Sunday, July 31, 2005

Yahoo working on blog search tool?

It appears Yahoo may be working on blog search technology that would compete with Technorati. In a blog posting earlier this week, Ian Forrester writes about a talk given at Open Tech 2005 last weekend in London by Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny.

"Jeremy Zawodny was very interesting and pointed out a couple of things: The rumors about Yahoo working on a Technorati killer, are true. The aggregator will support Microformats and RSS Extensions, including some of Yahoo's rivals. Yahoo will be REALLY opening up more APIs. Zawodny failed or kept very quiet about the Konfabulator take over. Yahoo are counting RSS/Atom as a type of API not just as a syndication format," the blog says.

Meanwhile, Zawodny's blog mentions the trip, but is mum on the talk. A Yahoo spokeswoman said the company had no comment.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Weblogs At Harvard Law


What makes a weblog a weblog?

Advice to corporate & senior executive bloggers from GM's Bob Lutz: "Jump"

On the fence about starting a corporate blog authored by senior execs? Bob Lutz, who is GM's CBO (Chief Blogging Officer) as well as global vice chairman for product development, says: just do it. From an article written by Lutz for Information Week: Nothing To Fear From Executive Blogging. The article begins:

"To blog or not to blog? For a lot of senior executives these days, that is the question. The answer, simply enough, is to blog. No better opportunity exists to engage in an open dialogue and exchange of ideas with customers and potential customers."

Friday, July 29, 2005

Apple Blog Wants You

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is looking for a few good bloggers. If you follow Apple, write well, and are able to post once or twice daily, you could secure a readership and make a few bucks. The Unofficial Apple Weblog covers Apple news and is the most heavily trafficked publication in the Weblogs, Inc. network.

David Sifry: Who's Saying What In Blogville

David SIfryDavid Sifry is relentless in evangelizing the importance of blogs to business. "You can either choose to listen or choose not to listen," says Sifry, 36, CEO of Technorati, the leading blog search engine. "Either way, people are talking about your company, they're talking about your product, they're talking about your competitors." In August, Sifry will press the point when he rolls out a subscription service for customized searches so users can track buzz about their companies.

But with giants Google (GOOG ), Yahoo! (YHOO ), and MSN (MSFT ) seemingly poised to enter blog search, it's not clear whether Technorati, with its relatively tiny server capacity and name recognition, can compete. Despite big growth in the number of blogs it tracks -- now 13.3 million -- Technorati is slow and erratic, bloggers complain. Sifry attributes that to the ambitious task of tracking both relevance and timeliness. Sifry, a serial entrepreneur, says his goal "is to build something great." Users, he's betting, will follow.

By Dana Goldstein

Related information about Technorati
- Technorati: A New Public Utility
- Technorati's web site

How Beijing keeps the blogosphere from spinning out of control


Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Monday, July 25, 2005

Business Blogging for Beginners

Creating a business blog is a lot like hosting a cocktail party: You're networking with customers in a low-pressure setting and, at best, nurturing great relationships. How to make your company's blog the talk of the town? Elizabeth Albrycht of Blogging Planet and Andy Lark of the Lark Group give the lowdown on blogging style and etiquette.