Tumblr, the hot, New York based, free blogging platform on crack which was founded in 2007 by David Karp, and has long been mocked for having no business strategy at all, actually has a ‘business plan’.

A business plan other than being the nicest platform, hosting the hippest bloggers and designers, and offering most features of all freely available blog platforms. To be honest with you I might have forgotten to check the total validity of the ‘most features’ statement, but if tumblr doesn’t offer most features, at least the team has the nicest features page of all platforms. That’s a valid argument, right?

Times have changed and since today you will not be able, or allowed even, anymore to mock tumblr as the perfect poster boy of the ‘Bubble in Tech’ and our throw-away consumerist behaviour, because… wait for it… yes, Tumblr does actually have a business plan. Of course I use the term ‘business plan’ loosely here and it might be more appropriate to call it ‘something which should at least bring money in the account and finance the next free bar Tumblr SXSWi party‘. read more

It’s been a very long time coming, but Twitter could roll out a commercial service before the end of the year, according to founder Biz Stone.

Though precise details haven’t been announced yet, Stone’s interview with the BBC suggested that additional pay-for features could include advanced analytics and information about their accounts and who is visiting them. read more

Employers who encourage their staff to conduct business in virtual worlds such as Second Life are being advised that a dress code policy should be enforced before employees are let loose in cyberspace.

According to analysts at Gartner, 70% of companies will have set behaviour and dress code guidelines within the next five years.

The concept isn’t surprising, as you’d expect any employee representing a company to be issued with ground rules. However, the introduction of virtual world working brings with it a new set of challenges for managers, many of whom have already shown a lack of understanding and slowness to react to trends such as blogging and acceptable Internet use.

Having said that, if companies are official sanctioning their workers to form business relationships online, they are presumably forward thinking companies with an understanding of the risks and potential pitfalls. read more

Hands up if you use Twitter at work?

Thought so.

If you’re in the UK (and presuming you don’t own your own business) you’re part of a statistic that’s allegedly costing British companies £1.4bn ($2.3bn) each year.

The rising popularity of Twitter, probably fuelled by celebrities and TV magazine shows, means that on average 40 minutes each week by each British office worker.

The 1,460-strong survey by IT services group Morse drew the conclusion that Twitter was causing a “productivity strain” on business. read more

There are three kinds of bloggers: the writer who is merely looking for a venue to express themselves with no aspiration for the blog to turn into anything bigger; the blogger who is hoping their blog will turn into some type of business endeavor; and the majority of bloggers, the type who are satisfied with the former but secretly hope for the latter.

I tend to think that most bloggers fall into this group which I’ll dub as blogpreneurs. read more

Aimed at business professionals who aren’t used to writing for the web, a new “Building the Buzz that Builds Your Business” twice-weekly webinar provides story ideas and links designed to offer a springboard for blogging.

The half-hourly webinars cost $10 each and run on Mondays and Wednesdays at 1pm EST from GetInFrontBlogging.com. Each provides a list of 25 categories, each with one or more links to current news events, a discussion on ten story ideas, social media and PR tips, and a Q&A section. read more

In statistics which hardly surprise, given the number of problems employees have caused for themselves on Facebook and Twitter recently, employees are cracking down on the use of social networks in the workplace.

ScanSafe’s latest analysis of over a billion web sites discovered that over three-quarters of companies now block social networking sites — up 20% in the last six months.

As well as the supposed benefit in productivity from blocking non-work sites that can sap employee time (though a blanket ban may be counter-productive and a restricted hours policy might be better for morale) there’s also the reduced risk of malware creeping into a company’s systems, as well as saved bandwidth. read more

If you believe blogging is free, then you’re probably living in a dream world. Unless you’re a total freeloader who still gets a weekly allowance from his parents, then one way or another you’re paying for your blogging activities. Sure, WordPress.com and Blogger.com are free tools. And even if you pay for your own hosting, software like WordPress, plugins, and other tools are free, right?

Not necessarily. Blogging does have its costs. And these can sometimes be attributed to you, while it can sometimes be carried by someone else. Offhand, one could think of several costs that you can directly attribute to blogging. For instance, here are a few costs that I think I’ve been incurring through the years. read more

While we already know that Twitter can be a killer business tool when used effectively, it’s always good to have a survey to back it up.

The latest research comes from AIIM, which in a survey of nearly 800 people found that over one quarter of 18-30 year-olds thought that Twitter was an important rapid feedback tool for business use. By comparison, just seven per cent of over-45s thought so. read more

British broadband providers are just one set of users harnessing the immediacy of Twitter to communicate real-time service information and handle customer support queries, according to the Top 10 Broadband web site.

While telephone customer service experiences often leave a lot to be desired, companies that have embraced Twitter conversations are finding themselves more able to deal with issues quickly as they arrive.

The other benefit is that consumers switched on to Twitter may well think to check the official status pages first rather than phoning a dedicated support desk. read more