A discussion about corporate and business blogging with tips and guidelines

Reuters's Eric Auchard reports that Yahoo! will now be the "preferred provider" of Movable Type (the highly popular blogging software) for small businesses.  So one of the largest Web companies has now teamed up with one of the most prominent blog publishing software makers to create an enticing opportunity for business owners.  For about $10-30 a month, your small business will get 5-20 GB of hard disk space and 200-500 GB data transfer per month (three basic plans are available).  And Movable Type will power your blogs for Yahoo!

I checked out Six Apart's website (Six Apart makes Movable Type) to see if there was more news on the partnership with Yahoo!, but all I could find was a new link in the upper right area of the screen that took me to a page at Yahoo! Small Business offering a combination of Yahoo! Web Hosting and Movable Type for small businesses.  I just wish that it were easier to find news and information about the new partnership directly from either Yahoo! or Six Apart.

I think this new partnership not only shows just how serious Yahoo! is about establishing itself as a Web 2.0-savvy, blog-savvy, social software-savvy enterprise (see my posts on Yahoo!'s purchase of del.icio.us and Yahoo!'s new RSS email folder), but also bodes well for Movable Type in particular and business blogging in general.  People's heads continue to turn due to news like this about business blogging.  I think it's another important step toward bizlogging becoming "mainstream."

What do you think about the new Yahoo! / Movable Type partnership?

Whenever I think of a possible post topic, I worry about the question, "So what?"  Especially, "So what for business blogging and business bloggers?"  Such preoccupation helps me, I think, to talk about news that's especially relevant to people who blog for business purposes.

So, on to the news.  Yahoo!, the Wal-Mart of the Web, has just bought the popular social bookmarking service called "Delicious" (del.icio.us).  You can see announcements at the del.icio.us blog (so far with 300-plus comments attached) and at the Yahoo! Search blog (also with dozens of comments).

Starting today, Yahoo! is beta testing a new RSS email folder in Yahoo! Mail. The RSS folder makes it easier for Web users to follow updated information on Web sites they specify.

Why does this matter to business bloggers? I can think of a few reasons:

1. More of your potential blog subscribers will be using feeds in their Yahoo! Mail. If you haven't syndicated your blog yet, do it now! Herman Drost at iSiteBuild offers a good little guide to RSS.

2. You can use Yahoo's RSS reader in conjunction with your Yahoo email to find the news you want.  This can help fuel thought for posts at your business blog.  You'll have an edge over the poor souls still stuck in the "Web 1.0" practice of browsing for news.

3. Talk about this news on your corporate blog or individual professional blog.  Your readers will thank you for the scoop on Yahoo! Mail's new feed capabilities.

Other Resources:

• TechCrunch offers a great article and discussion on Yahoo!'s new RSS folder.
• Read/WriteWeb points out the advantage this development gives Yahoo! over Google, whose own RSS efforts (Google Reader, Google News, etc.) are being overshadowed.
• Podtech has a great podcast and transcript of a discussion with two Yahoo! workers who have been directly involved with the Yahoo!'s RSS developments.

P.S.  If you're looking for a concrete example of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), see my guide on how to subscribe to Business Blog Wire feeds.