Debbie Weil is a corporate blogging and social media expert, online marketing consultant, speaker and author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Portfolio). She consults with large companies, CEOs and senior executives on how to create blogs that connect with customers and attract media attention.

My friend and colleague Nick Usborne has the gift for a “turn of phrase.” He used the words white color spam in his blog a few days ago. Next thing he knows, Seth Godin mentioned it in his blog. Then came a call from The New York Times. And this article, Big Companies Add to Spam by Saul Hansell which quotes Nick.

You know what he’s talking about. When you register on the Palm site, for example, using an email address you don’t use for anything else. Subsequently you begin receiving emails you haven’t asked for from other big name companies - to that particular address.

These mainstream companies are (discreetly, it seems) trading your email address with one another. Or perhaps there was a box you forgot to uncheck, in miniscule type, that said they might “tell you about related products or services.”

This is a scam. And it’s definitely a form of spam.

Amy Gahran, a well-respected writer and content consultant, has turned her (occasional) e-newsletter into a blog. Check it out. You can subscribe to it as an RSS feed.

Oh, and apologies about the lapse in posting. I was migrating this blog from one server to another.

Thanks to Ina Steiner for the pointer to Amy’s blog.

It occurred to me when I was visiting Seth Godin’s blog recently that there is a “good blogging style” - and he seems to have it. It’s when you develop a concise, vigorous voice and use it to post interesting, relevant or useful bits & pieces. Does this say something about our attention deficit society? Maybe it’s easier for us to think, read, write and react in smaller doses.

This post has been in draft mode for the past 24 hours while I published the latest issue of WordBiz Report. In other words, I started to post a note about a new survey by Perseus. I stopped because I wasn’t quite finished writing. And saved it as a draft. .

The draft mode is an interesting feature of most blogging tools. It belies the common assumption that everything about blogging is instantaneous and unedited. Not so. Yet another reason why blogs as a content publishing tool might be appropriate for a business.

Anyway, according to Perseus’ research, there are 4.12 million blogs, but 2.72 million of them have been abandoned. So there are really only one million-plus active bloggers out there. I loved this bit: the survey reveals men are more apt than women to abandon their blogs…

Thanks to Ralph Wilson for pointing me to Perseus’ press release just now.

I love this article by Dave Gelerntner in the 29 Sept 03 issue of The Weekly Standard, although I’m not sure I agree. “Is (email) good or bad for the art of writing? Both. It devalues the written word; email is so fast and easy to send, correspondents exchange semi-articulate gibberings without a second thought. There used to be good letter writers, but there don’t seem to be any good email writers (or barely any).” Not so. My 83-year-old father-in-law writes marvelously long and literate emails.

I just posted a new article for tomorrow’s issue of WordBiz Report: Top 20 Definitions of Blogging. I’m still adding to the resource links at the bottom. If I’ve forgotten something horribly obvious and important (or if you just want to add another definition), post your comment below.

I met so many interesting, smart people at BlogCon in Cambridge this past weekend. You might be wondering… who is doing all this blogging? Many of the BlogCon attendees were white males - highly-educated and mostly affluent. There were quite a few women, to be sure. But almost no minorities. Except for a young black guy named Oliver Willis. He lives in Boston and writes an engaging, politically astute blog. He’s written an interesting comment on Deflating the Blog Bubble. Worth reading in entirety. He makes the point that many Americans are not yet online, *most* Americans aren’t blogging nor do they have a clue what a blog is, and that blogs haven’t changed everything… yet.

Provocative discussion in the first panel this morning - the last day of BlogCon 2003. Halley Suitt invited feedback on her case study published in the Sept. 2003 issue of Harvard Business Review: “A blogger in our midst… ” Briefly, the case study laid out the situation of glove girl, a renegade product manager who’s stirred up a following with her no-holds-barred Weblog about her personal life as well as her company’s products (surgical gloves). One response to her “unauthorized” blogging would be to fire her. Another, proposed by Ed Cone, was to promote her and give her a raise. Endorse her, empower her and give her a platform.

Question: can you bring a blog with a distinctive personal voice in-house? Is there a fundamental disconnect between corporate communication and personal expression? The fictional company in this case study would need to create a blogging policy and require glove girl to observe the basic tenets of “do no harm” and “use good judgment.” I’d like to think she could continue blogging in the same voice. But now I wonder…

I sat next to Adam Curry at lunch. Totally clueless… didn’t know he’s FAMOUS. Most notably as ex-MTV VJ. So there I am saying stupid things about actress Demi Moore and her 25-year-old boyfriend and how “obscene” (yes, I used that word) it is for them to be in a relationship. And Adam turns to me and says very politely that his wife is 15 years older than he is and what’s wrong with that?

Let me stop here and describe this guy: Tall, lean, dressed tip-to-toe in black. Spiky, tousled just-so blonde hair. All in all, very attractive. And his wife is older than I am?!

Meanwhile, A-list blogger Halley Suitt is sitting on my other side and I can feel her shooting me funny looks. Slowly it sinks in. I lean forward and ask Adam, “Are you famous?”

Gracious to the core, he responds in a bit of a mumble. I’m not going to admit to you that I’ve never watched MTV. Not even once. That would be too pathetic. Well, maybe I glanced at the screen if one of my kids was watching and I was walking past.

Anyway, Adam flew in from Europe for BlogCon. He lives and blogs (in both English and Dutch) in Belgium with his wife and daughter. He’s considered something of a “techno-prophet.” He made a wonderful comment on the panel after lunch: “For me blogs are just a tool and about as revolutionary as a telephone. Which was first used to call and tell you a telegram was on the way.” Touche.

How do you make that accent symbol??

Great discussion by this second panel on blogging as a tool to teach writing. First you think (yeah, writing starts with thinking), then you draft, re-write, maybe rewrite again, check for accuracy, polish, then publish. If your post gets comments, you might respond with a follow-up. Sorry, can’t remember who said this.