Thanks to August Comment Creators

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As part of my duties as co-host of PerfCast, I have to take part in various blogging related challenges, and for our first episode the challenge was to thank five people that have commented on this blog. There were definitely many more than five people commenting on this blog in August, but I wanted to thanks those that commented the most.

Kevin
Jason
Michael
Jeff
John Leschinski

What is really interesting to me is how many people on that list would be in my top comments contributed list month over month, and how few new people take the time to add to the conversation here.

I also want to give a big shout out to Tom, a friend of mine that was away camping for almost half the month, and a consistent voice here on XFEP.

An extra big thanks to everyone, old and new that has commented on XFEP recently and don’t forget to check out PerfCast tonight at 7pm EST on Talkshoe.

Originally posted on September 4, 2008 @ 5:25 pm

Speaking in Two Panels at Blog World Expo

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Blog World Expo is quickly approaching, and as you might have noticed, I will be speaking at two different panels now.

The first one, as I mentioned before is the How to be More than a Blog: New Media Integration with Deb Ng and Tris Hussey. I am very excited about talking about adding more than just text to your blog, though for my readers here, I am sure you are amused by my seat on this panel as there aren’t many new media additions to this site (especially if you excluded my podcasts).

The point to remember though is that I haven’t always just wrote on this blog, and so I think I will have plenty to say regarding adding images, video, audio and widgets to your blogs to attract attention.

The second panel I am on isn’t the one I thought I was going to be one. I thought I was going to be on a panel with Jim Kukral, John Chow, Brian Clark and Zac Johnson, but when I saw that Darren Rowse was added to the line up, I know that the Making Money Online with a Blog panel was full, and rightly so.

Thankfully, Jim is an amazing guy and got me placed on another amazing panel entitled, How to Sell Direct Advertising on Your Blog. I will be sitting next Steve Hall, Wendy Piersall, Dave Taylor, and Lynn Truong. The line-up has me saying, “I’m not worthy!”

I almost would rather be part of the audience as these amazing people say what they need to on the subject.

Blog World Expo is going to be amazing. The only issues that I am going to have is that I am nervous about speaking, and there are too many great sessions running concurrently.

If you are attending, please let me know, as I would love to meet as many people as possible.

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Originally posted on August 26, 2008 @ 9:35 am

Alexa Rank Frustrations

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I really wish I understood exactly what went into creating a better Alexa rank. Yes, I want to manipulate my rank, but in what is considered a “white hat” way by attracting the type of traffic that naturally increases my rank.

Why is this important to me? Well, I was as high as seventh in the a top list, and now have dropped to tenth thanks to the continual fight I am having to try to increase my Alexa rank.

There are competing blogs in the list that have a much lower Alexa rank than me, with similar or lower monthly traffic. Could they be manipulating their rank in “bad” ways? I am not sure, but it sure is frustrating as having as many ranks as high as possible helps make it easier to sell advertising, despite Alexa not being considered the most accurate ranking system.

Are there any new techniques, since Alexa changed their data sources, relating to increasing your rank in a non-technology niche?

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Originally posted on August 25, 2008 @ 10:05 pm

Mosso: Amazing Support and Outreach

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So, I recently wrote a post on this blog complaining about the issue with Mosso hosting, and how frustrating it was, and within twenty-four hours of publishing that article, I was contacted by Mosso. They genuinely wanted to help me fix the problem I was having, despite the fact that I wasn’t the primary account holder.

Jeremy and Robert were both amazing at keeping e-mail communication open. Robert even took time out of his day to talk to me over the phone in hopes of resolving this all as quickly as possible.

Robert was both knowledgeable and funny. I could hear him trying to do everything he could to figure out how he could optimize the site on his end so that I would have a better experience.

Even better, he explained some of the basic elements of their architecture, as well as opening up with minor issues that they had been experiencing, which showed to me that he was well-informed, and that they were attempting to not only be proactive, but not fall into the PEBKAC experience that I have received from other hosting companies. You know the ones, where you call in and it is all your fault. “Why did you install WordPress? Are you using plugins? Did you edit a file? Must be your fault!” I hate those types of hosting companies, and I have to admit, I was very defensive in e-mail communication because I didn’t want them to treat me with the same type of handholding that some of their customers might need.

I don’t think I can communicate in writing how absolutely impressed I am with Mosso right now. Their immediate communication with me, their brand awareness online, and their constant assistance in trying to quickly and easily resolve this problem for me immediately turns around any negative feelings I had about them, and makes me ten times more likely to recommend them in the future.

+1 to Mosso

Originally posted on August 14, 2008 @ 7:03 pm

Best Video Game Advertisement

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Today, I saw one of the best advertisements for a Golf video game that I have ever seen thanks to Micro Persuasion.

Some companies try too hard to go viral with their advertisements, but EA did it right in doing an advertisement for Tiger Woods 09. First off, let me say that I hate golf, and even more so as a video game unless its arcade-like.

And now the video…

A great response to the online community that might be interested in the game, appealing to the YouTube generation, and doing something that made me laugh. I don’t see anything they could have done to improve this ad. Very impressive.

Has there been an advertisement lately that you have seen that really made you interested in something you otherwise would have ignored?

Originally posted on August 21, 2008 @ 4:22 pm