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