May 17, 2012

Letting WordPress Provide the Solution to Your Blog and Website Needs

Discoverability. It’s the most important word for an aspiring author to know and to master. The Internet is where everyone and everything gets found today. If someone searching for you, your book or subjects related to your book can’t find you on the Internet, you will remain obscure. Unknown. That’s not what any aspiring author wants. That’s not what a publisher wants in a writer.

The fact that you can’t be found on line when someone searches for you, that you and your book aren’t discoverable, can feel pretty overwhelming, especially if you want to sell books to readers or to publishers. Yet, so many writers fail to develop an online presence. They don’t want to create a blog or a website, both of which provide them with a way to be easily found on the Internet. Why don’t they do so? Because it feels hard. It’s out of the realm of writing. It’s techy and unfamiliar. The task feels overwhelming.

Creating an online presence with a blog doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Today, my webmaster and blogmaster, Linda Lee, offers a few basic tips on how to begin a blog, or a blog website, in a way that will reduce your sense of overwhelm and give you an online presence in no time flat. Intro written by Nina Amir, Author of “How to Blog a Book” available now for pre-order on Amazon here.

See below for more details on her FREE Teleseminar:

Participate in my book launch by registering for my free LAUNCH DAY teleseminar on April 23 at 5 p.m. PT!  Register here: http://bit.ly/BookLaunchTeleseminar

Letting WordPress Provide the Solution to Your Blog and Website Needs
By Linda Lee

 

WordPress is the most used blogging and website platform online. First released on May 27, 2003, WordPress was has been downloaded over 65 million times as of December 2011.

I started using WordPress in 2007. Fairly soon after I started using WordPress I began to realize it had the ability to be molded into a fully functioning website vs. just a blog. Many people still think of WordPress as a blogging software but it is so much more than that. It is called a “Content Management System,” which really means you have one stop where you can manage your content and your website by yourself with relative ease.

Why use WordPress instead of an HTML based website? The days of paying a webmaster to do minor updates or changes to your content are over. So one good reason is money. Also no more waiting for you webmaster to get around to making those changes you want. With WordPress you can login and make your own changes with quickly and easily.  Here are just a few things you can do as simply as working on your own computer at home.

  • Add images
  • Add MP3 files
  • Add videos
  • Add products
  • Add forms

For most authors, small business, individuals, and non-profits, a WordPress website will be all they ever need.  I have even done group training with offices and non-profits so the employees or volunteers can share the job of running the website.

How do you get started? It is best to get your own hosting and domain name and most hosting companies now offer a one-click type of install for WordPress. Once you have that handled, you will login to your new website and start setting things up. Or if you would like to try it out first and figure things out, you can sign up for a free WordPress website at http://wordpress.com.

At first, it feels a bit daunting, because it is all new for most people. Once you start working on the site and posting and adding pages, it quickly feels more comfortable. There is lots of free support online, and I have several websites that offer paid and free training and many short videos on topics such as :

 WordPress bootcamp |Learn wordpress fast

There is quite a bit of help available online and from WordPress itself. Many people however find that they benefit greatly from some personal one on one type of help. That is what we do at our WordPress Bootcamps. The class is limited to 8 people, so we can help each person individually as well as provide the fun of the group support we have while working together. In the bootcamp you will bring your laptop and, if you already have a WordPress Website, we will work on that.  If you are starting from scratch, we will set you up with a WordPress website and you will leave the training with a website, a gravatar and the basic to learning to start blogging and running your website. It is very fulfilling for me to see people launch!

If you are interested in signing up for the upcoming WordPress Bootcamp, please click here: It is Sat, April 21, at Stanford University, from 9-12. In the afternoon session, we have Self Publishing Bootcamp with Carla King and Laurie McLean and you can get more information on their session here.

Our next Bootcamp will be held at Mills College, June 30th, 2012. You can sign up here now.

 Nina Amir-

FREE Teleseminar:

FREE Teleseminar:
Participate in my book launch by registering for my freeteleseminar on April 23 at 5 p.m. PT!  Register here: http://bit.ly/BookLaunchTeleseminar
During this teleseminar you’ll learn why you should be blogging your book, how you can do it easily and quickly, and how to get started today.
Win a FREE 30-minute blogging or blog-a-book coaching session. One session will be given away during the teleseminar!
Also, 2 FREE SIGNED COPIES of How to Blog a Book will be given away during the telesminar.
Register for the teleseminar here: http://bit.ly/BookLaunchTeleseminar
April Challenge:
In April the blog is focused on blogging a short book in 30 days. Here’s my challenge: Write a post a day and get at least a 7,500-word manuscript completed in a month. That’s a 250-word post per day (or a longer post 5 days per week). You can win a FREE, signed copy of How to Blog a Book, the book.
Here are the rules:
Send in your 7,500-word manuscript with a table of contents, a 50-word pitch, and an overview of the book (synopsis). It must arrive by 12 p.m. 4/30/12 Pacific Time.  Email it to me at nina (at) ninaamir (dot) com.
Newest Special Offers:
How to Blog a Book, Write, Publish, and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time, will be released by Writer’s Digest Books on April 21…that’s when it begins shipping. I am offering a 15 minute FREE blog-to-book coaching session for all those who preorder before April 21. Just email a copy of your Amazon or B & N receipt to namir@copywrightcommunications.com to schedule.
For those who purchase a copy ON May 21 and send me a receipt (at namir@copywrightcommunications.com), I am giving away 2 FREE blog-to-book coaching sessions!

WordPress Bootcamp and Self Publishing Bootcamp

Learn how to use WordPress at WordPress bootcamp, WordPress Bootcamp Skills, Get a WordPress Website today

Linda Lee not only teaches you the ins and outs of the most popular free blogging platform on the planet, she will lead you in a hands-on application of your newfound skills to create your very own author blog.
She’ll even give you tips on content!
You must bring your wifi-enabled laptop because you’ll be creating your blog LIVE!

What you will learn:

  • We will set up your WordPress website on the spot.
  • If you already have a WordPress website, we will use that as we learn.
  • You will learn how to write a post or page
  • How to add keywords, tags and categories
  • How to search engine optimize every post or page on your website
  • How to work with images
  • How to upload images and place them in your pages or posts
  • How to work with sizes of images on your website
  • How to add space and align your images
  • You will set up a Gravatar account and your Gravatar image
  • How to moderate comments and avoid spam
  • Understanding the dashboard inside WordPress
  • There will be a question and answer time block
  • You will have access after class to videos going over everything we have learned

What people are saying about Linda Lee and her training:

“Linda Lee made it very easy to understand and follow what we learned.
This is great education and it helped me very much!”

Nate Esnbund

“I found this training invaluable. I left with a WordPress website and I understood how to use the basics.
I has tried to learn on my own, but found it too confusing. Linda takes the complicated and makes it very easy to understand.”

Jim Baily

“I finally got to build a website for my business. You made it so easy to understand and I walked out with a website and
the knowledge I needed to use it.”

Jan Holvey

“I am so glad I took this class. It was exactly what I was looking for. The follow up videos were very helpful to refresh what
I had already learned in the class. I also love my new website and I finally have a Gravatar when I leave comments online”.

Grace Ambro

Date: Sat April 21, 2012 Stanford University
Tresidder Memorial Union
459 Lagunita Dr | Stanford, CA 94305
Time: 9:00 am -12:00

Bring your computer, we will  be working live
and we have Wifi access for all.
Coffee and morning snack provided

Click Here to Buy Now

In the afternoon you can sign up for:

SELF-PUBLISHING BOOT CAMP
BUILD-YOUR-BLOG BOOT CAMP
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Stanford University Palo Alto, California

in partnership with San Francisco Writers University
a project of the non-profit San Francisco Writers Conference

Cost: $149.00 per boot camp or both for $273.00    
These no-nonsense boot camps will arm you with all the information you need to plan and publish your book.
SAVE TIME & MONEY

Save money on self-publishing Lately I’ve been doing a lot of one-on-one consulting with authors on self-publishing, and I can tell you that the dollars really add up. So save time and money in the learning process and avoid costly mistakes. The cost of this workshop gives you over $1000 worth of self-publishing guidance It’s worth your time and money. Promise! –Carla King

Here’s what you’ll learn from the next Self-Publishing Boot Camp afternoon workshop:

- Find your path from the many self-publishing options
– Budget: From free to fee, what’s worth paying for and what’s not
– How to find and work with editors, designers, and ebook formatters
– Self-publishing, partner-publishing, and getting a traditional book deal
– Develop a platform to successfully market and promote your book
– Book discovery: Websites, social media, and SEO for dummies
– Distribution possibilities for your ebook, print book, and book app
– Avoid common self-publishing pitfalls

You also get:

- The latest print edition of Carla King’s Self-Publishing Boot Camp Guide for Authors, an easy-to-use, step-by-step guide under 100 pages with handy checklists to make sure you don’t forget to do anything.

- A discount for membership in SPANpro, the premium content and community area of the Small Publishers Association of North America, a nonprofit trade association of authors and independent publishers with the mission of building successful writing and publishing businesses.
 

Better Business Bureau Fake Email Complaint Scam

BBB scam alertIf you  have gotten any email like the one I posted below, it is FAKE.
The thing is I am not sure what they are trying to do.
When you are unsure of an email one thing you can always count on are
misspelled  words, and bad grammar such as in this case when they say the complaint is in respect to their dealership???? What the heck does that even mean?

“with respect to their dealership with you.”

 

So I looked up the domain which is showing on the bogus link amazonandbeyond.com and it is listed below.

No one answers that phone number of course.
Also it looks like whoever bought it, added the privacy service.

Here is the offical notice about the scam from the BBB, Better Business Bureau.

If you know what exactly the scammers are trying to do please leave it in the comment section.
This one is a bit puzzling for me. I usually can figure out what they are trying to do.
It could be the scam link already got pulled so the infection or rip off they were trying to pull off is no good on this copy I got.

Another tip I can offer you is if you are unsure of an email you have gotten like this, simply copy and paste it into Google and you will find articles and sites like mine telling you if it is a scam. For instance the name signed on this email,

Faithfully,

Fernando Grodhaus

Dispute Counselor
Better Business Bureau

brought up many scam buster articles for me when I googled it.
I will say the scammers are getting more and more tricky.
I will keep posting when I get these emails and know they are a scam.

 
Current Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
IP Address: 98.136.92.206 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
Record Type: Domain Name
Server Type: Other
Lock Status: clientTransferProhibited
WebSite Status: Active

 

  
Domain Name.......... amazonandbeyond.com
  Creation Date........ 2006-04-08
  Registration Date.... 2006-04-08
  Expiry Date.......... 2015-04-08
  Organisation Name.... Pete C TennantWilliams
  Organisation Address. PO Box 61359
  Organisation Address.
  Organisation Address. Sunnyvale
  Organisation Address. 94088
  Organisation Address. CA
  Organisation Address. US

Admin Name........... Admin PrivateRegContact
  Admin Address........ PO Box 61359
  Admin Address........ registered post accepted only
  Admin Address........ Sunnyvale
  Admin Address........ 94088
  Admin Address........ CA
  Admin Address........ US
  Admin Email.......... contact@myprivateregistration.com
  Admin Phone.......... +1.5105952002
  Admin Fax............ 

Tech Name............ TECH PrivateRegContact
  Tech Address......... PO Box 61359
  Tech Address......... registered post accepted only
  Tech Address......... Sunnyvale
  Tech Address......... 94088
  Tech Address......... CA
  Tech Address......... US
  Tech Email........... contact@myprivateregistration.com
  Tech Phone........... +1.5105952002
  Tech Fax.............
  Name Server.......... yns1.yahoo.com
  Name Server.......... yns2.yahoo.com

Attn: Owner/Manager

Here with the Better Business Bureau notifies you that we have received a complaint (ID 20995629) from a customer of yours with respect to their dealership with you.

Please open the COMPLAINT REPORT ( I removed the bogus hotlink) below to view more information on this matter and inform us about your position as soon as possible.

We hope to hear from you very soon.

Faithfully,

Fernando Grodhaus

Dispute Counselor
Better Business Bureau


Council of Better Business Bureaus
4200 Wilson Blvd, Suite 800
Arlington, VA 22203-1838
Phone: 1 (703) 276.0100
Fax: 1 (703) 525.8277

San Francisco Writers Conference Linda Lee- Post Conference Master Classes- Sign up now!

Wordpress Bootcamp 101 Linda Lee Master ClassI am very pleased to be presenting two classes on Monday Feb 20th as part of the San Francisco Writers Conference  post conference “Master Classes”.
In my first class, “Author Marketing with Social Media”,  9-12 we will go over the basics in helpful detail. This class is a smaller group so I will be able to work personally with each attendee. Bring your questions, your laptop or ipad and lets work! We will target the best ideas and choices for you as an author, and I have a few unexpected places and sources to share with you, where you can optimize your social media time and efforts. I like to simplfy and show you how to get the most out of the time you do have to promote yourself.

Sign up and pay here: www.SFWriters.org

Build Your Blog and They Will Come:
Step-by-Step Creation of a WordPress Author Blog!

Bring your laptops and if you need a WordPress blog/website, you will have one by the time you leave. If you already have a
WordPress site we will look at it and work on it and improve it. Once again this will be very hands on. I will be helping each attendee with their own site or getting a new site up. We will discuss plugins, basic seach engine optimization, and also I will be going over the 8 elements every author must have on their website to succeed. Bring your questions and what you need help with and leave with a new website or a better one!

Sign up and pay here:www.SFWriters.org

SAN FRANCISCO WRITERS UNIVERSITY PRESENTS:
THE 2012 SFWC
MASTER WRITING CLASSES
Pay for the classes here:
www.SFWriters.org

Author Marketing with Social Media:
An introduction to online promotion
Monday Morning, February 20, 2012
9 a.m. to noon Cost: $129
Social Media Guru Linda Lee will introduce
you to all types of social media from Twitter to
Facebook to Google+ and show writers how to
use one or more of these tools most effectively
to market their writing.
Build Your Blog and They Will Come:
Step-by-Step Creation of a WordPress Author Blog!
Monday Afternoon, February 20th – 2 -5 p.m. – Cost: $129
Linda Lee not only teaches you the ins and outs of the most
popular free blogging platform on the planet, she will lead you
in a hands-on application of your newfound skills to create your
very own author blog. She’ll even give you tips on content!
You must bring your wifi-enabled laptop because you’ll be
creating your blog LIVE!
These classes will be held at the Mark Hopkins Hotel
999 California St., San Francisco
For registration and more information:
www.SFWriters.org
Writing Your First Bestseller (Introduction)
NY Times Bestselling Author Bob Dugoni
Monday, February 20, 2012
9 a.m. to noon – Cost: $129
New York Times bestseller author
Robert Dugoni is also a master
teacher in the art of writing a bestselling
novel. This class teaches an
introduction to writing techniques
and shows writers how to create
compelling, deep characters, a plot
that works, the basics of grammar,
pacing, conflict, and much more.
Writing Your First Bestseller (Advanced)
Monday, Feb. 20, 2012 – 2p.m. to 5p.m. – Cost: $129
Bob will share more advanced writing techniques in this
afternoon class so it is perfect for self-published and traditionally-
published midlist authors who want to take
their writing to another, bestseller level.
GET PAID TO WRITE YOUR BOOK:
How to Write an Irresistible Book Proposal, Sell It Fast for Top
Dollar, and Create a Career Out of It;
with Literary Agents Michael Larsen and Jody Rein
Monday Morning, Feb. 20th – 9 a.m. to noon – Cost: $129
This class gives you a blueprint for writing the proposal you need
to get the best editor, publisher and deal for your book. Bring a
sample of your writing and get feedback on it. Larsen is author of
the fourth edition of How to Write a Book Proposal.

PITCHCRAFT!
with NY literary agent Katharine Sands
Thursday, February 16, 2012.
6-8 p.m. at the Mark Hopkins Hotel
Cost: only $99!
This tutorial is a must for everyone looking
for a literary agent! Katharine Sands,
agent extraordinaire and editor of the book
Making the Perfect Pitch, will teach you
how to effectively pitch your book to agents and editors. In two
hours you will learn the components of a pitch, how to deliver
your pitch, and how to make pitch opportunities happen.
You’ll also create and hone the very pitch you’ll use for your
specific book. Guaranteed fun as well as educational.
SELF-PUBLISHING BOOT CAMP
MONDAY ALL-DAY CLASS
2/20/12 at the Mark Hopkins Hotel
9 a.m.-5 p.m. (lunch: noon to 2p.m.)
With Carla King, Laurie McLean, Brian Felsen,
Joel Friedlander & Carol LeVow
Cost: $249
Self-publishing is one of the most talked about areas of
book publishing today. Its transformative ebook technology
and disintermediation between author and
reader are turning traditional publishing on its ear and
opening up the market big
time for self-published
books. Where to begin?
Let the experts show you
every step of the process to
prepare, publish and promote
your work. You can decide
which path is best suited to you. Last year’s boot camp
was sold out, so reserve your space early! For more
details go to www.selfpubbootcamp.com.
WRITING A SUCCESSFUL MEMOIR
with author Catherine Friend
Monday, February 20th – 2p.m. to 5p.m. – Cost: $129
Catherine (Hit By A Farm, Sheepish) has written and taught
about memoir for many years. Discover the joy of
touching people’s lives with your own. Examine the
seemingly chaotic elements of your story. Learn what to
include…and leave out! Come with an idea; leave with
a plan for a compelling memoir of any kind.
These in-depth writing and publishing
classes are open to everyone!

8 Must-Have Elements For Your Author Website | Linda Lee | Author Solutions

Author Solutions Web Learning Center-Linda Lee Webinar Author Solutions Webinar presented by Linda Lee

Are you an author who needs help putting together your website?
Do you have a website that needs some help and wonder what you are missing?
Join me and Author Solutions, Oct 26, 2011 4:30 PST, 7:30 EST for this FREE webinar.

This webinar can be viewed later of the Author Solutions-Author Learning Center. They offer all their webinars for free! Click here to sign up now as a guest and then sign up here for my webinar, and the login information will be sent to you via email to join us for “8 Must Have Elements For Your Author Website”.

I also cover some alternate free methods and places you can promote yourself and your books and products. We will cover social meda badges, adding sample book content to your website, creating a sales page and much more.

It is packed with great information. Not too complicated or hard to understand, just the facts with rock solid resources and directions to help you create the best Author Website for your needs. I speak in plain english not techspeak.  You can a.lso watch it again after the live Webinar is done so don’t worry if you miss anything. I pack in the information in a 30 min presentation with a Q&A after.

WordCamp San Francisco 2011 Volunteering

Matt Mullenweg-Linda Lee-Rebecca Martin

Rebecca Martin, Linda Lee and Matt Mullenweg, Founder and bossman of WordPress

I do professional Volunteer Coordinating for organizations as a  PT job so I am always involved with volunteer opportunities. Here is a good one for all Bay Area WordPress users.

This will be my 4th year volunteering for #WCSF WordPress WordCamp San Francisco, and they just put their form up for those who are interested.  I can’t image doing this a week and half before a 3 day event, yipes, I do not envy that person. 8-O .

I emailed a pitch for the job of Volunteer Coordinator for #WCSF to Matt Mullenweg, but he did not get back to me! Gee maybe he is busy or something, lol. Anyway I wanted to get this up for those of you who would like to attend and help behind the scenes, which to me is always more fun then just being an attendee.

Click here for the 2011 Volunteer Form for WordCamp SF.

If you volunteer this year and found out about it from my blog post, please leave me a comment below or stop by and say Hello at the event. I will be working there Saturday and Sunday. Not sure where yet, but I will update when I get my assignment.

You can see the schedule here for speakers and sessions.  I also listed them below.
I am very excited this year because Brian Gardner of StudioPress Themes for WordPress and Copyblogger will be there and he said for me to look for him so we can chat a bit. I have been using his themes since he made and gave them away for free. I almost use StudioPress Themes for WordPress themes exclusively now.  Brian also has a great blog he writes and is someone to follow on twitter for sure.

If you buy a StudioPress Pro Plus All-Theme Package, one of the perks is getting access to their support forum, where I met Rebecca Diamond, one of their moderators who has helped me so much over the years in that forum, and who is attending WordCamp SF this year as well. I want to a photo with both of them!

Buddy Press Developer Andy Peating with Linda Lee, Dustin Luther

Buddy Press Developer Andy Peating with Linda Lee, Dustin Luther

 

This is part of the fun when you do things you love and get involved, you get to meet people you admire and expand your universe.
Hope to see you there!

Here is the list of speakers for this year by day.

Friday

Mark Jaquith – Scaling, Servers, and Deploys — Oh My!
Sara Rosso – Introduction to the WordPress Ecosystem (likely a cleverer title to come)
Barry Abrahamson – Scaling and Servers Q&A
Austin Smith – From Drupal to WordPress
Shannon Smith – Multilingual Design
John Kleinschmidt – WordPress for the Greater Good (CURE)
Greg Veen – Web Fonts for Developers
John James Jacoby – BuddyPress (Title TBD)
Pete Davies – Vikings, Viagra and Versace: a brief history of spam

Saturday

Nikolay Bachiyski – Unit Testing Will Change Your Life
Michael Adams – Secure IFrame Communication in a Pre-postMessage() World
Chelsea Otakan – Version Control for Designers
Andrew Nacin – Debugging in WordPress
Mark Jaquith, Jon Cave, Brad Williams – Security Showdown
Andy Skelton – Deep Voodoo: How the innermost innards of WordPress work
Daryl Koopersmith – Decisions, Not Options
Sara Cannon – Responsive Web Design
Aaron Jorbin – JavaScript Unit Testing (catchier title to come!)
Estelle Weyl – CSS Topic TBD
Otto Wood, Andrew Nacin – The Otto & Nacin Show

Sunday

Dianne Jacobs – Killer Food Blogs
Matt Mullenweg – State of the Word/Town Hall
Hanni Ross – Top 5 Ways to Break Your Blog (and how to fix it)
Teru Kuwayama – Basetrack.org: Taking WordPress to War
Sheri Bigelow – Top 10 Features You Aren’t Using (But Should Be!)
Ryan Markel – Which WordPress Is Right for You?
Willo O’Brien – Title TBD

 

 

Video of saving a whale from fishermans net. Are whales intelligent like humans?

Freeing humpback whale from fishermens nettingI went out to dinner with two of my friends, Elisa Southard, (author of “Break Through the Noise“) and Barbara Santos, (author of “Practice Aloha: Secrets to Living Life Hawaiian Style” ). We had a grand old time.

We were celebrating Barbara’s birthday, (Happy Birthday Barb!), and Elisa asked us if we had seen the video of these people who work with the Great Whale Conservatory, saving a whale, and she emailed it to us. I got a kick out of the fact that as we were talking, Elisa could get on her Android phone  and email us a link, and look things up, like books we were discussing and other things in conversation. This is how modern life has evolved with technology today.

The video is amazing and I just had to share it with you. It made me cry when they cut the humpback whale free from all these yards of netting it had gotten terribly tangled in and the whale was near death. It seemed to know they were helping it, and once free it put on a heck of show for them which seemed like a thank you to me and to them.

This made me wonder, do whales have higher intelligence? I googled the question and found this:

“Whales boast the brain cells that ‘make us human”

Whales may share our kind of intelligence, researchers say after discovering brain cells previously found only in humans and other primates.

They were touted as the brain cells that set humans and the other great apes apart from all other mammals. Now it has been discovered that some whales also have spindle neurons – specialised brain cells that are involved in processing emotions and helping us interact socially.

Spindle cells, named after their long, spindle-shaped bodies, are the cells that are credited with allowing us to feel love and to suffer emotionally. Their discovery in whales will stimulate debate both on the level of whale intelligence and on the ethics of hunting them.

The cells occur in parts of the human brain that are thought to be responsible for our social organisation, empathy, speech, intuition about the feelings of others, and rapid “gut” reactions.

Click here to read full article from NEW SCIENTIST

Amazing stuff! Watch the video below.

Is Twitter dying or dead? Why Biz Stone the founder has left the company

Do you think twitter is dead?Who is really using Twitter today?
When Twitter started, I seriously thought it would never catch on, ( but I also thought DVD players would not replace VHS, so I definitely can miss the boat big time.)
Now wherever you go, any conference, any “Internet Marketing” type of gathering, you are told to use twitter and other “social media”.
I even signed up and have been using Tweetdeck, since Tee Morris taught a class with me at the San Francisco Writers Conference on Social Media.
I found Tweetdeck made using Twitter a much more personal type of interface. Yet after awhile I found myself getting distracted by the constant notification chirps and new tweets even though I only have about 10 people/companies I am following. You can turn off the chirps, (which I happen to like actually).  The thing is I already get distracted while working online, and I found keeping Tweetdeck open all the time did not help. There are some benefits, I have found following StudioPress Themes for WordPress and Brian Gardner very helpful and a great resource for me personally, since I use those products ( amazing  WordPress website themes)  in my business.  I greatly admire the wisdom shared by  the founder of  Studio Press, Brian Gardner.  He is a  fun and inspirational guy to follow. Other then that, I have found I am back to checking Twitter about once a week.
I have set it up so that when I blog it automatically tweets my new posts for me.
Part of my philosophy about working online is to try to minimize distractions and stay the course on what you are trying to accomplish.
So it was with great interest that I read this article about why the creator of Twitter, Biz Stone has left the company.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1763873/why-biz-stone-really-left-twitter

A few items jumped out at me.

The majority of  Twitter users, some 190 million as of a year ago, are largely disengaged, tuning in during earthquakes, elections, and scandals. At the end of March of this year, Business Insider reported that:

  • There were 119 million Twitter accounts following one or more other accounts.
  • There were 85 million accounts with one or more followers.
  • Thus, a little subtraction shows us that there are 56 million Twitter accounts following zero other accounts, and 90 million Twitter accounts with zero followers.

“With all the noise on Twitter, the conversations vanished. The vast majority of Twitter accounts are not very active. The ones that are, are largely self-serving.”
This has been my experience with my clients and people I know. What do you think the future looks like for twitter?
Are you an active user? Do you enjoy using twitter? Do you wish twitter would just die and go away?
Leave me a comment and lets discuss this topic!

What is a gravatar, and how do I get one?

WordPress Expert, Web Guru, WordPress WebsitesMany people ask me how to get a gravatar, or really they ask me this, ” How do I get one of those photos that will show up next to my name on other websites”? Many people do not even know what a gravatar is. A gravatar is an image you select , that is attached to whichever email you select, when you sign up for a gravatar here. http://en.gravatar.com/.

This image to the left of me is a gravatar I custom created. I was just using my headshot, but I noticed many places I left a gravatar, left no way of knowing who I was or where I could found. I took one of my images and just added my business name on top there, and now I use this as one of my gravatars.

Another nice thing with gravatars are you can have multiple emails and images attached to each email, so you do not have to have the same image all the time.

  • What do you use a gravatar for?
    Well if you are online much, you problally have a business, a book, a product or just yourself that you would like to promote or have known better, right? So when you leave comments on other websites or in forums, most of the time if you have a gravatar set up, when you leave an email on that part of leaving a comment, (totally private) it will show your gravatar.
    Membership websites on WordPress will show your gravatar. Many different places use this gravatar set up.
  • Is is hard to set up a gravatar?
    Not at all. I have made a short video to show you how easy it is.
    All you need to do really is sign up, find a small image you want to use and upload it and that it is, you are ready to go!

 

  • If you have any questions or comments please leave them below and good luck with your new gravatars!