Weblogs (blogs) and some pointers (and Facebook in there too)

Having wholeheartedly recommended blogging to a number of clients, I think it's about time I start to give a few helping pointers about the actual doing. The technology as widely available, freely in many cases, but that shouldn't really be the issue - creating an appealing blog isn't about using technologies in new and challenging ways - it's more about challenging yourself to be honest and upfront about your thoughts and opinions on things that are interesting and important to you.

I use my blog, on the whole, to help communicate ideas about how people can make more of the internet. Not only does this help others learn new and valuable things (I hope) and demonstrate that I, at least try, to keep on top of the rapidly changing world of the internet, but it also helps to solidify ideas in my mind. It gives me a reason to think ideas through in more detail before communicating them with the listening world.

One such idea is connecting your customers lives with your brand through platforms that they already use. Facebook is a great example of that: anyone with a target audience in the age ranges 18-35, should take serious note of this. We are currently developing our first facebook application, but I can see many coming soon as opportunities for companies to communicate with their clients in this arena are vast.

Anyhow, the main reason for this post was actually to link into Jakob Nielsen's 10 blog mistakes as a useful point of reference. Jacob is generally considered the guru in all things usability wise - so here is the link, please let me know if you find it useful, I'm going to go through it again now and check how many rules I'm breaking!

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

One other valuable read, this one from Media Shift: Your Guide to Blogging

Reuse the wheel!!

Seeing as I develop websites all day every day for clients, it seems natural that when I come to develop my own, I'd be looking to show off all of my tricks.

But when we started looking at developing a new blue hat (my web development company) website and decided that we should make use of the newer ideas on the web - blogging, podcasting etc a sudden realisation dawned upon us. This stuff is all readily available on the web. Google, amoungst many others, offer a comprehensive blogging piece of software. So, I ask, by using Google's software is a web developer wimping out. Perhaps this is missing out on a opportunity to develop a new piece of code (and demonstrate skills) or does this show that a web developer is making the best use of something that is already perfectly good (not broke so don't fix).

Personally, I think we should be concentrating on making the things that aren't readiliy available and if something is there, meets the requirements and can be used inexpensively (or for free in this case) then we use it.

In an hour, I'd setup my blog, posted and published my first article and was happily sending links to my friends. It was a lot quicker than building it myself and has enough flexibiliy to accommodate any design that I want to put to it. It will integrate directly into the newly developed website when that is ready to go online.