Last year, I ended 2006 with a great (and still pertinent) list of blog posts and articles that I felt were really the best in their class in the area of Internet Marketing. This year, I present you my favorite timeless posts of 2007, complete with descriptions about each blog post (which more than quadrupled the workload for me this time around, especially because I tripled the amount of links, but I had fun!) (Disclaimer: I’m certain that even with this list in excess of 250 links, I forgot a bunch of posts, so if you have any additional recommendations, please feel free to comment and I’ll add them!)

By the way, I still haven’t fully embraced video yet, so this will only include written articles. Maybe next year, folks!

Social Media Sites: General

• The Big Boys of Social Bookmarking: The Top 20 Sites (10e20): Chris Winfield ranks the top 20 social bookmarking sites by their Alexa rankings and gives a short description of what each does — in case you haven’t ventured beyond Digg.
• 24 Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Sites that Actually Work (Caroline Middlebrook): Get some powerful links on some of these lesser-known social sites.

Last month, I wrote a piece saying that BlogRush was a waste of time and that nobody should invest in the service. I signed up (to see what it was all about) and never bothered installing the widget given that I’ve had experience with “traffic generating widgets” before, and they’ve been anything but positive.

Today, much to my surprise, I received an email from the BlogRush team stating that “We regret to inform you that your BlogRush Account has been made INACTIVE because your blog did not pass our Quality Review criteria.” Their “strict quality guidelines” are outlined below:

- The blog contains unique, quality content that provides opinions, insights, and/or recommended resources that provide value to readers of the blog. Articles, videos, public domain works, press releases, and content written by others are okay to be used on the blog, but the ratio of unique content should far outweigh content from other sources.

- The blog should be updated on a regular basis (at least several times a month) and should not just go a few months between posts.

- The blog should already contain at least 10-12 quality posts. New blogs with very little content will not be accepted.

Seriously, guys. I’m getting bombarded with BlogRush requests from left and right. Even Sphinn has seen its share of requests.

My question for you all is: Why?

For those of you who don’t know, BlogRush is essentially a traffic exchange BlogRoll. You install a widget on your site and get “free syndicated blog traffic” (if people click on the links!)

As I said this morning on Search Engine Roundtable, I admit, there are some pretty good spokespeople who are helping promote the product. I’ve read from Jeremy Schoemaker, Andy Beal, Maki, John Chow, Sean at Mashable, and Darren Rowse, among others.

But here’s the only thing Blogrush has going for it right now:

One word: Hype. That’s it.

Ben Cook wrote an incredible review about the shortcomings of BlogRush. His post is worth a read (there were referral concerns at first, as all URLs contain a referral ID; this seems to be addressed now, however), but there are other issues that bother me.

My ever-so-brilliant BFF wrote an interesting piece about whether blogs should be a primary marketing initiative or if email newsletters should still be in play. Lisa’s question was prompted by a blog post by Dawud Miracle which poses the same question. And Yaro Starak believes he has the answer: no.

I’m with ya, pal. Lisa writes about how Bruce Clay has both a blog and a newsletter. She says that the newsletter (surprisingly!) has more readers than her oh-so-personable blog. Surely, you’d think more people want to read Lisa’s humor and wit. I sure do.

But Lisa has a point. And yesterday I had a phone conversation with Gary Price about how podcasters are so immersed in their shows that they lose sight that the average person is not familiar at all with podcasting technology. To be completely frank, I still have doubts about the lifespan of podcasts and think that the multimedia overload is still too much to handle. (That doesn’t stop me from making occasional guest appearances on one social media podcast, though.)

As I become more and more immersed in the world of social media, I begin seeing how it’s not just me; social media is a tool that infiltrates our existence and our being. Consider the Digg effect: if your server is ill-prepared for a traffic spike and you hit the front page for the first time, your web host will probably disable your service contract. Within the first few hours, you’re seeing at least 10,000 visitors to your website. That’s substantial. These thousands of users are all accessing your superior content at the same time and are being influenced by what you say. In fact, social media is on the radar of many prominent news outlets. Journalists are watching what is being submitted, and more interestingly, they are watching what you say.

Two examples have arisen this past week.

In anticipation for the highly acclaimed Harry Potter novel, photographed pages of the book have already leaked onto the Internet. Within hours, the discovery was brought to the forefront of the Digg community. The Wall Street Journal covered the initial leak. What tipped them off? This TorrentFreak post seems most likely. After all, it made its way to Digg.