studionashvegas | design and social media

I love doing un-conferences – there’s something about the community that’s attracted to a conference who’s mantra is all about information flowing freely.  It’s the morning after the combined PodCamp and WordCamp experience in Columbus, Ohio, and my head is still spinning from the fun times.

I gave two presentations: my staple presentation (and my strong point in the WordPress world) titled “How to Use WordPress for Dang Near Anything” – which basically equates to “Using WordPress as a CMS”, and an introduction to WordPress session.  I love doing the WordPress 101 sessions because it gives me a chance to really share my passion with others on WordPress, and it’s typically people who are more curious, eager to learn, and willing to ask lots of questions – which they did.

Ohio has some great people, and I met a lot more of them today (and was bummed because some of my good friends weren’t able to make it).  There are people here who are just as passionate about podcasting, blogging, linkedin, and all other manner of speciality as I am about WordPress.  Getting that many passionate people in a room together to talk means for some high energy – and lots of great discussions.

We’re heading back to Nashville today, but thanks again to all of the organizers, the sponsors, and all of the other speakers and participants for making the event so fantastic.  I’ll miss you guys, but please, feel free to keep in touch on twitter.

Here are my slides from my “WordPress as a CMS” session – they are a little outdated because of WordPress 3.0, but not by much – the rest of the technology will work together with 3.0 really well.

Note:
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with any of the things I talk about –
this is just me putting information out there to think about, and you
can make your own decisions about it.  You’re not sheep – I won’t treat
you as such.

Isn’t it ironic that we have a bit of a double-sided coin going on the Internet at the moment.  There’s a huge debate going on between Apple and Google, Flash and HTML5, over proprietary software.  People are clamoring for Apple to open up their platforms to allow all types of programming (Flash, specifically) instead of closing their boxes.  So, what do people do?  They tweet about it.

On the flip side, those tweets you’re sending out can now be used (and monetized) by twitter for any purpose whatsoever.  What’s more, is that if you post a tweet on your site, and it causes you to get ad revenue, Twitter is legally entitled to a share of that, because you are re-purposing their content:

In cases where Twitter content is the basis (in whole or in part) of the
advertising sale, we require you to compensate us (recoupable against
any fees payable to Twitter for data licensing).

Scary stuff, eh? Your tweets, open to the free world, can now be used by Twitter for anything, including making money.  Makes you want to read those TOS clauses more closely.

So, I want to know what you think.  Where do you stand on either front?  Sure, Apple makes more money locking it’s hardware down… or does it?  Or, should Twitter really have as much power as it seems to with it’s latest Terms of Use update?

I had signed up to test some ads on another blog with the Yahoo Publisher network.  I wasn’t too impressed, and took the ads down quickly, but kept the account, just in case.

Well, today I got this email:

Dear Publisher,
Yahoo! continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services, in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. After conducting an extensive review of the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, we have decided to close the program effective April 30, 2010. We expect to deliver final publisher payments for the month ending April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those mailed by January 31, 2011.
Because our content will no longer be delivered to your ad unit spaces after April 30, 2010, we recommend removing all YPN ad code from your pages by that date.
For the opportunity to continue earning revenue, we suggest using Chitika, a leading advertising network that syndicates Yahoo! Content Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform. Click here for more information.
We thank you for your participation in the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta. If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please contact our Support Team at (866) 785-2636, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT.

Sincerely,
Your Partners at Yahoo!

Looks like Yahoo! is shutting down the operation for good.

All my bags are packed, and I’m heading on the first vacation that I’ve been on since I started studionashvegas nearly a year and a half ago.  I’ll be working on projects from the beach, and from my inlaws house the second week, but I hope to get some great pictures (to start my photo category) and get things rolling on the blog a bit more.  The server crash put me behind, but now that I’m back I plan on getting this blog better than ever.

So, don’t think I’m completely out of the loop, but hey, working from the beach beats working nearly anywhere else

I’ve finished the new design for the site.  I’d love to get feedback for it – please, if you have a few minutes, leave me some ideas or what I could better!

UPDATE: I finished all of the comps – I have some special page templates for certain sections of the site – so I’m including all the comps here for a thorough review.

BLOG:

FRONT PAGE:

INSIDE PAGE (GENERIC):

PORTFOLIO PAGE (clicking on the image leads to a case-study/testimonials section):

PHOTOS (Gallery):

PHOTOS (Single):

You may notice, “Hey, there aren’t any comment styles!” That’s because i’m going to be testing a new service, Echo, and i’m not sure what they’ll look like. There will be comments, don’t worry – just not sure what the styling will be exactly.

So please, critique away; coding begins in my spare time tomorrow and I hope to have this rolled out by the end of the week.

I had the pleasure of doing a great interview session with Cliff Ravenscraft of GSPN.TV a few days ago.  We talked a lot about WordPress, podcasting with WordPress, and the plugins I use to make sure my blogs/sites are running in tip-top shape.

You can listen to the show, as well as see the plugins with links, on the show page.