Technology tips to get started with business blogging and more – the FOSS way.

How does one introduce someone who was on the Internet before the term World Wide Web was even conceived? Someone who has participated in the net scene when the total Internet population in the country was not in millions, but in dozens – ok, let’s make that a few hundred? When search was still about gopher?

Delighted to have Kishore Bhargava - the original geek; FOSS exponent, the guru behind Gadget Guru; I could go on…

It was in one of Kishore’s talks, about 2 and half years ago, that Blogworks really took seed. I have never believed in coincidences, so I don’t think it was one that I attended that talk. Since then, a dear friend, Kishore has been around to counsel & guide.

Today, on Blog the Talk, Kishore helps us understand some of the pertinent technology related issues that we need addressing when we think about business blogging. Technology issues in a language that’s friendly and English you and I understand.

I must point out that keeping with, not just the Blog the Talk tradition of conducting these talks over IM, which we did, this conversation was actually conducted in true Bhargava family style, over IM, but sitting face-to-face. Discussing ‘way forward’ across the table, but actually punching the Questions and the Answers over an IM. Fun it was… :)

Enjoy!

Yours truly continues to be based right here too, in New Delhi ;)


All thoughts expressed by participants are personal opinion of respective speakers and do not represent the views of Blogworks or any other company/ organization.

Rajesh, Blogworks: Kishore, thanks for being on Blog the Talk.

We have spoken about this earlier…

Among the most crucial aspects that need consideration following an organization or a brand’s decision to go forward with a blogging or a similar initiative is: Which blogging engine to use? Which technology platform? What are your thoughts?

Kishore, Linkaxis: Thanks Rajesh. That’s a loaded question – it will need a long answer.

- First of all, the important question to ask is why do I need to blog? If there is a compelling reason, coupled with a well thought out strategy, then setting up the technology behind it is actually quite trivial

- There are many options to choose from. You have a plethora of free sites which offer templates, plugins and all the stuff you need to get you started or you the have the choice of setting up/ creating your own

Rajesh, Blogworks: I hope you are not saying set it up on a free blog site, but that there are several free options available in terms of engines; management systems; templates that one can play with on YOUR server, right?

Kishore, Linkaxis: Yes, that’s the point; if you are serious about it, then you really need to setup a blog on hosted/dedicated server and certainly not on the free servers and free services available.

If you just want a quick and dirty job, then go to any of the free engines but if you want a real blog for your organisation, then set it up on the server, ideally where your corporate website is hosted, as blogs.mycompany.com or mycompany.com/blog. The idea is to never lose focus of your brand.

By hosting on a free server, you may still be able to do some amount of branding, but the real impact is when all the stuff resides on your site. Of course, there are tons of other advantages, which we will discuss as we go along.

But just to give you an idea, there would even be issues in legal position if the blog is not your property?

But, coming back to the question.

Rajesh, Blogworks: Please do elaborate on the legal bit before we move on…

Kishore, Linkaxis: Ok take a simple example, if I have a blog on a free engine and I place a company advertisement on it. If the provider says that you can't have advertisements on the site, then they can actually just turn around and shut the blog down.

This is known to have happened in the past.
Content on a free site will be difficult to copyright and protect. Disclaimers, Privacy Policy etc are all under your own control, if hosted on your server, rather than being the ones that the provider enforces.

There is also the issue of the total service offering on a free site, one will never be able to get access to the RAW logs of traffic, and therefore, never have accurate web analytics.

Rajesh, Blogworks: To me the most important part has always been just the message that we are sending out to the world on the seriousness of the initiative - the perception of a free blog site is so non-business like.

Also, forbid a service is down/ taken down for any reason (like it happened last year) you don’t end up losing your business blog, a very crucial piece in your internal/ external communication outreach programme now.

Kishore, Linkaxis: True. Ok so coming back to the question of which platform does the corporate use for a blog.

The answer is they host their own blog on their own server. In order to do this a corporate will need a blogging engine or platform. There are many options to choose from there.

This is where I tend to favour the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and community. There are commercial engines available, but the real innovation is happening in the FOSS world.

Take for example what would today be the most commonly used blog platform on the Internet – Wordpress (WP). Wordpress has tons of features, fantastic templates, and a vibrant community of developers and users supporting it

Rajesh, Blogworks:You mean ‘free’ software?

Kishore, Linkaxis: No free and open source. I mean, that which costs nothing as in ‘muft’ and that which is ‘free’ as in freedom or ‘mukt’

Rajesh, Blogworks:Freedom to do what?

Kishore, Linkaxis: You have the freedom to do pretty much as you please. You can share it with your friends, you can examine the code, and you can change the code to improve it. The list just goes on and on.

Kishore, Linkaxis: Apart from Wordpress there is also Moveable Type (MT), which is also a great engine.

Rajesh, Blogworks: Yup, we are on MT.

Kishore, Linkaxis: But at the end of the day, you need to ask, where do I get my support and where are the skills to help us manage the site?

Rajesh, Blogworks: Let’s just talk about these two, what are the key differences?

Kishore, Linkaxis: In principle the two engines are very similar. They form the basis of what are known as Content Management Systems. There are really several hundreds of such engines and the main difference between them is the platform or programming languages used along with the database used.

MT uses a great programming language called Perl, which was originally designed as a scripting engine for text manipulation and automation of mundane tasks by System Administrators but it is now used for just about any job. I have seen some amazing applications written in Perl.

The only problem with Perl is finding people who know it well and who can exploit its true power.

Rajesh, Blogworks:Why, is it a difficult language?

Kishore, Linkaxis: Perl is not really difficult, it’s just that not many current generation of programmers know anything about it so it gets ignored and used mainly by old-timers.

Rajesh, Blogworks:Hmmm, you just called Guru, an old timer!

Kishore, Linkaxis: You must also understand that a 30 yr old in the IT industry is considered an old timer.

Rajesh, Blogworks: You will have to explain this to Guru I think, lol.

Kishore, Linkaxis: Guru and I are about the same age.

Rajesh, Blogworks: Lol.

Kishore, Linkaxis: On the other hand, WP uses the one thing that really gave a boost to FOSS. What is popularly known as the LAMP - Linux Apache MySQL and PHP.

Perl is considered an old language and is just not used by most. Only the really, smart guys use it.

Rajesh, Blogworks: ;)

Kishore, Linkaxis: What is very popular today is this language called PHP. This was designed from the ground up to be a web language and is therefore just more suitable.

Kishore, Linkaxis: Wordpress is based on PHP and the PHP community world-wide is HUGE!

Rajesh, Blogworks:Is the technology the only difference between the two?

What about paid/ unpaid; what about the key area of support - as a business I need support, doesn't matter, many times, if I need to pay to assure that.

So when Janani who writes for BenefIT Magazine, a publication focused on IT for businesses worth Rs. 20 to 5000 million, reached out with a story idea on blogs, we were only too happy to help...

The story (BenefIT-Blogs-June2007.pdf), besides introductions, pro/cons, questions & tips etc. also has 3 case studies from businesses of totally different sizes & categories, making the piece much more real, touch and feel:

1. Rekha Nambiar, ID Home, The Decorating Hub
2. Spykar - though not a blogging initiative - outreach on Orkut. The official community listed has a couple of dozen members but the real action, I was surprised to findm, is in the many, unofficial Spykar communities on Orkut
3. Cleartrip Blog

Blogging BenefITs - literally.

Brands have never been more vulnerable, I think. Not just because of genuine criticism that today's Internet technology allows people to put up - and which should be welcomed by brands as feedback - but with the possibility of something that may make guerrilla marketing seem tame, there is a possibility of the arrival of professional brand stalkers'? ( I didn't find a description to that word on Wikipedia)

In the last week or so two marketers, managing big brands, have spoken about support being garnered by a blog/ community, led by a person/group, to launch an attack on the brand with 'malicious intent' - I am sure it would be a challenge to even ascertain malicious intent versus genuine problem faced by a customer. Who should be believed & why?

The first marketer didn't really deserve any sympathy and sounded dubious to begin with, but in the second instance got me thinking. Could it be that the person was very consciously stalking a brand, to gain something?

This did make me think - as blogs gain more strength, would there be a new breed of stalkers? What do marketers think? What is the legal stand? What strategies would a brand need deploy to tackle something like this?

Questions, so we could find answers!

The programme has some interesting features:

1. An 'integrated browser' opens web pages inside the reader...
2. While 'Auto discovery' ensures that I don't have to click any additional buttons to look for RSS feeds
3. Save a feed as a 'Channel' under the selected 'Channel Group'
4. The reader allows users to view 'Articles' by category; author; published; source; flagged; title; read...
5. When I like something? I simply move it into 'Archives' for future reference - I find this quite useful
6. The feature I love most however is 'Watches' which allows users to track conversations by keyword so all articles from feeds collected that have a certain or a set of keywords get separated under a given watch. I can add as many as I like...

Check it out! You can download i-Fetch here!

More about RSS and other terms here.

Blog\Works Social Media Workshop on Friday, 23 March, New Delhi - Blogs; Wikis; Podcasts; Content Communities; Social Networks...Registered yet!!??

See PDF here:Blogworks Social Media Workshop.pdf

The workshop covers: Concept clarity on web 2.0, social media tools etc.; utility of blogs and other emergent social media tools on/ for corporates and brands; practical walk-through on setting up some of the important tools.

Who would benefit: Leadership and mid-management executives from corporates; public relations & advertising agencies; brand managers; HR professionals looking at blogs and social media for their brands and for clients.

Fee: Rs. 10,000/-, per participant.

Date: 23 March 2007

Time: Registrations begin 9.00 am; Programme begins at 9.30 am sharp (ends 5.30 pm)

Venue: FMCC Campus, Plot No. 8, Balaji Estate, Guru Ravidass Marg, Kalkaji, New Delhi - 110019.

Register by writing to: workshop@blogworks.inor call me at +91 98 106 40163.

This piece in The Economic Times today made an interesting read. It says:

"BLOG POSTS are now finding their way into the marketing strategies of motorcycle makers.What started as platforms to share passions and frustrations of bikers are now being tracked by corporates to fine-tune their offerings. Instead of tedious market surveys and data crunching, companies now get reviews within hours of product launch, courtesy blogs."

Delighted to note that marketers are beginning to understand the value of blogs & social media and are using them for immediate, true feedback instead? of commissioned research that's not just time-consuming but also expensive (and often inaccurate?)

I just changed my car for a new one and relied heavily on blog posts, forum discussions, word-of-mouth (company brochures helped me decide the colour, nothing more :)).

In my opinion, however, the loop will not be complete until we put the customer in the center and then surround him/her with peer reviews, expert opinion and marketer's inputs (the last bit is TOTALLY missing today). It is the logical next step and we are hoping to participate in that space.

I was with a marketer friend last week and tried to partly address concerns/ reservations she had about competition using a marketer's blog to malign the brand. A couple of points we spoke about, a couple I am adding now:

1. Concept clarity on of web 2.0, social media tools etc.
2. Impact Utility of blogs and other emergent social media tools on/ for corporates and brands.
3. How To! Practical walk-through on setting up some of the important tools.

Write in for the proposal at conversations@blogworks.in

Do write in with comments/ inputs/ workshop requests :).

Cheers!

It's about the US arm of Mahindra using a blog to sell their tractors. Life of a Farm blog is part of the strategy to take on Deere - the American agricultural equipment company.

Jonathan, who led the initiative, says:

MahindraUSA sells tractors. They’ve got, in all honesty, great products at relatively low prices. The challenge was to get the word out to the large amount of small farmers and ‘hobby farmers’ - those who do farming on the side. Mahindra hasn’t had great name recognition because they’re relatively new here in the states.

They seem to be getting traction...good going Mahindra.

Can what works for Tractors, work for an SUV? I think so - people love their cars and love to talk about them (1,2,3).

I would love to see a Mahindra Scorpio Blog! :)

Arguably the most famous blogger in the world, Robert Scoble, has upset a few people with his recent remarks.

Want an update - go here or practically everywhere on the blogosphere.

It started here it seems.

1. Ajay is a man on a mission - a green mission.
   

   His recently launched blog GreenDioxide.com focuses on "...simple, practical practices we can all adopt in our organizations and communities to make a big difference to the planet."

   "Use common sense,"he says, adding,"You might never get it, but you still take a smallpox or meningitis vaccine. The same goes for climate change. So, cover yourself, before it is too late."

   Read his practical tips and join-in to make a difference.

2. She went, she saw, she created!

   
   

   

   Most people would go on a holiday and come back with a travelogue - not Rekha. When I recently met her, after her return from a holiday in Lebanon and Turkey, the glow on her face told me something was cookin - out came Global Desi. A global citizen she truly is anyway and the blog will share her and other traveler's experiences. The blog design is work in progress, but content shaping up nicely - read her take on the Bindi(an)question!

   This talk about travel and Indians reminds me of the SriLankan Airlines' outdoor campaign around town "Indians are everywhere, how do they get there? - SriLankan Airlines,". Brings a smile to my face- something doesn't seem ok with that line. It might have read better as, "Indians are everywhere, we take them there!" or something (if at anything on these lines). What say?

It's been a while since I wrote a concerted post and though I really want to sit and write, I think that will only happen next week. Meanwhile...

1. A text message from a friend Sunday evening prompted me to switch on 'We the People' on NDTV. Blogs & Social Media were being discussed and while I only caught bits, I think most of the conversation revolved around what's already been said/ written on other fora: blogs & social media can be misused/ freedom of speech/ who is liable and so on. Barkha Dutt had also written on this subject in HT earlier. Some of this perhaps originates from personal slander and abuse that many amongst the media fraternity have been victims of, on an anonymous blog (now dormant).

   Fundamentally anonymity doesn't lend itself to credibility. How much do we believe stories appearing in a rag? I think the same applies to blogs written by anonymous authors.

   My chosen agenda for the year is to get 'experts' to blog - once that gathers momentum, scales are going to tilt in favour of the 'real' experts anyway. Unlike today's blogosphere (at least the India scene), barring a few real experts, everyone is claiming to be an expert on everything. There is an inherent danger in that.

   I would say Ms. Dutt should start writing a blog too.

   Also, unless I missed, no one on the programme spoke about impact of blogs & social media on business.

It has been a busy start to the year and even as the 'Cool List of 2006' post remains pending still, I have been thinking about what possible trends/ consolidation to expect online/ on the Indian blogosphere this year:

1. Year before last a client of mine was disapproving of my team's effort to get her brand visibility online. She thought it was 'easy' to get featured online and therefore didn’t count for much. I was quite amused by the reaction, as my own online experience had assured me of the medium’s power - my online writings have always been seen by more people; commented upon by more people; they stay around longer; can be linked; emailed... I can carry on. Coupled with the 'ease' of web 2.0, where I can do anything myself; put up anything on You Tube or Digg the power multiples, making the world truly flat. You are as good, as you really are! I think the online medium has arrived and will gain ground rapidly
2. When we launched BlogWorks.in last week with the Blog the Talk series, IMPACT weekly agreed to carry the content in a 2 part series. We were able to reach an entirely different community of readers through the exercise and the talk was read by a much larger audience, in addition to those who were already online . I like this marriage of mainstream with blogs. As blogs produce more and more compelling content, the trend is going to gain ground
3. I chanced upon a celebrity CEO's blog the other day. Very newbie, but very promising. I could see myself writing a blog a few months ago, struggling with template back-ends etc. but soon that became a thing of the past and I could actually concentrate on the writing part. I can see more and more experts and thought leaders joining the blogosphere and as that happens, credibility of blogs is going to go up too

Edition 1 discusses the Impact of blogging and social media on Indian business and marketing. It was remarkable that each participant, from the heavy-weight (figuratively speaking) panel, confirmed within an ‘Aye’, within hours of my writing to them. Thanks all. The entire discussion happened over an internet messenger – apt, wouldn’t you agree? – both, the message and the method. Our panelists -in no order of preference! :) -

1. Toby Bloomberg: "A real live blogger", "Business blog evangelist" that's what people have called Toby. Toby is president of a strategic and social media consultancy based in the U.S. She has been a real live blogger since the spring of 2004 when she launched Diva Marketing Blog. As one of the most recognised consultants in this space, Toby's passion now is helping organizations navigate the blogosphere and developing social media/blog strategies that support their business goals. Toby is based out of Atlanta, USA
2. Govindraj Ethiraj: Journalist-writer, a keen watcher of the social media and technology space, Govind is the New Media Editor for Business-Standard. A keen blogger, he writes a popular blog at Dateline Bombay. Govind is based out of Mumbai, INDIA
3. Anurag Batra: A dear friend, Anurag is the Editor in Chief & Managing Director of the exchange4media Group - a special interest publishing company which publishes five titles including three titles in advertising, marketing and media domain- Exchange4Media.com , PITCH , Impact and two consumer titles Franchise Plus and Realty Plus . Anurag is based out of New Delhi, INDIA
4. Yours truly moderated the discussion. I too am based out of New Delhi, INDIA.

The world has moved on. From just a checklist that needed a communication to be evaluated on whether it covered '5 Ws and the H', the very dynamics of crafting a media release have changed in the last few years. Not just is it pertinent to create specific media messages for specific audience, emergent media has brought about the need for new formats in which we need to deliver media material, say the press release. The importance and value of Hyperlinks, Tags, Social Bookmarking, User Vote on Content, for online content to be found through search and otherwise, has been understood.

Technorati CEO and founder Dave Sifry's quarterly status report 'State of the Blogosphere - Oct 2006' is out. The results are fascinating and you can find them here .

I am putting together key points that caught my attention:

1. Technorati is today tracking 57 + million weblogs
2. Over 55% blogs are active (updated at least once in 3 months).
3. The blogosphere is now doubling every 230 days.
4. There are 100,000 new blogs appearing every day.
5. 1.3 million posts, every day (about double the volume last year)
6. Top 50 media have 3 blogs, but top 100 have 12, however, by the time the list reaches 5000, it is dominated by blogs.
7. Persistance pays off in blogging, like in everything else- there is a direct corelation between 'High Authority' and longivity of a blog (though it is obviously not the only factor).
8. Of all blogs, English only contributes 39% ; 33% blogs are in Japanese and another 10% in Chinese.

Read the full report.

Indian marketers are beginning to acknowledge the fact that blogs are here to stay and are trying to explore how they can be used for marketing. The fact that US, and some of the other markets, have been exploring this domain ahead of us, offers learning...

Whilst unethical players bring dis-repute to any industry, the very premise on which Conversational Marketing is based, gets challenged if ethics and transperency are compromised - the impact is prompt and usually severe.

To help marketers & advisors know what would be the right thing to do as also to protect the consumers rights, WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) has released a discussion draft for public comment' of its 'WOMMA Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines - prompting us to remember that: Consumers come first, honesty isn't optional, and deception is always exposed.

1. I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
2. I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
3. I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
4. I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
5. I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
7. I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
8. I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
9. I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
10. If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.

Many of us have been tracking this, but if you haven't yet heard about the Walmart 'fake blog' controversy that both Walmart and Edelman found themselves embroiled in recently, go here (Excerpt: ...a blog ostensibly authored by a couple traveling across America in their RV and spending nights parked in WalMart parking lots turned out to be a fake blog, the brainchild of WalMart’s PR counselors at Edelman).

Not just did it impact credibility for Edelman's me2revolution initiative and Edelman per se, Steve Rubel, who writes his very popular Micropersuasion blog and is now employed by Edelman, also found himself at the receiving end of brickbats - this is what he had to say.

The controversy is far from over as these (1, 2) would suggest.

Tricky, the blogosphere, and leaders will need to tread with even more caution. Richard Edelman has acknowledged the error and brought about change.

Focus is on WOMMA code of ethics.

We are all learning...

Update 03 November 2006: Edelman Membership Put on Review

(WOMMA has responded this week to issues of disclosure and ethics surrounding Edelman’s recent blogs for Wal-Mart by placing Edelman’s membership on review. The following letter was forwarded to Richard Edelman and Rick Murray on Monday- text here). Source: www.womma.org


Original post is here.

Knowing what is the customer/ user saying about you is very powerful input for a marketer to improve user experience, and that tracking blogs allows us to do that quite easily is something that I have believed for long.

This episode shows how easy it is, and why more companies should be doing so:

I wrote this post on my blog sometime ago, to which someone added a comment, saying...

"Why don’t you consider writing about some of the new “India 2.0” sites that are creating a little buzz as well?Eg: www.ilaaka.com and www.onyomo.com "

(Update: Nikhil informs me that our friend who posted the above comment has been spamming everyone with this message :) ).

I did that and wrote ...

"...Onyomo is a nice concept too and the sms option is great but success depends on how comprehensive is the service - for eg. I searched for Seeds and plants - got none. Searched for riding school and got an eatery. But, that will get sorted out over a period of time I think."

A couple of days ago, someone who works with Onyomo, googled his company name and found my comment.

Addressing the points raised by me, he left a note

"Hi Rajesh,

We at Onyomo have been working hard to build a useful and innovative service. Even though the things you searched for are not yet covered by our search engine, sooner or later our search will cover these categories. We're always on the lookout for suggestions regarding the data that people may want to search...

... However, as you noted correctly, these problems will get sorted out sooner or later.We've also launched an SMS Search service in Delhi/NCR and Bangalore where you can search from you mobile phones on the move.

I sincerely hope that you'll like our service..."

I was mighty impressed with the proactiveness shown by the team and visited the site again, posted another comment on my blog, in which I also asked the gentleman, were he to visit my blog again (wanted to see if he did), to drop me a line for a few suggestions that I had.

This morning, he had obviously googled 'Onyomo' again, visited this blog soon afterwards to read my newest comment and promptly dropped me a line.

I have just replied back to him. I do not know how useful my suggestion would be but I am richer for the experience.

My 'blogs for business and public relations' journey started about a year and half ago and soon thereafter I penned this article (first published for our internal newsletter at Genesis Burson-Marsteller where I was employed until recently). So much has already changed for the Indian blogosphere that many things that the article mentions sound dated. Each day has been new learning.

Anyway, I was invited to speak at a seminar yesterday on 'Blogs for Marketing'. It was great fun to work on this presentation. As luck would have it I was gifted a copy of Naked Conversations (Robert Scoble/ Shel Israel) by a friend and that was very useful too.

Slideshow:

Do write me your feedback so I could imbibe that into my future sessions. I am not able to share the Blog/Works proprietary methodology as I hope to retain that as a differentiator.

Update: Am replacing the presentation and only a sampler is up now. Write to me if you are interested in the entire presentation.

In little over a year or so, since I first started to speak about it, I have seen corporates and organizations become much more receptive towards the need to adopt blogs as an important tool to engage with key stakeholders. Businesses have already started to see blogging as a 'should do' initiative. However, many are still unsure as they find the blogosphere uncontrollable. The need is to understand that they are being spoken about irrespective! The way to reach your voice is through participation.

There will of course be reactive blogging by brands, companies and business leaders in response to being spoken about on the blogoshpere, but I think marketers and corporates who adopt blogging proactively will benefit most.

Blogs are an opportunity for marketers to engage with the consumers first-hand, to establish context - by sharing and seeking perspective - in a two-way communication process that is closest to word-of-mouth and yet broad-based. Similarly, corporates can establish thought leadership, influence policy, engage with prospective employees and more through proactive blogging.