Robert Scoble of Microsoft tells you why you should stop being afraid and start blogging already.

Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research tells you why should be afraid and think twice, thrice, or four times before jumping into blogging.

I am with Robert. Start the blog already.

[thx to Media Guerilla for the Jupiter post]

Adland has a great list of marketing blogs.

I think it is a great list because there are lots of blogs that are new to me.

Maciej Ceglowski at Idle Words has recorded an Audioblogging Manifesto.

Ceglowski is not a big fan of audioblogging. To make his point, I think he makes it as painful as possible to listen to his entry. He spells out web addresses (h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash…). He starts background music halfway through that sound like the theme to “Hunt for Red October” and increased the volume as he marches toward the conclusion.

I don’t disagree with many of the declarations Geglowski professes in his audio post. People do read faster. The web is about motion (page to page, top to bottom) and with audio posts, the reader has to stop and listen. It is not as efficient.

I still think there is a place for audioblogging. I think readers will listen to an occasional post. You can convey additional information using emphasis, intonation, and cadence. Put links you refer to beneath the link to the audiopost to provide relevance. It adds more personality to your blog.

I think it is going to take some more experimenting in form and function. How can I easily record post and upload them? What if it was easy for readers to download audio posts onto their iPod and listen to them later? RSS readers detecting audio posts, downloading the new ones, and putting them into a playlist on iTunes?

P.S. If you are still against the whole audio thing, you can read Geglowski’s manifesto here.

Robert Scoble’s Corporate Blogging Manifesto is now available from ChangeThis in a fancy and pretty pdf format.

Mark at Weblog Tools Collection asking “How many posts are too many posts?”

I get a lot of people who tell me that if they can get lots of people read their blog they will consider it a success. More eyeballs the better. These are people who still have a media viewpoint of the web.

I believe traffic is important, but linking and commenting are each equally important also. It is about conversations. That means you need people listening (traffic), but you also need people talking back (links and comments).

Today’s question: In your experience, what kinds of entries generate the most comments?

I think I could also ask: What sort of entries do you comment on? What qualities or traits do they have?

Milwaukee Magazine features five local blogs in their current issue:

• Bourgeois Pig!
• Boots and Sabers
• Czeltic Girl
• The Vast Dairy State Conspiracy
• Jon Bass

I am happy to see all of theses cheesehead bloggers. I am working through their blogrolls to find others.

Greedy Girl had some good stuff yesterday.

GG points to Keiko, blogger/clothing designer. I have to agree with GG – “This young woman has more innate marketing savior faire than many of the oh-so-dull business bloggers I struggle to read each day.” Keiko is creating a lifestyle on her blog, she is creating something you want to become a part of.

GG also points to the new State Business Tax Climate Report from the Tax Foundation. I am happy and a little surprise to see Wisconsin right in the middle of the pack.

I got sidetracked this week on a couple of projects. I am going to keep running the Finetuning questions into next week. I hope you’ll keep adding your thoughts.

Today I want to talk about the length of an entry. I can very quickly say there is no minimum. I have used only a couple words and a link make an entry. It doesn’t add a lot to the discussion, but sometimes that is OK.

The more interesting discussion is about the maximum. A year ago, I would have said that you don’t want an entry to run longer than four or five paragraphs. I think that has changed. Readers are more tolerant of longer posts with interesting ideas. When I say longer, I am thinking of 10 paragraphs.

I think there is still a maximum. I wouldn’t recommend writing 30 paragraphs in a single entry. I think the reader will leave you and click on to something else.

So…

Today’s question is: How long is too long for a blog entry? Use paragraphs as your unit of measure.

Rick Bruner at Business Blog Consulting is looking for some folks to review blog software.

We all know linking is an essential part of blogging. It creates conversation. It creates connections.

I want to talk about the words that bloggers hyperlink to in their entries. I think for the most part the decision process is unconscious, I think it is important to look at.

As I look through my own blog, my strategy varies. I find if I am talking about someone else I will highlight the verb in the sentence (i.e. Zach Braff of Scrubs fame is writing a blog to promote his new movie…).

I often hyperlink to the objects I want to highlight, like companies and blogs.

I also know that I will construct sentences differently if I need to put two links in the sentence. I always make sure that links aren’t next to each other and that there are words between them. I want to eliminate any confusion about where a reader will be going.

This almost reminds me of the exercises you would go through as a kid where you practiced emphasizing different words in a sentence. It showed how the sentence’s meaning can differ with a slight change. I think linking is like that.

The other consideration is search engines. Scoble told me he doesn’t really think about what words he links to, but sometimes thinks about how a search engine will view the links. I find it is sometimes hard to figure out a link when I am looking at an excerpt in Technorati.

So, here are the two questions to answer:

1. How do you decide what words to create links on?

2. Are there larger issues to consider when creating links in your blog?

Frequency

There is no question that maintaining a blog requires new material which is delivered on a regular basis. Anyone who writes an advice column on blogging will always mention this. It is also the top reason given for why people stop blogging – the burnout.

I think RSS has changed the need for posts every day. With the time saving component of RSS readers, people don’t care as much about frequency.

So two questions –

1. What is the acceptable minimum for blogging frequency? This answer should contain a number (i.e. once per day, once per week, etc).

2. What are the factors that control what the acceptable minimum is? My first thought is the age of a blog. Older blogs with established readership can post less often. When you are first starting out, providing lots of new material is very important. The topic of your blog can also dictate frequency.

So, comments and trackbacks are on. What do you think?