The latest episode of Om and Niall PodSessions is now available. Om and I sat down at his apartment last week to talk about blogs, RSS, and advertising. Om asked most of the questions, focusing the discussion about how to make the right choices in blogging software and services to become a better blogger. Full show notes are available on the Om and Niall PodSessions site. This week’s podcast is 21 minutes in length and a 9.7 MB download. After the podcast I gave Om’s RSS a makeover including switching his feed to FeedBurner, adding more branding by utilizing more…
Category Archives: Weblogs
Corporate blogs as more than a marketing brochure
Too many corporate marketers see a blog as a marketing brochure to spread the same marketing content in multiple formats. Below are three different areas often overlooked by companies considering blogging as a communications strategy. Recruitment Corporate blogs can be a recruiting tool for both active and passive candidates. Job candidates like to know who they will be working with, on what types of projects, and if the company takes good care of its employees. All of this information is best discovered and trusted from individuals within the company. In a larger company the blogs of individuals can be used…
Example product blog: Scooba Clean
I created a sample product blog to demonstrate how a corporation might engage a potential market in advance of a product launch. I chose iRobot Corporation and their latest product, Scooba the floor washing robot. I created a blog named Scooba Clean to show what a product blog might look like in the six months before the product is released. Corporate marketing teams are often a bit afraid to enter the world of corporate blogging. They read reports of mobs of bloggers attacking CBS or Kryptonite and fear for the lives of their brands in the wild frontier that…
Podcasts I listen to
A lot of people think of podcasts as uninteresting audio recordings of someone talking to themselves. Not true! I want to share with you some of my favorite podcasts I subscribe to and listen to at least semi-regularly. I manage my subscriptions and downloads through iTunes. Podcasts is time shifted audio making existing programs available when I want and where I want and enabling new content niches where radio might never go. On the Media, a New York public radio program about the media industry including newspapers, radio, television, and online media such as websites and blogs. On the Media…
Denny Hastert blogs
Speaker of the House Denny Hastert is now blogging. Hastert is the #3 politician in Washington D.C., second only to Vice President Dick Cheney in the Presidential line of succession. He hopes to provide “some inside access to the Republican playbook.” The internet is changing the way we share information. My office has been talking a lot about some of the conversations going on in blogosphere. So I thought, hey, I should start one and give you unfiltered updates on Capitol Hill. The journal has no comments, not even a list to a congressional e-mail address. The journal does not…
AdAge: Workers spend 40 minutes per day reading blogs
A recent survey by Advertising Age found about 35 million workers in the United States visit blogs and spend an average of 40 minutes a day reading blogs. 25% of blog visits could be considered job-related. Work time spent reading and posting to blogs will consume 2.2% of all labor force hours this year according to Advertising Age. You need an Advertising Age account to view the article. Try BugMeNot for nag-free access. Tags: advertising, adage…
Engadget Labs under construction
The opening of Engadget Labs has been delayed as the new offices are still being constructed. I previously reported the new office space would open October 15 but Peter Rojas and Ryan Block told me this week the contractors are still working on the new space. Engadget continues to operate out of their own apartments. Tags: engadget…
VeriSign acquires Weblogs.com
Michael Graves of VeriSign announced the acquisition of Weblogs.com this evening. SiliconBeat reports Dave Winer sold the service for $2 million. VeriSign plans to maintain the ping beacon in its current form with additional revenue models and ping extensions beyond the current implementation. VeriSign hints at upsell opportunities for ping submission and retrieval and views the weblogs.com ping beacon as a “competing service.” They plan to overhaul the Weblogs.com infrastructure to achieve higher levels of performance and stability. VeriSign also mentions a future statistics service available at Weblogs.com that will display statistics such as total pings received, processed feeds, and…
Weblogs Inc. sold to America OnLine
Jason Calacanis just announced the acquisition of Weblogs Inc. by America OnLine. Weblogs Inc. is a blog network of 90 weblogs employing over 130 bloggers in the consumer, technology, wireless, video games, media & entertainment, business, life sciences, and events. Weblogs Inc. received venture capital funding from Mark Cuban. I have heard terms of the deal are cash and stock with about a $25 million base and $15 million worth of incentives. If true, Weblogs Inc. received a similar valuation to Flickr. Update: Wired News reports the deal was $25 million in cash with no mention of incentives. Some questions…
Engadget Labs launching October 15
The popular gadget blog Engadget is moving into new offices in New York and will be launching a testing lab for in-depth product reviews. The Engadget team announced the new venture at their San Francisco Engadget Reader Meetup. Engadget Labs will perform benchmarks and in-depth reviews of products. It sounds like a nice departure from the typical pay-per-article model of weblog networks. Editors Peter Rojas and Ryan Block will work out of their new office in New York with possibly a few other members of the Weblogs Inc. network. The new office space will include a special podcasting room…