Today’s Friday Five indulges in a bit of navel-gazing, tossing out five links about blogs and bloggers, by bloggers, on their blogs.
- Data-mine your blogs for reusable content. A recent post by Kyle James (aka dot-edu guru) of Wofford College (which has a slew of blogs) suggests that colleges and universities dig into their institutional blogs to find content that could be used elsewhere on the institution’s website. Good idea, Kyle. Maybe we should call it content mining.
- Why no Apple blog? Unlike Dell, Google or Microsoft, Apple has never felt the need to have a corporate blog. I’ve always thought this weird. So does Business Blogwire‘s Easton Ellsworth, who speculates that an official Apple blog might make the company more accessible to “the masses who find Apple snobby and elitist.”
- Speaking of official corporate blogs … The best of them — like Google’s — offer valuable services and tips, and in so doing they add value and build their reputations. Case in point: Google’s announcement on Thursday of an upcoming free cross-product webinar for webmasters.
Three of our most useful products for website owners are Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer. On July 8, we’re joining forces to bring you a free webinar about all of them so you can learn more about how they can boost your website when used together.
Nice touch, Google. Nothing snobby or elitist there.
- An admissions dean who gets it. A few weeks ago, I found out about “Dean J,” an admissions administrator who blogs, by reading this article about her (article via Academic Impressions’ e-newsletter). Dean J is the nom de blog of Jeannine Lalonde, the assistant dean of admissions at the University of Virginia. As the C-Ville article points out, Dean J has an “easygoing Web personality.” It’s refreshing to find such a voice in a world of recruitment spin. No wonder readers of her blog “quickly latched on to a source of much-needed information about the admissions process at UVA.” Nice going, Dean J.
- The most powerful persuasive element of blogging. It doesn’t take a psych degree to figure it our, according to Copyblogger. Blogging allows people to like you, and people like to do business with people they like.
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