I recently attended an interesting talk on Blogs, Micro-Blogging and Podcasting. The course was run by the IIA and the speaker was Krishna De.

Here at clickstream web design, we have lots of experience in setting up wordpress blogs, from designing the look-and-feel to suit our clients’ requirements (see Richard Waghorne.com), integrating blogs with existing websites (see Sunday World Olympic Blog) and adding lots of plugins and functionality to blogs (e.g. Artjam website). However, it is important to keep on top of the latest developments in blogging and Krishna’s talk was just that.

What is Microblogging?

Microblogging is basically publishing short message/updates to the web (up to 140 characters).  This can be done via SMS, email or directly on the web.  The following are examples of websites where you can start microblogging for free:

• Jaiku.com
• Twitter.com
• Twit.ie - get an aggerate of Irish Twitterers!

See Who is Talking About You Online!

Ever wondered who might be writing about you online? Here are some ways to keep track of what is published about you or your company:

Google Alerts

www.google.com/alerts
With Google Alerts, you can set up alerts for certain words or phrases to keep track of any web pages that might mention your name, company or other details.

Twitter

Use this page to search Twitter - search.twitter.com

Podcasting

A Podcast is an audio or video file that is distributed over the Internet for consumption by portable media players or personal computers. This provides the website owner more interesting ways to distribute content to clients e.g. training videos, music, interviews etc. and the user can listen to podcasts at their own convenience.

To keep track of what is happening in the world of podcasting in Ireland, visit PodCamp Ireland.

RSS Feeds

Krishna also discussed RSS Feeds and to follow content on the web using RSS Feeds.  Here are some sites where you can view RSS feeds you may have subscribed to:

• www.newsgator.com
• www.bloglines.com
• www.google.com/reader
• www.feedblitz.com
• www.feedburner.com
• Outlook 2007 can also be set up to feed RSS alerts

Just wondering what people think about Google’s new browser “Chrome“?  Since it is in Beta mode, we are wondering if we should aim to fix any web page layout issues that appear on sites we create, to make the pages sit nicely in Google Chrome.  It seems to have a nice solid feel - if that makes sense. But we will give it time and see how it grows on us.

Last night, I attended the Ireland Girl Geek Dinners.  It wasn’t all girls, there were a few men there too! The location was Herbstreet restaurant. Martha Rotter (from Microsoft) organised the event and it was a great opportunity to meet others in the same/similar lines of business and to learn more about the latest in the IT industry.  The event is a great idea and I am already looking forward to the next one!