In 2002, I found WordPress, and launched inluminent.com, as a blog that was seperate and distinct from my family blog.

Over the next few years, I had a decent amount of free time, and didn’t have kids, so I could spend a lot of time learning more about WordPress, themes and plugins, keep my PHP skillz honed, etc…

Then I “grew up” and started running departments, divisions, or companies for other people, and got paid really well, but I never got to spend time with WordPress anymore.

Thus, inluminent is still using the “K2″ theme, englers.org is using one of the original themes that shipped with WordPress back in 2002, and StuffGeeksWant is running a theme that’s not very customized… AParatroopersFaith.com at least has ads on it, but the design leaves little to inspire people, because I’ve been so busy with “other stuff”.

So, I’m launching a new site today: AggieCampusology.com for Aggies everywhere to find and hopefully enjoy reading stories from other Aggies about their memories from their student years, or jog their memory about an old Campo they can’t quite remember…

But, I’m stuck on the “themes and plugins” that I should use, and how to customize them.

I’ll have to research those two things pretty well over the next couple of weeks, and maybe even take what I learn and upgrade all of my WordPress sites, to bring them into 2011…

Where should I start?

I LOVE ROCKETBOOM!

Yes. I do.

I started watching Rocketboom very infrequently about a year ago, then I bought an iPod Video (after losing my iPod nano) and that made it easy to watch videos when I was on the road traveling.

Right now, I’ve got a good 30 episodes of Rocketboom in iTunes that hadn’t been watched as of this morning… but I’ve watched 10 or so of them on my flights… love it, love it, love it. (I really only watch Rocketboom, or listen to podcasts in general for that matter, when I’m on a flight or in the car for longer than 5 minutes – no I don’t drive and watch Rocketboom on my iPod at the same time)

Thanks Amanda and Peter. Keep it up!

Oh, and I loved the TRM advertisements you made… very cool and fun. Think they’d sell me one? Who do I call? I need an ATM for the kitchen… I’ll put it right next to the microwave.

Love it when you use the word “verily” makes me think of Emily Bronte.

One of the podcast series I was really interested in listening to was Scott Johnson’s Tech War Stories. Scott, you need to read this feedback. Realize I truly consider Scott one of those guys that I truly like, and none of this is meant to be a personal attack, but Scott, I’m about to quit listening to your podcasts for a few reasons, and that’s really a shame, because I think your content is excellent, but your presentation is killing it.

To be fair, I believe Content is King, and crappy presentation can be overcome with killer content usually, but podcasts have come a long way from Dave and Adam’s first Skype based chats of a year ago, and I expect more from my podcasts.

If you’re producing a podcast, realize you’re competing with NPR, ABC, and other really great professionally produced podcasts. You’re also competing with lots of really great non-professional podcasts like BabyTime, which comes off as being pretty professional.

So, here are my pocaster commandments (and no, I don’t produce my own podcast, but I’m an avid consumer):

1. Speak into the microphone. All the time. If you’re recording a ten minute segment: take the ten minutes it takes to record your content, and put the damned microphone in front of your mouth while you’re talking. If you need to take a break, take a break, then come back to the recording. You can use iMovie to do your recording, if you want. It’ll export a video-less MP3, believe it or not.

2. Don’t cough into the microphone or shuffle papers in front of the mic, or set a cup down on the desk, or suck juice through a staw, or slurp the last of your drink… DON’T DO THIS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE MICROPHONE!

In the car tonight, I was listening to podcast upon podcast and Scott, you’re going to blow my speakers… first it’s low volume from your voice a few times, because the microphone’s too far from your mouth, then, it was cough, cough, really loud, or papers being shuffled right in front of the mic… and I had the volume quite loud.

3. Check the levels on your podcast. Listen to your podcast, at least the first 15 seconds before you publish it. Do this, every time… why? Because you’ll notice the loud blip at the beginning of some of your recordings and you’ll be able to edit it out. You’ll also notice the low-voice volume, and you can fix it. You might even pick up the back ground noise, and decide the recording needs to be redone.

4. Lose the “okay… right?” This is a common public speaking pet peave of mine. Honestly, I’m really proud of you that you don’t say “ummm”, but, after 3 hours of Scott Johnson, I can qualitatively immitate his “okay” and “right?” perfectly… and oh, man, is this not the way you want to sound Scott. Scott’s vocabulary and content will show you how damned fucking smart he is, then he’ll clouds it by interjecting that “okay” every third word for 15-20 second periods at a time.

5, 6, 7, and 8. EDIT THY PODCASTS. Honestly, editing your podcasts will take care of all of these problems, and you’ll come across as soooo much more credible. I’ll go back to “Content is King” and say right now that all of the Tech War Stories podcasts have excellent content… well all of them except that News River Aggregator one (you forgot to plug inluminent Scott )… but I digress. I also realize you’re busy, and you’re multi-tasking, and that you’re building a company. I get it. Edit. Edit. Edit. It’ll take you twice as long to do a podcast, because you’ll have to listen to it all again, but that’ll also make them a much much better product.

9. Put some sound proofing in your office. Get something to break up the flat walls around you, and maybe your ceiling, to deaden the slight echos in some of the recording sessions. I actually enjoy the multi-task podcasts you’ve done while driving in the car, or while cooking the family lunch… that shows me your dedication. Do some of that, but then edit it down, and I think you’ll get a much better podcast.

10. Add an intro and outtro. Since you’re going to start editing your podcasts, record a standard intro and outtro for the podcasts. The Intro might include a snippet of your favorite piece of music, with a voice-over introduction. (I’m really tired of hearing how much you hate your radio voice). Get someone else to produce an introduction… it’ll sound better, then just start talking. An outtro idea could be something like a standard “thank you for listening” message with a plug for your URLs: Fuzzyblog.com, Ookles.com, Ookles.wordpress.com, etc… and maybe some other contact information, if you think it’s important for people to be able to contact you right after listening to a podcast (I wanted to call you but had the wrong number in my cell phone while I was driving).

So, don’t take this criticism harshly Scott. Take it as constructive criticism, please.

Overall: Excellent fucking content. Excellent. I’ve learned a hell of a lot from listening to your podcasts. I love the content. I love the long/short formats… you never seem to talk too much or too little, it’s always just right. Take the production up a notch, and I think you’ll really have something you can be proud of when you look back on them in the future.

Anyone else have any tips for Scott?

updated: I have to take a moment to compliment Scott after taking him to task here. It takes big brassy balls to throw your shit out into the wild, and that’s what Scott is doing with his podcast. I applaud him greatly for that… hoping to help him learn… and yes, Scott, you’re the one that said to pick a fight in one of your podcasts so I’m eating your dogfood a little here!

Well, because quite honestly TexasGigs has been the most important band/music site in North Texas for the past 2-3 years, and it was really just a great niche weblog run by one woman: Cindy Chafin.

Cindy’s a smart cookie and when my friend Mike Orren started talking to her about putting TexasGigs on the map by making it part of Pegasus News, well, I guess she just couldn’t resist…

The combination of Cindy + Pegasus now makes TexasGigs a full blown music, media, news, and venue site, all catering to Texas and Texas music (that’s not a genre folks, it’s a way of life) that you can use to find who’s playing tonight, where, when and why you should be there, not just Cindy’s top picks (though those are always worth paying attention to!)

I first ‘met’ Cindy back when she linked to inluminent in 2003, and we exchanged a few emails, remarking how we were both really enjoying learning about website marketing, and the like. I also remember something about her owning a really kick ass looking luxury campground that I still need to check out one weekend.

It’s really really nice to see Mike and the rest of the team at Pegasus News powering TexasGigs.com now… and I just love how easy it is to find what’s happening on New Year’s Eve in Dallas. We’ll be there ringing in the New Year, and I can’t decide between Jack Ingram and Kevin Fowler… which one should we try to get tickets to?

Good luck getting that next round of funding Mike… I can’t wait for Pegasus News to lauch in full!