Evelyn Rodriguez explains the competitive advantage of blogs. Ok, her post is nearly one month old but it will stay valid for a few months! It starts with “companies that lose touch of their customers stumble” and it is about users talking back to you/your organisation and telling you what needs to be improved. All the success of such an approach is based on the plan you have (you better do) for how you will take that feedback and put it into action. The value of the blogosphere is definitely much more than an efficient means to pitch your product(s).

b-spirit.com is referenced by Rick E. Bruner (Business Blog Consulting) among 15 other blog consulting businesses. Thank you Rick!

We just attended the LiveMeeting web conference that we mentioned a few days ago, with up to 167 other attendees. It was quite interesting, even though it touched only the basics of blogging (and business blogging to some extent); there were just too many questions, maybe the speakers spent too much time answering the questions. Key topics such as blogging policies, promotion, PR, internal blogging and knowledge management were not even mentioned. Hopefully this conference will be followed by others. The recording should be available for download in about 24 hours.

Michael Gartenberg predicts that “more corporations will create official blogs. Corporations have seen the weblog light, and blogs will become common for business use. Unfortunately, far too many of these efforts will just be marketing fluff disguised as weblogs.“

Via Enterprise RSS.

Will this be tomorrow’s commonly adopted attitude? I switched everything over to RSS. If you don’t have an RSS reader, then you won’t get marketed to by me.

I bet it will be.

On December 16, there is a one-hour free web conference about business blogging, by Jim Coudal (Coudal Partners) and Anil Dash (Six Apart). You can find all the details and subscription form here.

Via Business Blog Consulting.

The International Association Of Online Communicators is dedicated to promoting and preserving the open and free communication that has been the foundation of the Internet community. Its purpose is to provide a network through which practitioners and educators can share knowledge and ideas. The Association is a place where Internet content creators and publicists can join together to define and advance their roles in this emerging professional arena. Membership is open to all those whose work or teaching is centered on Internet content creation, including writers, editors, producers, college professors and online publicists.

Here is its blog.

Via CorporatePR.

“Blogging is huge. It brings together the three biggest Internet trends: communicating, sharing and socializing. It started with e-mail and instant messaging and music sharing, and it’s getting bigger each day.” Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Corporation
More…

Via CorporateBloggingBlog.

Post Danmark is on it’s way using weblogs as a integrated part of there HR-activities, according to Hans Henrik Heming.

Via CoporateBloggingBlog.

We knew it would come, here it is: Microsoft Corp.’s MSN Internet division last night introduced a preliminary version of MSN Spaces, a new service that includes a tool for publishing weblogs. The service is free to the user, but it ties into Microsoft’s strategy of driving traffic to the broader range of MSN services, which make money from subscription and advertising revenues.

The tool is not as flexible and “not quite as full-featured” as many existing weblog programs, but it’s meant to be easier to use. “This is for the masses,” said Blake Irving, an MSN corporate vice president. He predicted that the new MSN Service will expand the blogging category “at a pace that has not been seen before.” The key selling point will be the ability to easily post photos. It will also be possible to update an MSN Spaces site remotely, via e-mail or mobile phone. The blogging function of MSN Spaces comes with many traditional weblog features, such as sections for comments under each blog post. MSN Spaces also lets users send out RSS feeds. The service will also let people control who can access their site. Options include opening the site to the world or limiting access to contacts on a buddy list or a select group of family and friends.

Via seattlepi.com.

“Forrester envisions a day when new employees on their first day will be handed a sheet of paper with their phone number, email address — and a URL for their blog. The company would give all of its employees a personal internal blog where they could provide project updates, trip reports, and market intelligence — anything that they think others should know about the work that they are doing. This information could then be tied into the company’s VoIP phone system — for internal calls, the caller’s photo, title, bio, and a link to his blog would appear on the computer screen. The blog content would give context and background for the call, making it unnecessary to send extra emails or to have extensive discussions about a project.” by Charlene Li.

Via NevOn.

Blog will be a new entry in the 2005 version of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. The complete list of words of the year is available here.

Via Yahoo! News and CNN.com.