Mediaboss Marketing

With all the noise about social networking sites in the last several years, it's easy to forget that if you've got more to say than what can be expressed in 140 characters, or want to do more than post brief updates, your best bet is a blog.

There are a wealth of blogging services and software out there -- so which should you use? If you're a business or other professional organization, you probably want to use full-bore website building software that includes a blogging component. However, that type of software requires experience with server setups, HTML code and site management.

If you don't have that expertise, or want to spend your valuable time on creating content rather than wrangling with technical issues, you can opt for a service that hosts your blog for you -- for free. These hosted blogging services take care of all the nitty-gritty backend work, and allow you to focus on what's most important to you: The content of your blog.

They offer pre-built content management systems that make it easy to write, edit and manage blog posts, letting you decide whether to write using WYSIWIG editors or instead insert the code yourself. They also let you switch back and forth between the two when you want.

That's just the basics, though. Using a hosted service doesn't mean giving up power and features. They let you easily create polls and customized forms and integrate with social networking sites, and they offer considerable site management features, including tools for handling comments and automatically killing blog spam. They use sophisticated tools for tracking traffic, and let you dig deeply to find underlying patterns that may help you draw more visitors. And they have plenty of online help and community-based support when you run into problems, or need advice from others who have had the same issues that you have.

(For a review of microblogging sites that offer quick-and-dirty blogging tools with a strong social networking component, see our microblogger shootout.)

In this article, I examine two of the best-known hosted blogging services: Blogger and WordPress.

Blogger was one of the first blogging tools available. Launched back in 1999 by Pyra Labs, it was bought by Google in 2003 and has been considerably redesigned since.

More site-building and blogging tools

For more reviews of applications for building blogs and websites, check out these articles:

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Blogging service shootout: Blogger vs. WordPress

BREINIGSVILLE, Pa., March 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Pennsylvania-based internet company, GB Marketing LLC, today introduced two new web sites, http://www.BerkSavingsMall.com and http://www.Agent.DynamicMerchants.com/17244, separately aimed at better serving internet shoppers and small businesses.

BerkSavingsMall.com is an affiliate retail Web site, referring online consumers to hundreds of high quality, low cost consumer products available on the internet. Product categories include automotive, electronics, health & beauty, apparel, computers, grocery, home & garden, music, movies, jewelry, watches, outdoor living, pet supplies and much more. BerkSavingsMall.com is dedicated to providing visitors with links to the top selling items, in order to limit their time spent on the internet searching for a product or gift. The company plans to continue adding products as they become available.

Agent.DynamicMerchants.com/17244 is geared towards small business looking to lower their company's credit card processing rates, or secure non-traditional funding such as merchant cash advances. GB Marketing LLC is a licensed agent of the company, Dynamic Merchants, and is selling services on their behalf. The Web site also offers additional processing solutions such as ATM/Debit Cards, Electronic Gift Cards and Loyalty Cards.

Founder and President of GB Marketing LLC, Glenn Berk, states, "Whether you are a small business, or an individual searching for great deals on the internet, we want to be of service to you. Our customers are provided with high quality products and services, and experience exceptional customer service. We look forward to expanding our operations in the near future."

For more information on GB Marketing LLC, or the company's two new Web sites, visit http://www.BerkSavingsMall.com and http://www.Agent.DynamicMerchants.com/17244.

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GB Marketing LLC Launches Two Separate Web Sites Aimed at Better Serving Internet Shoppers and Small Businesses

Heard of Saman Arbabi? The creator of the satirical Iranian TV and radio show "Parazit" was the sole panelist at the SXSW talk, "Iranian Outlaws: Satire Vs. Censorship." From the start, Arbabi inspired great expectations. His intro included a clip of Jon Stewart loving on him: I am proud to be considered in the fraternity of humorists that you guys are in," Stewart said, when Arbabi and his co-host, Kambiz Hosseini, visited "The Daily Show." (We posted the extended interview with Stewart below, full of much more loving-on).

Before launching what's arguably Iran's best and least-loved show, Arbabi, who grew up in the US, worked as a war correspondent for Voice of America. While working, he began to draw cartoons for the hell of it. Their subject was nearly always the hijab -- with a recurring joke centered simply on the image of a woman as a black mound with eyes. In one of his cartoons, an unidentifiable woman in full hijab appears on a milk carton, with the caption, "Have You Seen Me?"

"I found humor was more real than journalism," Arbabi said. He explained the particular targets he trained his sights on: the hijab, and the "hypocrisy" of Islamic tenets against drinking and gambling. "If you ever want to go to Vegas, pick a Muslim. They're beasts," Arbabi said.

To the left of Arbabi was a striking poster in service of the group hosting him, the Weapons of Mouse Destruction campaign. The poster is the work of counter-cultural iconographer Shepard Fairey, who enlisted Twitter co-founder Evan Williams to open his eyes for the camera:

Like Williams, Arbabi is the ideal poster boy for Weapons of Mouse Destruction, a social media-driven awareness campaign about government censorship in places like Iran and China. Arbabi's show is more than a nuisance for the Iranian government -- the way he describes it, "Parazit" is enemy no. 1.

The show began as a one-off experiment for Voice Of America. Emboldened by an online interest in his cartoons, Arbabi convinced his employers he could make them something like a hit. Today it's exactly that, despite the fact that Iran has declared "Parazit" illegal to watch.

"They started breaking down [satellite] dishes. You'd think they're after Bin Laden here," Arbabi said, noting that the government has invested $1 billion in developing a "halal" or Western-free internet.

But "Parazit" isn't any weaker for the counter-attacks. On the contrary, Arbabi claims the streets of Tehran are quieter on the mornings he airs, emptied of people watching the show. As of today, "Parazit" is five Facebook Likes shy of 837,000 (to put that in perspective, The Huffington Post has 554,000 Likes). What Jonathan Franzen criticized as a too-easy show of approval is in this case the opposite. Someone who chooses to Like "Parazit" is also implicitly choosing to let the Iranian government know about it.

For more information on Weapons of Mouse Destruction, visit weaponsofmousedestruction.org. "Parazit" episodes are available on YouTube.

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SXSW 2012: Saman Arbabi Talks 'Parazit' And Government Censorship In Iran (VIDEO)

Customers can now control their Roku players using their Android smartphones.

With this free software, users can turn their mobile devices into a control center wherethey can launch Roku channels, navigate the Roku player, control media playback, and find new channels to view.

Theapp also turnsthe Android-running handset into a touch remote control that includes instant replay, back, and option buttons as well as a keyboard.It can also be usedto control and switch between multiple Roku players.

To use this app, just simply download it from the Google Play store, install, connect to the same network as the Roku player, and sign-in witha Roku account. Once signed in,users willbe able to controlany Roku player on the same network.

Roku released a Roku App for iPhone late last year that acts similarly to the Android app.

More about RokuRoku boxes are specially-designed devices for streaming video from online services. They offer channels such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, and many more, and have become popular among those who have given up cable television service.

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Control Your Roku Player with the Free Roku App

The new policy was partly based on rules governing journalists' access to the Guantanamo Bay prison. Photo: Reuters

THE Immigration Department's tough new policy restricting media visits to detention centres was partly modelled on US military rules governing journalists' access to the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Documents released under freedom of information show that Immigration's new ''deed of agreement'' that must be signed by journalists and media organisations visiting immigration detention centres was in part ''informed by the current US Department of Defence media access policy for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay''.

The department justified tight media control and censorship to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen as ''the right balance'' in circumstances that included ''the current climate associated with media ethics, media 'phone hacking' [in Britain]''.

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In an email to a journalist who was privately consulted on the new policy, Immigration's national communications manager, Sandi Logan, explained: ''I reckon while the phone hacking scandal is all the rage, what else would the media expect of us? Trust, you say? Gimme a break, sorry!''

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said it was ''absolutely appalling'' that Australian media access guidelines had been at all inspired by arrangements at Guantanamo Bay.

''It really shows the attitude of Immigration and [the] government - they have forgotten that they are dealing with asylum seekers, not criminals or terrorists,'' she said.

Under the new media access policy, conditions of entry to detention centres include that journalists be at all times escorted by Immigration officers, a prohibition on any ''substantive communication'' with detainees, a right for officials to censor audio and video recordings, as well as the right for Immigration officials to immediately terminate any visit.

Last month the chief executives of Australia's largest media organisations, including Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood, News Limited CEO Kim Williams and the heads of all TV broadcast networks condemned the deed of agreement as ''unacceptable censorship''.

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US prison inspired media rule