Last time, we discussed the origin of the blog.  Now, I would like to talk about the recent history and current progress of the blog.  As far as blogging today, it has been a challenge, but it has evolved.  Ever since other sites have begun offering services similar to the functionality of blogs, blogs have had a very hard time remaining active as key instruments.

However, the operations, uses, and purposes of blogs have been more specifically defined because of such changes.  One example of these changes is how Facebook has appeared with the functionality of “friends” and “posting” notes.  This is very similar to how many blogs work today.  People have subscribers, like RSS feeds, that function similarly to the Facebook “friends.”  Certain “friends” can be attached to or included in posted “notes” from Facebook.  More “subscribe” functions are also seen in trends like Twitter’s “follow” and “tweet” feed functions.

It also may be surprising to find out that Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are also social media devices used for the professional world.  They aren’t just limited to personal uses.  Twitter is widely used in the marketing world.  You can use it to build a professional profile and follow others within the same field.  You can even inform consumers about events and updates within your field or company.  Some people use it just get publicity for their activity.  Unlike Facebook, Twitter allows you this freedom to really put on a professional face for your individual profile.  However, this doesn’t mean that Facebook can’t integrate professionally.  Many people create organization and company pages to advertise themselves to the public so users can be active in their company, announcements, upcoming events, or releases of new products.  Many public users can “like” the company or organization page to find out events going on in that company or organization.  It will pop up right in the newsfeed.  Already, we can see that Twitter and Facebook can be used to market the public, because they are sole networks of the public domains.  If any organization or company wants to get the attention of potential or current consumers or clients, they can just create a feed for the users to subscribe to.

The face of blogging is becoming ever more crucial from these circumstances.  Businesses are now taking on the more professional face of blogging than ever, through examples such as WordPress.  This separates from the Facebook and Twitter commercial images portrayed (even though Twitter and Facebook are used for so many businesses today).  However, people from all generations still like to use blogs for personal uses through standard formats like Blogger and more evolved collage formats like Tumblr.

The need today is for blogs to be used socially.  It doesn’t connect like the intended uses Facebook and Twitter means by “short” conversations.  Blogs still provide a magazine, article, and announcement platform style that helps distinguish it from other social media and content sharing services.  Without even going through mainstream platforms, blogs today are providing a vision, a format where something lengthy or media-induced allowing for feedback right on the spot.

As blogs move from what originally use to be radio “wire chats” and online journals to write just about anything, blogs today have developed a reputation of being used more professionally in the business realm.  They also operate as public domains and sources for organizational, political, and scholarly posts.  With this in mind, the business and academic life is accommodating blogs for more specific agendas.  Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are becoming more discovery zones to link to these blogs than actual holders of these quality article domains called blogs.  As blogs started journals, they are heading in more a direction as public resources and creative wikis.

It is quite uncertain the whereabouts of the first “actual” blog.  It would interest you to know that beginning of blogs actually began before its appearance on the internet.  Before the internet’s rise, there was a way for electronic communication, in which people could use AP wire to have “wire chats” or “wire fights” on different topics and issues.  In the 1980s, at the same time, was the development of a radio program called “ham radio” where people could talk back and forth between broadcasters, creating more a conversationalist response off of monologue reports and entries.   Eventually, this form transferred into personal diary logs, called “glogs.”  This suggests where the word “blog” started.

Soon, moving into the 1990s, electronic services including bulletin boards services developed forum styles of recording conversation through internet software.  This “conversation” style then lead to the word “thread,” which is a common word used in the blogging world today.  The specific messages sent from the bulletin boards to start discussion off of topics were in fact called “posts,” another term related to the blogging posts.  Bulletin boards were then adopted for some but not all businesses at the time, to gather feedback on interrelated and situational topics, announcements, and sometimes issues.

Moving from a way bulletins into internet forums, the blog was slowly starting to make its entrance.  Journalists began adapting the forum-like structures into their own personal “weblogs” to continue their writing online from magazines, newspapers, and sometimes universities.  One of the first to incorporate the first online “weblog” or “internet journal” was a student, Justin Hall, from Swarthmore College around 1994.  Some web hosting programs and software began taking on some similar trends.  It was not until three years after Hall’s appearance did “The Misanthropic Bitch” (TMB) begin to coin the word “blog.”  The user would strike many controversial topics online.  Many were shocked and responded to her topics and views.

This then got companies got to thinking about making an online profit through blogs like TMB.  Some of these companies offered personal journals and diaries networks online, like Xanga and OpenJournal in 1998.  It was then around 1999, that LiveJournal, Pitas, and Blogger began to appear.  The popularity of Blogger itself didn’t rise until years later.

The origins of the blog are definitely hard to pin point.  As we can see, we understand its roots through other common electronic devices like AP wire and “ham” radio.  It is positive that today, blogging is seen much differently than it has in the beginning.  Almost everyone has one now, from companies to next person in line, blogs are becoming quite trendy and useful to our everyday society.

This post will be a little more technical than the other posts in the blogging series.  Last time, we discussed the introduction of the blog.  Now, I would I like to give you a quick overview of the blog as a part of introducing the blog.  Up above, you will see words, “lifehacker.”  In fact, lifehacker is a blogging domain itself.  There is a big different between blogging domains that are self-hosted and hosted yourself.  More of the mainstream blogs are through self-hosted domains, whereas you could host  an actual blog yourself.  Many blogs today are hosted through universal blogging domains.  If your running your own business, your company title would probably appear where “lifehacker” is located.

Next is the image hosted for the actual blog (not the domain).  The image is supposed to give a visual representation related to the topic.  Often, it is used to engage interest for the reader.  This links to the idea that a blog often times functions like a visual magazine: a header, image, title, and monologues text (the body).

Below the image you will notice the category “health.”  If you hover over the category, you actually find more categories.  This suggests that the post is more likely to be found in the health section if you were to browse for blogs.  The title itself is underneath.  Notice how the title is enticing yet simple and short.  This is how all blog titles should be.  A title should be there to grab the reader’s attention, like the image itself.  This is to lead to the reader to read the actual blog.

Next, below the title is the body of the blog.  The body is probably the most important part of the blog, because it will be what the reader is reading.  Notice how this blogger uses a sentence that dives right into the issue.  This helps the reader become immediately connected to what the blogger is trying to say.  No longer do you have to dig through books, newspapers, or magazine to get to the important information.  Blogs have a way of organizing this information from the start.  From dates to categories and keywords, blogs are there to make it simple.

This leads to one of the best functions for the blogging experience.  The feedback.  Below is a comment responding to the actual blog article.  This allows the reader to only receive information, but to give it back, creating an interactive live experience online.  This even allows the blogger to comment back and answer any questions they may be able to have.  The blogging experience is by far one of the most interactive and informative experiences as far as reading material can go.  Not only is it made simple, but it is easy to get the reader engaged in what you wish to write about.

We are helping spread the word for really exciting event that is happening in the Fox Cities area next month.  Startup Accelerator is hosting a “un-conference”, October 22 at the Paper Discovery Center in Appleton.  This event is intended to be a melting pot of entrepreneurs and starters who are helping drive innovation here in the Valley.

According to Wikipedia, a unconference is: An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term “unconference” has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees, sponsored presentations, and top-down organization.

For more information visit the Startup Accelerator website and to register click here.

A blog is defined as a web domain with the purpose of updating information on a specific subject matter.  This is usually done in the form of “articles” as if a user were reading through a magazine or newspaper online.  Blogs range from many genres.  On top of the genres, blogs have been used for multiple reasons.  The biggest trend today is blogging for personal leisure.  People will often blog about their interests.  Users who wish to keep updated with the blog would subscribe.  This is how blogging typically works.

Blogging isn’t confined to just personal uses.  It can be used for businesses as well.  In fact, it is a great way of getting clients or consumers involved in your products or services.  You can do this to let them know of changes or updates made to your business.  For example, if you a run a local restaurant, you can let your subscriber know about a new item on the menu or weekly specials.  Your blog can contain just about anything you want it to, from a few paragraphs to a few pictures.  A “subscriber” then works as someone who keeps up with your blog.  In addition to operating as a reminder, updating your clients or consumers continuously on specific information will actually keep them interested in your business.

A blog, in a sense, works differently from a website.  Rather, it is a type of website.  A consistently posted blog lets people around you know your business is alive and active.  Whereas web sites are more like reference guides, a blog involves the community and keeps up with current events in your local business.

It doesn’t stop there.  You can have the choice of keeping your blog strictly posted as single articles.  Or, you can allow your blog to be more like a conversation.  One way of getting the community involved in your blog is by feedback, also known as “Comments.”  This allows users to respond not you directly, but to your article or topic.  By opening a blog, you begin to open a community to a more active interface.

Do you need workers?  Are employees hard to come by?  Maybe you just want to get a few projects done?  Well, online hiring is the fastest way to find workers and work itself.  Most of these online jobs consist of content writing, software development, administration, customer service, graphic designing, legality, engineering, and much more.  Some of the most popular domains for these online jobs are oDesk, Elance, and Guru.  The second most common are Freelancer andvWorker.  These sites provide the possibility of offering online projects for the exchange of money at low rates.  The good news is all you need is a computer.

Let’s say, that you run a small business for your website, but you need someone to stand by and answer questions for customers, you could hire someone for customer service through a website like Elance or oDesk.  Or, perhaps you run a small publishing company and you feel short on editors or translators.  These online domains provide tons people searching to do editing and translating jobs.  These are all the good qualities the online job domains.

Elance and Guru are possibly the oldest of the online job domains.  Therefore, they have most the opportunity in the online job market.  Nonetheless, oDesk is catching on.  With a downloadable application, oDesk actually keeps the employer updated with the worker’s project.  It does this by taking screenshots every couple minutes of the user’s work.  oDesk also offers both hourly assignments and fixed priced assignments.  However, fixed priced assignments are quite dangerous.  This means if the employer isn’t satisfied with the employees’s work, the employer isn’t forced to pay the worker.  This becomes quite a downfall for oDesk in finding workers for the posted projects.  Not only that, but oDesk takes a 10% fee out of every commission. Even with some of these drawbacks, oDesk is still widely used and remains quite popular.

Unlike oDesk’s way of fixed pricing methods, Elance and Guru attempt to use their payments online.  The payments from Elance and Guru go to the worker, as long as the worker has finished his or her work.  This means if buyers from Elance or Guru are dissatisfied with the worker’s job, the worker can still get the money almost all the time.  Unless, a dispute form was accepted, refunds become nearly impossible for Elance and Guru, which means bad news for the buyers and good news for the workers.  This is probably why most employers would prefer to go through oDesk.

On the side, vWorker itself provides a unique way of searching for workers.  Rather than posting jobs and projects online, hoping that a worker or specialist will find the job like oDesk, Elance, and Guru, vWorker, from the start, has a ranking of list of workers in fields, specifying who is a “specialist” or expert for the job.  This saves time from waiting for the perfect person come along to get the job done correctly.  However, vWorker isn’t the only site with a unique approach.  Freelancer offers a bidding system for the jobs and projects from the start.  However, this becomes quite organized after a while.  Overall, servers like oDesk, Elance, and Guru don’t necessarily lack anything vWorker or Freelance has to offer, but they just take a different approach for public viewers.

It should also be said that there are some drawbacks to hiring workers online.  One, it’s hard to determine what the person is really like or whether or not they are competent for the job.  Without a face-to-face interview, how do you really know what the person is like?  Second, the person you hire is most likely independent, meaning they don’t usually fall into any previous company standards.  Usually, a company has a set of standards a person must qualify for to be hired.  Third, the rates are too low, meaning the value of their work may not be professional as intended.  Lastly, if you provide them passwords, content, etc., who knows what the workers may do with all that information.

However, altogether, these services offer a way to view who exactly is specialized for the job.  You can determine your own payment style.  These online job domains are also noted for being quite secure on payments.  In all, these sites consist of a variety of tasks, jobs, and projects for either the employees accept or the employers to host.  They just might be worth the try.

To find out more information on these online job sites, check out their links below:

http://www.elance.com/

https://www.odesk.com/

http://www.guru.com/index.aspx

http://www.freelancer.com/welcome_8Et_C/

http://www.vworker.com/

Today I have a screencast about a subject I get enthusiastic about, password management!  Seriously though, password management is a HUGE issue.  There is not a week that goes by that I don’t see someones Facebook page get hacked or a serious loss of data in some way or another.

The key to good password management is:

1) Unique passwords for each site

2) Randomly generated password containing upper case, lower case, numbers, and symbols

How could we possibly manage all those unique passwords?  You can’t, you need help.  That is what the below screencast covers in detail.  It longer than our normal length but we cover a lot of ground.  If you got any questions please leave them as comment below!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejit3hRyjDE

Business photos will be launched in conjunction with Google’s new rebranded “Places” services”.  This service will supplment a businesses with interior photographs.  “Millions of potential customers visit Google every day to learn about places and businesses,” reads the company’s website. “Through scheduled photo shoots, Google is introducing a new way for you to showcase your business to the world.” In a handful of U.S. and international cities, business owners can apply to have a Google “photo shoot.” The search giant notes that demand will help them decide where to send its photographers. There is a video after the break explaining the news service, enjoy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=opB1nlkWw2c

Google

Your target audience is looking for you – they just don’t know it yet. In order to help them find you, you need to target who your audience is; in other words, you need to understand who it is that would be looking for the information on your site.

Now, this should be pretty obvious; for instance, if you have a business that sells collectible Barbie dolls, then your target audience are Barbie doll collectors, right? However, I’ve seen a ton of websites out there that apparently believe search engines are mind readers: they should know that when you say one thing, you actually mean another.

Search engines are not mind readers; they’re basically computer programs, and search engines need a bit of help in order to find your site and connect your potential customers/audience to your information/business.

That’s where targeting your audience comes in. In order to create a searchable site, you must know who you are writing for. Your target audience knows what they want and what they are searching for, and you must know what that is before you can deliver what they want.

It’s relatively simple to determine who your target is and what they want;it just takes a bit of pre-planning that will really pay off in the end. Here are some quick and easy steps to help you in this process:

1. Network. Your friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances are invaluable resources when trying to figure out who your target audience might be. Ask them questions about what they might search for in your targeted topic, what they’re looking for, what they wouldn’t look for, etc.
2. Research. Check out your local library and peruse industry trade newspapers or magazines that pertain to your particular topic, or read newspapers online. See what the industry “buzz” is about. You might want to think about subscribing to these resources if your topic is one that relies on current, changing information.
3. Join. The Internet is an utterly fantastic resource for topic research. Browse around for discussion groups , and see what people are talking about. Look for groups that have a lot of members, and keep track of the subjects discussed.

In conclusion, remember these three things when developing your target audience internet marketing strategy:

• Do your research. Don’t automatically assume that what you search for is what your audience searches for.
• Get involved. Man is not an island. Network with people in your field or industry to truly understand what might be in demand, and then you can target your audience accordingly.
• Write good content. Easier said than done, but I guarantee that the more time you spend researching key phrases and writing thoughtful content, the more people will be able to find your site.

Source:  About.com

Recently we had the oppurtunity to be a guest speaker at the Fox Valley E-Seed program.  I wanted to share these notes and links to those in attendance but thought that I would post it publicly since just about any business owner could get some great tips.  Feel free to contact us with any questions.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEDJ1MAx9Uo

DropBox
https://www.dropbox.com/

There are also apps for both iPhone/iPod (iOS) and Android (Droid) platforms

Evernote
http://evernote.com/

Again there are mobile versions of this app (for all smartphone platforms) as well as a desktop and web version.

SnapScan
This is the scanner I was talking about: http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-Instant-Sheet-Fed-Macintosh/dp/B001XWCQO2/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2QR0X6QFW7EFS&colid=3169LX0OHAR65

Google Contacts
http://google.com/contacts
How to setup Google Sync: http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/

Google Voice
http://google.com/voice

Skype
http://www.skype.com
There is also versions for most smartphone platforms

Carbonite
http://www.carbonite.com/