Newsletter #72 Do Blogs Make Cents?

Created on 17/10/02

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The last newsletter (12th September, 2002) was "Guerilla NOT Gorilla Marketing" and can be found at http://www.netinsites.com/article3.cfm?ArticleID=98

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What is blogging? According to Evan Williams's site, www.blogger.com, a blog (a shortening of Web log) is "..a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically like a what's new page or a journal." It's easy to set up a blog. Blogger is a free, Web-based tool that helps individuals publish online instantly - whenever they feel like it.

Blog authors typically post links and commentary about other web sites, news about a company/person/idea, diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, and even fiction.

Blogging came to the fore during the September 11th terrorist attacks when blogs were perhaps the most immediate source of the intense personal views and experiences of people caught up in the tragedy. Blogs offer a stark contrast to mass media like television as they give voice to people you never would have heard from a decade ago.

Because good blogs are linked to by other blog authors who are linked to by others, this can have the effect that a search engine like Google will rank an individual writer's content above say that of a New York Times writer. Blogs and the links between them can be a very powerful way of showcasing the 'people's choice'.

Of course because blogs are relatively new and particularly trendy there will now be a mad rush by the corporate world to use blogs as a way of promoting their products or services. Already a leading software company, Macromedia, has surprised many in the blogging community and corporate world by asking five of its already blogging employees to become 'community managers'. See Mike Chambers' http://radio.weblogs.com/0106797/ blog about Flash MX as an example. A very mainstream Website, MSNBC.com has also gone down the same path.

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So why would a company setup their own blogs when they already have the rather ubiquitous discussion board?

• They offer an increased level of editorial control compared to discussion boards. MSNBC.com closed their popular boards last December because of the high cost of monitoring discussions that often turned into obscene flame wars.
  
  
• We're talking to each other like never before, because we can, and blogs are part of that trend. So to stay in touch with your customers you need to cover all the communication bases that also include instant messaging, email, text messaging, chat rooms and bulletin boards.
  
  
• Blogs enable a company to mass-communicate directly and quickly with customers, in an easy-to-read informal manner, without going through normally slow corporate processes.
  
  
• Blogs are a more personal way of communicating that should engender more personal responses. While MarketingSherpa's Anne Holland gets several messages daily responding to the weekly e-newsletters she publishes, she is receiving 20 emails a day in response to her blog. See http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/b2b_em_mkt/article.php/870481.

Blogs can be marketed particularly successfully if you already have an online newsletter, as many of your current readers will probably also be interested in what else you have to say. Blogs do need to be integrated within the rest of your offerings, however. Interestingly Macromedia doesn't make it easy to find their community manager's blogs from their Website - perhaps a sign that they're not entirely convinced of the merit of their blogs or that they haven't fit them properly within their online strategy.

As a marketing tactic, it really only works if the author has talent. You need someone on who can write in a genuinely engaging voice with interesting content.

So are blogs a revolutionary leap in the development of the Net? I don't think so. Perhaps a further step in the development of the medium as a THE communications channel.

Because that in essence is what it is.

Alex Garden

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Newbies

The hardest thing about making backups of your Outlook Express email is finding the email folders! To locate your email folders, open Outlook Express and then open your folder list. 'Right-click' a folder and choose 'Properties'. The Properties dialog box will give you the folder's location. Since all the folders are in the same place, you can now use Windows Explorer ('right-click' on 'Start' and choose 'Explore' ) to go there. Copy the dbx files to your backup disk/CD or Zip Drive.

For previous tips visit http://www.netinsites.com/hottips.cfm

Power Users

Although the browser market is completely dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer there are alternatives. Netscape 7.0 has been released and is based on version 1.0 of the open source Mozilla browser. Unfortunately for Netscape the Mozilla organisation has since released an improved 1.1 version. You can download and use this latest Mozilla version in its own right. If you're interested visit http://www.mozilla.org/ and look for Mozilla 1.1.

For previous Power Tips visit http://www.netinsites.com/hottips_power.cfm

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has decided to publish online all its course materials. The MIT OpenCourseWare project launched a short time ago with a preliminary pilot that is merely the beginning of MIT's publishing ambitions. As of September 30, people with an Internet connection and a Web browser have been able to access the syllabus, lecture notes, exams and answers, and in some cases, even the videotaped lectures of 32 MIT courses. So far (October 10), more than 130,000 Web visitors from around the world have plugged into the pilot, tapping into a vein of information for which MIT undergraduates pay US$26,960 per year. A fascinating move by MIT! http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

Developed by MIT Media Lab this site tracks the most popular links from within the Weblog community. So perhaps the links on this site are a real-time source of the most interesting stuff around? http://blogdex.media.mit.edu/ .

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No new articles this month.

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

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