A new weblog from Rick Bruner focused on business blogging.

Rick E. Bruner's Business Blog Consulting

Also relevant to business blogging is a case study in Clickz this week on how one manufacturer uses a blog as a communication tool to its distributed sales force.

Blogs: Communicating at the Speed of Business

"A collection of CSS resources and CSS sites that help to inspire and teach every designer."

CSS Vault » The Web's CSS Site

Take notice - when someone like Seth Godin says this on his weblog, word will start getting round ...

"I have to say, I can't imagine ever again collaborating with anyone for any reason without using a wiki.
This is just a huge advance in the way people do projects, which, after all, is all we do now."

Seth's Blog: Bigger than blogging

Check out Wikipedia if you want to know: what is a Wiki?

Well said ...

"Isn't it about time that you can use the system at full strength immediately upon seeing the desktop? Why can't the OSes hold off showing you the desktop until it's completely ready to use? I realize there are third party "things" going on, but, come on, we're dealing with powerful computers here - couldn't this experience be a little better? To me this "start-up lag" seems to be the last frontier of desktop OS user experience that still hasn't been improved. In fact, it's gotten worse I think."

OS X and Windows start-up lag time: Signal vs. Noise Weblog

Weblog Boing Boing has been burdened by the increased bandwidth costs associated with its fast growth.

Boing Boing: Boing Boing's explosive growth -- and what to do about it

They have opened the problem up for their readers to comment on, with a range of proposed solutions and some very interesting discussion:

Topic: Paying Boing Boing's bandwidth

Interesting, both as an example of how the Internet brings readers closer to publishers and the potential in allowing readers (or customers) to talk to one another.

Fascinating article on the importance of the google operating system and what this means for the future of their business. Google is more important than search he argues. Just read it. Kottke says it best.

Quote 1:

Google isn't worried about Yahoo! or Microsoft's search efforts...although the media's focus on that is probably to their advantage. Their real target is Windows. Who needs Windows when anyone can have free unlimited access to the world's fastest computer running the smartest operating system?

Quote 2:

Even though everyone's down on Google these days, they remain the most interesting company in the world and I'm optimistic about their potential and success (while also apprehensive about the prospect of using Google for absolutely everything someday...I'll be cursing the Google monopoly in 5 years time). If they stay on target with their plans to leverage their three core assets (which, if Gmail is any indication, they will), I predict Google will be the biggest and most important company in the world in 5-8 years.

GooOS, the Google Operating System (kottke.org)

On a semi-related note, Yahoo making money.

Images of Mars and All Available Satellites

GoogleGuy Says - Google Ranking Info

A weblog (with RSS feed) dedicated to analysis of the postings of a Google employee in a webmaster forum. He seems to be pretty careful in the way he says things to avoid his words sounding like he is uttering a Google pronouncement. Definitely some interesting reading. Probably the closest you will ever get to insider tips from Google.

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time

More Corporate Blogging Resources

Links to several articles which detail how businesses can use weblogs to reach new customers, communicate with existing customers and manage information internally.

Kinja, the weblog guide

Kinja provides easy access to weblog content and is targeting the majority of web users who have no idea what a weblog is. The site attempts to remove some of the geek-aspects of weblogs (RSS, Feedreader software etc) and get directly at the content itself.

Gmail

latest ...
Hotmail sucks so badly - I just discovered they have deleted all my email messages because I haven't logged into their wonderful service for 30 days. Yes I am sure that is in their terms. Firstly their 2mb limit sucks - if you want to use it more than a minimal amount before long you will be deleting mail so you can receive more. If someone sends you something big and you dont check it for a couple of weeks hotmail will delete some of your emails to make room. Why on earth they wouldnt just freeze any incoming mail instead of deleting mail you have saved there is beyond me. Instead they send you further emails to push your storage size over the edge telling you your account is full and then newsletters bloated with html to tell you how great their service is.

This would all be fine if they gave you a way to export mail or easily forward it to another account. All part of the Microsoft ethos to restrict the user to how Microsoft wants them to behave. Oh wait - you could buy an enhanced membership and you can download the mail - oh wait - you can only buy that if your physical address matches certain criteria - of which NZ wasnt one when I tried previously. Hotmail is bullshit.

I have been using Gmail now for a few months and i am really pleased with what is offered there. Go Google - Microsoft bite.

Some uses of Google Web Alerts

keeping current on a competitor or industry

monitoring references to your name or company

finding out when people link to your site

discovering new websites on a certain topic

Get changes in search results sent to your email.