ContentRobot

While we like to think blogging is pretty easy, you still have to wade through blog jargon, as well as knowing a bit about web technology. If you’ve been thrown to the wolves and know nothing about blogging, here are some terms you should familiarize yourself with as you learn about this new communications tool.

We only display common terms that we always talk about here. For more, please see:
Samizdata Glossary, Giant Blogging Terms Glossary, or Blogossary.
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In our last few posts we have gone back to basics, as our clients have been clamoring for better approaches to blogging. Today, ContentRobot offers some inspiration for generating ideas for your stories in hopes to create conversation and that all-important buzz.

1. State Your Beliefs
What do you believe in? By telling these types of stories, you can connect emotionally to your readers. Help them to see into your (or your company’s) soul, they’ll know what you are thinking and why.

2. Be a Newsbreaker
Let your readers know about what’s happening at your company or in your industry first. By having the inside story before it’s widely known and intelligently speaking about the new ideas, you’ll lay a foundation for viral and pass-along effect that can will encourage people to come back for more.

3. Be Controversial
Be bold with contrarian, counterintuitive, or challenging views. Provide opportunities for debate and discussions with angles that are not commonly stated or well-known. Without being cruel, tap into anxieties, desires, and other strong emotions to get people fired up to offer up their own positions.

4. Offer How-to Stories and Advice
Get down to business with pragmatic how-to advice. Tell your audience how to solve problems, find next (or best) practices, and overcome common obstacles. Offer some life lessons, tales from the trenches, and solutions that you and your company can provide. Try to be fresh and original by providing a new twist to what people already know.

5. Be Seasonal or Relate it to an Event
Tie your topic into seasonal or major events. For example, discuss industry predictions around the New Year, advertising during the SuperBowl, or being thankful at Thanksgiving.

The above was inspired by a post at Robert Guy Kawasaki’s excellent blog as he described insights from Lois Kelly’s book, Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

NewsGator is another popular and free news reader (although you can sign up for more premium services).

Sign up

1. Access NewsGator here.
2. Click on the “Sign Up” button on the home page.
   
3. Enter a username, password, first name, last name, and email address. Also, click the checkbox to agree to the Terms of Service and then press the Next Button.
   
4. Choose your subscription level (Standard / Free is already selected) and scroll down and click on the Next button.
   
5. Select your starter packs or individual feeds (what feeds you’d like to see) and then click on the Finish button.
   
6. You will be taken to your “Web Reader” page and your subscriptions will be listed in the left column.
   
7. Click on a feed name to view posts.
   

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Register with My Yahoo!

1. Go to My Yahoo!.
2. Click the “Sign Up” link in the top left corner. (If you already have a Yahoo account click “Sign In” and skip to the “Adding a Feed to My Yahoo! using the + My Yahoo! Button” section below.)
   
3. At the next screen, click on your interests, then click Save. (You’ll see the page being “built” in the on-screen preview.)
   
4. On the next page, click on “Sign Up” to save your interests.
   
5. On the registration page fill in the form:
   
• Your first name
• Your last name name
• Choose your Yahoo! ID (you’ll most likely have to check its availability)
• A password
• Whether you want a Yahoo! mailbox (a good idea, you can get your mail from anywhere)
• Password retrieval hints (this area has you put in your birthday, zip code, and optional alternative email address)
• Customize by industry, title, and specialization
• Verify your registration by typing in the code they display
• Agree to the Terms of Service (you should at least skim it)
• Click on Submit this Form Securely
6. This page indicates that your registration has been completed. A copy of your registration gets sent to the email address you have provided.
   
7. Click on Continue to My Yahoo! to see the page you created. (Remember, in the future, you will have to use your created Yahoo! ID and password to access your information at My Yahoo!)

Adding a Feed to My Yahoo! using the + My Yahoo! Button

1. Make sure you are signed in to your My Yahoo! page.
2. In a new browser window, go to ContentRobot.
3. Click on the + My Yahoo! Button
   
4. You’ll get a preview of the feed.
5. Click the Add to My Yahoo! button.
   
6. You will get the message “This source has been added to My Yahoo!”, then click on the “Go to My Yahoo!” link.
   
7. The new feed will now appear at the bottom of your My Yahoo! page
   

Adding a Feed to My Yahoo! using the Add Content Feature

1. Make sure you are signed in to your My Yahoo! page.
2. Click on the + Add Content button
   
3. Next to the Find button, click on the Add RSS by URL link
   
4. Type the URL (web site name, www.tunevroom.com, for example)
5. Click on Add.
   
6. You’ll get a preview of the feed.
7. On the Yahoo! screen, click the Add to My Yahoo! button.
   
8. You will get the message “This source has been added to My Yahoo!”, then click on the “Go to My Yahoo!” link.
   
9. The new feed will now appear at the bottom of your My Yahoo! page
   

Signing up with Bloglines is free and easy - only an email address and password are required.

How to Register with Bloglines

1. Go to www.bloglines.com.
2. Click on the Sign up now link.
   
3. Enter your email address and a password. (Make sure that you type in a correct email address as they will send you an email soon to verify your account). Read the Entire Post >

Subscribing to News Feeds

Have you ever seen icons but didn’t know what they were all about?

These point to XML (Extensible Markup Language), or special Web coding for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) that describes a new type of Web information called a “news feed.”

Essentially, these feeds contain a summary and links of any new content on a Web site or blog (or anything else a creator desires to share). A company may publish an RSS feed that contains news of its latest products, for example. When a website has an RSS feed, it is said to be “syndicated.”

How do I Receive RSS Feeds?
The first step is to install an RSS reader (also known as an “RSS aggregator” or “newsreader”). RSS readers are lightweight software programs that allow users to scan dozens, even hundreds, of fresh headlines a day. They are, for the most part, free for the taking.

RSS readers allow you to scroll through cleanly organized headlines and story summaries (an executive summary of the net!) that has little to no graphics and advertising. When you find a story you like, you click it to view it. Not interested? Just keep scrolling without clicking and waiting for a site page to load.

This software may be a standalone program such as Bloglines or integrated into a program that you already use, such as Microsoft Outlook. My Yahoo! even has an RSS module.

The Advantages of Subscribing to Feeds

• Speed Reading the Internet – You’ll have hundreds of resources at your fingertips. Like many people, you are using the Web as your main source of news and research. If you’re a veteran, you may have hundreds (or maybe more) bookmarks to help you keep track of it all. RSS readers can help you save time because you no longer have to hop from site to site to get your news and information.
• Automatic Updates – An RSS reader automatically updates itself with the latest items from the sites you tell it to watch, so it’s always fresh. You no longer have to access your favorite sites and constantly click “refresh,” to know what’s been newly published.
• Minimizes Spam – RSS gives you control over receiving information you want without revealing information about yourself. Unlike subscribing to an e-mail newsletter, you never have to give out your e-mail address with an RSS feed. That avoids the possibility of receiving spam or unwanted junk e-mail from the Web site.
• Customized to Your Preferences – RSS allows you to receive news and information on the subjects you want. The result is a targeted or personalized news experience, giving you greater ability to tailor your consumption of niche and micro-niche topics. A sports junkie could subscribe to a feed for the Tour de France or a favorite baseball team. A job-hunter could subscribe to a feed for openings in digital media. A medical editor or relative of someone with MS could receive RSS updates published to a health database.
• Instant Alerts – RSS can serve as an alert service. Instead of using e-mail, you might want to customize your news reader to deliver news on an important subject every 15 minutes.
• Read Feeds Anywhere – Because RSS feeds contain just links, headlines, or brief synopsis of new information, it means the small amount of Web data can be sent to any XML-compatible device - a cell phone, pager, or handheld computer - without a lengthy download process.

What’s Next?
In the next series of posts will tell how to download some of the popular ones and how to find feeds that may interest you (and how to subscribe to ContentRobot in each). By the end of the week, you’ll be an RSS pro.

Blogging should be a great experience for those people and companies. Be passionate about what you write about and be sincere about really wanting to connect and converse with your audience. What else do you need to be successful?

Be Lucky
You can work hard and have more talent than other bloggers, but luck does play a main ingredient in success. Luck can include:

• Bumping into the right people at the right time.
• Discovering and implementing best practices that actually work.
• Getting links from others blogs that led to a snowball effect of incoming links from elsewhere
• Choosing the right team for your project.

The key is to run with it and to make every lucky instance last as long as possible.
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You already know that little planning goes a long way. Before making the leap into blogging, ponder these:

1. Indentify Your Strengths
What do you do best, bring that to the blog. Whether you are the manager, or the creative, or the techy, each can bring something great to the table. Whatever the talent, make your site visually stunning, easy to use, and engaging.

2. Determine What You Want to Accomplish
What is your goal? Communicating with your customers? Selling more product? Be clear on what motivates you and your company and the reasons for entering the blogsphere.
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Hopefully what you write about in your blog is something you believe about with a whole lot of passion. But what happens if you aren’t passionate about the subject at hand? Here are some tips that can help you find your inspiration:

1. Find Your Angle
At first glance maybe a particular topic seems boring. But dig a little deeper by talking to the right people or reading an interesting book or article, you may find that there is something in their enthusiasm that sparks your imagination.

2. Choose Sides
From sport to politics, to really enjoy a subject you have to pick a side to root for. Think: Microsoft vs Apple, Red Sox vs Yankees … Find the benefits or the weaknesses, then get involved in it.

3. Humanize It
People are interested in people. Find the human angle and you might get more out of your subject area.
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According to Canadian researchers from Carlton University, whose study was published in the latest issue of the Behaviour and Information Technology journal:

Web designers have as little as 50 milliseconds to capture the interest of potential customers. Through the halo effect, first impressions can influence subsequent judgments of website credibility and buying decisions.

This means that Internet users can give websites a thumbs up or thumbs down in less than the blink of an eye. In just a brief one-twentieth of a second — less than half the time it takes to blink — people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an internet site.
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