This is a topic that I seem to re-visit a lot. And not just here in the blog, but almost everyday in my personal life. People seem to like to ask me, “What is a blog?” and I’m getting better and better at answering the question with a quick “elevator speech” that doesn’t put them to sleep while they try to take it all in.

These days, Tell Ten Friends is seeing a lot of new traffic from clients and other friends who want that very question answered; then they discover that most of my blog is just spewing nonsense about the latest Web 2.0 product, shake-ups in the blog community, and so forth.

Still, my regular readers have noticed by now that often I do take a few steps back to bring the uninitiated into the fold, and bring them up to speed on what’s going on in this exciting new world of self-publishing and Really Simple Syndication, etc.

Mike Sansone of “Converstations”

That’s why I was just tickled when Mike Sansone dropped by to comment on one of my recent posts, because it led me to his blog, whereupon which he is giving a step-by-step tutorial on the subject of business blogging, in a series of posts, entitled:

“What makes a blog different?”

1. The Intro
2. The Tools
3. The Talk
4. Who Cares?

If you’re new to the blogosphere, check it out. Read each one, and even follow Mike’s links, and it will guide through a nice little “newbie” blogging experience.

A keen eye will note that in his series, he links to me, and now I to him. And it all resulted after he stopped by my blog to join the conversation. There’s a lesson to be learned there as well, isn’t there Mike?

Before I get carried away doing my best Elton John singing “Circle of Life” at the top of my lungs, I’ll remind myself that this post really will be of value for many clients and site visitors for years to come, and that such antics are ill advised outside of the shower anyway.

Of a quote I once heard. Canadian TV guru Mozes Znaimer once said, “The best TV tells ME what happened to ME today.”

When I read this post from Howard over at Future Now Inc., I thought of that. Howard points out a quote from Sean Carton, originally posted at ClickZ, on the subject of online video:

“The real story about the rise of online video isn’t about the fact consumers seem to really like to watch short low-res video clips on their computers. Nope. The real story is that consumers are starting to take control of their media, and they really seem to like it. Control, not video, will have huge implications for advertisers, publishers, and marketers in the future.

Welcome to the on-demand future. Prepare for major disruptions.

The on-demand future isn’t about just video; it’s about all media. The signs are all around us: podcasts changing the way consumers listen to audio, social news sites (e.g., digg) changing the way people get information, the number of automated aggregator sites (such as GoogleNews and popurls.com) increasing. Paradigms about how media are created and published are radically changing.”

Some people find this stuff scary. I love it. But then, as the owner of a new media marketing company, I’m a little biased.

Okay, so I’m no Marshall McLuhan with my spoof headline there, but I can back that up with a few stories of shake-ups that have happened recently involving A-list bloggers. And all of this happened last week, I’ve just been too busy to comment yet, so don’t be too hard on me.

For those of you who don’t already know, Robert Scoble was an employee at Microsoft who started blogging about working at his company. Then he got famous. Really famous. And then thousands of Microsoft employees joined suit, and now the software giants have an army of volunteer evangelists and in-house critics.

In another story: Tara Hunt was a blogger from Toronto who was beckoned to the Silicon Valley to manage the marketing of the launch of Riya, a face-recognition-photo-software-program-turned-image-search-engine.

Anyway, as Paul Fabretti points out, now both are out on their own, sans day-job, starting new projects and aligning themselves with new opportunities. In these situations, you never get all of the details of the story, so it’s hard to say what caused these personnel changes, even when you hear the story right from the HorsePigCow’s mouth. I think that both Robert and Tara simply outgrew their surroundings (What? Scoble got too big and powerful for Microsoft!?) and became their own brand, simply by being themselves. Both claim an amicable split, and both are likely to end up coming out ahead when the dust settles.

Robert Scoble had the benefit of association with the hugest company on the planet, while Tara had some great ideas she thought might work, and a knack for networking. Both published great content, and their audiences grew like crazy. I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record about this, but this sends a pretty clear message to me: People will connect with you, and with your company if you offer them some value in the form of content, and just be willing to have a conversation with them. In the case of Robert and Tara, they gained a following both for themselves and the companies they were plugging (and often times critiquing). If you’re smart about it and put the time in, it can work for you, too. Yes, it;s a bit of work, but if you’re talking about something you’re passionate about, it becomes more of a hobby than anything. Think of it as free PR, if that makes you feel better.

What’s the secret? Be yourself, tell the truth and have a bit of fun in the process.

Due to my long absences from posting (client work!!), here’s a few bonus links: With all this talk of Microsoft, I forgot to mention that Bill Gates is retiring from his daily duties at Microsoft! Paul Fabretti mentions that in his post too, if you were reading carefully. Bill’s gonna take a load off, and work on his charity instead. He’ll be scaled back to a normal human’s pace of work by 2008, he says.

Also over a week old, but certainly worth the wait: Our esteemed designer and photographer Rob Masefield is on an Eastern Canadian backpacking tour, and has blogged some of his favorite shots from his trip thus far. Stunning work, but really makes me wish I’d seen as much of my country as he has. I promise to link to his next set from the rest of his trip.