Date: 28th August 2008

Time: Breakfast briefing

Google is so much more than just a search engine; it offers a wide range of business tools that can save you money, make your business more efficient, and improve your marketing efforts.

And if you’re on a budget then it’s hard to beat Google’s free office  productivity tools. Learn how Google can make your job easier, see practical examples of how small businesses are using these tools, and evaluate the Google offerings for yourself.

This free business breakfast briefing introduces the following Google applications:

• Introducing your Google Account
• Understanding & improving Google’s indexing and ranking of your website using Webmaster Central
• Analysing the visitors to your site & how they behave using Analytics
• Offering ecommerce on your website using Google Checkout
• Improving your website using Maps, Mashups, Site Search, & Gadgets
• Superior searching using Suggest, Trends, Alerts, & Advanced Search
• Promoting your business on the web using Blogger, Product, Mobile, and Base
• Discover productivity tools including Docs, Spreadsheets, Calendar, Desktop & Pack
• Communication tools using Gmail, Talk & Groups
• Personalise your Google experience with iGoogle
• Understanding the Google universe: Sketchup, Orkut, YouTube & more

Susan has developed and will be delivering this business briefing at a number of locations across the East Midlands. See the eBusiness Club website for dates and further information.

Should you ever go back and edit or delete a blog posting? Are you risking rewriting history?

I like to think of blogging as a way of publishing contemporaneous, timely, topical content. If the articles are out of date, or are just plain wrong, should I go back and amend them?

Or do I leave the articles as snapshots of my thoughts at the time?

Blog articles form a substantial part of the webspace, and are highly visible in the search engines. They’ll bring visitors to your website. And the fact of the matter is that your articles may need amending from time to time.

But editing a blog posting is substantially different from editing a web page. Once you edit a web page, the original page pretty much disappears and the new version replaces the old.

Revising a blog posting, however, causes a chain reaction of events. The newly edited document will get re-broadcast out via RSS feeds.

If, for example, I keep popping back to make numerous small edits to my blog posting, then subscribers will receive numerous copies in their feedreaders.

You might choose to make corrections to your blog, but be aware that the original version of your blog article stays in your subscribers’ feed readers. Forever. Once you publish an article, it cannot be recalled.

The moral of this story: Aim to make your blog posting perfect before publishing it. Check for spelling mistakes, check for accuracy, and make sure you’ll have no regrets before hitting the Publish button.

Deleting blog postings causes even more complications. If you choose to delete a blog posting, remember that folk might be linking to it, tagging it, bookmarking it. And they won’t be pleased to find that the posting has been deleted, without explanation.

Rather then deleting the blog posting, you might want to consider editing the posting, and replacing it with some explanatory text that the posting has been removed. Bear in mind that folk might well know what it was that you wrote in the first place, and might also have a copy of it on their computer.

When is it necessary to make corrections to your blog? Common sense dictates you should go back and edit your blog:

• if you have written something libellous, or hurtful, or that you regret
• to correct spelling mistakes, typos, or make amendments to make the posting easier to read. Personally, I leave small spelling mistakes rather than annoy my subscribers with small edits.
• there are substantive errors in what you wrote
• circumstances have changed since your posting, and you need to highlight the current situation

If you do need to go back and make amendments to a blog article, some steps to consider:

• change the blog headline to indicate it has been updated
• indicate which content has been changed, or show revisions using a StrikeThrough font
• and if you really do need to delete a blog posting, then amend the posting to say the content has been removed

Update: I am happy to publish the following correction regarding the position of EMNET, as supplied by Tim Miller.

East Midlands Network Ltd has ceased trading. This is the company that was involved with the development and delivery of projects not the company that offers clients ISP services so the item on your web site is not quite accurate. Emnet Solutions Ltd is very much active and providing ISP services with the support of an international group.

What would happen if your web designer/developer went bust?

Nottingham based web company EMNET Network Solutions is no longer trading. Initially the website said “Following a number of difficulties EMNET has ceased trading,” whereas the website now describes their status as “restructuring.”

EMNET’s difficulties serves as a timely reminder to consider what arrangements you have in place with your web developer.

Communication at stressful times like this can be difficult; phones are unlikely to be answered, and information may be restricted to email.

In an ideal world there will be an orderly shut down of the business, with the hosting of your website continuing until you can make alternative arrangements.

In addition to web design, hosting and Internet connectivity, EMNET managed initiatives like the Anubis project which has very recently awarded £10,000 to each of 10 small businesses in the East Midlands, including GreenEnergy360. The Anubis project was funded by EMDA and the European Regional Development Fund.

What are the main issues do you need to consider in the event your web designer ceases trading?

1. Who owns your domain name registration?
Was your web designer helpful, and registered your domain name for you? If so, the ownership and contact details may be in the designer’s name, including logon access and renewal reminders. It can be very difficult to get your name transferred at stressful times, so get the details sorted now. And if you forget to pay your domain name renewal then you risk losing your domain name.

2. Do you have a backup of your website?
Your web designer’s decision to shut up shop may come quickly, so do you have a secure backup of your web pages that you can get access to if necessary?

3. Who owns the intellectual property of your website?
The intellectual property of your website should be yours, but that probably excludes any applications such as shopping cart software or other applications. If you are running web applications such as e-commerce shopping carts, content management systems, or forums then establishing ownership might be problematic. If you are using open source software, or industry standard packages then you might be able to move your applications to a new company.

If it is a bespoke solution, then the intellectual property might belong to the web developer and you should have a legal agreement in place stipulating what happens if the developer ceases trading. And at the very least, you need to have a utility to extract your data for the worst case scenario of having to create a new website.

4. What are your hosting arrangements?
Your web designer may have their own web servers, or may be renting space on your behalf on a shared hosting service. Do you have passwords, copies of invoices and other information that might help with the continuation of your services.