Blogs are the new [insert whatever used to be old]. Although there is plenty of hype about blogs, some of it is deserved. Not only are blogs a great way for your business to communicate with your customers, they are also a good source for what is being said about your company--and your competition.

Here's some of the tools we use to monitor blogs for our clients and our own company. This isn't intended to be an exhaustive list but to give you a start in monitoring blogs.

Blog Search Engines
These search engines search blogs and other RSS feeds. Not only can you get search results like you can from other search engines, but you can create an RSS subscription for a given search term. Add this subscription to your feed reader and you get updates whenever there are new results.

• PubSub
• Feedster
• Google Blog Search
• Technorati

Tagging Sites
These sites either track tagged content or let users submit links and tag them. Tags are user-created keywords that describe the content like a subject or category. These are useful for tracking broader terms.

• del.icio.us
• Technorati Tags

We all had a great time at the Corporate 5K yesterday evening! Thanks to all of our friends and guests who came by our BlogZerk tent and said hello! With special thanks to Sobik's Subs, for providing some awesome post race subs!

SEE PICS!!!
http://blog.blogzerk.com/blog/Photos/Corporate5K2006

Here's a peek at our new Blogzerk ad.
Need a Website without the Tech Department?
Then Go Blogzerk!! and Sign up for a Free 30 Day Trial and see how much you or your organization can benefit from your very own Blog.
www.blogzerk.com

The Orlando Sentinel featured blogging in the Central Florida Business section this morning. Josh at Hyku was kind enough to point Sentinel writer Tim Barker our way for information on how we use our blog at Red Rocket and blogging in general. Here's a few excerpts from the article:

"I have a feeling people don't know about it or how easy it is," said Chris Scott, an executive with Orlando-based Red Rocket Inc.

The small advertising agency, which also has a blog-hosting business called BlogZerk, has been using its blog (blog.redrocketinc.com) since late last year as a friendly and informal way of talking to customers.

"You don't get that feeling from standard corporate Web sites," Scott said. "You don't get to know the people behind it."

I think they did a great job on the article and explaining what blogs are and why businesses may want to use them. If you want to try blogging for your business (or for yourself), you can sign up for a free trial at Blogzerk.

Here's a scan of the article (click for a larger image):

Unfortunately, the online version doesn't have the photos from the print version so you can't see what the back of my head looks like...

UPDATE: Added a scan of the photo of the back of my head and scan of the entire article.

We were hired by Southeast Correct Craft to create their 2006 ad campaign. SECC had just received their fourth J.D. Power "Highest Ranking in Customer Satisfaction" in a row...so that became the corner stone of the campaign - easy enough :)

[Cross-posted from Hail the Ale!]

I saw this on The Daily Buzz this morning but they don't have it on their site yet (but when they do, I'm guessing this will be the link). I found a copy online for your immediate viewing pleasure. Cool animation and interesting to see what a difference 50 odd years makes in advertising and portrayal of women, men, and beer.

For more info. than you ever wanted about Carling Black Label, check out Hey Mabel Black Label.