A couple weeks ago, Robert Scoble tweeted out a link to an interview with a couple entrepreneurs who did something I haven’t seen others perfect. They came up with a way to let anyone create an iPhone application without developer knowledge or a lot of cash. Of course, I was thrilled about the idea and a little apprehensive about the results, but I just had to try it out.
Their company, Genwi, recently launched iSites.us, a site that enables people to easily create an application for the iPhone and Android platforms with little effort, and little cash outlay. The whole process involves $25 (or $99 – see below), some image preparation, and about 10 to 15 minutes of your day. This is followed by a week or two of waiting, depending on demand.
Preparation and Planning
iSites offers a couple different pricing options. The more expensive option gives you full control over advertising, allowing you to have your own ads embedded in your app or none at all. The cheaper option (the one I chose) is $25 and includes their own ads in your application. The ads really aren’t in the way, so for me, this was not a problem. If you want your own ads, you’ll need to make sure you have an account with the ad network you choose, but either way, give it a little thought and determine what will work best for you and your budget.
Another thing you need to worry about is your brand management. Before starting, think about your application’s title and description as well as keywords. Additionally, there are a few images you have to have ahead of time. You need an icon, an iTunes display image, a banner and a splash screen image (see the iSites Learn More page to get a peek of the image size and file type requirements. It’s best to have these images all ready to go to streamline the creation process.
Finally, you should grab the category feeds for your blog or site so you can have categories in place when the app launches. The more frequent your content, the more categories you may want to have set up.
Creation and Approval
The creation process and completed application is better seen than described, so I’ve included a video showing the process. For the most part, it’s about 10 minutes of filling out web forms and uploading some images. After that, it’s just a game of waiting for an email announcing the completion of your application.
There may be the rare case in which your application is not approved. In this case, you’ll need to revise text, images, title, etc until it’s approved. When the whole process has been completed, you can just search for your app and download it.
Completed Application
Once completed, the application doesn’t have a lot of features, but it does have some of the important ones. When you start up the application, the first thing you see is the splash screen. I saw at least one other company creating iPhone apps while inserting their own brand here, so I really liked that iSites helps you insert your own branded spash screen here. The app then loads up to the Home screen which shows a listing of your recent posts with thumbnails where available. Each post can be selected to view and read. While reading a post, you can jump up or down a post, favorite it or share it via email, Facebook, or Twitter. The sharing options are a must for an application like this.
Over all, the application is really smooth and brings my blog to a whole new audience pretty seamlessly. Better still is the ability to manage it from the iSites web site control panel. From the control panel, I can change my images, description, etc. Additionally, I can add or change categories and other feeds. This really does feel like a pretty decent blend of control and simplicity.
Application Analytics
I love numbers. More than just any numbers, I love numbers that tell me people are reading what I write. Even before purchasing my app creation, I was a little excited about the prospect of seeing how many people downloaded my iJoeTech iPhone application. Once the app has hit the app store, you have analytics at your fingertips via the iSites web site control panel.
Amazingly, I had a nice bunch of downloads of my app before I even knew it was in the App Store. Pretty exciting. While it’s fun to watch, the numbers are important as a barometer for how your keywords and other criteria work to get someone to look at your app and then to download it.
What’s Missing?
I’m not sure if the analytics pages cover just the iPhone downloads or both iPhone and Android. I’d love to see analytics for both on the same graph. It would also be nice if the application had an option to open a post in Safari. Most of all, though, I’d love if there was some way for the application to hook into my Wordpress and let the user submit a comment right from the app.
Conclusions
I’ve been wanting to create a JoeTech.com app for the iPhone for a while now and although I had seen other offerings, this one resonated with my mostly due to the ease of setup and the low cost. It truly is pretty amazing that I can give JoeTech.com readers a customized iPhone application so easily for only $25. I think every blog should have such an app and iSites.us is the place to get it done.
Yesterday, along with my normal blog spam I clear out daily, I found one that stood out. Instead of the script that was being used actually formatting the spam as it was intended, it dumped the whole spam template as a comment on one of my blog posts.
{hi|hello|howdy|greetings|gooday} there, i just {stumbled|came across|discovered|found|saw} your {blog|website|site|web portal} via {google|yahoo|bing}, and i must say that you write {exceptionally|pretty|interestingly|awesomely} {well|good} on your {blog|website|site|web portal}. i am really {impressed|taken|moved|motivated|struck} by the {way|mode|method} that you write, and the {content|message|subject} is {superb|good|great|quality|excellent}. {anyway|anyhow|anyways|in any event|in any case}, i would also like to know whether you would like to exchange links with my {blog|website|site|web portal}? i will be more than {happy|willing} to reciprocate and {put|enter|insert|drop} your link off in the {link exchange area|blogroll|link section}. {waiting|looking|anticipating} for your {reply|answer|response|respond}, thanks and {cheers|have a great day|enjoy your day|gooday}!
To other bloggers, this may look a little familiar. It’s the popular complimenting blog spam. The idea is to compliment the blogger so that he or she will want to approve the comment. Once the comment is approved, the spammer has a link back to their site and, depending on the threshold of the blog, the spammer has a previous comment and may be auto-approved for future comments. The script seems to choose randomly from each of the variable pieces of content to eventually form a comment that is supposed to appear to be hand written for your blog. Don’t get fooled by this junk.
The spam I got was from michaelwoo.net, which is the web site of some kid who seems to think he’s on the right track in online marketing. His contact email is me@michaelwoo.net which he spells out on his site as “me@michaelwoo dot net”. I find it funny that he’ll use a script to comment spam popular blogs, but takes measures on his own site to prevent spam-harvesting scripts from getting his email address.
Yesterday, I got up earlier than normal and instead of heading into work, I headed out to meet up with Wes Novack at Phoenix WordCamp, a Phoenix gathering of about 400-500 bloggers, for a day of WordPress and general blogging education.
Phoenix isn’t the only city to have a WordCamp. They’re all over and they’re a great way to get a ton of important blogging tips for only about $30 to get in. If you’re a blogger, find your local WordCamp and buy your ticket early because our WordCamp sold out. I learned way too much to post it all here, but I’ve pulled out the most important tips for you below:
Read and Re-read Before Publishing
Originally expressed during the keynote from Lorelle of Lorelle on WordPress, this was reiterated throughout the day by other speakers. Be it text or video, photos or audio, take a look when you’re done and edit as needed. Then read through it again just to be sure. There’s nothing worse than publishing a post only to have someone point out mistakes after most of your readers have already seen it.
Publish With Intent
Whether you’re writing a review, a how-to, or just an editorial piece, do it with intent and know what your intent is going into it. Loreelle reminded us that if you publish with intent, it will show through to your readers.
Don’t Plagiarize
It’s easy on the web to just take good content and share it as your own. Lorelle couldn’t stress enough that this is just unacceptable. Not only can it make you look bad, but you’re also not offering anything original to your readers.
Be Timeless
Yet another top tip from Lorelle is to write timeless content, and I couldn’t agree more. Unlike a newspaper, you want people to find your post for the first time months or years later. When they do, it shouldn’t feel old or outdated.
To Stand Out, Be Outstanding
What a great point made by Dave Moyer, from wordcastpodcast.com. When you look at a blog and it’s just OK, you probably won’t be back. It’s the outstanding blogs that are rewarded with reader loyalty.
Make Use Of Keywords
GoDaddy.com not only sponsored the event, but they threw in their SEO expert, Jim Christian. In addition to a lot of other great SEO tips, Jim reminded us that you should use your target keywords in the post’s title, description, keywords, and any tags. You can’t retain readers if they can’t they find you to begin with.
Engage Your Audience
Writing is only half the job, cautioned Jayson Cote’ from WPCOOP.org. The other half, he says, is engaging your audience, and I agree completely. I don’t always respond to every comment on my blog, but I try to personally respond to most and this theory carries over to your social media as well. Social media is a two-way conversation.
Find Your Unique Voice
Merlin Mann of 43 Folders, the best speaker of the day in my opinion, warns against being average. He says, “It is very hard for someone to become you because of blank. Find out what that blank is.” This will also make it a lot easier for people to remember you. Most of the sites I visit are from memory and not bookmarks.
Give More Than You Get
Merlin could not be more clear about his stance on social media and blogging and how he hates that so many people want to create a selfish, one-sided relationship with their readers. Everyone wants to be successful and help themselves, but the best way to do that is to give first. When you do that, good things will come back to you.
Form = Function
That is to say that neither form nor function is most important. When you design or choose a template for your new blog, be sure to think about design, but make sure you think about usability and function, too. The two should compliment each other.
I hope these tips help you and if you have your own, please leave them in the comments.
It’s that time of year again. The BlogWorld Expo has once again come and gone, and once again, it was a rewarding experience.
Last year, Michelle and I found ourselves in the presence of some of the top bloggers at a dinner thrown by Market Leverage. Unfortunately, we were unable to make it to the dinner this year as we had so much going on. In fact, we missed out on a few things, but the weekend was still productive and a lot of fun.
Thursday night, we attended the TechSet party at The Bank night club in the Bellagio hotel. Budweiser sponsored free beers for a while, which was nice because the drinks were expensive. After a couple hours, the club kicked us all off the tables to open up table service, which cost anywhere from $750 up to $25,000, so we bailed. Before we left, however, we got up and danced (which I almost never do), and I was able to surprise NikNik and Reggie from MyTechOpinion.com. I guess I didn’t tell NikNik I was able to make it out after all, because the look on her face was priceless. Sadly, I didn’t really get a minute to stop and chat with them after that.
Friday morning, Michelle and I met Krystyl on the way into breakfast. She’s a social queen who I meant to meet last year and never did. I also met Brett Bumeter from Softduit Media on the way from the Hilton to the conference and enjoyed our chats on the walk over and at the exhibitors hall. I got to see online business consultant, Jim Kukral again and finally got to meet Drew from BenSpark.com. I spent some time running around the hall, engaging in discussion with the various vendors, and I started by finally meeting Ashley Edwards from IZEA. There were several companies that I became familiar with last year and some new stuff, but there were really just a couple things I found exiting that were actually new to me.
After a little relaxing back at the hotel, Michelle and I headed to an early anniversary dinner at the Benihana Japanese steakhouse in the Hilton. It’s a bit pricey for a steak dinner, but the quality of the food was comparable to what I’d find here for the same $50/plate or so. The real reason we went was for the experience. You sit at a table with 5 or 6 strangers and the chef prepares the food in front of you. The chefs do a good job of entertaining the whole time, too. It’s half cooking and half juggling. After dinner, we headed to see the Cirque du Soleil show, KÀ, which was just amazing. The tickets were given to me in order for me to provide an honest review of it, but it will cost me because now Michelle and I are eager to go back and see the other shows.
Saturday, I headed back over to see the opening keynote, which was a celebrity-filled panel on how celebs use Twitter, essentially. It included Anthony Edwards (ER, Revenge of the Nerds), Jermaine Dupri (music mogul), Robin Antin (Pussycat Dolls), and Matt Goss (who I hadn’t heard of). Planned but cancelled was Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster) and the panel was moderated pretty well by Brian Solis. Jermaine Dupri came off as a jerk, but a lot of what he said made sense, too. I think it was just how he came across as if he were the only one who mattered that bugged me. Anthony Edwards was full of analogies and was really polite and had some important points, too, as did Matt Goss. Robin Antin didn’t seem to bring much original perspective or anything really thought-provoking to the conversation. There were some differing opinions on exactly how much you should be sharing on Twitter and on how much you should really interact with fans. In all, though, it gave me some things to think about and it changed my idea of celebrity tweeters a little. It made me feel a little more open to trying to connect with someone regardless of their celebrity status. Anthony Edwards also took a moment to send out his very first Tweet in front of us, which I thought was pretty cool.
After the keynote, I saw John Chow for the first time of the weekend, so I walked over to say hello and he noticed that the IZEA booth was empty, so we decided to take it over. I swear John Chow has all the good off-the-cuff ideas. Last year, he had a contest to give away MarketLeverage’s money and I joined in. This year, taking over IZEA was a blast and I think we did a good job, too. A little confusion about when Ashley and Ted Murphy (IZEA CEO) were supposed to be there led to a test of how much John and I knew about IZEA and its Social Spark, SponsoredTweets, and Sponzai. Eventually, a stunned (but laughing) Ashley and Ted showed up and I got to meet Ted for the first time. There was so much interest in the IZEA booth at the time (mostly from John stealing people from other booths) that even after Ted and Ashley showed up, John and I continued to field questions to help with all the overflow. What antics will John and I get into next year, I wonder.
Saturday evening was reserved for a visit with Amy, a friend of Michelle’s that she hadn’t seen in years. She and her husband, Greg, have been living in Las Vegas, so we headed over and had a good visit with them and then headed home Sunday.
If you’re a blogger and serious about it at all, you need to be at BlogWorld. If not for all the sessions, you need to go just to connect in person with people who you’ve been interfacing with online and meet new people. I was pleased to finally meet several people I’d wanted to meed for a long time and enjoyed meeting lots of new people who I hope to continue to connect with online. Next year, I think I’ll plan for all the sessions again. I skipped them this year and although I probably wouldn’t have made it to many of them due to time constraints this year, I still feel like I missed out on some valuable information and interaction. For those who didn’t go, be sure to next year and find me and say hello.
If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you’ve probably noticed by now that I just love to give stuff away. Unfortunately, getting the prizes to the winners seems to be the difficult part, and it’s not for a lack of trying on my part. This seems like the week of contests as I wrap a few things up and try to resolve old contest winners.
I had a winner for this contest, who I emailed and never heard from. I sent a follow-up email today, so we’ll see if I get to mail that out soon.
I had two winners for this contest, but neither responded to my DM tweets to collect, so I’m having a super fast 1-day contest again to give it away.
I held this contest last week and drew a winner who I’ve emailed today.
Finally, a previous contest winner who won a PS3 from a scam artist posing as a sponsor. After some time trying to get the “sponsor” to do anything close to forking over a prize, I went out and bought the prize winner a PS3 system myself. As it turns out, she’s looking to give that prize back out to a charity this summer, as she won’t need it.
It’s been a fun week for prizes, and I’ll have more prizes to give out soon, but I need to actually send some of these out first. Look for more contest announcements here and on Twitter as soon as I send one or two of these out.
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How Blog Spam Works
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Yesterday, along with my normal blog spam I clear out daily, I found one that stood out. Instead of the script that was being used actually formatting the spam as it was intended, it dumped the whole spam template as a comment on one of my blog posts.
To other bloggers, this may look a little familiar. It’s the popular complimenting blog spam. The idea is to compliment the blogger so that he or she will want to approve the comment. Once the comment is approved, the spammer has a link back to their site and, depending on the threshold of the blog, the spammer has a previous comment and may be auto-approved for future comments. The script seems to choose randomly from each of the variable pieces of content to eventually form a comment that is supposed to appear to be hand written for your blog. Don’t get fooled by this junk.
The spam I got was from michaelwoo.net, which is the web site of some kid who seems to think he’s on the right track in online marketing. His contact email is me@michaelwoo.net which he spells out on his site as “me@michaelwoo dot net”. I find it funny that he’ll use a script to comment spam popular blogs, but takes measures on his own site to prevent spam-harvesting scripts from getting his email address.
Tags: blog, comment, michaelwoo, spam
Posted in Blogging | 3 Comments »