Ask Andy Meadows

Setting up a blog has become incredibly simple these days.  In fact, you can go to wordpress.com and start a new blog in under 5 minutes for absolutely free.  BUT, once you start your blog, there are a few things that I highly recommend you do right off the bat.

1. Set up statistics to track your traffic.  One of the first questions you’ll be asking yourself is, “How many people are visiting my blog?”  Wordpress has a great new statistics plugin that you can add that will give you the basics.  If you’re looking for something more advanced, check out Google Analytics. It is also free and gives you an amazing amount of information.
2. Speaking of Google, you’ll also want to tell Google that you exist.  Sure, they’ll find you eventually, but why wait?  You can add your site directly to Google by visiting this page.
3. In addition, once you’ve told Google you exist, you’ll want to “remind them” every time you post an update.  This is done with the invention of the sitemap.xml file.  When this file is updated, you can “send it” to Google to let them know you have new content.  If you’re a Wordpress user, you can read about a free plugin that auto-generates this file.  The plugin’s site is found here.
4. If you’re a fan of comments, you’ll definitely want to use the (also free) Akismet plugin from Wordpress.  Akismet automatically filters all inbound comments for spam and does a little cleanup  of old spam.

There is a lot more to blogging than the few steps above, but we’ll cover that in a later post.  Things like driving traffic, increasing profitability when using Adsense, and maintaining readership.

Most people have heard that American Airlines has started charging when passengers check their bags.  Here’s a quote direct from their website.

“Customers who purchased domestic economy class tickets May 12, 2008, through June 14, 2008, may check one bag for free and check a second bag for $25 each way. Customers who purchase domestic economy class tickets on or after June 15, 2008, will be charged $15 each way for the first checked bag and $25 each way for the second checked bag.

Exceptions to this policy include customers who purchase First or Business Class tickets, AAdvantage Executive Platinum®, AAdvantage Platinum® and AAdvantage Gold® members as well as customers who purchase full-fare tickets in Economy Class.”

The fees vary depending on class, AAdvantage status, and domestic or international flights.  For more details, visit this link.  Other airlines are starting to follow suit and I expect this will become “the norm” for all major airlines before the holiday travel season.  I also predict that Southwest Airlines will be the last major airline to implement this fee, but that by November 2009, they too will have given in due to increased fuel charges.

Getting started with Twitter is really pretty simple.  For starters, the first question is, “What is Twitter?”

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform.  Similar to other blogs like Wordpress, Twitter is a publishing platform for folks to answer one simple question, “What are you doing right now?”  Here’s the kicker; you only get 140 characters to answer.  So, the biggest challenge against blogs is that so many of them are long-winded.  Twitter makes you cut to the chase.

So, what do you use Twitter for exactly?  Anything you want.  It’s a great communication platform.  People can opt-in or out as they please.  People can choose to get your updates sent via cell phone (I find this feature annoying with the exception of very close friends & colleagues) or just keep track through the web.  To see a quick example of what a Twitter feed looks like, you can see mine here.

As with most newbie bloggers, start small and simple.  Answer that one simple question.  Use Twitter to plant the seeds of information.  Drive people to bigger blog entries, special events, press releases, new product announcements, status updates, or connect with others at similar functions.  It is one of those technologies that takes 5 minutes to understand, 30 minutes to master, and a few hours to reach addiction. 

The biggest issue facing Twitter is stability.  Although they picked up $15 million in series A funding from Union Square Ventures and just landed a second from a few other investors including Jeff Bezos, Twitter is still plagued with perpetual overloading and downtime.  It’s the service that its “customers” love to hate and hate to love.  It’s a relationship gone bad.  You want to get out of it, but you find that the pain is preferred over the loneliness.  Personally, I believe Twitter will overcome the service issues, continue to pump money into the infrastructure, and will inevitably start generating some positive cash flow.  It has first-mover advantage over its competitors and has the following of some bleeding edge geeks.

So, with all this in mind, I highly encourage you to go to Twitter.com, sign up for an account, and start posting away.  You’ll find a lot of activity there that you never new existed.

Let’s be honest.  When I purchased my first iPhone on June 29, 2007, I didn’t get AppleCare.  After all, it has a 1 year warranty out-of-the-box.  The first phone cost $600.  Then there was a $100 rebate, making it $500.  The new 8 gig version of the iPhone 3G is going to be $200.  AppleCare on the first rev iPhone is $100.  Warranty options should not be 50% of the replacement cost of a vastly upgraded model.  My logic is that if my first generation iPhone dies and is completely hosed, it’s $200 to replace it with the newer 3G model.  Sure, it’s $200 out of pocket, but what do I get for $100 AppleCare on my first gen iPhone?  Peace of mind?  Nah.  Nothing.

We’ll see what the cost of AppleCare is for the 3G iPhone.  If it is 50% the replacement cost, I say skip it.  Surely Apple will adjust for this, but we’ll find out on Friday.

Well, it’s simple really.  I get asked a LOT of questions.  Every day someone is asking me something about technology, business, family, etc.  So, why not share the answers?  Honestly, a lot of folks in this world could probably care less, but then again, thanks to Google, those that do care may find some value in my words.  And, if not, you’re free to go at any time.

So, feel free to send me an email with your question.  I’m happy to comment on anything relating to the following keywords:  Apple, iPhone, Mac, Business, Entrepreneurship, Bootstrapping, Management, Parenting, etc.  You can read my personal blog at www.andymeadows.com.