Media RSS is an RSS extension used to embed images, video, and other elements into the RSS feed. It was developed by Yahoo and the Media RSS community back in 2004. WordPress by default does not include the Media RSS extension, and that’s why your blog doesn’t show thumbnails when read by another service.

Luckily, it’s a really easy fix. Andy Skelton created a plugin called appropriately, MediaRSS that enables the feature. All you have to do is drop it into your plugin directory, activate it, and enjoy the extra traffic your entries will garner with your new shiny thumbnails. Just be aware, that old entries already submitted to FriendFeed may not show thumbnails, but your new entries will.

Download MediaRSS

You may pay attention to market, niche, and general demographic trends that represent the entire industry, but taking the time to analyze your own website’s data may reveal trends that you may have missed otherwise.

On all of my sites that are live, I use Woopra as my analytics program of choice. I do have other tracking running such as Google Analytics and AWStats running, however the advantage of using Woopra is that I have live, real time access to my information as visitors are viewing the pages.

Many analytics programs store data and then publish it once a day. While there is nothing technically wrong in using this data to see trends over time, you are missing a crucial opportunity. An example would be if for instance, one of your pages have been linked by a major publication or is doing well on a social networking site. You may see a huge spike in traffic for that day. Many people that rely on traditional means of site analytics would only see this spike in traffic tomorrow when they are looking at thier data. With Woopra, you will see not only running totals of the amount of visitors on your site, but over 40 different statistical pieces of information including referrers, search engine terms, browser, local time, country, and many more for each visitor.

Woopra uses a standalone client to deliver the information to your desktop. From within the client, you can track multiple websites, browse analytics data over time, and one of my most used features so far, event triggers. Woopra’s event trigger system allows you to set up notifications that display in the lower right hand portion of your screen that can alert you on match to any of the 40 statistics tracked. I personally have event triggers when members comment, or someone looks at my advertising page.

Another very useful feature of Woopra if you run a website that depends on customer service is their live chat feature. Built into the Woopra javascript code is the ability to launch a chat window. If I see any visitor on my site that seems to be having trouble, maybe they are refreshing the same page over and over again, or are on the buy no page with no activity, you can launch a chat request that will allow them to speak to you through the Woopra client.

Currently Woopra is in the beta testing phase, and has not launched officially. However, they are always adding new beta testers, so you shouldn’t have to wait long in order to try Woopra out for yourself. I have been using it since early April, and now I can’t live without it.

For more information on Woopra, please visit their website.

My next project to launch is iBlogForMoney.com. So far, I have been really excited about this site. The main purpose of the site is to show someone how to not only build a great blog that will keep people coming back from day to day, but also how to make a bit of money on the way doing it. One could say, Louis, that’s just another one of the thousands of “make money online” type of blogs.

You would be right.

However, in the clutter of the “make money online” niche, I feel that I do have a unique approach on how to go about setting myself apart from the rest of the herd. Plus, how can I throw away such a great domain name that I have been patiently waiting to buy for most of 2008.

The problem that has kept me from really pushing out the last 10% of development left before launch is, right now, I feel the Internet is in a transitional phase.

Creating a blog that will not only gain readers, but also survive the test of time is harder than ever. As a reader, you have so many blogs to choose from. While I am confident in my ability to produce a very engaging blog, I am left wondering about 2004 to 2006.

For those of you that may not realize the significance of those years in terms of blogging. Take a look at the “about” section of one of your favorite, popular blogs. Chances are, they launched sometime in or around that two year window. Blog popularity sky-rocketed. If you were one of the innovators during that time-period, you are most likely reaping unheard of rewards right now… that is, if you did it correctly.

So why am I reminiscing about the past? We are in one of those periods right now! However, instead of blogs, which revolved around the ideas of one person, the hot keyword for the post blogging bubble is social.

Social networks are popping up like crazy. Instead of focusing on one person’s thoughts and ideas, give users a place to go and let them focus on whatever their hearts desire. It can be anything from focusing on a particular person, conversation, or even posting an article of their own. Owning these types of social assets are where there is money to be made.

If social asset is a new term to you. Let me explain.

Becoming rich is about how many assets you own over liabilities. The simplest concept you must master if you want to be rich. Without going into too much detail, assets are things that put money into your pocket, while liabilities take money from you. If you want a great book to start reading about becoming rich, I recommend Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Owning a blog or a website in which you hope to make money from is just like owning a business. For many, their blog would be considered a liability. Why? Instead of taking money out of your pocket, your website is taking time away from you. If you are not seeing a return on that time invested, you have a liability on your hands. By the nature of running a blog, you are going to spend a considerable amount of time keeping fresh content posted no matter how successful you become. If there is nothing new being posted on your blog, traffic will dwindle, and so will your readers. So, very rarely would I consider a blog an asset.

What you want to own are social assets.

Owning any type of social site that after its launch you rely on users to submit content, post pictures, or interaction in any way is my definition of a social asset. While there may still be a need for you to invest time on the site, if you choose to skip a day or two your site will still be fully functional and growing. An added benefit to creating a social asset is that after launch, you can devote your time to doing it all over again.

Back to my problem. My Japanese pop culture blog, is approaching half a million page views per month. While I love Japanese culture, and run the blog as a way to stay connected with what’s going on in Japan, I honestly can’t see myself successfully being able to devote as much time to creating a second and third blog of that caliber. So rather than put myself through that headache, I want to turn to iBlogForMoney.com into a social asset like the rest of my upcoming projects.

Am I a hypocrite for starting a site about making money from your blog when I myself don’t feel that a blog is the best way to make money? Depends on how you look at it. For those that are looking to make a bit of money from writing about their passions or interests, I hope iBlogForMoney.com will give you some insights on what works and what isn’t worth your time. But if you are looking to making a living off of your blog, there are better ways to do it.

So right now I am a bit torn in which direction I want to go. I would be a bit sad to throw away months of work that I have put into iBlogForMoney.com, but I know in the long run, creating a social asset is the logical route to take.

It has been awhile since we have seen a worthwhile startup in the SEO sector. One new company is breaking ground, and focusing on something very current… tags. Tagatum‘s keyword analysis tools is a self titled “experiment.” However, I can see a real use for a tool such as this. Not to mention its completely free.

When writing a post, many blog authors tag their articles with tags that not only make it easier for spiders to find them for inclusion in search engines, but it allows the particular content management system to better organize posts. Until now, no one paid attention to the relationship between those tags appearing specifically on blogs.

Lets take a look at an example.

A search for “SEO” on Tagatum reveals 1506 tags are related to SEO. The tags google and seo have appeared in the same blog post 94 times as indicated by the Tag Pair Rating. Google has appeared as a tag in posts 5883 times as indicated by the Tag Rating.

So using the Tag Pair Rating as a gauge of which keywords pairs one should focus on for the term SEO would be the first 3 (already ranked by the tag pair rating for you). By using this data, I would first focus on: Google, Internet, and then search engine optimization in terms of keyword density on your page. SEO and Google have appeared the most with 94. However Internet has appeared more times than search engine optimization, so that’s why I have it ranked second.

Seems simple enough right? Using SEO, the results returned may seem like obvious choices. I used it for simplicity. However this tool will shine with niche keywords that are not so obvious to make assumptions about.

The possibilities are endless with Tagatum. The longer their spider runs for, the better the aggregated data will become. This is definitely a startup to keep on your radar.

If you had to choose one thing that keeps us from truly connecting on a global level, what would it be? For me, it has to be language. While language is one of the most fundamental things that unifies a group of people, it also hinders a lot of communication between those same groups.

Enter MeGlobe. This revolutionary new service still in beta hopes to transform online chatting.

MeGlobe

Is it too late for McCain’s social networking attempt? The McCain camp doesn’t seem to think so.

You may remember that this is actually version 2.0 of John McCain’s social network for his 2008 presidential bid. The first network was criticized for not being very functional, and looked as empty as it actually was. Social networks that are not inherently social are doomed to fail. So the new “McCainSpace” as it is known as is an attempt to fix that problem.

If you have been to Obama’s social networking site, My.BarackObama.com, you would know that the groups feature has proved to be golden in organizing local pro-Obama meetings and events. On a socialogical level, this makes sense. Humans are naturally drawn to be included in groups. Groups promote creation of bonds on physical and emotional levels. McCain’s camp has decided to make groups a primary focus on McCainSpace.

I feel this time, McCain’s social network has found the right approach. However, with only 2 months left in the campaign, is it enough time to draw supporters to McCain? Barak Obama’s social network has been around for almost a year, and has been instrumental in gaining support for his campaign. We shall find out in November.

Via Mashable.

If you haven’t noticed yet, change on the web is well underway. No longer are people relying on a handful of websites to find news and information. With the rise of blogging in early 2003, anyone can now create a blog that not only attracts visitors but also can develop into the next big thing.

According to Technorati, there are over 120,000 blogs being created everyday!

With that many new blogs being created daily, a very pressing problem arises. How are we going to keep track of all of those blogs? If you’re anything like me, you have a limited amount of time to keep up with news. So wouldn’t it be nice if everything you want to know was in one place? That’s where social media comes into play.

By using websites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, MIXX, and Propeller, we are able to aggregate the thousands of blogs and websites into usable, searchable, and organized pieces of content. Everything is neatly organized into appropriate categories and tags (short words or phrases used used to describe the website).

How do you get started?

There is a social site for just about everything you can think of. If you like technology, Digg is where I would recommend. If you odd websites, online games, and humor interest you, Stumbleupon should be your starting point. If you are into politics, and world news, Newsvine is the obvious choice.

Don’t let my brief descriptions stop you from trying out them all. Social media is here to stay, and the sooner you begin taking advantage of it, the sooner you will be able to get a handle on this wild, new Internet.