It’s only a vision at this point, but technology companies like Facebook are aiming to make the metaverse the setting for many online activities, including work, play, studying and shopping. How do we ensure everyone has a say in how it develops? It's a question Shel and I considered in the primary discussion in the August episode of The Hobson & Holtz Report aka episode 210 of the For Immediate Release podcast published on August 23. We started with a definition. Wikipedia's is … [Read more...] about Considering the forthcoming metaverse
Blogging
Welcome to the Gutenberg Editor
A new version of WordPress is expected to land during the next few weeks - perhaps even as soon as December 6 - if development plans proceed smoothly. I've been a WordPress user since version 1.5 over a decade ago, and I'm excited about 5 mostly because of Gutenberg, the brand new post and page editor that aims ultimately to replace the traditional classic editor that's been part of WordPress since its beginnings. This new version 5.0 release of the popular content management … [Read more...] about Welcome to the Gutenberg Editor
A minimalist look to blogging
Today, this blog gets a design refresh with a new theme that presents a minimalist look to the world. This is version 10.0 of a website running on WordPress that I first started in early 2006 following four years variously on Blogger, Movable Type and TypePad. All these services were stalwarts in the early days of blogs and blogging. I don't want to make a huge deal out of what essentially is the installation of a new WordPress theme. It's a bit like a new wardrobe when you buy a new … [Read more...] about A minimalist look to blogging
Perspectives on blogging in the UK
Blogging for business and pleasure is alive and flourishing in the UK, according to the second annual survey of UK bloggers carried out by Vuelio UK in conjunction with Canterbury Christ Church University. The survey was conducted in February 2017 to explore how bloggers work, their activities and views about their relationship with PR professionals and the future commercialisation of their work. Published last week, the results present a useful snapshot of the UK blogosphere. Whether … [Read more...] about Perspectives on blogging in the UK
How to make your blog a secure and trusted place
If you run a self-hosted blog - like WordPress, for instance - now's the time to enhance your confidence and that of your visitors and community in its security and trust. While this is mostly about data security, it's also about search engine optimization and search results ranking by Google. I'm talking about enabling https, the secure form of http (hence the 's') that offers important benefits: In its popular deployment on the internet, HTTPS provides authentication of the website and … [Read more...] about How to make your blog a secure and trusted place
UK blogging snapshot in new blogger survey
An overnight email from Vuelio: How’s your blog doing? How big is your audience, and what are you doing to grow it? Is blogging a hobby, an awareness-raiser, or a money-spinner? We’ve joined up with Canterbury Christ Church University to launch our first ever UK Blogger Survey in a bid to find out what blogging is all about in 2016. We’re asking bloggers all over the country what kind of blogs they’re writing, how popular they are, and how commercial they want to be. The survey takes just … [Read more...] about UK blogging snapshot in new blogger survey
Open Live Writer: a successor to Windows Live Writer
One of the most useful software programs to come out of Microsoft in the past decade is Windows Live Writer, what I consider to be the best offline blogging editor for Windows. WLW first appeared in 2006, but since the last version was released in 2012, with an update in April 2014, it has languished in the no-longer-supported and -developed bucket. I continue to use it, though, as I have still seen no other blog editor for Windows as good as this. Now, though, there’s great news for … [Read more...] about Open Live Writer: a successor to Windows Live Writer
Developing peace of mind with WordPress plugins
Whenever a new release of the WordPress content management system comes out, I'm usually on it immediately, updating all my sites running WordPress to that latest version. But not this time. Not yet. Version 4.4 of WordPress was released on December 8, but I'm still on WordPress 4.3.1, the immediately preceding version. The reason? It's about plugins, the eminently useful add-on software you install that adds additional or improved functionality in many different ways to the core of … [Read more...] about Developing peace of mind with WordPress plugins