Thursday, January 22, 2004

Broadcast Builder. Very interesting. Lets you put multimedia into your RSS feed (weblog) so that people can subscribe and get video, audio, as well as the usual text and still images. The enterprise license is under US$100 if you download the application rather than order it on CD. Lots of uses spring to mind for the home-based entrepreneur and for e-Learning. -- BB Broadcast Builder allows you to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) channels & Weblogs (Blogs) quickly and easily. You can build a channel from scratch or import an existing one from either your own local computer or from a remote resource, and then edit that channel. Broadcast Builder will parse, export, and save the channel for you. [Via Joe Rotello] [Lockergnome's RSS Resource] 10:13:40 PM

Counterpoint: 10 reasons why RSS is not ready for prime time. Since I have been beating the drum here for RSS in business applications, it's only fair to recognize that there other points of view about its suitability. Dylan has a good and thoughtful list. Some of the reasons are more significant than others, but his main point (RSS is a lot of work) is, unfortunately, accurate for today's RSS. Someone somewhere else has said that his main goal is for RSS to go away - that is, for it to fade into the background so people don't have to think about it any more than they have to think about the XML their word processor is generating for their documents. My belief is that the day when that happens is fast approaching. Give it six months and see where we are. -- BB Dylan Greene shares his 10 reasons why RSS is not ready for prime time. While working today I listened to the RSS Winterfest, a free audio-only conference about RSS hosted by many top names in blogging. Chris Prillo, aka the Lockergnome, had a comment during the "What is the future of RSS?" session that I strongly disagree with: "RSS is good enough." I strongly disagree with this comment. While I agree RSS is good, I believe RSS is not good enough to become mainstream. [Lockergnome's RSS Resource] 10:37:02 AM

Improve your writing! I must see every one of these ten items crossing my editor desk every week. Writing for publication, writing for your weblog or website, even writing business letters, are all key parts of building and maintaining your brand. If you write for publication, an editor somewhere will help you fix these problems but if you are writing your own marketing copy, you are on your own. I recommend reading the article, and keeping a copy of the list pinned to your wall where you can see it as you write. -- BB "10 Common Problems that Dismiss You as an Amateur" Writer. Are you a writer? Or maybe an aspiring writer? Maybe just a blogger that enjoys writing in your spare time? (That last one is me.) Do you have to write for work? Maybe you're not going to ever be a novelist, but if you write for any reason and you have to persuade people with the written word, then you have to read this article: Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do) Repeats Flat Writing Empty Adverbs Phony Dialogue No-good suffixed The 'to-be' words Lists Show, Don't tell Awkward Phrasing Commas The point to the List above is that even the best writers make these mistakes, but you can't afford to. The way manuscripts are thrown into the rejection pile on the basis of early mistakes is a crime. Don't be a victim. You won't be sorry if you do. Your readers might be sorry if you don't. [inluminent] 10:25:37 AM

Another RSS solution for spam. "MailbyRSS accepts both text and rich content email, requires no new computer hardware or software, and is invoked by simply emailing content to a secure MailbyRSS account." If you have been sending out newsletters or other customer communications by email, but are worried now that most of the time they aren't getting through, this might be something to take a look at. It's a free service, and you don't have to know anything about RSS to use it. A better explanation than the one linked to below, and the sign-up, are located on the MailbyRSS Overview page.-- BB MailbyRSS - free service creates RSS feeds via e-mail. Very cool must try this out! [SOURCE: Archipelago] QUOTE MailbyRSS - free service creates RSS feeds via e-mail: A free service is being launched today for authoring RSS feeds by e-mail. We designed the service to help organizations divert to RSS the permission-based e-mails they are sending (or were before CAN-SPAM took effect) to subscribers, such as newsletters. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao: WebCMS] 10:05:04 AM

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