I’ve got a few blogs that don’t receive too much love. One of the key things everyone talks about is creating lots of links to the site from other sites, which in turn, drives more traffic and hopefully more readers. Making backlinks is hard and takes a lot of work, but there’s different sites and plugins that help to make it easier. The non-automated alternative is to go to each of the 1000′s of social media sites and update them manually. If I was unemployed, a task like that would probably help fill up my day. I’m a mac user, no longer a technology buff and I yearn for simple, simple and more simple integration.
I started out a few years ago with a Twitter Tools plugin for wordpress until they required some sort of API key so it stopped working.
Searching for a replacement that also supported other social media sources, I stumbled upon Network Publisher. A got as far as installing the wordpress plugin before finding you had to sign up for a paid plan. I’m a cheapskate too.
I experimented with Posterous which worked really well. The only problem was every link that got send out into the social-sphere all pointed back to Posterous and not my blog! I thought of moving the blog over to Posterous, but that seems all too hard as well.
My latest experiment is www.hellotxt.com. So far I’ve got it publishing to facebook, my identricity facebook page, 2 twitter accounts and tumblr. Not a bad start.
My workflow is looks like
- Publish something on my blog
- Publish the postname and URL on hellotxt
- hellotxt sends it around the internet to those services configured.
I googled a hellotxt plugin for wordpress, but it needs an API key of some description as well. The link in the plugin are out of date so it took me a while to find the API key application form. Then I got stuck (lazy) since it wasn’t dead simple for me to understand what info to put into the fields. For now, I’m keeping my manual workflow.
My next step is to look at other similar services (e.g. Ping.fm) to automate to the networks hellotxt doesn’t support.
I think I’ve read it elsewhere on the Internet (so it must be true) when you absorb a lot of input your sub-conscious sort of chews on it for a while and then spits out new ideas. My written-word sensory input comes from a lot of places but my latest source that I thought I’d call out is springwise.com. They collate new business ideas from all over the place and email them out either daily or weekly. I’m showing mercy to my overloaded inbox, so I opt for weekly.
One of the things I like is the ideas aren’t just the latest iPhone app or web 2.0 site (is that still cool?). This throws in something new for my over-worked sub-conscious mind to ponder. Left to my own devices, I tend to focus on “e-ideas” a little too heavily and don’t consider the wider world and its problems. Last email there was a vertical spiral thing for growing a veggie garden in space-constrained areas. I could almost see myself putting a couple of these in, if I ever wanted to put down my iPhone.
Testing out hellotxt. My quest for a mass social network updater continues.
At last! This is some of the best news I’ve heard in ages. iPhone 4′s with 3g and WiFi will now be freely allowed for sale in China in the Apple retail stores and from China Unicom. Until recently, only models with WiFi disabled were available on the mainland, driving people to purchase uncrippled models from Hong Kong and overseas.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9186779/Apple_kicks_off_China_iPhone_4_sales_Saturday
From a few anecdotal conversations I’ve had with Chinese friends, there was previously stigma attached to purchasing the locally available crippled iPhone models from China Unicom. If a full version is now available, I’d expect increased sales, which further distributes the platform creating further opportunities for application developers.
If you’re a mobile app developer, or hunting for NBN opportunities, then you might be interested in joining Austrade’s trade mission to Japan, Korea and Singapore to “gain business insights towards the development of Australian NBN applications and services”.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/232314,austrade-organises-asian-broadband-tour.aspx
I’f you’re in Jiangsu, China at the end of September, you might be interested in the China Global Entrepreneurship Conference.
- 24-26 September
- Najing Golden Eagle Summit Hotel
- http://www.cgeconference.com/
Looks like there will be a few VCs present if you’re looking for funding.
We moved into our new place in Causeway Bay yesterday. Crazy day running to Ikea and the supermarket to buy everything we needed.We forwent our usual $12 Ikea cutlery set and went up market to the $50 set just to brake the cycle. And no more of those cheap Ikea mugs either!
We still have no furniture so we slept on the floor last night and the sheets are straight out of the packets – so you can really get that ‘straight from the factory’ smell. That took me a while to get over, but once I’m out, I’m out.
About 2am Hua woke me up as some prick’s air conditioner from upstairs was dripping on ours quite loudly. They’ve got those bit chunky hang out the window kind over here. I was fast asleep of course. First I got up, hung myself out the window and put a layer of tissues over the spots where it was dripping. Brilliant idea Age. That worked for 10 minutes, then the tissues were saturated, so it was just as bad. After another 10 minutes of restless wife, I got up again, grabbed all the new sponges we’d bought from the kitchen, put them in a cloth bag and put that outside. Slept like a baby. After getting used to the sheet smell again.
We also had no gas, so no hot water. We had a wash by hand with hot water from the kettle. Amazingly, gas is the only thing that actually seems to get disconnected when a property changes hands. We had all the power and cold water we could want. After tipping pots of water over us, we realised the bathroom floor wasn’t draining, despite the large drain at one end. Clever us then get into the shower to do the same. It also doesn’t drain. Hua is making some phone calls today.
After all that, I was wishing I’d paid the extra HKD$500 (AUD$71) for another night in the cramped hotel.
On the bright side, 100mb internet get connected today. Unlimited fast internet is only AUD$15 
I’ve tried a whole bunch of iPhone flash card applications to help me with my Chinese studies and the vast majority suck. Badly. I’ve even shelled out real cash for some of these. I just wish there was a refund button in the App Store. So believing I’m not the only one who doesn’t like to suffer un-usable software, I’m getting some good software developed.
Version one is going to have an absolute basic set of features, but day 1 it will be:
- Easy to use
- Look good
- Support flash card revision and testing for the New Practical Chinese Reader series of books (Beijing University Press).
Now some observant people may that I speak to in the real world may notice that I’ve been talking about this software for a while. Well, we’re getting there. I’m re-realising that trying to do things on the cheap is the tortoise path to success and its going to take longer than I’d hope. To hopefully pick up the pace, I just ordered these from Amazon:
But the unseen forces are conspiring against me again, and I won’t receive delivery until mid August. Oh well, I guess its back to googling tutorials.
Now I’m really confused. IT News is reporting start-ups are to get an $83M funding boost, but if you go back and read the media release from Senator Karr’s office, it looks like there is a bit of a hurdle to qualifyas a start-up:
The companies that could benefit from this fund employ at least 1000 people
Besides the mixed message hitting the media, I wonder if it truly is aimed at start-ups? 1000 people seems to be a pretty high bar for any start-up.
But at least, its something.
Hey, if anyone has time, this looks like a good networking event.
Be inspired by stories of success, as we spend an evening in conversation with these young entrepreneurs. Learn strategies for navigating the current economic environment. Join these speakers as they share their valuable experience.
Ignoring some of the fluffy words, I’d love to get some insight into others’ experiences establishing in China. The event is jointly sponsored by AsiaLink, Melbourne University Confucius Institute, Australia China Business Council and the City of Melbourne. Timing’s a bugger as I’d have to skip my Tai Chi class. Aiyou!
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