Internet Lingo

A recent article stated that only a third of internet users could accurately describe a blog, 6% have published blogs and 27% read them. The article has some very good statistics on Blogs, RSS and the like. I think the lack of knowledge in the industry on emerging technologies is actually an opportunity to take leadership in these areas. Since such a small percentage of internet users publish blogs, but a growing number of internet users are reading blogs, this provides a means for industry gurus to take center stage. These new technologies provide companies with a way to develop trust and relationships with their customers that may not have otherwise existed.

Google Releases Sitemaps (BETA)

Stumbled upon some interesting articles on Google Sitemaps and Google's new XML schema. Here is some info straight from the horses mouth:

The Sitemap Protocol allows you to inform search engines about URLs on your websites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap that uses the Google Sitemap Protocol is an XML file that lists URLs for a site. The protocol was written to be highly scalable so it can accommodate sites of any size. It also enables webmasters to include additional information about each URL (when it was last updated; how often it changes; how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.

Sitemaps are particularly beneficial when users can not reach all areas of a website through a browseable interface i.e. users are unable to reach certain pages or regions of a site by following links. For example, any site where certain pages are only accessible via a search form would benefit from creating a Sitemap and submitting it to search engines. (Google)

This could provide a great way for highly dynamic sites or ones with plenty of deeply burried content to reach those areas. In regards to search engine rank, here is what they have on their site:

"...this protocol will not influence the way your pages are ranked by a search engine." (Google)

One great feature is the ability to give "link priority" to each link with a scale of 1.0-0.0

Though, it remains to be seen how widely this protocal will be adopted.

Out with Newsletter... in with Blog

After much thought on whether or not to continue with a newsletter, I've decided to create a blog and make this blog available via RSS. Not only is this method more "real-time", but man is it easier to manage. :)

This article was the driving force behind the move away from a newsletter.

Just Another Blog

Well, I've done it. Sucked into the blogosphere.