BlogWorld & New Media Expo Los Angeles 2011

BlogWorld has gone Hollywood.

After behind held in Las Vegas since 2008, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo has moved to Los Angeles where the three-day event kicks off today at the LA Convention Center.

The blogging conference and expo runs Nov. 3-5 and will feature more than 160 sessions and 275 speakers from some of the most respected blogs and social media-savvy companies on the web.

Hundreds of bloggers and social media experts are expected to attend the event, both in person and remotely for the “virtual”/streaming video portion of the conference.

And with all of those influencers in the blogosphere on hand, BlogWorld-related content reaches an estimated 250 million people a month through countless blogs, podcasts and social media networks.

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WordCamp San Francisco: WordPress Community Gathers for Annual Conference

Well, it’s WordCamp week, which means the WordPress community’s brightest minds, bloggers, developers and designers will congregate in San Francisco for the annual event to discuss and further evolve the popular open source publishing platform.

This year’s event, which will be held Aug. 12-14 at the Mission Bay Conference Center, has already sold out. Livestream and walk-up tickets may be available during the event, so stay tuned to 2011.sf.wordcamp.org and follow @wordcampsf and #wcsf on Twitter for additional details. New-user workshops are also scheduled to take place at the Automattic Lounge at Pier 38 throughout the weekend.

While smaller WordPress conferences and meet-ups are held all over the world, the San Francisco event is considered the granddaddy of all WordPress events. It’s also where founding developer Matt Mullenweg holds his annual “State of the Word” address, a presentation that’s a community favorite and is scheduled for Sunday at 11:10 a.m. Read more

Have You Outgrown Your Blog?

This post was featured on ProBlogger.net. Thanks to Darren Rowse and his team for reaching out.

We’ve all been there.

You’ve been blogging for months, even years, and your blog is going nowhere fast. Traffic is stagnant. Your subscriber count has dropped off. AdSense is paying just that: cents per day.

So what’s a blogger to do when they hit “the wall?” The most important thing to remember is that every blogger hits it. The key is to break through that wall or scale over it.

To overcome the wall, you have to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself the question: Have you outgrown your blog, or have you failed to grow with your blog? Read more

Why Do We Blog?

Why do you blog?

It’s a question regular bloggers field from time to time, from folks with a preconceived notion that bloggers spend most of their days cranking away on a Comodore in their mother’s musty basement. (I’m an Altair guy myself.)

The way I look at it, everyone has a story to tell … even us nerdy mamma’s boys on our Comodores. Blogging, at least for individuals, gives you the ability to tell that story without any gatekeepers – such as a boss or editor who may want to water down your message or twist your words.

Blogging gives you a voice … and the web allows that voice to be heard by hundreds, thousands, even millions of people from all over the world. Read more

Top 25 WordPress Plugins

Now that you’ve got your WordPress site up and running, you need to install some plugins to get the most out of what the open source publishing platform has to offer.
Most all of the plugins you’ll ever need can be found at WordPress.org, while a few others haven’t yet made it into the repository for one reason or another and can be installed manually if need be.

Either way, it’s best to use a plugin that’s been tested by the community and has a positive user rating. You should also back up your files before installing any new plugins.

Back to the point of this Article, which is to shine a light on some of the best plugins for WordPress sites. While there are hundreds of plugins, these are some of the ones I feel are most useful for day-to-day WordPress users. Read more

Create Your own Social Media Site: How to Install BuddyPress on WordPress Site

It’s been called everything from “social networking in a box” to “Facebook without the terms of service,” but until earlier this year, BuddyPress was a relatively unknown outside the WordPress MU (multiple user) community.

The release of BuddyPress 1.2 last month is starting to change that, making it possible to add a social networking layer to the standard, self-hosted version of WordPress (AKA, the WordPress.org install) for the first time.

(Note: BuddyPress can’t be installed on WordPress.com-hosted blogs.)

So, if you like Facebook or MySpace, but aren’t a fan of the terms of service or other fallbacks of those sites, BuddyPress allows you to set up your own social network for your WordPress site with the features that work for you and your community.

And, it’s open source and GPL licensed, just like WordPress.

By following these three easy steps, you’ll be able to install BuddyPress on your existing WordPress install and turn your blog into a fully functioning social networking site:

1. Back up your site/database and install WordPress, if you haven’t already.

If you’re new to WordPress, jumping into BuddyPress isn’t a good idea. Learn the ropes of WordPress before you starting digging into BuddyPress. WordPress.org has a good installation guide if you’re installing WordPress for the first time.

Back up your files again in case anything happens during the BuddyPress install. A majority of database errors and site breakdowns occur during upgrades or installations of new plugin or themes – and installing BuddyPress is like doing all of the above at once.

2. Go to your Plugins page within WordPress and “Add New,” searching the WordPress repository for the BuddyPress plugin. It might not be the first plugin on the list, so be sure to install the plugin entitled BuddyPress 1.2.1 by The BuddyPress Community.

After installing BuddyPress from your dashboard, go to “Plugins” and click on the “Activate” link to get the BuddyPress code up and running.

You can also download BuddyPress manually, just like WordPress, just make sure you upload it to /wp-content/plugins/buddyp

The WordPress Projects You Haven’t Heard of: WPMU, BuddyPress, BBPress, BackPress

Like there are many different versions of WordPress, there are also a handful of related side projects WordPress users should be familiar with.

All of these projects are open source and GPL licensed, which means there are few restrictions to using them.

These projects also use much of the same functionality and integrate well with one another, which is nice for those who are familiar with the WordPress code base and functionality. Some projects are even portable and have the ability to stand on their own if developed correctly.

A closer look at the entire WordPress family:

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

One of the most frequent questions I get from WordPress newbies is, “What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?”

Well, it’s pretty simple really.

WordPress.com is like Blogger.com’s free blogging service, where users sign up, pick a blog name and the blog is hosted at yourname.wordpress.com.

WordPress.com actually uses WordPress MU, which I’ll explain later, and doesn’t allow for a great amount of customization or give users the ability to install WordPress on their own domain. It’s typically used by novice bloggers or those who don’t care about having their own domain and would rather have wordpress.com host the blog than pay a monthly fee for hosting.

While many bloggers begin their joyride through the blogosphere on WordPress.com or Blogger.com, many eventually graduate to WordPress.org’s complete version.

WordPress.org provides users with a downloadable version that can be installed on your own domain.

While WordPress.org’s downloadable version isn’t always as easy to install as WordPress’ “Five-minute install” tagline suggests, it isn’t all that difficult with a little guidance.

WordPress.org’s Read Me files, Codex and onsite installation instructions take a lot of the pain out of the customizable installation.

All you need is a capable web host, FTP access to that domain, and you can be blogging on your own site within the hour.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg probably summed it up best on the Baychi.org Podcast in Aug. 2006, when he described WordPress.org as a 5-minute install to your own domain, and WordPress.com as a site you sign up to and “a second later you have a blog.” WordPress.com “auto enables the plug-ins and takes the guesswork out of it for the less experienced bloggers out there.”

Now for the rest of the family.

WordPress MU: The multi-blog version of WordPress

WordPress MU stands for Multiple User, but as Automattic developer Beau Lebens pointed out at WordCamp L.A. in 2009, it’s probably better described as the “Multi-blog version of WordPress.”

That said, you could also install multiple blogs via the WordPress.org install on your own domain, but you can’t typically accomplish this in older versions of WordPress unless you use a plug-in such as Blog in Blog.

Up until the release of WordPress 3.0 later this year, the standard WordPress install and MU had separate code bases.

But with the release of 3.0, expected in the spring, those two code bases will merge and users will be able to use either the single blog or multiple blog set up depending on the number of bloggers their site publishes.

It is important to note, however, that WordPress users won’t have to load the code for MU in 3.0 and future versions of WordPress if they don’t want multiple blogs on your site. The option is expected to be as simple to turn on and off as a check box. If you want the typical WordPress install, don’t check the MU box.

So what are the pros and cons to using MU? Well, according to Lebens, MU can be:
• more complex to install and manage
• individual changes must be made globally to all MU blogs
• you can’t upload themes/plugins to individual MU blogs; and
• some plugins won’t work with MU.

On the flipside, MU scales massively, and is used to power mega content sites such as About.com, CNN and many major newspapers that have multiple blogs on their sites.

And like most all of the WP projects, it’s open source and GPL licensed.

BBPress: The WordPress bulletin board

BBPress is WordPress’ version of the bulletin board, and while it shares a lot of the same code and concepts of WordPress, it can either be integrated with WordPress or stand on its own.

Either way you decide to use it, BBPress creates a powerful, lightweight forum system, which you can see by the forums on WordPress.org.

BBPress is a great complement to WordPress because it shares the same user tables, profiles and can even use the same themes and other options with a little tweak here and there.

And like most all of the WP projects, it’s open source and GPL licensed.

BuddyPress: Adds social networking layer to WPMU

Not to be confused with BBPress, BuddyPress actually adds a more traditional social networking layer to an installation of WordPress MU.

“It’s social networking in a box,” Automattic developer Beau Lebens described at WordCamp L.A. in 2009.

So if you like Facebook or MySpace, but aren’t a fan of the terms of service or other fallbacks of those sites, you can set up your own social network for your site with the features that work for you and your community.

BuddyPress is also used by many companies as an internal intranet and will eventually power the new profiles on WordPress, according to Lebens.

And yes, it’s open source and GPL licensed.

BackPress: Shared code between WP and BBPress to provide a portable bulletin board or forum

One of the newest projects put out by the folks at Automattic is BackPress, which shares the code between WP and BBPress but is designed to be portable, or used in your own project.

The benefits of BackPress, which hasn’t received a ton of press, include not only portability but common web app functionality and familiarity for developers who all ready know the WordPress code base.

BackPress is also open source and GPL licensed.

Interested in learning more? Contact us today or call (805) 703-3372 for a free consultation.

What to do When Your Favorite Blogging or Social Site Closes its Doors

Ning’s recent announcement that it will be doing away with the free portion of its social networking service was one of the hot topics at last weekend’s WordCamp in San Francisco.

Ning, for those who haven’t messed with it, is a social networking platform that’s ranked in the top 150 by Alexa and has millions of users who use the service to “explore and express their interests, discover new passions, and meet new people around shared pursuits.”

The Ning move, whether you agree with it or not, brought up a good question: What do you do when your favorite blogging or social networking service shuts the doors?

Let’s face it, as more and more of these social services pop up, more and more of them are going to flop, unless they can figure out a viable revenue stream.

It’s the same dilemma users of tri.im were faced with last year when the URL shortener closed up shop.

Or what Yahoo! 360° (now localized for Vietnam), Yahoo! Briefcase, Jubii, Windows Live Events and SplashCast were faced with before shutting their doors last year.

The answer? Stick with a site or a platform you trust isn’t going away any time soon, or at least gives you control of your content.

There are also dozens of open-source publishing platforms such as WordPress or BuddyPress that allow you to install that social platform on your own server, giving you full control of the content … and the platform behind it for that matter.

BuddyPress is one of those open-source platforms that Ning users will surely turn to in coming weeks.

As WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg put it at Saturday’s blogging conference in San Francisco, BuddyPress “inherits all of the big enterprise stuff, and is WordPress under the hood. You can build something small or really huge on it.”

In fact, Mullenweg said there’s a well-known hip-hop artist who plans to announce they’re making the move from Ning to BuddyPress in the next couple months.

While not all of us have hip-hop dough to throw at a website, there are ways to exist in the blogosphere or social space without getting your content trashed.

If you choose to rely on a startup to host your work, be sure your content is portable – either in a downloadable format or an RSS/Atom feed that you can import into your own blog if the VC money runs dry and your favorite site goes under.

In the meantime, start backing up your content. Ning users, you’ve got 10 weeks to save your content or pay the price.

Interested in learning more? Contact us today or call (805) 703-3372 for a free consultation.

Word 2010 Review: Improving Collaboration and Navigation

When I first made the jump from Microsoft Word 97 to Word 2007, it was just that … a giant leap.

Going a decade between software updates is as dumb as it sounds, but when you’re used to a solid word processor like Word 97, you tend to stick with what you know.

Word 2007 changed all that. XML file formats and a revamped interface drove me crazy for the first couple weeks (months?), but after time (and a few patches that made ’07 files compatible with older versions of Word), I became a fan.

Luckily for Word 2007 users, upgrading to 2010 won’t be such a leap. After testing out the beta version of Word 2010, it appears to be a solid upgrade that allows users to better collaborate and work in an online workspace, along with the formatting and graphic improvements you’ve come to expect with new versions of Word.

Word 2010 is scheduled to be released with Microsoft Office 2010 around midyear. In the meantime, you can download a beta version of Office 2010.

A look at what stood out about the latest version of Word in my eyes:

Real-time collaboration

As a writer, the real-time collaboration will probably be my favorite feature – one I wish Microsoft would have implemented years ago when I was a roaming reporter who spent weeks on end working remotely.

In Word 2010, you can use SkyDrive to save your document to the web and make it available from any computer or share it with colleagues. All you need is a Windows Live account and to share your document to docs.live.net, which can be done by going to File –> Share –> Save to SkyDrive.

Once shared, you can see if someone’s actively working on the document online, review edits that have been made, make suggestions and access all of your co-worker’s contact information if further discussion is needed.

Co-authoring will also be available in Office 2010’s PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, which gives collaborators an alternative to Google Docs.

This is big for writers, editors, anyone who is working remotely on a project and wants to go over edits with another colleague, such as an editor or publisher.

Word 2010 allows you to work within the “cloud,” which is a sketchy idea for some but useful for writers like me who work on multiple machines and often collaborate with other editors or writers.

Pulling documents from a cloud will save me a lot of hassle, so I don’t have to email myself at home or when one PC isn’t recognizing my dinged-up flash drive.

And as long as you back up often, work smart, and keep your documents secure, working in a cloud shouldn’t be any more of an issue than working on a website hosted on somebody else’s server.

Find what you’re looking for

Another issue with the older versions of Word was search functionality.

Ctrl-F can only take you so far in this day and age. Word 2010’s navigation pane and find/search experience continues to evolve.

The new nav/sidebar – which essentially combines the features of the docu map, thumbnails, outline view and find – allows users to reorganize documents by dragging and dropping rather than copying and pasting actual pages of content (which can be a pain due to Word’s auto formatting).

Jumping around via the sidebar is becoming the standard, think PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat, so it’s nice that Word is keeping up with the competition.

From the sidebar/nav, you can follow what pages are actively being edited by co-authors and remain aware of edits via the co-author indicator.

Incremental search makes searching more efficient, and the search-summary highlights are more helpful when working in large documents. This is useful when working within wordy whitepapers or for tech writers working in manuals they’re unfamiliar with, editing manuscripts, etc.

Graphic improvements

Word 2010 also brings on all the graphic improvements you’ve come to expect with new versions of word.

Improvements include new Smart Art graphics, artistic effects, photo editing, easy screenshot insertion, paste previews, reflection/shading/glowing

effects to your text.

I was more than content with the new graphics enhancements in Word 2007, but I’m sure these will come in handy and help improve the presentation of charts, images and photos within Word docs.

Screenshots, however, have been a big sticking point with the community, which is why Microsoft streamlined the process of capturing screenshots in Word 2010. You could always just hit “Print Screen” and paste/Ctrl-V it into your 2007 Word .doc, but going the Insert –> Screenshot route in Word 2010 is a more user-friendly experience.

What else I like about Word 2010

Printing improvements: Print preview/print screens have been combined and are much more user friendly.

Get rid of Works: Microsoft has announced Microsoft Works will be replaced on bundled PC packages by a lightweight version of Word (a lightweight version of Excel will also be included) in Office Starter 2010. Still waiting to hear more details about what features will be included in this version of office, but I’m glad they’re moving away from Works.

Conclusion

All in all, I think Word 2010, like most of the products in Microsoft Office 2010, will be a solid upgrade with an emphasis on online collaboration.

I think the biggest question for the consumer will be just what features will be available online, and how much the complete Office Professional 2010 suite will set them back.

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced it will offer an Office 2010 Tech Guarantee Program by the end of the March, which will allow users who purchased Office 2007 to get a free copy of the equivalent version of Office 2010.

That’s a good start. Now that beta testing is wrapping up, and the development of Office 2010 is nearing completion, we should be getting more details about pricing and release dates shortly.

In the meantime, if you’re considering upgrading to Microsoft Office 2010, give the beta version a spin and see if you like what they’ll have to offer later this year.

Interested in learning more? Contact us today or call (805) 703-3372 for a free consultation.