Written on November 30th, 2008 by Blogger
There are so many things bloggers write about when it comes to blogging. How to monetize your blog, how to SEO it, what communities to join, how to deal with the performance of your blog, how to get more hits, how to keep people coming back, etc. And although that is truely a challenge, in my opinion it isn’t the greatest. The greatest challenge is content, good content. That’s what blogging is all about.
Written on November 29th, 2008 by Graham
Hello Entrecarders!
Today I’m pleased to announce that we’ve taken an important step in improving our customer service. We’ve upgraded to a fully-featured Ticket System. Our new helpdesk system will allow us to better manage and track your support inquiries. You will also be able to log into our support system, and see the status of tickets that you create, using the login details automatically provided when you first submit a ticket. Just a warning though that the first time you submit a ticket now, you may need to click a link in an email to approve your email address. Read the rest of this entry »
Written on November 29th, 2008 by phirate
I’m going to take the site down for an hour and a bit to do some database cleanup and other things. It’ll start at 5:30AM Boston time (Click for more timezones).
I’ll post an update here when we’re done. Sorry about that all!
Written on November 28th, 2008 by Graham
I want to take this opportunity and use this non-event to signal a dangerous phenomenon in our society. We live in a time where everybody is free to publish whatever he or she wants on blogs at will without taking any responsibility. This exceeds mud-slinging. Together with you, other Parliament members and the government I find that it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself against this. Everyone of you is a potential victim. I would like to ask you to take a moment and think about this.
The above quote was made by Belgian Minister of Defense Pieter De Crem. Read the rest of this entry »
Written on November 26th, 2008 by Graham
It is official. Barack Obama is the first President in the history of the United States to blog. He’s not just blogging though, he’s vlogging, tweeting, facebooking, and building his brand online with all the gusto of your most tenacious internet marketers. Here at Entrecard, we notice this as a monumental shift, a turning point if you will, in digital new media.
Written on November 24th, 2008 by Laura
I’ve done the three column plan and now I know… a third column will not save you from blog clutter.
Currently I am on the prowl for a new template, a new idea in blog layouts, or just something that looks interesting. I did work on my clutter, but the three template column didn’t help. Actually, the third column was sort of in the way once I was done packing my clutter into scrolling bars and pull up boxes.
Written on November 22nd, 2008 by phirate
Hey everyone, we just suffered a pretty significant outage. We’re still investigating, basically we have a very simple web server at the “front” of our site that handles the simple stuff like static images and pages etc. This is by far the simplest and most reliable part of the system and has never, to my knowledge, failed before. However earlier today it actually stopped responding entirely other than to very simple network stuff. I’m still trying to work out what happened.
I’ll update this post with more details once we figure it out, until then it’s possible the problem may reoccur. Our apologies for this!
update: After a thorough review of logs, it is in fact not clear what happened. I have added some additional checks but the problem with data-center hosted equipment is that in the event of a failure like this, the place where final dying messages are sent by the kernel is the monitor – and that’s a thousand miles or so away from me. Ah well, there is no sign of any significant issues with the system, security, disk, memory and the OS look fine and the monitoring worked so we’ll have to keep an eye on it. The system had been “up” for a long time so maybe it just felt like a holiday. Merry Christmas web1.
Written on November 22nd, 2008 by Blogger
This post is written by Ferox of the blog “Rant of Ferox”
If you’re an artist with an Etsy store, Entrecard CAN bring you visitors who are also buyers. (For those of you who don’t know, an Etsy store is a store where people actually make the goods that they are selling.) I should know – I’ve already forked out cash to have some outstanding trinkets sent to me, and a wishlist for sometime closer to Christmas, or next time the Aussie dollar is performing a little better. (Damn you economics!)
Now without further ado, here are my top five bloggers with Etsy stores that I want stuff from.
5. Steam Powered Rings intrigues me. I don’t know if I’d wear those rings, but I know someone who would and they’re still fascinating to look at. They look like they belong to another world. There is more than just rings there too, but you have to look about six pages in. I recommend doing so.
4. Dirty Shanks sells handmade cards with a personal touch that say exactly what you mean. Also, in case of a particularly nasty situation, you can send these cards without getting your finger prints on them. There’s a particular teacher of mine I’d like to give one of these.
3. Kay’s K9s was my introduction to the world of needle felting. I didn’t know it existed before hand. It’s amazing how lifelike she can make her sculptures, though I think it would be a little weird to walk around with a likeness of your pet’s face as jewelry. Almost creepy, but still a favorite. A greyhound sculpture would make a great fundraiser to raffle for our blood donor dogs.
2. Thyme2Dream is simply poetic. I’d probably get something if I could find two other people locally to share shipping with me (I’m a cheapskate). The ear cuffs are tempting; mostly because I don’t have pierced ears and would like to be able to wear something sparkly on them from time to time. Not just for ladies, there are some manly pieces too if you’re into a bit of LOTR. Very tempting.
1. In Shadows already has my money. Being medically inclined I couldn’t resist the opportunity to walk around with organs-turned art around my neck. (It’s not creepy, it’s cool!) If you don’t like organs, then she has……cupcakes. Not only that, but In Shadows showcases a selection of darker works by other artists on her blog, which are intriguing to look at even if I don’t want to buy them.
Written on November 21st, 2008 by Graham
Let’s face it, the homepage of Digg is an ivory tower. Once a friendly haven to all bloggers alike, reaching the homepage of Digg is now more or less impossible with just a handful of users controlling 90% of their homepage. So take a step back and ask yourself, out of all the posts of yours that have been submitted to Digg, how many have made the front page?
Yep, probably none. Even if you get your post submitted by a top digger (which is basically a requirement to hit the homepage), you still need to get past their in-house moderators that screen all the stories hitting the homepage. One mod click from them and your story will never make it, regardless of how many votes it gets.
That is why I submit to you Mixx, which is growing rapidly in terms of popularity. Just check out their growth over the last year:
Written on November 20th, 2008 by Graham
I have to hand it to Six Apart with their Journalist Bailout Program, it is a very clever marketing ploy. Unfortunately, it is not going to make so much as a dent in the very real unemployment crisis that journalists are facing right now.
With their bailout program, you get a free blog from Typepad (which typically costs $150 per year), and you get automatically enrolled in their advertising program in which they serve ads on your blog for a revenue share. All journalists have to do to signup is send in a link from a recent story they published on a mainstream news site.
But let’s look at the real crisis and what it has to do with blogging. Instead of summing it up with words, I’ll sum it up with links:
