Found this very long, but insightful piece on Blog systems compared, and using blog tools to manage a starter website. The key is being able to put you in control of your site- not some geek.

Bop on over to this informative article- it’s long, but useful.

Weblog Tools Collection » Blogging: The Not-So-New Trend

Probably thanks to MySpace’s confused contribution to the world, these days even “normal” people have heard of blogging. Blogging allows amateurs to freely publish information and manage sophisticated online, two-way communication with readers around the world.But, blogging isn’t just for geeks and aspiring musicians anymore. Businesses have jumped on the bandwagon and use blogging as a fluid way to gauge and manage customer sentiment.

Blogs also tend to be a compliment – and in some cases a complete replacement – to traditional online customer support.

So how can blogging help your business?
Use A Blog For Your First Website

While blogs are often only one aspect of a company’s web presence, I’ve noticed another pleasant trend: blogs as a starting point for businesses. Despite the lack of structure – or maybe because of it – blogging is helping expand website creation beyond its techie origins.

Blogs are making it easier for non-technical people to get involved.

read more…

Remember, once your site is built in a database, it can be transported into other more sophisticated site management tools easily- a hard coded site cannot. You also have the opportunity to deliver your content on cell phones- or change the look of your site with the push of a button- but best of all, you can get to the top of search if you’ve taken our Websitetology seminar.

Good News! Forget all these steps- here is an easy way to get iWeb sites onto your own server!

Get “Easy iWeb publisher” for free from Plyxim, here is the link: http://www.plyxim.com/

I haven’t had a chance to test it- but, I’m sure it’s got to be easier than all these step by step proceedings!

If there is one thing I haven’t been happy with in Word Press is its ability to manage a page of photos- so, for Mac users, I put together this little step-by-step instructions on how to use iPhoto and iWeb from iLife 06 to build a gallery page.

If you are looking for one reason to buy a Mac instead of a PC- the way iPhoto handles importing, managing, working with pictures from a digital camera is it. with the addition of iWeb it also gives you a great tool to build a photo page.

Here is how to do it- starting with the basics:

1. Connect camera- or card reader.
2. iPhoto 06 should open automatically.
3. Before you hit import photos- name the roll- adding a roll description.
4. Crop and name photos- the title will appear under each photo.
5. To organize them for the site- you can use the “Batch change” for both titles and contents.
6. Click iWeb option- choose “Photo page”
7. Close the .mac page (it’s Apple’s hosting service- and you own your own domain)
8. Choose a template that you wish to use just for the photo page. As far as I can tell- once you select this template- the only way to switch templates is to delete the page and recreate it from iPhoto.
9. You can change and edit items on the template in iWeb. I suggest removing the “include page in navigation menu” from the page menu.
10. Make title link back to your post: select the title text (starts out as the name of the album from iPhoto)- select the text- pick the link icon in the inspector (the link icon is the last icon on the right- a little blue circle with the swooshed arrow in it).
11. Select “enable as a hyperlink”
12. Make this a link back to the url for the post (you find this by clicking on the headline- and copying the url for the post).
13. Choose publish- here is where it gets a little hinky- iWeb wants to publish to a .Mac account. Apple hasn’t provided a way to publish to your own hosting solution (BOOOO!)
14. Instead – save it to your sites folder on your hard drive. Note: Subscribe buttons work only if you specify the site’s URL (address) in the dialog that appears when you choose File > Publish to a Folder.
15. Continue when you are prompted about Content rights (it is your content- right?)
16. Then open Transmit– or use the handy dandy free extenison for Firefox, FireFTP, and this is a little goofy- your first folder has a page called index.html and a folder (the site name)- open the site name folder- and you will have another index.html page and another .html file (the short title of the original iPhoto album) plus 3 folders- “images” “SlideShow_assets” and “Name of alum_files”-copy all 3 folders and one of the two .html pages (I prefer the one NOT named index.html) into a folder with a short name- like gallery – on your stuff (the server) and then the address to your page will be www.yoursite.com/folder_name/name.html (Where folder_name is the name you gave the folder – mine is gallery and name.html is the name of the iPhoto album- mine is faves.html)
17. Now – make a link to this page in the post- that you have the link back to on your title from step 10.

I know it seems like a lot of steps- but once you are done- you will have a sweet gallery page to look at- like this:http://blogosopher.com/gallery/faves.html

Note- we’ve tried a couple of WordPress plug in’s like Gallery– with limited success. I would really like iWeb better if it took the iPhoto comment info and put it under each photo- and would allow for alt tagging the photos as well.

If anyone has any better suggestions on how to do this- please share. Thanks.

(See beginning!- new software makes this easy)

Found this in research for a client project. I’m not sure I agree with his first statement, since content gets you connections, but the rest is there.

As to taking more homework to understand the social media aspects of web 2.0, that’s why we teach Websitetology, we give our students the knowledge to make sites that work.

Getting small fast isn’t as important as being fast period. Sometimes the window for getting attention is so short that someone else will eat your lunch before you even finish ordering it.

Ketchum Interview on PR & Social Media at Like It Matters

Social media is about connection, not content.
Social media is about them, not you.
Social media may be cheaper initially, but it takes far more homework.
Get small fast. (Niche is nice. Think smaller feature sets, more targeted audiences, less chatter from you, and so on.)
Relax, it’s early in the social media game. You’re not behind, because everyone’s just trying to figure out the new environment.

We’ve been running the seminar for almost a year now- and people still are resisting the idea that a website can be a lot more than a brochure or a store. Ideally, you are building a community of like-minded people who are interested in the needs your business serves.

Target marketing is finally becoming a reality with social media.