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Written on 6/25/2005 at 4:56 am by

Big news from Gnomedex

Filed Under: Blog News, RSS

Probably lots of the guest bloggers are going to write more and better about this, but the big news from Microsoft today is that RSS will be natively supported in Longhorn.  We also got the first public preview of IE 7 here at Gnomedex.
 
And the API and information will be released under a Creative Commons license!
 
Lots of great discussion about this.  Standards, the Evil Empire and the Jedi keeping the peace.
 
Bottom line.  This is a great first step.  What we’re seeing is admittedly still too geeky for mom, but it’s supposed to get better and easier.  I know that some cool, cool stuff will be coming out for this.  I hope Apple follows suit.  Fast.
 
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Tris Hussey is a professional blogger and blog consultant, the Chief Blogging Officer for Qumana Software, and Managing Director of Qumana Services.  He can be reached at tris AT qumana DOT com or tris AT trishussey DOT com.
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Written on 6/20/2005 at 1:31 am by

FeedBurner Stats PRO–It’s a great value and valuable!

Filed Under: General

FeedBurner chartIt’s been over a week since I turned FeedBurner’s Stats PRO on for View from the Isle’s feed.  The chart at the right shows the data for the post about trying Stats PRO on View from the Isle.  So, what do I think?  Well, it isn’t perfect, but it is a keeper and worth the $5/mo.  Since without it you can’t tell what content is most popular from your feed only gross circulation numbers, this add-on is required.  Oh course you don’t really get your maximum value unless you are at the maximum feeds per cost unit.  So I’m tracking three feeds for $5, which is better than 1 feed for $5.
 
There are limitations to this data set.  It doesn’t, it can’t, include direct links to your post from other sites.  It only tracks that pass through the feed (like Technorati).  So you still need your Blogware or TypePad stats as well.  Also you’ll notice the steep drop-off in this article’s data.  I’ve found this pattern repeated for all my other articles, but if I look at my Blogware stats there is a stronger baseline persistence.  This is the direct link gap.
 
Which brings me to my concluding point.  There is a real market here for holistic blog stats.  Something that really pulls these two data sets together.  Frankly, I think leaders like TypePad and Blogware should be licensing the API and providing this service to their subscribers.  I’d really like to only have one place to check stats every day.
 
FeedBurner Stats PRO.  I like it, I’m going to pay for it, but it has room to grow.  There needs to be some better connectors to my blog’s data and a little more detail in the link data.  Still it is a nice improvement.
 
Tris Hussey is a professional blogger and blog consultant, the Chief Blogging Officer for Qumana Software, and Managing Director of Qumana Services.  He can be reached at tris AT qumana DOT com or tris AT trishussey DOT com.
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Written on 6/9/2005 at 3:30 pm by

Canadian Professional Blogging Podcast No 2: Developing your Blogging Voice

Filed Under: Podcasting

PodcastArieanna and I finished our next episode of our Canadian Professional Blogging Podcast on Monday.  This is part 1 of a two part episode on developing your blogging voice.  This part is more academic on how we developed our voices and how they have changed and matured.  Part 2 will offer some concrete tips on developing a voice.  Things you can do to make it easier to develop your own voice.  We start off discussing a question/comment from Robert on becoming a professional blogger within a niche area–in his case a religiously oriented blog. Then we move right into talking about blogging voice and how we got to where we are today.  There are a few tips scattered in there, don’t worry.
 
podcast_mp3.jpg cpbp_no2_bloggingvoice.mp3 (13.3 MB, 14 min 35 sec)
 
Intro and outro music “Flying” by The Kitchen used with permission–so please visit their site!

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Tris Hussey is a professional blogger and blog consultant, the Chief Blogging Officer for Qumana Software, and Managing Director of Qumana Services.  He can be reached at tris AT qumana DOT com or tris AT trishussey DOT com.
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Written on 6/9/2005 at 12:12 pm by

Can you spot the Pro Blogger?

Filed Under: General

Arieanna asks today how you can spot a pro blogger–Bloggeropoly–well since most of us work behind the scenes it might be a little hard to peg us down.  For myself I try to put my “blogsig” at the bottom of many posts.  It also has my contact information so people can reach me easily.  But what about your own blog?  Arieanna has taken care of that too.  Using the famous Button Maker — Kalsey Consulting Group she made this:
 
problogger.png
 
Feel free to download–please download not hotlink–and use on your own site.  Arieanna was making badges for Qumana too, then I think she got carried away.
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Tris Hussey is a professional blogger and blog consultant, the Chief Blogging Officer for Qumana Software, and Managing Director of Qumana Services.  I use QumanaHe can be reached at tris AT qumana DOT com or tris AT trishussey DOT com.

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Written on 6/7/2005 at 3:21 am by

Canadian Professional Blogging Podcast: No. 1 On becoming a professional blogger

Filed Under: Blogging for Dollars, Podcasting

podcastWelcome to the first Canadian Professional Blogging Podcast with me, Tris Hussey, and Arieanna Foley. This is the recording I mentioned on Friday. The delay was worth the wait because we got permission to use some music from The Kitchen for the intro and outro music for the podcast. We’re using “Flow” which is available for download on the website.
 
Canadapodcasts.ca
The topic for our discussion is how Arieanna and I became professional bloggers and a little about professional blogging itself. Imagine us sitting across a kitchen table sipping coffee or bourbon (Arieanna) or Scotch (me) chatting. In reality we’re over 50 miles apart, separated by the Straight of Georgia. Look for more of these really soon. Arieanna’s been bitten by the podcasting bug now too.
 
The Show: Podcast linkcpbp_no1_going_pro.mp3 –3.73 megs 16 mins, 18 seconds
 
Show notes:
Intro and outro music – Josh Hundert and The Kitchen
 
The show was recorded via Skype and HotRecorder with post-production with Audacity and Winamp .
 
 
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Written on 6/6/2005 at 1:29 am by

Trying FeedBurner Total Stats Pro on View from the Isle

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Blogging for Dollars, Blogging Tools and Services, Business Blogging, Miscellaneous Blog Tips, RSS, Writing Content

headerlogo.jpgYeah, I admit it, I’m a metrics junky.  Which is good, since I am the chief blogger for Elytics.com writing on the web metrics blog.  Regardless, I’m also a huge fan of FeedBurner.  I admit I check my FeedBurner stats throughout the day, especially when one of my articles has been picked up by several other blogs.  In spite of being a metrics junky and really wanting to know what content is popular on my blog I resisted trying Total Stats PRO–Burning Questions – The Official FeedBurner Weblog - FeedBurner – FeedBurner Total Stats PRO.  Why?  I’m cost conscious.  I really try to keep my business overhead low.  Then it hit me, as a blog consultant/pro blogger/syndicated writer I really should look into this.  I already set up all my clients with FeedBurner from day one–learning from my own mistake–and I tell my clients check your FeedBurner and other stats to figure out what content is most popular and use this to help guide your content decisions.  It makes logical sense, then, that I should try it myself and see if it’s worth $5/month.  So, over the next 15 days I’ll be checking my stats with Total Stats PRO.  I’ll probably do an initial assessment later today, then one in a few days, etc.
 
As professional bloggers our content is both our calling card and our gravy train.  It’s how we earn our money.  There’s no point in writing tons of articles on topic x if those aren’t as popular as topic y, especially if you’re writing for a client.  There will always be a certain number of articles that you write or publish, things like press releases, that aren’t glamorous and don’t get a lot of attention, but are essential regardless.  Then there are the articles which both you and your client intend to be interesting to a wider audience, those are the articles that I’m talking about.  That’s the important information that I hope FeedBurner can now provide me.  If so, $5/month could be a paltry price to pay to be able to effectively target the content published on a blog by blog basis.  Here’s hoping!
 
I will post charts, tables, etc as appropriate to give you a feel for what I’m seeing.  Because great data poorly presented, is almost as useless as not having it at all.
 
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Tris Hussey is a professional blogger and blog consultant, the Chief Blogging Officer for Qumana Software, and Managing Director of Qumana Services.  He can be reached at tris AT qumana DOT com or tris AT trishussey DOT com.
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Written on 6/5/2005 at 3:18 pm by

Simple steps to a 10 minute podcast

Filed Under: Podcasting

CanadaPodcasts.caSo you want to catch the podcasting craze, eh?  Not sure where to start?  I found this via Nicole’s Useful Sounds blog–Eric Rice — How to build a 10 minute podcast.  Very simple and straight forward.  Here’s the basic plan:
 
00:10 date/promo/tease/banter/ad
00:20 theme music/intro
00:60 preview
00:30 ad/promo
05:00 small stories/top story
00:30 IDENTIFY
02:00 feedback/secondary stories
00:15 thank sponsor
00:15 outro
Now go out there and kick some ass!
 
But this is my favourite piece of advice:
QUICK TIP: Stressed about saying ‘um’ and ‘ahh’? Don’t be. You’re human. Relax. Just don’t do it in the intro to your show. You should never, ever, ever, ever have a reason to hesitate when you are saying your name and your show. It’s an absolute! Practice saying, “Hello, my name is ____, and welcome to _____, the show about ______ and _____!”
Seriously don’t worry about the ums and ahhs.  Just relax.  And I agree, practice your intro.  A lot.  Do it over and over until you really like the way it comes out, or you’re comfortable enough you can do it with out faltering.
 
Beyond that all you need is a basic microphone and software like Audacity–open-source and free–and you could be the next podcasting sensation!

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Written on 6/5/2005 at 2:55 pm by

Blog Business Summit II Aug 17-19, San Francisco

Filed Under: Blog News, Business Blogging, General

Just announced today the Blog Business Summit will be August 17-19 in San Francisco.  I’m not sure if I will be attending–I will be at Gnomedex later this month though–but it was a great time in January.  BBS was the break out conference for me and Susie.  BBS was where both of our blogs got attention for our event blogging.  So, if nothing else for new pro bloggers, a conference like BBS, Gnomedex, or BlogHER. is the perfect place to network, meet other probloggers and, if you’re lucky, get some attention.  Oh yeah, have some fun too. ;-).
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