Here’s the start of an interesting conversation by Ted Shelton into business blogging:

http://tedshelton.blogspot.com/2007_04_29_archive.html

The core thread: Blogging is a peer-based communication. However companies do not have this peer relationship with their audience so they have to build authenticity. How? Through access and accountability. So? That means that those within the organization with power to change things need to be speaking. And they need to speak to everyone – even the main detractors.

Podcasts are a great way to distribute recorded audio – whether it be a presentation or your favourite Gregorian chants.

Creating Podcasts is a relatively simple exercise. This tutorial by redevelopments should help you get a Podcast live in no time at all.

When it comes to distributing a Podcast, browse Google for Podcast directories.

Caveat: current studies show that there are a lot more Podcasts created than are actually downloaded. Any good analytics software should be able to show you how often the Podcast has been downloaded. 

Press releases can really help generate online buzz around your products and services. Aside from getting picked up by journalists, these days you can also have your press releases appear on many news aggregation services around the web, the links helping those all-important Google rankings.

If you happen to be new to writing press releases, this article published a while back does a good job of covering all the basics:

http://www.highrankings.com/issue152.htm#guest

The rise in blogging over the past few years has done wonders to further the cause of online PR. While the concept of submitting a press release for inclusion in the online news services hasn’t drastically changed over the last few years, there has been a growth in the number of sites offering this service and a change to some of the older players.

Here we list some of the top sites that are ideal for small businesses trying to make big waves online:

PRWeb

One of the most established sites for free press release distribution, PRWeb started charging for all submissions as of October 2006. For two reasons this site is still an attractive proposition: the length of time this site has been around means that it is well established (read: well regarded by Google), and the different payment structures allow you to choose your level of visibility.

PRNewswire

This service, like PRWeb, has been around for some time. Probably one of the most professional-looking news sites, PR Newswire offers a suite of services including news monitoring and social media tools.

PRLeap

Now we’re getting into the domain of the free services. PR Leap has a blog-like format that means you can be king for a day – well, make that an hour or so. On any given day there are generally over 100 releases posted. All I can say is get in there early.

I-Newswire

The I-Newswire service is aimed squarely at the crowd that want to drive up Google rankings with a strong tilt towards showing how press release distribution can aid SEO efforts. The releases are ranked using a similar star rating system to PR Web meaning the more you pay, the better your distribution.

So, these are some of the big players at the moment, but what’s going to happen in the future? The grading and display of news stories has to improve. There has to be more visibilty for the more tantalizing releases. How to figure out which those are? The algorithmic approach would be to develop something along the lines of the service offered by Digg. Develop a popular, efficient ratings system to help keep the quality up.

A great post from those guys at Search Engine Guide on how to find the authority sites in your area. Use tools offered by Technorati, The Google Directory and Wikipedia to find the places where links will provide the most benefit.

Read more.