It seems that there is still some confusion about what this whole Websitetology seminar is about. Please note- we used to call the seminar Blogosopher.
Simply put: you will leave the seminar with the knowledge you need to have a site that you can update and maintain yourself- that is optimized for results!
This isn’t a course on blogging- which is often written off as whining online. The blog technology is actually an actively served (meaning your content is pulled out of a database instead of from static pages) website that can be instantly searched or reformatted with just a click of a mouse.
We use the tools of the Blog software to build a better business website. What used to cost a lot of money in custom development, is now available as a pre-packaged open source solution.
You should take this course if your current site:

• Requires someone with coding knowledge to edit content or add content
• Hasn’t been updated in the last 7 days (that’s right- 7 days)
• If your site doesn’t have an RSS feed (if you don’t know what it is- you should come too)
• Doesn’t meet ADA standards for accessibility (Search engines are a lot like blind people)
• If you go to google and type in: “site:yourdomainname.com” and get back less hits than number of pages in your site (or no listing what so ever)
• If you’ve never looked at your web stats before
• If you are paying more than $12 a month for hosting
• If you are paying monthly for an e-mail list management service
• If you have multiple url’s and variations on a url
• If you have no website at all
• If your e-mail isn’t [email protected] ie [email protected] or @sbcglobal.net
• If your employees are using private e-mail addresses for business
• If you are still using Internet Explorer as your primary browser instead of Firefox
• If you are paying for clicks- or are considering it (from Google or Yahoo etc.)
• If your site traffic isn’t growing consistently
• If you aren’t on the first page of Google if you are a specialized local business

Past attendees have taken back their sites from the web geek that was charging them too much to do too little.

Today’s paper had an opinion piece by nationally syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman questioning bloggers credibility.
This showcases a common misconception about what a “blog” is and isn’t- and the failure to understand the difference is really important.
Suppose I picked up a copy of the National Enquirer– and judged all newspapers by it’s content? Would it bode well for the New York Times? Could I say that anyone with a printing press producing a newspaper is an idiot? Of course not.
The same is true for blogs. A blog is nothing different than a printing press- only it doesn’t print to newsprint (dead trees and ink) but to the world wide web. It puts the power to distribute any content to the world- in everyone’s hands. This scares the traditional media- because the barriers to entry are almost nil, and the audience is much larger.
The word “Blog” is a technology- for managing content easily on the web- much like a printing press is a technology for putting ink on paper- it really should mean nothing about the content. If I said “Book”- you wouldn’t automatically assume I was talking about any specific type of book- unless I said “thriller” or “business self help”- so why is “blog” so quickly associated with ranting by the disenfranchised- or kids journaling? Is it because big media is interested in buying time to figure out a new revenue stream as theirs dries up?
A blog is nothing more than a content management and web publishing system rolled into one. It’s the easiest way to build and maintain a website. What you put on that site is up to you- just don’t get caught up in the semantics posed by the soon to be unemployed columnists like Ellen Goodman.

Microsoft Delays IE’s ActiveX D-Day

As if people don’t need another reason to switch to Open Source software solutions- Microsoft is now making their new browser require custom authoring so that it can run their own custom Active X controls. Internet Explorer is already known as “Microsoft Exploder” by coders who care to adhere to W3C standards- and now it may be even worse- not working with it’s own proprietary standard.
While it may be cheaper for Microsoft not to settle the lawsuit- for all the companies that trusted Microsoft to provide a platform for their business model- that now have to pay their developers to re-vamp existing work- this is an expensive proposition.

Having data standards that work on all platforms (Mac, Linux and Windows) is critical- why does Microsoft keep marching to their own drummer? Because they can. We test all sites on multiple operating systems- with multiple browsers- if they are W3C compliant- then they are good to go.

It’s time for a mass revolt against IE. Download Firefox today- and tell your friends. Friends don’t let friends use Microsoft Explorer.