myJournal Public Preview Journal

This is the first of the ‘week in summary‘ that highlights what has been happening at myJournal during its beta phase, with excerpts and commentary on members’ blogs.

We have seen several developments recently that prepare us for our main launch at the beginning of September; these include the much awaited video capabilities. Each member now gets a media library where they can upload and display their videos or show them in their blog posts as well. To do this we added embed video buttons to the blog control panel, with the ‘easy-admin’ feature right there making writing a post ‘on-the-fly’ a quick and simple affair.

Our beta testers started getting to grips with blog posting this week which produced some interesting articles and posts. Paul Arlott wrote about folder sharing and how Microsoft ‘does not usually impress him’ but, this time they have by creating a folders sharing application named - you guessed right - ‘FolderShare’ and it does what it says on the box.

Thanks for sharing this with us Paul, it looks like a nifty tool that should make fast sharing of documents a lot easier.

Though myJournal is predominately aimed at business, it also has a leisure side to it as well. The system allows a user to create a non-business blog and a non-business network, this may be for hobbies, friends, or other activities that the user feels would benefit their immediate community.

The world of business portrays many different faces, it’s not just about corporate monoliths with hundreds of staff members, it also includes small one person ‘in the basement’ types of business that cater and supply to other industies such as print, graphics, and a whole host of other areas. This brings to us Steve Barnard Long an artist whose paintings of varied scenes from Asia captures the imagination of the Far East. Steve paints for a living which also gives him the financial freedom to travel extensively through Asia looking for new scenes to paint and display in his blog.

We really enjoyed his portrayal of a Caged Songbird in Vietnam.

One of our beta testers has really been putting their membership to its full use and utilizing practically all the applications. Tara Howard an experienced hotelier and owner of the famous Langtry Manor, has populated her myJournal Langtry showroom with images from the hotel. Here you can browse luxury rooms and feast your eyes on images of the Edwardian Banquet. Tara runs a fairly comprehensive blog about her hotel and this week gave us a few hints on choosing the perfect wedding venue.

Lots of really good work put into your showroom Tara and glad you’re enjoying the applications. I would love to see some mouth watering images from the banquet.

We knew that travel would play a large part at myJournal and invited for the beta period two travel reviewers from different backgrounds. Firstly there is the Artful Lodger who gives us down to earth reviews on places to eat, stay, and visit. Anything could happen on his blog as he reviews small back street diners to trendy bistros located throughout Europe. A little less down to earth is Jack Carter who as I have been told can be either found at the best tables in Monte Carlo, beating his way through the bush in the Kalahari, or writing a great article about Space Travel. It appears Jack is looking to conquer that final frontier.

Rounding the rest of this week up is a blog post from Steve Sugden about ideas on how to increase the visibility of Hand-Makers.

Vincent comments to Steve wondered about the democratic tools Steve has in store for Hand-Makers. While Steve diplomatically let on they are still an idea yet and basically ‘watch this space.’

There is nothing like a good ‘how-to’ article’ to keep the visitors happy. We always find these kind of articles work well as they come from people who understand and know their own business better than anyone. The difference between a professional author who can write well about any subject, and a business owner who is not an experienced writer but can give the reader a personal and in-depth look at how something really works, or how to do it correctly. Oksana gave us her first article on the best way to straighten hair, while also talking about her new soon-to-be-released SPX Evolution hair Straighteners.

Last, but not least from Vincent some friendly tips on using social media networks, Ray Lerwill with luxury scarves made from Guanaco, Christine from Ellis Financial Systems discussing strategic tax software, and the Wentworth Clinic talking about their stellar dental services.

Throughout the world August has been eventful, Obama vs McCain for the big house, the Olympics in Beijing, and swimmer Michael Phelps reigning supreme as the ultimate Olympian. Talking about swimming one of our newest members include Kristine Johansen a swimming coach and the managing director of K07. Other new members who joined are Grammy Award nominee Rachel Gutek from guppyart, Aaron Wall from SEO Book, and Chris Jaisingh from PAC Solutions.

Until next time…