Praying for A Premium News Jackpot
Adii’s running a contest that WordPress theme designers can’t miss. Along with re-releasing upgrades of all the Premium News Themes this week (Live Wire, Original, NewsPress, Flash News & Gazette Edition) Adii’s made a new All-Inclusive Developer’s Package available. The package includes Developer’s Licenses for all 7 themes, allowing the owner to use any theme on as many websites as they wish. The package is available for purchase at $499.95, which is a fantastic deal for any aspiring designer (this aspiring designer definitely thinks so!).
So what’s Adii’s contest about? It’s pretty simple - you can win yourself a copy of the new All-Inclusive Developer’s Package by blogging about the contest. Right on. Being a hardcore photoshop and wordpress junkie, I’ve always wanted to dive into WordPress theme design development. I so admire the functionality that Adii’s team has packed into the Premium News Theme designs, but being a self taught coder, I’d have to go to great lengths to add all that functionality in myself. To start out on projects with one or two of Adii’s function-packed designs would be a dream - being able to leverage the care that’s been put in on the back end would really allow me to focus all my energy on tweaking the designs and turn the themes into something unique and different.
My personal favorite of the 7 is the Gazette Edition. I’ve had my eye on it for a while, and I’m pumped that Adii’s added the recent Live Wire-inspired upgrades. The rotating featured post section, along with the prime ad spots makes it a perfect candidate for my next blog project redesigningtheworld.com, a blog focusing on rethinking design(s) we take for granted. I’ve been psyched about the project and I’ve been hunting for just the right theme, so winning this contest would make my year. It’s so important to launch a blog with a great, unique theme and Adii’s work continuously sets the bar for WP design. In this humble blogger’s opinion, his attention to details like the Premium News Theme’s admin panel (making populating ads, video, flickr streams etc a cut and paste job) do so much for people who want to focus on content, not code. Attention to those kinds of details make him a trend-setting designer, and set him apart from other Premium Theme designers like Brian Gardner and Michael Pollock. In any case, that’s my two cents. Until April 4th, I’ll be sitting on the edge of my seat.
Feasting With A Foodie
We all eat, but some of us enjoy it more than others. Sometimes a lot more. Eating with someone who truly appreciates not only food, but everything that goes into the experience of eating, can be a total joy.
Last night I went out to dinner with a “foodie” friend of mine, Kevin, a staff writer for LAist.com whose up and coming blog 50meals.com is a must read for food-lovers living in, or around, Los Angeles. I admit that I go out to eat sushi a lot when I’m on projects in L.A., but I had never been to Little Tokyo, so when Kevin, a seasoned pro, excitedly suggested Sushi Gen I was in. From beginning to end, the night was full of lively conversation about food, life and all the small things that make the whole experience of meals so great. 
What I love about Kevin is that his energy and appreciation of all the meal’s details is infectious. He doesn’t just talk about food being “good” - Textures, aromas, colors and flavors all get an uncommon level of attention in the across-the-table banter. And, of course, sometimes no words are necessary - you can see it written all over his face when he takes a bite of something he’s really satisfied with. He totally lights up. (Kevin - how good was that melt-in-your mouth toro, or that black cod!?). All in all, the night reminded me of just how important it is to be around people who appreciate the small, simple things that make an experience joyful. Thanks to Kevin for such a memorable night in L.A.!
Think No One’s Listening? Think Again.
The power of the Internet totally fascinates me. Not 12 hours goes by after I publish a post reviewing The Adsense Code and the AUTHOR shows up on my blog. That’s kind of a mind f#@$. Thank god I really liked the book. lol. It just goes to show you that even though there are millions of blogs out there, word can get around quickly and people can find you in an instant.
Book Review: The Adsense Code - What Google Never Told You About Making Money With Adsense, By Joel Comm
Before I dive into the pros and cons of this book, I think it’s important to acknowledge how significantly the book has impacted the way thousands of Internet publishers use and understand Adsense. At this writing, the book is just over a year old and it has been heralded as an instant classic in the growing world of Internet marketing. After making the New York Times best sellers list in 2006, The Adsense Code firmly established Joel Comm as an authority in the world of contextual advertising. Regardless of what I say in this post, the numbers tell the story. This book was a hit. Here’s why.
Although countless millions of websites run adsense ads, very few sites actually generate enough traffic to really see large, consistent adsense earnings. When web site traffic is low, infrequent and unpredictable, it’s tough for site owners to see how small tweaks in the placement or configuration of ads on a page affect click rates and earnings. This makes maximizing your adsense income difficult. But big numbers don’t lie. When a website is getting large amounts of consistent traffic, small changes in the way ads look and where ads are placed can make a big difference to the number of clicks they get.
On Persistence
The most influential communicators are the ones that can boil an idea down to its core and translate it into simple, straightforward language. Here’s a perfect example from Seth Godin:
“Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.”
Simple. Profound. Right on the money.
Like Moths To A Flame: Why Open Source Draws Entrepreneurs And Why It’s Important For Innovation
Where there’s a social buzz around good open source code, there’s opportunity. And where there’s opportunity, there will be entrepreneurs. In fact, digital entrepreneurship is one of the most natural and predictable bi-products of the open-source movement. Although open source die-hards (myself included) associate the open source movement with “freedom”, we should never delude ourselves into thinking that “freedom” will always produce code that is “free.” I’ve never understood why some open-source advocates are so adamant about defending the concept of a free digital utopia. Drawing entrepreneurs to code is fundamental to innovation, community-building and sustainability of any open source platform. Here’s a few arguments why entrepreneurship around open source platforms should be encouraged:
Innovation Requires Time, Effort and (often) Capital
Let’s be real, there aren’t many people who are willing to take on complex problems for the fun of it. It’s not a question of coding for coding’s sake either, it’s that most people just don’t have the time, energy or resources to justify starting, even if they can see a clear solution to a well-defined problem. The opportunity cost associated with “diving in” is often too great. The opportunity to profit from an idea or solution, however, can create a powerful incentive that shifts priorities enough to turn someone (who may have never started) into an innovating entrepreneur.
Innovators Respond Well To Social Incentives
Sure, entrepreneurs are driven to innovate because of monetary incentives, but that’s not the whole story. Social status, power, connectedness and pride play a large part in the innovating process. Income generation is often just the spark that starts the creative flame, but once a project is in motion, other incentives provide a lot of the fuel that keeps things moving. Successful entrepreneurs know that they’re not going to just release code off into a vacuum. In today’s hyper-connected world, communities form around innovative code, especially if it solves a common problem or need well. The word gets out, traffic increases, communities form and innovators can become celebrities (sometimes overnight). Even at a basic level, the popularity that ensues creates a sense of achievement and recognition that all human beings strive for. The desire for status and connectedness can be a powerful incentive that not only pushes digital entrepreneurs towards great code around platforms and products, but drives community-building and overall sustainability around those platforms and products.
Entrepreneurs Put In Effort To Draw Crowds
Because of the above-stated social incentives, entrepreneurs who innovate around open source platforms have incentives to become agents that build communities. We’re all marketers of our own brand to some extent, but for innovators releasing code into the wild it’s especially true. Making a stable, consistent income “adding” to open source platforms results from a combination of (A) filling a need or solving a problem and (B) making sure A LOT of people who are having that need or problem know about you. The A + B combination results in crowds, which is definitely what you want around open source because a lot of eyes and scrutiny results in better code (that’s the theory at least) and patterns of improvement lead to sustainability.
The point I’m trying to make, of course, is that whether or not profiting from an idea was the spark that got someone to innovate should be irrelevant - the end goal should always be community-building, better code and sustainability of open source platforms. Entrepreneurs are, and will always be, agents of change because they have a unique set of incentives that drive innovation and community-building. Those who are pro-open source should recognize that those incentives can have great affects for everyone and not get so hung up on defending the “free” faith. If we try to squash incentives that drive entrepreneurship by requiring everything that is produced to be free, the end result will just be less innovation.
Rubbing Elbows With The Alpha Geeks
I just spent a fantastic 4 days at ETech08 in San Diego. A special and heart-felt thank you goes out to Fraser and Alex at AdaptiveBlue, not only for their generosity and kindness for their help getting me in to the conference, but for the stellar sushi and conversation on Monday night. What an absolutely brilliant time.
The conference closed with a mind-bending keynote address from Tim Ferris, author of the 4 Hour Work Week - a totally appropriate choice by the OReilly staff, I thought. It’s a tough order to be tasked with wrapping up a 4 day event with speeches given by over 100 thought leaders like ETech, but I thought he did a bang-up job. Truth told, just listening to him speak was humbling…I don’t think there’s a more perfect way to describe it. At most of the keynotes this week, you’d see a virtual sea of laptops open, attendees blogging and chatting away. People sitting all around me were really paying attention to this guy. He just exuded genius (perhaps with a slight tendency towards OCD, which was self-admitted in his keynote). I was even inspired to re-visit his book now that I’ve seen him speak in person and I’m sure it’s going to add a lot of color to the way I experience it for the second time.
On the whole, five sessions really had a profound impact on me. Here are the links to the sessions on the OReilly site in order of “wow”factor. The actual videos should be posted with the presentations in the coming days - definitely worth checking out.
Futuretainment: The Asian Media Revolution - I had the pleasure of having lunch with Michael Walsh, who’s book (same name as the title of the session) is coming out in the coming months. The presentation was chalk full of mind grenade-type insights about how asian tech culture is shaping the future of device design and how online behaviors are closely linked to the values and rules of ingrained cultures and societies.
Designing Magnets: Connecting with Audiences in the Wired Age - Elan Lee (Fourth Wall Studios) shared a lot of personal experiences about what it was like bringing online fantasy to life for off-line communities, and how real-world interactivity can be built into online content.
The Case for Africa as a Mobile Development Hothouse - Made me want to pick up every single book I could about mobile web development. It’ll knock your socks off to actually see the statistics of the populations worldwide that are accessing the internet via mobile devices as their primary connection because of the digital divide.
Halo vs. Facebook: Emotion and the Fun of Games - Nicole Lazzaro, founder and president of XEODesign, Inc., is an award-winning interface designer and an authority on emotion and the player experience. Her passion for this stuff is infectious. I encourage anyone who designs interfaces to head over to the ETech site and download her presentation, which has got tons of intuitive grids and charts explaining the principals she uses when designing for the greats.
Computing for Socio-economic Development - It’s not often you get to hear one of the heads of the Microsoft Research Team (Kentaro Toyama) wax intellectual about their personal experiences developing rural areas of India. Good stuff.
So all that said…Now I’ve got to figure out what to do with all the tech fodder I collected - like the seizure-inducing light up Google Pins and Yoyos sitting on the desk in my living room. What a week. Thanks Alex and Fraser!
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