With the proliferation of apps, we often forget that software isn’t required to make us more productive. Or perhaps it’s not that we forget but rather that it is more convenient to look to software as a crutch for not being productive, “If only I had the perfect to-do app, I wouldn’t keep falling behind.” [...]
Saying Goodbye to FeedBurner
I’ve written about issues with FeedBurner for quite some time (e.g., here and here), so I’ll keep this brief. After serious inconsistencies in my RSS numbers over the last 3-6 months, I’m finally motivated to migrate off of FeedBurner. I’ll be testing out various reporting alternatives but have decided it’s time to reclaim my feed [...]
Lowdown App – Software Project Management Using Cucumber
There were some pretty cool Rails Rumble entries this year but one that immediately caught my eye was Lowdown. Lowdown is a software project management tool that allows PM’s, designers, and developers use Cucumber to describe and manage product features. The response to Lowdown was significant enough that the developers temporarily shut it down and [...]
AppCritics – An iPhone App to Review and Translate App Reviews from iTunes Stores Around the World
iPhone app developers are often faced with a problem — how to quickly access and read reviews from iTunes stores in other markets. Not only is it annoying to have to get into other stores, it’s also often pointless because reviews are in other languages. AppCritics is a new iPhone app that solves these problems. [...]
Making Gmail Really “Work Offline”
Gmail became a viable alternative to Outlook-obsessed users when mail began to be stored locally (thank Google Gears!). With the recent updates to labels, making them feel more like folders (we like drag-and-drop) and more generally, the Gmail Team’s commitment to innovation — Labs — Gmail really is pushing the envelope of email. While Gmail [...]
Multiple Firefox Profiles with Custom Icon Packs
I started out the New Year being exceptionally geeky. I wanted to run two concurrent Firefox profiles — essentially a professional and a personal version. There’s lots to read on using Firefox profiles but my case was unique in that I wanted 1) Two profiles running at once. 2) An easy way to distinguish between [...]
Reactive and Proactive Online Customer Service
My dry cleaner recently did NOT have my shirts ready on time. So, I had to come back another day to pick them up. I was less than pleased and was prepared to ask for a discount when I returned. The next day when I was rung-up, I said, “How about a discount for it [...]
Sync Outlook and GCal with SyncMyCal
Chances are that if you are in a corporate-like environment, you use Outlook to manage your inbox and calendar. It’s basically the de facto standard for the office. Personally, I don’t like using my office Outlook calendar to manage my personal calendar (the key word there is office). I use Google Calendar (GCal). But that leaves me [...]
Vertical Firefox Tabs – Widefox
You may be like me and often have many tabs open at once in Firefox. Sometimes, perhaps, you even max out your tab space and have to scroll to see the rest of them. Consider those days done with Widefox. Widefox is a neat little hack created by Johnathon Weare. Utilizing the Tab Mix Plus add-on [...]
Start off Mondays Right by Finishing Fridays Strong
There’s a magical feeling on Friday afternoon. All that keeps you from your wonderful weekend is a handful of waning hours. As the clock nears the time of your departure, there is little work on your mind. When you meet your proverbial 5 o’clock, you drop everything and head home for a weekend of bliss (or something [...]
Google Juice, Google Juice, Google Juice
How many minutes ago did you google yourself? I once read a good productivity tip that spoke not about a “to do” list but a “NOT to do” list. Not Ego Surfing made the list. Don’t google yourself one day. I dare you. There’s a bit of buzz about a WSJ piece that talks about choosing an [...]
Making a Blog Less "Bloggy" and the Re-launch of TECHNOSIGHT.COM
Blogs frustrate me – and they probably frustrate you too. They make life easy for their authors by allowing them to easily post content. But they make life difficult for readers by, for the most part, providing a single time-based reading option, with the newest content at the top of the page. If, for example, you previously [...]
Google Apps…for FREE!
Check out what this scammer is doing: 1. Bidding on the term “google apps” in AdWords. 2. Utilizing a hosted Google Page, selling the benefits of Google Apps. 3. Directing visitors to get Google Apps for free, simply by clicking on a Google Apps link that just so happens to be an AdSense ad…for Google [...]
7 Ways to Successfully Pitch Bloggers
I get “pitched” throughout the week to write about different product releases or updates. Over the past few months, a growing number of these pitches have been less grassroot efforts and more professional and PR like. And many of them have not been good. While I admit I am somewhat of a snob when it comes to [...]
Taskbar Shuffle – Rearrange Windows Taskbar
Taskbar Shuffle is a very nifty little program that allows you to re-arrange your Windows Taskbar. The coolest thing about it – drag-and-drop functionality. For those of us who are extremely anal about organization, it’s a great little tool. While Taskbar Shuffle does help visually, a side problem (and not specific to Taskbar Shuffle per say) is [...]
Firefox Extension of the Week – SEOpen Toolbar
If you are even somewhat interested (or obsessed) with basic SEO metrics, go download the SEOpen Toolbar for Firefox. The SEOpen Toolbar gives you the ability to quickly utilize the nifty but somewhat hidden secrets of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN (# of indexed pages, backlinks, etc.), as well as easy access for Alexa data. [...]
7 Ways to Get Quality Links
Links aren’t easy to get. Let me rephrase that, quality links aren’t easy to get. With RSS that’s even more true because your special sauce (i.e., the content of your site), can often get picked up by spammers and scammers and repurposed as their own. So, without further ado, I present 7 Ways to Get [...]
Start the New Year Off Right – Back-up and Reformat
The start of the New Year offers the perfect excuse to do some housekeeping work on your computer. I’m a Windows user, so I’m going to share some Windows specific advice on how to backup and reformat. At the very least, do a backup of your most important data. Hopefully, any documents, photos, templates, and [...]
2007 "Predictions" You Won’t Read Elsewhere
In the blogosphere today, there is a whole lot of chatter about 2007 predictions. This time a year, you see a lot of these ideas (right now, Richard MacManus’ 2007 Predictions are the talk of the town). I’m not one to make predictions but I do observe trends and opportunities (as I did last year [...]
Pamela Sorensen on ‘Why She’s Blogging’
Pamela Sorensen stopped by our offices last week to do a blogging workshop. Our CEO Brian Williams knows Pamela through ExecutiveBiz - she’s the VP of Corporate Development. Pamela is a very well connected trendster who recently started a blog and was looking for some pointers. If you want to learn about the upscale hot spots of D.C., then [...]
Frank Felker on What Video Internet Means to Biz Owners
Frank Felker is the proprietor of Radio Free Enterprise and is a seasoned marketing veteran who literally sees the complete marketing picture from blogs and the Internet through radio and print. The scary thing is that he has executed well across all those channels. Frank and I worked on some projects in the past including [...]
B-list Blogger – An Interesting Breakdown of Blogs
According to a neat little tool Kineda put together, I’m a B-list blogger. I’m actually surprised I even rank that high considering the fact I don’t really try and compete with the big boys (e.g., I’m pretty much determined that for me, posting several times a day is unhealthy and unproductive). To be fair, I barely [...]
Blogging ROI – A Framework
If you are a smart business owner, then you probably do things methodically. You likely try and weigh costs and risks against benefits when it comes to any new organizational initiatives. There is no ‘quick fix’ for determining if blogging is right for you but a good starting point is answering the following questions: What [...]
Blogwild! – A Great Resource for New Bloggers
Andy Wibbels is a fellow DTM contributor and a very savvy blog consultant. I consider his new book Blogwild! a must have resource for anyone that wants to start blogging. Yes, anyone. While the subtitle is a “guide for small business blogging”, the principles apply across the board – I’ve read through it twice, so [...]
A Simple Look at Web Strategy
After asking the question Do you have a Web Strategy?, I thought it was important to give a closer look at what the term really means. My first post on the Viget Labs blog is entitled Defining Web Strategy. Here is the definition I came up with: An organization’s web strategy is an actionable plan [...]
Do you have a Web Strategy?
Regardless of if you are a small business, Fortune 500 company, politico, or a private individual, you have a web strategy even if you have not formalized it. All web strategy is not created equal. Many who fall into the ‘private individual’ category possess a simple strategy – to have a place to communicate with [...]
95-5-0.1
Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1. – Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors I can’t say I’m really surprised by Jakob Nielsen’s observations about the percentage of lurkers on the web. I need [...]
Your Blog is (or should be) a Coffee Shop
Many of us enjoy the free WiFi offered at today’s Coffee Shops…but Coffee Shops are not popular because of WiFi. In some ways, they are not even popular because of coffee. After all, you can get a Cup of Joe at 7-11, Dunkin Donuts, a local Deli, or any number of other locations. The defining draw [...]
How to Blog a Conference
Josh Hallett obviously took a lot of time and energy to put together his recent How to Blog a Conference - great stuff. As I noted in his comments section, this reaffirms the approach and strategy I’ve taken with next week’s conference. In particular, my friend Doug Kushin (who I hope to introduce more formally soon) and [...]
Developing your Blog Exit Strategy – Part 1
Do blogs have a natural life to them? Recent events would indicate that not all blogs are meant to exist indefinitely. And that is why I am going to begin to advocate the development of a blog exit strategy at the outset of a blog’s creation. In the first part of this post below, I’ll [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – Concluding Thoughts
There are those of you out there that have read through my series on Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business and thought to yourself things like, “Yarmosh, you’re crazy.”, “You’ve completely missed the boat here.”, or “Web 2.0 is just a buzz word. It doesn’t mean anything and is going to have no effect [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – Knowledge Building
In the case of the Web 2.0 Watermill, there are primarily four areas where technology is beginning to facilitate a vastly improved Internet: knowledge collection, knowledge discovery, knowledge building, and knowledge sharing. – Ken Yarmosh, Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business In today’s job market, employees come and ago. But hopefully all of the [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – Knowledge Sharing
In the case of the Web 2.0 Watermill, there are primarily four areas where technology is beginning to facilitate a vastly improved Internet: knowledge collection, knowledge discovery, knowledge building, and knowledge sharing. – Ken Yarmosh, Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business Knowledge sharing is what enables employees to get their jobs done everyday. Without [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – Knowledge Discovery
In the case of the Web 2.0 Watermill, there are primarily four areas where technology is beginning to facilitate a vastly improved Internet: knowledge collection, knowledge discovery, knowledge building, and knowledge sharing. – Ken Yarmosh, Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business My series on Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business has been defunct [...]
Building your Virtual Presence
Back in December ’05, I had to prepare for a presentation on “websites and technology” to a room full of campaign folks. There wasn’t a lot of direction on what they wanted me to cover. I racked my brain and thought the most pertinent information would be to share what I consider the elements needed [...]
7 Awesome WordPress Plugins
One of the great things about WordPress is that it can basically do anything you want. If you feel there is something missing, just write or download a plugin. It’s amazing how many plugins are already available. Below, I highlight 7 plugins I’ve used, find helpful, or just think are interesting: Akismet I’ve been using [...]
Silas Partners and Web 2.0 in the Christian Community
Churches and ministries are really getting into blogging, podcasting, and yes, even social networking sites. Over the past three months, I’ve been working more and more with these types of organizations through a company called Silas Partners. Silas Partners’ aim is to help churches and the like to use the web more effectively. As an [...]
Dennis McDonald on Corporate Resistance to Web 2.0 and the Gartner ‘Hype Cycle’
I had lunch with Dennis McDonald yesterday. We were initially introduced through the LinkedinBloggers Group, where he is now one of the moderators. Dennis is a consultant focusing on “strategy, assessment, planning, and project management support to organizations that manage information technology (I.T.) and the business processes that I.T. supports.” As he described to me [...]
University 2.0 and Boston College’s John Gallaugher
As a Computer Science undergrad at Boston College, I regretfully admit that I only took one business class. But the one class I took was more than worth it. Professor John Gallaugher taught me how to think about the Internet and web strategically. His eCommerce class in some ways put me on the career path [...]
Empower a Steve 2.0
Two weekends ago, I went on a little trip with some of my old buddies who I rarely see any more. We caught up on a lot of things, including what I had been up to with TECHNOSIGHT. Yes, the geek jokes flowed but they also were really interested to learn more about blogs, podcasts, [...]
The Tyranny of the Blogosphere
I’m back in the saddle after an excellent vacation and I have to admit, I don’t feel like I missed much. During my trip to the Olympics, I wasn’t online except for a handful of times. I sent a couple of e-mails to the fam and kept some friends updated on my adventures but that [...]
Technology, Guilt, and the Olympics
Today’s communication technologies – including cell phones, e-mail, and blogs – can drive users to a heavy sense of guilt. If I were to try and put my finger on it, I’d say it is because we live in a “fast food” culture, where instant gratification is not expected, it is demanded. But instant access [...]
Would I date someone who doesn’t have a blog?
In my circle of friends, I’m known as ‘the geek’. I’m ‘the blogger’, who doesn’t do any real work, I just blog. More and more of my friends are starting blogs though and it’s not just because of me either. I’m finding people my age (twenty-somethings) are really getting into blogging. These aren’t business blogs, [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – Knowledge Collection
In the case of the Web 2.0 Watermill, there are primarily four areas where technology is beginning to facilitate a vastly improved Internet: knowledge collection, knowledge discovery, knowledge building, and knowledge sharing. – Ken Yarmosh, Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business Traditional collaborative and communication efforts in the business environment are soon to be [...]
Giving Blogbeat a try
Brian Benzinger’s post on Blogbeat prompted me to give it a try. I’ve disabled MeasureMap for the time being. I actually heard of Blogbeat prior to MeasureMap – I think via Steve Rubel, although I can’t remember – but they were closed to the public until recently. While I’m generally quite a big fan of [...]
Small Businesses Need to Harness the Internet
I’ve just been too swamped to call in for my small business Ultimate Small Business Marketing System over the last two courses. I’m now making an effort to go through the material – thankfully, John provides digital downloads, including audio files. The most recent course is called Harness the Internet. First off, I’ve got to [...]
Opportunities 2006 – Usefulness
2006 is going to be a year where the creators of web technology have the opportunity to make their services better in terms of integration, usability, and usefulness. – Ken Yarmosh, Looking towards 2006 I recently saw a man walking through the airport while on his cell. He had a hands-free device, where the microphone [...]
Details of Arrington’s Edgeio Released
According to this piece on MercuryNews.com, Edgeio is… a search engine blog for classified ads posted on blogs Those are the first details I’ve read about Edgeio. I’m sure it was no accident, as Mike and company plan to release it sometime within the next month or so. tagged under Edgeio, Mike Arrington
Technorati TagCloud for my Blog
I often check my Technorati account and recently came across something new. It seems on my profile page that Technorati has created a “Top Tags” tagcloud for me. Pretty neat. tagged under Technorati, Ken Yarmosh
Roll your own Firefox Search Engine
Dave Pell was nice enough to give me a heads up on Rollyo’s new simplified means to create customized Firefox Search Engines. After adding sources, the user clicks “Create Search Engine” and then is quickly prompted to add the Searchroll to Firefox. While this sort of feature was available before, this tweak was a smart [...]
7 Ways to Avoid Blogging Burnout
A quote often attributed to Robert Frost reads, “If there is no discovery for the writer, there is none for the reader.” Indeed, blogging is tremendously rewarding on a number of levels. But blogging is largely a labor of love. Only a relatively small subset of bloggers generate any substantial revenue from their advertisements. Even [...]
Opportunities 2006 – Integration
2006 is going to be a year where the creators of web technology have the opportunity to make their services better in terms of integration, usability, and usefulness. – Ken Yarmosh, Looking towards 2006 Integration – Web 2.0 services must be seamless Yahoo! has the opportunity to be the poster child of an integrated Web [...]
Looking towards 2006
2006 will not be a year of massive Web 2.0 adoption The biggest lesson I’ve learned from my countless non-geek interactions this year is that we are far from reaching mainstream penetration of Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, RSS, tagging, social bookmarks, wikis, podcasts, etc.). Web 2.0 services are too disconnected, unintuitive, and often are impractical. [...]
Reflecting on 2005
2005 was a big year for the Web. It consisted of a slew of conferences, a seemingly unending amount of product and service launches, significant acquisitions by major players, and an incredible adoption of many new technologies. Before looking towards 2006, I’d like to make several high-level observations about what has occurred in 2005. These [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – The Web 2.0 Watermill
The historical origins of the watermill are quite simple: innovators sought a way to harness the force of water to accomplish work more easily and efficiently. Mechanical energy could boost production and reallocate human resources to other efforts. But prior to rotary motion, the watermill was not possible. Water existed and milling existed. Yet the [...]
Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business – First Steps
Here is my first post in my new series on why “Web 2.0″ matters to your business. I’ll start by speaking to the concept of “Web 2.0″. Note that I am making no attempt to define it because I do not believe it to have a formal definition. Most definitions used by the larger technical [...]
Offline Efficiency in an Online World
Blackberries and cell phones, email and the World Wide Web, or even computers themselves can actually hamper your productivity. Most people allow each and every email in their inbox to interrupt their day. The web also offers the definitive procrastination tool for someone ‘who just needs a break’. How much uninterrupted and focused work do [...]
7 Must Have Firefox Search Plugins
After writing about my Rollyo Everything Web 2.0 Firefox Search Plugin several weeks ago, I realized that to their detriment, many people do not take advantage of or customize their Firefox Search Toolbar. There are an inordinate amount of search plugins out there and by a simple click, you make Firefox and your browsing experience [...]
Crash Course on Blogging – December 19th
Hosted at The Leadership Institute December 19th, 7-9:30 PM Are you a Washington, D.C., metro area non-profit organization ready to take the plunge into blogging? Are you confused, skeptical, or outright frustrated with the process? Then Crash Course on Blogging is exactly what you need. This two-and-a-half hour seminar will demystify the technical and social [...]
Show Me the Money
Last week, I had a really great discussion with a really great (non-blogosphere) friend. We had a long talk about blogs, RSS, podcasting, and all these crazy new web technologies. This particular guy (who I’ll call ‘B’) is in sales and sells business intelligence solutions to federal agencies. He is responsible for bringing in some [...]
CNET on Wikis
CNET is doing a special five day report entitled “Taking back the Web”. I just finished reading day two, which is dedicated to wikis. If you are trying to wrap your head around wikis or want to read about some of their applications, go read How wikis are changing our view of the world. Although [...]
Educating Potential Clients
As many of you know, the TECHNOSIGHT website and this blog in particular is essentially my virtual office and gateway to potential clients, colleagues, partners, and those interested in learning or following the latest technology trends. I have to admit that I have been amazed at the success I’ve had as a consultant simply because [...]
IBM Software Tracks Blogs
11/07/05 IBM today introduced a new software solution that enables businesses to make sense of the explosion of information from emerging social networks on the Web to deliver new insight into brand reputation and customer, competitor and public opinion about their company. – from Market Wire IBM’s new Public Image Monitoring Solution “assesses the tone [...]
The Struggle to Find your Niche
One of the major problems with blogging is the struggle to find your niche. Original content is what makes a blog unique and worthwhile. It is what makes a blog a ‘must read’. It is what makes someone subscribe to your RSS feed. Bloggers who get to ‘break stories’ or have the ‘first scoop’ on the latest news [...]
Galley Review – Naked Conversations
I’d like to thank Shel Israel and Robert Scoble for selecting me as one of the galley reviewers for their new book Naked Conversations. When I finally received my copy of the galley, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I hadn’t followed their blog until they nearly finished the book. Naked Conversations more than surprised [...]
Pajamas Media and the Value of Blogs
David Cohn of Wired News poses a very relative question, Will Pajamas Media Wake up Blogs? I would argue that blogs are already awake or at least they’ve awoken and just haven’t gotten out of bed. From the most recent numbers that I pointed to in yesterday’s interview, there are a relatively small number of [...]
Interview with Sphere CEO Tony Conrad
Last week, I contacted Tony Conrad for an interview about Sphere, a new blog search engine presently in private beta testing. Tony, who is the CEO of Sphere was gracious enough to agree, amidst a very busy schedule. I’ve been lucky to beta test Sphere and think Tony and his team are off to a great [...]
Three More RSS Hacks
Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion detailed some of his best RSS tips and tricks in a post entitled Ten RSS Hacks. Steve’s post shows that RSS offers much more than simply streamlined reading of blogs and breaking news stories. Although Steve took some of the better tips, I’ll share three of my own Track job searches [...]
Memeorandum and Blogniscient
Want to read “the most relevant items from thousands of news sites and weblogs” or to “find the needle in the blog haystack” – memeorandum and Blogniscient are your answers. These aren’t blog search engines like Technorati and IceRocket. Instead they aim to give a snapshot of the blogosphere’s biggest buzz by highlighting the topics [...]
What do I do for a living?
After the second session of my Ultimate Marketing System I took a step back from what I’ve been attempting to do through TECHNOSIGHT to ask myself, “What is it that I do for a living?” John believes that the answer to this question is critical in communicating the real value of your service or product to your clients. It’s simply not [...]
Elicit
I am trying out a new product called Elicit to write this post. It is a blog client by Bingo Bango Software. WordPress 1.5.x does not offer me a WYSIWYG interface or spell checking and so I find it quite an annoyance to write and edit my posts solely online. I’ve tried other similar programs such [...]
Who Am I Reaching?
Through my blog, I attempt to – Gain credence with my peers. Gain credence with my clients (or potential clients). During the first session of The Ultimate Marketing System, I was challenged to think about my target market and realized that I couldn’t achieve those goals based on the organization of my blog. My writings [...]
Blogging The Ultimate Marketing System
John Jantsch is a proven leader and innovator in the small business marketing space. His Duct Tape Marketing website is a Forbes Best of the Web selection. I’ve been reading his and other blogs about small business marketing via the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel for the past several months. As an independent professional, I’ve [...]
Noone Group Releases Brandable RSS News Reader
Noone Group and Mioplanet Technologies released an interesting approach to a news reader today. According to their press release, the The Noone Group Newsreader is a brandable, customizable RSS news reader with keyword and headline alerts. It is user friendly, ready to use, and requires very little disk space due to the superb MioEngine. Updates [...]
Understanding Content Management Systems
My implementation of WordPress as a fully functioning content management system for my site prompted me to write a layman’s explanation of CMS (CMS is short for content management system). My most recent post on The Virtual Handshake examines this exact topic. I think the following two paragraphs sum of the key points of what [...]
WordPress: A Complete CMS
My entire site is now managed by WordPress. It took a bit of research and held a couple of challenges but overall was not too bad. I’ll highlight some of the more difficult parts of the migration below – Maintaining Link Structure Since WordPress previously acted solely as my blogging platform (it resided under the [...]
Blogs versus Wikis
As I have written in the past, wikis are collaborative tools that essentially allow any web page of a site to be easily edited without a user having any knowledge of HTML. Blogs and wikis are two specific types of content management systems (CMS). As such, one of their key goals is to provide a [...]
Room for Another Blog Network?
The prolific Darren Rose posed an interesting question earlier today, Is there Room for Another Blog Network? Why yes Darren, I’d say (or rather write) that there is. There are a couple of different approaches when it comes to blog networks, each of which caters to different audiences. The 9rules network appeals to those who [...]
One Service, Two Faces
One of the most interesting parts of Google’s release of its new blog search is that it was launched both via the Google and Blogger brand (I discovered the Blogger brand via Fred Wilson). While the search results are the same (with a few different features via the Blogger side of things – examined momentarily), [...]
A Real World Example of RSS
One accepted definition of RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”. While not necessarily used in everyday language, the last word of RSS – “syndication” – should not be a foreign concept to people. Radio talk show hosts are often syndicated. Their shows are picked up by local radio stations, so that a host based in Los [...]
WordPress.com Invitation is Up for Grabs!
In order to spur the debate of my previous post entitled The Best Blog Search Engine, I thought I might sweeten the deal. Soon after I responded to a comment on my WP.com blog about how invites for WP.com were not working like gmail, low and behold, I found where the ONE precious invitation was [...]
The Best Blog Search Engine
I am very interested to know what you think is the best blog search engine. Yes, it is somewhat of a loaded question – each possess different tools and utilize varying methodologies to yield their results. Still, I am looking for compelling reasons for why one is better than another. This morning I deactivated the [...]
Will the real WordPress.com audience please stand up?
WordPress.com has caused a real buzz in the blogosphere. Perhaps the new craze has been culminated by none other than Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion mentioning his consideration to switching to WordPress (and his link points to “.com” and not “.org”). I’ve both read and received several questions regarding WordPress.com – “How is WordPress.com going [...]
WordPress.com Blog
I was lucky enough to receive an invite to WordPress.com. Of course, meeting Matt Mullenweg at the BBS out in San Francisco did not hurt. I am going to do my best to try and point out any bugs to them, as they get closer to the launch (whenever that may be). Check out the [...]
BBS05 – Corporate Policy and Strategy
Rebecca Blood and Matthew Oliphant were two of the better presenters of the BBS. Each of them brought their A game, when addressing both the policy and strategy approaches to the realm of blogging. Rebecca provided a whirlwind of information, in bite-sized bullets – Policy is separate from strategy Establish legal liability – Inform employees [...]
BBS05 – Blog Writing Tips
Not everyone should blog, according to Molly Holzschlag and Darren Barefoot – well, at least not in the corporate environment. The best bloggers for your organization will be those who are passionate about your business (and not necessarily part of upper management). Just as important, they need to be articulate. Some other points include – [...]
BBS05 – Blogging and Feeds Legitimized
To keep it simple, here is what you should take away from the Microsoft keynote this morning – blogging and feeds are officially legitimized. Microsoft is in the technology business. Sure, their approach is almost exclusively proprietary. Sure, their motive is related to their bottom line. But if they are “betting big on bloggers and [...]
BBS05 – WordPress.com is Simply Awesome!
As a proud WordPress user, I attended the early demo presented by Matt Mullenweg (of WordPress). I thought it was going to be a basic “here is WordPress” like session. I must say, I was more than surprised by what I heard. Matt announced WordPress.com, a new hosted version of WordPress. The feature set is [...]
BBS05 – Addressing Technology Questions
For newcomers to the world of blogging and feeds, the BBS might lead to more questions than answers when it comes to understanding these technologies. Should I offer partial or full feeds? Should I be concerned with design? What blogging platform or news reader is the right or best one for me? Where does that [...]
BBS05 – Dave Taylor and “Findability”
The BBS05 got off to a great start with Dave Taylor. He presented a most excellent session today, providing attendees with a crash course on Business Blogging – those in attendance got more than their money’s worth. Probably the most interesting idea Dave spoke about, in relations to both blogging and RSS, is what he [...]
Collaborative Power via Wikis
The New Internet offers a number of ways to make your work day more efficient. While blogs are all the buzz right now my bet is that wikis will have a more profound impact in the office. The reason? Blogs do have an interactive element, where thoughts other than the author’s can be shared (typically [...]
Blogging Basics
I’d like to announce the official opening of the TECHNOSIGHT wiki. The purpose of this wiki is to create a knowledge-base for the New Internet, detailing and defining its technology, best practices, uses, and more. The success of this wiki is very much dependent on you! Both the content and the maintenance of the wiki [...]
Order from Chaos
Businesses and organizations are catching on to RSS. The verdict: RSS is a welcome addition to the workplace. InformationWeek puts a spot on RSS today in an article entitled Order from Chaos via RSS. Here are a couple of the key excerpts: [RSS] technology, used for the past few years by bloggers and news junkies, [...]
Blog Business Summit
I’ll have the pleasure of attending the Blog Business Summit from August 17th – 19th out in San Francisco, CA. The summit will feature the most prominent and well-respected voices in the arena of business blogging, including Dave Taylor, Robert Scoble, and Molly Holzschlag. Here are a couple of samples from the great sessions that [...]
GM to Business: Embrace Blogs
GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz makes a strong case for corporate blogging. In a piece for Information Week, he writes To me, the blog is a way for GM to be culturally relevant. It allows us to be on the leading edge of new technology while getting our strong views out there about our cars [...]
Big Blue Jumps In
Blogs may have just moved to the next level. IBM is set to include a blogging tool in its Workspace 2.6 software collaboration platform. IBM knows first hand the benefits of blogging. Being an early adapter of this technology, they have tapped into the power of dark blogs (see The Power of Dark Blogs). That [...]
Great Content
The New Internet can make adding great content to your site a breeze. Great content is critical to the success of your online presence. But don’t just take our word for it. Chris Alden, a seasoned business man and CEO of Rojo states Content is the third “killer app” of the Internet, after email and [...]
What is a wiki?
Wikis are dynamic online knowledge sharing tools. The term “wiki” means “quick” or “informal” in Hawaiian. Wikipedia, the most famous of all wikis, describes a wiki as a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. The term Wiki also refers to [...]
Combining Technology: Linkblog and RSS
Today, I added a behind the scenes feature to the site, which will help with the management of the NEW INTERNET PRESS section on our homepage. To this point, I updated this section via HTML code. There were two major problems with this approach: Everyday, I manually made changes to our code and then re-uploaded [...]
A Brief RSS Introduction
Many companies, organizations, and websurfers are still oblivious to RSS. Here at TECHNOSIGHT, we want you to realize the benefits of this technology. Mainstream news outlets are learning that without RSS they will be left in the dust. But what is all the hype about? Andy Ihnatko wrote a great introduction to RSS in the [...]
Corporate Blogging: Is it Worth the Hype?
In a recent white paper entitled Corporate Blogging: Is it Worth the Hype?, Backbone Media provides an in-depth analysis of blogging within the business world. Their conclusion: corporate blogging lives up to the hype. Respondents of the survey indicated that starting a blog led to immediate results, including better thought leadership and idea sharing, more [...]
The Power of Dark Blogs
An interesting article highlights a fundamental belief of TECHNOSIGHT, the power of dark blogs. Dark blogs are blogs that exist solely within an intranet (in more technical terms, behind the firewall). Many companies and organizations are obsessed with having a blog presence, simply for having a blog presence. They believe a blog is crucial to [...]
