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Monday, July 23, 2012

Jakob Nielsen DOES NOT BLOG!

Jakob Nielsen, the usability guru, does not blog. His newsletter "Alert Box" predates the popularity of the blog. Should Nielsen take up blogging? On a more general question, we are aware of the usefulness of each specific "channel". Nielsen started his promotion using newsletters. These were popular for a long time before blogging. Since then, many new things seemed to have taken the spotlight from older promotion formats. There are all kind of theories about the use of channels. The most basic one calls for using the channels that most fits your product. If you have an iPhone application, use mobile advertising. If you use Google AdWords, put most of your budget into mobile clicks. But is this really the best channel for a mobile Office application? Maybe in this case, the best way is to go after the Microsoft Office buyers?

Not everyone needs a blog. Yet, if you are selling to people using the web regularly, or you need to inform a niche group with vital product information, or your competitors are strong in blogging, start thinking seriously about a blog. There are other reasons blogging brings to marketers. Essentially, a blog is the most useful and accepted internet format. Blogs are now the source of most timely information than any other format including newspapers and portals. Blogs are so numerous, it is hard to actually track their influence. Some tagging services like Digg, Stumblupon and Technorati tried to track and rate blogs in the early years, but users soon noticed how many great and small blogs did not rate well with these services and a whole hidden world was out there. If Jakob Nielsen was open to suggestion, I would encourage him to start blogging. Put his newsletter and other comments on a blog. Start sharing his blog links in a Twitter stream, maybe even open and run a Linked-In group. This would make his material more accessible to the way people consume it today. There are many benefits to the blog format, stay tuned and watch for future posts.

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