ChasNote

Intel has underwritten the launch of a version of PopURLs dedicated to enterprise IT content, PopURLs Blue. Another great example of Intel’s strategy to sponsor product enhancements at existing third-party brands that already reach their customers, like the launch of Digg Images, Digg’s Arc visualization widget, and a better music experience for My Space members.

According to analysis by Richard MacManus at ReadWriteWeb, Ars Technica is the source of 87 front page Digg stories in the past 30 days, making Ars the top source for Digg conversations. Gizmodo and Engaget are close behind, filling out the top three. TechCrunch, GigaOM, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb and Mashable are other FM sites in the top ten. These are the brands that start the conversations, while Digg spreads the conversation to a much wider audience.

Techmeme’s Leaderboard does a similar analysis of sites-of-origin for stories tracked by its service. For the past 30 days, the top ten (in order) is TechCrunch, CNET, Engadget, NY Times, Ars Technica, ReadWriteWeb, Silicon Alley Insider, WSJ, The Register, and PaidContent.

Randy Schwartz, Carat Interactive’s search director, pointed me to a Forbes story today I missed back on October 17, Digg This Headline, For Google’s Sake. Social media sites and blogs that are read by other blog publishers, it argues, can help push brands toward the top of natural search engine results.

“‘Social media’ sites like Digg, Reddit.com and Newsvine.com let users submit and rank news headlines and other links to sites around the Web. Sites voted to the top of these news aggregators receive tens of thousands of visitors. But the online marketing professionals gathered at New York’s Search Marketing Expo this week were interested in tapping into a different feature of these sites: their growing power to affect Google and Yahoo!’s search results….

“More important than that traffic, however, was the list’s role as ‘linkbait.’ ….Because Google ranks a Web site’s relevance based on the number of other sites linking to it, LifeInsure [a site with content picked up by Digg] now ranks fourth in Google’s results when the search giant’s millions of users search for ‘life insurance.’ Suddenly, the company had free advertising that put its name right next to huge brands like Metlife and Prudential….

“In fact, every headline that reaches Digg’s home page receives an average of 129 links, according to search marketer Neil Patel, and each of those links can push an online business’ traffic closer to the coveted top spots in Google or Yahoo!’s results. Digg is by far the greatest source of links and traffic among social media sites: A popular story on the site gets as many as 100,000 unique visitors. Sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit, Newsvine and Propeller can each add between 5,000 and 10,000 more.”

According to Kevin Rose at Digg’s blog, Digg Images will launch later today.

The post, which includes a note of thanks to Intel — “The new images section has been sponsored by Intel, a longtime Digg partner — many thanks for their support” — has been Dugg 2242 times in the past two and half hours. Puts to shame the also-strong community enthusiasm for the Digg Arc, the previous site feature sponsored by Intel. In that case, it took nearly ten hours for the first 1000 Digg members to give it a thumbs-up.

The story has over 200 comments so far. Foenetik’s remark seems to capture a widespread eagerness for Images: “wow….bout fookin time.”

UPDATE 12/4: It’s about 30 hours since Kevin announced Images, and the story’s been Dugg almost 5600 times. Here it is:

Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz thanks HP “for supporting the development of all our new community features.” That doesn’t happen every day: Hundreds of advertisers have run on Boing Boing over the past 3 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen the Boing Boing editors thank one by name. Perhaps it’s because HP didn’t just write Boing Boing a check and send them ad tags — they helped the Boingers improve the site by financially supporting the roll out of new features. Intel had a similar experience when they sponsored the launch of Digg Arc, and found themselves getting thanked by Digg staff and the Digg community.

Brown-Forman’s Southern Comfort brand is getting into the education business. From their press release:

“The SoCo Night Institute is igniting a conversation among peers by providing an avenue for self-expression to reach each night’s potential,” said Ken Rose, SoCo National Brand Director. “We want people to share their nightlife skills with the same fun they have within their group of friends. I’m hoping to showcase my legendary late-night snack recipe for fries with curry sauce, which I usually whip up for my friends while we recap the night’s adventures.”

Media announcing the new curriculum has rolled out on Maxim sites, Fark, Boing Boing, Drink of the Week and Diggnation, among others. In the case of Diggnation, hosts Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose start off Episode 111 with a thank-you toast to their sponsor, drinks in hand!

From FM’s blog, here’s John Battelle’s interview with Intel’s David Veneski:

“The second of a series, here’s my four questions with David Venski, who has worked with FM on Intel’s integrated campaign over at Digg and Digg Labs (Check out Arc!). David is Intel’s Digital Campaigns Manager for the Americas Marketing Group, and he’s been a lot of fun to work with….”