Category Archives: Review

6 Things to Cover In an Event Review

Getting the opportunity to cover an event can be the first big break for a blogger. While you are certain to be overwhelmed with excitement about the prospect of covering the event, it is also a lot of pressure. Putting out a polished review can reflect well on the event as well as give your blog valuable press-time; but it can be a complicated endeavor. Included here are a few things to incorporate and cover when you complete your first event review blog.

Be Punctual

Make sure you are on-time, or early, to the event so you can photograph guests coming and going at the venue as well as any featured items the event may be peddling. After the event, it is critical you write your review while the experience is fresh in your mind. This often means writing within the first 48 hours following the soiree, although some coordinators may want the article up even sooner.

networking-event

Include Important Statistics

This means you will have to be well-informed and able to go around shaking some hands. Find out who supported the event, who attended and for what cause. Include statistics like money raised, students supported, and how many celebrities were in attendance. Consider infographics, if applicable, as they are a surefire way to bring more traffic to your site. Continue reading

Originally posted on August 9, 2015 @ 5:45 am

Showcasing Your Linked Profile in Images

Among the top social media sites today, Facebook and Twitter have been exerting efforts to enhance their platforms. They make changes every now and then to the surprise of users the next time they log into their social media account.

Linkedin-icon

LinkedIn is fast catching up and after improving the look of its company pages, it has now launched a new look for the profile page of members. Those who love visuals will surely rejoice over this new development as LinkedIn now allows its users to showcase their professional experience through the use of images.

In a move being made for the first time, LinkedIn users can now show their professional achievements through images, videos and even presentations in the most innovative way they can. This is now the opportunity of graphic designers, aspiring film makers and other creative people to present their works on this professional networking site. Continue reading

Originally posted on May 6, 2013 @ 8:47 am

Latest Publishing Tools Worth Considering

Online publishing has never been as fast and easy as today. With all the advanced tools that exist and continue to be developed, anybody passionate about sharing information on the internet can publish his work on a wide variety of platforms today.

Whether you’re publishing content on your blog or creating ebooks and magazines, there are tools you can use and most of them are free of charge.

OnSwipe


For those into publishing magazines on the internet, the OnSwipe 2.0 can be utilized. This content distribution platform promises an out of the ordinary user experience particularly for those using the tablet. Through this tool, users can publish and manage their magazine at the same time.
Continue reading

Originally posted on September 16, 2012 @ 2:00 pm

Five Blogging Lessons from Julie Powell

I just finished watching the movie Julie and Julia as recommended by Juned in a previous post here in XFEP. Indeed it was a very inspiring movie – for writers and bloggers. Julie Powell may not be the best blogger in the world, but she definitely excels in one important thing that all of us bloggers should learn to do (if you’re not yet doing it) – talk to our audience when we write blog posts.

Taking the other important things that we can all learn from Julie Powell, here are five blogging lessons that we can learn from Julie Powell from the movie Julie and Julia.

Be Passionate About What You Are Writing

Julie adores and loves Julia Child. She was her hero, icon, semi-god. And like Julia, Julie loves cooking. At some point in the movie, when Julie was talking about blogging she asked her husband what she should write about. Somewhere in their discussion – the niche came out – Julie will cook all the recipes in Julia Powell’s cookbook and blog about it. So she did. Continue reading

Originally posted on November 9, 2010 @ 7:00 am

Host Monster Web Hosting

The Following Post is an Paid Informational from ReviewMe

One of the first things I do when searching out a new web host is to see how many negative pages the company has built up under “company name sucks” and so when I was contacted to talk about Host Monster, I instantly performed my normal search.

Dreamhost has 69,300 search results
Host Gator has 68,200 search results
Host Monster only has 53,700 search results (or more than 14,000 less negative results)

I have used these hosts, and have to admit that I am surprised that so many people have dedicated themselves to making such pages against web hosting companies. Most of the issues I read about Host Monster had to do with people violating TOS and being upset that Host Monster had to turn off their site in response.

I understand that this might frustrate some people, but I also believe that this is for the greater good, and most reviewers leave out whether they were contacted before hand or not, so any negative reviews are very bias in nature and must always be taken with a grain of salt. The best way to find out if a host will fit your needs or not is to try them out. While moving sites might be difficult to decide which ones are good or bad before testing it out, much like a car.

On more than a few sites I visited, Host Monster was reviewed well, usually within the top ten web hosts listed on review sites, leading me to believe that they do well, also, I found more than one review where the customer was elated with the level and quality of customer service and support they received, including being able to call in and talk to knowledgeable staff.

One of the things that stands out to me when I look at Host Monster is the fact that they only have one consumer level hosting plan that is basically for anyone and everyone. Their plan includes unlimited space and bandwidth, as well as being able to add an unlimited number of domains to your plan. Usually such things would raise red flags for me, but they also take extra steps like offering a 99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee, $25 in Free Yahoo Credits and $50 Free Google Credits. The credits are, I assume, to be used to advertise on the search engines different advertising networks to draw in traffic to your site, which is always a confidence booster in my mind. How many hosts invest in the success of their users?

My only wish with Host Monster would be a stronger understanding of limitations. If they don’t limit bandwidth, nor hard drive space, what is to stop bad people from taking advantage of a good hosting company?

If you have a small site, or a very large site, you should try out Host Monster, and see if it is the right web host for you. They give a 30 day money back guarantee, so you don’t have anything to loose in that respect.

The Preceding Post was a Paid Post, but the opinions are my own

Originally posted on March 2, 2009 @ 6:11 pm