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Cleveland Blogging Forum

November 1st, 2007

Here are my notes on the Cleveland Blogging Forum.

To get started in blogging, one of the most important things is focus. What you focus on depends on your passion. I am passionate about technology and the internet, so I write about techology and the internet. The biggest problem I have, and possibly others as well, is how focused to get. Unfortunatley, I’m not sure there’s a direct answer to that question. After listening to four of the most famous bloggers in Cleveland, I can say with confidence: it depends. You have to find what works best for you: George Nemeth runs Brewed Fresh Daily, which is a blog about different topics every day; Eric Olsen is focused on reviews but in a generic way: they are reviews on many different topics; Jim Kukral pointed out different examples of a few extremely successful bloggers who were also very focused. My conclusion is: I’ve always been the type of person who exceeds with a specific focus area. Therefore, I’d like to bring this idea into my blogging and bring much more focused writing into the picture. This should work for me; but what works for me, will not necessarily work for everyone else. You have to reflect on how you do your best work and make a decision for yourself.

Another major thing I got out of this event is finding a way to pull people together and get them involved in the business/blog to drive readership. Cool Cleveland, Brewed Fresh Daily, Meet the Bloggers, and BlogCritics all bring in lots of bloggers with different backgrounds and specialties to form successful businesses to influence people and help get out information. I’m not going to spend time on this idea, however, since I need to get on with the article.

The discussion was broken up into 4 separate speakers. Thomas Mulready of Cool Cleveland George Nemeth of Brewed Fresh Daily, Eric Olsen of BlogCritics.org and Jim Kukral of Ask the Blogger.

I enjoyed hearing the history of Cool Cleveland. It is an organization focused on bringing the citizens of Cleveland back together virtually and physically, as well as helping local businesses grow through advertising and spolights.

George’s talk was more historical, however it showed how easy it is to get started and the variety of bloggers in the world.

Jim’s talk was very motivational: makes me want to quit my job and start blogging multiple times a day! He showed multiple examples of how people have monetized on blogs; if you have a passion, start talking about it: other people will get fired up and before you know it, you could have a whole community reading your blog! Don’t want to blog? Start a podcast or videocast! Great talk.

Eric showed us how he pulled together bloggers from many different sources to review books, music, movies, and much more to monetize on the power of reaching millions of people with the click of a button.

Question #1: What service do you use for advertising? Eric Olsen: Google AdSense & ad network; do not sell own ads Jim Kukral: Low traffic bloggers: use AdSense; major factor is readership; you’ll make pennies/day – perhaps if you have low traffic but high market-penetration, you’ll be able to land large ad revenues Thomas Mulready: custom ads using the Meet the Bloggers ad network & focused market ads based on readership George Nemeth: Open Source ad serve software throught he Meet the Bloggers network

Question #2: Arguments against the convention center/medmart was instigated by Meet the Bloggers; is the Blogosphere having an effect on the community dialog in Ohio? Thomas Mulready: Activists are having a large influence; hosting own dialogs when there is not enough discussion from the city

— I had to cut off my live blogging here, due to a dying battery. An important lesson learned in my first live, albeit spur-of-the-moment, blogging experience: make sure everything with a battery is fully charged before the meeting. —

Cuyahoga County Sales Tax Increase

August 15th, 2007

At one point tonight at the weblogger meetup, our discussion drifted to the sales tax increase here in Cuyahoga County that is supposed to support the Med Mart/Convention Center. I now know that this is not necessarily the case: the actual proposal says that revenue from the tax increase will go to the general fund. While we all hope the county will use the money as planned, they have no restrictions, thus we have no guarantee where our hard earned money is going. Let’s not forgot that we also had no say in this issue.

Which brings me to my next point: where was the vote? We all work very hard to make a living, I’d like an opportunity to say where I want my money to go. The idea that someone can tell me they’re going to take more of money and use it for something whether or not I support it is not only wrong, it’s unconstitutional (the phrase “taxation without representation” comes to mind). Fortunately, there’s an entire group that agrees with me and they are doing something about it. If you too feel as I do, please go here for more information on the petition to get this tax increase on the ballot. This is our country, we deserve to choose where our money goes.

By way of disclaimer, please be aware that this is only my uninformed opinion. Whether you agree or disagree with my statement, please leave a comment letting me know. I’d love to get some good debate good! Any flames or unnecessary comments will be deleted.

Cleveland Weblogger Meetup

August 15th, 2007

Brewed Fresh Daily

Aaahhh… a new blog. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of starting fresh with all new content and an all new attitude.

Tonight I attended my first Cleveland Webloggers Meetup (check it out here). I met George Nemeth, Gloria Ferris, Tim Ferris, and others from Brewed Fresh Daily & Meet the Bloggers. They were all very fun, fascinating people to hang out with. I look forward to more Cleveland Weblogger events in the future.