass post from December on my own blog, I shared my experiences with Glass since having it one month. I remain in awe of the technology, but equally remain disappointed with finding much utility in having Glass on my nose.

January 27, 2014: Software is eating marketing – and your job. GIP score: 58 (#1 highest rated post to date).

In this post, I share my thoughts as to how the industry is self-destructing with its support for start-ups that are eating many of today’s marketing jobs. Well, I guess the rot always comes from within.

February 10, 2014: Media inflation is “The Big One”. GIP score: 16 (lowest of all posts to date).

I thought this was another good one, but for some reason it did not do well. Shows you I know nothing about what will resonate. Perhaps I should have called it “The Superbowl is the “suck” example of marketing”. Or “You can’t afford your own marketing model anymore”. Because that is what this post is about.

February 24, 2014: Advertisers and agencies: Do you want to be at the table or on the menu? GIP score: 27.

I wonder why advertisers and agencies are mostly on the sidelines on one of the most pressing and important issues today. And that is now that the GRP is dead, what will be our trading currency across all screens?

That is it to date.

You can of course subscribe to Online Spin so you don’t have to wait for my summary reminders on this blog in the future (which I will attempt to do once a quarter). I am pretty happy with my Top 3 based on the GIP score. Especially with my number 1 article, as that is truly a serious issue.

Read at your leisure. Add, comment, share, like and all that as well. Perhaps the Top 3 will change as a result. I will keep you posted.