Now that your company has decided to deploy a corporate blog, you need to evaluate your corporate needs in order to choose the appropriate solution from the dozens of options, which range in functionality, cost and complexity. The first step is to agree upon the goals and expectations for the blog. Some things to discuss include: 1) level of complexity; 2) who should be able to read and post to the blog; 3) integration with company messaging; and 4) future blogging strategy. Your answers will determine the best blog publishing solution for you.

Some companies choose to publish an independent forum for employees to communicate outside the realm of management. Utilizing an independent, hosted service like blogger.com (www.blogger.com) or MySmartChannels.com (www.mysmartchannels.com) enables management or employees to post messages without posting to an official company site. While postings are public domain, user administration policies allow you to limit who can post and edit messages. In the corporate world, a tool like this could be used effectively for a weekly address from the CEO. The independent medium, rather than a corporate Web site, will help distinguish the writer as an industry thought leader instead of a corporate evangelist.

If you decide to use your blog solely to disseminate information for internal use, other blogging services can restrict who can view postings. SocialText (www.socialtext.com) is a relatively inexpensive managed blogging service that limits readers and provides more than basic functionality, including live chat and collaborative tools. A virtual white board allows employees to securely share ideas and project progress in cyberspace. The blogging tools are easy to use and can be posted via a Web portal or email.

If you'd like greater flexibility and control over content, you may want to consider a blog publishing application hosted on company servers. Movable Type (www.sixapart.com/movabletype) is by far the most popular application used to set up corporate blogs. Version 3.17 solves many of the bugs the software had in earlier versions and improves the collaboration functionality of the solution. While it is harder to install and set up, the software is easy to use once it is up and running. Authors use a simple rich text editor to post messages and can email their postings to people within the company. The publishing tools allow the administrator to create static or interactive pages, and there are a number of plug-ins that give you greater editing and design options.

Traction (www.tractionsoftware.com) is another blog publishing solution that runs on your corporate servers. Like Movable Type, the solution can be difficult to set up but works well once up and running. In addition to blogs, interactive white boards and live chat, the software allows you to hide links to internal-only content from IP addresses outside the company network. Instead of having to maintain separate databases for internal and public content, you can set up one consistent medium to deliver communication to all audiences. While you may not need that level of customization now, the software's scalable design allows you to add features as your communications needs evolve.

Domino users may want to check out the new blog editing tools included in the new version of IBM Workplace (www.ibm.com/software/info/workplace). Through the Workplace Designer programming kit, companies can add interactive communication functionality to employee workspaces. The features include archive and search functions and the ability to add links to other blog postings and Web pages. Authors and viewers can also forward postings to each other, highlighting passages or downloadable documents. Like Movable Type and Traction, make sure you have programming resources available.

Whether you decide on public versus private, simple versus complex or official over unofficial, there are a variety of publishing applications and services available. The trick is to determine what functionality is necessary to achieve the goals you have outlined in your communications plan and to start blogging smartly.

Michael Grumley, michaelg@text100.com, currently heads up Text 100's global systems and infrastructure. He provides the firm's long term technical vision, including strategies for testing and leveraging new tools and technologies coming to market. Prior to joining Text 100 he worked for Cisco Systems.