Tangible Tidbits 2010 #40: From Factoidz to Facebook

Hey, everyone! I've been very productive this week...published a new article on Factoidz, signed up for a second holiday craft show, finished up my second class project, and invested three more last Monday night to cast tomorrow night! I'm also still auctioning off my TV fandom stuff, so that takes up most of my weekends these days between grouping items into packages and deciding what to sell each week, finding the items, photographing them, and then posting them on the message board. :p If I calculated the hours spent vs. the funds brought in, I think I would probably be in the red. :\

As I mentioned last week, I thought I would get more mileage out of the instructions I wrote for my November workshops by reworking them for Factoidz and YouTube. The Factoidz article was not too time-consuming, so that's here: How To Make A Twisted Wire and Bead Necklace -- No Tools Required! I've slipped to the #2 jewelry-making expert on Factoidz again, so I have to keep publishing to recoup and maintain the lead. ;)

As for YouTube, I started playing with a tutorial, but Windows Movie Maker projected it would be something like six hours long, so I may have to kill that idea. LOL If I get a Kodak Flip camera for my birthday or Christmas, as I don't foresee myself splurging on one between now and then, I will start making videos for YouTube and my blog in the new year. ;) "They" -- those in the know about internet marketing -- say videos are the way to go in order to reach your audience more effectively because it gives them a clear image of who you are...lets them get to know you and become comfortable dealing with you. The same "they" are also touting Facebook as "the next Google" in terms of network traffic and becoming the next pay-per-click goldmine. That might explain why there are ads ALL OVER my pages lately...and you can't even click them off! I don't mind them on the sides, but keep them out of the middle of my profile page, please! :( Ironically, I posted about the benefits of Facebook advertising in one of my early blog posts back in mid-January. My father always liked us to be "in the vanguard" as he called it. He'd be so proud of me! LOL

Speaking of Facebook, the Something Tangible application has disappeared completely. There's not even an error message anymore. And I can't find Gift Creator, which was the application I used to create it. I guess they got fed up with people complaining that their apps were going down all the time, so they pulled the plug. Nice of them to notify us, though. :\

As I said last week, I started some new Facebook pages for my workshops, since my phone hasn't been ringing off the hook with registrations. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the people responding "yes" are serious and not just being Facebook polite. LOL I also started running some Facebook ads to promote the Virtual Mall Fan Page. I think I came up with six for this campaign -- that option wasn't available last December, if I recall correctly. Anyway, one or two of them seem to be doing really well. I think I have something like 336 "people who like this" since the middle of the week. :)

Regarding the second craft show, it's the 2nd annual Jewels of New Jersey to benefit Monroe Township Library. Only New Jersey jewelry artists are invited, and I received the invite on the Bead Society's Yahoogroup. The terms aren't as good as the Round Valley United Methodist Church is offering, but it's the day after (Sunday, November 7), so I figured I may as well go while everything was still packed up. ;) I just realized that I will probably be exhausted on Monday and I will have class that night! I haven't gotten out of there before 10:00 p.m. (one week it was after midnight!) the past couple of weeks, but I think that week I'll call it a night early. :p

In addition, the owner of Blue Life Karate wants me to hold a one-hour Mother-daughter workshop there. He thinks it would be good to do it before the holidays to generate interest. Nothing's firm yet, so we'll see if it comes together. :)

I will be posting my first class project as the new Focal Piece of the Month -- I haven't written it yet, but I figured I may as show everyone what I'm doing this semester. :) The monthly website changes should be going up in the next two weeks, so keep an eye out for them. ;)

As for my personal life, my Virtual Garage Sale auctions have been a bit slow going, but I have enough stuff to raise a respectable amount for Fondation MIRA. No one's buying the "Moonlight" stuff so far, so we'll see what happens. I may just make a nominal donation to Donate Life America myself. ;)

Well, I think that's enough for now. Have a good week! :D

Tangible Tidbits 2010 #38: Feeling Frustrated

Hope everyone is having a better day than I am! :)

I've been having a lot of "technical issues" lately...and Mercury isn't even in retrograde anymore! That cycle ended in the middle of September. Regardless, I've been having trouble setting up a new application I bought for the website since the middle of this past week -- the technical support people have been taking up to two or three days to get back to me at each step. We also seem to have a problem with the Something Tangible Facebook application, as I am receiving a 502 error when I try to access the application itself (this is outside of my control, according to a Bing search. It seems to be a "bad gateway" error.). The set-up and home pages both appear to be working fine. :\

I also looked at the quarterly figures for the third quarter, and noted that we did not surpass last quarter's numbers. We came close to matching them, but fell about $11 short. I realize this is to be expected from time to time, but it's still disappointing to see it in (red) ink. :(

I've also decided that I should include photos of my inventory materials in the database, since there are a few with vague names or items that have similar names and descriptions, so I can't figure out which one was used in a given piece. The photos from the vendor websites will facilitate that, but it's adding a lot of time to the data entry process. :\

In last week's class at MSU, I invested the wax cast I had created the week before. My teacher is away for a few weeks, but the substitute professor (from the same department, so our paths will undoubtedly cross again) seemed to like my piece, as did my own professor. Investing is basically encasing the wax figure in a plaster-like substance. The hardened cast is then burned out so that the wax melts, leaving space for the molten metal to take that form. The professors do the burning out for us, so I will be attempting to create my piece in metal tomorrow night. We only get one shot, as the process destroys the cast. Wish me luck! ;)

As for my personal life, I've been keeping busy with the after care job and my Virtual Garage Sale...the auctions are taking up a lot more time than I'd anticipated. The results have been mediocre, but at least I am getting rid of stuff in each round. ;)

I spent all day yesterday in Piscataway at Rutgers University's Homecoming. I haven't attended since 2001 for personal reasons, but I'm glad I went...except for the sunburn on my face! :o Today, I saw the "Hairspray" matinee at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn -- I purchased a 4-show subscription, as Mom is taking my sister and me to the fifth show for our birthdays. :) The show was very good, but it would have been more fun if I could have found someone to go with me. I didn't realize the date of the tickets until the middle of the week because it didn't show up on my Palm calendar, although I do remember entering it. Anyway, I had seen the movie version of "Hairspray" starring John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer a few years ago with my sister and two nieces. I don't remember it too well, so I can't say how close this production was to the film. :p

It's definitely feeling like October here in New Jersey! It's gotten a bit chilly in the past week, which is a refreshing change from the heat of the summer months. :)

Take care, everybody! :D

Tangible Tidbits 2010 #9: Frustrated with Facebook

Gotta vent today. For almost a week, I've had trouble accessing the Something Tangible application on Facebook. Not the Fan Page, but the game in which you send pieces of gemstone jewelry to your friends. Not a big deal, really, in the overall scheme of things. I know that. That's not the real problem...although it does obviously put a kink in my outreach/company name recognition efforts on Facebook, as the application provides a really good vehicle for doing that. I presume that since I'm getting an error message that says, "Errors while loading page from application The URL http://174.37.50.154/app/620805/?link=dashboard did not respond. Please try again later. We appreciate your patience as the developers of Something Tangible and Facebook resolve this issue. Thanks!" I am not the only one having problems gaining access to it. The problem is that message, in a nutshell. I AM the developer of that application. I used Gift Creator to generate it, so I contacted the developers of THAT application to see if they could help me. Twice. No response. I tried in vain today for a few HOURS to find a contact link for the Facebook developers to reach out for assistance, but all I could find were repeated notices that they are not responsible for problems with applications created by "outside developers." I FINALLY found a link to report bugs regarding gift-giving applications, so I tried that one. I explained that I contacted Gift Creator twice and that the problem is a page loading error. Somehow, I doubt that is something they can fix, either. I received an automatic email response stating -- you guessed it -- "Facebook is not responsible..." Blah...blah...blah. If the application is hosted in Facebook's network, how can they basically wash their hands of anything that they didn't create themselves? My application is just some pictures and words. No complicated graphics. No moving animation. Anything more complicated than my pictures and words is placed there by FACEBOOK, with their larger-than-life pop-up ads for the application-of-the-moment jumping in my face every time I open up the page. So, how can they refer players to the developer with problems and complaints, when we have NO CONTROL over web page loading issues on THEIR network? And how can they DARE to claim that "the developers and Facebook" are working to "resolve this issue?" At least I never claimed to be resolving it! I know my limitations and I KNOW I'm impotent in this situation! So, if I'M not resolving it...and Facebook is disavowing all liability for any applications created by "outside developers," where does that leave us? Perpetually disconnected?

Rant over. Have a good week! :)