Thanks to Niall Cook at Positive Impact, I was made aware of a local company here in the Boulder area, a data mining company, that has launched a “blog.”  I put the quotations there because I’m not sold that this is actually a blog in the true sense of the word.  Sure they have used the Typepad blogging application and yes it has permalinks and archives (although only one post) but I get the feel that this is more of a news page or a press release page.  No comments are available, and I can’t even ping the post for lack of trackbacks.

Umbria has an about portion at the bottom of the post that could and should probably go on an “About Page”.  They don’t have much to go on about the writer or the blogger that is providing content, although they do have an “email me” link.  It could be done by their PR department and released, but again, that makes it a press release page not a blog. The post is written in a press release fashion which leads me to believe that is what has happened.

On their main site they have failed anywhere in the sitemap or otherwise to point us to the conversation on their blog.  No link is shown on how to read their latest post.  I’m not even sure the post that is there is a true blog post.  It could be more of a whitepaper or merely a written study paid for by CNN.  The title of the site itself is confusing.  Is it an Umbria blog or a site dedicated to speak about gasoline prices?  Is this a CNN blog?  CNN.com has better real estate and exposure on this blog than does Umbria.

Umbria if you are listening, and if you are data mining, you should find this post fairly quick, give us a buzz, we can help make Umbria Speaks into something that is more in tune with the blogosphere.  Besides, I’m only a 1/2 hour away.  I won’t even charge you for the gas.

In the meantime since you did put an RSS feed on your site, I guess I will follow along and see how things progress.

[Hat Tip also to Matthew Hurst]