Logging On the Web

If your Web log is successful, your electronic community will grow, which can be both good and bad.

Dave Winer also uses his Web log to opine. The CEO of UserLand Software Inc., an eight-person software company in San Francisco, Winer holds forth on content-management software for the Web on UserLand's public site. Each of the company's development-team members keeps a public Web log -- using tools the company has developed -- on the UserLand site, where they share their technical knowledge with the Web-development community and ask for public feedback.

Winer and his far-flung colleagues -- who work in Seattle and Los Angeles and even in Germany -- also use their Web logs as a corporate intranet. After entering the password-protected private site, they follow links to get information on employees, projects, sales numbers, milestones, and more. Winer is able to oversee the private site, post information to it, monitor bugs, and track project deliverables using specific software. "Our Web log is our management process," says Winer. "It's remarkable how much more productive we've become using it."

To Blog or Not to Blog
Although Web logging has valid applications for many kinds of companies, it isn't practical for every small business, says Jakob Nielsen, principal of Norman Nielsen Group, a consulting company in Mountain View, Calif., and author of Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. "You have to be able to say something reasonably new every day about what's happening in your field," Nielsen says. "If you have a static site and an irregular publishing schedule, you will turn people off."

And while self-expression may be the main goal of individual Web loggers, a company's Web log has a different raison d'être. As a marketing tool, it's the organization's public and professional face. Thus, anyone who regards word-mongering as more of a struggle than a pleasure should probably avoid Web logging, Nielsen says, noting that there's nothing worse than reading someone's bad content. (Hint: If you don't have the requisite writing skills, find someone who does and put them on daily Web-log duty.) Stretch yourself too thin, and your lack of energy will show in the poor quality of your Web log, he says. "Companies that lack the resources to commit to a daily Web log would be better off publishing a semimonthly E-mail newsletter, containing some fresh insight and links to interesting articles," Nielsen advises.

Another key factor is commitment, veteran Web loggers say. "Doing a good Web log takes a lot of time," says journalist Romenesko. "Some people have a hard time sitting down and working on them for a few hours a day." And a fledgling blogger shouldn't expect any kind of immediate return on the labor investment. "It took me months and months to develop an audience," Romenesko notes.

Even more challenging is the notion of building credibility by swallowing your pride and linking to the other guy's site. To be a credible Web logger, "you have to have the guts to point to things that are of interest, even if they are considered competitors," Nielsen insists.

Linking to competitors' sites poses no problem for Brent Holliday, a partner with Greenstone Venture Partners (www.greenstonevc.com), a four-person venture-capital firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like Terry Yelmene and Dave Pell, Holliday uses Greenstone's Web log (the Greenstone Grok) to show off his company's expertise. The site provides links to news items of interest to entrepreneurs and the high-tech community in the Pacific Northwest -- regardless of the parties involved.

"Other venture capitalists will come to me and ask, 'Why did you put the news of our deal on your Web site?" says Holliday. "They don't notice that people come to us first -- and every day -- as a source of intelligence. It increases our credibility to talk about what's going on, no matter who's doing the deals."

Size is a factor, too. If your Web log is successful, your electronic community will grow, which can be both good and bad. Instead of being an adjunct to your business, your Web log could threaten to consume it. You might find yourself needing to add hardware, bandwidth, and more resources, and gradually morphing into a publisher. "This is a long-term marketing tool," says Nielsen. "You have to cost everything out and think about how you will deal with it over time."

Caveats aside, dedicated Web loggers can find themselves basking in their 15 minutes of fame, not to mention the loyalty of their customers. "Blogging is the platform for a new meritocracy," says Pell. "It removes the barriers to creative performance. You don't have to have the leverage of a major media corporation, but you can prove to the reader that you are smart and good at what you do."

Blog Me, Baby

The cool thing about the Internet is that as soon as something becomes popular, someone's going to find a way to make it easier to participate.

And Web logging is no different. The tools listed here are free and easy to use, and help automate (and greatly accelerate) the blog publishing process. You don't need to know how to write any code, and you don't need to install any server software or scripts. Yet you can still fully control the look and location of your blog. To use these tools, however, you will need to have either a Web site or access to a Web server. (You can get Web-server access through your Internet service provider.)

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