Talk to anyone. We're all under siege from the number of emails we get every day. Time dealing with them is the killer. Hundreds pour into everyone's Outlook through a variety of addresses. From a hundred different spots. We need to cut back.

 

A Microsoft senior guy works on his email mountain for one hour a day, then deletes what he doesn’t reach. Reason? “They’ll write again if its important”. A senior tech exec automatically deletes anything CC’d to him.

 

Viagra, ink, breasts, Nigeria have taken their toll. That and; good idea at the time; must register to see the site; promotional; previous life;  marketing list; emails and their relatives. 

 

But as RSS use gains, regular keeping-in-touch list corporate email or  blog generated article email is going to get axed in favor of RSS info flowing to a blog reader.

 

Email, the other guy is in charge. She sends, you receive. RSS gives back control. People prefer the blog reader format. That message will probably take a while to percolate.

 

Colette Lewis writes Zoo Tennis about junior tennis. A very fine blog. Essential reading, really, for tennis devotees. But she misfired when she wrote “I've signed up to get my own ZooTennis feeds through Yahoo just to see how it works, but I think most people prefer just to get the emails. “ Nope. Colette. Common mistake. Thats about you. But swamped, you want easy. Anyway. Email outs and connections are last generation thinking.

 

RSS is today. Tomorrow. Automatic. RSS is going to win. Easy. It has to. 

Consumer RSS is gaining ground. It's still an incredibly vague and often hard to understand concept for the average mainstream Joe; it's got a crazy totally geeky name, sure, but still, its advancing. Now, having used a bunch of RSS systems and readers off and on over months I've settled on Feedburner linking my feeds (rss) to either a Yahoo or  Google homepage.

Feedburner proved easiest to operate of all the systems I tried. No fuss. That settled it. Easiest will always win. Google and Yahoo are easy. Everything works there. So simple all round. Feedburner is a click from a website, and I have a feed of their chunk of information, where I want it.

Now Feedburner are moving to monetize effectively. Like in Spanish. They signed Newsweek to use their system. Its the old story. Start. Run like crazy. Develop business. Get them to sell your idea. And when the mainstream arrives, one by one, payday. That's going to be soon.

Coach eZines  is Patsi Krakoff’s blog about writing and marketing communication material. Patsi pulls together all sorts of random bits and pieces about targeted email, blog articles, search engines, business styles.   The blog draws 50 (or so) visitors a day. It's nicely designed. Has a nice tone.

 

It’s a neat idea. A blog for a home based business  marketing the business itself to potential clients. Most of Patsi's clients? Probably home based businesses as well.  

 

She's targeting paranoia. A small business wants a successful blog. It's the hot new communication tool. Small businesses know they should use blogs. But perhaps the CEO/owner/sole entrepreneur feels she can’t write well enough. Maybe they think something else is holding them back. Bad design.  Can’t understand keywords. Or tags. Perhaps, 'haven’t got the time'. Who knows. But they worry.

 

Enter the Blog Squad. A small business that helps other small businesses address 'the blog problem'. Focused on strong communication. (primarily through ezines and blogs) Patsy and Denise. The Blog Squad. A business run virtually from two home offices in Southern California. Each stretched. Busy.

   

So, in that context; 'stretched';  visitors want to know whether Coach eZines is really worth the time Patsi puts into it. For example. Does the blog produce clients? Does it create a conversation with current clients? 

 

Yes, writing must have value to Patsi.  But beyond psychic satisfaction  from writing, the 64 million dollar question for Patsi answers one question. What's the deal? Does she know what she's talking about? Does this blog make business happen for the Blog Squad? And how?  In dollars and sense. It's the post waiting to be written. And probably the most convincing article Patsi could post.

Keywords: LinkedIn, BlogBoost, blogs

Some blogs attract huge numbers. Some don't. We haven't set out to generate huge numbers. We have not put Google ads into this blog. And we don't link books that we read through to Amazon - so we don't get a referrer's fee.

But all that was a conscious decision. I always used to ask songwriters or artists that I was planning on signing when I was in the music biz whether they wanted to create art or make money. I figured I could work with either and it is better to establish at the outset what it is that drives you. Do you want to be a whore or an artists. Nice to succeed at both but much easier if you start with only one focus.....

I just noticed this morning that the site stats from the Perceptric Blog are creeping up bit by bit. Amazing to see how it works in the blogosphere with stats. Our page views are now running at over 2,000 per day with over 1,000 discrete visitors per day. But the truly interesting thing is that these numbers are substantially driven by people accessing articles that were written sometimes 6 or 8 months ago.....

Talk about a Long Tail!