A Better Use for Your Treadmill?

Hi folks -- via Metafilter,
just saw this YouTube video from alterna-band OK Go. It involves
treadmills:

Checking out their profile on
YouTube, they seem fully engaged in the social media
landscape, with a MySpace Profile, Flickr photo
group and of course, a blog (which,
although informative, I find really hard to read,
with the busy background and all).

On a personal
note, I saw OK Go in concert a few years back, when they opened for The
Donnas at the 9:30 Club in DC -- good show; as I recall, it was sold
out, with a lot of teenyboppers in the audience,
too.


Remember, if you want to embed YouTube videos in your own Journal, it's
easy: Check out Journals Editor Jeff's instructions
on how to do this.

The process for
embedding UnCut
video is essentially the same -- just click the link that
says "Snag an Embeddable Player" to see the code you need to copy.
We'll be doing full instructions for embedding UnCut video
soon.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: ok
go, uncut video,
youtube, treadmills

More Thoughts on Building Your Audience

After a little Journals hiatus, Journals UI Designer Holly posts an entry following up on BlogHer 2006, which was a blogging conference this week by, for and about women bloggers.

She wanted to share some of her notes from a session topic you might be interested in, Building Your Blog Audience.

Now, even if you didn't read the Pew Internet report on bloggers a few weeks back (that I never got around to writing about, sorry), you might still agree with its findings -- that most bloggers are:

"...focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology."

But what about you bloggers who specifically want to get out to a wider audience?

Check out Holly's entry -- it consists of notes from Simply Recipes blogger Elisa Bauer's discussion on how to build your audience. It includes:

• Tips on Content -- like have great content, avoid filler posts, and be excellent.
• Build Community -- participate in others' blogs, through comments, tags  and links
• Visual Design -- use font sizes, colors and photo sizes that are easy to read.

Pretty good tips all around. I think that, especially for general interest bloggers -- people who are just talking about stuff going on in their lives, random observations, etc., -- building community is especially important.

It's not enough to say "I want more readers" -- unless you've got an unusual viewpoint, like you're a big cheese at a major company, well-written waiter dishing dirt or bouncer at a hot nightclub [language warnings, not to mention book deals, for the last two], how will you get people interested in what you've got to say? After all, there are a lot of personal blogs out there.

The trick to get someone interested in your blog is to get them interested in you. And that's not going to happen until they get to know you. And that's not going to happen until you get to know them.

It would be great if you could just start a blog and get showered with attention from strangers, leading to book deals and instant fame. But for most of us, that's not going to happen.

So, what you do is engage with other people; read their blogs, leave comments, and really talk to them (not, "Good entry, now visit my blog.").

Just my two cents on top of some good advice.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogher, holly, getting more readers

Update on Blue Screen Errors

Hi folks -- here's an update on the blue screen "Journals Not Available" errors that we saw yesterday and today; I wouldn't quite mark it "closed" just yet, but the tech folks have a working theory on what's going on, and are taking steps to fix the problem.

The immediate fix is to "bounce" (restart) the adb_switchers when there's a problem. Then, the database folks are looking at ways to streamline some of the processes that hit the adb_switchers.  The team is also going to look at migrating the adb_switchers over to newer hardware, since they believe that the current hosts aren't recovering properly when there's a problem.

Sorry, that's about as technical as I get.

Anyway, let me know whenever you see a Journals problem, and remember, if Journals are down, check the Journals Message Board for status updates. (The board is a good place to meet other Journalers and talk about your own blog, too.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: AOL Journals, AOL Journals Status

Gopher Is Not Dead!

Hi folks -- by now, the whole Internet and blogosphere are abuzz about the big announcement:

Gopher Is Not Dead

Yes, as blogger Jason Kottke blogged about yesterday ("Gopher still going"), the small, burrowing rodent still lives.

Gopher was one of the ways people navigated the Internet the early- to mid-1990s, before the Web took off (remember, folks, the Internet is more than just the Web).

It's a text-based way to search and link documents; instead of addresses beginning with "http://", Gopher addresses begin with "gopher://" (Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn't support Gopher addresses directly, though Firefox still does.)

Gopher was superceded by the Web a long time ago, but there are still a few Gopher servers around. It's an interesting snapshot of the Net in the mid-1990s -- check out the kottke.org article for some of the interesting documents that he mined.

I have a personal connection to Gopher, since one of my first jobs in the AOL Internet Connection was to help maintain the Gopher area. Here's a screenshot of the old Gopher main page:

If you're using the AOL client software, I was able to dig up the link to the old Gopher Main Page [AOL in-client link only], which you should be able to get to -- if you do, please note that most of the links won't work, but you can still see the digging gopher animation and read the help text to find out about the glory that was Gopher.

Gopher!

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: gopher, AOL Internet Connection, jason kottke

8/2: Sporadic Journals Outages

Hi folks -- as I just posted to the Journals Message Boards, right now, I'm seeing sporadic problems with Journals that result in the blue "Journals are not available" error.

I don't have an official report yet, but it looks to be the same problem that caused a 15-minute outage yesterday, and another problem earlier this morning.

One of the Journals admins says that the problem is most likely due to some adb_switchers which are running on old hosts that need to be replaced.

They're working on the problem and I will post updates as I get them and I am able -- please check the Journals message boards if you can't get here.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: AOL Journals, AOL Journals Status

Bunny, Bunny -- Rabbit, Rabbit

First off, I would just like to say that I went outside to have an ice-cream sandwich, and I can confirm that it's absolutely disgusting out there.

Now, since it's the first of the month, and because there was a Metafilter item about it, here's one of the few superstitions I adhere to.

It's a variation of Rabbit Rabbit -- on the first of the month, if, upon waking, the first words out of your mouth are "Rabbit, Rabbit," you'll have good luck for the rest of the month.

The variation I learned in middle or high school is a bit more involved -- on the night before the first, the last words you speak before you go to bed have to be "Bunny, Bunny." The rest is the same.

I swear I am not making this up. Does it work? Hard to say, though I didn't manage to achieve it this month.

Next, I will be doing an enthnographic treatise on the role of regional and socio-economic indicators in calling shotgun.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: bunny bunny rabbit rabbit, rabbit rabbit

Hello, August

Hi folks -- well, the Hello Kitty calendar on my cube wall tells me that it's August:

(You can see the previous versions here: Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May | June) | July)

I don't need a calendar to tell me that, though, since it is darned hot right now:

Good golly, three days of 100 degrees. It's like a slots jackpot, except everybody loses.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: hello kitty