SignsNeverSleep.com is the blog of the Lincoln Sign Company, based in Lincoln, New Hampshire. It’s a charming blog, nicely designed (better, frankly, than the company’s main web site, if you ask me), and a neat mix of recently completed examples of the company’s work, a glimpse of the process of sign making in progress and personal news (a weekend hike, what J.D. is reading, a bear sighting, photos of the kids, etc.). J.D. Illes writes me:

We just recently started a weblog as the first stage in a whole redesign of our web-presence.  We are a small, custom-commercial signshop in a small resort community.

I think our blog will be a terrific tool to show our customers what it is we do.  Usually a customer comes by to visit just after we have spilled paint all over their sign by accident, not when we have just completed a beautiful project.  I am hoping giving them a peek inside our doors on a daily basis will help them get to know us.

…

Thanks

J.D. Iles

Thanks for the note, J.D., and best of luck!

UPDATE:
Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing Group read this post and was apparently so interested that he tracked down J.D. of Lincoln Signs for an interview about why he’s blogging.

Link

Insanely dumb. Just imagine how much more interest in the Olympics and the Olympians athlete blogs could spur.

CNN: Olympians largely barred from blogging

Rock Bruner
Internet consultant

MediaPost columnist Mark Naples doesn’t think that blogs rock, but he thinks that I do. More to the point, he thinks I am “Rock Bruner.”

Okay, I know he doesn’t really think that, as we know each other. The “i” and the “o” are next to each other on the keyboard after all. But I can’t resist mulling over all the personal slogans it suggests:

• Like a Rock!
• I rock!
• Rock on!
• Rick Rocks ‘n’ rolls!

Okay, it’s not that funny, but it’s been a long week.

As for the premise of his article — that he doesn’t see what the big deal is about blogs — needless to say I disagree. In fact, I’d venture to sound so 1997 as to say he “doesn’t get” blogs. (A sure sign: he thinks they’re pretty much like bulletin boards.) I’d love nothing more than to Fisk the article and point out all the reasons why blogs, and not I, indeed do rock, but I’m behind on a client deadline. So I invite all you other blog boosters to have a go at him.

MediaPost: On Blogocracy and Its Significance

BloggerCon is back, this time at Stanford University’s Law School, November 6th. Click the link in the headline of this post for details.

Link

Real Networks just started this blog to influence spin in the debate over its recent enabling of its downloadable music files to be played on Apple’s proprietary MP3 player iPod. Real is undercutting Apple’s 99 cent MP3s by selling its music library for only 49 cents each.
UPDATE:
As usual, it seems that I’ve missed the actual story here (the difference being this time I figured it out, sort of, on my own before a bunch of you left comments here calling me dense). It seems that Real started this site as a petition calling on Apple users to support its effort open up its file format to play on the iPod. But it underestimated the fanaticism of Apple users, some 1,000 of whom signed the petition with vile abuse aimed at Real. Details at Micro Persuasion.

Link

Zach Braff

I noted the other day that I thought blogs and movies were a great match. Here’s another example: the arty looking film from Fox Search Lights, Garden State, has a blog written by the movie’s star, writer and director, Zach Braff (best known for his role on NBC’s hospital comedy Scrubs). Nice to see that the official movie site links to the blog. I haven’t seen the film yet (though I plan to, set as it is set in my native homeland of suburban New Jersey), but it appears to be popular with both critics and movie goers.

Link

A few weeks ago, I linked to a survey that a student was conducting about business blogging. I haven’t yet heard back what were the results (though I did just send him a follow-up email today asking about it).

Meanwhile, here is another survey by a student on the topic of business bloggging. (That link is for people who have a business blog; if you don’t but you’re interested in the topic, there is another surve here.)

UPDATE:
I’ve heard back about the earlier survey I noted. Turns out they still haven’t gotten as many responses as they want, so they’re keeping that survey open. Be a sport, and give a click.

This sounds a bit dubious. The site’s funkily formatted homepage explains:

Blogversations are a new way to market. Here’s how it works: Advertisers sponsor bloggers to dicuss a topic or question. Bloggers earn $$. Advertisers engage turned-out audiences.

It continues on from there, but you get the basic idea. The homepage notes “advertorials not encouraged.” Not encouraged? How about not allowed? I’m not going to say this is necessarily evil; I’ll leave that to plenty of the rest of you, I’m sure. Certainly bears watching.

Link

Not to be outdone by Google’s blog, Yahoo just launched its own blog. The first post, a bit of self-congratulations about how great Yahoo’s search is, was written by Jeff Weiner, SVP of Yahoo! Search & Marketplace. From the sound of it, however, others will also join in the blogging:

Be sure to check back here for news about new product introductions, updates and exclusive betas.

In addition, this blog is designed to provide a window into what our team is thinking and doing, in their own words (and maybe some guest bloggers as well).

Above all else we hope this blog enables you to share our excitement for the search industry and what the future holds. 

Powered by Movable Type. Funny that they wouldn’t use Blogger, as it’s free

😉 

Comments are turned on and filling up fast.

ClickZ offers additional perspective.

Link

More of the usual evangelizism for everyone’s favorite “new” trend.

Globe & Mail: Blogs go big business

Hoot! Short of a “Kick Me” sign on your back, nothing quite says “I know nothing about the Internet” and assures that you will be soundly mocked online like an anti-deep linking policy. Apparently the folks behind Athens 2004, the offical site for the current Olympics, still use AOL or have only read about the Internet in airline magazines.

This is so 1996. These kinds of policies are laughably uninforcable — there has never been any legal precedent set in this regard — and they miss the critical point of the a web site: you want people to visit it, and other web sites that call attention to specific valuable content on your site (e.g., bloggers) are doing you a favor.

Just for giggles, here are some of their ridonkulous requirements for linking to pages of their site:

• “Use the term ATHENS 2004 only, and no other term as the text referent” (emphasis theirs; presumably that excludes terms such as fart or bring back the days of olive-oil slathered naked Oympic athletes!)
• “[You should] not associate the link with any image, esp. the ATHENS 2004 Emblem” (as shown above left; don’t do that)
• “Send a request letter to the Internet Department…” (How about you send a letter to my butt instead?)

If you want to tap blogs to help drive more traffic to you site, read this policy statement and then do the opposite. (Oh, and don’t use frames. Frames suck for bloggers trying to link to you. In fact, frames just suck, and have done so for many years.)

Link