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In a world of iPhones, BlackBerrys, Kindles and 3G-enabled notebook PCs, why would I want to pick up and pay to read only moderately recent blog entries over which I have no control and no immediate way of communicating back with them or seeing the ongoing conversation?

“I thought maybe this would translate into a new, venture-funded model for newspapers, but no one believes print news will survive. If I had a penny left, I would bet newspapers will survive in printed form,” Karp said.

I don’t think the newspaper apocalypse is coming soon, if at all, even though print publishers need to change and adapt to the online landscape. However, I really don’t think there’s the market for creating a daily paper for something that lives online, particularly as blogging now relies more than ever on social media and social networks and that, by nature, can only be handled on the web.

Even if the model were to work for a couple of years, the notion that advertisers pay more for print than online is also fading fast.

In his favor, Karp kept things local. Maybe there’s a place for this, even if it’s an additional section in an existing local paper? I’m still skeptical, though.

Via

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In the words of Jason Preston, you can do something First, or you can do it Well.

The reasoning is interesting. If you do it first you get cited, seen, credit, traffic, readers, and so on. But if you do it well you can provide “real analysis” and “be interesting”.

True. But what is stopping you from being all that even when you’re first?One could argue that being first means that you can’t put any work in your piece, there’s no time for research, spellcheck or thought. Blam! It’s out there, now let’s hope we beat everyone true it.

Sounds like the tech blogs, doesn’t it?

Preston asks:

Would you rather do things First, or Well?

It is a viable question, especially to bloggers. We’re more attuned to a higher pace than traditional (ie old) media. It is worth thinking about.

Personally, I just want to be good. Preferably by publishing First while doing it Well.

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Yet when he started to record instalments from his “Shadowmagic” book on the podcasting service PodioBooks.com, he built up a loyal following of some 20,000 listeners and was soon beating back excited publishers with a big stick.

He had bought some good quality recording equipment and practised before committing his voice to the online service (”I wanted it to be good from the start and not starting to sound good by chapter six,” he said).

“From day one the response was electric. Fan mail poured in. One woman wrote each week and tried to guess what would happen in the next chapter,” he continued. “The Internet had allowed me to reach my audience and it renewed my faith in my writing.”

Just as blogging may help to sell your book, so podcasting may be a way to get noticed if more traditional methods aren’t working.

You still need a decent product and an interesting enough voice to engage people, but it’s an encouraging success story.

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Below is the first online iteration, being a Scribd hosted version, obviously free to embed wherever you want. Full screen mode is recommended.

You can get the audiobook from Wired, and read more on Andersons’ The Long Tail blog. There’s also an Adobe sponsored give-away from Random House in the UK, which naturally features a printed version of the book. Anderson’s got the details on that too.

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We say this is where the Blogosphere meets the Twittersphere, but what does that mean? Twittorati shows what top bloggers are tweeting about, and how these trends compare to Blogosphere trends. You’ll be able to filter tweets by topic, see the most tweeted blog posts, and compare leading Blogosphere and twitter trends.

The site lets you “follow the highest authority bloggers”. More is to come, but for now, check it out. If nothing else, it helps cement the Technorati Top 100 blogs even further.

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You might also be interested that the release of WordPress 2.8.1 is near, with the first release candidate now available. There’s also a beta of WordPress MU 2.8.1 if you like to help testing that.

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This time it is British high street giant Primark who has taken a turn at the mud pit

Discount retailer Primark has launched a staff investigation after several employees posted malicious comments about customers on social networking site Facebook

Of course Primark are not the first and they will not be the last. Previous brand victims have been

• Ryan Air
• Starbucks
• Waitrose
• Tesco
• Virgin Atlantic
• 118 118
• And who can forget about Domino’s Pizza?

What is the answer? What can companies do to save their brands?

1. Have clear policies and training in place for staff before the bad stuff happens so they know the risks, the potential punishment, and you can avoid things getting out through ignorance
2. Realize these networks work for good and bad, which means even if you do not want to use Social Media for marketing, you need to have a presence if you are going to be able to mitigate inevitable issues
3. When the fires start, work hard to get your side across and do not put your head in the sand

Got any more tips for companies who want to protect their brands from the dangerous side of social media? Please share in the comments …

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If you are an RSS addict like I am, you probably stumbled across the news that iTwitter, an iPhone App created by @iConnect, had launched on the App Store.

Uttering those four magical words (push notification for twitter) many users downloaded the app before they had a chance to bump the price from free to $3.99 USD.

While the iTwitter app is impressive overall, its push notification feature may help underscore the need for the Twitter team to establish themselves as a gateway to Apple’s servers instead of the various Tweet clients out there.

Push Notification: Half Glass Full

While iTwitter does support Push Notification (at least according to my iPhone) it only works for people currently using iTwitter–and only for mentions (aka reply’s) and direct messages.

So if your best friend, grandma or roommate is using Twittelator, Twiterific or Tweetie and send you a message saying, “What’s up?,” “Why didn’t you answer when I called?” or “Dude, where’s my car!” you will not be notified unless you open up the app itself.

Unless Twitter can convince Apple to allow itself to become the major “push agent,” (note: which may not happen according to Bill Brown), then we may see fractured results across the twitterverse developer portal.

Aside from that disappointing revelation, the app does have a few features that I found worth noting.

What I loved

The first item that caught my eye about iTwitter was its dedication to landscape mode throughout the entire app.

While most twitter applications display landscape while typing or (if you’re lucky) reading tweets, iTwitter displays it throughout the entire app (which makes life easier for my basketball fingers).

I also enjoyed the simple pop ups that give you the option to favorite, retweet or reply to a person without gobbling up the entire screen real estate of the iPhone.

This same feature is repeated when tapping on a profile, as a pop up appears displaying a users tweet stats, as well as whether you want to follow them or not (or even send them a direct message).

You can even mark all tweets as read, which is helpful if you missed the last 400 plus tweets due to daily life events (such as sleeping).

Last but not least I loved the fact that iTwitter neatly tucks previous responses to your tweet whenever you reply to someone (and vice versa), which helps you remember where the previous conversation was without the need to search or click on extra buttons.

iTwitter does support other common features such as multiple accounts, groupings (where you can see tweets from select individuals), search and the ability to locate nearby Tweetaholics.

What I hated

While I enjoyed the overall layout of iTwitter in general, I was dissapointed by a few things that seemed to be missing from this elegant yet powerful app.

The first was image uploading. By default, iTwitter uses Twitpic, which is a popular among the twitterverse clients.

Unfortunately Twitpic seems to be the ONLY option available, which is not wise as Twitpic is known to go down every once in a while (which is why most twitter clients give you multiple options).

Next is the lack of a URL shortener like Tinyurl or bit.ly (my personal favorite). This makes posting long links very irritating, something that may be a deal breaker for many power users.

Last is the Twitlonger addition. While I do understand why some users may like Twitlonger (as it helps them post tweets over the 140 character barrier), IMHO it would be wiser to simply break up the super long tweets into two smaller ones (sort of like what Twittelator does).

Conclusion

Although iTwitter is a highly polished iPhone app, it may need a more powerful feature in order to attract the masses with its semi-push notification feature.

Since absorbing the Twitter fire hose is expensive, they may want to consider creating a monthly subscription service (say at $3-$4/month) for premium users, in order to make push notification a reality regardless of which Twitter iPhone client one’s friend is using.

While I am excited that someone has created a push notification twitter app, I do hope the team continues to improve this app, as it does have the potential of dethroning the number one tweet champ in the app store (which is Tweetie last I checked).

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The new website hopes to set itself apart with the quality of its community and resulting content selection. Members are a diverse group of business, investment and marketing strategists with an intellectually curious attitude. Blog posts and news articles are selected and ranked based on the number of recommendations.

Strategist News also announced its 2009 Top 50 Business Blogs, an annual ranking of best business blogs on the web. The ranking aspires to shed light on the best business bloggers, based on their popularity, credibility and relevance, from the point of view of business professionals.

Only time will tell if Strategist News can really deliver on its promise of high quality business news and blog posts.

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According to the Media Law Resource Center, the number of libel lawsuits is on the rise.

Even if you are a law-abiding blogger who always speaks the truth, a lawsuit can be filed against you at any time by anyone – that’s just the way the system works.

Before you air your grievances in public about a person, place or thing, try taking a deep breath.

According to an article from Tribune Media Services:

This year, a court awarded $129,794 to an Ohio woman after a blogger said her property was haunted, reports Media Law. Another blogger was ordered to pay $1.8 million after referring to someone as a “failed lawyer.”

Wow! A juicy headline can lead to more clicks and more followers, but you can bet your bottom dollar that your online friends won’t pitch in for legal fees if you get slapped with a monstrous lawsuit.

Blogging has become such a risk, that several well-known insurance agencies have begun including libel protections under certain homeowner’s and umbrella policies.

Even if your current plan does not cover such legal problems, you can likely add a rider to your current policy.

Under $1,000 a year can give you the peace of mind to speak your mind!

You can also check out BlogInsure.

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When most people think of the GPL, they immediately think of Linux, Firefox (which actually uses several licenses, including the GPL) or other well-known programs that use it. However, several blogging platforms are also GPL including WordPress and Open Melody, a fork of Six Apart’s Open Movable Type project.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at the GPL, what it is, what it means and, most importantly why it is important to bloggers and those who are running Web sites on open source platforms (including, for example, phpBB).

To start off, we’re going to talk about some of the basic premises of the GPL, what the actual license says and what your freedoms and rights are with GPLed software.

Open Source and The Two Kinds of Free

Open source software is a very broad term that describes software distributed under a license that, among other things, allows users to distribute the work, allows the creation of derivative works and allows access to the source code among other rights. The GPL is one of many different licenses classified by the Open Source Initiative as meeting their standards and is easily one of the most popular.

It is important to note that, in open source circles, there are two common definitions of the word “free”. The first is free as in “free beer”, which refers to the amount paid, and the other is free as in “freedom” or “free speech”, which refers to the rights that the user has over the software they acquire.

With open source software, it is the latter “free” that is protected. GPL and open source software, though often distributed at no cost, is not always free of cost. There are many Linux distributions, such as several Red Hat versions, that cost money though they are still licensed under the GPL.

The caveat to this is that any person who purchases a copy of the software must receive a copy of the source code and can redistribute the software without cost. Thus, every customer could, at least theoretically, turn around and give away your product for free without a license.

For this reason, many for-profit companies that distribute GPL software distribute the product for free, but sell service contracts and support.

But how does the GPL ensure these freedoms, especially over the long term? The answer lies within the license itself.

The Foundations of the GPL

The GPL is founded on four key principles, each of which are reflected in the license itself.

• The freedom to use the software for any purpose,
• The freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
• The freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
• The freedom to share the changes you make.

Any software licensed under terms that protect these four rights is considered “free”. The GPL protects these four rights through two very simple clauses contained within it, the first of which says:

You may convey verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.

This section deals with verbatim or exact copies of a GPL work, saying that you can distribute copies as you wish, including charging for them, so long as you keep intact all disclaimers and provide a copy of the license. If you distribute the work in a binary or other non-source code format, such as an exe file, you must also make the source available.

The second, and perhaps more important protection, is in the handling of modified versions of the source code, where the license says:

You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date.

b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.

c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so.

This allows others, without obtaining any additional license to make and distribute modified versions of the source code so long as their modifications are licensed under the same license. This prevents others from taking a GPLed work, writing some new code for it, and then licensing it under their own, more restrictive license.

This helps to ensure that the “free” software remains free, no matter who modifies it and for what reasons.

It is these protections that make GPL software so appealing to bloggers and other Webmasters. Even though many are lured in by the free price tag on most GPL content management systems, it is these GPL provisions that serve to ensure the longevity of these projects and that bloggers/Webmasters who depend on them will have built their sites on very solid ground.

Next Up: Why GPL Blogging Software is Important

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Meanwhile CNN is planning to integrating people’s MJ memories from Facebook with their upcoming live coverage of the memorial. Assuming you’re one of the millions not holding a ticket to the Staples Center, Mashable tells you where you can watch the memorial online. There is no way anyone in the social web will miss this, wether they like it or not.

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The entry under noun will read: “a website where people can post short messages about their current activities” and under verb it will read: “to write short messages on the Twitter website”.

By the way things are going, we’ll most likely see more dictionaries adding Twitter, and other coined expressions as well as descriptive brands from social media soon.

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It’s unclear at this point how this project will differ from the existing open source version of MT. Certainly, a different leadership is going to have different priorities. The Melody folks seem to be bending over backward to show this is not a break from MT, but just a separate development branch. And, similarly, Six Apart has welcomed the new project. So I doubt we’ll see any of the commercial MT features rewritten as open source modules, at least in the near term. It’s more likely we’ll see features that are useful to independent developers (and, consequently, small to medium size businesses) instead of the enterprise-level development that seems to be 6A’s focus.

Byrne Reese, a long-time MT developer and one of the founders of Melody, was kind enough to respond in the comments and set me straight:

Don’t be so sure. For Melody to be successful, it still has to compete, even in some respects against Movable Type. That being said, any feature in Melody requires someone committed enough to develop it.

One priority for me personally is profiles – that is a feature I believe strongly should be core. If Melody is going to be a “progressive” let alone modern blogging and publishing app then profiles is essential. Others have mentioned implementing custom fields.

My hope though is that Six Apart will see the value in us collaborating on a shared code base. Those decisions however are not made quickly or easily – and they must be made with shared interests in mind.

So time will tell certainly, but do expect Melody to be a serious and compelling alternative to Movable Type. Melody is not a hobby for those committed to its success – it is a serious product looking to compete.

To me, this says more about the project then the original announcement did. Specifically, that Melody is not just a separage development track of MT, but a separate — and potentially competing — open source project.

If you’re interested in the direction Melody takes, I recommend reading their blog post on proposing changes. It outlines how best to submit your ideas for Melody.

What have you done with MT (or Melody) lately? Let us know in the comments.

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Part of the gig includes setting locals up with the equipment and know-how they need to tell their stories.

The organization is hoping to have their next Australian blogger on the ground before Christmas ‘09.

If you are dreaming of giving those a social media voice who might not otherwise be heard, this is your chance!

ActionAid is currently trying to raise $10,000 in order to help cover the cost of the next blog outpost.

If you are interested in the charity work, you can register or nominate someone here. (Application process closes on August 30). If you like to donate, please click here.

ActionAid takes a rights-based approach to poverty eradication, focusing on six key human rights:
1) Women’s and girls’ rights
2) The right to food
3) The right to education
4) The right to just and democratic governance
5) The right to human security in conflict and emergencies
6) The right to life and dignity in the face of HIV and AIDS

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That’s according to Tim Hunt, MD of UK-based marketing company Flexile.

At a time when companies need to save money, Hunt reckons that they should dump TV, magazine and junk mail advertising and instead embrace the Internet “where buyers now flock to find products and services”.

He has harsh words for ad agencies, claiming that they perpetuate the myth that the Internet is an immature environment.

“With good advice, British firms can compete on a national and global scale using the Internet … something a 30-second TV commercial can’t do.”

He also suggested that this huge advertising bill would be better spent on creating productive jobs.

It comes at a time when the CEO of Publicis (owner of Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi) admitted that search engines can deliver better results than a mainstream advertising campaign.

“Fact is, UK firms need to get their brands noticed by search engines if they want to compete. If you can’t be found on Google, it’s unlikely you’ll be found at all,” said Hunt.

Though he doesn’t specifically mention blogs, microblogging or social media, there’s little doubt this is what companies need to embrace, as well as maintaining a decent web site that’s well indexed by the search engines, if they’re to do well online.

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This from the response, bold text added by yours truly:

In conclusion, the WordPress themes supplied contain elements that are derivative of WordPress’s copyrighted code. These themes, being collections of distinct works (images, CSS files, PHP files), need not be GPL-licensed as a whole. Rather, the PHP files are subject to the requirements of the GPL while the images and CSS are not. Third-party developers of such themes may apply restrictive copyrights to these elements if they wish.

Mullenweg reaffirms his stance to only host GPL compatible themes on wordpress.org, and points to the commercial GPL themes page that rolled out recently.

The discussion is of course alive and well, but it focuses more on the ramifications of having a license like GPL. Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software thinks it is limiting the development of projects, simply because of the fact that most developers wants to be compensated for their work. This is true, I’ve heard that criticism on a lot of companies I’ve been working with over the years, but then again that was the old media and breed, this is the new transparent open one. They might disagree? The discussion will continue, and it is an interesting one for sure.

To help clear up the confusion, we’ll launch a series on GPL tomorrow, here on the Blog Herald of course. Stay tuned.

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Hat tip: Quick Online Tips

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TweetCraft autotweets achievements and lets you send in-game screenshots to TwitPic, which is nerdy and also pretty cool. I bet the WoW junkies will love this one. Check it out, and do watch the TweetCraft trailer below:

Hat tip: Twitter Blog

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This release offers many usability improvements, based on making bbPress more approachable for adopters who are accustomed to WordPress. To that end bbPress 1.0 now has a similar administration interface to WordPress and uses similar descriptions and names where appropriate. bbPress also behaves more like WordPress when it comes to things like automatically generating your .htaccess file when setting up permalinks.

BbPress has been stable for quite some time, actually, but in desperate need of polishing for most users. The 1.0 release is said to bring that, along with great support for integration with WordPress 2.7 and 2.8. Naturally, you can download it from bbpress.org.

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Yes, according to BBC NEWS a certain company has already started selling us by the 1,000

Australian social media marketing company uSocial is offering a paid service that finds followers for users of the micro-blogging service.

Followers are available in blocks starting at $87 (£53) for 1,000. The biggest block uSocial is selling is 100,000 people.

Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating my claim just a little ;)

What the service offers to do is introduce Twitter users to the company. It is kind of like an individualized and paid for recommendation. Monetized Follow Friday?

Description on the company site

USocial estimated that each follower on Twitter was worth about 10 cents a month to a company that got them to sign up. The money would be made from adverts and sales on websites that followers click through to.

Obviously there are no guarantees that any of the folks who get sent recommendations will actually follow the person recommended so it can vary how long it takes to get to the 1,000 that you paid for. There are probably many bots getting these recommendations too. I wonder how many people block the account after getting one of these notifications?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments …

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Needless to say, we think these claims have no merit, otherwise we would not have written the posts in the first place, or would have retracted.

I did an email interview with Sethi, after he got in touch with me and wanted me to correct or retract the news story (which I didn’t do, obviously). I figured an interview would be the best way to get Sethi’s side of the story.

The interview spanned a couple of days, and was made via email.

Why have you decided to sue TechCrunch?

To clear up the lies written by Mike Arrington. To seek costs for the printing of a stolen termsheet and to put the record straight.

The termsheet mentioned is a leaked document which TechCrunch published. The source is said to be an anonymous one.

What do you hope to gain from the process?

Vindication and reward for the editors of Blognation.

Would you like to comment on Arrington’s claim that you are or have been sued, and that you are or have been banned from acting as a director or manager in a company as a result of these lawsuits/complaints?

I placed a link to the disqualified directors directory on companies house here in the UK. That is enough to tell you that I am not disqualified. Equally Starr did try to sue me but this was overturned by the courts in UK.

So you are not involved in any other lawsuits at this time, nor are you in any way hindered to run a business legally?

Yes I am closing a case against Oliver Starr but nothing is preventing me from running a business legally.

The mentioned link is Companies House’s disqualified directors directory. A search for “Sethi” doesn’t return any hits, so he is definitely not in that directory right now. The Starr mentioned is Oliver Starr, who posted an open letter to Sethi back in December 2007, regarding Blognation. That’s a story in itself. When asked, Sethi didn’t want to share his side of the story at this time.

I continued to push the issue about Sethi being legally hindered to manage a company the day after. It does shed some more light on the matter.

So you are not involved in any other lawsuits at this time, nor are you in any way hindered to run a business legally?

I answered this last night. I was invovled in a previous business where my business partner stolen monies and put it in his personal bank account. I had to pay back that money in order that I was no associated with the issue and resigned from the company. My partner was however banned as a director which is what Arrington is hinting at and trying to associate with me.

Sethi didn’t want to add anything more than this, and referred to the ongoing lawsuit of course, which is understandable. I did, however, comment on the fact that he’s in the UK and is trying to sue an American company on US servers.

There is TC UK/europe and that is up to a court although right now TC are hiding behind that issue.

I’m not so sure about that, actually. Unless there is an actual TechCrunch company or person responsible in the UK, how will Sethi get to them? Then again, I’m not a lawyer so I wouldn’t know.

So there you have it, Sethi’s take on the lawsuit, why he filed it, and his response to Arrington’s post on CrunchNotes. When asked to comment, Arrington referred to his post and the law firm’s response to the lawsuit within.

Sethi’s answers in this interview does clear up a few things, but until everything surrounding Blognation is on the table, it is hard to know what really happened and who did what. One thing’s for sure though, the voices speaking up against Sethi in this endeavor are numerous, and it is in everyone’s interest that the truth will be unfolded. Except anyone not playing by the rules, of course, but let’s hope there is as little of that in this affair as possible.

Sadly, I doubt this lawsuit is the end of it, nor will it tell all.

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Riley also announced a syndication deal with BANG Showbiz, which means that The Inquisitr can run up to ten stories from their celebrity content stock, as an addition to the regular celebrity coverage. Finally, Riley also announced a deal with GumGum for celebrity photography. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out, especially the syndication deal.

As for traffic, Riley reports that pageviews are down in June, 2.7 million to 2.55. He calls it a comfortable level.

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I caught up with Matt Mullenweg for some quick questions about this via email. This is what he had to say.

Why did the new page get created?

To promote people doing the right thing.

Matt also tells me that there are no plans yet on how to develop this page, nor are there any plans for hosting commercial GPL themes in the WordPress directory. The latter would be great since it would allow updates through the admin interface for the users.

What about commercial plugins, any chance of them getting the same treatment?

Commercial plugins are already seamlessly integrated with the plugin directory.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, Matt.

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At present it’s a fairly limited offering, indexing “some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres”.

It seems that you can only search for the latest tweets from certain people who have been indexed, using syntax such as “[name] Twitter” or “[name] Tweets” or “@[name]”.

As a concept, it’s a good start though I’m not interested in using any search engine to find anyone’s latest tweets — I use Twitter or one of its desktop clients for that.

What I’d like to see is Twitter results integrated into regular searches.

Perhaps if I search for information on someone who has a Twitter account, it could return their latest tweets in a results pane alongside web pages, images, video etc.

If I search for information on a topic, it could tell me who the prominent people to follow on Twitter are and who most recently tweeted on that topic.

I can do this from Twitter’s own search page, but I think the job of a good search engine is the aggregation and filtering of information from a variety of sources.

I don’t want another way to search Twitter. I want a way to integrate Twitter into the wider web.

I’m sure it’s coming, but who’ll get there first? Even if it’s Bing, current market share dictates that only when Google jumps on board will Twitter search and integration become really big news.

Official Bing blog

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Tinker.com was launched in the US last month and will trial in the UK before being fully implemented and funded by advertising.

Conversations being held across Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed are currently aggregated by the service.

Advertising will include the ability for brands to sponsor certain words, plus embedded widgets on the Tinker interface.

Interesting that third parties are finding ways of monetizing this content while Twitter itself struggles.

(Via MediaWeek)

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I’ll basically be doing what I do now, just probably fewer posts a day plus some actual reviews and stuff. I’m excited/nervous/gassy. All that.

Richard Lawson is one of the key entertainment writers on Gawker, and apparently averaged 2.4 million pageviews per month which is top of the bill according to the SAI story. In other words, a blow to the Gawker Media network, not only by the loss of a writer but also in pure money since it is unlikely that his replacement will reach the same levels quickly.

Lawson will write for CBS Interactive’s TV.com.

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Some of them you may pay for access, some of them are membership sites, some may give you the theme for zero-cost and just charge for support. What they all have in common is people behind them who support open source, WordPress, and its GPL license.

If you’re selling GPL themes for WordPress you can get listed, just scroll down to the bottom of the page. Personally, I think the themes should be hosted on wordpress.org so that they got automatic updates and so on, but that’s a whole other story. I do hope this is just the first step of many in this area, but we’ll see. An official blog post has yet to outline this addition, which might or might not have been up for some time, I really can’t tell.

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And gdgt might very well be an interesting site, surely one to follow. It is not like the predecessors, Engadget or Gizmodo, but more of a social beast, which is interesting.

Block has this to say in the announcement post:

While the core concepts that drive the site — gadgets and community — will always stay the same, what we’re most excited about is the fact that we can use gdgt as the foundation for building tons of new features and tools for the gadget world. Stuff like the gadget finder — which lets you search for devices based on specs (finally!) — is only the start. We’re already working like crazy thinking up lots of new stuff to introduce over the coming months.

Having a hard time to grasping the concept? Veronica Belmont explains in a promo video:

So “G-D-G-T” is it? “Gadget” is cooler.

Anyway, the launch has gotten some coverage already, and maybe that’s why the site went down for “upgrades” for a little while. Update: Traffic right now is a bit bumpy still…

We’ll most likely return to this one later one, with more coverage. For now, check it out, and tell me: Will gdgt be a serious competitor to Engadget and Gizmodo?

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We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of “going after” the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.

That’s good, I think. It is also good that they come clean and say that they are “a bit more wary” about the use of Twitter in projects. So cancel that Twitter Herald project and find another name, you might get in trouble otherwise.

In all seriousness, any service or product that wants people to build things around it need to be crystal clear about these things. It is not only completely unnecessary to have to send a Cease and Desist to enthusiasts, it is also really poor PR. Twitter knows that, apparently, but they should probably make sure those promised guidelines and such get rolled out soon.

The Twitter blog post was sparked by a blog post by Robin Wauters on TechCrunch, who got to read an email conversation between a Twitter API team member and a third-party developer.

So maybe we should all poke Twitter a bit more so that they can come clean with some rules about their trademarks already?

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Pingdom Free has all the features of our paid account types. The only limitation is that you can only monitor one website or server, but that should be enough for a lot of bloggers and hobbyist webmasters out there.

You also get 20 SMS alerts for free as well, which is nice. Naturally, you can upgrade your account to monitor more sites and get more SMS alerts (email is free) and so on whenever you like. Which of course is the whole idea.

Give it a go, free is the best price ever and I can, as a user, honestly say that Pingdom is great. Particularly when you don’t hear from them…!

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Changing the list appearance is performed through the button up in the top left of your Following list.

After you hit the expanded version you will now see more detail, including the person’s last tweet.

For each person there is a cog-icon button. This is a contextual menu that allows you to unfollow, block, direct message or @mention the person in your tweet.

One thing I think the Twitter folks have missed is a visual indication for if this person follows you back or not. You can look in the menu to see if you are allowed to direct message them, but it would be nice to be able to see this in the skimmable list.

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Setting it up

To start using Flickr2Twitter you need to add and then authorize your Twitter account on Flickr and Twitter respectively. Visit the add a blog page (you need to be logged into Flickr) and choose Twitter from the list. Click the Go to Twitter to Authorize button, which will send you to Twitter, forcing you to login if you’re not already, and then asks you to authorize the application. Do that, and you’ll get sent back.

On the result page, after the Twitter authorization, you’ll find your email address. Sending photos to this address will not only post them to Twitter, it’ll also add them to your Flickr account, which makes it very useful with a mobile phone.

You can also send photos on Flickr directly to your Twitter account using the Share This button.

Simple and smart, this is Twitpic for Flickr users.

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I’ll say this though, I love the openness of which Arrington treats these things. I know I’d think twice before publishing something from a law firm with this in the heading:

Letter Before Action
Private & Confidential (Not For Publication)

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Despite getting rave reviews from bloggers like Scoble and TechCrunch, there are still very few iPhone apps available for Friendfeed. While six iPhone apps have appeared for Friendfeed, only half of them seem to have any active development upon them (at least where the quality is worth the price).

While Buddyfeed seems to have dominated the Friendfeed market (especially with the roll out of Buddyfeed 2.0), it looks as if they may have a new challenger on their hands by the name of Amigo.

Developed by David J. Hinson (of Summer Systems Management), Amigo reminds me of an app in eternal Fiesta, mainly because of its vibrant colors that do not leave one feeling totally relaxed. Priced at $2.99, Amigo costs about the same as Buddyfeed, although the app does have a few features lacking when compared against is main rival.

The Good

Even though both apps have many similar features (too many to list here), the first thing I loved about Amigo was (drum roll please) landscape mode!

While typing away in portrait mode can be fun with one hand, it can become very annoying when you need to post something quickly with two fat basketball thumbs (especially when they get into each others way!).

You can even read your friends collective activities in landscape mode as well, which is really helpful if one of them enjoys posting large images.

Another item I enjoyed was the ability to not only look upon a person’s Friendfeed profile, but individually check out their blog, Facebook account or tweet stream within the app (apart from the Friendfeed stream).

This is extremely helpful if you ever discover someone interesting and you want to subscribe to their blog/twitter account locally, instead of receiving everything via Friendfeed.

Last but not least, I enjoyed how Amigo uses stripes throughout the stream to make it easier to differentiate between posts, which makes it easier to scroll through what your friends have posted throughout the day.

The Bad

Although Amigo does have some great features that I have been seeking in a Friendfeed app for quite some time, there were a few items that I felt were lacking when compared to its main rival, Buddyfeed.

The first feature was the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. Even though Amigo does present a user with the most widely used options, the app does not give users the freedom to select which buttons should appear on the bar (as some users may be more interested in rooms than the public Friendfeed stream).

While I am glad that the latest update to Amigo finally supports uploading images to Friendfeed, they only limit you to one image per post, while two of its rivals (Buddyfeed and Motherfeed) allow more.

Last but not least the search feature on Amigo did not seem to be as advanced as Buddyfeed’s, the latter which allows for one to search for items by their friends, themselves or the entire Friendfeed universe.

Conclusion

Although Amigo is a strong rival to Buddyfeed, it may still need to add some extra features in order to dethrone the current champ from its throne.

While power users would probably be wise to go with Buddyfeed (mainly for its host of features), those seeking simplicity may enjoy Amigo—especially those with basketball fingers (like me).

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Following on from the lucky Brit who gets to blog about the Great Barrier Reef comes a new dream blogging job.

Quark Expeditions will be sending one couple on a $20,000 cruise to Antarctica in February next year, where they’ll blog about the experience for all to read.

There are currently 191 bloggers registered, and there’s still time to join in.

Alternatively, you can vote for the person you’d most like to send. Visitors only get one vote but can change it as many times as they like during the course of the competition, which closes on September 30. Over 5,000 votes have already been cast.

I wonder where bloggers will be sent next?

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WordCamp 2009 is officially in the books. With two and a half days of some of the best community, speakers and information, it was an incredible event. Over the course of the weekend, I saw some of the best blogging-related presentations, met many of the most wonderful people in the blogging world and observed some of the worst bowling ever witnessed by man (though most of that was my own).

The event was a smashing success with over 300 attendees. Organized by John Pozadzides and sponsored prominently by his company, Woopra, it was, according to those in attendance, the second-largest WordCamp in the world.

But while the best part of these WordCamps is always the community and getting to meet all of the people who share your passion, there were also a slew of great speakers, 16 in total, plus a panel discussion. Even for a veteran blogger, there was a great deal to learn.

So, as I try to digest and take in everything I saw and learned at WordCamp Dallas, a more complete recap is forthcoming on my site, here are five things I’m holding onto dearly as WordCamp Dallas closes up for the year (in no particular order).

6. Using Social Media

Giovanni Gallucci gave a very passionate and interesting talk about ways to use social media to help your site gain traction both with readers and with the search engines. Though I may not have agreed with all of his “blue hat” tactics (tactics that combine black hat and white hat elements) I definitely learned a great deal about how you can use your accounts on other sites to promote your main offering and how to target your content to the keywords that are most valuable to your readers.

It was an incredibly informative talk that has me thinking of ways to alter my site and my presence elsewhere.

5. WordPress Custom Fields

Randy Hoyt gave an incredible talk about using WordPress’ custom fields in your blog posts. As the user of a magazine-style template for my main site, I use these custom fields every day but never really thought about all of the things that they could do.

Hoyt’s talk got me really thinking about new ways I can use custom fields to control the layout of my site including, possibly, the addition of subheads, a better review system and perhaps most importantly, use custom fields to help me organize the front page of my site so I do not have to use my categories.

Hoyt also talked a great deal about plugins that can help manage these custom fields and I will probably be very busy over the next week playing with them.

4. Categories and Tags

Speaking of categories and tags. Lorelle VanFossen gave a great Star-Trek themed talk about the proper use of categories and tags on your site. Like most bloggers, I didn’t have much of a plan when I started categorizing and then tagging posts and it shows.

Lorelle’s talk showed everyone how to cut through that clutter and now that, thanks to Randy Hoyt’s talk, I should be free of the category ball and chain as a site layout tool, I should be able to at least completely redo my categories to provide much better organization, usability and SEO to the site, both for the search engines and my visitors.

I can’t wait.

3. Design and Layout

In one of the more entertaining talks, Liz Strauss “ripped apart” John Pozadzides’ blog layout while he worked in his admin panel to try and fix the layout more to her (and the audience’s) liking.

But as entertaining as the spectacle was, it came with it several bits of advice and ideas as only Liz can provide them including remembering why you are blogging and putting that information front and center. This, in turn, got me to take a new look at my blog layout and, as a result, I’m almost certainly going to be making some changes.

Liz Strauss is simply one of those people that, when you think you’ve almost learned everything she has to offer, you realize you’ve barely scratched the surface.

2. WordPress as a CMS

WordPress is widely known as a blogging platform but it really is much more powerful than that. Through both native functionality and some plugins, you can use WordPress as a content management system, in short, using WordPress to manage a non-blog Web site or a very complicated site where a blog is just a part of the picture.

This was the thrust of Scott Clark’s talk (and musical number) as he discussed both the general usefulness of WordPress and highlighted several plugins that expand this capability, including Pods, one he helped create.

Combined with Randy Hoyt’s talk about custom fields, the power and flexibility of WordPress really began to click. Even better though, his talk is already available on Vimeo (the others will soon be available on WordPress.tv)

1. Multimedia, Multimedia, Multimedia

It was the theme of WordCamp Dallas in many ways. Dave Moyer, David Curlee and Cali Lewis all gave talks that dealt with, in some way, adding multimedia to your blog and the importance thereof.

Clearly this is a big part of the future direction of blogging and it is going to be important for all bloggers to at least try their hand at multimedia content from time to time. Now is the time to begin learning the technology involved in creating podcasts and videos as well as to begin honing those skills. Also, As David Curlee pointed out, the technology is getting much cheaper and much easier to use.

Bottom Line

On top of these presentations, there were many other great speakers including DB Ferguson, who discussed the steps to becoming an authority blogger, Matthew “Spamboy” McGarity talked about how to install WordPress on your home computer for testing purposes and Mark “Rizzin” Hopkins (who was livestreaming last year’s event for Mashable) gave a talk about moving beyond Adsense on your blog to earn more money (very useful for those who run ads on their site).

I was also speaking at the event, in a talk dealing with finding free and legal content for your blog. Douglas Hanna, who works for Automattic, gave a talk about the WordPress showcase and, most important of all Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic was there to talk about the state of WordPress.

All in all, there was an incredible amount to learn and glean from this even and this post barely scratches the surface of what all went down. It was an incredible weekend in Dallas and I am already looking forward to Wordcamp in 2010.

If you weren’t able to attend live or catch the livestream on GeekBrief.tv, don’t worry, the videos from the presentations will be posted on WordPress.tv shortly. So stay tuned.

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If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And – you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us.

The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets – quite the opposite. Now we’re fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It’s win-win-win.

From the post, it seems that the direction of The Pirate Bay is that of the social media route, allowing Internet vagabonds the luxury of removing their cowls and becoming friends with fellow media sharers around the world. This brings to mind a study reported by Ars Technica, claiming pirates as the biggest legal digital media spenders.

[Accents are c/o BlogHerald]

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The results are in, and James Whatley is the lucky man who’ll be jetting off to Namibia on Saturday.

James will need to film, photograph, tweet and blog every aspect of each trip, including capturing footage and interviewing the participants.

He’ll be:

1. Sandboarding in Namibia
2. Cattle ranching in Wyoming
3. White water rafting in Zambia
4. Yacht racing in the Caribbean
5. Glacier climbing in the Alps

There are several ways to keep tabs on the adventure. Here’s the official web site and there’s a Facebook fan page too.

You can also read about James’s experience and see what he had to do to get picked.

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Welcome to the era of blogs, where reviews can be applauded, questioned, and picked apart not only by the masses (aka the readers), but also by the publishers and producers.

It used to be a straight forward thing, reviewing a product. Not anymore, because when anyone can publish a commentary on their own ground (aka the blog), it also means that reviewers suddenly find themselves being constantly reviewed.

We’ve all seen them, the reviews that are out there, dead wrong, downright crappy. Sometimes it is true, and sometimes it is our point of view that just clashes with the reviewer. Either way, there used to be a time when the only means of expressing our thoughts on a review was to send a letter to the newspaper or magazine.

And wait for a response or publication that never came.

Not so anymore. Today, we launch a blog and write what we think. Established authors understanding the means of today already blog and are more or less active in social media, if nothing else but so that they can use it as a means should they come under attack.

OK, maybe we’re not there just yet, but web-savvy authors certainly have the option to respond to criticism thanks to blogging and the ease of online publishing. And when it comes to Chris Anderson and his response, I think it is a sign of things to come.

The blog is alive and kicking, if nothing else but because it is hard to pick critics and arguments to pieces in 140 characters or less.

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When the course launched, it was selling at $77 per month and sold out very quickly.

Now the monthly price has been reduced to $47 per month, which you pay for the six months course duration.

That’s still beyond the reach of many new bloggers, at whom this course is aimed. As with many of these courses, it comes down to the amount of time and money you have to invest in your blogging. It is possible to find a lot of free resources online (Blogging Pro, Tubetorial, Pro-Blogging and Performancing to name just four of ours) but there’s no doubt that you can benefit from the wisdom of successful probloggers like Yaro and Gideon if you’re willing to invest not only the cash but the time.

Course registration closes at on 11:59pm (EST) on Friday 3rd July.

(By the way, the above course link is not an affiliate link.)

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It’s unclear at this point how this project will differ from the existing open source version of MT. Certainly, a different leadership is going to have different priorities. The Melody folks seem to be bending over backward to show this is not a break from MT, but just a separate development branch. And, similarly, Six Apart has welcomed the new project. So I doubt we’ll see any of the commercial MT features rewritten as open source modules, at least in the near term. It’s more likely we’ll see features that are useful to independent developers (and, consequently, small to medium size businesses) instead of the enterprise-level development that seems to be 6A’s focus.

A couple of other items this week. First, Mike T. explains how to install MT over SSH. This is my preferred way to do an install/upgrade, since it eliminates a lot of the permissions issues you can run into with FTP.

Finally, Beau Smith shows us how to add edit links to entries and pages. Combined with a bit of PHP to check for a cookie, this would be an easy way for logged in users to quickly edit posts.

What have you done with MT lately? Let us know in the comments.

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A blog is more structured. It’s posts. This is freestyle.

Related: Louis Gray’s post on blogging still being the foundation to build upon.

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Well, here are four of the simplest – but, wouldn’t you know it, also hardest – ways to promote your blog. See if one or more of these makes you slap your forehead and say, “Snap! I totally forgot about that.”

And then of course all you’ve got to do is do something about it. :)

In increasing order of forehead slappiness:

4. Pick up the phone. You’ve got one of those nearby, don’t you? Hey, you’ve probably got one in your pocket right now. Dial somebody’s number, wait till they answer, and say, “Hey, what’s up? Have you checked out my blog? It’s really cool, you might like it.” Embellish as desired. But seriously, nothing beats direct mouth-to-ear communication for spreading the word about a blog.

3. Put some pants on. And get out the door and go somewhere where you can apply the “hey, I can talk to people” concept from #4 above in a physical, offline setting. Repeat after me: “I need to tell that guy on the street corner with the sweet trumpet skills about my blog.” That, or the group of suits at your next business conference.

2. Blog about … your blog. This one is like, “ouch.” So easy to do, and yet so many bloggers fail to do it. For heaven’s sake, just put out a blog post every now and then (but not much more often than that) saying hi to your readers and letting them know what’s up. What you’ve been working on writing or recording or assembling for them, what that shiny new widget bling in the sidebar means to them, why you think they ought to subscribe to your blog updates by email or RSS, and especially, why they should pretty please (with sugar on top) tell their friends about your blog.

1. Be more valuable. Maybe — just maybe — your blog is tough to promote because it’s not really all that special. Don’t get me wrong – you as an individual are plenty special. But what do people really think when they see your blog and partake of its content? Does it jar them awake at 3 AM because they can’t shake the sweet awesomeness? Or does it fade within a tenth of a second into the rest of the ginormous ocean of constantly churning content in their brains? When was the last time you sat and just meditated for a few minutes on what you could do to make your blog more irresistible, more addictive, more magical, more incredible – in short, more promotable?

Hope these get your bloggity brain going. Any other forehead-slapping ideas on how to get your blog out there more prominently?

image credit: Russell D Egan

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As you would image, computers – and blogs – have crept their way into the classroom. One of the cooler sites is 21Classes. Designed to get your “classroom” blogging, the publishing platform enables teachers, with any level of technology know-how, to set up a portal for their classes.

Each student gets their own blog, a personal space where they can freely express themselves while fostering greater communication/interaction amongst other kids.

There is a central console where the teacher can create accounts as well as a master homepage for the class.

Add in edit/publish features, the ability to upload images/multi-media, and fully customizable templates (via CSS), and you’ll impress your principal!

A free account will handle up to 10 students. But for more robust features, including 100 students, a personalized domain, the ability to upload HTML and adjust security settings, you can expect to pay around $9 a month.

The only question remaining…how young is too young to blog?

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Twitter is more than just status updates

It seems from talking to lots of people there is still some considerable confusion around how Twitter @replies work. The problem is that @replies are a vital part of Twitter, they make it more about discussion than “status updates”.

The Twitter folks have never had a comfortable relationship with using Twitter for discussion. In fact @Replies took a while to come to the service, they were a community invention, then third party tools included buttons and tools to make it easier, and finally Twitter gave in to pressure and added support.

As you can see at the Twitter Blog even back last year they were worried about replies appearing in public streams …

We’re trying to avoid the situation of you hearing someone answer a question when you didn’t hear the question (for instance). Also, you don’t have to hear answers to the question from people you don’t want to hear from. (If you’re not following them, you won’t see their answer.)

They made it so you had to opt-in to all replies. In the end, they took away this ability altogether.

Twitter’s logic is quite compelling, until you realize that some people, me included, like to see discussion with people I am not following! It was a key way that I found new people to follow. If someone I was watching sent an interesting response to someone I did not know, I would hit the “in reply to” link in TweetDeck to get context. This was a key way I found new people to follow, and I miss it.

There is a workaround, but not for followers, it has to be initiated by the Tweeter. Twitter shows any tweet that does not start with @ to all of your followers. So if you want your reply to be seen by the recipient and everyone else, start with a character other than @. For example:

Yes @chrisgarrett Twitter SHOULD fix their reply system

Do you agree that Twitter made a mistake with this change or do you prefer to only see replies to people you are already following? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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