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Read the Time article
Get your own seal

Well, it’s about time!

Every person who’s ever had a blog or uploaded a video or left a comment can proudly claim this honor.

Now that Time recognizes us, will it be the “tipping point” that brings blogging and social media to the awareness of the masses?

If so, we’d better be prepared. That means it’s time for small businesses to check out blogging, del.icio.us, YouTube, and all the ways people are contributing to the distributed conversation online. It’s better to be slightly ahead of the curve than behind it.

I do find it ironic, however, that the Time articles are mostly about video. That’s what’s really grabbed people’s attention.

I have mixed feelings about video.

Yes, when it’s done well, it’s great. But for things like search engine optimization, not so great. All the content is locked up in a video file. Search engines can’t parse that yet, so it doesn’t help with keywords.

And bandwidth is still an issue for a lot of people.

My advice for small businesses who want to do audio or video podcasts is to put as much of the content as possible in show notes. That way you’ll reach the most people, and the search engines, too.

(And for an example of viral media, check out how clever Alister Cameron created this seal and got some links!)

The Bigelow Tea company has entered the blogosphere.

I’m very excited about this. I’ve been working behind the scenes for Valorie Luther at Creative Concepts, doing the technical stuff and housekeeping duties that come with getting a blog up and running. So naturally we’re using WordPress.

Two of the folks at R.C. Bigelow are blogging, Cindi Bigelow, a Co-President of the company, and Bob, the VP of Sales & Marketing. Also writing is my pal Liz Strauss. She’s a community-builder par excellence.

Of course, Bigelow already has a community of loyal customers and employees, and a terrific web site. When I went for a visit to their headquarters in Fairfield, CT, I got a good feeling — this company is a joy to work with. (Plus they gave me samples of new products!)

I particularly want to see how their customers visit the blog — we’re using Feedburner for RSS, and FeedBlitz for email subscriptions. I like the explanation page Feedburner puts up if you click on the RSS link on Bigelow’s blog, and what could be easier than FeedBlitz’s email subscription form? I bet most of Bigelow’s fans aren’t very active in the blogosphere — yet. I think the subscription options will help ease them into it. But there are also plenty of bloggers who are tea-drinkers, so I’m hoping a few of you folks will drop by, check it out, and give me your honest feedback.

So, I predict interesting things from the Bigelow blog, and I’m looking forward to working on it.

Oh, and the tea is delicious, too. I love the Green Tea with Pomegranate!

I hope. It’s been a hectic few weeks. Victim of too much of a good thing (work, in this case). But I haven’t abandoned this blog, just neglected it.

But I’ll be back!