This is Brett Hurt Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice whom I met today at Internet World.

Now the interesting thing I thought about Brett is that he knows how to make friends, engage with people, seemed to be open minded, and generally enjoys interaction with new people, he doesn't foolishly judge too quickly, which always gets my interest every time.

To give you an opposite example.

The first exhibitor I walked up to at IW today was an older gentlemen representing a company concerned with CRM, you know, management of customer relationships (cough cough), and as it happens I have had CRM on my mind for a project recently. So picture this, I had a Nikon around my neck, was wearing torn jeans, a t-shirt, slightly unshaven look, and my usual blue glasses, a normal day for me then, (as you can see here) nice eh?.

So, as I say hello to this grumpy old guy, first thing he does is starts to look me up and down and begins asking me questions to validate myself (no shit),

• HIM: "how many employees do you represent then"

• ME: "I'm a web strategist, one of my clients has global representation"
• HIM: "show me a card then"

blah blah (insert longer story here), really boring me already dude.

So it got to the stage where I couldn't give a fuck how good his software may have been, the mere fact he made a judgement call on my appearance along with his decision to try and assert me to validate myself to him (like that's going work), was enough for me to just politely fuck-off in the other direction.

Now, moving on to Brett.

Brett on the other hand, you see, took an interest in a potential conversation with me and found out that I might post some pictures of the IW event onto Flick, the fact that hey this might be a really good moment for a Blog post to come from it, a moment captured where people interact with good outcomes, a memorable exchange.

Brett pulls his shirt open revealing a green t-shirt and says "put Bazaarvoice loves osborne" on it. I have no idea what that means, but it is of little significance. It's a message, it's a reach, it's an enagagement to someone, a client, a prospect who knows?

Job done for me, I couldn't refuse this attitude, it's perfect, and goes to show that if you think you are above your station (the first guy) you might need a reality check. The internet is not all about suites and boots.

Go visit BazaarVoice.

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OK disclaimer first: I’m no expert I’m just like you, it’s just I’ve been doing this a bit longer.

No seriously though getting a blog up and running is as easy as putting your shoes on. I’ll indicate a few things here that will help you on your way.

1. you can choose to have your blog hosted for you on blogging platforms, The two easiest ones that spring to mind are:

a) Blogger
b) Wordpress

Benefits:

• create an account and begin blogging
• no monthly charges

Downside:

• Impossible to customise with fancy plugins (great community building tools)
• Whilst you might have yourusername.wordpress.com in the domain you won’t have your OWN domain. (what if you build a great brand and wish to sell it in the future?)

2. You can choose to purchase a domain name of your choice and I’d recommend your own name, or a name which relates to what your blog is to be about. “LondonNights” or whatever. Having your own domain has far better branding implications too.

My advise, without a doubt, is to get a domain name they are cheap as chips. Now if you do get a domain you will have to do one of two things:

1. using your free blogging account you can point that to your domain (can be tricky, but doable)
2. rent monthly server space, point the domain to it, and install the blogging software on that space (find a friend to help you with that). Paying a monthly fee of say 10 pounds for a quality server with 99% uptime and 24/7 support is in my mind the absolute best solution.

That’s it, a piece of cake really.

If you should require server space and help with a domain let me know.

Also please do post some comments here with your thoughts to help out newbies, what do you use and where?

UPDATE: Interestingly enough just after I posted this a Twitter friend BethGranter indicated she is having issues moving her hosted account to her own domain. The old urls are indexed and she is concerned about that traffic loss. Another good reason to host your own.

Technorati Tags: blogger blogging branding domains plugins server software wordpress server blogging software wordpress blogger domains branding plugins