If you’ve ever tried to get your site listed in Best of the Web, you know it requires a bit of effort and often a peice of change.

Well, BOTW just launched a local version of their directory, called BOTW Local.  The basic listing is free, so you might as well sign up for it.

It allows searchers to locate businesses based on geography.  So if you offer a local product or service, this is the answer to the broader national directory.

Oh, and there’s always BOTW Blogs too.  But that will run you $50 once the 60 day trial is up.

So sign up today…can’t hurt.

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iCast.me
Kiss.me
la.me
allof.me

And so on.

With Apple’s MobileMe product (www.me.com) just hitting the market, perhaps the “.me” domain craze will also start to take off.  You could get pretty creative with them.

They are about $20 a year with a 2 year minimum registration.  You can get them from sites like GoDaddy.  The best ones will go fast!

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My favorites include the article edit logs.  You can now see what a post used to look like before you edited it.  Wordpress creates a log of each change.  You can then see the changes side by side, then restore an older version if you wish.

The image caption function now works as well.

Here’s a video of all the goodies.

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Why just the geeks?  Well this release is expected to not have many visible changes.  A lot of those were made with the 2.5 release, so it’s time to catch our breath.

Instead, a lot of changes “under the hood” are being made to improve the usability and experience.  Here’s the list.

Caching of static files with Google Gears. Speeds up the backend for admins.  It’s cool and complicated at the same time.  In a nutshell, Google Gears is a little application you install on your computer.  It will then fetch the static files and information from Wordpress that rarely (if ever) changes.  That way your browser doesn’t have to download the item, object, or function every time, thus speeding up the performance.  You may have noticed in WP2.5 that the “Link” and “Add Photo” buttons can take a little time to load.  Well, after the first time it loads, each subsquent load will be instant because Gears will have saved the functionality to your local machine.

Drag-and-drop sortable galleries

Post Revisioning. Wordpress will now save all of your individual post revisions so that you can compare them side by side.  Red highlighted text will indicate text that had been removed.  Green highlighted text will show what was added.  You can then restore any older or previous version of a post from within the system.  Works great for group edited blogs.

A “Press This” bookmark button.

Theme previewing just like you see on WordPress.com

Improved image editing that lets you manage your photos, look, and feel in a more efficient manner.

Onboard word counting in the post editor…for those being paid to blog by the word.

Customizable default avatars. This way you don’t see the generic Avatar quite as often.  Gravatars has integrated with other avatar systems to pull in more globally recognized avatars.  Happy commenting.

Updated TinyMCE 3.1.0.1. The little editor tool you use when making posts.

and a lot more.

It has been a while since the last update…even since 2.5.1.  So I hope that means more of the bugs are ironed out before this launch.

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Very ironic for a conference about free, open distribution of information to the masses.

As a result, you have to show a hard press ID in order to record anything.  And you better believe that the ushers are hardcore about enforcing the rules.  They seem to love:

- Keeping you from jumping over the rows in front of you or behind you.
- Putting your feet on anything
- Bringing bottles of water in the room
- Blocking rows with computer bags or power cords

Funny but sad at the same time.

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Through sites such as qik.com and mogulus.com, users can stream video live to the world.  They also capture this live video and turn it around into ondemand video content after the live event is over.  So you can go back and watch the recording.

The real groundbreaker is the live video comes straight off your cellphone.  A live streaming video gets pumped wirelessly up into the cloud and back down onto these sites.

So you could be sitting in your company board meeting, pull out your cell phone, and stream the meeting to your offices around the world in real time. 

Click Start…do your song and dance…then click stop.  It’s that easy.

It can take the concept of live blogging to a whole new level.

Right now, the streaming tech is available on certain Nokia phones and some other models.  The good news is that Qik is releasing an iPhone version of their system very soon (if they haven’t already).  I’d imagine it will be out with the AppStore.

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Thanks to technology, there’s virtually no cost involved with getting people together, to exchange information, and act in support or opposition of a particular common interest.

Increasingly, media is not just a source of information.   It is a source of coordinating action.  New media makes the process easier.

Clay  Shirky’s Site

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Well, there’s a new (or just new to me) player in the space called Linkfluence.net.  Their algorithms organise the data in even more interesting ways based on link popularity.

For example, the system can determine if you are a liberal or conservative blogger based on the types of sites that link to you, and the types of sites that you link out to. Then, that data is compiled into spheres of influces and networks.

You can then run simulations to see what kind of “splash” certain blogs make when they publish content.  For example, the more influential bloggers have their content spread over the blogosphere like a virus within moments of publication. 

Less influential sites make a very little splash, and it can all be visualized on the system. 

Definitely worth checking out.

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So why are we blogging about the PdF Conference?  Well, it is probably the largest gathering of political and technology bloggers on the east coast.  The best of the bests are here.

So we will be posting what we’ve learned from a process perspective (no politics).  There’s lots of cool technology here, and the world’s best bloggers using it.  So bear with us through out little two day mini-series.

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I had seen it in action before on the front end of a different website, but didn’t know that was what I was seeing.

Basically, the idea is to plop a special line of text at the top of your blog post when a user comes to your site through Digg, Stumble, etc.  The plugin knows when people came to your site from one of the social voting sites, and it knows which one.  It then, for example, will remind the Digg user to digg your post.

However, users that just browse your site the good old fashioned way won’t see anything.

The idea is to give the reader just a little reminder to give you a vote.  As a result, you should get more social votes.

So, I’m going to test it on a few other sites and see how it goes.

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