Blogging's Six Pillars

The following is taken from Naked Conversations: how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. (John Wiley and Sons 2006. page 28), and I include it because of my ongoing posts about the Church and the Internet.

Blogs are:
1. Publishable: Anyone can publish a blog. You can do it cheaply and post often. Each posting is instantly available worldwide.

2. Findable: Through search engines, people will find blogs by subject, by author, or both. The more you post, the more findable you become.

3. Social. The blogosphere is one big conversation. Interesting topical conversations move from site to site, linking to each other. Through blogs, people with shared interests build friendship unrestricted by geographic borders.

4. Viral. Information often spreads faster through blogs than via a news service. No form of viral marketing matches the speed and efficiency of a blog.

5. Syndicatable. By clicking on an icon, you can get free ‘home delivery’ of RSS-enabled blogs. RSS lets you know when a blog you subscribe to is updated, saving you search time. This process is considerably more efficient that the last-generation method of visiting one page of one web site at a time looking for changes.

6. Linkable: because each blog can link to all others, every blogger has access to millions of other bloggers.

This is a topic of continuing interest (to me, at least!) The Naked Conversations blog is now called Global Neighbourhoods. (Not nearly such an eye-catching title!)

And in September, Shel Israel will publish Twitterville: how businesses can thrive in the new global neighbourhood. (Or should we substitute 'churches' for 'businesses?')