I get a lot of questions about blogging from people who are considering starting a business and are new to the social media world. 

So does my friend Nathan Bowers , who is a web developer by trade, and also an artist/musician and all-around renaissance guy. 

Nathan and I connected on Twitter recently and started a whole series of offline conversations which resulted in this 2-part podcast interview.  We wanted to reduce anxiety for new bloggers, and also draw the connection between the importance of good technology crossed with good content.  As we both noted, there are plenty of popular blogs with crappy designs, mine included.

Part 1 of this interview covers:

1. Defining a goal for your blog
2. Securing an effective domain name
3. Choosing a blogging platform
4. Choosing a blog host
5. Measuring the success of your blog
6. Design basics

Interview notes:

Seth Godin's advice on naming
Neutron LLC naming case studies

As a side note, Nathan walks his talk and recently redesigned Fred Wilson's popular blog avc.com .  He made the connection with Fred by commenting on his blog frequently, and suggesting improvements.  Fred was so intrigued that he hired Nathan, proof that valuable business connections come from social networking done with integrity.