With the launch of the eBay Ink blog we (meaning Voce and cnp_studio) had a nice hat trick on the WordPress.org site. The screenshot below shows the 'Powered by WP' in the lower right. I'm proud to say that they're all ours :-)

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On June 11th, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) launched the official PlayStation.Blog. I'm proud to say we had a little bit of a hand in the development of this new corporate blog.

The blog is based upon the WordPress platform and features a number of modifications. I handled the design and some of the project management while the team (Nick, Pete, Sean and Mike) from cnp_studio handled CSS, WordPress customization and other tweaks.

Response to the blog was been somewhat amazing with over 500 comments coming in the first 24 hours. Technorati rank went from non-existent to 8,364 in less than two weeks. Not bad.

As with any project of this nature, it's only the beginning. Look for more to come.

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We launched a new site/blog today for SeaWorld San Antonio and the Journey to Atlantis thrill ride. The site is half traditional content / half-blog built on WordPress and incorporates a number of social media elements. The videos are from Veoh and YouTube while the photos are from Flickr.

We're encouraging folks to 'Share their Stuff' and upload photos and videos from their ride experiences once the ride launches on May 12, 2007. Fan content will be highlighted on the blog in the coming weeks.

Kami Huyse is the lead on the project and has been working with the SeaWorld San Antonio gang on strategy and content. Kami is also building a blogger relations program to reach out to the numerous coaster/thrill ride blogs.

Kami contacted me a few weeks ago to help build the site. Total development time from start to finish was a little over two weeks.

The design was done by Jeremy Lazanowski from LazCreative and the gang from cnp_studio (Pete, Nick & Mike) assisted with some of the WordPress modifications.

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A project I was involved with just launched this week, the revised Yahoo Search Blog. I provided design and MT support/implementation on the project in conjunction with VOCE Communications. For the re-design they wanted some simple and flexible that would scale well on various resolutions.

The switchover had a few short-lived DNS related issues, but everything is up and running now. This is the second project I've worked on with Yahoo, last year I helped launch the Yahoo Search Marketing blog.

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The St. Augustine Lighthouse in where else...St. Augustine, FL is now blogging. I've worked with them in laying the groundwork for this project. They're taking the first steps and have some interesting plans for the coming months. The blog allows them to cover a number of topics, from the historical to the ghostly to all things Fresnel.

The lighthouse gang is fortunate since they have an attraction that is frequently photographed and shared via Flickr. To join the party, they'll also be using Flickr.

One of the driving forces within the organization has been Rick Cain. If you're a lighthouse nut be sure to follow his blog and all the others.

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A college student sent me a series of questions for a project they're working on. I decided to post my answers online.

When a company comes to you with the idea of setting up a blog, what steps do you go through with them to get it set up?

First off I like to assess the level of knowledge within the organization. When they say they, 'want to blog' I want to know what they think that means. In a few cases I have had potential clients approach blogging from the wrong direction. They're thoughts were usually purely marketing driven, which isn't the best thing. I also need to know who will be the primary blogger(s). The best-case-scenarios are when an individual or small team within a company really wants to start blogging and they contact me to help out. In that situation there is an internal passion and drive to make the project succeed. This is a big contrast to a communications manager that calls and says, "Yeah, we need to get one of those blog things going." Real enthusiastic!

This also goes back to the overall mood of the company. Are we dealing with an organization that has an open live of communication with the outside world (customers, vendors, etc) or are they somewhat secretive. Obviously a blog is a natural extension for organizations with open communication channels.

The next step is defining the purpose and content. Often an initial idea for a corporate blog will be very narrow in scope. While the narrow scope helps define the content it often can't support itself beyond a few months. I usually advise them to take things up one level. Once we establish the based needs/purpose for the blog we then look at the technical issues.

There are a number of other steps that can get quite detailed depending on the project. A while back I posted some other tips and questions as well. Most of them are research oriented.

Continue reading "Answers for a College Project" »

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I had the pleasure to work on the development and launch of the new Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog over at ysmblog.com. The 'official' launch happened yesterday afternoon.

There is only one post up now, but there is more to come. Ultimately it's about opening channel of communications, Aaron Pratt talks a bit about this:

Yahoo has launched the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog which is interesting to me. Would Google launch something called the Google Search Marketing Blog? I bet not, so why is Yahoo! getting into the Internet Marketing mix? Simple, Yahoo! has always been one to adapt to social change and understands the value of actively marketing their brand.

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Jeremy Harrington and I collaborated on a new blog template design for Jeremy Pepper's POP-PR Jots!. Jeremy (Pepper that is) has been on Blogger since day one, in fact almost three years.

He and I have had 'discussions' about Blogger as a platform, but in the end it does what he needs it to do. The one think lacking though was a unique design, there are only so many Blogger templates to go around :-)

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Steve notes that the LAPD is blogging and says that local government will be ahead of the Federali's when it comes to blogs. As Jen pointed out in his comments, one of the first local government agencies with a blog was METROPLAN Orlando. Where is it now? Read the story.

There is still hope for Central Florida public policy though...a new blog will soon be launched to discuss growth issues in the seven county region served by MyRegion.org.

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I've been talking with a potential new client these past few weeks. As of this morning we're moving ahead with a blog project. Can you guess who it is?

Hint 1. Look at my Flickr photos
Hint 2. Look at this post

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Last night I turned on a new blog design for Going Social, a blog written by Chris Perry of Weber Shandwick. It was a simple re-skin of a SquareSpace blog.

I have a few other things in the works now, some are simple design updates, others are full-fledged blog development projects. One upcoming project is a design update for the China Law Blog.

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Two recent items on transparency in journalism. First up is a blog post and article by St. Pete Times reporter/blogger Eric Deggans. In both locations Eric talks about how media is learning to evolve in this new conversational world. From a blog meme standpoint it's nothing new, but it is new for the Florida market. I'll be interested in seeing what type of response he receives.

Next up is a blog post by Orlando Sentinel Crime Editor John Cutter on why the Sentinel held the story about the death of Chris Penley from the Milwee Middle School shooting. (Disclosure: the Orlando Sentinel is my client)

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If you are a public agency and you launch a blog which immediately achieves success with a high number of daily readers that leave scores of comments to discuss the posts and for the first time truly opens a public discussion on a topic what do you do next?

Shut down the blog of course!

This is the story of METROBLOG Orlando Don’t bother clicking on the link, it’s gone. Of course if you know what a Google cache is you'll be able to see some of it :-)

The following is a recap of the events that surrounded the launch and demise of a client blog. The purpose for telling this story is to help others learn. However, I can’t really say ‘learn by our mistakes’ since we didn’t make any. Nonetheless it is an interesting story.

Continue reading "Death of a Blog" »

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MetroBlogOrlando is a client blog that launched a few weeks ago. The blog is run by METROPLAN ORLANDO, the transportation planning organization in Central Florida. The blog is meant to be: 'A Forum for Discussion of Transportation Issues in Central Florida.' As expected there has been quite a bit of commentary on issues such as commuter rail and tolls.

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