I want to introduce you to Michael Colemire, a Kentucky artist, and newly initiated asker of dumb SEO questions.

I talk to a lot of people about SEO and social media marketing. It is my job, so that makes perfect sense. I answer a lot of questions, debunk a lot of myths, and develop a lot of ideas. I brainstorm with industry know-it-alls, and I brainstorm with people who know little or nothing about these topics, but want to grow their business.

Something I found interesting while I recently visited on the phone with my friend and long-time reader of my blog was that he was afraid of asking dumb questions. His name is Michael Colemire, and he is a very talented sculptor and wood carver. He is not a marketing guy, but he has some great works of art to market, so he wants to learn.

Even if you are the least tech-savvy person since my mother, it is clear that you will see this company popping up in more places during 2011. The name, “Disqus” (pronounced as discuss) is spread far and wide across the Internet, and its exposure is growing quickly as top tech and news blogs implement the service.

In November 2010 TechCrunch reported that there were over 500,000 communities using Disqus for more than 160 million conversations between 18 million profiles. According to Quantcast, Disqus is moving up quickly. Maybe you are not so sure about its importance just yet, but I am, and I want to share why Disqus is quickly climbing my list of favorite social networking tools.

I recently visited with a friend who is pretty aware of technology, but he still feels a bit awkward when it comes to blogs. He spoke of how subscribing, commenting, and joining into a discussion can feel a bit daunting if you are not sure how it all works. When I looked at it from his perspective, I realized how right he was. Perhaps bloggers don’t look at things from a new user perspective as much as we should. We should try harder to be more welcoming of the uninitiated, and that is what I hope to do here.

I am writing this for you, whether you are completely new to blogs, or an experienced blog owner who may have forgotten how lost you felt when you were just figuring this blogging stuff out for the first time. I also want to inspire you with some significant benefits of participating in blogs.

Most of us will probably agree that collective thinking as a community is more beneficial than our individual thoughts. This does not mean we will all adapt to the thoughts of our community. Sometimes we will disagree, which can also prove beneficial. The fact remains that communities think bigger than the sum of their parts. This is why we have terms like “two heads are better than one” and why social media has become so useful for cultivating ideas with collaboration, for those who choose to embrace it. My blog thought for today is about the communities which we create, and how much of the community involvement is easy to overlook.

Blogging creates small communities which are often loosely connected, and it does so in some unique ways. Some of these small communities which blogs create are closely connected and some are only loosely connected but yet just as valuable. Often times, the community effect is simply the sharing of an idea which seeds thinking for others. It creates a collective intelligence which guides us on our way.

I added a Facebook Like button to my blog today (at the top of each blog post), and I must say that I like it. I like it very much. So, what does it do and how does it work?

The Facebook Like Button is the fastest and easiest way to share things with Facebook friends to date. It is as fast as if you “Like” something right on Facebook. That is because it actually is on Facebook and uses an iframe. If you like, there is an alternate implementation, but the iframe is just fine for most websites. It requires no additional action from users … no popup, no filling out a Captcha, no adding descriptions. It just takes a single click to “Like” something.