Fleeing The Social Scene

So George over at the Blogger Lounge made a comment about my desire for a new theme and overall look of the place. Well what’cha think? Honestly, this isn’t the design I’d showed him, but this is something I found on one of the free Wordpress theme sites.

As for my lack of updates, I apologize. I’d like to think that this blog is in a bit of a transient stage right now. This is for a number of reasons.

• I’ll be between jobs in about another week, so i’m prepping for the move.
• I’ll be traveling to New York for the Future of Online Advertising conference in a few weeks as well. (I’m becoming quite excited)
• I’ve been taking a look back at what I’ve learned over the past few months regarding online income earning. Me thinks that I’ve been pursuing it a bit wrong, quite a bit wrong.

With that being said I’ve taken a look at the domains I currently own, I’ve purchased another few, and have taken a new seriousness to the idea of earning money online. More on this later though.

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“Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?”

Hey if you don’t want to take it initially, look at it this way; You can win prizes. Just take the darn survey!

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I’ll be heading to New York for the first weekend of the 7th and 8th of June for the Future of Online Advertising conference. I have to thank Kumiko for the ticket. Now what does this oppertunity mean to me and to this blog? Well for one the networking should be amazing. Publicity for this blog? Sure, why not. As the topic of the conference is advertising I’d like to say I’ll make an attempt or two at it, however I’m still very much thinking that I need to focus on growing my readership.

Off topic, i’m working on a new theme for the blog. Hopefully I’ll have it up sooner than later.

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So you’ve got a great idea. Good. Where do you go from there? I know i’ve found myself asking that very question more than a few times. I’d like to try to start a discussion on how to take that step from creativity to creation.

SO I GOT THIS IDEA:

New ideas are the key to change. YouTube, Digg, Flickr, Facebook, all are great sites that were created because something didn’t already exist. Personally I keep a little notebook with me pretty much all of the time to write down any good ideas I come up with. My own view on creativity isn’t so much that great ideas are born, but rather that they are derived from problems or gaps in that which already exists.

Great new ideas are solutions to problems. What did YouTube do, it allowed anyone to post and share video online, and make it easily available. How about Facebook? Well MySpace already existed, but Facebook took the preexisting group of college students and enabled then not only to network as MySpace did, but made it easier to network among college students. Being able to solve a problem, or to be more efficiently solve a problem is what enables a new idea to take off.

WHAT DO I DO WITH MY IDEA?

The better question here is what can you do? When I come up with a new idea I try as best I can to diagram it. What does this new idea for a site, a web application, etc., what does it do? By breaking down you idea into parts it will be easier to deal with and to create. Breaking down you idea allows you to see what you can create using your skillset, and what you may need to seek out the help of others for.

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With Detroit’s 2-0 win last night that cuts the number of playoff teams to four.

Detroit vs. Anaheim

Ottawa vs. Buffalo

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BloggerLounge, what the heck is that!?� Well let’s take a look.

BloggerLounge.net is a blog that’s been around since December of 06′. It’s run by a guy by the name of George C. The posts seem to be intriguing, to the point, and well written. The site seems one part blogging critic, and one part blogger resource. George’s comments allow for a bit of his personal opinion on topics, advertising, branding, themes. Also though George has created a very good resource and insight on those very topics.

Here’s what I like:

Great design advice. At the BloggerLounge, you will notice there are professional looking logos all over the site. George has certainly put some time into designing the look and feel of the site. Also he gives sound advice on the use and creation of logos for your own blogs.

George is big into blog branding. Honestly this is something I hadn’t much thought about prior to finding the BloggerLounge. Now, I see it as an important aspect of selling your blog to both you current and potential future readers. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to pull a profit from your blog, the branding series offers great insight into selling your blog to the reader.

Free themes!�? Yep, you heard me. These aren’t those cheapo run-of-the-mill themes either. George is ovbiously a talented designer and also shares some of his themes with his readers. The themes weren’t just a one time thing either. Since the beginning of April, there has been a new theme released just about once a week. Here’s the most recent!

Why am I reviewing this site?�? Well honestly, since I’ve stumbled across it, it has become one of my favorite blogs. The content of the posts are great; honestly reading this blog seems to challenge me to go back into Photoshop and try to better my own design skills, and take a stab at creating a theme or two.

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