Home | TrendTracker | PowerBlog Reviews | The Experts | Newsletter
ABOUT
SMALL BUSINESS TRENDS brings you daily updates on trends that influence the global small business market.
Anita Campbell, Editor
Past life: CEO, corporate executive, tech entrepreneur, retailer, general counsel, marketer, HR ... (more)
email me
free business magazines
FREE BUSINESS MAGAZINES
Trade publications FREE to qualified professionals. No hidden offers and no purchase necessary.
On Wall Street
The Deal
Computing Canada
CIO
Employee Benefit
Oracle Magazine
100+ additional titles. Click to browse.
ARCHIVES & SEARCH
Previous Small Business Trends articles can be found at the links below:
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
Or, use the search box below to find a
specific post:


NEWSLETTER
Sign up for our FREE Small Business Trends newsletter. (View Current)

We publish regularly and promise we won't share your email address with anyone. (Privacy Policy)
SMALL BIZ INFO & RESOURCES
BLOGS TO READ DAILY*
* Don’t have time to read several dozen blogs a day? Pick two or three. Your brain will thank you for it.
ONLINE COMMUNITIES
BLOG DIRECTORIES
THE BUZZ

SPECIAL RESOURCES
Small Business Trends Radio
Tuesdays, 1:00 PM Eastern U.S. time
on Voice America network
Click to listen

November 1st: Torsten Jacobi, CEO of Creative Weblogging, joins host Anita Campbell. Sponsored by Six Disciplines. Show details.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
TrendTracking: Government Websites, Blog Niche-ification, More
Welcome to the third edition of TrendTracking, a weekly place for small businesses to see and be seen.
  • CRM Lowdown is a blog about customer relationship management topics. Some of the posts are about CRM software applications, but others are about the general attitude and mindset of managing customer relationships. Craig Cullen writes the CRM Lowdown blog.

    This is a perfect example of the increasing niche-ification of blogs. Once it used to be enough to write about business on your general blog (2001 - 2002). Then you had to start a "business blog" (2003 - 2004). Today if you want to stand out, you have to start a blog on a specific business niche (2005 - 2006).

    CRM Lowdown is also part of another growing trend, the blog network. Blog networks are individual blogs under common umbrella management. In this case the network is BizNicheMedia, which appears to have 15 sites about niche business topics.


  • Buzzoodle is an online tool that helps companies create and manage buzz and word of mouth marketing. If you've been hearing more about "word of mouth" marketing, there's a reason. Recently I heard an executive from American Greetings speak. When asked what had changed about marketing compared with 10 or 20 years ago, the first thing she said was "word of mouth is much more important today than it used to be."

    Buzzoodle is the brainchild of Ron McDaniel, an entrepreneur I know here in Ohio. Ron also has a blog (but of course!) called Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing. Blogs are great for newly introduced products like Buzzoodle, because they help explain them and how to use them, in plain everyday language.


  • SearchSMB is a specialized IT search engine for small and midsize businesses. It offers resources about such information technology issues as "white papers on small biz security, disaster recovery, outsourcing and more."


  • Blogs: A Global Conversation is a master's thesis by James Torio, a graduate student in Advertising Design at Syracuse University, New York. You can download it in PDF format. Small Business Trends is mentioned in it. James also writes a blog, called EveryHuman.


  • StopFakes.gov/smallbusiness is a new website of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The site is designed for small businesses, to help them understand and protect their intellectual property rights.

    As compared with the main website for the USPTO, this site does provide some additional information in an easier-to-understand format. Right now, however, the site is not as useful as it could be for small businesses -- just not enough of the right information. Let's hope the site is just a first start and that we can look forward to improvements.


  • Business.gov is the "Official Business Link to the U.S. Government." Color me impressed. If you were expecting a mere portal, with links to government programs, regulations and laws, and all very bureaucratic-like -- think again. Business.gov is a great example of how much some of the U.S. government's websites have improved over the past 12 - 18 months.

    This site has a great collection of resources, tips and advice on running a business. The focus is implicitly on small business.

    Everything is nicely organized and easy to scan quickly to find what you need. Even the design is impressive -- very 2005-ish, with the colored background and white centered content area.



Tags: ; ; ;
More news... more trends... more insight...

Home | Privacy | Terms | SmallBizTrends
(c) Copyright 2003 - 2005, Small Business Trends LLC. All rights reserved.