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I’ve gone to two blogging conferences this year — BlogHer and the Blog Business Summit.

BlogHer was about the blogging experience, focusing on how it relates to women, of course. The Blog Business Summit was about how to understand blogs — what they can do for businesses and how they’re being used today.

The people I met at BBS seemed to be either from PR & Marketing firms, or from big businesses. I met very nice people from Visa International, Nordstrom, and Mastercard, to name a few of the big corps that are checking out blogging.

These folks are still figuring out how best to use blogs — some want to use it internally, some to converse with customers or suppliers.

There were some small business bloggers at the panel on blogging for small businesses, moderated by Jory Des Jardins. The panelists included Kevin O’Keefe of Lexblog, Stan Mackey, (who’s real estate blog I wrote about in June) But for some reason, I personally didn’t meet any folks from non-tech and non-PR smaller businesses who wanted to use blogging to help them.

On the attendees list of the conference, I also found:

• Verity Credit Union’s blog
• Phil Mann’s IP Litigator blog

So I know a few of these folks were there, I just didn’t try hard enough to find them.

I think some of the early feedback from the conference was that people wanted to hear more case histories and stories from larger companies who were blogging, not tech insider stuff (but I love that techy stuff!). Perhaps there should be a track on that as the conference grows. These folks wanted to know how other companies handled the internal resistance to blogging, for example.

This conference is something smaller businesses who are thinking about blogging should check out, too.  The price for the conference wasn’t bad, especially if you got in on the early-bird rate.  Of course, for Connecticut and environs, Seattle was a long way to go.

I think there’s still plenty of needs that these conferences can address for large and small businesses. But Blog Business Summit is definitely on the right track! I’m glad I went and I look forward to the next one.

But I never did find out why “Blog Business Summit” and not “Business Blog Summit.”

Ok, I gotta admit, they responded (with a form letter) pretty fast.

Here’s their reason #1:

The error you received is typically caused by unusual activity from either your computer or your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to Yahoo!.

I guess it’s because I’m using the Bell Harbor Conference Center wi-fi.  Does that mean that everyone at the Blog Business Summit is locked out, or is it just me?

I’m very annoyed. I’m apparently locked out of my del.icio.us account. I have no idea why.

Here’s the message I get when I try to bookmark something:

Sorry, Unable to process request at this time — error 999.

Sorry, you’ve been temporarily blocked for accessing del.icio.us too rapidly. This could be the result of using a buggy, misconfigured, or malicious program. It could also be accidental on our part. Please hold off for a few minutes and try again later, in a gentler fashion.

There’s more, giving me a link to a form where I can ask for help. Sorry, but this is just so wrong.  Is Firefox suddenly “buggy, misconfigured, or malicious?”
Why should I use a web service if it doesn’t work when I need it? All I did is shut down my computer and go to lunch!

Was that so wrong?

I’m at the Blog Business Summit conferece, and the session’s about to start, but I wanted to share two observations:

Many people typing on their laptops simultaneously sounds like raindrops falling on a roof.

And, a great way to tell when a speaker is saying something interesting is when the typing sounds get lounder, as people start pounding on their keyboards as fast as they can.

Today I’m heading out west to Seattle for the Blog Business Summit. I’m looking forward to this, and to Seattle, which I’ve never been to.

There are going to be lots of great sessions, and even a BlogHer meetup on Thursday.

I’m missing the whole pre-conference workshop, which has sessions to help the new blogger get up and running. I just didn’t have the time free. Oh well.

Also, I’m going to try to do a better job of blogging during the conference, but don’t hold your breath. I still haven’t looked at all my notes from BlogHer06.

But, if anyone has any questions for this great lineup of speakers, let me know. I’ll ask.

Liz Strauss, over at Successful Blog, is a super-connector. If you’re unfamiliar with the book Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, the connector is the person who knows everyone and loves to connect people to other people. That’s Liz. She’s also become a good friend over the past year, even surviving being my roommate at BlogHer.

She started writing on Successful Blog a year ago today, and she’s got open comments day going on her blog today. Check it out, bring a link, and see how a master creates buzz and a community.

Congratulations, Liz!

Technorati : Successful Blog

Yesterday, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7.0. I haven’t tried it yet, but the buzz has begun.

One thing I find exciting is that it has a built-in RSS reader, at last. Granted, it’s limited, but as a first step, that’s great news. More non-tech Windows users have IE as their browser than have Firefox, so I’m hoping that this will mean a surge in the number of people subscribing to blogs.

For a great intro demo, check out Rob Safuto’s Awakened Voice Learning Center: Managing RSS with IE7. (QuickTime needed).

This is a very nice and helpful demo, especially for people unfamiliar with feeds.

One feature that looks nice, and is not (as far as I know) supported with Firefox’s Live Bookmarks yet, is that with IE7, you can tell the difference between read and unread posts. This is key for managing subscriptions.

In related IE7 news, Lorelle VanFossen is writing a nice series on “Getting Your Blog Ready for Internet Explorer 7.” This is a more techy view, talking about CSS, among other things, but if you’re a geek or geek-wannabe like me, this is for you!

After almost a week of uproar in the blogosphere, CEO Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel posted brief entries on their blogs about the fiasco with the Wal-Marting Across America blog a few days ago.

Answering other bloggers such as Duncan Riley, who posted an open letter asking for some response, Rubel said in his post:

I am sorry I could not speak about this sooner. I had no personal role in this project. There is a process in place that I had to let proceed through its course. This is why it took some time.

Edelman’s own post seemed sincere, if short. He acknowledged that the company had made a mistake, and worse, not adhered to the WOMMA (Word Of Mouth Marketing Association) code of ethics that his company had a hand in creating.

I want to acknowledge our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset. This is 100% our responsibility and our error; not the client’s.

Robert Scoble, well-known tech blogger, says that’s good enough for him. I’m not so sure. But I don’t know if any more explanation or information will be forthcoming anyway, so I suppose that’s that.

Still, I wonder what’s the best thing to do — give a little more insight into how this happened, or just offer your apology and move on? I’d love to know more about how the whole train-wreck happened — how the decisions were made; what was the thought process behind the whole thing. I’m not the only one left wondering.

It’s only been a week, but it seems much longer, somehow. Especially when there was complete silence on the subject from such a prolific blogger as Steve Rubel.

But, for Edelman the company, there’s a client involved here, and one thing I know is that for consultants, the client gets all the credit and the consultant gets all the blame. That’s just how the game is played. So outsiders will probably never know the full story.

Richard Edelman’s apology was well-crafted — he briefly explained the problem, accepted the blame, and stated his support of the WOMMA code of ethics.

One thing I found fascinating about all this is how well trackbacks worked to help stitch together pieces of the conversation. Following the trail from both Rubel and Edelman’s blog, I found a wealth of sound insight. For PR folks, it’s well worth taking the time to read the blogosphere’s take. For example, I completely agree with Ian Delaney, who astutely writes …

…it seems that the irony of social media champions being caught undermining their big play is far, far more interesting than a company with a bad reputation continuing to do bad things. Ultimately, I think a lot of people will react like me, so good call by Edelman for putting his hands up.

And after all, as he goes on to say, “no one died, broke the law, or got pregnant.”

‘Nuff said?

Related Post: Wal-Mart’s Blogging Fiasco

Also check out a TechMeme snapshot

Technorati : Edelman, Wal-Mart

One great thing about most blogging software is that they automate the process of “pinging” — notifying search engines such as Google, IceRocket, and Technorati, that you’ve written a new post. This theoretically helps the search engines update you in their listings sooner, rather than days later. Here’s what Google says about their pinging service:

The Google Blog Search Pinging Service is a way to inform Google Blog Search of weblog updates. These updates are then published and shared with other search engines to allow them to discover the changes to your weblogs. In addition, Google Blog Search will add submitted weblogs to the list of blogs it needs to crawl and index.

For blog applications which allow you to set your pings, you simply add the code to your list of Update Services. In WordPress, that’s found in Options/Writing, at the bottom of the page, like so:

Way at the bottom of the page, you’ll see the Update Services listing. Just click in the box to create a new line, copy in the ping URL, and hit “Update Services.”

That’s the whole deal! Here’s the list of Services you should be pinging (these aren’t links, just copy and paste into your blogging application):

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

If your blogging application doesn’t have automatic pinging, you can still do it manually, at each service.

Technorati Ping
IceRocket Ping
Google Ping

Or you can get an offline blog writing application, such as Zoundry, which will ping services when you publish. It even works for Blogger blogs.

Technorati : ping Google Technorati IceRocket

Here’s the story of what not to do when you blog. What a mess! This has resulted in dragging quite a few people and companies through the mud — Wal-Mart (ok, lots of mud there already), the blogger and photographer involved, Edelman, and even the Washington Post.

I won’t reiterate the whole sad saga here (Business Week has a good article about the Wal-Mart blog debacle) but here’s the gist of it:

The “blog” Wal-Marting Across America appeared, chronicling the travels of Laura and Jim, as they took an RV across the country. They stayed in Wal-Mart parking lots overnight (RVs can park for free there) and interviewed Wal-Mart employees across the land. The stories were all upbeat and pro-Wal-Mart. No one knew who these bloggers were and comments weren’t allowed, so Business Week and bloggers started investigating, and it all came out. Laura’s brother works for Edelman, Jim is a professional photographer for the Washington Post. They apparently are a couple, and actually on a vacation, which they managed to have Wal-Mart pay for.

And the repercussions go on and on. The Washington Post has a policy of not allowing outside work, so Jim’s in trouble. Edelman’s involvement was hidden, so they’ve got a black eye. No one’s looking good in this. Except maybe Business Week.

Some people are claiming that this was a setup from the start, and don’t believe Laura’s claim (told in the last post) that:

I started thinking about all the other amazing things there are to see in this vast country of ours. And then I started thinking about how Wal-Mart - one in every town, practically - lets you park overnight for free. The idea just sort of came together. We would take vacation from our full-time jobs and drive across the country in a rented RV, from city to city, spending the night in a different Wal-Mart parking lot every night.

Actually, the blog idea wasn’t bad. But here’s what they didn’t do:

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