The disaster of Hurricane Katrina is mind-boggling. My heart goes out to all those affected. Like so many folks, I have a special feeling for the city of New Orleans. Inconceivable to think of 80 percent of the city being underwater.

Coincidentally, I'm writing a chapter in my book that considers the crossover of blogging from the realm of the personal to that of small business and corporate America.

One reason is human behaviour. In a crisis, people increasingly are turning to blogs to get an account of what's really happening. They expect a blog to tell them in an in-the-moment, ragged, authentic voice, typos and all. They expect to see photos and video, however raw…

RSS expert Rok Hrastnik has penned a lucid explanation of the relationship between blogs, ezines, RSS and email. As he puts it:

"Blogs and e-zines or newsletters are "the what" --- what you publish online ... the content side.

RSS and e-mail are "the how" --- how you get that content or information to the reader ... the delivery side."

Read Rok's riff.

And online marketing pioneer Ralph F. Wilson has a few sage words on blogs vs. ezines and how they overlap.

As he puts it:

"... for those who don't follow your blog, send out a monthly newsletter made up of the most important or enduring blog entries, carefully edited, with URLs to other important entries in…

I'd love your thumbs up or down on the title and proposed sub-titles for the book I'm writing for Penguin Portfolio. We're trying to nail it. The current front-runner is The Corporate Blogging Book. It's so stupidly obvious we're thinking it just might work. Plus it will rank high in search engine results. Kind of like a blog that uses keywords effectively... Waddya think? Click here to vote on proposed titles.

Click over to debbie's blog to get the scoop on what I've been reading this summer. Oh, and while you're at it, I want your thumbs up or down on the title and proposed sub-titles for the book. We're trying to nail it. The current front-runner is The Corporate Blogging Book. It's so stupidly obvious we're thinking it just might work. Plus it will rank high in search engine results. Kind of like an effective blog... get it?? Waddya think? Click here to vote on proposed titles.

In response to a WordBiz survey, 65% cite "the time it would take to write" as their most important concern about starting and maintaining a corporate blog. 51% worry what to write about. 27% wonder who in their company should write the blog.

Despite these legitimate concerns, 80% of the over 700 respondents say blogs are NOT just a fad; 55% say blogs will become a "must-have" corporate marketing tool. The survey was conducted in July and August 2005 through my newsletter, WordBiz Report.  [Download PDF of survey results.]

Wow. I was fascinated by these results.* They tell me that respondents are admitting to a healthy mixture of excitement and skepticism when it comes to corporate…