Sometimes you just don’t have time to go looking for the latest post from your favorite blogs. If you are using an RSS reader, and you are like me, you probably have hundreds of posts to wade through to get to what you really want to read right then. I haven’t been a big advocate of blog mail subscriptions in the past, but one of the features of Wordpress’ Jetpack Plugin lets readers easily subscribe via email.
[caption id=”attachment_20178” align=”aligncenter” width=”490” caption=”Sign up to the right to have new posts emailed to you”][/caption]
So, “big deal,” you might say, “I have always been able to subscribe to blogs by email. Yes but major handlers of post subscriptions like Feedburner usually only email post once a day, so by the time you get them they are old news - already made the rounds on Twitter, Facebook and the RSS readers. A Wordpress subscription (see illustration above and widget in the far right column of this page) emails you instantaneously every time the blog posts.
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If you have come to this URL - http://MemphisRealEstateBuzz.com for the last few years for my local and national real estate news and comments, thank you! This is the last post on this blog. No I am not giving up real estate blogging - just changing the blog’s URL and look.
I am integrating Memphis Real Estate Buzz as a sub-domain of my main site, http://spake.com. From now on you can find my real estate posts, and hopefully other interesting posts at http://blog.spake.com. This blog will be automatically redirected there.
Thanks for your support. If you are an RSS subscriber, please go to http://blog.spake.com and subscribe there (all the posts from this blog are archived and searchable there). You won’t be automatically subscribed at the new location. You can use this link to subscribe right now. If you would prefer to receive new posts by mail, use Subscribe%20to%20Memphis%20Real%20Estate%20Buzz%20Blog%20by%20Email“>this link.
So, I will see you on the other side. I will leave this site up for a while, to make sure all the permalinks to posts transfer properly to a new and permanent location.
The old saying “a picture’s worth 1000 words,” has held true through the ages, yet many small business don’t see the real value of publishing pictures of their products and services. Whether it’s a cleaning service, custom manufacturer, realtor, or provider of very specialized services, a picture of what you do, make or sell is almost always more appealing and memorable that a paragraph or more of descriptions.
[caption id=”attachment_19987” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”Seeing what happens in a cotton gin is more interesting than reading about it”][/caption]
Flickr is the best online photo management and sharing application; and it’s free. You can also upload videos and manage them in the same way as your photos. Google has a long way to go with their photo system to catch up, but that’ a topic for another post. I will leave it to you to explore Flickr’s simple interface. You may even want to upgrade to the PRO version as you become a heavy user. You can even make all your images private, and still use all the great Flickr management tools.
For me, Flickr’s best feature is Sharing. Not only can you share individual pictures, galleries or slide shows to the major social media platforms but you can post directly to your blog/website, directly from Flickr. Simply link to your favorite blogging platform, Blogger, Wordpress, etc. in the options, the locate a photo you want to add, and one click posts on the blog of your choice. I seldom have to do anything with my Memphis photoblog, except add keywords. Posts come straight from Flickr. Here’s an example photo post to this blog.
This quick screencast will give you an idea of how easy this process is.
Whether you are a business person or an individual proud of your photography, a photo blog is a very effective way to showcase your work and get your message out there in a visual medium; and Flickr makes the process a breeze.
It seems that a lot of bloggers like to brag about their accomplishments, but I just wanted to share the most read post on JoeSpakeBlog.com for 2010.
Historic Broad Business Association and Livable Memphis’ temporary face lift of the Broad Avenue Arts District drew lots of enthusiasm and excellent attendance at the event. That carried over to making this my #1 read post of 2010.
Posterous bills itself as “the easiest publishing platform around.” If you can email, you can manage a website and share it with small groups or the world via your social networks. Posterous is so easy to use, you can skip the sign up process and send your first post to post@posterous.com, and they will do the rest. Within your account you can direct your Posterous posts to just about any popular social platform automatically. Posts can be done by email, and somehow, Posterous can miraculously take just about any kind of file you attach to you post@posterous.com email, and convert into a correctly sized and rendered post on your Posterous site. You can also clip excerpts from other websites and blogs to share. The simplicity of use and features, including a variety of themes and the ability to design your own, make Posterous a good choice for those looking for a simple blogging platform. I will let you explore Posterous on your own if you are not already using it. It’s a great way to start blogging and to spread the word across your networks.
Here is a pretty good 8 minute tutorial:
If you are already using Posterous you may have been mis-pronouncing the name of the platform since you first signed on (just like David Frosdick in the video did). I have seen grownups argue toe-t0-toe over how to pronounce this platform’s name. I am proud to say that I have been correct in my pronunciation, but not often so acknowledged. I asked my friend, Rich Pearson at Posterous for the definitive answer to the question - long O or short O?
[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Here’s Rich’s response”]When we say Posterous, we pronounce it with the short o. Sachin and Garry originally chose the name because they wanted to call all other sites/blogs “pre-posterous”. Of course, the log representing a post-it note and all makes this a little confusing as does post@posterous.com. We actually don’t care too much about how you pronounce it, as long as you use us ;-)[/stextbox]
Well, there’s the answer to the mystery. Pre-posterous, you say?
Joe Spake is a Memphis Real Estate Broker, Consultant, Photographer, and Social Media Junkie
Contact Joe at joe@spake.com or voice or SMS at 901.214.5563
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