Ready to invent a new firm this summer in Boulder, Colorado?

TechStars applications for summer 2008 are now open. You can get your web/software/IT startup off the ground and running fast with TechStars this summer. You get seed capital, a summer of amazing mentorship from the best in the business, access to an incredible network, and the chance to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the summer.

You also get to live in one of the nicest cities in the United States, with easy access to the Rocky Mountains and the benefits of a small college-oriented city with lots of tech and startup fever.

They only accept ten companies each summer. From last years group, so far 8 of the 10 companies are now angel or venture backed beyond TechStars, or are funding themselves through their own profits. There's no reason you can't be next!

There are also lots of good reasons to apply early. Here's one: You'll get an invitation to TechStars For A Day on March 5th if you apply by March 3rd. You'll also get more time to interact with us before all the last minute applications come in. Take advantage of it and apply early.

Last year 50+ amazing mentors such as Jared Polis (Founder BlueMountain.com, ProFlowers.com), Darren Crystal (Founder, Photobucket), Greg Reinacker (Founder, Newsgator), Ryan McIntyre (Founder, Excite.com), Alex King (original contributing developer, Wordpress) and Dave Taylor (author of this blog) are joined this year by even more of the best minds in the industry such as Dick Costolo (Founder, Feedburner), Eric Marcoullier (Founder, MyBlogLog), Pete Sheinbaum (CEO, DailyCandy), Stewart Alsop (Partner, Alsop-Louie Partners), and more.

If you want to take your startup to the next level, don't wait, Apply Today!

Any good Internet/Web conferences happening in June?

I'm going to have a block of free time in my schedule in June and am thinking it'd be a great opportunity to check out a conference, workshop or seminar I've never attended or spoken at before. Anyone have a suggestion for me?

Bonus points if I can speak at the event and even more bonus points if it's somewhere interesting, like the Florida keys or even Disneyworld...

If you're a conference organizer, why yes, I am happy to speak at your event. Let's talk!

The kind of letter you like to get from your publisher...

Got this in the afternoon emailbag:

We're going to start a reprint of Wicked Cool Shell Scripts!

We have the opportunity at this time to fix any errata that have surfaced since the last printing. Do you have anything that you've noticed or has been brought to your attention that you'd like to fix? If so, please email me page numbers and descriptions, and we can replace the necessary pages for the reprint.

Thanks so much!

Kathleen Mish
Production Assistant

What's that, you're a Linux or Unix geek, you like digging into the internals of Mac OS X, and you haven't yet bought a copy of the book? That's an outrage! Please, buy a copy today, it's the most enjoyable geeky programming book you'll read in 2008!

Remember, there's a reason that MacInTech said "This incredibly fun book (really!), written by Dave Taylor, a veteran UNIX, Solaris and Mac OS X author, is chock full of 101 scripts to customize the UNIX (Bourne) shell..." when they reviewed it!

The Twap of Twitter's Tewwible Interface

I know, I know, that title is just agonizing. Just be glad I couldn't think of an alliterative word for "Interface" to twuly complete the thought!

In an interesting bit of parallelism, I sent out a brief status message on the popular service Twitter commenting upon the observation I had that I feel guilty when I decide not to follow someone in Twitterland. Here's what I saw on the Web page:

Subsequent to that, a few of my friends chimed in rather quickly with their comments:

Robin, Rob and Amy have good comments, but here's what's interesting: these are the only three responses I saw. Yet I had four people respond to me. To get to the fourth response, I had to click on the "Replies" tab, which then revealed the missing message:

Suddenly, Dennis shows up, but why doesn't that response show up in my main Twitter stream? It's a significant flaw in the design of the service and while I can mash up the streams a bit more with third-party apps, I don't really want to run yet more software on my computer. I want a version of Twitter that makes sense in terms of what it presents to me.

I'm sure I am not alone in missing these replies from people who I don't explicitly follow. Given that it's all being tracked (I mean, it's in the "Replies" tab), I just don't understand why I can't integrate them all together. Jack, you invented Twitter, perhaps you can explain?

Meanwhile, if you want to track my thrilling day to day activities and musings in the world of 140 characters or less, you can find me on Twitter as DaveTaylor.

The world's least exciting class action case?

After reading thrillers from John Grishman and other lawyerly authors, and after having seen incessant solicitations from b-grade legal firms to join a wide variety of class action suits for mesothelioma and oh, so many other apparent crises in our contemporary life, I'm still rather amazed at an email I received from home goods retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond (Nasdaq: BBBY).

It's all about thread count and the email from BB&B explains that the pending lawsuit "alleges that Bed Bath & Beyond, as well as Synergy, Inc., misrepresented the thread count in its two-ply bedding products sold in stores and on its website by stating the number of threads in the warp and filling directions in one square inch of fabric, rather than the number of yarns."

Truth be told, I had to look this up to even understand what's going on in this lawsuit.

The warp of a fabric is the yarn going horizontally in the fabric (well, technically, warp is the yarn arranged lengthways on a loom, crossed by the woof), but how it relates to the number of yarns, well, this has got to be one of the most obscure lawsuits I've ever seen. As best I can figure, the lawsuit alleges that BB&B counted the threads that comprised the yarn (which makes sense to me, since the measure is thread count not yarn count) rather than just the yarn itself when calculating the overall thread count "fabric density" of linens it sold, but I might be wrong here.

What I find interesting about this situation is that it highlights the obscure nuances of modern class action suits and just as non-medical experts trying to assess medical effects can often border on the idiotic, surely lawyers debating warp and woof must be utterly baffling to consumers too. It's hard to imagine someone suing a linen store because they tore apart sheets and found that the "400 thread count" pillowcase was, in fact, only a 270 thread count fabric. And yet, somehow that's what happened here.

Imagine you had received a notice from a law firm (Whatley Drake & Kallas, LLC of New York, NY in this instance) asking if you'd bought a specific set of sheets from Bed, Bath & Beyond. Not to be politically incorrect, but would anyone really care? I mean, I can understand why WD&K does: the lawsuit details attorney fees of "no more than" $290,000. That's a lot of pillowcases.

Ah well, let's end this by simply observing that if you are one of the people who are potentially affected by this class action lawsuit, you should immediately rush to BBB Thread Count Settlement.com to register your claim.

Maybe I am the famous Dave Taylor WWE wrestler after all

Check this out, in this morning's email:

To Dave Taylor,

Carlos Mejia
Editorial Assistant - WWE Magazine
World Wrestling Entertainment
1241 East Main Street
Stamford, CT 06902

I am, of course, going to assent to being interviewed. Maybe I'll get to trade manly crushing handshakes with the other Dave Taylor (who is not #1 for a Google search of "Dave Taylor", sucka!) some day....

The stack of books on my desk...

As you can see in the photo, I am woefully behind in my business reading, and faster than I can find time to read these titles, authors are sending me new books that, I warn them, just get added to the stack. I know there are great books here, some written by friends or respected colleagues, but sometimes I read to take my brain out of the industry and far away from work, so in fact I'm in the middle of a classic Ben Bova science fiction book right now, Mars.

Rather than have them all hide in obscurity, however, I will at least give you a list with brief summaries cribbed from Amazon, and ask that you share which you think should be the next one I read!

Game Changers: Improvisation for Business in the Networked World by Mike Bonifer

"As we move from the rigid, hierarchical organizations of the Industrial Age to the fluid, non-linear models of the Networked World, GameChangers have never been more important or essential. Whenever teamwork, creativity, flexibility and problem-solving skills are necessary for success, these players step up. They develop relationships that are good for business. They pay careful attention to details and at the same time have expansive worldviews. They are quick-on-their-feet, unflappable and in tune with their teammates, stakeholders and the marketplace. They are the top performers in any organization  the best managers, the most resourceful employees, the culture-shapers. They play the game and make things happen. In short, GameChangers are masters of improvisation in business."

Business and the Buddha: Doing Well by Doing Good by Lloyd Field

"All businesses want to do well, but can they also do good? Lloyd Field says yes, and moreover, no business can afford to focus simply on “doing well.� Increasingly, public assessment of a business’s worth must take into account its consideration of shared human values. That doesn’t mean a business can’t or should not compete; it means that investing in efforts to build a better society can, on many levels, be an asset. In this book, Field lays out the guidelines for putting social responsibility, both corporate and individual, into practice without sacrificing profits. "

All Your Money Won't Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource by Curt Finch

"This book covers the many reasons why time tracking, preferably through a Software-as-a-Service platform, is a must for companies of all sizes. It discusses the benefits available through effective key performance indicators and project management, payroll and billing practices, and federal regulation compliance, as well as guides the reader through the buying process. It also discusses numerous pertinent technological advances such as SOA, Telecom and the Internet, and Web2.0."

Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz

"With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world’s most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth. Learn the five essential steps that make word of mouth work and everything you need to get started using them. Understand the real purpose of blogs, communities, viral email, evangelists, and buzz—when to use them and how simple it is to make them work..."

The Secret Life of the Corporate Jester by David T. Riveness

"True Jestership is not about wearing colorful costumes and entertaining others with jokes; instead, it is a set of behaviors arising from a unique perspective on organizational effectiveness. True jesters have the rare ability to uncover and address hidden blind spots in thinking and action that negatively affect companies,organizations and individuals."

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss

"What do you do? Tim Ferriss has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the “deferred-life plan� and instead mastered the new currencies—time and mobility—to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now. Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world."

Lessons from the Edge: For-Profit and Nontraditional Higher Education in America by Gary A. Berg

"The message is that we can consider nontraditional providers of higher education, not as inferior competitors, but as unique institutions specializing in what traditional higher education providers are not yet able to deliver: truly universal access to postsecondary education. By learning from nontraditional schools, we can better our understanding of our current challenges."

Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build your Business by Larry Weber

"The future of marketing is a two-way street, not a one-way message. Marketers must look to the Web for new ways to find and communicate with customers, rather than at them. From MySpace and YouTube to blogs, social media on the Internet is the most promising way to reach customers."

Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort by Steven van Yoder

"The best clients and customers are those that seek you out because they've already heard of you. Get Slightly FamousT shows how to build visibility and credibility by making yourself a thought leader and indispensable resource to your potential clients and customers. This expanded new edition provides a toolbox of strategies for: Getting consistent media attention; Using speaking engagements to cultivate your target market; Becoming a center of influence within your industry; Leveraging the Internet and Web 2.0 to its full potential;Creating ancillary info-products that supplement your income and build public awareness."

Warriors, Workers, Whiners & Weasels by Tim O'Leary

"In the world of business and life, there are only four kinds of people in any organization: Warriors, who confront change, see possibilities, innovate and manage to win! Workers, who deal with the ups, downs and challenges of everyday corporate life dependably, and who can reliably implement the change and direction established by the Warriors, Whiners, who get through life by complaining about everything they do, who profess negativism and dissatisfaction wherever they go, and blaming others for their own shortcomings, and Weasels, who lurk everywhere and threaten your career and life-goals through their own deception and insecurity and who spread these feelings quickly throughout the organization. "Warriors, Workers, Whiners & Weasels" illuminates these four personality types and shows you how to recognize the characteristics of each and use them to your advantage to empower the Warriors and Workers to boost your organization to success."

Thursday Talk: Should Users Customize Their User Interface?

Update: The venue is just about full so if you want to attend, please contact Beth ASAP!

If you have some free time, I'll be giving a presentation this Thursday evening (the 17th of January) at the Broker Inn to the local chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and it's free to attend.

Here's the schedule:

• 5:30 - social time, meet for drinks and appetizers
• 6:30 pm: Dinner (order on your own starting at about 6:15 - $24)
• 7:15 pm (roughly): Chapter business discussion
• 7:30 pm: Program begins

If you aren't interested in the proverbial rubber chicken (caveat: the Broker might have fabulous haute cuisine, I don't know) then you can show up later for my talk.

Beth Meyer, the organizer, asks:

"Prospective attendees do need to RSVP to me so that we have a good number estimate. And I don't think we have room for 10-20 more people - it's not that big a room, they serve a sit-down dinner (a very nice one, I might add), and we already have 17 who plan to attend. I just called the Broker, and they said that beyond about 22 people, some people will be seated behind you while you talk or will be crammed into spots where it is hard for them to see and interact. If I have a firm number in advance (no later than Tuesday), I will make it work as best we can, but it would be good if you didn't invite more than 4-5."

Suffice to say, if you do want to attend, please contact her ASAP at bethmeyer at ye olde mindspring.com.

By the way, they think I'll be talking about the dull, academic topic of Trends in Social Computing and Human Factors but in fact I want to have a discussion about the dangers and opportunities presented by sites like MySpace and Facebook allowing users to create their own user interfaces and the ramifications on usability. Maybe we'll have a hybrid talk. :-)

Anyway, if you're available, I'd love to see a few familiar faces in the audience!

MySpace measures to stop child predators will backfire

For someone who isn't 17, I have to admit that I spend a fair amount of time digging around in MySpace and trying to understand how all the pieces fit together. Indeed, MySpace help is an an important element of my tech Q&A blog too (where I offer tech support and, specifically myspace help). Heck, I even have a popular myspace ebook entitled Dave's Everything Guide to MySpace.

That's why I read through the announcement today on the AP wire that MySpace agrees to step up measures against child predators with a skeptical eye... and I was right.

Among the measures proposed, MySpace has agreed to a couple that I just know are going to backfire!

Allow parents to submit children's e-mail addresss to prevent anyone from misuing those addresses to set up profiles - But how do you prove that someone is a parent? And the parent of that particular child? I mean, if I just say "oh yeah, my son's email address is 'soccerGuy@hotmail.com' are they going to take my word for it, while I snicker about how I just blocked my enemy in math class from ever getting his MySpace account setup?

One possibility would be to fax in credentials, but that's just as open to spoofing. It's a very tricky problem, actually, and one that I imagine will be exploited with all sorts of social engineering hacks and related.

Make the default settings "private" for 16 and 17yo users - well, duh, MySpace. Anyone under 18 should, by default, have a private account. Why has it taken this long to propose this change? Of course, it's pretty darn easy for an individual to make their account public, but that's alright, at least they have to do something (until a comment-based virus is written that auto-public's people's profiles without them knowing, but that's another story)

Strengthen software to find underage users - this is bizarre. Why bother with this when I think just about every parent and law enforcement officer in the galaxy would rather see them commit to strengthening software to find under-18 accounts from people who are over 18?? That's the core of the problem, in my opinion, not younger adults pretending to be a bit older.

Y'know, more than just about any other site I visit, MySpace still feels like the lawless Wild West of the earlier Internet days. In addition to these inane and empty promises to make a better, safer MySpace, I'd like to see MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam explain how the company is going to tighten up the overall environment so that there are less spam profiles, less spam comments and less spam email sent to legitimate MySpace users. Without these filters, I believe it's only a matter of time before people migrate to cleaner, less noisy and chaotic environments.

Meanwhile, my reportcard for today's announcement: A good effort, but the proof is in the implementation, and without addressing other fundamental problems within the MySpace world, the company will not being able to retain its "busiest site on the Web" distinction for long.

Help the South Dakota Dept. of Tourism market online...

I received an interesting query from a friend of mine:

"Dave, if I was a Dept of Tourism or had an attraction in South Dakota and was looking at getting creative at spending advertising dollars in new ways. How would you advise me? Or how do I take advantage of You Tube, Linked In and other social media or even a blog?"

Hmmmm... I would think about the attraction as an entity and then ask the question “how can this entity make friends?� Think about the needs and interests of the potential visitor and ask “what are they looking for in entertainment?� So this might mean that you tap into contemporary popular culture and have a “reality show� at the attraction, or have a competition where people make funny videos at the attraction, post them to YouTube and also notify the marketing team. Each is also promoted at the attraction’s Web site and people vote: the most popular for each month gets a $100 cash prize or his and hers South Dakota sweatshirts or similar.

You could also have entry fee discount coupons on their MySpace page, for example, to encourage people to make friends with the attraction: this means that people who visit THOSE folk also see the link to the attraction, and so it snowballs.

The department of tourism itself needs to identify a few target demographic markets, perhaps families with young children (as an example) and then craft a marketing campaign built around that. For this one, perhaps they could feature the state parks with free-to-rent bicycles, or the amazing public pools, or the new playground complex just opened by city hall, etc etc. This appears online as www.SouthDakotaWithKids.com and is promoted with 2-3 minute video spots on YouTube.

Demographic #2 might be civil war buffs and the state could sponsor an entire tour including a free DVD that is a 90 minute tour of the various historical spots, coupled with a small booklet that includes coupons for historic B&Bs (who pay for the privilege of being included), attractions, and even souvenir shops. The pitch, though, is history as much as fun and entertainment. As part of it, you could include a coupon that can be redeemed at the state capital for a book on South Dakota’s role in the Civil War. And this also all appears online – including the 90 minute video, chopped into 6 15-minute segments, at a web site with a URL like www.SouthDakotasCivilWar.com or similar.

See how they all weave together to make a coherent multi-platform marketing campaign? That’s the real message and that’s the reality of the new online world: it doesn’t so much replace existing marketing as offer new channels to reach target demographic audiences.

Anyone else? What would you suggest that could help the South Dakota Department of Tourism leverage social networks and new media properties to gain visibility and achieve their mission: bring more tourists to the state?

MySpace officially says "We have become Facebook" with Friend Updates

Logged in to my MySpace account this evening and was rather surprised to be greeted with this:

Ah, okay, I thought to myself. I knew it was coming and that MySpace wouldn't be able to resist ripping off one of the core features of the Facebook world, but it was a bit of a surprise because I haven't seen anyone mention it as of yet.

I closed the window and there, staring me in the face, was a demonstration of how MySpace has implemented the feature:

Not bad at all, actually. The decision to require people to opt in to the broadcast service is a smart one, but I do wonder how long it'll take before it's drowning in porn and other spam "notifications" in a way that I haven't really experienced in the tame walled garden of Facebook.

How do you opt in? Well, it wouldn't be any surprise if that was a new entry on my tech support blog, would it? :-)

2007 traffic statistics for AskDaveTaylor, my Q&A weblog

If you're reading this, you already know that I also run the busy Ask Dave Taylor site, focused on tech support and related Q&A topics. What you don't know are the traffic statistics of the site. I read Google blogger Matt Cutts' stats and was inspired to post my own. It's quite interesting:

First off, note that I only turned on Google Analytics in April of '07, so the numbers you see are for three quarters of the year, not all four quarters. Extrapolate and you'll come up with 11.6 million visitors and 17.71 million page views for the year. Yow, that's a lot of traffic!

Dig a bit deeper and you'll notice a peculiar characteristic of a Q&A site: there's a relatively low percentage of people who come back. Why? Because most people don't start out on Ask Dave Taylor, but rather on Google or another search engine. You can see what I mean by searching on Google for iphone help, for example. I'm #1, so I get lots of that traffic.

Nonetheless, while ADT is arguably one of the most trafficked blogs on the Web with over one million visitors/month sustained throughout 2007, 87% or more of that traffic are first time visitors. Very interesting, I'd say! Before you say "ah, that means that your search engine placement is a critical factor in the success of the site" do the other half of the math and you'll find that 13% of 13.3 million visits is 1.7 million return visitors, month by month, so even if we were to lop off all of the new traffic, that's still quite a healthy figure for a weblog.

Don't forget too that this doesn't take into account RSS subscribers who might not actually visit the site itself nor traffic that is subverted by sites scraping (uh, sorry, "aggregating") my content on their own pages. Not germane to this discussion other than that it could account for another reason why there appear to be a relatively low percentage of subscribers.

If you're running Google Analytics, go back and review 2007, then post what I think is the most interesting number: % new visits. Also add a sentence or two to characterize your blog and let's see if we can draw some more general characterizations of typical traffic on different types of weblogs.

Kudos to Toshiba for its YouTube CES booth tour!

Earlier today I blogged about some of the lame PR contacts I've received from companies at the Consumer Electronics Show -- see Memo to PR professionals: bloggers are busy people -- and I'm delighted to see that not all the PR agencies associated with the show are so clumsy.

This afternoon Maples Communications announced a video tour of the Toshiba booth at CES, uploaded and hosted on YouTube. Brilliant!

Here it is, for your edification and enjoyment:

My kudos to Toshiba and the team at Maples Communication for one of the smartest and most innovative uses of Web 2.0 technologies to help promote a large consumer electronics company!

Memo to PR professionals: bloggers are busy people too

It's quite an experience being on the main CES press release distribution list during the week of what is unquestionably the biggest consumer electronics show in the United States, if not the world. I have received well over 250 press releases in the last 48 hours (yes, ugh!) and marvel at how otherwise savvy companies are hiring agencies that are so darn clueless.

For example, I must have received at least six press releases - as separate email messages - from the agency hired by Sennheiser. I love Sennheiser headphones, but do I want a never-ending stream of individual releases rather than an executive summary or overview? You bet I don't.

This latest release, however, from Bowers & Wilkins is worse:

What's wrong with this? Well, you tell me: what are these press releases about? What products does this company make (no fair visiting their site to find out)? Why would an experienced PR agency like Nicoll PR make this mistake?

I have seen other egregious examples of poorly thought PR too, though I haven't captured them as screen shots. The worst, to date, is one that was a PDF, which I received as a blank message with a "click to download images from xxx@yyy" link on the bottom. Really lame, and the subject was "CES Press Release" so there wasn't even a company mentioned!

Microsoft Windows Live Local spying on Pearl Street Mall?

Alright, it's not really spying when they have logos all over the car, but check out what's parked here in Boulder while they, I dunno, upload digital imagery to Redmond via satellite:

It's no surprise that some of my geeky friends told me they were hamming it up for Chewbacca (yes, they name their cars!) and hope to be recognizable when the imagery is finally up on Windows Live Local.

Cohosting Startup Story Radio tomorrow. Our guest: Ashley Kingsley

What can I say, I really enjoy working radio and since my friend Rob McNealy invited me to co-host Startup Story Radio on Saturdays here in Denver, I'm hooked, especially being in a professional [albeit Clear Channel] studio with real mics, a board, an engineer, and such. Good ambiance.

This week will be a great program with Ashley Kingsley, who is best known as the proprietor of Ashley's List here in Colorado. You can learn more about her at her blog or MySpace profile, but it's a sure bet that we'll get the latest buzz on what's happening socially here in town.

If you're in Colorado, you can definitely catch us live on AM 760 from 12-1pm (our usual slot), or you can listen to the radio channel's stream through this link: listen live to AM760. Four or five days later you can find our audio archive of the program (and, oh, so many more) at our startup story radio's audio archive.

Listen. Call. Enjoy!

Metablogging: How Scoble/Facebook can help you drive traffic to your own blog

There's a kerfuffle going on today in the blog world that should inspire you and certainly offers up a nice example of how to write a blog entry that could generate significant traffic to your site and some sweet inbound links from high-profile bloggers (e.g., good link love).

The basic issue is that very well known blogger Robert Scoble got kicked off Facebook for testing out a new tool from a company called Plaxo, a tool that automatically scraped all of Robert's connections on Facebook. That violates the Facebook terms of service and his account was automatically shut down.

Being a highly visible media guy, he promptly cried wolf, yelled that the sky was falling, and generally raised a ruckus about everything except that he might just have been at fault for using a tool in violation of the agreement Facebook has with users.

As you would expect, tons of other bloggers and media outlets, from BusinessWeek and TechCrunch on down, have joined in the discussion and there are a remarkable number of postings on this tiny tempest in a microscopic teacup. (In fact, Facebook has already restored his account, as it happens)

So how do you turn this into a high-traffic blog article?

    You take a stance.

You write an article that eloquently states your own position on the situation, perhaps referring to ownership of information (after all, it might be your account on their system, but surely you own the information in your account itself?) or privacy (is it a good thing that they monitor scrapers to minimize spam harvesting?) or even the self-reflective, self-important nature of the blogosphere, where people think that they can violate agreements but, since they're "important", slide by.

Of course, writing a smart article is only 2/3 of the work. The other 1/3 is to spend some time digging around and find who else - with high PR or high blogosphere esteem - is writing about this and both quote them and link to them. Of course, most bloggers track who points to them (I do!) and will read your article. If it's good, they'll respond, link to your blog or even modify their original entry to include a link to you raher than linking from a followup piece. All of which are good, good, good.

Even just getting on the radar screen is a huge step, but a few inbound links from the big dogs, well, that can turn your backwater 20 person/day blog into a solid news source with a few hundred a day.

Then the hard part: keeping up, producing more quaility content.

Nonetheless, if you are motivated, the time to strike is today. Write that piece, add those links, ask a few friends to Digg it perhaps, and off you go!

Note: I haven't included any links here because I'm writing this as an insider tip, not as any sort of "link bait". You can certainly find any of the blogs or bloggers mentioned here quickly enough with a Google search. :-)