The Fearless Blogger

I’m excited to announce my latest endeavor: URLuscious!
URLuscious is part of my master plan to demystify all things techie-geeky; helping non-techie folks incorporate the web and its social goodness into their lives.

The mission statement:

Make it easy for anyone to quickly and easily have a website or blog that looks great and is easy to maintain – regardless of your creativity, technical knowledge or experience.*

*translation: Websites so easy, even your mother can do it!

Blog-in-a-box
URLuscious’s flagship product is Blog-in-a-box, a service that includes installation, configuration, hosting and user training for a WordPress blog.

Having a blog has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I’ve talked to so many people who would like to have a blog or website of their own, but don’t have the time or technical comfort level to get one started. Others want the benefits of a self-hosted WordPress blog, but feel locked into their current system or don’t know how to make the switch.

My goal is to remove these intimidating and/or frustrating barriers so that anyone can have the rewarding experience I’ve enjoyed.

Sneak Peak and Gift Certificates read more

I’ve previously written about Chat Catcher, a plugin for WordPress that “collect” tweets about a blog posting so they can be displayed with the posts comments.

Shannon Whitley, its developer, has another great plugin in the works:  Twitter Connect.

Twitter Connect adds a blue button to your blog  (pictured above) that visitors can click to use their  Twitter credentials to leave a comment.  Similar to Facebook Connect, this process tells the blog who you are without you having to share your Twitter password.

It’s brand-spanking new (or else you’d see one of those buttons on my blog by now!) – Shannon just wrote it today.

Shannon based the plugin on the work done by Adam Hupp of Facebook.  He writes:

Although this plugin is nowhere near as complex as the Facebook Connect code, it provides the basic login into WordPress and will display avatars with each comment.

You’ll likely be seeing the button on this site sometime soon.  In the meantime, head over to Shannon’s blog to try it yourself!  Twitter Connect (sort of) | Shannon Whitley.

(Worth noting:  In my Chat Catcher post, I mentioned how impressed I was with Shannon’s responsiveness and proactive service approach.  I’d like to make a follow up comment here to share that Shannon has continued to maintain that level of service, even as the popularity of his plug-in has grown.)

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve had a couple of things I’ve been working on that I’d share with you soon. This is the first.

Background
Ford recently posted this contest at fiestamovement.com

One of Motor Trend’s Gotta Have Cars for 2010, the Ford Fiesta will make a bold statement on the American road. This is your chance to drive the international model here before its official US debut. We’re looking for an elite crop of drivers to take the wheel: people with a strong presence on the web, an ability to craft a compelling story through video, and a hunger for adventure. As a driver, you’ll receive monthly secret assignments from Ford Mission Control that will take you to places you’ve never been, to meet people you’ve never met, and to experiences you’ll never forget. And you’ll bring your friends and followers along for the ride.

We’ll hand you the keys to your own Fiesta for a six month period, and we’ll even handle the gas and insurance for you, too.

Many will apply. Only 100 will be chosen. Show us you’ve got what it takes to join the Fiesta Movement

As part of this excellent example of using social media in a marketing campaign, interested applicants were to submit a video explaining why they should become a driver, upload it to YouTube with the tag fiestamovement and submit the link with their application. As the video shows, my cat decided to toss my hat into the ring!

For those who’ve noticed things have been a bit quiet on the blogging front . . .

I have a couple projects up my sleeve that are in the final stretch (but have nothing to do with mixing metaphors).

Curious?  Not really?  Either way, I’ll be elaborating on two of them more in the next few days.  It’s felt weird to be blogging less frequently and I’m looking forward to making up for lost time!

Next week will also bring the return of Inside the Bloggers Studio.  (Thank you to those who’ve sent in your responses -- I’ve held off on posting them until I’m able to dedicate the time to each one to make sure they’re written with the care and attention you each deserve!)

In the meantime, if you’re the type who doesn’t like to wait:  Contact me (in the comments or on Twitter) if you’re interested in taking a sneak peak and providing some feedback on a new website.

Perhaps he was trying to get to SXSW?

My sweetie threw this together and sent it my way for a quick chuckle – thought it was too cute not to share!

Fun background on the San Diego whale
There’s been a young grey whale swimming around the San Diego Bay since March 10th, 2009 (almost a week ago).  While experts say it’s not unusual for whales to enter bays or other shallow water, they usually leave after a couple of days.  San Diego’s 30-foot visitor has created quite a buzz, even prompting a “Name That Whale” contest in the Union-Tribune.

Fun background on the “Fail Whale”
from ReadWriteWeb:

Twitter users are very familiar with the iconic image of the Fail Whale. This social object has been latched onto by Twitter fans not just as a representation of Twitter’s downtime, but also as a representation of the community’s love for the service and their hope for its triumph over their many struggles. Despite Twitter’s troubles, most of its users stayed true, watching and waiting as the team began the long process of recoding the application in order for it to scale up. As Twitter succumbed to the strain of running their under-provisioned service, the Fail Whale “over capacity” image would appear. And this image began to take on a life of its own.  (read full story of the Fail Whale at ReadWriteWeb)

image credit: Downtown San Diego - Jen Wallace via Flickr , “Fail Whale” – Yiying Lu
hat tip: ReadWriteWeb article via @KimSherrell