Last week SEOmoz announced that, after a couple of failed attempts, it had raised $18 million in funding.

Now, I’m a fan, so I’m, biased, but to me this was a great story. A company that, to use the tech world’s favourite jargon, pivoted, from a search agency to an SaaS supplier; one which has built a loyal and thriving community; one whose CEO is not only charismatic, but radically transparent, even down to sharing his past experiences when he tried, and failed, to raise funding; and one which, despite this lack of funding, had been able to grow revenue and profit. The press release anouncing the funding even used web memes.

In short, I assumed that this would be picked up by all the tech blogs. Nope.

It was covered, don’t get me wrong (an article in Forbes is nothing to sniff at), but it was nowhere to be seen on TechCrunch, the site that I still consider to be the main port of call for news on startups. This was particularly strange seeing as other SEO companies, with less interesting stories, have been picked up and had their press releases quoted almost verbatim.

As I said, I’m biased (I really like Rand and the mozzers), but for me this was telling. Because I’ve started to realise that there’s a big gap in the world of tech content, and it’s highlighted by Techcrunch and its bastard offspring, PandoDaily.

The issue is, as I see it, threefold.

1. Too many techblogs concentrate on news without analysis, and, in doing so, are guilty of the same thing that Fred Wilson recently accused many VCs of falling victim to being part of a ‘momentum herd‘ – chasing the hot new thing.

This means that it becomes very hard for readers to understand what’s actually important, as context is lost when everything is the ‘best new thing, ever!‘, and also means that tech blogs (and magazines – Wired UK is pretty much full of similar meaningless snippets) are slowly commodotising their brand, as news is increasingly worthless (as it’s so common). The stuff that has the value, is analysis.

2. Real, in-depth analysis is something that very, very few tech sites seem capable. Danny Sullivan is a master of it when it comes to search, but other than him, I tend to look to non-journalistic sites: the aforementioned Fred Wilson at AVC, the guys over at tech consultancy Broadstuff. Wired’s magazines does have some good stuff in it, but it’s outweighed by reams of fluff, and frankly isn’t worth the subscription anymore.

By no means do I believe that you have to have worked in a sector in order to be able to analyse it (anyone who has had the misfortune of watching the old boy’s club that is Match of the Day will know what I mean. And, indeed, the likes of The Economist, or Charles Arthur at The Guardian, show that there are journalists who do know what they’re talking about.

Indeed, from my time working at two B2B publishers (Centaur & RBI), I know that real journalists can work in almost any sector, and through research and building connections with experts, can provide true insights. The guys at econsultancy, despite being entirely online only, also strike me as coming from this more professional, B2B, school of journalism, and the quality of their content reflects this (Patrico Robles’ constant refusal to accept that hype outweighs reason, deserves particular praise).

3. The bubble seems to be encouraging people’s egos to write cheques their talent can’t cash, with people still trying to say that professional bloggers are different to journalists, whereas, really, the only difference is the CMS.

Rather than write about the cluster-f**k that is PandoDaily, I’ll instead link to an article that pretty much sums up most of my feelings, and pull out a couple of choice quotes, like this one:

Recently, I’ve noticed coverage veering dangerously off-piste, with bizarre and wrong-headed rants from Lacy about other women’s endeavours to uniquely stupid suggestions about picking up tips from cab drivers to odd-ball broadsides that exhibit mountainous levels of lazy prejudice and financial ignorance.

Or:

At a time when it was clear that the market desperately needed a high-quality alternative to TechCrunch and the lesser publications orbiting it, I find it remarkable that Lacy opted to start a blog full of the same old garbage: right down to the pathetic internecine wars, which any publication with dignity would have conducted behind closed doors and which are nowseriously alienating readers.

Or this, something I had already written about:

PandoDaily’s corporate culture suffers from the company being defined by its enemies. Many – perhaps most – of its staffers come from TechCrunch, not a journalistic operation of the highest rank in the first place, and much of the editor’s time in the early days of launching PandoDaily was spent not defining future goals but trying to get its nemesis, Erick Schonfeld, fired, in part by spitefully poaching his best writers. Lacy may have been successful at that endeavour, but her victory has come at terrible cost.

Or, finally:

PandoDaily’s writers have got into the habit of piling onto commenters, without waiting to see if they’re speaking sense or not, as a sort of prophylactic measure. It gives the deeply unedifying sense of a playground gang – something TechCrunch never had, even when Paul Carr was at his most brutal. Carr always did it with wit and wisdom: at PandoDaily, it’s just bullying.

Readers notice, and some of them – at least, so they claim – have already stopped returning as a result. Given that this sector is so over-reported on, there’s no reason not to believe them. This is a horrible shame, because with relatively few adjustments, PandoDaily really could become the site of record.

Yep, I’m one of those readers who won’t be going back, but at least I’ll be able to head over to The Kernel though, the place that this piece originated from, won’t I?

Well, no. Because, whilst it’s name is, I presume, meant to reference the old saying the kernel of truth, to me it brings to mind the Colonel you see beaming down at you outside fast-food restaurants around the world: like their food, the content gives you an initial hit of pleasure, but it’s bad for you really, based as it is on sniping and resentment (despite lambasting Pando for trying to get Erick Schonfeld fired, the author tried to do exactly the same thing himself), rather than sugar and fat.

But what about Techcrunch? Not as long as people are making excuses about bloggers not being journalists, or as long as MG Siegler ruins what can be reasonably insightful analysis, with his irrational love affair with Apple.

Mashable? I stopped reading that when they started publishing articles that I’d have been embarrassed to write as a strident student journo, whilst their constant ability to take things that little bit lower only confirms that decision.

So, there you go.

A state of the tech blog nation that would be enough to make you weep, if it weren’t for the fact that I can get my news from AllThingsD (owned by the Wall Street Journal), and analysis from the likes of The Economist (in print since 1843) or The Guardian (a newspaper founded in Manchester). Death to old media anyone?

Image by Sam Beckwith on flickr.

As I’ve said before, I’ve never been a huge Beastie Boys fan, in terms of buying their albums and listening to them all the way through, repeatedly. But a huge number of their songs have a large hold on my heart, and I’m guessing that there are plenty of people like me who will have been very sad to hear of the death of Adam Yauch, AKA MCA, at the painfully young age of 47.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For us Gen Yers, who grew up with the MTV astronaut burned into our minds, The Beastie Boys were basically the first hip hop rock stars. Parents hated them, kids loved them, and they got both young and old very worked up for very different reasons. Listening to (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) as I write this I realise that it’s essentially an updated version of Summertime Blues.

But more than that, it’s their later work, and their other achievements that are the reason they have a special place in my heart. Their 2nd album, the cult classic Paul’s Boutique was amost willfully left of centre considering the fact that their debut, Licensed To Ill, was a global smash. They ditched New York for California and created an alternative business empire, including a record label, clothes label and even a magazine. They campaigned for Tibetan freedom, their organ player released some pretty class music himself, and a Fatboy Slim remix of  their track Body Movin’ became a staple of the big beat movement.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh,  and apparently they invented the term mullet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure Shot is a track from their 4th album, Ill Communication, which catapulted them back to the forefront of popular culture. The video for the track Sabotage was directed by Spike Jonze, highlighting their links with the skateboarding world, and is now a cultural reference in its own right. But Sureshot was always my favourite track off of the album: powered by the mighty flute loop sample from Jeremy Steig’s Howlin’ for Judy, it’s the Beasties at their best. – raw, funky, with surreal lyrics that never fall into rap cliches.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll be playing a lot more Beastie Boys tracks this weekend, but this one is as good as any to get started with.

MCA by Fabio Venni on flickr

Rand Fishkin (a lovely guy and, I’d like to think, a friend of mine a great friend whom I wish I saw more of*), recently wrote a post on his personal blog entitled A Healthy Dose Of Fear Is Appropriate When Dealing With The Press. It was in response to a piece by another entrepreneur encouraging start-up CEOs to engage with the press. In it he said:

As far as I am concerned, there are two ways to behave towards the press: 1) Treat them with respect and make sure you are open, real, and fair. OR 2) Shut up and let them know you’re not ready to talk about it.

Rand disagreed with this and wrote a number of reasons that CEOs should be fearful, based on his own bad experiences with bloggers (this bit is important), and how they should prepare for dealing with journalists, and even how they should ‘call them out’ if they made mistakes. When he published this on his own site most of the feedback was positive. When an edited excerpt was published on a PR blog, the comments were more critical.

Here I’d like to give Rand (and anyone else who is interested) my own views on why you shouldn’t be fearful of the press, but also what you can do to prepare. And, if only to pretend that the headline of this piece has a meaning, I’m going to keep the reasons to just 3.

1. Differentiate between journalists and bloggers. I don’t like encouraging people to make this distinction but the fact is that, despite the fact that the differences should really be semantic, and based around technology, many bloggers refuse to move on. Blogs started as little personal journals abut are, now, often multi-million dollar businesses, with multiple contributors, and even managing editors. But too many of them still value speed over accuracy, page views over real understanding of a story and refuse to look back and update a story if proved to have made a mistake.In his list of  negative experiences Rand mentions the fact that there were typos: to be honest, this happens with the world’s best newspapers (my particular favourite The Guardian is often known as The Gruaniad for its history of spelling mistakes). But what The Guardian does have (as do most organisations that grew out of print rather than directly out of the web), though one might not believe it, are legions of sub-editors whose job is to try and make sure that these slip-ups don’t happen, and the best of them even have staff devoted to checking claims of inaccuracy, and making sure those are corrected. The Leverson Enquiry in the UK is doing a great job of showing that the traditional press is far from perfect, but I’d suggest that most B2B magazines or websites will be more likely to amend inaccuracies than the likes of a Techcrunch, Business Insider or Venturebeat.
2. Don’t be afraid to talk to journalists.Rand suggests that conversations with journalists can be dangerous, as they might take things out of context and that email interviews are always preferable. I’d say that they allow you to control your message more (which is obviously great), but that a better way of controlling it, is to get to know the people you’re likely to have to talk to. When I joined my first agency, one of the first things we did was to take the main writers for one of the big trade magazines out for drinks. This wasn’t about buying good coverage, or trying to get some inside scoops on them. Rather, it was about building real, human relationships and getting an understanding of what interested them. This led to some of them then calling me regularly if they needed comments on an industry story, thereby keeping our name in the press, something I don’t think would have happened if we hadn’t done that.Now, I don’t think that this always works: in one instance I gave some quotes to one journalist at that magazine and, having done so, was told that the company line had changed and I needed to get my quotes retracted. The story hadn’t been published yet so I emailed the journalist in question and asked if, as a favour, he could not use my comments. He ignored my request and went ahead. Now,  unlike if I had been a CEO facing an IPO, the quotes weren’t disastrous and my response was simple. I refused to ever talk to that particular journalist again. He may not have noticed, but what I didn’t do was go nuclear – I may not have wanted to deal with him, but I didn’t want to piss off the entire staff of the publication, something that might have happened if I had taken Rand’s advice and called him out. As with most things, it’s worth taking a deep breath and counting to 10 before you do something like this. Try to decide if it’s really worth it.
3. Do your research too. Now this is something that Rand suggests too, but I just want to repeat and add to it, but in the context of explaining why you needn’t be fearful of the press. Rand makes the comparison that an entrepreneur wouldn’t meet a potential investor without prepping. I’d make an even more basic one – you expect journalists to do research, so you should make the effort to do the same. Check them out on LinkedIn. Read their articles. Look for examples of their work and also try to get a feel for whether the tone of the site or publication they’re writing for is more Financial Times or Valleywag. If you don’t like what you see, don’t agree to it. Simples.

There’s been an awful lot of coverage of Apple’s most recent financial results. The results were (kind of) incredible, but even so, the level of coverage seems slightly overblown. MG Siegler, no stranger to the Apple love letter, manages 1,085 words on why Apple’s results were so insanely awesome. Yes, that’s right.

Over. One. Thousand. Words.

The Gettysburg Address is just over two hundred.

You see, the thing is, this isn’t news anymore. Apple isn’t a young start-up, fresh out of Steve Jobs garage anymore. And hasn’t been for some time. It’s not even a challenger brand, scrapping with the big guns of the status quo. That stops as soon as you’re regularly swapping the title of most valuable company on the planet with Exxon every few months.

So, with that in mind, what would be news? Well, here’s a few thoughts.

• Not hoarding cash ($110 billion in these latest earnings). It’s not like they spend it, either on investment or dividends/buy backs (the new scheme will hardly scratch the surface. No, Apple can’t bear the thought of bringing most of that money back into the US, lest the nasty government dares to ask them to pay tax on all that cash. After all, margins of almost 50% hardly pays the bills these days. Instead its sits on its pile of cash like a greedy dragon, bedazzled by the shine of the gold.
• Not trying to maximise that margin by doing its best to keep wages down, wherever it goes. After all, who the **ck do they think is going to be able to pay $609 for a phone if they’re all on the minimum wage, or have seen their jobs disappear?
• Not brushing off any criticism about their lack of ecological sensitivity as if it’s just an annoyance. You’re the biggest tech company in the world, possibly the biggest full stop. Stop acting like a spoilt child.
• Just generally not acting like the emodiment of Steve Jobs; a wannabe hippy with sociopathic tendencies, who saw it as his right to park in the disabled bay wherever he went. Apple still seems to be convinced that it should be able to park in the metaphorical disabled bay if it feels like it, due to the fact that the Jobs-ian reality distortion field seems to have become part of the company ethos.
• Putting something back. More or less the first thing Jobs did when he got back to Apple in 1997 was close its philanthropy programmes (all this whilst the ‘uncool’ Bill Gates vowed to use his worldly wealth to cure malaria). They never reopened. After all, those 47% margins don’t make themselves.

Any of this would actually be news. Making more money, on overpriced goods, made by low-paid staff? That’s just dog bites man.

Image from Man Bites Dog (if you haven’t seen it, you should).

I’ll keep this one short.

So, Gilles Peterson, second show on BBC 6Music. Sixth track of the afternoon, a restrained, slow-building house remix of Stevie Wonder’s funk classic Superstition. The remix is by Obol, who I don’t know much about other than the fact that he likes remixing things, and he’s from Switzerland.

I don’t often say this about cover versions, let alone remixes, but I actually think that Obol improves Superstition; yes, that’s right – I just said that this is better than Stevie Wonder’s original. I always felt that, whilst it’s a great track to get people dancing, the disco was a bit forced on Superstition. With all that stripped away and nothing left to distract us from the lyrics of the song, it’s actually much more powerful. Mat Weddle managed a similar trick with his cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya.

Anyway, enjoy. Here’s hoping Gilles pulls some more smashes out of the bag next week.

Voodoo doll by [F]oxymoron on flickr

So, last Saturday saw Gilles Peterson’s first show on the wonderful 6Music, and it was great. Rambling, sprawling, diverse and, most importantly, oozing with a self-evident love of music, it covered everything from David Bowie to Paul Weller, Dr. John to Jamie xx, Quantic to Dinosaur L, and even a weird little cover of The Simpsons’ theme tune by someone called Dexter*.

There were quite a few stand-out tracks, including the aforementioned Something Better by Quantic & Alice Russell with Combo Barbaro, the prog-funk-rock of Dr John’s Getaway &  the hypnotic off-beat house of Well Wishers by Julio Bashmore. But the track that made the show for me, because it encapsulated everything I love about Gilles’ work, was the cover of Kanye West’s Flashing Lights.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s hypnotic, it blends genres, it’s modern but with a firm nod to the past and BADBADNOTGOOD are a band that Gilles has supported tirelessly over the last year or so, as he does with so many great acts. And it also ticks my own personal box of being a cover version, albeit an instrumental one. It’s kind of like a Cinematic Orchestra for the noughties.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s hoping next week’s show will be as good. And the one after that. And the one after that, and the one after that, until, well, forever really.

*Gilles said he didn’t know anything more about this track but that “that’s what Google’s for” – unfortunately Google isn’t for this one.

Lights by Caleb Roenigk on flickr

The two people who have probably had the most influence on the music I listen to are John Peel and Gilles Peterson: Peel switched me on to the likes of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, Peterson to a whole world of jazz, soul & everything in between.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He’s been given a new show on 6Music, having been unceremoniously booted off of Radio 1 and his first show is this Saturday, at the very civilised time of 3 in the afternoon (having been put on in the middle of the night before leaving Radio 1. I can’t wait.

I’m staying up at my fiancée’s parents holiday home in Donegal this weekend. Do you think my future in-laws will mind if I don’t move to far from the radio at all on Saturday afternoon? Hmmmm.

Peterson photo by Laughlin Elkind on flickr

I’ve written before about DJ DSK (AKA my old flatmate from Sydney, Nick). And I’ve written about Eric B. & Rakim before.

Well, now my Nick/DJ DSK has got together with a rapper called Mystro to do an homage to the Eric B. & Rakim classic I Know You Got Soul.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s excellent in many ways, but particularly because it ticks so many of my own personal loves/obsessions.

1. It’s a cover version
2. It’s a cover version of a track that is, itself, famous for an amazing use of a sample (of Bobby Byrd’s epic track, which is also called I Know You Got Soul)
3. I used to play the Bobby Byrd track back in the days when I used to DJ (if you can call playing good music badly DJing)
4. It appears that the song is actually an ad, (in the style of the Nike track Classic by Kanye, KRS-One and a host of rap luminaries), for the sneaker-pimp heaven that is the trainer shop Sole Heaven

So, I Know You Got Sole (Heaven) ticks any number of my meme tickboxes.

And, on top of that, DJ DSK’s beats and scratching are great, Mystro’s lyrics are pretty amusing, referencing any number of classic trainers, and the video reminds me of a slightly strange version of the cult British movie Human Traffic.

Click here to view the embedded video.

That ought to be enough reasons for anyone to like it, so why not download it now.

Air Jordan by Jon Rawlinson on flickr

First post for a long time, and I thought I’d fall back on my old friend, Hunch FM. 5th song in, was this, Daydream Believer, possibly one of the most perfect pieces of pop music ever recorded. They may have been made for TV, but The Monkees best material is an entirely different ‘product’ to the soulless pap that Simon Cowell and his minions keep churning out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s not been long since the English member of The Monkees, Davy Jones, passed away. WHich means that rather than try to explain why this is such an amazing slice of 60s perfection, I can turn to this rather lovely tribute  by Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne. In it he quotes Robert Forster of 80s band The Go-Betweens:

Whenever I think of the Monkees, it’s a sunny morning, the brightest colours, and David Jones’s eyes. Their music is perfect, as perfect as pop could ever be. Last Train to Clarksville has been written, and we are left with our own imperfection.

You could quite easily substitute Daydream Believer for Last Train To Clarksville and still agree with every word.

Monkeys by jster91 on flickr

As the winter drags on, it seems like #occupy is falling out of the headlines; in the US it’s probably due to the coverage that’s being given to a bunch of millionaires fighting to prove who is the most Christian (camel? Needle?) In the UK a lot of it is probably being taken up by stories about millionaires wanting to give yachts to a woman who inherited her fortune.

But one of the recurrent features of much of the coverage I saw of the #occupy movement (if that’s not too strong a word for whatever happened) was that it was all a bit, well, vague. That these young hotheads didn’t have any solutions.

Read this book.

Or this one.

Maybe watch this film.

Haven’t got the time to read a whole book, or watch a whole movie?

Skim this article.

Sod it, a quick glance at any of these should do the trick.

Angry yet? I don’t know why anyone is criticising those involved in the #occupy movement for being unsure of the solution, when it’s apparent that the whole bloody shebang is the problem. Rather, we should be amazed that half the population of the developed world aren’t throwing molotov cocktails like confetti and stringing politicians and financiers up from every second lamp-post.

Seriously, why is no one in jail, and why are we still allowing these people to pay themselves whatever they want for inventing ways to gamble with other people’s money?

Cocktail by David Drexler on flickr