Why Block Google News?

I like to keep up to date with what is happening in the world of Google, I think Google is a great company and one that I can only aspire to be like, and yes they are a big company, a very big company so there is always a lot going on.

However I just don't understand what is happening now with the Google News service. Now this maybe that I just don't know enough about the subject, But I have been reading articles (found using Google News) like this Article form Bloomberg.

From what I can gather, certain news papers want to block Google from arrogating them using the Google News Service so that people will have to pay for a subscription to read articles to their online newspaper.

I get that the Newspapers want to make there money back since they are loosing so much in Physical news paper sales since the rise of the Internet.

But to block Google seems like a really bad idea, after all most of the articles I read are from all around the world and I would not be able to read them if they blocked Google. In truth I would be able to read them, but I am not going to bother going to the site its self and reading it.

So It would seem to me this would be really bad for traffic to theses newspapers sites.

Is the point to try and beat down the big guy (Google) or teach them a lesson?

Because I know for me, It will not change my reading habits. I will continue to use Google News as my way to find out what is happening in the world.

I will also not miss the newspapers that block Google. Because I know someone, somewhere, will read the article then summarise and Blog about it, and I will still find out the same info.

Terrence D Kuiper

Help with web site Promotion

It is hard to admit when you don't know something, but i figure I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So here I go.

If you have read my previous posts you would know that I have a website The Ideas Library,

If you ask me, I think the site is awesome and I think it is something that the Internet world would love to use.

But how do I get people to use my site?

I ran an ad campaign through facebook for a month and while I did get people viewing the site, I could not get anybody to sign up or post any ideas, which is the whole premise of the site.

Am I way of the mark here of what people want?

I have also been using Twitter to get the word out about The Ideas Library, howeverI am still getting the same result.

Could anybody give me some advice on how to get people to start using my site? or maybe some services I should be using to help promote it.

I should mention that I currently do not want to start spending money on advertising because The Ideas Library is still in it Beta phase.

Thanks for your help.

Terrence D Kuiper

Time To Start Blogging

I have decided that I should start blogging on a regular basis. I'm not really sure if I am going to have a main point or what I am going to blog about, However some of the things I'm sure will come up from time to time are:

• The Ideas Library ( www.theideaslibrary.com )
• Working on cruise ships
• Vancouver
• Australia
• Technology
• Tour Guiding ( www.tourguys.ca )

Thats all I can think of now but I am sure that the more I blog. The bigger this list will get.

The Ideas Library is now Beta 0.2

If you have not been to The Ideas Library yet, go there now!!

Check it out..... We have made some major updates and it is really taking shape. However I need your help.

Read on to find out what you can do.

The Ideas Library was an idea that I thought up in 2008. It was a pretty simple idea, I wanted to build a website that I could post all my different ideas to. If just one of my crazy ideas actually could be used by someone else then it would make the site worth while.

Soon I realized that I am probably not the only one that has ideas to share and that the site would be much better as a 'Wiki' site.

I tried my best to create the site with as much of my web design skills that I had. I must say I think I did a pretty good job and it was a site that i was proud of; However, it wasn't the way I imagined it. It was a static site and in order for a users to post an idea, they needed to fill out a form, then I would receive that form in my email and manual post the idea myself. I would decide the layout and how it would appear on the website.

I was thinking to myself.... Wow if this becomes really popular and people are submitting ideas on a regular basis, I am going to get worn out....This is a lot of work.

It was at this point that I knew that there was no other way to go, TheIdeasLibrary.com needed to be a 'Dynamic' site, a site that the users were in charge of there own ideas and they could decide the layout and how they would like to look, while still having the idea match the theme of entire site.

I tried to find the best way to achieve this goal by looking for software or a program that would allow me to make the site dynamic but also to be user friendly enough for me to use with my limited knowledge of coding and to top it all off I needed it to be free or at least really cheap as any expensive was coming out of my own pocket.

I found Word Press (WP) it was basically a open source blogging tool. It is fairly easy to set up and get running on the site. however, I was struggling to customize it it to something that would work for The Ideas Library.

It was at this time that my cousin Brian came to visit me.

Brian had a background in computers and programing, working for some of his career at IBM but I knew that he hadn't had much experience in web design, oh so I thought.

It turns out that he had been working on a project of his own. A travel blogging site/program that had similar capabilities to what I was looking for on The Ideas Library.

After staying up late into the night, being big nerds talking about our project that we had and talking about what we imagine them to be, it started to become clearer and clearer that we should be working as a team and put our ideas together.

Over the next few months we collaborated on different ideas and came up with how we wanted the site to look and feel and before you knew The Ideas Library beta 0.1 was launched.

In beta 0.1 we had a lot of bugs that we needed to work thorough but the site itself was looking pretty good. The site now gave users the ability to have full control over what they posted how it looked and also create a profile for them self.

As time went on we fixed a lot of problems added more features made it more user friendly and with the last update that include things like:

• Able to set the alignment of Image and Paragraph sections.
• Able to save an Idea as a draft so that you can view it before publishing.
• Added the Bold, Italic and Underline formats to the Paragraph section.
• Profile can be made Public or Profile for privacy.
• Profile option to enable receiving of emails when comments are submitted to your ideas.
• Various other profile options for your use.
• Added an RSS feed which is available via the RSS icon above your profile on the right.
• Added link to our twitter page next to the RSS icon.
• Added the ability to add captions to Images.
• Added a Display Text field for the Web Links.

we knew it it was time for The Ideas Library beta 0.2

Now we need your help.

The Ideas Library needs to know what you as a user would like to see or not like to see on the site. We need you to register post an idea and tell us if you find any bugs or if there is something missing that you wish was on there.

Brian & I will continue to develop a build a better site for you to use but we need your help.

I'm a Geek

So I found this site where you can see exactly how much of an internet geek you are.

here is my chart.

Kingwarrior's Geek Chart

Dodgeball

The Ideas Library

I have been hard at work latley creating a new website call 'The Ideas Library'

It is/or will be a library of ideas that people can search and use as they wish, It is still in the early phases right now, but i'm happy to say that it is up and running and traffic is starting to incress.

I hope to make it a bit more like a wiki site (eg.wikipedia) so that users them self will be able to add, update and edit all the ideas on there.

If you would like to support me in this venture it would be great if you could go to my site http://www.theideaslibrary.com have a look aroun and then submit an idea of your own that I can add to it.

Thanks for all your support.