ReadWriteWeb

Mardi Gras came early to New Orleans this year as the Saints kicked off the week with a remarkable Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts, while the big news in the tech world this week was Google's new social service "Buzz". The buzz around ReadWriteStart this week, however, was education, as we asked where entrepreneurship is really taught, and looked into how colleges could better nurture startups. In this week's Weekly Wrapup, we also look into some ways to make your corporate blogging experience better, and we discuss the weight of design versus engineering in startups.

In last week's installment of Weekend Reading we discussed the engaging social media marketing and brand development A-to-Z guide Crush It! from Gary Vaynerchuk. From that we learned that blogging is just one of many ways to reach your customers, but the subject is so important itself that it deserves its own book; that's exactly what we've got this week. From Eric Butow and Rebecca Bollwitt, this week's selection is Blogging to Drive Business: Create and Maintain Valuable Customer Connections, an overview of the tips and techniques needed to excel at business blogging.

A few days ago Ryan Waggoner launched PRManna - a site for startup companies to offer themselves as news sources to the tech blogging community. Similar to Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter Out (HARO) the site allows journalists to submit requests with the idea that community members answer tech-related questions for articles. In the past we've listed the ideal components of a communication pipeline. We spoke to Waggoner to find out how he's trying to address the needs of both bloggers and entrepreneurs.

In the last few months several startups have asked me how to approach corporate blogging. Judging by the frequency of requests, Gartner was right in suggesting that corporate blogging is rising up the "slope of enlightenment" and about 2 years away from widespread mainstream adoption. The road to enlightenment has been a long one. In the past ten years we've learned that company blogs should not be press releases, sales pitches or plagiarized quotes from Dale Carnegie. You reach enlightenment when you learn to respect your readers. If you want someone to bookmark or retweet your posts, then give them a useful resource. Below are a few approaches you can take to increase the dialogue and comments on your blog.

Social media maven and "average Joe" wine connoisseur Gary Vaynerchuk is the author of "Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion", a step-by-step how-to guide for taking advantage of the Internet and social networking to create a powerful and influential personal brand. While any web savvy entrepreneur knows the importance of social media, this book is great for those looking for a crash course and an insider's view into what it takes to create a thriving business from a personal passion.

Is blogging for old people? Apparently so. Well, at least according to a new study from Pew Internet Project, that is. Today's youngest generation of online users are no longer interested in consuming long-form content like blogs, says the research. Instead, communication among teens tends to involve brief bursts of information, like a Facebook status update or a text message. Pew's findings state that only 14% of tweens and teens ages 12 to 17 now report that they blog, down from 25% only four years ago. They're also less interested in commenting on their friends' blogs, too, with only 52% reporting doing so, down from over three-quarters back in 2006.

Do you use WordPress and want to blog from your Android phone? Doing that just got a lot easier. Wordpress for Android - an open-source app backed by WordPress.org - is now available in the Android Market. With this app, anybody who blogs on WordPress.com or a self-hosted WordPress blog can post and edit blog posts, as well as moderate and post comments. In addition, the app will display notifications whenever a reader comments on a blog post.

Today, Pope Benedict XVI announced that priests and church leaders should be actively using digital tools, including the social web, to communicate with laypersons, particularly young people.

The occasion was the 44th annual World Communications Day, traditionally a time for the Vatican to project an annual message from the church to its people and the rest of the world. This year's message stood in sharp contrast to the missive he delivered in 2009, when the Holy See stated that mass media - including online information sources - acted as a "poison" that numbed morality and sensitivity. "'It recounts, repeats and amplifies evil," he said, "making us accustomed to horrendous acts, desensitizing us and, in some ways, poisoning us." So, why the about-face?

Home and Garden TV just announced that it has signed Heather Armstrong, author of hyper-popular early blog Dooce.com, to collaborate on unspecified "convergence media" projects.

The millions of readers who have followed Armstrong on her nine-year journey as an ex-Mormon mom who got fired for the contents of her blog and then made that blog an international phenomenon will no doubt be excited to see what she does with the TV network. Armstrong is a designer by training.

As some of our readers know, I was clumsy enough to hack off a chunk of my finger while making dinner a couple nights ago. This incident has severely curtailed my blogging activity, but it's led to a fortunate inspiration, as well!

For those of you who are differently-abled - temporarily or otherwise - or for those of you who are simply too lazy to type, here are a handful of resources for hands-free Internet use, from blog posting to Twitter updates to straight-up voice-to-text transcription services. I hope you find these apps as useful as I have.