(Originally posted at Big in Japan)
A question that comes up regularly when you’re talking to clients about starting a new blog is where they should actually host the blog. Sure, Typepad or Wordpress.com only cost a few bucks a month, but is the cost worth it? If you’re running a business and using your blog as a tool to drive sales/connect to users/solicit feedback, so you want to put that content in the hands of a hosted service?
Certainly there’s advantages to using a hosted service such as Typepad or Wordpress.com – the biggest being the low cost. But there’s also disadvantages – namely, you’re not in control of your content. When you sign up for hosted services you have to agree to abide by their terms. The services have the ability to change their terms as they see fit, and if you get sideways and violate those terms, you risk having your content pulled or worse – deleted.
There is some ruckus in the blogosphere lately about Wordpress.com shutting of some accounts that use the PayPerPost (no link, they don’t deserve it) functionality. Now, I’m not a fan of PayPerPost at all (not even a little), but I wonder what happens if Wordpress.com decides that they’re building their own ad network, and no longer allows Google Adsense, for instance. Slippery slope indeed.
This is part of why Big in Japan offers a hosted blog solution. This is more expensive than Typepad or Wordpress.com, but there are several significant advantages:
This applies to any professional blog hosting, although we tend to believe ours is the best! But generally, using a hosted service for your business needs can get real scary, real fast. Be sure to decide in advance whether than risk is worth it. You don’t want to find yourself in a corner you can’t get out of because you tried to save a few bucks.
A while back a railed on poorly implemented character blogs, so you can imagine my pleasure today when I came across a fantastic character blog. The Sonic guy (from the current batch of commercials) is blogging … or at least his character is.
They launched on Typepad (extending the illusion of the character), the content is written in the voice of the character, and it clearly states in the “About” page that the blog is a character blog from Sonic. I even found out about the blog from another blogger.
Great job, Sonic!
The video below was featured on the YouTube home page last night. When I found the clip, it was late night Friday and I was still working. I had work stress, weekend task list stress, and pending birth stress. This clip immediately washed away everything except barrel laugh and excitement about the upcoming baby.
Enjoy!
Tags: Off TopicSeriously, I need help. You know when you find something you like, and you use/consume/buy it until you’re just simply overwhelmed? Like when you say "I’ll get started with photography", and before you know it you have a pile of lenses, more books than you’ll ever read, and 7 different types of camera bags.
Now that tabs are standard on programs like Firefox, NetNewsWire, and Flock I’ve created a hole I’m having trouble getting out of – tab abuse.
Despite my diligent efforts to put any cool Web finds into my delicious stream, I still find myself with no less than 64 open tabs across the three applications listed above. These aren’t just pages I want to keep for future reference, or things I want to save to pass on to a specific person. No no, my friend – these are active content that will soon be blogged, quoted, or referenced for one project or another. Try as I might to clear at least some of these out tabs, more appear to replace them. That damn ctrl-click function to open links into new tabs is far to easy. I call it the "Enabler Key Combo".
It’s official: there’s simply too much great content on the Web.
Tags: Off TopicAfter a week away in Seattle and LA, I returned to find two tasty advanced book copies in my pile of mail. Ben and Jackie’s Citizen Marketers and Andy’s Word of Mouth Marketing (reviewed previously) were both waiting for me to get home. Add to that my copy of John’s Tribal Knowledge he gave me when I met up with him a few weeks ago and you have yourselves a real challenge – how do you find the time to read all three intriguing books??
On a related sidenote, Andy’s book came with some tasty popcorn from Dale and Thomas Popcorn. Damned if I’m not spreading word-of-mouth buzz about. Clearly Andy knows his stuff… and more importantly has friends who make tasty treats.
Jake McKee is the Chief Strategy Officer and Ant Wrangler at Ant's Eye View, a customer experience strategy practice focused on helping clients escalate their customer experience. With a rich background in customer collaboration, online communities, and fan groups, and Web development, community management, and product development, Jake helps organizations understand how to act like groups of people, rather than soulless money making machines.
