My assignment for week one of the Back to School, Back to Blogging event is late. Remember, I tweeted you and told you that I spent a very long day at Disneyland on Wednesday with a two-year-old who was on a sugar high from eating cotton candy and chocolate covered cookies with sprinkles and that we stayed from opening to closing time?
Well, maybe I didn't give you that much detail. Twitter does only allow 140 characters.
Anyway. I finished it and here it is. I'm also attaching photo proof of our chocolate-filled-fest day at Disney.
If you are wondering what the heck I'm talking about, it's this:
Our assignment for week one was to complete an 11-point inspection of our blog. I'm still working on that as it seems there are several areas of improvement. I did, however, freshen up my "about" page with new photos and updated information. I'm still working on adding a blog roll page and social media buttons.
The next part of the assignment was to "find a COOL, little-known plugin or widget" and write about it. My reaction: a what? Kidding. Of course I know what a widget is. Sally Field played her, right? Ahem.
But how do I find a cool, new one that no one has ever heard of? I Googled "new widgets" because none of the other students would think of that, right? That turned up a lot of stuff that I don't think my blog needs, like a Skype button (I don't even have a Twitter button yet, so why would I add Skype?) and something called MixMap where you can see where your visitor are from. Ho-hum.
So, I thought I'd take a break and check out the comments left on my blog and realized that *THAT* was an area I needed to focus on. I hardly respond to comments. And when I do, I feel bad that I can't respond to each individual comment. So, I Googled some more and found Disqus!
Disqus allows me to reply to a specific comment creating a conversation of sorts. I'm loving it so far! Totally easy to install on Blogger. Plus, I get notified by email of a new comment and I can reply straight from my iPhone (because that's how I read and answer most of my email anyway).
I can't wait to see what the other #B2SB2B students come up with and I'm already looking forward to week two!
