Butler Sheetmetal is a UK-based sheet metal fabrication and steel prototyping service that also uses a blog for business called The Tinbasher.

In a recent post Tinbasher blogger Paul Woodhouse makes a real world case for using blogs in business...

Blogging is the logical solution. By all means have your static website which lays claim to your products, services, testimonials and all the other usual stuff. A business blog allows you to expand on all of these aspects of your site and build a more complete picture.

You can look at your blog in the same way as you’d look at a business meeting with a potential client. A blog can even help you focus your thought processes that whirl about your head on a daily basis.

Business blogging is the new bricks and mortar for your web presence. You have the opportunity to re-identify yourself on the web and to make that vital connection with your customers in the same way as if they’d popped into your office for a brew.

Paul was kind enough to reference Radiant Marketing Group in that article, and has graciously included me in his business blogroll. Thanks, Paul! :-)

I've been harping on the need for a sure 'nuff big time (or as we say in the south "big old") conference on business blogging. It looks as if my prayers have been answered. January 24-25 are the dates for the Business Blogging Summit to be held in, where else, Seattle.

There will be a panoply of special sessions, and the list of speakers is top notch, including the grand wizard of business blogging Robert Scoble.

The conference is expensive to say the least, but special discounts are being offered to bloggers who qualify. If you are so of mind, you can even submit a proposal to lead a session.

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A couple of buddies and I dialogued via email about blogging, and what they had to say spoke to the essence of what this medium is all about.

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I've had the privilege recently of dialoguing with a college student in Hawaii by the name of Shin. Here are some excerpts along with comments from me.

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Wednesday, the 17th, I'll be heading over to Atlanta to attend the monthly meeting of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association. The topic this month is, what else, business blogging.

They've entitled it Beyond the Blog Buzz, and the meeting features such notables as Anita Sharpe, Richard Turner, Brad Fallon, J.R. Mayhew, and Henry Copeland.

In addition, I finally get to meet my friend Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing.

According to a recent article in eMarketer.com, the best way to reach moms with your marketing message is to email them. The article goes on to say...

Exactly 67% of mothers in the US say they check their e-mail three to four times per day or more.

The key to addressing moms in an e-mail campaign is speaking to their needs. Lucid and BSM found that 66% of mothers spend more money with companies that send them useful and relevant e-mail messages. Nearly 90% of mothers say they either "sometimes" make purchases based on e-mail messages or "often" make purchases from e-mail. In fact, 71% think e-mail messages influence their buying decisions.

Just how many mothers use e-mail? Nearly all of them (96%), according to an AOL survey of over 1,600 mothers. AOL also found that 67% of mothers go online to do product research and 55% look for coupons or discounts online.

Despite what I've said in the past, email ain't dead yet!

(BTW, if you want to know more about marketing to women, I recommend paying a visit to the Wonderbranding, LipSticking and DivaMarketing blogs.) 

I asked Bill Flitter, VP of Marketing at Pheedo, to talk about their new RSS ad system, SimpleAds. Here's what he had to say...

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TypePad has some new editing features now, making it feel more like MS Word. I'm not sure I like the new "dashboard" altogether. Just takes getting used to I guess. I'm a little concerned that the WYSIWYG format will actually be more akin to WYSIWYHTG (What you see is what you HOPE to get!)

I do like the "edit HTML" function though as it gives me access to the source code itself.

Oh, yea. . .it now has spellcheck too!

IT professional T. L. Pierce will soon be sending some reviews our way of various RSS aggregators like Blog Navigator, FeedDemon, NewzCrawler and others.

T. L. is an avid blogger himself and has three well-conceived, well-written blogs. They are...

Upgrade Your Mind - a blog about keeping a positive focus

RSS Powered Report - a blog about, what else, RSS

Blog for Fun and Profit - which is a blog about what it says

T. L. will also be contributing a series called Blogging 101, which will cover blog basics.

Look for all this to come soon.

Pheedo has just rolled out their new RSS ad managment system called the SimpleAd Network. This provide blog publishers with the ability to monetize content through targeted ads in RSS/Atom feeds.

In addition, Pheedo has created a link exchange program called the SimpleAd Traffic Exchange. This is designed to drive traffic to blogs using text ads. The principle is that when you promote another blog who is a member of the exchange on your site, your blog gets promoted on someone elses. The goal is to increase traffic to participating sites.

(One disclaimer: I started running the ad exchange script on my blog, and some pretty off-the-wall stuff started showing up which had nothing to do with internet marketing. So, I decided it's not in my best interest to use the exchange just now. I've asked Pheedo if there is a way to qualify the types of ads that appear. This is something they are working to improve. If you join the exchange just be sure and categorize your ad. That should help.)

Pheedo's new system is the latest attempt to help bloggers generate revenue streams. Others include Blogversations, Blogads, and Google Adsense.