Archive for April, 2008
April 29, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I’ve said it before: I love seeing people use my Flickr photos in their blog posts. The latest examples include Geoff Livingston celebrating the two-year anniversary of his blog by using this geese-on-the-Columbia-River photo:
Some more from recent weeks:
- A blogger named Ann used a photo of the local middle school track on the what to do, poopsy-woo? blog.
- Charles Spurgeon used one of my favorite photos — Cannon Beach, Oregon — on his Daily Spurgeon blog.
- And a couple weeks before that, the same Charles used my photo of gorgeous clouds over the Columbia River on Daily Spurgeon.
Always cool to see people using my photos and sharing the link love back to my Flickr photostream.
April 29, 2008 at 12:13 am
Lookie who got on the digg home page today:
That doesn’t happen every day, so pardon me while I gloat a little. (Here’s the digg story URL.) In fact, it’s only the third time I’ve put a story on the home page. But this an interesting study in headline writing:
I submitted the same article to mixx, but used the boring headline that came straight from the Dallas Morning News article: “White House candidates offer plans to curb high gas prices”. I changed the title when I submitted to digg, came up with something much more interesting — a better hook — and the thing took off like wildfire. So, next time you read about the importance of writing attention-getting headlines for social media … listen to that advice.
One More Thing…
Speaking of social media, I wrote a guest post today for the Social Media Mom blog. You can read it here:
Guest Post by Social Media Dad, Matt McGee from the Matt McGee Blog
If you read it, let me know what you think. Is 10-years-old too young to start blogging?
April 28, 2008 at 12:46 am
Slowly getting back on the horse after a week of too much travel. Here’s what I shared on various social media sites in the past day or so:
digg
mixx
Sphinn
April 27, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Just got an email from Coldplay.com telling me that they’re giving away the band’s new single, “Violet Hill,” as a free download beginning Tuesday on Coldplay.com. The free download will be available for a week.
The new album is called Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends, and (as you can almost see on the image at right) it has some artwork with a half-nekkid woman on the front. So, not exactly the most fan-friendly album cover when you have a 10-year-old at home who likes Coldplay.
I’m really curious to see what this album will sound like. I’ve been a fan since their first album, but didn’t find the most recent album all that thrilling — it was almost like Coldplay-by-numbers. I’m looking for something that sounds different, something new. They need to find a new path and explore it. With Brian Eno producing, I’m optimistic they’ve done that. But we’ll see…..
April 27, 2008 at 5:48 pm
This squirrel pretty much begged for my attention while I was walking around the Northwest Forest Conference Center near Houston last week. I ended up taking maybe 15 different pics of him (her?), and this one might be the best.
He just sat on the branch posing for me as I took shot after shot….what a character!
April 26, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Last week in Houston, when every speaker (except me and Stoney D.) at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference said the word “twitter” at least 25 times, I made a simple promise to everyone telling me to sign up: as soon as I rank #1 in Google for [last person on twitter], I’ll sign up.
Easy enough, right? Anyone that thinks I should sign up just needs to link to that older post with the exact anchor text as above, and in a matter of days, I should be number one.
I keep checking every day, but I’m not there yet. I keep bouncing between #3 and #4. Right now, I’m No. 4:
I’m quite content not having a Twitter account. I use FriendFeed and still get to see everything my contacts are sharing, so that’s cool. But really, if you’ve been bugging me to sign up, follow through and point a link with the correct anchor text to that old post that’s currently No. 4 for “last person on Twitter.” It’ll probably only take five links to push that post to the top….
April 26, 2008 at 12:08 am
This past week was all about airports, hotels, conferences, and speaking gigs … so it was pretty light on the blogging side of things. Here’s all I managed to post since the last recap:
Small Business SEM
U2 Diary
West Richland Real Estate Blog
April 18, 2008 at 10:51 pm
And like every proud owner of a new set of wheels, I’m going to show it off:
Ain’t she a beauty? Say what? Yes, a Suburban. Oh, noooooo. Not that kind of Suburban. I mean a Schwinn Suburban.
See, the missus has been working out at the local gym for a while now (and is looking fine!, I might add). And since I work from home now, I get absolutely no exercise. At least last year, when I worked half the month in Seattle, I would have to walk a couple blocks back and forth to my car, and I could go out and walk around downtown at lunch. But this year? No exercise at all.
I’ve been planning to join the gym, too. Except I’ve been traveling way too much since the start of the year, and have never gotten around to it. And then when I started researching prices, I wasn’t too thrilled.
So, I had this crazy idea to buy a bike. I thought I was gonna spend maybe $100 for a nice 12-speed or something like I used to have in my younger years, except they don’t make bikes like that anymore. (I’m so freakin’ old.) After a little shopping around, I decided on the Schwinn Suburban above. And it has all kinds of levers and controls and things that twist and turn on the handles, and I have no idea what any of them do. So, I read the Owner’s Manual and realized that right there is problem #1: It comes with an Owner’s Manual.
When I was a kid, bikes didn’t need owner’s manuals. This one needs it, has it, and I don’t understand it.
If the weather is nice tomorrow (it’s not supposed to be), I’m going to throw caution to the wind and pretend I’m 12-years-old and just go riding, Owner’s Manual be damned. And if something goes wrong, I’m going to take it back to the store, and then go buy a real Suburban.
April 18, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Between work and play, I’m currently writing at almost ten different blogs … and if you’re shaking your head over that, me, too! What on earth have I gotten myself into??! I’m going to try to post a recap once a week here on MattMcGee.com of all the blog posts I’ve written elsewhere. Hopefully I’ll remember next Friday, too.
U2 Diary
Small Business SEM
Kennewick Real Estate Blog
Richland Real Estate Blog
West Richland Real Estate Blog
April 16, 2008 at 12:03 am
Here I go again, forgetting to do this often enough. One of these days I’ll get my act together…until then, here’s what I’ve shared on various social media sites in the past 24 hours (or so).
digg
mixx
Sphinn
Kinda busy day, all things considered…
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