Bizzia is an online resource into the business blogs at b5 – it features the best of the content the writers are producing, as well as videos and more. In similar manner, Starked was launched in Las Vegas last month to support our entertainment news.

Starked highlights the top Entertainment news in celebrity, tv, movies & music. I’ve been managing that portal since soon after it launched (my new job title is Online Producer, Starked). w00t! It’s the second iteration of the portal concept, after the earlier try I blogged about here. This new portal way outstrips the old one!

Since Starked is near and dear to me, I’m going to talk about it a bit more. As a portal, it offers insight into two “channels” or “verticals” at b5 – the Entertainment Channel (which I manage) and the Music Channel (managed by Jeanne Dupuis). Together, that’s more than 70 blogs and 30 writers producing upwards of 4,000 posts per month.

Nobody can blame you if you don’t want to read 4,000 posts a month, so Starked is the window into the newest and most sought after news. Each day we feature 40+ new stories on the front page and on the subpages (for tv, celebrities, music so far). I’ve been working on rotating the “image-based” posts a few times a day, depending on how much “free” time I have. It’s been great fun, but has kept me super busy.

If you are into Entertainment, tune in to Starked each day, or grab the RSS feed for the featured posts.

I used these slides as my speaking points during the talk, although covered a lot more ground that was here. Raul, a great support during the day, also live blogged the session! You can read that here.

You can also download the presentation as PDF here.

I’ve been with b5media since the day they launched – on September 19, 2005 my two blogs with b5 were Cooking-Gadgets (which I still write) and SheKnowsBest (no longer writing).

A lot has changed since the blog network launched – both from a b5media perspective and from my perspective as part of the company.

Over the years, there was a progression for more of my time to be devoted to work at b5. After being the first person to work “full time” on my blogs there, things progressed. I became the first Channel Editor (CE) in the first channel, which was then a combo of Entertainment & Celebrities. The channels eventually split, then were managed separately, and now are (mostly) back together. The current Entertainment channel has over 50 blogs.

Within b5, I still write Cooking-Gadgets, but also write on Gilmore Girls News, Mischa News, Hilary News and Lohan Groupie. There have been times when I’ve written more sites, and likely I will move towards writing fewer sites.

The work I enjoy the most at b5 is about community – about fostering community on my sites, but more importantly fostering community within the Entertainment channel. I love working with each and every one of my writers – they do some amazing work! I have also fallen in love with the Entertainment industry – I love the pace of it, the style of it, and the community that flocks to it.

b5 Blogger Summit at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas
Topic: SEO and Advertisers (speaking with Gabrielle Green)

Date: Friday, September 19, 2008
Time: 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM
Location: Las Vegas Convention center
Cost: Free! (Mostly for b5ers, but everyone is welcome)

RSVP to ed@b5media.com

b5media has a lot of fun stuff going on for Blog World Expo. If you’re going, you can also sign up for a blogger meet-up on the 19th and come by our booth to play poker & win prizes! Info here.

Go Global Week at UBC
Topic: Travel Blogging

The session will talk about travel blogging, how to get started, and tips on things like adding photos to your blog.

Date: Thursday, October 02, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Location: Chemistry Room 300, UBC
Cost: Free!

Register Here – you need to be a UBC student.

The Great b5media Blog Off will begin on June 20th at 12:01am (in each writer’s respective time zone), to celebrate the summer solstice, which hasn’t occurred on any date other than June 21st since 1975 – this year it lands on June 20th. Writers for many of our sites (including me!) will be posting fresh news at least once per hour for a full 24 hours.

We are looking for guest posts on the 23 participating Entertainment sites, and also for charity donations to The Actors Fund. You can learn more here and here.

The Business channel at b5 is also participating in the Blog Off to support Accion International. You can read more here.

Tags: blog off, blogging marathon, b5media, charity, blogging drive

The b5media Entertainment Channel, where I’m Editor, is alive with contests! Check out some of these great opportunities to win everything from DVDs to Books to Purses!

• Comedy Centric – Like Larry? Blue Collar Comedy Up for Grabs
• Disney Society – Win a High School Musical 1 and 2 DVD at Disney Society
• Film Gecko – DVD Giveaway: Sweeney Todd
• Film Gecko – DVD Giveaway: "Alien Nation: Ultimate Movie Collection"
• Film Gecko – DVD Giveaway: "Gumby: The Movie"
• Film Gecko – DVD Giveaway: Cloverfield
• Gilmore Girls News – Gilmore Girls Glam: Win a Butler Bag, Sleepover Gear or Couture!
• Medium Dreams – Are You a Closet TV Producer? Win a Subscription to The Nerve
• MTV Reality World – Win “A Shot at Love” Season 1 On DVD
• Prison Break Buff – Win an Autographed Copy of “Slip and Fall”
• Showtime Fan – Showtimefan contest: Win Season 1 of Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union on DVD
• Superhero Profiles – "Smallville 6: The Official Companion" book giveaway

I also have four other contests running on my other b5media sites I wanted to share:

• Lohan Groupie – Win Diamonds, Couture or a DVD
• Cooking Gadgets – Win Yum Yum Dishes
• Mischa News – Win Couture, Learn to Dance or DVD
• Hilary News – Win Couture, a Purse or Sleepover Gear

Tags: contest, contests, entertainment, win, giveaway, giveaways, sweepstakes, b5media

At work, the Entertainment channel I manage has grown to 39 sites, with more on their way. In the past few months, our size has doubled and we are getting more amazing opportunities all the time. Some things require a lot of leg work, but I am so proud of the work we get done together. It keeps me very busy. On top of all of that, I do still blog. Not as much as I used to, and obviously very little around here, but still about a half dozen consistently. I work far too many hours now, and look forward to the 10 hours a week I’ll gain back after my crazy Gilmore Girls marathon recapping is over. 10 hours in which I can do other work – or, ideally, have some ‘me’ time to do things like play with our amazing new camera.

In life, things come along that you don’t expect, but you ride it out. My health was one of those major things, though I am thankfully doing much better. And then there are little ones, like taking an unexpected but exciting trip to Austin for SXSW Interactive. I got to spend time with my fellow b5ers, many of whom I’ve never met before. It was valuable team bonding time. And the conference, or should I say party?, was great.

Bowling night at SXSW ; Photographer: tris

But such opportunities come with a cost. I am still self-employed, so don’t get vacation days. In order to go away for those 5 days to Austin, and with very little advance notice, I pulled several 14 hour days in a row. Vacations come at a very high price. Ideally, I’d be doing more of these trips. Going to more conferences, networking, and perhaps even speaking. Things I love to do, and so rarely ‘have time’ for. I have decided it’s time to ‘make time’ for certain things. I’m just not quite certain how.

In a few days, I’ll be heading to Calgary to cover the Juno Awards. A weekend of events and opportunities I am greatly looking forward to it. It will mean working a good deal this weekend (I can’t handle being behind), that darned trade-off again, but it’s an opportunity I refuse to miss.

We have also been undergoing some renovations at home. A shower renovation in the ensuite led to other things. You know how it is. If you have the tiler in, why not re-tile the icky linoleum in the other bathroom? And, if you’re going to do that, then you should pull out the toilet and vanity so you don’t need to re-renovate the floor later on. So, then you need to get a vanity (which is being custom built) and a new toilet. To follow the modern theme, we (read: Ianiv) took out an old unusable medicine cabinet, so we had drywall patching to do. Then, painting. And we are horrible painters. But, we have to paint in order that the vanity can be installed (any day now). We’re onto the last one (maybe two) coats of paint. Finally.

But you know, as soon as you finish one thing in the home, you move to another. It’s just inevitable. Whether it’s our back patio or tearing out the horrible sandstone in on our main floor, there are big projects hovering around the corner.

I don’t think we’re alone in this non-stop lifestyle. And it is partially self-inflicted, to be sure. I get bored if I don’t have a "stressful" amount of work to do. It’s an unfortunate irony. And I know Ianiv suffers from the same "affliction". He loves his work, but works a lot. He, too, recently traveled (to Boston) with his co-workers at NowPublic. Busy busy.

So, how do you ride out all the unexpected opportunities, without turning them into mountains of work? How do you balance work, and home, and hobbies? Right now, the balance is far too heavy on the "work" side, and not enough on the "life" side. When does "busy" become "bad"?

Tags: life, blogaholics, arieanna, ianiv, blogging, renovations

This past week, the challenge was to put up a post for Valentine’s Day and the team with the most comments won.

Team #1: Couch Potatoes

• 24 Headquarters: Who’s Your 24 Valentine
• Comedy Centric: no participation
• Dance Watcher: Step up 2 the Streets
• Desperate Blog: Pick Your Valentine
• Evening Talk: Conan O’Brien Valentine’s Day Monologue
• FBI Dramas: Criminal Minds’ Sweetest Girl Contest
• Gossip Girls: Unlikely Couples for Valentine’s Day
• Gryffindor Gazette: no participation
• Idol Stalker: Who is Your Ideal Idol Date
• MTV Reality World: Lisa Love Has No Love for the Hills
• Reality Exploits: Big Brother 9
• Science on TV: no participation
• SF Universe: Be My SciFi Valentine
• Simply Dumb: no participation
• Stewie’s Playground: no participation
• Superhero Profiles: Hottest Couples: Crossover Smallville and Heroes
• The 4400 Guide: The 4400 Lets The Count the Ways
• Ugly Betty News: Give an Ugly Betty Valentine

Team #2: TV Addicts

• Approaching Lost: Pick Your Valentine
• CSI: Can Your DNA Help You Find Your Perfect Valentine
• DaytimeTalk: Who is your Valentine’s Dream?
• Disney Society: Pick Your Valentine HSM Stars!
• Fame or Famine: The Ultimate Valentine – Slow Live Jazz
• Film Gecko: Who is your Movie Star Valentine?
• Greys Anatomy: Valentine’s Day Style
• House is Right: Who is the Perfect Valentine for House?
• Medium Dreams: A Valentine for Lee and Romance on a Budget for Allison
• Prison Break Buff: A Prison Break Valentine’s Day
• Reaper News: Reaper Valentine – Best Couple?
• Searching Bones: Which is the Perfect Valentine Couple?
• Showtime Fan: Showtime Valentines
• Soaps on ABC: Which Soaps on ABC Hunk is Your Valentine?
• Style Television: no participation
• Supernatural: Scary Just Got Sexy – Your Favorite Evil Valentines
• Top Model Gossip: no participation
• VH1 Reality World: Who Would Be Your VH1 Valentine?

The Results:

The Couch Potatoes had 142 Comments while the TV Addicts came in as winners with 288 Comments. Simply Dumb and Stewie’s Playground were eliminated from the challenge.

Stay Tuned…

Since I am the editor of the channel, I am not participating in the contest. I will, however, keep the results of the contest up-to-date on GilmoreGirlsNews.

A play-by-play of the results can be found here.

Tags: survivor, survivor challenge, spekked, b5media, b5, entertainment, blog challenge, blogging challenge

That means that I’m also coming up on my third anniversary celebrating the day when I quit my job to blog full-time. A lot has changed since then – blogs have come and gone, life has changed, and I’m busier than I ever was before (you don’t want to know how many hours a week I work!). But one thing hasn’t changed – I love what I do.

So, thanks to Ianiv for geeking me out and setting up this blog for us, and for the odd series of events that led me to this profession.

Tags: blog birthday, blogaholics, blogaholics.ca

I think I am enjoying the site more now than I ever have before. The community that stuck around is fantastic – supportive, interactive, and insightful. The end of the show has challenged me to explore a lot of new ways to develop a television fansite.

As soon as the show ended, I took stock of my categories and completely rehauled them to reflect things I wanted to improve my SEO on: actor names, shows they are in, etc. While my focus was before fairly broad, I made it an aim to seek out a lot of information rather than passively writing what’s in the news.

I started a fun trivia category, dig around for what all the actors are up to, and come up with fun posts about the show – like my Oy with the poodles already post. I have also been, since some time in November, recapping Gilmore Girls from its pilot episode onward every weekday to coincide with its airing on ABC Family – so 5 Gilmore Girls episodes a week. We all watch the episodes together and I tack on some discussion questions to my recap post. It takes a long time to do (at least 2 hours per recap), but I actually look forward to that part of my day. The early seasons of Gilmore Girls were the best ones, and I always feel good after watching an episode.

I provide regular recaps of Aliens in America (with Scott Patterson) and Samantha Who? (with Melissa McCarthy), as well as recaps of any guest spots. Right now, for example, Matt Czuchry is doing a guest arc on Friday Night Lights. I have been contacted by more publicists now than ever before, so I have been able to promote a lot of exclusive stuff and run some great contests.

The whole experience has taught me the value of community and how that community will stick by you, and indeed grow, if you support them and share with them. It has been a great experience, and I love writing this site probably more than any other. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s still one of the largest blogs in b5 ;)

Now, off to watch another episode – we’re mid way through Season 3 now. Stay tuned here if you want to read them.

Tags: gilmore girls, gilmoregirlsnews, b5, tv blogging, community