Jumping back into the blog with a couple take-aways from Scoble’s move from Microsoft. In the event you’re one of the few who’ve missed it, Scoble’s departure set the blogosphere ablaze over the weekend. Yesterday Scoble was the #1 search on Technorati, ahead of the World Cup, and remains at #2 this evening. Beyond the love bantered about there are notable points about the news and the coverage of it. PodTech.net made the huge play many others surely had in mind. They took action and sealed a grand slam deal for any start-up. The score: instant credibility and visibility beyond their immediate communities. Wonder how many executives are kicking themselves today for not courting him more aggressively. Score another one for action besting inaction.
The story also presents another major case on the power of blogs. Not so much about the power of one blogger, which is obvious, but how a big tech story was scooped, covered and buzzed w/out the influence of mainstream media. Tom Foremski’s post earlier today covers the scoop in more detail.

Technorati Tags: Scoble, blogs, media

The L.A. Times reported today that the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is creating an Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in content for non-traditional delivery platforms. According the paper, it will be the first time that content produced for new platforms, whether through short films, podcasts, video blogs, will be honored with the traditional television award — a sign of how rapidly the media landscape is changing.

Back in October Budget launched the first entirely blog-based viral contest campaign, called Up Your Budget, where stickers were placed in 16 cities over the course of four weeks. Stickers found in the treasure hunt earned players $10,000. On top of $160K in prizes, $20,000 was paid for ads on 177 blogs. The contest is completed and Spunker.com reports the four-week drive generated over 1,000,000 clickthroughs and 19.9 million impressions on 125 different blogs. Very cool idea that generated great buzz and significant consumer involvement in a branded Budget program. The campaign was pulled together by B.L. Ochman, blogger strategist and author of the What’s Next blog.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Social Marketing

Steve Rubel has a quicky on Nokia’s efforts to engage the blog community as part of its N90 launch in the US .  The site is intended to give bloggers core background and content needed to easily post on the product launch. The content available includes:

• A standard press release
• Links to positive posts
• Magazine reviews
• User experiences
• Podcasts
• Application reviews
• Media coverage for the site itself
• Direct questions to the blogger relations team

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Social Media, Public Relations