Katie: Sure, some folks might be taking pre-turkey naps but you are a business rock star and are listening to the BusinessMakers Over Time Show with your host, Katie Laird –

Esther: And Esther Steinfeld.

Katie: This episode, we're focusing on one of the most effective and affordable business marketing channels out there, blogging. I love blogging.

Esther: I love blogging, too.

Katie: Esther has a fantastic interview with Paul Chaney, the author of The Digital Handshake: Talk on the Wild, Wild World of Networking Online.

Esther: And then will be diving into Blogging for Business 101. Looking for three ways your business can benefit by blogging and learning about some of the essentials your business blog should have to be a resounding online success. First off, we have some very interesting tidbits that come straight from the wild world of blogging. It's a little crazy. So, apparently at Purdue University, a professor has landed in a little bit of hot water –

Katie: Uh oh.

Esther: - with some of his students. They are protesting his personal blog, which is a conservative site where he basically makes an economic case against homosexuality.

Katie: An economic case.

Esther: Although he is very openly anti-gay, some have been calling for this guy, Burt Chapman's resignation or for him to be just flat-out fired, which has led to all kinds of protests on the campus and he's just wanting the story to go away. Why do people care about my little blog?

Katie: The thing is that your little blog is able to be viewed by millions of people all the world over. And I mean people get really feisty and I mean especially, in the college university environment, I mean that's typically where people sway towards liberal thinking. Of course, depending on what campus you are. So I mean this hits home with a lot of students finding our political savvy –

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: - and you know, developing, you know, a lot of their stances.

Esther: And let me – let me ask you a question.

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: Let me get your opinion on something. Where do you think personal opinion fits in on a college campus, as far as the professors go? And also it kind of makes me think about opinions in the workplace because I know there's a such thing as free speech but your opinion can still get you fired.

Katie: It's really tricky, and this is exactly why a lot of companies that have really active bloggers that blog, you know, possibly for the company but also on their personal sites – they'll try desperately to encourage employees to maybe have a little disclaimer saying these are my own opinions, not the opinions held by my employers, you know.

Esther: Right, right.

Katie: And I mean that, legally, a lot of times we'll kind of defer any negative – well it won't defer the negative attention but I mean like, you can't really control what your professors gonna say on his own time.

Esther: No.

Katie: I mean it's so, so tricky. So I think that he has every right to say what he wants to say. He really does.

Esther: He does. He does.

Katie: He really does. As long as he's not bringing into the classroom, like, okay. But it's – it's just so tricky and like I understand that people are really passionate about this topic but I just don't know what to do. I do have to say that I support Purdue University in that they are not gonna fire him. This is who he is. I mean, they hired him and it's not like they have any sort of, you know, statements in their hiring documents.

Esther: He's not protesting on campus. He's not –

Katie: No.

Esther: - posting it. He's not talking about it in class, so –

Katie: No.

Esther: - I really do.

Katie: So I mean whether or not people agree, like it's, it's just another personal communication vehicle. You know, it could very well be that he has a 'zine that prints out and only ten people get it from his Kinko's Xerox copies. It's just like that.

Esther: Right.

Katie: He could email it on his free time. He could talk about it on phone calls. He could blog about it and unfortunately it's just way more visible. Oh well.

Esther: Tough situation. Yeah.

Katie: But good that stuff like this is coming out into the forefront because these are things that business owners have to consider. While I think it's wonderful to have on your staff really passionate, opinionated, intelligent people that are savvy in, you know, the social media world, that are familiar with these tools, you do have to understand that weird, passionate, opinionated, crazy people have opinions that they're passionate about and crazy people like (Laughter) –

Esther: Right.

Katie: - maybe they're not exactly what you believe in. So that's just a dialog that you've got to have, you know, and just be ready in case something happens. You know, think of those worst-case scenarios and hope for the best.

Esther: Someone else who's a little angry, up in arms.

Katie: Uh oh.

Esther: Our dear friend, Rupert Murdoch.

Katie: Oh, Rupert! (Laughter)

Esther: He always has something to say, doesn't he?

Katie: He does, he is one outspoken gentleman.

Esther: Well, it's not the first time that a news organization has called for Google's index to be purged of its stories, but it's the first time that Rupert Murdoch has asked for it.

Katie: Yes.

Esther: He's angry because he feels that all of his expensive news that he's producing and putting out into the world is being stolen by Google.

Katie: And he says the word stolen. I mean, like – and actually, he doesn't just say, "Those meanies at Google are stealing my content," he calls Google a parasite. That's pretty harsh words there.

Esther: Them fightin' words.

Katie: Them's fightin' words. So and here's the other thing. I mean Google – and actually, there's a quote in this article from a site called "The Blog Herald," Google actually sent out a senior business product manager, Josh Cohen – said that, "Google delivers more than a billion visits to newspaper websites every month." And he goes on to say "these visits offer publishers a business opportunity and a chance to hook a reader with compelling content, to make money with ads, or offer online subscriptions." Now I have to kind of side with Josh here and not Rupert, as much as I, you know, think he's a lovable character. But the way that I find a lot of my news and my information, it's from Google.

Esther: Google!

Katie: Google directs me to news corporations' sites. Google takes me to the stories that I want and I need.

Esther: Absolutely.

Katie: Rupert is very, very keen on doing some, you know, major overhauls in the way that he's sharing his news online with, you know, all of his online venues, meaning that he wants to really get serious about subscribers, about people paying to access his content. That's just not the way that the world is going.

Esther: There's a lot of flux going on right now. Are we gonna be paying for content? Are we not gonna be paying for content? The truth is publishers really can't afford to be giving away all of their content, it's a business. They're here to make money. Publishers exist to make money. Yes, they're providing content. Yes, they create jobs, but they've got to make money.

Katie: Right.

Esther: If they don't have a print paper anymore, which is the way we're going –

Katie: Right.

Esther: - and I know there will always be print but we're consolidating –

Katie: Yes.

Esther: And Rupert Murdoch owns all the papers, now, so –

Katie: Yes. He's feelin' it, big time.

Esther: I mean, you know what I mean? We've got a lot of change in the industry happening right now and –

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: Like the last story. I think that we're gonna have a lot of this back and forth. Are we gonna pay? Are we not gonna pay? Some places are gonna charge You. Some are not gonna charge you. Maybe they'll charge you for the first week or month and then once, once a new issue comes out, you can see the previous issue. There's gonna be a lot of this –

Katie: Yes.

Esther: - going on. So I understand where he's coming from. I think he should be a little more discreet about it. Not be quite so feisty.

Katie: Inflammatory.

Esther: Inflammatory. You don't want to anger the Google.

Katie: That's right. Nobody messes with the Google.

Esther: The Google has eyes in the back of his head. So you should just –

Katie: It does.

Esther: - be very careful.

Katie: It really does. So, I mean it is kind of exciting to me. Even though, I mean, I'm definitely a news junkie and I love to get free content on the web.

Esther: I know.

Katie: I am willing to pay money – not a lot, not a ton of money – but I am willing to pay for excellent content.

Esther: I am, too. We're not gonna pay for, "Breaking News Balloon Boy,"

Katie: Right.

Esther: I'll go to Twitter. The content they're gonna have to charge for his gonna have to be very in depth. It's gonna have to be –

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: - very, very specific. Uncover a lot of things that we wouldn't get.

Katie: I want rich media. Like, I mean I, I want it all.

Esther: If I'm gonna pay for it, I want legit –

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: - journalism.

Katie: Yeah. I, I want – I want the real deal. So Rupert, I'm gonna give you a chance, here.

Esther: See what happens.

Katie: I'm gonna forgive the whole Google thing. Like, we're gonna move on forward from here. And I'm sure he's – he'll sleep better tonight knowing that. (Laughter)

Esther: That's right. Absolutely. So one more thing I think we should cover is Yahoo Meme.

Katie: Yes.

Esther: What is Yahoo Meme? Tell us.

Katie: So Yahoo Meme is basically the latest in microblogging technology. And microblogging, of course, you probably correlate with an application like Twitter, which is basically a micro blog post. A very, very short blog post. But Yahoo Meme takes it to a little bit of a different level. So Twitter, you only get 140 characters, total, to write whatever it is that you've got to say to shout out to the world. But Yahoo Meme gives you, I believe 2,000 characters.

Esther: Oh.

Katie: And it lets you post a lot of rich content. So beyond text, you can also do photos. You can do videos, but I gotta be honest with you, Yahoo Meme, to me, is exactly the same thing as Tumblr and, and Posterous. I mean it's these really, really easy to update sites, whether you call them a blog, page, a profile, whatever – and it's very easy for people to, you know, like your content if they want to re-whatever, like put it on their Tumblr or repost it on Posterous or retweet it on Twitter. It makes it very easy for you to do that to appreciate others content and share it. I'm not that excited. It's a new micro-blogging technology and they're really focusing on markets outside the United States.

Esther: That's what I think is so interesting is that they've really kind of cornered some of these markets that – I guess because we're Americentric, we assume that everybody is using Twitter and I know that they are in many other countries.

Katie: It's definitely global.

Esther: But it looks like Yahoo Meme has sort of become popular in some of these larger markets. They've translated into several other lang- I mean, it's gaining a following in Brazil, China, Philippines, India, Turkey – I mean, is this gonna be like what Friendster is to – Friendster in China is to, you know, Facebook here?

Katie: Right.

Esther: Who knows?

Katie: Oh, I – and it is so interesting, especially if you've lived in different parts of the world or you just have a lot of friends from all over. The tools that they use to connect with their friends back are wildly different. One of my very, very best friends is Pakistani and all of her friends are on Orkut. Have you even heard of this?

Esther: I have no clue what that is.

Katie: It's hot in Brazil. It's hot in Pakistan and I think in some parts of India.

Esther: Isn't that strange?

Katie: And in a couple of other – so, it's like if you look at a map at where it's big, big, big, it's li- it doesn't make sense. Like how –

Esther: Not everybody cares about Facebook.

Katie: No, it's not all Facebook. So Orkut and it's just – it's another MySpace, Facebook social networky place. But that's all that the kids use in Pakistan.

Esther: Wow.

Katie: So I mean, Yahoo Meme, I'm sure will find a good home, you know, in the Indonesian Republic, who knows. But they need to watch themselves because Twitter is, I mean, absolutely international and it's getting much, much more aggressive. Like they have got things brewin' –

Esther: Right.

Katie: - that Yahoo just needs to really figure out where it's priorities are, depending on what market it's in. So, definitely interesting. Always cool to hear about new little tools out there. We'll see. Yahoo Meme still needs to wow me.

Esther: Yes. Totally.

Katie: It's all about me. It needs to impress me. You know? Send me some flowers. I don't know. So coming up, we have a really cool interview, continuing with this bloggy, social media, meme, ha ha. (Laughter)

Esther: Ha ha.

Katie: But not Yahoo, Esther actually had a chance to talk to Paul Chaney and we're gonna listen to a great conversation about his recent book, The Digital Handshake and also just some tips and tricks for all of you wanna be nerds to network and to grow your brand online. So definitely stick around for a segment to with Paul Chaney. You've been listening to us crazy gals on the Overtime Show. I'm Katie –

Esther: And I'm Esther.

Katie: And we'll see you in a few.