Have Content? Get Blog.
August 04, 2004 | 
19 Comments
Summary: Do you have a blog for your site yet? If not you might want to get one. Here’s a few reasons why.
Or, Dude, Where is Your Blog?
Following a tip from Nick found on Digital Web’s blog I went over to check out the new Interaction Design Group site and I couldn’t help wondering where their blog was.
A little while later I found myself at the new User Experience Network site and noticed they had a blog, which I bookmarked. Would have liked it better if I could have added it to my blogmarks or blo.gs, but hey, you can’t always get what you want.
Guess which site I’ll be most likely to come back to and most likely to remember?
You Need A Blog
Having a blog, news feed and/or something similar for visitors to subscribe to or bookmark is a great way to help them get more out of your site and your content, aside from many other advantages. It helps your site be remembered.
In my opinion, if you’re running a content type site you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t have some sort of frequently updated content stream (i.e. a blog). I would hazard to say that in many cases it’s a must have. There are so many sites out there saying the same or similar things (as the sites above illustrate) and you must take every opportunity possible to differentiate yourself and your site.
All of this might sound like a no-brainer to many of you, but there are many sites out there that have yet to jump on the bandwagon. And, while, blogs are becoming more and more popular as personal publishing systems, we still have yet to see really widespread adoption by businesses and organizations. At least not in a visible way.
Let’s face it, blogs, feeds and the like are big parts of a successful content focused site.
Getting Blogs Into The Mix
Down at the hospital, while we don’t have a “blog” yet, we’ve recently put into place several news “channels” powered by Movable Type. Blogs, in the “traditional” sense, can’t be far behind.
With very little effort we’ve introduced some basic distributed authorship for our communications folks, some frequently updated and information rich content channels for our users and some syndication feeds that will be beneficial to visitors and stakeholders alike.
More importantly, our site offers much more frequently updated and relevant content than any of our competitors. By putting these channels and feeds into place we’re able to enable our communicators to communicate and keep our site, our mission, our brand and our message fresh in the minds of our audiences.
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. Seth Thomas Rasmussen said:
Seems more ironic than a design/development mistake for the interactive group not to have a blog…
Posted on August 5, 2004 02:54 AM | #
2. Ian Gordon said:
Well, I am coding my own blog / cms software right now, so I will be having a lot of content up. I am going to use the blog format (with a few tweaks on presentation of coure) to deliver information and make it as interactive as possible to allow visitors to comment and join in discussions and such.
I think blogs have become a way of presenting far more than just content, but that is just my opinion.
Posted on August 5, 2004 06:49 AM | #
3. Donna Maurer said:
What was also interesting was that UXNet didn’t have a feed on theirs two days ago, which is effectively useless to me. I never read a blog without a feed.
But now they have and life is good ;)
Posted on August 5, 2004 07:01 AM | #
4. Amit Deshpande said:
I presume the soft launch turned out a little hard ‘eh?
Posted on August 5, 2004 07:21 AM | #
5. alex-and-r said:
Correct me if i’m wrong, but it seems to me that you are saying that blog nowdays is a must have for almost every site because:
1. Blogs are popular and having a blog on a site is prestigious.
2. Blogs are the means of differentiation from other similar sites.
3. Blogs are the means of telling your customers and partners that your site (firm) is still alive and got something new to offer them.
So according to what i think you wanted to tell i have some objections (or should i say thoughts?) to this points.
First of all i think to have a blog just because it’s cool and everybody have it… well… I think it’s a poor reason. But… well… It’s still a reason because many sites initiate a blog just because their competitors already have one.
Then we come to the second and third reasons which i want to examine together. In many cases blogs are just newslines which in previous days were called newslines and now we call it blogs. Is there any difference i nthis two concepts? I think yes. There is one main difference and it’s called personal attitude. In newsline there are just news - the pure statements of facts and in blog we have just the same statements plus comment from the author, his personal attitude to the fact he’s describing. So we have soul of the author expressed. We don’t deal with cold facts anymore, now we read the story about this facts, the story told us by a real human, which have emotions, opinions and interests. And when we feel somebody behind the facts described, i think, it’s more interesting to read about these facts.
So we tell the people our news and we differ from other sites, because every man is unique and our way of telling our news is unique, because there is a real man behind the story told.
So i’m leading to the opinion that the blog is needed not because it’s cool, or because it differs us from other sites (soon blog will be common for everyone), or because we need to inform our customers about the news of the company (we had news sections of the sites long before the blogs). Blogs are needed because we inform our users about something in a manner of personal talk, in a manner of a dialog when a real man tells people about something and along with it expresses his personal attitude to the facts he’s telling, sometimes offering to tell something to initiate discussion. And this atmosphere of a personal discussion is more comfortable for users than the cold humanless atmosphere of a newsline where we have only news (facts) and no real man behind them.
Posted on August 5, 2004 07:41 AM | #
6. Keith said:
Alex-and-r – I never made that first point. I don’t think blogs are cool. Fonzi is cool. I’d also never suggest you make a business decision based on cool. I’m not sure how you got that, butt…
Your other “objections” are well founded, but they don’t really seem like objections.
The word “blog” to me can mean many things. We use blogs down at the hospital to run most of our Intranet. The way we use blogs on our consumer-facing site is by no means traditional.
It’s not the “blog” itself that is important I guess – a “blog is just an enabler – it’s the ability to provide content in such a way as to keep your site and your business, etc. on your customer’s minds.
Take WaSP for example. If they didn’t have Buzz, their blog, I’d likely never visit that site and chances are they’d fade in my mind. Buzz keeps them, and Web standards where I can see them, so to speak.
Posted on August 5, 2004 06:15 PM | #
7. Dave P said:
The title of this post says it all: “Have Content? Get Blog”
While I agree with Keith’s point, a blog is pretty usless if the content is lacking, irrelevant or non-existant. I guess what I’m trying to say is that one should launch a blog only when the need/desire is there.
Not all websites or organizations are suited to the scale of content generation required for a blog. I suppose those that are will benefit, but I’d hesitate to take this to organizations that do not have a strong internet focus.
Posted on August 5, 2004 07:10 PM | #
8. c said:
Yes, you clearly *are* telling people to have blogs on their website because it is the hip and modern thing to do. Do you get some sort of commision from Moveable Type? Or are you just a pretentious little Borg drone?
What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander. A “blog” is a personal expression, while “news” is just the facts. A company or informational site should NEVER NEVER NEVER have a “blog”. They should have “news” (which covers press releases, site updates, etc.). Having a personal expression that a “blog” provides will only alienate customers who do not agree with the author’s opinion, even if they may like the product or service provided.
You can’t change a word’s definition simply because you want to. Regularly updated content has nothing to do with “blogs”, even though the reverse is true. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t always a square.
Posted on August 5, 2004 08:01 PM | #
9. Keith said:
c - Did you read the f*cking post? What we have here is a semantic difference. I don’t think a “blog” = “personal expression.” In fact, I can point out many cases in which a “blog” is used for “news” and “facts”. I think I made that clear and nowhere did I say anything about “cool” or “hip” or “modern” – it’s the frequency of update that I see as good.
I can define the term “blog” anyway I damn well please. I actually hate the term, I use it because it’s become common. I had a “personal site where I express myself” long before the term “blog” ever existed. How you use them should define them. Period.
You know, people like you, who always try and put things into a comfortable little box really piss me off. And don’t get me started on that borg-did-I-get-a-comission-shit.
WTF? Is Six Apart the only company that makes software that runs blogs? Blogs are just tools.
If you’d read the post and thought about it in an intelligent manner you’d understand that what I mean by “blog” might not be what you call a “blog”.
Oh and if you don’t want to enter your e-mail, don’t comment.
Posted on August 5, 2004 08:35 PM | #
10. alex-and-r said:
Ok, Keith, let’s leave the first point aside. May be i just got you wrong and invented that point by myself. ;)
And also you’re right that my other points were not objections. They were rather other points of view on the topic.
And finally thank you for explaining you position and your vision of the blog. From that explanation i understood that you and me have different definitions of a “blog”. You said:
So for you blog is just a word which means a tool for fast and easy content publications. And for me blog is not a tool it’s rather a manner of presenting the content to the readers.
And from that distinction we could dive into the dispute of whether it’s right to use word “blog” for defining the means of fast and easy content publication or it’s better to use some other word (fast CMS, or N(ews)MS or something like this for example) and leave word “blog” for defining the publication of content with personal attitude.
But i don’t want to argue with you and say that my understanding (definition) of blog is true when yours is false. I suppose both of them have right to exist. It’s just a question of labelling, nothing more.
So thank you for explaining your point of view and for thought provoking blog-entry! ;)
Posted on August 5, 2004 10:42 PM | #
11. alex-and-r said:
Oh, how intersting. I posted my comment after the 14th comment of Tim Hill was already on the site, but my comment appeared under number 10.
Is it just me or something wrong with an engine?
Posted on August 5, 2004 10:45 PM | #
12. Ian Gordon said:
Well said, Keith I think the comments of a few people were exactly what you were talking about when you make the “Did you read the f*cking email” post. Hear. Hear.
People need to learn to read the whole post before jumping to assumptions.
Posted on August 5, 2004 10:46 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Yeah I think the word “blog” can be defined several ways. I don’t really like the word, but to me it can be about anything. You can have a news blog, or a events blog, or a knowledge blog or whatever. It’s also become synonymous with the CMS software that runs it, like it or no.
I hate semantical debates. There ususally is no right answer and for some reason people get all bent about how words are defined. I think it’s just fine for you to have a different definition than myself.
Guess it’s a good thing I allow comments, so we can all explain ourselves! :0)
Speaking of which, the timestamp problem…
I had to adjust the timestamp and it’s messed things up temporarily. Sorry about that…Should be all back to normal tomorrow. The hazards of a complete rebuild and relaunch, minor details still need to be sorted.
Posted on August 5, 2004 10:58 PM | #
14. Scott said:
Hi Keith, I am looking at your blog in Safari and man is it awesome. Just wanted to let you know, although I’m sure you know since you use a mac :p.
Posted on August 6, 2004 12:52 AM | #
15. Ste Grainer said:
The other great thing about using a weblog is that it enables the non-techies to actually post things to the site. I work with an educational group, but have little education experience myself (apart from being on the receiving end of some); therefore, I’m not the expert who should be posting content to the site. But for one of our specialists to post something (even something minor) to the current site requires quite a bit of work between me and them.
I’m currently working on redeveloping our site to incorporate weblogs very heavily so that each educational specialist will have a place to share their expertise. I know it will require quite a bit to make the system robust and fairly future-proof, but in the end, it will definitely be worth it.
Posted on August 6, 2004 03:44 AM | #
16. Tim Hill said:
I have always seen blogs as representing one person’s point of view. When you transfer this idea to an organisation you may have conflicting view points? (even if everyone should be presenting the same face).
When you look at a blog do you see a person’s view, or one entity’s view (either being a single person, or an organisation).
As the numbers involved in the organisation increase, does the complexity of the blog increase as well?
I seem to have lost my point a while back… *twiddle*
Posted on August 6, 2004 05:01 AM | #
17. Faruk Ates said:
Something like this? ;)
Awww, images not allowed… well, can’t say I’m surprised, but bah. A link will have to do:
Basic mockup that popped into my mind as I read the title(s) of this post
Posted on August 8, 2004 03:34 PM | #
18. Jeff Minard said:
I whole heartedly agree with this post.
First off, “blog” software has nearly gotten to the point where they are just itty-bitty CMS’s. I am currently convincing the company I work for (youthoutlook.org) to switch over to using WordPress because of it’s nice multi-user system and easy publishing.
A “blog” is great because it allows a company with content to manage that content very effectively - and easily. From anywhere, by anyone. Some systems (like Drupal) even have granulated access that allow you to set up different kinds of accounts (like writers and editors) to make a site even more versitile.
Posted on August 9, 2004 01:22 AM | #
19. alex-and-r said:
I’m just posting a link to an article which i found interesting and somehow related to the topic of this post.
Posted on August 23, 2004 12:43 AM | #
Comments are now closed