I guess I should start by explaining the Google Docs platform.

Google Docs is an online document service, where you can create, upload, download and share various types of documents, spreadsheets, web forms, presentations and images. The supported file formats are:

• ODT (Open Office Document)
• PDF (Portable Document Format)
• RTF (Rich Text Format)
• Text
• Word
• HTML
• CSV (Comma Separated Values)
• Excel
• PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
• JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
• SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic)

Once you have uploaded a file into your Google Docs account you can share the file with other users, or invite outside collaborators to download, view or edit the document.

The great thing about Google Docs is that you can create documents within the framework; you can also upload documents and use the system as an online storage facility.

The way, in which our client is using it, is to share important documents within a company, to allow multiple users (with varying access rights) the ability to view, download, upload and edit the document collection.

When used, as part of an organization Google Docs is very powerful, whilst there is a charge for the service when using as part of an organisation (free for personal use with 1GB of free storage), the benefits of the system massively outweigh the costs. Giving access to company documents 24/7 and allowing staff to work on documents from home without having to risk security issues by putting the documents on disk or risk of data corruption.

When you login to your account you are presented with the home view, which shows a summary of activity on all files that you have access to.

One of the major issues we came across as part of the project was the amount of time it was taking to upload documents via the standard Google interface. The work around for this was to connect the Google Docs area via webDAV. webDAV acts like an FTP connection and allows you to just drag and drop your files into your Google Docs user area, this increases the upload speed and cures the headache of having to upload files 1 by 1.

I found Cyberduck an excellent client for connecting into Google Docs, as it comes with a pre defined connection into which you just need to enter your username and password, making the connection process as easy as physically possible.

Some issues I have come across during the process which are very difficult to get around are as follows:

File Organisation

Google Docs by default organises directories alphabetically, which may not sound like a huge issue, but the fact that I can‘t drag and drop my folders to create a file structure of my choosing seems a little redundant.

Let me clarify:
Say I upload 10 directories called a.1, a.2 etc . . ., each containing 5 files. Google Docs would show my 10 top level directories, which I can drag and drop into each other, and files within directories can be dragged into other directories, but I can’t drag the main directories into a different listing order, so a.1 and a.2 can not be rearranged to be a.2, a.1. Not that using a.1 and a.2 is a logical process anyone would follow, but you get my point.

It does however have a set of pre programmed “Sort by’s”: Last Modified, Last Opened By Me, Title, Storage Used (why this isn’t just called file size is beyond me) and Priority.

Organisation Control

By organisation I mean company, for example I would have thought that since our Google Docs account is an organisation account, where users must be part of our organisation to even have a chance to access our files, there is no way for the master account holder to control the default settings for the sub users. The default login location is the home view, if I want the default login location to be just the “Collections Shared With Me” folder structure instead of the home view with file updates the home view much like your login area on facebook, display a list of all updates to any file or directory to which you have access) I should be able to do this for everyone, however there is no solution to this.

The best Google have come up with is the functionality to not display updates to this file in home, the galling thing about this function is that it is a user by user defined attribute, so I would have to log in as every user and set their account to not display updates to files (on a file by file basis) and even then once you clear down your cookies, refresh your cache or log out and log back in, it forgets this setting anyway.

Another caveat to this is when a new file is created it will begin to appear in the home view because the file never existed to be told not to appear, there should be some master control.

Our client wanted to have allmembers login and be directed straight to the “Collections Shared With Me” section of their account, the workaround for this is: certain links within Google Docs are # defined, meaning I can link a client straight to docs.google.com/a/account-domain/#collections-shared-with-me (by physically providing them with the link, i am not allowed as previously mentioned to change any default action settings for any users), and take them straight into the collections shared with me view (or force them to login and take them directly to the view if not already logged into their Google account).

Cool Features

Document translation, from within the Document editor you can translate a whole document into a plethora of different languages, which is exceptionally useful.

Revisions history (Version control), when in any document you can select “See revision history” and a log of all revisions are listed, any of which you can revert back to at any time.

Trash can, once a document has been trashed, much like on a PC, it stays in the trash until removed by the user, making it possible that a document can be recovered from the trash back to its original file location.

Forms, the forms functionality allows you to create a form (which can be loaded into an iframe) and all submissions are saved into the form data, to review submissions, edit the form and click on View Submission data.

Common reported issues

Images with dimensions larger than 2000pixels can not be uploaded.

Spreadsheets can only be edited one at a time, if two windows are open and you are making changes to either document, the changes are not saved.

Summary

On the whole I would say as is Google Docs is a massively useful piece of software that anyone would be comfortable using, even if it may require an hour or so messing around to understand how everything fits together. Whilst limited in organisation control (which I hope upon hope they look into) these are not major issues and do not impact on the day to day use of the system.

I feel I have been fairly critical of Google for some of their more recent developments, like Google Music (Google Music Vs BBM Music – blog) and Google Wallet (Google Wallet – The Virtual Credit Card); I will give credit to them for this piece of software as I feel it is the 3rd most useful product that have come up with, the Google Search Engine and Google Analytics being the top 2 (in that order).

~ Kenn

+Innovative Consultancy UK

How does it work?

Netflix is an online media streaming service, which offers a surprisingly large range of programs and movies for instant viewing, some of which are available in HD. Out of personal interest I was very impressed to see that they have a range of Anime movies and all 4 seasons of Prison Break.

How much data usage over an hour?

Netflix suggest a minimum net connection speed of 0.5 MB for an enjoyable experience.

There are 4 settings currently available on Netflix, “Good” which is claimed to use up to 0.3 GB per hour, “Better” up to 0.7 GB per hour, “Best” up to 1 GB an hour and if streaming HD content up to 2.3 GB an hour. The kicker is that as it’s a buffer based service if you frequently pause or rewind what your watching you can increase the amount of data being used within an hour timeframe, so a big recommendation is that you check with your ISP on your data use limit and possible charges for exceeding it.

How much does it cost?

You may be as shocked as I was to find out that the cost is only £5.99 a month. Your money gets you unlimited use of the service, regardless as to the quality of the stream you’re using (well, unlimited based on your data usage limit).

Where and how can I watch Netflix?

Netflix is not a new company, it has been operating since 1997, when it first launched as an online film rental service, by May 2002 they had more than 600,000 members. It was not till 2006 when they begun to offer a streaming service, and with more than 5 years streaming, development and more than 20 million users the service is now available on a multitude of devices, the most popular and accessible of which are:

• Microsoft© XBOX 360
• Sony© PS3
• Nintendo© Wii
• iPod, iPad, iTouch and iPhone
• Any media phone on the Android OS
• Any screen based internet browser

How can I subscribe to this service?

Their website would be the most obvious place to subscribe, you can also however subscribe via any of the platforms the service is available on through the app / software.

There is currently an offer for 1 free month, however you will need to enter your credit / debit card details as you will automatically be billed unless you cancel your account (which you can do at any time online, refunds are not available).

Anything else worthy of a mention?

Once you have an account you can go to the “Suggestions For You” section of your account and rate how often you watch each genre, rate a selection of films and TV shows you have already seen, Netflix then compares your watched genres and rated shows against similar genres and ratings created by other users and suggests content based on matched data.

Review:

Initially impressed with how much content Netflix has already gathered, I was rather disappointed with the interface of the service, very large images and very little information available. It was very confusing to find episode lists when interacting with a series.

Having watched a film, and a few episodes of Heroes and The Comedy Store, I was fairly impressed with video quality of the “better” feed and sometimes a little disappointed with the audio quality, in a few episodes the audio was about 2 seconds out of sync with the visual. This however I would put down to my net connection at home but it certainly raises the old issue of no matter which online service your use it is only ever as good as your internet connection.

On the whole Netflix is a very affordable option for anyone wanting a little more content than Freeview’s Film4 but unwilling to pay for Pay Per View content or Sky Movies packages.

~ Kenn

+Innovative Consultancy UK

The app allows you to store your credit card (see below for further details) information on your phone and then use your phone to make payments in store (if the store has a PayPass POS terminal). All you have to do is tap your phone onto the POS terminal, enter your pin and your phone will send your payment details through the secure system, it also allows you to view special offers and loyalty information available at the store. The app security uses “secure underlying technology” and PIN number approval to make the payment, similar to a standard card transaction.

Google wallet online function (available worldwide) offers PayPal functionality. Where a website has the Google checkout or Google buy option you click on the link, sign into your account and approve the payment, nothing new there. It is a nice additional feature, if you have the wallet app on your phone, you by default have the account for online use also, so you can either sign up for the app version or separately for the online version, whichever suits your needs / hardware.

Speaking of hardware, this is where the more and more frequent Google limitations come into play, the app is currently only available for Nexus S 4G on the Sprint® network, also it only currently supports “Citi® PayPass™ eligible MasterCard® credit cards and the Google Prepaid Card.” If you happen to be American and already have a Citi® MasterCard® you can use this PayPass checker to see if your account is already set up to use the system.

More information on the security features can be found here.

In review, Google wallet for mobile is currently of no use to the UK market and will not be for quite some time, there are very few stores which even have POS terminals for the contactless payment system which was introduced more than 2 years ago. Until this sector picks up and Google sort out further card partnerships there is no point in using the mobile app (not that anyone in the UK can have access to the Sprint® network). The online wallet is nothing more than a PayPal system with the limitation of Google wallet not being as well known so there are less stores that offer the ability to buy with Google checkout.

If it were available right now everywhere in this country, I am unsure on its day to day usefulness, as I recall when I go to a garage I am told to turn my phone off while I am on the forecourt, and when I go inside to pay, I have to turn my phone on, unlock it and then proceed to make payment entering my PIN for Google wallet. Also what if I need cash back? this is not mentioned by Google, maybe this is additional functionality that could be investigated.

All this having been said I can certainly see the potential in this system, no need to carry around my stuffed wallet, when available on devices such as the iPhone you can remote lock your phone if stolen and the security features of the wallet application its self: resetting card details, removing transactions details, all secure data is stored on a separate microchip (Secure Element) and the fact that any attempt to access your details (say from someone trying to read the card data) requires approval by entering your Google wallet PIN.

~ Kenn

+Innovative Consultancy UK

The fact is there are many aspects of IE6 that were fine in 2001, but just won’t cut the mustard these days. IE6 does not fully support CSS version 2 which makes it difficult to ensure compatibility with other browsers. It also lacks support for alpha transparency in PNG images and the instability and security issues of IE6 have been well documented.

Would the last one to leave, please turn out the lights

Organisations around the world have been steadily abandoning support for IE6 since 2008 and in January 2010 Google (which also owns You Tube) announced it would no longer support IE6. WordPress which hosts millions of websites, joins a long list of providers that have officially decided that enough is enough in regards to IE6 and since March 2010 even Microsoft have been urging people to switch to a more modern browser.

So with the web community united in its condemnation of the browser, why is it still in use?

Who uses IE6?

It is in steep decline around the world with the massive exception of China, where it still comprises over 25% of browsers in use (7.7% of the overall world usage statistics). This is mainly due to the large number of older PCs in circulation in China and will likely plummet over time as newer, improved technology becomes more readily available.

To see which countries are phasing it out visit the Internet Explorer 6 Countdown.

In the UK IE6 currently hovers at around 1.4% of users, level with Canada, Brazil and Australia and trailing behind the US, Finland, Norway and Turkey! One reason for this relatively high level of usage on the UK is the resistance to adopting new browser technologies, demonstrated by several Government departments, including the MOD.

But, What if the Client wants it?

Like anything in the world of the web, (almost) all things are possible – the problem is who wants to pay double the cost of developing and building a site, for the 1.4% of IE6 users that remain?

As with so many decisions it is important to examine your audience and business needs – if your audience is comprised of Military Personnel who view your website from a DII system then a certain amount of compatibility will be required, however given the limitations of IE6 it simply won’t be possible to have all of the modern features and interactions available with other browsers. This is a good rule of thumb – if it is a requirement of the client, then additional testing and fixing time will have to be included and should probably cost extra. It is amazing how often an extra charge will remove the ‘requirement’ but if it persists then there is probably a genuine need and some sort of compromise will need to be reached.

So which browser should I be using?

Again, this depends very much on what you will be using it for. For most standard consumer uses you can pretty much take your pick – Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Safari, Chrome – they all have a variety of features that may appeal to you, so try them out – just make sure you keep the software up to date with all the latest versions, patches and updates.

As web developers/web marketers we like Firefox. It’s fairly stable, has load of add-ons and plugins to enable you to view websites, change elements of them for testing or provide additional marketing resources such as page rank and traffic data. It also has some nice features for working from home such as syncing your work Firefox with your home edition so your bookmarks, history etc are the same.

+Innovative Consultancy UK

SCROOGES!!!!

Play the game or don’t join in!!!

So this year I found this funky little site called Secret Santr.

The site allow you to “add” friends, (so everyone who is playing your lovely, merry and fun Secret Santa game) first name, last name and email address.

Set up the spend budget

Add a personalised message that will go out to everyone along with their allocation (date of Secret Santr event is as I found a key bit of data to include in this section)

And then the final step, SEND.

Secret Santr will then randomly pair up your friends and send them an email, showing who they have got, the budget and the personal message.

This way there are no “swapsies” and no complaining, not that anyone here at ICUK complains about anything you understand.

Anyway, Secret Santa all sewn up and i can get on with the buying.

~ Kenn

+Innovative Consultancy UK

What’s a Content Management System?

First we should define what is meant by a Content Management System or CMS website. A CMS is a user interface that allows the creation, editing and publishing of web pages, news posts, events entries and more and allows them to be published on a live website with little or no technical knowledge.

Typically the words are typed or pasted into a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, which works like a very simple document in Word with limited options for formatting, sizing and colouring text. A CMS ensures some consistency in the way your pages are formatted and displayed as it refers to style sheets which set the look and feel of the website. This protects design elements of your brand from being diluted but there is some trade-off between flexibility and consistency with a CMS website. Which leads me on to perhaps the most important point – what do you want it to do?

Requirements are Key!
If you are reading this to try and decide which of the many CMS systems you should choose, then STOP! Before you set your heart on a Content Management System ask yourself; do you have the team in place to make use of it? Do you need a CMS?

Many small companies choose to work with agencies or consultancies to provide them with technical coding requirements and page updates. Often it is cheaper and provides the level of flexibility and frequency of updates needed, without the waste associated with employing someone full time. However if your team has the ability to write content like blogs, tweets and status updates then putting them in the driving seat could be a more cost-effective way of ensuring your website is constantly updated with relevant effective content.

It is also worth discussing which other systems your website needs to communicate with as the most sophisticated ecommerce CMS will not be fit for purpose if it doesn’t talk to your back-office finance system, or your CRM system. Your website cannot work in isolation so build up a list of ‘requirements’ and features that would be ‘nice to have’ – but be realistic – if you don’t have the team in place then you may be better off working with an agency. To begin planning form your requirements like this:

REQUIREMENTS

Creation, publishing and editing of pages with no technical knowledge.

Blog area with interactive commenting.

Integration with social networking feeds.

Detailed reporting on pages visited, purchases made, time spent on site etc.

Integrates with SAGE accounting.

Control over page meta tags and H1 elements for SEO purposes.

WOULD LIKE TO HAVE

Some design control over pages and posts.

Media library /management built into Content Management System.

Ability to upload and manage video content and link to You Tube channels.

Management of different levels of access control for my site’s editors.

Approval process for new pages to be approved before publication.

Content Management Systems are not right or wrong – they are either well suited to your requirements or not. You cannot possibly choose the right system for your requirements unless you have clearly identified what those requirements are.

SO which CMS do I choose?

Once you have identified what your organization needs from your website Content Management System then you have to choose one which suits your purposes. There is a lot of information out there about the pros and cons of one system over another, but here is a quick guide to which ones are best suited to various requirements:

WordPress
An open source blog based system that allows a lot of flexibility and functionality by use of third-party software (called plugins). There is a lot of information from developers and users of WordPress so the learning curve is well documented and easy to adapt to. WordPress is also flexible enough to give you the visual standard your pages need, by careful setting up of page templates, short-codes and post rules.

Interspire/BigCommerce
Based around a similar user interface Interspire was the software edition and BigCommerce is the hosted edition of the well-established e-commerce CMS. Packed with features to enhance product descriptions, encourage interaction with your brand and promote your website and products, BigCommerce is fully scalable to meet your e-commerce needs for years to come as the ongoing costs are based upon the size of your online shop.

Magento
Magento is one of the newer shopping carts on the block but has already attracted a large following. It is very well supported by Varian who are active in fixing bugs and updating the code. It is capable of operating multiple stores from one back-end CMS and has some good built-in page templates. On the negative side, the ability to customise it does make for a complicated coding style vs some other carts and the technical documentation is somewhat limited.

Joomla
If you want a complicated framework that is expensive and unwieldy to manage, and costs lots of extra cash to develop modules to give you the functionality you need with a difficult to use back-end system, then Joomla is for you. If you believe life is too short to give yourself unnecessary headaches then choose another CMS.

There are many CMS systems – Radiant CMS, SilverStripe, TYPOlight, Frog, Textpattern, ExpressionEngine and more, and each of them is better at one thing than another. For instance some of the simpler platforms trade-off flexibility and ability to customise in favour of a simple to use back-end, whilst others allow for a great deal of flexibility and customisation but at the expense of simplicity and usability. If in doubt refer back to your requirements and choose the CMS that most closely matches them. After all there is no point having every feature in the world unless you know how to use them and have the right team in place.

It’s going to work in the same way that iTunes worked originally for apple product users, Software restricted and client restrictive.

The new service will integrate with the new Google+ (another blog for another day) social service, so you can share your favorite tracks with your “circle” of friends. They are advertising that songs will cost anywhere between $0.69 (£0.44) and $1.29 (£0.82), which as any avid iTunes user knows is half the price you’re expected to pay with apple (being an average cost of £0.99 per track).

To kick off the service Google have sorted out a contract with Sony Music, Universal and EMI to name a few, so they can launch with a library of over 13 million tracks.

Some other cool features of the Google Music platform are that you can upload your own tracks from your own music collection and a service that allows anyone to pay $25 to create their own account and upload their own music (if your a band that is) and other than the $25 your will have to pay for the account, Google will also take 30% of all your sales for the privilege.

So what are Blackberry doing, I hear you say? (I didn’t hear you and you probably didn’t even say it!!!)

Well on Tuesday 15th November they launched BBM Music (BlackBerry Messenger Music) in the U.S, Canada and Australia. Working on a different pricing system, requiring a monthly subscription of £4.99 for 50 DRM protected tracks of your choosing (Digital Rights Managed). Although as BlackBerry have said:

“Let’s clarify one misconception: with a BBM Music Premium subscription, you can access far more than 50 songs.”
read more on their official blog here.

Currently Blackberry are offering a free trial for 60 days (if you really want the link because you live in the U.S, Canada or Australia, here it is http://uk.blackberry.com/services/bbmmusic/) allowing you up to 50 songs, the “clever” bit of their system is that any friends you have on your blackberry who also have a BBM Music account are addable, and you can listen to their music, so if 10 friends sign up for the 60 day free trial, each selecting 50 different tracks that’s a potential network of 500 tracks.

My concern is given the recent news that Smartphone operators aren’t doing enough to make people aware of their download limits and when they are incurring a charge (reference to the fact that a few users on the “Unlimited Data” deal suddenly found themselves being charged due to unnoticed fair usage policy citation in their contracts) what is the potential fallout of connecting to your friends and using their music, in terms of data limits.

Personally, whilst I am a big fan of change and bustling new technologies in the market, having used Spotify (free) for the past 2 years and having it linked to my friends on Facebook to listen to their music (and they mine) I don’t really see what these “new” services are doing differently other than putting the same functionality on a different platform.

~ Kenn

Flash – ahh. King of the Impossible

For many years, Flash has enabled websites to deliver smooth video with clever and dynamic interactions, making websites look and work better. Adobe develops lots of software including the software that allows you to read PDF documents, Photoshop and other creative applications as well as Flash.

Because this software is proprietary (ie owned by Adobe) as opposed to Open Source any new software developments, fixes or stability issues cannot be fixed by external developers – instead products have to be improved by Adobe, which takes time and resources.

Apple approach bears fruit.

Apple has never liked this approach. Rather than using Flash, they have adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript standards, all of which are open source. This means any developers can change these software components to make them work better with their own products. Consumers do seem to like iPhones and iPads and despite their dodgy relationship with Flash they have sold phenomenally well. The massive number of Apps (developed by third parties) is also a testament to how ‘open source’ really can work.

Of course there are a whole load of other issues that have been discussed – reliability, performance – the fact that decoding video using any software uses about twice as much power than using standard video hardware decoding. Also the new standard of HTML5, although in its early days, might not be as slick and fast in certain applications as it needs to be for today’s switched-on user.

Don’t point the finger!

Perhaps the biggest issue is how we interact with sites.
Flash was developed at a time when accessing the web required a keyboard and mouse, probably attached to a big beige box. As such it interacts with its viewer by a combination of mouse-overs, hovers and clicks. With today’s touch-screen devices the notion of mouse-overs and hovers doesn’t exist. Instead people touch, stroke, pinch or drag things to move them about or interact with them so if a site has been developed using Flash then it will need to be entirely re-developed to work on a touch-screen.

The end is nigh?

The fact that Flash has no real benefit for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has diminished its popularity in recent years, as competition for Google page 1 rankings has increased and with Adobe recently announcing that it is abandoning Flash for mobiles and Flash for televisions in favour of HTML5, calling it “the best technology for enterprise application development”, Is this “Steve Jobs’ last triumph” as some pundits cry, or a brave attempt to change their business model to better prepare Adobe for the future?

The Crunch

When it comes down to it, consumers don’t really care. We want our gadgets to work quickly and well. If they are displaying video content we want it to look good and whether that means downloading a third party plugin or using the technology native in our devices is largely irrelevant, at least until it impacts on practical considerations like battery life and usability.

For developers, open source is always easier to work with and by the sharing of information, better, faster and slicker applications are able to be developed far more quickly any single company could manage.

From a consumer’s perspective, phasing out a technology which caused so much argument, in favour of something open source that can be developed by anyone has got to make our lives just a little better.

Before making major purchases, consumers go online looking for the best deals and incentives. They compare one vehicle to another looking for the best match. Contractors can display photos of completed work, or work in stages, to demonstrate their expertise, and consumers appreciate it when businesses allow them to make their own educated decisions.

Online shops use shopping carts and payment gateways where the consumer can purchase goods directly. The virtual store is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to consumers around the world. It has no employee overhead or utility costs. Payment is made online by credit card or PayPal and deposited into the company’s account, keeping things simple for both the provider and consumer.

A Website Is An In-house PR Firm

The website is the sales manager, public relations manager and educator of your business. It provides your company with a platform to express its business philosophy, gives extensive detail on products and services as well as providing a ready made e-mail list for sales pitches and special offers.

A website is the international business headquarters of a company, big or small. It is not limited by inches, blocks of air time or even international boundaries. Information does not need to be crammed into a certain number of column inches or recorded and filmed in sixty seconds or less.

Website Visitors Already Know What They Want

People look for websites. They use search engines to find the websites that offer items they want to buy or information they want to read. If a customer comes to your website through a search engine such as Google or Yahoo, they have already made the first step in their decision to invest in your business.

So Does Every Business Need a Website?

Yes! It speaks volumes about the credibility of the company as well as the products and services it offers. Done well, it can create brand new business in new global locations, and in new markets you never thought possible. It can boost sales considerably and provide your customers with a direct way to buy your products and services.

Choose Your Subject
Decide on a subject that is relevant to your readers and your business. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in your field, so think about what your readers want to know. Once you have chosen your topic, give a clear indication of what the posts are about through headings, pictures and your opening paragraph. Keep closely to your chosen topic so readers know what to expect when they visit your site again.

Write in a Suitable Tone of Voice

Write your blog in a chatty, informal tone and steer clear of marketing speak or corporate messages. Your readers will look to your blog for information that will help them. If you must include information about your new projects or latest products, label them clearly or put them in their own section entirely.

Decide on the Frequency of Your Posts

Updating your blog regularly not only encourages people to come back, but also helps with SEO, as search engines can tell that relevant content is being added to your site on a regular basis. You should aim to add content about 2-3 times a week for optimum results.

Keep Posts Short

Long posts may be too much information to read in one sitting and readers may get bored. If you have a lot of information to feed to your readers about one subject, consider splitting the content up into a series of posts, perhaps spanning a few days. This will also encourage people to keep reading or come back at a later date.

Use Social Media to Publicise Your Blog

Setting up a Twitter account and updating it with links to new posts or topics can encourage new readers and increase traffic. Ensure you include a comprehensive description of each post before the link so that people know what to expect.

Stuck for Blog Ideas?

Inspiration for your blog can come from anywhere, including time spent out of the office. You may like to keep a pen and notebook handy so you can jot down ideas, or even encourage contributions from your staff. Ask them what they would like to see in a blog of this kind; have they been looking for a post about a particular subject and been unable to find it? Look for gaps in the market and aim to fill them.

Encourage Feedback and Sharing

Never underestimate the power of word of mouth. If possible, encourage your readers to share the content with their Twitter followers (referred to as a ‘Retweet’) or Facebook friends (commonly called a ‘Like’). Both Twitter and Facebook supply free tools that can be added to your site to allow your visitors to do this. You may also like to invite your readers to supply feedback or comments on your posts, either through an online form, e-mail or telephone.

Plan Ahead

Although not absolutely necessary, you may wish to write a few posts ahead of yourself (or keep a few posts by for emergencies), so that if you fall ill or are too busy to write for a short time, you will still have new content to put on your site.