Corporate Weblogs – Potential Germany?

Proximity Germany, a customer relationship management agency, recently released a case study on Corporate Blogging in Germany. Under the final stroke, Germany offers a high potential to german companies and their multi-national brothers or subsidiaries, CEO Martin Nit explains (translated):

Even if the expectation is not yet so high at present to own Corporate Blogs, this attitude will definately change strongy on a medium-term base in Germany. This means that enterprises must argue promptly and professionally with the topic of weblogs. Weblogs are useful for the dialogue with the most different target groups such as consumers, customers and also coworkers.

However the question rises on how german companies, especially the german multi-nationals, will apply the benefits and dangers of this direct connection to the consumer. It’s going to become an interesting issue on adapting weblogs within corporate culture (and perhaps their corporate and „ethical“ policy).

[via M-E-X, Corporate Blogging]

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iso 800

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Fabian Mohr has recently created his new photo reportage blog „iso 800“ last week. By using a Canon EOS 300D camera he plans to introduce a variety of shots alongside a few hints and tips on how to work with your own camera. The blog already includes some interesting and amazing shots which are usually published on Flickr, too.

[via M-E-X, netzjournalist]

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Resume

I’ve been quite occupied with university work this week, and I remembered my Todo-List from last monday. If I’m scrolling over it, I definately had a Skype-Chat (and not a Skype-Call) with Philippe and Olivier about the translation, enjoyed a longer discussion with Robert about the potential of the new World of Warcraft blog at gamers-living.com, and I finished the paper for Spanish 2. However, I haven’t kept up with my ideas about „E-Awareness Management“ and only found time to register instead of designing the blog for Rafael. I’m sorry about this, but sometimes there’s too much to do besides the internet mania I’m facing all day long. The rest of my list is still meant to be done.

Good news is that both Kat and I were quite fascinated by a large appartment in Flensburg’s city, and we’ll probably move over there in July. ;)

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Mentos: Freaky TV Spot

I don’t know why I post this here, but this TV Spot by Mentos is very crazy. I don’t know what drove the guys in the marketing team, and I can’t decide if it’s good or bad, but the few seconds are worth watching the spot. But in the end, it’s much better than those spots about „Why do you buy XYZ? – Because it is so good. – Why is that so? – Because I am stupid and get 5 bucks for showing my face in this stupid spot!“ Thanks, opting out now.

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Fight the Dosenfleisch

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Das BSI – Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik ist eines meiner mittlerweile gern gelesenen Online-Lektüren in Fragen zur „e-Security“, insbesondere deswegen, weil ich immer wieder unter den angehenden Jungmanagern im Studium ein nicht ausreichendes und manchmal vollkommen fehlendes Grundverständnis für den Umgang mit den digitalen Medien feststelle. Themen wie Sicherheit, Dokumentenschutz, Vertraulichkeit, Umgang mit E-Mail, Blogs und Meinungen – das alles sind meistens Themen des Bereiches Ungehört und Niegesehen (man beachte hierbei die „Wortwechsler“ im Italics).

Just beim gerade fortlaufenden Lesen meiner RSS Feeds fand ich einen Artikel über das jüngste Werk der BSI genannt „Antispam – Strategien“. Laut Heise wird dabei klar gegen Spam gearbeitet, denn „den Schwerpunkt legten die Autoren auf die Erläuterung technischer Maßnahmen„. Ich habe mir für das kommende Wochenende das entsprechende PDF schon einmal parat gelegt und freue mich auf gute 147 Seiten…

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RSS/Atom modification for Blogspirit’s feeds

While reading my own articles for correction via my RSS reader, I noticed that the extended posts weren’t displayed in the feed and no link hinted at the remaining content. I modified the RSS Syndication and Atom Templates to replace the original content, and I hope it’s not going to unleash an additional load to the servers:

Old:
New:

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Citizen Media – Citizen Journalists

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Richard Edelman, President and CEO of Edelman PR and co-author of their company’s blog Speak Up, wrote an interesting article about the recent movements in the news company OhmyNews in Korea.

The paper receives 200 stories a day from these volunteers. Much of the professional staff time is spent on editing and fact checking these stories before they are posted. In fact 70% of the stories submitted are accepted for publication. The citizen reporters must be verified through government registration numbers, and then sign onto a strict code of ethics including a promise not to write a story for personal financial gain and to tell the truth in each piece.

OhmyNews has embraced the philosophy that every citizen can be a reporter.

I suggest to read the full article as it appears to be a prototype for a new form of media awareness and the use of traditional media. Especially the Mainstream-Media (MSM) would like to learn from this role model which is nothing else but combining forces of professional journalists and their volunteering counterpart. But as these are still professional authors, it reflects nothing else but the current problems of the Blogosphere in which journalists fight bloggers and criticize them at all costs to protect themselves and the MSM. Perhaps the MSM needs to rethink more and more… and revise their processes to include this volunteer work of free authors and blog authors, too.

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Use BBC-Content for free?

There’s a small note on BBC’s Backstage about using BBC content for free within your own applications, websites, blogs or feeds. I’m not sure what it is all about and how I might benefit from their content, but it’s worth some thought.

backstage.bbc.co.uk is the BBC’s new developer network, providing content feeds for anyone to build with. Alternatively, share your ideas on new ways to use BBC content. This is your BBC. We want to help you play.

[via Heiko Hebig]

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Nico’s „How to Blog“-Compendium

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There’s an interesting compendium on Nico Lumma’s blog Lummaland where he describes his basic ideas on how to maintain a blog. I have the nerve to copy his work to translate it into english. I believe it’s quite a valuable resource especially for those who are at the beginning of blogging. The more you get to used to blogging, the easier it is for you to get comfortable with the usual netiquette.

1. A Weblog is no Forum neither Email.
– don’t use „Hello, it’s me again“ phrases to introduce each entry.
– don’t sign with „Best regards, XYZ“ or „Sincerely yours, XYZ“ as it appears obstrusive and strange.
– to order your entry with paragraphes aids in the reading process.
– some correctness of spelling and grammar should not be forgotten.

2. Sources.
– sources are compulsory and/or to be linked.
– link to the exact source and not just the main domain „via cnn.com“ unless you link this reference to the exact URL.
– fancy users speak about the Permalink, the permanent habitat on the source’s server.

3. Comments.
– the weblog is yours.
– if somebody is molesting in the comments, you may simply delete it or close the comments.
– you don’t have to acquiesce everything.
– a reply to comments is often appreciated.
– anonymous comments are simply uncool.

4. Trackbacks.
– you inform the readers of another weblog-entry about other topic-related articles in other weblogs.
– choose trackbacks wisely and not „just so“.
– mutuality is important to trackbacking as you should refer within your article to the trackbacked entry.

5. Images.
– many images are copyrighted, please validate their use.
– images should fit into the entire layout of the blog as 1024×768 for an image is way too large.
– keep PG-13 rating for your images or password protect the blog for special visitors.

6. Music.
– don’t let the music start upon visiting your blog.
– links to MP3s which are copyrighted and are not royalty free should not be placed except if you like to consult your lawyer.

7. Content and Topics.
– write whatever you like to write about.

However I believe that the deletition of comments is not always the right choice as it might result in a flame war between you (the deleting side) and the comment’s author (the flaming side). Sometimes a tough discussion requires value based argumentation, but spamming and a wordwar of insults is not acceptable. Over all, you’ll get better and better in time the more you use your blog.

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„Google Mail“ known as german G-Mail

Quite a nice tidbit to know that the german version of Google’s G-Mail has now been re-named into „Google Mail“. Background to this kind of change is a ligitation in german law relating to the use of names. The phrase „G-Mail“ is obtained as reserved name by Daniel Giersch (Giersch-Mail) prior to the introduction of Google’s mail service. Besides this, anybody who needs an invitation – I may distribute yet another 50 accounts for free. ;)

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