Since this post was written this service has been discontinued

I read about an interesting new service this morning from an RSS feed of one of my favorite tech blogs. The service is called WhoLinked. The idea behind WhoLinked is straight forward; it’s a service that publishes a list of sites that link to your site on your site. Installing WhoLinked is EXTREMELY easy – I had it installed in under 5 minutes.

WhoLinked adds value to your blog because it provides your readers a roadmap to conversations that revolve around the same topics found in your blog. Being able to show a list of sites that link to you also adds a bit of credibility to your blog. It doesn’t replace your blog roll, but it does compliment it.

More from the Technology Evangelist

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I installed WhoLinked on Technology Evangelist around two weeks ago. What have I learned so far? I haven’t determined what effect it has on credibility, although our RSS subscriber base seems to be growing a bit faster than usual. More importantly, it has generated a measurable bump in traffic from sites you link to who have WhoLinked.com installed on their site, including WhoLinked.com, where we’re currently displayed in their #1 WhoLinked position after linking to them back on April 20th:

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This week’s blog under the spotlight is Laura’s Winning Ideas, hosted by Laura Ricci. The tagline in the header sums up the focus of the blog: Proposal Expert, Laura Ricci, Muses on How She Reached Her 85% Hit Rate, Creating and Managing Dynamic Teams and Living Through Turnarounds Supporting Good People Doing Great Things

Style/Design: B+

The design is a simple yet professional. I think a nice graphic in the header would add a lot to the overall look and feel. The one thing that I don’t like is the Google AdSense ads that appear after each post on the home page. While the ads do a nice job of separating each posts, it is kind of cheesy. She is clearly successful at what she does and she certainly doesn’t need the pocket change that she gets from these Google Ads.

Focus: A

Laura has a very focused blog. She has 7 distinct blog categories and when viewed as a whole, it does a great job of summing up her service offering.

Content: A+

Laura’s content is rock solid. Not only is it well written, it is extremely informative and always on target.

Overall Grade: A

A must have feature for any blog is a blog-to-email subscription option. This allows those readers who do not use RSS aggregators such as Bloglines (my favourite) and Rojo the ability to receive all of your blog updates in their email inboxes. I use Feedburner and like it a lot.

There is a new service called Zookoda that just launched. I read about Zookoda today on Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch.

If you are a blogger looking for a solution, either of Zookoda or Feedburner will work. I like Feedburner because, frankly, I don?Äôt want to spend a lot of time formatting templates and going through detailed reports: Feedburner?Äôs one-size-fits-all approach is perfect for TechCrunch, and I like the fact that all of my RSS and email subscription statistics are managed in one dashboard. For bloggers looking for a more robust, customizable solution, or who want more detailed reporting, Zookoda is a very user friendly product that will work extremely well.

That was enough for me to give Zookoda a try. After 15 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to get it to work, I went back to Feedburner. Hey Michael, Zookoda is not user friendly.

Message to Zookoda: Make your service intuitive to set up. You should have a step by step set of instructions for each service offering. Make it simple. I had such an unpleasant experience that I will never try your service again, especially when Feedburner is so easy.

Being a vocal member of the blogosphere and proponent of corporate blogging, its easy to lose perspective on actual acceptance of blogging in the corporate world. The Makovsky 2006 State of Corporate Blogging Survey conducted by Harris Interactive® slapped me back to reality.

…only minorities of top executives surveyed are convinced to “a great extent” that corporate blogging is growing in credibility either as a communications medium (5%), brand-building technique (3%), or a sales or lead generation tool (less than 1%). In contrast, most executives are somewhat or not at all convinced of blogs’ growing credibility in these areas, (62%, 74%, and 70% respectively).

Among other highlights of the survey:

• Even though 12% of senior executives say their companies have taken legal or other action in response to a blog, only 20% report having a formal process in place for monitoring blogs written about the company.

This is frightening. The blogosphere is the place where conversations are taking place. Its the place where your customers are talking about you. Its the place where your competitors are talking about you. Joining in these conversations should be priority #1 for businesses – and you dont need a blog to do that.

• A minority (15%) say that someone in their organization is currently writing a blog related to the company or its activities.
• Only one in five (21%) report reading business-related blogs once a week or more frequently.
• Only 30% of senior executives report that they have a thorough understanding of the term “Internet blog.”
• Forty percent believe that their companies should have corporate policies to address the writing of blogs unrelated to the company or its activities. This compares with the 77% who believe their companies should have such policies concerning the authoring of blogs sanctioned by the company.

Absolutely! Before you unleash your corporate blog(s) you must have blogging policies in place. You can find out more about developing corporate blogging policies here.

• Further, 8% report organizing a team of dedicated people to write sanctioned blogs about the company and its activities.

I wonder what percentage of these companies have employees that are writing unsanctioned blogs? I guess if they are not monitoring the blogosphere then they will never find out. Ignorance is bliss.

• Three percent said their company changed its product, service, or policies because of publicity generated by a blog written about it.

Andy Beal summed it up best on his blog – Could it be we need to come up with a better way of explaining what a “blog” is? I bet if they conducted a similar survey and asked “Are you interested in hearing what your customers think of your business?”, we’d get a different response.

The blog under the spotlight this week is “Practical Blogging” by Robyn Tippins. I was first introduced to Robyn from the LinkedInBloggers group at Yahoo. Robyn is an active member of the group and is always one of the first people to answer a fellow member’s call for technical help or to add a well vetted comment on topics such as blogging, social networking, Web 2.0, etc. Her deep knowledge of these topics is also reflected in her blog.

Practical Blogging is a veritable treasure trove of great blog/tech/Web 2.0 information with practical application examples. She posts frequently and her passion is evident.  If you are interested in a fresh voice on business blogging, then do yourself a favor and subscribe to Practical Blogging’s RSS feed. This is a 5 star blog.

“Markets are conversations” is my favorite quote from The Cluetrain Manifesto, a seminal book on marketing in the 21^st century. I like it because it encapsulates the essence of the networked markets we find on the internet today. After so many years of being “talked to” by big business, people have finally got their voice back – and man are they talking! Within a few minutes on the internet any business can find out how people feel about their particular product or service. The voices are loud, honest and genuine and the blogosphere has supplanted message boards and newsgroups as the place where the majority of the conversations are taking place online.

So if markets are conversations (and they are) and the blogosphere is where the conversations are taking place (and it is), then it follows that businesses can use blog specific search engines as a marketing barometer to measure the level of interest in their products or services. Let me give you an example.

I recently met with the marketing manager for Durham Business School (DBS). The crux of the meeting was to convey that no one (in the blogosphere) was talking about their MBA program, which means that either the DBS MBA program is unremarkable or it is simply off the radar of people who are discussing MBA programs (or some combination of the two). This should be very disconcerting especially when you contrast these results with results you get from entering the main competitors into the search engines.

So how do you check whats being said (or not said) about your company/product/service? Easy. Just enter your comany name + product/service + any other descriptors to one of the many blog search engines (my favorite blog search engines are BlogPulse, Technorati, Google and IceRocket) and see where that takes you. Join an existing conversation or get one started. Good luck!

I met the marketing manager for Durham Business School (a top ranked UK university) yesterday to follow up with a previous meeting I had with the Associate Dean. The following is from an email I sent as a follow up to the meeting.

My discussion with you was based on the assumption that DBS was desirous to increase its brand awareness in the marketplace so as to either increase total enrollment and/or increase the competitiveness of its admissions standards by increasing the number of highly qualified applicants.

The point of the presentation was that for organizations to be competitive in the new marketplace they must:

1) have a product or service that is remarkable (i.e. worthy of receiving mention),

2) plant the seeds that will facilitate online conversations that revolve around their product or service

3) be an active participant in these conversations

Furthermore, I also wanted to assert that prospective students do their due diligence on the web. They will go to the home pages of prospective universities, but ultimately the decision on where to apply largely will be influenced by the advice given to them by the online community.

The blogosphere is where the majority of the conversations are taking place online. Entering “Durham Business School?” and MBA into the popular blog search engines reveals that there is very little being said about DBS’s MBA program especially when you contrast that with what is being said about INSEAD and London Business School. This means that either the DBS MBA program is unremarkable or it is simply off the radar of people who are discussing MBA programs (or some combination of the two).

I have solutions that will dramatically increase both the quantity and quality of online conversations about DBS. The following is a summary of these solutions.

1) Join the Blogosphere

• Provide the tools, training and encouragement so that DBS students and faculty can effectively participate in the blogosphere. This would be a fantastic way for DBS professors and students to gain peer recognition, increase their networking opportunities and improve DBS’s online visibility. As an aside, the Boston Globe recently ran an article on the career benefits of blogging.
• Train DBS staff how to monitor and participate in outside blogs for DBS related conversations.

2) Give access to the brand (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html)

Give potential students, students and alumni access to the brand and invite them to participate. Make it easy for them to get involved with your brand and affect its direction and maybe even its values. This can be accomplished by creating an online space that combines collaborative tools with lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations and lecture podcasts thus encouraging conversations between all of the above mentioned principals.

This would provide the following benefits:

• Give prospective students an opportunity to experience lectures and discussions found at a top European MBA program
• Create goodwill among DBS alumni by giving them an opportunity to refresh their knowledge and keep current with the latest trends and analysis
• Create value for current students by archiving all recorded lectures and collateral material and by letting them discuss and collaborate with a broader base of people

3) Empower your alumni network

Your alumni should be your most ardent salespeople. One way to ensure that they keep DBS in the front of their minds is to provide them with a place online where they can interact and collaborate with their peers. Your current alumni website has some great tools but lacks the community building features found in the most vibrant online communities. In short, Agora needs an overhaul.

These suggestions are progressive – even a bit radical. However, you are in an industry that has been commoditized with little to no room for core product/service differentiation. I believe that if you want to increase enrollment and increase DBS’ Financial Times rankings, you are going to need to be a bit radical.

Can bloggers make money was a debate that took place yesterday in the WSJ between Jason Calacanis, co-founded Weblogs Inc., and Alan Meckler, who is chief executive of Jupitermedia Inc.

This debate, as well as the Slate article proclaiming the death of blogs, is really short sighted in my opinion. The value of blogging does not come from Adsense revenue, but rather in the intangible benefits that blogging provides – improving your career opportunities, relationship marketing and improved online visibility just to name a few. Obviously it’s much easier to quantify the ROI when your only metric is Adsense, but to assume that is the only ROI metric for blogs is making a huge mistake.

Giving credit where credit is due, I found the following article from the Boston Globe in a post from one of my favourite bloggers – Jeremiah the Web Prophet. As the title of the article would suggest, the author suggests that being an effective blogger can lead to better career opportunities. I couldn’t agree more. Not only has this blog been great for business, but it has also been great for my personal development and peer recognition. The author identifies the following 8 reasons why blogging is good for your career.

1. Blogging creates a network. A blogger puts himself out in the world as someone who is interesting and engaging — just the type of person everyone wants to meet. ‘
2. Blogging can get you a job. Dervala Hanley writes a quirky literary blog that got her a job is at Stone Yamashita Partners, a consulting firm that ”tries to bring humanity to business.” Hanley says the firm was attracted to her ability to put her business experience into personal terms on the blog.
3. Blogging is great training. To really get attention for your blog, you’re going to have to have daily entries for a while. At least a few months to get rolling, and then three or four times a week after that. So you will really get to know your topic well.
4. Blogging helps you move up quickly. To escape the entry-level grind, you can either pay your dues, working up a ladder forever, or you can establish yourself as an expert in the world by launching a blog. High-level jobs are for people who specialize, and hiring managers look for specialists online.
5. Blogging makes self-employment easier. You can’t make it on your own unless you’re good at selling yourself. One of the most cost-effective and efficient ways of marketing yourself is with a blog. When someone searches for your product or service, make sure your blog comes up first.
6. Blogging provides more opportunities. Building brands, changing careers, launching a business — these endeavors are much easier once you’ve established yourself online.
7. Blogging could be your big break. Visually creative types can blog beyond just text.
8. Blogging makes the world a better place. Blogging is about sharing, contributing and collaborating. You’ll be getting loads of Karma in no time.

In addition to having a blog, I would also suggest developing a personal website that contains background information and a resume. You should then link between the website and blog. You can find mine here.

This was a post on one of my favourite blogs today – A Shel of my former self.

Can you imagine working for a company that is so short-sighted that it blocks its employees from reading RSS feeds? Do they not realize that RSS feeds + RSS Aggregators = huge time savings? Hear a few reasons I think these companies are shooting themselves in the foot.