Some advice for Google re: Blogger Beta version

I/We all have very little -ve to say about Google. They truly “get it” in so many ways when it comes to the Internet experience for us customers.

Google embodies innovation and beta is good (unless you are Sony!). They release their experiments quickly and often. This is great. I don’t want them to change because things process can interfere with productivity and execution.

However.

Google has released a new Beta version of blogger which being an early adoption I’ve “signed up”! The blog itself is improved with labels (why not just call them tags?), and a tree menu approach for recent posts.

I was however surprised that my transition to this beta version hasn’t been smooth in two areas: 1) Using Windows Live Writer (I’m getting a error message and 2) I cannot cross link from other Blogger sites (this is odd because it’s simple an earlier version of Blogger – is Google capable of handling version compatability issues?)

Here’s the error notice when I tried to post a link from someone elses Blogger post:

As a customer I don’t give a rats ass that my account as moved, I simply want to enjoy the new features of Blogger without it impacting what worked for me in the past.

What exactly does “coming soon mean”?

Blogcast Network (TM=))

As some of you may know I use Windows Live Writer or Performancing which are sort of like desktop tools or interfaces that make it easier for me to post on my blogs on the fly. Windows Live Writer is cool, although since I upgraded my Blogger blog to the new beta version Live Writer is pooched and can’t publish to it (I’ll know in a minute if Performancing has the same issue). Any way, getting back to the relevancy of this post!

Performancing is interesting in that they provide you with an interface to post on your blog but this is more or less the gateway into the core services they offer bloggers and now advertisers. I’m still not familiar with these services but I got an email today announcing their partner offering to bloggers and advertisers.

Performancing is providing the blogging community with a tool to post, conduct analytics, and now a platform AND (blogcast?) network that will link advertisers with blogs and vica versa. I’ll set up an experiment on this and like Google Adsense on my Marketing Superhero blog I’ll keep you up to date on how this is going.

Take care and sorry for taking so long to put up a new post.

Chris.

Traffic is Exploding! =)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of things about this. I’ve broken the 50 views in a day plateau! Watch out. Thanks to you for reading my blog. It’s all about quality not quantity. I like having fun with this because quite honestly I’m flattered and humbled that some folks are getting value reading this stuff.

Second, I’m trying out WriteToMyBlog and while it is promising I cannot easily copy and paste images into a post. With LiveWriter it’s very simple.

WriteToBlog test

I’m trying WriteToMyBlog “out of the box” so to speak. Some initial observations:

 - it’s a free service, cool.

- it offers more functionality then blogger posting interfaces such as highlighting (how does one turn it off though?) Oh, I figured it out either select a white background or press the return key and backspace.  They should make it so that the you can select a default hi-lite so you can just select a word and it automatically renders the hi-lite though

- is the default font size 8 pt?  Can this be changed and stay changed or does it reset to 8pt?

• bullets  are cool, maybe sub-bullets in the future? Already there see below!
  • Here’s a sub bullet
    • Here’s a sub sub bullet

- Inserting pictures is a problem. There is no way to access, from what I can tell, an image from my local hard drive. 

- Superscripting^{Superscripting} and Subcriptiing_subscripting seems pretty cool. I’d take the subscription down a shade maybe.

- bolding works well as does italics. Just a heads up that you’ll know if the feature is active if it has an opaque blue shading around it.

- lets try some pictures:

 I dragged this Superman logo from Google images. The default setting is as you see this post. I imagine that I could tweak this but it would be better if the text wraps around the picture more eloquently. 

- Tags…this is a problem (maybe just for my first post?). I cannot access a menu of tags from my blog. Using LiveWriter I can. This means that I have to login to WordPress and select my categories (tags). This would not be an issue with Blogger because they don’t support tags. Or at least I’ve not figured this out yet. Tags are the key “index” of a blog. Tags are displayed for selection during the publishing process. Can they allow for adding tags at some point? 

- So let’s try to post this now! 

H2H Task: Posting entire webpage

Tool Used: WordPress
Ease Factor: :-0
Efficiency Factor: :-0
Effectiveness Factor:
Grade: Passed(Barely)
Comments: This time I uploaded the JPEG image directly in WordPress and sized the image to 500×750. You can now right click on the image and select view image and then you can magify the page to actual size. The problem is that a reader my hover her mouse over the image and if she doesn’t think to right click on it she won’t be know how to see the full page view either. There has to be a better way!

Summary: WordPress worked. Performancing and LiveWriter didn’t for a image this big. While WordPress won, it wasn’t the easied thing to do. Three clicks or less is best. If LiveWriter can be enhanced to allow full in-post or one click full views it would win hands down. LiveWriter has all categories in full view so it’s easier to remember and select categories. With WordPress you’ve got to scroll within a frame. I’ll put some comparison shots up sometime so you can see what I mean. This H2H Round goes to WordPress.

H2H Task: Posting an entire webpage

Tool Used: Microsoft LiveWriter, Capstone Capture
Ease Factor:
Efficiency Factor:
Effectiveness Factor:
Grade: Failed
Comments: This time I inserted a JPEG image which I saved to my computer using Capstone Capture. Unfortunately, you still cannot see the report.

H2H Task: Posting Entire Webpage

Tool Used: Performancing, Capstone Capture
Ease Factor:
Efficiency Factor:
Effectiveness Factor:
Grade: Failed
Comments: It didn’t work. Efficient and Easy  but not effective.

H2H Task: Posting entire webpage

This Lab mash up ties in these Lab Experiments: WordPress, Performancing and LiveWriter.

My task will be to upload a screen capture of my Top Posts Web Report for the past 30 days. Not only will you see the most viewed posts on my blog but you’ll also learn which method worked best uploading a fully webpage into a post.

This Head to Head to Head comparison is between Microsoft LiveWriter, Performancing and WordPress editor.

Pictures of Beautiful South Dakota

 

My post earlier regarding BKG’s recruitment campaign suggests the idea of setting up a Flickr account to “show the sites” of South Dakota. An even better idea is to see whether there are any Flickr accounts already doing this! I came across this Flickr Group. Enjoy the show.

It may be worthwhile to post a picture a day, or a week on their blog with some descriptive detail about it. It could be them having a client creative briefing session, a company pic nick, or a special Sioux Falls event showing community spirit…etc.

The power of social sites like Flickr expands one’s mind regarding how to show people what it is like to be involved in something like an event, a company, a community etc. YouTube is another example where a company, if it makes sense, can post videos that are relevant to a specific initiatve.

Let’s look at the BKG sponsorship on Across The Sound. Would it make sense for the Sioux Falls Economic Development department to post a video on YouTube showing potential businesses and professionals what it is like to live there?

[SIDENOTE: I'm trying to figure out how to embed a Flickr slideshow within WordPress. I'll let you know when I'm successful]

A Blog to read and a firm to watch…..& learn

Fresh Glue, a blog by BKG is a must read. The firm, located in South Dakota, is a firm to watch too. They have launched what I would call a web 2.0 or social media campaign with the goal of hiring one talented new marketing dude or dudette. What’s the vehicle for promoting their recruitment efforts? They are sponsoring Across The Sound, a popular new marketing podcast produced by Joseph Jaffe, author of the Jaffe Juice Blog.

Joseph is a Marketing Superhero candidate, but that’s a separate conversation and blog.

BKG is offering more then a job opportunity. They are offering you the opportunity to join an organization of thought leaders who appreciate talent, passion, family, safety and quality of life. I believe they are on to something.

I think using Across the Sound is a good choice because Joseph is committed to them being successful. The logical reason is he wants to show that sponsorship works on his show. However, while this is likely true, Joseph wants his show to help BKG achieve their goal. He has, on numerous occasions, announced his committment and desire for BKG to succeed and he’s offering $500 to the successful candidate. Again, look deeper then the obvious on this one. Real marketing is about real relationships and real results…and not CPM, Mascots, Superbowl ads, taglines, logos and marketing fluff. The times are a changin!

One thing I would suggest BKG to do is to set up a Flickr site and post pictures of Sioux Falls and any other photos that help visually display the quality of life they talk about in their vignettes on Across The Sound.

Good Stuff and my hope is that BKG finds the person they are looking for and that person finds the quality of live the aspire to have!