hellishly expensive at over $2,500, but for some reason i keep getting drawn back to this piece of kit. designed with ableton and traktor in mind (they’ve included overlays and pre-programmed midi maps for both), the xone 3d seems to be about the only piece of kit that combines mixer, midi fader/knob controllers and jog wheels.

they are pro’s in the mixer market and have been working hard on the digital front (the xone:92 mixer is actually emulated in traktor) and at the moment have the most engaging piece of kit. the product ships with a lite version of ableton and if you want to know how this works, check out remix mag’s detailed review.

i am awaiting an offering from pioneer in this realm - the one thing i would like to see is something akin to a midi version of the cdj 1000. how far off am i? oh well, in the meantime i can dream that one day i get to this level:

Corporate blogging is a great way to reach a wide audience of potential fans and customers — if you do it right. Here are some tips about how to get the most out of your corporate blog.

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This time Watblog offers some useful pointers on corporate blogging - useful stuff for those new to this area, such as plan your objectives up front and think more of writing as if it’s an email rather than a press release.

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This is an interesting straightforward article from someone who honestly points out that for the first few years they were essentially blogging for themselves with minimal traffic. Interesting for those that aren’t the Robert Scoble’s of this world and immediately successful.

The other point of interest in this blog is the use of the internet traffic map, a great way to show readers where other readers are coming from. Who knows, the context may be useful.

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The Blog Mill offer six (maybe they couldn’t come up with the all-important seventh?) reasons why you might want to start a blog. If you’re dwelling on the question of what is your objective, this isn’t a bad resource. Although pulling up the ‘get rich quick’ side of blogging with Adsense or other advertising could be overstating the case somewhat.

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First we had Wikipedia practically wiping Microsoft’s Encarta out of existence. Give it another five years and perhaps that other great knowledgeable tome of our times, the ‘Concise’ Dictionary will suffer a similar fate.

Looking at the number of pages using competing spellings of common words (think ‘closeable’ vs. ‘closable’) can help gauge what is the most current usage in a more accurate way than is possible with a book. Oliver Steele has some interesting comments on this.

Language appears to be changing at a faster rate even in the stuffy halls of corporate communication, given the predominance of emailing, blogging and the rapidly developing social networking communication. As we strip down our language, will we also end up standardizing (should that be standardising) the words we use?

The topic of the relative pros and cons of working as an in-house SEO or being tied to an agency seems to be coming up a lot recently. First there was SEMPO’s In-House SEM Salary Survey and since then (not sure if they are related) came the High Rankings interview on the subject with Danny Sullivan.

As being someone that has worked both sides of the fence, I can see the relative pros and cons of both approaches. Personally I’d say I feel closest to Jill /Whalen’s ending comments - even if you are an experienced in-house SEO it can help to use an outside agency for validation and to pick up the grunt work that you can never get to.

If you monitor blogs, you need to have an action policy to deal with the conversations. Don’t just be the lemon that stands at the back of the cocktail party chewing peanuts. Down the Marguerita and get involved.

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