The mo'Times

Articles of interest about mo'time, the blogosphere, culture and society

Some news from our sponsor :)

Those of you with impressive powers of recall will remember the post back in October 2006 announcing the fact that Motime was acquired by Dada S.p.A... Although entitled "Fasten your seat belts", anybody who chose not to was not exposed to any great danger.

However, dear reader, that will soon change. In the next 4-8 weeks we will be upgrading the software, adding some features and, finally, adding new templates!

In other news, I want to call your attention to the newly launched music store that Dada Entertainment, the joint venture that Dada and Sony BMG created. Mo'time's very own "Paolino", the guy who basically built the Motime platform, is there in New York City  working on the project. He's just posted on the Dada Entertainment blog telling all about it:

"Well ... today the cat is out of the bag !! The many months of work behind the scenes finally payed out.

Our new site is out. The site features the best Sony BMG artists, each artist has an engaging personal space where you can listen to previews of the artists hits, become fans, comment and create your very own playlists with their favorite music to share with your friend. We've worked hard to put you at the heart of the Music Movement, Soon we will add more artists from other major and indie labels. And you can take your Dada.net music with you anywhere you like since it is completely DRM-free. "
Read more...

posted by: howard at 16:37 | link | comments (1) |

OUT OF CONTROL!

Ok, we have all seen strange things pop up on the net.  Blogs about strange subjects, odd happenings, and crazy randomness.  But I think out of all the valid web companies out there supplying a demand for something, I Beat You takes the cake.  I Beat You?  What in Zeus is that?  Well my fine freakazoid web fiend, you have come to the right place.

Ibeatyou.com is a place where the general web/blogging population wastes all their addictive time to do one defining thing.  Challenge other bloggers at something.  Anything.  Your choice!  There are 17 categories to choose from.  From Dancing, Staring, Crazy, Art,  to Pictures of your Baby.  Got a webcam, a face, and an online connection?  You are good to go!  These people are serious!  Just another thing for you to go do, come back and blog about, then of course, post! 

 

 

posted by: psmartin at 01:25 | link | comments (1) |

Alarming revelations!

Are bloggers being worked to death? Muckraking journalists expose the dirty underbelly of the industry!

 

posted by: howard at 10:15 | link | comments (7) |

One Mo'time!!!!

You're invited to a Mo'time Reunion!   Howard has tirelessly burned the midnight pixels emailing our Mo'time friends from long ago.

Hey.

Once upon a time you had blog on Mo'time. Remember? Well it's still there and it's only missing one thing - YOU! I am sending you this email because at least one Mo'timer, plus me, has been wondering what you've been up to! This is not one of those just-another-social-network trying to bother you kinda things. This actually a personal letter, a plea, sent simply because we miss you.

We're planning a Mo'time reunion for the month of April. Starting April 1st, surf on by to www.motime.com and dust off your blog. See what your old friends are up to! "One Mo'time", write a post and catch us up on what's new in your world -- no obligation or expectation to stay, of course, but a little update would be rather cool.

Forgotten your password? That's no excuse! Either use the new password generator http://www.motime.com/newpassword or write back to me by replying to this email. See you April 1st!

Love and Kisses,

Howard and the Mo'timers

One of our favorite Mo'timers has already answered the call,  keep your eyes open for more!

posted by: rustymadgal at 18:02 | link | comments (30) |
updates, blogosphere, community, international, holiday, spumante, reunion

Tune up your Blog...

Here are some simple ways to keep your blog as sharp and interesting to your community as possible...

1) Keep it simple.

2) Form vs. Content. Be concerned with content to make a meaningful contribution.   Not concerned with form.

3) The final look is only the icing and it is the bigger, more difficult step of problem solving (i.e., building the cake) that really matters.

4) Take too long to download? Get back to the drawing board.

5) Sounds you  rollover are funny the first three times.  They're just annoying after that.

6) Learn how to structure HTML and why it works the way it does.

7) After three seconds, someone is going to hit the back button.  So, get it on the screen instantly, and make it enchantingly interesting.

8) Get your content high on the search engine list by tweaking your META data

9) Learn and think about your net audience, then learn and think about their computers, then think again about your net audience.

10) "SIMPLICITY+SAFETY+BLATANCY=DULL WEB", thanks Eric Adigard for the formula.

posted by: psmartin at 05:54 | link | comments (6) |
technical, blogosphere, community

Life cycle of a blog post

As usual, I'm late. I just saw this article and very cool graphic representation of the blog post's ecosystem. Check it for yourselves, click here. (Then click on the link in the graphic below the introduction.)

What do you think?

posted by: howard at 11:45 | link | comments (7) |
blogosphere, community

RESIST THE ELFTATION...

Ok, normally i wouldn't do this, however, this is about blogging trends and and other minutia.  Once a year there is always that one thing that brings people together in a nerd herd fashion.  This year, if you haven't caught on, it is being "ELF-ed".  I have been to so many blogs this past week, as well as opened up several e-mails that were titled such things as "DUDE! I'M A -BEEPIN'- ELF!".  I usually respond with "DUDE!  I DON'T -BEEPIN'- CARE!"  As you can guess, social distortion nerd herding caught me off guard and my own stupidity caught up with me.  Why, what is it that draws us into the spirits t'ether?  I was so stupid as to put my entire family into elven freaks.  SHAME SHAME!  Let's see your elves and post the link here for all to see!? 

PS - I am the one with the bottle cap in his mouth.  Why?  DON'T ASK ME I'M A -BEEPIN- ELF!

posted by: psmartin at 21:31 | link | comments (8) |
blogosphere, holiday

The Future... PUT YOUR THINKING CAPS ON!

Ok, so here we are.  Web 2.0.  What is that you say?  To put it in a nutshell (from what I gather in a round about kind of insanity), is that the beginning of the internet, Web 1.0, connected real people to the World Wide Web.  I write, you read.  EVOLUTION TO TODAY!  Web 2.0 connects real people who use the World Wide Web HOWEVER, smarty pants, the reader can write as well!  HOO HOO!. The future, the "semantic web",  will connect virtual representatives of us, or software agents who use the World Wide Web to share, incorporate and locate info without our slaving at the keyboard ready to throw the monitor at the wall after going through 32 pages of google search.  So the question here is this...

posted by: psmartin at 05:44 | link | comments (4) |
blogosphere

The Blogosphere- world- pedia- endium- ... thing

As I look around the mighty, mighty blogdom that is the world wide bog community, I see things.  I see helpful blogs, blogs about eating, jogging, sex (rowr), and health.  I see fun  blogs about puzzles, history games, and trivia.  I see blogs about people's life, their history, their car accidents, and marriages.  I see blogs about weather, and politics.  Then there is another set of blogs I see that I can not seem to explain.  Nor can I really understand what really keeps them going.  It is the territory of the "Strange Blog".  People who post material about things that only they could possibly adore.  That no one in the entire world could ever read and say, "Ya!  Right on Brother!  Tell it like it is!"  For instance, a blog, which does exist, about third nipples.  Real third nipples and the tragic loss that he mourns for each that is removed, especially from girls he finds attractive.

So my question to you this time is this.  If you were to create a blog that only YOU could adore, a topic that only YOU would possibly post about, and a topic that would make YOU look like you are the lunatic fringe what would it be?

Mine?  I am thinking it would be the fine art of analyzing American Idol contestants vocal issues in a medical and voice pedogogical fashion in hopes to anger the entire nation.

:D

posted by: psmartin at 04:55 | link | comments (5) |
blogosphere

Who loves ya baby?

Recently I read an article by Lamont Wood that opened up with the following paragraph...

"It’s the relationship you spend more time on than any other. It has deepened even during the past few years. When things go wrong, you become enraged and tearful and attack inanimate objects — but you’re willing to spend hours making things right."

What relationship are they talking about?  Your girlfriend, your spouse, your cat that likes to lacerate you as it's national feline past time?  No.  Well, how about this fact to clue you in.  Supportsoft, Inc. commissioned an interesting survey of Americans, and they were all asked the following question.  Which do you spend more time with your computer OR your spouse?  The results found that a whole WHOPPING 64% of Americans spent MORE time with their COMPUTER than their SPOUSE!

The other questions asked also produced interesting numbers when asked what they wanted to do when the computer had a problem...

32 percent said that they basically shrugged
19 percent admitted to wanting to hurl their compy out the nearest window
11 percent used language normally reserved for "special occasions"
(7 percent did so loudly, 3 percent did so tearfully)
9 percent felt stranded and alone
3 percent additionally vented their wrath on inanimate objects.

I thought about it for a little while.  Thought about what I did when my computer breaks.  My process looks like this...

1. Curse out loud to the almighty roman god of infernal machines.
2. Think to myself "BAH!  This mortal man can yet fix this piece of future junkyard circuitry."
3. Scour the www.whatever-fix-I-can-get-my-hands-on.com pages.
4. Curse the gods again for not finding something, dodge the lightning bolts and apologize.
5. Call PC Support, grumble and moan at the person on the other end until the become annoyed and fix it as fast as they can so they don't have to hear me anymore.

What do you do when your computer does something worthy of Olympic Computer Tossing?

posted by: psmartin at 04:33 | link | comments (5) |
technical, blogosphere