McDonald's has launched a corporate responsiblity blog, Open for Discussion, written primarily by Bob Langert, Senior Director for Corporate Responsibility.

Like many blogs - corporate or not - it got off to a slow start. Too many days between the first few posts in January. And they read more like essays than blog postings. More recently Bob has gotten into the swing of things with shorter,

McDonald's has launched a corporate responsiblity blog, Open for Discussion, written primarily by Bob Langert, Senior Director for Corporate Responsibility.

Like many blogs - corporate or not - it got off to a slow start. Too many days between the first few posts in January. And they read more like essays than blog postings. More recently Bob has gotten into the swing of things with shorter, snappier entries. Topics range from his visit to the Winter Olympics in Torino to a link and reference to the blog of a former employee of McDonald's. (She appears to have been in PR.)

Meanwhile Shel Israel (co-author of "Naked Conversations") criticized the blog here for overly long entries and for not posting often enough. Although his comments…

If you're wondering what platform to use for your corporate blog, you might consider the following contenders.

iUpload took the top prize in Datamation's 2006 awards for corporate blogging platforms. Followed by WordPress 2.0, Marqui, Traction Software and Movable Type.

If you dig around on these sites, you'll find that pricing varies widely - from FREE for the open sourcee WordPress to an

If you're wondering what platform to use for your corporate blog, you might consider the following contenders.

iUpload took the top prize in Datamation's 2006 awards for corporate blogging platforms. Followed by WordPress 2.0, Marqui, Traction Software and Movable Type.

If you dig around on these sites, you'll find that pricing varies widely - from FREE for the open sourcee WordPress to an inexpensive license for Movable Type.

I don't know about the exact ranking but this is a solid list of apps to review. I'll add some names of other blogging platforms and services to this entry later. And if you want to make a suggestion, leave it in a comment below!

P.S. I noticed that McDonald's new Corporate Responsibility blog is running on iUpload.

I've got a "plog" on my Amazon home page. Do you? Frankly, this plog thing is a bit confusing. As Amazon puts it, every person's plog is different - hence the term "plog" and not "blog."

So... if you buy my book (I assume this works for pre-orders too, but don't know for sure) I can "plog" to you - with updates about the book or whatever - next time you log on to Amazon. (Or you can just read

I've got a "plog" on my Amazon home page. Do you? Frankly, this plog thing is a bit confusing. As Amazon puts it, every person's plog is different - hence the term "plog" and not "blog."

So... if you buy my book (I assume this works for pre-orders too, but don't know for sure) I can "plog" to you - with updates about the book or whatever - next time you log on to Amazon. (Or you can just read this blog!)

The plog I see when I login to my Amazon account is different. It's by an author whose book I've purchased (Marcus Buckingham's The One Thing You Need to Know). 

If you haven't checked in lately with GM's top blogger Bob Lutz (he's GM's global vice president for product development), head on over to FastLane right now. His most recent entry - Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before - is a cogent rant on GM's "image" problem. He comes about as close as he can to acknowledging the elephant in the room (GM's financial woes). He writes:

This issue, this

If you haven't checked in lately with GM's top blogger Bob Lutz (he's GM's global vice president for product development), head on over to FastLane right now. His most recent entry - Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before - is a cogent rant on GM's "image" problem. He comes about as close as he can to acknowledging the elephant in the room (GM's financial woes). He writes:

This issue, this question of how do we increase awareness, improve our image, and enhance public opinion of our cars and trucks, is weighing on everyone’s mind in this company, from the plant floors to the boardroom. We are all weary of hearing that “GM doesn’t have any vehicles that people want” or that GM “doesn’t excite anyone” or doesn’t have any products that are “relevant.”

And then further on, after citing a bunch of recent awards for GM cars (the…

According to MarketingSherpa, at least 75 million consumers and business folk are using RSS feeds in the U.S. and the UK. The catch, only 17 - 32 percent of them *know* they're using RSS.

Significant? You bet. As the article puts it, we're beyond the "cool" techie factor of RSS and into its utility as a news gathering tool. Most of these RSS users are not subscribing to blogs, BTW. They're

According to MarketingSherpa, at least 75 million consumers and business folk are using RSS feeds in the U.S. and the UK. The catch, only 17 - 32 percent of them *know* they're using RSS.

Significant? You bet. As the article puts it, we're beyond the "cool" techie factor of RSS and into its utility as a news gathering tool. Most of these RSS users are not subscribing to blogs, BTW. They're using RSS to subscribe to updates from news sites like USAToday or the National Geographic or NPR or... for Burpee  to alert you about the "seed of the day" (so you can purchase it online!). Or for Travelocity to alert you when the fare to your favorite destination drops by at least 20 percent. Again, to spur online sales.

This is why RSS (aka Web feeds you subscribe to) will change…

According to an "influence index"  released yesterday in a report by UK firm Onalytica, this blog is #8 in a list of the top 25 most influential authorities on the topic of business blogging. See below. Puts BlogWrite above the New York Times (meaning the Technology section?), eMarketer, Seth Godin and Steve Rubel's Micro Persusasion.

Onalytica's report explains that the results are based not on

According to an "influence index"  released yesterday in a report by UK firm Onalytica, this blog is #8 in a list of the top 25 most influential authorities on the topic of business blogging. See below. Puts BlogWrite above the New York Times (meaning the Technology section?), eMarketer, Seth Godin and Steve Rubel's Micro Persusasion.

Onalytica's report explains that the results are based not on "popularity" (often measured by number of visitors to a site) but on a measure of indirect influence/authority/relevance - akin to the rating system used in academia.

Download the report:
"Who are the most influential authorities on business blogging? [PDF] to learn more.