Common Craft Blog

Applications: Blogging By The Numbers

THis article profiles the growth of the weblog community.

While it is difficult to calculate exactly how many individuals are using Web sites as journals, Blogcount estimates that there are roughly 2.4 million to 2.9 million active Weblogs as of June 2003.

Roughly 2 percent of the online community has created a blog, according to Jupiter Research (a unit of this site's corporate parent). Interestingly, the majority (60 percent) of bloggers are dialing up to access their online journals, and more than half (57 percent) have a household income below $60,000 per year.

RSS makes it possible for you to use a single tool to easily read news and posts from weblogs and news sites across the web. The news comes to you without using email. Here is how you can get started:

On a majority of weblogs and some online community discussions and news sites, you'll see links and buttons like these:

or:

If you're like me, you clicked these buttons, only to be more confused by what you saw. This entry will help you understand how to use these links and an "RSS" reader to read the news and why it's something that could affect your day-to-day news reading and browsing.

From now on, I'll refer to the tools and processes as "RSS" (which means "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary" depending upon who you ask) It's not important to know anything but the terminology for now.

First, an overview:

Think about weblogs like individual news sources that create headlines and RSS as a way to read the news more easily. Something called a RSS newsreader or aggregator allows you keep up with these headlines more efficiently. It can be a replacement for visiting sites individually or subscribing to email newsletters. Using RSS, the news comes to you. It allows you to use a single tool to read news on the sites you choose.

Here's how it works:

First, you need to download an RSS newsreader. Here's a top ten list of RSS newsreaders for Windows. NetNewsWire is a good one for Mac. I use Wildgrape's Newsdesk.

Once you have a news reader- you are ready to go find weblogs and news sites that interest you (you finally get to use that "Syndicate this site" or "XML" link).

Let's use my site as an example. Find the "Syndicate This Site" link on the right side of the page and click it. You'll see a bunch of code. All you need to worry about is the URL (website address) on that page - it ends in ".rdf". Copy the URL and open your newsreader.

With your newsreader open, look for "New Channel" or some way to add a site. It should be very obvious. Once you click this button or link, the application will ask for the address of the site you'd like to add. Paste the .rdf (or .xml) address into the application. It should look like this:

Once you've added a site, you should see that the RSS reader displays the "headlines" from the site. By clicking a headline, you can read the news from the site without going to it. You should quickly see how it works. If you added my site, you should see my latest entries each time you open your newsreader.

Now that you have everything prepared, you can go to any weblog you like and click the "XML" or "Syndicate this site" link to add it to your RSS reader. Then, when you'd like to catch up on the news, you just open your RSS reader and read away. No email, no spam, no browsers.

RSS is fairly new, but it's good to know about because it could represent a new and growing format that may be used to access information in business.

Related Reading: A New Way to Look at News with RSS

Study: Internet tops TV in battle for teens' time

I have a couple of nephews that have grown up wired. They've been using instant messaging for years and now one of them is planning to start a photo blog.

If you think online communication/social software is growing now- wait until these kids start making business decisions.

I thought this quote from a teen was key:

She doesn't have cable TV, but if she did, ''pretty soon I'd just get bored of it,'' she says. On the Internet, ''you can actually interact with it. TV, you can't really do anything but watch.''

Via: Up2Speed

These folks are putting together a 4 day online conference that is focused on helping non-profits and non-government organizations (NGOs) work on the web.

Here is more official info from the organizers:

Conference URL: www.icohere.com/wiredorg DATES: September 16-19 LOCATION: Online

DESCRIPTION
Wired.Org: Nonprofits & NGOs Work on the Web is an online conference (September 16-19) geared to nonprofit and non-governmental organizations, socially responsible companies and educational institutions. Join leading experts like Susan Tenby, Eva Rosenberg, Joni Podolsky, Jayne Cravens, Jared Polis and Dr. James Price III directly from your computer. View and discuss presentations and network with diverse professionals, educators and volunteers. To learn more and take advantage of the early-bird discount, go to www.icohere.com/wiredorg.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Janet Salmons
Vision2Lead, Inc.
jsalmons@vision2lead.com
303-443-3075

Business lessons from the donut and coffee guy (kottke.org)

This little post really struck me.

In this example, Jason Kottke observed a coffee vendor in Manhattan that lets his customers make their own correct change so he can move on to the next customer. In doing so, he can serve twice as much coffee and he develops a sense of shared trust within his cutomers.

Many companies take shortcuts in getting their customers to trust them, paying lip service to Trustâ„¢ in press releases and marketing brochures. Which works, temporarily and superficially, but when you get down to it, you can't market trust...it needs to be earned. People trust you when you trust them.

Oh, so true.

Via: Up2Speed

UPDATED: A recent post at What Do I Know offers some similar points regarding the way that Nissan is advertising in Atlanta. Their strategy is to deface their own ads with graffitti pointing people to electricmoyo.com - which is a site funded by Nissan.

Like the post points out, I think this is more proof that corporations are learning that traditional advertising doesn't work and they have to find new ways to build trust and street cred.

Thanks to Anthony for the pointer.

When I first started getting into online communities in the late 90's, I heard about David Woolley's Thinkofit.com as a resources for reviewing and linking to forum software tools.

Since that time, David has continued to add onto the site and I was particularly interested to see that he has similar resources for Real Time Conferencing, also known as "web conferencing".

Using these tools, people can participate in a conference call and view a presentation on their computer screen at the same time. The presentation on their screen is controlled remotely- all they need to do is watch.

In addition to the tools, he also links to a number of reviews:

I've used web conferencing (via Webex) every week for the past couple of years and I believe we'll see more solid growth in using these tools. They'll never replace the effectiveness of face-to-face training/meetings, but they can certainly be a cheaper alternative to expensive traveling. I believe web conferencing works.