The folks at Small Business Mavericks have created a Minnesota meetup group for area bloggers and those who want to know more about blogging, and have officially announced the first blast-off get-together in Plymouth on Monday, March 3.
I always enjoy these get-togethers, mainly because it gets you away from your computer where you can have fun talking to people w/ similar interests. Hopefully that huge group (ok, 3 of us) who attends “blogger hour” will be in attendance.
I might actually be in Rochester that day. If so, it looks like I’ll miss this first one but will definitely make future meetups.
MinnPost.com is up and running. Its premise is to provide great journalism and news for those who care about Minnesota. It’s a non-profit print/Web/blog, accepts donations, and has been quite the buzz the last couple of months. Something tells me this will be a daily visit.
For those unfamiliar with Jason DeRusha, he’s a WCCO reporter who is very popular in the Twin Cities blogging community. On his WCCO video blog, there’s a hilarious, yet ingenious and informative video regarding Jason, Surly beer, and the MacKenzie Pub in Minneapolis.
A little late on this, but Karen Sams from the MIMA blog writes about the annual Summit’s success.
I took some cool knowledge from the MIMA summit and am glad to see the sold-out turnout. Also, I was able to make some really cool connections with industry peeps that may help us out at the FT job, one of which a couple of us are meeting for lunch Thursday in Eagan.
Speaking of Eagan and currently playing on iTunes: Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day
A few of us met tonight at the Ridgedale Champps over dinner on what we initially dubbed “blogger hour”. It was basically myself plus the cool minds of Aaron Weiche and Patrick Schaber.
It was fun. We enjoyed a dinner and a drink, chatted about stuff like podcasts, RSS, video marketing, Twitter, beer, endurance sports that only Aaron’s wife can pull off, etc. I certainly got to learn a few of those things that I should just automatically know.
Then we thought “why not expand this?”. There are a lot of great bloggers in the area. The City Pages does have a small list of them (ok, HUGE list). It would be a great way to meet new people while getting to blog-talk whether it’s about marketing, techy, blogging in general, or most importantly, just about “stuff”.
Aaron and Patrick may post about this as well. Any takers?
Sometimes I like to post YouTube videos in blog posts, partly for relevancy and partly for humor.
In a recent post regarding print Yellow Pages, I included a YouTube video based on a Monty Python skit. At the end of it, you now see this.
It basically points you to this video (it’s pretty harmless PG-13, but you might not want to play it at work).
For this blog, it’s harmless and I suppose sex sells. What about a corporate blog that utilizes YouTube? Would a related video like this help or hurt?
Since the YouTube video was a Monty Python skit, a video like this is probably more likely to appear. Another related video does show the “PC vs Mac” commercial, which is pretty funny in itself.
First of all, Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister Sonja (Sunny), queen of BuyOnlineNow.net! If you’re a user from Canada, you should definitely buy your office supplies and furniture from that site.
This may or may not be a weekly feature, but I did want to point out some great blog posts from this week:
Matt McGee from Small Business SEM points out new Google One-Box Results with multiple pins suggesting more relevant businesses in one search. As of now, they don’t appear in Minneapolis listings, but it’s worth noting.
Jennifer Laycock brings common sense to replicating human judgment to your title tags. If you’re unaware of Jennifer and her approach to search marketing, you should take some notice. You’ll be smarter.
Currently on iTunes: Broadcast To The World - Zebrahead
I haven’t found too much interest for Twitter yet. It’s basically a “see what your friends are up to” toy via text messaging. The last couple days have made me think about it differently though.
The first I heard about it was from hangin’ with Ed Kohler at Grumpy’s a month or so ago. To prove that Web geeks actually have fun personalities, Ed recently got interviewed by Fox 9 News (scroll down and click the video link - and check out his reaction to winning the coffee shop gift card) regarding Twitter and playing something called the Least Dangerous Game.
Well, that does sound like fun and I just signed up now. The originator (Aric, who was also interviewed) finds a place in the Twin Cities, and sends out text message clues to his whereabouts. The first person to find him wins stuff. Here are some more details about it.
Somehow, I’m hoping a new Local or Mobile Search light bulb will appear regarding this, too. We’ll see soon enough. Nonetheless, it seems like a cool way to embrace the social Web, meet other Twin Cities techies and to even learn more about the Twin Cities itself.
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On a similar note, I’ve been tagged again - this time by Aaron Weiche who started a Minnesota-themed blog meme. I’m going to pass it along even though Aaron thinks that Julie V’s photo prank on me is funny.
Three things about Minnesota I enjoy are my family, friends, and the few days a year I can both snowboard and golf. Three people I’ll pass this to are:
Patrick Schaber - his blog will make you smarter. Really! Ed Kohler - his personal blog. You’ll learn some things and laugh your ass off at the same time. Metroblogging Twin Cities - I don’t know these people at all, but started checking out their blog around a week ago. It gives some cool and fun insights on living in the Twin Cities.
I’m a little late to the party as the majority of these blogs have been up since the beginning of January, some of them before that. I just noticed the many blogs of the Star Tribune (hopefully you’ll be able to skip the whole registration thing. If not, sorry).
What’s especially nice is they don’t seem to filter much out. The majority of these blogs are already quite busy. You get some editorial thoughts or questions, and users chime into with their opinions. Some of these agree with the author, and some don’t… and can be quite harsh. As a user, I like being able to read different people’s opinions, then come up with my own viewpoint. To me, that’s news.
The Strib’s community blog and entertainment source should also be noted at buzz.mn and vita.mn, respectively.
As just one of a ton of niche bloggers, I’m certainly not a journalist, nor will I ever claim to be. But, should we be trying to follow these rules in general, especially if part of the blog’s existence is to help promote a business or organization? I’ve certainly made tongue-in-cheek remarks on this blog regarding different issues that something like a newspaper blog would not.
I’m probably going to continue to write about “stuff” whether it’s considered journalistically ethical or not, but I’m curious if there are any opinions…
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Posted by Paul
