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Blogger, Name Thyself

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Build your blogger brand - brainstormOkay, maybe you don’t think that a blogger needs to build a brand. But in light of the response that the infographic on the You’re Brand One? post received, it’s evident that branding is important for some bloggers. That is, if you plan to either earn a living from your blog professionally or indirectly. (Darren Rowse has a great post about making money because of your blog.) In which case branding is a necessity, be it a cool, memorable brand name, an infographic, or even just a picture of you.

If you want to blog professionally, even if just to promote your consulting or other services, I highly recommend getting a domain name with your name in it, or some variation. Set up a blog and make that your brand, to promote all your online and offline activities. You may even want to use a blog name that isn’t your name. Remember that you have to compete with websites plus 70 million blogs. Or is it 15 million? Who knows. Fact is, you need to stand out, and there are many aspects to building a popular site (promotion, content, posts, etc.), but branding yourself is the glue that ties it all together.

For me, I want to be the geeky diagram/ screencast guy. Hence my brand “Internet UltraGeek”. But here’s something to consider: I didn’t bother registering internetultrageek.com because I don’t like the way it looks. This should be a factor when you decide on a brand name. For example, noted web designer Chris Pearson uses Pearsonified, which I think is great. It’s more than his name, it’s a brand. Be creative when you set up your “brand” blog. And you don’t have to post every day. Each post should be well thought out and relevant to your brand. Once a week is probably sufficient.

If you need some branding pointers, NameWire, a blog about product naming, has a post on personal branding, with links to other relevant articles including, yes, my own. Though have a look at the rest of the blog and you’ll realize how much thought goes into naming a product or service. Or at least, how much effort should go in.

Originally posted on May 4, 2007 @ 2:41 pm

Digg would rather die trying

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Digg users can take down Digg. Literally. That’s what exactly happened when a code that unlocked copyrighted DVDs appeared on Kevin Rose’s front page and Digg users started digging it. The site’s administrators began taking down the links and suspending the accounts of those who posted them. The users disagreed and revolted by flooding the site. The New York Times has an article about it.

So, Rose posted on his blog: “But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.”

Kevin, you have to realize that you don’t “own” Digg anymore. Well, at least you did, with your blog post.

Originally posted on May 2, 2007 @ 9:26 am

Sony late again… but launches video-sharing site anyway

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eyevio.jpgSony Corp. launched a video-sharing site in Japan where users can share videos and blog about them, creating a potential rival to Google Inc.’s YouTube. It’s not a little late for Sony. It’s late.

The eyeVio site allows users to upload video clips, watch those of other members and subscribe to channels featuring content from commercial providers as well as models, designers and writers. Sony said it would carefully monitor the videos uploaded by users. How? It was not explained.

Again, late.

Originally posted on April 27, 2007 @ 8:49 am

Imus To Blog For Weblogs, Inc.? SplashPress?

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Valleywag, ever ready to create rumor, suggested the other day that Weblogs, Inc., founder Jason Calacanis might be wooing disgraced radio personality Don Imus. Calacanis responded later, in the comments section, that the rumor was 100% false.

The question is, is any blog network owner willing to roll the dice and sign Imus? Could they pay him enough? Would he even make a good blogger? (Aside from his ability to offend people Hey, maybe he could write for Jack of All Blogs, since SplashPress is looking for a blogger.)

But really, why wouldn’t Imus just set up his own site, create a podcast/ vodcast, and carry on as before? Maybe someone would be willing to run their advertising on his site.

On the other hand, I vaguely recall watching an A&E (or similar) special on his life, and seem to remember that he’s quite well off. Maybe it’s just time for him to retire to his ranch and practice saying rude things to his horses.

Originally posted on April 20, 2007 @ 10:34 am

Blackberry users pounding keyboard again

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BlackBerry users are back to pounding their small keyboards again as service was restored this morning. An overnight outage left millions of users without mobile access to their e-mail.

Research in Motion Ltd., the Canadian company that provides the devices and e-mail service, said the service interruption began Tuesday night, affecting users in North America (Editor’s note: including me for which my wife and kids were very happy)

“Root cause is currently under review, but service for most customers was restored overnight and RIM is closely monitoring systems in order to maintain normal service levels,” a statement from RIM said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the problems affected all cellular carriers that offer BlackBerry service. In the meantime, while my Blackberry service was offline last night, I was shown this video by my kids… naughty kids… [Read more…]

Originally posted on April 18, 2007 @ 12:49 pm