Blogs - 2nd Quarter 2006

Greetings,

Summer is here, the weather is getting hotter, and so are things at Clearbuilt. The first thing you will notice is that we’ve turned our emailed ClearPoint newsletters into a blog. Not to worry if you are new to blogs because this ClearPoint explains blogs. This ClearPoint is longer than normal so I have provided a jumping off point, at the STOP sign, about mid-way through.

Since our last ClearPoint we have been continuing to upgrade our offsite backup capability. We’ve increased the redundancy and capacity. This completes our major overhaul effort.

We have finished work on several of our larger website upgrades. We continue to work on our new www.clearbuilt.com website as we have time. And we are working with several startup companies in need of websites for their new ventures.

Things are really heating up at Clearbuilt Technologies. We like it that way. Why else would one choose to live in Hotlanta?

Have a good summer!

Regards,
Neal

Blogs Will Make Web Developers Extinct

Come on down from the town stump, put away that soap box…it’s all digital now and they call it blogging. Have you heard of blogs? Maybe in the news lately you heard a reporter refer to what the bloggers are saying about the major news story of the day? In this ClearPoint we will dive in (a shallow dive really…think belly-flop without the pain and humiliation) to the world of online stumping.

Is This A New Language?

This is not the latest online teenage fad that like requires a translator to like figure out what I am like saying. Instead, a blog can be a powerful tool for your business as well as other personal interests you may have. Let’s establish some terminology first.

Definitions

Let’s Take A Look

Here are some random examples of blogs.

A Blog vs. A Website

Can’t I just build a website to do that? Of course. After all, a blog is really just a website.

The nice thing about blogs is they are driven by blog software that makes posting and managing articles a breeze. Here are some of the tasks that blogs handle for you:

• you can assign one or more categories to each article
• searching articles is a built-in feature
• readers can comment on your articles
• you can require that you approve a comment before it goes live
• the blog software will handle user registration and login (for example, you could require your readers to register and login prior to commenting on an article)
• some blog software packages/services allow you to submit articles to your blog by sending an email with the content to a special, private email address

Bye-Bye Web Developers?

Right about now some of you are thinking I’m crazy for promoting blogs since they seem to trivialize the service Clearbuilt provides. I appreciate your concern, but we firmly believe that blogs are a valuable tool and if your project goals can be reached with a blog, then it should be used. We would love the opportunity to setup and run the blog software for you.

The bigger picture is that Clearbuilt’s value is realized when there is a project that is not perfectly served by software like a blog. Reaching 80%, even 90% of the goals on some projects is useless. Clearbuilt, and other custom web developers like us, are still necessary. Whew!

Become A Blogger, It’s Easy

Is there a blogger inside of you that is ready to be unleashed on the world? Great! There are several options available to you.

Please, No More

If you were not aware of the information covered so far, then I imagine you are about done and ready to come up for air. If so, then this is a good time get out. However, if you haven’t had enough and simply must know more about blogs, then take a deep breath and fix your goggles because we’re diving deeper this time.

The Rest of the Story…

Just How Easy Is Easy?

One important point about blogs is they are entirely web-based. This means that the blog readers use a web browser to read and bloggers use their web browser to submit the articles. To give you an idea of how easy it is to manage a blog, take a look at these snapshots from the administrative area of the ClearPoint blog.

Spam? On Blogs? How?

The answer is yes. The spammers abuse blogs too. It’s quite simple really. The spammer can manually go to a blog and post a comment that is an advertisement (with a web link) for their product or service. If the blogger doesn’t require comment moderation, then their ad goes live immediately. Now consider automating the routine to find blogs and post comments. You get the idea.

Hungry? Try Some Blog Feeds

Let’s say you have 4 blogs that you read daily and 5 others that post much less often (like ClearPoint’s quarterly articles). That means going to 9 different websites each day knowing that most likely only 4 have content. A better method would be to go to one website where I can get an update on all 9 blogs on one screen. RSS makes that possible.

RSS is usually decoded as “Really Simple Syndication”. Blogs that support RSS will typically have one of the following icons:

or or

Here is a scenario of how RSS will work to consolidate your blog reading.

Now you have all 9 blogs on one screen. Each day you can login to your My Yahoo! account and see when new posts have been made with the title of these posts web-linked to the full article. For a list of RSS Readers visit the “list of news aggregators” at http://www.newsonfeeds.com/faq/aggregators.

Time To Breathe

Blogs are a great tool for posting content on the web. However, just like most things, you need to have a baseline understanding and some experience if you want to make a big splash. If your blog will be for business purposes and things like search engine positioning are important, then you should consult a web professional. Otherwise, grab your surfboard and jump on in!

Please submit your comments! Maybe suggest a topic for a future ClearPoint.

Filed by nb on June 19th, 2006 under ClearPoint