WordCamp Dallas Report
Jun 29, 2009
Jonathan Bailey, part of our team here at Splashpress Media, recently attended WordCamp Dallas and gave some interesting insights in a post at the Blog Herald:
WordCamp 2009 is officially in the books. With two and a half days of some of the best community, speakers and information, it was an incredible event. Over the course of the weekend, I saw some of the best blogging-related presentations, met many of the most wonderful people in the blogging world and observed some of the worst bowling ever witnessed by man (though most of that was my own).
The event was a smashing success with over 300 attendees. Organized by John Pozadzides and sponsored prominently by his company, Woopra, it was, according to those in attendance, the second-largest WordCamp in the world.
But while the best part of these WordCamps is always the community and getting to meet all of the people who share your passion, there were also a slew of great speakers, 16 in total, plus a panel discussion. Even for a veteran blogger, there was a great deal to learn.
So, as I try to digest and take in everything I saw and learned at WordCamp Dallas, a more complete recap is forthcoming on my site, here are five things I’m holding onto dearly as WordCamp Dallas closes up for the year (in no particular order).
6. Using Social Media
Giovanni Gallucci gave a very passionate and interesting talk about ways to use social media to help your site gain traction both with readers and with the search engines. Though I may not have agreed with all of his “blue hat” tactics (tactics that combine black hat and white hat elements) I definitely learned a great deal about how you can use your accounts on other sites to promote your main offering and how to target your content to the keywords that are most valuable to your readers.
It was an incredibly informative talk that has me thinking of ways to alter my site and my presence elsewhere.
5. WordPress Custom Fields
Randy Hoyt gave an incredible talk about using WordPress’ custom fields in your blog posts. As the user of a magazine-style template for my main site, I use these custom fields every day but never really thought about all of the things that they could do.
Hoyt’s talk got me really thinking about new ways I can use custom fields to control the layout of my site including, possibly, the addition of subheads, a better review system and perhaps most importantly, use custom fields to help me organize the front page of my site so I do not have to use my categories.
Hoyt also talked a great deal about plugins that can help manage these custom fields and I will probably be very busy over the next week playing with them.
4. Categories and Tags
Speaking of categories and tags. Lorelle VanFossen gave a great Star-Trek themed talk about the proper use of categories and tags on your site. Like most bloggers, I didn’t have much of a plan when I started categorizing and then tagging posts and it shows.
Lorelle’s talk showed everyone how to cut through that clutter and now that, thanks to Randy Hoyt’s talk, I should be free of the category ball and chain as a site layout tool, I should be able to at least completely redo my categories to provide much better organization, usability and SEO to the site, both for the search engines and my visitors.
I can’t wait.
3. Design and Layout
In one of the more entertaining talks, Liz Strauss “ripped apart” John Pozadzides’ blog layout while he worked in his admin panel to try and fix the layout more to her (and the audience’s) liking.
But as entertaining as the spectacle was, it came with it several bits of advice and ideas as only Liz can provide them including remembering why you are blogging and putting that information front and center. This, in turn, got me to take a new look at my blog layout and, as a result, I’m almost certainly going to be making some changes.
Liz Strauss is simply one of those people that, when you think you’ve almost learned everything she has to offer, you realize you’ve barely scratched the surface.
2. WordPress as a CMS
WordPress is widely known as a blogging platform but it really is much more powerful than that. Through both native functionality and some plugins, you can use WordPress as a content management system, in short, using WordPress to manage a non-blog Web site or a very complicated site where a blog is just a part of the picture.
This was the thrust of Scott Clark’s talk (and musical number) as he discussed both the general usefulness of WordPress and highlighted several plugins that expand this capability, including Pods, one he helped create.
Combined with Randy Hoyt’s talk about custom fields, the power and flexibility of WordPress really began to click. Even better though, his talk is already available on Vimeo (the others will soon be available on WordPress.tv)
1. Multimedia, Multimedia, Multimedia
It was the theme of WordCamp Dallas in many ways. Dave Moyer, David Curlee and Cali Lewis all gave talks that dealt with, in some way, adding multimedia to your blog and the importance thereof.
Clearly this is a big part of the future direction of blogging and it is going to be important for all bloggers to at least try their hand at multimedia content from time to time. Now is the time to begin learning the technology involved in creating podcasts and videos as well as to begin honing those skills. Also, As David Curlee pointed out, the technology is getting much cheaper and much easier to use.
Bottom Line
On top of these presentations, there were many other great speakers including DB Ferguson, who discussed the steps to becoming an authority blogger, Matthew “Spamboy” McGarity talked about how to install WordPress on your home computer for testing purposes and Mark “Rizzin” Hopkins (who was livestreaming last year’s event for Mashable) gave a talk about moving beyond Adsense on your blog to earn more money (very useful for those who run ads on their site).
I was also speaking at the event, in a talk dealing with finding free and legal content for your blog. Douglas Hanna, who works for Automattic, gave a talk about the WordPress showcase and, most important of all Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic was there to talk about the state of WordPress.
All in all, there was an incredible amount to learn and glean from this even and this post barely scratches the surface of what all went down. It was an incredible weekend in Dallas and I am already looking forward to Wordcamp in 2010.
If you weren’t able to attend live or catch the livestream on GeekBrief.tv, don’t worry, the videos from the presentations will be posted on WordPress.tv shortly. So stay tuned.
Over at the official WordCamp Dallas site, you can see a the list of attendees, what the schedule was and other details about the conference. There are some interesting WordCamps coming up soon in the UK, New Zealand and the Philippines to mention just a few. To check out the schedule of future WordCamps, visit the main site, while our own guide at the Blog Herald will keep you updated with all the other blog-related conferences.
New Twitter Buttons Up
Jun 22, 2009
We’re pleased to announce a new set of 40 uniquely designed Twitter Buttons over at TwitterButtons.com. The new batch can be seen and downloaded here. The buttons were designed by our own Ia Lucero and special notice was paid to the feedback we have received at the blog, where users were asking for more “follow me” choices. As we said when we first introduced the site last March, we will be continuing to add more buttons and functionality over the year.
The new buttons were announced at the Twitter Buttons blog:
We’ve posted 40 new button designs for your choosing, which you can find at http://www.twitterbuttons.com/more5.html. These include chiclet-type buttons, cool and colorful cut-out type “Follow me” buttons, and simple twitter bird outline ones. As with our earlier Twitter buttons, you can find a button that’s just right for your blog, social network profile, or email signature. Just copy and paste the code and you’re good to go.
Here are three more examples of the recent additions:
Please do contact us and let us know any requests that you have for Twitter Buttons, and we will make some especially in your honor 
You can also sign up via email or follower the site’s dedicated Twitter account to learn about the latest updates. One very exciting thing in the pipeline is a script we have developed to work in tandem with the buttons, to reflect users’ “follower counts“, of which you can already check out a test button here.
More on that soon…
The Blog Herald Launches Blog Conference Guide
Jun 15, 2009
Last March, we announced how the Blog Herald had gotten a new facelift design-wise and our future plans for adding new services, resources and blogging guides. One of these plans was a Blog Conference Guide, being put together by Easton Ellsworth, using the Google Calendar and we are pleased to report that this resource is finally up and running!:
“Here is a list of upcoming 2009 blogging events and meetups for bloggers. Feel free to use the map and calendar to help you plan your next trip! - The Blog Herald team. Please contact us if you have any suggestions for this resource! If you like this resource, please tell your friends! 
2009 Blog Conferences Map
View Blog Conferences in a larger map
2009 Blogging Events Calendar
2009 Blogger Conference List
Social Media Success Summit 2009
May 26 - June 23, 2009 — Online only
Online summit to help marketers achieve success with social media.
IMC Stockholm
May 26-28, 2009 — Stockholm, Sweden
Dedicated to affiliate marketing, Google Adwords, social media, conversion optimization, customer experience management, and more.
Inbound Marketing Summit
May 27-28 — Dallas, TX
Led by Chris Brogan and Justin Levy.
SMX Advanced
June 2-3, 2009 — Seattle
Information for intermediate to advanced SEOs.
WordCamp Chicago
June 6-7 — Chicago, IL
Organized by the creators of WordPress for WP users and developers.
Web Content: Chicago
June 15-16 — Chicago, IL
Meant to help attendees understand how organizations worldwide are personalizing Web content.
Blogging While Brown
June 19-21 — Chicago, IL
Gives bloggers of color an chance to meet and discuss current issues affecting them and new technologies that can help them accomplish their goals.
BlogHer
July 23-25 — Chicago, IL
“Hands-on learning, rich discussions, opportunities to meet with the brands that support them and plentiful networking opportunities.” 2009’s theme: “In Real Life.”
Affiliate Summit
August 9-11 — New York City
Covers the latest trends and advice from expert affiliate marketers.
Inbound Marketing Summit
September 30-October 1 — Foxboro, MA
Another meeting of the May 27-28 event listed above.
Blog World & New Media Expo
October 15-17 — Las Vegas, NV
“The largest new media conference in the world including more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from iconic personalities on the leading-edge of online technology and internet-savvy business.”
Web 2.0 Summit 2009
Oct. 20-22 — San Francisco, CA
“Visionaries and executives across key industries will present their unique perspective on the Web’s future-in-flux and how the tools and principles of Web 2.0 are impacting their businesses.”
There’s more?
Did we forget a blogging-related conference? Please contact us directly and let us know.
Thanks for your help!”
We believe, as Easton wrote at the Blog Herald when introducing this new resource, that “while a work in progress….it can become the best list anywhere of upcoming conferences and events for bloggers.” So please do head over and check out The Blog Herald Blog Conference Guide and help us make it even better with your own input
Performancing Updates Themes
Jun 8, 2009
Having recently released its 19th free theme- Treasure Theme designed by Randa Clay, as announced here a couple of weeks ago, Performancing Themes has turned its attention to updating all previous themes to be compatible with current WordPress versions. We have found that many “free themes” released by designers, such as submitted at our own Free WordPress Themes site, don’t support the theme for users post-release with needed upgrades. This is something that we are keen to avoid at Performancing and we also try our best to support publisher questions either at the PT blog via comments or at the dedicated Perfomancing forum theme support area.
Here was the announcement at Performancing Themes:
Good news to Performancing Themes users who have upgraded to the latest version of WordPress (currently at 2.7.1). We have upgraded most of our theme releases for compatibility with WordPress 2.7+. While the previous theme releases will still work, some might be missing the new functionalities that WP 2.7+ offers, such as post classes, threaded comments, and the like.
You might wish to check out the latest versions of the following:
J. Angelo Racoma echoed this announcement at Performancing itself:
Treasure Theme has recently been released, but did you know that we also released several batches of upgrades for previously-released themes?
Check out the list of updated themes, which includes the following:
The latest batch includes:
While the previous versions of the Perf Themes should work properly with WordPress 2.7 up, you won’t be able to use the advanced features like threaded comments, post classes, built-in image classes and gravatar support (where applicable).
While only a few core files were changed in these, we would recommend backing up your existing theme file, uploading the whole thing, and copying over any modifications you have made, just to be sure.
So if you are using one of our Performancing theme releases, do download the latest editions now!
Introducing Our New Editor: Jayvee Fernandez
Jun 1, 2009
We have a new addition to the Splashpress Media team: Jayvee Fernandez. Jayvee is taking over the reigns of Editor, ensuring open channels of communication across the growing number of site managers, bloggers, contributors, editors, and network staff. Our former editor, J. Angelo Racoma, will still very much be part of our team and staying on as Assistant Editor.
If you’ve read The Tipping Point and believe Malcolm Gladwell’s three classification of marketers as mavens, connectors, salesmen or a combination thereof, Jayvee falls under the second type as a firm believer in the quality of relationships you build your community upon. He’s been a community organizer in his previous job that had nothing to do with the Internet, and it seems to be fate that brings him into more community building endeavors, apparently more on the Internet.
Jayvee has been a regular contributor to The Blog Herald and Performancing since January and has had a full 360 degree background in print and online media for more than five years. He’s a jack of all trades having filled in slots for editorial, marketing and advertising for content.
Before joining us, Jayvee served as editor to a stable of technology blogs under b5media Inc. Prior to blogging, Jayvee was involved in corporate altruism in the real estate industry. An educator by degree, he also facilitates a course on Internet Marketing to graduate students in the Philippines, a country where we have a strong presence with such projects at WordPress Philippines.
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Previous posts
- WordCamp Dallas Report
- New Twitter Buttons Up
- The Blog Herald Launches Blog Conference Guide
- Performancing Updates Themes
- Introducing Our New Editor: Jayvee Fernandez
- Splashpress Launches Clock Widgets
- Treasure Theme Released
- WordPress Security Audit Service
- Splog Spot Opens Up Blog
- Follow Splashpress On Twitter
- News Archive