Success of Web journals heralds an even bigger future [CNN.Com]

The online diaries known as Weblogs, or "blogs," seemed like a lot of inconsequential chatter when they surfaced a few years ago.

But as more people have embraced the concept, what once seemed like a passing fancy has morphed into a cutting-edge phenomenon that may provide the platform for the Internet's next wave of innovation and moneymaking opportunities.

While blogs are inherently personal, others offer an important communal element by soliciting reader feedback and providing links to other Weblog entries and content. Complex blogs like the technology-focused Slashdot.org have extensive links to news articles, online discussions, even other blogs. <more>

A cutting-edge phenomenon -- there is that blogspeed thing again. Everything in the media about blogs is starting to move at blogspeed!

J:L

 

Where can I get a comparison of the blogging systems and tools?

I love comparison charts, especially ones that other people spend the time to research and devise!

BlogComp: Blog Tool Feature Comparison - *new & improved* is one such tool.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. Is it a candidate for my upcoming Blogs4Business book?

John Lawlor – blogging from Boca Raton – 2003-03-10

keywords: blog tools, blogging software, blog features, weblog software

Web Powerful in Reaching CxO Audience.

Forbes: A Day in the Life of CEO's Online (PDF)

Here is another study touting the web as the best way to reach the top executive. It's the first thing they refer to in the morning, more so then their daily newspaper. It's a major part of their day...and they click on ads too. Check the study out.

[MarketingFix]

Innovations.

This week we'll roll out several potential innovations to our licenses, then call for your comments. First, we'll post some proposed text for two new kinds of license options: "sampling" and "educational use." Second, we'll float some draft language that we've considered adding to our licenses as enhancements: an explicit safe harbor for search engines under our "noncommercial" condition; a clear distinction between privacy-enhancing encryption tools and over-reaching digital rights management; and a potential link requirement as an addition to our "attribution" provision.

We plan to post around one draft provision a day this week; by tomorrow we'll have upgraded our blog so that you can share comments with other readers. Please weigh in: Let us know if you think the proposed enhancements and options are worth it, and if so, how we might improve the specific language of each.

Note: We're not changing or versioning the licenses -- not yet, anyway. We hope through this process simply to vet publicly issues that a few of you have raised via email, and to explore how Creative Commons and our adopters might best work together as our project grows. After a healthy comment period, we'll take stock and move on from there.

[Creative Commons: weblog]

Forbes.com Breaks Down Execs' Web Use. The business site's new research finds busy executives make time for the Web, which has replaced the newspaper as the first information source of the day. [internetnews.com: Internet Advertising Report]

Mike Pusateri of CruftBox took great notes from today's Google panel at SXSW.

"Google is one of the few web giants that values personal opinion."

What is desperately needed is enhanced ability to search blog content. Increasingly difficult to find intersting content. Google's expertise in searching is the key to help find the interesting content.

Reading the assumptions would make you think there are now hundreds of people working on 'Bloogle'. Not true. Same people, but the food's much better. A couple new guys. Still constrained by people inside Google. 'Never enough people, all the hardware they could imagine.'

Link Discuss (Thanks, Susan!) [Boing Boing Blog]

What's the connection between Blogs and Google?

The connection between Google and blogs is one of mutual love, most of the time. Google loves blogs most when the content is tightly focused and frequently updated. Bloggers love Google because high search engine ranking has become a badge of honor for individual and business bloggers.

When blogging results in high search engine ranking for keywords or phrases that are appropriate to a business, that business benefits from 'free' advertising, free traffic from search engines.

A comparison to the yellow pages would be appropriate - all businesses pay for a phone line and get a free one-line listing in the yellow pages along with all of your competition. A few years back "let your fingers do the walking" meant get out the big book and thumb through to the appropriate heading. If your business was lucky to fall into one of the yellow pages categories, i.e. you are a plumber or a dentist, you had a steady stream of business.

Most consumers are now Internet fluent and now let their keyword do the walking on their favorite search engine. If your blog-site gets top 10 Google ranking via blogging you are in a great position to get the traffic.

But wait...that's not all: established blogs are seeing their rapidly posts (information put into the blog) also turn up in MSN, AOL and Overture! In the past I have spend hundreds of dollars a week on pay-per-click advertising. Today, I only spend PPC money on the (few) keywords that I absolutely can't get top 10 ranking via blogging.

The bad news is that the longer you wait to create and execute a blogging strategy, the longer it will take and the harder it will be to out-blog your competitors. In business blogging - the early business bloggers get the worms!

John Lawlor - blogging from Boca Raton, FL - 2003-03-10

keywords: blog, blogging, b-blog, out-blog, blog strategy, blogging strategy, weblog, blog marketing strategy,blog business, blog marketing consultant.

WebmasterWorld: Good news about expired domains. ``We've also put more of a focus on algorithmic improvements for spam issues. One resulting improvement with this index is better handling of expired domains--the authority for a domain will be reset when a domain expires, even though dangling links to the expired domain are still out on the web. We'll be rolling this change in over the next few months starting with this index. [...] I think you'll see more emphasis at Google on scalable algorithms rather than responding to individual spam reports.'' Basically, when you buy a domain that previously expired, you won't get the PageRank the old domain's owner accrued. Neat idea.... [Google Weblog]