Posts Tagged ‘blogs’
Posted on March 26, 2008 - by John
Forget launching a website – just launch a blog instead
If you listen to a local radio station, or use a community resource, such as GAA or even a Credit Union, you will most lightly find that they all have a website of some description. Most of these websites present you with a terrible design, featuring little content made using web 0.01 templates; others have an amazing design with bells and whistles and loads of those annoying flash animations, with little actual updated content.
I often wonder why these organisations, such as my own local radio station do not simply launch a blog instead. Being able to add posts when necessary as well as maintaining an archive of information, so that people have easy access to updated information is much more what the internet is about these days; the time of stagnant websites that sit untouched and unloved like a 40 year old virgin are long gone.
Blogs can be ‘DIY professional’ – if there is such a thing, with endless designs for the front end and many capabilities in the back end, the expansions are endless. Galleries, podcasts, pages of information, archives, tagging, search engine friendly, its all there waiting for these organisations to take advantage, so why don’t they?
It’s a question I don’t have an answer to – but what I do know is that some organisations have adopted blogs for their organisations, one of my personal favourite and possibly one of the biggest success for Limerick based organisations is the Limerick Animal Welfare Blog, which is not only regularly updated but also features many images and even the odd video. You can get a real insight into what a well run and worth while organisation this is.
I can’t find many such blogs, and maybe my head is in the sand – so make me feel foolish and comment if you know any good community blogs.
Posted on March 13, 2007 - by John
LinkListing Tuesday
If you had to choose 5 blogging tools that were the only ones you could use for the next 12 months what would they be and why?
What would be your top 5?
Mine are:
Google Reader
Wordpress
Firefox (spellchecker)
Flickr
Akismet
The Blog Herald discusses 29 Traffic Generating Tips From 29 Bloggers.
Entertainment giant Viacom Media has announced that it is going to sue web search engine Google and video sharing website YouTube for $1bn (£517m).
Oh! Paramount – do us all a favour LEAVE STAR TREK ALONE ,your wrecking it! x
And for you Twits out there – Twitter users ,that is, Alex King has been busy…
Posted on March 12, 2007 - by John
Irish Bloggers: Whats your vacation day?
Mark over at weblogtoolscollection.com writes that Sunday is their Blog Holiday/vacation day, so it got me wondering what do Irish Bloggers take as their day off. Myself, I never write posts at weekends, nor do I read blogs at weekends. But I rarely write a post every day either?
So what day do you take off (If any any)?
Some people take the weekends to backup, update wordpress or CMS to the latest version, decide on next weeks topics, or browse through the Feed reader! And believe it or not some people even go out at the weekends!!!!
Posted on January 31, 2007 - by John
LinkListing Wednesday
So, there seems to have been lots happening online when it comes to the blog world. And I missed most of them due to work committments
One of the first interesting piece of news is that Google Reader has what they call a small update, this is something interesting though, you can new view imbedded Youtube videos (as well as other video sites) in your Google Feed Reader, currently this crashes my browser window a bit, but that’s on an old windows PC, I’m sure it works well on my Mac at home.
“We have another small update to Reader regarding video. Reader should now show videos from YouTube and Google Video (and a few other sites) that you have embedded in your blog posts and articlesâ€.
Some people are a little worried about the compatibility of their plugins, and it is a very good idea to check out this list before upgrading to wordpress 2.1.
Gravator – I have noticed stopped working for me for some time (the service that allows you to show commenter’s image beside their comment on your blog) and the reason is simple really, the site/server has been down, but the site says they will be back to full strength soon.
“In addition to the new server architecture, development on Gravatar 2.0 is progressing rapidly and in the coming weeks you’ll see screenshots and news on this site. It’s a very exciting time ahead, once again, thanks for your continuing support!â€
In other relatively interesting news, and I say relative, because I am a Mac user (don’t want to have a conflict of interest here – but Apple rules). But I have noticed that Bill Gates has been saying that Vista (just release in Ireland) has stated that it is the most secure version of windows yet, he would say that of course, but I also noticed that some experts challenge this view “Security experts have thrown doubt on Bill Gates’ claim that Vista is “more secure” than other operating systems.†BBC have it here.
Posted on January 8, 2007 - by John
LinkListing Monday
Posted on November 22, 2006 - by John
Sold!
About a month or so ago, a UK based company (I wont say their names because, I am not sure they would mind me blogging about this), asked me if I wanted to sell my Celebrity Blog. Immediately I decided, no, but on consideration, I though of a number of reasons why I should sell it.
Having never sold a blog before (I’m not even sure if people sell their blogs, as a rule – I don’t mean personal blogs of course), I was unsure of the process involved? I was also considering the fact that the person asking about the sale of the site may not be who they claim to be.
I took it one step at a time, and it turned out this was a legitimate offer. The company was very effective and efficient with the sale process, and made it painless and almost easy. However, it could easily have gone the other way, had the company not been who they claim they were.
I have found (I hope) a wonderful home for my celebrity blog, and I get to monitor its development from a distance, which will prove interesting. I am also delighted that they are planning on maintaining the Irish identity of the site, which may include some Irish celebrity articles (something I did not have time to do myself – another regret)
Here are the reasons for the sale.
1. I want to take a different direction with my blogging, there are a number of areas, I have always wanted to write about, and selling this blog (and two others which were part of the sale, will allow me to do so)
2. More time to focus on what matters- I guess this point relates to the previous one, if you start loosing interest in the area you are blogging about, the blog and your writing suffers.
3. The money. Sorry folks, but the sale of these sites will pay some bills and buy me some cool new stuff – sorry I’m only human.
4. Moving house again. There is talk of me being decentralised to Limerick, so with all the kafuffle (I love that word – thanks Little Britain) I will have very limited time to mess around with all these sites.
So as they say ‘SOLD!’
Posted on October 15, 2006 - by John
Where have all the bloggers gone
Having *shite* Internet access in Dublin, I was delighted to come back to dear old Tipperary, to use my DSL connection.
However, imagine my shock HORROR, to find many of my favorite blogs… gone. So many people have hung up their ‘blogging Hat’, including Ebby Brett, come back soon Ebby.
In happy news, (happy news – what am I 5?) MerRua has a blog – who knew! You’ll find her lurking in the blog role, also. She is using wordpress.com which is very impressive, though i’m not so sure Mer things so.
Anyone notice how all my blog entries are in the Strange Rants section these days… Just an observation…
Cant wait for Bank Holiday Monday, ‘All-hallow-even’ rocks!
John’s Blog
Welcome to John's Blog! Read more...
My Social Media
-
