"Most corporate blogging is pretty poor. For the most part it’s slightly reworded press releases put on a blog-styled webpage. A few companies on the other hand break this model such as Lenovo, Sunbelt Software, Sun, and Google’s various blogs (though the official Google blog is rather lame, the product blogs are pretty good as are some prominent Google employees such as Matt Cutts)."

Complete Story

Anil Dash writes: "I’m here at a technology evangelism event today, and one of the speakers here is Jeremy Zawodny, a long-time Movable Type blogger, one of Yahoo’s most prominent faces in the blogosphere, and a pretty good judge of how to promote things using blogs."

Complete Story

"The research was carried out among more than 1,600 business executives across 16 European countries, with in excess of 260 responses from the UK. Its results indicate that key business areas – such as employee working methods, as well as customer, supplier and partner collaboration and processes – are neglected and do not meet the needs of a generation that will represent a greater proportion of the workforce by 2010 than people born just after World War II."

Complete Story

"Consumer-led uses of social networking and "the wisdom of crowds," where the activities of large numbers of other people help dictate your choices, are creeping into enterprise software...And if Wikipedia can tap consumers around the world to compile an encyclopedia, why can't a similar system compile information inside your company, or between your sales force and its prime prospects?"

Complete Story

"There’s a lot of healthy and well-justified skepticism about the idea of a corporate blogs, even though many of us take the idea for granted. So we spend a lot of time trying to show people how this Business Blogging thing should be done."

Complete Story

TYPO3 4.0.1 was released to address some bugs as well as make some slight improvements over last April's 4.0 release. The Enterprise content management system contains the following new features and improvements in 4.0.1:

• Compatibility
  • Parameters for showpic can now be disabled
  • FORM submit buttons with images are now valid XHTML
• Installation/Upgrade
  • The TYPO3 upgrade wizard better clarifies the upgrade process and functionality
  • typo3temp/ subdirectories are created automatically now
• DBAL
  • Improved support for Oracle
  • Updated AdoDB to 4.90
• Backend Skin
  • BE admin module provides better support for skins
  • The BE now correctly highlights the current page in IE6.
• Bugfixes
  • Corrected some HTTP status codes
  • Charset for mails works now

The original announcement for TYPO3 4.0.1 can be found here. The page for downloading the new version can be reached by clicking here. Finally, for an additional list of new features that were included in 4.0 you can visit here.

I'm not a TYPO3 user, so I would be glad to hear from any readers who wish to leave comments about this new version of TYPO3 or TYPO3 in general.

"The equity a corporate blogger builds up is portable, in other words. Rather than sticking to the company, it will follow the blogger—even if the blogger heads to a competitor."

-Nicholas Carr, Lessons in Corporate Blogging, BusinessWeek Online

Information Week has an interesting article about those involved in such online ventures as digg, del.icio.us, Zoot, and Six Apart's Movable Type. Basically, the article discusses how people have made their money off of blogging or providing the blog-like software and services.

Most people who pull down a paycheck dream of making a living at their hobby. For IT managers, the dream is more within reach than it is for most professionals, as their technical skills can give them a head start in building businesses on the Web. A supertalented few have even made fortunes.

How do they do it? We went straight to the sources, interviewing tech pros who turned their cyberhobbies into full-time jobs. Many of them truly were accidental entrepreneurs; others at least had an inkling they could make a go of it. All were helped along by a business-fertile Internet environment, their raw ambition, supportive spouses, and a little luck. They haven't all become rich, but they're all making a living at what they used to do for fun. Click Here for rest of article.

I enjoyed the article and I think most of CMS Report's vistitors will also find the artcile interesting. However, I have one point to make. Success is not an accident. While these people may be very lucky to have a "job" doing something they love, accidents just don't happen. It takes a lot of hard work, sweat, risk, and dedication to become successful in IT. Sure there are exceptions...but I think most of those interviewed in the article wouldn't really consider their success to be found only by accident.

I suppose this slipped by me, but some pay services have recently started up for Wordpress. Of course, the debate and comments have already started of when something is offered for free whether it should all be free. Yada, Yada...

Toni announced yesterday the launch of the Automattic Support Network. This has of course attracted the attention of many blogs who have discussed the business implications but Peter wonders if WordPress.org support will suffer. Here’s another post on the same issue but Matt replies with an excellent rebuttal.

I very much doubt the support network will have any immediate effect on the level of support offered to non-paying users. The number of non-paying users will always vastly outnumber those who pay for support. What happens if commercial support adversely affects the time spent on non-paying users?

Read more from Donncha by clicking here.

Another Sacred Cow Debunked: You Don't Have to Write All Your Posts -

"One of the most commonly asserted “truths” about corporate blogging, especially by senior executives like CEOs, is that you have to write all your posts all by yourself! We’re always on the lookout for blog dogma that we can help..."

[Movable Type News]