Splashpress Media

WordCamp Dallas Report

Mark — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:58:04 +0000

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

Mark — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:41:37 +0000

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.

The Blog Herald Launches Blog Conference Guide

Mark — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:15:13 +0000

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

Mark — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:49:42 +0000

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:

Blue Laptop

College Theme

Dark Laptop

Estranged

Gangway

Modern Paper

News Theme

Nightlife

Nitrous

One in a Million

Photopress

Redbook

Rubidious

Simplicity

Story Theme

TDAge

‘Tis the Season

Too Newsy

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:

Blue Laptop

College Theme

Gangway

Modern Paper

News Theme

Nightlife

Nitrous

One in a Million

The latest batch includes:

Photopress

Redbook

Simplicity

‘Tis the Season

TDAge

Rubidious

Dark Laptop

Story Theme

Estranged

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

Mark — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:01:37 +0000

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.

Splashpress Launches Clock Widgets

Mark — Sun, 24 May 2009 23:38:28 +0000

We are pleased to announce the launch of our latest website: Clock Widgets.

For quite some time, our design team has been putting together a superb selection of uniquely designed clock widgets for publishers to display on their blogs and other online platforms (facebook, myspace, etc- even static websites).

The purpose and function of these widgets is obvious- to tell the time but we hope that we have taken this popular application service one step further with some seriously dynamic and interactive timepieces!

The site is simply presented in four parts:

The first section is for analog clock widgets, such as Apple Crisp:

The second section is for digital clock widgets, such as Cockpit:

The third section is for other clock widgets, such as Blocks:

And the final category is simply one that displays the popular widgets, according to the ratings of users on the site itself (each widget can be rated from a score of one to five). Currently the most popular widget is King of Frogs:

To save you the trouble of visiting the FAQ page, here are some more details:

What’s a widget?

A widget is a piece of code that displays special information on a website. It could be news, weather, games, or anything else. Here, you can grab widgets that tell the time.

How do I use a widget?

Copy the Embed Code and paste it anywhere on your blog.

Why can’t I get the widget to work?

Widgets require JavaScript to be turned on and for the Adobe Flash Player to be installed. Download Adobe Flash here.

Who owns the designs of these clock widgets?

These clock widgets are designed by the team at Splashpress Media. We retain all rights to them and they may not be sold, copied or distributed for any third party commercial purposes.

Can I use these widgets on my website for free?

Yes, all our clock widgets are free to use. We do ask (although it is not a prerequisite) that you retain the link back to our site, as this will help us to produce more high quality clock widgets for your use, as well as let other publishers know where they can find us.

Are you open to requests for new designs or custom orders?

We’re always delighted to hear from you and get your feedback. If you have any suggestions about widgets you think we should add, please email us: info[at]splashpress.com. And we’d be more than happy to design a uniquely customized clock widget for your blog.

Clock Widgets was designed by our own Ia Lucero. We are planning to add many more timepieces over the coming months- if you have special requests, please do let us know!

Treasure Theme Released

Mark — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:07:39 +0000

Performancing Themes has released its latest free theme for WordPress (it’s 19th already!): Treasure Theme. The theme was designed by Randa Clay, who has previously designed many of our blogs such as BizCrunch, Celebrity Chefs and Japan Blog. Indeed, Randa is currently redesigning Performancing itself- no small undertaking! Here is the announcement as made at Performancing Themes:

Ever wanted to explore for hidden treasure as a kid? Well, most of us have longed for, and still do long for, this kind of adventure. Most would keep other sorts of treasures in all sorts of places, in their proverbial treasure chests. Love letters are kept in drawers. Photos in photo albums. Toys in toy closets. Blog posts, of course, precious that they are, are kept online.

But what if you can keep your blog posts in “treasure chests” of their own? This is what Performancing’s Treasure Theme for WordPress is all about. Each blog post is kept enclosed in its own box–or what you can call its treasure box. This is very appropriate for bloggers who want to consider each and every published post as precious ad gold and gems.

Another classic from Performancing Themes for WordPress, the Treasure Theme is a collaboration with designer Randa Clay, who has done various other Splashpress Media designs.

Treasure Theme is optimized for use with WordPress 2.7 and above. It supports threaded comments, post classes, image captions and gallery classes introduced in this version of WordPress.

Over at Performancing itself, David Peralty also announces the release:

It has already been over a week since we released the Treasure theme on Themes.Performancing.com. If you haven’t taken a look at it yet, you’ll want to.

Treasure is a simple, two column theme that focuses on the content. Each and every blog posts is placed inside their own content box, allowing strong separation between posts. Designed by Randa Clay, Treasure is easy to use, free and beautiful. If you want to add some colour to your blog, but also want to keep things looking clean and simple, check out Treasure.

Treasure Theme is optimized for use with WordPress 2.7 and above. It supports threaded comments, post classes, image captions and gallery classes introduced in this version of WordPress.

If you’d like to download Treasure, head on over to Themes.Performancing.com where it is currently active, and get your copy today.

This brings Themes.Performancing.com to nearly twenty free WordPress themes!

You can download the theme here.

And you can see a live preview of the theme here.

As usual, support for the theme will be given via the dedicated forum.

Enjoy….

WordPress Security Audit Service

Mark — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:34:22 +0000

Performancing Services, having recently opened up a new service for Copyright Management, managed by Jonathan Bailey and previously announced by us, has now opened another brand new service for bloggers: WordPress Security Audit Service, the brainchild of (and to be overseen by) David Peralty.

J. Angelo Racoma announced the introduction of the service over at Performancing:

How secure is your WordPress blog?

This is one question that usually escapes bloggers until that time when you wake up and see that your blog has crashed, gone offline, or–worse–been vandalized. While you can always revert to backups, you’re not sure those are recent. And it’s not always a walk in the park to restore from backup. And need I mention the downtime?

Most experienced bloggers would know how to secure their blogs. It usually involves a more strict file and folder permission set, stronger passwords, updated software and plugin versions, and the like. But not everyone knows everything about securing one’s blog installation. More importantly, not everyone has the time to do so on their own, especially those who run multiple blogs.

I must admit that in one way or another, I’ve fallen into this trap of complacency and many of my blogs are not 100% secure. And so, with the prodding of David Peralty, and with encouragement from several colleagues at the Hive, we’re planning to offer WordPress security audits as part of Performancing Services.

Details will unfold soon. But from what I’ve outlined so far, the service would be two-pronged, much like our copyright management service. First would be the audit–where we scour your site for holes and potential problems, and we will give you a report containing recommended actions. Second, if you choose to have us do the actual legwork, we will then do it for you.

Does this sound like a good idea? I’m pretty sure there are tools out there that can practically do the same thing, but of course there’s no substitute to human judgement (and imagination).

And you can see the service being offered over at Performancing Services in the Blog Management section:

Content scraping is one of the biggest headaches a blogger faces. Once you hit that publish button, your articles are prone to automatic copying and republishing by not-so-trustworthy websites who do not link back. Some of these scrapers even earn from your hard work by slapping on some advertisements, text links or affiliate links on their own sites, as if it were their own.

The Performancing Copyright Management Service does the hard work for you. Our copyright experts will track down websites, blogs, forums and other sites that infringe on your rights as a publisher. We will then give you a comprehensive report with suggested courses of action. If you choose to, we can also act on these violations on your behalf, by initiating takedown notices and making sure your original content stays where it should–on your blog! Price includes initial consultation, tracking, initial report and appropriate action on three (3) infringing sites.

Get Started Now For $300

The Performancing Services team are amongst the most experienced and most savvy of bloggers out there, who also happen to have the technical skills to implement this service in an efficient and trustworthy way:

With experience going back to the early 90s (the wild wild west days for the web), and with professional careers varying from copywriting to web development, the Performancing team has everything that is needed to grow your business online.

J. Angelo Racoma is a career problogger and currently editor in chief of Splashpress Media, where he oversees the creative, technical and financial aspects of the network and its related services. Angelo has extensive experience in viral marketing through social networks, blogs and similar media, and would like businesses to embrace social media as a tool for building and maintaining relationships.

Randa Clay is a branding and design consultant who over her varied career has worked with large corporations such as The Limited, Victoria’s Secret, Goody’s, Express and others. Randa can help you create the perfect public image, combining a sleek visual design with a comprehensive creative marketing plan.

Raj Dash is an expert programmer and highly regarded publisher with experience in both online content and also the print world having edited a successful magazine. Raj has been a pioneer in the online world of multi-media publishing, drawing on talents in music, writing and film. His unique and careful approach to online content will help your site stand above the rest.

Dee Barizo is an SEO, keyword research, and link building specialist. He has helped sites of all sizes gain rankings for highly searched keywords. He has a knack for finding the best, most relevant links for maximum impact. Dee can help you outrank your competitors and increase your search engine traffic.

JD Arney has been developing websites since 2002. He specializes in brand building and the development of marketing strategies (with a heavy emphasis on link bait and social media marketing). With his experience JD will help your website build traffic and become an authority presence in your industry or niche.

Ahmed Bilal is an internet businesses consultant and entrepreneur focused on helping companies increase profits through the web. For several years he has worked on a variety of online ventures, from startups to large corporations. With experience from projects comprising branding, monetization and promotional strategies, Ahmed will provide for you a detailed blueprint to help you achieve your targets.

Deborah Ng is a prolific professional blogger who has worked for such notables as Oxygen Media and the New York Times Company. A freelance writer since 1999 and former newspaper columnist, Deborah maintains the number one resource and community for freelance writers and can help you find the words to make your project a success.

Ryan Caldwell has been building profitable websites for 11 years. He specializes in large-scale linkbuilding, SEO, social media marketing and the development of authority blogs for marketing products and businesses. With his online promotion experience Ryan will help your website earn you money and an improved reputation.

Chris Garrett has been working with the commercial web since it began in the early 90’s. In addition he has over ten years marketing experience working with companies from the smallest to the largest blue chips. Unlike many Internet consultants, he has both a technical and marketing background which means he can help you create an integrated online marketing strategy with measurable results.

So do check out this new great new service from Performancing and let us know if you think we should be tweaking or adding to it!

Splog Spot Opens Up Blog

Mark — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:40:43 +0000

Splog Spot, our search engine for tracking content scrapers, has opened up its own blog to help users. The idea was conceived by Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, who is also our own legal representative. His concept was to go one step further than just using Splog Spot’s search engine & database, and to “name and shame” certain perpetrators of splogs as well as actually listing those blogs who have been victimized, taking the Stolen WordPress Blog one step further.

We have previously written about the benefits of the Splog Spot application:

Splog Spot was the brainchild of the same developer behind mass-pinging service Pingoat. Pingoat was, back then (and still now?), one of the more popular services that offered manual pinging for various blog update services. Since a huge number of blogs are actually made of spam, Pingoat needed a way to determine which blogs are legitimate, and which are not.

Splogs-or spam blogs-have been a troublesome for legitimate bloggers for some time now. Spam blogs are usually made for search engine optimization, because of the link-rich nature of blogs. Spammers use automated content-scraping techniques that get content from legitimate blogs and pass it off as their own. Some spammers use automated scripts that post comments on hundreds of blogs at a time. Most even use trackback and pingback systems that are built into blog software like WordPress.

At the actual site, you can see a succinct description in the about page:

Splog Spot is service that keeps track of spam blogs or splogs. The Splog Spot spam database can be queried by anyone using the Splog Spot API. This will help blog related services, directories etc keep their sites clean.

How does it work?

Splog Spot has automated software that can detect spam blogs. Splog Spot also accepts manual splog submissions, that are first reviewed and then added to the database.

How to participate?

When ever you come across a splog (spam blog), you can report it to Splog Spot.

How it helps?

Maintaining a database of spam blogs will help us to avoid splogs whenever possible. Also, on request, the Splog Spot spam database will be made available to any good willed person or project And the most important of all, you can use the Splog Spot API to determine the authenticity of a blog, when handling blogs in your custom built application or anything like that. Splog Spot also provides a full dump of the splog database (weekly).

Here you can see a list of the recently listed splogs; here you can check out the weekly splog dump; here you can submit your own report and of course you are also very welcome to use Splog Spot’s API.

Jonathan will be detailing more specific plans at the blog itself. You can rest assured that he will be doing a top notch job and providing a unique service for bloggers. Every week, he gives legal advice to readers at the Blog Herald as well as providing support to Performancing users in the legal forum. Nearly all questions and inquiries are related to content theft and there is no doubt that he has become the online guru in such matters, which is why we are so pleased he has taken on one more project for us. Also, he will be able to really help those bloggers who are in need via our related services at bLogics and Performancing Services, which he also manages. And finally, we are also very pleased that he will also being providing some video tutorials on Blogger Law over at Tubetorial.

So do head over to the new Splog Spot Blog and sign up for the feed, or if you are having problems with content scraping at your blog contact us so that we can feature you and help stop your posts being plagiarized.

Follow Splashpress On Twitter

Mark — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:00:30 +0000

It is a prerequisite these days for any online business to communicate with its users via Twitter. The fact that many major offline companies have yet to do so makes surprising reading, as Thord Hedengren reported at the Blog Herald:

The Royal Pingdom blog continues to do and publish interesting studies. The latest one is about how many of the top IT companies that are represented on Twitter, or even in control of their brand, and the result is a depressing one indeed:

“Alas, our Pingdom poll of 100 Fortune 500 IT-companies (full table below) showed that 67 of them can be hard to find with a name search, as they don’t use Twitter accounts which have the same names as their company name.”

That’s 67%, a staggering number, that just don’t get Twitter. Perhaps a bit harsh, but true nevertheless. Maybe they are more inclined to get their Twitter account under control now that even Oprah’s doing it?

And even a savvy blog network like b5 Media also seems to have been pretty late to the party, as again reported at the Blog Herald. We can hardly claim to have been fast off the block ourselves! J. Angelo Racoma announced the opening of our main Twitter account over at Performancing:

I’ve always thought that immersing oneself in social media is best done through individuals rather than an organization or a group. But in our case, Splashpress itself is deeply involved in social media (or so we’d like to think) that it’s probably high time we got the network its own Twitter account. Hey, the Blog Herald has its own @blogherald, so why shouldn’t Splashpress?

And so please do follow @splashpress for updates, tips, and other hopefully intellectual discussions about social media and whatnot. Several of us editors would be contributing here, including my colleagues from the Blog Herald, 901am.com, Forever Geek, and other established and up-and-coming brands.

Do follow us!

And of course, do contact us also and let us know if you feel we should be following you