Tag: blogging

Why I’m Back to Personal Blogging

personal blogging

After successfully blogging about stylish living and entertaining since 2005, I needed a new challenge. I want to write a blog that fits my current life and work situation.

I closed At Home with Kim Vallee last year. Every time I attend a blogging or social media conferences, people ask me about At Home with Kim Vallee or ask me why did I stop? I’m extremely proud and glad of what I accomplished with my previous branded blog. At Home with Kim Vallee enabled me to build a reputation that far exceeds my local circle.

Why bloggers should consider Ghost as their blogging platform

ghost blogging platform

The first version of the minimalist blogging platform Ghost has been launched to the public Monday. To tell you the truth, I can’t wait to try it out. I recalled how thrilled I was when I read the post by John O’Nolan that started the whole project. I said “At Last, someone who understands my problems.”

Around the same time, I often talked with my tech husband about the dated WordPress interface. Frankly, the look and feel of their administrative screens seems old. I often mentioned how it was not easy to blog on site when I’m visiting a trade show or attending a conference.

As a user, I feel that WordPress kind of makes my life more complicated by not integrating in their system the basic and standard components needed for blogging. Managing plugins for the most basic stuff is time not well spent. Although WordPress works well, WordPress has stopped adding tools for bloggers a long time ago. Bloggers are not a priority for them. I don’t foresee that it will change in the future, especially when the bread and butter of so many WordPress developers are in Web sites, not blogs.

Going back to Ghost, the great responses that John O’Nolan got from his original concept led to a Kickstarter campaign that raised $300,000 in a month, way more than he expected to raise when he launched it. It was clear by now that Ghost fills a void in the market.

Twitter Cards Fill a Gap in Social Sharing Tools

sharing tools missing source

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to Pulse, Feedly, Share This and similar tools is that these aggregators, readers and sharing tools don’t automatically include the Twitter handle of the author or publisher of the content that you wish to tweet. This self-promotion technique has to stop.

Some will argue that adding the right Twitter handle only takes a few seconds. It is true if you sit by your computer. To them, I will reply that it is another story if are on your iPad or iPhone and you don’t recall the Twitter handle of the author or the publication. Since 30% of Web traffic comes from tablets and smart phones these days, this is not a problem that we cannot ignore anymore.