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-----Original Message-----
From: Erika Yanovich
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 2:16 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Newsletter vs blog
Hello all,
We are putting up a quarterly newsletter for our technical audience and
I know companies have blogs on their sites, usually for marketing
purposes. I'd like to hear your opinions about replacing the newsletter
with a technical blog (considered a more updated form of communication).
Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
Erika
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One caution under the "always know your users" clause... before you
decide to go "blog", you might want to confirm that the majority of your
users can actually access blogs. Some workplaces (like my own, up until
very recently) had very tight IT policies that restricted anything with
the word "blog" in the URL. Didn't matter if it was as much of a time
waster as Stuff On My Car or something really useful like a Microsoft
Developer's blog or blogs on the Adobe site. All blocked. And the
fight with IT to get access for a specific site could take months. It
wasn't worth it.
I personally have nothing against blogs. I read them. I have my own
(not tech writing related). But it can be helpful to know some
workplaces have a blanket bias against all of them, useful or not.
Might want to touch base with your users to make sure they can actually
*get* to it, or go with the general design and concept of a blog but
just stay away from the "b" word.
- V
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