Clipmarks | phatmommy's clips

WP Theme for Lifestreaming

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:58:16 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: Will have to see if this theme will take a FriendFeed stream...

We’ve seen quite a bunch of Wordpress plugins released this year for Lifestreaming which has been great. Now we are finally starting to see theme developers incorporate Lifestreaming into their designs.

The Agregado theme was designed from the ground up specifically with Lifestreaming in mind.

I installed this on my dev server to test it out and I really like the design. I like the highlighting of the latest post with a two column display of titles from older posts. Then the right sidebar contains the Lifestream with an ajax selector to scroll up and down the items listed. There is also a very nice custom archive page included as well as a built in contact form.

The Lifestream admin screen has support for Flickr, Delicious, Magnolia, Twitter, Pownce, GoodReads, Last.fm, and Facebook as well as 4 custom feeds with support for custom icons for each of them. This is a good start and hopefully they will add support for more in the future.

Tags: wordpress, theme, lifestreaming, design, blog

Pros and Cons of Magazine Style Blog Themes

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:53:06 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy

Clip Source: www.smashingmagazine.com

A growing number of blogs are moving away from traditional blog layouts in favor of magazine-style themes; however, the layout and presentation of content has a major impact on visitors and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Smashing Magazine Full RSS Feed

1. More content is featured on the front page

2. More control over what is featured

3. Potential for improved navigation

4. More professional look

5. More appropriate for large sites

6. Can lead to better use of categories

1. Can be more work for the blogger

2. Blogs with infrequent posts can look awkward

3. The appearance can be overwhelming or cluttered

5. Requires more clicks from visitors

6. May be unfamiliar to some blog visitors

Tags: blog, wordpress, theme, magazine

Making a Background Img Clickable in CSS

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:15:55 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy

Clip Source: www.attackr.com

It’s simple to turn a regular image into a clickable link, but in some situations, it’s just not possible to use a regular image - so how do you turn a background image into a clickable link?

So, how can we make our background image a clickable link? It turns out it can be done with a clever CSS trick. All we have to do is add the link markup between our header div tags, and apply the above markup to the link instead. All we have to add to the CSS is display: block to force the link to fill the entire space.

Tags: web design, css

Someone please give us some data portability

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:33:51 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy

Clip Source: www.sarahintampa.com

My need for data portability is desperate. I’m literally wasting huge amounts of my time adding, adding, adding the same friends over and over again. If you’re my friend online, then you should just be my friend no matter what service I sign up for. I’m quite sick of it.

So when I see someone trying to address this issue, I get excited. Whether it works or not, I’m excited because they care. They’re at least moving in the right direction.

From the same guy who brought you the Better FriendFeed Subscribed To Me script, comes the Better FriendFeed Recommended Page. It works by finding the subscriptions of your subscriptions and sorts them by popularity (mutual subscriptions) as shown below:

Tags: social media, data portability, social networking, friendfeed

Why You Should Delete Your Blog's Date-Based Archives

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:07:50 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: Get rid of those date archives. They're useless and they can cause duplicate content issues which messes up your page rank.

Clip Source: www.blog4seo.com

However lots of bloggers are still falling into a major SEO and usability trap - date based archives. When was the last time you visited a blog and browsed their date based archives?

Date based archives are not just useless from a usability point of view they don't help your SEO either. As well as possible duplicate content issues if you publish full posts in your archives the main issue is that the pages are full of unrelated content. If you group all your posts about the iPhone together on one page Google can see that the page is related to the iPhone and each post will rank higher because of it. When you group 30 posts from January 2006 together on a page Google just sees it as a page of unrelated content.

Tags: wordpress, blogging, page-rank, seo

Social Media Provides Unparalleled Networking Opps

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:25:37 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: This post talks about the value of social media in allowing us to "punch above our weight," i.e. learn and network with those experts and role models we admire.

Clip Source: broadcasting-brain.com

One of the greatest opportunities of social media is to interact with people both similar and different than ourselves who we might never otherwise meet. Technology becomes a common glue and a blank slate where we can interact with virtually anyone, whether they are:

junior to ourselves (but not inferior!)

equivalent in skill and knowledge

the type of expert or role model that we’d look up to.

This flattened playing field and the multiple access paths to attention share is an innovation that we sometimes don’t appreciate for what it is: the ability to punch above our weight.

We all bring our own strengths, weaknesses, gifts and gaps to every situation that we enter. Social media gives us unprecedented opportunities to interact with virtually anyone. We should thoughtfully make the most of any opportunity for interaction with those people that we can learn from (which could be anyone, really).

Tags: social media, networking

Turn Your WP Categories into Feeds

Sat, 31 May 2008 13:24:04 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: A little-known feature that could be useful if you use your category feature wisely.

Clip Source: bloggerdesign.com

One nice feature in Wordpress is the ability to have a feed for each category. It’s all built in and up-and-running in all Wordpress blogs as we speak. It’s just not promoted.

To get separate feeds for each category, just load the category page and add /feed/ at the end of the URL. That is if they have permalinks turned on.

A good marketer will want to know how many people are subscribing to each category feed. To do this you’ll need to run over to Feedburner and start burning each category feed. Then put in a 302 redirect to send all feed traffic to the Feedburner feed.

Tags: blogging, wordpress, categories, rss, feeds

Setting a Clear Blog Purpose

Wed, 28 May 2008 12:12:09 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: Without a clear purpose and goals, your blog may flounder.

Clip Source: lorelle.wordpress.com

Without a strong blog purpose, and a plan to fulfill that purpose, a blog soon dies and the blogger is bored or floundering without a path.

Set the Blog Subject Matter:

Blog Editorial Calendar:

Whose Blogging:

Blog Demographics:

Blog Goals:

Clarify Blog Purpose:

Once you have your plan and purpose defined, then the choices you make for promotion, monetization, and good practices will automatically follow suit. The clearer your purpose, the better choices you will make.

Tags: blogging

Scrolling RSS Feeds with Snackr

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:12:10 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: This app is freakin' awesome.

Clip Source: www.readwriteweb.com

Snackr is a new Adobe AIR app that lets you display items in your RSS feeds in a beautiful scrolling ticker on any edge of your screen. I am absolutely giddy about it after only a few minutes of use. Snackr is something you'd supplement your existing reader with, not a replacement. It is not for the faint of heart or information averse, either.

The scrolling is really smooth, story order is randomized. When you click on an item, the full text will appear if it's available in the feed. The link at the bottom of the pop-up will take you to the full post.

The idea is not to read every item here, but to give your eye some opportunity to catch items it might not otherwise. I love it.

Tags: rss, feedreader

The REALLY Important FriendFeed Page to Watch

Sun, 18 May 2008 15:40:00 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: FriendFeed is becoming an uber-useful tool for me and Scoble points out just one more great way to use it.

Clip Source: scobleizer.com

There’s one FriendFeed page that is FAR more important: the one where you can see YOUR stuff that I’ve liked and commented on. Why is that more important? Well, it’s where you’ll find a lot of new stuff from other people. It is where I signal to you what I think is important to pay attention to (which is quite a database, if you look at it along with my ego feed, since that includes all sorts of cool stuff I’m seeing come through my Google Reader feed).

If you haven’t figured out yet how to see this page for everyone, just look at this URL:

http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/discussion (replace “scobleizer” with the name of your favorite person on FriendFeed).

The best way to become a great blogger is demonstrate you listen to other people. FriendFeed is BY FAR the best way to do that.

Tags: friendfeed, rss, lifestream, blogging, commenting

Excellent WordPress SEO Tips

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:10:02 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy

Clip Source: www.joostdevalk.nl

Increase search engine traffic to your WordPress blog with one night's work!

1. Improve your titles, meta descriptions, and "more" texts

2. Pick the correct permalink structure and slug

3.1. Breadcrumbs

3.2. Headings

Although most themes for WordPress get this right, make sure your post title is an <h1>, and nothing else.

3.3. Clean up your code

4. Remove duplicate content

Go into your theme and remove all references to other taxonomies. Wipe out the date based archive, and remove the tagging or the categories from single.php, archive.php, index.php and search.php.

4.2 noindex,follow unimportant or dupe pages

4.3 A one author blog? Disable the author archives

5. Interlink related posts

6. Create linkable content!

Tags: wordpress, seo, blogging

Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:36:23 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: Great series of posts with tons of valuable information.

Clip Source: www.doshdosh.com

Interested to learn more about social media and how you use it? You’ve come to the right place. Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing is a series of tutorials which teaches you how to utilize the power of social media channels to get more exposure, supporters and customers for your website and business.

1. Social Media Marketing in a Nutshell

2. The Benefits of Social Media Marketing: Why You Should Learn and Master it

3. Social Media Marketing Campaigns: How to Set Goals and Define Prospects

4. A Beginner’s Guide to Social News Websites

5. 40+ Social News Websites You Can Use

6. Relevance and Distribution: Two Essential Factors in Social Media Marketing

7. Social Media Networking and ROI: How to Maximize Value and Minimize Cost

8. Building a Popular Social Media Profile: 7 Essential Characteristics

Tags: social media, marketing, social networking

Making the Most of RSS

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:37:45 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: Excellent article on using RSS and optimizing your feed reading.

Clip Source: www.readwriteweb.com

Seven tips for making the most of your RSS reader, from simple to more complex.

1. Oversubscribe

Read what you can and don't worry about the rest. The chances that you'll see something worthwhile in a feed are far, far higher if you've subscribed to it than they would have been if you hadn't.

2. Try a River of News View

3. Use Multiple Services

Some feeds are really important and are best read outside of the bulky environment of a feed reader.

4. Try Out a Desktop Reader

5. Tag Items to Share

If instead you offer people a FeedBurner feed of shared items, you can plug any RSS feed in as the source for that feed. Bookmark items "toshare" in Del.icio.us and grab the RSS that tag in your account produces - publish that through Feedburner and you can know how many people have subscribed.

6. Learn about OPML

7. Try Out Additional Services

There are so many different ways you can use RSS feeds. Here are a few of my favorites, try experimenting and you'll get more out of the medium.

Tags: rss, feeds, feedreader, reader

Greasemonkey Scripts to Enhance FriendFeed

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:19:10 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy
clipper's remarks: IDT offers another amazing script to enhance FriendFeed

Clip Source: internetducttape.com

One of the biggest problems with Friend Feed is the signal to noise ratio. Most of the web services it supports are for sharing links, and I keep seeing the same link percolating as different people share them. Wouldn’t it be great if it didn’t display links you’ve already looked at?

Yesterday I noted that about 50% of the traffic on Friend Feed is from Twitter. I think Friend Feed makes for a great Twitter client because of the way it handles threaded conversations. There’s a few things missing from Friend Feed though:

The 140 character count

Why doesn’t it automatically check the “reply on Twitter” box?

Why can’t I send a Tweet from Friend Feed?

Social Media's Favorite Type of Post

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:52:02 GMT

clipped by: phatmommy

Clip Source: www.problogger.net

If you’re a regular user of social media, you’ll notice that big lists of resources, tools and articles are consistently popular. In fact, they seem to be social media’s favorite type of blog post.

Pick great resources

Don’t sacrifice quality for a big headline.

Don’t recommend anything you haven’t read/tried/explored yourself.

The headline is probably the most important part of your resource list. Headlines for these types of posts tend to be most effective when they include a number. When it comes to numbers, bigger numbers are not always better. Certain formulas (like 100, 101, and so on) can seem gimmicky to web users who see them often. If your target audience is tech-savvy they are likely to be quite jaded by over-used headline formulas.

Readers are not interested in the list itself, but in what it has the potential to do for them.

Tags: blogging, social media