In a case which has evident implications for Canadian bloggers but also for bloggers worldwide, Kazaa Australia boss Nikki Hemming is suing Canadian blogger Jon Newton and others for defamation, on the basis of an article earlier this year on Newton’s p2pnet site, as reported in this week’s IT Today section of the national daily The Australian (not a hyperlink permalink, no guarantee it will be there indefinitely).

The suit is over material posted on p2pnet and anonymous comments on that post, some months ago at a time when Hemming was in court in a Sydney case. Included in the suit with Newton are his ISP and four John Doe, anonymous commenters. The article has since been removed from the p2pnet site.

Jon Newton is disputing the suit vigorously and observes that if Hemming wins the case ‘it’ll open the door even wider for lawsuits against Canadian bloggers’  .

Canadian internet law professor Michael Geist has commented on the case and its implications in his BBC Online article Free speech, libel and the internet age. Geist draws attention to how the legal frameworks in different jurisdictions have a variety of implications for internet intermediaries, such as internet service providers and even individual bloggers who allow comments.  

The difficult question is not whether these sites and services have the right to voluntarily remove offending content if they so choose – no one doubts that they do – but rather whether sites can be compelled to remove allegedly unlawful or infringing content under threat of potential legal liability.

The answer is not as straightforward as one might expect since the law in Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia varies depending on the type of content or the nature of the allegations.

Canadian media lawyer Dan Burnett also comments on the different treatments in different jurisdictions, in his statement as reported at the August 5 Toronto Freedom of Speech Online concert and benefit. Burnett sees Canada as being laggard in reforming the law and comments:

In addition to the reforms we are lagging behind already, the internet age raises some new and fundamental questions. How does the right of reply on wiki and reader-post sites affect the law? Are we going to hold site operators liable for automatic posts by others? Are (we) going to recognize a defense for a person who operates a public forum for debate?

So where are bloggers without ready resource to internet lawyers to go for advice on these matters?

It seems not uncommon for bloggers to refer, on defamation and other legal issues, to the Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Guide for Bloggers. That’s good as far as it goes, and there is some good advice in the document, but unless I’m missing something the document is a legal guide for the United States of America, not a global guide. (Actually, from a chat today with a lawyer friend very knowledgeable in these matters, I would seriously doubt whether a comprehensive global guide of any depth in this area is likely to emerge in the near or distant future.) 

Whatever the peculiarities of various legal jurisdictions, clearly some degree of prudence is needed in terms of what we post to our blogs and what we allow in terms of comments. Dave Taylor had some good advice on this in his post last year SEO Book’s Aaron Wall sued over comments on his weblog: Dave saw the case as ‘a wakeup call to business bloggers who haven’t yet thought through their own comment and comment moderation strategies’. 

And however the currrent case in Canada turns out, it too is clearly a call to look at the posting and comment moderation policies for our own blogs and those of any companies to which we consult.

Strumpy (aka Amanda Chapel / anonymous PR blogger / tall, athletic, Pantene shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs – ed. note: you’ve got to be kidding) is all fired up today with his/her new meme: The Death of Corporate Blogging.

God, (s)he’s clever the way she/he/it writes.

But (s)he’s wrong: corporate blogging – or at least the widespread use of blogging as a business communications tool is NOT dead. And I’m not just saying that because my new book, The Corporate Blogging Book (Penguin Portfolio August 2006), is coming out next week.

Well OK that’s one reason I’m saying it.

Corporate blogging is just getting started

The real reason is oh so simple. Far from being dead, corporate blogging – the use of a blog either internally or externally as part of a company’s online communications and marketing toolkit – is just getting started.

As Ken Yarmosh, who live-blogged my Washington DC book launch yesterday, put it:

“Despite the echoes we often hear in the halls of geek-dom, the blogosphere is not saturated yet. There are many, many more voices to come, blogging on everything from finance to real estate, to yes, even air conditioners. And I know, because I’ve met them this afternoon.” – Ken Y.

Look, I’m sifting through the stack of business cards I got yesterday and here are the kinds of corporate blogging wannabes who attended (I won’t use specific names out of respect for their privacy): commercial real estate, attorney-at-law, non-profit foundation, custom publishing group, government affairs office, board of trade, three or four national associations and so on.

Strumpy, read my book

Strumpy, read my book for god’s sake and maybe you’ll get it. I make a lot of points. Three of the key ones are this:

It’s not about being cool

Corporate blogging is not about being cool. It’s about following your customers where they’re going… and that’s online. You gotta be there to interact with your customers. It’s that simple. Blogging enables an instant (or almost) conversation with them. And that’s what people want. They want to be heard. They want to be acknowledged. Then they’re more apt to do business with you and your organization.

A blog is just a publishing platform
A blog is just a platform, a powerful, simple, inexpensive Web publishing system. Why in heck wouldn’t most companies adopt this platform? Call it Web 2.0. Call it common sense. Call it budget cutting. Who needs a whole IT department that takes months to update a page on a corporate site, when a non-techie manager can do it in minutes with blogging software?

Customers are driving this – not consultants
The new world that PR practitioners, marketing strategists and other consultants are touting is here. We haven’t concocted it as a way to line our pockets with gold. Marketing has become a two-way conversation between customer and corporation. The big guys at the top have lost control or at least complete control. A lot of the best creative stuff (new ideas, great writing) is bubbling up from below.

With 40,000 or 60,000 or whatever new videos being posted everyday to YouTube, with trackbacks and tagging and RSS and digging and Technorati and del.ici.ous and all that cool stuff innovating, fine tuning and becoming easier for the non-techie to use every day… well I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that corporate blogging is here to stay.

Remember, those ordinary people are customers. They’re driving this thing. Not the corporate blogging consultants.

Sorry Strumpy, stuff it.

Update: See here.
Technorati: the corporate blogging book , corporate blogging , debbie weil

Over on the Blog Business Summit site there is a little bit about an inter-change between a blogger and a PR company.  The specifics aren’t really important to this post, the bottom line is though.  If you are a business about to start interacting with the blogosphere (starting a blog, blogger outreach, etc), you need to understand the audience first.

When you think about it, it makes perfect business sense.  Would you start marketing your product or service without doing demographic research?  Didn’t think so.  So, first read blogs, subscribe to blogs, search blogs.  Just get a feel for the audience.  And before you approach a blogger with a pitch, make sure he/she is open to them and if the pitch is relevant to them.

Do your homework so you don’t get burned.

Tags: business blogs, business blogging, blogger outreach

 

I love getting new books to read. All my friends know that I am a voracious reader. Well today I received Steve and DL’s book in the mail (book blog here). I’ve only flipped through it, but at first skim it looks interesting. The book is titled “Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business”. I think most of us here would agree (and maybe now I’m stepping into a contentious issue) that business blogs are really just now starting to catch on. I think small biz blogs are doing well, it’s the big guys that still have some work to do.

And well Canada Post has been painfully slow this week so I’m still waiting for Debbie Weil’s Corporate blogging book (book blog here). Sigh. Well at least I know I’ll have reading material for a while.

Not to be left out I’m also writing a book, but not about blogging but working from home. Have a visit over to Daddy Wears Slippers to Work, I’ll make sure I put the coffee on for you.

Tags: blogging, blogging books, book blogs, Debbie Weil, Steve Broback, DL Byron

Onalytica has published the results of their analysis on the most influential authorities on “blog marketing”. The top 20 influential sites/blogs include:

• New York Times
• Josh Hallett – hyku
• Seth Godin
• Steve Rubel – Micropersuasion
• Businessweek
• ClickZ
• Wired
• Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman – Next Level Biz Tips
• WebProNews
• Danny Sullivan – Search Engine Watch
• Fast Company
• Lee Odden – Top Rank Results
• Marketing Sherpa
• Darren Rowse – Problogger
• AllBusiness.com
• Hugh Mac Leod – Gaping Void
• Jeff Jarvis – Buzz Machine
• Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba – Church of the Customer
• Mitch Joel – Twist Image
• Steve Hall – Adrants

Business Blog Consulting alumni Steve Rubel was listed and I’m happy to report current contributor Josh Hallett of hyku and my own company TopRank were listed as well.

The analysis focuses on influence and popularity showing that the most popular authorities are not necessarily the most influential. Popularity was measured by the number of referrers and influence was measure by the authority of the referrers.

Limiting the measure of popularity to link referrers seems a bit simplistic. Traffic would appear to be a logical factor as well.

In the previous analysis on the most influential authorities on “business blogs” (full report pdf), Business Blog Consulting was listed as the fourth most influential sandwiched between BusinessWeek and CNN.

According to a recent announcement by the US Department of Defense, a new study of blogs, to receive $450,000 in funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, is not about warblogging but about what sort of help blog research may provide in ‘fighting the war on terrorism’.

Two scientists at Framingham, Mass. Versatile Information Systems Inc., Dr. Brian E. Ulicny, senior scientist and Dr. Mieczyslaw M. Kokar, president, will be managing the project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information�.

Heady stuff.

I share some of blogger Tim Oren’s concern over the ‘ontologically-based’ part of the project description and the possible implication of a ‘one-theory-fits-all’ approach, especially in terms of cultural difference. But as Oren observes, there could be some useful civilian spinoff as well as militarily applicable outcomes.

I looked for signs of a blog, either corporate or individual, on the Versatile Information Systems website, but to no avail. Without knowing whether or not the scientists blog, I wondered which would be better for a scientific study of blogging, for the scientists to have practical, personal experience of blogging, or not?

And as a former public servant and sometime consultant to government, I wonder what possibilities this story suggests for further blogging research/consultancy in the government space?

Recently JupiterResearch dropped a media release that has the social media scene buzzing. And well it should for the prestigious JupiterResearch’s study revealed that “… 35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate Weblogs this year. Combined with the existing deployed base of 34 percent, nearly 70 percent of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006.”

That’s significant. Actually, I found that to be a little too signifcant.

According the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (written by Chris Andersen of Wired and Ross Mayfield of Socialtext) Wiki to as of April 18, 2006 29 (5.8%) of Fortune 500 companies had a blog. If JupiterResearch’s analysis is correct and “nearly 70% of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006” a lot of Fortune 500s (not to mention other large companies) are are going to be pretty busy building blogs during the next six month.

Even though I admit to a drink of that kool-aid every now and again, this sounded strange. I shot an email off to Peter Arnold Associates (PR agency) explaining that I was working in the social media space, was a blogger and wanted to post their client’s findings. I explained I found the analysis odd and asked for clarification on the methodolgy, how JupiterResearch defined “corporations” and “large companies” and how they came to their conclusions.

I received two lovely responses. The first: “Let me check in with someone on the research team at JupiterResearch to find answers to your questions. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I hear.”

The second: “Information about JupiterResearch reports are available to accredited members of the press for free and clients.

After looking at your blog link JupiterResearch has decided not to fulfill your request for more information since the blog* is closely tied with your company that serves as a consultancy. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier, I didn’t realize that your company and blog were so closely affiliated.

If you’d like more information about becoming a client or purchasing a report, please let me know.”

Bloggers have gotten called on the carpet for jumping the gun and posting without fact checking. While we’re not journalists, the majority of business bloggers do feel an obligation to their readers to present accurate information.

BBC readers, I tried to find out the story behind the numbers for you before I posted that I thought these findings were .. shall we say out of the ball park optimistic. Based on the information presented in their media release, I caution you to look at JupiterResearch’s conclusions with with a few grains of salt.

If anyone has read the report and can explain how “nearly 70 percent of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006” please drop a comment. I sure would like to know.

eMarketer reports on a study by Harris Interactive, and sponsored by Makovsky + Company called the “2006 State of Corporate Blogging”.

“The study found that only a small minority of top executives are convinced that corporate blogging is growing in credibility either as a communications medium, brand-building technique or a sales or lead generation tool.”

Only 20% of the executives surveyed report monitoring blogs for mentions of their own company and only 30% reported understanding what an “internet blog” is. This spells a significant opportunity to educate corporate America on the pros and cons as well as the threats and opportunities of blogging for business.

The list of benefits for business blogging is pretty long, but the results of this study show that business blog consultants need to do a much better job of not only evangelizing blogging for corporate America, but providing case studies and practical examples that demonstrate these benefits. Nothing gets a CEO more interested than bottom line numbers.
Details at eMarketer.

The article Defending yourself against the blogs from Multichannel Merchant (May issue) offers some good advice to merchants on how to more effectively manage their brand in the blogosphere.

The article opens with a story of how Greenpeace successfully pressured Gorton’s parent company Nissui to pull out of the whaling business by inciting a blogstorm against Gorton’s. I feel so ‘out of it’ — reading the article was the first I’d heard of this and Gorton’s, & Gorton’s Fresh Seafood are clients of mine! (well, not mine personally, but of my web dev / SEO agency Netconcepts)

Also included in the article are some comments (from yours truly!) on how to enter the blogosphere effectively:

1. Create a “safe haven” for employees to experiment with blogging. Set up a private blog on your intranet or extranet, or start a blog that’s password-protected. Then offer access to that test to a selected audience. Your inexperienced bloggers will feel more comfortable knowing that all your customers and competitors are not watching their every move.
2. Decide on a permanent home for your blog. The Web address you choose should be one that you will be happy with for years to come. Remember that it will become difficult to switch blog services if you allow the service’s name to be part of your URL. Ehobbies.blogs.com, backcountryblog.blogspot.com, and sethgodin.typepad.com are all examples of blogs that are forever wedded to their blog platform, for better or for worse. If they switch platforms, all the links they’ve earned will be unavailable to their new blog. Links are the lifeblood of your search engine visibility, so the significance of this cannot be overstated.
3. Select a scalable, flexible, and user-friendly blog platform. There are so many solutions to choose from! Some are hosted services, such as TypePad, Blogger, and WordPress.com. Some are software packages that you install on your Web server, such as WordPress, Drupal, or Movable Type. You can pore over comparison charts (such as the one at www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm), though I suggest you simply go with WordPress (the software package, not to be confused with the hosted service at WordPress.com). WordPress is free, so the price is right. It’s highly configurable, since it’s open source, and it has a plethora of free, useful plug-ins written for it.
4. Decide on a posting schedule. Try to post at least three times a week. Allow several hours per week for this. I typically spend two to three hours a week blogging. Don’t hire a ghostwriter for your blog, or you’ll get slammed by bloggers for lack of transparency (an unwritten rule in the blogosphere). As far as retaining readers, recency is more important than frequency. A couple weeks of inactivity makes the reader feel like nobody’s home. Conversely, having the latest post be only a day old makes the blog appear “fresh.”
5. Build relationships with respected bloggers. Not only will they be more likely to link to you, but they will also offer advice and bolster your street cred. Posting thoughtful comments on their blogs is only the first step. Attend blogger conferences such as BlogOn and Blog Business Summit and meet bloggers in person. Keep the dialogue going through e-mail and through phone or Skype conversations. Become an evangelist, and you will really get them on your side.

You may also want to check out on my own blog the unabridged version of my ecommerce blog tips that I had sent to the Multichannel Merchant journalist. It further expounds on the five tips.

After two weeks soaking up the Hawaiian sun on holiday (and yes, it was delightful), it was hard for me to remember the Internet, let alone worry about blogging, but once you start focusing on business communications, it’s impossible to completely let go.

As a result, when we started hearing so much about the international Merrie Monarch hula festival taking place on the Big Island while we were there, I started to learn quite a bit about hula, not as dance, but as a communications channel, as a method by which the Hawaiians transmit their own oral history and culture, as a way of telling stories.

Hmm… blogging’s all about inventing and creating communications channels too, isn’t it, and the best bloggers are storytellers who are focused on the culture of technology, business and society just as much as on the specifics of their story.

And so…

The Surprising Similarities Between Blogging and Hula Dancing

I hope you enjoy it!

As blogs continue to mature as marketing tools, there are an increasing number of “blog optimization” articles and posts appearing. Stephan has written some excellent posts here at BBC on optimizing blogs that have made a world of difference for this blog. It is however, surprising how many of the other blog marketing and optimization resources neglect the importance of inbound links.

To think that researching and placing keywords in the “right places” alone with improve a blog’s traffic is only part of the story. Blogs are simply web sites with special features. Getting web sites to rank well and to engage more traffic involves a large number of variables. The same rules apply to blogs. The difference is that there are unique linking opportunities with blogs that are not common with web sites. These include:

• Trackbacks
• Social book marks
• Guest blogging
• Comments
• Tagging
• Blogroll links

There are also methods to gain links with blogs just as you would a web site:

• Backlink analysis on competing web sites or blogs
• Directories
• Article syndication
• Profiles and bios
• Non-profit contributions
• Press releases
• Testimonials
• Job listings
• Interviews
• Social book marks
• Media coverage
• Buying web sites
• Buying links
• Forums
• Viral marketing – linkbait
• And many more

Not all of these are applicable to blogs, job listings for example, but many are.

As an example, check out the #1 rankings on Google and Yahoo for Online Marketing Blog on the phrase, “marketing blog”.

Another example is Business Blog Consulting with a #1 position on Google and #4 on Yahoo for “business blogging”.

These rankings involve more than just good on-page optimization – they include attention to inbound links. So as you work on getting all of your keyword phrases in all the right places of your blog, understand that on-page optimization is only part of the job. Links can make a night and day difference for your search engine positioning as well as traffic.

For several useful blog marketing tools check out: RSS Buttons, Social Bookmark Tool, Blog Directory List, Article on Blog Optimization.

The first mistake I mention in “The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make” is not getting your own domain name for your blog, and using something.typepad.com or something similar.

However, you need to be careful if you use the registrars to research a blog domain name. (Or any domain name, for that matter.) Wired’s Monkey Bites blog reports here and here on a situation where someone put a desired domain name into a shopping cart at GoDaddy but didn’t check out right then. (Happens all the time.)

When they returned the next day to purchase the domain name it was gone, purchased by someone else and for sale for an inflated price.

The same thing happened to someone I know when she put her titular domain name in a shopping cart at GoDaddy but didn’t check out. The next day — poof! — it was gone.

Slimy? Yes. Illegal? Probably not.

In short: if you researching a domain name at the registrars, be ready to buy it right then!

The “hot news” on the Blogosphere this morning is the interview between Alan Meckler and Jason Calacanis in the Wall Street Journal.  The discussion is geared more towards the individual blogger with the experience Jason has as the CEO of a major blog network.

The discussion (according to tech.memeorandum) is pretty diverse.  A lot of people are focusing in on the “if you hit this traffic level you make good money …” aspect of the article, however I think this is only part of the story.  Jason touches on it with this short comment:

The fact is that the “long tail” of sites is largely unmonetized. Over the next five to 10 years, Google AdSense, Weblogs Inc., Yahoo Publisher Network, AOL’s white-labeled version of AdSense, and Microsoft’s “AdSense killer” will enable the monetization of a lot of those smaller sites.

For businesses blogging, there might not be much, if any, interest in putting ads on their blogs.  However, if you are a small business or a solo pro … earning a little extra cash is a nice bonus.

Looking at the larger picture, though, most of the major ad networks recognize that there are a lot of untapped (un-added?) blogs out there.  Leveraging that potential real estate is going to be the challenge of 2006.

Tags: blog advertising, long tail

 

Preparing a workshop on blogging for people in the meetings and events industry, I went googling for hotel blogs. I found plenty of blog posts about hotel experiences, but not hotel corporate blogs, with one exception, the new blog launched by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, TheLobby.com, which is claimed to be the first blog launched by a major hotel company.

Graphically attractive in a fairly understated way, the blog is apparently aimed at ‘Starwood Preferred Guests’ (SPGs), although there is no sign of any section reserved exclusively for that group (not that that would need to be evident to a casual visitor).

Several posts are not much more than chatty plugs for one or other hotel in the Starwood group, which I’m sure could be helpful if, for instance, you were planning a trip to Tirana, the capital of Albania and needed to know which of the two international hotels to stay at if you want wireless internet (it’s the Sheraton) – see post of April 18, and see below why this is not hyperlinked.

The blog is evidently written by a group of travel writers – Marc S., Mark (Editor), Thomas C., Nick L. and Philip S. It seems odd, and frankly I found it irritating, that we are provided with no more identification than first names and some last name initials, especially the lastname initial bit – is there a ‘guess the travel writer’ test here for the designated SPG readership?

Although the April 13 item from which I picked up this story in iMedia Connection  (acknowledging the Wall Street Journal) says there is no provision for commenting, there is in fact a comments function and some posts already have comments. A scan of the disclaimer/warning that sits above the commenting screen suggests that the lawyers have been busy. It’s the most daunting piece of work I’ve seen on a blog comments page to date.

I could not find a permalink function. In what presents as a more traditional website fashion, you can search for archived posts on categories of brand, category (type of hotel), city, or country.

There is a pretty unobtrusive feedback link in the dark gray background area on the right side of the screen. When clicked, this produces a pop-up with a detailed questionnaire that I suspect only dedicated survey-takers will want to stay and complete.

From where I’m viewing it, TheLobby.com is basically a pr blog or even an adverblog, designed to cater to the already converted guests of this group of hotels – and it’s not suggested the publishers are offering anything else, although if the writers were given some more latitude it could no doubt turn into a travel blog with a potentially wider appeal. Calling it a ‘corporate blog’ as iMedia Connection has done, in spite of the fact that the blog doesn’t really speak for the Starwood group as a corporation, raises the question of just what constitutes, or should be recognized as, a corporate blog.

I devote a whole chapter to confronting fear of blogging in The Corporate Blogging Book. Anil Dash makes quick work of the topic with several salient points:

• Blogs are an established technology
• Blogs work with other technology, including email and your website
• A blog can be used anywhere that tools like email and IM are: Inside or outside the company, in one location or around the world.
• There [are] no set rules about how to have a blog. You can start small, with a lot of control over content and community, and expand over time — don’t jump in with both feet if you’re not ready.

His comments are directed at what he calls “normal business people.” Which is an important distinction. Those who read this blog and others that cover the topic of “corporate blogging” may already be convinced that blogs are a new must-use communications channel. But there are lots of folks just beginning to think about this.

So Andy whimped out and asked me to post for him about the official release of his book “BlogWild!“. Geez Andy, it’s a great book! Why wouldn’t you want to write about it? Now I’ve already done a review of both Andy’s and Des’ books, but this is Andy’s day. The book is real, it’s done, it’s even hard cover!

And I really did enjoy it (I still have to try the recipes). Here’s my thing about business books. First they need to be readable. Good prose is key. Humour is important. Next, they need to cut to the chase. Brevity scores major points in my book. Took me less than an hour to go cover to cover (yeah, okay I skimmed the Typepad sections … but I know when I’m fixing Toby’s site I’ll be referring to it). So if you car pool to work or take transit, you might be able to be done and have action steps before you even get to work!

That brings me to my next (and next to last) point … action items. End the chapters with nice easy action items. Something short and tangible that could even be done while you’re on hold or something. Intense action items just don’t work. KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Finally, the anti-hype factor. Yes, blogs are hot. Yes, people are clamoring about them. But there are real business reasons for using the a blog to get your message out. How about saving money! There’s a good one (and it’s in Andy’s book). Andy leverages the hype about blogs to get your attention, but then puts all the advice into anti-hype tone. This is so important. People might get sick of talking about “blogs” per se, but they aren’t going to get sick of being able to write about their business, communicate with customers, and get a good search engine ranking for like $15/mo.

So … Andy’s book is for real. Congrats Andy!. And boy with all the authors on this site I’m getting to feel like the odd man out! Oh well. Who wants to read a book written by a geek anyway.

Tags: BlogWild, Andy Wibbels

Recently I wrote a post on optimizing your TypePad blog titles for the search engines. Today I read a well-documented article called Search Engine Optimization for Blogs by Bill Hartzer.

In it he discusses techniques to use if WordPress or Movable Type is your platform of choice. He also has some good information on promoting your blog. (Although, how he forgot Stephan Spencer’s fantastic collection of WordPress plug-ins I’ll never know!)
If you’re using your blog as a lead-generation tool be sure to check this article out.

When I started riding motor bikes some years ago, for commuting and occasional touring, I was made aware by other riders that Ducati owners were a special breed of enthusiasts. And the machines themselves were clearly serious racing bikes, which I usually saw disappearing very quickly out in front of wherever I was.

I don’t know how many Ducati owners are blogging just now, but my hunch is that the number is about to rise with the news that Federico Minoli, the corporate turnaround man who took the reins at the Italian company some nine years ago, is one of the newest CEO bloggers on the block. Two weeks ago, Minoli and his company launched Desmoblog. The company announced at the time that the blog would tell what is happening at Ducati and in the world of its fans, as well as decisions about new products, Ducati events, business strategies, ‘behind the scenes’ news from the race track and more.

In his welcome to the blog, Minoli says:

This new space online gives me a new way to communicate with colleagues, fans and bikers about my life, my experience with Ducati, the company, the motorcycles and of course Ducati Corse (link added).

The blog and the company website design are seamlessly integrated, and the Desmoblog is bi-lingual, in English as well as Italian.

The announcement of the blog on the Ducati website presents the blog as providing for a dialogue directly between blogger and readers and offers the opportunity of sharing ‘the fever for Ducati’, receiving frank comments from fans and replying directly.

Podcasts are also foreshadowed.

The many comments on the Desmoblog site in just two weeks, some in English, some in Italian, suggest that the ‘Ducatisti’ tribe has taken up the challenge with gusto, as for example in the comments on Minoli’s After the race March 11 post from Daytona. 

With the growing number of businesses launching blogs, there’s a huge opportunity in the blog metrics and analytics space. Many blogs use free programs with limited functionality and some use the same stats programs as for a regular web site such as Google Analytics.

There is a distinction to be made though, since the measurable outcomes for a content publisher, particularly a blog, are different than for an ecommerce site. Therefore Google Analytics and many other stats programs are not the best fit for blog metrics.

What options for blog focused analytics are out there?

blogbeat is a fairly new hosted blog stats program that caters specifically to the needs of blog content publishers. It plays well with FeedBurner and offers tabs of information separated by: Posts, Visitors, Referrers, Searches and Links. There’s a free trial period and then a small monthly fee.

Google recently purchased Measure Map which also pays more attention to blog-centric information, but they are not adding any new accounts at the moment. I have not been able to try it myself, however Solution Watch offers a rundown and screen shots of Measure Map.

Performancing Metrics stands out as a measurement tool meant for blogs. To get an idea of the features offered, see the post by Ahmed Bilal who reviews Performancing Metrics or the breakdown by Darren Rowse who also includes screen shots.

Performancing Metrics offers ad tracking, real-time blog stats, the ability to track mutiple blogs with one user account, RSS 2.0 feeds of your stats (how cool is that) as well as many other features.

I did a short interview yesterday with the Nick Wilson, co-founder of Performancing where he clarifies the Performancing mission as well as where their blog metrics offering fits within the services being developed for pro bloggers.

Performancing Metrics public beta launched today and is now taking on free accounts.

Today, less than 48 hours away from doing a presentation about business blogging at an Australian Marketing Institute seminar in Sydney, I am rather pleased to see that the lead story in the national newspaper The Australian’s IT Business segment, is ‘Blogging the Brand’, by Chris Jenkins. Neat: I can expect that a reasonable number of my marketing industry audience tomorrow night will have read or at least skimmed this piece on corporate blogging and will be ready with some good, challenging questions. It helps too, that the article comes close on the heels of a page 3 story last weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Online buying frenzy as big business swoops on sites’, by highly respected journalist Tom Burton, about people making money from the web: about half of the article focuses on people making money from blogging.

Back to the article in The Australian. I found it quite informative, not so much for me in terms of  theories and broad observations about corporate blogging, but more because of comments from the trenches. I was particularly interested in the comments from Paul Crisp, ‘new media project leader’, responsible for the blogging operation at our major telco, one of Australia’s biggest corporations, Telstra, through its Now We Are Talking site, which has blogs by staff members as a feature.

Crisp acknowledges that Telstra had no Australian corporate blogging models to draw on, so had to adapt what it could learn from studying what US-based corporations were doing, such as Boeing, Microsoft and General Motors. He observes that Telstra does not need blogs to ‘push out’ information’, but sees blogs as giving the corporation a way to plug into public feedback (interesting, given that probably every Australian over the age of 15 has a Telstra story and they are not all positive!). He also sees blogs as allowing Telstra to put a different face to its message.

‘If you want to hear from the rank and file of the company, to try and put a face to the people that make this big company work and get their perspective and the challenges they face and what turns them on, here’s an opportunity to get it directly from the horse’s mouth.’

I took some time out to check out the blogs at Now We Are Talking. I had honestly expected them to be rather bland. They aren’t, and I’m impressed. I’m especially impressed because employees are writing about potentially contentious issues and there are comments on the blogs from the general public (I am so not a conspiracy theorist that I do believe they are from the general public!).  

The article also quotes Aussie Microsoft blogger, Frank Arrigo, author of the excellent Frankarr blog. On the subject of risk, which is invariably given prominence in the occasional Australian media story about corporate blogging, Frank observes succinctly: 

“There is always a risk, but it’s no different to me being at the pub and bitching about my job and there is a journo next to me,’ he says.

And with eminent good sense, it seems to me, Frank goes on to say that if he doesn’t want to see something appear on the front page of one of the national dailies, he doesn’t blog it.

(Note that the link above to the story in The Australian is a weblink but not a permalink and regrettably there is no link available for the Sydney Morning Herald piece.)