Category Archives: Feature

Information Architecture Example

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Ryan has written a great article about the information architecture of College Crunch, the site I am currently working on developing full time for him.

He breaks down each section we have created, as well as the reasonings behind it while also reminding others of the need to pre-plan their information architecture in a smart way.

The larger a website is meant to be, the more critical it is to get information architecture right. Otherwise, changes that don’t lend themselves to the original structure will take days, weeks, maybe even months to re-organize. The use of tags or other semantic indicators can be very helpful in matching together related information.

You can find the article on the Sea Waves blog.

Originally posted on September 2, 2008 @ 6:22 pm

Apple Updates the iPod Touch: My Next Portable Blogging Platform

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So Apple had their little event today and released some new stuff. As usual, the web was buzzing about it, but most found the end result fairly lack-luster. They released an updated iPod nano which looks, unsurprisingly enough, like the leaks we have long seen.

iPod Touch 2G

The big news for me was the iPod touch, as I have been wanting one for a while, and had decided to wait to see what came of this event. This is the second generation iPod Touch, or 2G as most call it.

They made some changes I am excited about, as well as some I am less excited about, and left out some things I was really hoping would make the cut.

First, they made the new iPod touch thinner, which is always nice for any device that is portable. I almost wish though that they had kept it the same width, and used the room for a bigger battery and added in the same digital camera that the iPhone has.

They also added hardware based volume controls, which is really nice as that reduces the need to touch the screen, helping keep it clean, and using what is probably a fair bit less resources. Another interesting addition is a speaker, which while it won’t please audiophiles, it should do me just fine when trying to quickly hear some video or audio on the go, especially since I really dislike headphones, and always have.

Then Apple did some of the normal things that they do in tweaking the user interface, adding some new software, and adding a new “feature” that they hope everyone will be excited about in iTunes Genius, a recommendation engine. I wasn’t too impressed with it, but I can’t complain about them doing such things.

The big news for me was the pricing. It has been a long held rumour that Apple would drop the iPod Prices and they did, but not as much as people speculated. Some people thought that the real announced price would be even lower than the rumoured pricing, thus shocking the world, but that didn’t happen. The 8GB iPod touch is now $229 US ($259 Can), which is about a $50 price drop. It isn’t the $199 that many people assumed, but any price drop is better than none, I suppose.

I was really hopeful that they would add bluetooth to the iPod touch as that would allow me to buy a bluetooth keyboard, and make the iPod touch my portable blogging platform of choice, but alas, that doesn’t look like it made the cut. That means the on screen keyboard is still the only interface I will have for data entry, and it isn’t one that I enjoy using.

Still, when all is said and done, I had previously asked for donations to purchase the iPod touch, and so I have taken the leap. I ordered the 8GB as soon as the store went live again, and I am looking forward to reporting on its usefulness in helping me keep organized with my blogging work, keeping on top of my e-mail, and as a blogging platform for getting content ready while on the go.

It would have been nice if it was $60 cheaper, as I would have then been able to buy a case for it, but my friend, Tom Leroux, made mention of the fact that one could easily make a sock for the iPod, and that his wife made him one from denim that looks great.

While I am not really much for sewing, I know I could quickly and easily whip up a small sock for my own once it gets here, and that should be more than adequate for now.

Donators

Thanks again to everyone listed below for their help in reaching my goal of getting an iPod touch. Please know that my wife despises all of you for continuing to feed my geeky side.

Ryan Caldwell of College Crunch
Mark Wood, My Cousin
Jeff Chandler of Jeffro2pt0
Chris Garrett of Authority Blogger
Yan Fortin of Geeks are Sexy

Originally posted on September 9, 2008 @ 5:45 pm

Top 50 Update: Make Money Online Blogs – New is Hot

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It is time again to check in to see how Make Money Online blogs are doing, and so I turn once again to the 45n5.com/top100 list to see where things are positioned and use my previously posted list from the end of March for comparison.

Check out Five Months Later: Top 50 Make Money Online Blogs Shuffle.

One thing I want to mention is how happy I am to still be rising in the ranks. I didn’t think I would get into the top 15, but I am currently sitting at number 13, and I couldn’t have done it without my friends and readers. While many of the blogs I know and love are quickly dropping out of the top 50, I’ve been able to hold my ground, and even move up a notch or two, and that really excites me for the future.

Continue reading →

Originally posted on August 2, 2008 @ 11:24 am

My Blogging Retrospective Part 3: Going Beyond Blogging

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Once you have been blogging for a while, things might change and there could be a time when other offers might come your way that have very little to do with blogging. This recently happened to me, with my new position as Community Manager for PicApp.

Some of the things that you will most likely learn if you take even the smallest interest in them include: software, hardware, advertising, monetization, networking, branding, promotion, and social media. Some of those can be merged together, but in the end, they are all skills that can be used for other jobs.

Software/Hardware

When I first started blogging, I was just manually editing HTML on Geocities. After that, I moved onto a simple PHP script that I found on Hotscripts, and then finally I moved onto WordPress after hearing about it on a blog I enjoyed by Michael Heilemann, aka Binary Bonsai.

WordPress was this complex piece of software, and at first I felt like I would never understand any of the code that made it run, but after tweaking a few themes to suit me, I began to understand the theme architecture and that stood me in good stead when I was working for Bloggy Network as they had a great designer, and needed those designs quickly converted into WordPress themes. This made me more useful to them, and gave me the occasional break from writing articles.

Beyond WordPress, I was a bit of a geek, and was able to spend some time refreshing myself on Linux command line commands, and became useful in that way as well in setting up all of the Bloggy Network blogs to use Subversion to manage updating the blogs, which shaved hours off of the upgrade time for the blogs.

Advertising and Promotion

If you aren’t a technical person, but you want to run a successful blog, you have to either really have some personality in your writing or you need to be amazing at advertising and promotion. Social media promotion is a skill I am still learning and each time I figure out something new, the power of my articles increases.

Advertising on the right blogs can be really difficult. You need to think about the amount of money you want to spend, and the position of the blog. I am hesitant to buy any advertising except where the owner of the site has priced the spot so low that I would be stupid not to.

The issue with advertising on most blogs is that the readers have no doubt become ad blind to most of the traditional advertising locations, and so unless your campaign is unique in some way, you will not get the results you are hoping for. I learned this the hard way, and spent a fair bit of money trying to capture an audience off of competing sites.

Always try to increase your skills outside of blogging, but don’t stray too far from your craft. At one point I was spending more time on advertising, marketing, WordPress support and theme development than I was blogging, and that can be draining and sometimes depressing if it is writing that you are really passionate about.

Do You Have a Goal?

One of the things that I had when I started blogging was a goal in my mind, and I try to create goals for each and every site I launch. Some are unrealistic and nearly impossible to attain in the time line I have created, but I have always been one to reach for the stars and find fulfillment in making it to the moon.

If you don’t have goals for your blog, and your blogging efforts, then how will you know how far you have really come and how much more you have to work on?

My current goal with this blog is to build it to a four figure revenue mark per month or sell to a good company or blogger for low five figures. My initial time line on this was to have it happen within the first year of posting, and in a little over two weeks we will be at that one year point, and I am only bringing in half as much revenue per month than I was hoping and I haven’t yet sold the blog.

So while I haven’t met my goals, it does feel really nice to have built a site with five hundred posts, nearly five hundred RSS subscribers and some new friends that I wouldn’t have made without creating this blog. I couldn’t have set a goal towards the intangible things I would gain for this blog, and so I see them as a bonus.

You need to have blogging goals, and to try to stick with them. Every time I changed full time blogging jobs, I received a small but substantial bump in pay, bringing me finally to a level where I can lead a comfortable life from my online work.

Never forget the people that helped build your career, but continue to focus on the things that will excite you and help you attain your goals.

This post is part three of three parts. This is the 500th post on this blog. Some things that have changed on this blog and some more changes are coming. I am continuing to try to improve this blog and I want to thank all of you that take the time to read my thoughts and comment.

If you are a blogger just starting out and looking for advice, please contact me. I love to give advice, even if it isn’t something I am particularly knowledgeable about, I am always looking to learn new things and help people succeed.

Check out Part One: Don’t Take Every Job
Check out Part Two: Build Your Personal Brand

Originally posted on June 30, 2008 @ 7:40 pm