The following is a summary of the information that I will be speaking about:

“The introduction to blogging will cover information on some of the tips and techniques that you can use to get your blog up and running with full steam. From choosing your domain name to marketing your blog, this presentation will provide you with all of the information that you need to get your blog started on the right foot. Picking the right blogging platform will be reviewed, in addition to tips and tricks to improving your blog’s traffic and visibility. Questions will also be presented to help prospective bloggers identify on whether or not a blog is right for them. This presentation will be geared to new and prospective bloggers and promises to provide relevant information for them.”

There is another presentation focusing on the business aspect. My presentation is more of a general overview than business focused. Regardless, I would love to see any and all of you that can make it. The event schedule for CenPhoCamp can also be found on their website.

In order to better conceptualize the situation, it is important to note that MLBAM is it’s own entity. MLB Advanced Media controls everything digital for MLB. This includes mailing lists, iPhone applications, team websites, specific Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and the list goes on. In order for a club to get any interactive marketing campaign going, it all has to be approved by MLBAM. This creates a bit of a challenge when it comes to credentialing bloggers as members of the media. This new understanding of what is required behind the scenes puts things into a whole new perspective.

I would personally like to thank the Arizona Diamondbacks and their Marketing Director Karina Bohn for taking the time to communicate this to the audience at the AZIMA event. There is no doubt that this was a difficult item of discussion and their presence and candid response is invaluable to enthusiasts and bloggers. I, for one, will continue to blog and pledge to continue to keep my posts within the highest regard of MLB and it’s clubs in an effort to keep the community properly informed.

Having key words in your domain name that have to do with your content and that are prevalent in the copy really help out in search. Never have I stumbled upon a better case study than azfallball.com. Without going into too much detail on the stats, the particularly interesting statistic is the fact that the site has not been up that long and it gets heavy search engine referral traffic. I guess that would make sense but, actually seeing the different variations of “rangers fall ball”, “peoria az fall ball”, “az fall ball schedules”, etc. kind of blew me away. Quite honestly, this site has been up shorter than it’s parent and had more traffic in it’s first four weeks of existence than most of the Fall League of 2008.

Sorry for the rambling. It’s late, I thought that it was worth mentioning and I thought that I would share. Have you ever stumbled upon something on the web that has greatly benefited your traffic? Someone else’s bad links or similar domains?

Enough about my running but, that’s the back-story. Nike has always done a wonderful job of delivering highly compelling, visually pleasing advertisements for a number of years. This past year was no different with the unique and funny Kobe and LeBron Puppet Series for the NBA Championship series. Nike is also pretty well known for how they are handling the social media aspect of their campaign. Among the large corporate heavyweights in the Social Media area are Starbucks Coffee and Nike.

I can write forever on the organization’s Social Marketing efforts but this is really only an analysis of one of their email marketing campaigns. With the email below, there are many awesome aspects to it that make it effective.

• First, it is visually compelling.
• Second, the fact that it identifies that it is one of four tells me that they are going to follow up with a few more.

Now the content of the email was really a welcome email that welcomed me with some calls to action. Set a goal, meet some friends, track your runs and so on. It was also followed up by a brief survey at the end. I must admit that I have not filled it out yet but I definitely will.

Below, you can check out an excerpt from the survey.

Here’s the thing: regardless if I do any of the calls to action Nike as made it extremely easy to provide feedback by putting the survey in the email. The fact that they have made it so easy to respond makes me want to. I was so blown away by the email that I had to write this post before I answered the questions on the survey.

Additionally, the fact that they yearn for customer feedback sends the message that they care about their consumers. This makes me want to learn more about their new products. In closing, I did do some more research on their products and found a shoe that is right for my feet. I will buy them and return to Nike and may even be a long time/ repeat customer. Brands take note.

Although the keyboard shortcuts are there, I would have liked to have seen one that allows you to scroll all the way to the top of the list. There is a setting that allows you to do that by default but, it would be a nice addition if you wanted to reference another tweet. I guess the thought there is that you are already using the pointer. One nice thing about the auto scrolling to the top is that, if you have focus on a tweet when it updates, you will not lose your spot. If you change views, however, you may.

From a user interface perspective, again, I think that they did an outstanding job. However, there is one little thing that I am not too terribly fond of. I don’t mind the visual notifications on the application when it is open but, the visual in the task bar could use some customization. What I mean is that it lights up when there is a tweet, regardless of is it is an @ reply or a direct message. I know I am getting tweets, the interwebs is always on and some programmer somewhere is working a late night. My solution proposition, light up when there is an @ reply and maybe have a dot in the middle when there is a direct message.

Another cool feature is that it does support multiple accounts, which definitely comes in handy. As far as the visual notification in the task bar for that particular use case, I think that it would be fine to show the same visual notification as what was proposed earlier. If I see that I have an @ reply or a direct message, I will open the application and should be able to go from there. Also, the twitpics and other images open full-sized which I thought was nifty, especially after squinting at the little boxes in TweetDeck.

The Twitter API frequency adjustments are not there like TweetDeck but after today, I am not sure that I really need them. That is just my personal preference. I feel that it does a pretty good job updating as it. But, if you are in a hurry, there is a keyboard shortcut for refreshing the lists.

In summary, I love the application. I paid the 14.95 after deciding that I liked it so much and since I was able to get a grasp on the shortcuts so quick. atebits did a fantastic job with usability and I thought that I would take advantage of the introductory offer rather than wait for improvements. I am still a fan of TweetDeck but am glad that I installed it on the Mac.

If any readers have any specific questions on any of the items that I may have left out, feel free to comment and I will get back to you.

I have turned out a number of websites in both Joomla! and WordPress and I can tell you that both have their advantages and disadvantages. A typical engagement will begin with the requirements gathering. What would you like for your site to do? Although, Joomla! does have blogging capabilities, I tend to favor WordPress in that category for it’s ease of use. Some clients have more business oriented requirements such as user management, subscription management, e-commerce functionality and additional security requirements. With more complicated requirements, I tend to lean in the direction of recommending Joomla!.

WordPress – Primarily built as a blogging platform, the WordPress Codex allows for some pretty excellent flexibility when creating WordPress powered sites. There are plugins that allow for more feature integration that give visitors a more compelling experience when visiting a WordPress site. Another virtue of the platform is that is allows for Search Engine Friendly URLs while creating blog posts automatically. The CSS and skinning of a WordPress site is very intuitive for knowledgeable developers which make for the opportunity to make some really cool looking sites.

Joomla! - Has a very large and global developer base that offers both commercial and non-commercial plugins, components and modules that are easily integrated into your site. Depending on the requirements of the site, chances are that there is one right for you. From a business analysis perspective, some of the modules that have been designed for other verticals can be customized for your site by an experienced PHP developer. While Joomla! is primarily used as a Content Management System, there are attributes that allow blogging. By default the search engine friendly URLs are not enabled by the administrative settings allow you to switch that over. Although the CSS is not quite as straight forward as WordPress sites, there are some pretty flashy things that you can do with some of the available Joomla! styles out there.

Please keep in mind that the following are base on my opinions in my experiences with both. I would love to hear your feedback on whether or not you agree.

Feature/ Function	Joomla!	WordPress
Blogging	C	A
CMS Functions	A	B
Admin Interface	C-	A
Available Plugins	B	C
Ease of Design Customization	C	A
Ease of Deployment	B	A
Support Community	A	A
Search Engine Friendly	C	A
Article Publishing	B	A
Documentation	A	A
E-commerce	B	C
Update Services (writing)	C	A
Update Services (programs)	D	A
User Management	A	A
Forum Integration	A	A

In summary, I tend to lean more towards WordPress and am looking forward to working with Expression Engine but, I have an immense familiarity with Joomla! to the point where I continue to recommend it. WordPress sites seem to be quicker to deploy than most and have all the basic functionality that a blogger would need but, WordPress would require some knowledge of the Codex in order to make the site function as more of a CMS. Out of the box it would make a blogger happy but may need to be fine-tuned for a business. While the administration portion of Joomla! may not be as intuitive as that of WordPress, it is extremely built out with additional functions that allow it to operate as more of a CMS on initial deployment. As the clients do more in the back-end of Joomla! they become more familiar with where everything is and more about how to customize their site’s content.

What my thought is that there is a fine line between proper ad placement and too many ads. If ads are not placed properly, they can take away from the experience. Several thousands of hours go into site usability studies that show that the same number of ads, if not placed properly can seem to be too many.

In conclusion, I am fine with the current layout and the length of visits to the site show that the users are too. That been said, I may have an upcoming action item to create a banner management system but, in the meantime, enjoy the site for what it is. There will be no additional ad real estate forthcoming, perhaps only the ability for us to rotate ads more frequently, not to take away from the user experience.

Marketing and ads are what I do, so this is kind of difficult for me to write about. Even more difficult will be the post on the decision for me leaving my prior place of employment (probably will come in another year). If you have any feedback, let me know. I would love to hear you take on my stance.

Hello this is **name**. i really need a good person who can teach my son how to design on the topic below.

creative designer…
Graphic designer…
Photo designer…
Solidworks AutoCAD Designer…
web designer…
Designer(Graphic art)…
HTML/CSS Design…
Design/Animation…
Graphic Designer/Illustrator…
Mechanical Designer / Drafter…
Landscape designer…
Home Designer…
E.T.C.

please email me if you can teach my son any of the subject listed and there is payment . thanks Get
back to me

You know, for about the first three sentences, I began to take it pretty seriously until I got to the end. One of my friends on Twitter even asked, “Why don’t you teach them to build a boat and bake a cake while you’re at it?” I think that they forgot Fashion Design, City Planning and Biochemical Engineering.

Anyhow, sometimes it is the little things like this that make me glad to be among some really intelligent and creative people. I almost feel that I should not be poking fun but, at the same time, I get made fun of from time to time. I like to think of those times as Character Building Exercises.