Time to Break WordPress This Summer

In Want to Break and Remake WordPress? on the Blog Herald, I summarized this year’s WordPress/Google Summer of Code, an exciting annual project that brings together the top WordPress Community experts with college students from around the world dedicated to making and breaking WordPress so we all benefit. When I read the cute announcement by […]

bbPress News, Tips, and Plugins

Recently, Matt Mullenweg has been fending off questions about bbPress, the popular open source, free forum platform. This past weekend at WordCamp Denver, and last month at WordCamp Las Vegas, audience members begged for an update on the status of bbPress. He joked in Denver that he felt he was being stalked by bbPress fans. […]

The Art of the Fan-Based Blog: Continuing to Fight the Good Fight

By DB Ferguson of the No Fact Zone Now, if you’ve been following my series on The Art of the Fan-Based Blog, you’ve got a blog, you’ve got readers, you’ve got content. Have I forgotten anything? Oh, yeah. Burnout and how to keep fighting the good fight for your celebrity, readers, and fellow fans. Here […]

The Art of the Fan-Based Blog: Cash is Necessary

By DB Ferguson of the No Fact Zone If you’re building a fandom blog to create a cash revenue stream, you’re better off getting a second job or setting up an Etsy account. Money can be made, but that should not be a priority for you when it comes to being a fandom blogger. As […]

WordPress 2.8 Survey: What Do You Want in the Next Version of WordPress?

Have you given much thought to WordPress 2.8? Well, the WordPress development team is and they need your help and input. With WordPress 2.7 released, work is ongoing for WordPress 2.8 and WordPress wants your feedback. In “Prioritizing Features for WordPress 2.8,” Jane Wells invites people to take a poll on what are the top […]

Building a Tourist Community Website With WordPress: Multilingual Contents and Translations

By Amir Helzer of ICanLocalize With your help beginning in the first post on how to build a tourist community website with WordPress, I’ve been so honored by your collaboration and help to improve my community’s new tourist site, Baripedia, representing my town, Bariloche in Argentina. With your guidance, you helped me determine which WordPress […]

Blog Struggles: Trackbacks Count

At a blog conference recently, I overheard the following exchange over a laptop as part of a blog review exercise: “For your blog to be successful, you need more comments on your blog posts.” “I have plenty of comments on my blog. See, this one has 14 comments.” “That post has only one comment. The […]

The Art of the Fan-Based Blog: Cultivate Your Passion

By DB Ferguson of the No Fact Zone If you’re going to build a fan site, it’s assumed that you have a passion for the subject of the blog. You don’t have to know everything about the subject of your site, but you do have to really be passionate about this journey you are about […]

Blog Struggles: I Just Need Two Seconds of Your Time

How often have you been asked for “two seconds of your time” in purpose, email, or chat? I’m asked every day for those precious two seconds, and every day I struggle to say no. My day begins at five in the morning. I used to make time for exercise but more and more my work […]

Social Media: The New Path of Economics and Marketing

In A Rubric for Social Media Expertise, Liz Strauss is exploring how we use social media for our blogs and our businesses, especially how we organize and structure social media to work for us. As the living web begins to seamlessly integrate into our concrete cultures and as our lives become globally intertwined, businesses are […]

Blog Struggles: Negative Campaigning Isn’t Just For Politicians

With all the negative campaigning and nasty spin by the media wrapped up in election campaigns and conventions, it surprised me to find a connection between a politician commenting on negative campaigns and my continued defense of bloggers attacking other bloggers and going negative. I thought it worth talking about in my ongoing series on […]

Blog Challenge: Worst Business Decision

As we continue exploring our mistakes, with last week’s blog challenge about the worst mistake we’ve made in a relationship, this week I’m going to challenge your work history and experience. Blog about the worst business decision and mistake you’ve ever made. We’ve all made dumb business decisions. Taken jobs we hated, told off a […]

Life 101: Books That Changed My Life and Blog

One of my long time favorite authors, Peter McWilliams, has most of his books online for free. These include: LIFE 101: Everything We Wished We Had Learned About Life in School-But Didn’t DO IT! Let’s Get Off Our Buts How to Survive the Loss of a Love You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative […]

Blog Struggles: When Is Your Blog Focus Too Narrow?

As I struggled to determine my blog’s focus, I debated like many about the definition of “narrow”. After all, how narrow is narrow in your niche? After years of personal debate on this issue, I came up with this answer: Your blog focus is too narrow when you run out of things to write about. […]

Writing Better Blog Post Titles

I’ve written a lot about writing and creating powerful, effective, and attention-getting headlines and post titles on your blog, but more needs to be said on the subject, especially for blogging teachers and students. The following are not effective nor attention-getting post titles: March March 2006 March 17, 2006 Today’s News Homework Today’s Homework In […]