Darren Rowse, of Problogger fame, recently put up a great video that I wholeheartedly agree with in regards to the emerging trends in blogging, especially in blogs that are being run like a business.
He includes the following:
Definitely a video worth watching:
Originally posted on May 20, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
There is a great post on Command Line Idiot that has a list of twelve signs that a recession has hit the Internet and since it made me laugh, I thought I should give it a nod on my blog.
My favourites from the list:
I have already heard from a few different sources that they think the worst is already over when it comes to the economy, but I am definitely taking a wait and see approach. I don’t think we’ve hit the worst of it yet, especially if the rising gas prices are any indication.
Here’s hoping that things get better with regards to the economy. I need the Canadian dollar not to be so strong so my converted from US dollars pay equates to more perceived buying power.
Originally posted on May 15, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
It looks like John Cow has had to re-list his blog for sale on Sitepoint. The previous auction lead only to two different bidders that didn’t pay up when it was time to.
From the new Auction:
Re listed, do not bid BIN if you are not willing to honor the agreement. Bids are legally binding, read the FAQs.
The time to sell has come for my beloved blog. Let me try and answer the first question that comes to mind, why?
Because I am entering an extremely busy period in my personal life. Moving from Europe to Australia soon, having to find a new place to stay for a couple of months first, before the big move, I am going to be spending most of my time moving house, filling out tons of paperwork, then shipping everything over to Aus and trying to get a new house there. With all this going on, I won’t have much time to attend to my online business, so I’m probably going to take a break from the Internet for a few months.
So my loss is your gain.
It really makes me wonder how two different people could back out of the sale, and it will probably generate an unfortunate wave of trepidation over new bidders wondering the same thing.
It is really a shame that neither of the two previous bidders picked up the site, as a sale of this magnitude is always interesting to watch.
Currently, the starting bid is once again $25,000 for a blog that makes $2500 a month. It was said that the site was sold for the buy it now price of $50,000 in the last auction, and that is once again the buy it now price.
How many times will the site have to be sold before it stays sold? I watch with baited breath.
Originally posted on April 14, 2008 @ 9:00 pm
Clay Collins recently published a post on Copyblogger that made me laugh, and so I have to share it. The post is entitled, “6 Ways That Bloggers are Like Rappers” and it compares A-list bloggers to well known rappers to show how similar the two different professions are, especially where personality characterizations are concerned.
My favourite from the article:
Similarity #5: Gang Affiliation
Personal alliances, friendships, and creative and collaborative relationships run strong between rappers. Established rappers promote their friends, cite their peers, produce beats for colleagues, make guest appearances on allies’ albums, and help their friends get record contracts. Some of the more famous alliances existed between 50 Cent, Enimen, and Dr. Dre, as well as between the Notorious B.I.G., Sean (Puffy) Combs, and Lil’ Kim.
Bloggers form similar alliances. Circles of friends swap guests posts, create blogging networks, link to and interview each other, etc., and the blogosphere can sometimes seem a little incestuous. Mess with the wrong blogger and you may get blacklisted by their network. I’d rather not go about naming crews in the blogosphere, but if you’ve been around here long enough (um… one day?) the alliances will pop out. You’ll see them.
Definitely worth a read, and while not really a profession I would like to be compared to, I enjoyed the article.
Originally posted on April 12, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
Google’s Official Webmaster blog has put up a post about moving your site from one domain to another, making sure to mention that if the IP address is changing, there is a caveat which they talk about in a search engine optimization post they wrote a while back.
Here are two of the half dozen points they give:
Test the move process by moving the contents of one directory or subdomain first. Then use a 301 Redirect to permanently redirect those pages on your old site to your new site. This tells Google and other search engines that your site has permanently moved.
To prevent confusion, it’s best to make sure you retain control of your old site domain for at least 180 days.
They also provide some other advice, which could be listed as interesting or helpful, but most of it is specific to watching Google do its magic, and making sure that you track the process and notify them of any issues.
It is an interesting post, but I feel that Google could have gone into more detail about what is happening behind the scenes with Google. Like with one point they mention rolling out a domain and design/code change as two different steps to help users, but what do search engines think when they come to a site that has changed both domain and code?
Originally posted on April 17, 2008 @ 3:31 pm