In “Duke DesRochers: Future Social Media Renaissance Man,” I introduced my cousin, Duke DesRochers, highlighting his fun cooking show audition tape as a great example of how to market with social media in mind.

With the advent of blogs, YouTube, podcasts, and online social media tools that allow anyone to publish anything they want within the law, everyone could become their own entertainment production company, putting the masses in charge of not only being the entertainment, but providing it.

With inexpensive video equipment and software, and an innate sense of comedy, drama, and style, Duke DesRochers has an intuitive way of bringing the “common man” into his audition video that I hope will gain the attention of the judges. It’s time to go back to the real people, rather than the exaggerated people, to find the humility and fun in entertainment. We need to get people thinking, “Hey, that’s me! I can do that!”

Another part of Duke DesRochers I want to celebrate with you is how he took two fairly diverse passions, and molded them into one specialty to totally redefine himself for this video audition for the Food Network: handyman in the kitchen.

As part of this ongoing series on Exploring Social Media, I want to talk a little more about the important points that Duke’s Food Network audition efforts brought up: getting personal and brand identity. read more

I’m going to be at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas on September 20-21, 2008, and so is David Peralty, who listed “Some People I Hope to Meet at Blog World Expo.”

The list of Exhibitors and Speakers at Blog World Expo this year is incredible. A veritable list of whose who.

His list of people he’d like to meet got me thinking about my list. And then I started thinking about all the conferences I attend and speak at every year and all the fantastic people I meet, some famous and some not, who change my life in those few minutes of meet and greet.

I love blog and web conferences. I learn so much. While many think that I am there to be the educator, I enjoy them because of the lessons I learn from fellow speakers, but most of all from fellow attendees. Those quickly caught moments in corridors, exhibition halls, at my book table, or even in the restroom. Those are where the real business of a conference really happens. Those quick moments of connections made that last long after the conference. read more

As we explore our blogs and clean out the clutter in this ongoing series on WTF Blog Design Clutter, we’ve looked at the pros and cons of blog clutter with too many “friend” pictures and badges, calendar archives, and most recent comments and shout boxes. Remember that clutter is in the eye of the beholder - the visiting user - not necessarily the blogger. What we see when we visit and use our blogs is not necessarily what the visitor and return reader see or experience. We need to explore our blog’s design through their eyes to help them use and read our blogs.

The usability factor in web design is critical. We often add design elements (widgets and gadgets specifically) to our blog for fun or novelty. We’re flush with the excitement of the latest and hottest whizzbang goodie and we want to share the fun on our blogs. If your blog is getting cluttered with a lot of WordPress Plugins, Widgets, Gadgets, Scripts, and whizzbangs, maybe it’s time to analyze these design elements to find out which ones are most important to your blog and its users - and which one are just clutter.

Today, I want to explore the pros and cons of microblog clutter on your blogs. Are you microblogging?
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MyBlogLog have redesigned, something dedicated users will probably have seen by now. You should check it out for yourself.

The launch post suggest that there are more things to come:

We went and completely upgraded the featured blogs by scrolling through the top 20 sites (based on number of members), and displaying a more straightforward message about what we offer; Discover, Broadcast, and Connect. You’re going to hear these three words more often from us, I’d love to hear if this description it resonates with you.

It certainly looks better, but I can’t say I’m that impressed really. How about you?

In this ongoing series on WTF Blog Design Clutter, we’ve talked about blog clutter with too many “friend” pictures and badges and calendar archives, two of the many elements many use to clog up their blog’s sidebar. “Clutter” is a matter of perspective. If these added design elements really work for your blog, serve your blog’s purpose, and enhance the reader’s experience, leave them. In fact, put them at the top where they are the first thing people will see next to your post title and content beginnings. Promote them. If they are that important, let them stand out.

If they are not important, then they do become clutter.

One of the most popular blog clutters are the Most Recent Comments and Shout Boxes that many feel are important elements to a blog’s design.

The web is now social. People are experimenting with all types of methods to bring the social to their blogs and emphasize how social their blogs are - or at least appear to be. Among the most popular and easy to do are most recent comment widgets and chatting shout boxes. read more

Remember the old adage that you never get a second chance to make a first impression? You personally may get a second chance to sway that first impress, but your blog doesn’t. If you don’t grab them within the first micro-seconds of a visit, they won’t subscribe and they won’t be back.

Digging through a lot of blogs recently to research an upcoming article, I found myself thinking “WTF” as I looked at the designs. I was constantly distracted from the content I was eager to read through and quote towards things that blinked, flashed, or listed irrelevant stuff. My eyes had to work overtime to stay focused on the information I was there to glean.
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9rules is getting ready for Round 7, where bloggers can attempt to get in the popular blog network by submitting their blogs for review. August 6 is the date you need to mark in your calendar if you want in. As they did the previous time, a special page will be available, open to submissions for 24 hours.

In 2006, I wrote about copyright violations saying that it wasn’t a matter of if but when your content would be stolen. The same premise applies to blog bullies.

It’s not a matter of if a blogger will blog bad things about you but when.

It’s going to happen. It may have already happened. It’s happened to me plenty of times. So what do you do when someone makes fun of you, pokes at you, says hurtful or harmful things about you or your blog on their blog? read more

Here’s a question. If blog comments are mini-resumes, which comments are bringing the most traffic to your blog?

When you leave a comment on a blog, there are three things at work.

1. Your desire to participate in the blog conversation and topic.
2. Your desire to increase your link credits through blog comments.
3. Your desire to encourage traffic from your comment to your blog.

A lot of pro bloggers cover the first two, but I want to explore the last one. If you really want to drive traffic to your blog through comments on other blogs, is it working for you?

Have you been paying attention to your blog referrals and incoming traffic to see where your traffic is coming from in relationship to your blog comments? It’s a very good question because we blog and comment on the premise that blog interaction helps drive traffic.
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Veronica Belmont and Sarah Austin wants out of the sexiest female bloggers poll on Playboy, according to a story on TechCrunch, but Playboy says no. It would, of course disrupt the poll. While I have no love for these kind of polls, and the Playboy one is no exception, I do think that if you’ve consented to being featured by Playboy, and even sent in a photo, you’ve got only yourself to blame. In fact, I was somewhat surprised by how frank Playboy was in their approaching e-mail, quoted on TechCrunch.

Sure, maybe they didn’t know that Playboy would ask the winner to pose for the website, but the key word here is ask. You don’t have to say yes, you know…

Luckily, for those involved wanting out, it seems as if the feature’s going away soon. I would bet, however, that we’ll be seeing more of this in the future.

Update: Veronica Belmont actually doesn’t want out, she just wish she knew what Playboy was doing before accepting.