Blogging, Social Software, and why should you care?
Vincent Oberle
What is a blog? 1/2
- A blog (a web log) is basically a journal that is available on the web
- The activity of updating a blog is "blogging"
- Someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger"
- Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little
or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.
- Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with
the most recent additions featured most prominantly.
- Blogs aren't just for personal sites.
Sites of all kinds can employ blogs to keep visitors informed and up to date.
- A real phenomenon: 5 millions blogs
- Has an impact:
- On journalism: Blogger influence during US elections
- On corporate marketing
- How people access information
What is a blog? 2/2
- Anatomy of a blog post:
Tools: Reading blogs
- At the beginning, a list of bookmark that had to be checked manually
for new contents
- Made it automatic: Webfeeds
- Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed
for sharing headlines and other Web content.
Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site.
- Aggregators:
- RSSBandit, etc: Windows client programs
- NewsGator: plugin for Outlook
- NetNewsWire (Mac)
- Yahoo's RSS Client: Part of My Yahoo!
- Bloglines, etc: Online reader
- It's spam-proof!
Tools: Publishing blogs
- Many free or commercial tools, no Do-It-Yourself needed
- Examples:
- Host it on your own domain
- Enabling the discussion: Comments, trackbacks
Type of blogs
- Personnal
- Corporate
- Intranet
Personnal blogs
- Become your own brand
- just like magazine and newspaper columnists do.
- Developing your network:
- Live resume:
- shows the human side
- shows who you are and how you think
- etc.
Corporate blogs 1/2
-
"In many cases, it is the intimate person-to-person nature of a blog that
helps establish and maintain a relationship with an existing or potential customer.
For many small businesses a personal relationship is their main difference
from a 'faceless' large organization." - Dan Bricklin
- Several CEO blogging (Sun,
etc)
- One new form of corporate communication / marketing
- Great for developing and maintaining relationships, building the network
Corporate blogs 2/2
- Example: Blogger Robert Scoble "saved Microsoft" (said the BBC)
- Shows the people behind the corporation
- Discusses Microsoft as well competitors products
- Building credibility
- This is NOT about revealing internal information
- Scoble post about corporate blogging
- Tools like Technorati, Feedster can help you keep track of what your customers are saying.
Intranet blogs
- What makes an effective Intranet? (Robert Scoble):
- Can everyone publish?
- Is it hard-to-learn?
- Does it have a discussion board?
- Did it take more than an hour to setup?
- How easy is it to create new projects?
- Does it cost more than $1000?
- Does it work through firewalls?
- Can it publish to Palm devices?
- Blogs can effectively replace many mailing-lists
- Managing projets, publishing weeklies, etc
- Other social software: Wikis
- The idea: Like a blog, only anyone can edit, append, and create.
- Sharepoint-like