A few years back I got a bit excited over blogs and localities… and in said frenzy went a domain swoop of sorts and bought up, ahem:

melbourneblogs.org | sydneyblogs.org | brisbaneblogs.org | londonblogs.org | newyorkblogs.org | worldblogs.org

Now, I don’t mind having a few domains knocking around, good for testing ‘n stuff, but for the sake of tidyness (as well as the annual renewal fees) I reckon I should shift them… and they’ve gotta be worth more than $10 each… haven’t they???

Any ideas on how I could best sell them? Anyone want to make a bid?

Ahhh… how I rejoyced last Friday when I saw that Edublogs had jumped from 80 something to no. 8 on a Google search for education blogs.

It’s taken a while, some 35,000+ links, many many months and a pagerank of 7… but finally I figured I’d cracked it and could move on to terms like class blogs, teacher blogs and other worthy searches.

But no, for no sooner had this week begun than Edublogs was back where it (apparently) belongs – sandwiched between ‘Orange News Blog: education’ and ‘education: Blogs, Photos, Videos and more on Technorati’… alas!

Yahoo gets it (number 2), MSN gets it (number 1) even Ask gets it (number 1 – though not before the biggest pile of ads in history!).

Oh Google, what have we done that you have forsaken us so?

My final article for the Citizen blog at theage.com.au is called Coment is twee and is a heartfelt plea to get rid of blog comments in the mainstream media – and replace them with something much better.

Go read it and… don’t leave a comment!

Just a heads up, there should be a touch of downtime at incsub.org over the next 24 hours as we shift her over to a shining new server.

There’ll be no impact on any other sites we host.

But if you’re just panting to search my archives, frolic around my classy new design (thanks for all the comments congratulating me on my aesthetic – not) and dwell on what pearls of wisdom I may have proffered, then you may be out of luck!

… I’m actually, finally, completely, wonderfully doing it.

Today I handed in my notice at The Age and come July 1st I’ll be working 100% for myself, the majority of the time on Edublogs and the rest doing consultancy, speaking, design & development for education, media and community projects.

I’ve always wanted to work for myself, and Edublogs is allowing me to do that. There are currently over 76,000 blogs on the sites and over 1100 new ones every week (well, each week or for the last three weeks at least), add to that the initial success of Edublogs Premium and some extensions I’ve got for that coming along with a couple of other ideas, and I’m aiming to turn it into a fully sustainable business within the next six months.

I’m half tempted to just focus on that, but I want to keep my hand in – and occasionally meet real people face-to-face – so I’ll also be doing work around developing great custom blogging / community environments, standing on stages shouting at captured audiences and generally mixing it up… variety is the spice of life!

So do feel free to get in touch about that kinda stuff – and enjoy the new look incorporated subversion while you’re here.

But come July 1st, the ball’s going to be totally in my court, I’m going to have my fate in my own hands, am not going to be able to complain about anyone else holding me back and am going to be responsible for not just the destiny of Edublogs but also paying the mortgage and feeding the family.

I can’t wait!

Just when you thought everything was going swimmingly, with months and months of uninterrupted uptime you get a minor technical glitch, specifically:

May 22 11:03:04 server kernel: EXT3-fs warning (device sda3): ext3_unlink:
Deleting nonexistent file (17187990), 0

And it takes 9 hours to do a 15 minute repair job, gah.

After which SQL throws up a heap of  errors needing repairing, while at the same time you’re trying to manage (well, observer and prod tech team) transfer and upgrades over another couple of servers.

The only good thing about today has been that it’s a Sunday (Saturday night to the rest of the world).

And the great big irony is that it all comes the night before…

Did I see this first (probably not, but you never know)… WordPress.com passes the million blog mark!

Great work guys!

I’m presenting (and workshopping) at ICTEV 2007 tomorrow.

Here’s a flash (and very condensed version) of my preso, for your educational enjoyment… it’s on the subject of ‘why we need a revolution in online teaching and learning‘ and comes in at 17 mins and 27MB.

Unfortunately the embedded video soundtracks didn’t quite come through… but you get to listen to me instead, so that should rock your world ;) (oops)

Are you holding back on Edublogging because there ‘aint someone to hold your hand?

Or do you just want some resources to help your colleagues and students out as they get stuck into their education blogs.

Look no further…

If you want one compelling and informative read on partnership and entrepreneurship, this is it.

Must have been one heck of a tough decision… all I can say is that that’s one media start-up that just lost most of the reasons it was was going to do *very* well.

In spirit as well as in design / tech.

Good luck Derek, looking forward to your next project.