Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

I know it is a couple months old, but being me, some things need some cool off time, like why in the world is Yahoo! closing Geocities? Believe me, I did need the time. I had to go out of my way to go and download old files before I forgot. Being me, October 2009 would have rolled around and I would have lost some of my old writing.

I remember the days when I ran some Yahoo! Clubs (which has been Yahoo! Groups for close to a decade) and had some Geocities hosted website. The banner ads were obtrusive, but at that time, I was still learning web design and only cared that at least I had some space. I tried Freewebs (which is now just Webs.com) and even Homestead and Tripod.

A long time ago, when I joined Geocities, I had to join a certain ‘street’ and then park on a lot number. Later, Yahoo! allowed users to have their username in the URL. So many sites and yet Yahoo! is closing it. Unfortunately, the ‘award’ winner webhosting they offer is junk. I have seen more complaints than anything with their hosting. Is it because of Geocities? It is because of the economy and something had to be cut. Yahoo! does not give much of a reason in their Geocities help section on “Why is Geocities closing?”

On the other hand, they seem like authorities evacuating a toxic spill zone by redirecting them to other services. Not only that, Yahoo! 360 and Geocities! Plus (offered to their AT&T clients) are also closing. I just want to say – this is Yahell! (That is an old phrase.)

Is Geocities too much to handle or worthless to be bought by another company?

With threats to sue last in June 2009 from people like the St. Louis Cardinal’s manager, Tony La Russa, Twitter has come up with verified accounts. Mashable was among the many that reported on this change after Twitter introduce the verified account feature and their reaction to the increasing impersonation attempts.

Right now, verified accounts is in the beta mode, but I do not blame Twitter for this. I have even been imitated online, and I am a nobody. Of course, I am someone in my circles, but not those who are in the celebrity spotlight. When I talk to someone on twitter, I want them to be the real thing. Unfortunately, celebrities have been harassed by fans who doubt their authenticity. Live examples can be seen on profiles like Trent Reznor, Robert Scoble, and Alyssa Milano.

As for my thoughts, kudos to Twitter for this. I am hoping with time this can be extended to others, whether it might be a simple (and hopefully not expensive) paid service that requires some honest verification.

What do you think of Twitter verified accounts? Have you been impersonated? What other things do you think Twitter should do besides this verified account experiment?

Well, it has been 13 years that I have had access to the internet. I remember the days with Yahoo! Chat and how people went from friendly talking to spam and porn flooding the major chatrooms. Then in Yahoo! Clubs and eventually Yahoo! Groups it went from people being friendly to people flaming each other or spamming to get ahead. Then it was MySpace and Facebook.

So, as a site goes mainstream, the price is that the quality is lacking. Even Trent Reznor (@trent_reznor) of Nine Inch Nails has outwardly been disgusted by the lack of maturity that has been growing in Twitter.

Now… Twitter. Over a year ago I joined Twitter and thought it was great. It was like a chatroom without the bulky and slow loading chat applet. I met friendly people and connected.

THEN… Twitter started going more mainstream once 2009 hit. With loads of companies joining and making a presence and people catching onto the idea, there are the people who are raising the dark side of Twitter. These people are encouraging others to gain lots of followers without actually making a connection or sharing some valuable information. There are children joining and bringing their world into Twitter. And some of those topics are not so great, even inappropriate. A couple weeks ago, there were some trending topics that were so vulgar (and I will not list them) that Twitter removed it within an hour.

Then there is the spam. From twitter trains, and twitter trains that are pyramid schemes (the ones that you have to join so many people to be able to get on the train, and be rotated through, plus there is a section to pay for a VIP or featured list), people are seeing “Get 100, 200, 400 followers a day!”

While you might get that many in a week, afterwards, your luck will fizzle out. People follow and unfollow, so you are not guaranteed that you will have followers, just the nice buzz from the words you read from these fooled people within your stream that have not gotten the concept of social networking.

What can Twitter do to eliminate this? Unless they tighten some boot straps, the spam might go on. What can you do as a user to eliminate this?

1. Ignore it
2. Block the user
3. Report it

With the ridiculous amount of trending topic hoaxes as of recent on Twitter, there should be trending topics to address this issue. Do you want Twitter to go down the social media crapper?

I was reading Joost de Valk’s post, On the GPL, Themes, Plugins & Free. Matt Mullenweg had mentioned during WordCamp Chicago 2009 about how WordPress was going to be putting a separate section recognizing people who did commercially supported GPL themes. I for one, though I have never been very verbal about it, have always had done this for my own themes that I made for clients.

Recently, I blogged about How To Appreciate Your Web Developers where I try to spread the message that it is important to support your web developers and how to do it. This can be tied with the topic for WordPress GPL themes and plugins. I like this idea about the themes, but I have to agree with people like Joost de Valk and Justin Parks that plugin developers should be included. These special plugins give that extra oomph to make your site pop. I remember my first plugin donation was to Alex King for WP-Grins and that was a couple years ago. I now make free emoticon smilies for people to use and most people probably have used his plugin.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you even think there should be a section to recognize GPL supported themes or plugins? Have you ever donated to a WordPress plugin developer?

With the recent passing of Michael Jackson, there has been an amazing thing. People are showing their concerns for Michael Jackson and spreading news via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, normal online news sites, and more.

Of course, Michael Jackson has always been someone to talk about. He was a very influential man within pop culture. For decades he has been a celebrity. People grew up to him on television and through music. People even grew up with his family too. I remember when I was young that my father use to blast his Thriller album loudly. I cannot forget it even though I was so young at the time.

Music artists across many genre have publicly said that his music and dancing influenced some of their work at one point or another. Although the majority of his life was without the social media that exists today (like the internet), he stuck to several principles when in the public eye.

• He was true to himself even if some decisions were not accepted by others.
• He influenced others and became an expert to others who were in the same industry.
• He had a team of people besides himself at getting the word spread about his music.
• He was consistent with his music and dancing by breaking new barriers and delivering a better song each time.
• He successfully branded himself not just as a person, but on a business level too!

So before his official site or fan club ever came online, he was already a social media expert. Of course, it cost him money, but he connected with those who could help him on his journey. Michael Jackson will always be remembered for his work.

What will you remember about him? How can you use his successful climb in social media to influence your own?

Let us face it, web developers can be under-appreciated. Most offer their work for free and ask for nothing. The problem is, some of these developers come up with great things. What spurred this topic on… well, the topic came up in the WordPress group in LinkedIn. It was apparent that I was not the only person experiencing a bit of under-appreciation.

Did you know PHPads has had over 2700 downloads since January 2009, and PHPurl has been downloaded over 700 times. This is not a rant. Believe me, if I felt like it, I would, but that is not the point. All of these people go through and download. Each download takes a little bandwidth and people are making money off of at least PHPads. A free tool that makes you money.

Think about all the scripts and plugins you have used, even those WordPress plugins. There are plenty of people who make plugins… many of which are very handy. I have helped test quite a few plugins and tweaked many more for my own use as well as use for clients. Have I donated – yes I have. How many plugins do you use? How many of them have a little link to donate? Have you ever donated?

I know that not everyone has a lot of money, especially with the tough economy, but we should help each other out in some way. It is the generally better to spread the word about the resource than to donate, but that little bit always makes a developers day. Here is how you can appreciate your developers, whether they are a developer of an entire script or even WordPress plugin:

• Blog about the script or plugin if you liked it. You never know… one of the people who read your blog and then visited that developer might spread the word or even donate.
• Tell people in your social media networks like on Facebook and Twitter about it.
• If a developer does not have a way for you to donate, contact them and urge them to put one up. Whether you do donate or not once they do put a donation button up, at least it is up and visible.
• Put up credit somewhere on your site on what script or plugin you are using, even if you are using it to develop a client’s website.
• Donate at least $5. It is not much, but every little bit is appreciated.

Simple, right? What others ways do you think might help developers become more appreciated?

Perhaps when you read the top, you wonder what I mean by ‘how to blog better lists.’ People love to read the top 5 of something to see if it is relevant – to them if they might be on that list, for information that could be provided, or if their friends might be listed. These type of blog entries are indentified with phrases like ‘top 10′ or even ’5 best.’

There are a lot of lists with wonderful buzzwords attached to them. However, I have noticed when viewing these lists that they are quite long! It gets a bit boring looking through 20 or more things. It is great that you took the time to make such a list, but was it really necessary to include that many? What ever happened to the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid)? It is not about the quantity, but the quality of the post. That is not the first time I have said that, but it does very much pertain to making lists.

Here are ways to improve your blog lists.

• Aim to blog between 200 to 400 words.
• Shorten your lists and break it up. Use the KISS method. For example, you do not have to list (example) ’50 Designers on Twitter to follow. You can break those posts up. A lot of designers specialize in certain areas. Instead of sliding all of them in the same general genre, make several lists. If you have WordPress, your entry might call up those related lists if you have the proper plugins installed (like Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.)
• Make sure your list is honest and thurough. If your friend really is not all that awesome, do not include them. You are providing a list of people you recommend to people. This is important if your blog also ties in with your professional life. If you recommend someone who is not up to your own standards, you are not providing your best list.

These are just a few to consider and they are very basic. What other things do you recommend to bloggers to consider when making their top 10 or similar type lists?

I recently saw in my blog links that Liz Strauss had linked back from her site Successful Blog, to my site and when I followed to see, I found that she had picked me for a SOB – Successful and Outstanding Blogger.

I was really surprised as it has been a while since I have gotten any type of praise for my site. In fact, it had been so long that it was closer to the days I had just come out of web competitions with The Site Fights. Yes, that was a long time ago, and my site was no where up to snuff like it is these days. I was just learning then.

Liz explains it in a page for those who are curious called ‘What IS an SOB?!’

Basically is is how you get out into the blogosphere and social media and try to bring your blog and discussions to others… influencing others to get involved. It is a way for people to learn from each other and spread that knowledge in return.

Thank you Liz!

Are you an SOB?