I participated in a fireside chat with Stuart MacDonald at Mesh today. We covered a range of topics about blogs, social media, marketing and PR.

Microsoft’s Expression Web Designer product, which had also gone under the code name of “Quartz,” was just released in preview form. Expression Web Designer companion products have already been made available as Community Technology Preview releases, but this one program was withheld.

A WiFi-connected “blogger bus” was parked outside E3, the Mecca of gaming in L.A., readied with plasma TVs and leather couches, so the Xbox faithful could hammer out the news and views to make up the canonical texts of the gaming “way of life.”

Mark Evans from the National Post is grilling Om Malik on the future of media at Mesh Conference here in Toronto.

MySpace is diversifying yet again. The Internet social network has announced plans to begin selling episodes of the hit Fox show “24.” This move comes as part of an effort to grow the company into a business entity comparable to Yahoo or iTunes.

Are you a risk taker? Do you like to interact with customers? Are you the type of entrepreneur who likes to work on group projects in collaboration with others? Or do you prefer to work alone analyzing detailed work?

Associations and trade organizations are great places to meet individuals. Usually organizations have a common theme, and it is an understood implication that all members participate to improve themselves and their businesses.

All too often we hear people say that business is evil and a major cause of the many problems of society.

Remember when desktop publishing was the next big thing? (Of course not, you’d have to be my age and remember when certain rock formations were born.)

Companies that listen to bloggers have a unique opportunity to improve their reputations and win converts to their business models.

IBM’s Rakesh Agrawal has departed the Almaden Institute in favor of the cozy confines of the Microsoft Search Labs.

The man who is probably most responsible for Yahoo’s and Google’s advertising success has revamped his search site to mingle sponsored and organic results together.

The $30 billion stock repurchase Microsoft started in 2004 will soon end, and angry shareholders have started to air their complaints that Microsoft should buy even more stock.

Want to know how NOT to blog?

Melanie Colburn is none too pleased with some “covert spam” being inserted into her WhoLinked feeds.

In any small to medium-size business, there comes a time when you don’t know exactly what to do or how to do it.

What are the pitfalls to avoid when starting to measure Web site performance using Web Site Analysis Tools?

You know the old saying about not criticizing someone until you walk in their shoes.

This looks pretty interesting – Canvas:

BL Ochman notes that the new Google Trends service does not include blogs in its calculations.

Do you base success on measuring the volume of visitors and page impressions? Such measures may in fact reflect the failure-rather than the success-of your website.

On Wednesday, IBM plans to unveil its WebSphere Content Discovery for Business Intelligence solution, an enterprise search and unstructured information discovery software. IBM calls it an “industry first” for its ability to gather and understand unstructured information from audio, video, comments, and others.

Effective managers are people who possess great skills. In todays work environment managing a team requires more than just telling others what to do and how to do it.

Rubel uncovers RSS Micro, a new search engine for RSS feeds.