[Gaystoryman]

Is time your worst enemy?

I know it is mine, because of my real life, the time available to build sites, to maintain them, is less and less each day, and then there is the ever constant evolving world of the Internet. A conflict for sure, but one that Blogging has come to the forefront.

It has let us average types, us NON GEEKS, set up a site in mere minutes (so they claim) without any real skills. Problem with that is, you stlll need loads of time, if you plan on attacking various niches within the Market, either the Straight or Gay or both.

A solution is of course, more blogs, but then you run into the Tigger Syndrome, more commonly known as UPDATE FORGETFULNESS. In short, as more people use the blogging software, more evil types find ways to make life miserable, by hacking, by exploits, by just plain spam. The solution is NEVER ENDING UPDATES.

WORDPRESS, is the most popular of blogging platforms, it has a ton of FREE themes, FREE PLUGINS, and most of all, the platform itself is FREE. That alone attracts a ton of users, which in turn makes for a ton of blogs, and naturally a ton of interest from those nasty evil miscreants, known as Hackers, Spammers, and just plain naughty folk.

So the more you expand your blogging empire, the more work you do. That is in conflict with the whole idea of blogs, which was do less, get stuff out there, and make some money.

What is a guy to do? Hide under the table with a bottle of red wine, and hope no one will find your blogs to hack and deserate?

YES, there are multi blog platforms, such as Moveable Type, Wordpress MU and others, but they really aren't for the average non geek like us folks. They have way too many restrictions, and can be costly. Not to mention, they require a degree in Rocket Science that most of us simply don't have. So basically we are SOL, or so many would have you believe.

Yet if you want to have a true Blogging Empire, you either have to find something that will let you have a whole slew of blogs, themed to the niches you promote, or else have a 36 hour day to manage your updates, never mind establish new blogs, or add new content.

HOWEVER, persistence can pay off.

VIRTUAL MULTIBLOG is one solution, that I am finding will do exactly what I need it to do, which is maintain the themes, plugins, and core files in one central location, including my hacks and custom adds or subtractions.

What it does, basically, is set up the blogs, on any domain I own, and run them as one blog, and yet have them appear as separate entities. It gives me the freedom to add NICHE SPECIFIC BLOGS, without the worry of upgrading or of spending countless hours clicking the automatic update tool.

IT IS FAR FROM PERFECT, but what it does is let me build an empire, without having to spend the time moving the blocks up a mountain. YES there is a great deal more to setting this system ujp, but in the long run, it makes for less time to keep them running, than the current solutions offer.

IT ALLOWS ME to take advantage of the free themes, and free plugins of Wordpress, of ALL OF THEM & NOT JUST A SMALL COLLECTION OF THEMES & PLUGINS.

One downside is that many of cache plugins will not work with this system, so if you have a super heavy traffic blog, this is not for you.

Another downside, is I don't believe it will work across multiple hosts. However, that is something a GEEK would have to check into, because this program is written in TRUE GEEK SPEAK.

WHAT IT WILL DO, is allow you to set up several blogs, on different domain names, using just ONE INSTALL OF WORDPRESS.

That means, I can upgrade all my themes, all my plugins, plus the core files, at one location. For example, I had FIVE plugins requiring updating. The automatic update feature doesn't work for me, due the firewall I have on my server. That means I have to FTP into each blog, to update the plugins.

AND some of those plugins, require you to 'deactivate them' prior to updating. Now that is a super pain, but with the Virtual Multiblog, it took me a total of THREE MINUTES to upgrade ALL FIVE PLUGINS.

Another huge benefit is that I can use DIFFERENT THEMES for every single blog set up under this format. I can customize a theme, and not worry of losing track of it, or needing to copy it before I update the theme, as well, there is only one file to manage, not several.

CORE UPDATES are the same. With the release of a security upgrade from version 2.8.5 to 2.8.6, the update process for 14 blogs would be boring, and time consuming. It took less than five minutes to delete, upload, and have FOURTEEN BLOGS UPDATED.

All the update stuff aside, the true benefit of this system, is that one can easily expand their BLOGGING EMPIRE, to fill up their niche specific strategy. It means you can attack the dating site market, by having a specific blog for ugly old men, for men with small weenies, for furry men with a tail, without the need to spend hours upgrading them all.

YOU CAN CONCENTRATE ON CONTENT, INSTEAD OF UPDATING FILES.

This allows you to reach more traffic, and by using each NEW BLOG ON A SUB DOMAIN, well the SE benefits alone can be huge. ESPECIALLY if you use this system on a cross domain set up. You can manage a lot of one way links to your various sites, to other blogs.

In short, it is a way to grow, to let your main focus be on gaining traffic, on making trades, and above all else, on MAKING MONEY.

Things you will need, is a good host who can set this up for you, or a degree in Geekiness.

Get your blog (sub domain) criteria first, so you can easily have the HOST set this up for you, and so you can attack the right niches.

to be continued...

[Tigger]

great posting hun

my concern with blogs is your statement

It has let us average types, us NON GEEKS, set up a site in mere minutes (so they claim) without any real skills

as this opens the door wide open to the idiots and spammers of the world that come into the industry clueless and jump feet first into and create these spammy poor quality blogs that no one would put their name to and its with this in mind that I fear blogs "could" be the guest books of the not too distant future and ignored by SE

I hope not as a "quality" blog can offer a lot to both surfers for ease of use with the tags, cats & search and to the webmaster to put a good product online, with with every bunch of apples you get some bad ones and the spammers are abusing blogs and throwing out crappy sites that take 5 minutes to build then

Time will tell how long blogs last or at least the favor G gives them but I'm not holding my breath it lasting

[Gaystoryman]

I think the concern is no different than when 'free site builders' came along with web space, like Geocities, that is now defunct. With all those 'free web builder' programs, that required no html, css, or such, it too was thought it would flood the market, but as you say, quality generally survives, and I think the same is true for blogs.

With so many MILLIONS already blogging, to have it disappear or to have G ignore it or depreciate it, would be, in my mind suicide.

[Tigger]

agree Ian, but we all know how precious G database is to them and I can see them filtering them after all they already have the blog search so why not just filter all blogs into that ............which will pretty near kill them due to the amount of people that use blog search

I think to put all your development into blogs is a mistake and for every blog you need to keep on top of the old money earners and those sites that made you cash way before the term blog came about

[housekeeper]

With all blogs succinctly intertwined into one network, so to speak, wouldn't it stand to reason that if one blog got hit, they all would get hit?

What is the security risk of all of this, or would the security plug-in for WP work cross-platform as well?

[Gaystoryman]

Originally Posted by Tigger

agree Ian, but we all know how precious G database is to them and I can see them filtering them after all they already have the blog search so why not just filter all blogs into that ............which will pretty near kill them due to the amount of people that use blog search

I think to put all your development into blogs is a mistake and for every blog you need to keep on top of the old money earners and those sites that made you cash way before the term blog came about

Ah, but you see Tigs, by using this kind of system, you free up time, that you would be spending upgrading, that in turn could be used for other ventures, such as the pain staking static site building, as well as being able to add real content, not just feeds.

Key is, YOU GAIN TIME, so you can easily expand the blogging, but not increase your time to maintain them.

[Gaystoryman]

Originally Posted by housekeeper

With all blogs succinctly intertwined into one network, so to speak, wouldn't it stand to reason that if one blog got hit, they all would get hit?

What is the security risk of all of this, or would the security plug-in for WP work cross-platform as well?

In the setup, the program assigns different table prefixes so in essence, they are actually separate, so cross contamination would be reduced. You can opt to use separate db for each blog as well, I opted for the one. From what I've been told, it is six of one, half dozen of another.

However, with one single install, you can easily upgrade the security upgrades, such as the latest wordpress, 2.8.6 That then protects ALL your blogs.

As to the plugins, if you activate them on each blog, such as the security plugin, then yes, you gain that protection for THAT blog.

[Tigger]

Originally Posted by Gaystoryman

Ah, but you see Tigs, by using this kind of system, you free up time, that you would be spending upgrading, that in turn could be used for other ventures, such as the pain staking static site building, as well as being able to add real content, not just feeds.

Key is, YOU GAIN TIME, so you can easily expand the blogging, but not increase your time to maintain them.

if it works! I'll buy into it

Do the blogs all have to be hosted in one place?

[Gaystoryman]

Originally Posted by Tigger

if it works! I'll buy into it

Do the blogs all have to be hosted in one place?

I don't know if you can use it between different hosts. You CAN use it between different domains, and IPs hosted by one company, that I do know.

It can use, I believe, multiple db, but again, I am not certain.

[Gaystoryman]

ASSUMING, you CAN NOT use it between hosts, it still can be of use. Simply INSTALL a version on each host, which will allow you to have MULTIPLE BLOGS on that host.

Example: You have 3 hosts, and run 10 blogs on each. That is 30 blogs you have to maintain, plugins, core files. With this system, you install 3 blogs, that you have to maintain. Kind of seems to me, that is going to save a ton of time, PLUS you can increase the number of blogs, without INCREASING the maintenance of them.

[Tigger]

if you can't use it between different hosts that does take the shine right off it as I try to use as many different hosts as I can to spread downtimes & IP ranges

[Gaystoryman]

Originally Posted by Tigger

if you can't use it between different hosts that does take the shine right off it as I try to use as many different hosts as I can to spread downtimes & IP ranges

Not really Tigs, I mean right now, whatever number you are running, say it is 30, on even 6 hosts. Simple math, you upgrade 6 instead of 30. You can use or experiment with different SEO plugins, without needing to run around figuring where they are, when to upgrade them.

And like I said, right now you limit yourself, because your time to upgrade increases, with each new blog you set up. Under this system, it never increases, once you have done the initial set up on the host.

You come up with a new niche to explore, well, with each new install, as of now, that is going to be at least 5 minutes of upgrade time added to your existing schedule, once you set it up. With this system, even that 5 minutes (and it never is that short, now is it?) is saved.

[Tigger]

ok sold give me your affiliate link

[Gaystoryman]

Originally Posted by Tigger

ok sold give me your affiliate link

I wish, but it is FREE.

[Tigger]

arrrrr wondered why you like it