Most of the top bloggers and podcasters are available to logged in forum members to comment upon and or promote. Please become a member of the TAJ forum to add to the conversations here. These forums are protected - be a good citizen when posting here!
Forums Available to TAJ Forums Members in this Category
Ok, Ok, so this is not my normal kind of post but I am feeling a bit off topic today after the long 4th of July weekend...
How did this lead to an Ass Hat?
This morning, I opened my email and was of course caught in the avalanche of electronic stress messages. (Why don't I listen to Tim Ferris of the 4 Hour Work Week?).
One of, well, several of these emails - 12 to be exact, was from LinkedIn. LinkedIn was informing me that I had 12 people who "had asked to be part of my network" - ahhh this is nice, lets do that for some easy mindless wakeup data processing...
As I worked through the invitations and replies (mostly from colleagues at the Examiner.com), I came across one particular invite that caught my eye.
First thing that caught my eye was the tag line...
In today's world you must be unique and you must say something in a short flash of time to catch peoples ever crowded trains of thought. Cheryl Phillips says to the world that she is a blonde on a daily basis - not that there is anything wrong with that... (Paraphrasing Seinfeld).
To me this says Cheryl has a sense of humor and... the moxie to make something of it. I dug deeper, which in today's world is not a huge demand on journalistic resources... What I did was follow the link, on LinkedIn (get it) to the Daily Blonde Blog.
The first story on The Daily Blonde was a bit of a trend follower, a cynical view of the recent Sara Palin story (Sara Palin Leaves Office Early), but something else on the homepage caught my eye. What I saw was another story of interest, which of course lead me to click another link.
AssHat of the Week.
From the Daily Blonde
...I realized that it was time to pay tribute to the irresponsible parents that seem to think I run a home daycare and restaurant for their children. So, this week’s AssHat award covers quite a few heads. It’s a big hat so there’s no problem making sure everyone fits under it.
The story goes on to describe -in letter form - to the irresponsible parents in this single mothers neighborhood, not only that she is not the summer day care provider, but more so, that these other parents should be responsible for their own kids. Parents should feed, bathe, and make sure that their own children are safe, not pawn them off on another parent for 10-12 hours without a care. It is an article that any responsible parent in any neighborhood in America can relate to these days.
The last point is what I wish to stress in this article.
No matter what business you are in, no matter what you sell, no matter who you work for or if you are an attorney or a broker or a architect or a ditch digger - there are people out there that want to know what you know and they will find the information you publish - if you leave enough "clues" to follow.
Clues in the form on links, links in the form of: LinkedIn profiles, Twitter accounts (with active tweets), Facebook profiles, forum posts and more...
These are the people you are looking for as an audience, they will find you and see you as a leader if you publish the information they are searching for. Without an audience, there are no leaders, without leaders the audience continues to search... Find your audience and help them to make you a leader, let them stop searching for your information, give them what they want no matter what that is.
Get out in the world and write something, post a video or take a picture - people will find and admire what you have to say or share, if you make an effort to share good things and if you spend some time contributing to other peoples lives by sharing and recognizing others that share as I am doing today.
I had never even heard of Cheryl Phillips and the Daily Blonde before, even though she is a blogger of note and one who should be followed:
With an Alexa rating of approximately 150,000, over 1600 email subscribers and an average “stay” on The Daily Blonde by readers of over 3 minutes. She also spreads the word about her blog to over 16,000+ Twitter followers every day. Cheryl is currently ranked in the top 50 Twitter users and was written up as one of the Top 10 Women on Twitter in the world.
Cheryl is a stay at home mom with more kids than she should be able to deal with and she is cranking out quality blog article posts that bring her an every increasing audience - is there really any reason why you can not do this for yourself or your business? Cheryl Phillips and the Daily Blonde are not just one isolated story of the power of Internet self publishing, she is but one of millions of people who have found notoriety and possible success with social media and blogging.
With the tools available to everyone in today's world of CMS publishing on the net, using platforms like WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal to name a few, there is no reason why any business or professional person should not have the ability to share and inform on a daily basis, just as the Daily Blonde does.
Vendio Platform Previewed by Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble is a fairly famous blogger, videographer, photographer and all around tech critic/guru. he has worked with all of the big tech conglomerates including Microsoft, Fast Money, and now RackSpace (More details about Scoble available via the link attached to his name).
While his interview of the powers that be at Vendio was not exactly from the perspective of a well informed ecommerce specialist or writer, (He refers or defers to his ex-wife's experiences with eBay) this video does offer some insight into how the platform Vendio has assembled works. Scoble does not venture into our world of eCommerce often so I find it interesting that this interview even occurred. Good job Vendio!
For more information about the Vendio Platform, read my review on the All Business Auctions Blog
Ok, Ok... I will admit it! I am a WordPress fan - boy! 
Why?
Because WordPress is just so darn good and as a developer I can make it perform for clients like almost no other CMS platform.
Joomla! is another great CMS (Content management system) and we love working with it, but for pure ease of use and unbelievable client (User) satisfaction, WordPress is very difficult to beat.
From basic eCommerce to business oriented informational and corporate websites to personal blogs, real estate sales, or news magazines. WordPress as a CMS is the king of customization.
Check out this video to get a sneak peak at the next iteration or WordPress - Version 2.7 coming soon to a WordPress installation near you.
[wpvideo UBy8AaXJ]
The new features (detailed in the video above) make WordPress even more user friendly, which is a great step forward for our goal to bring easy to manage website development to our clients.
Check out WordPress for your own website or blog, you really can not make a better choice for a functional, easy to update and ultimately configurable website back end.
In other words - it is really cool, and almost anyone can update a WordPress based website.
I like to say - if you can write an email - you can publish online with WordPress.
My readers know Cliff Aliperti from his very popular guest post here on the Trading Assistant Journal. 
Cliff is a long time eBay seller and now a new Bonanzle Booth owner. Cliff knows his business and he also knows how to get the most out of eBay and Amazon, now he is tackling the world of Bonanzle booth sales (in his spare time).
When iBusinessLogic announced a special offer to Bonanzle Booth owners to build a website/blog with a Bonanzle product feed (See: Bonanzle Website Offer), Cliff was the very first to jump onboard!
Cliff plans on using this new website/blog in conjunction with his existing website to bring in long tail search traffic to both his website, and his Bonanzle and eBay operations. Cliff is an expert in his field of memorabilia and movie collectibles. He will write informative and interesting blog posts about the history of Hollywood along with informative articles about the great finds he has in his inventory of thousands of unique collectibles.
Our first design for Cliff's new website/blog looks very nostalgic, we certainly hope he likes what we have done. But if he needs a tweak or two, or a completely new look, we will make it right for him.
Things and Other Stuff - New Look
We have other projects in the works for Bonanzle sellers and I think it will build a great community over at Bonanzle if more sellers join in with their own blogs/websites designed to not only promote their individual businesses, but also the entire Bonanzle community.
The more outside links leading back to Bonanzle, the better sales will be for each and every Bonanzle merchant. This is one way to build traffic for a selling venue through a grass roots effort. With every Bonanzle merchant who has a desire to not only increase their own business, but also add to the entire health of the site as a whole, sending traffic from sites like Cliff's new Bonanzle focused website/blog, the selling venue will grow in both sellers and buyers at an even more impressive rate.
If you have been considering building a website to promote your own Bonanzle or Etsy, or Online Auction or even eBay sales... Just get out there and do it! The biggest step is the first one, and we all know after that, its all just a matter of following through.
Congrats Cliff!
Read more at the iBusinessLogic.com/blog We even have a another Bonanzle Booth owners website screen shot - let us know what you think of "A Night Owl's Treasures"....
Last night in my car I was driving and listening to Seth Godin on a podcast....
Seth Godin
Some of you may be unfamiliar with what a "podcast" is or why anyone would listen to one? Podcasts are recordings of events, shows or seminars and/or the occasional sales pitch. Some podcasts are similar to talk radio shows with live callers hosted by a main host and sometimes a co-host.
Today's "radio show" has been moved off of the airwaves and into your iPod or other mp3 device. Thousands of these podcasts are available, mostly for free, in the iTunes store. Far ranging topics are available as podcasts on iTunes and in other places around the Internet. I usually focus on the Internet marketing and ecommerce titles but also download free photoshop training, "This Week in Tech" podcasts from Leo Laport, John C. Dvorak's "Cranky Geeks" financial news and a few more. Topics are plentiful and inspiration is included.
I listen to these podcasts to try and learn something while doing things which would be unproductive otherwise. I have learned a great deal just from this free resource and I have been fortunate enough to forge more than one friendship with people I would never have met because of podcasting. Continue reading “Advertising & Promotion and Seth Godin – New Marketing” »
Scribefire is a Mozilla Firefox tool used by bloggers like myself who edit and publish on multiple blogs but it is also a useful tool for more sane people who only maintain a single blog...
The reasons I like Scrubefire are many but the main perks are below:
Tools that just work are sometimes hard to find, these days were are constantly bombarded with new and exciting ideas and applications. Scribefire simply works when you need it to...
Below if a video produced by WordPress.com explaining how to use Scribefire. The principles are the same for all blog platforms so take a look, this nifty app could save you time, aggrivation and allow you to produce some very nice blog posts in a short period of time.
(UPDATE: The video from WordPress.com would not play in this blog - so I scambled and found one on YouTube as a substitute... )
Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJrTDwzCTuk&feature=related]
Yesterday I wrote about a "beta" test of Flowgram ...
Today I would like to report that there is a reason why these types of nifty programs are beta tested. Of course I was fascinated with the opportunities this program represented, and they still exist, just a few "bugs" need to be worked out first...
After I uploaded my first Flowgram iBusinessLogic Web Development Projects 2008 admittedly late in the night, when I should not have been working... I tried to get fancy by using some of the other interesting capabilities of the Flowgram service.
Flowgram has a connection with Flickr , which in therory allows the user to insert photos and graphics from Flickr into any Flowgram at any point in the slideshow. Wow, what a great time saver, since I already use Flickr it was something I really wanted to try.
Apparently the developers at Flowgram have not figured out that Flickr allows the organization of photos into sets. When I used the Flowgram interface to navigate to one of my images in Flickr I simply selected the set of photos I wanted to find the individual picture within. Flowgram decided I wanted to upload all of the photos in that particular set (over 160 images) to my already finished presentation.
Before I realized what was happening, Flowgram had imported over 90 of those images to the presentation. This would not have been a serious problem, had I been able to delete these new slides created by the program from my Flickr images... Unfortunately, the number of graphics imported was too much for the web based interface of Flowgram, and the program would not allow me any access to these new slides. I could tell they were there, but I could not remove them, move them or do anything with them.
The images were not private or racy but they just did not fit in with my presentation. I could not delete the entire Flowgram because I had spent a considerable amount of time recording narrations for each slide I did want presented.
I apologize to anyone who viewed the test Flowgram I created and came to the end only to find numerous images which did not fit in. The presentation has been corrected now (by simple luck and trying 4 different browsers), so the odd images are now removed.
My voice is still there, (if thats a good thing) and the images of our current projects are still there... (Although some do not display correctly now, and to change an image after audio has been recorded, one must also re-create the audio after the new screenshot slide has been created). Some way should be devised to keep the audio and images saved as seperate files so new images could be inserted under the same audio.
Needless to say, this is a free beta test for me, and I find the idea of the Flowgram service fascinating and possibly very useful for business and web use. But without fixing these issues, or allowing a way to save versions of a presentation without over writing the whole thing, it may be an iffy proposition to use this on a daily basis.
Readers of the Trading Assistant Journal have become accustomed to regular posts on eCommerce and eBay topics every week, sometimes those posts are not that "regular" but they usually appear at a regulated interval.
Business & client considerations, other publications, blogs, articles, a book project and an office move... have all contributed to the sudden dearth of prose from the TAJ.
This brings to mind a question often asked by clients I work with on web development and blog consulting projects. The question usually boils down to...
What, you want me to take time and write something in a blog several times a week?
When I skip a few days of writing my blog(s) I feel as though something is missing, blogging is not a job or a task, it is part of the fun of what I do for my business.
People go into business for many reasons, some were handed the keys to an empire developed by someone else, but most built their businesses up from scratch. Try to remember the inspiration of building your business, the love you put into it, the dedication to doing it the right way and your passion for doing something you want to do.
Blogging for a business is simply a way to express passion for your own life's work. If you feel like your business life is a weight around your shoulders, your business and life will suffer. On the other hand, if you work long hours because you want to, if you dream at night about ways to improve, to market, to expand... Because you really see the benefits and you really love what you are doing in your business... there is really no extra effort involved to blog about your daily successes and challenges.
Blogs began as simple web pages developed to provide an online diary for personal information and to a large extent remain to be published, on a large extent, based upon that principle. But new and interesting uses for the blog have emerged and one of those is "business blogging".
This does not mean a business simply throws together a blog and writes about the sale of the week, or just re-issues the PR departments press release verbiage on another site calling it a (blog).
A Business blog should contain passion, verve, inspiration, dreams and possibilities. Business can be fun and the blog is where that fun should come through. It matters little if your business is an auto junk yard or a high tech development center, each has its own interesting and little known aspects, stories and experiences to share.
I have a client (business name - East Coast Auto Salvage Inc.) who owns an auto recycling business (most of us laymen call it a junkyard). Currently my company, iBusinessLogic Corporation is developing an advanced Joomla website for this auto salvage yard business. The website has been in development for several months and is almost ready to be transferred onto the main domain. Even though the development of the main website is not complete, our client is already thinking about the next project, she wants to also have a blog.
Our client has many great ideas on what to blog about with her auto recycling business, in fact she has more ideas than she thinks she will have time to publish. She is inspired by her business, (the family business actually, now in its second generation).
She knows that by running an auto recycling center, her family is providing value for customers around the world. She also has great ideas about featuring the people who work at the "junkyard" (my term, not my clients), about the people who they serve and about the very interesting vehicles they see every day. She also will write about environmental issues which effect her industry and how the auto recycling business is really very good for the environment.
I did not give these story ideas to this client, she had them inside her head all along. She has these ideas because she is passionate about her business, a business not normally thought of by the outside public as interesting or exciting but one that inspires millions of people to utilize, buy from and work at every day.
How long would it take each day to sit down and type out a few paragraphs about the best and worst parts of your day? Think of how the public would be inspired to want to know you and your business when you offer them insight and passion in a daily blog or journal. How difficult is it to give the buyer a reason to choose you over the next guy who does not even have a website.
Some of you may cringe at that thought, but when you delve deep into the reasons why we get up each day and go to work, or go out and socialize, don't we really want other people to know just a little more about us?
People want to know about you and your business, they want to feel like the businesses they patronize have real flesh and blood management. Attaching a blog to any basic small business website will inspire loyalty from customers over time, help customers find you on the web and let them know what you and your company can do for them.
A blog forces you to look at your daily interaction with the public and allows you to see both sides of the equation. A blog is a tool good for more than traffic generation or PR releases. It is a tool and a solution you can develop to fit your needs and build your business from the inside, out.
And when you "get into it" finding inspiration will not be a problem, missing a few days... might be.
Our friends at iBusinessLogic.com and DesignLogic have just put the finishing touches on a new and exciting blog/ website featuring Nascar & Sprint Cup merchandise and NASCAR news aggrigators.
FavoriteTeamwear.com provides value to its readers in the form of up to date articles in the Nascar Journal section of the site in addition to feeds from the latest news sources in the racing industry. While offering Sprint Cup and Nationwide series merchandise at low prices.
iBusinessLogic created this website with a content management system called WordPress. There are some advanced features in this design but the ease usability for both the website owner and viewer has been maximized.
With regular posts to the Nascar Journal section of this site, iBusinessLogic is confident that the page rank and traffic for this installation will grow much faster than if the client has chosen to use a standard web design.
Content Management Systems like WordPress and Joomla are the wave of the future in web 2.0 business oriented websites. The people at iBusinessLogic.com are looking forward towards the future and are happy to help clients install easy to use and update content management systems for company website installations.
WordPress is not just for personal blogging anymore!
admittedly late in the night, when I should not have been working... I tried to get fancy by using some of the other interesting capabilities of the Flowgram service.