Turns out Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt isn’t quite sure himself.

But posed with that question during a Boston news conference yesterday, Schmidt did use the opportunity to expound on the difference between pro bloggers and amateur ones. Or at least, his vision of the difference.

From Nieman Journalism Lab blogger Zachary Seward’s transcript of his exchange with Schmidt:

Me: A very small question. Google News very recently added a label for blogs, to differentiate from non-blogs. It seemed weird in 2009 to make that distinction. I wondered, did you have any input on that or –?

Eric Schmidt: I was not directly involved in that. There seems to be a difference between blogs and traditional news. It’s sometimes hard to distinguish because many people in the traditional news are also bloggers.

Me: Or they use a blog platform.

Schmidt: Or they use a blog platform. So we’re trying to find that line. And it’s hard to articulate what that difference is.

Me: How would describe that line if it’s not based on the tech behind the publishing platform?

Schmidt: No, it’s not the technology. My guess is–again, I’m speculating, which is always a mistake–it has a lot to do with the infrastructure around the writer. So a blog that’s associated with a major, legitimate organization–of which, I think, the majority, if not everyone, in the room is associated with–would be, I think, treated differently than an individual blogger who’s using his or her right of free expression to say whatever he thinks. So the presence of an editor, as an example. You know, an editor that’s not your mom.

As Seward points out, Schmidt is wrong about the way Google News categorizes. As best I can tell, Google basically lumps all blogs, including this one, which I like to think of as reasonably professional, in its “blog” category. And no, despite her occasional appearances on this site, Kara Swisher’s mother is not an editor here.

Anyway, the real question for me isn’t “how does Google refer to my work in its search results?” but “how does Google determine where to put my my work in its search results?” Schmidt and company can call it whatever they want–just send those eyeballs my way.

[image credit: kevindooley]

Hi Peter,

My name is [Redacted] and I’m working with the ad:tech team on the social media outreach and promotion for ad:tech New York. ad:tech recognizes that you are a key influencer in the digital marketing community, and as such, I’d like to see if you are interested in a promotion exchange.

ad:tech will provide:

• Twitter announcement of your involvement with ad:tech New York to our 6,800+ followers.
• Your choice of: a free pass to the exhibit hall (valued at $35) or 35% off a full conference pass.

*If you are already registered or can’t make it to the event, you can offer it as a prize to your network, give it to a friend or client….It is completely transferrable.

We ask you provide:

• No less than 3 posts about ad:tech New York on Twitter, Facebook or your blog. Suggested postings: a session you’re interested in, why you like ad:tech, the exhibitors that you want to see or technologies that you are interested in learning about. What you share is up to you–it just needs to be posted by November 1.

Interested in writing a blog post and would like additional information on ad:tech? Quotes, photos, interviews, ideas, etc. will happily be offered with request.

To redeem the offer:
Share 3 posts about ad:tech, then email me, [X]@ad-tech.com, with links/screenshots by November 1.

• Tell me how you’d like ad:tech to promote your involvement with the event at the show.
• Let me know if you’d like the free expo pass or the 35% discount on the conference.

Please let me know if this is something that you are interested in or if you have any questions?

Thank you for your continued support of ad:tech. I hope to meet you in New York!

[Redacted]
Social Media Outreach
ad:tech

Well. Flattery is always a nice approach, so I’m pleased to hear about my influencer status. Also, it’s nice that the ad:tech team is willing to provide “ideas” for me upon request.

Alas, even if I wanted to take ad:tech up on its offer, the Dow Jones Code of Conduct would prevent me from doing so.

But this letter does generate two questions for me:

• Is my work nearly worthless? Or pretty valuable? Three posts is a little less than a day’s work for me. Ad:tech says that’s worth either $35 (a free expo pass) or up to $558 (35 percent of the highest price for an ad:tech conference pass). That’s a big swing!
• I know there are a lot of “social media experts” out there, because there are a lot of them following me on Twitter. But I don’t really know what they do. Is this it? That can’t be right. Can it?

Anyway, this kind of thing always makes we want to pull up a “Glengarry Glen Ross” clip. There isn’t a direct connection, mind you. Just a vibe.

That’s the strategy Port is pursuing now that she’s been outed as the “skank blogger”–the person who used Google’s Blogger service to anonymously insult former model Liskula Cohen.

Last week, Cohen convinced a New York court to compel Google to hand over Port’s identifying information, and then went on ABC’s “Good Morning America” to talk about the nasty names that Port had called her. Now Port claims that she’s been wronged and promises to file a $15 million privacy lawsuit against Google (GOOG) to prove it. She’ll be discussing her lack of privacy on “Good Morning America” tomorrow.

It really doesn’t seem worth parsing Port’s arguments, laid out in the New York Daily News (the paper took the photo of her that appears above). But let me briefly note that her attorney thinks that the First Amendment guarantees her the right to blog anonymously using a private corporation’s service. And that said blog, “Skanks in NYC,” is akin to the Federalist Papers.

Oh. And for the record, I’d never heard of her until I read her interview in the News this morning.

Google (GOOG) handed over the woman’s identifying information to Liskula Cohen, who was trying to find out who had insulted her on “Skanks in NYC,” a now-defunct site created using Blogger. Cohen argued that she had been defamed by the site’s anonymous proprietor and needed to find out who that person was in order to sue him or her. On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden agreed, and yesterday Google complied with her order.

In an interview with “Good Morning America” host Dianne Sawyer today (sorry, no embed!), Cohen says her antagonist is a frenemy of sorts–“an irrelevant person in my life…that girl who was always there,” and that’s she not sure whether she’ll sue her after all.

The bigger question is whether the case sets a new precedent for unmasking anonymous voices on the Web, and I suppose it’s possible that it will: If you don’t like what people have written about you and you can hire a lawyer who can convince a judge that you’ve been defamed, you can out them.

But the truth is that the anonymity most people think they’re enjoying on the Web has always been an illusion.

Every time you use the Internet, you’re leaving a trail of identifiable information–even if you never log in to a single service, your IP address can give you away, or at least come close to it. And if you do use any kind of service at all, or at least one based in the U.S., your identity has always been available to someone who can get a subpoena. Worth thinking about next time you want to spout off without signing your name.

This chart, from video-tracking service TubeMogul, doesn’t prove or disprove YouTube’s claim. But it does give you a good sense of where the “short tail” of YouTube’s videos–its most popular stuff–comes from.

To tease it out further, I asked the TubeMogul folks what percent of YouTube’s top videos actually had ads, of any sort, on them. The answer: All of the YouTube “partner/professional” clips–which makes sense. And then another 1.79 percent of the user-generated videos. In other words, 63.28 percent of YouTube’s top videos are entirely ad-free.

Better than the old days, when the site had no ads at all. But it might explain why even though Google (GOOG) is optimistic about YouTube’s chances, the search engine has “yet to realize significant revenue benefits,” as the company pointed out in its most recent quarterly filing.

Here’s a video from YouTube’s most popular offerings that remains unmonetized. Though it seems it would be no problem to get an insurance company to sign on for this one.

*Always good when you get to praise the boss’s idea in public. Even better when you mean it, as in this case.

Now that Bill Gates isn’t running Microsoft day to day, he is primarily focused on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is tackling big hairy problems like malaria. But apparently he still has enough time to moonlight as a blogger.

Check out Gawker Media’s Gizmodo, which features a post penned by Gates reminiscing about Microsoft (MSFT) in the good old days, way back in 1979 (the photo below is actually from 1978). Apparently, Gates submitted the 490-word item without prompting from the Gizmodo guys; I’m trying to find out if Gawker owner Nick Denton will be cutting Gates a check.

The blogger who leaked most of ”Chinese Democracy,” the sort-of long-awaited album from Gun N’ Roses, has pleaded guilty to copyright infringement and will cooperate with the Feds in order to stay out of jail.

But he isn’t the only one who’s in hot water over the album. Someone at Best Buy (BBY) has to explain why they thought it was a good idea to buy 1.3 million nonreturnable copies of the album, most of which look destined to become drink coasters.

Before anyone gets tempted to put two and two together here and blame the Internet for poor music sales, be warned: The music that is most popular among file sharers is the music that is most popular among buyers. In retrospect, it was easy to tell that this album would stiff, based on the reactions of MySpace browsers who came to check out a legal stream of the album–they listened to one track and bailed out.

The Wall Street Journal floats another theory: That Axl Rose, who is the only person left from the original band and whose cloistered neuroticism/paranoia became legendary during the gazillion years it took for the album to come out, didn’t work hard enough to sell the album. He shunned interviews, didn’t make a video for the album, etc.

But just because Axl Rose is turning down a chance to chat with the likes of the New York Times doesn’t mean you can’t find him online. He’s been dropping by fan sites to leave message on bulletin boards, and this weekend did a lengthy Q&A with his followers, who seem to have lots of patience. If you’ve got a similar amount of time, the entire transcript is here via Idolator.

Huffpo’s newest round values the company at about $100 million, which means its investors think it will be worth much more one day. That’s the same value, more or less, that investors place on TheStreet (TSCM), even though it generated some $65 million last year and has about $80 million in cash on hand. McIntyre:

Huffington has several important advantages over TheStreet. For starters, it does not rely on one person for most of its traffic. If Jim Cramer left TSCM, the company would be in real trouble.

Second, Huffington has diversified beyond it political news base. Over the next year or so, it will become clear whether that was a good idea or not. Adding “style” and “entertainment” sections puts it into competition with a lot of other online success stories.

Third, Huffington aggregates a lot of content from around the web. The cost of doing this is remarkably low. The company pays little if anything to most of its bloggers. TheStreet has a relatively large staff and produces most of its own content.

The final difference between the two companies is probably the most telling. At its current rate of growth, which could be hurt by the end of the 2008 election process, Huffington may double in size again over the next year or so, if its efforts to diversify its content works.

It would be hard to find analysts who believe TSCM is going to expand its audience or revenue at a rate of 100%.”

I can think of some counter-arguments to this, but they’re half-hearted: TSCM’s affluent readers should be worth more to advertisers than Huffpo’s; TSCM still has a revenue stream from subscribers to buffet it from ad market turmoil; Huffpo’s aggregation model isn’t unique and could be replicated by anyone who wants to hire some devilishly clever Web editors, etc.

But better to acknowledge that the HuffPo crew have built something very big, very fast. And that anyone who does that gets rewarded for it, even in an econalypse.