I learn a lot from D’Arcy- even though I’ve never met him.
About a year ago, he switched his blog to Drupal from WordPress- and I felt kind of left out- no longer was I recognized on the comments- and I stopped getting an e-mail when more comments were made. The content lost some of the community. There was one post about one of D’Arcy’s friends, Sammi- getting hassled by cops because of “profiling” for terrorists- I felt I was a big part of a conversation about if the post should stay up- or not.
So- today, D’Arcy recognized that WordPress does some things way better than Drupal – and made the switch back:
Switched back to WordPress at D’Arcy Norman dot net
I’ve been using Drupal for my blog for just over a year now, and it’s been a really great platform to work in. I use it pretty much all day for projects at the U of C as well. But it just feels a bit lacking in the area of managing a personal blog, compared with WordPress which is built solely for that purpose.I’ve been missing things like email subscriptions to comments, and some of the other niceties that WordPress has had nailed for a long time, but are missing in Drupal.
If uber geek, D’Arcy can’t make Drupal sing- at least for the community parts- I’m pretty sure others can’t.
I feel like I’ve just been let back into D’Arcy world- and am very happy.
Shel Holtz is showing more video with bad audio. Showcasing what shows up on youtube- and stays online forever.
Talk about User generated content- as spec work.
Embrace tools of Dialog- conversation- walls between PR and marketing are crumbling. But don’t fake it.
Leverage is with he who seizes conversation- not who starts or controls it.
Our server went down- or I was blocked by the firewall- Switched to writing in Word- instead of in WordPress in real time.
Probably due to one client who goes overbandwidth at the end of the month- every month.
Secondlife- crayonville has a Thursday morning meeting on new marketing at 9am.
Most companies think building an island- and it will solve everything-
But- what it takes is to have things that vend- the coca cola brand experience- machinima- uploaded to you tube- virtual thirst.
He’s not a gamer.
Not sure if Secondlife is the answer.
Open source software- and Open source marketing- James Cherkoff change this manifesto.
Beastie Boys- camera experience. 50 cams- shoot video- then “awesome, I Fuckin’ Shot that.
5 action steps.
- Start a blog
- Set up a linkedin profile
- Start reading feeds
- Get a secondlife.
- Subscribe to podcasts- he likes forimmediaterelease.biz
Resistance-
- People will say bad things about us
- We can’t have negative opinions on our site
- We’ll lose control of our image
- We’ll lose control of the audience.
Guess what- it will happen on your site- or elsewhere.
Brand is how I feel when I see your trademark- brand is owned by consumers.
Afternoon session: Begins with RSS.
Really Simple Syndication
no spam, no need to surf or visit sites- distributes web content to other publishers.
Still takes the same amount of time to read-
He reads 275 must read feeds daily.
Originally developed by Netscape- for the MyNetscape service. Dave Weiner developed rss 2.0, an aggregator.
He uses feed demon, it costs. We use the Sage plugin for Firefox. Feed demon uses bold and a number in brackets to show new content (2) as opposed to the star of Sage. Shel never goes to the site- he just reads the feed- on the edge.
Example of Davis California having content about the city. Asks how many people go to the City of Dayton site daily.
Siemens uses RSS for employee communications.
Using blog software as a content manager- for the rss feeds as information for clients. SharpReader which requires .net stuff.
How many people are subscribed to your RSS: it’s a file on your server- but pings will mess it up- feedburner will let you know as well-
Discussion of RSS vs downloadable desktop notifiers. I suggest you don’t want to install something on your customers desktop that could interfere with their software.
Bandwidth of feeds- if you have so many people receiving your feed- you may not want to pay for bandwidth for the whole post.
Microsoft calls them webfeeds instead of RSS
Blogs: the software-
- lightweight CMS
- reverse chronogical orders
- flexible design via templates
- Can be used for regular websites
What makes it a blog instead of a site- because you are using commenting. Turn it off- and it’s not a blog anymore. Shortening of the word WeB LOG- as opposed to the server log-
Dave Wiener- developed RadioUserland- doesn’t have commenting on- he says comment on your own blog (just like Seth Godin).
He showcases Moveable Type (on your server) from 6part- and Typepad (on their server) –
explains that University of FL got tired of waiting for IT department to post content for them. Saves money- and works.
OpensourceCMS.com to compare and use cms systems.
His blog- a shel of my former self–
Informal – emphasis on voice- many approaches to writing posts: Quick pointers and reports, longer thoughtful advice- and video etc.
External:
- Build a network of connections
- Human Touch points
- Increase search engine visibility
- grow brand visibility
- position executives
lost content again. not doing this in WordPress live anymore. So links will have to be built later.
• Employees have web access at home
– External experiences translate internally
• Faster dissemination of news
• Automatic internal RSS feeds
• Knowledge sharing
• Collaboration/brainstorming
• Institutional memory
Cathy Sierra – Creating passionate users – death threat.-
Sun about leaks: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/a_simple_request_to_sun
Blog search tools-
Technorati only gives first page results-
Sphere
Ice rocket
Blogpulse
Subscribe to the search tools using RSS.
Thenewpr.com has blogging policies on the web.
http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Resources/BloggingPolicy
group knowledge sharing
monitoring using technorati- he uses google news feeds- a podzinger service- which transcribes podcasts- plus technorati searches- and sphere custom feed.
For company names, product names, service names- very helpful.
The Greater Dayton IT Alliance is announcing web 3.0. Which is great and dandy- considering so many businesses in Dayton still aren’t web 2.0 or even web 1.0.
Dr. Sheth got a great write up on semantic web research in Sunday’s Dayton Daily News. Regular readers of Websitetology- may recall us pointing to an interesting search engine called Kartoo – http://blogosopher.com/?p=62 a social network mapping tool- which does some of the same things that Dr. Sheth’s semantic search research is focused on.
While I’m sure Dr. Sheth is a bright guy- the reality is- most people who are the leaders in the search field are already working for Google. They have the money, they have the technology- and – most importantly- they have the users already contributing the intelligence of the masses to refine the data.
But- here is what the GDITA says about the luncheon:
Come see Web 3.0, the future of the web. Dr. Amit Sheth, the the LexisNexis Eminent Scholar for Advanced Data Management and Analysis at Wright State University, DaytaOhio, will be presenting his research on advanced web technology. The presentation will look at future technology and include how local companies (big and small) can partner with the excellent research being done at Wright State University.
This event is for people interested in how they can incorporate advanced web technologies into their business offerings.
Dr. Sheth has held research and development, management and faculty positions at Honeywell, Unisys, Bellcore and the University of Georgia, where he founded the Large Scale Distributed Information Systems Laboratory (LSDIS). Dr. Sheth has founded two start ups and published more than 200 papers and articles and authored/edited four books. He has organized eight international meetings and holds two patents. He earned his Ph.D. in computer and information science at The Ohio State University.
One note: The GDITA site breaks Firefox on the Mac. Good web developers test their site in all relevant environments- Window, Mac, Linux – with IE, Firefox, Safari etc.