Author Archive for Brooks Van Norman
I value good design, growth, effectiveness, simplicity, profitability, lots of sleep, tons of laughter and above all, freedom. If it makes money - it's a business. If it doesn't make money - it's a hobby. Period.
Promote Your Blog with Video at Blog Gears
Blog Gears just launched a site that I think is going to help bloggers (and others) promote themselves with something that I have been talking about for a while - video. Blog Gears allows you to upload a video up to 90 seconds in length and target it to a specific audience who then vote [...]
Blog World Expo in Las Vegas - Are You Going?
I have been thinking about attending Blog World expo in Las Vegas next month. With the exposure I’m seeing in the blogosphere, I am seriously considering going. Of course, I can resist not going and shooting something while I am there.
Let’s Make Some Crappy Graphs
Here’s a great way to kill some time…. or to dazzle your audience into their next PowerPoint coma with …drum roll please Crappy Graphs!
Mass Category Edit Plugin for WordPress
Too many categories to feed? Today I needed to quickly clean up the categories on this site because I had too many and they no longer reflect the direction the blog is going. I found a little known, but very useful plugin for WordPress called [...]
New Blog Theme Rocking Out Soon
Just a quick post to let everyone know that I am going to be rolling out a new blog theme this coming week. I’ve just finished testing and assessing Michael Pollock’s new new Vybe theme theme from Solostream Media[...]
Should You Blog Under Your Own Name?
The concept of putting yourself out there on the web really seems to freak some people out. Admittedly, when I started this blog project, I too was little wigged out blogging with a domain that is my own name or that I might forever hamstring myself professionally. Also, fear of strange people [...]
Small is a Weapon, Not an Excuse
So said Seth Godin, in a post about his experience dealing with a small vendor through Amazon. Seth goes on to say a few things that I have been screaming about for years when it comes to small vs. big businesses. In his post he says: “The web is a great equalizer. A tiny business can have a better website than a huge [...]
Do you really need archives?
This one seems a no brainer to me. Do you really need archives on your site? Does anybody ever look at them? I peeked into link usage in my Google analytics for this site and a couple of others that I’m running…and without exception the Archives link is either NEVER used, or rarely.
In fact, [...]
So you want to build a business online?
I have learned many many things the last 90 days in my assessment of the blogosphere. I have much to tell. Covered some interesting “ground”.
I’ve interviewed, studied and watched total winners and some fantastic losers.
It is likely that I’m going to write about this because it’s a subject that I’m getting jazzed about after [...]
There is A New Search Engine in Town Called Cuil
It’s about time someone took a grassroots run at Google. I was just having this conversation last week when I was in California about how people who work for large corporations see better ways to do things and then go out and do them by themselves. It seems even the cool Google can’t [...]
A Week In California
A few of you wondered what happened to me last week. Well, it was the first week since I started the blog that I didn’t make one entry. This was deliberate. In fact, I was in California on business. I flew out of Vancouver to San Francisco and spent a few days there meeting with prospective clients. This visit was followed up by [...]
Box.net File Sharing and Collaboration
Here is some cool technology.
I’ve been looking for a way to put some of my many, excessive photos into a simple to use, Flash-based light box, so that I don’t have scroll down for posts with tons of pics.
The problem with a lot of the options out there right now is that they require more [...]
Cyber Libel
Think twice before you hit that publish button. The internet is not anonymous. What if that was you they wrote about?
Maybe you should not say it.
I’ve seen a few posts this week where people have crossed the line with some nasty statements…some libelous content. I wrestled with [...]
Blog Post Frequency - is Anyone Really Watching?
Whoa. There sure is a lot of opinion out there about how often people should be posting to the blogoshere. Daily. Hourly. Does anybody really care?
What matters? What matters to you?
What difference does it make? I’m saddened by how much of it is plagiarized anyway. It’s hard [...]
