Joe's Journal - As it used to exist

If you read that link, you now know that I merged my old blog – Joe’s Journal – with the one that you’re reading – JerseySmarts.com. One year ago today, that merger was complete. I think the results have been great, but you could probably be the judge of that better than I can…

One of my favorite parts of the old Joe’s Journal was that crazy header that I put together by blending all of the different things that crossed my mind at the moment. You might be able to tell from that screenshot, but there are a whole bunch of different things on there including the Monmouth University hawk, Stewie from an early episode of Family Guy, the Arrested Development television show’s logo, a Cross, the American flag, my fraternity’s flag, a Lord of the Rings logo, a Smallville logo, a silhouette of New Jersey, a Rutgers University logo, and a bunch of other stuff. Plus, the main color of the site was yellow.

In general, I never hate on any of my old sites and Joe’s Journal is no different. I really enjoyed that blog since it was my personal blog where I let off steam and commented on a variety of issues (the entries have all been merged into this site, so go back a few years and look at some of the older posts – lots of bitching in there!). However, as I began to enterprise my web design skills and I began creating newer websites with stronger capabilities and better marketing opportunities, I realized that I had to begin eliminating duplication in those areas of my life where it was unsustainable and, really, unnecessary.

On that point, a few years ago I opened up JerseySmarts.com as a place where I could capture some of the writing skills of my friends from college and other people that I’ve met along the way. It never really panned out the way I wanted it to, but that’s okay. Since JerseySmarts.com became a viable source of revenue, I wound up keeping the domain and just uploading my Joe’s Journal entries onto both blogs. It was easy, but pretty laborious in the grand scheme of things. I never wanted to engage in larger marketing campaigns or new ways to present content because I didn’t want to have to duplicate everything. Plus, I felt like the impact of my entries was being thinned since they were available in two locations.

The logical answer was to merge the two blogs and condense my efforts to create a single website with greater impact. I think that I’ve been pretty successful in that effort considering that JerseySmarts.com is both profitable and has a wide readership. Since the merger, I’ve admittedly held back on publicizing the blog to the extent that I originally intended and part of that was because I wanted to ensure that I had the commitment to keep the thing updated. With that, I’m glad to announce that today marks one full year of this blog being updated every single day. In 365 days JerseySmarts.com has had more than 365 entries. I think that’s a pretty significant accomplishment for a one-man show. One of the ways that I accomplished this was taking advantage of the ability to “schedule” a post in WordPress. For example, I wrote all of the entries for November 1st through November 16th (that’s today) on Halloween. Hey, I had the free time while sitting around waiting for trick or treaters, so I wanted to use it productively! I can’t guarantee that I’ll be updating the blog on a daily basis for the coming year, so I might miss a day here and a day there, but I made it work in the last year so I might be able to keep the momentum going in the coming year!

If I had my way, I’d get more people to sign-up for the monthly newsletter in the next year and I’d utilize that newsletter for more than just a recap of previous entries. I think that goal is attainable, but not when the newsletter stands at 26 subscribers. Last month I started a new Google Group which replaced the old newsletter system that I’ve been using for the last year. Let’s hope that it has some staying power, huh?

Anyway, we’re one year into this merger and I think it’s going great. Let me know what you think!

Effective July 29, 2009, a U.S. Music Royalty Fee has been added to subscriber invoices.

Whoa! Another rate increase? That’s the second rate increase since Sirius and XM merged and promised that they wouldn’t raise rates for a while. So I kept on reading and picked up the following piece of information:

How much is the U.S. Music Royalty Fee?

The fee is $1.98 a month on our base $12.95 subscriptions and $.97 for base plans that are eligible for a second radio discount. Your actual fee may vary depending upon the Package and Plan term you choose.

Another $2 per month. Wow. Now, since I believe in access to all information for my readers, you can click here to read the entire disclosure from Sirius XM. Frankly, it sounds like they are being held a bit over a barrel and that they aren’t going to benefit too much from this rate increase.

However, since it’s the theme of the week to make public a bunch of corporate mistakes that I’ve been encountering, I wanted to share this with you for your information. I’m still a fan of Sirius XM‘s content and I’m still on track to renew my subscription when it expires in a few years, but if the rates keep getting fees and other costs added on to them, then I’m sure many subscribers are going to get annoyed and think about a different service.

The Joe’s Journal & JerseySmarts.com Merger
Without getting into too many details, the merger of Joe’s Journal and JerseySmarts.com has been nothing short of a major success. On any given day, either of the two blogs averaged some 40 or so hits (JerseySmarts.com would get 5 or 10 hits each day and Joe’s Journal would range between 60 and 80 hits each day). With the new, merged site, there are some days where we’re over 300 hits, some days over 200 hits, and we’re now averaging between 100 and 150 hits each day. What’s exciting is that these hits aren’t really people reading the blog in the morning, afternoon, and night (though you should be checking in as often as possible). Rather, the hits are largely being generated by unique visitors. That’s awesome!

Also, the financial end of this blogging business has been great. Between the sponsors that you can find all over this blog and the program-specific advertisements that I’ve been setting up here and there, Joe’s Journal on JerseySmarts.com is making a healthy living for a small, personal blog!

The Stock Market
What a mess!? Many of you know that I started investing in earnest a few months ago and since that time I’ve taken a hit in the market just like everyone else. The difference, though, is that the hit that I’ve taken is small compared to those folks who have big time money in the markets. First, I don’t have big time money to invest at this point in my life! Second, I started investing after the market was already down.

When I began investing I knew a few of my stock picks for sure. I knew that I was going to invest in Sirius XM because – no matter what the biased internet media may say – this is a good long-term stock for the small time investor’s portfolio. I also knew that I was going to invest in the automobile industry and that I would probably go in to Ford heavier than GM…which turned out to be a good move!

I’m invested in a few other stocks, but what I didn’t know when I started investing (and I still don’t know now) was how I would diversify the industries represented in my portfolio. Right now I have all of my exposure in the retail sector. I’m thinking of investing in some smaller, solid banks to get into the financial sector. Just a thought at this point, though…

Usable Web Solutions, LLC Doing Well
My small business is doing very well in this rough economy. All of my clients have signed on to extend their business relationships with my company and I’ve actually begun to bring in a few new clients; only two clients at this point, but two very strong organizations. For the longest time I stopped taking on new clients because I was getting some of the weirdest requests from some shady characters. But it’s good to be back creating new websites again.

The other part of the website business that is doing well is the advertising revenue. Perhaps my suite of sites has been lucky, but we’re all doing very well with selling ads and getting some income from those ads.

Teaching at the Local College
Two quick points on my adjunct professor position at the local college. Number one – I suggested a new course for my department and it was accepted! Starting next spring I’ll be teaching Community Public Policy (i.e. Community Development)! This is pretty exciting because I designed the course from the bottom up. Very cool!

Number two – well, here we go. Remember a few months ago when I had a problem with a colleague of mine at the local college? Turns out that for the class I’ll be teaching next fall, not only will this person be teaching in the same classroom that I’m scheduled to be in on Monday, but on Wednesday, too. What joy (sarcasm)! I’ve already filed a request to have my room changed because no one should have to put up with racism, sexism, or ageism – especially not on a college campus of all places!

Update – April 13, 2009: My class reassignment request was granted. Thankfully, I won’t have to deal with this person again!

There you have it, folks. A quick, random update on some of the things going around in my head. I’ll be sure to put some more random ideas up soon!

Under the new system, I’ll be able to spend less time ensuring that my updates are listed on two different blog sites. In terms of loss, both Brian and Bob (two guys who wrote a few posts on JerseySmarts.com) are no longer posting here. Sorry guys. I am thinking of larger things for JerseySmarts.com, though, and that will likely include sub-blogs for additional New Jersey bloggers to use. I’m still thinking about the details in my mind, but it’s a high possibility that a set up like that will exist in the future.

During the process of merging the two blogs, I regret to inform you that I lost all of the comments made on the various entries. Nah, I’m just kidding – I actually managed to get everything uploaded to the new site with no problems! It was actually amazing – all of the comments and content of some 1,200+ blog entries made it over to this website with no problems. Good work if I don’t say so myself!

Hopefully the new URL for this blog is easier for the masses to remember. I think JerseySmarts.com is a much easier URL to remember than blog.thebalrogslair.com – I believe that you’ll agree!

While the merger was successful, please understand that I expect there to be a glitch or two in the blog. If you find any of these glitches, please let me know so I can address them and get them fixed up. While there are certainly some items that I need to work on, they are generally behind the scenes items that shouldn’t really effect you guys as you browse around the site. There might be a graphical change or update here or there, but again – nothing that will interrupt your enjoyment of this site (I hope).

There you have it. The merger is complete and we’re ready to go on JerseySmarts.com. Enjoy!

What you can look for in the next few weeks is a new TBLWrestling.com. I’ve been working on a redesign for the wrestling website for a little while now and we’ve opted to use the WordPress system on the new site. The WordPress system is the one that this blog, JerseySmarts.com, and XHeadlines.com uses for its operations. It’s a pretty powerful system with many add-on/plug-in possibilities.

In any event, I’m hoping to have enough of the redesign completed so that the new site can be functional by this coming weekend. The current URL (www.thebalrogslair.com) has some 10,000+ pages of wrestling information stored in it. Believe it or not, I’ll actually transfer those pages over (one at a time) to the new system over the next year. However, we’re going to start this project with a somewhat blank slate and work from there. I think you’ll enjoy it.

So for the wrestling fans on this blog, keep an eye out for the new TBLWrestling.com. For everyone else, I’m glad to continue hearing your thoughts on the blog mergers. And if you’re not interested in commenting on either of those issues…then go away!

In order to streamline my daily website updates and create (hopefully) a higher visibility site, I’ve been thinking about finally making this merge. Both sites get about the same amount of hits (given the story, time of posting, relevance of my meanderings, etc), though Joe’s Journal currently sits at 1,106 posts while JerseySmarts.com sits at 368 posts. Joe’s Journal also has some 1,011 comments while JerseySmarts.com has 111. None of this information would be lost during the merger and it is likely that both designs would be thrown away for a new, more up-to-date design.

Thoughts?

What really concerns me is the merging of the two styles. SIRIUS Satellite Radio has dedicated itself to 100% commercial-free music channels. I like that – a LOT. Each morning when I go to work I have to flip over to regular radio for about 2 minutes when I go into the tunnel into Trenton. Folks, if you want to know how good commercial-free radio is, consider this…

Go through your regular radio dial in a 2-minute period and tell me how many stations that you LIKE to listen to are playing a commercial. Chances are that it’s more than a majority. Sirius’ commercial-free radio doesn’t put you through that crap.

It should be interesting to see how these two brands merge. But I’ll tell you this – if they raise rates and/or put commercials on these music channels, I’ll drop the service in a heartbeat. Yeah, I like listening to Howard Stern and Artie Lange, but they are only in there 3 days a week – 4 days if we’re lucky. Fifteen to 20 hours of programming just isn’t enough to keep me as a subscriber if I have to listen to commercials when I’m listening to the music.

Let’s all hope they do this the right way – the SIRIUS Satellite Radio way.