Questions and Answers Live on Ustream

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I am looking at having a live session on Ustream where people can ask me their blogging related questions. I will be running the session from 8pm EST tomorrow night until I get tired of it. I will be using Ustream.tv’s built in recording function to record the session.

I am hoping at doing more of these as I have always enjoyed them in the past. If you have a specific time or day that would work better for you, please let me know.

Also, if you would like a one on one video session, I am available for consultation.

Join me on my Ustream.tv channel tomorrow night.

Update: Didn’t work out as Ustream wouldn’t transmit audio from either of my computers. More on that soon.

Originally posted on March 8, 2008 @ 12:24 am

More on My Blogging Platform Preference

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I just wanted to clear up a few things related to a post I did called “Why I Won’t Hire a Google Blogger Blogger”.

First off, this isn’t the opinion of Splashpress Media or any other blog network. This is just something I noticed when I was going through some employment advertisements.

It shouldn’t matter which publishing platform a person uses, but just like everything else that people assign emotions to, I have a negative feeling about Google’s Blogger. I had bad experiences on the platform both as a user and as a reader. I find many of the people on the site, after working on a service that required me to manually approve blogs, have very basic blogs or very spammy blogs. After going through thousands of Blogspot blogs, I found very few that were well written.

The post was not to make anyone angry but to express something I noticed I was doing. The thing that is supposed to be so great about blogs is their openness, allowing personal opinions to come to light. My personal opinion is that Blogger isn’t a good platform, and when I see a blogger using it, I feel like they are ruining their personal marketing by being associated with that site.

Yes, as a person looking to hire people, it is a bit shortsighted to skip over them based on the software they use, but it was something I didn’t really even realize I was doing until a few days ago. Since then, I have been working on giving people with Blogger hosted blogs a chance.

Surely, you can’t all say that none of you have ever thought less of a person based on something they did or didn’t have, did or didn’t say? Have you ever thought less of a person based on the company they keep? Well, to me this is something similar. I feel like the people I want to work with would have the good sense to use a more fully featured publishing system. Be it Typepad, WordPress.com, Movable Type, Expression Engine, or any of the other millions of blogging systems or content management systems out there in the world. Adding to that, I really don’t care what e-mail system people use. They could be using the worst e-mail client ever, but as long as it sends and receives just fine, that is all I care about.

Blogging requires more skill than sending e-mail. Understanding different blogging applications, can take time, and as an employer, I am in my full right to request that people at least have experience in the platform I am using.

And while I am trying to defend myself and look at things from a different point of view, my key issue can only really be solved by being proved wrong. Something which no one has gone ahead and done.

One thing that Jan Karlsbjerg did do was bring up a very interesting point:

How do you feel about folks who use Blogger and FTP to their own domain? Is it just the “blogspot.” string that turns you off?

Before, I probably would have clicked on their link to their blog and looked it over. I guess the issue really is that I don’t want to walk in their front door knowing that their house is made from mud. Weird analogy, I know…

Hopefully, that helps clarify things. I really do agree though that it would be shortsighted to not watch out for stars on Blogger, and I hope that I haven’t filtered out a rising star based solely on where they’ve decided to host their blog.

Originally posted on March 11, 2008 @ 11:09 am

Domain Name Giveaway 2: Results

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For those of you that entered the second domain name giveaway, you’ve probably noticed that it is time for me to proclaim the winners. For those of you that didn’t enter, subscribe to my blog to keep up to date on when I am running contests.

The winners for each domain are:
BloggingShift.com – knupNet
SomeFoo.net – My Life With IT
VRUnleashed.com – Blogging Cents
SmallReaction.com – Project Netcess

I will contact all of you shortly to deal with transferring the domain. Thanks again for all of you that entered and a huge congrats to the winners. I hope you use your new domains to help continue to build up your online profile.

Originally posted on January 30, 2008 @ 12:55 pm

Technorati To Launch Blogger Advertising Network

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TechCrunch can be a great source of news for bloggers, and I highly recommend checking it out from time to time, as that is where I found this latest story, which Michael Arrington writes about Technorati, and the potential they have to launch a blogger advertising network.

That change foreshadows the upcoming shift – which places the Technorati site itself as an anchor in a new blog advertising network.

Advertising networks are popular right now – Glam recently raised $85 million after transitioning, seemingly overnight, from a small web property focused on women to selling advertising for a variety of similarly-focused publishers. And John Battelle’s FM Publishing, an advertising network focused on technology blogs, recently hired investment bank Savvian to help them raise money or sell after turning down a $100 million buyout offer.

Technorati will certainly be competing head to head with FM, although sources say they’ll focus on the long tail of the market as well (FM only takes larger sites). The network will be a self-serve exchange for bloggers (and other publishers) as well as advertisers. Ad units will include both display and text ads, and will allow units to be charged on both a CPM and CPC basis. This self-service model looks a lot more like Adbrite than Glam or FM.

The first question I have to ask myself is, do we need another advertising network? While I think it is great that more companies want to get into helping bloggers monetize their efforts, aren’t there enough choices already? What could Technorati bring to the table that is going to knock my socks off with excitement?

I guess the biggest advantage they might have would be to monetize lower traffic sites, which is something that most advertising companies won’t help bloggers with.

I can’t wait to hear more about this, but it seems like everyone is wanting to create an advertising network in hopes of capitalizing on the tens of millions of blogs out there in the blogosphere. It almost seems to me like every company is thinking “if we could make a penny off of every blog, we’d be rich!”

Would you use Technorati as your advertising network?

Originally posted on March 3, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

Logo Design Trends for 2008

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Logo Orange has a great post up with their picks for logo design trends so far in 2008. Some notable sections include waves, organic, and transparency.

It was one of those posts, despite not being a designer, that I just had to point out as design is very important to a blog, or any business, and your logo will become your branding.

Logos are the ultimate mark of distinction and everyone loves them. We see logos everyday – on the highways, on consumer goods, on the Web and in the institutions and organizations we support. Read about the different types of logo designs here and learn what principles and techniques are used to create them.

Check out the full article on Logo Orange for more details, as well as some beautiful examples.

Originally posted on March 3, 2008 @ 2:22 pm