A bit of this and a bit of that » blogging

Should I be here?

owen — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:36:26 +0000

Yes, I know .. if you’re been following my blog posts I should be really cleaning the house, but I’m blogging instead! Thing is, I always find the best way to relieve boredom is to puncture what you’re doing by doing something totally different. The great thing about that is that you don’t really feel the stress and you can practically keep going all day. So, I’m tidying part of the house, then doing a spot of blogging, playing with seo tools and Tweeting, then it’s back to cleaning a bit more. It takes a bit longer, but I think overall I get more done.

How do YOU deal with stress?

New theme

owen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:40:48 +0000

Hope you like the new theme on the blog. It’s called AdMints Pepper and it’s just awesome. I got it from FreshPress Themes and if you’re after a new theme, pop down there and see if you can find something you like.

Much recommended

Sign up for SocialSpark

owen — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:45:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to be one of the few selected for Alpha Testing on SocialSpark, the brand new social media marketing platform of Izea, the brains behind PayPerPost. The team who built it have taken all that they have learnt from PayPerPost and used it to make SocialSpark better, leaner and faster. They also have a new code of ethics that their bloggers need to abide by namely:

100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
100% Transparency
100% Real Opinions
100% Search Engine Friendly

Recently, SocialSpark has been opened up for everyone to come and give it a try. It’s still in beta, so there may still be issues that need to be ironed out, but it’s alive and kicking, advertisers are advertising, bloggers are blogging and everyone is connecting and having a great time. Here are some screenshots from the website.

Looks quite pretty doesn’t it. Well the killer features aren’t the looks, but the fact that you can set up a profile, befriend other people (bloggers or advertisers) and use the platform to promote your products or websites. Bloggers can advertise their products and advertisers can blog about different things too. It’s a great way to cross-fertilise ideas from different sources.

The other great feature that SocialSpark brings to play are the analytics behind bloggers and campaigns. It makes it extremely easy to see what sort of traffic a blog is getting, what the demographics of the viewers are and what sort of exposure your advert is likely to have. Couple this with the click through metrics on the adverts themselves and you have a powerful advertising and tracking engine that can help you identify the ROI of your campaign at the touch of a button.

Most wierd spam comment ever ..

owen — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:06:51 +0000

Hmm, had a really wierd spam comment today:

i’ve got a unibrow and some girl thats 4 foot tall wants to beat me up and i have the smallest ears un the uk

Huh? Even if someone were long overdue for alcohol rehab, I’d expect something more coherent than that. Seriously, you’d think that if someone is trying to stick something on your blog, there would be some value to them managing to do that. There’s no content, no link, no nothing in that comment. Just makes me wonder sometimes.

What’s the weirdest spam comment you’ve ever received ?

Getting a new office

owen — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:06:52 +0000

StrivePR are moving offices! Sherrilynne just blogged about it and the truth is that their new location is quite surprising. They’re located just above an Ann Summers shop. How’s that to get traffic in through the door! They managed to sort out their corporate relocation all in one day which was pretty amazing. Which means they’ll be up and running again tomorrow morning. Great going guys!

How to make your own Logo (AskOwen)

owen — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:22:40 +0000

Just wanted to let you know I’ve added another “HOW TO” on Ask Owen, entitled How do I design my own logo? It’s a step-through the logo design services down at LogoYes, which has a really easy-to-use wizard (and thousands of clipart images) to help you create your own logo. It’s a commercial service that can supply you with print-ready files and also printed business cards for a pretty reasonable price, but it also lets you use their wizard for free to try out different options and play around with ideas before committing to the final product.

Here’s the business card I designed for AskOwen:

It was done in no time at all, and let me play with different ideas to make sure that I could convey the brand image of the company to whoever was viewing thecard. If you thought logo design was hard, check out the post.

Lurker Mode Engaged

owen — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:42:26 +0000

If you think this blog is a bit quick, it’s just that I’m maxed out at the moment. Have an exam in a few weeks time (Organisational Behaviour), some projects that need work and, well, my family is higher up my priority list than this blog *grin* I’m still around though, will be replying to comments etc. And, of course, there will be the occassional post

Geowidget broken

owen — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:01:03 +0000

Hmm .. I just realised that my Geowidget plugin is broken. It’s supposed to show you a map you select on the sidebar of your blog, but it’s not actually displaying anything. Time to pull out the toolbox and find out what’s wrong. Will keep you posted.

WordPress 2.3

owen — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:08:29 +0000

WordPress 2.3 is out and I’ll be updating this blog soon. I’ve already rolled it out onto one blog, but I’ll give it a day or two to make sure there are no adverse effects. It was relatively painless to deploy it. I’ll be looking forward to rolling it out here. There are a couple of features that would be useful here.

New to PayPerPost?

owen — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:04:35 +0000

I’ve just noticed that PayPerPost have just launched their brand spanking new PayPerPost University. It’s a collection of hints, tips and best practices to educate both bloggers and advertisers as to how to use their service. The “University” is split into found sections:

Advertiser Tutorials: These are a number of informative video clips that walk advertisers through instructions on how to use the service. The current tutorials show how to create a text opportunity, how to create a PPP Direct opportunity and how to use the Facebook add-in.
Blogger Tutorials: Here we have a collection of video clips targeted at bloggers who use PayPerPost to monitise their blogs. The videos include how to fil a PPP Direct opportunity and how to use the Facebook add-in
Public Service Announcements: This are is for passing on messages to the community at large. There’s only one clip in there at the moment, showing how Posties who contravene the Terms of Service are handled.
Best Practices: This is aimed at Posties showing a collection of advice and guidelines that have been collected by the PayPerPost team.

In my opinion, the most valuable section is probably the Best Practices one. It has loads of information how to make the best of your blog and how to make it attractive not just to advertisers, but to all your readers. Even if you’re not working with PayPerPost, it’s worth checking out, and if you’re new to PayPerPost, it’s a must-read.