I never did get a chance to carve the pumpkin this year, as Erina did. Nor did I have the time to put together the kind of Halloween displays that scares people and makes national news. So, I have cheated by using a scary clown illustration by Matthew Laznicka and overlaying it on the pumpkin.

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If the Hollywood writers’ strike comes to fruition and lasts for a while, the TV networks will largely run out of original programming (save for “reality” shows) around December. So, viewers will be faced with reruns, “reality” shows (already a tired genre) OR the Internet.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
Now’s the time to start preparing some original content for your blog. Begin researching and writing quality, entertaining posts NOW. If you have some prepared that are not time-sensitive, go ahead and post them, but timestamp them so they will begin appearing around December or so.

Target Your Audience
Keep the holidays in mind. If your readers will be spending time shopping and spending time with family rather than reading your content, you might want to wait until January before posting your “meatiest” content (but still make sure to have fresh content in December). If your blog is the type that people will be spending time on during the holidays, then be sure to have that content ready! You might want to start “salting” your readers in November.

Push RSS Subscriptions
Encourage your readers to sign up for your RSS feed. That way, they won’t miss out on your hot content when you begin posting it.

Audio & Video
If you can produce audio and/or video content, do it! Consider using Revver instead of YouTube for videos. To maximize exposure, you could post a teaser video on YouTube, encouraging viewers to watch the entire video on your website, where you might have the video hosted with Revver so you can earn some revenue.

Let’s face it… Hollywood is already largely creatively bankrupt. Movie studios and TV networks are already losing viewers to the Internet, and a writers’ strike is only going to push more people onto the web looking for fresh, original content to devour. Fill that void!

Spread the Love
Don’t forget to link to other blogs and websites with original content as well. Perhaps start an Entertainment Channel (category) on your blog, where you can link to original programming you find online. If you’re already watching independently produced web programming, make sure the world knows about it!

Hey, don’t forget to tell your blogging friends about this post too so that they begin prepping their blogs and websites too! Spread the word around, quickly. Thanks!

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Are the big record labels hopelessly out of touch these days? Blogger demonbaby has an interesting perspective on record industry suicide (WARNING: language). Now, Wired is reporting that vinyl may bring about the end of CDs! What a roundabout world we live in!

Back in 1997, my neighbor was in a band and I tried to convince him that the Internet was the way to go. He didn’t want anything to do with it. He and his band would achieve fame and fortune the “old-fashioned way.”

Now, the big label record companies seem to have the same attitude, resisting change and not really fully grasping the Internet and new distribution methods.

Anyway, just for kicks, here is my original proposal to him:

The Internet changes the way we look at the world around us. When it comes to taking a look at the music industry, it’s time to change the rules!

A Proposal
for a
New Type of
Recording Company
for the
Age of the Internet

Presented by
Dan C. Rinnert
to
Xxxxxx Xxxxx and Xxx Xxxxxx

October 1997

Background
Like many children growing up, one of our primary goals in life was to become “rich and famous”. Whether it was by becoming a rock star, an actor or movie producer, we all felt the desire to be among the rich and famous.

As we grew older, this went on the back-burner and was replaced with the more practical notion of being “successful.” (Though, the desire to be “rich and famous” never really goes away…)

But, even with this less lofty goal, there are obstacles on the path to success…

Obstacles
Obstacle #1: Vision. In order to become successful, you must have a clear vision of where you are going, a focus, a goal. It must be simple, yet more than just a vague goal of being “rich and famous”. Developing a vision, much like developing a marketing strategy or business plan, can be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome.

Obstacle #2: Publicity. To be successful, you (or your product) must be visible in the public’s eyes. This means more than just walking down the street waving to strangers or placing a small ad in a newspaper. You (or your product) must be widely recognizable.

Obstacle #3: Money. To make money, more often than not, you need to have money. Money to invest in training, equipment, rent, advertising, promotions, etc. Plus, you’ve got to be able to pay all the little recurring expenses that are often overlooked when planning. Not to mention having money set aside for emergencies, such as equipment unexpectedly breaking down.

The Internet
The Internet can help us to overcome these obstacles. It breaks the barriers between the “big guys” and the “little guys”, giving more equal opportunity for vendors on the Internet, regardless of their financial status. As more and more homes become connected to the Internet, having a presence on the Internet and being prepared for its widespread use becomes a necessity to survive in tomorrow’s business world. More often than not, being successful in the future will mean being able to take best advantage of the best the Internet has to offer.

Beating the Odds
I mentioned before that the Internet can help us beat the odds and overcome the obstacles to success, and even to fame and fortune. Here’s how:

Obstacle #1: Vision. Okay, the Internet won’t really help much here, but what it does demonstrate is that a business needs to be flexible in order to survive. So, the vision must allow for flexibility. In other words, the vision must be simple and focused, but not too focused that we lose flexibility.

Obstacle #2: Publicity. The Internet allows equal access to your site by virtually anyone connected to the online world. Distance is irrelevant. The fast-pace of Internet communication also makes it easier for more people to hear about you more quickly. Information spreads like wildfire.

Obstacle #3: Money. The Internet helps overcome this obstacle because far less money is needed to set-up and run an online business than is for a traditional business.

Now is the Time!
It is an exciting time, where artists and their fans will have the potential to benefit most. Artists will be able to distribute their art at a much lower cost, and consumers will reap the benefits of lower costs and more choice.

The time to act is now. The Internet has thrown the music industry (among many others) a curveball, and they are still figuring out how to adapt to this digital world. Internet users have the capability to download music off the Internet that is as good as the original. In the not-too-distant future, more and more users will also have the capabilities of creating their own music CDs, placing whatever songs they choose to listen too. As the music industry attempts to sort through what is certainly a chaotic change to them, now is the time to take a step into the future and prepare for the high-speed road ahead.

Copyright 1997 Dan C. Rinnert

Mind you, the first MP3 player didn’t hit the markets until 1998. So, at the time, I figured people would just burn their own CDs. Of course, if we had started down this route, it wouldn’t really have mattered. The point was that people would download the music; what they did with it after that (burned to CD or copied to an MP3 player) was their option.

Last I heard, which was many years ago, my neighbor and his band had parted ways. He’s long since moved from the neighborhood but, instead of heading west to seek his fame and fortune, he ended up with a job at a local plant. I think the plant had layoffs a few years back, so I have no idea if he’s still there or not or what has become of him.

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Remember my Blogger Color Palette? Well, if your name/link is listed below, please pick two numbers between 1 and 100 and post them in the comments to this post. Make sure you don’t pick the same pair of numbers as anyone else.

• Phil
• Doug
• JD
• Mike
• Deborah
• Joanne
• Erina
• Lewis
• Ann
• Doug
• Jason

Thanks!

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Three Mondays in a row with an update! How about that for consistency? Mind you, it would be better if I were finished and didn’t need to post updates.

As I mentioned in last Monday’s update, I was in the process of ripping apart the design. This was pretty much completed last week. As I start building individual pages, no doubt I will find things I will need to tweak, but for the most part the ripping and shredding is done.

It was Thursday evening (actually Friday, since it was past midnight) that I was ready to begin building the individual pages when I realized that, oops!, I needed to get back on the backend stuff that had been pushed to the backburner while I finalized the design.

The first thing I decided to tackle was art. We have (currently) 257 images that can be used on our product. Customers can choose to use whichever image they would like, or none at all. Not all the images are even on our existing website!

On Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, I worked on these images. Finally finishing just as short time ago (around 12:30 a.m. Monday). On the plus side was that I redesigned the template for artwork two years ago. And, since it used the current color scheme, it fit the new website perfectly without needing a redesign.

First, a little backstory. People used to hotlink to our images, apparently thinking they were free for the hotlinking. That eats up our bandwidth, which costs us money in our hosting fees. So, we would periodically change image names to break the links. Occasionally, we would replace a graphic (which were generally icon-sized, so people would hotlink to them for use as their avatars in web forums) with a huge ad. Typically, people would stop hotlinking shortly thereafter. (Yes, I know you could block hotlinking in .htaccess, but our website wasn’t hosted with Apache.)

That got to be time-consuming, not to mention making sure that all the links within our own site were updated so that people would see the image they expected and not an ad. So, we redesigned the image template so that it included our website URL as well as the image. It looked attractive for visitors to our site, but was no longer attractive for use as an avatar. Hotlinking dropped off dramatically. We also modified the images to make them harder for people to steal.

Anyway, back to present day, the template was still usable, but I still had to work with each of the 257 images. Those that weren’t yet on the site (which was roughly half of them) needed to be set up on the template. Those that were already templated needed to be modified. You see, the way that we modified the images to make them harder for people to steal also made it, in some cases, harder to determine what the image actually looked like. Most were okay, but a few were not. So, upon rethinking it, I realized that we need to cater to our customers first and worry about copy-protection second. Since the modification made it more difficult on the customer, we decided to drop it. We still have other ways of protecting our images, so we’ll rely on those.

Now that those are all finished, the next step is to add them all to the database. A number are already in the database, but a few have been renamed or recategorized. As I went through all the images, I realized that there were better categories for some of the images and better names for others. So, I expect a fair amount of work in getting the database completed. I think I may be able to knock it out in a couple of hours, but that’s assuming those are uninterrupted hours. What will be more likely the case is that the database entry will be spread out through the week, working in between other projects.

That makes completing the image database this week’s goal. Then, building the pages to display the images will be next weekend’s goal (or sooner!).

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With regard to blogging, anyway. I’ve been quite busy with the other project, and I’m pressing full steam ahead on that one so I can get it done and out of the way!

This past week, Mike tagged me with the PhotoShow - 100 Meters Meme. As I’ve not yet been able to get 4 photos together, I just wanted to let you (Mike) know that I haven’t forgotten! So, here is a single photo that may (or may not) be a taste of things to come.

The above is a Skipper Butterfly, or Skipper depending upon which school of thought you believe in. Some think that skippers are a type of butterfly and others believe that skippers belong in their own category. Actually, it’s more complex than that but, this not being an insect blog, that’s as far as we’ll go. In any case, it is definitely not a moth. That’s one thing everyone can agree on.

Back on October 8th, Erina awarded me the Thoughtful Blogger Award. On October 15th, Ann awarded me the Community Blogger Award. On October 23rd, Ann also awarded me the Mariuca Super Star Award.

As soon as I have the opportunity to hold another Awards Night (you remember the writers’ strike, right?), I will do a more proper posting for these as they are re-awarded, but for now I just wanted to thank Erina and Ann so that they know I haven’t overlooked them!

Plus, I am working on another blog meme, of which Jon (as I promised him a week or so ago on his blog) will be the first victim, I mean, taggee. So, stay tuned for that one!

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Though RSS readers have been around for quite a while, I never saw the point to using them. After all, it’s just as easy to visit a web site, right?

Now, after using an RSS reader for two weeks, I’ve come around.

Mind you, I usually don’t keep the RSS reader open all the time. I just don’t need the distraction from work. But, I can check it between jobs to see if I’m missing out on anything. Right now, I have 40 sites and blogs in my feed. (I’ve been too busy to add any more recently.) The latest headlines? Bingo! The latest blog entries? Bingo! It saves a bundle of time browsing different sites to see if they’ve added anything.

What I find disappointing is the number of news sites that don’t offer RSS feeds. Two that I frequent don’t offer RSS feeds at all. A third news site, which I rarely visit, offers only the latest headlines. They don’t even provide a summary for what the article is about. Lame!

RSS is almost a necessity these days. While Jon offered his “6 Reasons Why I Prefer Visiting Your Site to Using a Feed Reader,” I’m going to offer you 6 Reasons Why You Need a Full Feed RSS.

1) Convenience

It is more convenient for your readers. You’re giving them the option of reading your content through your website or blog or through their favorite news reader.

2) Memory

By offering a full feed RSS, you’ll stay in the memories of your readers that prefer using news readers over visiting a website, or those that do both. You’re providing them convenience, and they’re going to be more likely to remember your site. I can tell you that when it comes time to weed out sites in my news reader, those without full RSS feeds are going to be the first to go. And, that reduces the odds that I’ll remember to visit their websites or blogs too. Out of sight, out of mind…

3) Less Annoying

I hate it when ads for news programs say something like “Important food recall–is the food in your refrigerator safe? Watch at 11:00 p.m.” What, am I not supposed to eat until after I watch the news? If there’s something I shouldn’t be eating, I want to know now, at my convenience! Teaser feed RSS is becoming the 21st century version of that annoyance. “Important food recall–is the food in your refrigerator safe? Click to read more!” I don’t want to click to read more. I don’t want to launch my browser to read the full article. Just tell me now!

4) More Readers

By offering your potential readers more than one way to read your content, you can attract more readers to your blog. Those sites without RSS, what are the odds of me visiting them again? Slim, especially if someone else offers similar information but also offers an RSS feed.

5) More Comments

I’ll read a post in my news reader. If I want to comment, I’ll click it to pull up the blog in a web browser so that I can comment. If I don’t want to leave a comment, then I won’t visit the site. But, if you have a partial RSS feed, the odds are that I’m not going to visit your blog to read the whole entry, which also means I won’t be leaving a comment either.

6) Keeps You On Your Toes

If you want to be the leader in your niche, you need to have fresh content, and nothing provides encouragement to having fresh content than a full feed RSS. To keep in front of your readers, you need to have fresh content frequently. On the other hand, if you have a tendency not to post frequently, offering a full feed RSS will increase the odds of staying in front of your readers. For example, if you don’t post for a couple weeks, what are the odds of your readers still visiting your site daily? How long before most of them realize you’ve posted something? With an RSS reader, they’ll see right away when you have something new. So, whether you post frequently or infrequently, offering a full feed RSS can be advantageous to you.

A news reader is better than bookmarking sites. With bookmarks, you still have to visit the sites. With a news reader, you’ll get almost instant notification when something new has gone up on one of your favorite sites or blogs. Plus, you are in control of the content you want to read. You can group blogs or sites however you would like, in whatever way makes most sense to you.

And, that’s the kind of convenience you ought to be offering to your readers!

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Can you tell I’ve been busy this week? In case the links, photos and lack of substantive posts isn’t a big enough clue, yes, I’ve been busy.

Anyway, here are some fun links for Fun Friday.

Weird Inventions
I kind of like the invisible house. The political hot air collector would be useful too.

Chuck Norris
Apparently, the creator of this page would like to get it to the number 1 spot in a Google search so that when you click “I’m feeling lucky” you’ll get this page.

How to Break the Internet
If you must try it, check the other two first. Okay?

For an exercise in recursion, go to Google, search for “Google” and click “I’m feeling lucky.”

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What’s splashing the waves in the blogosphere this week…

Nina meets up with Boba Fett, Flash Gordon (Eric Johnson) and Dale Arden (Gina Holden), but omits any mention of Gina Holden. Shame!

Doug writes about nosebleeds.

Jon spends a night on the couch.

Erina makes plans to carve pumpkins.

Sabrina plans some cheap dates.

Deborah bosses a chicken around.

Michael Kwan shells out some link love while telling you how to survive a zombie attack.

John Chow gets smacked by Google but doesn’t care.

See 10 Geeky Wedding photos. Gasp in horror as you notice the Star Trek geeks make a fashion faux pas by mixing TOS with TNG uniforms. What were they thinking?

Read some decluttering tips. How to declutter? Throw everything away. Duh! What we all need help with is organizing our stuff. I think many “professional” organizers resort to the “throw it away” mentality because they’re not actually up to the challenge of actually organizing anything.

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Five proverbs for this fine day.

The shortest answer is doing.

Empty vessels make the greatest sound.

Discuss amongst yourselves…

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