Hi there! I am a local jewelry artist and I am looking for some help. I know that I need to get more information about what I do out there through social media, but can never seem to find the time. Is there any way for Pittsburgh Bloggers to help me, even if I do not have my own blogg? My website is www.audraazoury.com and my facebook page is Audra Azoury Jewelry. Thanks in advance for any info. you can provide!

We often get questions along these lines. Pittsburgh bloggers, how would you answer this? Please offer your thoughts in the comments.

It’s more happy hour than meeting: No talks will be given, no credentials required.

WHAT: Pittsburgh Blogfest 21
WHEN: Saturday, July 14, 2010, 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM and beyond
WHERE: Finnegan’s Wake (near PNC Park, 20 General Robinson St., North Shore, 412-325-2601), in the Pub Room
WHO: All local bloggers, podcasters, and social media folk of all stripes (and their friends… feel free to bring some even if they don’t blog!)

Food and beverages will be available for purchase from Finnegan’s Wake. Arrive when you like, leave when you must.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP on the event page or send an e-mail to blogfest AT pghbloggers.org.

We don’t want this to turn into a general-purpose announcement list, so it’s restricted to offers and events that are specifically for bloggers or that particularly apply to blogging. Some examples:

• Free or discounted tickets to an event or performance, in exchange for blogging on the blogger’s own site or on yours
• Invitation to blog on your site or to cross-publish a post on your site and the blogger’s own site
• Press pass to an event

Opportunities are listed on the Blogger Opportunities page (though there aren’t any there … yet), and you can send in information about an opportunity online. We’ll review each submission to make sure it fits our criteria and publish as quickly as we can; it’ll be announced on the Pittsburgh Bloggers Twitter account too.

Follow us on Twitter for announcements of new & updated blog listings, events, and blogger-centric opportunities.

Maniac Magazine is having a special event exclusively for Pittsburgh bloggers.  Are you blogging about fashion or entertainment?  Do you pride yourself in giving your readers first hand news?  If so – you are the blogger we are looking for. 

Maniac Magazine is inviting you to a get a sneak peak at our February/March issue BEFORE it hits newsstands – all our exclusive content and photos will be available for you to not only look at but blog about!

The event will take place Thursday, February 2 at the abandoned Nine West Store in the South Side Works.

We will have a blogging station set up with computers that will contain a high resolution image of the magazine.  We want you to read through the magazine and do what you do best – blog about it – right there on the scene! Engage your audience with a first hand look at our celebrity cover model, new beauty products, exclusive interviews and of course the latest Maniac Fashion. 

The night will be filled with fashion and fun!  We will be serving free drinks and food.  Bloggers will also get a glimpse of awesome products we receive from beauty and fashion vendors.  To thank you even more for blogging about your new issue, we will offer mani/pedis and complimentary massages and everyone will receive an exclusive VIP gift bag filled with Maniac goodies! 

This is an exclusive event; therefore we only have a certain number of blogging stations available.  RSVP to April@maniacmagazine.com soon to redeem your station!  We look forward to sharing our February/March issue with you!

April Hubal
Publisher 
Maniac Magazine

We’re using a feature of WordPress.com for this, a function that one is permitted to use even when not hosted on WordPress.com. It works nicely, but slowly, and some sites seem to take much longer than others to load and save.

If your blog is one of these slow sites, try viewing the listing for your site and waiting a while (even minutes), then reloading the page to make the image appear.

In the meantime, we’re still researching other ways to generate screenshots more quickly. Ideas welcome: Share any thumbnail-generation services or similar in the comments.

We’ve revised the blog listing form entirely, so now the approval process is a snap — we just check your listing and click Publish. So much better!

We’re still going through the backlog of existing requests, but if you would like to just resubmit with the new form, you’ll probably get your site listed faster.

Go forth and list, friend.

As the site has been up since 2004, there are obviously some blog links hanging around for pages that are no longer being updated by their authors. So, I’m here to help clean up these links and delete the non-functioning ones.

With that said, you’ll be seeing some changes coming to the directory as things are updated and removed. We’re only removing blogs that don’t exist, blogs that are no longer related to Pittsburgh in any way (in topic or location), and blogs that are basically ‘inactive’, meaning they haven’t been updated at all in the past 18 months. I am doing my best to try to find new addresses if blogs have moved, but if you’re a blogger with a new address, letting us know via an email or the update form is the best thing to do. Also, if your blog is removed for inactivity and you decide to start updating it again, please just resubmit it and we’ll be happy to update the link.

Finally, we are really trying to improve the effectiveness of the tag cloud on the main page, so if your blog is listed in the directory but doesn’t have any tags, please submit some as an update. This is one of the easiest ways for readers (and other like-minded bloggers) to find your blog, so the more specific and accurate your tags are, the more people who will be able to read your page.

The blog directory is lengthy, but I’m hoping to have the Big Link Cleanup complete before our upcoming Blogfest event. The details of that will be coming soon, so keep checking back! And again, keep the corrections and updates (and new submissions) coming!

In this new site, we’re focusing primarily on being an easily searchable blog directory — a way to discover Pittsburgh-area blogs easily.

Note that the listings we brought over from the old site are often very old indeed. Some point to blogs are no longer exist, others include outdated links and descriptions. We need your help in identifying which listings should be updated. When you find an out-of-date listing, please let us know what changes to make to bring it up-to-date.

We will also be adding a new feature to help organizations and businesses connect with bloggers for blogger-specific promotions. And if you have ideas for other ways to make this site more useful to you, whether you’re a blogger or a reader, please let us know (especially if you can help us make it happen).

One feature we haven’t brought over from the old site is the RSS feed aggregator. Combining the RSS feeds of hundreds of blogs overwhelmed our systems, and so for the time being we’re going to leave that out and focus on the directory. We’ll revisit the aggregator in the future if technology and resources make it possible.