Blogging has been one of the best tools for me and when I do 1:1 training on the web re social media, then blogging remains one of the easiest tools for people to use, understand and also a huge traffic driver. So there you are…I love blogging!
I was interested to see the launch of Blogs.mu which allows you to create your own blogging community – they say
“Using this site you can simply create your own blog hosting service – for any purpose you so wish to use it.
You could use it as a local news site (each reporter or topic …read more

On Sarah Lewis’ new WordPress QuickStart site there is a set of excellent videos to help even the most non-technical person get up and running with a WordPress site.
Sarah is a blog developer and one of my co-moderators on the LinkedIn Bloggers forum.
Note that the site is about installing a downloadable WordPress.org site, not a WordPress.com site. They are both from the same company, but for business people the WordPress.org option is the way to go. WordPress.com has blogs hosted by the WordPress company and has terms of service which I and others find unduly constraining for a business blog. …read more

For anyone who wants an up-to-the-minute briefing on blogging as seen in a WordPress world, the WordCamp 2007 event in San Francisco is being live-blogged by several bloggers.
Among others, there are posts by Tris Hussey on the BlogWorld & New Media Expo blog and his own A View From the Isle site.
Stephanie Booth has extensive posts from the event on her Climb to the Stairs site.
In reading Tris’ posts and Stephanie’s I was torn between being excited by all the insights and tips they were sharing and wondering when I was going to find time to implement all the good …read more

One of the challenges with a lot of the WordPress themes I check out is that while they look very nice from a “pure design” (if there is such a thing) viewpoint, they are often not going to be easily adaptable to how a range of small businesses may want to present themselves online.
Sure, there are businesses that want a funky look, or a floral look, or pictures of mountains or rivers, but if form is to follow and support function, there is plenty of scope, in my view, for some more themes which, while they might not win creative …read more

There’s a silly song some of us used to sing in years gone by:
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan
He had whiskers on his chinnegan
They fell out and then grew in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan
Begin again.
And I suspect my quoting just that first verse will for some readers today mean the rest of the verses will come back to distract them at some time during the day.
It seemed as good a way as any to introduce this short post on new beginnings – hopefully not as futile as the new beginnings in the Finnegan Begin Again song. The …read more

When I first started to learn about the WordPress blogging platform, it took me a while to work out that what most people would call elsewhere a template for a website or blog is known in WordPress Land as a theme.
WordPress explain the theme terminology this way:
Fundamentally, the WordPress Theme system is a way to “skin” your weblog. Yet, it is more than just a “skin.” Skinning your site implies that only the design is changed. WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the look and presentation of the material on your website.
I don’t want to even begin to …read more

While the focus of this blog is on how businesses can use blogging – and other social media – as part of their general business operation, rather than primarily as a direct income source, it is important for business bloggers to know what tools are available to assist in generating income via a blog.
For WordPress users there is a plethora of plugins – tools to extend the functionality of WordPress. I find myself a bit overwhelmed at times with all the plugins available, not having a solid frame of reference against which to measure their potential usefulness or otherwise. That’s …read more

As more and more businesses establish blogs and as the mainstream media carry articles about business blogs, it is becoming much less of a challenge for me to help business owners understand why a blog might be good for their business.
But one issue that I find comes up a lot is that of finding the time. This is expressed in various ways: “where will I find the time?”, “I simply don’t have any spare time”, “how much time would I have to allocate?”.
This is in part at least a question about value and prioritizing. In other words, is this blogging …read more

This post illustrates, from my own very current experience, the challenge I see for non-technical people, like me, in using one of the main blogging platforms, WordPress from WordPress.org. And that probably applies also to any open source blogging platform which does not have paid hosting and support.
Over the past week I’ve spent more time than I care to think about, fiddling with blogs which have been upgraded to WordPress 2.1.2, by me or by others with more technical skills and knowledge than I am ever likely to have. This post echoes, in effect, the comment that I am pretty …read more

In this sixth post in the Blogging Platforms series, we look at one of the key issues to be considered in choosing a blogging platform, the kind of support available and its reliability.
The possibly self-evident assumption in this post is that a user of a paid, hosted service should be able to expect more complete, consistent and prompt support than the user of free software. And that would apply to issues of setup and administration, as well as help desk type support for problems along the way.
There are quite a few free blogging platforms on offer, especially for the solo or …read more