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The social part of Social Networking

December 4, 2008

As I get more and more active with online social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Meetup, something very interesting has been happening. My calendar has been filling up with things to do. Tomorrow night is a monthly meetup that combines a Meetup.com group with a pre-existing monthly gathering here in Las Vegas called First Friday. In two weeks I’m giving a speech on WordPress Vs Blogger. In January I’ll be speaking to a group about using social media/networking to grow your offline business. Right after that I’m doing this little thing called WordCamp:Las Vegas. I may have mentioned that one before. ;)

I have met some amazing people through my blog, twitter and facebook over the past few years. I’ve exchanged emails, tweets, comments and IMs with literally thousands of people. Most of whom I will never meet in person. You know what, that’s a real shame. There’s no substitute for meeting somebody in person that you share common interests with, shaking their hand and introducing yourself and starting up a conversation. Obviously it’s impossible to meet everybody you are associated with online. Not everybody is down the block or even a few towns away. Online social networking is global in it’s reach. But that doesn’t mean all your social networking has to be.

Over the past few months I’ve been taking a great interest in meetup.com. I’ve joined groups related to WordPress, Twitter, Social Media, Photography, Graphic Design and even Massage Therapy. Over the past month I’ve attended meetup events for more than half of these groups and have put faces to names (and screen names) that I’ve known for months or even years. Through these meetups I’ve also met people who may never have heard of me otherwise and have become followers on Twitter, subscribers to my RSS feed and commenters on my blog.

Here’s my suggestion for you; go to meetup.com and create an account. Search for meetup groups in your area related to things you are interested in that are offline activities (i.e. photography, hiking, line-dancing, whatever). Join a few groups and RSVP for a few meetups and for Pete’s sake GO TO THE MEETUPS! When it’s over, if you had a bad time, feel free to come back and roast me in the comment box. But, if you had a good time and if you made some new contacts, well, I’ll be expecting the comments proclaiming that I’m the man.

Get Out, Get Connected, Get Social.

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

What the Flock?

December 3, 2008

I’ve been a strong supporter of Mozilla’s Firefox browser for quite a while now. Once I switched over to it, it has been hard to even consider using a different browser. Sure, I’ve tried them all to see what features they are going to give me, but I always end up going back to Firefox because of the amount of plug-ins I have become accustomed to using daily. As much as I love Google and I really do love the Google browser, without support for the plug-ins I use, I’m sorry but you just can’t be my default browser.

With that said, today I decided I was going to give Flock another shot. I had installed it shortly after it came out, ran through my normal routine of testing it out for 2 days and then rushing back to Firefox. But with the expansive growth of Social Media, I figured it was time to grab an update and see what’s new. What followed where 3 gigantic no-nos that left a sour taste in my mouth before I even started to check out any new features.

I loaded up Flock and went to the help menu and chose “Check for Updates.” No surprise there was one available and I told it to download the 16MB file and install it for me. When it was done I started Flock and was redirected to a page that said, “But wait, version 2.0.2 is available. Download now.” Wait a second! I just uploaded one minute ago. Why did the “Check for Updates” feature update me to a version that was already out of date?

Undeterred I upgraded to the latest version and started kicking the tires. A minute later I received an email in my 3rd party email application that contained a link. When I clicked the link, Flock opens up a new tab and starts loading the page. Wait just a second again! Without asking me (2 installs in 5 minutes and I don’t recall being asked) if I wanted Flock to be my default browser, they took it upon themselves to make Flock the default. This is monumentally NOT COOL. Don’t hide it in the terms and say “but you agreed to the terms.” Do not change settings on my computer without asking me first. Period!

When Firefox didn’t open up as my default, I went to my quick launch bar to start it up. The Firefox logo was no longer in it’s customary spot and it took me a second to realize what happened. During the install process for Flock my Firefox icon was replaced by a Flock icon. Clicking the link started Flock, not Firefox. This is inexcusable. I’m curious if they do the same thing to the Internet Explorer icon if that is your default browser. I’m betting not since Microsoft would likely reign down legal armageddon on them in 2.367 seconds.

Now, I know what you are going to say, “But Flock is now powered by Mozilla so it’s fine.” No, no it’s not. Until such a time that Flock and Firefox merge in to 1 product, they should treat my computer accordingly and not mess with settings that should be mutually exclusive.

And now that I’ve got this off my chest, I’m going to go back and test out Flock’s ability to run Firefox plugins as it says it can.

</rant>

Filed Under: Ranting, Technology Tagged With: , ,

Paid themes Vs Free themes

December 2, 2008

Almost everybody who uses WordPress has gone in search of new templates for their blog. They are easy to find. A search on Google for the term “wordpress themes” turned up 6.99 million results. The trick is finding one that:

  • Works for your intended use
  • Looks good
  • Works with the plugins you use
  • Is free of malicious code

WordPress.org helped out with a few of these points by creating the free Theme Directory where you can find 718 themes that have been downloaded 1,695,648 (at the time of this post) times. I’ve paged through nearly all of the themes that are up there over the past few months and have found several that are decent looking, but once I install them on a test site, it doesn’t take long before I realize it’s missing something. I then go back to the theme directory, find another theme and repeat the process. For me it was a process that was getting really old.

The other side of the coin is the increasing availability of paid themes. Companies like Unique Blog Designs, DIY Themes, and the group that brought us the Revolution and Revolution 2 themes are all putting out high quality, highly configurable site templates that can be yours for a price.

I recently purchased the Revolution 2 Theme bundle for use on a couple sites. So far I’ve launched a site for my Son using the Elements theme (VideoGameDude.com), I’ve used the LifeStyle theme for a client (HandsInMotion.info - still in progress), and the TV theme is being used on a site set to launch in the next few weeks. Each theme makes use of the custom fields feature to allow for easy inclusion of images that are displayed as part of the post layout giving each site a decidedly different look and feel. The Elements theme options page provides space for entering your adsense code(s) to be included in several spots throughout the site. Easy, quick and  powerful.

Obviously not every blog requires you spend a few hundred dollars on a site template, but for any business blog or if you are trying to build your own personal brand, don’t you think you should set yourself apart from the masses?

Filed Under: Blogging, WordPress Tagged With: , ,

What drives your WordPress blog

December 1, 2008

Today James asked me if I could write a post about what my current favorite WordPress plugins are because he’s redoing his blog and knows that I manage several WordPress installs. So here ya go, James. A list of my current “must have” WordPress plugins, in no particular order:

  • Akismet – If you don’t want to be spending half your day dealing with blog spam, turn on Akismet. It is hands down the best comment spam fighting utility around.
  • DISQUS Comment System – I really like the way comments are handled with the Disqus system. Plus, since I combined Disqus and Akismet, I don’t believe I’ve had more than a handful of comment spam get through.
  • WordPress.com Stats – Where are your visitors coming from, what pages are they viewing and what are they clicking on to leave? Simple, easy to use stats. Period.
  • Cross-Linker – Create text links for keywords across your entire blog. For example, if you want the word Poker to redirect to a poker site, add the link one time using Cross-Linker and have every instance of the word Poker automatically linked for you. Don’t worry, it’s quite configurable.
  • All in One SEO Pack – Helps get your blog ready to rule the Search Engines. Clean up your titles and meta tags for your WordPress site.
  • WP Super Cache – If you aren’t updating your site multiple times a day and you want to speed up the loading of your website for your visitors, this plugin is the answer.
  • NextGen Gallery – You no longer need to rely on flickr to host your photos to pull in using a different plugin. Us NextGen Gallery to upload your photos to your own site and then have multiple options for how to display them in posts.
  • Twitter Tools – With Twitter Tools it is a no brainer to display your latest tweets on your blog. You can also do things like create a blog post of your tweets (either individually, or in a summary post.) Also, create an automatic tweet each time you write a post to alert your followers of the new content.

While there are other plugins I use, these are the ones that I tend to add to most all the WordPress installs.

How about you? Are there plugins you think are mandatory that I’ve missed? Leave me a comment and tell me what they are.

Filed Under: WordPress