Spewker Shines Spotlight on "The Fair Review"

Through the power of social media, I have been privileged to connect with many different types of people. Some have been great friends and some have been slightly annoying, but throughout my travels, it's been tons of fun. I am constantly amazed by the power of my online friendships to further a mission. Blogging. One of the most rewarding yet agonizing pursuits in modern history.

Or like a box of chocolates. You never quite know what you're gonna get.

People write online for all sorts of reasons. For a job, to vent, to earn an income, make connections, engage in productive activity, or develop and grow an audience. Sometimes it's a combination of all of the above.

These pursuits cause more and more blogs to appear each day on the Internet. As any struggling blogger knows, it's brutal out there. Without a solid support system, new blogs can get lost in the competition. Over time, authors lose interest or think the effort is a waste of time.

And then there are people like me who refuse to fade away without a fight. Such is the reason I somehow stumbled upon The Fair Review, an engaging blogging community hoping to some day hit the big time with a first class directory of its own.

From what I can tell, their website is chugging happily along.

So how does one get other websites to notice a new blog? It's relatively easy to link to The Fair Review. Follow the directions posted at their FAQ and your site should get listed in no time.

Hey, if you're serious about getting linked and need a site to review, feel free to choose this one. From what I can tell, our page needs a boost. You'll qualify for our next Spewklet Spotlight and perhaps become a featured link on
The Gospel According to Rhys by helping us. Wouldn't that be a perky feather in your cap!

Okay, spewklets, you know the drill. Link and mention. That easy, that quick.

Oh, Rhys. Oh, Fair Review. Your website is the winner of our coveted Spewker Spotlight award. Email me for the code using the address listed at the bottom, or simply "click" and "save" the .jpeg below.

Congratulations, social media friend on a job well done!

Spewker Shines Spotlight on "Making The Movie"

T'was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. No fires raging near Big Sur. In the shadow of a recently ended writers strike, a subtle but festive mood uplifted the Hollywood elite. All of Tinseltown prepared for a memorable afternoon culminating in the Dorothy Chandlier Pavillion ... or was it the Kodak Theater?

Quite difficult to remember now that so much time has flown by.

Oh, what does it matter? It was the 80th Annual Academy Awards with a cast full of sparkling characters to light up the sky.

Oh, alright then, it was the Kodak Theater.

Whatever happened to the Dorothy Chandlier Pavillion? I wonder how the Chandlier family feels about being supplanted by an instant camera.

Yes, as I was saying, The Spewker was poised for one of its first live blogs. I had no idea what we were doing. In fact, I was so spanking brand new to the entire concept that I turned over the reins to our virtual Hollywood correspondent, Moan Quivers. Moani held the live blog on Twitter which explains the non-existence of her witty reparte. None of the posts survived.

For those who know absolutely nothing about Twitter, let's just say that your posts disappear after three or so pages of tweets. Someone has since developed an application to capture archives, but at the time, Twitter messages faded about as quickly as they spammed.

Too bad because Moan was on such a roll it bordered on sheer genius.

Somehow, some way, Making The Movie got wind of our ambitious effort and linked to our live blog announcement. I'm not sure how many people tuned in as a result, but I do remember Moani jumping around the room ecstatically after seeing our link in the midst of a prestigious list of live bloggers.

I'm glad to re-visit Making The Movie and see it robustly alive and kicking. So many blogs pop up and seem to disappear overnight. This is one tenaciously digging in its heels for the long run.

Good sticky content and well-written articles too. The site provides filmmaking tips, resources, reviews, news and links. A film maker's library with information written in plain English.

How many blogs can make that kind of claim?

Congratulations, Mr. Ott and Making The Movie. For your magnaminous gesture of linking to and referencing this then relatively unknown blog, you are the winners of a coveted Spewker Spotlight award. Target, save, and upload the award to your site or email me at the address on the bottom for detailed coding information.

Want to know how you can be our next featured spotlight winner? Simply mention this blog with a link to our site in any of your articles or embed in a page of your website. If we like what we see, you may be the next winner of our coveted award.

Spewker Shines Spotlight on.... Reuters?

I haven't slept in more than twenty-four hours. Daylight is starting to seep through the glass block. You'd better believe this week's spotlight is going to be brief.

Who is Reuters anyway? A nameless faceless news conglom? Or should I say Thomson Reuters, its humanized merger moniker? Good old Thom is so massive it now maintains a presence on Second Life and has the company portal to prove it.

Go ahead, laugh about Second Life if you dare. Five years from now, you'll be sorry you didn't claim a smidgen of territory in that virtual wasteland. Yes, there's money to be made in a world existing only in your laptop, even Reuters knows that. Just because hardly anyone else knows it shouldn't deter one from staking a claim.

Gotta love a virtual news pioneer like Reuters. Is it pronounced "roiters," "rooters" or something else? People keep telling me different ways to say the name and I can never seem to get it right.

Oh, what the hey, does it really matter? This mega behemoth doesn't need a plug from The Spewker. But we so need a plug from them. Glory, glory hallespewya, our prayers were finally answered with little fanfare, just a link which is all we ask for a dip in our spotlight.

Yes, one day I looked up from the funk of my keyboard and there it was. The recognition we've been so desperately seeking susan. Reuters transformed one of our raggedy spewked articles into one of the chosen. It was magical really. I was completely floored.

Jimmy Kimmel and Susan Silverman. Sure saw that one coming down the pike. Does anyone think multiple Technorati links had anything to do with this? Hasn't helped publicize this blog on Technorati, that's for darn toot'n.

Ha! At last, I can rest my weary hide.

Oh yeah, Thom, baby, email me for the award code at the address at the bottom, or simply target and save the picture below, yada yada yada.

Meanwhile, mention this blog, yada yada, link yada... you readers have to know the drill by now.

Spewker Shines Spotlight on Eliot Glazer and Buzzfeed

What would you do if you found a hilarious comment in a celebrity gossip article? You'd probably do what any self-respecting blogger would do - exploit it. That's exactly what we did with our Zachary Ty Bryan taser story which then somehow caught freelance writer Eliot Glazer's keen eye.

Mr. Glazer is a busy, busy blogger. Besides editing and contributing to like a zillion pop culture and cultural websites, of which his personal blog, Fast Hugs, is a mile a minute exercise in free association, he's an interviewer, associate producer and comedian who performs in and about New York.

Whew! I get tired just reading about this guy.

Interesting muse about Glazer's personal blog, if you read the URL the wrong way, you might think he writes about FAS thugs. Fill in the blanks for "FAS," but in the back of my mind I was thinking "funny as s---." Imagine my relief when I realized the theme is more in line with wham bam warm fuzzies.

How can we not be a fan of this young Brooklynite? His Buzzfeed profile has a feature link to my old childhood chum, Ira Glass. I'm an Ira Glass name dropper, ask anyone who knows me. Ira and I go way, way, all the way back, in fact, to the third grade. But that juicy tidbit is wasted fodder in a feature spotlighting Eliot Glazer. Suffice it to say, tasty details providing background for The Glass Chronicles will have to wait for another time.

Congratulations to Eliot Glazer and Buzzfeed for winning this week's Spewker Spotlight award. We are tickled pink to be the featured link on that taser story, and we love, love, love your blogs. Email moi to claim your award (or just click and save the .jpeg below).

Want to know how you too can be featured in our spotlight? Two simple rules (for dating my blogspot): (1) mention The Spewker and (2) link to this blog. How you do it is entirely up to you. Flames will not result in automatic disqualification, although they may prevent our judges from warming up to you.

oMG! It's the Very First Spewker Spotlight Award

Hard to believe I started this feature a week ago and it's already Tuesday morning. Where does the time ago?

Yes, as promised, I'm pushing through with blunt force to start our weekly feature on the Spewker Spotlight award. I don't care if our only Google links are the ones I created myself. Someone has to link to this blog and if I'm the only one who's willing to do it, so be it!

The truth is, I'm not the only one who thinks The Spewker is worth a link, thank gawd. In my travels, I have connected with many kind and wonderful people. People who don't mind giving another person a leg up. People who have very little jealousy in their hearts. People who are willing to work together with others to bring some good into the world. People who go about their lives every day trying to matter. People who are looking to connect by engaging others.

It goes without saying that the very first, premiere, tah-dah Spewker Spotlight award will be presented to such a person. What he plans to do with it, I don't know. That's entirely up to him.

What I do know is Nelson Guirado is a person who cares. Nelson blogs about tech because it's what he likes and what he knows, though his articles, like mine, sometimes veer off the beaten trail. We met for a very short time on a comfy couch at BlogWorld waiting for a free massage. Lots of people were in line, giving us a chance to get acquainted. I'm glad we did because it allowed us to discuss the problem of illegal immigration.

Nelson is someone who deals with that issue on a personal and deep level. Unlike the claim in this article, he was not at all obnoxious. In fact, he seemed very laid back and kind. If memory serves me correctly, he teaches somewhere in Southern California, a worthwhile pursuit if there ever was one. He may not be getting rich, but he is making a difference one bright and shiny young face at a time.

Congrats, Nelson, on putting your unique stamp on the world. And very warm wonderful congrats on being the first recipient of the Spewker Spotlight award. You are indeed a favored spewklet. Not making it to BlogWorld this year because they moved it to the weekend, but hoping they get some sense knocked into their brains and move it back to the middle of the week. If not, we'll have to connect again at some other Vegas conference.

For being the first, you get your choice of Spewker Spotlight awards. Email me for the code if you'd like to display either one of these nifty awards on your blog (the address is now a comment at your blog).

But first, please do me a favor. Remove my multiple comments from the end of your winning article. I don't know how your program counted the same comment multiple times, but it's making me look like a simp.

New Feature Shines Spotlight on Spew

Hey, it's Tuesday morning and the start of a new month, so we're trying something new here at The Spewker. In an effort to shine attention on those who lavish us with affection, we've decided to start a Tuesday morning spotlight feature. What or who will be spotlighted? Why, you, of course.

Sure, things will be slow at first. We'll have to tug on some old links and do our darnedest to make anyone passing by complicit in the madness. But slowly, slowly, I expect more than just a few will succumb to the irresistible urge to bask in our glow, even if all we can offer is a platform in a frequently updated blog with a hankering for spew.

Don't be shy. There are no rules, really. Well, maybe just one. Write about anything you like, but somehow mention The Spewker in the body of your article and link to this blog. We don't care how you do it, just do it, although blatant flames will decrease desirability. Note how I didn't say "disqualify."

Sigh. Yes, reluctantly, we'll consider blatant flames for the winner of our weekly award. For now. But don't push your luck.