Blah… Blah… Blogaversary!

Jael Custom Designs is FIVE years old!

So it’s come to my attention that I may need to change reschedule my blogaversary (blog anniversary) date! I mean I always have so much going on in June that I FORGET and then I remember when things seem to calm down a month or two later! I think that’s horrible! I’ve been blogging since 2009 and this past June made 5 years! In my mind, prior to all the chaos I wanted to host a blogaversary party and invite some of my local blogger friends out to have a good time. That all went out the window when I had to plan Birthday, Graduation and Anniversary Festivities. My 1st born daughter is my Gemini June Baby, her sister graduated middle school and my youngest son graduated from Kindergarten and I got married in June! The funny thing is that all of these dates were back to back including the day I decided to write my very first blog post. I wish I could say that it will be different next year but, I’ll have a Senior graduating from High School and I don’t think her birth date or the day I got married is going to change. So… why not change a date I have some control over OR I can just do what I’ve done for the last couple of years and post about it after the fact and celebrate when I remember. Lol!

I honestly wish I had started blogging during a different month but, a road trip to New York with a toddler at the time prompted my very first blog post. I really enjoy seeing how my blog design and content has changed over the years. I’m still learning constantly and growing as a blogger so this journey is definitely an adventurous one that allows me to express myself in my own space online, while sharing information about the brands I love. I’m quite social online and off and this allows me to network and connect with people all the time. I really like leaving an event feeling as though I met exactly who I was suppose to meet. There are so many amazing opportunities that stem from being in the right place at the right time with the right people! My future goals are to streamline my content a bit more, host more local events, advertise my services regularly, record another awesome music video and complete my e-book. I will work on these tasks slowly but, surely between my normal hectic schedule. Maybe in a year or two I’ll celebrate them during my blogaversary, when I actually remember it! Ha! We’re almost in September…

What’s The Fuss About Google Plus?

I was hesitant to jump on the Google Plus band wagon when it was launched. I must have gotten one hundred invitations to join Google Plus and deleted every last one of them, until yesterday… I finally joined. Google announced on it’s blog on November 22nd of some more changes that are about to take place, some will take place immediately and others in the new year. The one that really jumped out at me and will effect my blog is that Google Friend Connect will be going away for ALL non blogger hosted blogs.

Read an excerpt taken from the official Google Blog:

“Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We’re retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.”

With that being said I had no choice but to join Google Plus and now I’ll try my best before March to convert all my Google Friend Connect Friends over to Google Plus or they have the option of subscribing to my RSS feed to keep up with all my content. My RSS feed button is located at the top right hand side of my blog where it say’s “Connect with me” and under my Klout badge I have my Google Plus badge where you can add me to your circle(s) and +1 my blog. I’ll return the love of course, after all that’s how we share and promote content to go viral.

I also just want to note that I didn’t think anything was wrong with Google Plus, I just have many social networks that I am a part of and I didn’t want to join anything that I wasn’t going to use actively and let sit dormant for long periods of time. The point of social networking pages is to use them, engage and be SOCIAL! So, the moral of this story is… If you are using GFC (Google Friend Connect) and you are NOT being hosted on blogger, you may want to jump on Google Plus before March 1, 2012.

error: Ask And You Shall Receive!!