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Content marketing, user data and the dangers of free WordPress themes

January 14, 2011 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Bit of a link post from me today as I’ve been working on a number of things for clients, and also updating some other projects. So rather than adding to the list that I intend to blog about someday, here’s some important things to consider:

Arm yourself with content, for Goliath is coming: Interesting post which reiterates a lot of the things I’ve been saying about content and marketing over the last 6 months – now is the time to start doing it. More and more companies are realising how useful content and social media marketing can be, and how much ROI it can produce, so you’re going to see more and more content fighting for attention. And given that it takes time to build an attentive audience, you don’t want to wait around any longer!

Myspace on the auction blog. What happens to user data?: Given that I’ve just been writing about social media content and user data from the perspective of future historians having access, it’s also important to consider what happens to that data if a site sells to another owner, rather than shutting down. How do you feel about your content, information and contacts being transferred? Another reason to adopt a hub and spoke model, with ownership of your own content/business/contact hub. And it’s so easy to do with the availability of self-publishing tools…

The hidden dangers of free WordPress themes: But although setting up WordPress, for example, is pretty easy, there are still dangers that you need to be aware of. For instance, only using themes from trusted sources, and checking them before you install them. Do you know what links are contained in the theme you downloaded from a random website? The original post shows the examples of how you can actually decode what could be hidden in a theme. There are a couple of solutions – one is to only pick themes from trusted sources, and the other is to bite the bullet and pay for themes from trusted sources. For instance, in my case, I tend to pay for themes from StudioPress, but there are some other good alternatives, such as Woo Themes (which I’ve used on some client sites, for example).

So why not spend the weekend getting started on your 2011 digital content and marketing. And feel free to pose any questions in the comments – if I can’t answer them, there’s a growing number of people reading this site who probably can!

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, wordpress Tagged With: content hubs, content marketing, data, digital content advice, getting started, privacy, security, themes, wordpress

Solving Feedburner Feedsmith plugin problems with WordPress 2.9

January 3, 2010 By Dan Thornton 13 Comments

If you’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.9 like me, you might have found that the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin recommended by Google and Feedburner has now stopped working. In fact, I couldn’t even upload it to a new site which hasn’t been upgraded to 2.9.

There’s been no word from Feedburner about this (No surprise, since their original Feedsmith plugin page itself returns an error and they appear to have taken a vow of silence since being acquired by Google).

Luckily some of the other Feedburner plugins work with 2.9. I’m currently using and recommending the FD Feedburner plugin by John Watson. Just install the plugin, enter your Feedburner feed address (The options are under the plugin menu), and you’re done.

(Note, the redirect may not go into action until you make a new post after installing the plugin – but if you create a test post and then delete it, it seems to work fine)

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Filed Under: Blogging, wordpress Tagged With: fd feedburner plugin, feedburner feedsmith, plugin, problems, wordpress, wordpress 2.9

New WordPress 2.6 arrives – one month ahead of schedule…

July 15, 2008 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

I know all the tech news type blogs will have covered this in-depth, but the new version of WordPress, 2.6 ‘Tyner’ has arrived one month ahead of schedule and looks awesome.

Post from anywhere is going to be incredibly useful, particularly in a blogosphere still worrying that microblogging is quicker and easier. The wiki tracking of edits could be really helpful on my group blog over at www.140char.com, meaning that group posts could now be properly collaborative. Plus little things like wordcounts and image captions that make a big difference.

Having spent a lot of time on Blogger, I’m so glad I made the switch, even if it meant sacrificing my Google Page Rank for while!

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Filed Under: Blogging, wordpress Tagged With: 2.6, available, Blogging, posting, released, tyner, wiki editing, wordpress

Social networking Virb -ally

May 13, 2007 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

There’s been a lot of talk about new social networking site Virb, and having signed up, it’s easy to see why.

It’s pretty much everything Myspace could have been by now. Easy sign-up, very easy profile customisation, integration with Flickr, music player, video player etc. There’s a huge list of features, here.

And it also shares a sense of humour with a lot of web 2.0 start-ups, giving you friendly, original messages, rather than boring, staid old technical talk and 404 errors.

There’s suggestions it could be a Myspace killer, but I don’t think that will happen. Myspace is too integrated as the brand of social networking, and just aspiring models and spamming indie bands will keep that status.

Meanwhile Facebook has the ‘just connecting with friends’ corner, Bebo is more ‘tween’ orientated, and Faceparty is all about getting laid.

But Virb should pick up all the technically minded, and tech-interested web users. The basics give you WordPress-type customisation with ease, while the most technical will be able to do a huge range of things. So if you’re looking to connect with webbies, Virb looks like the place to do it.

I’m there, at http://www.virb.com/badgergravling.

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