Marc’s Blog

Pumping up regulation of spreading septic waste
Wisconsin State Journal - Septage can’t be spread within 200 feet, and sometimes 500 feet, of a home, business or public property and must be at least 1,000 feet from schools, health-care facilities and community wells. The buffer to open water, greater than the EPA’s

Searcy man dominates 2nd round of Southerland
Guard Online - Bartlett, who works for his brother-in-law s nursing home business and spends a lot of time with his three children (ages 9, 7 and 5), applied for and was reinstated into the amateur ranks this spring. He arrived in Batesville because of

CDs Find Their Way Into Papers
Los Angeles Times - Most newspapers have built their long-term growth strategies around the Internet. But a Santa Monica company is betting that an old piece of new technology, the CD-ROM, will help papers bridge the gap to the digital age. “This brings sight, sound and

Crafts to treasures
Herald-Bulletin - I sold them from $2.50 to my family. A few months ago Bevel decided to expand her little home business, found a vacant shop in Middletown and went for it. She still makes the crafts at home but plans to turn an office in the store into her workshop

Greenberg’s Back On AIG’s Case
Forbes - Select Section Home Investment Newsletters Polls & Discussions Premium Tools Special Reports Video & Audio IT Research HOME BUSINESS TECH MARKETS ENTREPRENEURS LEADERSHIP PERSONAL FINANCE FORBESLIFE LISTS OPINIONS

Small business marketing expert John Jantsch just released the numbers for a survey he did on blogging, on a sample of 488 small business owners.

Interesting results, which in the end show how important regular posting is to generating tangible business results from blogging activities.
a] Only 37% publish a blog and 57% actually have no plans of implementing one in the near future.
b] Of those that do blog, 27% post less than once per month. At the same time 36% claimed that their blogging produced no marketing results whatsover.
c] Those that said they posted anywhere from 3 times a week to once a day are actually seeing hard results. “39 percent claimed that search engine traffic grew, 18 percent stated that leads were generated and 11 percent could attribute sales activity directly to their blog.” These bloggers also claimed that blogging increased their “expert status” in their industry.

A blogging survey was also recently done and the results released yesterday by Debbie Weil, the authority on business blogging, based on a sample of 706 subscribers to her e-zine.
Before we go in to details here we do need to understand that since Debbie’s core business is blogging, that also reflects on the knowledge and acceptance levels of her readers and subscribers.

“In response to a WordBiz survey, 65% cite “the time it would take to write” as their most important concern about starting and maintaining a corporate blog. 51% worry what to write about. 27% wonder who in their company should write the blog.
Despite these legitimate concerns, 80% of the over 700 respondents say blogs are NOT just a fad; 55% say blogs will become a “must-have” corporate marketing tool. The survey was conducted in July and August 2005 through my newsletter, WordBiz Report.”

Debbie also asked two RSS-related questions.
a] To the question “Have you downloaded an RSS newsreader (or subscribed to a Web-based RSS service)?” 46% respondents replied “yes”.
b] Only 34,7% have subscribed to blogs using RSS.

This data is not surprising and only shows that even bloggers still need to deliver their content via e-mail as well, using RSS as a supplement and not as a replacement.

About the author:
Marketers and publishers interested in exploring the marketing opportunities provided by RSS and even advanced RSS tactics can receive the needed education from Hrastnik’s book, available at his website: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/bl/

“We Might Just Make it After All “
Brad Blog - Aug 6, 2006 Media appearances will (likely) be limited during that time over the next several weeks. Guest Bloggers will be blogging in my stead for the most part.

Microsoft enhances blogging service
Crave, UK - Aug 2, 2006 Microsoft was set late on Tuesday to begin rolling out Windows Live Spaces, the next generation of its MSN Spaces blogging service.

Blogging in Beirut
Hindu, India - Aug 5, 2006 BY KALPANA SHARMA. IMAGES of the Qana massacre in Lebanon are numbing. There can be no comment. No words. Only immense sorrow and

Inputting blogging talent to put out quality reading material
Hindu, India - Jul 24, 2006 But we are still some time away from having advertisements on our blogs as in the US or Europe.” Sidin has been blogging since 2004.

Intermedia.NET Offers Free Blogging
WebHosting.Info, CA - Jul 24, 2006 Intermedia.NET, a provider of Microsoft Exchange and web hosting solutions for SMBs, today announced that it will offer WordPress, a blogging software, to its