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PCMag, you missed a spot
I came across this article in the Nov. 21 issue of PCMag:
It's a nice little article about "Business Blogs" in some business tips special. The details of the article itself are nice; blogs allow you to connect with employees and customers, share news, generate interest, etc. No problems there.
But the list of recommended blogging services is a little lacking. Something tells me that whoever wrote the article hasn't kept up with the blogging world in the past year. Here's the list mentioned:
- Google Blogger (blogger.com)
- LiveJournal (livejournal.com)
- TypePad (typepad.com)
- Windows Live Spaces (spaces.live.com)
- Yahoo! 360 (360.yahoo.com)
I think you can agree that this is a lousy list. For one thing, Blogger and TypePad are the only semi-professional services on that list. LiveJournal, Live Spaces, and Yahoo! 360 are all social-networking-type diary services; business blogs just don't fit in those communities. At least Blogger and TypePad have options to brand the blogs they provide and Blogger even has a means by which a business can integrate their blog with their website (by providing FTP information).
Unfortunately, the writer missed the best free blogging option for businesses, which is Wordpress.com. Wordpress offers a lot of features, including the best spam protection and semantic publishing of any blogging platform. Wordpress also allows custom CSS, which means that users can significantly customize their blog (look at Lorelle on Wordpress for an example). More importantly, Wordpress offers users the ability to move up to VIP hosting, which involves a custom domain name as well as superior data and bandwidth support.
More importantly, however, the writer also failed to mention that usually it's better for businesses to just use the web hosting space they already have to install a custom blog that they can integrate with their site and have complete control over with an open source platform like Wordpress.org. If a business already has a website that they paid someone to make, and web hosting they are paying for monthly, then why bother with a separate external service? Just use the space and bandwidth that is probably going unused on the existing server and get a custom weblog running. It's not hard to integrate a Wordpress blog with an existing website, and if it means paying someone to have it done, it's probably worth it.
Yeah that definitely wasn't a good list of services for business blogs. I'd definitely say using web hosting space and installing a custom blog would be the best bet.
i thinks so
wordpress is great one.
Wow! And you use me as an example? I'm honored and blushing. Thanks.
I agree with you totally. Businesses should use their own sites to host their blogs, and if they want multiple blogs for their different bloggers, employees, departments, and so on, then WordPressMU would be an even better choice, allowing the company control over the blogs while still allowing individual control and customization.
Business blogs of all flavors are the next hottest thing on the net, so expect to see them blossoming everywhere. The issues of business bloggers, however, is very complex. And risky. I see a lot of legal issues confronted as companies fight to control their public relations image and their employees who blog for the business or in spite of their employment. Will be very interesting to watch.
You can thank me for providing you the magazine containing the article which produced this entry.
I like to know that even if I'm not updating my blog I'm helping someone else with theirs.