Blogging? FOFC'ers?

[terpkristin]

Subscribed...for now anyway.

/tk

[JonInMiddleGA]

Jokes aside for a second, I appreciate the FOFC support. From the first weekend's stats my traffic was 50-50 (literally the exact same number of referrals) from here vs FB, which are the only two places the blog has been mentioned.

And while I'm being serious anyway, I really do suspect that our FOFC'ers will find my (anticipated) fare quite mild versus expectations. While you're all familiar with my standard themes here, overall my writing historically runs much more toward the introspective/stream-of-consciousness/mundane, which aren't always on topics that really fit into the flow of FOFC.

That's certainly not to suggest that there won't be familiar rants on socio-political topics, just that having complete leeway to set the scope of the commentary without worrying about whether something might be of interest to any group in particular seems likely to make for some unexpected subject matter at times.

[Logan]

"Site Blocked"...how fitting!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Logan

"Site Blocked"...how fitting!

Really? Work filter you mean?

Is that the same for all Wordpress.com blogs or did my reputation somehow precede me & I got special treatment?

[Logan]

Yeah looks like a Wordpress thing, incidentally I just set something up for our work fantasy football league (a real simple couple pages for history and such) and it seems like it's 50/50 with it getting blocked or not from within our VPN.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

{waits for flere to discover that comments are set to "must approve" in 3 ... 2 ...}

DAMNIT!!!

[spleen1015]

Subscribed, Jon. I look forward to your wisdom.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Logan

"Site Blocked"...how fitting!

FYI.....you should be able to use Google Reader to access all blogs.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

FYI.....you should be able to use Google Reader to access all blogs.

Interesting info ... I wonder if that's why I had one GR reference over the weekend?

(I don't even know what Google Reader is exactly, but figure it must be some sort of aggregator for blogs/feeds or something)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Interesting info ... I wonder if that's why I had one GR reference over the weekend?

(I don't even know what Google Reader is exactly, but figure it must be some sort of aggregator for blogs/feeds or something)

You can put in all the blogs you read regularly and then it will list any new posts from all the blogs in one location. It's like a blog RSS feed of sorts. And it's also an excellent way to get around any web security issues.

Google Reader

[terpkristin]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Interesting info ... I wonder if that's why I had one GR reference over the weekend?

(I don't even know what Google Reader is exactly, but figure it must be some sort of aggregator for blogs/feeds or something)

Yep, RSS reader.
It's how I subscribed.

/tk

[FrogMan]

I also read it via Google Reader, makes blog reading/following so easy, and accessible from anywhere you got web access...

And subscribing to RSS feed is so easy, especially when using Firefox.

FM

[boberot]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

A little late to the thread, but...

I was a journalism major before I got into education. I had been dying to write again so I ended up joining Bleacher Report. It's just sports oriented, but it's gotten me some exposure (one story hit the NFL front page of cbssports.com, a few others were linked on Michael Lombardi's site) and now I'm writing for something called MTR media. I enjoy it, gives me a chance to write about sports (primarily Colts coverage)

BR is mostly full of horrible hacks, but it's easy to write, easy to link to FB, and there are a handful of guys that can form some decent sentences together.

Not to threadjack -- I know your intent is not to make $, Jon -- but I'm wondering if ColtCrazy or Dan or any other guys have found a way to earn a little extra cash with their blogs.

[spleen1015]

Google Reader here too.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by boberot

Not to threadjack -- I know your intent is not to make $, Jon -- but I'm wondering if ColtCrazy or Dan or any other guys have found a way to earn a little extra cash with their blogs.

I make enough to pay for my hosting and a little extra. My advertiser Foodbuzz pays a decent PPM. Other than that I had Google Ads and it took forever for me to get up to $100 bucks and when I did they canceled my account saying I had "invalid clicks".

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by boberot

Not to threadjack

No worries at all, I just started the thread but it's definitely not meant to be all about me or my blog.

Heck, I hope any of our regular bloggers will use this to give themselves a little hype too, or anybody who has questions will ask them or whatever.

[boberot]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

No worries at all, I just started the thread but it's definitely not meant to be all about me or my blog.

Heck, I hope any of our regular bloggers will use this to give themselves a little hype too, or anybody who has questions will ask them or whatever.

Good to know.

My situation is similar to yours: I [and others] think it's important that I have a regular writing outlet, and was considering blogging.

But, since our financial situation sucks, I was wondering if there was realistically any money to be made on the endeavor.

[Maple Leafs]

My blog makes decent money these days -- not quit-your-job money by any stretch, but enough to make a difference. In my case I ended up joining a network that handles all the ad logistics for me. I just have to post some generic code on the site, and they get a cut of the revenue.

To give you an idea, I make about a penny for every pageview (sometimes more or less depending on how much inventory has been sold). From what I know, that's pretty typical. So you can use that as a rough rule-of-thumb to figure out how much traffic you'd need before any money you made would start to make a difference.

My advice would be to not worry about ads or revenue until you get to that traffic threshold. Focus your energy on content and audience building first. One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is thinking about money too early.

[Neuqua]

Beginner's question:

How do I get a domain name I purchased from godaddy to be attached to hosting from dreamhost? Is there an easy way that I am missing?

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Neuqua

Beginner's question:

How do I get a domain name I purchased from godaddy to be attached to hosting from dreamhost? Is there an easy way that I am missing?

I believe you just need to have Godaddy point to the nameserver info provided by your host. The info you need will look like...


ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Neuqua

Beginner's question:

How do I get a domain name I purchased from godaddy to be attached to hosting from dreamhost? Is there an easy way that I am missing?

Pretty much what matthean said. Oddly enough, as of a couple of hours ago I'm in the process to moving from another host to GoDaddy for hosting.

[boberot]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

My blog makes decent money these days -- not quit-your-job money by any stretch, but enough to make a difference. In my case I ended up joining a network that handles all the ad logistics for me. I just have to post some generic code on the site, and they get a cut of the revenue.

To give you an idea, I make about a penny for every pageview (sometimes more or less depending on how much inventory has been sold). From what I know, that's pretty typical. So you can use that as a rough rule-of-thumb to figure out how much traffic you'd need before any money you made would start to make a difference.

My advice would be to not worry about ads or revenue until you get to that traffic threshold. Focus your energy on content and audience building first. One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is thinking about money too early.

Awesome info, ML. Thanks a lot.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Just as a mildly amusing aside, to prove that nothing in life is ever simple ...

I decide I'll take some of the good advice here & give more than one service a try, see what I like best, etc. I start to sign up for an account at WordPress.com and discover that the handle I wanted to use is too long to fit into their URL format and the second choice is already taken. So now I'm stuck trying to figure out something to call it that won't annoy me later because I end up not liking it.

So what was the handle you wanted to use?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

So what was the handle you wanted to use?

If you read yesterday's blog entry you'd know

I wanted to use either BehindEnemyLines or NoDawgsAllowed but neither was available anywhere at the time I started checking. Either in use or too long or whatever.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by boberot

Awesome info, ML. Thanks a lot.

No problem, let me know if oyu have any other questions.

[Subby]

I know you hate Twitter, but a lot of folks out there are using it in lieu of RSS.

For instance, I use Tweetdeck to organize all of my Twitter subscriptions and a lot of those tweets simply point to updated content on the associated web sites. ProFootballTalk.com is a good example of this.

"Vick runs the wildcat, says, "this is my role" http://is.gd/cIOcK #NFL"

[Maple Leafs]

Seconded, twitter is invaluable for bloggers.

[terpkristin]

While I agree that Twitter is a great tool for bloggers, I really get driven nuts by people who use it for layering links.

Leo Laporte, Roz Savage, and Julio Ojeda-Zapata do this way too much, in my opinion (3 people I follow but rarely ever bother to click their links anymore). They all use multiple "message" things like Google Buzz, FriendFeed, Twitter, etc, and nestle them into eachother so that you get 3 copies of each post (they post it to one and it autoposts to Twitter, resulting in multiple Twitter posts) and then sometimes they go to post.ly which then requires ANOTHER link...drives me nuts.

Just a word of caution.

/tk

[boberot]

Well, I'm trying my hand at this, and am discovering a few things:

* I think I'm suffering from "false start" syndrome. In my head I can picture the basic style/flow/theme, but I'm having a hell of a time getting traction. I'm considering making a bunch of posts before pulling the wraps off to the general populace to get a handle on it.

* I'm also struggling with how frank / open to be with some of my ideas. I don't intend to get overtly political, but as somebody who considers himself a writer, I plan to be pretty frank and open with some of my personal views, experiences and struggles. Again, nothing over the top -- but not shying away from the truth either. And then I think about the fact that -- literally -- anybody in the world could read it and it gives me pause.

Any more experienced blogger's five cents worth of advice is most welcome.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by boberot

Well, I'm trying my hand at this, and am discovering a few things:

* I think I'm suffering from "false start" syndrome. In my head I can picture the basic style/flow/theme, but I'm having a hell of a time getting traction. I'm considering making a bunch of posts before pulling the wraps off to the general populace to get a handle on it.

* I'm also struggling with how frank / open to be with some of my ideas. I don't intend to get overtly political, but as somebody who considers himself a writer, I plan to be pretty frank and open with some of my personal views, experiences and struggles. Again, nothing over the top -- but not shying away from the truth either. And then I think about the fact that -- literally -- anybody in the world could read it and it gives me pause.

Any more experienced blogger's five cents worth of advice is most welcome.

It's your blog, write it anyway you want.

[boberot]

Well, I'm trying my hand at this, and am discovering a few things:

* I think I'm suffering from "false start" syndrome. In my head I can picture the basic style/flow/theme, but I'm having a hell of a time getting traction. I'm considering making a bunch of posts before pulling the wraps off to the general populace to get a handle on it.

* I'm also struggling with how frank / open to be with some of my ideas. I don't intend to get overtly political, but as somebody who considers himself a writer, I plan to be pretty frank and open with some of my personal views, experiences and struggles. Again, nothing over the top -- but not shying away from the truth either. And then I think about the fact that -- literally -- anybody in the world could read it and it gives me pause.

Any more experienced blogger's five cents worth of advice is most welcome.

[JediKooter]

I think there's a glitch in the Matrix...

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by boberot

I'm considering making a bunch of posts...

You weren't kidding.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I think I broke the internet again
WordPress.com Goes Down, Takes Millions of Blogs With It

WordPress.com and the millions of blogs hosted by it have gone down for currently unknown reasons. Not only are blogs hosted on WordPress.com down, but WordPress VIP blogs are out of commission as well.

All it currently says on WordPress-hosted blogs is the following:

“WordPress.com will be back in a minute!”

Millions of blogs, including ones like GigaOm, are down for the count. WordPress.com also experienced extended downtime back in February.

UPDATE: WordPress has responded to our inquiry, saying that all hands are on deck to restore service and suggesting that we check out its Twitter account (@Wordpressdotcom) for updates.

Here is what Wordpress tweeted moments ago:

“We are working on restoring WordPress.com as quickly as possible.”

UPDATE 2: From @Wordpressdotcom: “We’ve isolated the issue on WordPress.com, and we are working on a fix.”

[flere-imsaho]

Nice work, dork.

[JediKooter]

However, productivity at work rose 43%

[Matthean]

I believe there was a huge attack on sites recently so Wordpress might have been part of those that got targeted. WP is big enough to where I wouldn't be surprised if they don't start to get the MS type of treatment in people trying to see if they can break through WP's security measures.

[GoldenEagle]

Wordpress has really been sucking lately. My site seems to go down about the same time every day (about right now).

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

Wordpress has really been sucking lately. My site seems to go down about the same time every day (about right now).

You using WP as your host as well?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Just 'cause it was interesting to me when I noticed it ...

My blogging has been pretty irregular, mostly limited to my YouTube collages on Friday afternoons lately. But after several weeks of working on it, I posted a political rant of sorts on Sunday. It became the most viewed post since the day I launched the blog. Tiny numbers but still, I thought that was interesting to note since I really didn't want to do a lot of politics on there (and still don't). But on the heels of that, I wasn't able to resist doing an endorsements post for today's statewide primaries.

Just when you think you're out, they drag you back in I guess, just found the reaction too amusing not to share.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Blog updated this morning (with something other than my 5 o'clock whistle for a change), looking at how I really got started in radio
Live from (fill in the blank) fieldÂ*… « Jon's Three Cents

[JonInMiddleGA]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who checked out the blog today, setting new marks for most read entry and most total traffic to the blog in a single day. I said from the beginning that it wasn't about traffic stats or anything like that but it's incredibly encouraging to know that I'm not writing into a vacuum either. My thanks to you all.

[DaddyTorgo]

Was an interesting story of how you got started in radio

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Was an interesting story of how you got started in radio

Thanks, it was really cool to me to get a comment from one of the guys that was in the booth that night, I've never really discussed that story with either of them & now I'm more than half tempted to call up the station manager from that night just to say thanks. While writing the piece I discovered that he's apparently still working at the same station where he went when he left the one in the story, which I didn't realize.

These interwebz can be a strange but oft times cool place

[JonInMiddleGA]

Blog updated again, sort of a continuation of the radio beginnings post, this time with some favorite memories from the booth From high atop X Stadium … (pt 2) « Jon's Three Cents

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

now I'm more than half tempted to call up the station manager from that night just to say thanks.

I've updated the blog but it's an awful reason to have to do so.
Give Them the Roses … « Jon's Three Cents

For those who read my post about my actual beginning in radio, you know the station manager I'm talking about in the quote above & the part he played in my career. An old friend FB msgd me yesterday afternoon, Barry Holt died Sunday after an apparently short illness. He's survived by a wife, two children and two grandchildren.

And no, I never got around to calling him.

Fuck Cancer

[JonInMiddleGA]

More complete review of the Uproar Festival tour stop in Atlanta now up on my blog Review: Uproar Festival Atlanta 9/6/10 « Jon's Three Cents

[terpkristin]

Just thought I'd let you know, Jon, that I'm enjoying your posts. And the introduction to some music I would have otherwise never listened to.

/tk

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by terpkristin

Just thought I'd let you know, Jon, that I'm enjoying your posts. And the introduction to some music I would have otherwise never listened to. /tk

Thanks TK, I appreciate it.

I'm still hoping that our other bloggers will also remember this thread as a place to promote their own efforts too, but I've decided that I'm not going to let the absence of that make me bashful either

[lungs]

So I've joined the blogging ranks myself. It's fairly specific to a genetic theory of crossbreeding of different dairy animal breeds that I utilize. Probably not all that interesting to 99.9% of the people here, but there are lots of cow pictures.

The Dairy Crossbred Blog