Misadventures in Bad Corporate Blogging
Posted Sunday, January 4, 2009 by PJ Hinton
The financial situation of domestic car manufacturers has generated a lot of headlines the past month or so.  This past week, both GM and Chrysler got bridge loans from the U.S. government.  Both made posts on their corporate blogs to mark the events.
Blogger Jeff Nolan at Enterprise Irregulars points out the stark contrast in the tone of comments on each post and hits the nail right on the head.
... Fastlane is much more respected in the automotive world as a blog about cars on GM’s site, whereas the Chrysler blog is simply a marketing exercise. The distinction is subtle because technically both are marketing tools but the Fastlane blog has substance that is conspicuously lacking in the Chrysler blog.
This brings up an important point: blogs are a long-term investment in the real.  Proponents of good corporate blogging strategy drive home the principle that a blogging initiative will fail if your content is nothing more than a dumping ground for press releases.

Over time, content expressed in a real voice will be viewed as credible by the blog's readership.  If it is nothing but a conveyer belt for marketing messages, you won't be taken seriously.  That's why Chrysler's thank you note got crumpled up and thrown back in it's face, metaphorically speaking.
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Education for Agencies
Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008 by Compendium Client Marketing
Here at Compendium we are constantly trying to improve our platform to meet the needs of our clients. Some of the most recent upgrades to be released in our system include an enterprise system.

The functionality includes the ability for agencies to:
  • ghost write on behalf of their clients
  • approve/decline posts and comments for clients
  • create, edit, and modify the template for their clients
This functionality has specifically been released to an alpha group of agency clients but will eventually be available to all agencies. In order for your agency to qualify for use of the functionality your company must be certified by Compendium.

Certificate of Agency Program at Compendium

Contact your client success manager for more information on how you can become certified.
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Detailed Information about the Zero-Day IE Bug in the News this Week
Posted Saturday, December 13, 2008 by PJ Hinton
Today, computer trade publication eWeek published an in-depth article about the zero-day security bug in Internet Explorer that was announced earlier this week.

Some of the points worth noting:
  • The bug affects all supported versions of IE, which is more extensive than once originally thought.
  • The problem is in the data binding library, which provides a (proprietary) way to link HTML to data sources without writing scripts on the client side.
  • Microsoft is providing a large number of possible workarounds, detailing the trade offs for each one.
  • The bug is severe enough that it is likely that Microsoft will push out a patch for the bug in advance of the monthly scheduled roll-up of fixes.
There is one passage of the article, written by Larry Seltzer, that I take issue with:
The data binding bug is of a type that you'll find in any reasonably complex software. You can argue that it's a sign that IE is overly complex and there's some merit to that argument. The data binding facilities are an old feature of the type that I suspect Microsoft would not create now, given their attitude about security over the last few years. But the cat's out of that bag. Withdrawing features like this after Microsoft spent some time convincing customers to use them would be too much.
I don't buy this argument.  If Microsoft really wants to show a commitment to security, it should go beyond a reactive role in rushing out patches to these bugs. It should take ownership of the core grievance -- the fact that they they invested so much time and effort trying to convince developers to use proprietary technologies like ActiveX and HTML Data Binding... technologies that were meant to lock customers into using IE and IE alone but unnecessarily exposed users to native code exploits.

Whatever benefits that Microsoft may have reaped in securing its browser as a permanent fixture in the enterprise are outweighed by cumulative damage of compromised computers.  If software development were a chemical business, and security holes were like mishandled hazardous waste. Microsoft would be one of the one of the top companies being dragged in for contributions to the Superfund.

Seltzer is right that to say that immediately dropping support for their proprietary browser technologies would be impractical.  Still, I don't see why Microsoft couldn't commit to a decision to clean up the mess by doing the following:
  • Specify a phase out timetable for supporting problematic browser component technologies.
  • Define a set of best practices to guide web developers in migrating existing locked-in web applications to safer, standards-based technologies.
  • Release automated tools to aid developers in identifying problem legacy code or even converting the old code to newer implementations.
Otherwise these kinds of bug will continue to haunt the net like the unexploded  ordinance that still remains in many former battlefields around the world.
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Why the CIO Might Be the Last to Know...
Posted Friday, December 12, 2008 by PJ Hinton
This past summer rPath CEO Billy Marshall wrote a post titled "The CIO is the Last to Know", wherein he cited a Goldman Sachs survey of chief information officers that reported few of them planning to spend money on cloud computing in the coming year.  He then predicted that because the CIOs said they also planned to cut back on consulting services and hardware purchases, the exact opposite would be true.

Marshall argued that in order to satisfy the call for cutbacks, the rank and file would turn to cloud computing as a cost saving measure.  Drawing on past experiences working at Red Hat and seeing the back door adoption of Linux in business, Marshall made the case that CIO opinion was a lagging indicator of technology adoption.

I thought about this thesis as I read a column by Martin Veitch that was published yesterday.  Writing for trade publication CIO, Veitch says he thinks corporate blogging has run its course.
For a while, corporate blogging -- or 'clogging', as was demanded by the relentless search for neologisms on the Web -- was du jour and all the rage but it seems to me that its fling was short-lived. The business blogging community now lacks big names and depends on the egotistical and the occasional. The groundswell was just that, and the big names almost never joined in apart from a select, and perhaps self-serving, few from within the tech sector.

I learned this as part of researching a commission for a forthcoming piece about CIO bloggers (and, by the way, there are too few of those also, although enough to make a feature).
He then writes:
Call me old-media dinosaur but I'm struggling to find useful naked conversations out there when it comes to blue-chip entities. I love blogging for its access to specialist areas but its effect on the visibility of top people at name-brand companies is negligible.
Veitch is stuck in the old mindset that corporate blogging is only for the celebrities, the bigwigs, and the head honchos who want to stand out as thought leaders in their fields. 

But here's the harsh reality, corporations don't thrive on executive navel gazing.  They thrive on increased revenue, which comes from winning and retaining customers.

It is totally lost on Veitch that giving the organization's rank-and-file the ability to blog, as real people with interesting ideas, might help raise a company's search engine profile.  That can help increase inbound internet traffic and boost sales.

I suspect that one of the reasons that CIOs are out of the loop is that the trade publications which target them provide them such lagging information.  Veitch's column is a case-in-point.  Perhaps as Marshall did with cloud computing, I can predict that corporate blogging will grow in the enterprise, and the CIO will be last to know.
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Ann All's Post is All Right with Me!
Posted Friday, December 12, 2008 by PJ Hinton
This afternoon, Ann All put up a great blog post over at The Visible Enterprise.  Titled "Corporate Blogs: Earn Trust, Don’t Expect It", All sums up the really useful bits from that Forrester research report on corporate blogging that has generated so much buzz this week.

Some of the key takeaways from her post:
  • Make your content more about the customer than your company.
  • Don't let your blog become a rolling press release.  Tell them something they're not going to read elsewhere.
  • Use your blog to talk about the touchy issues your company faces so that they realize there are real people behind the brand.
At the end, she gives a nod to our own corporate blogging strategy, which is to improve SEO, by citing a post from our own blogging evangelist-in-residence, Doug Karr.
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Gartner Peers into Crystal Ball, Sees Bright Future for SaaS
Posted Wednesday, December 3, 2008 by PJ Hinton
A story appeared in yesterday's trade press wires about computer analyst firm Gartner releasing a survey, which predicts a strong market for Software as a Service (SaaS) in the year to come.
The analyst firm polled a number of enterprises across the world and found that 90 per cent are planning to maintain or increase their investments in SaaS. Respondents cited cost-effectiveness, and ease and speed of deployment as some of the key reasons for the decision.
One of the reasons clients adopt Compendium Blogware is that we are SaaS.  We worry about the setup, the server up time, and the software upgrades.  The only thing our customers have to worry about is creating content. 

With unique features, like our Keyword Strength Meter and Content Ideas panel, the task of writing inspired and relevant posts becomes much simpler.  With a frequent release schedule, customers get visible, added value through our multi-user blog software over the lifetime of their subscription.

If you're thinking about starting a business blog, take a look at our 60-Second Blogging Challenge to learn some of the other reasons we should be the cornerstone of your corporate blogging strategy.
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Comperaser Continues to Grow
Posted Tuesday, December 2, 2008 by Kristen Raves
Bill Reynolds of Comperaser, is using Compendium Blogware to grow his company in ways people in his industry have never seen before.  CompEraser is a patent-pending, internet based service that provides unique enterprise risk management resources to help organizations quantify and reduce the total cost of worker injuries.

Not only is he gaining more and more clients by blogging for search engine optimization, but he is being recognized in every area of his industry.  Lexis Nexis has written several pieces on CompEraser including the LexisNexis Top 25 Blogs for Workers' Compensation.

He has been awarded this honor for the amount of well written and thought provocing blogs he has shared.  To read more click here to view the blog.
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Entrenchment is Not a Sign of a Healthy Enterprise
Posted Friday, November 28, 2008 by PJ Hinton
CNet's Victoria Ho recently wrote an article about remarks from Gartner and IDC saying that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is too entrenched within large corporations for it to lose market share in that space.

Gartner's rationalizations for continued IE dominance are:
  • companies depend on too many applications that tie into Microsoft's HTML rendering engine
  • Microsoft provides tools for the centralized administration of IE, something that alternative browsers don't offer
IDC says that it's a self-reinforcing loop.  Because IE is the dominant browser in corporate computing environments, application developers will expend the greatest amount of energy making sure their products work on IE.

I don't doubt that there is a mindset that perpetuates this pattern.  Last week, I spoke with someone who works in QA for a large web application software development company that still has their computing environment standardized on IE 6, a browser that is broken with respect to standards compliance and way behind the times technologically (example: do you remeber what it was like to browse the web without tabs?)

The irony is that the centralized administration tools cited by the IT analysts empower dinosaur minded administrators to turn their computing environments into technological backwaters, elevating the risk of their systems being compromised by malicious software.  As Windows XP support phases out, the updates to IE 6 will cease, making the security issue all the more prevalent.

Eight or so years ago, when Internet Explorer was the pretty much the only game in town with respect to dynamic HTML, one could make the business case that the added functionality in IE justified the lock-in.

Things have changed since then.

The alternative browsers have introduced DOM manipulation through JavaScript, CSS compliance with W3C specifications has improved dramatically, and the adoption of the XMLHttpRequest object made widespread AJAX development feasible.  Several JavaScript libraries have been developed to abstract away browser-specific issues, like incompatible event models, that have hobbled developers from developting for other browsers.  Microsoft's ActiveX technology has become so tarnished that security experts advocate disabling it. 

In short, one can develop a modern web application that delivers rich functionality without the Microsoft lock-in and the security holes that they sometimes introduce.

One of the most painful lessons of the recent economic downturn is that the inability to adapt to the times portends a rough, if not fatal, passage for an organization.  The plight of the big three auto makers is a prime example of the dire consequences the market metes out to companies that are too entrenched in their ways.

It's also worth noting that when it comes to the startups that are developing the next generation of technologies, Microsoft's .NET technologies aren't winding up on the development short lists.  Microsoft's desperation has escalated to the point where it launched a program earlier this month to encourage adoption of .NET by startups by dangling free development tools.

The development ecosystem has progressed to the point where web user interface engineers can use third-party libraries to develop their pages using a browser like Firefox and expect it to work on most recent browsers.  Some additonal tweaks are sometimes needed to get styling to appear correctly in IE 6, but developers have long agreed that IE 6 is a pain.  Firefox has a large number of extensions that make a developer's life a lot easier.  To get anything even close on IE, Microsoft requires you to use Visual Studio, which is a bloated approach to the problem.

IE may be the default browser in the enterprise for the near term, but as Microsoft prods customers to migrate away from Windows XP, the reasons that the analysts give for continued lock-in will wane.
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Cut your entire marketing budget and pray
Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 by Brian McKay
Change is the one stronghold for the intelligent marketing professional.  Change is the fuel for innovation, and insurance that you will have every opportunity to win customers away from your competitors.

Change in the economy, and change in the way consumers choose to respond to your messages is ripe with opportunity. Taking command of your marketing spend, and holding every single dollar accountable is not only possible, it is becoming the standard.

Change equals a far lower average customer acquisition cost for all businesses, and it evens the playing field for SMB's.  The large companies are unable to turn their ship fast enough to keep up with nimble start-ups and well capitalized small businesses poised to take their enterprise level crown.

Change doesn't pick who will earn customers, it takes the game to a whole new plane.  A place where the innovative decision makers can hurdle larger competitors because they chose to act.

When you Blog for SEO you take advantage of a lower average customer acqusition cost while increasing the amount of qualified search volume your company can capture. 

The question I have is now that change is hitting us hard, what do you have to lose by considering blogging to earn customers?
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Hey Bill- This Post Is For You
Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 by Jim Hyslop
I received a complaint over the weekend from one of my RSS subscribers that I hadn't put a new piece of content up in a while so Bill...this post is for you!

A lot of conversations I have had recently revolve around the question..."how do we use blogging effectively as a business that may not be in a vertical that caters to blogging?"

My response to that is "there is no such thing".

If you have a business that needs to make money then you should be blogging. People are looking for you. These people may not read blogs, or like blogs, or subscribe to blogs...but they do search for things online. They are looking for you and business blogs are one of the most affordable and effective tools you can use allow your company the ability to be found.

If you don't show up how will you ever talk to the people that ARE looking for you? If you are a small business, a small business blog can serve as the perfect multi-tool for your online marketing but you need to leverage it for every kind of value it can bring. The beauty of it is if you are a large enterprise it can do the same thing. Scale your blogs to your objectives and you will see results. It is that simple.

Blogs for businesses should serve the purpose of ROI...if you are a business who is not concerned about ROI but instead want to blog only for communicating I suggest taking a look at the big picture and ask this question "how will my blog drive my main business objective of realizing profit". Let your blog work for you from all facets.

If you think your business is in a verticle that may not cater to blogging you may want to re-examine how your business is evolving in this world to continue focusing on profitability. I think you will then realize a blog can be a powerful weapon in your arsenal to accomplish more than JUST communication.

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Online Marketing in a Lackluster Economy
Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by jennifer buscher

It seems more and more people are saying, “you know the economy is down, budgets are tight”.  I realize this is an issue whether you are a small company or a large enterprise.  However, there are plenty of businesses that succeed and grow in tough times.

I’ve talked to many different companies since I started with Compendium and overall it seems the larger companies that I’ve talked to are stuck in the Stone Age when it comes to internet marketing compared to smaller companies that tend to be much more innovative and smart about their marketing dollars.  I realize this is a blanket statement, but I’ve been shocked by some of the immeasurable tactics and tools companies use to drive business.  It seems that as budgets get tighter, it’s a knee jerk reaction to want consistency and use old partners, vendors, and systems.  I think this is business suicide!  Successful companies find ways to win and thrive despite the economy.  Now, is the perfect time to try new, trackable lead generation initiatives.  Hmmm.... business blogging comes to mind! 

I realize that blogging as an online acquisition and lead generation tool may seem like an “unconventional” SEO strategy to many people, but results are transparent.  If 80-90% of people use search engines in their buying decisions then it is really important to be found on keywords related to your products and services.  There are many inherent qualities about blogs that the search engines like, but our easy to use blog software actually organizes blog content in such a way that makes them more searchable.  

I believe it was Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”   While every company is doing the same thing, what’s going to set you apart? 

 

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Blog: A Next Generation Website
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2008 by Eric Romer
After listening in to Debbie Weil and Chris Baggott's Webcast on Tuesday, I learned some new things, re-enforced some old things, and overall felt really good about Compendium's solution for business blogs. 

Debbie reveiwed her recommendation for the first steps a company needs to start a blog.

First Steps to Blogging Success:
  1. Have a goal
  2. Focus on a topic or issue
  3. Get contributors (plural)
  4. Choose a platform
  5. Be committed
It's a simple list, yet very accurate.  Both Chris and Debbie went into more detail about each item, agreeing on about 95% of each others opinions.  I'll summarize some of that in a later post, but I really want to focus on one statement Debbie made early in the Webcast.

One of the opening questions posed was simple: "How do you define a blog?" 

Debbie's answer struck a chord with me because I'm a huge proponent of banning the "b-word".  Talking with so many SMB's, or companies that are a few years behind on new technologies, it's clear that the "b-word" creates some fear.  It makes sense.  People fear things they don't understand.  People fear change.  But as Debbie answered, "a blog is just a next generation website."  It's easy to update, more engaging for the end-user and incredibly friendly with search engines.

I predict that in 5-7 years, blogs and websites will be a hybrid of sorts.  We will experience fresh, engaging content that can be easily updated by employees across the board.

I've never actually seen Star Trek: Next Generation, but I did some Googling, and found the intro before every episode.  Oddly enough, it was quite fitting for companies that are new to any type of non-traditional marketing.


"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Blogs: The Next Generation of Websites... to seek out new customers and new relationships, to boldly go where no company has gone before.

Yes, I went there.  Hopefully my cheesy analogy resonates with you.  Otherwise, I've just sacrificed being called a nerd around the office.
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You don't need to learn as you go!
Posted Monday, October 13, 2008 by Douglas Karr
7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - Blog World Expo

I was just reading a post over at Marketing Sherpa on this presentation, the 7 habits of Highly Effective Bloggers.  The 6th habit is daunting, I'm sure, to most companies and marketers:

  • Learn as you go: On short notice, I threw out a question to the panel on the biggest lesson learned during their stewardship of their respective company blogs. Of course, they were all able to effortlessly answer the questions with many of their answers highlighting the improvisational nature of the job.
Why would a the panel respond this way and say that? Perhaps because they don't know of a resource in the industry that actually does provide the tools and consultation that a company requires to be successfully blogging for business results.

I commented on the post and hope that it sees some sunlight and folks don't simply dismiss it as comment spam.  The fact is, with Compendium Blogware, you don't have to learn as you go!  This is a proven application and software as a service that provides the coaching and guidance necessary to ensure that you are successfully blogging.

If you were to do a blogging software comparison, is there a single application out on the market that provides its clients with the success that we do?  We monitor keywords and keyphrases, search engine placement, have regular meetings with our clients to coach them for success, and continue to develop an enterprise application that can withstand an onslaught of traffic and still perform to provide the maximum impact on search engine placement possible.

Don't learn as you go!  That was something I had to do personally as a blogger and so did these panelists.  You don't have to do that anymore!  The industry has advanced, and we're here to help you understand and achieve your blogging goals.
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SMR and a Better Marketing Strategy...
Posted Thursday, October 2, 2008 by Chris Baggott
I had a person I respect asked me a question yesterday and thought I would share my thoughts here:

We attended a webinar yesterday on Social Media Releases for PR and the growth and power of SMRs .  
...the presenter spoke about the need to be on Technorati and Google Blog Search. How does your approach and blog software integrate with these?   What is your take on SMR for PR as tools to win search and influence / create a dialogue with potential consumers?
internet marketing internet marketing blog software businessI'm including this graph to try and keep you focused on what's important.   It show what people are doing online.   From a relationship introduction standpoint, focus on search! and business blogs are one of the strongest tactics you can embrace.

Both Technorati and Google Blog search are going to happen, but the reality is that they are less necessary now that Google has introduced ‘blended’ or ‘universal’ search.  Basically what this means is that what used to be separate:  Google for traditional sites, blog search for blogs, video search for video...is now blended, meaning that everything is going to show up on the main search page...if it deserves to.  This makes a good enterprise blog marketing strategy is critical to  any organic search efforts.   It used to be that you competed with ten sites on that serp, now there may only be a couple of actual traditional websites show up and if you want to really compete you need a comprehensive blog strategy.

The SMR thing is valuable tool...heck it’s all worthwhile...but it’s a fringe strategy.   Take a look at the attached chart...what people do online.   There is a lot of noise about the fringes when most of us are not yet even doing a good job on the things that drive 80-90% of what internet users want.   Making any sense?  :-)  I would put it in the category of “it can’t hurt” and closely measure the results vs. the effort.  It’s an incremental strategy at best.
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And then there were two
Posted Friday, September 19, 2008 by Chantelle Flannery

Well almost two...on Monday there will be two.

The breakdown of the final three.... (listed in alphabetical order)

CompEraser: http://blog.comperaser.com
Posts this week so far: 10

Coolest thing about CompEraser is that their blog was recently named as a 2008 Honoree for LexisNexis Top 25 Blogs for Workers' Compensation. Bill Reynolds has done a fantastic job of writing quality content on a very consistent basis.


Indianapolis Tennis Championships: http://blog.tennisindy.com
Posts this week so far: 3

Creating content for Indianapolis Tennis Championships could seem challenging because the event only happens once a year...however the bloggers have come up with some very creative ways to get content up on a regular basis. One of my favorite posts is the Insert Caption Here posts that they put up every few weeks.


Widen Enterprises: http://blog.widen.com
Posts this week so far: 7 

Widen has been cranking out quality content (epically on the weekends) during the blogging tournament to ensure their narrow victory several weeks in a row. They have created a fictional blogging regular named Dr DAM (Digital Asset Management) that answers questions for readers. It’s a very unique concept that has been working out well for the Widen team.

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Poor Economy's impact on my business
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2008 by Brian McKay
Wall Street Hits Local Businesses

Wall Street Shake-Up
When the economy dips it's time to reevaluate how we drive new leads for our business.  This is a practical step for both small and enterprise businesses alike.  A different landscape leads to a different approach to engage customers with your brand.

Blogging is a low cost and high return lead generation and marketing tool.  By implementing a business Blog strategy your business will be able to leverage the way search engines find content for users.  When you Blog for SEO, you are writing keyword specific content to bring the most qualified potential customers to your doorstep.

Starting your Blog research in this economic environment is a strong first step.  The next step is to take action by invest in a business Blog strategy today. 
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The fatal flaw of display advertising
Posted Friday, September 5, 2008 by Chris Baggott
Emarketer wall street journal graph on display ad in Compendium BlogTraditional marketers....especially those with a 'Brand' focus are still trying to make the internet like TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines or any of the other old fashioned interruption based mass media.   Common sense and all the data continue to support the simple fact that the Internet is different.  Better, but different.

What's wrong with the Internet is that so many marketers are still trying to force old media 'advertising' onto what is clearly not old media.

There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal Thursday talking about the gap in spending on display advertising vs. search marketing.   Search advertising is grown to 42% of all online ad spending.  Display ads are flat at 21% according to eMarketer.  

Of course.  THE INTERNET ISN'T A MAGAZINE!

As such, Magazine tactics generally don't work.  They actually don't work in magazines either for that matter but in the olden days that's all there was. 

The job of the marketer today is to listen.   Your customers will summon you when they have an issue.   It's called searching.    They make the search, you make sure you have positioned yourself to be there when the right combination of keywords come together.  Just like real marketing....prospect expresses a need and you solve that need. 

This is why business blogging is so powerful for both large corporate enterprises and small business alike.  Blog writing software is one of the best tools for organic search which is where about 80% of all the clicks on a search engine results page (serp) happens.   If a marketer has identified keywords they are getting results on through PPC, they should also consider aiming their Corporate Blogging efforts at those terms as well.

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Using Corporte Blogs to Disclose Information to Investors
Posted Friday, August 1, 2008 by Megan Glover
The SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) announced this week that corporate websites and other forms of online media such as blogs will be a permissible vehicle to disclose information for investors.

Here's a good article that gets to the heart of the ruling.

So why is this so important for enterprise blogging solutions, like Compendium? Couple reasons:

1. Need - the need for corporations to have blog software is only going to increase.

2. Legitimacy - occasionally we'll get the question, "is blogging a fad?" We know the         answer is "no" but now we have the federal government promoting blogging for             business as a "recognized channel for distribution."

And, for businesses - gosh what better time to embrace a blogging strategy, and save up a little cash that would otherwise go to releases! So now among other things business can blog to:
  • disclose information
  • get found in organic search
  • humanize their marketing
  • and, blog to acquire new business.
There couldn't be a more profitable and deserving time for businesses to start blogging.
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Icann Domain Name Confusion: Why you have to start corporate blogging now.
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by Chris Baggott
Many of you may have noticed the announcement last week regarding ICANN dramitically increasing the suffixes available for domain names.   Here is a blurb from the New York Times:

According to new rules unanimously passed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, at its meeting here, any company, organization or country will soon be able to apply for a new Web address extension, called a top-level domain.

That could smooth the way for Web addresses that end in city names, brands and generic words. It could also sow confusion in the minds of Web users, create a host of new ways to exploit the Web addressing system and start a wave of legal skirmishes over applications to register trademarks — .coke, for example.

Uggh!  What a mess this makes for normal businesses & organizations.  People are already having a tough time keeping track of your web address.  By adding basically an unlimited number of  .anything  branding by domain becomes just about impossible. 

If anything is going to drive people even more into the arms of the search engines, it's going to be this.

What are you going to do? 

Incorporate blog management software company wide.  The biggest benefit of enterprise or business blogging is Search engine optimization.   The more people you have blogging, the more relevant content gets created, and the more likely you are to be found accross a lots of keywords.  

Forget people remembering your domain...focus on getting found by using corporate blog tools.
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Cheers to Local Search and Blogging
Posted Friday, June 27, 2008 by Ali Sales
This year, local advertisers are expected to shift over $13 billion of their budgeted funds to the Internet, according to Borrell Associates. That number is up by 50% over the last year.

Why is this relevant to you? Because we can't ignore the huge role that local search is going to play for nearly every kind of business, even national chains and enterprises who are stretching themselves for ways to get back to the basics of relationship building. And guess what?

Business blogging will most certainly play a role in the migration of dollars from off-line to online and in the local search arena.

There are a few key things driving this shift:

1) People want to buy from people (i.e. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, like in Cheers)

2) People want to buy from people who *are like them* -- of course regional/local means common ground

3) Search is the #1 online activity these days, right behind email marketing

If you attended our Humanize Your Marketing with Blogging webinar this past week, you know that company blogging leverages all of these factors. If you were unable to attend, here is a link to the instant replay.

The numbers and actions of advertisers and all kinds of companies will continue to prove that local/personal marketing is the way of the future. Starting a business blog is one of the best things you can do to get headed in the right direction and jump on a trend that's going to become the norm.   
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