With the trend of using blogs for business/marketing purposes now in full swing, the numbers game is going to get more and more important. While tools like BlogPulse shows us what’s going on at the meta level, analytics apps are needed that are configured specifically for blog purposes.

A new player is Blogbeat. Rubel says it "offers a simple way to get your hands on data such as your most popular
posts, links/refers, RSS clicks and more." For the moment (and I do mean for the moment) it’s free, but the offer is limited to a specific number of users and that number is dwindling fast. (There’s a counter on the site showing how many spots are left.) It’s also free of ads too!

The Blog Herald’s Duncan Riley has written a fine expose on overviewing the history of blogging and proclaiming the sure demise of the "geek" blogger. He outlines three generations of bloggers: geeks, extroverts, and consumers.

Of course blogging started with the geeks. It had to. It’s a technology application after all. Then, in 2002 according to Duncan, a second generation of bloggers was born, which he refers to as "extroverts." Now, in 2005, blogging has indeed moved mainstrean and, thanks to platforms like Blogger and MSN Spaces, it’s in the hands of consumers.

This is some of Duncan’s best, most insightful writing and prognostication, well worth a read.

The gist is that locked-out CBC workers are going to use a blog—www.cbcunplugged.com—andpodcasts to put out news and favourite programs to compete with theiremployer.  I can’t wait.  Tomorrow is the big day.  Ihaven’t been to the CBC website in days.  If I don’t get the newsupdate e-mails, I don’t go.  Who has my attention now?  The Globe & Mail.  Their newsletter is nice, html layout, etc.  I’m going to have to see if I can get an evening wrap up in addition to my morning one.

One of the great things about participating in a three-day conference like Blog Business Summit is meeting in the flesh people you’ve been interacting with online. (I ran a session featuring dueling corporate blogs: GM’s Fastlane blog vs. Intuit’s QuickBooks Online blog.)

Dave Tayor, who ran the BBS’s popular Blogging 101 pre-conference session, has penned a thoughtful article on this topic: The Critical Business Value of Attending Conferences. BTW, it’s been hugely fun for me to meet Dave in person for the first time after several years of email correspondence.

In addition, I’ve had the chance to meet a handful of whip-smart A-list women bloggers. In no order, a tip of the hat to Mary Hodder, Sally Falkow, Laurie Mayers, Rebecca Blood, Molly Holzschlag and Evelyn Rodriguez – all of whom presented at BBS. It’s been a thrill…

This isn’t directly about business blogging, but it’s the kind of posting that begs the question: if you were a blogger at Merck, how would you respond to a blog article of this nature? Also, there’s another observation that some of my fellow business bloggers can make about the dissemination fo infomration in the blogosphere versus the mainstream media, perhaps? In any case, this is just the teaser for the article itself… there’s a lot in the media today about this Merck settlement. How long until it’s got the blogosphere abuzz?

A staggering verdict was found in Angleton, Texas against pharmaceutical conglomerate Merck & Co. when the jury today handed back $24 million in actual damages plus an additional $229 million in exemplary, punitive damages for the widow of former Vioxx patient Robert Ernst.

The background story is that triathlete Robert Ernst had been on the prescription heart drug Vioxx and then died of what the coroner later described as “arrhythmia” or an irregular heartbeat. Ernst’s widow’s attorney argued that Vioxx had led to a heart attack that had caused the arrhythmia, not the direct death.

While Merck voluntarily removed Vioxx from the marketplace last September after studies linked Vioxx to a higher rate of heart attacks and strokes after taking the drug for 18 months, it was too late for thousands of potential victims. Ernst is the first of over 4000 lawsuits alleging injuries from Vioxx.

If this one case produces a verdict of almost $255 million, then even if only 10% of the 4000 cases already filed were settled in favor of the plaintiff, not Merck, it could theoretically cost upwards of…

Caught Debbie while talking with Scoble.  Hmm  What’s on her mind do you think?

Are you a blogger who uses Google Adsense to monetize your blog? You’ll be interested to know Google has started a blog to help you. The blog, called Inside Adsense, kicked off last Tuesday and offers optimization tips and such. I think it’s an effort to defend Google’s position against Yahoo’s new Publisher Network by providing more help to Adsense publishers.

• WYSIWYG editor
• Side-panel features like categories can be moved around to better suit the order you prefer.

WP is also launching a hosted service called WordPress.com for hosted blogging.  Continues …

Clever article by Susan Kuchinskas for InternetNews.com, Entering the Corposphere, gives a good overview of today’s sessions at the Blog Business Summit. Some excerpts:

“… corporate communications pros and public relations account execs gathered to grok the rules of engagement with the blogosphere.”

and

“Blogger relations can be more critical than public relations, according to Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s chief blogger.”

and

“(DL Byron) turns off comments on his (Clip-n-Seal) blog and advises clients to do likewise,
to avoid having yucky stuff like porn spam showing up under the brand.”

End of the afternoon and, surprisingly, the audience at the Blog Business Summit is beginning to perk up and ask more questions.Someone asks Robert Scoble: “So how much time does blogging take?” He laughs. His one-word answer: “Starbucks.” Expanded: “I spend almost every waking hour doing something related to blogging.”

The “time” question is key and of huge concern to prospective corporate bloggers.

Great tidbit just now from Boeing Web designer Chris Brownrigg on why Boeing’s much talked about blog is called Randy’s Journal: “Because they (management) were uncomfortable with the term blog.” Chris wisely got around that decision by giving the blog the following page title: “Boeing Blog: Randy’s Journal.” Better for search results when you type in “Boeing blog.” Take a look when you click through.

The (dreaded… or anticipated) blogging phone call

Chris was given 48 hours to design and launch the blog for Boeing VP Randy Baseler after getting “the blogging phone call.” Audience members nodded at this. Seems both managers and techies are getting “the call” from top management to “get into this blog thing.” Uninitiated into the ways of the blogosphere, he dove into the project by looking at the code behind lots of other blogs. He settled on Movable Type as the software platform. Posted a mock-up of the proposed blog here. Comments and other blog features were subsequently added after readers protested.

I love this inside glimpse of how a corporate blog gets launched… shows how it’s very much a joint effort between management and the Web techies.

Bob Wyman, CTO of PubSub, is trying to explain to the audience what the point is of blog search tools like PubSub, BlogPulse and Technorati. I like the way he puts it: “For the first time you have an open, trackable conversation.” In other words the babble of the blogosphere can be analyzed. If you (a company) listen carefully, you will learn what people are talking about, what they’re interested in and what they want to hear about. And then YOU will know what to write about, rather than issuing a press release once a month because you think you should.

Interesting… but I fear there’s too much inside baseball talk this morning. If I were an attendee just getting on the blogging boat, I’d be a bit lost already. Hope the panels coming up are more mindful of those who don’t consume Jeff Jarvis with their morning coffee.