I'm just one of the cacophony of voices heralding the use of social media, including blogs, as a means of communication between the business and the consumer.

Microsoft strategist and blog guru Robert Scoble has just published a manifesto on ChangeThis.com in which he suggests business bloggers should have a few things in common. Among them, they should steer clear of PR-cleansed jargon, they should have a thick skin, and they should avoid writing during times of emotional turmoil.

Before you publish your first business blog, read his manifesto.

Several attempts have been made of late to archetype or categorize blogs based on their content, among other factors. There are two lists I've come across related to business blogs that I'd like to enumerate for you here.

The first comes from Suw Charman (No, I did not misspell her name.) She defines business blogs as belonging to one of five major categories.

1. Marketing blogs - external, B2C blog, used to promote either the company or a product/service.
2. External blogs - used to communicate with the public, but not for sales purposes, for instance, in a consultation process.
3. Insider blogs - employee blogs, sanctioned but not controlled by the company they work for. (Sometimes disclaimed by the company they work for.)
4. Internal blogs - blogs used within a company to share knowledge, build communities, disseminate news.
5. Content blogs - public-facing blogs reliant on content to bring in either subscription or, more likely, advertising revenue.

The second comes from John Lesser, of The Blog Model. His take on it is quite a bit different as you will notice.

1. The promotional business model
2. The advertising business model
3. The subscription business model
4. The anti-business model

My preference is the model presented by Suw, as I think it more tangibly sums up the business blogosphere.

Though it's not a list, there is a third POV from Mike Rundle of BusinessLogs.com. I'm throwing it in for good measure.

I received an email newsletter from the Texas Travel Bureau. I clicked through to their website and had a small epiphany. . .This is one website that could really use a blog!

I contacted them with that suggestion. It will be interesting to see what they do with it, if anything. But, theirs is one site that would benefit by blogging! What do you think?

You have to love this line from a Washington Times article on blogging. . .

You know blogging has gone mainstream when air-conditioning contractors are doing it.

See, doubting Thomas, I told you!

Entrepreneur.com has added a small business blog, Entreprenuer (Almost) Daily. It's a group blog managed by several of the editors. I'm with Debbie Weil though in wondering why they didn't incorporate comment or trackback technology. It's essentially one-way communication, and thats NOT what blogging is all about! Aside from that, it looks like a site worth adding to your small business blogroll. I'll be adding it to mine.

Yahoo! has just rolled out a blog about search technology. The first (and at this point) only post is by senior search VP Jeff Weiner, who talks about how the first six months of Yahoo! using their own back end search technology has been for the company.

Yahoo's blog uses Movable Type as its platform, which does include comments and trackbacks. Would somebody please tell Entrepreneur.com! Thanks!

This is a continuation of the whole "Future of Blogging" meme. . .

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame, wrote a piece called Blogging: The Next Big Wave for TechCentralStation.com.

Though he speaks to the issue primarily from the standpoint of politics, one thing he does say that caught my attention is to encourage people to blog about their local area. Cover local politics or, if politics is not your game, cover other topics such as area events, restaurants, concerts, etc.

Which, of course, got me thinking about doing such a blog about the goings on in my small town. Possibly even creating a "macro-blog" and inviting authors from other towns to do the same. Hmmmm. . .

UPDATE: The comment made regarding Eden Prairie, Minnesota's city manager and chief of police blogging about their town has raised my curiosity. If you know of blogs covering local politics, events, or happenings, list them in the comments similar to what Toby did. Thxs!

In yesterday's post on this subject I presented the issue from the perspective of several well-known Internet marketers who are also blogging mavens in their own right.

Today, I want to present another perspective, that of three of the authors of The ClueTrain Manifesto. That is not to say these guys aren't marketers. They are. But, they also represent a POV that Jakob Nielsen said "defected from marketing and sided with markets." Once you read their comments, you'll understand what he meant.

We'll start with Doc Searls, then Chris Locke, and finish with David Weinberger. . .(BTW, I did contact Rick Levine, but at the time of this post had not heard from him.)

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According to a recent survey, blogging is "slowly becoming more of a mainstream phenomenon" on the Internet. The survey indicated that "thanks to much media hype and some high profile blog sites, these online journals have captured the public’s imagination."

Are blogs ready for prime-time? What is the future of blogging? Will it become a mainstream medium and, if so, when?

I posed those questions to a group of Internet mavens including some well-known Internet marketing consultants, and several of the authors of the much-heralded book, The ClueTrain Manifesto.

In two posts - this one today and one tomorrow - I will let them tell you in their own words what they believe the future holds for blogging. What they have to say is a "graduate education" for anyone seeking to better understand Internet space and blogging's place in it. In a third post, I hope to summarize what I believe to be some common themes, as well as what I see are some conflicting opinions.

This post will present the opinions and comments of the following marketers: Seth Godin, Rick Bruner, John Jantsch, and Debbie Weil. Tomorrow, you'll hear from the Cluetrain guys: Doc Searls, Christopher Locke, and David Weinberger.

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Wait! Hold the presses!! We're not done yet!!! The saga continues. . .

Last week, I started a series of posts dealing with the future of blogging. I asked several Internet mavens who were obviously experts on the subject to comment on some questions I posed to them. Many did. Needless to say, this site has been inundated with traffic to those posts. I swear, you'd think nobody had ever written on this topic before! :-)

Part one featured comments from several Internet marketers including Seth Godin, and part two featured three of the four co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Today, I want to feature two other commentators: Amy Gahran and Steve Rubel. As you will see Amy is one of the most prolific writers I've ever read, not only on the subject of blogging, but pretty much anything she sets her pen to. Steve is a PR strategist with more than 10 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He writes extensively about blogging at Micropersuasion.com.

Normally, it's "ladies first." But, since Steve's comments are a bit more concise than Amy's, I'm listing them first. If you read parts one and two, you'll enjoy part three as well. Here are their comments. . .

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Amy Gahran and I had a nice email conversation the other day about ghostwriting blogs. I had posed questions as to whether it was feasible for a professional writer to ghostwrite a weblog, and whether such a craft might be a potential new career path for content professionals? She more than adeptly answered those questions in a post on her blog at Contentious.com. Here's an excerpt. . .

"My short answer is: Possible, yes. Feasible? Probably not. I think ghostwritten weblogs, if people try them, are likely to backfire. However, I do think there are viable options to employ professional writers to write blog content on behalf of others – which would not constitute conventional ghostwriting."

In our conversation Amy alluded to the fact that many corporate executives would probably like to blog, but are unsure of their ability to write. It can be a daunting task. If that's you, let me recommend Amy as a coach. That's one of the many line items on her resume.