The MyBlogLog Blog The source for all things MyBlogLog.

MyBlogLog Advisory Group

I want to introduce to you our advisory group.  We're honored that all but one of the people that we asked to help us test new products and 'run things by them' accepted (and the one that did not was WONDERFUL in his rejection).  You can't win them all, but he knows the invitation is still extended.

We put together this team so that we could get an impartial review of things that we were planning.  No need to 'step in it' without at least getting their feedback first, huh? 

Andrew Wee
Cord Silverstein
Wendy Piersall
Drew Meyers
 

 We've already ask them a few questions and they've responded with great feedback.  As we grow we'll likely expand the group just a bit, but it will probably never get larger than ten people.  So, please give them a round of applause as I prepare their goody bags and look for guest posts and such from these guys and gals in the coming months. 

Member Spotlight – Tim Ferriss

Being that two of us here in the office have spent the last few weeks devouring Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss, it only made sense to spotlight this Hot MyBlogLog member. 

Tim is a successful entrepreneur who has realized sizable wealth working only four hours per week.  However, now he is a writer and can stop saying that he deals drugs for a living (wink).  More than just a 30 year old rich guy, which is impressive enough, Tim is also the first American in history to hold a Tango Guinness world record, a National Chinese kickboxing champion (bested 4 world champions) and speaks several languages, including Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish and his native tongue, English. 

Besides his book, which is amazing (my review of Four Hour Work Week), Tim is also a supporter of DonorsChoose.org, which is currently in the running to receive $5M of support from American Express. 

From the CEO of DonorsChoose.org, Charles Best:

...take 30 seconds and vote for our submission in the American Express Members Project.  We’re in the semi-finals to win up to $5 million, all
of which would go to classroom projects on our website. We’re up
against stiff competition, but if people vote off of this post this
week, we could pull off an upset victory. And improve the educations of
thousands of public school students. It would be huge.

I'm bummed that I didn't get to meet Tim at Community Next last week, since I only attended the Friday revelries, but I'm glad that I am able to let all of you know about this uber cool MyBlogLog member.  And, if your heartstrings have been appropriately tugged, please vote for DonorsChoose.org on the Amex site.  Take time to check out Tim's community and say hello on his profile. 

If you have a suggestion for a Hot Member, please Tag them as a Hot Member so that we can check them out too.  As always, you can also email me at robyn@mybloglog.com with suggestions too.

Hot Member – Director Tom

DirectorTom, aka Thomas Clifford, is a film producer with an eye toward corporate branding.  The topics that his films normally encompass are HR, Diversity, Recruiting, New-hire orientation and Culture.  He encourages corporations to share their films and to share their film tips as well.

Most people that know Tom (and there are tons of us), know him as a great guy and one of those people that you can go to for a favor, for honest feedback and for blogging know-how.  Take a look at Tom's profile and check out his communities:  Bringing Brands to Life with Remarkable Corporate Videos and Director Tom on Zaadz. 

Do you deserve the spotlight?  Let us know by sending an email to robyn@mybloglog.com.  Do you know someone who deserves a mention?  Don't be afraid to tag them Hot Member so we discover this great member as well.

Member Spotlight: Robert Kiyosaki

Robert Kiyosaki is the author of the celebrated "Rich Dad Poor Dad", which is the longest-running best-seller on the New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and BusinessWeek best-seller
lists, to date.  This book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for almost 5 years. 

He's a world-renowned expert on finance, and Yahoo! is lucky to have him as an expert on the Y! Finance Site (see Community page here).  A 4th generation Japanese-American, Robert is a Vietnam vet (Marine Officer-Helicopter Gunship Pilot) who hails from Hawaii.  After college and Vietnam, Robert went on to work at Xerox, found several companies and retire at age 47. 

What makes Robert's advice so special, is not only that it's worked for him, but how he came about this advice in the first place.  Robert had a Rich Dad and a Poor Dad (two dads), both of whom gave him advice about money.  This unique perspective gives his story a richness that most financial planner's and strategists just don't have.

Take a look at Robert's page and friend him (he's lonely right now), and leave him a message.  Your question just might show up on the Y! finance page.  Alternatively, how about some free advice, ala his free podcast? 

Think you deserve a spotlight?  Know someone who is a Hot Member?  Tag them (or yourself) Hot Member, or let me know via email at robyn@mybloglog.com.

Hot Member – Ilker Yoldas

When we first launched the tagging feature, we mentioned that we'd use the Hot Member tag to find our next Hot Members.  This way, when you meet a cool member, oops, I mean a Hot Member, you can tag them and we feel we'll really be getting the pulse of the community.

So, without further ado, here's your latest Hot Member profile.

Ilker Yoldas is a long-time member with a hoppin' community here at Mybloglog.  A testament to someone who knows how to make friends without spamming, Ilker has a built The Thinking Blog's community into a talkative area that is always full of great conversation.  We salute Ilker for being the first ever community-chosen Hot Member here at MyBlogLog. 

So go read The Thinking Blog and congratulate Ilker on being the latest Hot Member on MyBlogLog!  And, don't forget, if you come into contact with a Hot Member, tag them as HotMember, and give them the accolades they deserve.

Are you a person of the web?

You’re certainly a web user if you’re reading this, but that doesn’t make you a “person of the web”, or POTW.

Yahoo! News is profiling people behind the
keyboards--fascinating people of the web. That could be you. In order
for Yahoo! News to consider profiling you as a POTW, you must maintain
an interesting web site with some social significance, good or bad.

But how do we find you if we haven’t stumbled across your site yet?
One way is for you to leave a stamp of yourself on our website, using MyBlogLog,
which automatically places you in the consideration set of people we
might profile. Make sure you provide links to all the web sites you
author upon registering with MyBlogLog.

Once you’ve joined MyBlogLog, visit potw.news.yahoo.com and you’ll magically appear on the page.

“People of the Web” and MyBlogLog, like peanut butter and Nerds candy

No, seriously, what you do is take some peanut butter, put it in a
bowl and then sprinkle a bunch of Nerds on it.  It's like a crunchy
PB&J!

In bigger news, MyBlogLog is working with Yahoo! News on a super new
site highlighting people of the web.  You're probably asking yourself "
am *I* a person of the web"?  Trust me when I say it takes more than
surfing the 'Net to be a POTW.

Yahoo! News is profiling the people behind the keyboards --
fascinating people of the web. That could be you. In order for Yahoo!
News to consider profiling you as a POTW, you must maintain an
interesting web site with some social significance, good or bad.

But the web is huge -- there must be thousands of sites out there!
How can you ensure that Yahoo! News checks out your site?  One way is
to leave your stamp on their website using MyBlogLog, which
automatically places you on the short list of sites that might be
profiled. Just register with MyBlogLog and then make sure you've added
all your blogs and web sites to your profile.  Once you’ve joined
MyBlogLog, visit potw.news.yahoo.com and you’ll magically appear on the page.

So get to it!  Register for MyBlogLog and check out People of the Web.  And then kick back with some peanut butter and Nerds

Users Helping Users

Communities work best when members help members.  Even the best customer service can never match the experience of all of the users working together.

I asked the owner of the existing MyBlogLog Yahoo! group, John Pozadzides (CSS and HTML web guru, and owner of HTMLHelp.com) if he'd allow us to promote and take part in his MyBlogLog group.  He agreed and now you have a place to go to ask questions or start discussions on:

- CSS Issues
- Browser problems
- Questions about stats reporting
- How to insert the widget and tracking codes
- and how to build a dynamic community or meet new people

Go there to talk about whatever you want to talk about, regarding MyBlogLog.  Of course I'll be there too, as John was kind enough to offer co-moderation rights to me, and I'll still be answering any emails you have here at customerservice@mybloglog.com as well. 

If you are interested in this email list, whether it is to help others or to help yourself, please do so.  I look forward to meeting you in the group.

Click to join the MyBlogLog list

Meet Our Newest Hot Member: Killcreek

It's my pleasure to introduce you this week's Hot Member, Killcreek, or Stevie Case, one of the baddest gamers out there.  If you're a gamer and you haven't heard of Stevie, then you really can't call yourself hardcore.  Well you can, but no one would respect you. 

Stevie is a gaming celeb with the killing cred needed to really make her mark in the industry.  Now she's the Dir of Business Development at Tira, a wireless company here in San Francisco.  All that, and she's absolutely gorgeous too. 

Killcreek has her MySpace and her Kiva page on MyBlogLog.  Her Kiva page showcases the women-owned businesses from developing countries which she's supporting (via business loans) and spurred me to find out more about Kiva. 

I recommend you spend some time on Killcreek's MyBlogLog page, leave her a message and get to know this beautiful and talented woman, who spends her time and money on causes that matter to her. 

So there!  You've got two beautiful 'Hot Members' to ogle. 

Got a recommendation for a 'Hot Member'?  Of course, you don't have to be beautiful or a woman to get the gig, just a 'Hot' MyBlogLog member.  If you want to recommend someone, including yourself (self-promotion is always ok here), send it to me at robyn@mybloglog.com with the subject, "hot members'.  Because we will likely get a great quantity of these emails, I regret that this will be one of the only customer service emails that may not get a reply (but will still be read).

MyBlogLog In The Wild

Seeing passionate users build things to make your service work better or interact with another service is really one of the highest forms of flattery.  Two such items I have recently seen made us all smile just a bit here in the office.

Drupal Module
Drupal is a CMS I've only recently begun playing with, but thus far have been impressed at its simplicity and, conversely, its depth.  I set up a friend's blog a few weeks ago using Drupal, and was able to easily set up several contact pages, a checkout system and all sorts of things not possible with a traditional blog, with relative ease.  Considering I've only done one major development project in my life, I was amazed at how easy this set-up was.  It was during this time that I found out that Michael Curry of Exodus Development had developed a MyBlogLog module for use on Drupal sites.

Wordpress Theme

And then today, I came across a MyBlogLog-ready Wordpress theme by Moses Francis (sponsored by Internet Marketing Center) that I think some of you will really like.  Rkcorp says:

3cWPTP is a 3 column theme and white body background. The theme comes with cute litte bubble cloud text menu tag and lovely greenish colour. It got a plenty of rooms of any ads related stuff in the sidebar. It also widget ready and coded function for most commented, latest comment and myblog’s myavatar. The theme suitable for mybloglog users since its colour tone are prefect match with it.

It's important to note that you still have to download the widget's plugin to make the Recent Readers widget show up, but Moses makes it easy for listing each plugin you'll need and linking to the individual download pages for each.  Of course, you'll also have to be using Wordpress 2.0 or greater to utilize the theme to it's fullest.

If you've done something cool with MyBlogLog or seen something that you think deserves mention, please let us know.