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Please login below or signup for a free membership to view the rest of this post.

Please login below or signup for a free membership to view the rest of this post.

The Party with Brian Groce is now in full effect and members will be treated to frequent postings about anything and everything.

If there’s a particular subject, question, etc., that you’d like me to post about, let me know!

Now let’s pull out of port!

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a “computer guy” with a few degrees in Computer Technology and a minor in Business.  I make my living from technology & marketing and I’m the guy everyone calls if they’re having a technical issue or want to know my opinion on the latest gadget.

So some may find it funny that the “geek” gets frustrated with the technology some times.

But how can that be?

While I’m pretty good at what I do, I also know my limitations and try to steer as clear as I can from certain things.  Two of them being web servers & Apple (If they’re both together, it’s a total nightmare. Have you used an Apple web server?).

This week the web servers decided to pick a fight and it hasn’t been pretty.

I’ve been setting up & managing web servers for years, but in a limited basis since I don’t like what can happen when things start to go haywire.  I don’t really want that resting on my shoulders when the server goes down at 3am some Sunday morning and I’m asleep somewhere on vacation and without a computer or internet connection.

So I make sure that I have tech support available for issues that stump me.  But this one has stumped even our tech support who does this day in and day out.

While that makes me feel better about my own knowledge, that doesn’t help me get it fixed.

On this particular instance, some days (yes, days, not hours) later we’re close to having everything resolved, but a few issues remain.  Off I go to try to get this squared away. Wish me luck.

First, I am only pulling down my personal ventures, not my businesses.  My businesses make me a living, my personal stuff does not.  Looking at the differences I realized that if I’m not treating my personal ventures like my business ones, there’s no chance of ever making a living off of it.  So then, why would I stick to the same rules?

For my personal sites, in the past I have thrown content out there, the occasional person reads or listens to it when it’s new, then the rest is long tail search engine traffic that rarely takes any sort of action (and leaves me with a hefty month web server bill).  If I’m lucky I might sell an ad here or there and get an occasional comment that’s not spam. This is not worth the effort if it’s the money I’m after.

Secondly, I am beyond busy with my family, my businesses (plural) & the slew of social events I’m involved with. I simply don’t have the time to be bouncing around to a dozen different places when one will suffice. Let’s simplify.

Digging deeper into the content side of things, I have realized that my personal content is first and foremost for myself.  And as my children get older and dear old dad goes senile and eventually kicks the bucket, there’s a whole tome of content they can go through to get a better grasp of what their old man was all about. Sure, they’ll probably care less about SEO and sports lockouts, but they’ll know what made me tick.

Related to that, I’ve been paralyzed when it comes to my blogging.  I have a whole lot that I want to say, but I don’t particularly want it to be archived in the search engines or sent to my Twitter account or Facebook profile.  It’s nothing that I care if people read or not, but for various reasons, the topics are things that I want to have an idea of who’s reading it.  That’s fair enough isn’t it?

So that’s the gist of my decision.

Expectations

What are my expectations? Good question.

First, I want to get back into blogging more. True blogging, none of the pitching and writing for SEO stuff that I’ve done in the past & often do for my businesses (where it’s more effective).  This isn’t about Google, it’s about what’s on my mind because I am the brand.

Beyond that, I would like to have somewhat of a captive audience. If it’s only one person or if it’s fifty thousand, I want people who I know are here on their own accord and are truly interested in what I have to say.

As far as revenue goes, I am going to approach this more like a business. As I’ve already stated, running the web server and registering the domains are not free, and neither is my time. I am offering a free level of membership so everyone can have basic access.  But those who are willing to kick in a few bucks to help me out will be getting bonus content as a token of my gratitude.  In addition to memberships I’ll start adding content that people can purchase on their own such as ebooks, recording archives and who knows what else.

P.S. If you’re reading this while it’s “fresh”, you’re one of the first subscribers! Thank you so much for your support.

Sprint Nextel is making a multibillion-dollar gamble on Apple’s iPhone, even though Chief Executive Dan Hesse told the company’s board in August that Sprint would likely lose money on the deal until 2014.

It seems commonplace these days to scratch my head over corporate business decisions.  The latest from Sprint Nextel has me shaking my head and being thankful that I sold all of my Sprint stock a few months ago.

Here we have a struggling company, that from what I’m assuming, is basically putting all of it’s chips on a single product. Not a product line, but a single product.  This is ludicrous to me.

I wouldn’t say that the Verizon iPhone launch went smoothly across the board, and just last week I talked with former NBA Champion about how his iPhone on Verizon doesn’t work right & how he wished he was still with AT&T.

For Sprint’s sake I hope I’m wrong, but this seems to be begging for trouble.

Here you will find a wide variety of content that will be made available only to Brian’s Party Crashers, Partygoers & Party Animals.  This will include blog posts, podcasts, ebooks, artwork, mailings and anything else Brian might come up with.  If you don’t know Brian, you will soon find out that the topics he addresses range all across the board.

So what are you waiting for? Join the party today!

P.S. Brian promises to do his best to stop writing in the third person.