I want to thank everyone here at b5media for helping me establish myself in this field and letting me  play in this space.

In the next few months I hope to launch a social media consulting company that will have a blog on it where I talk about my tips and tricks.  If you want to stay updated with what I am doing please feel free to add me on:

twitter

facebook

or even drop me an e-mail at kevin (at) pointlessbanter.net…

I look forward to seeing you down the road.

Post from: EveryJoe

My Last Day Here at Buzz Networker

Currently on my personal blog I use a combination of both google analytics and mybloglog. Google gives me a good look at the various demographics of my site and helps me understand how my site is viewed, when it is viewed, keywords, how it is viewed, and by whom. It is a great tool to collect and analyze data with. I usually view analytics every couple of days when I want to investigate what is going on with my site.

However mybloglog is the site I check the most when it comes to examining my blog throughout the day. From there I get semi real time stats and can see the emerging trends on my blog throughout the day. Am I getting traffic from certain social bookmarking or sharing sites? If so maybe I push a post to become a little hotter, getting people to get behind it and support it. Mybloglog fails though to give the in depth statistics that analytics gives but I think of it more as a pulse taking tool than anything else.

Post from: EveryJoe

What Analytics Do Use?

Kids don’t have the motor skills that adults have when it comes to clicking on objects and working the mouse. You need to keep that in mind when designing various websites and applications. Also how your search functions will impact the usability, children and young adults don’t have the same thought process as adults do. Spelling, keyword usage, and overall logic isn’t going to match up with adults, this needs to be taken into consideration.

In a fellow students presentation on this subject they had a great quote that sums up what should be the mindset of the designer.

“Designers . . . must strike a balance between a plain and unimaginative but functional design on the one hand, and a gratuitously colorful and animated design that makes it both narrowly age specific and potentially distracting from its primary purpose: information retrieval.” –Andrew Large & Jamshid Beheshti

The design principles you need  to use vary greatly compared to that of an adult.

Large amounts of graphics, metaphorical approaches, and forgiving search strings are all keys to  designing with children in mind.

Post from: EveryJoe

Designing for Children in Mind

Now when most of us design a site or application these items aren’t really taken into consideration because we are thinking about “the average user” which when you think about it might be a little discriminatory. If you built a building thinking about the “average user” you wouldn’t be able to open your doors for business. However when it comes to web design we can turn a blind eye to other user’s needs. (Pun not intended.)

So how can you design with these standards in mind?

Besides following the guidelines listed in the previous document there are tools available to help you make sure your site is compliant with W3C recommendations.

My favorite tool to use is the web developer tool bar for firefox, which you can download here.

The add on written by Chris Pederick is one of the most useful add ons for firefox. The tool bar allows you to validate your site design against:

-validate your css

-validate your feed

-validate  html

-validate links

-validate section 508

-validate WAI

By checking your page against these validation tools you can help configure your page to meet a lot of the standards listed by the W3C.

Post from: EveryJoe

Goal of Universal Usability/Accessibility

Post from: EveryJoe

Are you losing blog comments and traffic BECAUSE of social media

I have to say I have been enjoying this campaign and checking out the various pages. Movies and television shows have been doing a better job with the viral campaigns but this one so far might be my favorite.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sarah Marshall is going viral

General

Mixx Shouts

AAALL Vote for ALL! 

Mixxing the Web 

Social Media

Social Media Mavens 

Social Networking News 

Social Media Consultants 

Any groups that you would like to share?

Post from: EveryJoe

Social Media Groups on Mixx

Over the last couple of months I have seen multiple posts  hailing the importance of mixx:

 Forget Digg: Join Mixx Where You Can Still Become a Power User

 7 Reasons Why Mixx is Better Than Digg

Mixx Gets Credibility Boost From NY Times 

I added the add to mixx! button to my firefox browser and decided to take the extra step and submit stories that I found interesting in my RSS feeds. I wanted to make sure that I was submitting a lot of good content that was a cross section of my interests, especially before I start adding friends or really trying to use it to drive traffic.

After submitting quality stories I began to join groups in the niches that I frequent and also some general interest groups that were popular on the site. Also I targeted some key mixxers, adding some of their friends.

What have I learned after the first two week?

The community is nice and fun to be in- I have to say the people on the site have been fun to engage with in comments and most people have been really friendly. They are quick to vote up stories and are quick to help you out.

I like the setup better than digg- Especially the groups function.

You can build credibility fast- Just by adding mixx into my daily routine I have been able to quickly build up karma points and a little bit of a standing in the community.

You can really target people in specific niches- Tagging, categories, and groups allow you to really target people that would potentially be interested in specific stories.

The major drawback-

Where is the traffic?- While people are quick to vote stories up they aren’t necessarily clicking through to the actual blogs. I submitted a couple of my stories as well as other posts. I would see my stories get voted up and do well but the actual clicks to my site on the stories didn’t even match the votes.

I am going to continue to use mixx.com because I enjoy the community but it isn’t going to be a site the recommend to clients or friends to help out their blogs or sites.

What do you think of mixx?

If you want to add me on mixx.com here is a link to my profile.

Post from: EveryJoe

Mixxing It Up

Of course I will start reading this after I finish the semester, launch my employer’s new website,  and start having a normal life. So it might be a few months.

Post from: EveryJoe

Next on the reading list

Just wanted to share because I thought it was a good read.

The Blog Catalog Team Speaks….

Post from: EveryJoe

Interview with the Blog Catalog Team