Until January 25 you can download The Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging for free. Though it is a bit repetitive, the guide covers all the basics (including ‘what is a blog?’) and explains how a blog can be good for business.
Category Archives: Technology
Think Different
Ten Days to Blogger of the Year
ABC News declared bloggers People of the Year in 2004. As part of the story 11-year-old Dylan Verdi was featured as the youngest videoblogger.
She posted her first entry on December 20, 2004. The ABC News camera crew showed up on December 29. The Person of the Year story aired on December 30, leading off with her story.
Of course her dad tells the whole story in video. And you’ve got to love her video about getting a record player for Christmas–forget iPods! (link via Nick Ciske)
The God Pod
Move over, U2. It’s Billy’s turn: The iPod Billy Graham Special Edition.
(link via Nick Ciske, my hero)
iPod Envy
The already popular iPod took an enormous leap forward today with the official announcement of a U2-themed iPod and a new color screen photo iPod with a 60 GB capacity. While the cool factor has been advanced incredibly, the new products don’t do a whole lot to advance the usefulness of the already useful iPod. A color screen is cool and photos in my pocket are fun, but unless you’re a real photograph buff there’s no need to carry your photo albums everywhere you go. It’s not like you can browse photos while you drive or while jogging down the block.
But nevertheless, cool new features. The black and red U2 iPod is the first time the traditional iPod has been seen in anything but white. It also comes with a $50 gift certificate to buy “The Complete U2,” which sounds like the band’s complete catalog. Not a bad bit of marketing for Apple or U2, who release their newest album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in less than a month. (thanks to Nick for the heads-up)
In other U2 news, you can watch a video of U2’s legendary Live Aid performance of “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” all a part of the release of the Live Aid DVD.
I Should Become a Real Techie
Sigh. Those short reviews so break the mold with the giant Amazon link on the side. I really need to do something about that.
What I really want is a flexible system of reviewing that allows me to post long rants (like so) or quick one-off’s (like so). I really like how Jason Kottke handles his movie reviews. There’s room to go in-depth, but he also has a handy-dandy color-coded ranting system. It’s totally arbitrary, but it helps you see where movies stack up. But I think he also used quite a few Movable Type plug-ins to get that to work. I’m not that much of a hacking genius. I also like having the images and links to Amazon (thus the enormous boxes that break things on shorter reviews — using the Amazon code means Amazon feeds it and I don’t have to save and upload all those stupid images).
Sheesh, all this to be some kind of web empire guy. Or more or less have a running archive of all the movies/books/music I’ve enjoyed (or cared about enough to say something about).
Maybe one of these days I’ll become a real techie so I can make my web site do exactly what I want it to do.
The Business of Blogging
More and more people are understanding that blogging can be a boost for business. It’s not just the content, it’s about providing easy, timely updates that don’t require the help of the IT department. It’s about interacting with customers, rather than just talking at them. It’s about showing a personal side, rather than a blank wall of stiff press releases.
Blogging for business has come up before, and we’ll hear about it again.
I’m a Ramblin’ Man
The past two days I’ve been writing a ton, which is often a sign that I’m about to be away from my computer. I know I won’t be able to get some of these thoughts down over the next few days, so I frantically scramble to get them out while I can. There’s always next week, but I may lose them by then.
That and the fact that when I last redesigned my thoughts homepage, I included the latest entries from several other blogs. Which means there’s less than five or six days worth of entries at one time on my homepage. That seems so minimal, like people will be missing so much.
Those are just my impressions, but I don’t need to read my own blog, so I don’t know what it’s like for you, my readers. So how’s that new homepage working out? Do you like seeing what’s on my other blogs? Or is it annoying? I can say I’ve had more comments on my other blogs than I usually get, which says to me it’s doing the trick.
Anyway, just one last random entry before I head out this weekend. I’m going to Crosswoods camp with the youth group (and minus my spouse), so it should be a good time. Though no computer, no wife, no dog and today’s continual rain is kind of lame. But I like to have low expectations going into these things so then when it’s not that bad I end up having a blast.
Swimming in Syrup
The University of Minnesota has proved that people can swim just as fast in water as they can in syrup. It will be a defining scientific break through for our times, and it happened in my home town. Proud does not begin to describe how that makes me feel. (link via kottke.org)
The End of Television as We Know It
A former TV academy chair ponders the future of TV and home entertainment — by looking at his family watching different screens spread throughout the house.