Internet is providing a medium to express ourselves globally. People use Blogs to scribble down their daily experiences, replacing the habit of writing a diary, and at the same time, sharing them with the world. More and more people are deciding to create their own blogs, upload their pictures and share some thoughts with others.

How many times have you googled “create blog” hoping to find a simple way to create your own personal weblog? I certainly have, and the general feeling I got is that  there are many sites that either charge you to create a blog or access the cool features or, while being free, are complex to master.

After much perusing, I recently discovered a website aimed at those who wish to setup their own blog, without the hassle of learning complex tools With thoughts.com, you can not only create a blog to keep online journals, they also have a very good system to help you manage your blog in a simple and easy way. You do not need to know about any computer programming or any technical skills, it is a simple and user-friendly blogging website.

They have done a very nice job on the user account navigation. It’s really easy to create blog entries, with a simple yet powerful HTML editor. Adding images and videos is also a snap, and you can categorize them using folders and subfolders, making access very simple. Another usual yet useful feature is the tag cloud, which groups content and allows people to browse the topics they’re interested in.

They have CAPTCHA protection (thank you for that!) to prevent spam and bot entries. They even have and abuse report feature in the form of “flag this post as inappropriate”, making the effort of keeping the site clean a collaborative one.

This sense of community can be felt all over the site, which really disinguishes from the rest of the free blog tools out there. Finding other bloggers who share interests is not difficult at all. All you have to do is choose the community that you are interested in and place your blog in it. Thoughts.com is poised to be a new place for you to share your thoughts, meet more friends and keep in touch with them.

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I got asked this one from a local playground equipment company here in Arizona (that specializes in vinyl playgrounds) way before we even started viral marketing idea Friday here at 97th Floor. I shared my thoughts with the owner, and gave some pretty good ideas (I don’t know if they ever ran with), but I felt it was worth sharing because these guys were local, and I feel there is plenty of love to go around in this industry!

The exact question was - “How do I create a viral campaign for local playground company?”

First of all I was impressed that a local playground company was even doing enough research to figure out they needed to create something to go viral with! I love these style of playground systems (see picture) for the kids, and the one I have is amazing, but how do you attract someone to a viral content post (or page) about a kids playground if they have no kids, are in college, or anything related? As I have said before, you have to make it funny, or super informative (which in turn makes it more sharable no matter who the person reading it is). Here is a picture of the playground I own from this local company:

Going viral - I don’t know how many of you have seen the TV show called “Mythbusters“, but its on Discovery Channel, and they did a show a while ago that was dedicated to seeing if you can really swing someone in a swing for a full 360 that wraps around. It was pretty funny to see all of the different attempts and how many ways they failed - and what they had to do to succeed. It got me thinking to see if there were other people, and by “other people” I mean users of You Tube, who were crazy enough to take videos of themselves doing this very thing. To say the least I found some pretty funny stuff.

This is just one example of some pretty cool footage I found. Some were silly, some stupid, a few were amazing, but the point here is all of them made me laugh, and I feel could make anyone laugh. In my opinion, anyway you use these videos they could help you go viral with the right title and content (and of course - a dash of link bait).

I would suggest coming up with a title that can grab anyone no matter who you are, like - “10 of the Craziest Things You Have Ever Seen Done On A Swingset” or “10 Things That Should Never Be Done On A Swingset”. These are more of the funny ways to take this viral campaign, but you could also take a serious approach (if this is your real business) and provide something like - “12 Safety Tips Every Parent Should Read Before Buying A Swingset” or “10 Safety Videos Parents Need To Watch Before Purchasing A Playground” and then provide a series of tips, or videos outlining safe playgrounds for dangerous ones. You can always make a note on your site somewhere that your playgrounds always comply to all safety regulations, and anything else that could help you look like you are providing a service to the community with this info.

These are just a few ways that I feel would go viral, and do great with a playground/swing set company. I think this will give you some ideas to run with if you are looking inside this industry for help. As always feel free to submit any questions you have related to VMIF in the form of comments, or by emailing Chris or myself!

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Posted by Danny Dover

Two days ago our office updated our phone system to a more professional business setup. The new system brought additional phone extensions and 23 new phone numbers. While it was a bit of a headache having our phones and internet down while the phone company upgraded our account, it was nothing compared to our new problem.

When our awesome office manager, Christine, got into the office the morning after the update, she got an odd phone call. It was a little girl (or boy–she couldn’t tell from the prepubescent voice) who giggled, asked for Jenny, and hung up.  Numerous similar phone calls have occurred since.

Our problem really started in 1982. At that time, a strange song called Jenny was released by a band called Tommy Tutone. The song’s chorus, "eight six seven five three oh nah-eeh-ah-ine," propelled it to the number four position on the Billboard Hot 100. The song continues to ruin lives today at karaoke bars and with bad Bar Mitzvah DJs. The memorability of the phone number has made it ideal for phone pranks. Thus, our problem.

We now receive the same phone call all day:

Christine: Hello this is Christine.
Annoying Kid: Is Jenny there? *giggle*
Christine: No, Jenny died in a horrible car crash two days ago, may I ask who is calling?
Annoying Kid: *Click*

(I may have improvised a little… Christine actually laughs along with the kids every time.)

Jenny’s infamous phone number is not the only one to torture innocent receptionists. It is joined by others that make up the Worst Phone Numbers To Have Hall of Shame. (Cue trumpets, Bill Nye style)

Although the list is short, it is sure to grow. To avoid this exact problem, the TV and movie industry have used the reserved block of 555 phone numbers. This means that most phone numbers mentioned in movies and on television shows don’t connect to an actual person. Unfortunately, it looks as if the restrictions on the 555 block of phone numbers has been lifted. So while SEOmoz’s situation is rare now, it could become common place if 555 numbers start being assigned to the public.

There is one more element of our situation that makes it truly bizarre.

The range of phone numbers that the phone company assigned to our account is not even close to 867-5309. This means the problem is not even supposed to be happening! The combined brain power of the limited amount of people in the office can not figure out why the prank calls are being forwarded to our number. When we try to call the Tommy Tutone phone number it does not forward to our office. Yet, we still receive calls from kids asking for “Jenny from the song”. It’s a modern day mystery.

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Since I’ll suddenly have copious free time on my hands once I turn in my final book manuscript this weekend, I decided that it might be helpful to start a short column on some of the fundamental Dojo building blocks. Although I…

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In a recent discussion on lkml (found thanks to LWN, Ingo Molnar defended checkpatch, a Perl program which reviews proposed patches against the kernel’s coding standards. In particular: you might know that Deja-Vu moment when you look at a new patch that…

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