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Google Stops Indexing Blogger Blogs On Custom Domains

February 17, 2012 by Chris Crum

Google’s Blogger has had some issues where new posts on custom domains aren’t being indexed by Google.

Bloggers have been complaining about it, understandably, on Google’s Webmaster Help forum (via Barry Schwartz).

Apparently, Google initially thought it was happening as the result of normal updating, but Google’s John Mueller chimed in to say, “We hear from your posts here that these fluctuations haven’t settled down for some of you, so we’re definitely still looking into those details.”

“Fluctuations in crawling and indexing can be normal, and are to be expected,” he added. “While we work hard to make the processes as stable as possible, temporary changes can occur over time. In this case, it looks like we may have reduced crawling of some sites temporarily (this should be back to normal since several days though). You can see our crawling activity in your server logs, or in the Webmaster Tools “Crawl stats” section. If you have seen fluctuations like that in this time, keep in mind that it may take a bit of time for things to settle back down again.”

“Generally speaking, one possible way to make sure that technical fluctuations like these are resolved as quickly as possible is to make sure that you have a fantastic website,” he continued. “While the quality of your website won’t keep technical issues away completely, it can help to make sure that our algorithms are happy to spend a significant part of their time/resources on crawling and indexing your content in an optimal way. While I haven’t reviewed all of the sites that posted here, some of them do look like they could be somewhat improved. If you’re unsure what that could involve, I’d recommend starting a new thread here, listing your site’s URL, the goals of your site, and asking for honest & open feedback from the community at large. A good rule of thumb is to try to be the absolute best, by far, website in your niche — don’t focus on other websites that are ‘just as bad’ or ‘doing the same thing.’”

Earlier this month, Google revealed that it was redirecting Blogger blogs to country-specific URLs. So, for example, people in India trying to navigate to a Blogger.com blog, would be redirected to the country-code top level domain (blogger.in).

Filed Under: Podcasts and Blogs Tagged With: Blogger, Blogs, blogs and podcasting, Google, marketing my podcast, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin

WordPress.com Gets Comment Notifications

February 10, 2012 by Chris Crum

WordPress announced that WordPress.com blogs are now getting comment notifications, with moderation and reply functionality. Approve, spam and trash links appear in the notifications for those who have permission to moderate.

“Clicking Reply automatically approves a comment and displays an area for you to type a reply in,” says Greg on the WordPress.com blog. “When you’re done, just click Reply and you can get back to whatever you were working on, without having to navigate to the dashboard to manage your comments.”

If you use threaded comments, you’ll see when a person responds directly to you in the notification.

Comments can still be managed from the dashboard, of course.

This is just the newest in a series of recent improvements to the WordPress.com experience. A couple weeks ago, they launched a Chrome extension, giving users the ability to use WordPress.com from other sites.

Last month, they upped the storage limit.

Filed Under: Podcasts and Blogs Tagged With: Blogging, Blogs, blogs and podcasting, marketing my podcast, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin

Tumblr Highlighted Posts Feature Launches

February 3, 2012 by Chris Crum

Tumblr announced the launch of a new feature called “Highlighted Posts”. A post on the Tumblr Staff Blog explains:

Every now and then, a post comes along that’s meant for big things. It could be pulling the wraps off your new project, promoting your next show, raising awareness for a cause, or just sharing a truly incredible photo.

Today you’ll have a new option to Highlight those extra-important posts. For one dollar, your post will stand out in the Dashboard with a customizable sticker to make sure your followers take notice!

Interesting monetization strategy. A buck for a customizable sticker.

I’m not sure how much this will help items stand out. Tumblr already gives you options to create very visual posts, with images (including animated gifs) and videos.

I guess anything you can do to stand out will help. Tumblr is getting 15 billion pageviews a month these days, so you might as well do what you can, if it’s worth it to you.

Here are the options Tumblr gives you:

Tumblr highlighted options

Country Specific Blog URLs

January 31, 2012 by Billy Thomas

Recently Google has found an awesome way to defend blogs against local law. Say you’re in the UK reading a blog, normally the URL would read (blogname).blogspot.com, but now with this new trick the URL can read (blogname).blogspot.com.uk. Pretty cool, right? According to Google, when a ccTLD appears, it corresponds to the current country location of the reader.

An unofficial source had this to explain:

“Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD.” That means [blogname].blogspot.com will continue to exist, but it’s not clear if the users from that specific country will still be able to access it. Blogger will start to use country-specific domains, just like many other Google services. If you’re in Australia and visit google.com, you’ll be redirected to google.com.au, but you can opt-out by clicking “Go to Google.com” or visiting google.com/ncr. The same option is available for Blogger: “Blog readers may request a specific country version of the blogspot content by entering a specially formatted NCR URL. NCR stands for ‘No Country Redirect’ and will always display [blogname].blogger.com in English, whether you’re in India, Brazil, Honduras, Germany, or anywhere. For example: http://[blogname].blogspot.com/ncr – always goes to the U.S. English blog.”

Filed Under: Podcasts and Blogs Tagged With: Blogs, blogs and podcasting, Google, Internet, marketing my podcast, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin

Facebook and Twitter Users: The FBI Is Watching You

January 26, 2012 by Mike Tuttle

The FBI is shopping around for a contractor to do some snooping for them on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.

In a document called “Social Media Application” (pdf) released on January 19, it was revealed that the Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) at the FBI is looking for a company to provide software that can analyze any publicly available information, including tweets, Facebook statuses, notes, etc. and flag anything that the FBI wants to know about.

The plan is to use this information along with a mapping software to locate threats.

From the white paper:

This must be a secure, light weight web application portal, using mash-up technology. The application must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identify, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats. The product must have the capacity to allow the user to retain control of cached and real-time proprietary data; the ability to share it with selected partners, and ultimately enhancing coordination, synchronized-awareness and synergy at the operational level.

Notice the specific mention of “cached and real-time” data. This would enable them to build a database of information to trace patterns and compile profiles.

Among the things the FBI wishes to monitor closely are news organizations (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC were specifically mentioned), Facebook, and Twitter. They specified that they wish to keep tabs on:

1) US Domestic Terror Data
2) Worldwide Terror Data
3) US Embassies, Consulates and Military Installations
4) Weather Conditions and Forecasts
5) Traffic Video

That last item was particularly interesting because they expanded on it.

Trafﬁc Video- Ability to display video feeds ﬁom traffic cameras to
monitor traffic patterns, obstructions, bottle necks, protesters, and ﬂash
mobs.

The FBI wants to be able to have video feeds of protesters and to monitor flash mobs. With facial recognition software, license plate readers, plenty of public monitoring cameras, and a large cache of information waiting to be mined, this is a conspiracy theorists dream/nightmare come true.

Filed Under: Podcasts and Blogs Tagged With: Blogs, blogs and podcasting, marketing my podcast, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin

Does Your Favorite Blog Make a Statement About You?

January 25, 2012 by Chris Richardson

If you’re a regular, or even semi-regular web user, there are undoubtedly a number of favorite sites you have, including those that would be considered blogs. Even though there have been questions about the sustainability of blogs in a world of Twitter and Facebook, the fact is, they are still great sources of information, even if a lot of them get their content from other, more traditional outlets.

With that in mind, it’s clear blogging still has a great deal of value, but what does your favorite blog say about you? What does it mean if your favorite blog is the Huffington Post or any of Rick Denton’s products? Thankfully, over at Slacktory (via Boing Boing), Nick Douglas tackles this pressing issue and the results are a lot more accurate than the blog fans would ever care to admit.

While I’m not going to reprint Douglas’ entire list, here are a few of the gems that stood out to me:

Gawker: You tell your friends jokes about their ethnicities and sexual orientations. They grin and say “Bitch!” and pretend to smack you.

Huffington Post: Most of your pleasures are guilty pleasures.

Daily Kos: You own a “Disappearing Civil Liberties” mug.

Kottke.org: You read all the liner notes, even if you bought the album as mp3s.

Perez Hilton: You were bullied in high school.

Consumerist: You have some sort of fact sheet, like the Bill of Rights or some measurement conversions, in your wallet.

ReadWriteWeb: You are the only person who actually called your representative about SOPA.

Douglas’ list continues on with about 15-20 more blogs being added to the fun, and like the subtitle suggests, I found the list to be incredibly accurate. Other blogs pointed out on the list include Deadspin, Think Progress, Neatorama, Serious Eats and Mashable. If you are one of the folks who frequent these or similar blogs, you should check out the Slacktory list. Just be sure to leave your “easily offended” pants at home.

Homeland Security Monitors Blogs, Twitter, Facebook

January 12, 2012 by Mike Tuttle

Reuters announced yesterday that the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring a list of “publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards.” The list includes:

* Facebook
* Myspace (they note that Myspace is difficult to search – imagine that)
* Twitter
* ABC News’ “The Blotter”
* Huffington Post
* Wired blogs
* Jihadwatch
* Hulu
* Youtube
* Flickr

The DHS says that they monitor these sites to “collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture…. and to provide… more timely information for decision makers.”

In other words, they read blogs, look at Facebook and watch Youtube to see what’s going on in the world.

What a concept.

WordPress.com Storage Limits Increase For No Additional Cost

January 6, 2012 by Chris Crum

WordPress announced that it is giving people with WordPress.com blogs more space for storing media – at no additional cost.

The additional space can be used to store photos, documents, audio files etc.

Here’s how the plans are changing:

5GB → 10GB
15GB → 25GB
25GB → 50GB
50GB → 100GB
100GB → 200GB

Pricing per year is now:

$19.97 for +10GB
$49.97 for +25GB
$89.97 for +50GB
$159.97 for +100GB
$289 for +200GB

“If you already subscribed to one or more of these upgrades ( yes, they are cumulative ), your total available space has been automatically updated as you can see in your Media Library,” says Paolo Belcastro on the WordPress blog. “If you don’t have a Space Upgrade yet, or need to add more, the new levels have been implemented in the Store section of your dashboard.”

WordPress.com will store your files for as long as your blog exists, and will not limit bandwidth.

In addition to the extra storage, WordPress.com has taken off the limit (previously 35) for users allowed to access private blogs. You can now authorize as many people as you want.

Heather Harde Officially Out At TechCrunch (AOL)

December 16, 2011 by Chris Crum

Last month, reports emerged that TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde, who since TechCrunch was acquired by AOL, has actually been general manager of AOL’s technology properties, had handed in her resignation.

Today, it’s official. She’ll be stepping down at the end of the year. TechCrunch Editor Erick Schonfeld wrote his goodbye in the form of a TechCrunch post. “I am truly sorry to see her go. She is an amazing business partner and a rare talent. Just one example: Last year, when Heather was negotiating the final deal terms with AOL to purchase TechCrunch, she ran the conference during the day without a hiccup, and then literally stayed up all night to get the deal done in time for it to be announced on stage the next day,” he wrote.

“AOL GM Jay Kirsch, who oversees Autos, Finance, and Industry on the business side, will be adding Tech to his responsibilities,” Schonfeld noted. “Editorially, TechCrunch will remain independent under me. (Editorial and business groups are separate at AOL).”

On the post, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington commented, “It’s like watching the movie Titanic. You know exactly how it all ends, but you keep hoping it won’t.”

AOL is probably loving comments like that, especially being an investor in Arrington’s CrunchFund.

Arrington also wrote a lengthy post about the situation beginning with, “I’m so angry.”

He goes on to sing plenty of praise for Harde, rehash previous AOL/TechCrunch drama, imply that everything is falling apart because of Arianna Huffington’s ego, and say that he believes AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will still figure everything out and “save the day”.

He also throws in a reminder that he’s a shareholder in AOL.

“Other than dial up, TechCrunch is/was the most profitable and fastest growing business unit inside of Aol,” he wrote. “That, ultimately, is why everything fell apart.”

Filed Under: Podcasts and Blogs Tagged With: Aol, Blogs, blogs and podcasting, marketing my podcast, media, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin

Tebowing Prank Results In Suspensions At A New York High School

December 16, 2011 by Josh Wolford

Everyone’s familiar with Tebowing, right? It’s kind of like planking, or owling, except a lot more ridiculous. Inspired by Denver Bronco quarterback and controversial sports figure Tim Tebow, Tebowing is described as “getting down on a knee and praying, even if everyone else around you in doing something completely different.

The Tebowing pose was taken from a impromptu celebration that Tebow made after a dramatic comeback win. You’ll see the pose at about the 4 second mark. The exercise, an obvious demonstration of prayer by the outspoken Christian athlete, has become a pop culture phenomenon, largely in part to the Tumblr blog the first celebrated the motion.

Now, it looks like we’ve had our first real Tebowing controversy as four New York teens have been suspended for striking the now-famous pose in the middle of their high school hallway.

The four students (all male, three of which are football players themselves) were suspended for one day after they orchestrated a Tebowing event that involved upwards of 40 other students.

While some people are quick to jump to the conclusion that this was an anti-Tebow or more generally anti-Christian move by the school, the Principal told ABC News that it was all about safety:

“They knelt down in the hallway in between periods and made it impossible to pass,” said Principal David Wicks. “They were causing a situation that could have been unsafe. God forbid there was an accident or a fire alarm. These students had been given prior warning about similar incidents. This was not anti-Tebow, or anti-Christian.”

Check it out for yourself. This smartphone video shows the incident in question –

Tim Tebow is most a controversial sports figure, to put it bluntly, because he’s very vocal about his religion. The former Heisman winner thrust religion in sports into the spotlight through various actions – Bible verse eye black, that anti-abortion ad that ran during the superbowl, etc. The “controversy” of Tim Tebow is only made more intense by the fact that there is an ongoing debate about his actual skill and ability to play football in the NFL. When you couple that with the religion stuff, it becomes irresistible to salivating execs at ESPN.

So Tim Tebow is a highly-discussed public figure these days – and it’s partway because of his outspoken Christianity. Do you think that these suspensions had anything to do with that? Or do you think that a bunch of young kids were just blocking up the halls during a class change and the administration went a little heavy handed with the punishment? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[Lead Image "Tebowarhol, from Tebowing.com]

Filed Under: Podcasts and Blogs Tagged With: Blogs, blogs and podcasting, Controversy, marketing my podcast, podcast blog, podcast directory submission, podcast marketing, podcast submission, wordpress podcast plugin

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