Do you blog?
According to a number of commentators, many people made their first
acquaintance with Web logs (or “blogs,” as these online
journals have come to be called) a little more than a year ago.
That was when then-Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi
made some ill-chosen comments about the legacy of the late South
Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. While the political firestorm sparked
by those comments eventually spoiled Lott’s bid to become
Senate Majority Leader of the Republican Party in 2003, the story
was at first largely unreported by the mainstream press. A small
number of blogs, however, took it upon themselves to minutely chronicle
every twist and turn of the story, keeping it alive day after day
until the major media outlets finally weighed in. In the end, Lott
gave up his leadership bid – and blogs emerged as an online
force to be reckoned with.
Quirky, up-to-the minute, diary-like, packed with links –
“blogging” has garnered a good many descriptions in
the course of its relatively short life. Born in the late 1990s
with the arrival of inexpensive (and sometimes free) online tools,
blogs have quickly established themselves as an essential feature
of the Internet publishing landscape. In the last few months alone,
blogs have sprung up to provide everything from analyses of the
underlying causes of the August, 2003 blackouts to gritty, first-person
accounts of the war in Iraq.
While it is difficult to say precisely how many active blogs are
on the Internet, it's probably in the hundreds of thousands, according
to Jupiter Research in New York. Not surprisingly, a number of blogs
have sprung up recently that appeal directly to small businesses.
Here’s a look at some of the best of them.
Fresh Inc.
The Web log of Inc. magazine, Fresh Inc. makes good on its parent’s
promise “to deliver advice, tools, and services to help business
owners and CEOs start, run, and grow their businesses more successfully.”
For example, one recent post focused on the ways that spam, or unsolicited
email, is hurting small businesses. The post included a link to
a recent survey of 500 small businesses in which a surprising 42
percent of respondents said they would consider abandoning email
for business if spam worsened. Another link led to details about
a recent decision by the California Superior Court ordering a Los
Angeles company to pay $2 million for sending spam.
While offering advice on such business staples as raising venture
capital and nurturing entrepreneuership, Fresh Inc. frequently ventures
further afield to tackle less predictable topics. Recent posts have
addressed measuring the ROI of training, motivating jaded employees,
preventing viruses, going wireless, and the effects of employee
turnover, to cite just a few.
Small businesses should definitely check out Fresh Inc. for its
daily take on today’s business issues.
Slashdot
While some would argue that it is really more of an online community
than a blog, Slashdot.org has nevertheless successfully carved out
a special niche on the Internet thanks to its fanatically loyal
followers (who are responsible for the so-called “Slashdot
Effect,” which occurs when a sudden surge in traffic threatens
to overwhelm a Web site that has been linked to from Slashdot).
Slashdot covers the waterfront when it comes to technology issues
(its motto: “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters”), but
its role as a forum for the open source movement has catapulted
it to prominence in the tech community. Smart, acerbic, and unapologetically
geeky, there’s no other blog quite like Slashdot.
Reiter’s
Wireless Data Web Log
Featuring “spontaneous pontifications about wireless data,
wireless Internet, WiFi, camera phones, and other wireless analysis,”
Reiter’s Wireless Data Web Log is the brainchild of Alan Reiter,
a wireless communications consultant and analyst since 1978. Winner
of a Forbes magazine Best Tech Blog award, Reiter’s blog covers
such subjects as wireless email and instant messaging, wireless
access to corporate data, wireless information services, wireless
financial services, wireless e-commerce, wireless portals, wireless
advertising, and wireless LANs. It also looks at new wireless devices,
including cellular phones and pagers, wireless-enabled PDAs, and
radio modems. In short, if it’s the latest development in
wireless technology that you’re after, Reiter’s is the
place.
Gartner
Inc.’s Unconventional Thinking
One of research and advisory firm Gartner’s flagship weblogs,
Unconventional Thinking bills itself as a “place for ideas
that have not yet reached the mainstream of information technology.”
Readers can join Gartner analysts as they discuss such topics as
outsourcing, cyber security, trends in IT spending, opting in and
out of email, and news from various Gartner symposia. Unconventional
Thinking is an indispensable forum for anyone interested in technology
in business. (Note: Certain Gartner weblogs require membership.)
Dan Bricklin’s
Log
One of the genuine pioneers of the tech industry, Dan Bricklin
maintains a log that wonderfully reflects the myriad interests of
the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet. A representative
sampling of Bricklin topics would include molecular computers, building
a superior Web site, patents, and business strategies. Bricklin
also writes cogently on the economic benefits of blogs to small
businesses.
Conclusion
As can be imagined, the above list barely scratches the surface.
To find out more about the rich variety of blogs now thriving on
the Internet, you might peruse the Google directory of blogs. Whether
you’re interested in cyber security issues or how to get the
most out of your Web site, there’s a blog out there that can
be a rich information resource for your small business.
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