Tag Archives: WordPress

Taking It To The Streets

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I followed through on the first of my 2013 New Years Resolutions. I am branding MusicOfOurHeart as my second line of business. This is an evolutionary step to form a later stage secondary career as a digital music journalist. Technically I have been a music writer since 1975 (38 years) My primary career continues to be in education as an information technology professor and instructional technologist (29 years).

I will be leveraging my long-term music interests to produce a secondary revenue stream to help offset my costs as a dedicated music fan.  It’s always been an active pursuit of mine to find a creative way for my music  hobby to help pay for itself.

By the way how do you like my new business card? ;)

front2

Several recent accomplishments with the music industry have boosted my confidence to step up.

1. Just like the brand new deli or convenience store on the corner where you live, I can proudly hang the first $100 bill earned with this business. Thanks to WordPress WordAds I received that $100 via PayPal last month! Monetizing a blog without diluting your content is doable. I am convinced I will see a five fold increase in monetization revenue in 2013.

2. I am being requested to write more music blog posts for leading companies. Through my journalism connection with Ti.dal I have become the top professional music blogger with SONY Popmarket Backstage. This is the official Blog for Sony Music‘s Legacy Recording Division. I will soon hit 200 blog posts online with that strategic music business partner.

I have also been asked to write music blog posts for Pepsi. I wrote a music blog post about Justin Timberlake‘s “Suit and Tie” recording that he featured last night on the Grammy Awards with Jay-Z. I have written for the Pepsi SuperBowl Halftime events that featured Beyonce. I was also asked over the weekend to write a blog post for last night’s CBS Grammy Awards event. You can find those blog posts elsewhere on this blog.

The challenge for me is to keep up my existing professional music contacts that I have written proudly with for free for all these years yet find a way to begin to charge reasonable fees for my writing.

3. I have also been requested to write an article about two upcoming related events the launch of Talent Army and The Big Apple Indie Music Series . I am developing greater recognition through LinkedIn for my increased music journalism skills.

4. I have started writing a book about live music performance. The recent series about music journalism is helping  actualize that I can become a recognized digital music journalist in the sea of music bloggers.

5. I still plan to have 1-2 major music magazine articles published in 2013. The year is still young ;)

So that is why I am Taking It To The Streets, no make that Taking It To The Web.

Micheal McDonald echoes my sentiment: You Don’t Know Me, But I’m Your Brother

That’s what I plan to do ;)

Let me know your thoughts below. As always thanks for reading and believing.

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My WordPress Blog 2012 In Review

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I thank my friends, associates, 1,666 followers, and global readers(167 countries!!!) for a bountiful 2012 professional blogging year.

I especially want to thank my loving wife Rosemary for her patience with my daily blogging.

Crunchy

This blog increased its views from 60, 223 views in calendar year 2011 to 138, 809 in 2012. That is a 130% viewing increase in a year. That speaks to the magnetic pull WordPress continues to show and data mine in the InterWeb.

My analysis of these results indicates that the Top 10 blog posts in 2012 were focused on articles from strong reader fan bases such as Santana, The Beach Boys, Jethro Tull, Neil Young, and Donald Fagen (Steely Dan). The blog posts were centered upon concert reviews, album reviews and music art work in advance of product releases (something I hope to do more of in 2013).

The relationship I have struck with Nick Rhodes at Tid.al with SONY Popmarket has helped tremendously. Thank you Nick for contacting me to write more specifically for SONY Popmarket. Last I understood I am the top blogger on the Popmarket site with close to 150 blog posts.

I also want to thank my Santana brothers and sisters at the Moonflower Cafe for their continued readership, interest and support.

My San Francisco music connection with Bill Ortiz, Anna Karney, Steffen Franz, Charles Xavier (XMAN), Chris Buttner (PRThatRocks), Michael Brandvold and Shambhu continues to flourish and grow,  I am very thankful to have them all in the music of our heart.

I liked the concert analogy when it comes to the statistics mentioned below. The Barclays Center is high on my bucket list of new concert venues in my market to experience in 2013.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

Thank You For Helping MusicOfOurHeart.Me Double Down!

Posted on by Musicofourheart

Thanks to you I reached another milestone with the Music of Our Heart blog today. I doubled down on the amount of Web hits on this blog from 60,223 in calendar year 2011 to 120,446 through November 12, 2012! There are still 49 days remaining in 2012 so that total can go higher ;)

It feels great to exceed 100,000 Web hits in a single year, especially when it took me five years to achieve 100,000 original Web views. WordPress is growing at an exponential rate. I love being a part of this vibrant publishing community.

Stats

Total views to date: 210,700

Blog Followers: 1,475

Blog Posts: 795 to date, 682 posts in a row from posting daily in 2011 & 2012…

I appreciate your interest in reading what I share and write about music. I have enjoyed learning about your WordPress blogs. Your comments have encouraged me to continue blogging every day.

Please let me know if there is a music subject or artist you would like to see written about and I will do my best to honor your request.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 53,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 20 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Taj Mahal

Posted on by Musicofourheart

Taj Mahal is ever-expanding his musical capabilities with rich textures gathered from across the world stage. Taj ranges with natural motion from the blues, through calypso, diving into reggae and swaying us  like palm trees with island music.

It has been 37 years since I last saw Taj Mahal perform live at The Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Ct on October 30, 1974.  I spent quality time with Taj Mahal that evening as I interviewed him for a local music magazine. He played a National Steel Guitar underneath the interview as we talked in his dressing room. Sitting right outside his dressing room that night was James Cotton who joined Taj Mahal  softly on his harp. That is one of my fondest backstage moments when two pivotal blues musicians broke out in improvisational song as background accompaniment in my presence.

I also saw Taj Mahal open for the Mahavishnu Orchestra at Staples High School in Westport, Ct. 1973. Taj Mahal had Howard Johnson on Tuba with him that evening and Taj’s set was reminiscent of The Real Thing recorded live at The Fillmore East in 1971.

My lovely wife Rosemary purchased tickets to see Taj Mahal and Los Lobos live at The Klein Memorial Auditorium in Bridgeport, Ct. on Saturday February 19th. My modus operandi before I attend a concert is to immerse myself in that artist’s music and read as much as  I can about them and their art. I enjoy researching the artist’s Web pages, catching up on what has been written and learned about the artist. Its going to be both fun and a challenge assimilating Taj Mahal’s 40+ year legacy in the next 10 days ;) Thankfully I have Zune to help me do that ;)

When I attended the University of New Haven(1972-1974) I took a music course that covered the blues extensively. I chose to write my term paper that semester about Taj Mahal. Having established a nice working relationship with Ed NaHa at Columbia Records in New York City, I availed myself of CBS Record’s research department utilizing press release and extensive artist background information files. Ed was a tremendous help to me in 1973 and 1974 when I needed background information on Mahavisnhu John McLaughlin and Taj Mahal. Ed made me feel right at home at the Big Black Rock as CBS was known as in those days. He understood it was my desire as a student majoring in business and minoring in music that I wanted to work for CBS Music when I graduated. That dream never did materialize for me but I always stayed in direct touch with music as best I could over the years.

So today’s WordPress post is dedicated to old friends and the ever unfolding music of Mr. Taj Mahal. :)

Taj Mahal’s latest recording is Maestro, give it a listen soon ;)

 

Participating in Daily Post 2011

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I’m Posting every day in 2011!

I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now.  I will be posting on this blog once a day / once a week for all of 2011.

I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising touse The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Signed,

Ed Jennings

Professional Blogger



WordPress Blogging Tools

Posted on by Musicofourheart
The Windows Live Writer logo.

Image via Wikipedia

As I increase my blogging expertise I continue to discover blogging tools of merit.

The first blogging tool I would like to share with you is Zemanta. Zemanta is an extension to Google Chrome and Firefox. When you are working inside of your WordPress account creating a blog, Zemanta activates alongside and underneath your blog post. Zemanta adds great value as it saves you opening another browser tab to find an image for your post. Zemanta provides images for you to choose from as thumbnails. It also simplifies the hyperlink option by providing a nice list of suggested hyperlinks based upon the text of your flowing blog post.

The second blogging tool that I am rejuvenated about is Windows Live Writer, which I am using to create this blog post :) . Windows Live Writer is a well written blogging front end tool that interprets form and function on behalf of the blogger. As I test and utilize the newest edition of Windows Live Writer I will share back here what I have discovered.

The great news is that you can use Zemanta and Windows Live Writer together! Zemanta has a Windows Live Writer PlugIn.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Can’t wait to blog post and publish with the Apple iPad

Posted on by Musicofourheart

I am writing this post from my Apple iPhone as my Apple iPad Wi-Fi + 3g will not be shipping until the end of April. I want to thank the WordPress team for revising their WordPress for iPhone OS App to include iPad support. The iPad will be my publishing tool and I can’t wait to join this exciting phase of the Internet revolution!

The WordPress for iPhone OS blog is here: http://iphone.wordpress.org/blog/

WordPress Wordcamp NYC 2009 – November 14, Baruch College

Posted on by Musicofourheart

Yesterday my wife and I attended WordPress Wordcamp NY City. It was great being a virtual student at Baruch College in the Garmercy Park section of NYC.

Our son attended The School of Visual Arts from 2004-2008. He lived on East 23rd Street and for us it was like coming home again being at Baruch College up the block ;)

The event was very well done. My hat is off to Jane, you organized a great day for us. Your hard work truly paid off in what was accomplished. The sessions were excellent. Our favorite session was True/Slant what a cool MU blog are they.

More about WordPress Wordcamp NYC event.

Very eager to hear about WordPress 2.9 which Matt will be unveiling today, what a great community the WordPress crowd is :)

Peace,

Ed & Rosemary Jennings