The blog magazine went glitchy for a bit yesterday/today – being the procrastinator, I did not want to upgrade to Wordpress (mainly because I didn’t know how) however the original theme had some glitches which were fixed in an upgrade that only worked with Wordpress 2.5, meaning that I was stuck in a lil pickle. Anyways, thanks to George over at GPearce.co.uk, I’ve been sorted on both Blog Premiere and TUK with WP 2.5 To be honest, I preferred the old dashboard better, and don’t know why they had to change ( :( ) but I guess I’ll learn to love it in time. If you haven’t already, upgrade… now that the laziest person in the blogosphere has gotten around to doing it, you really have no excuse :razz:

I have also gotten the tshirt design done (thanks to Daniel of Daily Logos) and have put in a basic order for 100 shirts. To see what the tshirt will look like, click here. Fairly decent – I will update on the progress of getting them made. What I will be doing is writing off the cost of producing the tshirts, but charging for shipping – if the website grows enough, I’ll probably be able to give some away free eventually, however at the moment I sadly don’t have bottomless pockets and can’t :)

I am thinking around $10 USD a shirt, extremely high quality (perhaps too much so, but he promised me that you need high quality to succeed so there we go. :razz: )

First off – before you read below, take a look at the contest and enter if you haven’t. At the moment, there’s a solitary entry in for the cash, and less than five posts about the blogging magazine – come on guys. :roll:

Alright, now into the meat of it. I truly want this to be the premiere blogging resource on the Interweb – one that all bloggers, both new and old can visit and not just learn stuff, but also have fun and network. Here’s some of my ideas for it – take a look, let me know what you think.

Forum. This has to be done to build a community – a place where bloggers can relax, ask each other for advice and network in their spare time. I’m a forum junkie of the highest order, and although there are some large blogging forums around there is no real dominant force in the industry – I’ve never let competition stop me and I sure as hell won’t now.

For the beginning, I’ll be using a standard blue vBulletin theme, however will eventually get a forum custom designed and coded – I’ve asked around, and prices are fairly decent… so why not. I will also be looking for moderators (and have gotten a couple people on board who KNOW about vB, so I won’t have to suffer a repeat of the catastrophe that was EXPForums – remember that?), so feel free to send me an email if you’d be up for it.

Directory. Not a free one – although free ones are great, there are hundreds of them out there. One that is paid, but cheap enough for anyone to get in – low/high $x. I’ll be user editing it to make sure that quality remains high, and it will be a place that people can visit to find interesting blogs.

Nothing completely unique, but it will add more reason to visit the website (and thus more value overall).

Digg Clone. Although there are established names in the industry (Blogging Zoom, Blog Engage) I do think that the magazine would do well off with something like that (see increasing reasons to come to the website). If the blog magazine grows as I envision it to be, it could be a good place for bloggers to gain exposure for articles they’ve written.

Store. Nothing groundbreaking – I’ve already ordered tshirts, anyways if this kicks off get the logo put on hats, mats, cups, bags, women’s lingerie… you get the idea. Could be fun to see Blog Premiere skateboards, you think? :razz:

I have been working hard on preparing stuff for the magazine so don’t have time to post much on here today – anyways, I’d love to hear thoughts. I’m glad that yesterday’s post was such a roaring success too :D

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