The Urban LifeStyle

The Urban LifeStyle: "The Urban Lifestyles of Modern Home Decor: an eclectic mix of modern home furniture & wares: urban glam + bohemian chic + gothic grunge + european modern + urban rustic + avant-garde + vanity fair vintage + urban organic + bohemian rustic + urban industrial + modern minimal + urban rustic + flea-market + eco-decor + {pure vintage} + {pure modern} + {pure organic}.

“If it gives beauty to the eye, it is beauty.”~ Eva Zeisel"

Helge: I like the pictures and the style of this blog. Learned about The Urban LifeStyle through Twitter.

Legal Guide for Bloggers | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Here is some good advice for bloggers. I got the information through Twitter and haloefektiToday "Legal Guide for Bloggers | Electronic Frontier Foundation" (http://tinyurl.com/c56d35 )

Legal Guide for Bloggers | Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Whether you're a newly minted blogger or a relative old-timer, you've been seeing more and more stories pop up every day about bloggers getting in trouble for what they post.

Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don't want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that's under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office.

The difference between you and the reporter at your local newspaper is that in many cases, you may not have the benefit of training or resources to help you determine whether what you're doing is legal. And on top of that, sometimes knowing the law doesn't help - in many cases it was written for traditional journalists, and the courts haven't yet decided how it applies to bloggers.

But here's the important part: None of this should stop you from blogging. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn't use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That's why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.

To be clear, this guide isn't a substitute for, nor does it constitute, legal advice."

Blogging and personal branding

Blogging for Personal Branding

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web2exposf08 web2exposf)

Trisha Okobu uses the site she edits as a hobby - US top three fashion blog Omiru - as a case-study to illustrate the ten steps, which include:

1 - Pick a topic that's uniquely you

2 - Stand for something real

3 - Be newsworthy

4 - Be awesome

5 - Create a stoplist (of things that are stopping you)

6 - Build real relationships

7 - Meet people in person

8 - Make it easy to spread the word

9 - Create community wherever you go

10 - And be patient

OK, there is a bit more to it than that. In fact the presentation is 300+ (digestible) slides long!

It's a definite must read though for anyone interested in building any kind of brand - via a blog or otherwise - online.

Take your time to watch the slides.

WebWorkerDaily » Archive Five Lessons Learned About Live Blogging «

Live blogging is an interesting theme. I need to learn more about "how to do it live", the dynamics, etc. I've been testing Jaiku and Friendfeed as live interactivity platforms. Now I need to run downtown for some shopping but returning to this question.

WebWorkerDaily » Archive Five Lessons Learned About Live Blogging «: "I recently live-blogged a 3-day conference. Gearing up for the event, I posted here about the equipment I was bringing as well as musings about the dynamics of live blogging. While I’ve live blogged parts of events and have Power-Twittered a conference before, this was my first full-scale, solo, multimedia live-blogging project for a client.

The live blogging was a success. In fact, the client was caught up in the excitement of seeing posts showing up literally in the middle of sessions with quotes and commentary about the topics discussed that they finally “got” what a blog could be.

Everyone at the conference was fired up to see images from the sessions and events and video clips of themselves or their fellow conference attendees waxing philosophical about the conference proceedings.

Here are my key lessons from the three days. For anyone whose work will take them into the realm of live blogging, I hope these prove helpful."

RevenueSite.com - We Increase Your Revenue!

RevenueSite.com - We Increase Your Revenue!: "There is so much misleading information online about how to increase your website's revenue that it's no wonder why so many great Internet Businesses fail to become profitable. So how do you really increase your website's revenue? The answer is so painfully simple that you probably already know the answer.

You need to generate more traffic to your website and convert more of your visitors into paying customers... much like we're hypnotically doing right now to an unsuspecting visitor.

Fortunately, we conveniently do both. We Generate Real Traffic. If there's one thing that nearly every website has suffered from at some point, it's lack of traffic. Let's face it... without traffic you have no source of revenue."

Helge: Alright, there are a million ways to profitable business. I like evaluate different propositions. I stumbled upon RevenueSite today through a Twitter connection. Let's take a closer look. Who is behind RevenuueSite and what are they promising?

About RevenueSite

Affiliate Marketing Management is a new industry. In fact it's only been around for a few short years, but it's growing rapidly.

We are pleased to be among the best of the best in this industry and as one of the fastest growing Affiliate Marketing Management companies, we honored to serve each and every clinent.

Headquartered in the small town of Ellisville, Mississippi RevenueSite.com started out small and a bit unconventional. Actually, we didn't get into this industry like everyone else. We started out as Affiliate Marketers ourselves.

We took some hits and bruises and stumbled around a few roadblocks along the way, but eventually we discovered what works and what doesn't.

In case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of crap to sift through when it comes to what actually works.

We enjoy sharing our extensive knowledge with new, struggling Affiliates as well as seeking out and partnering with more experienced Affiliates that simply want to increase their earnings.

We are graduates from the school of hard-knocks. We are experienced and we are well-qualified to manage any Affiliate Program.

That's what we bring to the table.

Helge: I'll follow RS and see what comes along.

Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger

I found this blog posting today. How to become more personal. It's an additional challenge to me when English isn't my native language. But I'll try to find the inner myself.

Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger: "Over the last few years of blogging I’ve found that readers really respond well to when you approach your blogging in a more personal way. Some of the ways you can add a personal touch to your blog include writing in the first person, blogging with emotion, sharing stories using humor, talking about real life activities, using bylines, featuring video and images, being honest about your mistakes and failings, taking personal notice of readers and blogging with a conversational voice."

More about "personalization" on the ProBlogger blog.

How To Blog Successfully! | Internet Marketing with James Brown

A lot has been written about blogging. I see that a new group of people is entering the blogosphere. James Brown writes about blogging. There is more about it behind the link.

How To Blog Successfully! | Internet Marketing with James Brown: "Blogging on the Internet has become more and more popular over the last several years. Blogs are popular with readers since they are usually easier and more entertaining to read than news articles. Also, people like to write blogs because they rank well on search engines. If you want to write blogs then these are the things you need to do in order to be successful.

Write Frequently

You will quickly notice that the more posts you make to your blog, the more traffic you’ll get. Plus, if you are constantly putting new content on your blog then people are going to want to check back there frequently. So be sure you write a new post at least three or four times a week or more!"

Summer time, just when the living is easy... I've not been blogging on a daily basis but have been collecting great ideas to write about. Let's see if I remember those ideas when I continue with my work.

Lynette Radio

lynette {radio}: "About Lynette: She has been blogging in some form or another since 1997, podcasting since 2004 (but since faded out a bit, busy with kids now), and involved in Second Life since 2004. I tend to grab new technology before the curve. If it fits with my lifestyle, it sticks, if not, I keep it in the outer-circle. Before settling down and starting a family, I worked as a project manager in the technology field. Good thing for me that the late nights, long weekends, and emergency calls at 4am of my former career prepared me for parenthood!"

Helge: I've never told her the story that I'd an idea about writing new storylines for Lynette Radio. I thought it would be a novel idea to write for a radio in US from Loviisa, Finland. I didn't have the guts to tell or sell the idea to Lynette. One day I might take the idea for a new review and send it to Lynette.

What does she say?

"Reviews From The Radio is a spin-off of my blog because it became apparent that my views on products, services, companies, or websites that I find interesting may not be of interest to my general readers."

20 Must-Read Blogs For Freelance Writers : Freelance Folder

20 Must-Read Blogs For Freelance Writers : Freelance Folder: "It goes without saying that in order to become a freelance writer, you gotta love writing. But you should also consistently work on sharpening your skills. And how do you do that? Reading well-written article and blog is a very good start! This can help you write innovative and appealing content.

Reading blogs with good writing is a must if you want to improve your skills as a writer/blogger. Keeping this in mind, I decided to list 20 blogs which should be on every freelance blogger’s RSS feed reading list. This is not a definitive list as there are many more good blogs and I can’t possibly name all of them. But still it’s a useful list which I hope you will enjoy."

Blogging about France

I used to live and work in France during the 90's. Ten years later, there is less and less reflection about the country I used to like a lot.

I managed the language to some extent but never learned to write French.

Would like to visit France again in the near future.

My interests are related to:

1. The lifestyle
2. Wine and Food
3. Bioenergy
4. Biotechnology
5. Sawmills
   
6. Forestry

We've friends in Alsace and other parts of the country. It would be nice to meet them again.

The evolution of my channels

Moving over to Beta

I wrote this November 1, 2006. Wanted to look back, how things change over the years.

I'm in the process of transforming all my blogger blogs to beta, which is a great advantage while I can manage them all without the need to do multiple logins.

I think this will give me the opportunity to have a better control over the content on the individual blogs.

The basic idea is to have different focuses in different blogs. I've been improving. The channel strategy isn't completed but there has been progress.

1. Visualradio - Mobile Technology, Big Screens, Signage and Internet
2. Digital Villages - Information technology and EU cooperation (before IST Helsinki 2006)
   
3. Cuvia - Visual things, visual assets and contents management (now in Finnish)
   
4. Smart Roads - Road Information Systems (this has changed to biotechnology today)
   
5. KK-Net - Innovation and Technology, Business Management, Global Operations
6. Valtatie FIN Road Information (discontinued and replaced by "energiatehokkuus")
   
7. Tietotie FIN I guess somehow related to Travel and Research
8. Nylands - I'm not yet sure. It could be bioenergy and process management
9. Niemi Product - is quite clear (evolution but 3 languages is confusing)
   
10. CraftDesign - The Frö collection (evolution but 3 languages as well)
    
11. Tahti - Tähtitaajamat is a pretty localized activity in Finnish (building)
    

KK-Net will be about Business Planning, New Ventures Financing and things related to "How to get your products to the global faster and with highest cost-efficiency".

Kat Herding Media Reconstruction

I've blogged about Kat Herding before. Her irony of the Web 2.0 and emerging social media was great. But then she disappeared. I'd a dialog with the original blogger about the short life cycle of the Kat Herding Media. We never spoke about the possibility of re-inventing it. There are millions of blogs that don't evoke much interest. The alter ego Kat Herding made joke about Web 2.0 specialists and gave a new face to a self-conscious young woman blogging about her successful business ventures and her social life.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Kat Herding Media

Kat Herding Media. Kathleen Herding's musings on new media.

Hi! I'm Kat and this is my little corner of Web 2.0 where we can chat about some of the things I'm so excited about.

Like video blogging, podcasting, social media, Second Life, YouTube, lipstick, wikis, RSS, citizen journalism, customer evangelism, shoes, MoBlogging, photocasting, tagging, folksonomy, widgets, Digg, iPod, cute suits, social bookmarking, massively multiplayer online games, indymedia, hairstyles, javascript and Ajax.

Ready? OK then! Let's get started.

Cool looking women as bloggers. I posted about an Indian social networking site.

Kat Herding writes: "oh my gosh Someone blogged about my blog! Imagine my surprise to see Kat Herding all lit up like that on someone else's blog. I guess I was spending far too much time in Microsoft Project when all this Internet stuff was getting underway. Anyway, many thanks to..."

Have a great day. The pictures are good. The style is personal, even intimate. It's different. Male bloggers tend to write about gadgets, tools, programs, stuff, but not about people. Or maybe I'm referring to myself.

Verve Earth Mapping Blogs

Clayton, CEO of VerveEart wrote me a letter about site which plots the content of the internet on an interactive map of the world. I decided to test the service. I've nothing against getting more attention and readers for my blog. It's a new service. Verve is mapping bloggers around the world. I'll write more when I learn more about the application.

Helge,

Your blog The Wisdom of The Crowd caught our attention. I'm the founder of a recently launched startup for bloggers. We are searching the internet for the world's best blogs by geography, and we found yours for Finland. I would like to invite you to our site which plots the content of the internet on an interactive map of the world. VerveEarth is an entirely new way to surf the net. It shows spatial and geographic connections that a blog search engine could never reveal.

The site is www.VerveEarth.com. Once on board, you can easily claim your blog a place in the VerveEarth world. The site is free to use and a way to drive new traffic to your blog. If our vision resonates with you, please give us a mention or add our widget to your blog. Please see our FAQ for any questions, and we welcome your feedback. The VerveEarth team will make a timely reply.

www.VerveEarth.com

Kind Regards,
Clayton
CEO | VerveEarth.com

Open Mike - Mike Critelli's Blog

Open Mike - Mike Critelli's Blog: "This is Mike Critelli's blog. The views and statements expressed herein are those of Mike Critelli and, in the case of a comment, those of the person who submits such comment, and not necessarily those of Pitney Bowes Inc.

The press releases, financial reports, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, presentations, interviews, blog posts and other information provided on the Pitney Bowes website may contain 'forward-looking statements' as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

These statements are based on the currently available information as of the date of such statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially.

Pitney Bowes specifically disclaims any obligation to update the information in such press releases, financial reports and or filings, which speak only as of their respective dates, except as required under the federal securities laws. Please see the Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer in the pb.com TERMS OF USE section of this website."

Helge: This is about Mike Critell and Pitney Bowes blogging. I want to tead this one with time. Got the link from "disruptivemedia" in Sweden.

Personal blogging and Public Relations

This blog [The Wisdom of the Crowd] has been around since May 2006. I started it as my most personal blog. It's one of my newest blogs.

Public Relations has been around for 100 years. I'm not sure if my blog is about PR, it's more about things I feel for personally.

Below is a story I found from "India PR" blog with a creative commons license making it possible to share and republish the information.

As I'm writing this, I'm not yet all to familiar with the details of creative commons. The rule of thumb is however that such material isn't copyright protected.

My own idea about everything that is published on my blogs can bee freely used by others. That includes pictures and graphic material.

• Internet is an open media
• I use Internet to spread and share information
• This isn't a good place to hide information
• This is a free public service platform
• SOA = service oriented architecture

On 30th October 2006, we have possibly passed a milestone in public relations. The press release turned the century. It is believed that Ivy Lee, who is also considered to be the father of modern public relations, created the first press release for his client, the Pennsylvania Railroad.

This was following an accident on October 28, 1906, in which 50 people lost their lives when a three-car train met with an accident at Atlantic City. Lee convinced his clients to distribute a public statement on the accident and even take the "journos" on the accident site through a special train.

The New York Times is believed to have commended this approach of openness and published this press release, verbatim, in their 30th October 1906 issue with the header, 'Statement from the Road'.

Trust and honesty indeed is the hallmark of public relations; as someone has rightly said that truth is not a substitute for public relations. And that is the truth that all of us in the profession must appreciate and practice.

My idea is to extend the Internet model to mobile tools. More about that some other time...

Blogging for the military

A study conducted for the US Army has recommended that bloggers should be recruited for future conflicts.

• Go to the story link >>>
  

The Blogs and Military Information Strategy study was prepared two years ago for the Joint Special Operations University, and examined the influence of the blogosphere and how it might be utilized for military purposes.

Helge: This is a special sort of "corporate blogging".

"Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence already within the target nation, group or community to pass the US message," the report said.

Helge: Hmm!

"In this way the US can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital.

Helge: They look for people in the conflict zone.

"Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. "

Helge: Political "dirty workers" I guess...

The report acknowledged the high risk nature of such a strategy, since the opportunity for "blowback" is high if the blogger is exposed as being in the pay of the US military.

Helge: Information warfare...

"Such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the US military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names," the report said.

Helge: Free press and conflicts. Free bloggers.

"People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust."

Helge: I guess so.

The report authors, James Kinniburgh and Dorothy Denning, suggest that another route would be to "make" a blogger and provide support. In this way the blogger remains independent but pushes a line that could help operations.

Helge: Freelancers always available.

As for hostile bloggers the authors suggest that taking a blog down may be counterproductive, since the blog would soon appear on another site hosted in a different country.

Helge: The danger of blogging in troubled area.

Be a better blogger!

THE WOMEN'S DISH with Diane & Friends: Be a better blogger: "Be a better blogger

Blogging has exploded as a communication tool and is a great way to increase your online presence and credibility. If you're not using a blog to promote your business or yourself, then now is a good time to start doing so.

If you can write, you can blog. You don't have to be a technical person to blog. Being a good blogger means following the principals of good writing, but it also means following some special online protocols.

My ten tips for better blogging are:"

Web 2.0: Does Social Media Really Just Recreate High School? - Profy.Com

Web 2.0: Does Social Media Really Just Recreate High School? - Profy.Com: "And lastly, let's not forget about the blogs.

Much as 'The List' back in high schools where popular people made lists of popularity rankings, we finally have the list of the most valuable blogs, as determined by 24/7 Wall St., who stuck themselves on at the end, to make sure we knew that they were part of the cool crowd, too.

With a cobbled-together psuedo-formula based on Alexa ranking, assumed CPM, and estimated expenses, it makes no more sense than anything else, but hey, they listed the Gawker bunch at number one. I have yet to check Valleywag to see their take on it, but let's face it; ranking anyone above Perez Hilton is hilarious.

It's trashy, but I know way more non-tech folks who read Perez Hilton than all the tech blogs combined, and most of them have never heard of a single Gawker blog. Perez Hilton has gone beyond the blog to a brand that includes party hosting, television specials on VH1, and the ear of the music industry.

Whatever gets promoted on that blog ends up being downloaded, viewed, worn, or talked about more than any other blog anywhere, bar none. Most people won't admit to reading it in tech circles, but I'm willing to bet almost everyone knows who he is. And while Gawker claims a huge number of uniques, how many of them are just the same."

Justin Hall - the first blogger

Justin Hall was a sophomore at Swarthmore College in 1993 when he heard about the Web. He coded some pages by hand in HTML. His “Justin’s Links from the Underground” may well have been the first serious weblog, long before specialized weblog software tools became available.

Helge: I did find this text from one of my blogs from August 2004. The story was written by someone else. I just copy pasted it for future use.

The first visitor to Hall’s site from outside the university came in 1994. He explained his motivations in an email: "Why did I do it? The urge to share of oneself, to join a great global knowledge sharing party. The chance to participate in something cool."

Helge: Sharing and participating in something cool!

Justin Hall tells about a "deep geek archivist’s urge to experiment with documenting and archiving personal media and experience". In college Justin realized that Proust and Joyce would have loved the web, and they likely would have tried a similar experiment - they were writing in hypertext, about human lives.

Helge: Why am I writing? I remember the documentary about Justin Hall. He started a movement. At the same time I was writing "Wiirilä Werkossa Wiikottain". This site isn't online now but I might republish it one day.

"It was journalism, but I was mostly reporting on me. In the early days, I wrote about the web, on the web, because few from Tom Paine to blogs and beyond other people were doing so," Justin explains.

Helge: I wrote about people in the small village "Wirby the global village" and it's still a struggle to be personal on the web.

"Once search engines and link directories emerged, I didn’t need to catalog everything online. So I enjoyed having a tool to map my thoughts and experiences, and a chance to connect those thoughts and experiences to the rest of the electrified English-speaking world," Justin Hall wrote.

Helge: My motivation since 1995 was "to map my thoughts and experiences" from the small village were I'd been born, starting when I returned from France to Finland.

LINKS

• Wi-Fi Estonia
• Modern Estonia
• Wi-Fi at Statoil stations in Estonia
• Justin Hall - the first blogger
  

Web Designer Wall - Design Trends and Tutorials

Web Designer Wall - Design Trends and Tutorials: "Event: FITC Toronto 2008. If you are serious about your web career, don’t miss out on this upcoming festival in Toronto - FITC 2008. It will take place between April 19th - 22th.

For those who don’t know about the festival, 'FITC is now entering its 7th amazing year, and is the only festival of its kind; combining cutting edge technical and creative speakers from around the world'. The speaker list is endless, so I’m just going to list my favorite ones"