Blogs have become a highly networked collaboration of online knowledge, communication and research. Mechanisms provide the possibility for blogs to link to each other and provide possibilities for networking and the sharing of knowledge in a public and simple manner. People are now realizing they can do a lot more with blogs.

A blogs content can classify the purpose of the blog. You’ve probably read a blog before and not known it as a blog. Personal blogs, refer to blogs that talks about the blogger himself. Other classifications include photoblogs, moblogs, vblogs, podcast blogs and business blogs.

10 reasons to run a blog in conjunction with your website…

1. Give updates or hints about new products. Users can provide opinions on what they think about a current product or service.
2. Give hints and leaks about new product releases before the actual product launch. Most companies now use blogs to get people excited about what they are going before they do it.
3. It’s an ideal venue to let customers get acquainted with the person behind the product/service. You can get personal with them, and it’s the perfect way for interacting with new and existing customers.
4. Blogs have the widest coverage among media advertising. While users continue returning and reading your blog, you will be earning more of their trust and in turn your network will grow.
5. Readers can share what they learned with other readers through link sharing.
6. Search engines crave new content and blogs are the ideal fodder. Blogs can add new fresh content and readers will think of your company as a brand every time there are new posts.
7. Blogging is a low-cost marketing strategy compared with other paid online advertising.
8. If a blog is pushed adequately through the various blogging networks, then you have the potential for new hits every time you write a blog.
9. Be ahead of your competition. When search engines crawl the web they will stop and have a read of your new content. If your competition isn’t blogging, they are being skimmed over.
10. Making announcements. Advise clients and customer of office opening times over public holidays. Send seasons greetings to all your client base at one time.

Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software, or on regular web hosting services. You can install blogs yourself if you are on a database web hosting plan, or we can install them for a fee. You can use pre-made templates, or you can have us seamlessly incorporate your blog into your current website. We can modify your blog to incorporate all kinds of bells & whistles!

Before you embark on your new venture…

1. Search Engine traffic takes time. It can sometimes take several months for a significant flow of traffic from search engines. During these early months its wise to concentrate on alternate forms of traffic, such as social networks, forums and other peoples blogs. A blog that is constructed search engine-friendly is critical to maximize search traffic. Create great content that others will talk about and link to.
2. Commitment to Blog Posting is the Key. Most post on a continual basis to keep their website looking attractive as fodder for search engines, therefore keeping traffic at a certain level. Some bloggers are able to continually direct traffic towards older links, keeping those posts active also. Committing to post on your blog doesn’t mean that you have to post every day, you just need to publish content on a regular basis.
3. Aim for ‘repeat visitors’. How many of your visitors will be back? Repeat visitors are the lifeblood of blogs. Repeat visitors are your most responsive visitors in terms of comments, interaction, social votes, sales, etc.

Profile and Entertainment Profile Websites

Many entertainers are suffering with bad websites & don’t even know it! If you only use a PC with XP and Internet Explorer, is someone with a Mac & running Safari seeing the same thing? Performers are investing vast amounts of cash on badly constructed websites, that fail to perform on various browsers or mobile devices. Are these the problems that you want your fans, promoters, agents or media to see?

Image by Attitude design and produce web sites for television presenters, celebrities, sport stars, musicians, actors and the entertainment industry. Keep fans up to date on where you will be performing or appearing by using your online Calendar, or sending out a Newsletter to keep them informed. We offer professional web design service that inspires as well as delivers. It will look great, load fast and will portray you in a favourable light. We welcome your enquiry.

Don’t forget to become part of our growing social network of music junkies.  It doesn’t matter what style of music you’re into, you can be into it here!  Here just a few of the things you can do…

• Create your own mini site complete with blog through Live On The Barrier and customise it to suit your musical tastes
• Keep track of your Twitter account while you enjoy your own music space
• Add to the insanely awesome Music Photo & Video Gallery or add an event to the Gig Guide

Get on and become a member, and if you like it enough to support it you can become a sponsor of On The Barrier & enable us to make your music network all it can be & free of charge to use.  OTB is providing you with a venue to either promote yourself or join the many others who have an interest in similar music.

Music Transcends ALL Barriers!

No matter what caused what can only be described as close to armageddon as you want to be, it left a trail of heartbreak and broken lives behind.  Lives that are going to take a very long and a LOT of money to rebuild.  Aussie’s are a tough bunch, and we bounce back from most things, however some things take a little longer and rely on the helpful hand of our neighbours in our times of need.  The Australian public has done just that, it has dug deep during economic hard times & given what they can spare to people who have literally nothing now.  But we weren’t alone during this crisis, we had the hope & prayers of many of the International community that kept in touch over Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace and many other social networks.  Not only that, but many of them dug deep into their pockets too!  What a special place this world has become because of this ‘up close & personal’ contact we have established with each other all around the world.  We are all less alone now.

So what does the music community do best in these kind of circumstances?  They sing!  Not only did they sing… but they produced a double CD comprising of top Australian and International artists in only 5 days and generously donated their songs and royalties to help the appeal!!  Unbelievable!!  When the music community rocks…. it REALLY ROCKS!

BUSHFIRE AID – Artists For The Bushfire Appeal features 35 artists on 2 CDs such as Midnight Oil, Hoodoo Gurus, John Farnham, Delta Goodrem, Jessica Mauboy, John Butler Trio and Wes Carr, together with international artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.

Like so many times in our past, this is when we offer our support together.

Well here I am having survived a most exhausting WA Web Week 08! While I was subject to all kinds of technical problems & the victim of a car break in, the week of events was definitely one to keep open on calendars in the future. Organized by a relatively small group of people within the Australian Web Industry Association [AWIA], it was flawless from beginning to end and they should all be congratulated.

While Perth didn’t turn on the weather for our VIP’s & guests from overseas, I hear the committee more than made up for it with their hospitality.

Scrumptious food & beverages were provided through the week at various events & kept many a tired person awake. WiFi provided the means for everyone to blog & Twitter away throughout the week.

The conference itself balanced just enough geekdom with generalities to keep it interesting for code or business monkeys. One of my personal highlights was Derek Featherstone’s attendance.

WebJam was awesome! I really enjoy seeing what the locals have been up to, as I think that Australia is bursting at the seams with IT talent (not to mention a few comedians too!).

I only did the Information Architecture [IA] workshop, and it was good to see so many education & government webbies interested in getting it right.

Never believe that geeks don’t party hard! The WA Web Awards 08 were a grand affair with the men looking scrumptious in their best formal attire. Guests poured out of limos holding bottles of champagne as they arrived! Food was delicious, the drinks were plentiful & loud cheers were heard from all supporting tables. People were Twittering, chatting, blogging and keeping everyone who didn’t attend informed of the evenings events & winners. Many still partied hard afterwards at nightclubs in Perth, and taxis were in high demand!

As the week starts to settle down I’ll gradually post some of the week’s events & my thoughts on them. If you are in Australia consider becoming a member, & be part of a great industry!

Already Australia are among the bottom feeders of the Internet.  Opportunities such as gaming & international trade are already slowed down because of inept technologies.  While the world should be getting larger, our powers that be are intent on shielding us from it.  What are their concerns?  That illegal practices that occur in other countries may not occur here?  KNOCK KNOCK Mr Rudd!  We were built from a penal colony and we seem to have survived OK!

Filters have several limitations which mean they are ineffective in addressing all online risks.  Filters blocking static web material containing sexually explicit material.  They block access rather than filtering content of applications that permit high levels of interactivity such as social networks, instant messengers & chat.  In a nutshell… they are useless for "protecting our children"!  Not even pirated content can be slowed down this way.  So why do we need these filters Kevin Rudd & Stephen Conroy?  We are waiting???

So let’s look at who will be affected!

• Dating services could get caught in the filters jeopardising their futures & consequently the loss of its members, which will increase the suicide & depression rate again.
• Sex education & help sites will be penalized, sending health standards back 20 years.
• Stock photography will get hit because of possible excessive skins tones or inappropirate meta or file names.  Lingerie & bikini shops could also get caught in the filters because of excessive skin tones.
• Keyword searches limits communication between consenting adults who wish to communicate their feelings to each other.
• Patients who don’t use anatomical names for their body parts could be missing out on valuable information regarding Breast Cancer, Sexual Transmitted Diseases, Prostrate Cancer, Pregnancy, Contraception, etc.
• Online gaming involving international guests is slow at best of times, let’s slow it down further.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is determined to force this filter into your home & is committed to a mandatory clean-feed internet to Australian homes, schools and public computers.  

Yet, in contradiction in an address Stephen Conroy gave to the internet industry association annual gala dinner in February this year [2008] he stated:

"It is not simply a case of wanting faster and more affordable broadband; it is a case of needing it."  

If we need it, then why are you slowing it down up to 60%?  Please explain.

"Australian Bureau of Statistics data indicates that internet income for Australian businesses increased from $24 billion in 2002–03 to $56 billion in 2005–06.  This makes it one of the star performers of the economy."

When already a page can take up times of 15+ seconds to load internationally from Australia, and you propose to slow down our internet more … How will this benefit us?  Please explain.

"It is the potential of the Digital Economy that has the capability to drive all sectors in efficiency, productivity and innovation.  In the midst of this change, we need to know where we are going as we implement the policies and infrastructure that make us globally competitive.  That is why input and leadership from the industry is crucial."

We are giving you our input.  Why aren’t you listening?  Please explain.

"The way we act now to harness the potential of technological change and the digital economy is one of our fundamental economic and social challenges.  Our future productivity, our ability to compete with global markets and our wealth creation all rely on a world-class communications system."

Yet you want to place restrictions on it?  Really … Please Explain!

…an education revolution ???

"We are investing $1 billion to ensure our secondary school students can participate effectively in the digital landscape and that as our next generation leaders they will have the skills to engage and drive the economy into the future.  A world-class education requires a world-class curriculum, delivered by well-trained teachers in classrooms that are fully able to engage with the online environment."

Excuse me Mr Conroy, but wouldn’t our children be in a better position to engage & drive our economy into the future if they were better equipped to do so?  How is sheltering them in a bubble going to provide them with any road map to navigate the waters ahead.  Isn’t it better to teach them responsibilities they require in which to do that?  Oh do … PLEASE explain.

Education doesn’t end at the classroom!

"And $100 million will support high-speed fibre-to-the-premises broadband connections to schools, or an alternative technology in remote locations where fibre is not possible."

All I can say about that is… What a waste of f*cking money & deception.  Speed it up so we can slow it down & maybe no one will notice!  Don’t bother explaining, because it will probably be a repeat of the answers you have given before.

Now Mr Rudd & Mr Conroy are going to try & convince me they never hid girly magazines under their bed!

Want to give Australia a chance?

• Write to Senator Conroy
• Write to your local member
• Call Conroy
• Contact your ISP
• Sign a petition
• Join/Donate to EFA
• Link to this page
• Join Us on Twitter spreading the word! – @efa_oz , @cindyleigh

Visit …

Clean Feed is a Waste of Time & Money

No Clean Feed

Twitter & Politics

Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet

Filtering out the fury: how government tried to gag web censor critics

Internet ‘clean feed’ useless – group

Australia’s compulsory internet filtering ‘costly, ineffective’

No Clean Feed – well duh!

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

About censorship and freedom of expression, in Australia and elsewhere

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

A clean feed?

This year Attitude entered their flagship site Absolutely Australia, which is a combination of 4 pieces of software & some slick customizing from our fantastic programmer Paul at TOLRA Microsystems. While we didn’t make it to the finals, we were pleased to see we received a Highly Commended mention.

You’ll be pushed to find another Australian directory or guide built to these standards. We are very proud of our baby!

One of the great things about Absolutely Australia is that it was built for the present with the help of the Australian community, but with the future in mind. Photographs & stories have been provided by people all over Australia! Our “to do” list is very long! Technically great because with quick changing of the style sheets, we can adapt it to mobile or TV screen sizes, or totally change the whole design of the website. Most of the website is totally scalable!

“There’s a lot of buzz about turnout this year, but one in four Americans still aren’t registered to vote,” Google said on its website, citing US Census data.

View Videos

Why?

The simple reason is, if you don’t take the effort to have a say in how your country is run, then you don’t deserve the privilege of complaining. Yeah, yeah, don’t get up in arms about how little your vote counts, or how there is no one you want to vote for, or even your lack of faith in anything politically motivated. These are lame ass excuses reserved for those that think it is better to sit back & whinge that it is to get out there and make a difference. So what if the person you vote for doesn’t get in! It’s already happened hasn’t it!

Al Gore never took his rightful place at the helm of the world’s most powerful country. George Bush did. All those people that voted for Gore got duped, and the voters could be thinking “why bother”. You bother because we would have never known that Al Gore was the preferred choice. We do now. Now think about the outcome of that election if everyone had registered and voted. How different would the last 8 years have been? Think about it…. did you vote?

As much as I respect Al Gore & admire his work, I have no idea if he would have made a better president. But if more people had voted, the US would have had a better indication to decide on after the Florida debacle.

Voting is compulsory in Australia where I hail from. You don’t vote you get fined. While some may find this a violations of our rights, I’ve never seen it as such. As long as I vote I know that I have had my say. Even a donkey vote (an invalid vote) is a ‘voice’. For many years I voted “none of the above”. The votes mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I had my say. As the years went on I found candidates I wanted running my country (not the idiot now, but that’s another story!), so my votes were put to good use.

Voting isn’t hard. It’s your voice. It’s your country. It’s your children. It’s your family. It’s your career & education. IT’S YOUR OBLIGATION!

But as the video’s say…. REGISTER FIRST! No point in taking the effort to go to vote & you haven’t registered. It ends soon. REGISTER NOW!

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]]> http://myjournal.com/sites/attitude-media/blog/2008/09/15/2-for-1-directory-submission-special/feed/ 0 http://myjournal.com/sites/attitude-media/blog/2008/09/08/web-design-theft/ http://myjournal.com/sites/attitude-media/blog/2008/09/08/web-design-theft/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:49:20 +0000 Cindy http://myjournal.com/sites/attitude-media/blog/?p=3 We’ve probably all done it while we were learning to design websites, copied a layout from someone else. However, the whole point of that exercise is then to make it your own, not provide a photocopy of it & rename it as your own. Your meant to learn it’s style and why it works. Styles are to be studied, and their engineering worked out. By the time you are hanging your shingle and calling yourself a web designer, you should be able to be the creator of layouts.

Unfortunately this isn’t always the case. There are too many “so-called” designers out there who are pilfering layouts & reproducing them as their own designs. This week I actually heard about one web designer in Perth (Aust) having their website copied by not only another designer in the UK, but also by a fellow Perth web designer.

We all know that anything on the net is open game, and the most we can do is hope that others adhere to copyright laws and prevent us from using legal action. Or there is the little leverage we have with web hosts who under the DMC Act will remove material that is proven to be stolen.

I think the best we can hope for is relying on others to advise us of these occurances, or to be frequently checking Copyscape. Maybe someone will come up with better protection for web designs. We can but hope.