It’s time to clean up the TampaBLAB database.
For readers, this means it may be more difficult than usual to get to the TampaBLAB page this week.
For bloggers who are syndicated here, it may mean something more. If you have not written a blog post in over six months, your feed will be deleted.
Check back here in a week, and make sure we didn’t delete your feed by accident.
ATTENTION TampaBLAB BLOGGERS:
From approximately April 30 to July 15, 2009, we believe TBO.com
republished every post that appeared on TampaBLAB (and a few other
local blogs). They did this without the permission of TampaBLAB, and
therefore each instance may have been a violation of copyright laws.
I have been in contact with TBO, and they immediately stopped the
practice.
In each instance,
A. Your title was used as the TBO.com title.
B. The text “Opinion TampaBLAB” appeared under the title.
C. The text (and images) of the beginning* of your article appeared.
D. A hyperlink at the bottom read “Full Story>>>”, and linked through
TampaBLAB straight to your blog.
*As you may know, TampaBLAB publishes the first 20 to 50 words of your
posts automatically, and if visitors want to read the entire post (or
comment), they must click on the headline, which brings them directly
to your site. However, if you wrote a short (under 50 words) article,
it was likely posted on TBO in its entirety.
If you have signed your blog up with TampaBLAB, please visit our new Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/tampablab/ and ask for an invitation to join. Feel free to comment here, too.
It’s been quite a while since we last posted an update on new blogs syndicated here on the TampaBLAB. In that time we’ve added quite a few .
At any rate, with the influx of blogs in the last few days, I’d like to point out just a few that have been added recently (and posted in no particular order):
There have been quite a few others in the last few weeks (and months) that have been added, and we apologize for not listing them all here.
Welcome aboard everyone!
Maybe being sent to a different site after viewing a link was what caused this, or perhaps it just wasn’t that interesting a feature. All that said, we’ve nixed Post Ratings on the BLAB for the time being. Maybe in the future we’ll re-implement but for the meantime, it just was a function that wasn’t being utilized enough to warrant keeping it.
Meanwhile, comments are open. What’s on your mind about the BLAB? It’s been a long time since we had an open comment thread…
What’s up?
Pretty straight forward question, ain’t it? Leave a comment about something going on around town or about yoru blog. Heck, maybe even mention a third party blog you found that isn’t listed here on the BLAB3
So what do you think of the updated look of the BLAB? Comment away on the new look and other thoughts or notes you’d like to share for local bloggers here.
UPDATE: Seems to be a problem with the new theme — it broke our RSS feeds. It’ll be back soon.
UPDATE: 4:08 PM — Theme is back up. There will be other edits and tweaks. We’d also appreciate you posting about any trouble you run into on the new site layout.
Just a heads up to all BLABbers — we plan on some updates to the look of the site sometime in the next week or so. Keep an eye out for those changes ahead.
We’re currently dealing with some technical issues that have been popping up for a while here at the BLAB. So if the site does not work for you (and it has been sporadically workign the last few hours) or does not appear correctly (as is the case at this moment that I write this) please forgive us. We’re tryign to get things ironed out and shoudl ahve it done soon hopefully.
We’re trying to employ something extra-social on TampaBLAB and it’s not working precisely correctly as it stands. Just keep this in mind with a sidebar widget that is showing Gravatars but doesn’t seem to do much – it’s a work in progress.
What’s up, Tampa Bay Bloggers and blog readers? Chat away about anything and everything in comments on this post.
By the way, we’d love to have some feedback ont eh Post Ratings system here ont eh BLAB – is it something to keep around or something to ditch? Not many people are participating right now… So your opinion about the system (keepign it, losing it, how to change it) counts mightily.
We’d like to extend a warm welcome to a handful of new blogs that are being syndicated here at TampaBLAB. Some of these sites were long overdue to be added to the BLAB while others are new to us all together:
We apologize for any blogs that have been recently added that we’ve neglected to list here.
We’d just like to remind everyone that Saturday Night’s blogger Tweetup at MOSI. Make sure to RSVP if attending the event.
This is an open comment thread — what’s up Tampa Bay Bloggers (and blog readers)??
If you’re a regular reader/browser here at the BLAB, you’ve probably come across a regular little quirk with the posts that can leave you annoyed or downright peeved. That quirk happens to be certain feeds showing a title — but no excerpt after the title:
You see it often with Tampabay.com blogs such as Steve Spears’ Stuck in the 80’s or Eric Deggans’ The Feed. It also tends to happen with SB Nation community blog Buc’Em’s posts as well. And the question is why?
And the answer is, unfortunately, we don’t know. Not right now at least. We’ve been looking into the problem for a while but we don’t have answer. Hopefully, sometime in the future, we will have a fix for this and all feeds will have excerpts displayed.
Mark your calendars for January 17th.
Julia Gorzka from BrandTampa left a comment response to one of our open threads a few weeks ago pertaining to the idea of a blogger bash in the new year:
Happy to comment that I think a blogger bash is a fabuloso idea. We’ve got a tweet-up happening at MOSI from 6-9pm on Sat Jan 17th. MOSI is also launching a virtual ambassadors program offering swag for all interested Tampa Bay bloggers. RSVP is on http://www.meetup.com/tampabloggers/
OOH! Swag! Tell me more! Tell me more!
MOSI is opening their doors to us for a special after-hours party at the museum! We’ll even have special access to the top of the IMAX dome! You’ll have an exclusive 8-story high, 360 degree view of Tampa.
* Streaming live tweets
* Cash Bar
* Live DJ, for our musical enjoyment
* MOSI IMAX dome rooftop access*** MOSI Announcing Virtual Amassadors (VA) Program ***
MOSI will be asking for our help and ideas to get their social groove on. All interested tweeple will be invited to become Virtual Amassadors (VA) and receive MOSI swag worth over $150 including:* One year free membership to the museum
* Free ticket to every IMAX film opening from January – June 2009 (excluding special engagements)
* Free ticket to Body Worlds 3 and the Story of the Heart opening January 22, 2009 – The Original Exhibit of Real Human Bodies.In return, MOSI is simply asking you for a 6 month commitment in helping raise community awareness online about the museum, Body Worlds exhibit, IMAX, and other MOSI offerings. Are you ready to help spread the word about the museum in our social media world? We’ll be announcing additional details on the program at the event!
This is a monumental approach and we’re excited MOSI has chosen our TampaBloggers.com’s TweetUp group! So spread the word!
Whats this TweetUp stuff about?
Meet other local Tweeple (People in Twitterspeak) who enjoy Twitter, blogging, podcasts and just all that is social media & beyond for an evening of drinks and great conversation. Enjoy a night out of the office or home, Away from your computer, to dork out with others who share similar passions of social networking and have a few drinks.Like minds gathering to both share and learn. Whether your a webmaster, business professional, professional blogger, PR or Marketing professional, social media junkie, or even just looking to learn this event is for you! Its an all you can eat brain food buffet, with fellow tech dorks sharing their passions & discoveries.
So it’s a lot of tweets and whistles and bloggers and a for realz get together at the Museum of Science and Industry. Whaddaya think? If you’re interested, do not forget to RSVP at MeetUp!
Maybe you’ve noticed it the last few days here on TampaBLAB (but you have every reason to have missed it, with thanks to the holidays) but we’ve added a rating system to posts. At the bottom of every post on the front page you have the choice of rating that post as one-to-five stars.
Of course, this system depends on a few things — like you, first and foremost. Yeah, you. If you don’t participate in the rating of posts you have checked out, then how will people know if they’re good or not? Secondly, it depends on people being honest and not childish. It’s easy to go around rating people you don’t like with a low rating, and rewarding your friends with higher ratings.
So try it out. We’ll see how it goes.
Seasons greetings to the Tampa Bay Blogosphere. Are your stockings hung with care? How’s the ole’ menorah on this 4th night of Hanukkah? Did you give an extra coat of polish to the Festivus pole before the Airing of Grievences and Feats of Strength last night?
Happy holidays to one and all!
Clark’s a character.
There we go, I said it. I went right to the point of Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle of Consciousness: Clark Brooks is a character and worth your time.
From the blog header:
Hi. My name is Clark and this is my blog. My intent is to entertain and I’d like this to be more than “Clark And What Pisses Him Off” (although there will definitely be some of that) so I’ll be posting some short humorous fiction as well. I hope you like it. WARNING: Sometimes I will cuss. And I will also embellish facts (ie: lie) in the interest of making things funnier than they really are. Just so you know
But be forewarned, blog readers… Be very wary…
DISCLAIMER: I am dumber, uglier, and generally more badly behaved than anybody I criticize in this blog. So if you’re one of those people and you’re offended by something I say about you, take comfort in the fact that you’re a better person than I am. Unless you’re the driver of a minivan, in which case you are irredeemably worthless and will spend forever clinging desperately to the bottom rung of the societal ladder. Beyond that, all (or most of all) that matters will be revealed in the blog. If you used to subscribe to “This Week’s Ramblings” and were wondering if I’m the same guy, yes, I am. If for some reason you feel that you are entitled to an apology from me for some past transgression, there’s a fairly high likelihood that you’re correct so here you go: yeah, sorry about that.
It takes a big man to say he’s sorry. He may not have the foresight to know just what he’s sorry for (this time) but he’s sorry none the less. Props to the big man!
What’s going on in the blogosphere?
Anyone interested in a blogger bash sometime in the New Year?
(EDIT: You know, it would help if I opened comments, wouldn’t it?)
Most local transit aficionados and development junkies know about David Pinero’s Tampa Rail, which was long the sole local voice regarding mass transit in the Bay area.
Walter Slupecki changed that, however, when he instituted his Tampa Transit Utopia blog. Though named for the single city of Tampa, Walter covers transit issues of the entire Tampa Bay region.
Welcome to the Tampa Transit Utopia Blog. Here you can comment on a variety of topics dealing with mass transit in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Manatee, and Sarasota counties [all of which are covered by the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Agency (TBARTA)]
…
The Tampa Bay region of Florida is in dire need of a good mass transit system. But our government and financial burdens keep getting in the way. Well, here is the place where you can share your ideas about the future of Tampa Bay’s mass transit system. Whether it be a ferry system, light rail, monorail, bus rapid transit, or other motive.
It lends a voice to the one issue of the area that never seems to be addressed (mass transit). Take a gander
OK, so it’s been about a week since we made official the re-launch of TampaBLAB. We’d love to hear your thoughts on things… Or general comments about the state of the Tampa Bay Blogosphere.
It’s been about a week since we made official the re-launch of TampaBLAB but we’ve been updating the blogroll for several weeks now. New local bloggers are stepping forward all the time…
Here’s a list of new bloggers (in absolutely no particular order) that have joined the BLAB since late this summer:
As you see, it’s just a few new blogs from neighbors. We invite you to take a gander, take a looksee, take a read and check out the sites above.
One thing that’s been in place on the BLAB for a few months now is a rotating header image. Once a day, a new image shows up by the Tampa Blab logo. Most of these images were provided by members of Skyscraper City’s Tampa-St. Petersburg message forum.
We’d like the rest of the public to get in on the action.
We’re looking for pictures from around the bay area to use in our banner-image rotation. The photographs should be yours — not photos you found on other sites. The pictures themselves should be fo things, places and events around Tampa Bay.
If you’re curious, interested, or downright excited — drop me a line asking for details and more info.
In the future, we hope to highlight some of the newer additions to the TampaBLAB. It gives everyone a chance to find out about a local blog that may not be widely known as it stands.
In our kick-off edition, we would like you to feast your wandering eyes on Rob Heath’s sci-fi, comic book, technological wonderland known as the Nerd Fellowship.
From the ABOUT page:
Nerd Fellowship is a News and Discussion based community that focuses on…well..NERD STUFF! No reason to keep this introduction professional. We all LOVVVVE Movies, TV, Games, Anime, Comics, Manga, Cosplaying, Going to Conventions, and more! While our main site is focused on feeding you the hottest news in all of the previously stated categories, our forums are constantly bustling with engaging conversation. We have a team of dedicated writers always bringing in fresh news, and a great community full of unique and interesting personalities. Seriously…I feel lucky to have our members. So check out our great content and make sure you join our community forums! We’d love to have you on board.
There’s a message board over there too and Rob’s always looking for more contributors to his elaborate empire of Nerd-dom. Check it out.
Many of you have probably noticed the nifty little icon that is showing up next to a majority of the posts on the BLAB front page:
That’s our default Gravatar for users here on site. What the heck is a Gravatar? Just personal avatar on the Internet of whatever you want to represent you on certain blogs. You can read more about Gravatars here.
If you already have a gravatar and don’t see it showing up besides posts credited to you here on the BLAB, you can contact us with your web site URL and email address that is registered at Gravatar.com and we’ll be happy to configure things so that your image is used in the future.
Hello to all the members and readers here at TampaBLAB. It’s been quite a while since we posted anything here on Blabblings, but we’re still around. Honest!
We’ve been working and planning and working and fooling around and tweaking things behind the scenes and we plan on making a few changes in the coming days and weeks here on the Blab. Me announcing this on a Friday night is in part is sorta lame because everyone is out or busy with relaxing right now… But at the same time, the reason I do it is because I’m in the middle of working on this, that and the other thing here at the Blab.
Hopefully we’ll have more to show you soon on TampaBLAB. Stay tuned!
