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In my quest to integrate Drupal with Windows Live Writer, I had a chance to have a call with some members of the development team from Microsoft. So, first, here’s a shout out to Becky, Brandon and Joe of the Writer team. We spent almost an hour talking about Live Writer and what we might be able to accomplish in the future for Drupal integration.

First, let me say, the goal of the Writer team is to make a product that is great for the end-user. They want it to be easy to use and as feature rich as possible. Because the goal is to provide a tool that integrates on as many blogging platforms as possible, there are inherently some challenges and we had an opportunity to talk about some of the key components they have implemented to make integration more readily available.

Because of our conversation, I think we’ll be able to have some better integration with the Drupal Blog API module for Windows Live Writer… hopefully we’ll be able to get those released very soon. continue reading...

I often have conversations with clients about setting up blogs for their employees. These blogs can be for internal use only as a way for employees to have a level of internal communication without flooding email accounts for other employees that really don't care. These blogs can be on the public internet site allowing anyone to see.

It surprises me how often I hear the concern, "What if the employee says something that we don't approve? I don't want to have to police their writing all the time."

To this I ask, "Do you proof all of their emails? Do you listen to all their phone conversations? Do you go to all your client appointments with them to verify their speech?" continue reading...

Businesses who blog can take a few different approaches to how the blog can be presented. If you are going to follow a business' blog, what type of posts would get you to continue to follow that blog?

Option 1 (Fact Based Information):

An informational blog that provides keys bits of information relating to products and services they sell.

Option 2 (Industry Opinions):

An informational blog that provides opinion on topics surrounding their industry and topics that might interest their target market but not necessarily be related to products they sell.

Option 3 (One Big Sales Pitch):

Every post relates to a product they sell with a call to action like "click here to learn more about this product."

Option 4 (A Little of This... A little of That):

A general opinion blog from someone in the company. Wouldn't be too unlike a blog you would find on MySpace... just random thoughts and personal commentary.

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So, what do you think? Which is the best option for a business blog? continue reading...