Friday Firsts: RIP, Geocities

It was with heavy heart that I read Computer World’s report that internet icon GeoCities was not merely decommissioned but deleted outright earlier this week. I confirmed with my own visit to the site, www.geocities.com, only to be greeted with a somber message: “Sorry, GeoCities has closed.”

What is GeoCities? you ask, and what kind of Friday First is this? Well, chock-full-of-questions reader, I’ll tell you. If you are a nerd and/or geek of just about the right age, that age where you’re just making the transition from young to still-young-but-not-quite-as-young-anymore, GeoCities was a first, and a big one.

Webhosting was prohibitively expensive in the 1990′s, and websites were generally purchased by big businesses who were just branching out into the internet. When GeoCities hit the scene, offering free, easy-to-build homepages structured into “neighborhoods,” that all changed. Suddenly, any nerd could post his X-Files fan fiction, or cheat codes for Doom, or just a simple “this is me and who I am” page, peppered with “Under Construction!” animated gifs. It was awesome.

Your Uncle Fat Dude is feeling a little nostalgic today, and it’s not just because his third decade on this planet is a little more than a month from coming to a close (now accepting gifts and cash!). I remember building my first homepage on GeoCities. I couldn’t tell you what “neighborhood” it was in, or exactly what I put there, but I do remember how epic it felt, to type a few words and paste in a picture, and know that it could be instantly viewed from all over the world.

I feel lucky, privileged, to have lived to see the infancy of the internet, to have played my infinitesimal part in it, and to see it grow to the world-altering tool it is today.

So, this Friday, I pay respect to the provider of my first website, and one of the first companies to proclaim that the internet is for everybody. I’ll miss you, GeoCities.

Friday Firsts: Starting a Blog

Image by: Annie Mole

Why a Blog?

I know, I know… Starting a blog sounds so New Milennium, everyone-at-the-coffee-house-is-doing-it. But blogging can be one of the most powerful tools for finding, connecting with, and keeping an audience online. Coming from a point of absolute-zero online visibility, a blog is a very strong base camp for your Brand. Here, you can gain some credence with your target audience, let your work be seen, and even start an online networking campaign to rival the possibilities available in both Twitter and Facebook. You may sound a bit pretensious when you tell your friends “I’m starting a blog,” but so what? Help them clean up post mocha latte spit-take and kindly explain that it’s an extremely solid addition to your marketing toolbox.

Picking a Topic:

Blogs come in many shapes and sizes, and might offer beautiful photography, useful articles, an ongoing story, or simply a look into your day-to day-life.  At first glance, it may seem like a photographer should start a photoblog, and an actor should start a “living the Hollywood dream” memoir, and a writer should post her work. But who says? Maybe as an actor you want to start a photoblog with interesting visuals from your audition locations. Maybe an artisan could start a blog not about crafting, but about starting a small business. Maybe a wedding photographer could write stories about his subjects.

When deciding on a topic, there are several questions to ask yourself. Is there an audience for it? Is the market already glutted with exactly the same thing? Does it help sell your brand and bring you an audience? I would suggest, though, that there is one single question about your blog topic that is more important than all the others combined; Are you passionate about it?

A blog is a huge commitment. If you intend to serve any sort of audience, you’ll be posting at least semi-regularly, you’ll want your posts to stay mostly on-topic, and you’ll want that underlying topic to stay as relatively consistent as possible. A topic that you can wring a maximum of 20 or 30 posts out of (or even 90 or 100) , has a built-in self-destruct date and could spell a long term commitment that comes to a dead-end. Pick a topic that you could talk about forever. In your free time. For fun. Passion, equals dedication, equals output, equals a consistently kickass blog.

Picking a Service:

This is where things start to get tricky. There are a lot, and I mean a lot of options out there when it comes to choosing a blog platform.  The first step towards choosing is determining if you want a hosted blog, or a non-hosted blog.

• Hosted Blogs (Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, TypePad, etc)

A hosted blog is any service where your blog, the blog software, and the front end (where you enter your posts) are hosted on another website. These sites offer a varying range of on-board functionality, but are pretty uniformly easy to use.  Most of these blogs are free, and extremely intuitive if you have ever used word processing software like Microsoft Word.

The downside here is some services may display ads on your blog if you choose not to pay a subscription fee, and your web address will most likely be something like YourBlog.blogspot.com or YourNameHere.tumblr.com, which may or may not be professional enough for what you’re trying to accomplish

• Non-Hosted Blogs (WordPress, for one)

These blogging platforms are basically software that you install directly on your own hosted web account (the storage that makes your website possible). Everything remains on your website, so you’re not at the mercy of your service going down or going out of business. Your posts are archived on your own website, and you can make backup after backup until you feel secure that your posts will never ever be lost. The number of additonal plugins, skins, widgets, and tools are seemingly endless on some of these platforms too, which makes a highly custimizable blog.

But there is a downside here too. These babies are not for the weak of heart. Just getting the blog up and running takes much more tech savvy than the typical PC-user has. Customizing can be much, much more difficult. Some of the user interfaces are not quite as intiutive either, as they lean more towards functionality and options than towards attractiveness and ease of use.

There are so many services to choose from, I couldn’t possibly keep your interest through the couple-thousand words it would take to review them all, but keep watching for my suggestions of some sites to check out.

Start Posting!

We’ve come to the fun. It’s time to open up to your audience. Find your groove, and start churning out those posts! Of course, it doesn’t end there. There are endless things you can do to keep improving your blog. Check back in the coming weeks and months for articles on:

• Managing and optimizing your RSS feed with FeedBurner.
• Finding readers with Technorati.
• How often to post.
• Headlines that catch readers.
• Making it easier for readers to link to your posts.
• How your High School composition teacher would tell you to write your posts (and why she’s right).
• Posting more frequently.
• Moving from a hosted to a non-hosted blog.
• Starting a WordPress Blog.

… and probably a lot more. In the meantime, feel free to shamelessly promote your blog in the comments. I would too, but, uh… I think you found it.

Friday Firsts: Your First Facebook Fan Page

Image by: JoelZimmer

What is it?

Assuming that you have not been living under a rock for the past five years,  you are undoubtedly already familiar with the social media juggernaut that is Facebook. You probably already have a page there, as does most everyone you know (including, regrettably, your parents).

Chances are, then, that you’ve already seen Facebook Pages, even if you’re not aware of it. Every time you see someone become a fan of Victoria’s Secret, or Paranormal Activity, or Kevin Smith, you’re seeing Facebook Pages in action.

Simply put, your Facebook Page is a profile for your brand, business, project, or even yourself. It’s a place to reach one of the largest online communities in the world.

Why do I want one?

I know, I hear you;  “I already have a Facebook profile. Why do I need this?” Besides the fact that a Facebook Page will seperate your business from your personal life (and from those pictures of your terrible, drunken bowling at Lucky Strike last night)… well, actually, let’s not shove that aside as a “besides the fact”, because that’s sort of the point. With a Page, you’ll keep your Facebook business and Facebook pleasure seperate. You’ll have a totally seperate Wall, totally seperate photo albums, totally seperate video tab, all designed by you to promote yourself.

Don’t take our word for it, check out Facebook’s full low-down via PDF right… here.

How do I get started?

Now that Facebook Pages have caught your attention, sidle over to their homepage to get started.

The setup process is pretty self-explanatory, though it’s worth noting that this is not the feature to use if you’re looking to create a page to show your love and devotion for Barney Stinson. Facebook’s created Groups for that. Instead, this is specifically for yourself, your project, or your client who’s authorized you to build a page on their behalf. Once you choose the category you want your Page to be listed under (most of what we want is under Artist, Band, or Other Public Figure, but don’t miss Other->Professional Service for folks like photographers who need their potential clients  as nearby as possible.)

Once you get past this page (it took us two tries to avoid a “Make sure your electronic signature matches your name listed above” error, so there may be a time limit), the real fun begins:

Your brand new Facebook Page has been born! Just like your profile, you’ll want to upload a profile picture, fill out your info, and start posting!

What’s next

There is a really wide range of things you can do to make your Facebook Page more effective. In the coming weeks, keep an eye on FatBlog! for tutorials on:

• Customizing your Page with Discussion Boards, Events, Links, Notes and Video
• Customizing your Page with Apps.
• Adding value with oversized profile pictures.
• Adding link icons to your wall.
• Building an attractive landing page for new fans.
• Promoting your Page with a Fan Box.
• Advertising your Fan Page.
• Linking your Fan Page to your blog and Twitter account.

In the meantime, comments are open! Ask any questions you have about starting your Fan Page, or let us know how you’re using the one you already have (And if you should shamelessly drop your link, we just may look the other way)!