Jeber's is dead, long live Jeber's

After many years of posting to my blog at jebers.com and evidently far too many updates to the WordPress framework, that site is totally broken. Years of posts have been lost, site functionality is completely borked (a technical term meaning damaged beyond repair) and I have run out of ideas as to how to restore it to its former self.

For now and possibly well into the future I'm redirecting jebers.com to this blog, one I've been using almost as long as the former jeber's site. It doesn't appear that I can import any of the posts to the other site into here, they're just gone.

I went through this with another blog not long ago, one that was pretty popular if my host's stats can be trusted. It was a traumatic loss at the time but I've gotten over it. No doubt I'll get over the loss of jebers.com as well.

I've also lost a lot of trust in the WordPress platform and my host, 1and1. Since Google owns Blogger I doubt I'll encounter the same problems here I'm experiencing on my 1and1 site. I may even move my tech blog over here. Why not. I've pretty much become a commodity of Google's anyway. It almost feels like I'm back in the 1990's and Google is AOL.

For a blog, content is king. When my content disappears I get irritated. If Google can offer the kind of stability others cannot, then I'll put my trust in them and divorce myself from WordPress and 1and1.

So let me welcome those of you who have bookmarked jebers.com and are wondering how you wound up on jackcarlson.net. I appreciate your interest and support. I welcome your comments and feedback.

Jebers.com may be down for the count, but Jeber will survive.

Blogger's Blues

I guess for some geeks, nothing could be more depressing, more disheartening, than to do everything they can think of to increase their blog's audience and interest - submitting site maps to Google, studying SEO tips, posting every 13 minutes - and then see a Google Alert for blogs return a result like the following;

First post- why blog?
ProgressiveU.org - San Mateo,CA,USA
My name is Kaylen and this is my first blog. I'm going to write about WHY I made this blog, and why I am planning on writing in it each day. ...

It makes me just want to slash my wrists.

Well, not me...I meant the hypothetical blogger I mentioned above.

Blogging for bloggers

I've been reading a lot of comments from internet pundits lately predicting that 2007 will be the year that blogging will reach its zenith in popularity.

The blogging phenomenon is set to peak in 2007, according to technology predictions by analysts Gartner.
The analysts said that during the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million.
The firm has said that 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs.

BBC News

Since I'm notoriously oblivious to most trends, I'm choosing to ignore this one as well. While I might agree that the number of quality personal blogs may level off or even decrease in the near future, I think we're going to see an increase in the number of companies that embrace the blogging ethic to create a relationship with their customers and the public at large.

To help empower bloggers, I'm creating a forum for both personal and professional bloggers that will offer resources and support. Check it out and join up. Share your knowledge and pick up some hints, learn more about customizing your site and how to provide quality content. Any type of blogger using any platform/software is welcome. Bloggers need community, too.

Bloggers-exchange.com forum. Let me know what you think.