Archive for February, 2007

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Joining The Conversation

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 One of the things that seems to be constantly mentioned in the blogosphere is "the conversation", a lot of the Web 2.0 sites and applications seem to be set up just to do that very thing, whether it be through tracking your comments on other blogs with "coComments" or trying to build a sense of community with "MyBlogLog". Our on-line conversation situation is really no different than that in real life. But a major problem with this is that most of us don't really know how to converse. Conversation is often called "the lost art", many blaming the hectic pace of life in the western world and the evil TV that sucks up so much of peoples leisure time. Sitting around for a whole evening with friends just eating a meal and listening to each other when there is so much else we just "have" to do can at times seem more of a trial than a pleasure. Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net has posted a very interesting article about blogging and how to add to the conversation rather than just repeating what we may have read elsewhere:
One of the criticism that is often levelled at the Blogosphere is that it is an echo chamber - that the same stories get blogged about in the same ways by blog after blog - without anything constructive or unique emerging.
This has set me to thinking about some of my own posts and how much value they may or may not have added. I guess I am as guilty as most new bloggers of making that basic mistake, but hopefully having read through Darren's article I will be a little more aware of this and do what I can to rectify the situation. Take the time to go read it, digest it and see what you think you can apply, in blogging and in the real world. This is one of the points that he made that really struck home to me:
I suspect most of us as bloggers don’t really put enough time into our blogging. We want to get posts up quickly - we want to report the news and be first with it - but we rarely stop and hear what is going on behind the story and hear what others are saying about it.
That is something I will be trying to take to heart a little more in the future. Which point do you think you might find most helpful to you?

MyBlogLog and Spam-a-lot.

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 Apparently the weekend was a good time for spammers, they hit-up MyBlogLog users big time with an exploit in their set up. According to the MyBlogLog Blog:
Saturday evening, a member discovered an exploit where you could send someone a request to join their community as a co-author and then automatically approve the request. In other words, someone (dare I call them a jackass) could force you to be a co-author of their community. I have no idea why they would do this, other than a negligible bump in marketing, but who ever said jackasses made sense?
They are introducing several new security features to try and keep things under conrol in future:
  1. We're going to post an official Terms of Service (ToS) and hold people accountable.
  2. By default, you now see only message from your own contacts.
  3. We will include the text of the comment and associated controls (delete,reply, etc) in the alert email.
  4. We will limit users to only five requests for co-authors a day.
  5. We will limit users to join 15 communities and add 15 contacts during any day.
  6. After the first five are complete, we will set up a comment approval system.
Up until now I had resisted joining up with MyBlogLog, but seeing how well they seem to of responded to this situation has convinced me to try them out for a while. In case you aren't too sure what MyBlogLog is, here is what they have to say on their "About" page:
About MyBlogLog You probably know a ton about your favorite bloggers - what they think about the subjects they write about, maybe some of their work and life history... you may even know what toothpaste they use. But how much do you know about all the other people who read their blogs? And how much do they know about you? For all this talk of a global conversation throughout the blogosphere, there's a lot to be desired. It's a two-tiered system, with bloggers talking amongst each other and the majority of the readers looking on from the fringes. You may get to call out something from the sidelines by leaving a comment, but things could be so much better. For everyone. MyBlogLog is launching this new Communities service to empower authors and readers to operate at the same level. For the first time, everyone who reads a web site or blog can learn about and engage with one another, and in the process take the conversation to a whole new level. Readers can become friends with other people who read your favorite blogs. See what else they're reading. Check out their MySpace and Friendster profiles and view their Flickr photostreams. Authors can learn more about their readers individually and as a group. What do they like and what are they ignoring? What are they reading elsewhere on the Web? MyBlogLog enables you to take advantage of your existing presence on the Web and ties it into communities of like-minded readers and authors to add context to the conversations in which you take part.
You have probably seen their widget around, it's on quite a few blogs these days. MyBlogLogAs it seems to be more and more prevalent I thought I would give it a try, see how it works out for a small blog like this one and see if it helps build some relationships around the Blogosphere. I was very impressed with the founders reactions and the sense of community they have. The plan they have put forward may be a little "stop-gap" for now, but they are prepared to listen to their users and fine tune it as things go on. In the near future I will add their widget to my side bar, perhaps giving me a chance to find out a little more about some of the people who drop by. Are you a MyBlogLog user? How have you found their service? What benefits are you gaining?

Fancy A Guinness?

Monday, February 19th, 2007 Marmite Guinness Marmite and Guinness? Either a match made in heaven or your taste buds ultimate nightmare! Marmite is a yeast extract that Wikipedia describes thus:
Marmite is a British savoury spread made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing. It is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, powerful taste that polarises consumer opinion. This is reflected in the company's marketing slogan: you either "love it or hate it".
When I saw the article in my Google reader from BoingBoing about this I just had to click through to find out some more about it. ;-) Now this may not be to everyone's taste, but I must admit to a little tingle of excitement and anticipation at the sight of this Limited Edition marmite variant. Sure, they are acquired tastes, but ones well worth cultivating. Shame that it is only a limited edition. Thanks to Cool Hunting and The Sunday Times (sorry, I couldn't locate the original article).

Blogging from your Desktop

Sunday, February 18th, 2007

For a while now I have been using the Windows Live Writer as my desktop application for my blog, and overall I have been pretty pleased with it, but these last few days it seems to of developed a bit of a glitch.

I am not certain if this is because of some change in how WordPress works with the 2.1 install or if it's some update in the Live Writer that is causing the problem but so far I have not been able to work out what to do to correct the problem. The simple solution? Switch back to using "BlogDesk", which seems to have no problems with publishing to my site and has let me set up posting images pretty easily.

BlogDesk

I recommend this desktop application to all blogger's, though it may not have the looks of "Live Writer" it has a few extra dictionaries that you can add:

  • English (US and UK)
  • German
  • French
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Danish
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Polish
  • Slovenian
  • Dutch
  • Latin

Another nifty feature is that it allows you to save template posts as well as drafts, so if you have a weekly update or special repeated "Top 10" type post you like to make you can save yourself the hassle of setting it up every time.

Is there a desktop blogging application you would like to recommend?



“Free” music online

Saturday, February 17th, 2007 One of the articles I read over at "BoingBoing" this week talked about an interesting music site called SeeqPod that searches the net for you to find music you want to listen to and plays it via their own player on the site, in effect letting you set up your own "playlist" radio station on their website. No sign-up is necessary to use their service but you can join up as well, though I could not see anywhere a description of the benefits of doing so, though I would suspect they would involve being able to save your playlist's to use at anytime from any computer. I managed to find a nice selection of music from "The White Stripes" and a "Haircut 100" tune too, very quickly found and played without hardly any loading time. If you are of a musical bent you can also submit your own music hosted on your site for others to find, yet another way of getting your sounds out there.

A Guide To Blogging

Friday, February 16th, 2007 Looking for a definitive guide to blogging? Then you could do worse than check out "The Definitive Guide To Blogging", a post that has been put up over at Sponsored Reviews. The list is pretty useful and as far as I can tell is not a sponsored review as such, just a very helpful list for all blogger's starting out and for those who may want to join their programme of paid reviews. Seems like a very savvy move to me, go check it out. Is there anything you would like to add to their lists?

WordPress.com adds the VodPod widget

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

Announcesd on Tuesday by Andy was the addition of VodPod as a new widget on all WP.com sites.

I am very happy to announce a new widget that is available to all WordPress.com blogs: Vodpod.com’s video sharing widget. Vodpod has tagging and voting and LOL’ing and everything else you’d expect from a Web 2.0 mashup and we’re just as pleased as parking meters to have this widget on WordPress.com!

This is a prety nifty little widget that allows you to save your favourite videos from around the web straight on to your blog page sidebar with just one click. If you want to you can upload your own videos to your VodPod account and have them on your site too, a nice easy way to include some vlogging on your site if that is your kind of thing.

I have it installed on my Whedon blog if you want to go check it out.



News on WordPress 2.2

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 "Ella" has been avilable for a litle over three weeks now and the WordPress community seems to be prety happy with the improvements, but already there is news about what we can expect in v2.2! Over at "Mark On WordPress" there is news of an excellent added feature, a plug-in "sandbox" facility:
So the feature I’ve put into WordPress 2.2 is what I call plugin sandboxing. Before a plugin is activated or a plugin is edited, it is tested in a temporary fashion (that is, without being permanently activated). If it passes the test, it is activated for real
A very useful feature indeed for plug-in developers and addicts. ;-)

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