April | 2008 | blog.JacobBurke.com - Random thoughts about life, technology and the world around me.

Archive for April, 2008:

Who I am and what this Blog is REALLY about

Posted on: April 21, 2008 at 3:07 am | Posted under: Blog
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I have been doing a lot of reading over the weekend (mostly because Twitter is a hot mess right now) and after all of the new things I have learned, I want to take some time to share with those of you that read my blog who I am and what this blog is REALLY about.

The real inspiration for this post came from Patrick Curl, where he talks about niche blogging and how to monetize your blog. His article was very informative and he presented 13 tips to follow if a blogger wants to be successful in monetizing their blog in this niche. This got me thinking about what my blog is about.

First, a little history…

I guess I had my first blog (if you could call it that) during the summer before I started college. I would manually update a webpage that was hosted by Geocities with random thoughts about what was going on in my life. I ended up taking down my little site because it pissed off my family – my thoughts were personal and I was sharing them with the world.

My second attempt at blogging came a few years later towards the end of my college career when I first discovered Blogger. This was another personal blog and it pissed people off. I wrote things in it that a girl would write in her personal diary – my life was an open book to the world. This blog rolled over into a WordPress self-hosted blog and gained attention from the NPO that I was working for at the time – it was then I learned that blogging about your boss and the people that you work with are not a good thing. It was a learning experience that I still remember to this day. That blog finally went down after I graduated from college and started working – I had no time to update and did not want the temptation of ranting about my current job problems (I keep a personal journal for that stuff).

So now I have a blog again. What is it REALLY about and who is the guy behind it?

This blog is part of who I am. I want for the next company that hires me to see that I am knowledgeable about what I will be doing for them. This is part of my personal brand. I am not here to write stories about the breaking news of Silicon Valley, I just like to write about how technology effects me and how I am utilizing it.

I am a web and graphic designer looking for his next job. I have been without a full-time job since June 2007 and I have managed to get by. I love technology. I have worked for an NPO, been in the IT department in higher education and have consulted here and there. I currently get freelance work now and then. I am living my life the best I know how and hope that my experience will pay off in a big way.

So, that is who I am and what this blog is REALLY about. I have a list of topics that I want to write about and some applications and products to review. I plan on writing more soon, just need to get my thoughts down and published.

Cheers!

I’m on Pownce

Posted on: April 19, 2008 at 1:19 am | Posted under: Technology
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I joined Pownce today, primarily because I wanted to alpha test for Viddler, and Colin is using the site to contact everyone through. So, another social networking site to regularly check on!

I think Pownce is nice and simple. I can crosspost to it with twhirl when I update on Twitter. I really like that they do not have a bunch of unnecessary applications cluttering up the place like Facebook does.

So I will add people that I know on other networking sites, but I doubt I will be nagging my ‘real world’ friends to get on this.

Cheers!

“Don’t Knock It Until You Try It” – Embracing Web 2.0

Posted on: April 17, 2008 at 5:24 am | Posted under: Technology
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“Don’t knock it until you try it” is always something that my mom used to tell me when I was younger – I was picky about what I ate.

I feel this is the same when it comes to technology and the whole Web 2.0 social networking scene. Overnight I was watching Cranky Geeks on TiVo and the subject of Twitter came up. As some of you may know, John Dvorak now has an account. Well once Twitter was mentioned, Sebastian Rupley started knocking it down faster than he has ever done on that show. I couldn’t understand why he was doing this? He kept trying to defend his hatred for Twitter by complaining that the only thing people post on it are what position they are sitting in at their desk or that they are going to the bathroom. Last I checked my timeline, I was getting updates from Mashable and some SF friends. Dvorak called him cynical, which I believe is an understatement. What rock has Rupley been living under all these years that he is unable to embrace technology like this? For a person that supposedly ‘co-hosts’ this show with Dvorak, he needs to start embracing technology and stop knocking it down.

So Sebastian, if you ever read this, I beseech you to start using Twitter and embrace this new technology. If you keep bitching about it, then no one is going to want to listen to you anymore.

Cheers!

The Alana Taylor Show

Posted on: April 16, 2008 at 12:29 am | Posted under: Technology, Twitter
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So a week ago I get this tweet from Gary Vaynerchuk. I take his advice and decide to follow Alana Taylor on Twitter. I then subscribe to Alana’s blog with Google Reader to see what she is about. Once I see her post about The Alana Taylor Show, I DM her on Twitter to see if she needs any help moderating her uStream chatroom. We go back and forth on Twitter and I end up helping her out for the 1.5 hours that she was on tonight.

What does all of this mean? It is the power of the social web! Just how one tweet from a crazy wine guy (love ya Gary!) can prompt someone to follow and connect with someone and then help that person out on their first uStream show is just amazing! I was very glad to help out Alana with her show tonight, she is a very talented young woman with a lot of potential. I wish that the whole "web 2.0" social networking phenomenon was around when I was still in college, because I would be just like her (except with facial hair and a deeper voice).

We had a lot of fun with her show tonight, and even tried to get Jason Calacanis to stop by so that Alana could do a live audition for him for Mahalo Daily, but no luck!

Building relationships with new people and exploring new avenues of communication is where we are at – and it is fantastic!

On a more somber note, I did not win the lottery tonight. So no 37 million dollars for me. I want to start Mahalo East in NYC – it will happen eventually!

Cheers!