New Drupal Tutorials June 17, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, HowTo, Drupal, Teaching, open source, Programming , add a commentYes, I have yet another blog: this one is all about Drupal. Right now there are exactly 4 posts, but two of them came this week, so there may be an upturn in the posting over there. If anybody out there wants to write some tutorials, I’d be open to that.
The first howto was sort of “scratching an itch”. I got really tired of manually downloading, unzipping, uploading and activating modules when it was time to install a new Drupal site or update an existing one, so I came up with a workflow that gets it all done in record time: Using AWK to Download and Unpack Drupal Modules
The second one was a question delivered to me via chat: How to create a “related pages” block in Drupal 6, but we can’t find any useful modules and my personal recommendation, Panels, is not ported to version 6 yet. Therefore, with some Arguments magic, I bring you (now, new and improved, with 15 screenshots!): Using Views 2 and Drupal 6 to Create a Related Pages Block
In other Drupal news, the Florida Drupal User’s Group is having our 3rd meeting this weekend, June 21st, at the behest of MindComet in Maitland. I’ll be giving a talk about CCK (the Content Construction Kit), specifically using it with Drupal 6, and Mr. Mike Anello will be giving a talk on Views. The whole thing lasts about 4 hours - from 1 to 5 PM. The first two meetings were absolutely worth it, so I highly recommend coming down to check it out, if only for a shorter portion of the marathon.
The next stage for this Drupal Easy project is to build out some wiki pages that outline key Drupal concepts and relate them to each other, wiki-style. It’s something folks have been asking me for ever since the move to Bonnier and the “Drupal Expert” label, so I’m going to see if I can deliver. If that all goes well, there just might be a print version up for sale at LuLu.com as well. No promises, but that’s the plan.
P.S. Not that I want to brag, but Angie and Nate from Lullabot are coming to Orlando this week to train the staff at Bonnier in the use of Drupal. This is the only public mention I’ve made in quite some time, but I’m pretty damn excited to meet the gurus.
Petentials Reviewed by Amber and Leo June 8, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Markteting, Podcasts, Links, Reviews, Web Sites, Entrepreneurship, itunes, Petentials, Social Networking , 4 comments
Hooray for Google Alerts, and my media habits. A few days ago, I got an email from the google (now with a new and un-improved favicon…blech). This email linked to a blog post that linked to a podcast, and that was exciting.
The blogger was Kym Huynh, one of the hosts of a brand-new podcast called Best of the Net. In their first episode, The Google Bar, the topic was Pets, and the first story was Petentials, which is just amazing.
Then as I’m listening to some of my weekly podcasts, I noticed something even more amazing.
Every week, Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte sit down to talk about the latest happenings on the Internet. A few weeks ago, they were complaining about not having any guests, so they solicited the audience to email in if they had a web startup. Being the faithful listener that I am, I had to tell them about Petentials. I really thought they’d have thousands of suggestions like this every week, so I didn’t exactly expect to hear anything too soon, but…
I was listening to this week’s Net @ Night, “Tiffany Roll”, and when Amber got to the letters, I heard her say “This week’s letter is from Ryan Price in Orlando…”
Excuse me?
…and then they talked about Petentials for the next several minutes. I stopped right where I was standing and smiled the biggest smile. Right after that I called Darren and told him the good news.
Let’s keep the good vibes going - I know lots of you folks out there have podcasts and blogs - how would you like to feature a new social network that has been covered by Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur? Yeah, I thought so…!
Listen to net@night 55: Tiffany Roll (RSS, iTunes)
Listen to Best of the Net 1: The Google Bar (RSS, iTunes)
Looking at the dates that these were released, I almost wonder if the Best of the Net show heard about us via the live stream that Amber and Leo do over at TwitLive.TV while they are taping the show. If so, that makes for a great follow-up to my previous post.
New Ryan Price Media Blog Syndication Feed May 12, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Blogging, Podcasts , add a commentI recently tried to sign up for a service to get my feed syndicated, and they complained about my Flickr photos and daily links entries that only appear in the RSS feed - they said entries with repetitive titles feel like spam for their users - I can sympathize. When you’re looking at the blog, my links and photos appear in the sidebar, but on RSS, I am aggregating a bit.
Therefore, I have created a syndication-friendly feed for Ryan Price Media:
I also added a link to the Liberatr.net feed in the left-hand sidebar on the blog just to make it more visible. If you’re not currently subscribed to that feed, check it out.
Blogging Fringe 2008 April 15, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Blogging, Podcasts, Orlando, Events, Trends, Web Sites, Contributors, OrlandoScene, open source , 2 commentsMy Friends,
As you all know, I’ve done this Blogging Fringe thing for the past two years. Sadly, this year looks like I’ll be pulled in more directions than ever before. I’ve been up until 2AM every night for weeks on end and I’m not sure when this will stop.
At the same time, I really love the opportunities the Fringe Festival presents to show off some great groups in Orlando and Internationally, and introduce the world to our potential.
At this point I have received dozens of press releases from faithful producers who would love a mention on the blog. I’d love to contact them, conduct interviews, post them to the site, get everyone excited and oh so much more, but that’s not going to happen.
Some of you have contributed time to this project before, others are simply friends, but you are all tied to the theatre community and you have proven your interest in making our community something special.
My plan for Blogging Fringe this year is to write a small number of posts on my personal blog and have them automatically re-posted to BloggingFringe.com, and I’m going to open that up to everyone in the world. All the content on the site will be release under a Creative Commons license, meaning anyone will be free to re-post and re-mix the work in any medium for non-commercial purposes This includes all archived content on the site as well.
Getting your content posted is simple. We’ll agree on a keyword, something like “bloggingfringe”, or “Orlando Fringe”, something you will only write on your blog if you’d like the content to be seen, and those posts will be re-posted with a link back to your blog. An example of this is on Liberatr.net where all the posts link to the original home instead of inside the site.
This project has never been about my own personal gain - I’ve sunk hundreds (thousands?) of dollars of my money into creating an environment for patrons and artists to have a conversation, but I believe I’ve fallen short of the mark up until now. Beth will be the first person to say that the Fringe website is not the place she’d like this conversation to happen - that’s one great thing about a site like ours.
All the editorial content on Blogging Fringe - the reviews, videos, audio podcasts, will no longer be called Blogging Fringe, but instead Ryan Price Media, Orlando Scene TV and Florida Creatives. These three websites will just be other first-class citizens of the community like anyone else in the world. If I end up being too busy to post many videos, podcasts or blogs, that will show, because they’ll be lost in the ocean of posts created by the blogging Fringe Faithful.
If I have to I’ll paint the administrator password to Blogging Fringe on a canvas and submit the artwork to Visual Fringe. That’s how open this should be. Anna, what’s the entry fee again?
More news on exactly how to get your blogs re-posted to a public, highly visible website for free coming soon. I hope the Fringe itself, the Orlando Weekly, Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Arts Blog and others will be proud to include their blogs in the list, because the point is visibility, not exclusivity.
The contents of this email are posted at bloggingfringe.com/2008/04/15/blogging-fringe-2008/ in order to make this information as public as I possibly can. If you’d like to contribute, you can start by posting a link to your blog in the comments! All serious submissions (and some not so serious) will be accepted.
Peace,
Ryan Price
321-441-3964
BloggingFringe.com
FloridaCreatives.com
OrlandoScene.TV
Petentials on Fox News April 11, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : News, Site News, Career, Markteting, TV, Petentials, Social Networking , 2 commentsPetentials on Fox 35 | Petentials Park
Also, here’s an email Darren sent out to friends and advisors.
As some of you know, the Fox reporter, David Martin, informed me today that the feature on Petentials was picked up by Fox national news. I think what this means is that it’ll be aired on local news shows throughout the country over the next several days…or weeks.
We’ve had about 50 new accounts created in the last 24 hrs. In fact, 4 have been added in the last 2 minutes. There are 20 people on the site right now.
It looks like we’re now getting some Tennessee traffic, so my guess is that we were on the early news in Tampa tonight and the late news in/around Cleveland, Tennessee. Exciting stuff!
Now it’s hit Minneapolis/St. Paul (and maybe others). 123 people currently on the site…and rising with every refresh! At least 20 new registered users in the last 20 minutes. Plus, we have someone who wants to be our community ambassador for Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Update: Detroit Free Press Article
Welcome Back, Old Media March 13, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Career, Markteting, Blogging, Podcasts, Reviews, Trends, Web Sites, PopSci, Magazine , add a commentHere’s a quick follow-up to last night’s post.
Earlier today, Ryan Block asked:
Why should I be concerned? People aren’t coming to Engadget to read about gadgets from 2006, or 1996, or 1896 — they’re coming to read about what’s going on today. Still, I love that PopSci, so this is gravy!
Ryan is absolutely right. In fact, he’s pointed out to me that Engadget does not fill the same void as PopSci. People aren’t going to his site for the archive, but rather, the very latest and greatest, and so much so that most of the content on Engadget is exclusive and they are the first ones to post about it. They could probably delete all of their archives older than 3 years and nobody would be able to tell.
Mr. Block also loves that PopSci gravy, which means that it’s likely the audience can see those two sites as separate flavors and sample a little of column A, and a little… well, you get it.
I also like how Ryan responded to my post within 9 hours of my writing it. Maybe if I drop Megan Miller’s name in here a few times, she will notice it in her Google Alerts too and come check out the blog.
Actually, I really like what Megan Miller of PopSci has been doing with the 5-minute projects on the site. There is certainly some room for improvement, but she mentioned in this week’s podcast that PopSci is working with Instructables on these videos, though she didn’t say in what capacity.
Mmmm, meta-journalism, hot and fresh! I really feel like I’ve been writing a story about the story of PopSci these last few days. Both in my Twitter stream with Etan asking about the particulars of my new job, and Jeremy direct messaging me as I drove to the office this morning, and now these past few days on my blog. I’m not the story here, the magazine is, and Megan Miller is, and Jonathan Coulton, and Bonnier, a family company. As are Eric and Seth and Sway, and also the folks over at PingVision. I haven’t told the whole story, nor is it in the scope of these blogs to attempt to tell that whole story, just a story around the story.
Old Media, Welcome to New Media Land
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Career, Markteting, Blogging, Podcasts, Reviews, Trends, Web Sites, PopSci, Magazine , 4 commentsOR “How the battle became a collaboration”.
To the Editors of Popular Science:
You win.
Actually, I’m not a quitter, so I’ll say this: I’ve decided that instead of being “versus” each other, some of you Old Media types (can I say Traditional Media? thanks) actually care about your audience. Therefore, we are actually on the same side, you and me. That’s why today, I changed the name of my blog to “Ryan Price and the Media”. The arc of my story is changing, Act II is beginning (but please wait until the pops are two seconds apart).
Aside, to blog readers: Yes, I now work for a big media company: Bonnier Corporation. Dozens of magazines, or more accurately now Brands or Communities, and that’s just in the US. Potential for the big nasty side of media to show itself. However, as our Director of eMedia Howard was pointed out, “Bonnier is a family company, very different from a publicly traded business”. He was quick to point out the differences, and I was quick to believe him.
Back to you PopSci. You have been around for hundreds of years, and if you continue on your current path, you’ll be around for hundreds more. You’ve got a great formula working for you, and I have faith you’ve got the chemistry know-how to achieve the always-coveted, yet rarely achieved Activated Complex state. (sorry, that’s the only thing I remember from Chem I).
Let’s take a look at your assets:
First, and most importantly, you’ve got you’re audience. Not only your current subscribers to the print edition, or the folks that pick up a glossy when they’re traveling or when a pretty picture catches their eyes, but your modern-day audience. RSS subscribers, Google searchers, Diggers, Podcast listeners, Makers, Engineers and people who just want to sound smart at cocktail parties. You understand them all, and your understanding is only getting better as you experiment with new media (the content types, not the buzzword) and use your hundreds of years of publishing experience to deliver an experience that the smaller publications used to dream about (and in many cases you’re still eating their lunch).
That’s right. You’re a contender on the Internet, but you’ve got a hidden advantage. You’ve announced that some time soon, you will be opening your entire back catalog of Popular Science archives to the public (it is to the public, right?). Either way, no Engadget or even the castle-dwellers in Massachussets can claim over a hundred years of back catalog. Hell, few entities on the planet have such a rich offering.
Ryan Block and Chris Anderson should be very very concerned.
If you can continue taking advantage of modern advances in Media distribution (and I have to say you’re maybe one of the most advanced magazines I’ve seen in this area), your Coliseum will never fall into ruin, your Pompeii never covered with ashes.
Smart moves you’ve made include hiring Jonathan Coulton to be your Troubador, creating a podcast that both captivates and informs me and countless others every week, hiring bloggers to keep fresh hot steamy Science articles on your home page, having great SEO, and hiring me to maintain it all, ha ha! (I work for Popular Science, but I promise you this blog post is completely unsolicited, I only started three days ago)
Really, your organization is one to be looked up to in this time of transition, when many print publications are stopping the presses and hoping for bluer skies. I’ve been following my former enemy The Media very closely for the last several years, and I must say that you and I are enemies no longer, in more than one way.
I wish you the best, and I hope that I can ride your coattails to a new and exciting Land called New Media. I am honored to bask in your wizened glow.
Peace,
Ryan Price
New Hire, Drupal Developer
Bonnier Corp. and PopSci.com
Will Your Subscribers Miss You? February 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Markteting, Podcasts, Reviews, OrlandoScene, Love , add a commentPunk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution
I also downloaded the audio appendix from Audible - Punk Marketing Manifesto: The Arguments (Unabridged)
Today as I was looking over their recent blogs, I noticed this article about an ad campaign where they told customers the whopper was no longer on the menu, or gave them Big Macs or Wendy’s burgers instead, and it got me thinking
New Coke + 22 years = Whopper Freakout
I love the fact they used what happened to Coke in 1985 to create a whopper of an idea, demonstrating in the most entertaining way possible how BK customers really feel about their Whoppers (if you see what I mean).
Even though I haven’t had one in months, if went to Burger King and you told me the Whoppers were gone, I’d be moved to start a riot with the people in the dining room. They can’t get rid of the Whopper! It’s an American institution!
Right?
Then I started thinking about when this happens with media. This is the principle that LOST is built upon - right when you get so attached to the story that there’s no possible way you can get to tomorrow without knowing what happens next, they end the episode (and sometimes go on a 5-week hiatus for Christmas, but they fixed that for Season 4). The worst example of this is Joss Whedon’s Firely, which we learned to love on DVD, only to find out we could never have any more. It’s like ordering an endangered species on the menu of a restaurant.
What about the independent media? Have there been times in my life when I was heartbroken about a podcast’s cancellation, or a blogger’s retirement?
When Amanda left Rocketboom, it was only a matter of time before my curiosity about “How well can they do this show without her?” was satisfied and I stopped subscribing. When my friend Emily moved to another city, the experience I was so in love with, that of creating media, was taken away from me.
I’m certainly in love with the creation process, but are my readers and listeners and viewers in love with me? Have I given them the ability to properly let me know they are? What would happen if I removed all of the permalinks? Would our lives be different if the moment of serendipity, when you find someone else operating on you wavelength, was stifled?
I’m really wondering what I’m going to do with Blogging Fringe this year. Last May, I was completely ready to dump my pocket change into it and get more entrenched in the Fringe community, try to figure out how to afford touring, make it an international experience. Then my dream swelled a little and I started thinking about schemes that would bring a much broader group into an I-love-this situation not just with a 2-week slice of the year, but with every day in a new city. Since then, Orlando Scene TV has proven the possibility of fanning the flames of someone who already possesses the spark of inspiration.
This is what I learned today - maybe for the second or third time - my content (at least in my estimation) is for those who are looking, not those I am looking for. My goals are often stated like I can show this product to anyone and be so confident in the message or the subject matter that they will have no choice but to fall in love. That’s not the kind of media I produce. Maybe that’s not the kind any of us are producing.
I’m broke, I’ve got a job I am in love with that doesn’t pay me, I live where I love and I have people I love all around me. But I think I need to deprive myself of a few of these local comforts in order to learn something about myself, or just to find a way to make money.
Some People February 19, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Blogging , add a commentSome people are weird.
Some people send me emails and IMs late at night on the day after I got back from England. ::YAWN:: just writing the word yawn makes me yawn and then I feel even more tired. Still, I have something going on in my head that prevents me from going to bed until I pay them some attention. Inbox zero, or something like that, right?
Some people are warm, and pleasant to talk to, but still email me late at night on the day after I got back from England.
Some people ask me questions about Drupal stuff, then I try to answer them, but I second guess myself, because of all the yawning and tiredness. These people email me late at night on the day after I got back from England.
Some people make films about scientists who turn themselves into dogs, and comment on my blog about TurnHere late at night on the day after I got back from England.
Some people work on social networking sites… for animals.
I bear these people no ill will.
Some people are weird.
I think I belong to the group of some people. I just need to sleep.
The Second Click and Lijit Search Wijits February 11, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Blogging, Links, Video, Wikipedia, Trends, Liberatr, statistics, Public Relations, OrlandoScene, interface, Second Click, Web Services, Google , add a commentIf you haven’t noticed the lovely Lijit search wijit on the left sidebar here, please leave your feed reader and come check it out. This is a very interesting concept to me - they’re taking the Google Personalized Search tools and providing a very user-friendly (and statistical) interface to the tool. A mash-up with a business model? Amazing. I’ve also read on their blog that they’re going to start tracking comments on your sites as well and I suppose integrating that with the other statistics and search metrics you’re already getting. Good times.
Also on the Lijit blog, I read about a new coined phrase, or meme, or whatever - The Second Click.
At Lijit we know from watching reader behavior on our publishers’ sites that a huge percentage (33%-50%) of readers come from horizontal search…
We also know that the normal behavior of one of these readers is to read the article that Google referenced and then hit the back button. Reader gone, moment lost, second click wasted.
This is precisely why the Lijit Re-Search feature was added to the Lijit Search Wijit. When you have this feature turned on, Lijit hooks the reader into staying for a third click and beyond. Bottom line, you only get one click to keep to your readers around – do the most you can to mine that opportunity.
The easiest way to see this re-search capability in action is to perform a search. Search for “Second Click” - you should come right back to this article. Also, there’s a fun tag-cloud view of the most popular search terms. This really helps - according to my stats, I’ve had 173 re-searches in the last week, and I the fact that the commonly searched links are right there is responsible.
In the “real world”, the Second Click has been coming up because of an announcement by Google to compete with Wikipedia. In the fallout from this announcement, there was some speculation and dot-connecting going on specifically about “The Fight For The Second Click”.
Wikipedia is clearly dominating Second Click traffic right now. There are also plenty of folks chasing down second click property - social networks, Mahalo, review sites, anything with the word “social” in the description, really. We’ve certainly reached the point to start developing the second click strategy at Petentials. Even my two biggest and most sellable ideas right now are all about the second click, but that’s not how I would have characterized them until I knew about this meme.
It’s not enough to just have the blog anymore - I’ve made a point to actively attract second clicks on sites like OrlandoScene.TV (home page, also on posts) and Orlando Video (also see a post), for example. The “most recent” only really helps if you’re on the 11th or earlier post, but there’s a nice wordpress plugin called related posts I’ve installed all over the place. It requires one line of database massaging, but it’s easy and worth it. I’m not positive of how often it works, but as i have several blogs to track, throwing in some click-tracking would be very much worth it.
(side note) For Lijit, I’ve suggested that instead of most popular searches, they should have options for most recent or recently popular, and I think they’re rolling it out soon. Lijit’s customer relations are amazing. I was personally greeted by Kevin Hawkins, who actually took a few minutes to read my blog and personalise my welcome letter. This was a huge ego boost, especially from a blogger’s perspective. I’m always saying - simply acknowledging someone’s work is the biggest compliment you can pay a media producer.
