Thursday, June 30, 2005

Corporate Blogging Survey 2005

- Executive Summary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With all of the buzz around corporate blogging, we wanted to understand the real value of it for companies. Why would a company want to start blogging, who should blog, what makes a blog successful, and how can a company use this type of website to make a positive impact on business?

To answers to these questions, we asked bloggers at hundreds of companies to participate in an online survey and conducted in-depth interviews with leading individuals from six corporate blogs that were selected as representative of the diverse spectrum of the corporate blogging world. What we discovered was that for the majority of our survey sample, (which includes some of today's biggest corporations and scrappiest underdogs), corporate blogs are living up to all the hype. We discovered that corporate blogs are giving established corporations and obscure brands the ability to connect with their audiences on a personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened relationships while and at the same time benefiting in ways that are tangible to the sales and marketing side of the business.

Just like in other aspects of life, success breeds success. What we see with successful blogs is a chain reaction that starts with a sincere interest on the part of the bloggers to provide their audience with great value in terms of useful and engaging content in the form of information, help, discussion and ideas. If a company can harness their customers' knowledge and ideas, a company will find better ways to satisfy their customers needs and wants. Listening to customers and acting on their suggestions is one of the best ways to build a group of customers who are committed to expressing their goodwill to their community. It is a common practice in blogging to provide a link back to a thought originator, which is valuable because backlinks are a way that search engines distinguish the order of the editorial rankings. When customers start commenting, posting or tracking back to their blogging community it can have a viral effect - spreading the word through other blogs. We discovered that it is a company's blogging strategy that will produce the strongest community goodwill, and that goodwill brings the most marketing and sales returns.


You are welcome to quote from the paper, we request you cite the authors and include a reference to Backbone Media, Inc with a link
http://www.backbonemedia.com.

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Yahoo Search Goes Social: My Web 2.0

Corante > Get Real >

"I have never really adopted the use of Deli.cio.us, the best known social bookmarking and search tool. There was something about the spare, blank, austere user interface that annoyed me, so I never warmed to it. However, I am a great believer in the future of social search, so I turned to the new Yahoo My Web 2.0 with great interest, and now believe, like Waxy.org, that it is possibly a Deli.cio.us killer." MORE

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Ed Batista: Three Questions with Stowe Boyd

Carnival of the Vanities at Sophistpundit

Blog Business World

"The 145th edition of the longest running internet blog carnival, the well known Carnival of the Vanities, is up at at Adam Gurri's political and philosophical blog known as Sophistpundit.

Carnival of the Vanities is the original collection of blog postings, assembling some of the best and wide ranging bloggers on the internet.

This week's Carnival of the Vanities entries include politics, literature, science, medicine, technology, business, culture, comedy, and sports."



We got to meet "Silflay Hraka", the creator of the Carnival of Vanities, and even share a few beers with him after the Triangle Blogger Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (USA) ((Earth)). A swell gentleman with good ideas.

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Lip-Sticking: Smart Woman Online: Average Jane

NevOn: iTunes podcatcher already makes an impact

NevOn: iTunes podcatcher already makes an impact

"I'll say again that podcasting is no fad. Don't listen to me, though: pay attention to one of the Podcast Godfathers - Dave Winer says the same thing."

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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Would You, Could You, Should You Blog?

Accountants and CPAs certainly should...

A useful page from AICPA, redolent with linkage.

Why Blog?

VisionPace asks the primary question.
Let us examine Doug Bliss' answers...

"Why Blog? From a business perspective blogs are no different from marketing channels like video, print, audio or presentations. They all deliver results of varying kind. The kind you can expect from blogs is mainly about stronger relations with target groups important to you. Below are a few blogging advantages we hope to benefit from."

Customer Relationships
"In a forum where your main objective is not to directly sell, you'll have a more personal relationship between you and your customers. Blogs are a fast way to engage customers' discussions, provide tips and insights or receive feedback."


Some of your readers will be come customers. But not just ordinary customers. Knowledgable and friendly customers. Customers who may actually behave like a sales or marketing department, as they may alert their network of associates, weak and strong ties, all of whom may, at least, speak of you positively, but some of whom will become veritable salespeople who, themselves, are strong and loyal customers.

Media Relations
"It's every PR-consultants dream to create a channel where media regularly check what you have to say, instead of media just being passive - sometimes indifferent - recipients of press releases."


Indeed. Especially since the blog arena is where so much of the best news is to be found. You needen't even lick a stamp. Just point you browser to be right spots, and go!

Recruiting
"If you establish your company as a thought leader, people in your business will pay attention. They'll read and discuss what you have to say. Chances are good they will see you as an attractive employer."


One's blog becomes one's portfolio that one pieces together one blogpost at a time, and over time. Not rifled together in a frantic afternoon.

Testing Ideas or Concepts
"A blog is informal. It's part of a conversation where people (often) can comment, and the blog can provide you with a measure of value. Publish an idea and see if it generates interest. Does anyone link to you? What do they say?"


Some people say that blog comments, themselves, are blogs. And I tend to agree. I have have seen blog comments that were far better than the blogpost to which it referred. Indeed, some my very best writing has been written in comment windows.
One should always welcome, nay, inspire comments, and then be sure to attend to them. The benefits of a healthy comment world ripple in ways we have yet to discover. Hey! Who's at the door...

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
"Google and other search engines reward sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links. Start a blog at your regular site and your ranking will receive a boost."


The higher your ranking, the higher you are on Google. You are high on Google, aren't you? Hmm. Not a bad ad:

I'm HIGH on Google!

Blog Entries
"Don't be as concerned with the length or style of your entry. Keep the focus on sharing your thoughts and opinions on a particular subject. That's what readers are most interested in."


Knowledge, facts and wisdom might be nice too. No didacticism though. And pleeeease don't be calumnious, petulant or insane. At least not at the same time.

(Thanks to BloggingBusiness for the link.)

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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Broach Tours is offering a special package to the 2005 British Open in Scotland




Tired of bizblogging? Need to get away and swing your clubs in a lovely setting? Here is your chance...

Broach Sports Tours , one of Southeast's premier sports package companies, is offering a special package for ye golf enthusiasts...at the very place where golf began. Sign up early to get the best seats...

2005 British Open
St. Andrews, Scotland


Royal Dunkeld Hotel in Highland Perthshire, British Open tickets for four days, 3 rounds of golf at Taymount Castle, ground transportation, Broach Sports Tours host, full English breakfast daily, Dinner 8 nights in hotel, All sightseeing admissions, Scottish show, Airport shuttle to hotel.
Open Full Brochure

Ecce...Future Tense

A fine new rollout from the good folks at Corante.

From the blog:

"Future Tense is about the trends and pressures that are forcing employers to change the way they think about the workplace. We'll be discussing management practices and collaborative tools, innovation and motivation, architecture, distributed work, mobility and gradual retirement. We will track how traditional hierarchies are breaking down and what is rising to replace them. Our goal is to look into the near future and provide useful information, case studies and interviews with leading thinkers. By identifying and discussing the multitude of trends that are reshaping work as we know it, we hope to provide a valuable resource to the people who are leading the way forward."

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Power to the blogosphere

Geekiness has given way to consumer activism, so the major corporate players are having to learn the weblog game, says James Cherkoff.

Neville Hobson from the excellent blog, NevOn, and whose blog I track on Business Blog Feeds, directs our gaze overseas to where UK's The Independent has an interesting and informative article about business blogging by the aforementioned and risibly named Mr. Cherkoff, who begins by saying:

"Imagine a room with tens of thousands of your customers talking about your company and your products. That's one way to think about the blogging community (the blogosphere). The choice for companies is whether they want to be in that room or not. And increasingly, staying out is just too risky."

Read the succeeding paragraphs.

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Fuentes sobre blogs corporativos

Informacion empresarial

Spain blogger, Aránzazu, writes about corporate blogging and the like. In this article there are an abundance of fine links to essential reading, corporate blogs, books about blogging, and so on.

En un magnífico artículo Fernando Polo recopila diferentes recursos y artículos de interés relacionados con el uso de weblogs como herramientas de comunicación empresarial, "tanto de la empresa al cliente, como del cliente a la empresa".

Después de definir qué es un blog hace lo mismo centrándose en las bitácoras empresariales. "Business Blogging, Corporate Blogging, Corporate Blogs, Weblogs corporativos, Bitácoras empresariales ... una nueva disciplina de comunicación para las empresas emerge con una sencilla herramienta que ha cautivado la atención de millones de personas en todo el mundo.El blog, como herramienta de publicación y de conversación online, orientada a escuchar lo que dice el consumidor o ciudadano y a dirigirse a los mismos".
MORE

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Why is business brain dead about blogs?

Vaspers the Grate

Vaspers on the lumbering lethargy of slow companies.



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Monday, June 27, 2005

Google To Launch Online Video Playback This Monday

from John Battelle's Searchblog

I've confirmed that Monday Google will launch an in-browser video playback feature based on the open source VLC media player. This is the logical next step for Google's video search and upload function, which began taking uploads from anyone who cared to submit back in April.

Seth Godin has this to say on this, and how it related to podcasting:

This is exactly where I see podcasting going. If there was an easy and cheap (and possibly subscription based) way to pay for podcasting, there'd be a dramatic increase in the quality and quantity and accessibility of the stuff available for a listen.

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Verslag Tweede Nederlandse Businessblogmeeting

Marco Derksen

Gisteren vond bij Publicis in Amstelveen de tweede Nederlandse Businessblog-meeting plaats.

Ruim 40 deelnemers (waarvan veruit de meerderheid aktief met weblogs), waren getuige van presentaties van Stephan Fellinger, Neville Hobson en Ton Zijlstra. Elk van de sprekers bekeek het fenomeen weblogs vanuit zijn eigen discipline. Stephan vanuit marketing, Neville vanuit communicatie en Ton vanuit kennisdeling.


Rough translation from Babelfish:

Yesterday the second Dutch businessblog meeting took place at Publicis in Amstelveen. More than 40 participants (of which by far the majority aktief with web-unwieldly), were getuige of presentations of Stephan Fellinger, Neville Hobson and barrel Zijlstra. Each of the participants examined the phenomenon web-unwieldly from its own discipline. Stephan from marketing, Neville from communication and barrel from division.

What I am curious about is this "web-unwieldy" they keep talking about. And who is this "barrel" who refuses to capitalize his own name? And what is a getuige? What must those people be smoking?

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Podcast: Artisan Journalism (Plus, Meets Corporate Blogs)

Crossroads Dispatches

Some excellent notes on podcasting, blogging and business blogging from Evelyn Rodriguez.

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Communigations :: Dutch Business Blog Meeting

Elmine Wijnia reports on business blogging from the Netherlands.

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Winston-Salem Business Blog

Jon Lowder is helping to bring North Carolina to business blogging.
There, you will find Womentum, another W-S business blog by Woodbine's Karen Barnes.
Woodbine is a full service ideas company located in Winston-Salem, NC working with clients including Lowe's Home Improvement, Sara Lee Branded Apparel, Carolina Donor Services, and Piedmont Federal Savings & Loan.
(Thanks to Ed Cone for the link.)

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Ayreshire Councillor Stuart Bruce's Business Blog

A PR Guru's Musings - Stuart Bruce: Recent entries

Business Blogging from across the pond...

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Wiki Inventor Pitches Openness to Content Managers

Ed Cone interviews Wiki's Jimmy Wales

"Wikis are really a social innovation, not a technological one."

Blogboro's own Ed Cone interviews the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, who will be attending the ConvergeSouth conference in Blogsboro (Greensboro, NC) in October. Read this excellent interview, then sign up for the conference, which still has room for you and yours. Speakers include:
Amanda Congdon - Rocketboom
Michael Brown - Cobb
Dave Winer - Scripting News
Ed Cone - EdCone.com
Jimmy Wales - Wikipedia
Tiffany Brown - BlackFeminism.org
Sandy Carmany - Political Blogging
Nancy McLaughlin - Front Pew
David Hoggard - Hoggs Blog
Ruby Sinreich - Orange Politics
Ted Vaden - columnist (News & Observer)
John Robinson - The Editor's Log
Lex Alexander - Lex Files
Bob Steele

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Friday, June 24, 2005

New PowerPoint Handouts: How to Plan, Build and Promote Your Business Blog

WordPress vs Blogger

being an assessment from the desk of the BlogDog.

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14 Steps To Your Business Blog

OneXeno Knowledge Base shares the steps your organization may want to go through before launching your first business blog.

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Buzz Networking at Buzzoodle

From the website:

Buzzoodle is Buzz Networking. It combines Buzz and Viral Marketing by challenging people to start building buzz for themselves and where they work. This is an employers dream come true.
What happens when every member of an organization starts reaching out and connecting with the world around them more actively? Buzz happens. And with buzz can come phenomenal success.

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Going on Now!

Microsoft & Lockergnome Present Gnomedex 5.0
Seattle, Wa.

What is Gnomedex...
Business Models Brought to Life
The People Aggregator
A tap into the Conversation Economy
Movers, Shakers, & Deal Makers
Thought Leaders, Industry Influencers, Entrepreneurs
Continuous online conversation and PR
The most affordable conference of its kind
Important for new, existing company strategies
Essential for the success of Internet businesses

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New EBay Service Aims to Stem Merchant Exodus

SAN FRANCISCO, June 23 - EBay started a service on Thursday that helps merchants create online storefronts separate from the eBay Web site while still contributing to the company's bottom line.

Price for the service ranges from $6.95 to $249.95 a month for a store, depending on the breadth of services.

A list of Blog Networks

Add Cartoons to Your Blogs

Everybody likes a good cartoon. Innovative cartoonist, Mark Anderson, has created a way for the more playfully minded blogger to add an "on topic" cartoon of the day to their blog.
...
Many toon topics to choose from including Marketing. Check out the Free Toons Section of his site and, yes, he has a ToonBlog so you can see the toon service in action.

(via BloggingBusiness.com)

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Interesting finds from the inimitable...

LUX.ET.UMBRA

Where you'll find out about:

- Google's Site Search feature
- Install Tiger from your iPod
- Drag and drog URLs in Firefox text areas
- Transferring files between two computers via Firewire
- DIY Cell phone repair
- DIY Bookbinding
and more...

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Blogcritics.org

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

How To Rank Well in Google ?

"...ensure that a site grows as organically as possible. "

"Much of this information is a goldmine for web developers and internet marketers."

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Colors of Summer :: LeonardoStore.com has them for you.


Colors of Leonardo

Now that Summer is upon us, thoughts drift toward lazy afternoons with friends and family, gathered together, sipping on cool beverages, sharing each other's company. This summer, why not go that extra mile for your darlings and add a splash of color to your festivities! LeonardoStore.com has just the thing you need to spruce up your patio, kitchen, bathroom, or really any space inside or outside of your house or office.


Leonardo's Bar & Juice selection includes a Millefiori Assortment, Morini, Pisa, a Pop Art collection, Swing whiskey tumblers and more.


If vases are what you are looking for, check out this wide selection of choices.


When the evening comes, you will want to light the night in style. Leonardo has you covered here as well, with Picco Small Table Lights and Contessa Table Candles. But at Leonardo, you are not limited to candles and table lights, with the advent of LED Rainbow Lights...


Be sure to check out their stemware, bowls, matched sets, and seasonal items.

Multiply Introduces Video Blogging and Music Sharing; Unveils Pay Upgrades

PR Web


Multiply becomes the first Web site to let users share and discuss videos, music, photos and blogs with their social network.

Boca Raton, Florida (PRWEB) June 22, 2005 -- Multiply (http://multiply.com) has added video and music to the popular types of content its users can share and discuss with family, friends and their entire "social network." Multiply users can also upload digital photos, blogs, events, classified listings and more -- on their own personal Web site.

"Devices that record video have become ubiquitous; you have camcorders, digital cameras, even cell phones. But until now there wasn't an easy, convenient way to share the video," says Peter Pezaris, Multiply's president. "By making it convenient for users to put their videos and music on the same site as their photos, blogs and events, we're opening up these types of media to a mass audience."


Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Dan Gillmor's blog | Bayosphere

The Case for Executive Blogging

Fast Company Now :: Scott Kirsner

Schwartz Kicks off Supernova
Here at the Supernova conference in San Francisco, Jonathan Schwartz is making a case for executive blogging.

Schwartz is the president and COO of Sun Microsystems, and he's also probably the highest-profile exec in the Fortune 500 to maintain a blog.

"If you want to be a leader, I can't see surviving without a blog," he told conference host Kevin Werbach. "It's as important as having an e-mail account and a mobile phone." It doesn't count, he added, if you delegate the task of maintaining your blog to someone on your staff.


For more, with links, go here.

Blog and RSS Marketing Strategies and PressFeed

Top 10 Ways To Get People Online To Read Your Business Blog

Self SEO :: Evelyn Lim

There are many advantages of running a blog, on top of your business website. A blog is an online diary, whereby you can easily posts clips about yourself, your thoughts and your personal life. If you publish a business blog, you posts good content, articles, breaking news or just about anything to build awareness of what you are selling.

Publishing a business blog gives your subscriber or prospect a chance to get to know you better. Through your blog, you can explain how your life has changed due to the product or service that you are selling. A blog can also be highly interactive if you also allow comments and for all to see. For sure, blogging provides a good avenue to establish some level of trust and security for an online prospect who has never met you.

Here are top 10 ways to get people to read your business blog:

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Monday, June 20, 2005

From the old news file: Corporations enter blogosphere - Jun 6, 2005

via CNN.com

Wikis, Weblogs and RSS: What Does the New Internet Mean for Business?

Knowledge@Wharton


FROM THE WEBSITE:
The Internet may be entering a new phase that will decentralize control inside companies, enable employees to collaborate more easily, and drive efficiency. But corporations that want to use the web strategically to build corporate value will not just need to make radical cultural changes, they may also need to master a new vocabulary with terms such as Wikis (software that allows anyone to update and edit web pages instantly and democratically); Weblogs (online journals more commonly known as blogs); and RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, which distribute content from the Internet.

Arcane as these terms may sound to anyone but the initiated, the technology behind them is hardly fancy. Wikis, blogs and RSS feeds are relatively simple tools that will have a huge impact on the way people -- and companies -- communicate and do business. So how is the Internet changing? How can companies seek to understand the technological effects of these changes? And what cultural adaptations should companies make to capture value from these new tools?


Read and learn about your future.

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The New Internet

Blog Business Summit

The new internet
16 Jun 05 by DL Byron
The Knowledge@Wharton site explains the new internet in a Q/A with Kevin Werbach and Janice Fraser. The new internet includes lots of terminology and excitement from developers, users and can totally confuse a business person. As I learned in Colorado, all of these technologies, including blogging, don’t extend much farther than the blogosphere. I expect that to change soon enough and Wharton’s article is a good read for those that are lost. Blogging apps are probably the best example. (I’ll exclude tag clouds, amateurization, and folksonomies for another day.) I’ve seen audience members just blank out on what blogging is until you show them the application and how easy it is to use.

Links available on the site.



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Wayne Hurlbert's compendious...

A gentle reminder to get ye registered for...

ConvergeSouth 2005
...in the heart of Blogsboro, North Carolina.

Robert Benchley Society 2005 Summer Reading List

J&J Computer Supplies for hard-to-find Computer and Medical Equipment, Hardware and Software



From the website:

Computer Supplies
J & J Computer Supplies is a complete computer solutions provider for all corporate hardware and software needs. Our specialties include all name brand and white box computer systems, servers, projectors, printers, scanners, toners, cables, and hard-to-find computer parts and accessories. As a company, our focus is on customer satisfaction to ensure our customers are 100% satisfied with our service.

Medical Hardware
One of J & J Computer Supplies specialties is providing hospitals and medical equipment providers with hard to find, computer related medical parts and accessories.
J & J Computer Supplies has a vast network of resources in place to find all types of medical equipment, such as monitors, hard drives, optical drives, media, etc. We are able to provide our customers with new, used, or remanufactured parts from nearly all equipment manufacturers.

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mistersugar: How to persuade a business to blog

Carolina Blog Consultant, Anton Zuiker, shows us how it is done...

EXCERPT:
At the business blogging panel tonight, I did my usual speed-talking history of weblogs.

Afterward, Diane Kuehn and I were chatting about ways she can help her business clients incorporate weblogs into their communication and marketing strategies. Reflecting on my own experience at my new job, where I waited three months to explain how a weblog, along with a magazine, would be a great way to share loads of interesting and useful information that our own employees are clamoring for and our funding agency demands, I suggested this exercise for how a business, or a consultant advising a business, should approach blogs:

Don’t say the word ‘blog’. Don’t even mention the concept of how a frequently updated website is good practice. You’ll get your chance later. Just hold on.

Identify a reporter. Choose a mid-level employee, or if you’re a consultant, hire a freelance journalist. Give the person a notebook and pen and these instructions: Over the next week, I want you to write down all of the interesting, useful or newsworthy facts, stories or tidbits about our company that you hear or read. Go about your normal routine and attend your regular meetings. And, in your coffee room or hallway conversations, try to learn something new about the backgrounds and interests of your colleagues.


[Hyperlinks available on the other side of this link.]

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the cool hunter & other cool blogs

Surely one of the coolest looking blogs around...

Other cool blogs you may want to see are:
LifeHacker
43 Folders
Return of Design (Web Color Schemes)
Poloroid-o-nizer
and...
RSS Newsniche which has an article called "The great RSS land grab"
According to Feedburner in a recent interview some interesting RSS metrics came to light. Based on a large sample of 60,000 publishers there shows a weekly growth of subscribers to feeds of 5 percent. This rate of growth is quite impressive for such a relatively new media.

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Is RSS advertising -- placing ads in 3rd party RSS feeds -- the next hot media buy?

MarketingSherpa.com : Practical News & Case Studies on Internet Advertising, Marketing & PR

...now that Google's started putting AdSense ads into RSS feeds, and major news sites such as USAToday.com and NYTimes.com are seeing double-digit monthly leaps in RSS-usership, we bet reach won't be a problem by 2006.

Interested? Check out our exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how Citrix's GoToMeeting just tested RSS and Podcasting ads:


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The Personal Blogs of Internet Marketers

from My Internet Marketing And Promotion Blog

Mark compiles an impressive list for those of us who want to know.

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Thinking about thinking about business blogs

Watching Debbie Weil think is a fun activity in and of itself. Watch as she tosses around ideas about upcoming projects, and the prospect of a one-word title.

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The Solopreneur Zone

Small Business Software

Small Business Software

From Software-Announce:
This site is a hidden gem! Small Business Software contains a daily small business blog . In addition the site contains a small business forum , a collection of business resources and articles, a free content directory of articles that can be republished on other websites.

The articles are really a trove of information here is a sampling of some of the great marketing and software related articles.

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"Why you should be ignoring your search results"

from The Intuitive Life Business Blog

Dave Taylor explains why it is not a good idea to focus too much on search results, saying that one would do better to "turn your focus to producing valuable and helpful content that ties into your market, that appeals to your potential customers, and use that as the basis of your new long-term site strategy".

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Momentum for small business blogging

...but check out the prices on those reports!

Forrester Research published a business blogging report last week, titled Blogging: Bubble Or Big Deal? When And How Businesses Should Use Blogs, by Charlene Li, with Josh Bernoff, Tenley McHarg
(Nov. 2004; PDF; 18 pages; $349)

Other recent business blog reports/ebooks/whitepapers:

What Could Your Company Do With A Blog? How Smart Companies Use Blogs for Marketing and PR Success and How You Can Too, by B.L. Ochman.
(Oct. 2004; PDF; 105 pages; $97)

Business Blogging Starter Kit: Learn the what, why and how of blogging as a business tool, by Debbie Weil
(July, 2004; WordBiz report PDF; 127 pages; $97)

Business Blogs: How Successful Companies Get Real Results With Weblogs, by Kate Kaye & Rick Bruner
(November, 2003; MarketingWonk report PDF; 103 pages; $99)


Hyperlinks available on website.

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E-Oasis Launches Business Blog

ClickPress

[ClickPress, Thu Jun 16 2005] LONGMONT, Colo., June 16, 2005 - Electronic Oasis Consulting, Inc. (E-Oasis) today announced the launch of E-Oasis Alerts. The business blog will focus on the products and services of the network consulting company.

"The interactive nature of blogging coupled with the clear and powerful business dynamics will prove to be a major business advantage," said Blaine Berger, President of E-Oasis.

"Incredibly, most businesses have yet to discover the value that blogging can provide. E-Oasis will apply its lessons learned to help our customers build business blogs."



To see their new blog, go here.

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Blog business cards Networking your blog

Wayne Hurlbert recommends putting your blog URL on your business card. Not a bad idea!

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Thursday, June 16, 2005

Dickless Marketing :: Book and Author Bio

Are You a Blogging Consultant?

Bob Bly, Copywriter

Mr. Bly is the author of Copywriter's Handbook.

Small Business Marketing Blog Channel Experts

John Jantsch :: Duct Tape Marketing
featuring 9 of the best and brightest small business marketing minds blogging on specific small business marketing topics.

Zane Safrit - Business Life
Georgia Patrick - Customers Count
Dan Janal - PR Leads
Troy White - Word Wealth
Martin Jelsema - Buzzworthy Branding
Jill Konrath - Selling To Big Companies
Don The Idea Guy - The Idea Department
Mark Beck - Internet Marketing Unleashed
John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing

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The "Art" of Hiring a Blog Writer

Where J L Reid attempts to take on yours truly...

Seriously, Mr. Reid makes some good points, to which I will respond...as soon as I pick myself off the floor.

Blog Sidebar Experiment--Part 1

Blog Core Values examines how 33 bloggers organize the "peripheral content"; the "margins" of their blogs.

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Using RSS to Communicate with Your Employees

Corporate RSS Communications | RSSApplied :: rokih

RSS is becoming an increasingly important factor in corporate communications as it assures 100% content delivery to external audiences and, at the same time, brings greater control and efficiency to internal communications.

Find out exactly how RSS can be used for corporate communications and how this field is developing.


It has been said that there are two types of business blogs: internal and external. This articles deals with internal blogging...

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10 Reasons Why You Want a Business Blog

Tom Parish covers a range of reasons for having a business blog. Do you have yours yet?

Among his reasons (in a nutshell):

Easy way to add pages and/or content.
Keyword-rich content that is fresh. As Tom says: "Your current website pages are static and haven’t changed in months. Ok, be honest, it’s been years."
LSP, or Ludicrously Simple Publishing
Reduces a need for a webmaster
Easily post tidbits of related news
Blogs ss an information archive
Updatable anywhere
Syndication
and more...

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Tuesday, June 14, 2005

MarketingSherpa's 10 Best Blogs for 2005

Business Blogs: Getting More Visitor Traffic

7 Questions To Ask Yourself BEFORE Starting A Business Blog

By Priya Shah

Some things to consider before launching your business blog.

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Strategies to make your Blog More Interesting

Blogging and Tags

Monday, June 13, 2005

Customized input elements

from Picment.com

Here is a nice way to customize your forms using CSS...

Marshall your Brain...with Marshall Brain of Raleigh, North Carolina

In today's episode, Marshall introduces us to WebKEW - Web Knowledge Equals Wealth...as well as some of his other interests.

Umbria Communications - Sifting Plankton from the Oceans of the Internets

Providers of Deep Insight

From their website:

Umbria Communications collects the unsolicited opinions and perceptions of the online community (blogs, message boards, chat, etc.) and turns it into actionable market research about companies, products, people and topics of interest.

Using proprietary natural language processing and machine learning technologies, Umbria dissects the who, what and why of online opinion to provide deep insight into the buzz about you, your products and your competition.

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10 Commandments for The Era of Participatory Public Relations

Micro Persuasion

Here are Steve's 10 Commandments:
1) Thou shall listen
2) Remember that all creatures great and small are holy
3) Honor thy customer
4) Thou shall not be fake
5) Covet thy customers
6) Thou shall be open and engaging
7) Thou shall embrace blogging
8) Thou shall banish corporate speak
9) Thou shall tell the truth
10) Thou shall thinketh in 360 degrees

To read more about them, point your internets to this blogpost.

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What is scribble?

Scribble is a centralized categorizable list of your favorite links accessible everywhere and is available to all artypapers members.

With scribble you can access the links to your favorite websites from any computer with an Internet connection.


This is a directory of every CSS Help Pile post, displayed as if it were a scribble page.

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Business Blog Webring

The Business Blog Webring includes such awesome blogs as Trade Street Journal.

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Register for ConvergeSouth 2005

You can register for the upcoming ConvergeSouth 2005 conference in Greensboro, NC...and book dinner engagements, hotel accommodations etc. Cone, Winer and Wales are among the luminaries who will be there.

Business Blog Adoption Process; Blog Bashing Continues

Copywriting For Dummies

Thomas Telford with copywriting tips, and words about blogging.

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Dave Taylor talks about Wall Street Journal's recent warnings about "phishing"

"Wall Street Journal warns about phishing" from The Intuitive Life Business Blog

I was recently phished (unsuccessfully) by FauxPal (my designation), althought they tried to make me think it was PayPal. Not nice.

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Work at Home Business Ideas and Small Business Ideas for Women

IFTF's Future Now: links for 2005-06-10

Revised Table of Contents

Relationship marketing: Business blogs are the key

OnLine Sales Success

"Your blog begins that all important relationship with your prospects and current customers."

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The Blog as a Business Tool

from Tenth Floor, Cleveland Ohio

Including:
Brief Introduction to the Blog
Why Should I Blog: The Benefits
What Kinds of Companies are Blogging?
Reading Blogs
Publishing Blogs
Writing for Blogs
Case in Point: Attorney Tips the Scales in His Favor Using Blog
Is a Blog Right For Me?

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Thursday, June 09, 2005


Ed Cone, Tech Pioneer

With blogging by businesses and organizations getting lots of media love...a look back at what may have been the first national magazine article on the topic, and certainly the best headline I ever got past an editor. (The Scoble column did not include the use of blogs as project and knowledge management tools within the enterprise -- that came later, and such blogs and wikis are still widely ignored by the press in favor of the outward-facing sites.)

Ed has been covering technology, blogging and related topics for many years in national publications, and is a columnist and blogger in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Blog Tips - ProBlogger: Helping Bloggers Earn Money

ResumeWiki

Bloggeropoly

reboot7, 10-11 june 2005, copenhagen, denmark

Media Hacking, etc...

reboot is the european meetup for the practical visionaries who are building tomorrow one little step at a time, using new models for creation and organization—in a world where the only entry barrier is passion.
reboot is two days in june filled with inspiration, perspective, good conversations and interesting people.

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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Business Blogs: Getting More Visitor Traffic

by Wayne Hurlbert

Still waiting to see your visitor traffic to your business blog increase? There are a number of things you can do to help it along, from getting your blog listed in online blog directories to old-fashioned offline networking. Wayne Hurlbert provides many, many ideas for those who want to see their visitor traffic numbers go up.

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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

RSS Universe Delivers RSS Tools, Marketing, Publishing, & Metrics For Business People & Bloggers

Articles including one by yours truly.
Therefore a class act....

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Web Sites, Blogs Can Boost Your Career

Yahoo! News

A blog is actually better for the career than a Web portfolio, which is just another form of the resume, said Jeff Kaye, CEO, of recruiting firm Kaye/Bassman in Dallas.


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Charting the Real-Time Blogosphere Buzz

ConvergeSouth 2005

The next step in evolution

FROM THE WEBSITE:
Friday, October 7, 2005
On the Web: new media, journalism and creativity for everyone. Housed on NC A&T's campus, this all-day new media conference will feature discussions and panels led by and for everyone interested in journalism. Coordinators: Dr. Teresa Styles and Allen Johnson (Editorial page editor, N&R)

The Friday night keynote
We're going to "think large" as our Steering Committee finds a fabulous personality for Friday night. We've got a big room reserved and we know the reception will be great.



Saturday, October 8, 2005
A full day devoted to creativity on the Web for everyone. Great seminars and discussion leaders are being contacted as I type. Our schedule should be populated by June 15 by our Saturday organizers, Ed Cone, Ben Hwang and fearless leader, Roch Smith.


Saturday night in downtown Greensboro - eat & be merry
Saturday night, after the seminars & discussions, downtown Greensboro is ours (share nicely with the citizens!) as we present food, music and fun. Our speakers will be invited to invite you to dinner (you pay for your own dinner) and limited numbers can join the speaker of their choice when the signup part of this site starts working. Check back repeatedly for updates.


See the website for hyperlinks and more information.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Should You Blog in Your Business?

Creative Mouse Blog

"Here are 10 facts or ideas about business blogging that may help you make up your mind whether a business blog should be something that you should try."

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Why Your Site Needs Fresh, Relevant Content

By Victor George

"The way to do it is to automatically have our web pages updated every day with 'our own' content, not anyone else's. Only then will we be able to say that fresh content is truly the master!"

Saturday, June 04, 2005

The Strength of Weak Ties

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Internet-and-Businesses-Online - Blogging-RSS Ezine Articles

Ezine Articles

A variety of articles on blogging and RSS...

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"It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be specialists."

from the
LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS
SERIES


The Art of Business Blog Writing

"It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be specialists. For their very nature is to make the whole of existence their problem; and this is a subject upon which they will every one of them in some form provide mankind with a new revelation. For he alone can deserve the name of genius who takes the All, the Essential, the Universal, for the theme of his achievements; not he who spends his life in explaining some special relation of things one to another." - Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature"

"We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. Advancing science has now discovered that all the known cases of biological extinction have been caused by overspecialization, whose concentration of only selected genes sacrifices general adaptability. Thus the specialist's brief for pinpointing brevity is dubious. In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war." - Buckminster Fuller, "Synergetics"

What do you do?

We live in an age where people are more likely to ask "What do you do?" rather than the more proper "How do you do?". People are expected to specialize. Granted, I am speaking generally. I am a generalist.

But what if people were to heed the advice and warnings of a Schopenhauer or a Fuller? Is it possible they would become more fully human? More well-rounded as we say? More of a lady or gentleman, as was once the code?

Bloggers, from what I have seen in my years of blogging, tend to be more generalist than specialist, except for a few who are both...which is to say they have wide knowledge and interests, but also have one or two things that they know a great deal about.

Business bloggers, ideally, fall into this last category. They know a great deal about their company, service, products and so on, but also have a wide-band tuning which allows them to connect with people of all stripes, types and interests. After all, one should not expect that a customer or client know all the fine points of what they are seeking to buy, yet the seller should know those fine points, but also a good deal about the customer as well. This is where a wide-band understanding comes in handy.

The business blogger is a specialist AND a generalist. And if she's not, you might want to remedy the situation, one way or another. The kindest way is to educate them.

If they don't know the products or services...teach them about them. If they don't know how to write, how to deal with people, the give-and-take of conversation...you have a more difficult problem, but not an insurmountable one. Just one that may take more time. So when hiring your business bloggers, look first for those who have decent social and verbal skills. You can teach them the bidness in shorter time.

To Everything, there is a Seasoned Blogger

But...should you hire a seasoned blogger, or a new blogger? Would it not be better to create your own Frankenstein and have them simply say what you want them to say?

My vote is for seasoned bloggers, for a variety of reasons. The first being perhaps best exemplified in this quote also from "The Art of Literature":

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake. While the one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money. Their thinking is part of the business of writing. They may be recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating; again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their writing is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover paper. This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for example, with Lessing in his Dramaturgie, and even in many of Jean Paul’s romances. As soon as the reader perceives this, let him throw the book away; for time is precious. The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.
Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What an inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there were only a few books, but those excellent! This can never happen, as long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as though the money lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little.
- "The Art of Literature"

Seasoned bloggers have written, oftentimes, for years for little or no money at all. People who say they will blog if you pay them may write what they are told, but in that case, why not write it yourself?

The Blog and the Walking Stick

"The pen is to thought what the stick is to walking; but you walk most easily when you have no stick, and you think with the greatest perfection when you have no pen in your hand. It is only when a man begins to be old that he likes to use a stick and is glad to take up his pen." - "The Art of Literature"

Another advantage to hiring seasoned bloggers is that you can see where they've been, see what they've blogged, learned whether or not they can sustain the writing over time. A new blogger may actually run out of things to say. Seasoned bloggers are seasoned because they are still writing. The others you call ex-bloggers.

New bloggers may enjoy blogging for a time, but then they are seized with youthful wanderlust, and the next thing you know they are out chasing phantoms. A good seasoned blogger, on the other hand, is interwoven into the fabric of the blogosphere, and is content to make his or her mark there. And because they are part of the blogosphere, they are not an island, but rather a constellation, or, in some cases, a galaxy. You have not hired one yea-sayer, you have hired potentially dozens or hundreds, even thousands of yea-sayers. I daresay that, in some cases, you may have won even millions of yea-sayers. These, of course, are few and far between, but the future is likely to look a lot different than the past.

And should you get the occasional chorus of nays, count your lucky stars that you have a free feedback mechanism. Your adjustments might prove far better press than the grunts that led to the change. And all companies change. Only some never learn the reasons why they should have, and suffer the consequences of their ignorance.

The question is not if. It is when. So when you hire someone (or a team of someones) in order to connect your company to the blogosphere, you may want to keep some of these points in mind. Your blog need not be literature, but there is nothing wrong with having a beautifully written, edifying body of work associated with your company. In time it may be your greatest legacy. For surely a future Twain or Faulkner or Ogilvy will be borne in these enabling laboratories of discovery. And the world needs more employment, not less. Choose, act, but act wisely. It's good to be first. But it's better to be good.

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Blogging Your Way To Success Part 1

By Edmund Loh


also:
Blogging Your Way To Success Part 2 by Edmund Loh By now, you have already configured your blog name, description, personal profile, and the page template. As soon as you set up your blogging account with Blogger, you will need to do this next.
Blogging Your Way To Success Part 3 by Edmund Loh You have already set up a blog. You have at least 20 pages of content. All of a sudden, you have a real website. You are in the game of Internet Business! The next thing to do is get yourself an account with AdSense.
Blogging Your Way To Success Part 4 by Edmund Loh Make it a ritual (not just a habit) to post at least once a day at your blog. If you want visitors to keep coming back to your web site, then let your visitors have your word that you will post just as often.

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Marketing With Blogs - Part 1

By Priya Shah

...with links to Parts 2-4.

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Blogging for Business

Blogging Is Not Important - Its Crucial

How to Use Blog Exchanges

Use RSS Feeds to Improve Search Engine Optimization and Ranking

Get Website Visitors From Blogs

RSS more effective than email

RSS Works: Hard Metrics to Prove It

Amazing Information About Blogging

Ezine Articles

V.Anantha Krishnan offers his take on blogging...

How to Reel in Web Site Visitors by Building Your Own Blog

Ezine Articles

Six good reasons to build your own blog...

In short:
- Search engines LOVE blogs.
- Content tends to be updated more frequently than web sites, which the search engines love.
- There's no special programming or HTML skills needed
- Subject-specific articles generate tons of traffic!
- It's much easier to write your article and publish it immediately than it is to write content for an Ezine, format it, test it, and then publish it...
- Increase your subscriber list.
- It's cheap!

Keys to Website Promotion

Search engine optimization and Online marketing

Among the things mentioned are these:

- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Ezine (Online Newsletter) Publishing
- Business Blog
- Article Writing


About Business Blogging this is what is said:
Blogging for online business is quickly becoming one of the best web site traffic generators you can find that doesn’t have to cost you anything. You invest your time learning how blogging works for business then you set up your blog and start using the information you have learned to generate targeted traffic to your website. If

A blog with strong titles, quality content and strategic pinging plus rss feeds will be your key to fast search engine indexing, traffic to your blog that can funnel traffic directly to your business website.


And about Article Writing:
Writing articles with a strong resource box is your best free web site traffic generator. Due to its viral nature on the internet, articles that are published on websites and in newsletters of other ezine publishers will bring your website traffic. With each new article and publishing, your articles will reach more people building both traffic and branding You as an expert. With each article you write, your first stop is EzineArticles which is a high traffic article database used by webmasters and newsletter publishers to find fresh content. EzineArticles (http://www.ezinearticles.com) also publishes your articles in a search engine friendly format that lets internet surfers find the information they are seeking.







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Top 7 tips to write an effective blog

BlogWrite for CEOs
By Debbie Weil

Debbie offers 7 tips for writing a more effective blog, plus a bonus tip for getting through it.
Good advice.

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Small Business Marketing Blog Channel Experts

Duct Tape Marketing

Welcome to the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel Guide featuring 9 of the best and brightest small business marketing minds blogging on specific small business marketing topics.
Zane Safrit - Business Life
Georgia Patrick - Customers Count
Dan Janal - PR Leads
Troy White - Word Wealth
Martin Jelsema - Buzzworthy Branding
Jill Konrath - Selling To Big Companies
Don The Idea Guy - The Idea Department
Mark Beck - Internet Marketing Unleashed
John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing

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Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) on the Birth of the Wedia

WSJ.com - We the (Media) People

"Already we're seeing a lot of reporting from non-journalists, where the "reporter" is just whoever happens to be on the scene, and online, when news happens. Given the ubiquity of digital cameras, cellphones, and wireless Internet access, that's likely to become more common, making the kind of distributed newsgathering seen during the Indian Ocean tsunami the norm not the exception."

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The Importance of an effective first paragraph

What's New In Marketing - Copycat

Your headline has grabbed the reader. That reader is on side and interested. You have a fish on the hook. Now you have to secure the fish and land it.

But this is where a lot of writers lose it…


Read on.

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News from Blogsboro

Bloggers finally make money

blogging jobs - simplyhired.com

"If all my possessions and powers were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of words, because with them I would recover the rest”. - Daniel Webster


prostoalex writes "When you hear about blogging, you're most likely to hear about personal journals, self-expression and youngsters sharing their daily routines online. However, as Wall Street Journal notes, the word blogger can now frequently be seen in corporate job ads. Blogging jobs pay anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 and frequently require writing copy for corporate Web sites and ability to promote on the Internet. A search for blogger and blogging on one of the job meta search engines yields several hundred open positions."

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Business Blog Webring

Business Blog Webring

This is a webring for business blogs. We accept all commercial blogs about business; blogs about using blogs in business and as a marketing tool, or individual business blogs aimed at communicating with customers.

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