Posts Tagged "local"

8
Dec 10

Video & Slides from Our Presentation at Mashery’s Business of APIs Conference

Posted by lauren in CNN / Industry Notes & Commentary — View Comments

This October I gave a presentation at Mashery‘s Business of APIs conference, speaking about how our API provides hyperlocal headlines on CNN.com as a case study for how APIs can power business relationships between tiny startups and multinational corporations.

The video and slides from the conference are up, so you can check them out:

Video

Slides


For those of you who need a summary version, I think @Mashery captured my main point nicely:

L. Sperber from Outside.in says APIs remove friction from a business relationship.

Interested in using our API? Check out our documentation at developers.outside.in—and the sweet sample code posted last week by our lead API developer Brian Moseley.

30
Sep 10

FACT: Adirondack Almanack = Awesome

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

Did you know that New York State’s Adirondack Park is the size of the state of Vermont?

I didn’t know that, either… until I spent some time reading the Adirondack Almanack and chatting with its founder, freelancer John Warren (as John put it: “The size of the Adirondacks is incredible. In fact, the Adirondack Park is the largest protected area in the contiguous United States. It’s larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon and Great Smokies combined – and it covers 7 counties and 2 Congressional districts.”).

It turns out that Warren is not only a great local blogger (or, in this case, regional blogger) but he’s also a historian, among other things– so I learned a lot of interesting facts from him. Here are a few of my favorites!

FACT: The Adirondacks are more than just a tourist destination (though they’re that, too).

It’s also a place where people live, year-round. It’s like a microcosm for the country, because there are a lot of issues that are important here that are also national issues: development, the environment, the outdoors. That makes it a unique place and a great location to blog about.

Like any tourist place, the Adirondacks is divided between locals, newcomers and tourists. The newcomers tend to be more environmentally focused. The locals tend to be more interested in hunting and fishing in their backyard. So, the different camps come into contact a lot in terms of development issues.

FACT: Adirondack Almanack was started because Warren felt that local media outlets weren’t covering issues like development well enough.

Development is a big issue here: how do we develop an area that’s supposed to be a park? There are also economic issues involved: the need for industrial and good-paying jobs, for instance. We have traditionally had industries like logging and paper-making here, a lot of forestry products. Mining as well. But those jobs have basically disappeared over the last 50 years, and now ours is a tourist economy. So, affordable housing for locals in a tourist economy is another important issue.

I saw that none of the local papers were covering these important issues. The papers are usually pro-development– to a fault. They’re also usually against the Adirondack Park Agency — it’s been a traditional target for the local media for years. Property rights advocates and local newspapers have really hounded the Adirondack Park Agency for years, as well as the Department of Environmental Conservation. So, we needed another voice in the local conversation [which is why I started the Adirondack Almanack 5 years ago.]

FACT: The Adirondack Almanack is a group effort and a labor of love.

At first [the blog] was really me ranting [about local issues], but over the last 3 years or so it’s really transformed into a regular media outlet. We now have over 20 contributors from all parts of the Adirondack region. They write about different topics, from natural history to outdoor recreation to local politics, commentaries and family events. I write about history. They’re all volunteers I found and approached, and they volunteer for a variety of reasons: some want their voice to be heard, and some want to raise awareness about issues that they care about.

I’ve been really lucky in that I’ve had the ability to gather contributors who are all quality writers. They understand the issues they’re covering in-depth. They really contribute to the community. No one person can do this thing at all – there are over 20 people who make it happen.

FACT: You can also run a locally-oriented site without a small army of volunteers.

New York History is another site I run. I just do it myself – it’s mostly media-release driven. It’s kind of an interesting thing, because it shows how a local site can operate with low energy input. I don’t write all the press releases, I just re-craft the press releases. I edit them, then publish them using no byline, which is what a lot of major media sources do. I think of it as a resource for history, which is important because public history is really suffering. They’re closing historic sites all the time. I’m confident that New York History will help – that it’s going to be an up-and-coming sort of thing.

FACT: Bloggers can add a fresh voice to their local conversations.

We are providing a voice that wasn’t heard before in local media — the voice of the people who support the environment. But it’s not just an environmental blog. We also provide other perspectives: not just from the property rights angle, but also from those who just want to paddle down the river freely, even if it happens to flow through private land.

I also grew up as a hunter and a fisherman, so I understand those issues, too. I remember what it was like to have nothing, not even a movie theater. So, I have a different take on things. We live here in this park, so we have to work here and live here and survive, and we can’t do that without some development. But we’re interested in smart development – it’s the last real wilderness East of the Mississippi, and it’s something that we need to protect. I want to see every town connected by snowmobile trails, but they shouldn’t go through ecologically sensitive areas.

FACT: Your local blog can help you land a book deal (& get other cool gigs).

[Blogging] helps raise recognition of my work, for sure. For instance, the History Press contacted me and asked me to combine some of my essays into a book, which was published last year: Historic Tales from the Adirondack Almanack. So, I got a book deal. I’ve also gotten some research jobs — I do research for documentary films about the Adirondacks. It’s boosted my freelance work, for sure… only now I have less time to do freelance work.

You have to have a bunch of ways to make money [when you live in the Adirondacks]. I work several jobs: I teach media production and new media at Burlington College. I also work at the New York State Writer’s Institute, and I do development work for Maryland Public Television. I also get to go to conferences to speak, to lecture here and there. I recently found out that the Adirondack Mountain Club is going to give me their Communications Award this year. It’s a great honor, because it’s not given out to just anyone.

FACT: Bloggers shouldn’t be afraid to contact local sources for their stories.

Sometimes I’ll contact people who are in the news. In the winter, we had somebody who survived an avalanche. So, I found them on Faceboook and said:

‘Hey, would you mind writing a guest post about your experience’?

No one else did that.  And you know, people are reluctant to talk to the [mainstream] media — but here [was] his opportunity to tell his story in his own words.

FACT: Even if you’re not a “Professional Journalist,” you can still set your own journalistic standards for your blog.

I try to have reasonable journalistic standards on the blog. I teach media, so I know what journalism standards are. We try to present a balanced story – which doesn’t always mean two sides, since there aren’t always two sides of a story. It means we try to have a variety of voices and tell stories that aren’t told. Are we doing straight-up journalistic reporting? No, we’re not. But we try to adhere to good balance, and I think that’s important. We label something as ‘commentary,’ if it’s commentary.

I also believe that in journalism we all have a point of view. There’s no such thing as not having a point of view. Be clear about what your intentions are — it’s this foggy middle ground that just uses deceptive wording to send a message — that’s what really gets me. Every person who writes regularly knows that they can change a word or two and add a little phrase here or there that will change the meaning of a story.

13
Sep 10

A Blowhard Blogger Looks at 40: Mike Doyle’s Top Blogging Tips

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

Mike Doyle

  1. “Don’t be a dick.”
  2. Write. Write some more. Keep it up.
  3. Have the courage to write what you really think or feel.
  4. Be gracious about it when you write something controversial or potentially offensive. Think twice. (See #1).
  5. Your blog is not an island. Be grateful for that fact. Celebrate it.
  6. Fear is not an excuse not to write. Just do it. You’ll learn from the doing of it.
  7. Have a viewpoint. Know what you want to say. You wouldn’t write a press release if you didn’t have any news: the same goes for a blog post.
  8. Go into yourself. Know yourself. Figure out what’s motivating you to start your blog, because that’s what’s going to motivate you to keep writing. Figure out what it is you’re trying to share and why.
  9. Your blogging will impact your professional life. Consider that. If you’re constantly critical, no one is going to be brave enough to hire you.
  10. Your blogging will impact your professional life. Consider that: “I’ve gotten about $40k in work over the past 5 years [that I wouldn't have gotten had I not been blogging].  Blogging has brought me a lot of professional and social connections, some of which have been financially rewarding.”
  11. Give yourself more credit. Give others more credit, too.
  12. Don’t pressure yourself to blog every day.
  13. Get over yourself.
  14. “It’s really important to keep the technology of your blog current. If it still looks like 5 years ago, it makes others wonder about how serious you are about building a community on that blog. There are crappy-looking blogs out there that have incredibly large communities and are very influential, but those are rare. If you’re going to blog, put as much love and care into the design of your blog as you do the content. People want your blog to be a fun place to come.”
  15. You don’t have to hit your readers over the head with a 2×4 in order for them to ‘get it.’
1
Sep 10

We’re Sponsoring the ‘HubPages Marks the Spot’ Contest

Posted by Esther Brown in Announcements / Bloggers We Love / Industry Notes & Commentary / News — View Comments

Attention bloggers: this is just a quick post to let you know that we’re  sponsoring HubPages’ HubPages Marks the Spot contest, which begins today and runs through the 29th of the month.

HubPages focuses on evergreen content– i.e., content that will be valuable for months and years to come– and we find that a lot of evergreen content can be hyperlocal in nature as well. For instance, when a blogger writes about a local restaurant he or she visited, that post is going to be valuable for some time, not just for a fleeting moment or two. That’s why we’re happy to sponsor this contest for HubPages.

A few things to consider: if you enter, you may win sweet prizes, including cold, hard cash (and ongoing royalties, too). To enter, you have to publish topical articles (what they call “Hubs”) on your favorite sandwich joints, art museums, bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, and all other sorts of local attractions; each week has a different category.

Here’s an example: Best Brunch Spots in Oakland, California

Over $4,000 in cash prizes are up for grabs, given out throughout the month, so you can potentially win no matter when you start publishing (and you’ll continue to earn via ad revenue on your Hubs for years to come). Plus, HubPages tells us there are lots of people earning some pretty decent money on the Hubs they’ve published.

Ready to start? Jump to the contest page and read the rules (important!) on the travel and places page.

23
Aug 10

It Takes a Village (& Other Lessons Hyperlocal Bloggers Teach Us)

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love — View Comments

Last week I spoke with John Hawbaker, the Publisher of Chattarati, the Chattanooga, TN-based news and opinion blog. I found John to be an incredibly impressive, interesting individual, and I was especially impressed by his ability to effectively work with others to build a vibrant, relevant, important hyperlocal blog. Like Tom Bridge and his collaborators at We Love DC, Hawbaker understands that when it comes to comprehensive news coverage, it takes a village to raise a hyperlocal blog. Of course, once you spend some time reading Chattarati, you know that Hawbaker and Chattarati’s entire talented team of volunteers understand a whole lot more than just basic teamwork. Here are just a few of the lessons we learned this week.

The Chattarati crew relaxing at their Happy Birthday Happy Hour. Photo courtesy of Flickr user danielryan.

It Takes a Village

I don’t think it’s possible to do something like this alone. You need a great team. From day one, Chattarati has been a team effort. It’s very collaborative. When we launched we had a crew of 5-6 core people, most of whom still write with us today. – John Hawbaker

It Takes Creativity

Chattarati started as a really small, simple idea. I work [in] downtown [Chattanooga], and it’s been changing a lot. I wanted to start a daily photo blog to capture, visually, how the city is changing. I started thinking about it more and talking to friends, and we realized: ‘Something’s missing from the media scene here – a blog about Chattanooga.’ That’s how we started. We started talking about it in April, 2008 and we launched in July, 2008. – JH

It Takes Humility

As we got into more original [reporting and] writing, we realized how many things we didn’t know. That’s really become a strength: we try to learn as much as we can [about a topic], then we try to explain what we’ve learned to our readers. You have to know what you don’t know – and we’ve started to learn that.  -  JH

It Takes Curiosity

I love it when I get to write a story when I get to learn a lot. I wrote about a local grant program for local food producers, for instance, so I actually got to go and talk to people who are growing the food that we eat. That’s a rewarding experience for me – and then I get to help explain it to the reader so they can learn the same thing. [Since helping to found Chattarati,] I’ve learned a lot more about the area, its history, the people. – JH

It Takes Leadership

Editor-in-Chief David Morton has really led by example, especially when it comes to beat reporting. His coverage of city hall, and the recent budget controversy, is top-notch. He spent hours and hours going through the proposed budget so he could explain it, and its implications, to our readers. He’s also developing a style guide so we can maintain consistent standards throughout the publication.

And there’s a lot more management or facilitation involved than we ever would have imagined. I work a lot with the writers on developing and refining story ideas, and David works with them to edit articles and get them ready for publishing. We work together on planning coverage, and we host a biweekly writers meeting to help keep all our contributors on the same page. – JH

It Takes Resources

We all have full-time jobs. A lot of us work as writers, or in marketing or communications or something like that. I stay really busy, for sure. Any real work that I get done is at night, after my kids go to bed. I can call someone at lunch, but a lot of the time [communication is done] via email, or it’s research online. A lot of the other guys [at Chattarati] have similar arrangements. I spend probably 2-3 hours a night [on Chattarati], so I would say 15 hours a week is a pretty easy estimate. I think one of the biggest challenges is simply time [management] and not having a great deal of financial resources. We’re totally bootstrapped. – JH

It Takes Ingenuity

Our CMS [which we developed] is called PressWorks. It’s built on the Django framework. We started bumping up on some limitations with WordPress, and there were some things we wanted to simplify. The way PressWorks is organized is that it allows us to publish a collection of blogs as one site. Each of the categories on our site [i.e. Metro, Editorial, Culture, Neighborhoods, etc.] is a blog of its own. They have their own editors. Over time, each of those blogs will develop it’s own community feel.  It’s very easy to use. Eventually, we’re going to release PressWorks for other publishers to use. – JH

It Takes Vision

We started our company [The PressCore, Inc.] not only to publish Chattarati, but also to develop products that solve common problems facing online publishers. The first is OnLocation, our live blogging app, which is in private beta. OnLocation allows for multiple authors, and the live blog feed can be integrated into any website, so it doesn’t look like a plugin, it looks like you. It’s built on the Tornado framework so it’s fast and scalable. We’ve used it for live blogging recent elections in Tennessee – it also has a mobile admin interface, so we were live blogging from our phones a the victory parties. We feel like we can get our products out there and grow the company. – JH

It Takes Passion

I think you have to have passion, first of all. You have to care about your topic, you have to care about where you live and the people there. Our real goal is to help inform people so they can be engaged and active in civic life, whether that’s involvement in the political process or it’s giving them a good framework about what’s going on culturally. That’s the ultimate goal. – JH

11
Aug 10

The Cream of the Crop: 10 Top Tips & Quips from Bloggers We Love

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

I’m on vacay, but Bloggers We Love are here for you!

I’m on vacation this week – but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you guys! That’s right, this week we’ve got the Bloggers We Love clip show post! Please enjoy. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming shortly.

10. Adelle says: “Just Do It.”

One of the biggest benefits of blogging is just starting the blog and acknowledging that creative desire and giving in to it — and then, once you give in to it, it just opens you up to so many other things.

- Blogger We Love Adelle McElveen of Fashionista Lab

9. Jill says: “Start Your Own Meetup.”

In January, we started holding monthly Meetups. We go out into Brooklyn neighborhoods with our cameras and explore them — and invite whoever is interested into the group to come exploring with us. For instance, we went to Gowanus, right after the Gowanus [Canal] was declared a superfund site — more than 35 people walked through Gowanus shooting [photographs]. It was great because I got to meet all these people that I correspond with on the internet.

- Blogger We Love Jill Harrison of For the Love of Brooklyn

8. Tom says: “Focus on Friendraising.”

We’ve done huge things with the Kimpton hotel group. For instance, we did a survey last year just looking at the demographics of our readership [and those that completed the survey had a chance to win a free dinner and hotel stay from Kimpton]. We’re getting ready to plan our second birthday party, and we hope to partner with them again. Another great partnership we’ve started has been with the 9:30 Club. We do concert ticket giveaways each week– it’s fantastic.

- Blogger We Love Tom Bridge of We Love DC, on why partnering with local businesses is a good tactic for local bloggers

7. Caroline says: “Relax.”

Try to write every day — just don’t pressure yourself. I’m able to enjoy [blogging because I don't pressure myself too much]. I used to actually write every day, but then I decided to take the weekends off.

- Blogger We Love Caroline of Caroline on Crack

6. Tasha says: “Diversify, Diversify, Diversify.”

I do make some money off of my blog – but it’s just like writing: your money comes from a lot of little different places. Some of my income comes from local ads, some of it comes from internet ads, and some of it comes from freelance blogging projects: for instance, I contribute to a local TV station that has a mom site. When you’re a writer, you very rarely have one income source—that’s something I always remind bloggers of when they start out: they should diversify. It’s really tough to make it happen any one way—and, as a blogger, you have to straddle the editorial/advertising divide, which are usually separate in traditional media. It’s a full-time job in and of itself to sell ads.

- Blogger We Love Tasha Ball of Tasha Does Tulsa, on generating revenue

5. Lee says: “Blog What You Love.”

I love nachos. I used to talk about nachos so much that the girl I was dating at the time made me a ‘I <3 Nachos,’ T-shirt. I wasn’t even in New York yet. I was living in China, and I was blogging there about the city I was in. When I came back I wanted to start another blog because I really enjoyed it – and my friend was telling me how it had to be niche, how I had to find something I knew and liked. Nachos was, like, the first thing I could think of – I love nachos.

- Blogger We Love Lee Frank of Nachos NY

4. Liz says: “Do Your Own Thing.”

Take your time and go at your own pace. Don’t compare yourself to other blogs. Do your own thing. If you like to use photos, do that. If you want to make videos with your Flip cam, do that. But don’t feel obligated to do things you’re not interested in.

- Blogger We Love Liz Stambaugh of What’s to Eat, Baltimore?

3. Christy says: “Listen to Your Readership.”

One good piece of advice in terms of local blogging relates to the fact that you often have a lot of people trying to do the same thing, and blogs kind of fade in and out. It’s not so much about how many people are doing those things; it’s more about how you’re doing it a little bit differently and a little bit better – that makes it interesting. Try to pay attention to your readers – tailor your feature content to the things people will like. We do pay attention to our page statistics and we pay attention to our Twitter feed and we engage people and we listen. We always strive to be a resource that’s listening to our community instead of just being an outlet that pushes out information.

– Blogger We Love Christy Frink of Nashvillest

2. Michelle says: “Dream Big.”

I’d love to take a sabbatical from my job for a month and work in a restaurant kitchen — or go work on a farm, that’d be great. Haha, yeah, the chefs would probably be like, ‘who let this YAHOO come in and cook in my kitchen?!’ But I’d love to do it.

- Blogger We Love Michelle Venorsky of Cleveland Foodie

1. Steve says: “Don’t Force It.”

Blogs die for the same reason that any project dies. Something gets someone mad or passionate about that subject, and eventually people move on [to other projects].  If someone has a blog that’s passionate for a while, why is that invalid? I wouldn’t want someone to feel obligatory about something they’re not passionate about anymore.

- Blogger We Love Steve Shanafelt of the Spartanburg Spark on how it’s OK to start a blogging project and, when the time is right, move on

P.S. Local bloggers, don’t forget to register your blog here. It’s quick, simple, and will help drive traffic to your blog.
P.P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther@outside.in

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4
Aug 10

Bloggers We Love: FoodGPS’ Joshua Lurie Talks Food, Drink & LA’s Infinite Possibilities

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General — View Comments

FoodGPS’ Joshua Lurie. Photograph by Gary Leonard.

BLOGGER: Joshua Lurie
FEATURED BLOG: FoodGPS
TWITTER: @FoodGPS

Joshua Lurie is a food blogger. Not because it’s trendy – he’s been at it since 2005 – but because he loves to eat, write and share. Food is all about the people and the stories that are behind it, he says.

There are countless stories to be told about our food and the people who farm, distribute, make, sell, prepare, cook, eat and otherwise influence it. Of course, now that food blogging has exploded across the country, it’s not terribly difficult to find decent, locally-focused food blogs that are telling some of those stories. Still, it’s always a treat to run across a well-written, well-organized hyperlocal blog like Lurie’s FoodGPS, which centers on Los Angeles, CA, the city he now calls home.

Raised just outside of New York City in suburban New Jersey, Lurie says he grew up on “a steady diet of red sauce Italian food, pizza, Americanized Chinese food, burgers and fried chicken.” During his adolescent years, Lurie’s culinary world gradually expanded with each trip his family would take into the City. Still, his training as a foodie (and as a writer) really got underway once he went off to college at Vanderbilt and began spending his summers in LA, where he’d eat adventurously while interning at City Hall and also at film production companies.

“I originally got into TV because I was a tour guide at the studios, [and] part of being a page was being ‘leased out,’ to different production companies on the lot,” Lurie says. “They leased me out to Belisarius Productions and I found out about a writer’s assistant position [that was open]. I never would have imagined writing fiction at all, on TV or otherwise, but that kind of inspired me to start writing, and I eventually pursued [writing as a career].”

Lurie went on to work on television programs such as JAG and NCIS. After launching FoodGPS, taking a food writing course and expanding his network, however, he eventually made the switch to full-time freelance food writer and blogger (I asked him if he missed working in TV. His response? “Not at all.”). I’m thrilled to add him to our Bloggers We Love blog roll, and am happy to share part of our conversation here. I hope you find it as valuable as I did.

What prompted you to launch FoodGPS?

I was originally inspired on December 29, 2004, after an old high school friend and I shared a meal at Per Se [in New York]. We asked for as many courses as they’d serve us, figuring we might not have another opportunity to eat at Per Se. They brought 16-18 courses for each of us, each of them different, and we shared everything. It was such a spectacular meal [that I felt I needed to share it, so] I got on Blogger and created a blog. That was in January 2005. That was my first post – this epic meal at Per Se.

How has the blog changed since then?

It’s been an evolution. [For a while,] I only posted about meals I thought were special. Then, eventually, in 2007, I decided to write restaurant news related to Los Angeles. Then, in early 2009, I created separate pages for drinks and for coffee, and I also started focusing more on the people [behind the food], instead of just providing commentary on food. FoodGPS continues to cover the special meals that I come across both in LA and beyond, but I also do quite a few profiles with [people in the industry], as well as event coverage.

How has blogging influenced your professional life?

I really do think FoodGPS has been great for providing exposure [for me] and I do still put a good amount of time into FoodGPS since it’s my personal brand. As far as having my own brand, it’s one of those few opportunities as a freelance writer [where I get to] control the content and cover what I want to cover, and [that's important to me because] I think that I’m adding unique content to the food blogging universe. There are hundreds of thousands of food blogs at this point. A lot of them fall into the commentary realm. I have some friends [blogging in that realm], and I enjoy many of those [blogs] But, finally, that wasn’t really enough for me [so I decided to do something a little bit different.]

What’s been the most rewarding aspect of local food blogging?

This is actually easy – it’s meeting all sorts of interesting people in the food community – [those who work in] bars or restaurants, or other bloggers. I’ve been able to form all sorts of great relationships and have been able to enjoy [the drinking and dining] experience on a much deeper level than just consumption.

Your profiles are really interesting. Who have been some of your favorites?

John Rivera Sedlar – the Chef/Owner of Rivera in Downtown LA. I didn’t really know much about his history before interviewing him prior to Rivera’s opening, and it’s a restaurant I keep returning to, including last Friday night. He’s an incredibly ambitious chef but he’s also humble and gracious and I think what he’s doing isn’t being done anywhere else. [I've really enjoyed] getting to learn about his approach better.

Another was Aiden Demarest, who was the opening manager at Seven Grand, which was a very influential bar when it opened in Downtown LA. He’s now gone to work [elsewhere], but he has that historic perspective on the downtown cocktail scene, which has really exploded.

Reza Esmaili was another interesting one. He’s President of the Northern California Chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild, and I met with him in San Francisco. Not only is he a bartender, he’s an owner/operator. He’s just taken over a place called Long Bar, and it was interesting hear him lay out what’s important [for that venture]. He has the ability to put together a great cocktail program [at Long Bar], but that wasn’t the priority to start. He’s been working behind the bar and on many other levels, so he’s got a historical perspective on the cocktail scene. There’s more context in his approach, and a personal history [that I found interesting].

What’s the most challenging aspect of local food writing and blogging?

Finding balance. At this stage, my primary income comes from covering restaurants and events, so I basically have to be out every single night. I’m at restaurants 2-3 times a day. I cook very rarely at this stage. I feel like my life has gotten increasingly imbalanced in terms of non-food/drinking related activities. A quiet night at home, being able to cook, is almost unthinkable at this point. That’s been kind of a struggle. Most of the time I’m able to enjoy myself at some level, but I’m certainly [aware of the imbalance]. Exercise is also a priority, and there are days when I have trouble finding the time to do that. Luckily, [I'm fairly young, so this lifestyle] hasn’t taken it’s toll yet, but it’s certainly something I’m conscious of and I need to find a way to address it.

I imagine you’re a pretty adventurous eater. What’s the strangest thing you’ve eaten?

There’s nothing I won’t eat except for maybe some sort of insect. I’ve had Mexican grasshoppers, chapulines, fried with chili, lime and salt. I’ll try just about anything.

The other day I went to dinner at an Indonesian restaurant, and we finished our meal with a big plate of durian. I was traveling in Asia in 2005, and they don’t allow it on public transportation [because of its smell]. I actually like it. It’s kind of custardy– yellow and green– and it’s got some sweetness to it – but it’s massive, too, green and spiky.

In Taiwan, I tried stinky tofu, crumbled. It was pretty funky. It’s hard to get past the smell. But I might try it again.

So, considering all the places you’ve traveled and all the food you’ve eaten, what is it you like most about the LA food scene?

I think what I like about the LA food scene is what I like about Los Angeles: there are infinite possibilities. There’s no limit to the types of cuisines you’ll find. It requires more driving, but that’s OK – as long as the results are interesting.

What advice would you have for someone who’s interested in starting a local food blog?

A bunch of people have told me that they’ve always thought about starting a food blog. My reaction is, ‘Just do it. It’s free. You can start it today. You can write your first post tonight.’ Sometimes people get too wrapped up in making their blog unique, but once they start, they can figure that out later.

P.S. Local bloggers, don’t forget to register your blog here. It’s quick, simple, and will help drive traffic to your blog.
P.P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther@outside.in

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22
Jul 10

WordPress 3 + WordPress MU + BuddyPress = a Game Changer for Hyperlocal Blogs, says Spartanburg Spark

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General / Guest Posts / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

SparkNew2

(In an expansion of our Bloggers We Love series, the Outside.in blog will now feature occasional guest posts authored by Bloggers We Love. Why? It’s simple, really: these hyperlocal bloggers have knowledge and experience to share, and we’re thrilled to be able to bring more of their insights to our readership. This inaugural guest post comes from Steve Shanafelt, a Blogger We Love and the publisher of the Spartanburg Spark, a hyperlocal community site based in Spartanburg, SC. Steve can be reached at publisher@SpartanburgSpark.com or via Twitter: @TheSpark.)

One of the trickier things about building a community of readers on your blog or website is giving them some reason to stick around after they’ve read your most recent content, listened to your video or watched your latest vlog. For the vast majority of us, the best kind of reader interaction we have to look forward to on our own sites are comments, which are a mixed bag depending on how much of a troll-magnet your website’s niche tends to be.

What most of us don’t have the ability to create is something truly interactive, and something that can build a genuine user community where people actually invest their time, thought and personality into creating content — even personal content — on your site. In fact, if you use social networks to market your site or blog, you’ve probably noticed that your readers are just as likely to talk about your recent posts on Twitter or Facebook status updates than they are your actual site. When you’re trying to build a community — not to mention traffic — that can be infuriating.

But who can blame them? People like being able to express their individuality and connect to other people who share interests, and most blogs and websites simply don’t offer that kind of deep interconnection. After all, Facebook has spent untold tens of millions building their social networking system, and the coding skills needed to create even simple social networking is far beyond the abilities of most bloggers.

Or it was until last month.

That’s when the folks over at Automattic released the latest version of their ever-impressive WordPress blogging software. It’s the third version — WordPress 3, that is, nicknamed “Thelonious” — and it’s by far the smoothest, easiest-to-use version released thus far. The range of features and options is astonishing, even for WordPress, and it might just be the best standalone, open-source blogging platform ever built.

It might also be the start of a complete revolution social networking.

Why? Because of the easy, novice-friendly integration of two WordPress-related projects, WordPress MU and BuddyPress. Respectively, these allow a standard WordPress blog to act like a blog network, and that same blog network to act like a social network. While this integration is far from new — BuddyPress has been around since 2008 — what is new is the lack of technical expertise needed to bring all three elements together.

With a few clicks and some very basic file editing, practically anyone can create their own social network within moments on their own website or blog. Visitors to your site can start their own sub-blogs, create their own user profiles, private message each other, form their own social groups with their own forums and connect with each other in ways that were previously limited to dedicated social networking sites.

You may be saying: “So what? Why is this relevant when there already is a Facebook, a Ning, a MySpace? My little blog will never have that kind of user base, and my users will never create that depth of content.”

Maybe not, and if you run a personal blog where you are the star and there’s little motivation for other people to participate, you’re probably right. But for a project like the one I run, a hyperlocal community site at SpartanburgSpark.com, it’s a complete game changer. We’ve gone from a glorified blog — the lowest level of the media totem pole — to a proper DIY media outlet and local social networking site, all from a simple software upgrade.

And now that the users can talk to each other, they’re actually able to have discussions on our site that would have previously happened on Facebook. Our users can organize — or self-organize, really — in ways that were previously impossible when we were a standard blog. They can talk to each other about things that interest them without having to wait for us to post a relevant blog post about it. They can start their own groups and forums, directly message each other, create elaborate user profiles and do all manner of new and interesting things with each other, all while staying on our site.

We’ve only scratched the surface of what the software is capable of, and our page views and time-on-site stats are steadily rising, with almost no extra effort on our part.

What’s interesting isn’t our specific use of this software — we’re a very small fish in this whopping great internet ocean, and we’re using this technology in a completely off-the-shelf way — it’s that everyone now has the ability to start their media projects on this level. In fact, this will soon become the standard, in the same way that things like user commenting — a cutting-edge technology only a few years ago — is now so much a part of the culture that it seems weird when a blog or website doesn’t provide it.

Thanks to WordPress 3, fully enabled social networking will soon be the new starting point for every blogger, every website and every online media project. And as social networks in general start to become more interconnected thanks to better APIs, the ability to bring new members into our own website network is growing daily. To put it another way, WordPress 3 has started a trend where Facebook isn’t siphoning off your users and pageviews, but rather where your network can be a vital part of your users’ online social experience.

When everyone can — just by deciding to click a few options — start out with their own micro version of Facebook stitched into their website or blog, it fundamentally changes what it means to be a website or a blog. It’s a sea change for internet culture, and it’s definitely something to be aware of, to plan for, and to incorporate into your online strategy.

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15
Jul 10

Caroline’s Secrets of the Blogging Lifestyle (aka Bloggers We Love: Caroline on Crack)

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

BLOGGER: Caroline

FEATURED BLOG(S): Caroline on Crack

TWITTER: @CarolineOnCrack

FACEBOOK: Caroline on Crackheads

FLICKR: Caroline on Crack

YOUTUBE: Caroline on Crack

SERIOUS EATS: Caroline on Crack

FOOD BUZZ: Caroline on Crack

This week our ‘Bloggers We Love,’ series took us (via telephone) to fabulous, sunny Los Angeles, CA, where we spoke to the energetic and LA-savvy blogger Caroline of CarolineOnCrack.com.

A northern California transplant, Caroline is a lifestyle blogger who writes about food, cocktails and fun in and around LA. Having read her blog with some regularity, I was already impressed with her style, but after speaking with her, I was especially taken with her easy-going energy and affable nature. Her personality and blog embody what I imagine Californians to be: relaxed yet energetic, casual yet on-trend.

My conversation with Caroline got me thinking not only about lifestyle blogging but also the blogging lifestyle: is there something unique about lifestyle blogging that enables a blogger to keep it up over the long-term? Or, is there something special about Caroline’s lifestyle that that gives her staying power? What does it mean to really live the ‘blogging lifestyle’ day in and day out? Put simply: what is it that has enabled Caroline to blog nearly every day for five years and counting?

I’ve decided to investigate that question and answer it with some of the secrets of the blogging lifestyle that I learned from Caroline…

CAROLINE SAYS: SEEK THE BLOG/LIFE BALANCE

While Caroline writes about her daily adventures, she’s careful to maintain some modicum of privacy for herself. As a reader, you appreciate this: you feel like you know Caroline, but she doesn’t cross over into TMI territory like some bloggers. She certainly doesn’t make you feel like a voyeur.

“When I first started, I didn’t want everyone to know who I was: I have a day job, and I wanted to keep the blog separate,” Caroline says. “So, I would purposefully leave myself out of my posts. But then [I wrote a few posts of a more personal nature] and I let a little of myself in – and it seemed like people really responded to that.”

It’s a difficult balance to strike – being completely authentic and personable without being overly intimate – and Caroline nails it with remarkable skill and aplomb.

Striking such a balance could be useful for a blogger who’s in it for the long haul.  It allows the blogger to focus on their subject matter, without allowing their personality and personal life to overpower the piece. The post’s tone becomes relatable to a wider variety of readers, potentially garnering a larger audience for the blog.

Moreover, when a blogger keeps aspects of her identity somewhat cloaked, she can be candid about other aspects of her life. For instance, Caroline publishes her calendar of public social events (though personal evenings are marked on the calendar as “busy”). This doesn’t cause the uncomfortable, invasive encounters that one would predict. In fact, when she participates in these events, readers actually prefer to respect her privacy. She once judged a mixology contest and brought a friend along. Fans recognized the friend from photos on Caroline’s blog and asked her to tell Caroline that they’re huge fans but then shied away from meeting Caroline themselves. It’s almost as if fans don’t want to actually know who’s behind the voice they know and love.

CAROLINE SAYS: ‘RELAX’

“Try to write every day – just don’t pressure yourself,” Caroline advises. “I’m able to enjoy [blogging because I don’t pressure myself too much]. I used to actually write every day, but then I decided to take the weekends off.”

Caroline says she still feels strangely guilty if she misses a weekday post  – “It’s like I didn’t shower, or like I’m letting somebody down,” – but she doesn’t ruminate on that feeling:

“I try not to think about [my plans for the blog], because if I do I’ll psych myself out. I think that’s why I’ve been able to keep myself going [because I try not to take everything so seriously].”

“Sometimes I do keep an editorial calendar—especially if I get press release sent to me about an event that’s well into the future,” Caroline says. “I also have a to-do list of posts I want to write, like events that I went to and still need to blog about.”

So, it’s not all laissez-faire. It is useful to maintain some degree of regularity in your blogging. Living the blogging lifestyle means exactly that: integrating blogging into your lifestyle.

CAROLINE SAYS: HAVE A COCKTAIL!

'Birds & Bees,' with cherries, courtesy of Caroline on Crack

'Birds & Bees,' with cherries, photo courtesy of Caroline on Crack

The final secret to living the blogging lifestyle a la Caroline on Crack? Cocktails!

Caroline on Crack has come to be known as a go-to source for information about cocktails and mixology, even though Caroline wasn’t a passionate cocktail lover when she started the blog. It’s a love that’s evolved organically.

“I’m not a cocktail or spirit expert, I just enjoy it. I’ve learned a lot and I’d totally love to go to bartending school,” Caroline says.

The lesson? Be open to the ways your own interests may evolve and what that might mean for the evolution of your blog. And don’t forget to take the time to kick back and enjoy yourself with a well-deserved beverage of your choice. Try a Pegu Club with Bols Genever instead of gin – one of Caroline’s favorites.

P.S. Local bloggers, don’t forget to register your blog here. It’s quick, simple, and will help drive traffic to your blog.
P.P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther@outside.in

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29
Jun 10

Bloggers We Love: Jill Harrison

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

BLOGGER: Jill Harrison

FEATURED BLOG(S): For the Love of Brooklyn

TWITTER: @LoveofBrooklyn

FACEBOOK: For the Love of Brooklyn

FLICKR: For the Love of Brooklyn

One thing I’ve learned by conducting our ‘Bloggers We Love,’ interviews is that a hyperlocal blog can be a powerful platform for community organizing – and not just in the political sense. What a hyperlocal or local blog can do especially well (better than a blog that’s not locally-oriented, in many cases) is create communities both online AND offline.

One blogger who is building a vibrant community of like-minded individuals via her blog is Jill Harrison of the inspirational photoblog For the Love of Brooklyn. Not only is For the Love of Brooklyn a great local photoblog chronicling the entire New York City borough of Brooklyn, it’s a collective, meaning the photographs showcased on the site are not just taken by Harrison and the seven other original organizers of the blog, but they’re submitted by an entire community of photographers, both professionals and amateurs alike. Submissions are then curated into photo essays by Harrison and her editorial team.

We could all learn a lot about community building from this collective of artists and enthusiasts who share the same subject: Brooklyn, in all its varied incarnations. With that in mind, I am pleased to present:

10 Ways to Build Community as a Hyperlocal Blogger

(or, what I learned from For the Love of Brooklyn)


10. Enroll Others

“About a year ago I realized that I had a lot of photographer friends and I basically polled some of my friends and asked if they were interested in starting [a blog for] more or less a collective of photographers [which is how For the Love of Brooklyn started.]“

9. Start Your Own Meetup

“In January, we started holding monthly Meetups. We go out into Brooklyn neighborhoods with our cameras and explore them – and invite whoever is interested into the group to come exploring with us. For instance, we went to Gowanus, right after the Gowanus [Canal] was declared a Superfund site – more than 35 people walked through Gowanus shooting [photographs]. It was great because I got to meet all these people that I correspond with on the internet.”

8. Reconsider Your ‘Target’ Audience

“[Our Meetups aren't just for photographers]. Several amateur historians come along and narrate [our exploratory forays into Brooklyn neighborhoods]. That’s one of my favorite parts about our Meetups – all kinds of people come along – from longtime Brooklyn residents to tourists from Europe who are just curious.”

7. Embrace Flickr

An example of iPhone photography using the Hipstamatic App - 'Coney Island Moon' by CootieGarage, a member of For The Love of Brooklyn's Flickr Pool

“Flickr – that was my gateway drug [to social media]. If you submit to our Flickr pool, your work could get featured [on For the Love of Brooklyn]. I always do a lot of due diligence, but overall the feedback has been really positive. People are totally PUMPED to have their work featured. Even with professional photographers I’ve had really good results. I’ve been really inspired by [the way the blog has shown me] how the old ways of thinking about art — ‘it’s MY intellectual property, it’s MY work,’ – are changing. You have to be very aware that this social networking creates ties instead of boundaries. People want their work re-blogged. Artistic boundaries are changing, and they seem to be changing really rapidly.”

6. Get Out There (Yes, You)!

“I’ve been trying to personally attend more events this year – more networking events and more events that interest me, personally – just to meet people who are doing similar things. We have quite a few photographers who have had gallery openings as well – so when we visit gallery openings we’re evangelizing the blog: a little word of mouth [marketing].”

5. Organize Events to Celebrate & Promote Your Community Members

“Yes! [We are] definitely [going to organize a show]. Last fall we had several photographers exhibit in the the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival. We’re also hoping to do some limited run installations – hopefully some of them in my new house [that I just brought in Crown Heights]!”

4. Delegate Responsibility to Community Members

“I often ask people for submissions – it’s a great way to build both leadership and a follower base [on a collaborative blog]. It’s a great way to do things – I’ve literally never had anybody say ‘No.’”

3. Take the Time to Learn About & Spotlight Your Community Members

“I do interviews with the photographers we feature [on For the Love of Brooklyn]. Some of my favorites are the ones I did with with Brooklyn photographers Claire Voelkel and Lyouba Assadourova. Another favorite was with my good friend Anna Gordon from The Good Batch at the Brooklyn Flea – she turned her hobby into a fairly booming business. It’s really turned into a this big thing, built by sheer hard work and by the support she’s gotten from the Brooklyn community.”

2. Teach & Learn

“A lot of teaching and learning occurs informally at our Meetups. We don’t have any formal lessons or Master Classes at the moment, but that’s something that I think is missing from Brooklyn. I’d love to organize volunteer-based art instruction. Someday!”

1. Be Open to the Ways Your Blog & Its Community Will Change YOU

“I get inspired by other people and hopefully I can inspire other people with what I’m doing, too. For instance, [because of the need to create content for the blog, I have to] constantly challenge myself to get out with my camera to create photo essays. Also, through these interviews I’m conducting and [my increased] exposure to other artists in the borough, I’ve refined my perspective about photography and how I propose the genre. Over the last 6 months I’ve actually almost fully become a film photographer – it forces me to identify my perspective before I shoot – and because I’m more careful about how I’m shooting, when I’m creating photo essays I have a tighter narrative.”

P. S. More examples of lo-fi photography using the iPhone are here! You can also see an example of higher-end photography using a medium-format film (Hasselblad) here, or high-end digital Nikon gear here.
P.P.S. Local bloggers, don’t forget to register your blog here. It’s quick, simple, and will help drive traffic to your blog.
P.P. S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther@outside.in

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