Last October, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Independent Blogging Conference at Greensboro. I spoke on both the opening panel for the day and gave a solo presentation on “Promoting Your Blog Through Social Media.” It’s taken me a while to process any video from this event, but I finally am able to share the panel and it’s been posted over at ManagingCommunities.com.

The panel was titled “The Blogging Revolution” and we discussed blogging in general, the responsibility of it, where we saw the medium going and more. We had a great Q&A and discussion with the group that attended. Thank you to Kelby Carr and Dave Slusher for having me.

It’s that time of the year again! The SXSW 2010 PanelPicker has opened and, with it, 2,219 proposals are up for consideration for the Interactive portion of the conference. I am on 7 (yes, feel free to giggle) of these.

Online voting accounts for 30% of the decision making process (30% goes to the SXSW staff and 40% to an advisory board). Anyone can vote and registration is required. I would appreciate any and all consideration and, if you feel any of my sessions are worthy, your vote. I have spoken at South by Southwest twice, but both were solo book based presentations. I’ve never been on a panel or done a normal solo presentation. I’m hoping this is the year I can break in, with your help and I appreciate your support.

Here are the proposed sessions that I am a part of, along with a description and my fellow panelists on each (click on the title to vote): (more…)

In the past four months, since I posted my last book coverage update, I’ve been honored by all sorts of coverage for “Managing Online Forums” and I wanted to take a moment to share the interest that has been shown in this period and thank those that were behind it.

One of the biggest things to happen was the Slashdot review, written by JR Peck of GeekBook. It propelled the book into the top 1,500 books on Amazon.com and kept it in the top 10,000 for a number of days. The Slashdot review was mentioned on the AMACOM Books Blog.

There were also reviews by Michelle L. Rodriguez of Mequoda Daily, Rich Villalobos of Cisco Systems, Dr. Natalie T. Wood in the Journal of Consumer Marketing and Richard Millington of FeverBee. The book received it’s first review on Amazon.co.jp, thanks to Kushi-book-reviews and it’s first review on Amazon.fr, thanks to Dominique.

I participated in text based interviews with Commania, AdminQuest, Des Walsh dot Com (also posted on the International Blogging & New Media Association website and Mr. Walsh was kind enough to mention the book favorably on his blog, as well) and sparkBB. There were new podcast interviews on Podcaster Training and WordCast. A previously recorded interview on PerfCast was mentioned on the Splashpress Media blog.

I attended South by Southwest Interactive 2009 from March 13 through 17 and I gave a book reading (really a presentation around a theme in the book) called “The Art of Responding to Feedback from Your Community”. I also had a book signing at the conference’s bookstore. I spent the signing next to Thom Singer, the author of “Some Assembly Required” and “Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women,” who was kind enough to mention the book, and some kind words, on his blog. (more…)

Over on my personal blog, I’ve finally posted my really long, possibly very boring recap of South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2009.  The conference went great. I met a lot of great people, reconnected with a lot of friends and had a good time. Thank you to everyone who helped to make that so. Hopefully, I’ll see you next year (or, sooner, at Blog World Expo)!

April Fools’ Day is always a fun time for me and that is reflected on the iFroggy Network, where I collaborate with my staff and others to brainstorm ways to have fun with our visitors on April 1. Here’s what we did this year:

On KarateForums.com, all logged in members were granted admin panel access, via a link in the header. The link took them to this page, encouraging them to prank others by talking about their new found admin access.

On phpBBHacks.com, we announced that phpBB 2 support was coming to an end on the site. But, this is not the case.

At PhotoshopForums.com, we announced plans to support only Photoshop CS4. Basically, if you asked a question on the community, it would have to relate to Photoshop CS4 and no prior versions. If you created a graphic or example and posted it on the forums, it would have to have been created with CS4. That’s not something we are going to do.

Finally, on Bad Boy Blog, we did a couple of jokes. When I was coming up with ideas, I had been thinking of fun story ideas that I could write about. One of them was “Exclusive: Sources: Jordan McCoy Joins Boyz N Da Hood, Replacing Gorilla Zoe.”

For those who don’t know, Jordan McCoy and Boyz N Da Hood are both acts signed to Bad Boy Records. McCoy is a 17 year old pop/rock singer who is also a member of Dream, which is a pop girl group. Boyz N Da Hood is a southern, hard core rap group consisting of rappers Big Gee (signed to Bad Boy as a solo artist, as well), Big Duke and Gorilla Zoe (also signed to Bad Boy). Jody Breeze is another member, but his status is up in the air and it sounds like he’s out.

So, really, what I was going for here was some Onion style humor. Something that is rather obviously absurd, but written in a serious, believable manner. Jordan and her manager, Debbie Hammond, are friends of Bad Boy Blog, so I decided to see if we could make it bigger by involving them.

We didn’t have a lot of time, but we pulled something together. First, I posted my report late on March 31. Then, in the afternoon on April 1, her MySpace layout was updated to include “The Newest Member of Boyz N Da Hood!” in the header (see it here). She blogged about it on MySpace and jordanmccoy.com and tweeted about it. I then wrote a post, announcing her confirmation of my report.

So, we collaborated to pull off a pretty good joke and gave her fans a laugh. After I announced it was a prank, she did the same and her MySpace layout was reverted to it’s normal form.

The other joke we did at Bad Boy Blog was to supposedly post a new single from Diddy. While it sounded believable, anyone who clicked the audio player link in the post was taken to a page announcing the prank.

Another April Fools’ Day in the books!

Update: Embedded the saved stream below. Warning: it’s rough!

Today, March 14, at 1:30 PM ET, I will be speaking at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2009. I will be giving a presentation called “The Art of Responding to Feedback from Your Community.”

For those that were unable to make it to Austin for the conference, I wanted to try to stream the presentation on Ustream. The video stream is embedded below. If you’re free, please check back at or a little before 1:30 PM ET today. The presentation will last for no longer than 20 minutes.

It may not work because we are at the mercy of wifi and bandwidth, but I will try my best. The camera angle may also be awkward. Even if it doesn’t work or isn’t ideal, a friend will be taking video for me of the entire presentation that I will post online at some point, as well.

During the presentation, or after, please feel free to provide feedback on Twitter @iFroggy. Thank you for watching!

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

When I found out that I would be coming to the Los Angeles area for a short time, I wanted to try to meet up with some people in the area. So, I was talking to my friend Ricardo Bueno who lives in the city and we were going back and forth about it and… long story short, he agreed to plan a Tweetup (basically, a meet up of Twitter users). But, it’s not just for Twitter users – it’s for anyone who works online, is interested in social media, etc. Of course, I’ll be coming, along with 3 copies of “Managing Online Forums” to giveaway.

It’ll be on January 14, from 6 PM to 9 PM local time, at BJ’s Brewhouse and Restaurant in Glendale. We are going to have dinner, but if you just want to have drinks or stop by for a short time – that’s perfectly fine. And if you don’t drink, don’t worry – neither do I! :)

If you live in the Los Angeles area or, at least, are in town on that day, I’d love to meet you. Please RSVP on Facebook and/or Upcoming. We already have a number of people set to come, but the more – the merrier! A big thanks to Ricardo for doing the ground work on this.

It’s been a few months since I posted a book related press recap, so I wanted to highlight all of the great mentions that the book has received in that time.

There were new reviews from Martin Reed of Community Spark, Des Walsh, Jessica Smith of Jessica Knows, Kare Anderson of Moving From Me to We.com (also posted on Gaia), Martin Kloos of TheNextWeb.com and Rob Diana of Regular Geek. Mrs. Smith was kind enough to include me in her 15 Days of Marketing series, as well.

I was interviewed by BloggerTalks and for Urban Lifestyle Report: New Media’s October issue. I appeared for live video interviews on SuccessfoolTV and The Tech Buzz and participated in a live podcast interview on PerfCast, the podcast of Performancing. For The Tech Buzz interview, the show did a book giveaway, which was mentioned by Geek Talk Radio.

My friend Jason Falls invited me to speak via live stream at a Social Media Club Louisville meet up. This was mentioned in Business First of Louisville. Esther Schindler of CIO highlighted the book in her “6 Stupid Mistakes Companies Make with Their Online Communities” article. I wrote a guest post on the subject of “Blogging for Dollars” for The Graduate Student Survival Blog, part of the Albany Times-Union.

Kelby Carr highlighted the book when talking about my sessions at the Independent Blogging Conference at Greensboro, which she co-organized. On a related note, popular Twitterer Brian Carter, who I met while in Greensboro, mentioned the book in his stream.

Using the book has a basis, Lois Kelly of Bloghound wrote an article titled “10 ideas for Creating Community Guidelines.” Lois also highlighted the book at two conference sessions that she led. One, at the Extending Your Brand to Employees Conference on November 17 in Chicago, was called “The Power of Social Media: Putting It to Work for Your Employer Brand” session. The slides are posted online and the book is mentioned in number 57. The other was at the Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, also in Chicago, on November 16, during the “Online Communities that Thrive: Realizing the Possibilities; Burning Down the Obstacles” session.

Steve Magruder of WebCommons shared that he would be rewriting his own forum guidelines using ideas from the book.

As part of a book meme, where the person that you tag must tell you the book that is closest to you and tell you what it is, Mike Mueller had “Managing Online Forums” closest.

vBulletin Setup mentioned the book in reference to a recent contest where they gave away a copy. In the 19th edition of “Jeff Herman’s Guide To Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents 2009: Who They Are! What They Want! How To Win Them Over!”, Mr. Herman mentioned the book in an AMACOM company profile.

As part of her “Internet Marketing Christmas” post, Lynn Terry of ClickNewz! receorded a video where she opened presents that she had received in the mail. She included a greeting card that I had sent her and was kind enough to mention the book, as I had included a business card for it, as well.

In a year end post, phpBB Weekly’s Douglas Bell highlighted the book centric interview episode we did as a runner up in his list of their best episodes of the year.

At the “Solutions Are Power” by Network Solutions blog, Steve Fisher mentioned the book in relation to my attendance at the Blog World & New Media Expo.

Finally, I provided advance praise for the book “Designing the Digital Experience: How To Use EXPERIENCE DESIGN Tools & Techniques to Build Websites Customers Love” and”Managing Online Forums” is mentioned alongside the praise.

A huge thanks to everyone who has expressed an interest in the book. It means a lot to me and I really appreciate it! I’m looking forward to what lies ahead in 2009.

Tonight at 7 PM ET, I’ll be appearing live on PerfCast, the Performancing podcast. It’s hosted by Jeff Chandler and David Peralty. If you have some spare time, please stop by and participate in the live chat! The show will be broadcast on TalkShoe.

On last night’s episode of SuccessfoolTV, I came on to talk about online community, forums, social media, the book and more. I thought it went really well and that it was really informative, so I wanted to share it. You can check it out below.

Live TV by Ustream

Thank you to Alejandro for having me and to everyone who stopped in, helped to spread the word through Twitter and had kind words to say, during and after. I really appreciate it.