Category: blogging

blogging, writer, writing

Step 25: Writers Rising

Christa Avampato

I’ve always wanted to be part of a writers circle. When I first moved to New York 11 years ago, my friend, Neil, and I used to meet regularly to talk about our writing. We did okay, though our styles and genres were so different. I was interested in writing novels and essays and he wrote screenplays. At the time he was the only writer I knew, and vice versa, so we made it work. And then he moved to LA, in the era before cell phones were ubiquitous. Away went my writing circle of one.

Since Neil, I’ve considered joining a few other writing groups, though they didn’t have the right vibe. I felt like I was putting in more work than I was getting of value in return, and getting to the meetings was challenging with my schedule. So for several years now, I’ve just been writing on my own. Over the weekend, my friend, Kathy, asked me to join her online writers group, Writers Rising. I read through the site and quickly realized that this was exactly the kind of group I have always wanted to join. I accepted her invitation right away.

I like the easy flow of Writers Rising, the imagery it conjures up, and the variety of material that comes together when a group writes a blog together. I’m excited to get to know these other writers, to lift them up, and share in this wonderful process of creation. One tiny step toward my goal of working more with friends in the coming year. Thanks to my pal, Sharni, for introducing me to this wonderful group.

I just put up my introductory post, Happy to Be Here, on Writers Rising. Hop over and check it out!

blogging, writing

I’ve Moved to a New On-line Home

Christa Avampato

After almost 3 wonderful years of blogging on Blogger, I made the move over to WordPress. Same content for the blog, highlights on other projects I’m working on, and a new design. I’ve ported over all of the posts and comments from here onto the new site so none of the content has been lost. It’s a party – come on over and see me at http://www.christainnewyork.com.

blogging, career, technology, writing

Step 17: A New Place to Call (My On-line) Home

Christa Avampato

I thought that this step would be coming much later in the year. I had planned to study and take my GRE, get my after-school program with Citizen Schools underway, and then work on converting my blog from Blogger to WordPress. I got it completely backwards. Yesterday I spent most of the day setting up this site for prime time, the after-school program starts at the end of January, and then I take my GRE on February 6th. The best laid plans…

I just couldn’t help myself with this new site. Professionally I needed to showcase the big projects I’m working on in a way that Blogger couldn’t do for me without significant time and financial investments. While I’m finding WordPress a bit more complicated than Blogger, my expert media friends tell me it’s worth it so I sat down and got it done yesterday. I expect it to be a work in progress for many months to come.

So let me show you around:

– My main page is my blog since my writing is the project that’s most important to me and where I spend the most time.

– I added a “Help Haiti” tab. On it, you will find a link to the U.S. State Department which is coordinating the U.S. relief effort. I’ve also included some other excellent sources of information on the situation in Haiti. I’ll keep adding to it as I find new info. If there’s a link you think I should include, let me know.

– “About Me” gives my short bio and the first of one of a few photos of me. The photos on the site were taken by my good pal, Dan Fortune, who spins a mean mix of classic hits like you’ve never heard them before and is a whiz with a camera.

– “Other Writing” gives a short description of other publications where I’ve been published and featured. When my e-book is finished it will get its own tab. More to come on that in the next month.

– “Innovation Station” is the after-school project I am piloting with Citizens Schools this spring. My goal is to use product development and entrepreneurship to engage children in their studies. Now that this conversion to WordPress is complete, I’ll turn my attention to Innovation Station. This page will look radically different in the next few months.

Just to the right, you’ll find a sidebar that allows readers to subscribe via email (you can subscribe via RSS at the top of the page), join me on Twitter, see my 5 most recent posts, search via category cloud that shows my most common writing topics, a blogroll of some of my favorite sites, and an archive.

I tried to keep the design simple and clean, eliminating the unnecessary so the necessary may speak. Let me know what you think in the comment section, via Twitter, or via email. I look forward to the continued changes and conversation!

blogging, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – How to reach a tipping point

Christa Avampato

This week was a good one in the writing department. I was humming along right at the start of the week, and have been off and running since. It’s a long slow climb to remake ourselves, to truly learn a new skill from the inside out. I started writing every day two years ago, after 31 years of just wanting to be a writer.

I didn’t know what to do so I just began. First with this blog, then with Examiner.com, and now as a guest blogger on sites like Rypple and small call outs in publications like the Wall Street Journal and DailyWorth. Next week I’m joining a new team blogging effort, details to follow in a later post, and this Fall I’ll be writing a blog for the Transport Group on their Fall production of The Boys in the Band.

My friend and mentor, Richard, has been listening to my writing plan for some time now and was the first to say, “at some point, the switch will flip and you’ll find a way to make all this investment in your writing pay off.” He’s talking about a tipping point. Until this week, I didn’t realize that the surest way to that tipping point in writing isn’t only about hunkering down and pounding out the words on my Mac. It’s just as much about connection and kinship with others. To get to a tipping point, we have to let others in and give others the opportunity to invite us in as well.

My writing tipping point may still be a long way off. I’m not there yet, but for the first time in two years, I think I might be getting to that point Richard talks about. At least I see it out there on the horizon. I’m just not sure how far away that horizon is compared to where I am right now. And that’s okay. A little light keeps me going.

The photo above can be found at: http://phlogthat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/img_7592.jpg

blogging, charity, Ning, nonprofit, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, social network

Just Begin

Christa Avampato

I marvel at how much time it takes people (and I am as guilty of this as anyone) to get going on a new idea. Have we done enough research? Have we thought through every possible scenario? Do we have enough money? What if it doesn’t work out? These are only a handful of questions we might ask ourselves as we consider a new venture, relationship, job, or even a hobby. How do I even know where to start? As Mary Poppins said, “Start at the very beginning.”

To this end, I have two things I’d really like to accomplish in my career this year: I’d like to become more familiar with the social entrepreneurship field and I’d like to get my writing out to a wider audience. Today, my first blog post on a site other than this blog is being published. I joined the blogging team at the Literacy ‘n’ Poverty Project, an organization that promotes literacy and adult education as tools to fight poverty and promote social change. I’ll be publishing on their site twice per month and my writing will focus on social change and poverty alleviation efforts.

To get involved, visit the site at http://www.literacyandpovertyproject.com/. The organization also has a group on the Ning social network that you can join: http://literacyandpovertyproject.ning.com.

blog, blogging, Facebook, social media, writing

Is it quantity or quality?

Christa Avampato

The debate continues about quantity versus quantity in the world of social media. Do you want more Twitter followers or are you more concerned with having followers who are interested in your life, share interesting articles and activities with you, and building dialogue? The same is true of traffic on a website: do you care more about how many people subscribe to your newsletter and blog feed or how many people actually read it rather than tossing it in the recycle bin without even opening it?


The best possible scenario for trying to build web traffic is to have a lot of brand advocates who are passionate about the site. However, if I had to choose between a small group of people who really care about the site and visit it often and a large group of people who stop by once, maybe subscribe to a feed or newsletter, and rarely read my writing, I would absolutely choose the former. It goes back to that time-honored phrase, “take care of your people (in this case, your community members) and they will take care of the brand (in this case, the site).”

Now sites like Facebook are in that rare crossroads of having a lot of followers who are very passionate about the brand. I am one of them – I LOVE Facebook. I’m on there all the time, poking around, updating my status, emailing friends far and near. Most sites will never get that kind of traffic so they usually have to choose: lots of surface conversations or a small group of meaningful conversations?

Let’s be realistic – my blog is never going to be Facebook. And that’s fine – that’s good, actually. I have a small group of readers that I love who read and comment on my writing regularly – some on my blog, some in person when I see them, some in very kind emails that they send me. They are extremely special people to me. I know a little bit, or a lot in some cases, about them and we have a good dialogue and exchange of ideas. If this blog were Facebook, I couldn’t devote the time, care, attention, and honesty I do to the fun part – the writing. I’m one person writing about topics and people I care about. And that is a blessing to be able to do.  
blog, blogging, social media, social media creation, social network

Social Media Primer

Christa Avampato

I spend so much time on-line that I have grown into one of those people who thinks everyone on the planet understands and appreciates the power of social media. I’m deluding myself. Many people are not involved and know next to nothing on social media. So if you’re looking to learn a bit more about social media, or know someone who’s interested in learning more, here’s the contents of my Social Media Primer, hot off the presses:

A Social Media Primer
(This list is by no means comprehensive of all the channels of social media, but it’s a good start)
October 31, 2008

Blog Search Engines:
Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com/
A search engine that utilizes the power of the top five internet search engines. Also know as “metasearch”.

Technorati
http://technorati.com/
As the leading blog search engine and most comprehensive source of information on the blogosphere, Technorati indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time and introduces millions of readers to blog and social media content.

BlogCatalog
http://www.Blogcatalog.com
BlogCatalog is a social community for bloggers and one of the largest blog directories on the internet.

Google Blogsearch
http://blogsearch.google.com
Blog Search is Google’s search technology focused on blogs. Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice. Your results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger. The blog index is continually updated, so you’ll always get the most accurate and up-to-date results. You can search not just for blogs written in English, but in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Swedish, Malay, Polish, Thai, Indonesian, Tagalog, Turkish, Vietnamese and other languages as well.

IceRocket
http://www.icerocket.com

NBCNY
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/
Just released in BETA this week, this site strives to be a one-stop shop for news on a variety of social media platforms.

Blog Publishers that you can search:
Blogger (owned by Google)
http://www.Blogger.com

Typepad
http://www.typepad.com

Moveable Type
http://www.Moveabletype.com

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com
(micro-blogging)

WordPress
http://www.wordpress.com

Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.com

YouTube (owned by Google)
http://www.youtube.com
(video blogging)

Hulu (owned by NewsCorp. and NBC – being hailed as the new YouTube)
http://www.hulu.com

Helium
http://www.helium.com/
Every day, this diverse community shares information on everything from politics to parenting advice, to pop culture, to the environment and more. You’ll find Helium rich with quality content, different points-of-view, and expert insight.

DailyMotion
www.dailymotion.com
Dailymotion is about finding new ways to see, share and engage your world through the power of online video. You can find – or upload – videos about your interests and hobbies, eyewitness accounts of recent news and distant places, and everything else from the strange to the spectacular.

Metacafe
www.metacafe.com
Metacafe is one of the world’s largest video sites, attracting more than 25 million unique viewers each month (according to comScore Media Metrix). They specialize in short-form original content – from new, emerging talents, and established Hollywood heavyweights alike.

Piczo
http://www.piczoinc.com/
Piczo empowers teens worldwide to creatively express themselves, build personal communities, and share ideas and experiences with their friends in a safe online environment. Since its launch less than three years ago, Piczo has grown to roughly 10 million monthly unique visitors and over a billion monthly page views solely through the viral efforts of loyal members. Rave reviews from these members claim that Piczo is unmatched in the control, ease-of-use, and flexibility it offers them when building their websites.

Piczo’s customizable content, colorful graphics, glitter text, video, and photo tools spotlight member creativity without requiring technical skills. Members share their life stories with friends by designing their sites with multiple pages featuring photos, graphics, videos, music, comment boards, games, and more. Each site can be linked to other friends’ sites and users can interact with them and their friends, and meet new people online. And, the “first of its kind” Piczo Zone allows members to share their customizable content with the rest of the Piczo Community.

Yahoo!video
http://www.video.Yahoo.com

Google video
http://www.video.google.com

Sharing Technologies
Del.icio.us
http://delicious.com/
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage, and share web pages from a centralized source. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember, and share on the Internet.

Digg
http://www.digg.com
Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by the Digg community either directly on the site or by clicking on the Digg icon at the bottom of many news articles. Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. There’s also a conversation that happens around the content.

Reddit
http://www.reddit.com

Stumbleupon
http://www.stumbleupon.com
A relative newcomer to the scene of sharing technologies.

Yahoo!Buzz
Http://www.buzz.yahoo.com

Buzzup
http://www.buzzup.com
Caters mostly to the Tech community

Sphere.com
http://www.sphere.com
Provides a way to pull a thread through a variety of different articles and platforms on a specific topic

Mixx
http://www.mixx.com
Allows you to connect to others with interests similar to yours, or to create your own niche network

Newsvine
http://www.newsvine.com

Blogmarks
http://blogmarks.net/
A mashup of a reader, bookmark bank, and a social network. You store URLs, tag them, and then are able to share them with the network

Social Networks
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com

MySpace
http://www.myspace.com

BlogHer
http://www.BlogHer.com
The largest social network of women bloggers

Gather
http://www.Gather.com

Linked In
http://www.linkedin.com

Blogcatalog
http://www.blogcatalog.com
This is a social network for bloggers

Helium
http://www.helium.com/
This is a social network of self-described “experts” and “thought leaders” in a variety of fields. Largely a community of writers.

Bebo
http://www.bebo.com/
Largest social network in Europe

Hi5
http://www.hi5networks.com
The third largest social network in the U.S. behind Facebook and MySpace. Very young company, though growing quickly. Strong emphasis on Spanish-speaking countries and Hispanic US population. Recently featured in Fortune:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/13/technology/hempel_hifive.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008101512

Ning
http://www.Ning.com
This is a network of social networks where you join niche networks (or start one) based on common interests. Recently featured in Fast Company:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/nings-infinite-ambition.html

Reader / Aggregator:
Readers and aggregators allow you to “bookmark” blogs you want to keep up with by subscribing to those blogs’ RSS feeds. The feeds populate your page in the reader and then you log into the reader to read the new posts on the blog you follow.

Bloglines
http://www.bloglines.com

Blinklist
http://www.blinklist.com

Blogmarks.net
http://blogmarks.net/

blogging, charity, customer service, environment, New York City, social media, social network

Make it easy for me to participate

Christa Avampato

See that blog post just below entitled, Root for Your City? I didn’t write it – not a single word of it. A handful of clicks and it was posted for me. American Express ran a program called “Root for Your City”. 8 cities across the country are competing for the largest share of 1 million tress to plant in their cities. By using my Amex cards (I am now up to three of them as of yesterday!) at participating stores and restaurants, I am contributing to the effort in my city.

I went to the site after receiving a customer email (1st click) and clicked on the button “RootforNYC.com” (2nd click). After arriving on the home page for the contest and learning a bit about it I clicked on the button “Spread the Word” (3rd click). There was a tab titled “Post to blog” (4th click). I checked the “Blogger” button (since my blog is hosted by Blogger), entered by username and password, clicked “sign-in”, and then click “post” (5th, 6th, and 7th clicks). That’s it. Done. Posted up to my blog with a link to the contest’s site and a pretty picture. A clean, easy to follow, aesthetically-pleasing process. (It was so easy that I felt like I was visiting a site designed by Apple!) Now that is service.

This tiny event was a big lesson for me. In this day and age of messaging and the need for mass participation, the organizers of events, efforts, and campaigns need to make participation easy. Companies need advocates now more than ever. Give a customer a good experience and they’re with you for life. This is the age of customer service, when finally customers are given their due as valuable, cherished members of a company. And the companies that will come out ahead when it is all said and done are those that not only call their customers kings and queens, but treat them like that as well.

blog, blogging, family, technology

savvyauntie.com

Christa Avampato

In my TrendCentral newsletter this morning, I discovered a site that I love! Savvyauntie.com. A community for people just like me – PANKs (Professional Aunt, No Kids). FINALLY someone figured out how awesome it is to be an aunt, figured out that there are other women who love being aunts, and developed a platform to bring them all together.

The site has all kinds of cool features, tips, ways to contribute, advice, and it is stylishly designed. I love the site because it recognizes that there are many women out there who either love kids and don’t want any of their own or aren’t ready for kids of their own. On occasion I read mom blogs, but a lot of that information doesn’t pertain to me as an aunt and many of them love being a mom so much that they don’t understand why any women would choose not to have children, or delay the decision to have them. (Even when I was at the BlogHer Conference, which I found incredibly useful from a professional stand-point, I felt outside the circle many times because I wasn’t a Mommy blogger.) Melanie Notkin, the site’s founder, CEO, and editor, appreciates the p.o.v. of aunts and caters to it.

The other feature that I love about savvyauntie.com is Melanie’s willingness to share how she started this business. She’s passionate about entrepreneurship and wants to help other people on that journey if they’re so inclined. You can read all about her journey to building her own company at http://blog.savvyauntie.com/. With all the recognition and traffic she’s getting while the site is still in Beta, savvyauntie.com is going to have a long, happy, and healthy life. And the aunts of the world will be better for it!

blogging, business, corporation, technology

Blogging the competition: adver-blogging

Christa Avampato

On frogblog today, Tim Leberecht discusses a small group of corporate blogs that we are now seeing pop up. Brew blog is one example. It’s run by Miller Brewing Company, and rather than promote Miller, the writers spend their time chronicling the fumblings of its biggest rival, Anheuser-Busch. Ick – is this what we’re going to do with our new connectivity tools? Use them and spend our time bashing one another? I’d be disappointed in any company who engaged in this kind of activity, and what’s more, I’d stop patronizing the brand doing the adver-blogging.

The theory of glass houses applies. I understand wanting to keep tabs on your competition. I understanding wanting to your own horn to drum up business. But just as it does so often with political campaigns, I think the people and companies doing the bashing will ultimately get bashed themselves, with a vengeance.

I hope that we don’t see this emerge as a growing trend. I’m much more interested in hearing a company’s own stories in their own words. See Tim’s original post at http://www.frogdesign.com/frogblog/adversarial-blogging-the-brew-blog-and-co.html