I used Jux, because it lets me design the whole experience out to every edge of every screen. Jux just launched crop control for photos, so the Jux album of my trip looks just right on every device. A Jux isn't a blog. It's more like a portfolio. Each piece stands on its own.

Jux appreciates how sensuous and tangible the Web can be now. We've got so many ways to push and pull and play with the content. It flows onto different screens with different input methods. Some we touch with our fingertips. Others we click with a cursor. The stories have to live in all those places.

But to do a great job of that on our own is hard work, over the heads of most of us. Jux does the hard part for us and makes our decisions easy. We just choose the stories we want to tell and the objects with which we want to tell them. Jux puts them where they're supposed to go.

It launched on the Web in August. It was optimized for the iPad in October. In December, the full-screen iPhone view arrived. Now, regardless of which device you use to visit a Jux, you see a version that fits the screen and responds to the right clicks, taps or swipes.

It uses a mixture of smart algorithms and basic cues from the user to shift around the content ever so slightly, so you don't have to worry much about how your Jux will look on the different screens.

Jux has six kinds of posts so far: BlockQuote, Article, Photo, Video, SlideShow and CountDown. You can upload photos from your computer, grab them from a URL, or log straight into Flickr, Facebook or Instagram and get photos from there.

You can choose the colors and typography, as well as the basic shape of the layout. You can also apply some interesting photo effects. Jux will rearrange all these things for different devices while being true to your design decisions.

When you're done, you can share the URL of your Jux, or you can embed it straight into a blog post or webpage. It's smart enough to reflow into any screen.

Jux is still a little slow on handheld devices. But the promise of the tool is still exciting. There's no need to surrender your stories to Facebook's lightbox and other cruft anymore. You don't have to worry about blogging your exploits on a regular basis. You're free from the concept of a timeline. Jux is a hint of the true promise of computerized storytelling.

My Jux SlideShow from my trip to San Francisco:

That's one way to go about it.

Then there's that old-fashioned "building a relationship with a real person not a robot" idea. You know, treating people like people and taking the time to get to know them. Oh right, yeah, forgot about that.

Writers, like artists, are sensitive to ideas and people. But not every writer will get you or your product - and in the tech world as in any world, each writer has their own specialization. If the match is right, I guarantee they will want to get to know you and your ideas.

Of course, these types of connections don't happen everyday - but they do happen, and they are special. Meanwhile, there are a few things that you can do before just blindly spamming inboxes and acting like you're TOTALLY BESTIES with someone whose byline you barely know. So come along, let's learn together. You are the reason I'm writing, after all. :)

Before you zero in on the writer of your choice, here are a few questions to consider:

1. Do you like the way the writer writes?
2. Does the writer actually cover stories the way you think they should be covered?
3. Would the writer care about your product, based on what they have covered in the past, what they are currently covering and what they're tweeting about?
4. Is your idea or product gender-specific? If so, is the writer the right gender to cover your story?
5. Are you prepared to answer questions if you get pummeled? Can you stand up for yourself and your product? Or will you hide behind your computer screen and just refer to boring press release language?

If you feel prepared to do all of these things and more, then let's get into the 10 ways to win over a writer. Many of these tips are about not doing anything at all.

1. Don't Send Press Releases. Most writers hate press releases because they don't tell a story - they just summarize the qualities of a product. The quotes are sterile and boring, and always emphasize the glossiness of the product. If you can't explain the product in three awesome sentences, it's too complicated. Keep it simple. Make everyones' lives easier.
2. Do Send Blog Posts. I know you really want to send a press release. Do yourself a favor and hire someone who can distill marketing jargon into fun, playful language for a blog post. Give it some personality. Try even putting your own personality into the blog post. If you are an asshole, own it. If you are a really prissy girl, own it. I'd rather read a blog post from The Valley Girl or some super nerdy tech dude who has a passion for plug-ins than some cold, lifeless marketing type.
3. Find the Writer on Twitter. On a good day, I only check Twitter a few times. On a bad day, I'll be on Twitter hunting around for stories, ideas and weird people. Find me on Twitter (@aliciaeler) and tell me why your idea is awesome. Do not send me a link to a press release. Send me a fast, easy blog post. Tell me about this app you've made that is going to probably take over the world and get me invited to Katy Perry's house. Tell me why I can't live without this app. And do it all in 140 words or less. Do not DM me, though. I will bite your head off.
4. Show That You Actually Follow the Writer's Work. Try reading at least 10 of the writer's stories, and then go a step further than just "I like your so-and-so piece on cats with dandruff problems." Tell me why you liked the story. What did it make you feel? Did it remind you of an idea you had the other day? Did it make you cry? Did it make you want to throw your cat in the blender? Seriously, throw me a bone, or some catnip, or both. My only goal as a writer is to make you think a little bit more deeply about something. If I can't do that, than I have failed and you should tell me in the comments below.
5. Live in the Writer's World. A good writer is able to cultivate a niche, a culture all their own. You read their work enough and you feel like you're inside their head. If you can't get inside their head, or it feels like a weird, uncomfortable space that you feel like you shouldn't be in or even near, then trust your instincts and do not pitch that writer.
6. Make Your Videos 2 Minutes or Less. Everyone is trying to make an awesome video about their product. If you make one, include a one-paragraph intro and then boom! Drop in that video! If you can't easily transition from text to video, the writer may not be interested in even clicking to watch. So, make it easy. Make it fun. And make sure the writer knows that there is no pressure to write anything. Do not end your emails with annoying nudges like "I hope you know that I really want RWW coverage! Can you tell?" Yes, I can tell, and it makes me feel sad. At the end of the day, often times it's those nice, succinct pitches that result in some friendly back and forth but no coverage that keep me interested and curious to learn more later. Don't expect first prize right off the bat. Sometimes it's better not to win.
7. Don't Act Like We Already Know Each Other. OMG do not send emails saying "hey, just confirming that we're on for that 2:00 p.m. appointment" that I never agreed to or even knew about. If it is an honest mistake, fine. But I know how you do, k? That is a lame sales tactic and makes me never want to know you or your product, or to speak to you at all.
8. Don't Tell Me About Your Day or Your Sick Kid, Puppy or Kitty. I truly love babies, children, cats and dogs. But I do not need to read your excuses about why you are emailing me now rather than later because you had to take your kid to the vet, or your dog to school. I honestly do not want to know anything about your personal life unless it is relevant to the story you're pitching me, or you are a truly amazing and interesting creative person whose life involves inventing new species of dogs and cats. If you do not fit into any of those categories, please just stick to the ideas you're pitching.
9. Think of This Like Dating. If you live in the same city, why not court the writer a bit? Just like dating, you don't just show up in someone's life and say "Hey, I am for sure the hottest person here and it is obvious that we are meant to be. You want summa this?" Um, no I do not. Why not try being friendly, open and honest? Show me, don't tell me or flash me. I will listen. If you choose to inquire about me, be genuine. I know this is a business relationship and all, but seriously - it is still a relationship, and should be a respectful one at that. Ask me what I am working on. Then ask me to lunch. I might take you up on it.
10. Don't Take it Personally If I Don't Respond. We are all busy people with busy lives. If I do not respond, don't be sad. But don't follow-up more than three times. Sometimes third time's the charm. But fourth, fifth, six time is just plain pathetic.

Do you have any tips for courting writers? Share them in the comments below. Thanks!

On Jan 4, the "Shit Girls Say" meme was radically transformed. New York-based graphic designer & video blogger Franchesca Ramsey a.k.a. Chescaleigh unleashed "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls", and it blew up the Internet. In the video, Ramsey plays her blonde-haired white friend who she portrays as curiously confused, and innocently ignorant. "Why isn't there a white entertainment television? The Jews were slaves too, and you don't hear us complaining all the time," Chescaleigh-as-white-girl asks the camera. Her white friend is completely unaware of fundamental cultural and racial differences between her and her black friend. It's these awkward moments that fuel the humor in this viral video.

When Franchesca appeared on Anderson Cooper a few days after the video blew up, Cooper asked *the question* that mainstream media was dying to know: Is the video racist?

"I don't think that talking about ignorance is racist," Franchesca tells Cooper. "And like I said, I'm not labeling anyone racist because that would infer that the statements were saying someone was better than another race - and that's not what any of the statements are doing." Shortly after her Anderson Cooper appearance, Franchesca produced a sequel, "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls Part 2."

Soon, more "Shit X Says to Y" versions of the meme began to appear. "Shit White Girls Say to Brown (Desi/Indian) Girls" features an Indian woman portraying her white girlfriend, who asks questions like "Do you want to go to 7-11? Oh oops, is that racist?" It is cutting, and points to some of the underlying racism that Indian-Americans experience regularly.

In "Shit White Guys Say to Asian Girls," actor/comedian Cindy Fang dresses in drag, playing a white dude and points out some of the obnoxious, arrogant statements that some white guys say to Asian women. "Sorry, I have a hard time telling Asians apart," she says, with a tone that conveys how the white guy she is portraying doesn't feel like trying to educate himself. He is blissful in his ignorance. And then, a blatantly, unapologetically racist statement: "Why do they call it Bangkok? They should call it Bang Pussy!!!"

Of course, it's just comedy - and the talented Fang masterfully exaggerates these statements to hammer home the crass, yet serious jokes. "Shit White Guys Say to Asian Girls" takes swipes at sex and race relations. It's almost as upsetting as "Shit Asian Girls Say," another version of the original "Shit Girls Say" meme.

In Latoya Peterson's blog post "Exploring the Problematic and Subversive Shit People Say [Meme-ology]" on Racialicious, she notes that it isn't until "Shit Black Gays Say" (and part 2) and "Shit Southern Gay Guys Say" that the viewer starts to see the performer's subjective interpretation of themselves.

"It's notable that these videos are the principals representing themselves (as opposed to someone else's interpretation of them), perhaps since these groups are still so invisible in the public eye that no one else but them could speak to their experience," writes Peterson.

How "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls" Shifted the Conversation

"There's a way in which the meme format allows for more granular renditions of identity than you often see in mass culture," says Professor Russo.

Chescaleigh's video shifted the focus from the narrator as subject to the narrator as a vehicle for social critique. Now X is saying something to Y. Other iterations of the meme show X speaking for themselves, or portraying the stereotypical subject in drag. "Shit White Girls Say...to Arab Girls" follows the same format as Chescaleigh's video - a white girl gets to hear how she sounds to her Arab friends.

"Do you know the guy at the liquor store? I mean, I assume you guys all know each other," says the Arab girl portraying her white friend in "Shit White Girls Say...to Arab Girls". "I've never met one of you before! I mean, I've seen Arabs on TV...on the news. Was 9/11 your fault?"

"Friendly Prejuidice"

Writing for The Guardian, Thea Lim points out that the statements in all of these videos imply a sort of "friendly prejudice":

What's friendly prejudice? The most common defence of racism is: "But I didn't intend to be racist." This response relies on the idea that if we didn't intend to offend someone, then their feelings can't possibly be hurt. The Shit X Says to Y videos are delightfully validating because they show that those with the genuinely lovely intentions of being your friend and seeking commonality with you can still be rude and hurtful.

A commenter on the NPR story that questioned if Franchesca's video was "racist" tried the good ol' "role reversal" trick (that always fails), which attempts to deny the existence of white privilege. "If the roles were reversed...Jesse [Jackson] & [Al] Sharpton, would be involved, lawsuits filed, perhaps riots...". Says Lim:

The reason why relationships between white and non-white people, or straight people and gay people are fraught, is because of our history - long gone, recent or ongoing. Racist, homophobic or simply thoughtless comments are insulting not just in and of themselves, but because they are a bilious reminder of the times when straight, white people have dehumanised and denied other groups their human rights. Of course, non-white and gay people can say nasty or even prejudicial things to white and straight people, but those things don't deliver the sting that comes from decades of being on the wrong end of an unequal relationship.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I have watched my friends react to these videos with anger and sadness. I have seen other friends shout "That's me! That totally happened to me." Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The most important aspect of these videos, however, is that people are actually reacting to them, and sharing them with their friends. They're easy conversation starters, a segue into sharing painful experiences past and present.

We all have culturally biased perspectives and cultural baggage. No one comes to the table without their past experiences. The "Shit X Says to Y" iteration of the "Shit People Say" meme forces everyone to acknowledge this. At least humor helps everyone move through the initial strange moments that could lead into meaningful conversations about this meme.

But are we ready for this?

In her post on Racialicous, Peterson points out that, still, "Shit Girls Say" and "Shit Black Girls Say" received a lot more views than their "Shit X Says to Y" social commentary videos. "Maybe that's because, as a culture, we are accustomed to laughing at stereotypes," writes Peterson, "but we aren't prepared to unpack how we perpetuate them."

After a few weeks of Internet madness, the noise died down. Conversations about this meme started to feel stale. The Internet went back to its usual, easy, Twitter-rific type humor. I started seeing these videos on my Facebook news feed: "Shit New Yorkers Say" and "Shit Chicagoans Say." But it's only a matter of time before things start up again.

Image via Chescaleigh's Facebook page.

Thursday beats every other day. Why? People are probably bored at work, trolling about on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ (and Orkut?), sharing to their hearts' desire. Shareaholic's data shows that 31%, or more than a third of the top 100 social share days, were Thursdays. The best day for pageviews, however, is not Thursday. In fact, it's Monday. According to Shareaholic's data, Monday captures 43% of the top 100 pageview days in 2011.

As most blogs know, the best time of day for social shares is between 8am and 12pm ET. Shareaholic's data confirms this, showing that the most shares occur at 9am ET, moments before East coasters step into their offices to start the workday. Traffic declines throughout the day, spiking back up again around 9pm, and then slowly tapering off. Evidently, the best time of day to blog for pageviews is also 9am ET.

Image via UrbanHomesPDX.com.

It does all of this by analyzing the billions of page views it tracks anonymously across its whole user base. Parse.ly started as a feed reader for pros in 2009, and Dash expands its capabilities with predictive analytics for one's own site. The software gets a sense of what topics and stories are most important and whether they're trending up or down. That's a great thing for publishers. Is it good for readers? I can't wait to find out.

Online Omniscience

It's no secret that blogging is a game of page views. Without good analytics, blogging is all about watching, intuition and guesswork. After you've done some of that, you write some spaghetti posts, throw them at the wall and see what sticks. Dash gives publishers the motherlode of data about page views and how to get them. It shows them the past and the present of their site, and its ability to measure Web-wide trends offers a glimpse of the future.

Dash offers three tiers of services starting at $499 per month. The basic "Track" tier enables internal tracking of authors, topics, sections and referrals, as well as predictive analysis of trends and real-time site stats. Tier 2, "Plan," adds the Web-wide trend analysis, search and filtering within the analytics, customizable dashboards for editors and downloadable reports. The top tier, "Promote," measures shares and impact across the social Web, and it sends email alerts to editors and writers when something urgent comes up.

Installing Dash requires nothing more than dropping some JavaScript into the site's footer. That's enough to capture the traffic and put the dashboard to work.

A tool like Dash gives a site a huge advantage in the short term. While some sites putter along without this kind of detailed feedback, the ones who have it could dominate. The ability to see exactly which topics and events need covering, and exactly how to cover them for a particular audience, is a sort of online omniscience.

Vision, Voice & Tactics

But hopefully, in the long term, this will lead to a new generation of content sites that all have these abilities. If every publisher could know its audience this well, there would be no more spaghetti-against-the-wall, side-boob-heavy, all-caps-headlines blogging tactics.

This week, Gawker is experimenting by letting writers go crazy with these old-school page view tricks, hopefully to prove the point that they aren't what the market really wants. But if all publishers had Dash or something like it, we'd all know that. Then the differences between sites would be all about editorial vision and voice, not just tactics.

It will be even clearer who's playing to the crowd and who stands out. Sites who just play the predictive analytics game will all start to look the same. But the gift of a tool like Dash is that it helps sites get to know their audience. It highlights the surprising things. The sites that stand out will be the ones who know their audience so well that they can consistently surprise them.

Parse.ly was co-founded by CEO Sachin Kamdar and CTO Andrew Montalenti and is based in New York City. Check them out at Parse.ly.

There's no relation to memepool, the once-great mini-blog of handpicked Internet goodies. That one hasn't evolved since 2008. But armed with a little bit of Python and the surging population of Tumblr, Mendenhall will try to give the primordial ooze of the Web a new life of its own.

"Evolution creates amazing and complex things from just three simple rules: selection, replication, and variation," Mendenhall writes. We owe the amazing diversity of biological life to the application of these simple rules to enormous and complex gene pools over hundreds of millions of years.

Meme Pool has slightly more humble ambitions at the still-formidable scale of the human-driven Web. The genomes of Tumblr memes are much simpler than those of plants and animals. Meme Pool treats Tumblr posts' tags as alleles, each describing the phenotype, which is the image itself. The fitness of a Tumblr meme is determined by how many likes and reblogs it gets.

The Meme Pool

Meme Pool's population contains 20 posts at a time. Mendenhall says that gives posts a lifespan about a week "before they die of old age." Every day, the two fittest memes get to mate and create a child post. Meme Pool takes a random combination of the parents' tags and searches Flickr for interesting photos that match. When there's no good match for both combinations, Meme Pool uses a strategy sort of like nature's solution:

"Sometimes there's no match for both tags (e.g. 'Economics' and 'Lawn Darts'). In that case, the algorithm looks for images with either tag. This is a little bit like dominant and recessive traits: sometimes one tag will determine the entire phenotype. If there's no image for either tag, the post dies out immediately."

Without spontaneous generation, major evolutionary leaps might never happen. Meme Pool's random mutation comes from its Tumblr followers. Liking and reblogging posts from Meme Pool increases their fitness, making them more likely to survive and reproduce. Meme Pool also randomly reblogs one post from a follower per day, introducing its genes to the population. Anyone can also submit their own images to the Meme Pool to shake things up.

Health & Fitness

Meme Pool only launched yesterday (with a nice painting of the young Charles Darwin), and it's still fleshing out its population. It has had six generational updates so far as it approaches 20 memes, and biology still features heavily. It also contains some other historical figures and a few weird outliers, just like any healthy population.

There's a strong relationship in the phenotypes of some members of the first generation. The fly species Drosophilia is thriving in Meme Pool, which isn't surprising, since its often used as a model for scientists studying genetics. With Darwin himself as an ancestor, you can see the family resemblance.

Follow Meme Pool on Tumblr to participate in the experiment and shape memes on the Web for generations to come.

Photo 1 from Flickr user Gustavo (lu7frb) via Meme Pool Photo 2 reblogged from touba by Meme Pool

In addition to leaving more comments, people using pseudonyms are more likely to leave comments that get "likes" from other readers, according to Disqus, which operates blog commenting platforms for about one million Web sites, including ReadWriteWeb.

Disqus is one of the more than 400,000 Web sites that lets people use their Facebook profiles to leave comments. But Disqus said just 4% of its users preferred to use Facebook to leave comments with their real name, compared to 61% who used pseudonyms and 35% who logged in anonymously.

Of course Disqus has a vested interest in convincing publishers to allow anonymous comments and remarks left under a pseudonym.

But the company is maintaining that, based on its review of 500,000 comments left using its system, 61% of the comments left by those types of users gained positive reviews from other readers, as opposed to 51% for comments left by people using their identity and 34% for people who remained anonymous.

Today the Google Buzz blog announced that blogger now supports threaded comments. These comments make it easier for the reader to figure out if a commenter is responding specifically to their comment, or just making a general comment on the thread.

There is a catch, however: Users must go to their Blogger profiles and select embedded comments, and enable a full-text blog feed. This is relatively easy to do.

To change the blog to a full-text feed, go to Settings and select "Full."

To make comments embeddable, go to Settings > Posts and comments. Select the "Embedded" option.

Users who have already replaced their Blogger profiles with their Google+ profiles can share snippets of Blogger blog posts to their Google+ circles.

For bloggers who already have a good following on Google+, integrating the two makes a lot of sense. But for anyone who blogs on Blogger under a pseudonym, linking Google+ and Blogger closes the opportunity for that fake Internet profile. Threaded comments are available for users regardless of whether or not they integrate their Google+ and Blogger profiles.

Some Facebook users do leave the message option public on their personal profiles. It's more likely that if you're not Facebook friends with that person, you won't be able to privately message them.

If you're a fan of a blogger on Twitter, you can only send a private direct message if the blogger follows you back. Otherwise, a public @ message is your best bet. Still, Twitter users do not always feel obliged to return those @ messages.

Sending fan mail via Tumblr ensures that your favorite blogger sees your note.

You can customize each piece of fan mail, and there is no limit to how much fan mail you can send. Tumblr rolls out this feature over the next few days.

How do you send fan mail to your favorite bloggers? Tell us about it in the comments.

Optimizing for the phone forced Jux to get smarter. It now uses facial recognition for smart cropping of thumbnail images. Today's update also comes with more optimization, caching and content distribution to help these loud, bold sites load as quickly as possible.

Jux creators have control over how their content is presented, and the new iPhone view preserves those choices with minimal adjustments. Some fonts sizes and colors are reined in to display properly within the constraints of a 3.5-inch screen.

The Web Is For Every Screen

As we wrote when the iPad version arrived, Jux proves that the Web is more than enough to deliver the best content experience for any screen. "Publish once, enjoy everywhere" is what CEO Ted Metcalfe wants to encourage.

Jux allows all the usual sharing, and today's update also allows reposting of other Juxers' stuff, like Tumblr has. But sharing features are not the center of attention. "We want to wrap it with other interactions and keep the focus on the stories and images," Metcalfe says.

Jux has maintained its business goals since launching this summer. Metcalfe says the goal is to do better than 25% monthly growth in traffic and creation. It's building an international audience, too, with lots of interest in the Philippines.

We like the way Jux thinks. It stands out boldly from the way personal publishing on the Web currently works. The best way to understand it is to see for yourself. Visit walkwithcheys.jux.com or willburns.jux.com to see Jux's chosen examples, and try it on different devices. You can also create one yourself at jux.com.

What do you want out of a personal publishing tool?

Other additions are catching up with WordPress for iOS, but they're welcome. The post editor now has a formatting toolbar above the keyboard, and the app now has a tablet view. The app also adds post uploading in the background and gets a few other fixes. This is an open-source app, and it's the best mobile blogging interface I've seen yet. What's up with everybody else?

WordPress for iOS is fine. Our Marshall Kirkpatrick finds it to be a knock-out, but that may be Stockholm syndrome. I use it, too, and it works, but it's awfully hard to use compared to this new Android version. The Action Bar and Dashboard should become the standard. I love that it's the result of open-source collaboration.

So, what's up, blogging platforms? The world is mobile now, and helping us blog while we're out is a surefire way to keep users engaged. WordPress for Android has pivoted back toward the light, but most of the pivots in this area have been toward social networking and away from writing posts.

Do you blog from mobile devices? What service do you use?

The new toolbar is a combination of the admin bar and the old Dashboard header. There's now support for drag-and-drop media uploads. The new dropdown menu has become a hover menu. WordPress has also added touch support for iPad. WordPress users who have felt frustrated over the co-editing experience will find this update especially satisfying. Now, the red bar that tells you if someone is editing the post will only pop up if another is actually in the post. The 3.3 version has also added a Tumblr importer so that users can quickly bring their Tumblr blog into the mix.

WordPress 3.2, which was released on July 4, has been downloaded 14 million times. The new version 3.3 is available for download now.

In return, WordPress is offering independent publishers a chance to make money on the WordPress platform. WordPress already provides a healthy living for thousands of self-employed developers, and now publishers have a chance to earn money from their WordPress content, too.

Federated Media is known for representing high-traffic sites. We at ReadWriteWeb work with FM, for example. But Federated Media recently acquired Lijit Networks, which will help it improve its targeting of ads to long-tail content.

WordPress.com blogs, in total, receive almost 300 million monthly unique visitors, so the partnership between FM and Automattic, parent company of WordPress, is a great opportunity for its advertisers.

You Deserve Better Than AdSense

"We've resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn't terribly tasteful," says the WordPress announcement. "It seemed like Google's AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense." WordPress wants to serve ads that reflect the individual nature of its bloggers, and the WordAds program, targeted with Lijit's technology, can enable that.

WordPress Is A Job Creator

According to founder Matt Mullenweg in his 2011 State of the Word Address, there are thousands of self-employed developers making a living on the WordPress platform. His voluntary survey recorded 6,800 developers who have built 170,000 sites between them, making a median hourly rate of $50.

WordPress is building a community for independent workers, both developers and publishers, and it's finding ways to make them money and keep them afloat. That's admirable. It may have to resort to some traffic tricks to keep up with the likes of Tumblr, but it does so in order to keep its community going.

Disclosure: Federated Media is ReadWriteWeb's advertising partner.

What content management system(s) do you use, and why?

First, you need an account. Go to Calepin.co and register your user name. It's early; you can probably get whatever you want. Next, log in with Dropbox. Calepin will create a folder in your Dropbox that it will watch for text files written in Markdown. When you click the big 'Publish' button on the Calepin site, it will publish all the documents as a blog at [user name].calepin.co. Here's mine, for example. The blog's appearance is spare and relaxing. It's a great place to just stick your thoughts up on the Web. Don't know what a Dropbox or a Markdown is? Don't worry. You'll quickly get the gist.

What The Heck's A Dropbox?

If you don't have a Dropbox account, you'll want one. Think of Dropbox as a folder on your computer that syncs to the cloud. Our editor-in-chief, Richard MacManus, just wrote a great tutorial about cloud storage services that will teach you all the reasons you'd want Dropbox or something like it.

As you'll see in that post, there are several choices, but I recommend Dropbox, especially if you want to use Calepin. You can use Dropbox.com to manage it from the Web, but it's also a free desktop application that lets you treat it just like a normal folder on your computer that syncs automatically. You get 2GB of space for free, and that's plenty for a blog.

Ready to sign up now? I did refer you, so you could consider signing up through my referral link (winky face), so I can get a little more space in mine. If you don't want to indulge me, just go to Dropbox.com to sign up.

Markdown? That sounds scary.

I promise Markdown isn't scary. It's an easy, human-readable way to format text for the Web. Daring Fireball's John Gruber invented it. For our purposes here, all you need to know about it is that it's much cleaner and easier than HTML. But it's important to know that Markdown understands HTML. If you forget how to do something in Markdown, you can always do it the old-fashioned HTML way. Here's an example of what Markdown looks like:

To write:

Hello, there! This is an introduction to Markdown. It's really easy to use, and I promise you'll LOVE it!

This is all you need:

**Hello, there!** This is an introduction to [Markdown][1]. It's *really* easy to use, and I promise you'll ***LOVE*** it!

[1]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

Isn't that nice and easy to read? It's also really powerful; you can do pretty much anything you'd need HTML to do, and Calepin will turn it into Web-ready HTML without you having to worry about it. You can learn everything you need to know in Daring Fireball's Markdown tutorial. I write all my RWW posts in Markdown, and I write faster, less stressfully and with fewer errors than I ever had in HTML before.

Now Put Them All Together!

To post to your Calepin blog, you just write up your post using any plain text editor you want and save it as a .md file in the Calepin folder in your Dropbox. Want to use images? No problem. You can at least insert an image using Markdown, or you can just use HTML if you need more control over it. You can host the image on a free service like Imgur, or you can even put it in your Dropbox public folder. Either way, just grab the URL and put it in your blog post. Then log in to Calepin.co and click the big 'Publish' button, and your posts will go right up on the Web.

That's it! You've got a blog. Mine's jonm.calepin.co. What's yours?

Calepin is powered by Pelican, an anagram of "Calepin" that is also an open-source weblog generator written in Python. If you're interested, you can view or fork the source code on Github. Future features include a few themes, as well as respect for a /theme folder for your own, and custom domains.

Oceans of thanks to Merlin Mann, the Internet wizard who turned me onto Calepin. He recently made fun of me on this podcast. Back To Work is a show that will teach you about writing, the Internet and getting better at stuff. I listen every week, and you should too.

The new services include better support for major infrastructure, annual review of clients' entire WordPress hosting stack, an annual security audit and review of best practices and a one-day onsite training of clients' WordPress-focused staff. Pricing starts at $250,000 per year.

WordPress VIP services are growing at a rapid clip. Hosted VIP WordPress sites are currently pulling in 1 billion pageviews per month. Accordingly, Automattic reports that revenues from VIP services have more than doubled year-over-year.

As we reported in August WordPress has seen strong growth overall this year. Around 15% of the world's websites are powered by WordPress, up from 8.5% last year. It also sustains a community of thousands of self-employed WordPress developers who make a median hourly rate of $50.

And For The Non-VIPs...

The expansion of VIP services follows the announcement in October of a first-time ad partnership with Federated Media, allowing regular WordPress bloggers - those who don't pay $250,000 or more for the privilege - to monetize their content.

But the WordPress experience is steadily changing for those users; in response to stiff competition from more social free blogging sites like Tumblr, everyday WordPress users are having social networking features thrust upon them.

What content management system do you use? Are you happy with it? Share your experiences in the comments