May 2006 Archives
We talk a lot about the technology or practical side of blogging, but one of the things that’s great to remember is that a good blog can be simply inspiring.
One great example that reminded us about why we love helping people get started with blogging is Kathleen Connally’s A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania. This stunning photoblog has been around for years, but there are still many people who haven’t discovered it yet, even after Kathleen won Photo of the Year last year in the 2005 Photobloggies. Even those of us who are native Pennsylvanians probably never saw the state in this way.
You can find out more about the site or view a portfolio of the best photos, but you’ll want to make sure you set aside time to really explore the entire collection. If you find an image that strikes your fancy, you can even order some prints.
All of us on the team are proud that Kathleen uses Movable Type to publish her photo blog, but we can’t claim that her site is powered by anything other than old-fashioned talent and an amazing eye.
Last month, The Economist published a detailed and insightful survey of new media, covering the details of new technologies such as blogs, as well as the social and business implications of these technologies.
Wev’e gotten a lot of very positive responses about the survey, so we thought we’d point out some of the highlights you might have missed. (If you just want to grab the whole thing as a PDF, the survey is available for $4.95.)
The survey starts with the assertion that “The era of mass media is giving way to one of personal and participatory media”, in a piece called “Among the Audience”. The article starts with a review of the invention of Gutenberg’s movable type, and then continues into some background about our own Movable Type. Though it’s flattering, it’s probably slightly overstating the relative importance of both inventions. Here’s the highlights:
In 2001, five-and-a-half centuries after Mr Gutenberg’s first bible, “Movable Type” was invented again. Ben and Mena Trott, high-school sweethearts who became husband and wife, had been laid off during the dotcom bust and found themselves in San Francisco with ample spare time. Ms Trott started blogging—ie, posting to her online journal, Dollarshort—about “stupid little anecdotes from my childhood”. For reasons that elude her, Dollarshort became very popular, and the Trotts decided to build a better “blogging tool”, which they called Movable Type. “Likening it to the printing press seemed like a natural thing because it was clearly revolutionary; it was not meant to be arrogant or grandiose,” says Ms Trott to the approving nod of Mr Trott, who is extremely shy and rarely talks. Movable Type is now the software of choice for celebrity bloggers.
The most cogent point follows shortly after that, simply stating that this innovation “[A]lso marks the beginning of a very gradual transition to a new era, which might be called the age of personal or participatory media.”
Once you’ve reviewed the introductory story on blogging, you’ll also want to check out “It’s the Links, Stupid”, a strong overview of how linking behaviors in the blogosphere enable conversations and relationships. This focus on conversation does a good job of explaining why most blogs are aimed at an audience of fewer than ten people, not for hundreds or even thousands of readers.
Aside from blogging, there’s many other topics covered in depth in the survey. Participatory journalism, wikis, podcasting, virtual worlds like Second Life, and the very definition of a media company are all explored. The survey closes with a high-level view of participatory media, along with a useful list of sources and acknolwedgements. If you’re not completely overflowing with information by that point, a number of audio interviews augment the writing, including ones with survey author Andreas Kluth, Technorati’s David Sifry, Wired Editor-in-Chief and Long Tail maven Chris Anderson, renowned new-media thinker Jerry Michalski, and prognosticator Paul Saffo.
In all, it’s a great overview of the field many of us work and play in, and it’s also a perfect professional introduction to these technologies and culturall changes. If you’ve got a friend or coworker who still doesn’t take blogging and related media seriously, spend the five bucks, grab the PDF, and send it on to them.
Okay, so “Million-Dollar Blogging” sounds like one of those weird spam blogs that sometimes show up in search results. But we were pretty happy to see Debbie Weil’s recent post in which she describes the return on investment for Forrester Research’s Charlene Li. Charlene is a Principal Analyst at Forrester, and according to her recent speech at the NewComm Forum, her well-regarded TypePad-powered blog has resulted in $1 million in new business for Forrester.
Now, we’re not claiming that everybody who signs up for TypePad for their business is going to book a million dollars in new business. But what we do see is that low-cost, easy blogging tools, combined with smart writing and thought leadership in an industry can have a direct, measurable impact on getting new customers.
The important part here is understanding that blogs can help build relationships with potential customers, and those relationships are what people remember when it comes time to buy products or services. Reading someone’s blog over time and then hiring them to do work for you is no different than being a “regular” at a restaurant and then wanting to take your friends there when deciding where to eat. You reward the people with whom you have a connection. And if you’re the company providing that relationship through your blog, the rewards can really add up.
(Thanks to Debbie for the link — these are the sorts of examples we’re looking forward to seeing in The Corporate Blogging Book, her upcoming book on, you guessed it, corporate blogging.)
We noticed a story called Into the Wild Blog Yonder over on BusinessWeek Online, discussing Boeing’s smart deployments of blogs. we thought we’d interview D.L. Byron of Textura Design, who helped Boeing launch their blogs.
Byron was kind enough to answer a few questions for us about the work behind Boeing’s blogs, and we thought we’d share his answers with you.
Q: To get started, maybe you can describe your role in helping Boeing embrace blogs.
Byron: I’ve worked with Boeing after they intially launched the blog to help them make it more bloggy.
Q: “More bloggy”?
Byron: The first blog was a “pseudo”-blog, which is where the criticism [mentioned in the BusinessWeek story] came from. So they hired Textura Design to help them turn Randy’s Journal into a real blog. Later, we helped them with launching Flight Test Journal, and then we also worked with them on the IDS blog, an internal project which is discussed in the article.
Q: How was Flight Test Journal different from Randy’s Journal?
Byron: Flight Test was more casual and Boeing learned how compelling content drives traffic, as it was the people behind the planes, blogging about what they do and explaining how they test fly their jets. Lots of this stuff has never been discussed publicly.
Q: Okay, so Randy’s Journal is kind of the classic senior executive/thought leadership blog, Flight Test Journal was more of a first-person event blog around a specific project, and then IDS blogs are more of an intranet deployment.
Byron: Correct.
Q: Is that what you see in your work in general, companies trying to use different types of blogs?
Byron: Yes, they’ll learn they’ve got to blog in different channels and also, most importantly that they can be nimble in the blogosphere.
Q: It seems like Boeing’s been very good at iterating, making lots of little improvements over time.
Byron: Exactly, and I think that’s the biggest lesson: Go out and get better. <plug>And as we talk about that at length in our book</plug>, blogs are meant to be iterative, updating, and changing, letting businesss quickly adapt, as opposed to being a monolith of a website.
Q: With three different types of blogs being created, what does your process look like from a technical/software standpoint?
Byron: Movable Type supported all of their needs and we developed the blogs to be modular. Once designed, new blogs can be easily rolled out.
Q: So you’re using Movable Type for all of the blogs, inside and outside the company?
Byron: Yes. We’ve also used TypePad for Connexion by Boeing. They’ve also embraced blogging via events like the Blog Business Summit, and sponsored blogs, and we rapidly prototyped blogs for them to review, test, and kick around, and then turned them into Movable Type blogs when it was show time.
Q: That’s very cool. We love to see people using the platforms together that way. We’ve tried to do a lot of work there to support people in the community who do deployments of blogs… you’re a Professional Network member, what’s your experience been like in working with Six Apart?
Byron: Six Apart has come a long way in supporting developers and maturing into like, an actual software company. When Boeing has some very specific configuration concerns, Six Apart was able to answer the questions and help us.
Q: That’s good to hear. Congratulations on the great coverage in Business Week… I know you’ve got a book on the way to plug, what do people need to know about your book and about Textura Design?
Byron: The book covers Boeing and the work we’ve done with them and much more of the business side of the blogosphere - and it’s a practical approach, where we’ve launched successful business blogs and share that knowledge with our clients and readers. I haven’t met any businessperson that doesn’t get blogs and their importance. What they’re looking for is the how of blogging and that’s what we know.
Q: That’s great. So what do we have to look forward to next?
Byron: The next thing that we’re working with Boeing on is live commenting, outside the firewall and using Movable Type to do it. There’s also considerable fear about blogging as the BusinessWeek article notes and much of that has been caused by pundits. We tell clients and businesses to blog their own way and it’s ok; Our proof is Boeing. That’s what they did and it worked. And now they’re next revision of the blog, which will have live (but moderated) commenting and that’s a long way from launching a psuedo blog.
Thanks to Byron for his time, and visit the site for “Publish and Prosper”, the upcoming book by DL Byron and Steve Broback. The site includes free downloads of sample content as well as more information about the book. You can also find out about Byron’s work with Boeing first-hand at our Business Blogging Seminars, but both our New York and Los Angeles events are nearly sold out, so sign up now.
Crain’s Chicago has published a new two-part article on The new face of technology, and we’re glad to see a few familiar faces in among the companies being featured.
FeedBurner, the popular (and widget-enabled) feed management service uses Movable Type for their Burning Questions blog, and is featured in the story with a big picture of FeedBurner CEO Dick Costolo. Clearly, having a blog for one’s business makes one photogenic.
Need more proof? 37Signals’ Jason Fried is also pictured, with extensive mentions made of Signal vs. Noise, 37Signals’ super-popular blog. Signal vs. Noise, of course, uses Movable Type for publishing and FeedBurner for feed management, so what’s not to love? As Crain’s reports:
In the last year Mr. Fried’s 37Signals has popped up in the pages of Wired and the Wall Street Journal. The company’s blog, Signal vs. Noise, attracts 25,000 readers every day. “A lot more has to happen but it’s a good first step,” Mr. Fried says. “It might inspire those who are here to say, ‘I don’t need to leave Chicago for San Francisco or New York.’ “
Now that you’re sold on Chicago technology bloggers, head on over to the recently-redesigned Gaper’s Block and find out where Chicagoans are hanging out, online and offline. With the combination of your new nightlife and your Movable Type blog, pretty soon your pretty mug will be in the paper, too.
