ISTC Conference - Why Blog?

Why Blog?

What is a blog?

History of Blogging

Weblog

Jorn Barger (1997)

"A weblog is a webpage where a weblogger 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting"

We blog

Peter Merholz (1999)

“ I've decided to pronounce the word ‘weblog’ as wee'– blog. Or "blog" for short.”

July 5 th 2000

“ My first blog – mind you for such a great idea, you think they would have thought up a less frumpy name! Now I’ve just got to figure out how to work the damn thing!”

www.onemanblogs.co.uk

State of the Blogosphere

http://technorati.com/blogging/state–of–the–blogosphere/

Global visitors

Hg – London , Kai – Frankfurt , Jill – Perth, Scotland , Marijana – Germany , Sandy – London (and Moscow ), Sarah O'Keefe – North Carolina , Gretchen – North Carolina , Michael S. Taddei – Pennsylvania , Tom Johnson – Salt Lake City , "Wheat" – South Carolina , Melissa Burpo – Austin, Texas , Craig Cardimon – Pennsylvania , Simon North – Den Bosch, The Netherlands , Randi Hansen – Victoria, Canada , Gareth Williams – Harrogate, Yorkshire , Alistair Christie – Edinburgh , Dharmendra – Pune, India , Mike Unwalla – Sheffield , Katja McLaughlin – Glasgow , Milan Davidovic – Toronto , Vaish Vijay – Croydon , (and Kuala Lumpur ), Katrina – Hamilton, Scotland , Anindita Basu – India , Janet Swisher – Austin, Texas , Mark M – Sweden , David E – Peterborough , UK , Gil Vinokoor – Ramat Gan, Israel , Richard – Auckland, New Zealand , K – Glasgow , Siska – Belgium , Jeff – Toronto , Margaret – Atlanta , Scott (and Aaron) – Toronto , Julia Williams – Auckland, New Zealand , Jeff – Ontario, Canada , Cecily – Chiltern Hills, England , Margherite – Schenectady, New York , Geoff – Iowa , Tamara – Minnesota , Raj Nair – Bangalore, India , Harry Miller – Redmond, Washington , John Kearney – Staffordshire , Sylvia D – Mumbai, India

Why should your company blog?

Interact with your audience

Why should you blog?

Join the conversation

Getting Started

Stop and Think

Monitoring the Blogs

People who blog tend to be monitoring areas of interest, the more people you find the longer the tail of information that can be gleaned from the wisdom of the crowd

Blogging Futures

http://wave.google.com/

“ If you keep enabling conversations with users, your documentation can anticipate questions and give answers so responsively that your users might wonder if there’s a ghost in the machine.

Instead of concentrating on single sourcing methods or the tools of the trade, think about documentation and user assistance as a multiple–channel communication device, perhaps with the help of some social technology applications.”