Well, after writing about how to create this Weekly Digest Post here, and announcing that the next issue would be skipped, returning after WordCamp 2007, I didn’t anticipate being so from civilization on my way up the California and Oregon coast. Without Internet or cell phone access! ARGH!
So we’re back on schedule with my weekly digest posts, which I know you’ve missed, right? I’ve got a lot to share with you about the last two weeks in Lorelle’s world, so hang on.
This is the Weekly Digest from Lorelle on WordPress. To subscribe to the Weekly Digest category of Lorelle on WordPress, you can subscribe by the Weekly Digest feed or by email with the Weekly Digest Email Subscription to stay up to date on what is happening in Lorelle’s world of WordPress and blogging.
Exciting Lorelle on WordPress News
Celebrating Blogging and WordPress: In Two Months of Celebrating Blogging and WordPress, I announced that to celebrate the two year anniversary of Lorelle on WordPress and WordPress.com, I’m going to open up the doors of this blog to guest bloggers from all over the world. Some you will know, and others you will be introduced to for the first time. All are bloggers I’ve become enamored of, bloggers who speak the truth, even if it hurts, and are of the highest integrity in their person as well as their blogging.
August will be all about blogging about blogging, with the occasional WordPress news thrown in. September will be non-stop WordPress Tips.
I’ll have more information on all of them, but so far, we have:
- Top 10 List: Just Say No To SEO by Greg Balanko-Dickson
- Sandbox Theme for WordPress Design Competition by Engtech of Internet Duct Tape
- If I was to start writing & blogging today I would… by Greg Balanko-Dickson
This is going to be so much fun. I hope you have fun at my two-month long anniversary party!
WordPress 2007 was a Hit! WordCamp 2007 was a resounding success and a frustrating professional experience. My presentation, Kicking Ass Content Connections, was well received and I met the most wonderful folks, even those I already call friends. And it was a lot of fun.
One bit of fun continues with participant, Dr. David Klein of BodyABCs, who came ready with a great networking idea of creating caricatures of other attendees and speakers. The artist, Orie Roberts of La Jolla, California, worked from digital images and the participant’s description of themselves or what they wanted to be. You have to see mine. It’s fabulous. The photograph of me is on So Are You Ready to See Lorelle. Click the picture to see the fabulous caricature at And the Winner of the First WordPress Oscars is…. It’s a hoot. Very well done.
Much thanks to all who helped me search for a place to park my motor home when I lost my original parking location. I found a great spot to store it, only $6 a day, close to town and the conference and where I was staying. Perfect.
On the downside of WordCamp was the fact that SplashPress Media sponsored over 400 of my books, one for each attendee. I was so excited to be able to give away my books to fellow WordPress fans, but unfortunately, UPS and the printer screwed things up and they weren’t delivered in time for the weekend event.
But don’t despair. The Blogging Tips Book is on it’s way via mail to all attendees. You should have received an email from Automattic requesting your mailing address by now. Please reply immediately so those addresses can be complied into a mailing list for dispersal of the books. Thanks to SplashPress and the printer for making this happen. And thanks for your patience.
And thanks to all at WordCamp, WordPress, and Automattic for making my experience a wonderfully fun and positive adventure.
Kind Words: In Dimblog, the author shared my interview with Daily Blog Tips with readers and added:
She has truly busted the blogger myth, according to which you need a good domain name and a own hosting account for your blog if you want to succeed.
I hope you find that interview useful and interesting. To tell you the truth, I have learned a lot from Lorelle too. When I posted the first or second time on my blog, I included a link to one of her articles and she commented my post with thanks and wishes for success. Since then I’ve been a regular reader of her blog.
Never forget the power of the link to change a life with a link.
Among the other kind words I’ve heard lately comes from J.T. Dabbagian who says on Twitter: “Lorelle VanFossen has become my biggest source…which actually may be a bit of a problem….”
This had me worried so I sent an email for clarification. It seems that being so dependent upon me as a resource, J.T. felt that too much Lorelle on his blog was just a little too much Lorelle. 😀 Cute.
I can’t count the numerous kind words I heard at WordCamp and in the reviews afterwards. Thank you to all for your wonderful thoughts and kind words. It means a lot to someone who spends so much of her time alone with her computer, just blogging her thing.
Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging
I’m thrilled that the WordCamp attendees will be getting their copies of Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging soon. And much thanks to SplashPress Media for sponsoring the free books for everyone, and to the printer, Michael Bushilla of MGB Printing, for taking the heat and getting the books delivered.
The reviews have been coming in fast, so fast, I can barely keep up. I’ll be updating the official page for Blogging Tips in the next few days with all the new reviews and kind words.
To order your own copy of the limited first printed edition with a reduced introductory price, order from SplashPress or the new Blog Herald Bookstore. For more information on the book, see the original announcement and a recent update with reviews and other information, as well as the Blogging Tips Book official page. Coming soon will be an ebook version and an audio version. Stay tuned!
Interviews, Features, and Guest Blogging
This is too exciting. I spent time with one of my icons, John Dvorak at WordCamp, and now I’ve been written about by C-Net News, one of my favorite websites and resources for many years.
In Please don’t steal this Web content (also covered on on ZDNet News), author Elinor Mills writes about the evils of sploggers and scrapers stealing your blog content and making money from ads with it. We had a good time discussing content theft and how to track down sploggers and scapers, but I never thought I’d be the lead story in the report. Wow!
Thank you, Elinor, for spreading the word about copyright and the web and how to protect your content. I applaud you and othes who help with the fight against content theft. We have to educate the world that if it’s on the Internet, it’s not free, and always assume everything is copyrighted on the web. Ask first. You might get a yes.
PreviewCast Podcast co-host, Douglas Bell, interviewed myself and several others at WordCamp, discussing WordCamp, WordPress, barbeque, and more.
Also, Rose DesRochers of Today’s Woman Writing Community interviewed me recently for Blogger Talk in “Interview with Lorelle VanFossen, that Woman on WordPress”, a title I love. It was a fun interview and hopefully I was entertaining. She asked some really good questions that had me thinking a while before responding.
I was also honored recently when she requested a reprint of an article of mine and featured it on Bloggers Talk, called “Blogging Tips: Please, Define Expert”, a reprint of a post I did a while ago that questions the over-usage of “expert” when bloggers define who they are. I think we need to seriously think about how we label ourselves and others when it comes to expertise. Make the word “expert” really mean “expert”.
When it comes to experts, I’d have to say that Rose DesRochers is one of them. She founded the popular Today’s Woman Writing Community and works hard for women’s rights, especially on the web, as well as the rights of writers. She continues to set the highest standard in writing and blogging and I’m very honored to be one of her adoring fans. Thanks, Rose!
Jan of Circular Communication did a fabulous interview with Liz Strauss and I and we didn’t have to participate. I like those kind of interviews – no work! And Blogging Relationships – a Virtual Interview With Liz Strauss and Lorelle turned out to be a wonderful “interview”. Kind of a guest blogging and interview combined.
Other recent interviews and features include:
- Blog World Expo – Lorelle VanFossen blogging content is about the connections
- Personal Observatory – WordCamp Tips on Blogging From Lorelle
- Climb to the Stars – WordCamp 2007: Lorelle VanFossen, Kicking Ass Content Connections
- Breaking Eggs and Making Omlettes – WordCamp 2007, Day 1
- Wordcamp 2007: Comments are Content
- Lorelle VanFossen is Speaking?
- Repeat Penguin – WordCamp 2007 – 395 Attendees, 17 Speakers, 2 Days and 1 Men’s Room
- LBnuke – Wordcamp 2007
- Forever Digital – WordCamp 2007 – Day 1
- Lorelle on WordPress on Adii
- Daily Blog Tips Interview With Lorelle VanFossen
- One Blog A Day – Lorelle on WordPress
- Dawud Miracle – Lorelle VanFossen Had Made Every Blogging Mistake
- American Artists Magazine – Artist’s Weblogs
Lorelle on WordPress Scrapped and Violated: Some wonderful blogging friends and fans have been alerting me to copyright violations and feed scrapers (splogs) of this blog. THANK YOU. If you find Lorelle On WordPress is being scrapped or the content stolen, please let me know.
What’s Happening with Lorelle on WordPress
With two weeks backlog, there are a lot of published posts to tell you about. If you haven’t been paying attention, you might have missed out on these gems from Lorelle on WordPress recently:
- Top 10 List: Just Say No To SEO: Greg Balanko-Dickson points to a great post that explains how SEO tricks don’t work so why bother. Think smarter.
- Two Months of Celebrating Blogging and WordPress: Announcement that for the next two months, I will be hosting a ton of guest bloggers to help me blog all about blogging in August and non-stop WordPress Tips in September in honor of the two year anniversary of WordPress.com and this blog.
- If I was to start writing & blogging today I would…: Greg Balanko-Dickson looks back on how things might be different if he were start over blogging today.
- Sandbox Theme for WordPress Design Competition: Engtech of Internet Duct Tape covers the news and announcements of the Sandbox Theme Design Competition.
- Happy Birthday, Edublogs.org: Edublogs.org, the first WordPressMU community blog, celebrates 2 years of providing free blogs to educators from around the world.
- WordCamp 2007: WordCamp Caricatures: Dr. David Klein photographed attendees and had an caricature artist create and post cartoons of the attendees on his blog.
- Using the Step Ladder to Success With Social Media: Dawud Miracle tackles the issue of social media and how it can impact your blog by getting social.
- WordCamp Connections: Markalope puts together a categorized list of the WordCamp attendees as a result of my presentation at WordCamp – it’s about making connections with bloggers who blog similar subjects.
- Blog Challenge: What is the Most Unusual Blogger You’ve Found?: I challenge you to blog about the most unusual blogger you’ve found on the web, that isn’t you.
- Bringing the Best of the Best Blogging Resources to Your Feed Reader: Liz Strauss tries to cull from the best of the best on blogging to create a must-have list for your feed reader to help you improve your blogging skills.
- WordCamp 2007: Kicking Ass Content Connections: I didn’t use slides in my program, but I took my notes and turned them into slides so you could enjoy at least the information I presented at the WordCamp program.
- Lessons from a Bookstore on Blog Writing: I explore some lessons learned by myself and others on the mythology of writing, especially writing a book or a blog.
- WordCamp 2007: A quick summary of my WordCamp experiences and list of things WordPress has planned for the future.
- WordCamp 2007 Attendees: Blogging Tips Book On It’s Way!: News for WordCamp attendees that free copies of my book, Blogging Tips, is on its way via mail.
- Bloggers Are Not Webmasters and Webmasters Are Not Bloggers: A satirical but truthful look at the differences between webmasters and bloggers.
- Blog Challenge: Blog Your Dash: A challenge to get you to blog about your dash – the life spent between date of birth and death.
- The Agony of Link Hunting: I share my frustration with link hunting, trying to find web pages on my blog and others while researching articles. This is a good rant against the poor search capability of WordPress, and lack of obvious search forms on blogs.
- SEO Pros and Woes: An interesting perspective on the drawbacks of search engine optimization.
- I Love Your List! I’m Going To Copy It!: An attack on those who copy and post lists from other bloggers on their blog, possibly out of some sense of sharing and support, but it’s still plagiarism, folks.
- Suffering From a Lost Blogging Mouse: I shared more of my recent woes blogging without my favorite web-powered mouse, which goes to show that the quality of the tools you use makes the job easier.
- Fighting Registration Spam in WordPress: While many concentrate on comment spam, registration spam is very frustrating to all bloggers and forums. What is being done about it?
- Explaining My Weekly Digest Post: I explain how and why I put together this weekly digest and how it can benefit your blog to create your own.
- WordPress Community Podcast Meetup and WordCamp Report News: Some news about the upcoming WordCamp Conference.
- Weekly Digest: On The Road to WordCamp, Sponsored Themes, Selling Your Blog, NoFollow, and More: The last weekly digest, oh my.
- Blog Challenge: How Do You Judge a Blog Post as a Success?: Asking readers to really define what it is that they think success is for a blog. The answers were fascinating.
- Chris Garrett on Blog Branding: Chris is running a series on blog branding that is a must-read for those blogging for business.
- Announcing WPMUDEV Premium: Announcement of an enhanced version of WordPressMU by Edublogs founder, James Farmer.
Most Popular Articles on Lorelle on WordPress
The article in C-Net News on copyright violations has once again brought the popular article, What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content, into the spotlight.
What we can’t figure out, though, is why Writing a Blog and Engaging Readers by Greg Balanko-Dickson is suddenly so popular. It shot up the ranks and brought in a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon and other blogs but Greg and I haven’t found out why. It’s a fabulous post, and makes some very good points, but it’s odd to suddenly spike. Ah, the mysteries of web traffic.
I knew that the response to the official statement that WordPress will no longer permit sponsored WordPress Themes in the official Theme Viewer would be big a couple weeks ago, I had no idea how big. So many are writing about it, I can barely keep up. Two posts of note come from the two volunteers who maintain the WordPress Theme viewer, Mandarin Musing and Headsetoptions.
The most popular posts on Lorelle on WordPress these past few weeks were:
- What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content
- It’s Official. Sponsored WordPress Themes Are Out
- Writing a Blog and Engaging Readers by Greg Balanko-Dickson
- Lists of Your Favorite WordPress Plugins
- Two Months of Celebrating Blogging and WordPress
- Sandbox Theme for WordPress Design Competition
- HTML, CSS, PHP, and More Cheat Sheets
- Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Information
- Happy Birthday, Edublogs.org
- WordCamp 2007: WordCamp Caricatures
- Designing a WordPress Theme From Scratch
- WordCamp Connections
- WordCamp 2007
Linking To and From Lorelle on WordPress
The incoming links in reference to WordCamp and the C-Net article on copyright violations has been overwhelming.
One of the most delightful incoming links came from Letters Home to You who offers some great blogging resources in this unique way:
I still have so much to learn about blogging, so I decided one day to go beyond my daily fix at Lorelle on WordPress to see what others could teach me.
Boy, did I learn a lot.
Too cute!
Here are just a few of the sites linking to and from Lorelle on WordPress:
- C-Net News – Please don’t steal this Web content
- 10 Steps to Success on the ’Net Without SEO:
- Templeton’s Copyright Myths
- Internet Duct Tape
- Battling the Blog Scrapers
- Allen Lew – What I saw at WordCamp 2007
- Has Anyone Stolen Your Writing Lately?
- Claire Aikes – Lorelle VanFossen asks ‘Conversation Blog or Answer Blog?’
- Footsteps in the Mirror – Chickybabe For Those Chickybabes
- Daffodil Painting ~ Starry Night ~ Lorelle VanFossen by Nancy Standlee
- WordPress Experiments – Original signature
- Experimenting with a Blog Makeover
- I’ve Been Violated
- LeiwCF – Blogging Tips, the book every blogger should have
- Is Adsense Or Vista To Be Blamed For [Content Theft]
- What’s put on the Internet, stays on the Internet
- WordCamp Caricatures all posted
- Personalising your blog
- When I Saw It I Just Snapped
- how to write a great blog post title
Blasts From the Past
My Tech Talk offered “How to Blog Resources” for those just starting to blog, and included among the great recommendations a link to my article, “Learning About Blogging and How to Blog“. I wrote it in 2005, so I thought I’d take a look.
Ick. It looked like 2005. So I cleaned it up and that processed turned into an article on revitalizing your past post techniques coming next week on the Blog Herald.
I’ve got to dig into some of my old posts and give them a spit and polish. Until I do, here are some not so cleaned up blasts from the past on my blog:
- What are Feeds?
- Six Steps to Blogging Success – Or Success in Anything
- 20 Answers to the Question: What Does It Take to Blog?
- Washington Post – Why Bloggers Blog
- Define Blogging Success
- Understanding Pings and Blogs
- The Key to Blogging Success: Perseverance
Blog Herald Columns
I’m so thrilled with the popularity of Tips for Writing Good WordPress Tips which I published on the Blog Herald this week. I was very nervous about publishing that article. I’ve been working on it for over six months. I’m thrilled it has been so well received.
I have also been writing a lot of posts in series on the Blog Herald, with many of them dealing with blog comments and conversations. I’ve tried to group them in this list together so you can easily track the series.
- Learning the Art of Guest Blogging: Announcing my two month series of guest bloggers on Lorelle on WordPress, and realizing that I’m a novice at this. So starting a series to learn more on the art of guest blogging.
- The Art of Guest Blogging: How Do I Help Guest Bloggers Blog?: Questions to consider when hosting guest bloggers or becoming a guest blogger.
- WordCamp Summary: WordPress News: Part two of my summary of WordCamp, focusing on WordPress news.
- WordCamp 2007 Summary: A summary of the events and speakers at WordCamp.
- Is Your Blog a Conversation Blog or Answer Blog?: Asking what type of blog you have, one that encourages conversation or just provides the answers?
- Do You Kill The Blog Conversation?: When you respond to a comment on a blog, whether it is your blog or others, are you killing the blog conversation?
- Blog Post Category Trauma: How To Help Bloggers With Useless Categories: The first post in a series on fixing your useless blog categories, and understanding why they are useless.
- Blog Post Category Trauma: Suggestions for Useless Categories: Part of the category trauma series, this showcases reader’s reactions to the first post featuring a bad list of blog post categories, and why they are bad.
- Blog Post Category Trauma: Fixing Those Useless Categories: Part of the category trauma article series, this looks at how you should work on rearranging and fixing bad category choices.
- Blog Post Category Trauma: Changing Your Categories in WordPress: The last post in the series on dealing with categories on your blog, specifically how to change them on your WordPress blog.
- Are You Losing Readers? Why?: If your blog is losing readers, why? And what can you do about it? Part one of a two part series.
- Are You Losing Readers? How Do You Keep Your Readers Reading?: Part two of two covering how to keep visitors coming back, and how to keep your readers reading your blog.
- Writing and Publishing Code in Your WordPress Blog Posts: A guide on how to display code in your WordPress posts.
- Are Tags Working?: A good question is asked on whether or not tags are really working on your blog and why we continue to use them if they aren’t.
- Tips for Writing Good WordPress Tips: If you want to get featured for your WordPress Tip, on my blogs or otherwise, follow these guidelines and you will increase your chances of getting the coverage and attention you deserve.
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp Recovery, Stats Plugin Updated, Edublogs is Two, WordPress.com Will Be, and More WordPress News
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp, WordCamp, WordCamp, WordPress Theme Viewer, and Even More WordCamp News
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2007 This Weekend, WordPress Theme News, WordPress Podcast Meetup, and Sunburned, Traveling Andy Skelton
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp, Sponsored Themes Out, 2 Billion Comment Spam, and More WordPress News
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp, Sponsored Themes Out, 2 Billion Comment Spam, and More WordPress News
Lorelle’s Linkworthy Links
- Problogger’s new series on 31 Days to Building a Better Blog: Always a great series.
- Internet Duct Tape – Community Starts with Communication: 5 Tips to Building Your Readership: Some excellent tips to help you understand more about the importance of staying in contact with your readers.
- Greasemonkey Script: Akismet Auntie Spam for WordPress: Just upgraded and more powerful, this is one of the greatest contributions to the WordPress.com world. Thanks, Engtech.
- Should I Date My Blog?: While I thought this would a great post in “dating” your blog, covering how to fall in love all over again with your blog, it is actually a very excellent look at how you should, and whether or not you should, put the date on your blog posts, letting the readers know when this was published and if it has been updated.
This is the Weekly Digest of Lorelle on WordPress.
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Copyright Protected and Reserved – If you are reading this post outside of your feed reader or Lorelle on WordPress, the usage of this content is a violation of copyright and the DMCA. Please report it immediately so action can be taken against them. If you are using this content illegally, and you know who you are, consider this a cease and desist order.
Lorelle VanFossen is a member of WordPress, WordPress.com, the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.
3 Comments
I have not received an email from automatic yet asking me to confirm my mail address. Who do I contact at Automatic to get them the info they need. I already ordered a copy of your book for a friend, but I can’t wait to read it myself.
I’m looking into this. I’ll let you know. Thanks for letting me know!
Today’s Woman will no longer be a writing community. I just launched Today’s Writing and your interview moved. 🙂