Subscribed 53: GenerikB – The Gaming Hermit

July 26, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

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Originally published as part of the “Subscribed” series on my New Media blog and podcast, Careers in New Media

When I first thought about including GenerikB in the Subscribed series today, I thought for sure that I had already linked to him for his Minecraft videos on YouTube. We have been watching — and greatly enjoying his channels for quite a while now. More recently, we have begun tuning into his live stream via Twitch.TV, too. The live stream is a different feeling, almost like watching a live show on television. You can also interact with GenerikB and other viewers in the on-going chat stream on the Twitch site.

GernerikB is a member of the Mindcrack server, whose many members we also follow and watch on a regular basis. He often collaborates with BDoubelO in the hilarious hijinks of the B Team. They work together so well, they recently launched their own Minecraft server and mod pack called “Attack of the B-Team” along with several other Minecraft YouTubers.

In the real world, GenerikB recently relocated to Sofia, Bulgaria to be near his wife’s family, so we have seen a glimpse of life in Eastern Europe with vlogs about their move and around scenic sites of the city. Since Bulgaria is about 10 ours different from Los Angeles, the live stream works well as mid-morning entertainment for us as he streams in his evening in Bulgaria.

GenerikB is a prankster, a truly funny guy, and a great entertainer. He also seems like a really nice guy, which is so important for the people I watch. I don’t need to fill my entertainment time with trolls and nasty people, so it is always great to find someone like GenerikB to keep the day light and entertaining.

Subscribe to GenerikB on YouTube

Watch GenerikB live on TwitchTV

Watch live video from Generikb on www.twitch.tv

What are some of your favorite Subscriptions? Share them here in the comments!

Previously highlighted on Subscribed:

Subscribed is a Careers in New Media series highlighting the Podcasts, YouTube Channels and Blogs that I follow on a daily basis. Check out this entry, and past entries, for some great New Media Content — Douglas

Midsummer Book Sale — All My Kindle Books 99¢ each for the next 30 Days!

July 25, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

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That’s right!

As a special Midsummer treat to all my loyal readers, listeners and viewers, all my books are now just 99¢ each for the next 30 days!

Offer expires August 24, 2014

For career-minded types, there is my original book, The High-Tech Career Handbook, Cultivating You Career Reputations and, for those looking to decide where to take their career, Career Compass: Finding Your Career North.

Social Media fans can check out Social Media Self Preservation and learn how to take advantage of social media without losing your mind.

Finally, fans of A Gardener’s Notebook might like my collection of gardening essays, From A Gardener’s Notebook.

Read the Kindle book using your Kindle, Computer or Mobile device!

Video: New Media 101: What are search engines looking for? from “The Why, What and How of Blogging” with Douglas E. Welch

July 24, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

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Part of the New Media 101/Blogging 101 series…

A quick clip from this 45 minute presentation — The Why, What and How of Blogging.

Watch the entire presentation

Video: New Media 101: What are search engines looking for? from

Transcript:

The fact is, the search engines actively try to prevent from gaming the system and so they hide their algorithms — the way they rank people behind, inside a “black box.” We don’t know actually what’s going on inside of that black box. We can make some assumptions and that assumption that I just gave you is one, which is, it seems to be through, you know, if you we study our stats and everything else, the more often we update our web sites, the more likely that search engine is going to come back and reindex our site. Because it learns. It says, “Wow, this site is updated on a daily basis. I need to go back there every day.” And you can actually text this. You may know that there are ways of putting in searches in Google — a system called Google Alerts — you can actually put in a vanity search and say put in your company name, put in your personal name, whatever. You’ll actually see then, when you post something, you’ll see an alert come back once Google has indexed that site and, in my case, I know that can post something on one of my blogs today and, within about 3-4 hours, I will see the result come back. So, I can, through kind of a weird way of testing, actually see that, Dang, that GoogleBot came around about every 4 hours and just taps my site. If you check your log files for your web site — which a lot of people don’t actually monitor their web sites and their analytics and analyze their log files — in your log files you can actually see every time, when one of these search engine “bots” comes and indexes your site. It’s another thing to kind of be aware of.

Previously on New Media 101/Blogging 101:

More information on Douglas E. Welch and Careers in New Media:

Noted: Official Google Analytics App Released For iPhone via Search Engine Journal

July 18, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Official Google Analytics App Released For iPhone via Search Engine Journal

Marketers and website owners rejoiced yesterday as an official Google Analytics app was finally released for the iPhone, two years after the app was released for Android. The iPhone app comes with everything you’d expect if you’ve ever used the Android version. Along with real-time and time-based reports, you can also use the app to view behaviors, conversions and more. An official app is a welcome alternative to the third-party apps that Google Analytics users have had to use up until this point. The official app takes full advantage of the sign-in features in Gmail, Google+ and the standard Google app for iOS. Not to mention the design matches the other Google apps for iOS.

Find more books on Google Analytics on Amazon.com

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Noted: Google now catalogs hundreds of Chromecast apps for easier discovery via GiGAOM

July 18, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Google now catalogs hundreds of Chromecast apps for easier discovery via GiGAOM

Google’s Chromecast website is now listing more than 400 apps and counting that are capable of casting content to the TV screen.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

New Media Tip #42: Your own personal TV network…

July 17, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

New Media Tip #42

“A YouTube Channel is your own personal TV network. Make use of it to share your message with the world!”

Check out my YouTube Channel

Careers in New Media

Video: New Media 101: Why update a web site regularly? from “The Why, What and How of Blogging” with Douglas E. Welch

July 17, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05 — 9.0MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Part of the New Media 101/Blogging 101 series…

A quick clip from this 45 minute presentation — The Why, What and How of Blogging.

Watch the entire presentation

Video: New Media 101: Why update a web site regularly? from

Transcript:

Why do we want to update our web sites every single day? The fact is, there are a number of reasons for that. First and foremost is, if you haven’t realized it already, most of the hits to your web site today do not come from people sitting down at their computer and typing in www.blahdeblah RETURN. If you’re like me and most people, 90% plus of the hits of the people that come to your web site come there through a search engine. Ok?

Now, search engines — Google being one of the better known ones — they have a variety of criteria of how they rank web sites in search results. One of the foremost ways they rank information is, how current is it? AND how often is is updated. Well, guess what? Blogs give you a way to feed these search engines a constant stream of new information — that’s constantly being updated. And the more you update your blogs, the more often the Google searchbot will come through your web site and check it for information.

Previously on New Media 101/Blogging 101:

More information on Douglas E. Welch and Careers in New Media:

Noted: No Blog Traffic? Here’s a Simple Strategy to Seduce Readers and Win Clients via CopyBlogger

July 16, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

No Blog Traffic? Here’s a Simple Strategy to Seduce Readers and Win Clients via CopyBlogger

You sit down at your desk.

You start your computer.

You check Google Analytics and your email provider dashboard. A deep sigh escapes from your soul.

Why is your number of email subscribers still so low?

Why aren’t readers flocking to your blog?

And when will those business inquiries finally arrive?

We all know that blogging is hard work, but what should you do when your efforts don’t seem to pay off?

Should you cross your fingers and keep plugging away? Hope that your readership will snowball? Pray that business inquiries will soon flood your inbox?

You need a new blog strategy, not wishful thinking.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

New Media Jobs Available – All types of job listings at Jobs.WelchWrite.com – Search by keyword and location

July 16, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Looking for a job? There are a host of job listings available on Jobs.WelchWrite.com every day.

Enter the keywords you are searching for and your location to get fresh and focused listings.

Jobs.WelchWrite.com

Post a Job! $20 for 7 days

Do you like? Do your share? What’s the difference? – End of the Day for July 15, 2014

July 15, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Originally posted as part of the End of the Day series on My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Rosanne and I got into a short discussion about the difference between “liking” something and “sharing” something on online. There are subtle differences between services and the names they use, but the meanings and benefits of each of these actions is fairly similar. Here is a little chart I cooked up to, hopefully, make it a bit clearer.

Key: FB=Facebook, TW=Tiwtter, G+=Google Plus, P=Pinterest

Like(FB) or Favorite(TW) or +1(G+) or Like(P)

Meaning: Hey, this is cool. I want to remember this, for myself, so I can come back to it later. It benefits the original poster a little, as it is figured into some popularity ratings, depending on the system, but doesn’t active share it any further.

Share(FB, G+) or ReTweet(TW) or Re-Pin(P)

Meaning: Not only is is the cool, but I want to share it with everyone that is following me. This is a step above the “Like” as it shares a copy to everyone who follows you on that particular service. Very important for original poster, as it spreads the content further around the social media world, hopefully getting shared again and again from different people and connections.

As you might imagine, as a content creator, the second action is the one we would like everyone to take. This doesn’t just mark the content for an individual user, but helps spread the, hopefully, good, funny, useful information further and further, generating web site traffic, advertising revenue and sales for us.

Shares directly effect the popularity, views, suggested items, traffic and sales, which is why you often hear YouTubers urging you to “Hit that Like Button, Post a Comments and Subscribe”. For someone who is making a living producing content, this is critical. Likes and Subscribers directly effects how often their videos are “Suggested” to viewers when they watch another video or at the end of a video.

Clicking Like and Share also helps you in many ways. First, when you share great content, people (and computer systems like Google and Facebook) come to see as a good source of good material in the future. They will begin to suggest your shares to more people, and in the case of Facebook, your posts will be more likely to appear in other user’s News Feeds and those New Feeds on Facebook pages. This is “Reach” number you see after each Facebook post you make. It is how many people actually saw the post, even if you have hundreds of “Friends or Followers.” Share great content, have enough people Like and Share that content and your Reach will rise.

So, as a content consumer, which by reading this blog, you are, I hope you can better see the results of your actions online. They do actually mean something to you, your friends and followers and the people producing the content you are consuming. If you like something, click that Like button. If you REALLY like something, share it with your followers — whether on Facebook, Twitter, G+, Pinterest or any other social media network. It really does help the creator gain more than just fame. It might actually put a few dollars in their pocket and help them create even more great content. It can also help you to raise your own status in your favorite online community. A win-win for everyone.

Previously on End of the Day:

Subscribed 52: Growing Wisdom with David Epstein

July 11, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Growing Wisdom with David Epstein

As a gardener, garden blogger and garden YouTuber myself, I always like to keep in touch with what other garden folks are doing online. I recently came across Garden Wisdom as a suggested video on one of my own garden videos and had to check it out. David’s most recent video in on “Art in the Garden”, a topic that is interesting to me, too.

If you need and additional garden fix after reading or viewing my own A Gardener’s Notebook, you can’t go wrong with Growing Wisdom with David Epstein.

Growing Wisdom Web Site

From the Growing Wisdom Web Site…

I started this site to give you information about your yards. I have been gardening nearly my entire life since my Grandfather gave me a package of tomato seeds and my Nana taught me about bearded iris. I want to combine my knowledge of horticulture with my love of weather to give you weekly information about what to do in your yard, that week.

If the weather is going to affect the garden, you will hear about it here first.

Over the years I have been fortunate to be able to put together my love of gardening and television into the forerunner of this sight. For over three years I hosted Extreme Garden Makeover on WCVB in Boston and brought scores of weekly tips to viewers throughout the region. Now, with the ability to put video on the internet I can bring these video tips to you anywhere.

Subscribe to Growing Wisdom on YouTube

What are some of your favorite Subscriptions? Share them here in the comments!

Previously highlighted on Subscribed:

Total Biscuit: The Cynical Brit – The UK’s #1 Variety Gaming Commentator

Hiding your light under a bushel – End of the Day for July 10, 2014

July 10, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Originally published as part of the “End of the Day” series on My Word with Douglas E. Welch

i have been working on, what would be called by most people, market lately and it can be a tiring task. Most of us are so used to someone else handling this aspect of our projects and be forced to do it yourself has led to many failures over the years. We all know how important marketing is, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty we would rather crawl into a cave and ignore — myself included.

That said, I try to keep one important phrase in my mind when the going gets tough.

“Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

We all need to “let our light shine before men” even if that sometimes mean we need to do a little extra work. Our good works deserve to be noticed, to be shared, to be spread so that we can reach those that might enjoy our music, read our books or on some way be helped by them. Our work cannot have any effect on the work until it is known, until it is shared among people and spread throughout the world. We have only done half a job by creating a book or writing a song. It must be read, seen and heard reach fulfillment — and our own fulfillment with it.

I was recently reading a web site on ho to promote your books and they said something that I try to remember each day and also share with everyone who consults with me.

“Focus more on discoverability rather than selling. Your work is important, so help those who can benefit from it, find it.” — 71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book

Most of us, as creators, have an almost biological aversion to “selling” in any form. Selling anything conjures up the worst traveling salesmen stereotypes you can imagine. We imagine hucksters and cons and all sort of unsavory types and promise that we will never, ever become someone like that. It’s true, of course. We will never become like that because these extreme stereotypes don’t really exist. Sure there are unscrupulous people out there, but they are far outweighed by good people doing a good job selling things to people who need them — or, at the very least, want them. You can be one of these people, too.

Concentrate first on getting your project discovered by as many people as possible. Help your project to sell itself. I often quote Seth Godin on this topic. He says, “Make something worth talking about.” When you do this, your project gathers its own energy and attention and practically — even actually — selfs itself. You are simply nudging the snowball downhill, giving it a kick when it gets s but stuck and then starting over at the beginning with your next snowball — er — project — and sending it downhill.

Don’t think of it as “selling”, if that words turns you off. Think if it as discovery, introduction, promotion, whatever term makes it the most palatable for you. Then, go out an do it. Your project deserves it. More importantly, you deserve it. Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!

Previously on End of the Day:

Video: New Media 101: Douglas E. Welch Segment from “Toot Your Own Horn: Self-Promotion In The Digital Age”

July 10, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:32 — 76.6MB) | Embed

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Part of the New Media 101/Blogging 101 series…

Douglas E. Welch Segment from “Toot Your Own Horn: Self-Promotion In The Digital Age”

Watch the entire presentation

This a clip of my segment during this talk at the WGA (Writers Guild of America West) – Toot Your Own Horn: Self-Promotion In The Digital Age

WGA Panel entitled “Toot Your Own Horn,” with Writers’ Program alum Zoanne Clack (Grey’s Anatomy), and moderated by Writers’ Program Instructor Bill Taub, offers great insight into promoting yourself as a writer.

“TOOT YOUR OWN HORN: SELF-PROMOTION IN THE DIGITAL AGE”

In these challenging times, it is imperative that writers take control of their own careers. Be proactive, “do it yourself,” especially regarding publicity and marketing. Technology has swiftly changed, providing writers with new avenues to promote themselves and their work. Have you tapped in?

A DIY panel features publicist Henri Bollinger, president of the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society, discussing personal publicity vs. when to bring on a “professional”; screen and TV writer/author/award-winning columnist W. Bruce Cameron (8 Simple Rules, A Dog’s Purpose); Zoanne Clack (Executive Producer — “Grey’s Anatomy” and former Writers’ Program student), Gregg Kilday (film editor at The Hollywood Reporter); psychotherapist Rebecca Roy (TheIndustryTherapist.com) to broach writers’ resistance to self-promotion; and independent new media consultant Douglas Welch (also a Writers’ Program instructor) addressing new media and social marketing platforms.

Panel followed by smaller hands-on breakout sessions. Moderated by Bill Taub.

Previously on New Media 101/Blogging 101:

More information on Douglas E. Welch and Careers in New Media:

Noted: 5 Reasons to Blog via Ms Ileane Speaks

July 8, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

via Ms. Ileane Speaks

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Noted: Fly is a simple video-editing app that lets you shoot from four iPhones at once via The Verge

July 6, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Fly is a simple video-editing app that lets you shoot from four iPhones at once via The Verge

There are simple video-editing apps, and then there’s Fly, a new iPhone app that lets you edit a short movie inside literally one screen. Fly works by importing four of your videos into the app’s editor, and then letting you tap on each one to make live cuts and switch between clips instantly. You can add a voice over or background music from your device, and then export your video to post on Instagram or elsewhere. If you’re looking to make something a little more adventurous, Fly also includes “Multi-Cam,” a feature that lets you sync up to four iPhones to all shoot and capture video simultaneously.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Careers in New Media

Helping to Build New Careers in New Media

Author Archives: Douglas E. Welch

Subscribed 53: GenerikB – The Gaming Hermit

Midsummer Book Sale — All My Kindle Books 99¢ each for the next 30 Days!

Video: New Media 101: What are search engines looking for? from “The Why, What and How of Blogging” with Douglas E. Welch

Noted: Google now catalogs hundreds of Chromecast apps for easier discovery via GiGAOM

New Media Tip #42: Your own personal TV network…

Video: New Media 101: Why update a web site regularly? from “The Why, What and How of Blogging” with Douglas E. Welch

Noted: No Blog Traffic? Here’s a Simple Strategy to Seduce Readers and Win Clients via CopyBlogger

New Media Jobs Available – All types of job listings at Jobs.WelchWrite.com – Search by keyword and location

Subscribed 52: Growing Wisdom with David Epstein

Hiding your light under a bushel – End of the Day for July 10, 2014

Video: New Media 101: Douglas E. Welch Segment from “Toot Your Own Horn: Self-Promotion In The Digital Age”

Noted: 5 Reasons to Blog via Ms Ileane Speaks

Noted: Fly is a simple video-editing app that lets you shoot from four iPhones at once via The Verge