Tag: subscription options

Which Icon?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Hello! It’s been a while.

I’ve had a busy few weeks at work as well as online, mostly behind the scenes stuff, such as building a website for a client, a load of little tweaks and optimisations to my online ecosystem (more on that soon), and switching web hosts three times in the past four weeks. Ouch!

Meanwhile, people have begun asking for more icons for the Subscription Options addon pack, mainly Instagram. I thought I’d put it to the vote in time for the next release, so please,  take a look and let me know your preferred version in the comments.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

Logo One

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Logo Two

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Logo Three

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Oops, Forgot To Blog…

Er, yeah, sorry about that… Here’s what I’ve been up to instead though!

  • Sharing loads of great links on Twitter – Trunkly has all of these
  • Trying out Google+ to see where the value lies (hmm…)
  • Looking for a place to live with Sarah ♥ (any suggestions?)
  • Playing with my new Kindle (I’m reading Neuromancer)
  • Eating & drinking at some awesome places / seeing friends etc
  • Reconfiguring all my Google Reader feeds (more on this soon)
  • Watching movies: X-Men [8], Tree of Life [8] and Bridesmaids [9]
  • Testing Subscription Options v0.8 (v. cool gradient shit)
  • Reading The Authority by Warren Ellis, which is amazing
  • Listening to some brand new music, c/o Spotify
  • Working my balls off and all that…

Meanwhile, Brand Republic goes and published The BR 200 which is a list of “the best advertising, marketing, media, PR and digital blogs.” They stuck me in at #153, which is cool! Thing is, I haven’t blogged that much, have I? I’ll sort that out, sorry.

The BR 200 (OPML Feed)
BR 200 (OPML)

Meanwhile, as a mark of respect to the others on the BR 200, and to any remaining readers out there, I’ve compiled an OPML list of all the blogs on that list, which you can import into your RSS reader of choice.

There ya go, people! Enjoy all those proper bloggers. Hehe.

Why Facebook Is Awesome

Recently I’ve been using Facebook a lot more than usual, in order to:

  • Reconnect with old friends
  • Arrange ‘real world’ meetups
  • Plug gaps in my network that I should have filled ages ago
  • Build a page for Digital Cortex (right here!)
  • Organise my contacts into groups
  • Do a bit of peer-analysis (spying)
  • Try some FB apps and tools for work

Now that I’ve got all of my contacts sorted, I thought I’d try one of those friend wheels, just out of interest. I chose the one with most users, which is called Nexus, and I’ve gotta tell you – it is seriously good!

Nexus creates a interactive image of your friends’ interrelations, their shared interests, and their profile information. It is really powerful, takes about four minutes, and it’s results are guaranteed if not to please, then at least to look cool.

Here’s my Nexus analysis, with some text roughly labelling my groups:

freedimensional friend wheel

If, like me, you use Facebook as a life-management tool, you may find it interesting to see your whole network presented in this way.

I was surprised at how this complex display of some 460 connections made me really nostalgic (soppy, I know) and has driven me to reconnect with people I haven’t thought about in ages. Seeing everyone like this revealed that this is basically who I am: a series of connections. So you could say, this friend wheel has reaffirmed me as a human! Who thought Facebook could be so deep?!

Where do you fit in to the wheel? Let me know if you recognise yourself amongst the connections. I’d love to know!

P.S:

Subscribe via FacebookInspired by all this, I’m adding a new icon to Subscription Options, my WordPress Plugin, in the next release.
It will allow bloggers to create subscribers to a Facebook page.
Try it by clicking this icon, and subscribing to Digital Cortex.

The Subscription Options Plugin

My aim is to make my views on Digital Media, Branding and Emergent Technologies as accessible as possible not only to industry types, but to the blog-scouring early-adopting masses. My ongoing series on Augmented Reality has been relatively successful in boosting both the visitation and the subscribership of this blog.

Aside from the content I’ve written this month (May 2009 has been my most prolific since this blog’s inception) I have also started an SEO and social media strategy to extend the reach of the content I write here. I’ll share details later…

Anyway, the key element I want to tell you about in this post is my third strategy to make Digital Cortex portable to readers. I’ve started to provide readers with a range of subscription options, since the most common way for readers to subscribe to any blog and its content are through RSS, Email or Twitter. That’s when I came up with my brand new WordPress plugin.

I realised that my subscription solution might be useful to others also looking to grow their subscribership, so I created this:

The Subscription Options Plugin

This is how your subscriptions could look if you use my plugin.

I’ve turned my HTML code into a PHP-based plugin for all WordPress users that has the exact effect I aimed to achieve – to look good on a page, and for blog readers to easily grasp what each icon stood for.

Once installed it can be placed in any widget-ready area, allowing users to link to their various subscription options with ease.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR FULL PLUGIN DETAILS