Are you thinking about starting a blog or using blogs as a research tool? Most blogging software runs on unix platforms, so you might want to use a service like blogger.com or other hosted services to actually set up a blog. We can help you get set up and configured as part of a larger web strategy.
Neuthink can spend time with you to get a handle on the questions you may have. Here are a few key topics and talking points:
1) What are blogs and RSS and why are they important?
- Everyone is a publisher
- RSS = Real Simple Syndication
- Less intrusive than other forms of communication such as newsletters
- Standard data formats
2) What software and services are available to support blogging?
- Wordpress
- blogger.com
- MoveableType
- Many others
3) How do you read blogs?
- Feedreaders, both client based and web based
4) How do you promote blogs?
- Pinging services
- Traditional native SEO & PPC
- Crosslinking
- Authority levels in Technorati
5) What are the perils of blogging?
- Blog spam
- Releasing too much information
- Hard to get ROI for content creation
There is A LOT of information on the web regarding this topic... here are a few resources with which to start:
http://weblogs.about.com/cs/blogpromotions/a/promoteblog.htm
http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page (a popular blogging tool's main support page)
http://www.bloglines.com/ (this is the RSS reader I use because it is web based)
http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/ (what is RSS, which goes beyond just blogs to other content management systems)
http://www.tokyoshoes.com/blogclass/ (2003 summary of a "blogging for dummies" class, covers "MoveableType" another popular blog platform)
In addition to blogs, here is another great research tool that I use (the paid version is much better than the free version, but I use the free version and get the basics):
http://www.google.com/alerts
