There are many different reasons people blog — reflecting more and learning are good examples of common reasons to blog. A few weeks ago, I was listening to a (pre-recorded) session where Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book, was talking about time-limited blogs.

While the session was about a year old, I was still very surprised at the number of people (and these are people who would participate in a session about blogging) still didn’t really understand the difference between forums and blogs. As is usually the case with communication, it’s easy to blame those being communciated to for not understanding.

But I’d say the lack of understanding probably comes more from a lack of clear communication on what a blog actually is (versus a forum, or a non-blog site). Personally, I very rarely refer to my site as a blog — I don’t often find that there’s a useful difference by distinguishing it as a blog.

What really caugth my interest in Debbie’s talk though, was the growing interest she had identified in time-limited corporate blogging. This is where a company takes a specific issue or event and creates a blog around it that only lasts for a given amount of time (which could be anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more).

While there’s certainly no shortage of blogs that eventually just die off (which usually happens with a whimper, rather than a bang) — these blogs are intentionally set to self-destruct.

My initial thoughts was that this must be such a let-down for people who subscribe to the site — knowing that one day a site you enjoy reading is going to be gone.

But when I thought about this some more, rather than setting your readers up for disappointment, you’re actually setting realistic expectations. Being a content creator is tough (even in the short time I’ve been writing, I’ve found it tough to stick to a regular posting schedule).

By establishing realistic expectations with your readers, they’ll come back when you launch your next issue- or event-specific blog. This way, you keep the focus of your blog targeted and specific, rather than just dumping content into a site because you feel you have to.

One of the endless information science/knowledge management debates is on the value of connection versus collection. For anyone unfamiliar with this debate, it’s basically this: is collecting information all in one place better than providing connectors among the people who share that information (or knowledge, if you like that word better). Or vice versa?

Obviously, there’s no one right answer (or maybe even an answer at all) to which is of more value. It always depends on the specific context we’re talking about, as well as the type of information or knowledge. But even more importantly, if you only do one, how do you how valuable the other approach could have been? You can’t measure what you didn’t do.

I’ve noticed a growing trend toward lists of things in people’s blog posts — something like this list of 83 beautiful WordPress themes. My own list of knowledge management sites has also been by far the most popular post on this site. Digg users also love these lists, and they often get thousands of Diggs.

So while blogs provide a connective link between individuals and create communities of people interested in the same topics — there also seems to be a trend toward collecting information all in one place. I know some people absolutely hate these lists, but they seem to be mostly bloggers who feel it’s not original writing (perhaps someone should put together a list of reasons why they hate lists).

What do you think? Does collecting information in a blog post defeat the whole connectivity element of a blog? Or does it enhance that connectivity?

First off, I want to welcome everyone who’s coming to this site for the first time. Traffic doubled last week, and by this week, it has quadrupled. So if this is your first time here, welcome. You can take a look through some old posts as well as the front page features by using the category links on the right (this way you can get to topics that interest you right away). And of course, thanks for stopping by to read!

So, to celebrate this huge increase in traffic, I thought I would thank one my favourite sites by featuring it. Today’s featured site is North x East, which is home to my good friend Collis, who was one of the first bloggers I swapped blogroll links with (considering the huge success of North x East, I think it was a great trade!). As usual, I just want to say up front that I don’t get reimbursed in any way for these reviews — they’re just sites I really like.

What I like the most.

North x East provides knowledge and advice on setting up, promoting and succeeding in the online business world. What I find is the big differentiator on Collis’ blog, however, is the almost subconscious focus on innovation.

While bloggers like John Chow often focus on the financial side of blogging, North x East focuses more on establishing successful business models for web startups. North x East also isn’t afraid of dishing out the dirt on things like making your blog seem more established so you don’t scare new readers away. And Collis’ comprehensive guide to starting your freelance career is must-read material for anyone even thinking about starting to do freelance work.

Since my own site is all about knowledge sharing, I really enjoy sites that take a particular field and build a repository of first-hand knowledge and experience a novice can draw on. Collis’ knowledge of doing business on the web comes across brilliantly in his writing — there’s always something new to learn at North x East.

What I would change.

Collis talks quite a bit about other projects he has going on within the pages of North x East — and these other projects are a great source of learning for readers of his site. I would love to see a page that collects some of the projects Collis has going on — which would provide both a great promotional vehicle for those projects, as well as giving us the inside take on how those projects are going.

I’d love to provide more ideas for changes to North x East, but this is truly one of those sites that is doing just about everything right — and has build the readership to prove it.

Want to read more featured sites? Check out my review of The Paper Bull and the JibberJobber blog.

It’s been a while since I’ve featured some of the great contributions I get to Business, Technology and Knowledge. I’m absolutely astounded by the number of submissions received. There are really some quality posts in this issue — take a few minutes to browse through some of these. You’ll be glad you did.

Barbra Sundquist presents Incorporate or Not? What You Need to Know About Business Structures posted at HomeBusinessWiz.

Anja Merret presents 10 easy steps to try your hand at SEO posted at anja merret, saying, “Free and easy way of increasing traffic through the web site.”

Business

Wilson Ng presents Profits Straight to the Bottom Line posted at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife, saying, “Understanding pricing strategies and knowing your cost structure as optimizing your bottom line is essential knowledge for managers.”

Matt Inglot presents 5 Tips for Staying on Top of Your Books for Small Business Owners posted at Matt Inglot.

Christopher J. Brunner presents Choosing Powerful Text for Your Business Cards posted at GreatFX Business Cards, saying, “How to draw in potential clients by adding powerful text to your business cards.”

Matthew Paulson presents The Ultimate Guide to Making Money through Freelance Writing Online posted at Getting Green.

Becky McCray presents Small Biz Survival: Startup: Resources to get from Idea to In Business posted at Small Biz Survival, saying, “Online and real world resources to go from a business idea to starting your business.”

Steve Faber presents 4 Great, Free Business Resources To Help Grow, Start, or Save Your Business posted at DebtBlog.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Filthy Wal-Mart = Poor WMT Stock Performance? posted at The Digerati Life.

The Positivity Blog talks about 5 lessons I have learned from John Chow posted at Henrik Edberg.

Jack Yoest presents Job Interview: How To Tell If the Candidate Will Lie, Cheat, Steal? posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, “It seemed that many of the clients of Your Business Blogger were having challenges finding integrity in job candidates. Even business schools are forced to teach ethics. Goodness. So I ask Bob Knight, who runs the Culture and Media Institute a part of Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center about this. Bob’s team just released a report, The National Cultural Values Survey.”

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The Paper Bull was kind enough to provide me with a very honest, unpaid review a few days ago — so I thought I would return the favour, and point out some of the great content on the site. As I said in my last review of the JibberJobber blog, this provides some exposure to these great sites, but more importantly, provides the readers of this blog with great content that would be of interest (and again, I’m not compensated in any way for this review).

The Paper Bull provides information on search engine optimization (which is just making your site discoverable for search engines), as well as information about WordPress and eBay. Mostly, though the site is about tweaking your site for search engines and some WordPress tips and tricks that will get your blog ahead.

What I like the most.

The writing is almost always concise and to the point, and provides good explanations of the subject matter. For an example of what I’m talking about, here’s a bit of sneak peak at The Paper Bull’s tips around anchor text links:

“It’s common knowledge that anchor text links are a strong component of embedding your blog and making it highly visible within its niche community. Utilizing them to their full potential is another matter altogether and it’s worth some grass roots training. An anchor text link is probably better known under a former name hyperlink: a portal which takes you from website A to website B by clicking on an active text.”

As Uncommon Knowledge is all about knowledge sharing, I enjoy any site that establishes a knowledge base and allows the author and readers to share and communicate that knowledge between them. The Paper Bull does an excellent job at this.

What I would change.

While the content of the site is excellent, it doesn’t appear that the MistyLook theme has really been customized too much. I understand that hiring a designer can be expensive — and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the help of many people to assist me in the creation of my site.

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I’ve decided to start featuring a few of the sites that I’ve included in my sidebar links as featured sites of the day. It provides the sites with some exposure, but more importantly, it gives you, the readership of this site, my reasons for thinking the site might be of interest to you — and what you can gain by visiting those sites.

Also, since I provide advice on information architecture for a living, I’d like to make a few suggestions that might lead to some improvements for some already great sites.

First on the list: the JibberJobber blog. I feel I should start this very short review by saying that I’m not getting paid to endorse JibberJobber in any way — I just really like the content and think the blog’s got a ton of great information. Jason Alba from JibberJobber has also made some great comments on this site, and I’d like to point to the great job he’s doing on the JibberJobber blog.

The blog is an extension of the main JibberJobber site, which describes itself as “like a personal Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) for job hunters. Just as a salesperson would use a CRM system to keep track of their sales leads, JibberJobber helps you keep track of your job search and networking contacts.”

What I like the most.

What I like the most about JibberJobber is that the content acts as a knowledge sharing platform for a particular type of community — job searchers — who can interact and share their experiences.

There are also frequent posts that non-job-searchers would benefit from — as an example, there is a post there today about two different bloggers who have been very successful in creating a personal brand for themselves. These types of posts appeal to an audience that is beyond just those who are looking for a job.

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I recently came across the diagram below, which attempted to explain how feeds, blogs and various other parts of the content syndication process were interrelated. While this diagram was created to reflect the blog, feed and syndication situation in 2005, has that much really changed since then? Continue reading »

Welcome to the February 26, 2007 edition of Business, Technology and Knowledge.

We’re featuring a post today from GameProducer.net which tells us why 80 Percent of Companies Won’t Fail Within 5 Years (posted, of course, at Game Producer). The article points out that not all claims about business success and failure can be backed up by empirical evidence — and even the claims that do have legimitate research backing them can often be patently false.

Statistics are often misleading — and one of the most often-overlooked components of statistics is the definition people use for what they are talking about (OK, I don’t have any empirical evidence to back that up). In this case, if 80% of businesses were defined as ‘failures’ after 5 years, who exactly is definining what is a failure and what is a success? Failure is a very subjective word that has to be very precisely defined in order for the statistics to mean anything.

You can read the rest of the articles from this 6th edition of Business, Technology and Knowledge below.

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Robert Berkman has a post on his blog about Serph and TagFetch — two new metasearch engines that will search multiple blog search engines and tag aggregators (including Technorati, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Google Blog Search, Bloglines and Newsvine).

The growth of these sites demonstrates the need for a metadata strategy for the web — which cannot possibly come from one central entity. Instead, it has to come from the users who create content, thus making distributed tags the only feasible metadata solution.

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I’ve often wondered how effective the ‘nofollow’ tag is in blog comments — does it actually stop spammers from targeting a site (if you don’t know what ‘nofollow’ does, check out the short Wikipedia definition)?

Since I’ve launched this site, it has received 804 spam comments, versus 99 legitimate comments (including my own replies to comments).

In my own subjective calculation, I’d say Akismet has caught around 99% of my spam (of 804 spam comments, I think there have been 3 that have not been caught in the filter).

So I ask myself: why do I need the ‘nofollow’ attribute in my comments?

I came across this great list of ‘dofollow’ plugins (found through Weblog Tools Collection), and decided it was time to implement one.

I decided to just drop ‘nofollow’ altogether by installing DoFollow.

So what does this mean for you? Simple: leave a comment here and you get a real link back to your site, plain and simple. Enjoy.