Contact Information
I was just reading Shel Israel's latest Post, and when I read tip #7 Be accessible, I realized that I had neglected to add my contact information to my blog. And sure enough I had a comment from Hjalmar Gislason over at www.spurl.net saying the same thing.

Well, problem solved, I have posted both my email address and cell phone (to the right)

Thanks to both Shel and Hjalmar for pointing this out.

Competition Slashing Costs of Broadband

AP reports that the broadband battle is heating up with costs being cut back to between $15 and $20 a month. I FINALLY switched and I LOVE it! Nothing like sitting on the couch and posting to my blog through my wireless network. ahhhh, gotta love it.

Speedline Knowledge Blog Launched

Highly regarded industry experts Gerald Pham-Van-Diep and Joe Belmonte will be writing on various topics related to the electronics industry. According to Rick Short's recent post, Speedline is the third industry blog launched behind Indium and Intertronics.

Excellent work guys!

Two thirds of blog readers don't know what a blog is.
A recent study from BuzzMetrics/Mouthpiece reviled that a majority of blog readers don't know their reading a blog.

David Galbraith has a post on why this is a good thing. He Writes:

This is great news, it spells ubiquity. Memes need a buzzword to catch on, but by now blogs are more than online diaries.

The weblog publishing model, with built in syndication, tracking, real-time search, permanent, item based archiving and linking and easy to use publishing tools is the way everything will eventually be published on the web.

August 6th is the 10th anniversary of the Netscape IPO
I heard the interview with Adam Lashinsky on Marketplace last Tuesday and just stumbled upon this Fortune.com history.

Boy, before Mosaic and Netscape, we had to use text browsers such as lynx (http://home.pacific.net.sg/~kennethkwok/lynx/scrshot.gif) and gopher (http://www.wbglinks.net/pages/history/stuffwbgl/misc/gopher.jpg)

It really is amazing how far we have come in 10 years!

Blog software comparison chart
Excellent comparison of 8 of the top blogging software packages.
Blog software comparison chart

I would add this to spurl, but the site seems to be down :(...

Really Cool Way to organize Social Bookmarks

I was checking out Jeremy Zawodny's Post on a new application to organize del.icio.us bookmarks
del.icio.us direc.tor: Delivering A High-Performance AJAX Web Service Broker :: Johnvey
I've been trying to spurl everything that is interesting and it automatically passes it over to my del.icio.us account.

Very cool, all different kinds of ways to view, sort and search my web links.

Found a Free Offline reader to Synch with Bloglines.com
I just installed GreatNews. It seems cool and its free.
Bloglines is my main RSS reader, but I was looking for something to download my feeds when I don't have internet connectivity such as on the train down to NYC. Looks like this will work quite nicely.

This is the first time I have ever seen Google crash!
I must use Google 100 times a day (no exaggeration) and this is the very first time I have EVER seen a server error. I just had to take a picture ;-)

Hand-held Brainstorming Tools
I have never seen these brainstorming tools before.
The reviewers on Amazon LOVE these things!
I'll have to run this by our creative director!

PRSA - Presentation on Using RSS in Corporate Communications

I just sat in on a presentation given by Elizabeth Albrycht with APM Communications on RSS for the B2B market. She validated some of our strategies including RSS in online press rooms, and capturing and tracking word of mouth and online buzz. Some other interesting ideas she had for RSS were:

• Extranets and partner areas
• Customer relations
• Resource center and online libraries
• Event related information

It's great to see all these new ideas for RSS. I will continue to monitor and post other ways to use RSS and XML as a connections tool. If you find anything else let me know!

Hey PR guess what? -- Journalists adore blogs.

MarketingSherpa just published survey results that over 50% of technology journalists surveyed read blogs on a regular basis and surf them for new story ideas. My guess is that others will soon follow.

REI to use Blog software to post content to their website

Interesting story posted on Internet Retailer on how REI is doing a limited rollout of blogging software to post content on the REI website.

Blogging software developed by Seattle e-mail technology
developer What Counts will, in effect, make bloggers out of store personnel who
use the tool to post local events and schedules. While that content will reflect
the personality of REI as a company to the extent that it supports company
values and mission, it's not, at this point, intended as an extended platform
for the personal attitudes of the individual blogger.

"We're using blogging technology, but it really will not be
presented as a blog," says Reynolds. We are not educating the 50 or so users
that they are going to be blogging. We're simply creating a new user interface
that makes it incredibly simple to post content."

This was a topic of discussion in my last 4As IT committee meeting and I poo-poo-ed the idea! Even the Mason Technologist gets it wrong some times ;-). Well, obviously blogging software will never replace robust content management systems, but its an interesting idea.

Actually I suggested doing a similar thing on the bruegger's news page. We have added an RSS 2.0 feed, but why not make the news page a "blog" to post not only press releases, but video and audio news as well as other news items that don't necessarily warrant a full press release. I'll let you know when it goes live.

Podcast Vs. Blogcast
The debate rages on, right now Podcast is winning by a landslide, but blogcast is on the rise... See for yourself -->
Track it with CustomScoop
Track it with Blogpulse

This is a great example of how to use these tools to track word of mouth

PR People should read Tim Bray's article on the new PR. With blogs, the word of mouth network is getting more and more efficient. The smart PR firms know this and use it to their advantage.