Friday Link Love (already?)

Photo credit: Niffty

It’s been a challenging week, and I have the entire flat to myself tonight. And all that stands between me and the bottle of Tanqueray in my freezer is Friday Link Love post.

So, I’ll be brief…

Evidently, my post on ghost-blogging didn’t put the issue to rest for good and for all. It came up twice this week already.

First, on Wednesday, marketing communications pro, Mark Schaefer, tackles the issue with a man-on-the-street approach – only the street, in this case, is his blog. He asks “Can you out-source authenticity?” In fact, he asks a lot of questions in his post. And Mark wants answers. So, if you can read, go put in your two cents.

I’ve decided the ghost-blogging question has less to do with ethics as it does with effectiveness. I realized this while reading the post and comments under Jason Fall’s The Ethics, Or Lack Thereof, Of Ghost Blogging.

In essence, Jason writes at great length to clarify exactly what we mean by ghost-blogging versus ghost-writing until he concludes, in part, that ghost-writers aren’t wrong, ghostwriting is.

Before my pingback elicits a massive clarification from a purple-necked Jason, let me just say that I’m oversimplifying to the point of being flip and you should go read Jason’s whole post yourself. And don’t neglect the comments either, because there’s some good old Socratic dialectic going on there… Namely my trenchant conclusion that ghost-blogging is a symptom, not the disease. If a business feels it needs to hire a ghost-blogger to write for the CEO, it’s a good bet the blog (and business) lacks a clear marketing strategy.

See? You guys make me smarter.

The Nouriel Roubini of social media
Finally, while most of the Bloggerati were attending Social South today, David Spinks damn near stampeded the rest of the social media sphere by asking “Is This Social Media Bubble Deadly?”

What bubble, you ask? Read the comments to find out, and get a drink first because there’s a lot of them.