Wow, looks like we waited too long to talk to Dallas local Blake Rhodes — they’ve sold IceRocket.

Think Partnership Inc. (THK) announced it’s signed a letter of intent to acquire IceRocket.com, a search engine that focuses on blogs and RSS. No terms of the deal were revealed, and a news release cautioned Wachovia Bank has to agree to amend THK’s loan agreement for the deal to go through.

Nick puts it this way:

He’s not completely jumping ship, but the dot-com billionaire is selling his blog search engine, IceRocket, leaving his co-owner the CEO spot. Did Mark Cuban realize his property couldn’t overthrow Technorati, the tiny giant of blog search?

Follow the story on tech.memeorandum.com today. I’m sure the Google Calendar stuff will quiet down and some point and the search folks will comment on this.

Technorati Tags: icerocket, mark+cuban

David Parmet is dipping his toe into the podcasting world with his new podcast called Podcasting Begins at Home.  He is using PodServe to host the podcast, check it out here.  David is a New York public relations professional who works with clients like eSnips, PubSub, BackBeat Media and English Cut.  David is speaking at the Syndicate conference in New York with our own Brian Oberkirch, Mike Manuel and Joel Richman.   

I could not resist mentioning that Ask a Ninja (don't know what it is? just check it out) is now on PodServe.  When we developed PodServe to support Weblogs Work's social media clients I had no idea that the best use for PodServe was feeding me the latest episodes of Ask a Ninja.  So when you get bored with our podcast – Weblogs WorkNotes – just flip over to hardcore Ninja action.  The Big in Japan team added video support into PodServe, but failed to mention it to anyone.  Turns out some people figured it out when they started uploading video to the site.  The podcast was made public so anyone can upload their Ask a Ninja videos (i.e. fan videos).  It will be fun to see what gets added.

Get ready, another BarCamp is upon us: BarCamp Bangalore!  The event is being held on April 22nd at Yahoo! Bangalore offices.  There is just enough time to get your visa and buy an airline ticket – so put your name on the wiki to reserve a room now.  

Alex will be attending so if you plan to go just drop me a line and I will connect you.   

Anil extended some of the thoughts from our podcast last week into a post about how blog evangelists spend way too much time on the negative examples. E.g. You need to get blogging, or you’re going to get yours. He harps on the Kryptonite example that maybe we’ve all made too much of. Here are his tips for why blogs are a safe, no-brainer thing for most organizations to start looking at:

Blogs are an established technology, having been around for years and used by everyone from the biggest companies in the world to mom-and-pop shops.
Blogs work with the other technology you have. They’re not trying to replace email, or the rest of your website, they’re just giving your company a new channel to communicate in.
A blog can be used anywhere that tools like email and IM are: Inside or outside the company, in one location or around the world.
There’s no set rules about how to have a blog. You can start small, with a lot of control over content and community, and expand over time — don’t jump in with both feet if you’re not ready.

Net, net: “Blogs are safe.” Check it out.

Technorati Tags: anil dash, blogging+tips, corporate+blogging, sixapart

You may have read about GM's new do-it-yourself ad campaign for their new SUV.  Critics of the company, SUVs, Republicans and America in general hijacked the the effort to create negative ads.  The ads are fairly funny, but the interesting story is not the ads, but the reaction by the blogosphere.  

Greg Sandoval from CNET noted that GM was slow to react to these nasty ads released last night (Monday).  Slow?  It is now Tuesday morning and GM has not reacted.  I find it amazing that we live in a time where failure to immediately respond is a slow reaction.  The expectations is that companies must respond immediately (e.g. same day).  

Regardless of whether or not I am amazed; companies need to monitor and respond to the blogosphere or fail to do so at their own peril.  Other items about the ads include: GM hits credibility high with "negative ads", Why Chevy Tahoe was doomed before it launched, GM vs. the Edge, GM hosts ads attacking Chevy SUV, GM and Spike Lee, and Chevy Confirms it Gets Social Media.  

Update: TecDirt gets it.  According to Mike, so does GM (could it be true?).  Evidently GM understood that they knew they would get both positive and negative ads.  Mike explains:

"However, it seems like perhaps GM understood what would happen a lot more than the so-called "experts" in the article give them credit for. In this day, anyone opening up such a contest has to know that it'll be used for "anti" ads. It's happened so often that they must have expected it. In fact, by then being open about it, GM is getting even more mileage from this campaign, and making it appear that they are more open to listening to those who disagree with them. Rather than reflecting negatively on GM, as the experts (and the reporters) would have you believe, GM actually comes out of it looking pretty good. So, it's questionable as to whether or not GM was "slow to react" or if they are simply doing everything according to plan."

Update #2: NEW YORK TIMES SLOW TO REACT TO GM CONTROVERSY – it took the NYT all day to come up with a story about the DIY GM ads!  (tongue in cheek)

Now, we’re talking. Someone finally puts Web 2.0 technologies to work on something of import, like keeping us baseball geeks up to our eyeballs in news of the summer classic.
Meet Ballbug, memeorandum for Major League Baseball. Brought to you by the fine folks (er, folk, er, dude) who do my daily addiction tech.memeorandum.com. & other people’s daily addictions (political) memerorandum and WeSmirch (gossip tracker).

Tonight, thanks to Gabe Rivera, life is that much better. Let’s play two. Or at least track blog chatter about two.

Technorati Tags: ballbug, baseball, gabe rivera, memeorandum

Several Dallas Barcampers are getting back together to kick off what (I hope) becomes a routine thang: a jam session of folks interested in social media. Tomorrow night we can talk a bit about what we each want to get out of such a working group. But, in the spirit of factoryjoe’s Mashpits , I also have an idea we can all work on.
Tim Williamson is the founder of The Idea Village, an entreprenuer bootstrapping/launching pad in New Orleans. The devastation all these months later isn’t just physical — ‘our social networks are destroyed,’ he says.
He did a triage grant program. Now wants to move it to the next level, making Idea Village the place people can go to get or contribute information & expertise so badly needed in the community. Idea Village, 2.0.
Our mission, should we choose to accept, is to whiteboard up some ideas for how the Idea Village can leverage social media to aggregate, plus up, and spread info around NOLA.
Tell anyone who might be interested. RSVP at the Upcoming page. We can order in some Gloria’s.

Technorati Tags: ideavillage, mashpit, social media

Jeremiah Owyang cleared it up in his post here.  It should be VERY easy to measure the ROI of a blog if you can measure the ROI of these: