Frank Ramblings

A little over a week ago, I was checking Twitter on my commute home from work when I noticed several people using the hashtag #BWENY. Further investigation revealed that this was the official hashtag of the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in New York City. I knew that the conference was coming up soon, so this made sense. I joined the conversation and began tweeting away with other bloggers and social media enthusiasts who were talking about BlogWorld. I had read that they would be giving away free passes to the conference, but I didn’t think much of it. Imagine my surprise when I saw a tweet announcing that I had won a pass! I was shocked, but excited. Wednesday rolled around and I found myself walking the Exhibitor Floor at the Jacob Javits Center with my co-worker Cara. I spoke to people from dozens of companies providing fantastic services to bloggers, brands, and agencies. I was already familiar with some, like Groupon, Posterous, and WordPress, but I also learned about some really promising new companies. Some were better than others, but I plan on trying them all out. Have a look and tell me which ones you like best!

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Life has been busier than ever, but somehow I’ve managed to emerge from my cave and do a bit of guest blogging this week. I had forgotten just how much I love it and it was a refreshing change of pace from my recent activities.

First, I wrote up a piece for the Likeable Media blog. My post is a guide to avoiding annoying trends and events in your social media stream without having to give up your addiction all together. It was first inspired by my annoyance with Super Bowl tweets, but it really applies to any event that you don’t want to have polluting your timeline. Please do me a huge favor and hit the “Tweet” button when you read it!

Next, I wrote a post for my good friends at GeeksOfDoom.com. Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of The Beatles’ arrival in the US, so I contributed a piece that put into perspective the impact that their arrival had on music and on history in general. It’s just a brief look into my feelings on the subject, but it’s something I feel really passionate about, and I’m proud of how it turned out.

I’m going to try to use this unexpected burst of self-expression and turn it into something productive. I really miss blogging, but I’m so busy doing things these days, I rarely have the time to sit down and make a verbal record of them. Still, I really love the rewarding nature of blogging, and I miss writing for fun. I’m not going to be that guy who apologizes for not updating his blog often enough, promises to blog every day, and then disappears for another six months, but I am going to at least try and make a habit of  keeping this site at least somewhat up to date. I’ve felt uninspired for several months, but lately, some ideas have been brewing, and I’d love a chance to put them into words and get them out there. So here’s to blogging!

Lately my passion for the Beatles has been flaring up again in a big way. Rather than blog about it to no end here and tweet about it on my main Twitter account, I decided it made more sense to create a new outlet to channel my thoughts on all things Beatlish. The result is @BeatleRamblings paired with beatleramblings.tumblr.com. I’ll be giving my spur-of-the-moment thoughts, comments, and reactions on the Twitter account, and blogging and sharing links, pictures, and other media on the Tumblr page. I’m also looking into starting a Beatles podcast. More on that at a later date. For now, please follow, friend, and comment. Thanks!

In Life After the 30-Second Spot, author Joseph Jaffe states clearly and repeatedly that the 30-second television ad is a dying element of years gone by. He seeks to offer methods that businesses can use to invigorate their brand names by using new media alternatives to traditional advertising. Jaffe lists 10 Tenets for Marketing to a New Consumer and he offers 10 approaches that he says are changing the face of advertising and marketing. His overall premise is that the 30-second TV spot is dead, and that advertisers need to face reality and make effective use of new media alternatives if they are to succeed in the high-tech future that is already beginning to assert itself. He makes some valid points, as well as a few that have already been disproven in the short time since the book was written. Nevertheless, his ideas are thought provoking and I found myself agreeing with much of what he had to say.

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A few months ago, I reviewed Windows 7 here. At the time, I was using the Beta version. Since then, I’ve upgraded to the full version that was officially released two weeks ago. I’m happy to say I’ve posted an updated review over at YuBlog.org, a great blog dedicated to user-submitted content. I hope to continue submitting articles there in the future. You can read the article here. Leave comments!

I’ve been meaning to revamp the site for some time now, and I’ve also been meaning to switch from Blogger to WordPress. WordPress is much more powerful and versatile and allows for much greater customization. It just makes my life easier. I think I’ve picked out a pretty cool theme, though I’m not entirely satisfied with some of the smaller things. I’ll be tweaking things over the next few days. I also want to give a shoutout to my friend Frank for hooking me up with hosting for the new site.

I really love WordPress. The user interface is clean and simple, but it’s very powerful. A whole host of Plugins and Widgets make almost anything possible on this platform. I’ve always loved being able to customize things to my personal tastes and preferences, and WordPress makes it possible to do just that. There are limitless possibilities. If you’re new to blogging and just want a simple place to collect your thoughts, WordPress.com provides a hosted solution. That means you don’t need to worry about where to keep your site; it exists on WordPress’s servers. You also don’t need to worry about keeping your version of WordPress up to date. They take care of that for you. However, it also means you have less control over themes and such. But again, it’s a great solution for less experienced users.

What I’m using now, though, is WordPress.org. There is a difference between the .com and .org versions. The .org version requires that you download the WordPress software and install it on a server of your own choosing. This means more work for you, but experienced users won’t have a problem with that. The benefits make it worth the legwork. You’ll find that the interface is more complex and capable of more. For one thing, you have complete control over the look of your site, down to every last line of HTML. Blogger allowed me to do this to a certain degree, but I’m now at the point where I’ve outgrown Blogger’s basic capabilities and I’m ready to tackle WordPress’s more mature way of doing things. So far I’m loving it. Really looking forward to playing around with this and learning how to un-tap its full potential.