Oh No! Not Another Blog Network?

HART-Empire.com was inspired from a post and comments found HERE at Darren Rowse ProBlogger.net site .. where I mentioned in comment #19 …

Well, I have a business blog, personal blog, pet related blog, gift blog, picks blog, weight loss blog, and a few other crappy blog experiments that didn’t work. Naturally I try to put links to my other sites on each one to let people know about them.. am I a network? Maybe I should just create my own network name and brand it!

As of yesterday October 15, 2005 this was just another blog that I created and just another link that I had to place on all of my blogs. You can see that I have posted a few times earlier in this blog about the graphics I have been placing and in the sidebar. All of a sudden – it became quite long to me. I was thinking, that if I were a true blog network, and want to link everything on one page .. well, people would go nuts! It’s too long! Also, what would happen if I were to add more blogs to the list – or better yet – more network members?

And then it hit me – Why not?

I was having a discussion with SonjaHelga (a co-contributor of content on my PetLvr.com blog) and discussed what she thought about pooling our resources here and cross-promoting each other’s blogs on each of our own blogs. For some strange reason, she thought that was a great idea 🙂

So I guess “HART-Empire Network” is open for business! I guess we need some rules and general guidelines.

1) We are not professional bloggers although, that doesn’t mean this network might contain some professional bloggers and their sites. We hope you are actively pursuing ways to increase traffic to your website with new content, but there are no guidelines to post new content at all. You blog at your own pace .. just like the 99.9991% of the rest of the world.

2) We are not a corporation nor are we a media organization. When we say “Network”, we mean that all we want to do is ‘network‘ our blogs together in some formal reciprocating and linking manner, that might make it enticing for readers of our blogs to be interested to visiting blogs within our ‘network’. If you want to see a partial list of blogs … try here .. We are not hiring bloggers, nor are we paying for blogging services.

3) Please refer to the BIO page link above for a complete list of blogs by Network Member / Owner … HART-Empire.com assumes no rights to ownership of anything in the blogs in the network, except that ‘owned’ by HART … All intellectual property rights, ownership, trademarks, copywrite etc remain with the owner.

4) Sites in this network may be commercial in nature, contain advertising, affiliate marketing and whatever makes us happy .. However, we do not want adult content, sites that promote illegal activites, sites that do not give credit where credit is due and copywrite infringement. Let’s keep this clean because our relatives and children are watching!

5) All network members and sites must agree to have our ‘HART-Empire Network’ current list always listed on the main page of their sites, normally in the side bar. Click on the above link “CODE” for sample and a link to obtain the script which can be copied and pasted directly in your templates. If you have, more or less, charitable and aid-related blogs, you could just place a link to our page of Network members above instead of the entire code. If there are problems finding a nice place on your blog that ‘fits’ .. we will try to make it work for you.

6) You must remain a member of this network for at least three family generations, which include all blogs and websites you may own or create in your lifetime, your children’s lifetime and any blogs or sites that maybe created during your children’s children’s lifetime and … // uumm, you know I was just kidding .. right? If all this reciprocal linking is not working for you, all you have to do is let me know and I will remove your sites from the “CODE” and you can remove your sites on your homepage and blog sites. No problem here!

7) Do you need to have more than one blog or website to participate in this network? No. You can just be a single site owner and perhaps this might be a way to get some more traffic? We don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

8) Does your site have to be a blog? Yes – and no. Your site must have two things that we can link on in our “CODE” .. which, is your homepage URL and your RSS Feed .. if you do not have an RSS Feed .. can you get one? Maybe you currently have a feed and don’t know it. But, if you become a member and include our “blog” feed .. on our Network Link Page (click above top button), we will include all of your non-blog related websites if you want. But, you must have at least one active blog.

9) Hey! We can all chat on Instant Messenger programs and ask each other questions! (time permitting of course). I like to help out and am quite friendly. If I’m in AWAY mode, I will get your message and eventually reply, although usually I am ONLINE and available, for the most part.

Time will tell if this was a good decision or not – but, for now we are giving it a try!

Does this interest you? Feel free to use our CONTACT page to obtain more information. Or, if you just want to join automatically, place the code on your own pages .. then email HART the following information … hart (at) PetLvr (dot) com

* Name of Website
* URL of Website
* RSS Feed URL of Website
* What category would it be? (See NETWORK page)

I like this theme.

I really like the theme at my PetLvr.com blog site, but there are always issues. This time it is my adsense issue completely. The way that the design of the blog is .. there is no contextual ads except public service ads. I find that hard to believe for a Pet Related blog. I have been in contact with Google and they suggest that there just isn’t enough ads out there for pet related sites … OR … the content is so filled with information it is too confusing to tell what the content really is.

Okay- that second thing made sense a little. There are 3 adsense ads on each page.

* Left Sidebar
* Center under the title
* bottom right-aligned, in the Recent Posts section

If you have been to my site and seen some blank white spaces – that is the reason and probably where you will see them.

So – if I take the time to fiddle with this template .. will it fit the needs of PetLvr.com ??

That is my current thinking… Just in case, I have managed to create a modification of this logo for PetLvr.com … I need a little more work .. maybe some fish, a bunny, or hamster .. (more animals other than dogs and cats and horses)

Click on the above graphic for its original size … What do you think of this as a new logo?

It was a lot of work actually .. but I created all of those images in the bottom right sidebar for the RSS feed and BLOG URL and the graphic link back to the article in this blog, that describes the blog.

I like it.

But then I wonder .. what if I try to expand on this “Empire” vs “Network” and promote blogs as part of an overall network.. I think the first issue would be to increase traffic in the networked blogs, and having some sort of Network Directory would be needed. It would have to be able to fit all blogs in the network on the front page, in order to be effective.

I thought .. if not what I already have in my own sidebar … how about this?

HART-Empire Network

Oh to ponder on the possibilities .. I already list all of my sites somewhere on every blog anyway – in the links etc .. but I like the idea that you can just add the RSS feed for any blog from any blog.

Well … I hope I was able to tie things together … I have included a ‘modified’ version of each of the blog’s “ABOUT ME” blog entries, to give everybody a glimpse at what these blogs were originally meant to be … It will be interesting to look back in June 2006 (after 1-year blogging) to see what they have evolved into, and if they even exist or if HART-Empire.com has expanded across the galaxy and universe!!

So .. feel free to come visit any of my blogs and / or add the RSS feeds to your own news aggregator program or online aggregator such as www.Bloglines.com …

Comments are welcome! Feel free to add your own here publicly in the comments – or privately in the CONTACT form above.

Take care.
HARTLEY B SINGER
aka HART

PapillonLvr.com – Blog

* About Papillons .. The Dog Breed … Not The ‘Steve McQueen Movie’ …

I’ve been online since January 1995 and with a webpage since November 1995. I used to have an account (and was loyal) with GateWest.net … My website was GateWest.net/~hbs and I called HART’s HomePage. If you go to the WAYBACK archive – it didn’t start until 1998 .. I think I have a late fall 1996 view of my homepage here .. Version #3 with frames.

Anyway – Gate West Communications was a dialup company and our phone company here, Manitoba Telephone System started to buy out all the little companies in Manitoba. Gate West managed to survive without getting eating by the Tiger. The only thing was – when DSL became more popular, they couldn’t compete with the phone company, naturally. Under some deal I was assigned to M.T.S. and have been loyal with them ever since.

Anyway – there goes my homepage URL address that I must have promoted on those chat forums and mIRC and ICQ and everywhere around the universe .. I had to start fresh… This was in around late 1999, early 2000 I believe.

So – I registered two domains:

1) HBSMC.com – for my business name HBS Management Consultants
2) PapillonLvr.com – to have pictures of our Papillon dog Maxxie!

In 2002 I had began registering more domains … and made them domain aliases of PapillonLvr.com (A folder on the host server’s hard drive, associated with a domain name… These were:

3) HARTandYVONNE.com – we were getting married, to have all our pictures online
4) CorydonClock.com – trying to help my new father-in-law

In 2004 – I was reviewing my “urchin” stats of my server and something came to my attention – my PapillonLvr.com website had received about 6 times more traffic than ALL of my other domains and websites combined altogether! We had about 1000 wedding and other pictures online, and about 300 MB of wedding videos .. My hosting plan was 150 MB .. It came to my attention that if I upgraded to 500 MB space, they would throw in a Miva Merchant v.4.13 Online E-Commerce store in the package for free.

I did a little research and started “PapillonLvr.com – [Online Store] ..

I registered another domain, just in case ..

5) PapillonLover.com – just in case people couldn’t ‘get it’ that it was LVR not LOVER ..

It was hard to stock Papillon related products and find buyers so I expanded my product line. Then I began promoting and cross promoting and using google adwords and even started an Ebay Store. By XMas 2004 I had failed miserably. All my sales and profits were eaten by the cost of advertising. In January 2005 I stopped paying for advertising and I stopped selling. Tax season came for me and in May/June 2005 I did a reorganization.

6) DogLvr.com – move up from specific dog breed to dogs in general
7) CatLvr.com – why not? I had the dogs covered .. and
8) PetLvr.com .. it was like a TOP level to dogs and cats .. a natural progression I thought.

I converted and renamed my host plan under a master PapillonLvr.com site into a master PetLvr.com website, closed down my HBSMC.com and put all the domains under the umbrella of PetLvr.com. May 31, 2005 was the official day I began the blog for PetLvr.com.

But – we still have papillons! Two now – Maxxie and Sophie .. I wanted another glory website of their pictures but, this time – I decided it will be a blog. And, PapillonLvr.com – Blog was reborn!

For this blog, I hope to keep it purely Papillon related. I hope to increase my library of links of papillon related websites, including breeders, groomers, and other papillon owner glory-sites (like mine) ..

The “catch” will be – I have created it in the form of a PhotoBlog – I will try to add a picture each day of a Papillon dog and try to come up with a funny caption.

Hopefully, other Papillon dog owners out there will contribute pictures of their Papillon dogs and give it a caption too. And, perhaps grow into a community of making up funny captions for Papillons in funny poses etc. etc. etc.

And what will I do if that doesn’t happen? I will still post pictures of Maxxie and Sophie .. So – You should go.

call HART crazy

* But .. it’s really simple. You either like it .. or you don’t.

callHART.com is another Domain Alias to my HBSMC.com and 1800HART.com (go ahead! Try them all!)

The story behind me registering this domain can be found here … Jokingly, I keep telling my clients and the people that I train is that .. “If there is any problems .. and they need help .. feel free to call 1-800-CALL-HART” .. Unfortunately, that is 8 numbers and phone numbers are 7 numbers so it didn’t really work that well. For some reason I just decided to break them up and register them both .. 1-800-HART and CALLHART ….

It seemed to work out good for 1800HART.com and my blogs .. I had 1800HART.com/blog/ …. 1800HART.com/picks/ and one more that I won’t tell you for the moment (under test) … and I wanted to have some type of blog with the callHART.com domain now.

I was thinking stuff like …

* callHART.com/unist
* callHART.com/andcool
* callHART.com/pany

UUGGH! I thought those all sucked, were too obvious and well … call me crazy .. but probably would offend people!

And there you have it – call HART crazy … callHART.com/crazy

This is probably a blog that you can relate to – or don’t know what it’s all about.

* Have you ever watched a TV Show and at the end just think .. “why did I watch that!?” … or,
* Have you ever watched a TV Show and thought .. “That was really excellent!” … or,
* Did you really like something?
* Does something really piss you off and you hate that?

Well – that is the premise. NO THINKING. Whatever I’m doing, going, watching, listening to and even thinking … if I like it? I’ll blog about it. If I hate it? I’ll blog about it.

Notwithstanding the content .. the concept has been approved by a few friends and family … and I have convinced two of them to assist me with this blog. While we might LIKE something, if there is something that’s the Cat’s Meow and greater than anything that ever was – next to sliced bread – we will RAVE about it. Likewise, it’s more than hate, disgust and annoyance .. if we see something that just makes you grit your teeth or shake your head .. well – we will RANT about that.

call HART crazy … but

… I think you might like this blog !

Oh – and I’ve been linking random CRAZY stuff from Amazon.com in the top sidebar. I wonder how far I can go but, once I include all of the CRAZY stuff .. I’ll probably go with the DEMENTED stuff and then the WACKO products and so on and so on.

By the way – if you think you know how to really RANT and RAVE about a topic you love or hate (politics, products, government workers blocking traffic, cops and police cars in donut shops not letting you have any space to park your car, etc etc … anything) .. would you want to help me? I could rename the blog to …

call HART crazy and his friends Too!

1 – 800 – HART’s Picks

* HART wants to show you things. All kinds of things. Good things. Things you could call your own.
* Please Check Out These Fine Products!

It seems that everybody and every ‘blog network’ has it’s own Gadget blog .. I suppose you can call this one mine.

Although, it is a biased version of a gadgetry blog, and not everything is a gadget. You see – I am affiliated with every shopping site that is linked in this blog, and will receive a commission if you click on a product and decide to make a purchase. The commission is very small, but if I can raise interest and traffic .. I just need a small amount of people out there in the world to help me someway to make money.

I am not just flogging ‘Specials’ or ‘daily recommendations’ though – I want to be clear about that …. I am surfing through these sites or, I think of something that interested me .. and go find it somewhere with my affiliates. When I do – it gets added to this blog. Everything is either something that I would personally WANT to buy and own myself – or something that I find really, really interesting.

And, if you are a relative of mine … look in the bottom of each post – I have left you Christmas Shopping tips to buy me this year!! So .. There! 😀

These are the companies for which I am semi-promoting and I am an affiliate of .. (feel free to click on the following and effect a purchase today!)

* Amazon.com
* AnimalDen.com
* BustedTees.com
* CanadianTire.ca
* FurnitureForSale.com
* Globat.com
* HearAndPlay.com
* MedievalWeaponArt.com
* ThinkGeek.com
* WeightWatchers.ca
* GiftsEMall.com
* PetLvr.com

That’s it for now – which may not be inclusive of what I always may be promoting. However, I it is quite easy to add AMAZON products with a wordpress plug-in that I am using .. plus my interest in Medieval and Renaissance Art, weapons and costumes (from my Medieval Themed Wedding in 2002) … and between these two you will probably see the most products listed.

I know they are not ‘cutting edge’ .. but, HART thinks they’re cool!

1 – 8 0 0 – H A R T

* HART’s mind works in mysterious ways .. someone should take advantage of that

For all intent and purposes, this is my “Business” blog – 1800HART.com is a domain alias for HBSMC.com .. which represents me, HART, the Proprietor of HBS Management Consultants. According to the blurb I wrote on the face of this blog (in the sidebar) …

ABOUT THIS BLOG

HART’s blog will contain matters of extreme great importance, or quite the opposite .. sheer nonsense

HART’s blog is for anybody who finds this type of information useful .. although it is geered to help the single office home office (SOHO) individual to get organized with their business records and home office, or for the individual or accountant, bookkeeper or student eventually going out ‘on their own’

I hope this information is of use to you .. If you have any questions .. participate in this blog

At first, I wanted to be a great resource to all other budding accountants and bookkeepers and small businesses. When you work for somebody else, and with other people .. you have a valuable resource of people to help you get along with your day. This would mean stuff like:

* People to talk to
* People to go to lunch with
* People who are interested in what you do – because they do it too

It’s tough to be on your own. We have to rely on our own instincts and past experience, but really .. there is nobody watching over you .. your spouse will not help you get the jobs out .. you can’t just let the receptionist call the clients and send out monthly statements … nobody’s reviewing your work .. nobody is forcing you to do your expense report budgets .. No .. that’s YOU’RE job now. It is far and few between that I actually can go to lunch without it being a fast food joint, or a place where I try to get a seat that makes me look the LEAST pitiful – eating alone. When I first started out on my own, I tried the networking thingy but, it started to get too expensive buying people lunch that you may never do business with. Now, I treat my clients to lunch whenever I can and time permits, and they pay me regularly upon presentation of my invoice… it work’s out great!

You see – I am an accountant and a consultant. If you want to read my lifestory … You can read it HERE .. But, you should know – I can’t just go ahead and discuss what I do or recommend for my clients – because

a) My clients’ may be watching – for one thing!
b) Information is confidential and subject to privacy acts here in Canada
c) I am a registered Efile Preparer, and subject to additional security and confidentiality rules.

Sorry! That goes about 90% of the good content that I originally wanted to show in this blog – my skill in problem solving.

So .. this blog is more of a ..”What Catches HART’s Eye … and Why?” type of a blog … Some topics maybe really out there and quite off topic – but, I will usually end up with a few good topics once in a while. But, just in case I don’t .. I have two great categories created … The first is an AMUSING STUFF category, which has some interesting links to interesting people and sites and power point slideshows etc … The second is HART’s BOOKMARKS which is a living entity as I try to convert my own bookmarks into one stop place to look for stuff!

I am reminded by a line in a BAZ LUHRMANN song .. callhart.com/crazy/2005/10/baz-lurhmann-everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen/ …. that stuck with me in the past years since I first heard this version …

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”

HARTandYVONNE.com – Blog

* The Personal Website of Hartley B. Singer and Yvonne Konig

I created this website just prior to our Medieval Themed Wedding August 31, 2002. The “Reader’s Digest” version about the making of this website was to keep it forever – to document our lives and memories and vacations so many years from now we are not one of those couples that looks back and says … “Where did all the time go?

So, here you will …

* Find almost 1000 wedding and other pictures in our Photo Gallery
* Find almost 300 MB of wedding videos
* Lots of Medieval and Renaissance information and links
* Come watch us get back in shape and lose weight with our Weight Watchers’ Diet!
* Come find some great recipes or feel free to offer your own recipes!
* Learn how few and infrequent we vacation and, when we do .. where we go
* Get to know the personal side of me (HART) and my wife (YVONNE)

PetLvr.com – [The Blog]

* A Website For All Earthlings, Who Love Animals

For this blog, I wanted something different. I wanted to create a blog that is not about me, or my dogs, or my life .. but about all pets in the world. I hope you believe we are different, but this is my mission objectives for this Blog and PetLvr.com website:

1) Multiple Authors and Team Writers

Rather than just have one point of view, I want a whole variety of viewpoints and commentaries in the blog. I have always believed that two minds are better than one .. so, a lot of them must be even greater! I have my own viewpoint, but it will differ from other people, including your own. I figured that by presenting various viewpoints by different people, you (the reader) will understand that it’s NOT “my way of the highway” type of thinking, and just take some of this information at face value for what it is .. just another viewpoint

2) A Blog of Knowledge

I hope that this blog will evolve into a wide base of information related to pets. Even though it is a blog updated daily with new content, if there was something about pets that I wanted to read about – I hope to just enter that query into the search field and then receive many different options and answers in solving that search. I also hope that having a wide range of continuing ‘encyclopedia’ type of information that it will attract many readers to either bookmark this site, or follow this site with our RSS feed. If you are searching for a particular type of information, like dog agility, I hope that you not only find many stories, references and helpful hints about dog agility, but also links to other great websites that can further help you receive information that you want. For this reason, you may see a lot of those “Free” articles from goarticles.com or ezinearticles.com for now, as I am trying to build up my database.

3) Heads Up on what’s happening!

It seems nowadays on the “Main Stream Media” TV channels and websites and now blogs, all you see is the same things happening in the world over and over and regurgitated into different pleasing formats. With the advent of RSS news aggregators and feed readers, I personally use Bloglines.com .. I am able to scour many different news sites and blogs from around the world. I would like to think that something that interests me is something that would interest you – not all of the time, but sometimes. If there is a news article or story or product that makes me stop and read it and say “wow” or “neat-o”, then (to me) I think it is worth posting here to let you discover it too! If it is an interesting topic, but plastered everywhere on the news channels .. then, I probably won’t bother repeating it again, no matter how newsworthy it may be .. at least for now.

4) “PetLvr” Stories by other Pet Lovers

I hope that the number of our team members who help me co-author and co-write this blog will continue to grow and provide you with NON-news stories, and NON-encyclopedia facts and maybe just give some simple tips that works for them – even though they may not work for you. I hope that we all can just write stories about our own pets, to let the world know how much we love them and enjoy them in our lives. Even if you do not want to become a co-author of this blog, you can still contribute a story about your pets! We will publish them. We welcome stories of inspiration and courage that are found from pets and pet owners around the world and stories that can make a person smile when reading it!

5) Helping the Pets – if we can.

I would like to officially invite all pet related agencies, societies and rescue sites to please take advantage and if you can use this site to promote your own site or promote the well being of pets anywhere on this planet – feel free to pass along a Press Release or occassional article, or consider becoming a full-time co-author and co-contributor! I have also created a “PetLvr Community Corner” site that I hope over time, can also evolve into a lost and found site and a READER community for you – the reader to participate with our site.

So … Do you want to contribute Articles to PetLvr.com – [The Blog]?

* Do you have an interesting pet related story to tell?
* Do you like to write pet related articles and tips for pet owners?
* Do you like to review pet related products and discuss them?
* Are you a professional trainer, breeder, groomer or in some other pet related industry, and want to promote your pet related business?
* Are you a pet lover and want to tell the world what your pet did this morning?
* Do you like to write? Do you like to blog?

Please see this page or give me a shout using the CONTACT form .. if interested