We all know Internet Explorer is fraught with security flaws. According to Internetnews.com internet security company Secunia has issued a warning about an exploit in virtually every tabbed browser. What, you mean Firefox is not safe either?!

Robert Scoble has made the suggestion - rather tongue-in-cheek perhaps - that we all just use RSS aggreagators and forget browsing. Hey, it's a thought!

(Thanks to the RSS Weblog for this info.)

Ever have something good just fall out of the sky when you weren't even expecting it? Well, that happened to me following my interview with Susannah Gardner regarding the Dummies book she's writing Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. I've been given the job of serving as Technical Editor for the book!

English author Horace Walpole called such an occurance Serendipity. The Cajuns of south Louisiana call it Lagniappe. I call it a Blessing, for which I am very grateful!

I just had a conversation with Susannah Gardner, the author of an upcoming Dummies book entitled Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. The book is due to hit the shelves the first week of March 2005.

Susannah, or Susie as her friends call her, is writing the book from a business and marketing perspective rather than as a basic book on blogging. When asked why Wiley, the publishing company behind the Dummies series, wanted to take that tact as opposed to a more basic book, she referred me to Acquisition Editor Melody Layne. As it turns out, it is a market-driven decision that makes perfect sense. Here is what Melody had to say:

The Dummies series looked at the topic of blogging for well over a year. We also looked at how other basic books on blogging were doing in the marketplace-- not very well. The conclusion that we came to was that we needed to do a book that addressed how people were using blogs, not just how they were setting them up.

Setting up a blog is easy enough if you're going with a free hosting service. It gets more complex when you decide to host your own or roll in RSS feeds. There's plenty of technical stuff you can cover, but the blogs that have captured the public's attention over the last year or so have either been ones that give people insight into the workings of a company or a political campaign or blogs that act as independent news outlets-- getting current events info and insight out into the world that isn't as easy to obtain from the professional press.

A plain blogging book just wouldn't have cut it, and it probably would have been misshelved. We want this book in the business section of the bookstore, where the people who need it are more likely to find it, not the tech section where mostly techies, who are already blog-savvy, are shopping.

Never fear, among other content the book will include sections dealing with things like HTML, different blogging platforms, writing for blogs, etc. (The stuff a basic book on blogging might consist of.)

As with all Dummies books, it will have a practical, how-to point of view that includes best practices, case studies, and issues surrounding legal ramifications. Susie hopes to make a case for business blogging by talking about it helps to build better customer-relationships and create an open, more transparent look inside the company or corporation. The goal, of course, is to build customer loyalty and create customer evangelists who will spread the company's message on their own.

Susannah admits that she is not an avid blogger herself, but that she knows many bloggers. She is a self-confessed "lurker" in the blogosphere. I asked her point-blank if she felt she understood blogging from the inside out. She indicated that she did. With her extensive internet and journalism background (She co-authored another Dummies book, Dreamweaver MX 2004 for Dummies), I have no doubt this will be a well-written, comprehensive book that will scratch an itch among business bloggers.

According to an article on eMarketer.com, a report from DoubleClick reveals that e-mail continues to grow in popularity among consumers, and acknowledges e-mail as a "legitimate and relied-upon marketing channel."

The report also acknowledges that spam continues to be an unsolvable problem that comprises the majority of emails received by consumers, a fact that may actually work in favor of permission-based email marketers. Think about it, if a consumer gets a bevy of email they don't want or did not request, it stands to reason an email message that comes from a trusted sender would be a welcome sight.

Melody Layne, Acquistions Editor for Wiley, the company that publishes the Dummies books, just informed me that they will be releasing a book on RSS feeds on April 5, 2005. The book will be entitled Syndicating Your Site with RSS Feeds For Dummies. The author is Ellen Finkelstein.

Want to drive traffic to your small business blog? Who doesn't. Here's a great article from Blogger.com's Biz Stone on exactly how to do that. Some of the tips relate to Blogger sites only, but many apply across the board. I am trying to follow his guidelines and would encourage you to do the same.

I have received an invitation from SquareSpace.com CEO Anthony Casalena to start blogging on the official SquareSpace blog. According to Anthony, "What you normally write about on radiant marketing group's blog is exactly the kind of content we're looking for." Hey, I don't need any more incentive than that!

Anthony has asked that I move my blog to his platform. That's only fair I guess. It will give me the opportunity to merge my blog with my main website. (Who am I kidding? My blog is my main website!) Until that site begins to get traffic, I will mirror all posts there and here, and will keep you informed of the transition.

I really consider his invitation an honor and am grateful for the opportunity.

According to Technorati founder David Silfry, there are more than 4 million blogs in existence today, with a new one being created every 7 seconds.

Nearly half of those are abandoned within six months of publication. That leaves 2 million, which is still a lot. Of that number, there are only about 5,000 corporate blogs.

Here's the real point I want to make from what he said. . .

Sites that have RSS feeds typically have more inbound links than those sites that choose not to publish a feed. And those non-feed bloggers are still the majority with only 31.2% of blogs syndicating via a RSS feed.

What does that mean to you as a small business blogger? Simply that by the addition of an RSS feed to your blog, you'll see an increase in traffic.

Most popular blogging platforms include the capability of syndicating content. If yours does not, I recommend you read this article by Amy Gahran called How to Create Your Own RSS Feed (Amy is a very practical person when it comes to article titles.) It's an excellent primer on the subject.

(Information gleaned from Seach Engine Lowdown)

While still a mystery to many, RSS is quickly being embraced by the online community as an effective means of syndicating content. The logical next step is monetizing feeds by the inclusion of advertising.

Click to read more ...

Just spoke with my friend Yvonne Divita regarding the Business Blogging Boot Camp she just completed. Though a few tweaks are needed regarding the schedule and agenda, she indicated it was a resounding success!

I'm trying to convince her to take the "show on the road" and schedule boot camps in other locales. Yvonne says she is willing to do that. She would want to keep the group size to 10 or 12 participants and probably hold the boot camp over a two-day period so as not to overwhelm participants with too much information on one day.

If you are a small business blogger and would be interested in seeing Yvonne come to your area, drop her a line. I know she'd be happy to hear from you.