Well, I’m sure it won’t be her final chapter, but it’s my last post on her presentation, which has been excellent. Between her presentation and Shel’s this morning, this has been a really valuable day.
Janet recommends starting your blog where you intend to stay. I think that makes sense, so you don’t lose your links when you move. Don’t let IT change it. From my perspective that wouldn’t be a reason to agonize for a long time about where to start a personal blog. The perfect is the enemy of the good. You can spend a lot of time wringing your hands, wanting to be sure you picked the right service, or whether you should get your own URL (e.g. one that doesn’t have wordpress.com in it).
I would advise that you just do it, pick one of the free services (I like WordPress, but Blogger or others are fine too) and get started.
Then, after you have gotten comfortable with blogging and understand some of the issues better, make your decision on corporate blog hosting and the URL, and stick with it.
Pinging services like pingoat and ping-o-matic are ways to get more people to know about your blog. I had been just using the Technorati ping form, but pingoat can hit a few dozen similar sites, like IceRocket.
Janet also recommends some other blogs that will be helpful as reference:
Janet Johnson, Blog Business Summit, Marcom Blog, Uninstalled, Gaping Void, and Marqui.
Technorati: Blog, Blogging, New Media
What a great, fresh new voice in the blogosphere. I look forward to following the rest of the conference through your posts, Lee. Thank you for blogging it. You embody the spirit of the blogosphere – thoughtful, immediate responses that you are willing to share.
Cheers! And thank you!