Fun with Facebook Fan Page Creation

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Dave

Having stopped by a few blogging forums for advice on best practices, I noticed many people mentioning Facebook Fan Pages as a good way to go as far as encouraging traffic to check out your blog, so this weekend I set out to create a few for my sites.

The first fan page you make, apparently, can be created complete with a custom URL without needing to gather up a fan base first (you have to like it yourself to get it up and running though), but I found when I created the next two pages for Mindbla here and my pictures blog lulzJapan, I was unable to get an official “vanity” URL unless I had “more fans”. What I didn’t realize at that point was that the official fan count for creating more than one fan page is 25 fans, so after wondering for a while why I wasn’t able to get my URL when I had a handful of *likes* I delved a little deeper and discovered that particular requirement.

I must add here that Facebook doesn’t put all the info out there in an easy to find place (like perhaps on the page where you’re supposed to click to get your URL, for example), they seem to like making people hunt around for it, or perhaps they just don’t want us to know what the requirements are, in order to keep people guessing perhaps and, I suppose, keep them more busy and active on Facebook. Crafty folks, those Facebookers. In addition, I was also disappointed to learn that there no longer seems to be a way to include an RSS feed on the pages in order to keep them updated automatically, apparently the only way to update them with current blog postings is to do so manually upon each blog update. I’m not sure why they’re against having an easy way to keep your fan pages updated, but in any case I guess there’s no way around it at present. Perhaps if Facebook receives enough complaints about it they’ll switch back, I did notice quite a lot of people complaining about it while I was searching (to no avail) for a way to set up some sort of an update feed.

So anyway, armed with all this new information, I gathered together the forces of my personal Facebook page, and within 24 hours or so I had my legions of fans onboard and was able to snatch up the official URL’s for all three pages. If you’d care to, please feel free to check them out and join the party by liking one or all of my brand new Facebook fan pages!

http://www.facebook.com/mindbla

http://www.facebook.com/lulzJapan

http://www.facebook.com/UpbeatRhythms

Thank you for reading this latest update on Facebook Fan Page Shenanigans and, as always, thank you for checking out the Mindbla blog, talk to you soon in the next installment.

I Squidoo, do you Squidoo too?

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Dave

Here on the Mindbla blog we’ve discussed Twitter and assorted Tweet-related sites, what Tumblr is all about (hint – think Facebook for the Younger Generation) and all of its glorious insanity and peculiarity, then there are the giants like Facebook and Google Plus that occupy so many peoples time and attention including ours, along with all kinds of other new and interesting (and confusing!) social media websites available for our enjoyment these days. Today I’d like to talk about another interesting, though quite puzzling, social media site out there which is another quasi-blogging platform with some mildly interesting twists. It is known, strangely, as Squidoo.

On Squidoo you create mini-blogs, known as lenses, where you write posts, add links, upload pictures, and do all kinds of other stuff that you might do on a regular blog like Mindbla here, but the twist is you publish this lens as a sort of stand-alone site (although you can link them up as well), and it gets ranked and people can search for it and you can actually make money from the ads there. A very nice feature is you can opt in for donating your money to charity rather than simply collect it yourself, which can be nice if you’re not making much and would rather simply donate it to various charities. In fact, that seem to encourage that, since it’s the first option in the setup, and actually getting the money is further down on the list.

There are some other fairly amusing twists, such as receiving points for your various activities such as creating lenses and liking and commenting on other people’s lenses and a bunch of other stuff. It seems as though you are able to get points for pretty much anything you do, so it can be rather addicting and fun to see what earns you points next. On the other hand, it’s really tough to see the relative value in gaining all these points, you unlock some mildly interesting new features that don’t seem particularly special and aren’t anything to write home about, but I suppose that’s all part of the game to keep the people all engaged-like and happy. Welcome to Web 2.0 style, right? There are also some feature known as a ‘quest’ which I gather is just a way to encourage people to create lenses of one particular type or another, or read other people’s lenses, and other money-see monkey-do type stuff like that. Seems more trouble than it’s worth but then again I haven’t really been using Squidoo for all that long yet, maybe it’ll grow on me over time.

Thanks for reading!

The Mindbla blog is now officially a blog!

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Dave

Or at least, according to Technorati it is.

I applied for a Technorati link a few weeks ago and received a rather cryptic rejection, something along the lines of “your blog doesn’t appear to be a blog”. Huh?

But apparently I’ve made it nice and bloggy now, as I was approved for membership today by the powers that be over on Technorati. I dunno why I should be so psyched about that, except I suppose that it adds some tiny measure of validity to my efforts here, not to mention the fact that any and all links back to the site improve matters from a search engine optimization perspective. I certainly wouldn’t complain about a little more help on the search side of things, it’s nice to have people actually be able to seek out and find this blog after all.

So, I guess that makes Mindbla.com official in a way. On the other hand, I think my ranking is somewhere South of blog number five million or so, which means I have a ways to go before I make their vaunted “top 100″ list of important blogs out there. But I suppose it’s always good to have goals to strive towards.

Thanks for reading!

The Upbeat Rhythms Project – A Mammoth Endeavor

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Dave

I probably should’ve realized at the outset that trying to juggle three completely different blogs would be time consuming, hectic even, but in terms of what’s on my mind these days and what’m interested in trying to accomplish online there just happened to be three pretty diverse categories that I wanted to try and sink my teeth into.

You’re reading the first part right here, my “regular” blog, the place where I talk about what’s on my mind and try and come up with some cool general interest topics and focus on some of my writing, hobbies, and other interests. The second one was really born of the first, back when I was just doing a free blogger blog I put up some pictures and BOOM! suddenly my page views went through the roof (relatively speaking, of course). I realized right there and then that a picture blog could be something that could merit a page of its’ own, and so I created lulzJapan, which has thus far been my most successful effort judging by page views and the fact that even google seems to be showing it a little respect and throwing me a few bones. It is also by far the easiest to maintain, as it’s simply a lot easier to upload a picture or two, write a short bit about it, and hit “publish”, compared to blog posts which are really a lot like being in the newspaper business in terms of demand, you simply have to keep generating new material and sometimes that’s easier than other times. I can upload a picture and hit publish any old time, it takes very little effort or energy aside from the picture taking, but I enjoy it and even that doesn’t take a whole lot of time to accomplish. A few times a month is all I really need to keep the site topped off with great content, since the city of Tokyo never disappoints in that regard!

But then there’s my baby, Upbeat Rhythms, and I would’ve thought it would be pretty easy since it’s very much in my wheelhouse as a musician but it has turned into quite a project unto itself, mostly because I’ve set out to put forth a truly comprehensive set of resources for rhythm, not just drums but all kinds of rhythm for all musicians. And the fact that it needs to be comprehensive means I’ve got to exhaust all the necessary studies, patterns, styles, not to mention the fact that I have to be very careful to make sure the details are just so, since I’m claiming that it’s a true lessons & tutorials resource for musicians so I need to make certain I minimize any errors along the way. I’m sure there will be some from time to time, but I’m working to keep them at a bare minimum as much as I’m able to.

So in any case, I like what I’m doing and I’m pretty happy with how things have gone so far (though I could use more hits and more comments…come on people, share these blogs around on all the social networks, make me “Internet Famous” lol), but the rhythm site has a long way to go. It’s definitely a marathon project, unless I can significantly up my output of new content it could easily take several months for me to get to the point where I consider the site a truly comprehensive resource for people.

But that’s okay. One very cool thing that happened quite by accident is that I began writing a book, without writing a book, simply because of that website. What I mean by that is, researching SEO on videos gave me the idea to begin transcribing my videos, and once that was done I had all the material I needed to start putting together in book form (with proper edits and adjustments, of course), so that’s a happy accident that I think will be of great value to me and others in the long run. Aside from that, I’ll keep churning out the content as often as I can and we’ll see how it goes. When the book is ready, I’ll be fure to let everyone here know about it!

Thanks for reading!

Update on my Story Writing Efforts

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Dave

As promised, here is your Monday update to the last week’s topic on getting my story off the ground. I can tell you that I’ve made a great deal of progress, but I also have to say that I haven’t reached any definitive conclusions on how to move forward and so I’ve decided to extend my self-imposed deadline (why do I publish these things!? lol), so as to give myself a little more time to work out exactly what I want my first full length book to be about.

I do have some ideas, but nothing concrete enough to write about at this time, except to say that I’ve narrowed down the genre to something in the political thriller/legal thriller realm, most likely. These sound fairly vague, I know, but what I’m determining right now isn’t necessarily what I can write, I’m also weeding out the stuff that I’m quite sure I do not want to write, or am otherwise incapable of doing a good job with.

Beyond politics and that sort of realm, I don’t really think I have much skill in other genres except for possibly something along the lines of a science fiction/fantasy realm, but as much as I love and enjoy that type of story I’m not really sure my imagination skews in that direction quite wildly enough to make a go of it. It’s possible, of course, but the more I think about it the more I think that I’ll be much better at writing real world stuff, perhaps with a hint of cutting edge tech or something along those lines to spice it up.

As to characters, I’ve come up with several and I have a bare bones outline of a few more. At the moment my worlds feel rather underpopulated, but I’m sure more characters will come to me as I start working out the true outline and scope of my story. Or at least that’s the hope.

In any case, I am sorry to report that this update can not be quite as definitive as I’d hoped, but I figured I should at least meet the deadline I gave myself here by at least composing a post to explain exactly where I am in the process, in case anyone happens to be checking back to see what I’ve come up with. I will certainly add more updates as they become relevant, in the meantime I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful Sakura gallery I put up over the weekend (they are spectacular as always, I love living in Japan this time of year!), and as always thanks for reading!

On Documenting the Process of Writing

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Dave

Since I’ve got this blog up and running now and I want to add new content consistently, I’ve decided to devote some of my blog posts to documenting my writing process throughout one of hopefully many books I’m in the planning stages of working through right now.

As of this week, I’ve reached one decision and that is to choose which of my story ideas will take center stage and which will be left on the back burner for now, in order for me to focus completely on getting at least one of them finished. So I’ve given myself a deadline. Monday, just a few days from now, I will have firmly decided which story is to be focused on and exclusively, from start to finish, for better or worse, until I either finish it or throw it entirely away in disgust lol.

It might seem fairly counter-intuitive for me to continue on with my blog posting schedule when I’m trying to get focused on the work of writing a book, but I feel as though it will be a good outlet for me to be able to write a little more “on the side” even if it is related to the task at hand from time to time. I just don’t want to continue getting bogged down as in the past with several story ideas that keep getting in the way of each other when it comes to my time and focus.

I will of course compose another post on Monday detailing which of the story ideas I’ve selected and why, along with a bit about the thought process behind it. For now, deadline one is set and the clock is ticking. Now, to go back through my old notes and decide which of these bad boys will get my fullest attention beginning very soon.

Thanks for reading!

Isn’t Social Media supposed to be Fun?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Dave

I’ve been working hard making use of Social Media sites in an attempt to promote my blogging efforts, but I must say the advice I’ve received from so many quarters insisting that it’s a great idea to add your new blog content to a bunch of Social Media sites has proved to be quite a grind. A downright drag, really. Playing around with Social Media for fun once in a while is amusing, trying to keep up with all of it and make sure you continue to update your content on each page and make sure to add fun headlines and thank people who liked it and reciprocate all the friend requests that come along? It really does start to feel like an actual job after a little while. The idea of having a blog and trying to promote it is something that I thought would be lots of fun, but at least this particular aspect of it has turned into much more of a chore than I really ever thought it would be.

Fighting for Page Views

I have been relatively pleased with the amount of traffic I’ve been receiving for a newbie blog, but it absolutely feels like like I’m having to do a lot of work just to keep things on an even keel. FIghting for each and every page view, as it were. I hadn’t realized just how difficult it is to maintain even a small but steady flow of traffic to a blog, although given the amount of content out there and how many bloggers are trying to do exactly the same thing, I guess it’s not all that surprising.

On the few days I’ve put up some new content but done nothing to promote it, the results have been disappointing to say the least. Over on upbeatrhythms, for example, I’ve had several days when I got no visitors at all! Clearly that’s a bummer when you work hard to come up with some new content to share.

One Blog off to a Good Start

On the other hand, I do feel as though I’m still getting my feet wet, and I’ve not really gotten into the flow of putting up some really valuable and useful content and spent the requisite amount of time talking it up, so if I can keep at it I’m sure things will pick up.

Here on Mindbla I’ve been pleased to see a steady stream of visitors, and the third site which is my funny pictures blog has been doing gangbusters for such a new space, I had over a thousand visitors on a few occasions which is fun to see and makes me feel as though I’m at least heading in the right direction.

Part of the ease of that project is the fact that it’s much easier to upload a picture or two per day with a small blurb or comment. I’ve found it quite easy to stick to a schedule and then send out a few tweets and put up the links on Delicious or Digg or wherever, the pace and rhythm of it works well. It’s not so easy when you want to do some writing and come up with interesting topics or, in the case of the music site, to pave the way for some bigger projects such as a video tutorial series that I really want to get done but it takes a lot of time and effort behind the scenes before I’m even ready to publish anything. I did manage to get that video series off the ground last week, so now I’ve just got to keep at it. But it’s a lot more work and preparation than a pictures blog, that’s for sure, and that’s even before factoring in all the Social Media promoting I should be doing for the site!

*sigh* – now where did I put that password for StumbleUpon again?

At Last, the “Ah Ha” Moment I’ve been Waiting For

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Dave

I’ve been dreading life and writing, losing interest even in my blogging efforts, and feeling myself slide into a sort of malaise because I felt as though I wouldn’t be able to create anything of enough value for people to bother with.

But just today, I had a real Eureka! moment, and started writing and didn’t put down the keyboard for a long while. What I realized was, if I’m going to write something of value and worth, I’m going to have to gouge out my soul and hand it over for public inspection. Does this set me up to be mocked? Admired? A little of both? No way to know as of now, but the rewards are as enticing as the consequences are chilling. I do know for a fact that there’s enough pain and heartache and misery within me to fill up a few dozen volumes of compelling literature if I can manage to spit it out onto a piece of paper and then drum up the courage to let it be seen.

This revelation feels ‘right’ to me in one sense, since it gives me some measure of confidence that I have some stories that are worthy of being told, but the risk is far more painful to think about than I’ve been willing to admit to myself until now. The lighthearted side of storytelling is not me, never has been, and I can’t imaging it would be of any worth to anyone else as even I can’t stand to read what I come up with. Even as I type this, I can feel the dead in the pit of my stomach as I realize what I must do if I’m going to be a successful writer. It involves a ton of soul searching and the re-opening of old wounds and buried pain. Looking at all the options before me at the moment, being a writer is the one thing that I do believe has the potential to bring about that very success I’ve both longed for and dreaded my entire life, the success that has eluded me so perfectly and left me feeling as worthless as a worn out shoe most of the time, and this revelation is exactly why I now know why part of me has dreaded it.

For me to succeed, I will have to risk exposing everything I’ve carefully kept to myself all these many years, the pain and anguish, certainly, but also the secret hopes and dreams that I so fear will be met with ridicule, or scorn, or even worse ignored or unnoticed which would truly mean that I, myself, am worthy of nothing more than to be ignored and cast aside, a waste of resources and a drag on society at best.

So the question is, do I go for it? At the moment, my gut tells me I’m going to do it. I must do it. But that’s an easy thought to think on day one, and I’m sure it will be a long hard slog whether it takes weeks, months, or even longer to get anywhere. The writer I need to become was born today. Time will tell whether or not that birth was of any value to anybody but myself (or even for myself, for that matter!), but one way or the other I’ve got to find a way to become more successful in life because I am at the end of my tether as far as being just absolutely sick and fucking tired of being a failure. It’s time to get past that, because I can not maintain my sanity for much longer at this rate. Baring my soul on the page looks to be my salvation, albeit a cure who’s side-effects might just prove worse than the illness of my malaise.

Take Time to Set Up Your Title Tags for SEO Purposes

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Dave

The Importance of Proper Tagging

Over this past weekend I’ve done a little bit of research on the importance of H1 and H2 tags in HTLM, sometimes thought of as “title” and “sub-title” tags although here in WordPress you can select anywhere from H1 all the way down to H6. What I didn’t realize until looking it up, however, was just how crucial these tagged bits of text are when it comes to what the search engines recognize and respond to. Over on my other blog I played around with the tags and suddenly I noticed I was getting a lot more targeted visitors from Google searches. This took place literally within the space of a few hours and I was fairly flabberghasted to think what I might have been missing over the past month or so by not paying enough attention to something so relatively simple.

Of course, it could very well be coincidence. I’m hardly getting floods of traffic from keyword search results (yet!), but I didn’t really do anything partiularly different with the site. I’ll keep a close eye on it over the next few days of course, along with some more research, and if it turns out to be just a fluke or something I’ll be sure and mention it once again here on the Mindbla blog, but in any case it’s worth looking into.

What I’ve learned so far

As you can see above, I used a sub-heading (in this case, H3) which is supposed to be a good way to break up blog posts and give the spiders some sense of direction. So you can probably expect to see more of this in future from me. It looks nice anyway, and helps with the professionalism of the blog so it’s perfectly fine with me. I’m not so over-the-top that I’ll start gearing my blog posts to perfectly coded SEO keyword algorhythms or anything silly like that, but if learning to use the proper headings is useful I’m all for it.

I also learned that the title on a single post page should not be H1 (the blog title I mean, not the title of the article which should be H1 in fact), essentially you should have only one H1 per page and that’s it. The rest should be broken down into subheadings. My Coraline theme seems to take care of that automatically though, which is nice because I was just fixing to delve into all my past posts and switch all the headings around when I realized it was already automatically taken care of within the theme. So before you do anything drastic make sure you check out your single.php and page.php and style.css files to see what your theme is already taking care of for you, before committing to any sort of major adjustments or changes.

If You Need a Hosting Company, Look No Further than HostGator

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Dave

I’m not really the kind of guy who gushes or throws out random ringing endorsements, I’m more likely to be the complainer that the call center gets sick of hearing from lol.

But I’m sufficiently impressed with HostGator to want to devote an entire blog topic to their company. First of all, their plans are quite reasonable, it’s even fair to say they’re service is downright cheap. And as a newbie blogger, I spent a lot of time stressing over whether I should go with such a “discount” company but I read lots of good reviews online and I ended up going with HostGator. And I am very glad that I did.

Since starting up this whole blogging adventure I’ve had a good number of problems, mostly of my own creation being so new at this whole thing, and I’ve used their live chat on numerous occasions at this point. Besides the fact that they held my hand and fixed my mistakes quickly and professionally, I have to say that their friendliness and genuine attention to good customer service is nothing short of stunning.

To put it into perspective, I worked at Disneyland in Japan for many years. And I used to think that Disney had a lock on the number one spot as the very best at superior customer service out of any company out there, big or small. But now, for the first time, I can say without question that the HostGator company matches or even exceeds Disney in terms of genuine customer care. I think that’s about as high a compliment as I can hand out, and they certainly do deserve it. Each and every time I got off the line with their service center I was tempted to send an email to the CEO asking him to give whichever staff person helped me a big raise and a bonus.

So in any case, if you’re looking for a company to host your blog or website, or considering switching out, I can not recommend HostGator enough Just for the record, this isn’t a “paid endorsement” or anything like that (I know such endorsements for pay do show up on blogs from time to time), just an honest review from a very satisfied customer.