Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

I rarely share videos anymore, but there was an opportunity that came across for a new website that uses videos to convey messages. Red Chair Confessions is a new site that contains a few videos for you to enjoy and think a little. I have embedded one in this for you to look and see for yourself.

I watched all of the available videos and each has its own story, but I believe somewhat similar message. Although the script during each are made to be a bit vague, it was the fact that it had me wondering what the message was suppose to be. Is it that she has an addiction to blogging by video camera? Another video perhaps her confession of being a shopaholic? It is kind of entertaining to watch and guess what exactly she is confessing. Each video is less than 2 minutes, so it does not take long to watch. And for a confession, each segment is carefully put together and I am guessing the message will be different each time.

Actually, I have been motivated to buy a web cam and do some video blogging myself, although the production in it will not be as elaborate as the Red Chair Confessions.

If you watched the video I shared above, what did you think she was confessing?

There are so many ways people use Twitter. Some with good social media practices and others who exploit the systems just to get followers. Chris Brogan recently wrote Get More Twitter Followers TODAY, a kind of tongue-in-cheek, but had insightful suggestions for people to use Twitter more effectively rather than crap on the system. By the way, I mentioned it because you should read it.

While I agree on most of his points, it is rather a tricky situation. Depending on what kind of information you are tweeting, you may need more than 20 tweets a day. And unfortunately, for those who answer questions that could be valuable to those needing certain information (like support questions for a script or as I often hang around the #wordpress, #wp, and WordPress trending topics), you will have to reply publicly rather than direct message others (DM.) Quite a few successful bloggers have become what they are because of Twitter, like Richard Darrell of Minervity. In less than 6 months, his resourceful web design site has become quite popular. There are many more only that have also done the same in their own niche.

However, it is important as you, the Twitter user, must adopt some type of personal guidelines to influence, and retain meaningful followerships while at the same time, not focus on how many followers. Basically, focus on quality, not quantity. The auto-tweeting rubbish going around promising a multitude of followers do NOT live up to their name. How do I know this? Because I painstakingly experimented and although it was not harmful, and did pull in some followers, I was not impressed. Most were not meaningful connections and I only got a few, less than a dozen. On the same note, my Twitter stream ( @blondishnet ) was auto-tweeting annoyingly spammish (yes, that is not a real word, but I like it), more than once a day. It gets even more annoying to see more than 10 people in a row through the public stream who have subscribed to such a service and that is pretty much what their streams are all about. For me, I unfollow them as they have nothing of interest I want to read. Besides that, the sites are ridiculous. How are you going to reach the people who are truly interested in your information, whether you give out resources or advice for free, or have a product for sale.

It is your responsibility to use Twitter in a way that does not cause spam or people to unfollow you because of what you say. In fact, causing enough people to follow or to spam are part of Twitter’s terms of service and you can be suspended. The great thing is that Twitter is free, so whether you are on their for business or leisure, you will meet people, but remember, use common sense.

What is your personal Twitter user policy?

After reading both WebProNews and TechCrunch on their articles about the new Twitter homepage, I am still left with questions. Jeremy Muncy does a great job breaking down the new Twitter homepage in his article Breaking Down Twitter’s New Homepage for those needing a little more explanation.

I could care less that the front page looks a bit too trendy in design. The problem is that as Jeremy pointed out, Twitter users would not be able to use this feature. For me, being a Twitter addict, I would love to have access to this feature other than entering it in the search in the sidebar of my profile. Right now, the Twitter search page is very plain and boring. What, are current users? – chopped liver?

There are no links to the main search page for Twitter users to directly visit. I do think that the real-time search function is an awesome attribute of Twitter and I think it could play big in helping them finally monetize their product. However, I revisit this one point again that I have in the past… when is Twitter going to tighten up on watching trending topics and specify what is spam. If people are going to protest, at least pass around a petition link instead of repeatedly throw up on the stream a pointless message. These type of trending topics could hurt Twitter when people visit the page. As anyone knows, your first 30 seconds on a site will leave a huge impression. If people are trending a topic that either seems immature, or pointless, they will turn away. That is the impression I have already gotten in responses from bloggers and my own visitors.

What do you think of this? What would you suggest to Twitter?

Sometimes I come upon sites that I just squeal because they are so cute. I know others do too, and sometimes even guys might take note and say ‘hey that site is cute’, even if it is not exactly their type of site they would choose to go to. The list below are sites that I have found to be uniquely cute.

BubblesSOC is a site that has been mentioned before, especially with their unique smilies. However, this site uses WordPress and harnesses its template abilities. This site has a lot of attention to detail in this matter. Just flip through each section and see it for yourself.

DailyCute.net is literally a blog and resource site filled with cute and cuddly things. From pictures to site links, and to even graphics, this site is chock full and oozing with cute.

Sugary Sweet has a pixel layout that is so cute. For anyone who dabbles in pixelling, it is definitely time consuming. Also, the summer fun of this layout is something that anyone should at least look at and appreciate at least once.

Artistique Ilustra has some great vectors as well as some great artwork. I am not a fan of dolls, but I thought the layout was pretty cool and could be considered cute.

PixelFreak.com, even though it is a portfolio, the pixels are amazing! There is even a section on pixelling people’s faces too!

Acyrlicana serves as a type of splash page for the artist Mary Winkler. It directs to her Deviantart account and her Etsy shop which contain loads of cuteness.

Claire Belton is also known as the QueenofDorks on Deviantart. Her site has a gallery of cute art, a shop, and some fun stuff for visitors to do like dress up one of her characters.

Kao-ani is a site that has many different graphics available for visitors to download and use like emoticons, kao ani (also known as bouncies), and more. Their pixel goodies are adorable!

Cute Plush is a boutique filled with items that are cute and remind me of some of the Japanese cartoon characters. Funny enough, I stumbled upon this and found it to be another site by Claire Belton (aka QueenofDorks). Definitely if you are a person who likes to have cute accessories, this is definitely a great place to start looking.

Pixilate is a site that contains cute pixel fonts, some wallpapers, icons, and more. It also contains a very intriguing navigation. When you click on the pots, the flowers grow taller and reveal the subpages that you can click on in order to go to.

Are there sites that you find are cute design-wise?

After Yahoo! posted on their corporate blog their acquisition of Xoopit, I am still reeling about them closing GeoCities. This is insane! Not only that, but they failed to even mention ANYWHERE in their corporation blog about the closing.

Literally millions used Yahoo! GeoCities free hosting. October 26, 2009 is the official closing day and yet they redirect their free hostees to other companies? What is with that move? I asked in another blog this mysterious and unanswered question, Yahoo!GeoCities – Why Get Rid of a Good Thing?

It is a move that I am pretty sure that when people hear about Xoopit being assimilated into Yahoo! so people can have photos displayed in their email account. Okay, but no thanks anyway since one of my oldest email addresses I have is a Yahoo! email and it is extremely bulky, in my opinion. Then, there was the fact that Yahoo! had closed Yahoo! Briefcase too, in March 2009 and Yahoo! 360 closed July 13, 2009. Okay, so they closed one, have Flickr, and now Xoopit.

Make up your mind Yahell!

Anyone else confused with Yahoo! and their juggling act?

TechCrunch recently posted Why Teens Aren’t Using Twitter: It Doesn’t Feel Safe. While I can understand why some are not, this is not the case. Anyone on Twitter witness the junk @dfizzy and his friends spread throughout Twitter, between June 5th through June 11th,2009.

Teens ARE using twitter, but in a way that Twitter was not intended. Instead of using it to talk with friends, it is to cause pointless shenanigans that were quite defamatory, like the #MileyisPregnant and quite a few other trending topics. In fact, it was a real lesson to these kids on the laws protecting people from defamation. I could care less about comScores. Remember, these surveys and usage scores are just a percentage. I had a recent encounter with an 11 year old girl on Facebook… yes… Facebook. I thought they had some laws about how old a user can be in their terms.

Teens may not use Twitter more out of cost if they use the text features. I have known people to remove their text option because their service providered said they were abusing their ‘unlimited’ text package. That was one thing I was shocked to hear.

Teens are using Twitter. You just have to open your eyes and see where they are that. Of course, Twitter is still in a place of going mainstream at this point, but it is noticeable to those who are huge Twitter addicts. As for the 15 year old kid who ‘interns at Morgan Stanley’ wrote why other kids do not talk about Twitter as a hot topic, is probably because he is not an average student. I think once school starts up again, I might visit the local high school in town and ask around to get a survey.

Do you see teens using Twitter regularly? How do you feel about teens that do use Twitter?

I have noticed more alerts from my Askimet plugin since the recent update in their plugin and the WordPress 2.8.1 upgrade. Basically, the notice usually says that there are issues and it might be a firewall problem. However, I have never had issues with this before.

I checked with the technician of my servers and was told that there had been no logged issues nor any recent graceful reboots, so I am wondering how sensitive this newest plugin version of Askimet is. Although it is no issue to be alerted as it is nice to have Askimet on the side to take care of potential spam.

Has anyone else noticed this with their blog since the upgrade of both the plugin and their WordPress?

I am disappointed… not the usual ‘kind of’, but full out disappointed. I recently saw a tweet go throw my stream from a user who was on TweeterAttack. Out of respect, I am not saying who did it. However, it was okay to friendly ‘buy’ your followers, but to attack them. Come on! After experiencing Mafia Wars and Sorority Life in both MySpace and Facebook, I know people are going to get personal if you tweet that you attacked them.

That is not cool. At least in those applications on the other social networks, you know that it is just a game (except for the few that get a bit psycho and do anything, including threatening your life…believe me, I have seen it.) However, with Twitter, all of these outside applications are not affiliated with Twitter. Twitter was originally dedicated for people to constructively connect with each other.

Applications to send roses or beers or some friendly item have been great to see, but to see one that attacks other tweeps – that is not being friendly. On top of that, the site is a follow train. In case you all were not aware, the twitter follow trains MIGHT work for a week, but you pretty much signed yourself up to an auto-spammer.

What do you think about such sites? Are there others that you are disturbed to see that are focused on attracting Twitter users?