http://www.erisfree.com/updates/39/templates-and-women

A new survey has been initiated to look more closely at the Corporate Blogging phenomena. John Cass has organized the survey to gain insight into the corporate blogging process.

As he describes on his site:

Corporate blogs are a new entity on the web in the last year or so. I’ve been wondering if they actually fulfill a customer’s need, and differently than a normal website. I have some ideas why a corporation might develop a blog, but I was wondering what blog readers thought about the whole idea. I’d like to propose this survey. If you have a corporate blog, and would like to post this survey, let me know your readers answers.

1) Why do you read corporate blogs?

2) How does a corporate blog differ from a website/forum/email/other marketing effort in your mind?

3) How should a corporate blog be structured? What content do you expect to see?

Source: PR Communications, “Corporate Blog Visitor Survey”

(more…)

When it comes to syndication, there is no shortage of opinions as to what the best approach/format/syntax is. One of the most consistent debates that occurs focuses on the amount of content to be published via the available feeds.

One camp believes that RSS and related syndication formats should provide a full context of the post in the feed itself. This provides the primary benefit of removing external dependencies for news aggregators. In this scenario, the entire text of the post is part of the feed and readers can download and read posts in their entirety without visiting the originating site.

On the other hand, there is a large camp that believes that digest entries are more than enough. This approach has many motivations, from bandwidth to advertising. The more interesting one, in my opinion, is the need to keep readers involved with the actual site. The goal of this behavior is to ensure that site sponsors are given exposure to the readership. For many, and many more going forward, the need to generate revenue from site sponsorship and advertising.

Recently, Robert Scoble has posted some thoughts on RSS and it’s cuased quite a bit of feedback. John Dowdell has even spoken out to get others to read the entry, as he is strictly opposed.

The jury is still out, though there’s little reason that the two can’t potentially exist side-by-side.

Flex-MX has a great link to a map and feature comparison chart of the most popular blogging applications in use today.

Many who’s feathers are ruffled over the Movable Type 3.0 Licensing scheme, this chart may be valuable in evaluating a successor — otherwise it’s just handy to look at.

Check it out here, Blog Software Chart.

David Huffaker has posted his Georgetown thesis, “Gender Similarities and Differences in Online Identity and Language Use among Teenage Bloggers” for review and comment. The paper takes a look at the teenage segment to understand the methods used for establishing online identity.

As the abstract describes:

This study examines issues of online identity and language use among teenagers (ages 13 – 17) who create and maintain weblogs or blogs, which are personal journals created by individuals and made publicly accessible on the Internet. Online identity is investigated in terms of the disclosure of personal information, online name choice, avatar selection and emotive features. Language use is explored in terms of word counts and semantic themes. This study also examines common blog topics, blog characteristics, blog abandonment rates and frequency of use. Overall, the results indicate that teenagers reveal a considerable amount of personal information in their blogs, including name, age, and location, as well as contact information in the form of an email address, an instant messenger name or a link to personal homepage. The content of blogs typically reflects what is expected to impact a teenager’s life, such as school, intimate relationships, sexual identity and even music. While almost half of teenage blogs are abandoned, active blogs demonstrate high levels of loyalty in terms of frequency of posts (daily or weekly) and length of posts (which average 2000 words per page).

Contrary to prediction, the results indicate that there are more gender similarities than differences in blog use. However, some gender differences were noted, regarding emotive features, sexual identity, language use, and some components of personal information. Males average more emoticons in their posts than females. Males also reveal their homosexuality more often than females, expressing their sexual identity or coming out. Males reveal their location more often than females, while females present a link to a personal web site more often than males. Finally, males use a more active and resolute language than females.

Source: Thesis Abstract

I haven’t had time to read it through yet, but it looks promising.

John Dowdell points out an article at CIO Magazine, “The Virtues of Chitchat”, that examines the use of blogging software internally to an organization as a means of reducing the telephone effect common when rumors and other word-of-mouth-type ramblings occur.

One interesting scenario raised is that of the project log, or plog. As the article asks:

That said, the blogging phenomenon has intriguingly useful implications for IT. I have to ask myself: Why wouldn’t it make sense for an IT project manager to post a blog—or “plog” (project log)—to keep her team and its constituents up-to-date on project issues and concerns? Is it inherently inappropriate for an individual to post constructive observations about a project’s progress? IT organizations that can effectively use blogs as managerial tools (or communication resources) are probably development environments that take both people and their ideas seriously.

Source: CIO Magazine, “”The Virtues of Chitchat”

Google has done a very nice update (IMHO) to their web site, and seemingly, to their infrastructure as well. The latest release sports a new feature, Blogger Profiles. As they note on the site:

Blogger Profiles let you find people and blogs that share your interests. And your profile lets people find you (but only if you want to be found).

Your Blogger Profile lists your blogs, your recent posts, and more. Clicking on interests or location takes you to other people’s profiles, whose blogs you might enjoy.

Source: Blogger Tour

Naturally, this has me wondering a bit why there hasn’t been any form of integration between Orkut and Blogger as profile were added. I can’t imagine that going forward, as Google shows more of its hand, that we won’t see some deeper integration between these two services.. if not the potential convergence of the two.

Gordon Gould has some very interesting discussion about the nature and future of blogging. Specifically, he opens up a topic that I have discussed here in various ways, the management of expectations for new bloggers.

Gordon points out that the current system of evaluation, highly traffic/popularity based in nature is problematic for the yet to arrive wave of consumer blogging. Though my definition of this “consumer” tilts in the direction of the entrepreneur and business professional, I couldn’t concur more that things need to change.

He introduces a wonderful metaphor for the blogosphere of the future, that of the refrigerator door. This micro-fame, the motivator for all things big and small, is a powerful force that needs to be harnessed to move blogging out of the closet and into the living rooms of the masses.

(more…)

A few weeks ago I attended Flash In the Can, a Canadian Flash Developers’ Conference. I find it particularly interesting to visit with different circles of connected people to see some of the interesting differences from one group to the next.

Sitting in a room with a wide array of designers and artists definitely puts a different spin on your perceptions. Sure everyone’s up to their elbows in geekiness in one form or another, but, at the same time, that sense of “bucking the system” is hard to escape.

Over the last few days, several people have been swapping links to a presentation done by a group known as wefail. I was going through the slides where I found this funny little nugget:

CHALLENGE PERCEPTION.

remember: the internet is not real.

there are no real consequences for the lies that you tell.

the only people that think the internet is real are bloggers.

Source: wefail presentation. Flash in the Can 2004

(more…)

The WSJ has an article out that discusses the role many small web sites play in the distribution of information. Specifically, they were examining the release of breaking news or otherwise controversial information. Decidedly missing from this little snippet was any mention of the blogging world.

Later in the article, there is some discussion of an error that occurred when one site received the wrong pictures which were syndicated through newspapers across the country. The question of responsible journalism seems to be on many minds.

This again brings me back to the absence of blogging. Many in the blogosphere have accomplished the same level of distribution as the sites mentioned in the article. Perhaps more interesting, however, is this: Is a blog in disguise better for the world? As bloggers we tend to assume that everyone should know about blogging, RSS, and other related technologies and phenomena, but does it really matter? If millions of people can publish to their AOL Journal from IM, why weigh them down the significance of that action?

It seems that almost everyone has an appreciation for publishing in one form or the other. Perhaps our focus on standards, interoperability, and technology could be hindering the viral epidemic that is blogging.