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Recently, Tim Ferriss spoke at WordCamp San Francisco about blogging. —Just a quick aside, if you don’t know who Tim Ferriss is, you really should check out his bestselling book, The Four-Hour Workweek. It wll change the way to run a business and your life.—
Tim’s presentation had a real, long, complicated name to start, which, being true to his self-appointed title of a “lifehacker”, Tim shortened to “Blogging Without Killing Yourself.”
Tim’s an amazing experimentalist and has done a lot of meticulous research about how his blog functions, why, what works, what doesn’t, and so on. He passes a lot of that information along to you in the presentation, which you can see in the video, below. It’s pretty long, so grab a drink, get comfortable, because you’re not going to want to stop, once you start.
No, Miley Cyrus has not died and neither has Britney Spears or any of several other celebrities that were the victim of hackers, this weekend.
Apparently, someone(s) hacked into TwitPic over the weekend and broke into celebrity TwitPic accounts and began spreading rumors about the deaths of celebrities. TwitPic is a service that allows you to post pictures to your Twitter account — not owned by Twitter.
Now, “Miley Cyrus death” is the 3rd highest trending search on Google.
This really demonstrates the amazing power of Twitter. Last week, with the deaths of several celebrities, I learned about the deaths from Twitter, first. News reports, even online news sources, spread the news much later.
We all know that Twitter has become a powerful influence on the spread of information. We also need to be aware of the power of Twitter to spread bad information. You must be careful what you’re putting on Twitter. Spam, rants about your boss, re-telling of the weekends escapades could put you in quite a bit of trouble considering this massive viral effect of Twitter.
So, the question becomes not just “What are you doing?”, but “What message are you sending?”
The name is well-known to anyone in the marketing and sales industries, but many probably know him as “that OxiClean guy.” Billy Mays was found unresponsive by his wife in his Florida home, this morning.
While I never had the privelege of meeting Billy Mays, he was someone I admired and hoped to meet, one day. Say what you might about the “As Seen On TV” products he promoted, the stuff he pitched really worked (I have a box of OxiClean in my laundry, right now) and he really stood behind them. He was a perfectionist, a professional, and it showed.
Well, as I polish off an entire P’Zone from Pizza Hut — I can tell you that I’ve almost completely fallen off the diet wagon…I have, however, been much better about working out and exercising on a consistent basis, though. Therefore, I haven’t gained too much weight back. I’m currently at 218lbs., which is still 7lbs. under my starting weight, but also 18lbs. from my goal.
I’ve learned that you just cannot have tempatations in the house and you need to set yourself up for success. I find that I get busy and don’t get to the grocery store, end up late for something and just swing into McDonald’s for something quick. Really, stopping in the local supermarket is often just as quick and you get much healthier food. However, I do need to be better about stocking up on the good stuff when I can and planning out my meals for the week. This prevents the temptation to “cheat” if you have good, healthy food to fix at the house.
As for the workouts, my friend Jason at IWearYourShirt.com did a video one day with a full-body workout that I’ve been doing, as it’s hard for me to get to the gym on a consistent basis, I like to work out my whole body every time I go. Here’s the video with the workout:
I can tell you, it works! The first time I tried this workout at the gym, a guy that obviously works out a lot came up to us and said, “Are you guys trying to kill yourselves?” About a day later, I knew why when I could hardly move! It took a good week to recover from the first workout, but it gets easier to recover after that. The video makes it look much easier than it actually is.
I intend to get back on the horse with the diet and hopefully, with the consistent workout, will get those 18lbs. off in no time…but I’ll keep you updated with the progress.
Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch offers much praise of the new iPhone’s video capability. He touts the new iPhone as the device which will eliminate the Flip, unless Pure Digital takes some drastic measures to secure it’s viability and scalability.
While I agree that Flip needs to continue to innovate, integrate (with other devices, as suggested by Arrington), and find new verticals, the iPhone is far from a Flip killer.
The Flip fills a very specific need — a cheap, small, good quality, mega-easy to use video camera. Why would I spend about $1,500 (service, data, etc.) for an iPhone when all I need is a video camera for under $200? Granted, if I had an iPhone, I might be less likely to add an handheld video device, but if I’m in the market for a compact video camera, how likely is it that I’m going to commit to a 2-year contract to get said camera?
Arrington argues (in the comments, I believe) that cell phone cameras have almost eliminated the need for a stand-alone digital camera. Additionally, he even makes my argument for me in his post, when he mentions that no one expected the Flip to succeed, anyway, because almost all digital cameras have video capability, yet they’ve managed to overcome that barrier.
As to the statement that cell phones have eliminated stand-alone cameras — not that I believe that statement — let’s assume it’s correct. My Blackberry has had video capability for over a year, yet I own two Flip cameras and four digital cameras. Granted I’m a bit of a tech geek, but trying to cram all technology answers into one device still has it’s drawbacks, even for the mighty Apple. Not enough battery life, not enough memory, low-quality as corners are cut to get everything in one device, and so on. I’ve seen the videos from the iPhone and they’re not as good as those from a Flip. I’m sure this will improve with time, but quality will stand in the way of iPhone eliminating Flip and similar video cameras.
I had the privilege of being on the I Wear Your Shirt daily shirt show, today, again. We had a lot of fun, today talking about the shirt of the day.
I’m sure Market Leverage would appreciate today’s video, since I’m wearing their “I’m Blogging This” shirt. A little live-stream plug for them.
Tomorrow, though, will be my day on IWearYourShirt.com! I’ve been waiting a while for this day, since I purchased the day quite a while ago. He’ll be wearing a shirt for our travel company, DestinationsInFlorida.com.
Here’s a couple pics of me modeling the shirt:
This question on the back is kind of a joke among Disney fans and cast members, as guests ask this question more often than you might think, hence why they might want to use an Authorized Disney Vacation Specialist like Destinations In Florida to clear up some of that confusion.
We actually made up a few shirts on Zazzle, just to play around with the designs and sayings on the back. This was the final one we went with, but if you’re a Disney fan, you may enjoy seeing some of the other ones we created.
This past weekend, I made a very quick trip (14 hours of driving, each way to spend less than 12 hours) to Brown County State Park in Indiana for my brother’s wedding. The park was beautiful and I wish we could have stayed for a longer time. We stayed in the “cabins” right next to the lodge. Here are some shots of the lobby of the lodge.
The wedding ceremony was at a place in the park called Hesitation Point. Kind of ironic, huh?
Here’s the “altar” for the ceremony.
Just to the left, you can see a single track mountain bike trail and as you can imagine, we had some extra “guests” pass by during the wedding. Very fitting, as my brother has worked in the bicycle industry since he was 15.
My brother and his new wife are honeymooning in Costa Rica. I’ve already recieved one email from him and it sounds like he’s having a great time.
The trip was a lot of fun, just a bit too short. I will definitely have to take the family back for a longer stay.
Here’s a parting shot of the happy, new couple with the pastor.
When I first started this blog, I used a Google Adsense plug-in that used to be called Adsense Manager — now called Advertising Manager.
When they changed the name, I upgraded to this version, just to keep all my plugins up to date, although I haven’t used the plugin for quite some time.
Shortly after upgrading, it brought my entire blog down due to some bug. I just deactivated it and everything was OK. After an updated release, I thought I’d give it a second try. Everything seemed to be fine, until I came to the blog earlier this week to find it down, again.
This time, I just deleted it. As I said, I never really used it, anyway. Almost all my ads are served through OIO Publisher’s plugin. It’s a paid plugin, but so worth it.
All my advertisers can go straight through the links on my advertising page, see the rates, update, cancel, or renew their subsciption, and I can easily place ads anywhere on my blog with their easy to use interface. Another nice perk is that my advertisers get weekly traffic reports, showing the return on their investment. I don’t even have to think about it, they just go out.
Before OIO, I used the Max Banner Ads plugin, which I still use for a few odds and ends. It’s a free ad server that has limitations, but still functions very well and costs nothing. The interface could not be any more simple and efficient. I would recommend this one over Advertising Manager, if your looking for an ad server plug-in for your blog, provided you’re not looking to pay for a premium quality plugin like OIO.
Re-tweets are a great way to spread your message on Twitter, but how do you encourage your followers to re-tweet your tweet? There’s always the old stand-by; just ask, “Please RT!”
To me, that’s kind of like begging. If your tweet’s worth re-tweeting, than you shouldn’t have to ask.
There are some ways to foster natural re-tweeting, though.
Leave room for comments. People want to add their own touch to your tweets. Are they re-tweeting because they agree or disagree? Do they have a tip that will add value to your tweet in the re-tweet? You must consider the people your hoping to re-tweet your message and leave them some of those 140 characters to add their comments.
Add value. Are adding value to the conversation? I have a lot of tweets that simply answer the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less, but you have to go further to get a re-tweet. Build on a concept, be part of the conversation, add your own tips and tricks to solving a common problem.
Spread news. Did you become privy to a tid-bit of information that may help your followers? Or maybe you just saw a local news brief that could have a broader scope. Just like on TV, “scooping” the news on Twitter will spread like a virus through re-tweets.
Be funny. I love to re-tweet a good joke. In addition to jokes, spread positive messages. Build people up. Enlighten their day, cheer them up. Often, people are happy to re-tweet a positive message.
Post pictures and video. As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, on Twitter, it could be worth a thousand re-tweets. Did you catch someone in a really funny pose or maybe an amazing feat of skill on video. Post up a link with a quick teaser and you’ll find it going around the Twitter-verse.
These are the ways I’ve found that maximize your re-tweets. There are many more, but these seem to garner the highest response rate. Give them a try and let me know your results.
What other ways to you find to maximize your re-tweet ratio?
Last week, the Jacksonville Social Media Club had a really fun meet-up at the Mellow Mushroom. We had a great turn-out and even had an unexpected live band performance to enjoy.
This was the second of the more “informal” meet-ups we’ve had and they are lots of fun, but can also be difficult locations to network with others in the social media/online arena. The SMCJax folks do a great job of setting up opportunities within this environment to move around, meet people, and network.
They also mix in some different types of functions, such as speaking engagements from local experts. Their next event will be one like that, coming up on June 17th. Be sure to follow @smcjax, if your local to see updates for all the events.
I took the family to downtown Jacksonville, yesterday to see the pirate ships for the Sail Jacksonville weekend. Here are a couple pics from the event, that included the famous (or infamous) HMS Bounty and crew.
The day got real interesting right as we pulled up to our parking space. We were not 10 feet from the car when I noticed a guy climbing one of the pilings on the Main Street bridge, which you can see in the background of the picture above. I was trying to figure out why he might be doing this when a second person (both coming off wave runners that their friends kept idling in the water) began to scale the bridge piling. Of course, always having my Flip camera with me, I started to film what was going on, as I knew this was going to be an interesting scene — one way or another. Here’s the video — watch it in HD to see the best shot of the guys jumping.
I know I’m a little far away from the action, but as you can see in the video, they both jumped off the bridge piling into the St. Johns River! You might also be able to see how fast the current is moving around those pilings. Not the wisest decision these two ever made and probably not exactly legal, either. Made for some fun video, yesterday, though.
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