I am not sure if the title of this post, Jakob Nielsen Doesn’t Like Blogs, is the most suitable. However after reading and re-reading his article about blogging vs. writing articles, it is my only logical conclusion as I don’t believe Nielsen convinced any informed blogger if they are wasting their time.

Dr. Jakob Nielsen is a world-renown usability expert, and you can read more on his background and career on his Web site, useit.com. For anyone like myself who has even the slightest inclination about the usability of the Web or software, you are familiar with Nielsen. And anyone who is familiar with Nielsen will probably have an opinion similar to my own of him – they generally agree with him, but every once in a while he comes out with something that they do not agree with or is not commercially viable. As many of us earn our living on the Internet, commercial viability is very relevant.

This morning I received Alertbox, his bi-weekly newsletter, and as I was having my first sips of coffee, I read with interest the topic of his latest article, Write Articles, Not Blog Postings. Right away I clicked on the link and read the article. Then I downed another cup of coffee and re-read it. I let the email sit in my inbox and now the end of the day, I read it again twice, and am sitting down to write this still with ambiguity.

The summary of the article reads, verbatim,

“To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.”

This made sense to me. In business, the ultimate goal is to make money. Some actions, or in this case writings, are directly tied to that. Others are not. A blog by the president of a company that gives a glimmer of transparency into their organization, and as a result help its reputation, is one that comes to mind.

However reading the article further, the line between thinking and blogging gets intertwined. To begin with, there is not a definition of a blog anywhere in the article or linked from it. I am curious what Nielsen defines as a blog. I can infer that he suggests that anything posted on a blog is not well thought out, as that is the direction he takes the article. Note that nowhere on useit.com is any reference to an RSS feed and there is no auto-discovery of a feed URL, so Nielsen himself does not blog. I was also taken aback by this line,

“This has been a very long article, stuffed with charts and statistical concepts -- like standard deviations and utility functions -- that I know most readers find difficult.”

I did not, and most of the people who read this post on The Hot Iron probably wouldn’t find it difficult either.

I have never been someone who believes in technology for technology’s sake. Of all of the clients I have, only two have blogs (I developed one of them) and I did not start my own blog until after I launched the one for my client. One of the goals for The Hot Iron was to give me a venue for sharing knowledge and writing. Should I just write white papers and articles and not blog posts? I don’t believe so, but then again, any answer would fit just me, and for any other client or perspective client, the decision to blog would depend on overall goals for their Internet presence, who their customers are and what their expectations would be. Making a broad stroke recommendation without this information doesn’t serve anyone well.

At a higher level, blogging is publishing content. What have made the concept popular are tools (e.g. WordPress, ExpressionEngine) that allow people to easily publish. People have published Web sites on various topics since they got their hands on the first browser and an HTML editor. However merely publishing content on a blog doesn’t mean that it is shallow or does not add value to you or your business or organization. Sure, with a blog you can share with your readers one sentence, one paragraph just one word - or even a whole article. As a publishing tool, blogs allow content to be transformed into email messages, or posted on a Web site that does not “look” like a blog.

Could Nielsen think that blogging is a threat to his own consultancy and this article is more self-serving than anything? I am sure like any “traditional” author he has been impacted by it. In the article he talks about his own sales lead-time. Part of this may be due to the fact that most people in the world don’t consciously think about usability. When they are struggling with navigating PeopleSoft or joyously playing their music on their iPod, usability may come to mind. Usability is, in my opinion, like the “green” movement, and if anything it has a better chance of going more mainstream. But if it does, it will more than likely come from people reading usability blogs than hundred-page reports.

Or maybe his article was intended to stir some controversy on blogs? If so, kudos Dr. N!

I still have the same amount of concern about the usability of my client’s and other Web sites. I will still refer to Nielsen’s writings and opinions on usability and will still agree to disagree with him on some points. I also recommend you, whoever you are, to subscribe to his newsletter. Make your own informed decisions, and like anything, doing something for the sake of simply doing it, especially when time can be better spent, is a waste. Hopefully reading this was not a waste for you, as it wasn’t for me to write it, even if for a blog.

Business • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink

Back in May I was fortunate to have been invited to a demonstration of Microsoft’s CRM suite called Dynamics, presented by ePartners. The presentation just so happened to be at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and following the presentation and buffet lunch, there was a tour of the historic ballpark for all attendees. Where it was good to see a working demo of the latest features from Microsoft, I have to admit the tour of Wrigley clinched me – as well as most others – for attending.

After exceeding my Flickr monthly upload limits twice, I finally have all of the Wrigley Field tour photos online and available for viewing. Growing up a Red Sox fan and hearing of the similar mystique of the Friendly Confines, its great to go to games, and even better to get to see the park “behind the scenes” when nobody else is there.

Thanks to ePartners for the demo, lunch and tour!

Diversions • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink

So you picked the perfect domain name for yourself or your business and you’re ready to apply it to your new Web site. That’s it, right? Wrong. People often don’t think about email addresses for their business or themselves ahead of time, and a little forethought will help in managing your business and the image it presents.

First of all, if you have a domain name, use it for your email – don’t use an address of your Internet provider. By doing so you have the right side of the at-sign in place, but what about the left-side, the email name? First recall that there is a difference between an email mailbox and an alias, and think about which is which after you come up with the names.

There are two types of email names – people and roles, and in this post I will talk about people. You will want a naming standard for how people’s names will be structured. In thinking of how names will be used, take in mind the current size of the business, anticipated size about a year from now, multiple people with the same name and how formal you want to be.

If it’s just you and you want to be personal, then using just first name is fine. So if your name is Mike, then using “mike” as the email address is fine. But what if you have another Mike? And what if their last name starts with the same few letters or even is the same? You may want to opt for something like “mikem” or “mikelastname” or “mike.q.lastname.” As for formality, this will drive whether you want to use “Mike” or “Michael” or just a first name and initial or a first and last name. Some people may want their choice on this – for example, I am “Mike” not “Michael” as the latter name is used only when someone is yelling at me!

Note that in the email names I have used a period – it or an underscore are the only punctuation you can use in an email name.

Next I will talk about what to keep in mind regarding roles, and how they can be used in conjunction with or in place of people’s names.

Domain Names • Technology • (6) Comments • Permalink

Many of you reading this are using a feed reader, where you aggregate many blog feeds and read them together. As a blog writer, I want to make my feed available to anyone who wants to read it. However, many people don’t realize that you can utilize your own blog feed for yourself, and not just to read your own posts.

Making your blog feed available on Web sites is way to draw new readers to your blog. You may have seen widgets that you can place on a Web site to share with readers your latest blog feeds. Where widgets work well in many cases, with some extra effort, namely some server-side Web scripting, you can use you part or all of your feed and control its presentation.

One of my clients is River Junction Press, the publisher of the book Lewis and Clark Road Trips, a great book on heritage travel along the trail Lewis and Clark took over 200 years ago. When we developed the Web site the author, Kira Gale, wanted to make her blog posts available on the Web site. On the home page of the Web site, we display the first paragraph of the 3 most recent blog posts. The blog itself is an option in the tab navigation at the top, and Web site visitors will get a taste of the blog, and links to it, right on the home page.

This was achieved using ColdFusion scripting, the language the Web site was developed in, plus the same style sheet for the Web site. This can be done with any other language that allows you to process an XML file. Looking at the Web site home page, does it look like there’s blog content there, other than the heading? That is the beauty of RSS!

Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

Hello reader! You may be reading this blog post after visiting thehotiron.com or using a feed reader, whether on a computer or mobile device. If you are using the latter, how did it get there? And if you are the former, you may be asking what a feed is.

This video on RSS by Commoncraft has been in circulation for several months, but is still current, on how RSS works. If you haven’t seen it already, it is good for everybody.

Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink