Members,
Please read the letter to the community posted on the Member Homepage.
If you have questions, please tune into our show on BE Radio this Tuesday (9/12) at 7-10 CST so your questions can be answered for all listeners.
Thanks!
Lewis
Melissa and I are going to do two radio shows on BE Radio. The first one is tonight!
The purpose here is simple: introduce ourselves, answer questions, have fun. If you would like to meet us, please drop into the shoutbox, listen to the show, and call-in with your questions. This is your opportunity to put us on the spot - and we welcome it.
Show Times: Tuesday 8/15 & Thursday 8/17 at 8:00pm-11:00pm EST (5:00pm-8:00pm PST)
Call Us Toll-free from the US: 1-888-696-6423 or from any country: 1-312-235-6400.
Melissa (dizzyscorpio) is visiting me here in Chicago, so we decided to do a radio show on BE Radio!
So, make sure you tune in tonight 8-11pm EST (5-8pm PST). We’re gonna have lots of fun, music, phone-calls, contests, etc.
Tune in by going to http://radio.blogexplosion.com, and also drop by the shoutbox because we’ll be in there too.
Don’t forget!
Every year bloggers come together to participate in the Blogathon to help raise money for charity. This is NOT a BlogExplosion event, however it’s a GREAT event and I would love to see every single BlogExplosion member participate this year.
It’s simple. It’s like a walk-a-thon, except that instead of taking pledges to walk, you take pledges to stay up for 24 hours and blog. You choose the charity you will blog for, get pledges, and starting on Saturday, July 29th at 9:00am EST you will stay up for 24 hours making a post on your blog every 30 minutes.
Let’s all stay up late and make a difference together as a community. To that end, I will be setting up a special chat-room at the Shoutbox for all members participating in the Blogathon. I’m going to stay up late too and do a special radio show!
For 24 hours, BE Radio will have full Blogathon 2006 coverage. I will be your humble DJ for a whopping 24 hours straight. There will be music, contests, announcements, give-aways, call-ins and lots of tips to help you stay awake!
BE Radio is open to everyone - not just members of BlogExplosion. I will have special buttons made up and there will be more details in the next newsletter.
I’m not doing my show for charity directly, I’m doing it for you: the bloggers. This year promises to be the best Blogathon by far!
You can find all the details and sign-up at Blogathon.
We’ve partnered with the folks over at yourquestion.org to bring you a special deal. They want to know what you think about their site and what they’re trying to accomplish. All you have to do is write an entry on your blog with your opinion (either good or bad) and you get yourself 20 credits. You can also earn an additional 10 credits if you want to put their webband on your blog.
Click here for all the details and how to request your free credits.
As many of you know we put BlogExplosion up for sale recently, but the buyer has recently informed us that they were not able to complete securing financing for the deal beyond their initial deposit.
So we will be putting BlogExplosion back up for sale later today. Note: Approvals and support will be slower than normal as we concentrate on getting the sale completed.
Lewis and crew will continue managing BE for the next two weeks until we close the sale of the site. More details to follow including an email out to our members shortly.
Update: We have posted the auction link just now and if you are interested in buying BlogExplosion the public auction is now live!
Ever wondered about how a feature works or how to get the most out of it? If so, BlogExplosion Experts is just for you!
BlogExplosion Experts is the first stage of a new initiative to increase the help and support available at BlogExplosion. You can chat live with an expert anytime you have a question…just look for the “Ask an Expert” button like the one on this post!
Under New Management
If anyone ever tells you that running the internet’s largest blog traffic exchange and community website is easy - they’re lying. On the other hand, it’s getting easier with every passing day and it is a LOT of fun. Before we get started, I wanted to introduce myself and the owner, Stephen.
Many of you know me already - I’m Lewis Johnston (a.k.a. orangehairedboy). You might also know me from my blog which I had to temporarily discontinue due to lack of time. I’m a programmer living in Chicago, Illinois and a geek at heart. I started working for BlogExplosion about 10 months ago, and I continue to enjoy making our site even better. You can often catch me in the Shoutbox, and I can also be heard on BE Radio.
Stephen: “My name is Stephen Sartain. I live in the UK and have been happily married for 16 years and have two children. I am the owner of a number of websites, including two of Jeff and Thomas’ previous websites. BlogExplosion represents, to me, the next evolution of traffic exchanges. Instead of the webmaster doing everything, the members themselves grow and evolve the site. I am hoping you all will complete Lewis’ survey. Information analyzed becomes understanding which will lead to new awareness of what you - the members - would like to see happen at BlogExplosion.”
Stephen’s username is StephenS so look for him around the site.
Who are you…really? We Want to Know
As we make prepare to make changes to BlogExplosion, Stephen and I would like to get to know you. You make our community great!
We’ve prepared a short survey that we’re asking all members to take which will tell us who you are, what you like and what you don’t. Don’t worry - it will only take 3 minutes to complete.
The information that results will enable us to build a bigger and better BlogExplosion.
So, now is the time to be heard. I promise that I will read every single response! Use this URL to take the survey:
Update: BE Radio is up and running!
Well, this isn’t the first post I was hoping to make here on Help Me Blog! We’re having a little trouble with BE Radio, but we’re working to get it resolved.
We have our backup music playing right now, but there are no Mystery Credits, nor is the bi-hourly news played.
Note: During the outage, the BE Radio website is unavailable which means no requests either for the time being.
| We are pleased to announce that BlogExplosion has been sold to Stephen Sartain and a group of private investors this weekend. We had competitive bids all through last week and finally was decided on Saturday afternoon. |
Stephen has bought two sites from us previously with great results and has extensive experience running sites like BlogExplosion. Our final closing price was in the six figures and well beyond our minimum bid of $100,000. We also want to extend a huge thanks to Jeremy Wright for doing an amazing job brokering the sale of BlogExplosion for us.
This will be my last post on helpmeblog.com as Lewis aka Orangehairedboy (one of our lead developers) will be taking over as we make the transition to the new ownership group.
There are a flurry of new features already scheduled to launch over the next few weeks as the development group has been working this whole time in preparation for the change. BlogExplosion will be launching BE Experts where experienced members will be helping new members with any problems they might come across, a new support ticket system will be implemented, tutorials will be updated for newbies and the blog approval system will be re-vamped as well. This will make it easier for members to get the information they need on a timely basis and make BlogExplosion a friendlier site to use.
Now that the new management team is in place, BlogCharm will now confirm sponsors and advertising deals that will be shared by all participating members. BE will also look to offer value-added services such as podcasting hosting with a deal close at hand and other features that will make an immediate impact moving forward as well.
Thomas and myself will be taking a short break now that BlogExplosion has been sold and then looking at new projects that we will be launching by the end of the summer.
BlogExplosion has definitely been a very rewarding and interesting experience since we launched back in September 2004. We never imagined that BE would become so popular or develop such a devout following. We leave BlogExplosion as one of the leading blog communities on the internet and a top blog destination website. We want to thank all of our members for the support and encouragement to keep us going each day as we met some truely amazing people along the way. There is no way we could have done it without our loyal members and again a sincere thanks to everyone that were always there for us.
Congratulations Steve and group and we wish you the best of luck in the future! Blogosphere out!
Sincerely
Thomas and Jeff