PeppercomBlog

Caveat blogger: Posting on others' blogs can be dangerous to your health

Posted by Milos Sugovic 

Blogging is a popularity contest and those that adhere to reciprocity norms get people to pay attention. Say something interesting along the way and you may rouse curiosity and encourage click-through. So, PR firms advise their clients to actively participate in online discussions. It’s a no brainer. 

But the “evidence” till now has been anecdotal and experiential. Do higher levels of content production and proactive engagement really translate into higher readership?  

Turns out for the most part that’s true, and here’s the empirical evidence: A study by Gaudeul et al. (2009) examines the relationships among bloggers to identify the statistically significant variables that determine blog readership. If you look under the hood, you’ll find the following nuts and bolts of their research: 

• A one percent increase in the number of entries per day is associated with a 0.6 percent increase in number of readers. 
  
• A one percent increase in the number of comments received is associated with a 0.8 percent increase in number of readers 
  
• Membership in online communities has a very small effect on readership, while “seniority” - the age of the blog - is associated positively with the number of readers. 
  
• The most surprising finding is that posting comments on other blogs is negatively related with the number of readers, all else equal. 
  

The first three findings support the blogosphere rules of engagement. But what does the last bullet mean? Will posting on other blogs reduce your readership? Is the failure to reciprocate “sanctioned” with higher popularity? This seems to defy intuition.

Fixing the Quagmire

Posted by Scott Krady

The New York Times recently reported that the Obama administration would seek to limit offshore tax havens that have historically padded the wallets of multinational companies and wealthy individuals. The measure to do so would surely be music to the ears of Democrats and taxpayers alike, and scores of critics of hedge funds and corporations.

Let’s put those tax breaks in context. 

The top corporate tax rate was 35 percent in 2004 (the most recent year the data is available) according to the Treasury Department. American multinationals paid far less.  The tax bill on $700 billion in income generated overseas was $16 billion. That’s an effective rate of a paltry 2.3 percent.

The new proposals would seek to fix this quagmire. In short, they would impose a greater tax burden on U.S. multinationals, and have the greatest impact on companies with large overseas contingents or global subsidiaries such as Microsoft, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble. According to the GAO, 83 of the 100 largest American companies have subsidiaries in tax havens. Citigroup alone has 427 subsidiaries, followed by Morgan Stanley (273), and Procter & Gamble (83).