Domain expertise is something I talk about a lot. It's what distniguishes one practitioner from another when dealing with sector specific client issues. My view is that professionals can learn a great deal by using this medium as a way of tuning into clients. But how many are prepared to take the risk?

This is interesting - I followed the link to Gazza's blog, posted a 'great to see you' comment and now the post has disappeared, along with the comment. What's that about?

Is there anything inherently wrong in monetizing a blog? I can see how it could be conflicting but if people understand the nature of the issue then it should not be a problem. Bloggers are pretty savvy people when it comes to BS.

But then a heck of a lot of CEOs have never heard of blogs and care even less.

What's really interesting is that already, Richard is talking about getting something prepared on his Palm and firing a WAV over with notes to help move the process along. I'd anticipated being in a sort of Q&A - which I may still do with one or other. We've also discussed the way the content should go - I've given them complete freedom as I want it to be driven by their agendas and not mine. Does this qualify as a mash-up to use the 'Valley' parlance?

Nobelizer: Not everyone knows about RSS. Design absolutely matters. Om Malik's is a case in point - elegant and entirely reflective of the content. However you get there.

No doubt I'll get accused of some sort of brown nosing but when you're in the right place at the right time... BTW: Gonzo was sssssoooooooooooo Lewis PR. Like Mullet.

Just go for it. That's what Neville told me and today I'm a podaholic. Evolution is the key - not out the gate perfection.

Faaaaaaaaarrrrk me Stuart. That really is extracting the urine. When I used to do the Bradford>Kings X thingy in the mid-90s, I thought it was a GNER joke that outside peak period, the return ticket was £136 (sticks in my mind as much as my craw). Let's hope video a la Skype takes off. I did one yesterday with a client from Amsterdam who was holed up at a hotel in Seattle. Worked like a dream. Curiously, it was the first time we'd 'seen' each other in 3 years! Aside: Not sure if it's still the same but if we're flying into Stansted, we can't book over the Internet - no ticket collection facility at Stansted Airport. No such problem more or less anywhere on the EU continent.

I didn't get that far - I just didn't like it from watching the video presentations...

I'm not convinced anyone really *knows* what is happening or what will be the outcomes. I'm largely with Tom on the notion of new media savvy ex-hacks making plenty from this medium. Tom's coming at it from the pure ex-hack standpoint. Om Malik would probably agree, especially around news gathering. Where there is solid analysis around an unfamiliar topic, then people take notice. I'm getting regular calls because of my position on SaaS for instance. And those calls are coming from far and wide. I detect a desire inside PR to control this thing. I may be wrong and it may be my natural cynicism at PR generally. Regardless of what a PR pens, they're still in the business of selling something. Which does 'feel' vaguely tainted. Again - my ex-hack point of view. But I'm reasonably certain you're correct to talk about the spheres of influence and the fact that 'old rules' apply in that context. I am seeing some change in perception. MSM - even that which has converted online pubs to include blogging features - doesn't seem to be fare well for people who need a continuing stream of information and who wish to interact. It's the publishing policy that's wrong. Not editorial. Publishers need those banner ads which are clearly losing their appeal. Vendors - with whom I have traditionally dealt, will still go for the 'big names' because they've established prior trust. Hence Tom's success. But it isn't guaranteed. I canned my first blog because while it did OK, it wasn't tightly focused enough to sustain my interest so how could I persuade others the content would remain of a certain quality? My latest effort is much more successful. The important point is that I have learned a lot, changed approach and do more not less experimentation. Fortunately, my audience is tolerant. Jeff Clavier talks about the indirect benefit to authoritative bloggers. This is an audience thats' really tough to satisfy. These people have enormous potential power as a result of their trust status combined with their monetized activities. The really, really big question remains: who of the so-called A-list will be able to sustain output and status before they get burnt out? The ex-hacks won't. That's a racing certainty. And neither will the flacks that come along for the ride. (IMHO!!!)

Sure - Jeff's in my RSS as well! Not heard from Anil in email though he's made some odd remarks over at my place.

I've got MT, TP, WP.com, WP, TP on Yahoo!, Drupal and CivicSpace. If you take the WP.com package you're inevitably compromising functioinality. It's a 'starter for 10' style package in my eyes - again not really business class. There's no doubt in my mind that TP has done a more thorough implementation job at this time. People should realise that moving to the WP platform (not the hosted services) is a step into OSS geek land. It's not as scary as it sounds and to date, I've found the community to be highly supportive to the point where I'm prepared to donate where appropriate. Problems are pretty easy to resolve. The additional effort is worth it IHMO.

Anyone interested in how this conversation is panning out might be interested in looking at: My place: http://www.flacknhack.com/?p=299#comments and at poor old David Tebbutt's place - the poor fella was only trying to help and now he's getting a piece of it: http://teblog.typepad.com/david_tebbutt/2005/12/moving_from_typ.html But if Anil is in any doubt about the severity of what he's dealing with, then I'd recommend a trip to: http://sapventures.typepad.com/main/2005/12/more_than_a_com.html This coming from someone who's a part of SAP - which invested rather a wad of cash with 6A recently. Now if one of SAP's own VCs is concerned then imagine what their customers will make of it. Last time I heard, they had market control in the biggest apps space on the planet.

Dropped Anil an email with a short recording so he gets a favour of where I'm coming from and can hear what I sound like along with a suggestion that he contact Morgan to get the low down on what I'm REALLY like. (Morgan and I go back many years - he can provide the unfiltered view Anil) Waiting...

Dopped Anil an email with a short recording so he gets a favour of where I'm coming from and can hear what I sound like along with a suggestin that he contact Morgan to get a low down on what I'm REALLY like. (Morgan and I go back many years - he can provide the unfiltered view Anil) Waiting...

Hi Stuart - "You not been keeping up to recent events? We're getting our asses kicked around here" (as they say in Alien 2) Typepad=outtage=BS Quite a few people have come off this platform the last week in part because of the atrocious problems of last Friday...me included...(like Neville I was considering a move anyway) they just accelerated the process. I did a comparison with what happened at EDS this week - http://www.flacknhack.com/?p=307 I wish you luck but I wouldn't bet my business on them - yet

In fairness to Anil I was in a strop when I wrote what I did not that I would take any of it away. In any event my harshest criticism was not for 6A but others. I wasn't mad at Steve for any percieved preferential treatment but the blasé way in which the whole thing was dismissed as if it was on 'oh well' situation. As many have observed, it was from that. Given Steve's position, it seems remarkably silly. Niall just blew it - I'm sure you'd secretly agree withme on that Morgan. OK - credit for going in and having a go but... The combination left me very worried, as did Scoble's apparent alignment to the apologists. I've made my postion clear on Socbleizer. And on Micropsersuasion -couldn't find a way of leaving a note on Niall's site though I've posted elsewhere, including Dave Taylor's blog. I'm actually not a lost customer. I'm paid up for a long time to come and own an MT licence that's currently on hold for other reasons + a Yahoo! hosted MT licence. And I've been at pains to not say 'never.' That really would be stupid. I wrote Barak and Loic a very long explanatory note in the early hours of Saturday morning about the situation in what I think were pretty measured tones. I too feel for Loic in this and I've told him so. He's been a real champion in Europe and continues to do great things in France. I don't think the US really understood that in Europe, we were out for 18 hours - a whole day gone. And for a few of us, where the platform has become business critical, we lost real money. Others have been critical of the comms issue. That is a factor but not in my decision. I contend that TP is really a consumer service and for that, this kind of outtage is bad news, but not catastrophic. I believe 6A needs to grow up fast and that might mean a lot of change. And as an infrastructure player, it has to scale. And it has to decide where it wants to play - in the commercial world, consumer or both. If it wants to play 'business' then ther's much to be done. MT doesn't hold a candle to WP, EE or Drupal at the moment in terms of flexibility. OSS maybe not as slick (but watch for WP 2.0 this weekend) but it works and scales within the limitations that most people currenlty have withblogs for business and internal communities. For a direct comparison, you might be interested in my account and interpretation of EDS's outtage earlier today. It's the difference between maturity and adolescence. Hey Anil - fancy going mano a mano on a podcast to address this? i'll be polite - promise...

It's obvipus from the pic - Swallow (This)

Dream on Andy - this is the umpteenth time 6A has screwed up. You can only say sorry for so long before people say sayonara - like me.