You've had this happen, I'm sure:
You're standing in a crowded room, carrying on a conversation with three other people, blotting out the background static of a dozen other conversations when, across the room, someone says your name. It's clear as a bell. Now you can suddenly hear everything that person's saying, and you want to know what they said about you, and why.
The human brain is an amazing filter of information. Our subconscious minds are constantly rejecting massive amounts of utterly irrelevant inputs. If they didn't, there's simply no way we could even function. (Incidentally, one of the theories as to why autistic people are paralyzed by human interaction is that they are unable to filter properly - everything is relevant to them.)
One of the biggest concerns about blogging is that it brings journalism to the common person. Now everyone has a voice. That's great, because every human should have the right to speak their mind. That said, I'm not going to find everything that everyone says to be interesting. Sorry, but I'm just not. With everyone speaking at once, I'm going to be just drowning in static, with no way at all to hear what I'm interested in.
Unless there's a filter. With a proper filter, I'm going to find the things I'm interested in. That's what search engines are for, and SEO. I don't believe in "gaming the system", which causes spammy results to bubble to the top. That renders the whole thing useless. What I do believe is what's been said many times - "Content is king." A properly designed system can bring the attention of search engines to relevant content.
Your brain is a search engine. Your name is one of the keywords it's constantly searching for.
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by
Krystal Featherston
Typically I tend to focus my posts on blogging best practices, but lately I’ve been getting questions from clients who are having some issues viewing blogs or some of Compendium’s training videos. The most common problem that I’ve found is not with out software, but that they are using Internet Explorer. In general most people do not pay attention to what browser they are using until there’s a problem … wouldn’t you agree?
Well my goal with this post is to catch the problem before it starts. Here are 10 reasons why to use Firefox.
1. Tabbed Browsing - Makes surfing the web faster
2. Pop-up Blocking
3. Find Stuff Easier
4. Simplified Privacy / Annoyance Eliminator
5. Better Bookmarks and History
6. Accessible, Intelligent, Responsive
7. Customizable and Extendable
8. Modern Download Manager
9. Built for standards
10. KISS (Keep It Simple and Straight-Forward)
View the complete article here.
Also, Firefox it is the most desired browser for our blogging platform.
Posted Friday, October 24, 2008 by
Douglas Karr
When folks are blogging for business, many of them are excited and watch over their analytics application. They post their first few blog posts and then send out the company wide-newsletter to announce the new blog to their 200 employees! The horns blare and everyone in the company clicks through to see it.
The blogger comes returns the next day, checks their analytics, and they see this incredible spike in traffic! Woohoo! Corporate blogging really does work, we have 200 visitors already! Amazing stuff!
Not so amazing. Those visitors weren't from Search Engines, they were your staff checking out the new company blog! Booooo!
In the first phase of your implementation and in setting up your Analytics application, be sure to exclude traffic from your own company. With Google Analytics, this is quite simple:
The blogger comes returns the next day, checks their analytics, and they see this incredible spike in traffic! Woohoo! Corporate blogging really does work, we have 200 visitors already! Amazing stuff!
Not so amazing. Those visitors weren't from Search Engines, they were your staff checking out the new company blog! Booooo!
In the first phase of your implementation and in setting up your Analytics application, be sure to exclude traffic from your own company. With Google Analytics, this is quite simple:
- Edit your analytics settings and you'll find a Filter section:
- Add a filter for your company's IP address or addresses. The syntax is a little funky because Google allows for regular expressions (which are cool). If you have a single IP address, simply enter it with a slash before each dot:
Posted Monday, October 20, 2008 by
Kristen Raves
I have recently found a new addiction, TopRank Marketing is my new guilty pleasure. They have a fantastic site filled with great hints, tips, and tricks to help you to continually improve your site.
Their most recent article touched on blog best practices that we highlight each and everyday here at Compendium Blogware. They also dive into blogging trends that are present in today's blogging community. Their focus this month revolves around the following points:
Their most recent article touched on blog best practices that we highlight each and everyday here at Compendium Blogware. They also dive into blogging trends that are present in today's blogging community. Their focus this month revolves around the following points:
- Content - Write often and make it relevant is the rule here. It is simple, the more you write, the more the search engines see you writing which will help you with rankings and gaining traffic to your site.
- Frequency - We have seen that there is a direct correlation between the number of posts our clients write and the amount of traffic that gets driven to their blogsites. The more they write, the more people are visiting their site and taking action. In the long run this means ROI for the client.
- Linking in - This can be critical when trying to get your audience to take action on the site. Whether it is a purchase or viewing a whitepaper, taking them to pages in your own site can push them to take action.
- Linking out - This can help to build a community. By linking out to other sites who do what you do, could get them to link back to your site. This can help you to gain even more traffic.
- Blog with keywords in mind - Using keywords is one of the most overlooked pieces when it comes to writing a post. It is most helpful to use keywords throught the post and in the title of the blog as well.
Posted Monday, October 20, 2008 by
Jess Wehner
I’m excited to announce that three more of my clients are done with implementation and have several posts in their blogs. I like including these “new client” posts in my blog because I think they are a great way to show not only the diversity of our clients, but also how easy it is to get up and running. Check out these business blogs to learn more about the companies using Compendium software successfully:
I think if you asked any of these companies about blogging with Compendium, they would tell you how easy it is to get started and hopefully tell you about some of the successful results they have seen already!
- Housetrends: Housetrends is a publishing company that produces a magazine with trends for your home and garden. They produce regional specific magazines that bring out the vibrancy and creativity of each market.
- St. Francis Winery: St. Francis is a winery in California. Don’t get too jealous when you read this blog and hear about the beautiful California weather and life at a winery. Check their blog out and order some wine!
- Stahl’s Transfer Express: Stahl’s is a screen printing company that manufactures custom, heat-applied, garment transfers known as Easy Prints®. They have one person blogging and are always able to get at least two posts up per week- great job Stahl’s!
I think if you asked any of these companies about blogging with Compendium, they would tell you how easy it is to get started and hopefully tell you about some of the successful results they have seen already!
Posted Monday, October 20, 2008 by
Jenni Edwards
This may be a bit of surprise, I like being crafty and creating art and I love reading about new trends in design...I don't spend as much time on it as I wish I did; but am currently in progress of making my Christmas gifts (don't worry -- no pot holders or macaroni necklaces coming soon) and have been reading a few of my favorite blogs more than usual to get some ideas...which got me thinking, why do I choose the ones I do over the millions of related blogs out there? What makes these special?Just to clarify, these are my "hobby blogs"; when we talk about how blog readers only have a few blogs they read regularly, this is what we are talking about --- not your corporate blog, which is why measuring success on winning organic search and conversions makes so much more sense than measuring success by RSS and comments.
Anyways -- let's take a look at one of these, DesignSponge, and see what makes it a "good blog" in my eyes. First, regular updating --- most everyday there is something new. This satisfies me as a reader, you should do the same on your corporate blog, at the least as an organization strive to make a new post a day! Second, a good design. So this is a bit of a requirement being a design blog, but note the easy left hand navigation and relevant categorization. Other things to learn here --- effective use of guest bloggers, good use of pictures, easy to follow step by step instructions (a rarity in some of the craft world). Check it out and see what you think --- some great takeaways even if you have to blog about something a little less 'fun' than design...
Posted Monday, October 13, 2008 by
Douglas Karr
I'm a big fan of Darren Rowse but his latest post on How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog missed the boat. My issue with his post is that there's no conversation about why a person would blog for search optimization. Darren went on to comment about the traffic sources (with a very good graphic with the break-down) but again, he did not differentiate the why.
You should not be initiating a strategy of how without first asking why.
The majority of search engine traffic to your blog is coming there to seek information that you've provided relevant results for in the search engines. In other words, these are primarily people that may not recognize your brand, your products or services, but they happened upon you because you wrote content that indexed well.
That may require you to write your content very differently than how you would go about writing content to keep existing readers. Problogger states:
Once you transition from acquisition to retention, you can put to full use your other tools - email, micro-blogging, social media messaging, etc. So, to answer How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog, Brian's response should have been to:
Write relevant content that search engine users are looking for that will drive business results to your company and increase your search engine traffic. When they get to your site, transition their attention into the benefits of using your products or services and provide them with a conversion opportunity to engage further (newsletter opt-in, demo sign-up, contact a salesperson, etc.).
Manage the ongoing relationship accordingly but leverage the benefits of blogging for what they are best suited... getting people to you from Search Engines. I do not believe you should be balanced in your blog - but in your overall communication strategy.
You should not be initiating a strategy of how without first asking why.
The majority of search engine traffic to your blog is coming there to seek information that you've provided relevant results for in the search engines. In other words, these are primarily people that may not recognize your brand, your products or services, but they happened upon you because you wrote content that indexed well.
That may require you to write your content very differently than how you would go about writing content to keep existing readers. Problogger states:
Search Engine Optimization, participating in social media, building community and producing content are four important elements of building a site that gets (and keeps) high levels of traffic. When a blogger becomes obsessed by any one of them (to the detriment of others) the site can suffer (or at least not realize its potential). When the four elements come together a blog can grow quite rapidly.The conversation you have with existing readers can be very different with social networking tools and other mediums such as email, but let's be honest... blogging for SEO is an acquisition strategy more than a retention strategy for business blogging. You should adapt accordingly and review your analytics to ensure your messaging and goals are properly set.
Once you transition from acquisition to retention, you can put to full use your other tools - email, micro-blogging, social media messaging, etc. So, to answer How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog, Brian's response should have been to:
Write relevant content that search engine users are looking for that will drive business results to your company and increase your search engine traffic. When they get to your site, transition their attention into the benefits of using your products or services and provide them with a conversion opportunity to engage further (newsletter opt-in, demo sign-up, contact a salesperson, etc.).Manage the ongoing relationship accordingly but leverage the benefits of blogging for what they are best suited... getting people to you from Search Engines. I do not believe you should be balanced in your blog - but in your overall communication strategy.
Posted Thursday, October 9, 2008 by
Jess Wehner
I just recently finished reading Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere and was amazed to learn where blogging is today and where it has come from! The article is a study on the trends and themes of blogging. It covers a variety of topics including the diversity of people that are blogging and the assortment of things they are blogging about. Since I work for a blogging company, I’m often a bit biased about the amount of people that are blogging and the general population’s knowledge of blogging. My friends and family are quick to remind me that not everyone cares as much about blogging as I do! But the truth is that a lot of people do care and have been blogging for quite some time now.
This was one of my favorite quotes from the article, taken from Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, “Until recently, 'the Blogosphere' referred to a small cluster of geeks circled around a single tool. Now it refers to hundreds of millions of people using a vast warehouse of tools that allow people to behave increasingly online like they do in real life. We have entered the Age of Normalization in the Blogosphere.”
While blogging used to only be a thing for early adopters- the few who saw the benefits of blogging early on- it is now used by millions. Literally, one study found that 94.1 million people in the US have read a blog while 22.6 million people are actually bloggers themselves. Another study stated that 77% of internet users read blogs.
And these numbers are sure to continue to grow. Many people predict that in the future nearly everyone will have their own blog, and that in the next ten years blogs will replace newspapers. All of these statistics certainly support why it’s so important for a company to blog for their business. If not for all of the many other benefits blogging for business can provide, at least do it because everyone else is. (After all… wasn’t that the main reason for doing things while you were in high school?)
Posted Monday, October 6, 2008 by
Eric Romer
So, a month has gone by and I haven't posted anything on this blog. I'm not impressed with myself, especially since our President flagged me as one of the more frequent bloggers at Compendium (no pressure, right?). The Business Development team was trying to close out a strong quarter for Compendium, but that's no excuse for a lack of business blogging. I haven't been practicing what I preach, but I'm back on it.
September was eventful, to say the least. In my world, these were the top three events that took place:
In my month hiatus from creating content, I've had some time to think about the value our blog hosting software is providing clients. Yesterday, doing my own research, I came to this simple conclusion:
We help businesses and organizations have more meaningful conversations with prospects.
I was searching for a provider of a specific medical procedure in Google. I changed my search terms several times, but all I kept getting were directories, or at best, an outdated website. It was really frustrating.
If I would have found a blog, hearing from a human being, an expert on this procedure, he would have earned my business. Or at least a phone call. It's such a simple concept, but because it's new, some people are slow to adopt.
As a consumer, not a Business Development Manager for Compendium, I'm asking you to start having more meaningful conversations with your audience. What separates you from competitors? Dig deeper than your marketing messages on your website. People will be happier, more engaged customers... myself included.
September was eventful, to say the least. In my world, these were the top three events that took place:
- The Colts kicking off their 2008 regular season (not as strong as I would have hoped)
- Witnessing a devastating financial crisis in the midst of a historic election (or is it "an" historic? I'm a grammar sherriff, and I don't know this one)
- Compendium attending several conferences & events (Funeral Care Marketing Symposium, Exact Target "Connections", TechPoint Summit, and Blog World)
In my month hiatus from creating content, I've had some time to think about the value our blog hosting software is providing clients. Yesterday, doing my own research, I came to this simple conclusion:
We help businesses and organizations have more meaningful conversations with prospects.
I was searching for a provider of a specific medical procedure in Google. I changed my search terms several times, but all I kept getting were directories, or at best, an outdated website. It was really frustrating.
If I would have found a blog, hearing from a human being, an expert on this procedure, he would have earned my business. Or at least a phone call. It's such a simple concept, but because it's new, some people are slow to adopt.
As a consumer, not a Business Development Manager for Compendium, I'm asking you to start having more meaningful conversations with your audience. What separates you from competitors? Dig deeper than your marketing messages on your website. People will be happier, more engaged customers... myself included.
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I want you to study this graph. A simple google analytics pie chart showing traffic by origin for a typical Corporate Blog. Blogging best practices tell us that we need to study our web analytics to be successful. How does your corporate blog compare to this?
Typically that MAJORITY of blog traffic comes from search...I doubt yours is much different. Embrace this, don't fight it. Typical Business blogger doctrine says that your blogging goal should be engagement as measured through repete business and commenting.
The reality is that successful engagement should be measured in organic search traffic and conversion. Win the search, win with great human content, and win with a terrific and compelling cal to action.
The reality is that successful engagement should be measured in organic search traffic and conversion. Win the search, win with great human content, and win with a terrific and compelling cal to action.
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2008 by
Randy Cox
If our Seth Godin-obsessed CEO is truly the trendsetter people make him out to be, then I supposed I shouldn't be ashamed to announce that I've recently become a Douglas Crockford fanboy. It happened entirely by accident, I assure you; I was not actively searching for a hero.
It started when I was in the midst of the job search that landed me here at Compendium. I needed to brush up on some of the more advanced JavaScript programming techniques, and like many software geeks, I started by surveying the latest O'Reilly books on the topic. The most current book I found also had the snappiest title: JavaScript: The Good Parts, by Douglas Crockford. I printed out the sample chapter and spent many days puzzling over it. It went way beyond the depth of JavaScript magic than what I suspect most web developers would care to master. I was intrigued by this man who had obviously devoted a huge amount of time and energy studying a language that most developers had written off as a toy for the first decade of its life.
The book states in no uncertain terms that many features of JavaScript are bad, awful, and even evil. I kid you not. Even so, Crockford is clearly fond of the language and uses his book as a soapbox from which he can preach his message of how to use the good parts of JavaScript to make elegant and powerful software.
Once I joined the Compendium Blogware engineering team I needed to learn YUI, the Yahoo! User Interface Library. Yahoo! provides a great library of videos for developers who want to use their tools. Since Crockford happens to be Yahoo!'s resident JavaScript guru, he stars in many of the videos. Now I had a face and a voice to put with the name and the strong opinions put forth in the book. Crockford typically appears in worn jeans and a sloppy shirt. He's got gray hair and a scraggly beard and his manner brings to mind a grumpy old man who yells at kids to get off of his lawn.
Crockford wrote a JavaScript code-checking tool called JSLint that I started to use. He warns on the website that "JSLint may hurt your feelings." At least his software is consistent with his personality. JSLint enforces a style of JavaScript programming that many programmers would find to be overly restrictive, but each restriction is backed by common sense and vast experience with the language. The idea is that is we write JavaScript code within his framework, the code will be more readable, less ambiguous, and less buggy. It's hard to argue with that. Crockford is very active on the JSLint Yahoo! group, which is fantastic for us fanboys, but his replies to many questions posted to the list are terse to the point of almost being rude.
"Oh," we fanboys say. "That's Crockford for you." Then we smile and shake our heads a little.
It started when I was in the midst of the job search that landed me here at Compendium. I needed to brush up on some of the more advanced JavaScript programming techniques, and like many software geeks, I started by surveying the latest O'Reilly books on the topic. The most current book I found also had the snappiest title: JavaScript: The Good Parts, by Douglas Crockford. I printed out the sample chapter and spent many days puzzling over it. It went way beyond the depth of JavaScript magic than what I suspect most web developers would care to master. I was intrigued by this man who had obviously devoted a huge amount of time and energy studying a language that most developers had written off as a toy for the first decade of its life.The book states in no uncertain terms that many features of JavaScript are bad, awful, and even evil. I kid you not. Even so, Crockford is clearly fond of the language and uses his book as a soapbox from which he can preach his message of how to use the good parts of JavaScript to make elegant and powerful software.
Once I joined the Compendium Blogware engineering team I needed to learn YUI, the Yahoo! User Interface Library. Yahoo! provides a great library of videos for developers who want to use their tools. Since Crockford happens to be Yahoo!'s resident JavaScript guru, he stars in many of the videos. Now I had a face and a voice to put with the name and the strong opinions put forth in the book. Crockford typically appears in worn jeans and a sloppy shirt. He's got gray hair and a scraggly beard and his manner brings to mind a grumpy old man who yells at kids to get off of his lawn.
Crockford wrote a JavaScript code-checking tool called JSLint that I started to use. He warns on the website that "JSLint may hurt your feelings." At least his software is consistent with his personality. JSLint enforces a style of JavaScript programming that many programmers would find to be overly restrictive, but each restriction is backed by common sense and vast experience with the language. The idea is that is we write JavaScript code within his framework, the code will be more readable, less ambiguous, and less buggy. It's hard to argue with that. Crockford is very active on the JSLint Yahoo! group, which is fantastic for us fanboys, but his replies to many questions posted to the list are terse to the point of almost being rude.
"Oh," we fanboys say. "That's Crockford for you." Then we smile and shake our heads a little.
Posted Friday, September 19, 2008 by
Jenni Edwards
This post started out as sort of a joke, but then realizing it had been almost a MONTH since my last post, I figured it was time to blog a bit....and as we are currently in a hiring mode; it seems fitting to talk about working here at Compendium. So read on...
The joke really is that people were referring to Compendium as a "sexy" place to work. I am not quite sure what that means, but I think it's something along the lines of it being a trendy, hip place and after a few local awards in regards to growth it seems a legitimate description.
Well, this may all be true --- but whenever I hear of a place being "really fun" and "really trendy" I think to myself "this company is going to last a REALLY short time". I guess we all, for the most part, love our jobs around here at Compendium, talking to perspective clients about blogging for business --- but I don't think it has anything to do with our posh office space (that has randomly bad smells, lacks a greeting area and is lightyears away from "modern"). It's sort of like social media tactics...you can do a lot of really hip and trendy things, but what is this getting you? They might be cheap, cutting edge; but they are also time consuming and require some 'heavy lifting' from the IT team to make them work properly. Compendium Blogware on the other hand is a search tactic that works --- without those "cool" plug ins and tinkering that a traditional blogging platform takes to make it work.
The joke really is that people were referring to Compendium as a "sexy" place to work. I am not quite sure what that means, but I think it's something along the lines of it being a trendy, hip place and after a few local awards in regards to growth it seems a legitimate description.
Well, this may all be true --- but whenever I hear of a place being "really fun" and "really trendy" I think to myself "this company is going to last a REALLY short time". I guess we all, for the most part, love our jobs around here at Compendium, talking to perspective clients about blogging for business --- but I don't think it has anything to do with our posh office space (that has randomly bad smells, lacks a greeting area and is lightyears away from "modern"). It's sort of like social media tactics...you can do a lot of really hip and trendy things, but what is this getting you? They might be cheap, cutting edge; but they are also time consuming and require some 'heavy lifting' from the IT team to make them work properly. Compendium Blogware on the other hand is a search tactic that works --- without those "cool" plug ins and tinkering that a traditional blogging platform takes to make it work.
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2008 by
Sarah Sedberry
We recommend to our clients to check out the blogosphere for their industry in order to stay on top of trends and see what their competitors are saying. It is a great way for individual users to link out to relevant articles and become subject mater experts in their given field, while providing great content to post about.
For example, those of us here at Compendium keep an eye out on the blogoshpere about SEO, Blog Tips and Trick, Blog Research, etc. We all also have our favorite authors and blogs that we subscribe to, in order to stay in the loop.
One blog in particular is always good to follow and wanted to share with everyone.
Seth Godin's Blog
Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author of business books and a popular speaker with appearances at Google, TED and a number of charities. His blog is one of the most popular blogs in the world.
In fact, Compendium's CEO Chris Baggott, recently posted a video about his obsession with Seth. Check it out here!
For example, those of us here at Compendium keep an eye out on the blogoshpere about SEO, Blog Tips and Trick, Blog Research, etc. We all also have our favorite authors and blogs that we subscribe to, in order to stay in the loop.
One blog in particular is always good to follow and wanted to share with everyone.
Seth Godin's Blog
Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author of business books and a popular speaker with appearances at Google, TED and a number of charities. His blog is one of the most popular blogs in the world.
In fact, Compendium's CEO Chris Baggott, recently posted a video about his obsession with Seth. Check it out here!
Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by
Eric Romer
Pictured: Eric Romer, about to catch a touchdown pass on a slant route in the end zone? Suit him up, Dungy.... he looks ready.
So, I had the opportunity to tour Lucas Oil stadium last weekend, and it was a pretty amazing sight. As a Colts fan, this is like Christmas. The excitement in Indianapolis has been building ever since Lucas Oil broke ground. Despite some disputes about funding of the project, this beautiful structure has a serious allure to it.
One of the things I kept hearing during the public tour was people referring to the stadium as "The Luke". I must admit, it was pretty catchy, and fans love putting their own nickname to personalize their city's new baby. But as you would imagine, the sponsor is not so happy about the nickname.
I've always been curious how you measure the worth of a stadium sponsorship. Spending $122 million on naming rights for 20 years is no cheap purchase, even for a large manufacturer of oil products. I hear about the ROI of advertising dollars all the time, but this I think stadium sponsorships in general fall into what Corporate Blogging expert Debbie Weil describes as "Return on Influence". It's next to impossible to measure sales that directly result from Lucas Oil Stadium, especially when people refer to it as "The Luke". Forest Lucas was quoted in an IBJ article saying:
"Calling the stadium 'The Luke' doesn’t sell a dime’s worth of products for us. This will be a place we intend to show Lucas Oil to the world, so we’re eager to protect the integrity of the name.”
I get Mr. Lucas's frustration, but there's not a whole lot you can do when something catchy spreads with fans, especially as sports columnist Mark Rosentraub stated in the article, "exposure through the Internet can spread the nickname and entrench it in people’s minds even faster than traditional media."
My suggestion? You can't beat 'em, join 'em. Find a a way to ride the "Luke" wave, and join the conversation. Social media, affordable blogging software and other web-based tools allow you to be present, and help drive those internet trends.
Despite the nickname concern, the sponsorship "engagement" (2008's buzz word) that occurs inside the stadium, interacting with the Lucas Oil brand experience, the dragsters, race-car simulators, etc. is very creative and sets a new precedent in sports marketing.
Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 by
Kristen Raves
Compendium Blogware welcomes PRICE Systems into the blogging family. They are using blogging to win search engine optimization. PRICE Systems is blogging as a business and will soon reap the benefits of doing so.
What does PRICE do? They improve their customer's profitability by optimizing planning, budgeting and management. PRICE solutions accurately estimate the effort, schedule and cost of projects using unbiased models and benchmarks that eliminate inaccurate biases and misconceptions. As customers improve on their accuracy using PRICE, they realize better returns on investments and higher profits.
You can learn more about PRICE by going to their blog. Hear what their employees have to say about PRICE and download both of their whitepapers!
What does PRICE do? They improve their customer's profitability by optimizing planning, budgeting and management. PRICE solutions accurately estimate the effort, schedule and cost of projects using unbiased models and benchmarks that eliminate inaccurate biases and misconceptions. As customers improve on their accuracy using PRICE, they realize better returns on investments and higher profits.
You can learn more about PRICE by going to their blog. Hear what their employees have to say about PRICE and download both of their whitepapers!
Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
-- Mark TwainI 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.
Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 by
Sarah Sedberry
Since it's Friday, I decided to take a moment while drinking my coffee to write a "Casual Friday" post...
Recently, I had a friend of mine throw an 80's themed party. To my dismay I could not attend as I was out of town at the time. Although, she was kind enough though to replay all of the fun throw backs and happenings that I missed out on.
While recalling this to my colleague Kristen, another Client Success Manager here at Compendium Blogware, during our morning trip to Starbucks - it started us on a rambling of our favorite 80's fads. (Everything from New Kids on the Block, our favorite cassettes, Connect 4 and Operation, to the wonderful fashion trends of neon, knot ties in your shirt, spandex, and air-pump sneakers)
Our conversation continued on into the elevator for the ride back to our offices. In the elevator others jumped in on our conversation and soon we had good banter and had shared several smiles with our building mates.
Since we were having such a great time with this topic, I wanted to share with everyone else, and allow you to get in on the fun.
What was your favorite trend or moment to come out of the 80's?
In Client Success, we often will have discussions with our clients regarding content development and how they struggle to come up with ideas to blog about. Ideas can come from daily conversations, newsletters, frequently asked questions, industry news, other bloggers posts, and anything else that strikes your fancy. For example....the 80's! A corporate blog doesn't have to be dry. Check out this company blog post from our client Circle City Tickets who had fun with her post.
Recently, I had a friend of mine throw an 80's themed party. To my dismay I could not attend as I was out of town at the time. Although, she was kind enough though to replay all of the fun throw backs and happenings that I missed out on.
While recalling this to my colleague Kristen, another Client Success Manager here at Compendium Blogware, during our morning trip to Starbucks - it started us on a rambling of our favorite 80's fads. (Everything from New Kids on the Block, our favorite cassettes, Connect 4 and Operation, to the wonderful fashion trends of neon, knot ties in your shirt, spandex, and air-pump sneakers)
Our conversation continued on into the elevator for the ride back to our offices. In the elevator others jumped in on our conversation and soon we had good banter and had shared several smiles with our building mates.
Since we were having such a great time with this topic, I wanted to share with everyone else, and allow you to get in on the fun.
What was your favorite trend or moment to come out of the 80's?
In Client Success, we often will have discussions with our clients regarding content development and how they struggle to come up with ideas to blog about. Ideas can come from daily conversations, newsletters, frequently asked questions, industry news, other bloggers posts, and anything else that strikes your fancy. For example....the 80's! A corporate blog doesn't have to be dry. Check out this company blog post from our client Circle City Tickets who had fun with her post.
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.
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.
Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by
Megan Glover
Seth Godin has a great blog post today: Who's telling you the truth about your online personal marketing?His post makes a great point about the the trend in marketing these days which I relate to transparency. He writes that, "people are judging you", and isn't that the truth.
Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instant Message, etc... have all opened the door fainting the line between personal/professional life. So how does a marketer ensure the judgments of his or her employees don't hurt the reputation of the entire company?
Why not embrace and incorporate those mediums into your own marketing? You know your employees, particularly your Gen X'ers, are all tapped in and participating... why not embrace it and make your presence known too!
It's actually one of the reasons Compendium Blogware was founded. Chris (our CoFounder/CEO) noticed while at ExactTarget that many of his employees were blogging. And, blogging about the company - but Chris had was unable to leverage the blog content they were cracking out.
That's why Compendium is built for multiple bloggers and has an administrative layer which allows you manage the blogger's message as you see fit. So, companies and organizations can give their employees platforms to blog on and yet reap the marketing benefits such as SEO. Not only that, but you're providing a real-life voice to speak out on behalf of your organization which ultimately... humanizes your marketing.
Posted Friday, August 8, 2008 by
Kristen Raves
Compendium Blogware is happy to announce that our newest client, Eugene Chamber of Commerce, is blogging. Not only are the blogging, but they are already seeing results! In just one month of posting content they have seen all but one of their keywords ranking in Google. How have they accomplished this in such a short time? The answer is, and will always be, content. The way to get better rankings in the search engines is by adding updated and relevant content on a regular business.
Blogging for SEO is a growing business trend that companies are continuing to see the benefit of. Our blogging platform is easy to use and makes blogging fun. The Client Success Team at Compendium will help you get your blogs off the ground and provide you with continuing support for the life of your blog. We are here for questions, consulting, and getting your company the results that you are trying to achieve. What other blog software can say that? Well, none to be exact.
If you would like to view Eugene Chamber's Blog click here. Leave them a comment while you are at it!
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