Order your copy of David Meerman Scott's terrific "New Rules of Marketing & PR"

One of the things I like most about David Meerman Scott's just-released book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, is the fresh, conversational voice it's written in. Yes, you can call it blog-like.

David is a friend and colleague so I'm lucky enough to be sitting here with my autographed copy in hand. He writes, wisely, in his introduction:

From the Introduction

"As the lines between marketing and PR on the Web have blurred so much as to be unrecognizable, the best media choice is often not as obvious as in the old days. But I had to organize the book somehow, and I chose to create chapters for the various online media, including blogs, podcasts, online forums, social networking, and so on.

But the truth is that all these tools and techniques intersect one another. Some things were difficult to place in a particular chapter, such as the discussion on RSS (Really Simple Syndication). I moved that section four times before settling on chapter 13."

And he continues...

"As I was writing, I was wishing I could link you (like in a blog) from one chapter to a part of another chapter. Alas, a printed book doesn't allow that, so instead I have included suggestions where you might skip ahead or go back for review on certain topics... You'll notice that I write in a familiar and casual tone, rather than the formal and stilted way of many business books, because I'm using my "blog voice" to share the new rules with you."

I suffered the same challenge in writing The Corporate Blogging Book (which David kindly mentions on page 202). It is indeed much easier to write "online" these days than to write a book so I like David's frank admission of how he handled it.

A super useful read

This is a super useful read for any business person wondering why the heck he or she needs to understand blogs or podcasting or social media press releases or viral marketing. The answer is tied up neatly in David's introduction. And then amply illustrated throughout with specific chapters on audio content, blogs, forums & wikis, going viral, etc.

There's a Foreword by uber-blogger Robert Scoble which is really more about Scoble (and what he did at Microsoft) than about David. But it's a good read too.

The book was officially published on June 4, 2007. Order your copy today on Amazon! It's ranked #112 in book sales as I write -- which is a fantastic achievement. Go David!

David's special offer - valid through Friday June 8th

Purchase your copy of New Rules of Marketing & PR on Amazon by Friday June 8, 2007 and David will send you a CD of his audio seminar on Online News Releases. Details here.

My gmail inbox is 96% full...

Like so many others, I've long struggled with an overflowing email inbox. And a love/hate relationship with email. I wrote a column for ClickZ on Email Addiction over six years ago. It got more response from readers (from all over the world) than anything else I wrote for them.

I missed VC and well-known blogger Fred Wilson's declaration of Email Bankruptcy on April 23, 2007. (VC Jeff Nolan filed for email bankruptcy the next day.) Mike Musgrove writes about Fred on the front page of today's Washington Post: E-Mail Reply to All: 'Leave Me Alone.'

Interestingly, Mike gets it wrong. Fred is twittering from his blog this Friday morning of Memorial Day Weekend. He twitters:

"on the east end of long island, perfect weather, doing email and blogging. got to get outside!"

- Fred Wilson, twittering on May 25, 2007

So what's a gal to do? Yesterday I found a link to LifeHacker's How to free up space in gmail. I may try that. On the other hand, I may go outside and enjoy this beautiful weekend. Waddya think??

Update on email bankruptcy in The Guardian

Fiona Walsh, online business editor of The Guardian asked me to write an article about "email bankruptcy." Here's how it ran: The secret of happiness: delete all (June 11, 2007)

P.S.

It took less than 30 minutes to get my Gmail inbox down to 81 percent full using LifeHacker's tip.

Take Melcrum's Social Media Survey

My friends over at Melcrum Publishing are running a Social Media Usage survey. Click here to take it (it's quick).

You get a nifty free download at the end: Melcrum's Quick Start Guide to Social Media for Internal Communicators (a 23-page PDF).

The survey is aimed at large corporations and asks about your use (or intended use) of blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking tools, RSS, Second Life, online video, etc.

Social Media for Internal Communicators in London - March 22, 2007

I'm speaking at Melcrum's social media conference in London in a couple of weeks. Topic: What's Your Story? Getting the Tone and Content of Blogs Right. Attendees will get a copy of my Content Strategy Workbook -- one of the things that will be included in... (drum roll)... The Corporate Blogging Toolkit.

I'm developing it now. It's an extension of The Corporate Blogging Book, designed to be a practical blueprint and manual to launch a corporate or CEO blog.

Consider this a below-the-radar announcement. More TK.

Please subscribe to this blog via RSS

It's almost 2007. Ya gotta embrace RSS! Don't sweat the acronym (Really Simple Syndication). Don't sweat the explanation of how RSS works (via Seth Godin). Just do it!

This blog, BlogWrite For CEOs, now has 1,601 subscribers via FeedBurner. Please subscribe via RSS. (Follow easy instructions after you click through.) Think of it as a Web feed. No email involved. You'll get an alert via your RSS newsreader of choice (see below) every time there's a new entry.

If you're already subscribed via RSS and can leave a useful comment for those new to RSS below, please do so. Much appreciated.

RSS newsreaders that subscribers are using

The screenshot below shows what RSS newsreader subscribers are using. The majority (33 percent) are using Bloglines. Next is Rojo (31 percent). Then NewsGator Online (11 percent) and Netvibes (6 percent). Interestingly, Feedblitz (the "email version" of Feedburner) accounts for 11 percent. Note that these are all free.

Have you RSS'd yourself? A must-learn (easy) trick for 2007

This little trick goes on your "must do" list for 2007. It's so easy that my techie friends will laugh at my simple explanation, to follow.

Forget them. This blog is for the un-cool, the rest-of-us, the "real people (who) don't blog" as my husband called them in the opening line of The Corporate Blogging Book.

He's wrong of course. We do blog, many of us. We read blogs, almost all the rest of us. But that's the whole point of the book and of Time Magazine's 2006 Person of the Year - You!

Why you should RSS yourself

This is not an exercise in vanity, BTW. It's your no-cost, real-time way of monitoring the blogosphere and then engaging where appropriate or as time permits. I love leaving comments on a new blog where someone is kind enough to mention my book. The blogger is always astonished that I "discovered" his/her blog. But really, it's so easy...

How to RSS Yourself

There are two steps to RSS'ing yourself:

1. You create persistent keyword searches

2. You subscribe to those search results via RSS

The basic idea is that you use RSS (my RSS 101) to set up persistent keyword searches. You search on your name, your company name, product, brand, service, etc. And any keyword phrases related to your industry or your interests.

I have keyword searches set up on "debbie weil," "the corporate blogging book," "corporate blogging," "corporate blogging guidelines," "ceo bloggers," etc. You get the idea.

Then you have the results of those keyword searches delivered to you through your RSS newsreader. Technically, you "subscribe" to your keyword search results just as you would subscribe to a blog.

Set up persistent keyword searches using Google, Bloglines and Technorati

For starters, use Google news alerts (via Google News), Bloglines and Technorati to set up your searches.

For example, type your name "in quotes" into the Technorati search bar (as below). When the results come up, look for the little orange "Subscribe" icon on the right. Click (or right-click) the icon to copy the link. Then insert that link into your RSS reader of choice as a new "subscription."

I use Bloglines because it's Web-based and I find it simple to use. Some folks like Google's Reader. (Both are free.)

Below are what my keyword search results look like in my Bloglines account. The first screenshot shows you the RSS results for a Google news alert search on "debbie weil."

1. Google News Alert on "debbie weil" viewed through Bloglines

2. Technorati results on "debbie weil" viewed through Bloglines

3. Bloglines search on "debbie weil" viewed through Bloglines

Why three separate searches? They deliver different results

If you're wondering why I use Google news alerts, Technorati and Bloglines to do the persistent searching, it's because they deliver different results: mentions on blogs, in news articles, in other languages, etc. RSS searching is still an imperfect science. But hey, it's free. And it's useful. No more excuses... go for it in 2007!

P.S. Another useful idea

Anil Dash, VP and Chief Evangelist for Six Apart does something clever. He uses the HTML results of a Google news search on his name in the media/press section of his bio.

Writes Anil Dash on his bio:

"You can see a list of recent press mentions and quotes on Google News, and most recent articles mentioning Six Apart are available on the Six Apart press page."

Useful Links

RSS 101 (my 5-step guide to get started)

RSS: Should You Bother? (great round-up of links and resources by Mark Goren)

Untangle the World Wide Web With RSS (Reuters - Dec. 29, 2006)

Blogging, Podcasting & RSS 101 (my round-up of links)

New York Times columnist David Pogue misses his calling as stand-up comedian

I haven't laughed so hard in ages. David Pogue, The New York Times popular personal technology columnist, gave the keynote at today's Bulldog Reporter's conference on advanced PR technologies in New York.

He strode in - tall, lean, clean-cut, dark suit, very corporate looking. Within two minutes he was hopping up and down at the lecturn and screeching, making fun of everything related to "social" media ("I hate buzz words," he said). Think Robin Williams (except tall and lean, etc.) and you've got the picture.

I suspect some of his jokes went right by the earnestly intent audience of PR professionals gathered at the Yale Club to learn the latest and greatest about corporate blogging, online video, wikis, SEO and online measurement. All of his slick-looking PowerPoint charts were fake (I rode down in the elevator with him and he confirmed this.)

One slide was labeled "Movie Tickets Sold" and underneath "in gazillions." Another purported to show the explosion in social media between now and 2009. "These things are new and there's going to be a lot more of them," he dead panned. The legend explaining the hockey stick curves included "splogs" (OK they do exist),"klogs" and "phlogs."

"I love making these charts with PowerPoint," he said. "It's so easy."

Some useful tidbits...

On Social Media

Blogs are self-expression via text; podcasts are self-expression via audio; V-logs are self-expression via video. "These tools are NOT equivalent," he said. "Social media as one entity doesn't exist. Some people don't want to appear in front of a camera. Anyone can write a blog. The ability to speak well for a podcast is less common." (I'm paraphrasing.)

On Web 2.0

His slide showed a giant ugly brown spider clinging to a web. "This Web 2.0 thing," he called it, "is where the audience provides the content."

The New York Times on blogging

"It's like an elephant trying to put on ballet slippers - very tentative, very conservative."

Social media ideas for PR practitioners

Off the top of his head, he said, some ideas for PR folks. Use blogs, podcasts, online video for: 

- behind the scenes glimpses of corporate life

- focus groups at Microsoft showing users trying to click and navigate confusing user interfaces

- design prototypes

- videos of employee's cubicles (all the stuff they hang up)

- customer submissions (videos, fan sites, etc.)

Useful Links

Pogue's blog

Pogue's videos for The New York Times (he makes them himself - no staff, no special equipment, no studio)- can't find the link.

I'll add more later...

A few tips from SNCR's Inaugural Research Symposium

Having questioned whether live blogging is a good thing or not... I'm here this morning at The Colonnade in Boston to bring you a few tips from the Society for New Communications Research Inaugural Research Symposium.

First, a word of thanks to SNCR executive director Jennifer McClure who has worked incredibly hard to produce this event. (Thanks Jen!) Second, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am an SNCR Fellow (oops, looks like I need to add my bio).

You won't find anything, er, snarky in what I write today, given that I'm not a totally impartial observer.

The New Influencers

Tech jurnalist and consultant Paul Gillin offers a few highlights from his new book: The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media (to be published in spring 2007).

Tidbits from Paul:

- Used to be that a happy customer tells 3 people about your company; an unhappy customer tells 10 people. Now, via blogs, an unhappy customer tells 10,000 people. He shows as an example the by now iconic video clip of customer Vincent Ferrari trying to cancel his AOL account. (Yes, the AOL customer service rep was ultimately fired.)

- "Marketing has become a spread-sheet driven discipline."  But that's not working anymore, says Gillin. He's referring, presumably, to impressions, click-throughs and other Web metrics that online marketers live and die by.

- Refers to P&G CEO A.G. Lafley's keynote speech to the ANA's annual conference and his key point: marketers are most likely to succeed when they let customers be in control.

More later... maybe. I'm gonna just listen for a while.

Useful Links

AOL said, 'If you leave me, I'll do something crazy' - Randall Stross's Digital Domain column in The New York Times (requires subscription).

Backbone Media and Northeastern University's Blogging Success Study (published Nov. 2, 2006)

We're at the inflection point for corporate blogging

As I noodle around with a number of presentations** I've got coming up (I've finally figured out Keynote for the Mac), I want to take a stand.

It's the end of marketing, advertising and corporate communications "as usual"

It's not enough to say that blogging is important or that social media tools are going mainstream.

Here's my little manifesto

I'm still noodling with it. Feel free to jump in and add something, help me clarify my thoughts or tell me to stuff it:

The Inflection Point of Corporate Blogging

- Blogs and other social media tools are here to stay

- Blogs are just next-generation Web sites

- Social media tools (RSS, blogs, podcasts, video, wikis, etc.) can be used by any company, large or small, B2C or B2B

- They symbolize community, conversation, mutual respect between users and an ethos of sharing

- These tools are more powerful at informing/influencing/persuading than traditional forms of marketing, advertising and corporate communications

- They help you get found online

- If you can't be found, you don't exist

Conclusion: This isn't optional

You gotta start using blogs, podcasts, online video (social media) today!

Defining an inflection point

Google's acquisition of YouTube yesterday for $1.65 billion is extremely significant. (Watch the CNN video with the announcement.)

Yes, it's a lot of money. Yes it's eerily like the dot com boom days when companies with no revenue were perceived to be hugely valuable.

But I see it as more than that. It's a tipping point (thanks to Malcolm Gladwell). Or an inflection point.

Intel's Andy Grove popularized "inflection point" as a business term. It's really a mathematical expression meaning a point on a curve at which the tangent crosses the curve itself. I don't pretend to understand calculus so don't ask me to explain.

Translated into business, it means something new is happening and there's no going back. No more "business as usual."

Read Andy's explanation here. It's an excerpt from his 1996 book, Only the Paranoid Survive:

"Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change... They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let's not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to." - Andy Grove, founder of Intel

** I'm speaking at a bunch of different venues over the next two weeks - both here in the U.S. and also in London (Oct. 18th and Oct. 25th) and at a private event in Paris! (Que j'adore Paris!)

Download a transcript of The Corporate Blogging Book Teleconference

Yesterday's teleconference for The Corporate Blogging Book was a lot of fun. There were nine participants, each of whom purchased five copies of my new book from 800-CEO-Read.

One caller, Cathy Chatfield-Taylor, was energetic enough to take really good notes. Inspired by her efforts, I added a few things (and corrected a few things). Then the 10 of us agreed to offer anyone who's interested the summary transcript as a PDF download.

Here are some of the questions we addressed. They were submitted by participants, an interesting mix of consultants, corporate marketers and non-profit advocacy professionals.

Questions (see PDF for answers)

- What blog platform to use?

- How do you transition a blog from being a content management system to a more engaging interactive communications format?

- What do you do if you've published an ill-conceived post? How do you take it back??

- How do you handle comments? Moderate? Not allow?

- How do you build readership?

- How do you help non-writers blog?

- How can a non-profit raise money with a blog?

- What should an executive think / do / feel after finishing the book?

- What’s not in the book?

Download a PDF transcript of The Corporate Blogging Book Teleconference.

Thanks to Conference Calls Unlimited for sponsoring the teleconference.

Good advice: blog to be found by real people who don't have a clue what RSS is

Jakob Nielsen nails it in his most recent AlertBox column: Use Old Words When Writing for Findability.

While it may be tempting for some of us to opine about Web 2.0 - i.e. the next generation Web, defined in part by user-created content such as YouTube videos, MySpace and Facebook - don't!

If your goal is to be found online by adults (call them customers and prospects if you want to sound really old-school) who don't live and breathe the latest techie terms, then for heaven's sake don't fill your blog entries with terms like RSS and tagging. Most folks don't have a clue.

 

Check out this illustration from eMarketer for an article titled Really Seldom Syndication. eMarketer notes that "merely 2% of US employees subscribe to RSS feeds and only 9% know what such feeds are."

Results of the 2nd Annual 1-Minute Blogging & RSS Survey by WordBiz Report

The results of my 2005 1-Minute Blogging & RSS Survey emphasized that "Time" was the top fear factor holding folks back from creating and maintaining a corporate blog. [PDF summary of 2005 survey - 708 respondents]

This year's results are not dramatically different. "Time" is still a concern. "What to write about" is an equal concern. In addition, the non-adoption rate of RSS continues. 59 percent say they have downloaded an RSS newsreader but only 42 percent are using one to read blogs via RSS.

In reponse to the Corporate Blogging is Dead meme...

73.3 percent said they have considered launching a corporate blog (up from 68 percent in last year's survey).

There were just under 450 responses this year, from a mix of small business and corporate types. Most, presumably, are readers of WordBiz Report, where I advertised the survey. [PDF summary of 2006 survey - 449 respondents]

Update: PR blogger Kami Huyse's excellent round-up of recent blogging surveys is required reading. Her point is that there are lies, damn lies and, er, reports about blogging. She comments on:

• Pew Internet's new report on bloggers: the Internet's storytellers
• Onalytica's new report on influential authorities on "blog marketing"
• Cymfony and Porter Novell's study of "corporate blog owners"

Baseline questions

- 96% of respondents know what a blog is
- 85% know what a podcast is
- 64% know what a wiki is
- 57% are familiar with the term social media

Note: these stats make perfect sense, don't they?

- 59% have downloaded an RSS newsreader
- but only 42% are reading blogs via a newsreader

Note: this corresponds to the non-adoption rate of RSS newsreaders in last year's survey.

Most important concerns about launching & maintaining a corporate blog

59% - Time it would take to write [in 2005 this number was 65%]
57% - What to write about [up from 51% last year]
35% - Who in their company should write the blog
34% - Whether blog entries would need to be pre-approved

Is blogging a fad?

85% - Blogging is *not* a fad
67% - Blogging will become a must-have corporate marketing & communications tool

Last year's responses: In 2005, 80% said blogging was not a fad. 55% said blogs would become a must-have corporate marketing tool.

So the needle is shifting slightly, but noticeably...

Tom Peters' RSS feed for his Free Stuff - cool idea!

One of the things I emphasize when talking to clients is that RSS feeds don't need to be tied to a blog, per se. They can deliver any kind of content or information from your site.

Here's the neatest idea I've seen to date: Tom Peters offers an RSS feed for his Free Stuff. The feed alerts you to new additions to downloadable content from his site - PowerPoint slides, PDFs of his favorite sayings, blog postings, etc.

His Free Stuff page cheerfully lays out the ground rules:

The documents listed here include a number of Tom's most inspiring messages. And they're all absolutely free. Download, print, discuss, dissect, and disseminate to your heart's content. We ask only that you not alter the files, claim them as your own work, or charge for their use.

If you're looking for a new online marketing idea, steal this one!

And a reminder, you need an RSS reader in order to subscribe to the feed. Try Bloglines or My Yahoo! Or (my new favorite) NetNewsWire for Mac. This is the URL you need to paste into your reader: http://tompeters.com/blogs/freestuff/index.xml.

Breakfast (and podcast) with NewComm Forum's Elizabeth Albrycht

Back atcha, as they say! I had breakfast this morning in sunny Palo Alto with Elizabeth Albrycht. She's the co-founder, with Jen McClure, of the NewComm Forum (where I'm speaking this week) and also one of the founders of the Society for New Communications Research.

Elizabeth is a marvelous thinker and writer (and consultant) on the topic of social media tools & technologies and what they mean for organizational communications. And it was a thrill to meet and chat with her in person.

In fact, I recorded my first official podcast with her. It will be #1 in a series of companion podcasts to The Corporate Blogging Book. Stay tuned!

Surprising RSS usage stats: 50 million-plus users don't know what RSS is

According to MarketingSherpa, at least 75 million consumers and business folk are using RSS feeds in the U.S. and the UK. The catch, only 17 - 32 percent of them *know* they're using RSS.

Significant? You bet. As the article puts it, we're beyond the "cool" techie factor of RSS and into its utility as a news gathering tool. Most of these RSS users are not subscribing to blogs, BTW. They're using RSS to subscribe to updates from news sites like USAToday or the National Geographic or NPR or... for Burpee  to alert you about the "seed of the day" (so you can purchase it online!). Or for Travelocity to alert you when the fare to your favorite destination drops by at least 20 percent. Again, to spur online sales.

Blogging 101, Podcasting 101, RSS 101 for Marketers

Below is an update of my original 101 list. If you've got a great resource page or article - of specific interest to marketers - leave me a comment below and I might add it. No promises.  :)

Blogging 101

Blogging 101 by Rebecca Blood (on MSN Spaces)

Blogging 101 by Kari Chisholm

Blogs 101 by Rich Meislin in New York Times' Technology section

Blogging 101 by Technorati

Blog knowledge center by Cymfony

Business Blogging 101 on the NEWPRWiki

Business Blogging Resources by Dave Taylor

Global Voices' Intro to Blogs

Weblog Basics on About.com

Wikibooks' Blogging 101

Wikipedia definition of Weblog

Blog marketing resources from Paul Gillin

Podcasting 101

Podcasting 101 on MacZealots.com

Podcasting 101 on TechWeb

Podcasting 101 by Merle Stinnett

How to Record a Podcast by Glenn Fleishman

Creating a mini podcast in 30 minutes (how I did it with Stephan Spencer)

How to Podcast Video Tutorial

Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation

The Real Beginner's Guide to Podcasting

If podcasting is 2005 word of the year, why isn't it as easy as blogging?

RSS 101

RSS 101: "Really Simple" 5-Step Guide to Get Started

RSS 101 Screencast by Alex Barnett

RSS 101 for Marketers (Forrester report, July 2005)

RSS Beyond Blogs (excellent round-up of corporate RSS feeds by Toby Bloomberg)

The Business Case for RSS (free PDF download)

RSS Marketing blog by Rok Hrastnik

Seth Godin on What Is RSS?

About Feeds (XML, RSS, Atom) by SixApart

RSS Tutorial (includes tech details)

Round-up of RSS studies & charts (August 2005)

Technorati: corporate blogging; blogging; rss; podcasting; podcast; debbie weil

Why RSS has not supplanted email...

Fred Wilson nails it. Because RSS still isn't "brain dead simple." For non-geeks it's still too confusing to set up an RSS newsreader, to find - or aggregate - all the feeds you're interested in, to subscribe, etc.

The RSS vs. email discussion erupted again in response to the announcement several days ago that Yahoo and AOL will start charging senders 1/4 of a cent to a penny per message delivered. The idea is that the email or e-newsletter marketers who pay this premium will be guaranteed that their messages will reach intended recipients' inboxes.

Read Tris Hussey and Steve Rubel on the topic of the end of cost-effective email marketing. Read Dave Winer on why RSS is hard to use and Stowe Boyd on Reads, Not Feeds.

Oh, and don't misunderstand. RSS is in many ways a better solution for dispensing and receiving information online. But despite the proposed postage for email marketers, email isn't dead yet.

2006 is the the year of "how" for corporate blogging and other social media - we're beyond the "what"

It's no longer a question of "what" (as in "what in heck is a blog?"). The question I get most often these days is "how." "How do we incorporate blogging into our marketing?" "What about RSS, podcasting and all that other stuff?"

That's the theme - or the premise, really - of this year's New Communications Forum in Palo Alto, CA from March 1 - 3, 2006. The event is organized by Elizabeth Albrycht and Jennifer McClure (can't wait to meet these divas of new media) and includes an all star lineup of speakers including Rebecca Blood, Pete Blackshaw, Toby Bloomberg, Katie Delahaye Paine, Tom Foremski, Dan Gillmor, Elisa Camahort, Charlene Li, Sally Falkow, Jeremy Wright, Robert Scoble, DL Byron, Anita Campbell, Denise Howell, Stephan Spencer, Dana VanDen Heuvel and lots of others. 

I'm excited about participating as a speaker (I'm moderating a panel on Corporate Blogging Case Studies on Thursday March 2nd at 10:15 - 11:15 AM). So excited in fact, that I'm flying in a day early to attend Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz's podcasting bootcamp. They're going to record a special edition of their popular podcast, For Immediate Release, as part of the session. Sounds cool.

If you're going to pick one event to attend in upcoming months - to get up to speed on the new social meda technologies - I highly recommend this one.  And no, I don't get a penny for saying that. But you can get a $200 discount if you use this promo code: NCFR200. This will be an information rich couple of days. You can learn more and register here. Or you can call Jennifer McClure at 650-331-0083 to register by phone.

Would you care for a side order of RSS, er, a Web feed, with that?

Microsoft has spoken and we're gonna have to follow. The orange button you see at the left is the new standard icon to indicate that an RSS or Web feed is available from a blog or Web site. Grab a version of the new icon here.

P.S. Microsoft's RSS team borrowed the icon from the more-than-happy-to-share-it Firefox folks.

Oh, and the significance? The awful acronym RSS (for Really Simple Syndication) - which means  nothing to most people - will start to fade away. You'll just know that there's an "update" you can get from the Web page you're visiting by clicking on the orange button.

Best Free Downloads of 2005: blogging, RSS, email and podcasting

Well it's that time of year... time for a "Best Of" list! So many free guides, so little time to cull through them. Here's my quick pick of the most informative on this year's hot topics: blogging, RSS and podcasting. Plus the most notable stat of 2005 and of course the best new blog.

AND let's not forget email. Oh, and white papers themselves. They're both still in play as powerful marketing and communications tools for companies large and small.

Update: this blog entry also appears in the current issue of my e-newsletter, WordBiz Report. If you're not already a subscriber, please do sign up!

I generally publish once a month although the schedule has been interrupted the past few months because of writing the book. Subscribe now and you can download immediately my Top 7 Tips to Write an Effective Business Blog.

Blogging

To Blog Or Not To Blog by The Content Factory [download page]

Added: my earlier pick: Seth Godin's e-book on blogging Who's There [PDF]

My riff about it here.

RSS

The Business Case for RSS by Rok Hrastnik [PDF]

Podcasting

Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation [Article]

Email

DoubleClick's 6th Annual Consumer Email Study [PDF - just released Dec. 2005)

EmailLabs Best Practices Quick Tips and Guide [Download page]

White Papers

2005 White Paper Writer Industry Survey [Download page - free until Dec. 31, 2005]

Most notable stat of 2005

Pew's Report on Teen-Age Content Creators [Download page]

Not sure whether your customers are hanging out in the blogosphere? They will be soon. 57% of teen-agers who use the Internet have created a blog, uploaded photos, audio or video or re-mixed online content to create new stuff.

Best new blog

This one was easy! Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog

 

Seth Godin interviewed on "Internet marketing"

Read the Q.  & A. with Seth in E-consultancy.com's December 2005 briefing. As always, he boils it down. Real simple. Incisive. (Scroll to the bottom of the interview for a good explanation of Squidoo, Seth's new venture.) I like this sound bite:

Q. (Chris Lake) Should every business use the internet to communicate? What are the basics of an internet communications strategy?

A. (Seth Godin) You should only use the internet if you want your communications to be FAST and you want to reach LARGE NUMBERS with no intermediaries. If you can't handle that, though, you shouldn't try.

And this one (valid question, BTW, as Seth made his name as the king of permission marketing):

Q. You've written about permission marketing extensively, yet intrusion is still a big part of the average internet session. Does this frustrate you?

A. (Seth) Not any more. Like everyone else, I ignore it.

What a waste.

And this, perhaps the most profound thing Seth said. Think about it. If you send out an e-newsletter or publish a blog or offer a downloadable white paper, it's because you're expecting a response. Not a sale right away. But a tiny step, a forward movement, a conversation starter, the beginnings of a  relationship with that prospect. Or to get more tactical, if you're putting an AdSense ad in front of someone it's cuz you want them to click on it. Right?

Q. Does online advertising have to be purely about response? What about the brand benefits?

A. (Seth) There's zero evidence that you can build a brand with interruptions online that don't lead to action. Zero.

Speaking of Squidoo, Seth's new venture... It's out of beta. Go build a lens (start here) and fool around with it. Here are two of my lenses so far. They need lots more stuff in them: Debbie Weil and Yoga Vacations. I'm still figuring it out.

WOMMA masters the new marketing mix: site, blog, RSS, podcast, e-newsletter, etc.

Not surprisingly, WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) has mastered the new marketing mix when it comes to promoting their next conference: a site, a blog, RSS feeds, podcasts, email updates and a companion e-newsletter all rolled up into one at www.womma.org/wombat/. Looks like the only thing missing is a wiki [added: and more women speakers!]

Word of Mouth Basic Training is Jan. 19 - 20, 2006 in Orlando, FL. Sounds fun and they've got some great speakers lined up.

Mashup of your RSS feeds: try Feeddigest

Have you heard about Feeddigest? Sounds cool. And like a great tool for the non-techie like me. Basically, it rolls up all your RSS feeds (mixes them), converts them to HTML (or PHP or whatever) and lets you re-syndicate them to your site or blog. Thanks to Daniel Nerezov of SouthernCrossVentures for the tip. Yes, it's free.

David Weinberger on blogging and Web 2.0

I had the pleasure of interviewing David Weinberger last night for my book. David's one of the co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto and a fellow this year at Harvard's Berkman Center. We ended up talking about whether blogging was part of the something "new" that is Web 2.0. No, David opined, it's not. Although Web 2.0 "expert" Tim O'Reilly suggests that it is. Weinberger's point is that the "making your voice heard" part of blogging is really what the original Web was all about.

What's new, he grants, are the RSS pings and the discrete links for each blog post. And tagging. All of which can be mixed up and re-combined in Web 2.0 ways. It occurs to me that since blogging is still "new" for many companies and organizations, it doesn't really matter to them whether it's Web 1.0 or 2.0. Anyway, read his thoughts on blogging and Web 2.0 here.

Blogs? Most people don't have a bloody clue

Just when I'm despairing that everyone and their dog will know everything about blogs, RSS, podcasting, wikis, vodcasting, VOIP and  IPTV,*  (ha! did I get you on that one??) in a year, along comes an informative article from The Register in the UK. And I quote:

Blogging = dogging, reckon London cabbies

There is some very refreshing news today for those who live outside the rarified atmosphere of the internet world, and indeed for many of us struggling for breath within it - most people don't have a bloody clue what net buzzwords mean but can evidently function perfectly well in society despite this handicap.

Indeed, a survey of taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers... by ad outfit DDB London showed that 90 per cent... have not the foggiest idea what a podcast is, and an impressive 70 per cent live in blissful ignorance of blogging.

Better still, many think blogging is the same as dogging...

Definition of dogging
If you're not a Brit, you may not be familiar with the term dogging. Took me a few minutes of hunting around on the Web. Definition here. (Hint: refers to having sex in public places.)

Hmmm... there is a connection with the all-transparent, all-the-time, in-your-face nature of blogging, don't you think?

* Thanks to A-list blogger & podcaster and appellate attorney Denise Howell for reminding me about Internet Protocol TV during our interview yesterday for The Corporate Blogging Book. Denise says she's "a nut" about podcasting but that IPTV (interactive, on-demand TV through the Internet) will be just as cool.