Kori Ellis: Tell a little bit about the blogging you do for b5media.

Jennifer Chait, b5media blogger

Jennifer Chait: I started writing for b5media in spring of 2007 blogging for Offbeat Homes then moved into the music channel when it launched, then helped launched one of my favorite blogs, Tree Hugging Family. Currently I write at Tree Hugging Family, Blisstree Green Living, Traveling the Green Way, Blisstree Gardening, and Thrifty Mommy.

KE: What’s the thing that you like most about blogging? The least?

JC: I like the social aspects of blogging the most. When I started freelancing I was writing magazine articles and business copy and it was cool, but lonely. I’m an extrovert so just hanging with my laptop got old super fast. As a blogger you’re interacting with people all day long; chatting, getting feedback from readers, debating, and actually talking with your co-workers vs. emailing an editor now and then.

My least favorite aspect of being a blogger is that very few people outside of other bloggers get what I do and that it’s actually work. My family is always asking, “So, when do you think you’ll be in another magazine!?” as if writing for print is a real job and web writing is some little hobby until I go back to “real writing.”

KE: Tell me a little more about your life outside of blogging for b5media. Where else do you write? How do you spend your free time?

JC: When I’m not blogging at b5, I’m well, mostly blogging. I write for numerous sites - Inhabitots, SheKnows - Pregnancy & Baby, Best Green Home Tips, Pronto Home, and at Blogging For A Living with my pal Deb Ng. I’m a community manager / writer at Green Home Huddle, plus manage social networking for some other popular green-minded sites. Because I’m not busy enough (ha) I have a few of my own blog projects as well.

I don’t have a ton of free time, but when I’m not working I’m usually hanging with my son Cedar. We’re an unschooling, free-schooling advocating family so we’re usually exploring some new topic that Cedar is currently interested in. I also like traveling, Frisbee, music (collecting LPs and going to shows), reading when I get some time, and I have a pretty bad coffee obsession.

KE: For you, what are the challenges (and rewards) of working freelance?

JC: I love writing about eco-issues. When I started freelancing, it was more about writing where I could find work vs. writing on topics I love. Since I’ve been freelancing for a while now my major reward is that I get to write about green issues most of the time. The major challenge is that I almost never get a full day off. There’s always an editor who needs something, or another post to write, or some PR contact to deal with. I love working at home but it does make it really hard to get away from work.

KE: Tell me one thing about yourself that we may find surprising?

JC: I’m not that surprising, but I guess it might surprise people that I never wanted to write for a living. I always thought I’d be a social worker or midwife (I went to college for nursing/midwifery). Oddly my life has sort of been peppered with writing opportunities. When I was 9 I had a story published in my first glossy, then I wrote all through elementary school and high school and won some writing contests, then started writing copy for non-profits, but to me that was all just for fun. I sort of fell into writing as a job after college, during which all my professors were telling me I should skip a medical career and write for a living. Overall though I was never that person who said, “Hey, I wish I could write for a living!”

KE: If you could give a new blogger any blogging tip, what would it be?

JC: Make lots of blogger friends. Blogging friends are a huge asset, I would almost say necessity, both on emotional and professional level. Also don’t burn bridges or be rude or mean to people online. The Internet is smaller than it seems. If you’re a nice hard working person word gets around, but it gets around faster if you’re a jerk with a bad attitude.

KE: If you wrote a book about your life, what would the title be?

JC: Roller coaster comes to mind.

Rapid Fire Questions:

• Mac or PC? PC
• Early riser or night owl? Both - I take afternoon naps.
• Martinis or wine? Can I say organic beer?
• Appetizers or dessert? Dessert
• Romantic comedies or murder mysteries? Movies or books? I don’t have time for either.
• Twitter or Facebook? Facebook might win if it wasn’t for the lame apps.

Thanks for your time, Jennifer!

Today we launch yet another exciting blog in our television category, TNT Report! Chandra Williams, who writes our fabulous Comedy Centric blog, is taking the reigns of this new network-based site.

TNT has a number of popular tv dramas, including The Closer, and Saving Grace, although they’re also heading outside of Drama with their new show, Wedding Day. This blog will bring you all the latest news, spoilers & cast sightings for these great shows.

So, check out the new blog at TNTReport.com or follow the site on Twitter!

Miley Cyrus is undoubtedly today’s teen queen. From early success on her Disney Hannah Montana tv series, she’s since gone on to a successful career in music and in movies. Unlike tween and teen stars of the past, she is adored by fans of all ages. And she’s great at interacting with them - active in social media, such as Twitter. Miley is building her career from every angle, and I’m sure we’ll see her keep rising in popularity for many years!

MileyReport is written by veteran b5 blogger Julie Bonner. Julie has followed Miley closely as she’s risen in fame as part of her coverage on DisneySociety and is sure to bring Miley fans a fresh angle on this teen superstar.

So, head on over to check out MileyReport.com or follow the site on Twitter!

Kori Ellis: Tell a little bit about the blogging you do for b5media.

b5media blogger, Heather Rawlinson

Heather Rawlinson: I’ve been writing for b5 since June 2007. I write Chocolate Bytes as well as contribute to the Food & Nutrition and Pets sections at Blisstree, and Country Music Stop and Efron Freak in the Entertainment channel.

KE: What’s the thing that you like most about blogging? The least?

HR: I love setting my own schedule and the freedom we have with our topics.

My least favorite thing is that I have a hard time not posting something as soon as I write it, so I rarely have anything written ahead of time. This isn’t good for the times I could use a day off - you can’t just call in sick!

KE: Tell me a little more about your life outside of blogging for b5media. Where  else do you write? How do you spend your free time?

HR: I’m an administrator at Blogathon.org, currently gearing up for this year’s event. I also created and run the GlobeofBlogs.com blog directory, which was the first of its kind online in 2002. I have a fun little site at VampFan.com where I write about the HBO series True Blood (though it’s a little neglected lately since I’ve been so busy elsewhere!).

I love spending time with my husband and our three daughters. I also love to read and usually have two or three books going at the same time.

KE: For you, what are the challenges (and rewards) of working freelance?

HR: The biggest challenge is friends and extended family assuming that because you’re home you’re free and should be able to drop whatever you’re doing; it’s hard explaining that you’ve got deadlines and quotas to meet even though you haven’t had to leave the house for a few days. I’m also easily distracted and on more than one occasion have found myself following link after link on Wikipedia after heading over for just a quick reference.

I like that I’m able to be as flexible as I am as far as my family and our schedule is concerned.

KE: Tell me one thing about yourself that we may find surprising?

HR: I come from a combined family of 11 kids.

KE: If you could give a new blogger any blogging tip, what would it be?

HR: Pace yourself. When you start writing on a new topic it’s easy to overwhelm yourself with all the possibilities and things you can write about, but then you’ll find yourself burned out and grasping for ideas down the road.

KE: If you wrote a book about your life, what would the title be?

HR: “Wait, What?”

Rapid Fire Questions:

• Mac or PC? PC
• Early riser or night owl? Early riser
• Wine or beer? Beer
• Sweet or salty? Salty
• HGTV or reality TV? HGTV
• Twitter or Facebook? Facebook

Thanks Heather!

Kori Ellis: Tell a little bit about the blogging you do for b5media.

Jyle Dupuis, b5media blogger

Jyle Dupuis: I began writing for b5media about two years ago starting with Hip Hop Roll. Since then I’ve written for other sites including Sneaks N Gear, Our Digital Music and XBoxxer but now I maintain The Footie and the Cars section on Every Joe.

KE: What’s the thing that you like most about blogging? The least?

JD: I like being able to work from home and keep my own schedule. I don’t like people who leave hateful comments - it’s just unnecessary.

KE: Tell me a little more about your life outside of blogging for b5media. Where else do you write? How do you spend your free time?

JD: I wrote travel articles for HubPages before joining b5media and still contribute regularly whenever I have something to say that doesn’t fit into my regular b5 blogs. I also used to write for Calgary.CityGuide.ca and an environmental blog called Hugg.ca but left to focus my attention with b5media. I’ve wanted to start my own personal blog except I can never decide what to focus on.

I spend my free time with my wife (and fellow blogger) and our three children. I have a degree in history so I love learning about anything historical. I also like to be politically informed and regularly associate with various social-economic action groups.

KE: For you, what are the challenges (and rewards) of working freelance/from home?

JD: I have a hard time sitting still for more than 30 minutes so I regularly have to get up do something and come back to my desk. This might seem like a negative trait for blogging but it’s perfect for someone like me - what other job lets you make your own schedule or work at your own pace?

KE: Tell me one thing about yourself that we may find surprising?

JD: I have eight brothers and sisters and used to be a missionary living in Western France.

KE: If you could give a new blogger any blogging tip, what would it be?

JD: Take blogging seriously, strive to learn all the ins and outs, don’t be insulted if someone gives you feedback and be prepared to deal with readers who disagree with you.

KE: If you wrote a book about your life, what would the title be?

JD: “Jyle? That’s an Interesting Name”

Rapid Fire Questions:

Mac or PC? PC desktop (with Ubuntu on my laptop) but I’m thinking of converting to Mac.

Early riser or night owl? I can go back and forth. I regularly stay up late but get up early when I have too.

Steak or seafood? I’m an Albertan - it’s always gotta be steak. Plus, my wife is allergic to all fish and seafood.

ESPN or Comedy Central? Comedy Central. I like sports but I’d much rather watch someone make a fool of themselves.

Twitter or Facebook? I’m having a hard time getting into Twitter. I like Facebook but not the distracting games or other applications people send around.

So we’ve launched two new key pieces of software out into the b5 wild: forums and our very own basic social network.  This comes in two software packages: bbPress for forums and buddyPress for our social network.  As you’ll probably notice, both of these are [insert catchy name here]press solutions, because they’re both based off of the Wordpress code base.  As a result, things like themes and backends are either integrated into Wordpress (buddyPress) or are extremely similar (bbPress).

Together, we have branded these two solutions “Community” and we’re releasing a distinct community for each site (Blisstree community, Bizzia community, etc.).  We believe that these extensions of our existing sites is essential to growing out into new areas and both solutions have distinct uses.

We all know Wordpress is an amazing piece of software, but it doesn’t do everything we want it to do in the grand scheme of things.  For example, Wordpress doesn’t have an open discussion area where users can bring up topics of their choice and talk about them.  This is where bbPress and forums fit into the big picture.  Frequently users in comments will break off onto a separate tangent and it can detract from the core topic of the article.  The author is then faced with the difficult decision of allowing it to continue in a new direction, driving away from the original article points, or to stifle the flow of conversation.  Having forums gives our users a place to take those conversations and a place to start new ones. 

All of our bloggers will certainly play a key role in this.  There are very few leaders in any given community; it is one of those miniscule percentages of total users, in the 1% range.  We have a clear advantage because our bloggers are already our community leaders.  There is no one who knows the subjects discussed on these sites better than them.  And as a result, they are free to encourage discussions about any subject, without having to worry about research and being authorative and owning the content.  Most importantly, it allows bloggers to interact with their readers outside of the author/commentor relationship and allow readers to start discussions about their favourite topics as well.

The second key piece of the puzzle is buddyPress.  For the longest time, Wordpress profiles have been limited to your name, e-mail address, website and possibly your gravatar.  buddyPress literally creates a social network of b5 users and content.  As you can see on my lovely assistant’s profile page, it not only records and displays all of her activity on one site, it shows her activity across all of the b5media network.  This allows users to discover all of the other content that Rachel is writing, even if they’ve only ever known about her Splendicity articles!

Of course the first thing you likely noticed is that Rachel even HAS a profile.  This software allows us to greatly expand on the default author information stored in Wordpress.  You can include links to outside profiles like Twitter and Facebook. 

The other thing you’ve likely seen appearing across b5media’s sites it the so-called “buddybar” at the top of every page.  This is our user’s new gateway to their profile and social networking options across the network.

It also brings with it several other major features common of social networking sites: sending messages, friends, groups and a wall.  Since I’m feeling quite backwards, let’s discuss these in reverse order! 

The simplest of these is the wall.  As with Facebook, it allows users to send you a public message (”LOVED this article today!”) and is like a comment stream for your profile (or a comment stream all about you!). 

Next up is Groups, and as with most social networks, it simply allows users to group together around common interests.  It features its own wall and going forward will include a special forum section to host discussions as well. 

One of the most important features is that you can befriend other users.  Right now this provides a link to a friend’s profile just a few clicks away.  In the not too distant future we’re going to implement a news feed style community home page, giving you access to see all your friends’ latest updates in one place.

Finally, you can send private messages.  buddyPress features it’s own e-mail style system, just like Facebook, complete with an Inbox, Sent Messages, etc.

To get the ball rolling, between these two new systems, we’ve added several integration points.  All of our logins are now Wordpress logins (with fancy new logos there or coming!) and every user who comes to the site can now sign up for an account!  This gives them access to the forums, makes comments easier, and of course gives them access to their own profile.  We’ve also linked your username in the forums to your profile page on the site as well.

We have lots of exciting features planned around our community moving forward, but they all focus on one similar goal: discovery.  Discovery of new users, new content, and new discussions.  As we move forward we’re going to integrate these solutions much more tightly with Wordpress and outside networks to make sure we can all get the word out about the new and exciting happenings on out network.

There will certainly be more information to come.  For now, feel free to ask any questions and throw out any suggestions and I’ll try to answer as many questions/comments as possible!

In the meantime, check out some of the existing community pages below (and join in the fun!):

Splendicity Community
Blisstree Community

Also, a big hand to Vanna.. I mean Rachel for her assistance

We tend to put plugins and widgets through a rather rigorous testing period before anything goes live on the site. It’s hard enough to keep pageload times in check with just a couple bells and whistles…but as soon as you start piling on javascript code after javascript code, everything slows down to a crawl. Security, speed, and of course usefulness are key ingredients for successfully making it onto our blog template. Tweetmeme is a great example of having the whole package.

Flexible enough to move from any of the four corners in the blog post template, quick enough to pick up on (almost) all of the tweets an article gets - we have noticed the occasional discrepancy between number of tweets and the number shown on the blog, but this remains relatively rare - and slick enough to fit in on any and all of our template designs with no color/style modifications. Now that’s an easy plugin to love.

Will Twitter always be the hot new place to push the very best web content out there? Maybe not. Okay, probably not. But for right now, it only makes sense to continue doing everything we can to get the most out of one of the most powerful online promotional tools out there.

Whether you’ve read the books or have seen the first movie, you’re probably aware of the phenomenon that is Twilight. You’ve probably heard of Robert Pattinson and his hair. Or maybe you’ve lost a loved one to the world of Edward and Bella. Maybe you see them stumbling into the kitchen or shuffling off to school or work with a book pressed to their face. That’s Twilight. And if you’re one of those fans, you now have a welcome home at TwilightGroupie, where we completely understand how this world sucked you in and won’t let you out.

We’ve been wanting to start this site for a long time and are very excited to be launching new blogs once again! TwilightGroupie.com is written by b5media veteran writer Nikki Katz, who you may know from JuniorCelebs.com.

So, go on, check out TwilightGroupie.com or follow the site on Twitter!

The new designs are based on Studiopress with design customizations from Brian Gardner - and it’s all built on Wordpress MU (another big change!).

The same theme is applied to all the blogs. With a simple change of header and color theme, the site looks completely different from others in the channel. The designs for the headers were all created in-house, by myself and Franca, though one of our multi-bloggers, Lynn DeVries, pitched in some help for her sites!

These new, fresh designs come with streamlined features. All the categories are now organized across the top of the site, with pull-down menus for subcategories. This cleans up the sidebars significantly, as have other changes. One addition to the sidebars, however, is the “What’s Happening” tag cloud. We’ve embraced internal tagging for some time, so this allows our readers an alternate way to find posts of interest.

So, pop around the newly re-vamped Entertainment channel and let us know what you think of the changes!!

Kori Ellis: Tell a little bit about the blogging you do for b5media.

Cherie Burbach, b5media blogger

Cherie Burbach: I write for the Health and Women’s Health Sections on Blisstree, as well as the Home and Living section. I also write the Sports Rumors section on EveryJoe and the Jessica & Ashlee Simpson and JLoStalker blogs. I’ve been with b5 about a year and a half.

KE: What’s the thing that you like most about blogging? The least?

CB: I love the flexibility of blogging the most. I also like the fact that I can write about so many topics that interest me. If I had to choose something I didn’t like about it, I’d say the fact that it can get stressful when you haven’t posted for the day and you’re tired and still need to work. It’s tough to work on weekends when you haven’t posted ahead. Luckily that doesn’t happen too often.

KE: Tell me a little more about your life outside of blogging for b5media. Where else do you write? How do you spend your free time?

CB: I am OBSESSED with the Green Bay Packers. Every year for the last sixteen I’ve put up a Packer tree, which is a Christmas tree complete with green and gold ornaments. (I even have a light up helmet for the top.) I’ve met quite a few Packers (some have embarrassing fan stories that I’ll never tell). I also like reading anything I can get my hands on about Tudor/Elizabethan history. That whole time in history fascinates me. (Must be all the beheadings.)

I’ve written six books, the latest of which are: 21 Simple Things You Can Do to Help Someone With Diabetes, Internet Dating is Not Like Ordering a Pizza, and Father’s Eyes. (Kori’s note: To order any of Cherie’s fabulous books, visit Bonjour Publishing)

I’m the Dating Feature Writer for Suite101 and do other freelancing work like writing, book reviews, and online dating consulting work. I write for my personal blogs: The Difference Now, Beautiful Words, Working Writers, and Ain’t Love Grand. I also love crocheting, scrapbooking, painting, and reading to relax.

Here’s my website for more info: cherieburbach.com

KE: For you, what are the challenges (and rewards) of working freelance?

CB: The challenge for me has always been finding enough work to support myself full-time. I go after new work all the time, and it can get a little draining. A flexible schedule and the ability to work from home are definitely the best rewards.

KE: Tell me one thing about yourself that we may find surprising?

CB: I did Internet dating for six months, and went out with over 60 different guys for coffee. One of them turned out to be my husband, who I married a year to the day we met.

KE: If you wrote a book about your life, what would the title be?

CB: My book Father’s Eyes was autobiographical, but it’s all in poetry. I had a rough upbringing so poetry was really important to me, that’s why I wrote the book in that genre. So Father’s Eyes would be one title. If I ever wrote a traditional book about my life, I think maybe I’d call it Next! because I met so many different guys while Internet dating. (”Next!” is always what I’d say at the end of a really bad date.)

KE: What’s your dream job?

CB: Full-time author. Living off my royalties and helping raise money for diabetes research.

KE: If you could give a new blogger any blogging tip, what would it be?

CB: Write what you love and keep at it. Find your blogging voice (which should be different from the other types of writing you do) and remember you have an audience. Keep the readers engaged.

Rapid Fire Questions:

• Mac or PC? PC
• Early riser or night owl? Night owl
• A good martini or a good steak? Steak
• ESPN or HGTV? ESPN during football season, HGTV any other time
• Twitter or Facebook? Facebook

Thanks Cherie!