I blog occasionally for Dash Two on digital marketing and sales with some posts appearing on Hypebot.
I relaunched Cultural Research with a short report on Working Sessions including a dialogue with Jeb Bishop.
Still periodically posting at Crowdfunding For Musicians with updates to the Music Crowdfunding Sites.
I'm working on yet another relaunch of DanceLand to feature a directory of dance studios.
I shut down Playlist Biz as discussed at Flux Research.
Music Biz Blogs continues.
Whoa! 2 years later and things are all different.
The short version: I'm now seeking freelance writing assignments and working on DanceLand: A Place Where Dance Is Shared!
Check it out for dance news and dance videos and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
See you there!
It's early February, 2013, and I'm really feeling good about this New Year. I've explored a lot of possibilities over the last couple of years and seem to have found the right balance after many false starts.
Still writing for Hypebot about the music industry and, after almost a year and a half, I feel like I'm finally hitting my stride.
Putting Crowdfunding For Musicians on hold but that's one of the topics I cover for Hypebot so that feels just fine.
Relaunched All World Dance: Videos. Focusing on videos for now but I'm building an audience and have other content and information products that could follow. And it feels good to be involved with dance again even in such a limited manner.
I'm also working with an old musician friend who needs some help with his web presence and figuring out web marketing. Hopefully people will be hearing about that soon (if I do my job right!) and it's going to feed back into my music industry writing.
On the one hand, I'm helping a friend. On the other, I'm getting to test my current ideas about music marketing in the real world. Seems like a good thing all around!
And that's it for the moment, Dear Diary. Catch you later!
All previous projects are mostly on hold except for writing about the music industry at Hypebot.
I'm currently focused on growing Crowdfunding For Musicians, a blog on the way to a book about crowdfunding music.
Connect with Crowdfunding For Musicians:
Facebook – Crowdfunding For Musicians
Twitter – Crowdfunding Music
Email – Daily Posts
Email – Special Announcements
Writing for Hypebot – Music industry blogging especially on music marketing and music tech startups as related to DIY/indie musicians. Updated list of posts.
Flux Research – Returning to focus on business writing.
All World Dance – posting weekly.
This Business of Blogging – Twitter feed focused on the business of blogging with a minimum of how to posts.
My main web project is now All World Dance: World Dance News and I've stopped almost all work at my other websites, even the ones I just do for fun, like Asheville Fashions. The transition to this point was a bit unpleasant cause I hate to neglect things and I hate to give up on great ideas but, at some point, you gotta focus to make something work.
All World Dance launched back in April and it's really starting to take off. We are now at 10,000 unique monthly visitors. My short term goal in terms of traffic is to get to 25k uniques by the end of the summer if not before. At that point I'll be able to apply for some ad networks that I think would be appropriate for the site. For now I'm using Google AdSense and that's doing well enough to keep it in play but I ultimately want to move up in the world!
Currently all that traffic is due in large part to Google, so we can only hope that continues. However we periodically get a boost from folks posting links to Twitter and Facebook when we've covered them and that's been a really positive part of the site's development.
Another positive piece of the puzzle is the slowing growing circle of Facebook friends and Twitter followers. In particular, the Facebook page has attracted some really interesting individuals who also reveal the global nature of All World Dance's audience. Though the U.S. readership is biggest followed by Canada and the UK, we've already gotten the most global audience I've had for any project to date, especially in the early stages. Though having a global audience can be problematic for advertisers in the early stages, I believe we're setting the stage for a really big presence online and I like being global!
If you need to touch base regarding All World Dance, please hit me up at:
clyde(at)allworlddance(dot)com
As I've previously indicated, I'm now primarily working on All World Dance and Hypebot. I'll discuss All World Dance separately, cause it's starting to take off, and mention a couple of things about Hypebot here.
I've been writing about the music industry at Hypebot, especially web and marketing aspects, for over two months. I still feel like I'm settling in to some extent but overall it's going very well. I'm getting to focus on areas that interest me and that I want to understand more deeply which will, in turn, feed back into the writing so it's definitely headed in a positive direction.
Currently there isn't a separate list of my posts on Hypebot so I've been maintaining a list at Flux Research. I'm also getting links to posts up on Flux Research's Twitter account and Facebook page. Since not much more is happening at Flux Research, those are practically now just notices of my Hypebot posts.
If you want to contact me about Hypebot related stuff, please hit me up at:
clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com
It's been awhile since I've updated and a lot has changed.
Buried Quotes has been sidelined and Asheville Fashions has become practically a monthly hobby publication. However, I'll keep posting there for fun and to keep a minor connection going between life in Asheville and my web publishing. I don't think Buried Quotes will be back anytime soon. The project relied on the fact that I wasn't writing fulltime and had time to read a lot of different things all the way through. That's not possible now that I'm back in action!
I recently relaunched Flux Research with a focus on Web Business Models as my core web publishing project. However, I kind of scared myself off that wanting a quicker response and feeling like I need to know more to do that project. I'm all for learning on the job but it felt like the curve was going to be a bit too slow. So I've refashioned it into a hub for my business writing. I'll still post occasionally about business models and also include links to my business writing in a category called Clyde Smith Writing.
I'm also now a staff blogger at Hypebot, the leading music industry blog, and am keeping a page with links to my post at Flux Research called Clyde @ Hypebot. Heading forward that's going to be the primary focus of my business blogging.
My biggest web publishing project is now All World Dance: World Dance News and it's off to a strong start. It's really my return to the dance world, though I've previously blogged a bit about hip hop dance at Ill Moves, and it just feels right. I can tell when I'm promoting it that I'm fully behind it and I'm getting ready to take such activities to a new level. Over the next week I'll have a press release out and a mobile web app in action. And that feels great!
So, the best laid plans get flipped when necessary. Web business types are calling that a pivot and says it's a good sign when one knows how to pivot well. Hopefully I'm becoming expert given my growing experience!
I'm excited to have finally launched Asheville Fashions, a blog about Asheville fashion and street style, though my wack flipcam skills are exposed in this first post of a couple in downtown Asheville.
But, hey, you gotta start somewhere!
Finally figured out all the pieces of Buried Quotes. It ultimately meant giving up my initial idea, adapting it to the designs and algorithms of our web/tech overloads and may have resulted in an even better project. Same basic concept but with less hassles and improved access!
Next up: Asheville Fashions!
