Blog Authoring Software

Sponsored Blogging Not Your Best Bet

Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008 by PJ Hinton

The Valleywag blog had a great post tonight about the ineffectiveness of sponsoring a celebrity blogger. Citing Seagate's sponsorship of Robert Scoble's blog as an example, post author Owen Thomas notes that the computer storage manufacturer's stock price has decreased significantly since the sponsorship began. The post goes on to cite some interesting statistics.

In April, a study by Canadian research firm Pollara found that word of mouth works — nearly 80 percent said they'd buy products recommended by a friend or family member. But word of mouse? Only 23 percent said they'd buy something touted by a blogger. "This shows that popularity doesn't always equate to credibility," Pollara executive Robert Hutton told MediaPost. "Marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there."

This is an reinforcement of the case that Compendium CEO Chris Baggott been making both in his presentations and blog posts like one from late May, where he wrote:

2. Celebrity. So many journalists covering Social Media focus on Celebrities and celebrity bloggers. There are 20,000,000 businesses in the United States…and this doesn’t count non-profits. Hearing stories about Jimmy Wales, Michael Arrington, Kerry Miller or Jonathan Schwartz is great if you’re People Magazine, but this is Business Week. Tell me about real businesses using these tools. The story at Sun Microsystems isn’t the story of a CEO/Celebrity blogger (Jonathan's Blog), the story is the thousands of normal everyday Sun employees that blog. Who are they? What are the benefits to the organization? (hint…it’s not touchy-feely....the ROI is found in winning searches and converting those visitors to prospects….)

The takeaway message for businesses is that you'll get more mileage for your marketing dollars if you invest in a company weblog, continuously stocked with content by plain-spoken employees who believe in what you're doing. Compendium's Multi User Blog Software helps you achieve that goal.

Could TraceMonkey Make JavaScript the New Java?

Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008 by PJ Hinton

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

-- Mark Twain

I was reminded of this quote by Twain today as I read two articles, one at InfoWorld and the other at InformationWeek, about the Mozilla team's plan to give Firefox's JavaScript performance a jolt. Code named "TraceMonkey", the project is introducing support for just-in-time code compilation into its JavaScript engine. This new feature has been included with the alpha version of Firefox 3.1, but it is turned off by default because of it's work-in-progress status.

This project is interesting from our standpoint because an increasing amount of our application relies on client-side JavaScript to provide our customers with a smooth experience in editing and maintaining their blogs. While the rise of AJAX has included many singing the praise of rich internet applications, JavaScript's status as an interpreted language has forced us to keep an eye on performance as our blog authoring software becomes increasingly feature rich.

As ambitious as the project may be, the Mozilla team are thinking wisely here. The narrative being pitched by Adobe and Microsoft is that if you want to create rich web interfaces that have good performance, you need to lock into one of their proprietary technologies, the kind of technologies that require downloading and installing plug-ins. As JavaScript pioneer Brendan Eich astutely points out in the InformationWeek article, "Not everyone wants to get a plug-in."

I was also struck by this passage from that same article:

If Mozilla is successful in its efforts, the rationale for developing rich Internet applications will become increasingly questionable. As Eich sees it, RIAs are already at risk. "Those platforms that are not a browser are an increasingly thin value-add to what the browser can do," he said.

In these remarks I hear an echoes of Marc Andreesen back in the mid-to-late 90s, when he boasted that one day Windows would be reduced to "an unimportant collection of slightly buggy device drivers" with a combination of Netscape's browser and Sun's Java technology. It's even more amusing when you recall that part of this promise was tied to Sun's addition of support for just-in-time compilation for the Java virtual machine.

Will JavaScript succed where Java fell short. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Why Companies Should Have a Blog Post Approval System

Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 by Chris Baggott

I'm the only person in the history of our own blogging program to have to pull a post after it's gone live. Could it have anything to do with the fact that I'm the only person in the Company that doesn't have his posts go through a review process?

I recently wrote a blog post about something I thought I overheard at a recent Indianapolis blog software conference.   Turns out that I heard inaccurately. Ooops!

As you know, from a Business or Corporate blogging standpoint, we here advocate widespread employee blogging.   Employees generate the best content, telling real stories about real people, by real people. Compendium clients see signifcantly higher SEO benefits from this sort of blogging and much higher searcher engagement.

But...as I've proven, it's not without risk.   This is why we have incorporated a workflow system so that all employee posts have to be reviewed by someone else.   It's not that your employees are malicious or that you are trying to squeeze the life out of them and their content.

It's just that blog authors tend to let passion get in the way of judgment & for a business it's just a blogging best practice to keep an eye on your content before it can do you any harm.

I'm not mean, but the most junior member of my team would have looked at this post and said: "Chris....are you sure this is what you are trying to say?"

There are a lot of blogging benefits, and only a couple of risks. Once bad content goes live, you can't get it back...only ask for forgiveness.

Online Behavior --- Continues To Prove The Case For Business Blogging

Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by Jenni Edwards

This Forbes Article is great! I think one of the biggest takeaways is this line "...the Internet is still about searching for information. Indeed out of the top five sites most trafficked by U.S. visitors...four are portals (search engines) to other Web sites."

The Internet is about search. That's what people are doing. While email is still the most popular activity, the proof of the importance of search is in the rankings (make sure to check out the slides that compare the Top 20 Sites of 2005 to the Top 20 Sites of 2008 --- so amazing how quick we forget 'cool' destination sites, does anyone even remember Gorilla Nation Media from 2005?).

The one regret I have of the article is the fact that the author never did tie blogs into the search world or the idea to blog for SEO. And the mention of blogging is grouped into social networks and forums. While all of these do create the so called "interaction" the idea that businesses only can utilize blogs to monitor the chatter is an understatement --- what about taking the next step and implementing their own business blogging strategy?

Corporate blogging is like gardening

Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2008 by Eric Romer

Or traveling to Florida for vacation.

Or throwing a party.

Or building a house.

OK, so my point is, you can fill in just about any analogy and it would work. The desired outcome is an award-winning garden, or arriving in Florida, or having a fun party everyone talks about, or seeing the house in its final stages. How you get there is by using the proper tools or tactics.

This is mostly inspired from reading a great post by Shel Holtz, co-author of "Blogging For Business", along with other communication-focused books. (Not to be confused with Shel Israel, co-author of "Naked Conversations", another book on corporate blogging)

Gardening Tools
I've talked about the issue of time in several posts on this blog, and you can count this as another. My biggest issue with that argument related to business blogs is that it's an excuse, not a valid reason.

If all of the sudden, there was a revolutionary new tool that could improve the way I garden, I'd probably want to know about it. I would never say "I have no time to use that tool." Take the picture above. There are a lot of different tools that a gardener can use to achieve his/her end goal - to make it the most healthy, attractive garden around. (if that's not the goal gardeners, speak up) The end game is the same, but the tools are up to each individual gardener.

It's the same thing with business. Any business has to communicate with it's shareholders, employees, existing customers, and most importantly potential customers. To drive business, you need leads. You need to introduce your business to a qualified prospect, build trust, prove value and convert them into a happy customer.

Blogging is just a tool. A simple, easy tool that scales content and allows you to communicate more effectively.

Shel writes:
Blogging is a new communication channel. Before blogs became widely available and accepted, executives made do with the channels available to them: one-on-one phone calls, conference calls, speeches, road shows, letters, email and so on. I have heard from a number of CEOs that blogs are more effective than any of these tools for a variety of communications. Therefore, they have replaced the use of such channels with blogging. In aggregate, though, they’re spending just as much time fulfilling their role as the company’s chief communicator.
And he's just highlighting an executive's reason to blog. We at Compendium preach to allow employees, not just C-level exec's, to blog for your business. As the Edelman Trust Barometer shows us, an employee blog is "five times more credible than a CEO blog." Shel also has some good tips on time management, group blogs and ROI. Read the rest of his post HERE.

Page titles are so money. By money, of course, I mean search-awesome.

Posted Monday, August 11, 2008 by mikey mioduski

If any of you are just getting the hang of this SEO thing, like me, you, like me, may have recently discovered the grande importance of page titles in SEO. This is relevant to blog titles as well.

In his whitepaper, What is Blogging’s Role in Search Engine Optimization & the Social Networking Phenomenon?, Compendium Blogware Co-Founder and CEO Chris Baggott quotes SEO expert Steven Bradley:

By far the most important piece of writing you’ll do on any given page is your page title. Search engines consider your page title to be very indicative of what can be found on the page.

Chris goes on to make the following recommendations.

Think about your keyword strategy for PPC and use that as a guide for your blog titles. For example, if ExactTarget wants to rank well on the search term “blogging best practices,” they should name a blog this. And by “name,” I mean that they should title it “blogging best practices.” Titling by the appropriate keyword phrase is a highly scaleable strategy, meaning that ultimately, you would have a blog titled with every one of your PPC keywords.

Along those lines, here are some tips:
• When writing page titles, place your keywords as close to the front of the title as you can.
• Don’t “stuff” with keywords. Titles still need to be readable and need to convince someone to click on them, even in the organic results. (Remember, it’s the actual page title that will show as your result and link in the search results. Obviously results that include the search terms that the searcher has used will be the most compelling ones!).
• Be wary of using titles such as “Rob’s Ramblings.” Every blog should have a meaningful title that includes specific keyword phrases for which you want to rank.

Page titles are money. They're like this huge bear, with these massive claws. Search engines are like this cute little bunny, and if you don't have a relevant and powerful blog title, that little bunny's going to slip away off to some other big bear's cave. Search engines love blog titles, and we should too.

So I changed my blog title to something that may be more search-awesome, in hopes of catching that beautiful baby bunny. We'll see what happens. Who's the big winner here tonight in Indianapolis? Anyone blogging for business that's who.

swingers blogging and you!

Author's note: I refrained form embedding one of my all-time favorite scenes from Swingers here, as there is no made for tv version that I could find on YouTube. If you know of the whereabouts of the bear-claws-rabbit scene online, sans colorful language, please comment on this post! Gracias.

Google ramping up YouTube ads

Posted Thursday, August 7, 2008 by Eric Romer

I came across an blog post from Saul Hansell in the New York Times' Bits blog that highlights what most of us regular YouTube users have noticed lately: an increase in ad-supported videos.

The author points out that the ads are more reminiscent of "the gaudiness of MySpace than the sterility of Google," and describes how the Kings of Search are trying to get a return on their $1.65 billion investment when they purchased YouTube last year.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of behavioral targeting when done properly, and not intrusively like Facebook's Beacon nightmare. For example, the image above has a text ad in the top right corner for Obama's book, which is probably relevant to a person watching a video about the man. But, like Saul said, it's a little harder to justify "enhancing user experience" with a Nissan ad that pops up on the bottom.

As online video grows (which it will), I'm sure this model will be tweaked and improved. However, right now, it's very much a "shouting" method of marketing. The first time an ad has no relevance to me, I stop paying attention. This only needs to happen once or twice (Myspace is a prime example), and then I tune out.

For businesses trying to reach their target audience, corporate blogging software allows you to create very relevant, personal content for those in the market to buy. The best "behavioral targeting" is to deliver highly relevant, recent information to those seeking it. As the digital shift continues, every organization will have a company blog in the next 3-5 years.

Monon Coffee Company

Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2008 by Sarah Sedberry

On a day to day basis here at Compendium Blogware, I spend a lot of time with clients, working with them on template creation, content development for their individual blogs, question and answer periods, going over blogging metrics, etc.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with one of our original clients, Monon Coffee Company.

The Monon Coffee Company is located in Broad Ripple, IN, right off of Westfield Blvd. They are the ideal (non-commercial) coffee shop, offering a relaxing, inviting, and warm atmosphere. The barista's greet you when you walk in the door, there is ample comfortable seating - including stools right at the counter so that you can interact with the employees. They also feature artists often so stop by frequently to see whats new on display. For the technology obsessed, like myself, they do offer free wifi.

I was impressed with William Powell, who is the owner, as well as, the author of their company blog. He greeted every customer and took the time to chat with them. He remembered every one of them, along with what was going on in their lives. If you are looking for your modern day "Cheers" look no further. Monon Coffee Company is the place you need to go.

While I was there, it was a hard choice to decide on what to have. They offer everything from snacks, to treats, to smoothies, to (of course) coffee. I was persuaded by John to try the daily special - The Zebra Mint Mocha. A blend of crushed peppermint, white and dark mocha flavoring, milk, and coffee. I had mine iced and it was just the right accent to go with the sunny afternoon.

When you get a chance, stop by and say hello to William and the gang. Let them know if you've checked out their company blog, which you can do so here.

Corporate Blogging from another voice.

Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 by Sarah Sedberry

Douglas Karr touched on a topic near and dear to our hearts here at Compendium Blogware in his post yesterday: Blogging for Business: New Tricks for Old Dogs.

Douglas does a great job breaking down how blogs are emerging as a marketing source for companies.

He addresses the pitfalls businesses are falling into, such as:

Dull conversations aren’t attracting readers
Business blogs turn into regurgitated press releases.
The topics don’t spark comments or trackbacks.
The posts lack personality and thought leadership.

"In short, the reason why business blogs are failing are because corporations are substituting a blogging application for their content management system."

At Compendium Blogware we help focus your posts and give you the tools to help make your corporate blog successful. We stress blogging for a purpose and assist in creating a strategy with your business to get a return on your investment.

Douglas also touches on what they can do to ensure success.

"Gaining authority and search engine results"
           - This is part of the package with Compendium - our expertise in SEO"

"Implementing a blogging platform that guides the blogger effortlessly through the posting process"
         - Our platform allows the user to easily create and post content, provides a                 list of keywords to focus on, and an indicator letting the blogger know                     how strong their post is.

"Blogging is a not an overnight success. Great blogging results require momentum and constant analysis and improvement."
           - Our Client Success Team is here to provide support and guidance                             regarding content ideas, best practices, tips and tricks to keep the                         process simple and stress-free.

Another feature of our platform is that there is an administrative layer that monitors the content that ends up published.

These are all reasons why Compendium Blogware can be the best answer for any business looking to begin a corporate blog.

(Also a thanks to Douglass for the plug!) :o)

25 Ways to Market Your Blog

Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 by Kristen Hanschu

We focus on a wide variety of marketing tactics surrounding our blog writing software. In a recent article by Lee Oden, he goes on to discuss each one of his secrets to blogging for search engine optimization. I do have to disagree with his second point where he names his favorite blogging platforms. This is probably due to the fact that this author is not familiar with our better blogging software.

One of the major differences between Compendium and our "competitors" is that we walk you through each one of these 25 marketing initiatives. Where as, the other blogging tools allow you to set up a blog and then leave you to figure it out on your own, we hold your hand through the entire process. Our client success team is trained to get your blog off the ground and have you ranking on keywords as soon as you possibly can.

Tangential Brainstorming for Blog Content

Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 by jeff lefevere

Writing interesting, compelling content for blog posts is very simple. Just a dash of brainpower is necessary in order to set yourself up for success.

Besides planning to write on a schedule with consistency, where how can you find writing inspiration?

1) Keep a pad of paper that serves as a brain dump for ideas

2) Think about your ideas in a story arc—with a beginning, a middle and an end. Blog posts don’t need to be long -- 250 words can do the job. In fact, there is a whole niche on the internet around Micro Fiction—short stories less than 400 words. An idea, with context, with a beginning, middle and an end.

3) Use day to day interactions with customers and situations that come up – even business fires and fire drills can turn into a blog post if you apply a bit of humanity and wisdom to the situation while tying it into your business. Plus, the funny anecdotes that come out of customer service situations, along as the innocent are protected, serve as excellent educational items

4) Think about translating a prevailing concept and tying into a post related to your business.

One way I like to do #4 this is to read business book summaries.

Everybody loves a good business book—the one with some insight that taps that far away repository in your brain matter that then sends a synapse firing against your memory bank of experiences that creates a new idea. Books help to feed that fire and add to our repository.

But, let’s be honest, reading books takes time, and most of us have, at best, an hour a day for leisure reading—which makes getting through a book, or several books to spark an idea something of a bit of work, and that presumes that we’re choosing non-fiction books and not a bit of escapist fiction.

There are numerous services that offer, for a reasonable fee, business book distillation summaries—a Cliffs Note version of the book—the essential truths and ideas without all of the interminable anecdotes that fill up 225 pages of a 250 page tome. Clearly, this sort of option lets you glean the ideas, quickly, retaining the good stuff and not engaging in the non-productive activity. Most summaries are eight pages or less and that’s a program I can get behind.

So, how can you immediately apply this to your blogging? Simple. Google “Business Book Summaries” sign up for a sample for a service, read a book summary, glean the ideas and apply it to your business in a way that is accessible to a customer or a potential customer.

For example, for a book like “Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, I might use that as a frame of reference to discuss the influencers and your core customers that act as your evangelists and how they spread the word for your company. Every company has these customers and it is just a matter of setting the appropriate context with humanity and authority to apply the concept to your business.

Easy peasy.

So, next time you get stumped, just remember that tangential thinking, or allowing different ideas to bounce off each other can be a great way to create an interesting post and business book summaries are one of hundreds of ways to do so.

Spell Checking for your Web Browser

Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 by PJ Hinton

One edge that word processor programs traditionally have had over web browser based editors is spell checking. Many web-based content creation applications, including our own blog authoring software, now include a spell checking feature.

Built-in support for spell checking has been slow to make its way into browsers. Since version 2, Firefox has supported in-line spell checking (those squiggly red underlines you see under suspected misspellings). Internet Explorer 7 doesn't have this feature at all.

Still, that's no excuse to avoid using a browser based editor, because there are easy tweaks that you can employ on both browsers to give you an experience comparable to that of modern word processors. Over at CNet's website, Dennis O'Reilly has a recently published blog post that spills the details.

That's just one more reason to add to the list for not using a word processor as your blog posting software.

This Browser Best Surfed Before...

Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by PJ Hinton

CMP trade publication Information Week ran an article today on a recently published paper which argues that web browsers should have an expiration date, just like perishable food.

The recommendation is based upon an estimate in the study that found over 45 percent of the internet population is using out-of-date browser software, leaving these users vulnerable to all kinds of known security threats.

The paper's authors make a provocative claim about the relative safety of different browsers:

Firefox 2 is considered to be the most secure Web browser because 83.3% of its users worldwide are running the most current version. Second, third, and fourth places go to Apple Safari 3 (65.3% of users running the most current version), Opera 9 (56.1%), and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer 7 (47.6%).

"It is noteworthy that it has taken 19 months since the initial general availability of IE7 (public release October 2006) to reach 52.5% proliferation amongst users that navigate the Internet with Microsoft's Web browser," the paper says. "Meanwhile, 92.2% of Firefox users have migrated to FF2."

The reason this claim is prone to controversy is because one could make the plausible argument that the latest-and-greatest browsers aren't necessarily bug free. It's more likely that they, too, have security holes. The only difference is that their security holes are still yet to be uncovered. Regardless of which side you fall on the never ending browser war, do yourself a favor by keeping your browser up-to-date.

As someone who is responsible for developing a hosted blog software service that must work on several different browsers, I'll confess to having an ulterior motive for encouraging this. Migration away from older browsers, like IE 6, reduces the need for web standard non-compliances workarounds, making the task of coding web pages a much simpler one.

My Response to ZDNet's Mitch Ratcliffe.

Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by Daren Tomey

I read a great post this morning from Mitch Radcliffe at ZDNet titled, "What is a company blogger good for?. Mitch does a great job of outlining 5 goals or objectives that companies may consider prior to launching a corporate blog. As a result of his post, I posted the following comment.

"Seems obvious but often overlooked

Mitch,

Thanks for the post on developing a clearly defined set of goals and objectives prior to launching a company blog. As a provider of corporate blogging software (www.compendiumblogware.com), we all to often encounter this challenge and attempt to take a more consultative approach with our prospects and clients. Sometimes this backfires as some of them simply want to subscribe and blog, however those that are either already focused on their goals or are willing to allow us to help them define what their goals and objectives are going to be related to blogging for a purpose, experience the greatest benefits and quantifiable results."

So, how did I find Mitch's post? It is a simple process of setting up Google Alerts, something that we recommend to all of our clients. These alerts, set up with keywords that are important to your business, industry, or interests, are great sources of inspiration and topics for which an author can write about on a daily basis.

This and other blogging best practices can be found on our website at www.compendiumblogware.com.

Pointers about Editing Posts

Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by PJ Hinton

At it's core, blogging is an exercise in writing. Newcomers to the activity are frequently inclined to do that writing using an application that is most familiar and then pasting the result into the blog authoring software.

My development activities frequently involve working with user generated content, and judging from my observations, there is a substantial portion of the user community that is using a word processor create posts.

Although a fairly straightforward operation, using a rich text word processor like Microsoft Word is not something that I would recommend as a blogging best practice. Here are some of the reasons:

Lost in the Translation: Rich text created with a word processor doesn't always translate cleanly into HTML. Between your word processor and the web broswer lies the system clipboard, and the interaction with that clipboard depends on the applications involved. Things like spatial formatting might get butchered along the way.
Character Assassination: Some word processors have auto-replace features that convert your keystrokes into completely different characters. The most common of these is Microsoft Word's Smart Quote feature, which converts the standard double quotation mark into directional quotes. Sometimes, these special characters rely on character encodings that are specific to the platform you composing on. These characters may not display properly on all browsers. At best, you reader might see question marks; at worst, your reader might see gibberish.
Fugitive Fonts: Yes, I'm sure that post sure does look rather fetching when set in 12 point Exotica, but unless your reader has identical typographical tastes as you and has configured his or her computer in the same way, that font won't be seen. A web browser usually only can render fonts that are installed on the system. If the font isn't present, a browser will substitute a different font, and it might be rather ugly.
Call the Style Police: Even if the font is displayable by the browser, the font may not match the look of the blog's style sheet. If every blogger in the organization is using a different font and size, the compended blogs tend to take a ramshackle appearance because the uniform look of the page's style sheet is routinely being overridden.
Proprietary Pitfalls: Sometimes a word processor will put HTML on the clipboard for a browser to accept, but the HTML isn't standards compliant. It may have attributes that are vendor specific. I've seen some very strange things, including HTML style attributes that had properties specific to Office and HTML tags that were prefixed with XML namespace identifiers. Very few of these things wind up looking good in all browsers.

Taken together, these points make for a compelling case to use Compendium's built-in blog post software. Our rich editor stores your content as HTML thereby maximizing the likelhood that what you enter is truly what you'll get. Moreover, it already supports many of the styling features that are supported in HTML. There's no worry that your formatting will be degraded.

An Inspiring Reason to Blog for Your Business

Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by PJ Hinton

Others' blogs can be a great source of blogging tips, even if they don't come right out and label them as such. Take for example a post that was published by Lead with Your Heart author Lewis Green. In discussing why it's important to give as well as get, Green talks about our natural resistance to "sharing openly" with others in personal and professional settings.

He goes on to list several examples of businesses and individuals who put this principle into practice and succeed by doing so. It's no surprise that his longest bullet point deals with bloggers who use their sites to educate and advise, not just self-promote.

If you are thinking about starting a business blog, SEO might be an attractive selling point. But one of the best blogging benefits you will reap, if you write the right kind of content, is an improved relationship with your customers. Quoting Green's closing remarks in the post:

People like and like to do business with those they trust and those who have integrity. Sharing ourselves and what we know is the best way to build a trusting relationship, and it doesn't hurt profits.

How well can you share?

Successful Website Requires Close Relationship Between Design and Development

Posted Sunday, June 22, 2008 by PJ Hinton

Trade publication eWeek ran a story on Friday about Google promoting it's App Engine as a workflow tool to bring web designers and developers together. The most interesting part of the story was a collection of remarks by Lindsey Simon, a UX software engineer, and John Skidgel, a web designer, both who work at Google.

Both Simon and Skidgel articulated the need for a close working relationship between engineer and designers. So close, in fact, that Simon said it should be almost spousal. Both roles needed to have a respect for each other's strengths and enough knowledge about the other's job to communicate effectively.

Taking the spousal analogy a step further, Skidgel and Simon described what hypothetical personal ads might say. Simon's designer ad read:

"Seeking an unpretentious, scrappy, well-rounded interaction and visual designer." The qualities listed as being sought after were, "Takes criticism without a hissy fit, willing to entertain rants about back-end/front-end code, knows Photoshop kung fu and not afraid of code."

Skidgel's ad for a UX engineer read:

"Takes suggestions without going ballistic, appreciates aesthetics, deep and broad understanding of front-end and back-end technology, and not afraid to express himself visually—he can draw [or] chicken-scratch flows."

At the heart of this humorous exercise was a serious message. Quoting Simon's words:

"You can't really have a meaningful design for these kinds of applications anymore if you really want to separate strict visual design and interaction design from the act of engineering it. That's not really a productive workflow." As a developer, "you want to work with your designer, and from the beginning."

Developing highly advanced blogging software has put this issue front and center with the engineering team at Compendium. Although the overall appearance of our application is drawn up by a professional design team, many of us have to don the designer hat every once in a while as we develop rich user interfaces for things like blog web page customization and content authoring. Soon our team will be growing to include a developer who will be focused on developing more powerful blogging features, the kinds of things that our current and future customers say they want from an Enterprise 2.0 blog.

On a related note, If you know of someone who might be thinking about starting a business blog, you might be interested in taking advantage of Compendium's friend referral promotion, which offers a $50 Starbucks card for each valid referral, up to 10 referrals. Details and disclaimers can be found at Compendium's website.

How To Rank in Google in 30 Days or Less

Posted Friday, June 20, 2008 by Kristen Hanschu

I am proud to say that Estridge is already ranking on 4 of their keywords and it has only been a month! If you want to talk about a company that is following blog best practices, then Estridge is the blog to look at.

View Estridge Homes

They are a builder here in Indianapolis who is looking to gain and inform prospective clients. Estridge has taken all of the steps that Compendium has given them and is seeing wonderful results. For example, their authors are posting content at least 2 to 3 times per week per person. Additionally, they are doing a fantastic job of linking in and out of their blogs.

Due to these factors, they are ranking on 4 keywords in Google and it has only been 30 days. Blogging for SEO is something that Estridge has seen as a driving force of their business. If you want to see results follow in the same path as Estridge.

We, Compendium, are a blogging software company in Indianapolis that is working with Estridge to produce these results. We are an affordable solution to expensive websites that are hard to maintain and update. In fact, we are the easiest blogging solution out there.

Humanize Your Marketing through Blogging

Posted Friday, June 20, 2008 by Megan Glover

Last week we wrapped a co-hosted Webinar with Vontoo called: Humanize Your Marketing with Blogging and vMarketing.

You can read more about Compendium's Webinar here but what I really want to focus right now is this: why blogs are the perfect vehicle to humanize your brand. But don't just take my word for it!

According to the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer Study:

It's clear that when it comes to traditional authority figures – whether they're chief executives or heads of state – people trust them less," says Mr. Edelman. "Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog – and I say this as a CEO blogger.

Read the full report here.

There are two take aways from this particular quote:

1.) People buy from people and they buy from people just like themselves.

2.) Consumers trust blogs. They trust blogs to gather information, communicate your brand, they find blogs "credible".

Now, think about the ways your company is communicating to your prospects. Do you have a blog, and if so who are your bloggers? If you aren't blogging what marketing vehicles are you using you humanize your message?

We'll answer all of these questions and more... after the Webinar. So, if this has perked your interest at all then please accept this personal invitation to attend.

Blogging Best Practice Q&A - Linking

Posted Friday, June 13, 2008 by Chantelle Flannery

When embedding links in our blog to other blogs or pages, what is considered general best practice… add the hyperlinked URL to the blog or hyperlink a title or something like that?

Good Questions.

Best practice: If I am writing a post that reviews an article. I write out who published it and perhaps the author. I then create the hyperlink to the article on the title of the article.

An example of this would be for an article from the NYTimes Apple Watchers Look for a New iPhone with a URL of http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/technology/10apple.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin. Notice how long the url is… now if I put this full url into the post itself it is going to detract from the content whereas having simply Apple Watchers Look for a New iPhone in a post it is much cleaner. Rarely every should you fully write out a url and link it unless it is short, to the point, and adds contextual value to the post. An example of this would be referring to www.howthingswork.com or www.wikipedia.org.

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