B.L. Ochman is right, this site needs a blog. It’s a product that actually has a lot to say, mainly in the form of user testimonial of all the great things they’ve used WD-40 for. But how tedious that you have to fill out a long form to sign up for a community just to be able to submit a use for consideration. How about an email address and a blog instead? I’m sure they’re losing a lot of people to that form. I filled it out only because I was determined to see the process so I could right about it here. An example of a product site that they have simple over-thought and over-complicated.

Blog me, baby!

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Yesterday I found this directory on Yahoo that seemed quite apropos to this blog: …/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Weblogs/Business/

For the hell of it, I submitted myself to the directory. My experience with Yahoo in years past is that it can take months to get approved into the directory. I’m delighted, however, to report that this site is already at the top of the directory with a shiny yellow “NEW!” lablel. That’s gonna be good for my Google PageRank!

🙂

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I realize I’m posting a lot about social network sites today, which is arguably somewhat off-topic for this blog, but this newest service, Multiply, I think is worth mentioning because it is the first of the many, many social networks I’ve seen that takes the obvious step of blending the benefits of social networks with other tools such as blog publishing and photo galleries. Duh. I’ve been banging at my friend Adrian Scott, founder of Ryze, about that for a while. I strongly suspect this will quickly become a matter of parity for all the social network services that survive a year from now.

Here’s the press release, and here is social network expert Judith Meskill’s comment.

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YASNS stands for “Yet Another Social Network Service,” I assume. Anyway, this is a comprehensive list of dozens of social network services compiled by one of the space’s leading experts, Judith Meskill. Eyeballing it, it looks like she’d identified well over 100 different services, in the follow categories:

• Business networking sites
• Common interest networking sites
• Dating sites
• Face-to-face meeting facilitation sites
• Friend networking sites
• Pet networking sites
• Social networking ‘plus’ and/or ‘edge cases’

thesocialsoftwareweblog: YASNS Meta List

I was surprised, last night to log into TypePad and see a new logo. And that wasn’t all — some new features (click link in the headline of this post for details):

• File management – Nice. Let’s you navigate all the stuff you’ve uploaded accidentally and now want to delete. Valuable, seeing as you don’t have FTP access to your account.
• New photo upload process – This I’m less thrilled about. I had my routine down, and the new default settings cause more work for me. I use a CSS class to format my photos so the text flows around them, but perhaps the masses aren’t so sophisticated. More clicks for me, but probably better for the average Joe. I wish, however, you could configure the defaults (or maybe you can, but I don’t yet see how).
• Moblogging support – Cool, I guess, though I don’t yet do it.

Anyway, it’s nice to see it’s a living application and that Six Apart hasn’t taken it’s eye off of TypePad in the midst of rolling out the new version of Movable Type (which I’m only too eager to beta test).

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I already noted Judith Meskill’s personal blog earlier and referenced this Social Software Weblog property there. But now that I’ve been following this blog more closely in recent days, I think it’s good enough to call separate attention to. If you follow this trend of social networks much, it seems to be the go-to resource.

I am also looking forward to posting the results of her The ‘Perfect’ Corporate Weblogging ‘Elevator Pitch’ Competition, which I missed when the competition was still accepting entries. Judges are currently (as of this post) evaluating the results. Stay tuned.

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With this entry, I initiate a new category: “This Site Needs a Blog.” Please feel free to nominate others for the category.

If it works for Clip-n-Seal, a blog should work for Banana Guard.

“Protect your banana!” (Yes, it’s work safe.)

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I can now die a happy man, having achieved a lifelong goal: a position on DayPop Top 40, thanks to this blog.

(You love me. You really, really love me!)

The next-closest thrill that compares to this was when I Farked Robert.

Meanwhile, I come up with a lot more links on Technorati

Laura Schneider

About.com’s marketing maven Laura Schneider maintains a list of marketing-related weblogs.

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BizNetTravel is one of the business blogs I created and do much of the writing for on behalf of a client. The company is a travel agency, and the blog offers links to a mix of travel destination features, travel news for travelers, quirky travel items and more. We also maintain a Special Offers blog page for this client, featuring original travel packages for customers.

The main purpose of the blog is as a service to the agency’s existing customers, but it also does serve to attract lots of new prospective customers to the site.

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Cheskin, a marketing and market research consulting firm, does a great job with their blog. Their essays are thoughtful and frequent. Most impressive, however, is how effectively the blog reflects a true team spirit. I’ve seen other companies try to rally a group of managers to participate, and it’s hard to do. Normally, one person dominates the blog and others drag along occasionally at best. The Cheskin team, however, seems to have challenged one another to all stay involved, and a quick browse of the archive shows a healthy rotation of names and personal posting styles.

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Daniel Weintraub

It will be a long list of blogs if I try to note every traditional media blog here, so I plan to pick off just some of the more prominent ones. Such a list should include the Sacramento Bee’s political columnist Daniel Weintraub, who has been blogging for a year, as of this post. He offers this comment on “Why Blog?” and E-media Tidbits also quotes him with some advice for media bloggers.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/columns/weintraub/story/6414174p-7366437c.html

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Poynter Institute’s E-media Tidbits column has a blurb’s worth of advice from Daniel Weintraub, blogger and columnist for the Sacramento Bee. The Tidbits blurb offers advice for other traditional media bloggers, that includes this gem: “If journalism is the first draft of history, then the blog is the note pad that leads to it,” Weintraub said.

E-media Tidbits: Weintraub on Blogging

Debbie Weil published this article in her WordBiz newsletter as advice for business bloggers. Best of all, the main expert source for the article is…me!

WordBiz: 5 Tips for a ‘Useful Resource’ Blog

AdTech is the leading industry event for the online advertising and marketing industry. At the last occasion of the conference, last November in NYC, MarketingWonk and I helped AdTech create the AdTech Blog, where a team of bloggers provided coverage of the event.

AdTech has invited us to repeat this, as it was quite successful. I can offer free attendance to interestest parties in exchange for your blogging efforts. To be clear there is no payment involved, and travel and accommodation are not included. But the pass to the three days’ worth of the sessions is a $1,095 value. For anyone interested in the Internet marketing and media sector, this is a valuable opportunity, as AdTech is the best educational and networking event in the sector, in my professional opinion.

Requirements:

• Should be reasonably knowledgeable about the Internet marketing and media industry
• Must commit to a minimum of five to seven short entries — mostly coverage of sessions, but we also plan to cover the (many) parties, the exhibit hall, and more. The blog posts can run on as long as you want, but you don’t really have to write more than about three paragraphs for any one entry.
• That’s about it. Good writing skills. Experience writing for a blog a plus. Your own laptop with WiFi is a plus, but you could alternatively take notes on paper and file reports from the press room.

If interested, email me. I am expecting to get more inquiries about this than I have passes for, so I’ll have to get back to you in a couple of days.

“Commentary on startups, small business, business planning and growth strategy” from the folks at Bplans.com, a business plan resource tool, and Palo Alto Software, a business plan software tool.

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This blog (by an anonymous author, as far as I can see) appears to have a media revenue model (i.e., ad support), as opposed to consulting. It just celebrated its one year birthday last week (Happy Birthday!). Various useful resources for business bloggers, which I will monitor regularly.

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Wayne Hurlbert has been blogging about the intersections of blogs and businesses on this site since October 2003. It doesn’t appear to be a business blog itself, in that I don’t see any About Us or consulting service links on the blog, but it is a useful resource for folks following this trend.

As usual, you can count on me to rip off all of his best links for this blog. (As either Stravinsky or Picasso is meant to have said, “Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.” Probably Stravinsky said it first, then Picasso simply stole it.)

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John Rhodes, of WebWorld.com, writes what may as well be the business plan for Business Blog Consulting. Basically, he describes in some detail how blogs are a great opportunity for businesses, but most businesses are “blog ignorant,” and that therefore there is a good opportunity there for the taking to build a blog consulting company. He writes, ” I would set up this company myself but I have too much on my plate right now.” Well, the truth is, I’m too busy to do this, too, but it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, so I’m just foregoing sleep these days.

If this is my business plan, why do I bother linking to it? Well, for one thing, it’s not like John and I are the only ones who have thought of this so far. Griff Wigley is one such blog consultant, but he has thus far concentrated mostly on small businesses in his home state of Minnesota. There are some others also banging this drum who are maybe more direct competitors to me, enough that I don’t feel like linking to them just yet.

More to the point, however, if a significant part of this blog consulting opportunity is blogging for hire, and I think it is, there’s room for a network of blog consultants out there. I already do blog regularly for one client, BizNetTravel, and obviously if I’m doing so for 10 clients, I’ll need a lot of help. So, take a read of John’s essay and if you’re inspired, let’s talk.

Thanks to Rafat for the pointer.

WebWorld: Building a Blog Marketing and Media Company

Marketing resource for the pharmaceutical industry from pharma-specialized agency Greater Than One, with help from marketing and web design consultant Ari Paparo

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