While I have been aware of blogging/online journaling since the dawn of the millennium, and have dabbled in it intermittently, I have realistically and consistently blogged for the past six months. Anyhow, here are a few lessons I have learned along way, when it comes to earning (not "generating") traffic:
1. MySpace is for high school students and wannabe rock stars. Join MyBlogLog instead, add your blogs, and make friends. (But since everyone has a MySpace regardless, add Mutiny Universe's filmmaker profile as a friend. Thanks.)
2. Facebook is for college students and widget programmers. Join BlogCatalog in addition to Facebook, add your blogs, and make friends.
3. Join Digg.
4. Join Del.icio.us.
5. Join StumbleUpon.
6. Join Technorati, and add your blogs.
7. Sign up for and install the BlogRush widget to your blog. Make sure your blog has a good number of respectable posts, or it will be rejected (temporarily) for the BlogRush network.
8. As long as it isn't a money-driven pyramid scheme, allow yourself to be referred by others to any of the above, and in turn, refer other people.
9. Sign up for AddThis and install the bookmark widget (see it in action below) so that it will appear in every new blog post.
10. Bookmark your own posts using the AddThis widget and your various social bookmarking/social networking accounts: Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, etc.
Related suggestions:
11. Join FeedBurner to track subscribers to your blog(s). Usually, though, before anyone can subscribe to your blog, they would have to visit your blog at least once (see the above list to make that possible).
12. Ping. I have no idea what that means, really, but do it anyway. And if you've figured it out, please let me know, too. (Yes, I know, I can look it up on Wikipedia or elsewhere, but I haven't gotten around to that topic.)
13. Install the Google Toolbar browser add-on to check your blog's PageRank.
14. Install the Alexa browser add-on and encourage your blog's visitors to also use it; this will increase your blog's Alexa ranking.
When it comes to a personal blog, it's not that difficult to post on a daily basis. Sure, it will take some self-motivation, but it's pretty easy to develop your own point of view and writing style/flavor if you consistently blog. To foster a sense of community and exchange of opinions in a collaborative blog (like this one), be sure to do the following: (1) blog regularly and (2) make sure others do the same, so that the collaborative blog can be relatively fair and balanced (as opposed to Fox News).
Since it's Halloween, dress up like a pimp when you blog and pimp your hot (not cracked out) posts - or pimp yo' po's.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Pimp Your Posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Radio@MutinyUniverse.com #19 and #20
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Radio@MU #19
Download Jäger (if only that were possible!)
Podcast episode #19 is hosted by Katy M. Savage and contains great independent music that's new to this podcast.
Radio@MU #20
Download our Halloween episode!
In this episode, Ryan is constantly insulted by the 1960s Science Fiction Robot, who makes his triumphant return to the podcast. Of course, with the Robot also come Zombies!
1. DREAD:WAR "Blood of the Pharaoh"
2. S.L.U.D.G.E. "Sorrowladen"
3. Matt Ritchey's Shakespeare Coach
4. Khaotique "Beware of My Mind"
5. Eddie Cantor feat. Zombies "Hungry Women / Hungry Zombies"
6. Negatrude "Feel the Cries"
Ryan is currently reading Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Just read the new KOTCS trailer
Somebody on Myspace with a supposed "IN" posted a script for the upcoming trailer to INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Let's ignore the fact that I'm all over this movie like white on rice. Let's not get into discussions about the title, whether it should even have been made, or whether it will suck or not (it won't). Let's discuss THIS:
Why is it called a TRAILER if it comes BEFORE the film? Wouldn't that be called a FORERUNNER? Or a HAULER? Or an UPFRONT? Think about it.
Well, as always, WIKIPEDIA has our answer, as well as some fun notes on who was the first real announcer in a trailer. read on:
Trailer (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.
History
Prior to the 1960s, trailers were mostly created by National Screen Service and consisted of collections of slowly edited scenes, often without narration, but with large graphic words splashed across the screen. Those that did have narration used stentatorian voices. In the mid 1960s, Andrew J. Kuehn revolutionized the trailer industry with his independently produced trailer for Night of the Iguana, using provocative voiceover by an actor (a young James Earl Jones). Film dialogue was used to tell the story and fast paced editing coupled with dramatic music created a whole new art form. His format was so successful, he began producing this new form of trailer with partner Dan Davis.
Kuehn opened the west coast office of Kaleidoscope Films in 1971 and Kuehn and his company dominated the trailer industry for the next three decades. As Hollywood began to produce bigger blockbuster films and invest more money in marketing them, directors like Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone and Barbra Streisand began to depend on Kuehn and Kaleidoscope for their ability to create the best trailers theater-goers could see. Kuehn is responsible for trailers ranging from The Sting to The Exorcist, and Taxi Driver to Superman and Titanic. He is famous for creating the line "Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water," for the Jaws campaign.
Kuehn alumni include leading trailer makers and marketing creatives. Top trailer vendors like Cimarron, Bacon O'Brien, The Ant Farm, Aspect Ratio and Trailer Park have all been run by former Kaleidoscope creatives. Michael Camp headed the trailer department at Paramount, Tom Kennedy at MGM, and top editors Greg McClatchy, Jeff Werner and Vince Arcaro all started their own successful trailer companies. Bob Harper began his career as a messenger at Kaleidoscope before becoming a producer and quickly Vice-Chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Top industry trailer composer John Beal credits his career success to his thirty-year collaboration with Kuehn.
Pretty cool, eh?
Friday, October 12, 2007
What is Elan Vital?
This is from Wikipedia:
Élan vital, coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution, was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness.
It was believed by others that this essence (élan vital) could be harvested and embedded into an inanimate substance and activated with electricity, perhaps taking literally another of Bergson's metaphorical descriptions, the "current of life". The British biologist Julian Huxley remarked that Bergson’s élan vital is no better an explanation of life than is explaining the operation of a railway engine by its élan locomotif (locomotive driving force). However, Huxley himself subscribed to the notion of an élan vital as may be seen from the following excerpt: "When I was just last in New York, I went for a walk, leaving Fifth Avenue and the Business section behind me, into the crowded streets near the Bowery. And while I was there, I had a sudden feeling of relief and confidence. There was Bergson’s élan vital – there was assimilation causing life to exert as much pressure, though embodied here in the shape of men, as it has ever done in the earliest year of evolution: - there was the driving force of progress” (lecture 1, n.p., J. Huxley Papers).
A distant precursor of Bergson can be found in the work of the pre-Christian Stoic philosopher Posidonius, who postulated a "vital force" emanated by the sun to all living creatures on the earth's surface. The concept of élan vital is very similar to Schopenhauer's concept of the will-to-live. Several other ideas throughout Bergson's works are reminiscent of Schopenhauer's thoughts.
The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze attempted to recoup the novelty of Bergson's idea in his book Bergsonism, though the term itself underwent substantial changes by Deleuze. No longer considered a mystical, elusive force acting on brute matter, as it was in the vitalist debates of the late 19th century, élan vital in Deleuze's hands denotes a substance in which the distinction between organic and inorganic matter is indiscernible, and the emergence of life undecidable.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
No Camera, No Lens, Not a Photograph...
If airbrushing can make people look less imperfect, then why can't this technique create entire people? Case in point, an airbrush painting from DruBlair.com:
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Radio@MutinyUniverse.com #18: Peter Chavez "Live at Paul's Kitchen"
This is very special episode, as it is 230% supersized (69 minutes). We invite you to listen to a soundboard recording from last Saturday Night, at a restaurant/bar near Los Angeles called Paul's Kitchen. This episode contains most of Peter Chavez's acoustic show, celebrating the release of his album Autumn's Revenge.
Save: Download
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Setlist (italicized titles not included in podcast):
Like A Stone - Audioslave cover
Check out: http://www.mutinyuniverse.com/bands
Finally, here's a clip of Peter doing one of the cover songs:
Watercolor portrait of Peter Chavez: "Contented" by James "Jimmy Green Eyes" Ramirez. Visit his MySpace profile, containing this and other artwork.
Monday, October 1, 2007
David Lynch and The Police Honored by France
David Lynch received an upgrade to "officer" in France's Legion of Honor. The filmmaker's entry into the prestigious legion came in 2002 when he became a "knight" — the first rank of five. President Nicolas Sarkozy called Lynch, the mind behind some of Hollywood's eeriest films in recent years, "a profoundly normal guy" as he presented the award.
"What is really strange is that people think you are a very original guy," Sarkozy said. "What's crazy is life, not the perspective that you bring to life."
Lynch, 61, has received Oscar nominations for "The Elephant Man," "Blue Velvet" and "Mullholland Dr." Charlotte Rampling and Roman Polanski attended the ceremony for Lynch at the French presidential palace.
Across town, The Police, fresh off a reunion concert in Paris, received a French award for their contribution to the arts Monday.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel honored the rock trio of Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers as chevaliers of the Order of Arts and Letters at a Paris ceremony.
"We are very happy to be among your knights," said Sting, speaking in French. The Police are known for hits such as "Roxanne," "Message in a Bottle" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me."
New Radiohead Album for as Low as £0.01 (about TWO CENTS!)*
As a big F-YOU to the record industry, iconic alternative - and I do mean that sincerely - rock band Radiohead will release their new album In Rainbows via digital download around October 10, 2007. A physical "discbox" will be available sometime this December. Anyhow, here's the price breakdown:
1. YOU get to choose the price for the digital download-only option. You can pay as low as ONE PENCE* but as much as you want to pay the band - who isn't signed to a record label anymore.
2. A physical discbox to be delivered by December 3rd, containing the album on vinyl and on CD, as well as an enhanced CD with photos 'n stuff. These customers will also get access to the digital download on October 10. The price for this package is £40 (probably a bit more than $80 USD...seeing as how the US dollar is not as strong these days).
So head on over to the official Radiohead website for more information.
*Plus 45 pence surcharge (about 90 cents USD) for credit card orders. Okay, technically you can "buy" the album for free, but I want you to join Radiohead's new music revolution and change the way business is done...hell, I'm a part of a corporation, too! Join the Big Bang Band Boat Revolution, Baby!
Thom Yorke photo credit: Goldberg.
Check out our Élan Vital Production Stills!
