Qumana Blog :: Ask Qumana

Thursday, March 9

Qumana 'how to' blog

by arieanna on March 9, 2006 01:21PM (PST)

Have you seen our new blog?

It's called the Qumana 'how to' blog. And it's the new front line for everything in the Q World.

Qumana 'how to' is all about making your blog kick ass: making it rock, making blogging easier, and making money from it all.

What you can expect:

‘how to’ use Qumana to make writing to one or more blogs easy as pie
‘how to’ use Lektora to manage your feeds and start some rocking posts
‘how to’ use our Ad Program to make money blogging
‘how to’ make your posts look great
‘how to’ tweak your template and design to keep readers, and get them clicking
‘how to’ mix ad programs to make the most money
‘how to’ write effectively, and interact in the blogosphere
all the latest updates to our programs - fixes, new features, and new ways to use them

For industry news, breaking items, and analysis of the goings on in blogging, RSS and advertising, tune in here, our main Qumana blog. Tune in here for industry awareness, pop over there for great tips.

The blog has been up for a few weeks now and the archives are just rich with great tips! Ones I particularly like are: Ad Heat Spots, Setting up MSN Spaces, and Setting up Pinging.

Tags: qumana, how to, qumana how to, productivity, q

Leave Comment | Permanent Link

Tuesday, February 21

Invalid login errors with Qumana and MT 3.2

by Tris Hussey on February 21, 2006 11:31PM (PST)

With the new Qumana v3 out we've seen a few folks having this problem again with MT blogs so a little blast from the past ...

Recently we've been receiving some questions about having problems getting Qumana to work with MoveableType (MT) 3.2 installs. We didn't think it was us and we were right. MT has implemented some additional security measures for remote posting. Here's the answer straight from the Six Apart Knowledgebase:

http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/kb/external/invalid_login_w.html

To provide enhanced security when using third party clients, Movable Type now provides for a separate API password (rather than forcing you to use your normal author login password). Here's how to set up this new password:

Log into Movable Type.
Click on your username in the top navigational menu to go to your profile.
Scroll down to the bottom where you see API Password.
Input a password of your choice and save. For security reasons, it should be different from your normal author password.
Use the new password in your client software.

Hope this helps everyone.

Technorati Tags : Qumana, MT, MoveableType

Leave Comment | Permanent Link

Wednesday, September 14

Ask Qumana: How do I blog a big story?

by Tris Hussey on September 14, 2005 09:14PM (PDT)

When big story breaks, say Google Blog Search, everybody blogs it. And I do mean everybody. So what do you do? Blog it? Skip it? How do you get your voice above the clutter? I had the same discussion with myself this morning. Google Blog Search breaks. Sure, we were tipped off last night, but still, this morning it broke. I started reading posts. I felt the overwhelming urge to drop everything and blog it. Oh yeah, wait, work. So I didn't, then. I did later this afternoon. What's the lesson here? First one is wait. Yes, wait. Sometimes, it really helps to just wait. Read and absorb what other people are writing about it. The chances of getting a scoop are pretty slim. Yes, we get lucky sometimes, but don't bet on it. So sometimes there's no rush in getting your post out. Everyone thinks its a rush and so they just blast stuff off. Try to hold off.

This leads to the next thing. Write your own opinion. After you've read everyone else, think, and go with your gut. You don't have to agree with the masses. The best thing you can do is write what you have to say.

See the secret to getting noticed and people linking to your articles is to be authentic, to write what you have to say, not just quote and link to Scoble and others.

Until next time ...

Technorati Tags : Google, search+engines, blogging

Powered By Qumana

Comments (2) | Permanent Link

Sunday, September 11

Ask Qumana: "How do I engage my audience?"

by Tris Hussey on September 11, 2005 09:09PM (PDT)

We're starting a new series here on the Qumana blog, "Ask Qumana ...". This series will be a la Dave Taylor's tech support blog—Tech Support and Business Questions? Ask Dave Taylor—but focused on blogs and blogging. It is primarily geared towards the new or intermediate blogger. If you have a question e-mail us at askqumana AT qumana DOT com and one of the bloggers here at Qumana will try to answer it for you. We might not be able to answer all of your questions, and we might meld several similar questions into one post, but we will get back to you if you e-mail.

So our first question comes from a friend of ours who is just starting out blogging and asks one of the core questions" "How do I engage my audience?". Wow, this is a tough one. Sometimes I wonder why some posts that I think are really good don't get any comments, and others get lots. I certainly don't get anywhere near the number of comments Darren gets on his posts (oh am I jealous). Why? Partially it is a numbers game. More readers increases the number of people who will potentially comment. But on engaging your audience, how? One of the tried and true methods is simple, ask. Yep, ask for comments. It works pretty often.

Also, contrary to what you might think, blogging about the hot topic of the day, won't engage your audience unless you have a unique perspective to add. Engaging your audience comes down finding out what your audience is most interested in and try to write about that. Sure, you don't want to do that all the time, but it will help to build your audience.

How do you find out what's popular? Use the stats from Typepad, Blogware, and/or FeedBurner . See what is getting read the most, trackbacked, and linked to the most. Work from there and that's a great start.

Next topic ... that's up to you. The e-mail lines are open.