Have already forgotten or are still learning…

If you would like to experience our culture…

Or are just curious about different cultures…

YOU ARE INVITED!

To the 6th ANNUAL “RUSSIAN MOSAIC” FESTIVAL

WHEN: Sunday, September 7th 2008, from noon until 7 pm.
WHERE: Penn’s Landing Great Plaza
WHAT TO DO:

• * See great performances of the best community artists and children’s groups.
• * Try Uzbek “Shashliki” and “Plov” and sample Georgian wines.
• * Browse unique creations of the talented local artists and craftsmen.
• * Visit with Cossaks, Soviet Army reenactors, and friendly Russian “Bratva” bikers.
• * Participate in numerous giveaways, raffles, entertainment, and children activities, courtesy of our sponsors
• * Meet old friends, make new ones, and most importantly have fun!

Podcamp Philly 2008 will be held this year on September 6 & 7th, at Temple University’s Tuttleman Learning Center (http://www.temple.edu/tuttleman/). In addition to our usual high quality content covering blogging, podcasting and all things new media, this year we’re pleased to partner with SearchCamp Philly, which offers valuable instruction and insight into the world of Search Engine Optimization and Marketing.

As with any PodCamp, we have some good social events lined up in addition to the sessions. Friday night, we have scheduled the Welcome Party for North Bowl (www.northbowlphilly.com) and it should be a blast. We’ve got the 2nd floor loft, complete with four private bowling lanes.

Video here: www.podcampphilly.com/node/34.

Saturday night, PodCamp returns to Old City’s Triumph Brewing Company, so get ready to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones. More information here: www.triumphbrewing.com All in all, it should be a lot of fun.With a new year comes a few changes, too. From the programming standpoint, we’re trying to offer more content to experienced participants, while still including beginners. Of course, participation and interaction are still a main component to the event. In addition, we’re charging a modest $21 registration fee, with all proceeds being donated to Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy (www.scienceleadership.org/).

With a state-of-the-art facility, broad programming and fun set of social events, PodCamp Philly will once again offer a great experience that shouldn’t be missed. You can register here: www.podcampphilly.eventbrite.com.

If you’d like more information: www.podcampphilly.com

His new business venture is an Adult Day Care Center called Sarah Care of Jenkintown!

He has also asked me to serve on the Advisory Council for his center along with other business mentors in the community to make this center the best in the area.

SarahCare is a nationwide franchise that provides health-related assistance during the day to seniors who do not require round-the-clock nursing care, but can benefit from supervised activities and health-related services. SarahCare specializes in various impairments and health related problems including: physical impairments, Alzheimer’s and other dementias, stroke, Parkinson’s Disease, diabetes, special diets, isolation and loneliness. SarahCare provides a group setting in a comfortable country-club environment.

I also took several photos for their website:

I wish the best of Luck and Success to Arsen! For more information - please visit the website: http://www.sarahcarejt.com/

These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don’t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link: Make Money Blogging - Blog Mastermind

We had the pleasure of working with a new company “Virtual Kitchen Concepts Inc.” and they came to us with a need to design a logo, website and several marketing materials. We took their vision and designed a simple logo which is used on their storefront sign, printed materials and on their website. We built a dynamic Content Management System for them that allows their editors to keep the website fresh and search engine optimized. They have also started to Blog about their business and communicate with their clients.

URL: http://www.virtualkitchenconcepts.com/

One of our long time clients Marisa Pell hired us to revamp her site which provides both the consumer and press member a place to instantly access information regarding her products, services and latest news. An online media room, as well as a press friendly environment was developed for her new website. She also has access to the CMS (Content Management System) to make her own changes and update. Her readers can now subscribe to her Blog feed and stay up-to-date with her events and news.

URL: http://www.connectionbeyond.com/

Another client who really enjoys Blogging is Craig Sumsky from Cutting Edge Entertainment. His company consists of “experienced group of interactive entertainers: MCs, DJs, dancers, vocalists, musicians, and engineers trained to get your guests involved.” We also revamped his homepage with a new clean design to point visitors to the right pages on his website.

URL: http://www.cuttingedgedjs.com/

Aside from working hard with our clients, we also have been busy helping out in the community with organizing several upcoming events.

PodCamp Philly 2008 - a BarCamp-style UnConference dedicated to podcasting, blogging, video bloging and all things New Media. PodCamp Philly 2008 is being held September 6th & 7th at Philadelphia’s Temple University. Rapidly becoming known as one of the area’s preeminent technical universities, Temple features the Tuttleman Learning Center containing 30 state-of-the-art multimedia classrooms, as well as the 75,000 ft² Temple TECH Center.

URL: http://podcampphilly.com/

The “Russian Mosaic” Festival celebrates the Russian-speaking immigrants’ culture and educates the residents and guests of Philadelphia about the incredible journey and great achievements of its third largest immigrant community.

We have setup a Facebook group for the Event:

URL: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19624199511&ref=ts

If you read this far, thanks for showing interest in Media Components! We will be updating you guys about new projects, events and news when time permits.

Feel free to email, message or call anytime regarding any of our services. We offer FREE CONSULTATION to everyone!

Latest Brand Launch is for a Custom Kitchen Company in Levittown, PA. We branded out all of the marketing materials from Logo to custom build Website with Wordpress CMS. The client can now blog about their business and present their brand new company with a professional image.

I have another exciting website launching this week, which is also being developed using Wordpress Architecture. The flexibility and power of Wordpress software is amazing because there is such a huge community of open-source plugins and support.

You can visit their website at www.virtualkitchenconcepts.com

Stay tuned for more updates on new client projects!

As the webmaster of SYTYCD.com, which is a dance fan blog, I had the pleasure of being part of a really fun event. ‘So You Think You Can Dance’: Guinness record-setting Dance Dance Revolution event.

The mission was to perform the largest simultaneous dance mat routine in history, a la Dance Dance Revolution. To set a new Guinness World Record, “SYTYCD” needed at least 100 people to participate in a dance pad performance for at least five minutes.

My cousin and I were there to cover the event and be part of the Guinness World Breaking Record!

DDR and “SYTYCD” enthusiasts were gathering at the Nokia Center. One hundred dance pads were assembled, and some solid prizes awaited the dancers: a video game console, a dance video game and mat, a 23-inch LCD flat-screen television and a year’s supply of Wrigley Extra gum. We both walked away with the DDR mat which we both have yet to try.

The atmosphere was great, everyone was pumped up and ready to go, even though it was about 100 degrees outside and really sunny.

People from Guinness stood by, waiting for the event to begin. Access Hollywood, E!, Local Radio Shows, and Fox 11 News were also covering this history making event.

As the Hosts of the show arrived along with several dancers from previous and this season’s show, paparazzi began shooting tons of photos and taking video of them.

You can view the video from the event by clicking here.

We were also able to snap a few photos and interview several dancers. Overall I was glad to experience this publicity stunt to promote the premier of the show.

We also had a chance to catch up with Rob, a good friend of ours, and spent the day roaming around Hollywood. We had lunch at the famous Ivy and then walked around Beverly Hills Park during the annual Art Festival. The next day we drove down to Santa Monica to enjoy a nice day on the pier.

My first experience of Los Angeles, was awesome and I can’t wait to go back! Next stop is San Diego and San Francisco.

Read full story here..

Welcome to PodCamp Philly 2008 - a BarCamp-style UnConference dedicated to podcasting, blogging, video bloging and all things New Media. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new media “newbie,” you’ll find that PodCamp offers low cost, high-quality, user-generated content in a welcoming, all-inclusive environment.

PodCamp Philly 2008 is being held September 6th & 7th at Philadelphia’s Temple University. Rapidly becoming known as one of the area’s preeminent technical universities, Temple features the Tuttleman Learning Center containing 30 state-of-the-art multimedia classrooms, as well as the 75,000 ft² Temple TECH Center.

www.podcampphilly.com