I’ve been considering a premium video sharing solution for my video files. Currently I use Youtube to host my videos but I’m looking for greater control, particularly in terms of video statistics.
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I’ve been interested in using Disqus comment system on my blogs for a while now. I’ve tried it out on a few different occasions (twice on FlashForwardblog, where it’s currently installed), but I’ve never been completely satisfied – especially since the native Wordpress comments does a good enough job. But is good enough, good enough?
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LocateTV has launched its first online affiliate network, unveiling its “Next On” widget for television viewers. To enhance their TV show, movie and celebrity content, personal and fan websites can easily cut and paste the widget from the LocateTV web site. LocateTV’s dynamically changing code will automatically update to show when the TV show or person is next on the air.
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Staff members are an important part of any fan community. They help spark discussion, enforce the rules and come up with ideas. They are an extension of a fansite’s ethos and as community leaders they are vital to the long-term survival of any serious fansite.
But even community managers, moderators, contributors and other team members need a sense of direction and, at times, motivation to feel ‘in the loop’.
During my years managing fansites, blogs and forums, I’ve seen staff members struggle in community leadership positions. There are various reasons for this, including; feeling out of their depth, only wanting the role for community status, being unprepared for the workload, and a lack of clear direction – to name a few. I’ll discuss some of these points in future articles, but for now I want to look at a few techniques I’ve developed to keep staff members in the loop and feeling motivated.
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In a move which suggests established online communities are becoming more important in the marketing strategies of large entertainment companies, MSN have added 9 fansites from wiki start-up Wetpaint into its entertainment.
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I’m always looking for ways to add more interactivity to my blogs – useful methods of engaging readers and making content more relevant. While there are tons of products that promise to enhance content, very few deliver. Most just add clutter and detract from the focus of a blog or fansite. However I recently stumbled across an interesting product called Apture which might have to potential to be different.
What is Apture?
In their own words, Apture promises to enhance blog posts with interactive videos, images, Wikipedia, maps and more from 50+ sources without making readers leave the page.
Apture, which is available in the form of a plugin, uses pop-up windows to display external content chosen by the blogger. For example, if you run a music blog and you’re writing a post on your favorite musician or an upcoming gig, you might want to add Wikipedia links or YouTube videos to add depth to the post and further engage your readers. Normally you’d add a Wikipedia link which opens in an external window or tab, and you’d link to the YouTube video, resulting in the reader leaving your site if they want to investigate your recommended link (of course, you might embed the youtube video instead). Apture lets you present your ‘extra content’ via a small pop-up window, or bubble, that overlays the page when the reader clicks or points their cursor over the link.
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If like me you somehow have two seperate Google Feedburner accounts, you’ll know that this can cause a problem when trying to monetize your feeds – if your main Feedburner account isn’t the same as your Google Adsense Account. Looking back, I’m not quite sure how that happened (presumably during the Feedburner migration to Google), but the important thing is that it DID happen and that it needs to be resolved so that I can increase the income of my sites and continue to cover server costs (etc) with greater effect.
Getting help on this issue has been pretty non-existent – I’ve posted threads in the Google help forum and searched various other places for information on how to merge my two separate Google accounts – but to no avail.
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Earlier today I was shocked to discover that all of the links on my Dollhouse fansite – WatchingDollhouse.com were broken. After doing a bit of digging I soon found out that my entire permalink structure had been reset to the default setting, resulting in none of my post links working. I quickly went about re-applying my custom “/%postname%/” structure (Settings>Permalinks>Custom Structure) whilst wondering what (or who) had been inside my admin panel.
Well, mystery solved – this just in from Wordpress:
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I’m currently deliberating whether or not to move all of my Wordpress blog comments over to a third-party comment system called Disqus. I have to admit, I was totally against such a thing a few months ago – I couldn’t understand why sites like Mashable, and many others, would choose Disqus over the perfectly functional native comments system in Wordpress!
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Comment Systems for Fansites: Intense Debate Vs Disqus
by admin on August 23, 2010
In preparation for our upcoming Intense Debate vs. Disqus comment system comparison, I thought it would be good to take a poll to see which comment system you currently use on your own fansites.
Use the poll after the cut to lodge your vote and check back later in the week for our fansite-orientated Intense Debate vs Disqus comment system comparison.
[click to continue…]
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