I wanted to point you to Trevor Cook’s questions about the his next phase of blogging.

I think the topic is ripe for conversation.

We’ll start here a week from Monday.

7 Good Things RSS is Good For…

[via Scoble Linkblog]

Babs responds to some of my blogging questions from yesterday.

I am back from the West Coast and BlogOn. People have been asking if it was worth the trip. At this point, I could go either way. The conference really was about tools and people who invest in companies who make tools. I had heard most of the stories that the panels told. I felt it was a vendor conference more than a user conference.

On the other side, I met great people. I know that it the reason people go to conferences. It is for the conversations over lunch and in the hallways. It was great to finally meet Robert, Heath, and Steve in person. I also met Hylton.

The conference got me thinking about blogging from a user/reader perspective. Seth hits on one of the first thing I thought of – Are blogs backwards? His new project ChangeThis has a blog called Read and Pass . It confused me at first because it didn’t match the view in my reader. Then I realized it was in chronological order. As Seth says, it is a much better way to tell a story.

I have been thinking about other questions too. What words are the best words to link to in an entry? How often do you really need to write and has RSS changed that? What sorts of entries generate the most comments and conversation? How can bloggers better welcome readers?

I would love to get together with people who are interested and talk this kind of stuff. There should be a conference for passionate bloggers. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening. I think money and money would make it hard to get all the people in one place. So, we’ll try another experiment here at A Penny For…

During the week of August 9th, I am post a series of questions and invite everyone to chime in. My goal would be to generate a first pass on a Writer’s Guide to Blogging. There has been a lot of great stuff written on how to create a successful blog. I guess I want to go one level down and get into some of the mechanics and nuances.

If you have similar questions, pass them on. If you think this has all been done before, point me there. Otherwise, I hope you’ll join the conversation in two weeks.

21% of blog readers are bloggers.

{via Scoble’s Linkblog]

This could be me someday.

I posted my quick thought on Corporate Blogging yesterday. It was nothing earth shattering, but a quick summary of what I we are doing at 800CEOREAD.

Today I read this post from Elizabeth Albrycht. It is titled Lessons Learned: Day 2. She decides to chide participants for everything from writing about their businesses (was this called PR Week?) to spelling and grammer mistakes. She is also concerned about people talking negative about PR people (hello? transparency).

When the idea came together for PR Week, I thought it was a great idea. I am all for pulling groups of bloggers together and having great conversations (BBBT, Brand Week). Then, the emails started. I was getting 10-20 emails a day talking about what is the official name going to be and what graphic are we going to use and what software would be best and…it goes on. Luckily, the discussion was moved to a Yahoo! Group and I got a summary everyday. I realize that when you pull together a big project like this that you need to have communication. There was so much communication that I stopped listening. I just wanted to participate.

I was lucky enough to get an email from the organizers with the info I need to participate or else I probably would have skipped it.

My problem is with the process, not the content. Please go check out the discussion going on. Evelyn has some great stuff (especially here). Check out the Corporate Blogging Survey by John Cass. And how can you resist a “PR is Dead” post during PR Week…sorry Global PR Blog Week 1.0 (I don’t want to violate another rule).

There isn’t alot that I have run across recently that is very exciting. That is why things have slowed down a bit here.

CBS Sunday Morning reported this morning that blogosphere is a part of the Oxford English Dictionary. That’s the best I could muster.

I think it is a matter of the season. Things slow down this time of year. My wife’s plant has been shutdown for the last two weeks. Lots of vacations. Maybe things will pick up this week.

We do have the new BBBT starting Wednesday. Global PR Week starts tomorrow. As always, there is a new Carnival of the Capitalists.

Still bored…

I encourage you to read the second installment of the non-billable hour’s Five by Five. This week, Matthew asks the question “If you had the power to change five things about the practice of law, what would you change?” Carolyn, Sheherazade, Denise, Evan, and Ernest answer. There is even a bonus answer from David.

I really enjoyed this one. It give you a great view into a profession and shows what practitioners would do to make it better. I think it would be interesting to see this question asked of other professions. What would doctors say? What would cash register clerks say? What would cross-country truck drivers say?

Hmmm…

Jeremy has taken my question, turned it into an idea, and really wants to do something with it.

He has set up a site to collaborate on the idea of creating a magazine for bloggers. If you want to contribute to the discussion, go check it out. I will be stopping in later today to add my thoughts.