Cultivating Curiosity

A couple of people have already asked me about how I set up my blog. I won’t go into details here but rather focus on some of the more exotic parts of the setup, such as the multi-channel publishing.

Hosting and Domain Name

I was lucky enough to land on the DreamHost signup page just in time to get their Obama Inauguration offer. They’re a good deal even without the offer, though. Not necessarily red carpet treatment but cheap and good enough. Hey, they’re even green! Use promo code “jointhetribe” for a $97 discount ($51 discount for the monthly payment offer).

“Dot what? Name? Where can I get one?” I bought my domain name from 1&1 since DreamHost’s free domain names didn’t cover .name domains.

The Blog

Thanks to DreamHost’s simple one-click installs, I was up and running with a WordPress blog in less than 5 minutes after signing up. After that I installed some essential plugins, hooked up FeedBurner for subscriber tracking and email subscriptions, and I was ready to go live.

Comments

I replaced the standard comment system with Disqus, because I liked the idea of enriching the comment experience a bit (threading, voting, etc.) and tying it to a larger discussion ecosystem.

Multi-Channel Conversations

The “My Recent Activity” widget in the sidebar is pulled from FriendFeed, which aggregates all my online activity from YouTube videos and GoodReads book reviews to Twitter updates and Delicious bookmarks. Much of this also gets posted onto FaceBook and, for example, my Disqus profile.

Why go through all this trouble, you might ask? Admittedly part of it is just to satisfy the techie propeller head in me, but the main reason is the ease with which I find myself drawn into interesting conversations this way. One click on “Favourite” in YouTube and suddenly my email box springs alive with comments from blog readers and my FaceBook wall becomes a coffee table conversation.

This was inspiration enough for me to really dive into blogging. I sincerely hope that you also decide to join the tribes.

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