Great Find: TopicâBlog Promotion

March 9, 2006 by Liz

I was exploring on Technorati this morning and I found this for you . . .

Topic: Blog Promotion

Great Find: Topic: Blog Promotion
Type of article: Link list of posts on blog promotion
Permalink: http://mostbloggers.blogspot.com/2005/11/topic-blog-promotion-mostbloggers.html
Audience: Anyone who is looking to promote their brand, their business, and their blog
Content: The screenshot shows just a piece of the list. There are actually 23 links to posts on blog promotion. Most of the links lead to more links, directories, tools you might use to establish and promote a blog. To quote the post, the links are all about

discovering ways to spread the word about your blog, how to increase readership. . .

So here you go. Click the screenshot to explore what is there.

When you’re done looking, come back. I’ll be here.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: One Click Clipart and Photo Searcher

March 5, 2006 by Liz

Thinking-Intensive Image Searches

When I’m looking for a specific image to illustrate a post, going to the usual sources can be a time consuming adventure that leads down a long path to nowhere. Maybe all that I want is an idea–an image of someone falling behind. Unfortunately most photo and image sources are organized with more literal tags. So I’m forced to think of what sort of images might portray the figurative thought that I’m going for.

This morning I’m using a tool that gets past that problem. You’ll see it in use in the article I’m writing about thinking outside the box. Thought you might like to use it as well. So I’m taking a break to post this first.

WebPlaces.com

Great Find: WebPlaces.com ClipartSearcher
Type of site: Specialized One click searcher for images
Permalink: http://www.webplaces.com/search/
Audience: Anyone looking for images to illustrate content.
Content: The screenshot/link is self-explanatory. Do be aware that not all images are free use. So be sure to check copyright, as any responsible publisher would. If searching for free use images, start with .gov and then go to the original page and look for copyright, permission, or privacy statements.

This is a great tool for quickly finding what’s available on the Internet, providing images for your readers that aren’t overused. Fresh images creatively chosen draw readers into your posts and make your message stronger so that readers understand it easier and stay to read longer. It’s one more way that images are subtle, but powerful blog promotion.

Try a test. Post with images and without. See which draw more readers and then let me know.

ME “Liz” Strauss

Gmail Filesystem for Linux

March 3, 2006 by Liz

And now something for Linux users:

Richard Jones has been working. He’s put together a Linux filing system for Gmail.

Gmail Filesystem provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. Gmail Filesystem is a Python application and uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail.

[via reddit]

Hope you didn’t think I forgot you. Click the logo to check it out.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Internet Slang Dictionary and Translator

March 2, 2006 by Liz

And now for something completely different . . .

Internet Shorthand

Ever find yourself reading along in a post or a comment–or worse an email–and suddenly you encounter a set of letters that mean something. You’re sure they do, but you don’t know what. They are some sort of email and Internet shorthand. For whatever reason, you don’t feel comfortable asking anyone what they mean. Finally, there’s a place where you can sneak away and find out on your own . . .

The Internet Slang Dictionary and Translator

Yes, folks, you never have to feel out in the cold again. You can join the in crowd and be one of the gang, tossing around Internet slang like the rest of them. Best of all, you’ll actually what they mean. Imagine what boon to your business life this little tool could be! 🙂

Beyond the dictionary and translator, you will also find a number of good articles on net slang and net etiquette worth reading under the tap NET GUIDE.

Seriously click the screen shot, and go have some fun.

btw, syl. ttfn. hago

While you’re there, check this one–> PEBKAC

I’ll wait here for you.

Internet Slang Dictionary and Translator Screenshot

–ME “Liz” Strauss

More fun:
Fun Find: Button Generator.com
Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger
65th Crayon Finds that Google DoesnÃ¢â¬â¢t Use Search

Blogs: The New Black in Corporate Communication

March 1, 2006 by Liz

PART 2 IN A SERIES

. . . Has the blogging sensation passed corporations by?

Not by a long shot. Instead of public blogs, think about blog technology. That’s the focus for many leading companies around the world. From McDonald’s (MCD ) to Cannondale Bicycle, corporations are using the software to revamp internal communications, reach out to suppliers, and remake corporate Intranets. Often the site doesn’t look much different from what it’s replacing. Sometimes there’s nothing particularly bloggy about the results.

But these corporate initiatives are interactive and cheap to deploy — making them an attractive form of communication. “Blogs are a way to bring our knowledge together,” says Dave Weick, chief information officer at McDonald’s. –Stephen Baker, Business Week Online, The Inside Story on Company Blogs

Who Said Blogging Has to Be Public? We might not find many Fortune 500 blogs on the Internet. That doesn’t mean that Fortune 500 companies don’t have them. It means that we’re not invited to their private party. Corporations are taking advantage of blogging technology inside their firewalls.

Move Over Website, Bye-Bye Intranet

Blog technology is slowly overtaking the traditional website and Intranet structure at some corporations. Why is that?

Blogs are low in cost to set up and less expensive to maintain.
Blogs require less technical expertise.
Blogs offer a sophisticated content management system that’s meant to be updated daily. They invite communication.
Blogs are interactive. They allow relationships to form between people.
Folks can blog from their desk, their home, the local coffeeshop, even their telephone.

Like employees from another era, websites and Intranets constantly need to be brought up to speed. Blogs have the right skillset for today’s knowledge-based enterprise–they’re innovative, fast, accessible, and made for constant changing . . . and they can be as beautiful as any website. What’s not to like? I’d hire one.

Communication in Every Direction

Ever heard the saying, We’re all 100% responsible for communication? Blog software is being used to make 100% communication happen in almost every direction.

Blogs are carrying on conversations between management and employees that allow them to get to know each other as people.
Blogs are providing safe storage and collection of team project information, so that the entire team can literally be “on the same page.”
Blogs are connecting vendors with buyers, replacing fax machines, messy email inboxes. and lost correspondence.
Blogs are establishing and maintaining unprecedented information flow between field reps and home office folks, drawing companies together.
Blogs are ensuring everyone in a group has access to the same information at the same time in the same way from almost any point on the planet.

Choose your options. You can have any color as long as it’s blog technology.

Why Do We Need to Know This?

Rare is the person who doesn’t already do business with, work for, or buy from a company who is already using blogs in these ways. It’s reasonable to think that a Fortune 500 company that has made any step toward putting a public blog online has experimented with internal blogging. Think–McDonalds.

The Internet website and company Intranet are quickly becoming just so . . . old hat.

If we want to be invited to the party, we need to dress the part, know the culture, and speak the language. We need to be prepared as vendors, consultants, customers, and employees. We need to factor in this data when we think about where we fit. How does this change the way I interact with companies? How might this information affect my brand, my business, or my life in general?

For this black tie party, blogging technology is definitely the new black.

The world is getting smaller. I’m starting to think there really is only one party.

If I’ve got this wrong, please set me straight. I’ll listen. I’m the nice one.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blogs Aren’t Mini-Websites. They’re Powerful Tools.

February 28, 2006 by Liz

PART 1 IN A SERIES

Personal Computers as Tools

In Companies
When personal computers first became standardized and affordable, and software for using them was readily available, it wasn’t that long before they were sitting in every office. The ability to push rote tasks down to the lowest level has always been a strength of an effective business. Taking advantage of computers to do that–calculate spreadsheets, retype and revise documents, generate mailing lists–was an immediate no brainer for business folks focused on productivity. It wasn’t long before Information Management and IT became terms, then whole departments.

Personal computers changed how we work. They changed how we organized information, how we stored it, and share it, and even how we thought about it. Businesses–some more quickly than others–recognized that the computer was a tool of great value.

In American K-12 Schools
Schools, on the other hand, didn’t see the computer as a tool. They saw it as a subject, a class called Computer. Its highest honor was the day it replaced the class in touch typing. Even now in some prestigious New England high schools, the college prep strand kids still only officially see computers in the mandatory class called, “Computer Applications.”

It’s worth saying again. Schools don’t see computers as tools–like pencils and paper and textbooks or desks. Granted this a is gross generalization, but as an entity, Amercian K-12 schools can’t see past the contraption to take full advantage of its uses. The problem is not one of resources; it’s one of not enough folks feeling the need for them.

Blogs as Tools

Now companies and the mass media are acting like schools did. They see the physical blog and not the uses for it. They stop at the idea of what they think a blog is. Just as the school who sees computers as another subject, companies often see the contraption–blogs as another form of website, possibly as a way to do viral marketing.

We’re all missing that blogs are technology too.

The beauty of blogs is they are a flexible tool. The technology allows them to be that website and so much more–intranet, team project site, email replacement, advertising platform, billboard, company picnic, conduit to ideas, real connection to customers.

What Every Company and School Should Know

What most non-bloggers should know is that the number of both public and private blogs will continue to grow. They will outnumber websites based solely the fact that the expertise required to run a blog makes it inevitable. Small businesses start blogs because they already know that blogs are more flexible–can do more things, more easily, more quickly, and for much lower start up costs.

We owe it to our readers and our customers to to let them know that a blog isn’t just a poor person’s website.

If you want to add value to a business relationship, share that information with someone who needs it.

Let’s talk about how many ways blogs can be used. What do you see when you look at your blog as a tool?

–ME “Liz” Strauss