Archive for January 2011

Credit: sxc.hu user branox

It’s hard to ignore when a Twitter user tweets about the latest edition of “[Your expert topic] Daily” and mentions you in the tweet because one of your tweets appears in the latest edition. While every Twitter user loves a mention, these feel phony. A Twitter paper — often automatically generated using a service like paper.li — can easily include 30 tweets. (I randomly selected a newspaper and counted stopping when I hit 30.)

It doesn’t take long before I figure out the deal after my first Twitter newspaper mention. The newspaper generating service posts a tweet that says, “The latest newspaper is out! Top stories today by @you, @him and @her.” This automated sentence is misleading. The folks mentioned didn’t write the stories. They wrote the tweets that appear in the newspaper.

It’s one thing for people generate their own newspapers so they have a place to start reading the news. It’s another to drag us in so they can get “goodwill” points for mentioning us in a tweet just because our tweets appear in the edition. (You can stop mentions from paper.li.)

Most successful Twitter users share one or two resources in a tweet. Sharing a newspaper leads us to 20+ resources. Too much. It’s easy to see why some like these newspapers especially when the user creates one that focuses on a specific topic allowing users to create their own alltop.

Here’s a Twitter discussion of the good and bad of Twitter newspapers sparked by Freelance Folder’s post on the pros and cons of Twitter newspapers. (Edited for spacing.)

shakirah_dawud: Actually I’ve found I don’t get much benefit from them–they’re mostly retweeted by people mentioned so…

TXWriter: At this point, it may be too early to tell if it is a fad or a trend. The drawbacks are real.

shakirah_dawud: Yeah–and then as soon as you said that it hit me that the app may develop more. Right now it’s alpha stage.

TXWriter: That’s my take too. It may develop more. I can see why it might be considered noise, though.

shakirah_dawud: I only include folks who tweet good info in it, like @TXWriter. I already follow & respect them.

TXWriter: @shakirah_dawud I’ve read yours, btw, and actually clicked through on posts I probly wouldn’t have read.

shakirah_dawud: Yes, but–and I’ve been asking myself this–would you have if you’d not been mentioned ? Once, maybe.

merylkevans: Even alpha, feels like RSS roundup. But I won’t say never as it may surprise us.

TXWriter: True. I didn’t *get* Twitter at first, and now I use it every day.

shakirah_dawud: They do have a sidebar plugin, but it’s too ad-like. I didn’t think people would click, so took it down.

shakirah_dawud: But I’ve been thinking about adding the link to my navbar. It’s organized; with right content, impressive.

TXWriter: Yeah, I know. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do. Experimenting might be the only way to find out.

9swords: I really like RSS roundups, I use paper.li, twitter search, feedly etc.. to find what I want to read.

merylkevans: All for roundups, just not when you tweet @mentions those whose tweets appear in paper.

While people found resources in paper they would not have found without a mention, I stopped clicking through tweets that say I appear in the latest edition. If I see a link to the paper on a site covering a topic of interest, then I’ll read it — not because someone tweeted my ID.

This is still a young tool and future releases will probably give you more control as Mathew Ingram explains the service. Simply put, Twitter newspapers look like a prettied up RSS roundup of topics using resources selected by its creator. RSS lets you import content into your favorite reading resource like Google Reader. Sharing a roundup is fine by simply tweeting the title, topic and link. Avoid “badwill” and keep your Twitter rep intact by skipping the @mentions of whose tweets appear in it.

What do you think of Twitter newspapers and tweeted mentions of folks who provided the resources?

Funny, I had wondered if there would be a sequel to Airport Mania – First Flight from 2008 because the time management cartoon-style game is adorable, innovative and a unique theme. While the market has plenty of flying games, Airport Mania focuses on the air traffic controller rather than the pilot.

Return to the skies and visit incredible destinations in Airport Mania 2 – Wild Trips. With whimsical music and visuals made to make you smile you’re sure to enjoy the various locations around the globe. Travel to the North Pole where you’ll help Santa deliver presents, Monsterville where every day is Halloween, Tiki Taka Island where the runways are right on the water, and even the Moon!

Word on the street is this one resembles the original and receives graphics enhancements and challenges for making money. Airport Mania 2 – Wild Trips also offers more upgrades to help you get through the harder levels, something the original lacked. It also contains a new chore for managing packages.

Download free to try Airport Mania 2 – Wild Trips. Give it a shot and try it for an hour to see how you like it.

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PC Catch of the Week: Haunted Hotel II: Believe the Lies: A year has passed since the first encounter with the Haunted Hotel. Since then, a lone FBI agent has taken the case and discovered that the mystery is deeper than originally suspected. His investigation leads him to the Lonely Star, a Hotel with an intriguing mystery surrounding it. Can our hero find out who is behind the disappearances and close the case once and for all? Help the agent seek out the answers in his thrilling investigation of Haunted Hotel 2!

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Mac Catch of the Week: The Mystery of the Crystal Portal: Beyond the Horizon: Join Nicole, and her sidekick Igor, as they trek across the globe in search of her missing father! Discover a secret so big that it could threaten the very course of human history. Solve puzzles from her home in New York City, to distant lands on the other side of the world to find her beloved father and save human kind. Solve interactive puzzles and find many Hidden Object scenes in Mystery of the Crystal Portal – Beyond the Horizon.

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, January 23 at 11:59pm.

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

The mysterious Paul in this case is my husband! And he arrived this very day in the year Star Trek debuted. I’ve mentioned him before, but I don’t expect y’all to memorize details in this blog. Anyway, he and the Super Bowl are the same age, so I never have to convert the Roman numerals into English. Or rather, I brush up on them using his age.

I’ve been out all day. Just finished talking to second graders about college and careers. Went well. Whew. Talking to my kids’ classmates always makes me feel uneasy until I explain to them that I’m deaf and have an accent. After that, it’s a smooth ride. We discussed writing as a job, so I had one child write a sentence on the board:

“My dog ate my homework.”

What a great sentence! At first glance, it didn’t need editing. However, the class worked together to make it better.

“My golden retriever scarfed down my homework.”

I hope this taught them the value of editing even when the original sentence has no grammatical errors.

Brain food…

• Free Ebook: Time Management for Writers: Thursday Bram shares unconventional tips to better manage your time so you can write a few thousand words a day.
• Lending Kindle Books: Brilliant. Now if we could check out Kindle books from the library. Maybe without having to go to the library to get it? [Link: Scott Stratten aka Unmarketing]
• How to Balance Twitter with Writing: Be mindful of your social media usage. It’s very easy to blur the lines of useful activity and just wandering ‘n tweeting.
• The case of Rob Sgobbo, and why writers cheat: Even if you know you won’t get caught, can your conscious handle it?
• Why You Should Never Search for Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else: Yikes! That’s a problem for nonprofits.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• My Week of Eating Nothing But Candy: Reading this may make you feel better about limiting your candy intake. Robb says candy didn’t fill him up and it didn’t help with his mental stability. Would you know it? He lost four pounds on the candy diet. However, reading his experience… it does not feel good to be loaded up on sugar even with a peanut butter thrown in.
• Never said about restaurant websites: I may not eat out often, but I’ve seen more bad restaurant websites than good ones. On a recent visit, one was so bad that I immediately left the website.
• Top 10 Miniature Animals: Panda cows, foxes, tarsiers, oh my!
• 9 Breathtaking Natural Wonders: They are. [Link: Margie Kinney]
• From Brad Shorr: “S.C. man loses snowball fight: the funniest headline I’ve seen in ages.” May not be safe for work, but a great laugh!

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Twitter chats entrenched me in conversations without losing track of the topic and reading everyone’s lips like a tennis match gone wrong. I understood every single person in the chat. I turned into the listener I’ve always wanted to be: focused and catching every word.

At the peak of my joining Twitter chats, I spent at least two hours per night on three or four evenings every week. Because I work on a computer all day and have a history of eye pain, the expected happened. Eyestrain and pain knocked me out of the chat game. After my eyes felt better, I had an “aha” moment and didn’t return to the chats.

I realized two things: the chats ate into family time and they didn’t lead to opportunities despite months of chatting, helping others and building deeper connections. One chat invited me to be a guest expert. Even though the opportunity came about because of chats, the appearance didn’t lead to anything.

Despite learning a lot and meeting talented folks, the time invested didn’t justify continuing. This taught me that social media is a great medium, but you still need to evaluate its effectiveness for you and your business. 10 minutes a day in Twitter is just as effective as one or two hours in a Twitter chat.

In those 10 minutes, I do all I can to help others and share useful resources while limiting self-promotion — typically no more than once per day.

How do add value to your business using Twitter?

Can you solve a 19th century murder? You are Dana Knightstone, an up-and-coming fiction novelist. While on vacation in Scotland, you are haunted by the ghost of David, a working-class painter in love with a rich heiress – until he was killed at Fairing Point! Uncover history as you travel across Europe to investigate David’s mysterious death. Solve clever puzzles and follow the ghost’s trail in Death at Fairing Point, a fun hidden object puzzle adventure game.

This is a special Collector’s Edition release full of exclusive extras you won’t find in the standard version. As a bonus, Collector’s Edition purchases count toward three stamps on your Monthly Game Club Punch Card!

Download free to try Death at Fairing Point: A Dana Knightstone Novel Collector’s Edition.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Ah, Monday can’t catch a break. Celebricat Garfield hates Mondays and lets us know how he feels about them every chance he gets. (“Garfield Monday” has over two million results in Google search.) Change Monday’s name and the new name would have the same problem. Remember Shakespeare’s ol’ rose by another name would smell as sweet?

Despite Monday’s bad rap, a few folks do look forward to Monday. Don’t believe me? Well, there’s the seven-year-old whose 8th birthday falls on a Monday. The government employee who enjoys a long weekend because some federal holidays occur on a Monday every year. (MLK, Jr. Day, President’s Day, Columbus Day and Labor Day, in case you wondered.) The football fan who loves a good Monday Night Football clash.

My Mondays won’t be normal for three weeks. It should’ve been two, but a sick kid turned it into three. Well, hey, there is a bright side! It was just one kid versus all three. Some school districts started school two hours late. The independent school district here is closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. So that knocks out next Monday. One kid has several appointments on the Monday after that. I bet something will find its way on my calendar for January 31.

I began three blog posts / stories late last week that were in rough shape. They’re still a jumbled mess. I had hoped to finish one today and then edit tomorrow.

I went to pick up one kid, missed my turn and took the not-so-picturesque route to my destination that took me way out of the way. Normally, I can correct my course, but these were newer streets that aren’t on my GPS. That’s one turn I don’t want to ever miss again — brain, please burn this in memory.

I’m a gal of habits. Habits help with my stick-to-it-tiveness. It feels unbalanced and awkward when I start off the work week with something outside of the norm. That’s why I often volunteer and make appointments on Thursdays and Fridays. I relax more on those days knowing I’ve accomplished a lot of things for the week.

Hey, I got a blog post done. What did you learn from this post? Sometimes the stars align and muddy your day. You make the best of it and celebrate the little things like this blog post.

Let’s hit Monday upside the head with something positive — our favorite day of the week. Mine is Thursday. Not quite weekend, yet close enough knowing a whole Friday plus weekend is coming. Don’t you hate it when you wake up in the middle of the night on Saturday and realize you only have one day left of the weekend? Sundays are typically not a fun day — groceries, cooking food for the week ahead, chores, etc.

What’s your favorite day of the week and why?

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You’ve met Flo, haven’t ya? What do you mean “Flo who?” Ah, you need to meet one of PlayFirst’s stars, Flo of the Diner Dash series and this week’s catch is a great place to start because it goes back to the beginning — her first Diner Dash game.

PC and Mac Catch of the Week: Diner Dash: This action-puzzler serves up a build-your-restaurant-empire theme and FUN is the special of the day! Serve your way from a two-table diner to the top of the restaurant ladder, starting with a run-of-the-mill greasy spoon. Work your way up to the top and earn your dream restaurant. With more than 40 levels, a variety of customers, and two modes of play, you’ll feast on pure fun the whole way through. Order up! Try this popular puzzler today!

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, January 16 at 11:59pm.

If you like Diner Dash, check out:

• Diner Dash 5: Boom
• Cooking Dash
• Wedding Dash

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day. (Look to the right.)

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

A two week break from school and work is just right. Neither too much or too little, but it’s enough to snap your schedule as you don’t go to bed or wake up as early. I managed to sleep until 8am a lot of the time — unusual for me.

Well, I had a great start and a disappointing finish this week. I’m all over the place… so I’ll just hand you the links and get out of the way.

Brain food…

• My Freelance Writer’s Manifesto: Right on, Carol. Preach it!
• Excuses, Excuses: While I see the writer is trying to be funny, really you shouldn’t complain about editors (or any client) in public even in jest. What do you think?
• ArchivedBook: Browse old Facebook updates without scrolling down through old posts for pages and pages… (Details from Tech Tickle.)
• The Big Question: Where to look and not to look for writing jobs outside of low paying ones (read: content mills).

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Sh*t My Kids Ruined: Instant stress reliever.
• Worst Video Game Names Ever: No wonder I haven’t heard of these and you know I’m a gamer girl.
• Damn You Auto Correct! These give you plenty of reasons to turn off autocorrect. It has a way of sneaking on you. I wrote a message recommending Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. Autocorrect changed it to “Outports.” Not funny, but I’ve seen my share.

P.S. The non-Collector’s Edition (read: cheap) of the latest from the awesome series Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull is available. I’ll be playing that one soon.

How was your first week of 2011?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

As expected with the start of a new year, publications flood the market with articles on goal setting, planning, reviewing. As a person who likes to think medium (as opposed to big), I struggle with figuring out what I need to do to ensure a more successful year. Many successful people create loads of products, work long hours affecting family time and taking on a lot of things at once with no end in sight.

Photo credit lpierard

So my mind swims with thoughts of creating products, writing a book, getting a graduate degree, doing this and doing that. As it stands, I have little time to blog here and contribute articles to several publications. How can I think about adding some of these?

If I turn this whole goal setting and planning into a big production based on what the experts advise, I don’t think it’ll happen. At least, not for me. You argue that nothing happens without you. True. However, these suggestions overwhelm and paralyze many folks including me. For most people, they’d do nothing. As a one-person freelance shop, I need to keep it simple. And I’m sure many freelancers find themselves in the same position.

Ignore the Fancy Advice, Make Your Own Rules

The people appearing in these articles had one thing in common: passion. So, I reflected on what I love. This led to my three rules, which I cover in Drowning in Goal Setting? Go Simple along with three steps to come up with your own goals. A quick recap:

1. Keep clients happy.
2. Keep marketing.
3. Keep mind, body and spirit in check.

It’s Never Enough

Sometimes you can’t do everything you want now. It bugs me when I read articles saying to stop putting things off, stop waiting for the “right time” to start like when the kids move out. Excuse me, but if I start grad school now, it’ll sacrifice family time and break all the rules.

No. I’m going to enjoy the time I have with my kids now. They will be adults for a much longer time than they will be kids. In Success Magazine, Zig Ziglar says his success comes from “home field advantage” — meaning he makes sure things go well at home before tackling work. A happy home means a happy person outside of home.

The problem for people like me — when you make the money you want — it won’t be enough. When you accomplish XYZ, it won’t be enough. When your resume lacks an advanced degree, it won’t be enough. Instead of focusing on the destination, I pay attention to my daily journey with an occasional review of the big picture.

Some things require going with the flow and making things happen along the way. I cannot and will not over commit. To do that will negatively affect the three rules. Taking on too much will interfere with my ability to deliver great results for current clients. It also leaves little time for marketing. And an overwhelming load affects body, mind and spirit as it’d force me to sleep fewer hours and sacrifice exercise time. When one or both of these happen, it hurts the spirit.

I exercise daily. I make time for that. But it means sacrificing something else.

Simple Works

I accomplished a big personal goal in 2010. I didn’t start on January 1. I didn’t wait until January 1. Heck, I didn’t even start on the first day of the month or a Monday. I started on a Thursday at the end of March. I made up my mind and started right then. Business is like that. I watch my business and professional lives and make decisions based on what’s happening and a little temperature taking.

Of course, I don’t stand by and let life happen or pray for clients to come to me. I go for it. I ask for it. I look for it. It works without a one-page plan or specific goals such as writing three articles a day. The key is that I need a snapshot of today to decide what I’ll do tomorrow. I adapt and change as needed.

After a quick big picture and small picture review, I figured out what I could do and accomplished two things in the first week of the New Year that I hadn’t in a long time.  And I did it without complex planning. I may not be able to do this again next week because I change course as needed and the snapshot may show something different.

What are your most important rules?