Attending Local Tech Events for Fun and Profit
February 24, 2009 :: Joe LoongAs I’ve no doubt gracelessly hammered the point time and time again in this blog, I’m a pretty strong believer in the power of networking and participating in your local social media community– specifically, hanging around people who understand and use social media better than you, so you can figure out ways to adapt it [...]
Things That Are Not Blogs, But Are Blog-ish
February 17, 2009 :: Joe LoongWhen you get right down to it, blogs are pretty simple — they’re Web pages where the new stuff goes on top. Structurally, that about covers it, though we usually associate a whole bunch of other features and functionality that make blogs, “blogs” — archives, commenting, RSS feeds, blogroll links, the ability to embed multimedia, [...]
Proper Attribution, or What’s Up With All This Via Crap?
January 28, 2009 :: Joe LoongI’ve written before that nothing’s original anymore, and there’s nothing new under the sun. This is triple-true for blogs, where it seems that 99% of the content out there is just the rehashing and relinking of stuff that someone else wrote somewhere else.
This is unavoidable, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing; even if you [...]
What to Blog About When You Have Nothing to Blog About
January 27, 2009 :: Joe LoongIt happens to the best of us (and to me, too): You hit a wall and can’t come up with anything to blog about. Blogger’s block.
For your average blogger, who’s just a regular person blogging, this isn’t really a big deal. Most bloggers go on breaks or take unplanned hiatuses — they’re just writing for [...]
What Does the Decline of the Record Album Have to Do With Your Blog?
January 21, 2009 :: Joe LoongWhen you look at music purchases, it’s pretty clear that we’re a lot more focused on singles than we ever were back in the heyday of the full album.
We’ve always been focused on singles, of course, in the sense that hit singles drove us to buy albums. But the album was still the primary distribution [...]
Hey, I’m Not a Machine: How Often Is Often Enough?
January 19, 2009 :: Joe LoongHere’s a question that comes up, and it’s worth revisiting a lot: How often should I post? And the answer, of course is: It depends.
A big dependency is the platform you’re using. Or rather, the platforms. If you’re using Twitter, with its 140-character limit, posting less generally means posting more. (That is, fewer words leads [...]
“You must have passion for what do or happiness can never be acheived” – Kristen King
January 19, 2009 :: Steve FisherIn our previous interview segments , Part 1 and Part 2, with Kristen King we learned that you can make a good living as a freelance writer and about her experiences as an entrepreneur. In this, our final segment of our interview with Kristen, we get to know a more personal side of Kristen King [...]
Event: If You Build It, Will They Come? (Yeah.)
January 17, 2009 :: Joe LoongIn a couple of my previous entries, I referenced an event last week, If You Build It, Will They Come?, a look at how Frank Warren of PostSecret, and Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included, used social media tools to build communities and a measure of stardom around their now-successful blogs.
Event sponsors were Network [...]
Truly Outrageous? On Creating Controversy With Your Blog
January 16, 2009 :: Joe LoongDuring the Q&A portion of the If You Build It, Will They Come? event this week (which was a really good event, incidentally), speaker Frank Warren (of PostSecret fame) mentioned that when it comes to creating the weekly narrative from each batch of 20 or so posted secrets, “Controversy can be good.”
Controversy gets people’s blood [...]
“Don’t confuse “sticking to your principles” with being a moron” and other sage entrepreneurial advice from Kristen King
January 16, 2009 :: Steve FisherIn Part 1 of this interview, we discussed how you can make a good living as a freelance writer. In this segment, Part 2, we delve deeper into Kristen King’s experiences as an entrepreneur and what people need to have done to be prepared for a tough year ahead. Now, back to our interview….
