John Evans’ blog network Syntagma Media always stood out a bit from the blog networks of the early days. First it was because of the hacked Kubrick blog template with the rainbow headers (which I remedied in one of my first design gigs in the blogosphere), and then because of Evans leaving the term blog behind, rebranding as a network of sites, web magazines, and other ideas aimed to make them more accessible and easy to understand.

Earlier this week Syntagma Media launched its most recent venture, the first in a series of “hyper-local” websites. So how do you go from blog network to local websites? That’s what this interview is about. read more

SiteProNews has announced the launch of its SPNbabble micro-blogging site which allows users to post their short messages to a number of other services including Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Plurk and Tumblr.

Cross-platform posters aren’t a new thing, though SPNbabble does offer up a toolbar (compatible with IE, Firefox and Safari) which may well be useful for those who like to post from within their web browser. read more

Brian Clark, of Copyblogger fame, has launched Authority Rules. This website is a report about online marketing, free to read online or to download as a printable PDF. In other words, there is no reason not to check this one out.

I’m proud of myself. For 48 consecutive hours I survived without the Internet. It wasn’t easy.

As a product of the hyper-connected digital age, giving up my computer and pocket-sized device for an “extended” period of time, wasn’t an easy decision. But given my recent bout of blogger’s block, and an increasingly alarming inability to stop the simultaneous tape recorders in my head, I knew it was time to power down. And you know what? I have a hunch it was the best 48 hours I’ve spent in quite some time. read more

Gawker Media has been struggling to serve their oh so necessary pageviews, and the culprit turned out to be none other than the Consumerist. The site is hosted by Gawker Media as part of the deal with the Consumers Union, who acquired it late last year. As the clever already deducted, the Consumerist site was attacked by hackers, which caused the technical difficulties. All sites are back up, although the Consumerist isn’t behaving perfectly well yet.

PayPerPost creators Izea have launched Sponsored Tweets, which is exactly what it sounds like. You’ll set a price and if an advertiser thinks it sounds good he can buy a tweet from you. Then you write something about the sponsor and tweets it along with a link. Full disclosure is mandatory, which means that this actually isn’t as evil as one would perhaps believe. They have in fact managed to ensnare a few “web celebs” such as Chris Pirillo and Loren Feldman for example. Add ex-Playboy bunny (?) Holly Madison and you’ve got a nice mix of mainstream meets geek.

Tweets are sent via OAuth login to Sponsored Tweets. Check it out, but before you do that, tell me this: Would you click a link in an obviously sponsored tweet?

The WordPress community has released the 2.8.3 security update for the popular blog platform. This release is the third update in less than a month for the 2.8 branch and is the second consecutive security release after WP 2.8.2 was released 15 days ago.

You can update now from your admin back-end or download WP 2.8.3 at www.wordpress.org.

Internet security company F-Secure has announced the discovery that Twitter is now following its advice to filter all posted URLs, including shortened ones, for malicious content.

Their screenshot, copied below, shows what happens if you try to post a link to a site that Twitter considers leads to malware.

The message “Oops! Your tweet contained a URL to a known malware site!” pops up and the message cannot be posted. read more

Happy Monday, folks! Well, it’s here: Movable Type 4.3. Lots of new features and performance enhancements, so you’ll probably want to upgrade to this one. Here’s a summary of what’s new, taken from the official announcement:

• Performance for all publishing is faster than ever.
• Your readers can now find content by author or date range (something Google’s site search doesn’t do) with the powerful new search feature.
• You can create a new site based on an existing one in just a few clicks with smarter blog cloning.
• Page views can increase by more than 50% with the new flexible pagination for comments and entries (based on the testing of one of our clients.)
• It’s faster to insert and re-use photos in your posts, and simple to create slide shows, with the most powerful asset manager ever.
• Documentation is more comprehensive and easy to access than ever before.

Some impressive claims there. I hope after people have had time to kick the tires they’ll let us know how it really performs. read more

While we already know that Twitter can be a killer business tool when used effectively, it’s always good to have a survey to back it up.

The latest research comes from AIIM, which in a survey of nearly 800 people found that over one quarter of 18-30 year-olds thought that Twitter was an important rapid feedback tool for business use. By comparison, just seven per cent of over-45s thought so. read more