Blue Knowledge

Advanced Communications services will dramatically affect your ability to bring in new customers, increase customer loyalty, increase revenues, improve customer satisfaction and increase your brand awareness.

On this page, we'll cover RSS, Blogs, Forums and Newsletters and how all of these are basic components of the Social Site Works product. Most importantly, all of these features can dramatically help your business succeed.

RSS

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites (such as the BlueKnowldge site) in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.

This is a key element to your Social Site Works site from BlueKnowldge. By enabling RSS feeds on your site, anytime you update your content, your customers automatically get this information without having to do a thing. This is very powerful tool.

RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader," "feed reader" or an "aggregator." The user subscribes to a feed by clicking an RSS icon on your Social Site Works web site that automatically initiates the subscription process. The RSS service checks your customer's subscribed feeds regularly for new content from your site, downloading any updates that it finds.

The initials "RSS" are used to refer to the following formats:

* Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
* RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
* Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)

Blog

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a page in your Social Site Works website where you can express topics of interest, ideas about your products, concepts about your industry, and so on. Once you have written the topic, you can allow customers to provide you feedback on the topic. You then can review the comments and decide if it is something you want your other customers to see and again comment on. This is a very controlled conversation with your customers.

As an example, many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

As of September 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 106 million blogs.

In 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming.

Global Voices Online, a site which "aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore" surfaced, bringing to light bloggers from around the world. Today, the site has a relationship with Reuters and is responsible for breaking many global news stories.

Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Daily Kos), Alex Steffen (Worldchanging) and Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette). In counter-point, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies a mass media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger.

Some blogs were an important news source during the December 2004 Tsunami such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, which used SMS text messaging to report from affected areas in Sri Lanka and Southern India. Similarly, during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and the aftermath a few blogs which were located in New Orleans, including the Interdictor and Gulfsails were able to maintain power and an Internet connection and disseminate information that was not covered by the Main Stream Media.

In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers that business people "could not ignore": Peter Rojas, Xeni Jardin, Ben Trott, Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble, and Jason Calacanis.

In 2007, Tim O'Reilly proposed a Blogger's Code of Conduct.

Forums

A Social Site Works forum is a web service for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, fora (the Latin plural) or simply forums. The terms "forum" and "board" may refer to the entire community or to a specific sub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums are then displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions.

Such forums perform a function similar to that of the dial-up bulletin board systems and Internet newsgroups that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s. [1] Early web-based forums such as UBB.classic date back as far as 1996. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games and/or video games, fashion, religion, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the internet are abundant and most widely used in internet forums.

Forums are a critical element to enabling your customers to virally market your company, products and services. Having a group of vocal and engaged customers can dramatically influence other customers and potential customers.

Newsletters

A newsletter is a regularly distributed online publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. The Social Site Works web service enables you to quickly and easily create and distribute newsletters to customers. The Social Site Works service also publishes, on your site, newsletters for existing and new customers to see previous editions.

Many newsletters are published by clubs, churches, societies, associations, and businesses, especially companies, to provide information of interest to their members or employees. Some newsletters are created as money-making ventures and sold directly to subscribers.

General attributes of newsletters include news and upcoming events of the related organization, as well as contact information for general inquiries.

These are all very real opportunities for your business using the Social Site Works product. Social Site Works examples

Please contact us at 512.217.8616 or david@blueknowledge.com to have us schedule a demo for you.