Meeting blog designer Sarah Lewis for the first time

I've been working with Sarah Lewis of Blogging Expertise for about two years. She did the custom design for this blog and also designed my main site at debbieweil.com. But until today, when I bumped into Sarah in the hall at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, we'd never met face-to-face. Only in Vegas, as they say...

Listen below as I ask Sarah what's new in blog design.

What a good corporate blog should look like

Congrats to Mario Sundar on the launch of a new corporate blog for LinkedIn. Mario has been publishing his own blog, Marketing Nirvana, for about a year (can't find the archives so I'm not sure when he started it).

It's one of my favorite resources for tips and insights related to corporate blogging. Looks like his blog helped him get his new job as Community Evangelist with LinkedIn.

See below for 10 things that work on the new LinkedIn corporate blog

... plus a few minor quibbles

1. Platform - LinkedIn is using TypePad*, a simple hosted platform for the blog. Perfect. Why reinvent the wheel?

2. Design - simple and clean; two columns.

3. Navigation - simple and intuitive; at the top of the blog page. Links go to the archives, about the blog, LinkedIn home page, etc.

The "Subscribe" link should go to an interim page or entry that explains what RSS is and what it means to subscribe via RSS. As is, it links directly to the FeedBurner page. This will be confusing to some folks.

Also, there is no Subscribe via email option. A lot of folks prefer this or want it in addition.

4. The first entry - Your window to LinkedIn gracefully introduces the blog. It doesn't go into a lot of depth. But says just enough:

"Today we’re launching our corporate blog to not only help you leverage LinkedIn more effectively but also to provide you a sounding board for all things LinkedIn." - LinkedIn blog

5. Comments - a respectable 46 comments on the first entry, as of this writing. Great work. This blog's already got traction!

6. A photo - the entry includes a photo. It could be bigger and it would be more appealing if it were a person, like Mario Sundar.

7. Brief bio of blog editor - that would be Mario. Appropriately, this goes to his LinkedIn page!

8. Flickr photos - a nice addition in the left-hand sidebar. But they should all be labelled. Presumably these are all folks who work at LinkedIn.

9. A comments policy - simple, straightforward and easy to find (bottom of left-hand column):

"We love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc. All comments are moderated." - LinkedIn blog

10. Subscribe via RSS - The RSS button is clearly visible. But why is it gray and not the usual distinctive orange? Don't buck convention for the sake of design. If people recognize something on the Web, use it.

*WordPress is another simple option for a corporate blog. The Extensis blog is a nicely-designed example built on WordPress.

I don't whether Extensis is using WordPress.com, which is hosted. Or WordPress.org, which is open source software you install. Does anyone know?