Comment Spam and Viral Marketing – BBS Weblog Watch

BBC’s Weblog Watch’s Bang blast takes a poke at advertising on blogs, specifically targeted advertising through coments, aka comment spam and Viral Marketing. Now imagine writing an entry about making contact with a parent after three decades of silence. And now imagine finding someone had slapped an advert for bleach on it. One which made […]

WordPress School: Blockquotes

No matter what you do on the web, you will quote or cite someone, some place, or something. In today’s assignment and tutorial in Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course, I’m going to teach you how to quote and cite in WordPress, and save yourself from a copyright violation. By publishing content on your site, […]

Research on the WordPress, Web Development, and Web Design Job Market

In 2012 and 2013, I did extensive research for the grant program to develop and rewrite the Web Developer degree program at Clark College. This research included an analysis of current and future job opportunities for students graduating with that degree with a solid understanding of WordPress. Now that the program has completed its first […]

Blog Exercises: The Daily Social Meme

Did you know that there are specific memes for each day of the week in the blogosphere and social web? Today is your chance to play around with some of these themed days of the week in this blog exercise. A themed day, or meme, is a tradition of sorts. It involves publishing and sharing […]

Blog Exercises: Collect Your Quotes

I was sitting in a business conference listening to a speaker expound upon the many reasons why we must blog, and choked on my hot tea when I heard her say to the two hundred people in the audience, “Blog comments are mini resumes. Let them speak well of you.” In 2006, I wrote those […]

Blog Exercises: When to Hit Publish

In this ongoing series, Blog Exercises, you’ve been exploring your site stats to determine where your audience is coming from and why. Now is the time to explore the when. When do the majority of your site visitors arrive on your site? Is there a pattern? When is the Best Time and Day to Post […]

Blog Exercises: How to Tag Posts

Categories are your site’s table of contents. Tags are your index words. While it is simple to explain the two basic organizational and navigation elements of a WordPress site, coming up with tags for each post is a struggle many bloggers battle. Tags represent micro-categorization of your site’s content. It helps the visitor find closely […]

Peace on Earth: Help Me Fight Terrorism in My Community

Update: This story is starting to go viral. Thank you to everyone for your support for the Portland and Clackamas, Oregon, Community in their time of need. I hope we fill the Clackamas Mall, and every mall, with as many people as possible to let all terrorists, domestic and international, know that we will not […]

A 9 Year Old Blogger is Censored and Changes Thousands of Children’s Lives

I think of all the good that is done in the name of WordPress and blogging, and a 9 year old humbles me. A couple weeks ago, a 9 year old food blogger attracted attention for the photographs she’d taken of her “uninspiring school cafeteria lunches” in Scotland. Local officials ordered her to stop taking […]

Taking Your Blog Off Topic

What happens when you take your blog off track and publish an off topic post? Do you ever take that risk? When you do, why do you do it and what’s the benefits or harm? In a two part series, Sam H, Editor of Football United, shared his insights on working with “hundreds of football […]

Duke DesRochers: Future Social Media Renaissance Man

In this modern world where entertainment has many fronts, movies, network television, cable television, and the web, The Food Network is among many entertainment companies trying to notch it up and take advantage of online social media to find The Next Food Network Star. My cousin, Duke DesRochers, has entered the contest, and as far […]

Tracking Yourself and Your Blog Brand Across the Online Social World

A while ago I ran across the Yahoo Pipes Social Media Fire Hose, a script written with Yahoo Pipes by Joseph Kingsley. If you want to track yourself, your blog, your brand, or any keyword or phrase across the web, especially by social media sites, this is the tool for you. The Yahoo Pipes Social […]

WordCamp 2008 San Francisco – Great Fun. Pictures Don’t Lie.

WordCamp 2008 brought WordPress fans from around the world to San Francisco. I am always stunned by the lengths so many people take to travel so far for WordPress. Their passion and dedication is to be applauded as every one brings their unique perspective to a WordPress event and the WordPress Community. And they bring […]

Weekly Digest: Lorelle in Oklahoma with Family, Heading to WordCamp Dallas, WordPress 2.5, SOBCON, and More News

For the first time in almost two years, the VanFossen clan came together in one place – well, at least our arm of the VanFossen family. The convenience of coming to WordCamp Dallas enabled my husband and I to make a stop first in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to spend time with family first. In a few […]

Weekly Digest: Lorelle in San Francisco, Heading to WordCamp Dallas, Pasadena, Chicago, and Writting About Blogging In Between Talks

It’s been a very busy week for me, traveling to San Francisco, meeting friends and clients, and having a great time. I went to an interesting seminar on US politics, which took an interesting turn recently. Also attended a book signing and talk by Bill Hayes, author of “The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray’s […]