I recently came across (and started using) a new website called FeaturedUsers.com. They are a Twitter app ad network:
…If you’re a Twitter user, it’s a great way to get more followers and support your favorite Twitter apps. If you’re a Twitter app developer, it’s a simple way to start monetizing your application.
The basic idea is that Twitter users can gain exposure and followers by paying to have their Twitter details show up on various Twitter app websites. The idea is simple, cheap, and will not turn you into a Twitter superstar overnight. However, it’s a great way to help support 3rd party Twitter apps and gain some followers in the process.
As Twitter spam is on the rise, many are quick to denounce anything that even looks like spam on Twitter (and usually with good reason). This kind of Twitter ad network is a great alternative to spamming people directly on Twitter. Advertising yourself here still gets your name in front of a highly targeted audience (Twitter users) without cluttering up people’s tweet streams.
In a way, FeaturedUsers.com helps keep spam out of your twitter stream. And that should make any tweep happy.
Check ‘em out over at FeaturedUsers.com.
Like most fun and exciting events, Blog Indiana 2008 seemed to whiz by this past weekend. It’s funny how months and months of planning and build-up can result in such seemingly short weekend.
I am generally a modest person. However, I have to declare that Blog Indiana 2008 was a success. I still haven’t taken the time to dig through the boxes of stuff we crammed into my truck as we rushed to clean up and exit the building before it closed on Sunday. Though, I’m pretty sure we topped 160 attendees total by the time the weekend was over. We had an article in the Indianapolis Star on Saturday that drove a good number of people to register at the door on Saturday and Sunday (something we had originally planned not to do, but glad we did!).
The Good
By far, my absolute favorite aspect of the entire weekend was getting to meet and talk with so many of you. Even though I spent a fair amount of time running around the place making sure everything was running smoothly, the personal interactions and random conversations with local (and not so local) bloggers was so much fun. Meeting so many people I only know on Twitter and through blogs was interesting and strangely comforting.
Seeing the hard work that Shawn and I put in to creating a conference that, from face to face conversations and the majority of our received surveys, was well received and enjoyed by the attendees was a dream come true. We’ve never put on a conference before and we had to make some decisions without really knowing what was best. It looks like most of them worked out and most people seemed to get a lot out of the event.
It is also worth pointing out that I learned a great deal about how much of any of my success in life is because of the never ending support of my wife. She is the reason I am able to push myself to do the things I want to do in life. Her only complaint with this conference was that I didn’t let her take some of the stress off of my shoulders sooner. She was invaluable in the weeks leading up to the conference and was a life saver the days of. She is new to blogging, so feel free to stop by her site and leave a comment!
The Bad
The only truly “bad” part of the entire weekend was wireless internet issues. Sure, some sessions were better than others, we forgot to check for random marathons occuring in the city, and Shawn & I probably figit too much on stage. But, the wifi was really bad. So, I’ll take this moment to apologize. I’m usually the first person to roll my eyes and say “How hard is it to get WIFI right, people?!” at any conference that screws it up. And, while I won’t go into the reasons why we had so much trouble here, I will say that wifi WILL work at any future event we put together. Top of my list. I might still figit a little on stage, but, by God, we’ll have working wifi next time.
The Future
The survey results we’ve received so far have been outstanding. Not just in that people really enjoyed the conference, but we are getting great feedback on how to improve. Believe me when I say that we are reading every single survey and will be compiling a list of every idea and suggestion.
So what is next? Let’s just say there is a lot of wind in our sails right now and we’ll be getting to work on our plans for next year this month. I’d love to drop hints, but we still haven’t formally met to discuss the future. We do have some big ideas that I think you’ll be interested in.
With that said, if you have an interest in lending your talents to help us in planning, generating ideas, speaking, or sponsoring the next conference, don’t hesitate to drop me an email at noah (at) blogindiana (dot) com.
Photos (see many more at the Flickr Photo pool and Photrade Group)
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- Blog Indiana attendees gather for announcements.
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- Each session was located close by in large classrooms.
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- Attendees could select small buttons to tag themselves like they would tag a blog post.
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- Attendees could select small buttons to tag themselves like they would tag a blog post.
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- One of two panel discussions which included some great speakers.
This is a question most bloggers wonder–especially when they are first getting started. While there are plenty of ideas on exactly how often you should blog, we wanted to know how often you actually are blogging.
As we close in on 100 bloggers having completed the 2008 Indiana Blogger Census, I thought it would be a good time to share a little bit of the data we’re collecting. As you can see from the pie chart, Hoosier bloggers are blogging much more than I had anticipated.
Read the rest of this story over at the Blog Indiana 2008 Conference blog.
If you find yourself having difficulty blogging regularly, I’ve found that sometimes the key is to make the technical part of the act of blogging easier and more convenient. Integrating the ability to blog into applications or websites you normally use can not only make blogging easier, but encourage it.
flickr
My favorite photo sharing website makes it very easy to make a blog post using either one of your photos or someone else’s that is marked as reusable. At the bottom of the “Extending flickr” tab of the “Your Account” page there is a section to add details about your blog (or blogs). If you’ve never done this before, read the simple directions to set things up properly for your type of blog and you’re all set. Once you’ve added at least one blog, a new “Blog This” button will appear above the photos you look at on flickr. Clicking on this button lets you write a blog post about that photo and post it (and the photo) to your blog all from within flickr.com. Once your done, you’re right back to looking at photos on flickr.
Google Docs
I’ve been using Google Docs since it was called Writely and I love it. I store all kinds of information in Docs and having access to it from any computer is very convenient. Today, however, was the first time I noticed that the “Share” button also allows you to post a document as a blog post directly to your blog. There is a similar set up process like flickr and then your able to post. If you already use Google Docs, this is just another reason to keep using it. If not, using Google Docs in this way can allow for more structured storage of drafts (using folders), a more robust WYSIWYG layout interface for your blog posts, versioning and collaborative sharing/writing of your blog posts–to name a few reasons.
There are other great tools that let you interact with your blog such as Windows Live Writer and ScribeFire, which I’ll cover in a future post.
I’ve been playing around with the publisher tools for 4INFO.net and have put together a convenient way to search the “twit-o-sphere” for a keyword via your cell phone using a text message.
4INFO is a text messaging information service that lets you request and subscribe to a wide range of information from various publishers via your cell phone. I’ve signed up as a publisher and have reserved the keyword: TSCAN.
Here’s how it works:
Send an SMS/text message to 44636 in this format: TSCAN <keyword>
For example, if I sent a text message to 44636 with the message:
TSCAN obama
I would get back a short menu of the most recent “tweets” with the name “obama” in them. I could then reply to that message with the corresponding menu number to see the entire “tweet.” Seem confusing? Give it a try! It really works.
I have no idea if this is useful to anyone, but just thought it was a fun way to learn about 4INFO’s publisher services.
While I love Firefox, I’ve lately been using Safari (for PC) and finding it to be a guilty pleasure. For one, it sure seems to load pages much faster. It also displays text in a way that is very pleasing to the eye (ie. websites just look and read better). However, there is one simple difference that I’m really starting to take advantage of and it can really save time: default feed rendering. 
Default Feed Rendering, you say?
It likely won’t show up on anyone’s top 10 list of killer features for ANY browser. However, I’m finding the simple and useful way that Safari handles feeds to be very satisfying. I’m talking about how your browser displays an RSS or ATOM feed when you load it directly in your browser (as opposed to a seperate feed reader). An example of how this can save you time is by visiting the Smaller Indiana homepage. If you wanted to get a quick overview of the most recent activity on the site without spending a lot of time clicking around, just click the blue RSS button on the far-right side of the browser’s URL box. This will give you a dropdown list of all available feeds to view. If you click on “Forum – Smaller Indiana” you’ll see a nicely formated view of recent forum posts with some very nice filtering features.
As you can see in the above animated graphic, you’ll see a cleanly formated listing of recent posts. You’ll also get a very handy set of tools on the right to search and filter the feed dynamically. One of my favorite tools is the ability to reduce the amount of information displayed in the feed. For example, sliding the “Article Length” slider over to the left (as the animation demonstrates) will give you an email inbox-like view of the forum posts. This is an excellent and fast way to see what’s new on any website.
While feed readers are very effective at allowing you to subscribe and consume many different websites. This integrated feed display in Safari allows you to quickly and easily cut right to the latest content on any website or blog at supports feeds. Both Internet Explorer and FireFox also provide default views of feeds. However, neither are as robust as Safari (oddly, IE comes closest).
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