Monday, February 9, 2009

Blissdom:: The Recap

I don’t know why I succumbed to the 2 colons in the title there. It seems to be the cool form of punctuation these days; I see it everywhere! They're like a cute little square and I love them!

Let me tell you about Blissdom- it was amazing.
The things I liked most were getting to meet wonderful, fun bloggers and learning about blogging as a craft.

One of the first things we talked about was your personal goals. For me, I would just like to tell my story. I want to have a record of my crazy antics so my kids can lock me away someday for all the stuff I put them through. Or just not feel guilty if they don’t visit me in the old folks home. Truly, this documenting is an act of love for my family {it’s all they're getting for V-Day}.
I also love to share stories and encourage other friends in the blogosphere. I enjoy connecting with other women {and guys} out there and you really do make my day.
So, without further ado, here are the top ten blogger-ific new things I learned at Blissdom ’09.

10. Blogger is at the bottom of the food chain for blogging platforms. Wordpress is the “industry standard” and Typepad is not that bad either. Blogger is for beginners and is super easy. And that’s why I love it.

9. You can buy your own website with your name and connect your blogger site to that. {That’s what I’m going to do in the BIG CHANGE.}

8. Twitter is what all the cool kids do. There is a whole world of people out there “tweeting”. If you don't know what that is, I will explain in a later post, but basically it’s a world of Facebook status updates. And, you need to update your Twitter pretty regularly- as in- at least every 8 hours. Or you’re dead to me. Well, not to me, but to the die hard twitter-ati {twitter mafia}.
7. If your blog gets 100- 200 visits a day, then it is in the top 10% of all blogs. You can track this several ways, but I track mine with Google Analytics.

6. Err on the side of caution with privacy. OK, whoops. Haven’t quite done that. That’s why, when the BIG CHANGE occurs, my kids’ names are going to be different. If you want to vote for new names for them, let me know in the comments section.
5. They’ll let just about anybody join the Twitter-ati. I’m already in. Let me know if you are a member of the Twitter-afia, too.

4. Pictures are a huge deal. I guess I knew this, but there are SO many cool sites with picture editing tools and storage info that I’ve got to start using. The one I’m most excited about is Picnik- especially since I got a one year free membership!

3. Blog layouts are also a huge deal. Of course I knew this, but I learned about where things need to be in a layout and how to make it remember-able.

2. I was not remember-able AT ALL when I got to meet and hang out with one of my favorite bloggers- Shannon from Rocks in my Dryer. I was like a bumbling idiot- much like when I met Keifer Sutherland. {What? You don’t know that story? I’ll post about it later…} Then I got to see her again on Saturday and apologized for my dorkiness. She is amazingly graceful and polite and acted like I hadn’t been a drooling groupie the day before. Just when we were getting to chatty and she might have had the impression that I was a normal person, I went and asked for a picture with her crossing the line back into dork-dom. Oh well. If she ever was going to be my friend, she might as well know the truth!

This is a horrible picture of me- obviously ignoring #4, but I'm getting over that.


1. Focus on good content and nothing else really matters. That was what I heard again and again from everyone. If you have the stuff that people want to read, then it doesn’t matter what your pictures look like, what your platform is or what kind of babbling, groupie idiot you are in real life.

I actually could list many more things I learned. The whole environment was really uplifting and encouraging; I will absolutely be back there next year! Thanks so much to the many people who put it on- the Blissfully Domestic Crew and the One to One Network. Phenomenal job, ladies!

P. S. Don’t tell Jason, but I have a new Valentine- or at least a new crush. He is Chris Mann and he came to sing for us live on Saturday. He is amazing. I have his CD and I might let you borrow it if you can claw it out of my white knuckled hands. His real CD isn’t out, yet, but I will be buying/ downloading it as soon as I can. We got a preview CD- how cool is that? Apparently it was only for the Twitter-ati. Being in the mafia pays.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Owen's new name idea- Little Boy Blue (for those eyes)

Harris - Sweet Pea


word verification:
stowh -
southern dialect for "I'm goin' to the stowh (store) for eggs and milk."

Anonymous said...

Hillary,
Sounds like you came home with a wealth of knowledge... thanks for sharing! I know about Twitter and follow some on there but I'm afraif I got on there I'd spend even MORE time on the computer... and I'm already trying to cut back.

I've thought NUMEROUS... like 100's of times about changing the blog name etc for privacy but then I think I'll lose half my readers... what are your thoughts on that?

Anonymous said...

You are so funny! I am excited for you and all you learned. You're bound to be a blogging pro. :)

I joined Twitter but never went anywhere with it. It's just one thing I can't add to my life. It's a HUGE craze, though. ENJOY!!!

Anonymous said...

YAY!!! it's like you're going pro. can't wait to see where you take the rest of us on your bloggin' journey. so glad that you had so much fun and met some bloggin' superstars:)

Anonymous said...

Very informative. But, we want to hear MORE!!!

Anonymous said...

You've learned so much, oh, bloggy-wise-one!!! PLease continue to share your knowledge!! I have been thinking about changing my domain name.... i googled myself and all my blog entries popped up... surely it won't be too hard to do.. any advice???

Anonymous said...

Fun conference- you are going pro! I've thought of getting rid of my kids names- although now that they are out in webland they will always be, right? Is the only way to fix the name thing to start a new blog?

Anonymous said...

A few years ago I would have agreed with you on the blogger being the proverbial red-headed stepchild - but it is so versatile and adaptable now...see, your blog looks great!
Wish we had more time to chat - it was a pleasure meeting you!

Anonymous said...

It was such a pleasure meeting you at Blissdom! You are so funny and adorable. What beautiful babies you have!

Definitely will have to connect on Twitter. What's your Twitter address? mine's @AlpacaFarmgirl

Yes, Blissdom was incredible! Can't wait for next one.

Anonymous said...

Great recap! I enjoyed it.

And, as someone who has had Blogger, then Typepad, then Wordpress -- there is a lot to be said for Blogger. It's a great free service and many professional bloggers still use it. So if I were you, I'd get your domain and point it to your blogger blog and dance all the way to the bank! :-) I've spent more money than I care to admit on blog hosting and *almost* wish I could just go back to Blogger. :-)

Anonymous said...

I'm just a little late with my comment. Honey, you never lack content (or comedy) and that's one reason I love to read your blog. I wish I was better about leaving comments, but just know that when I talk to my sister (whom you've never met), somewhere in the conversation we usually talk about how we have recently laughed at your blog.

Anonymous said...

I love hearing about your experience at the conference! Sometimes I feel dorky being a blogger and wonder if I have anything to say that is worth reading. I read somewhere that Mr Rogers (yes, THE Mr Rogers) thought that it was his job to say what was on his heart and trust the Holy Spirit to carry it to the right people. Blogging is like that too, I think! Keep up the good work!

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xoxo,
Hillary

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