At our August meeting DACS members were treated to an excellent and informative presentation by Mike Kaltschnee, one of our more famous members.

Mike is well known for his blogging site HackingNetflix.com. He discussed blogging and podcasting and showed how, with reasonable effort, he established a site that is now known world wide. From its humble beginnings it is now consistently ranked second on Google when looking for information on Netflix (just behind the actual Netflix site). Netflix is the online DVD rental company that his changed the way people rent movies.

He and his blog have been featured in the media many times in the past several years. He has been in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, on CNN and many other high profile media. He is so well known and respected by even Netflix that he was invited to a meeting with Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings

What is a blog? It is a type of website where entries are made, such as a journal or diary, in chronological order. They often provide commentary on a particular subject, such as, food, politics, or local news or anything else a person wants to discuss. Most blogs are primarily text but they can also have images, video, audio, or a combination of all them, and also may include links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to the topic. One key feature of most blogs is that they let visitors comment on the entries. Several ways to locate blogs are to use a Google search for a particular topic or visit Technorati.com.

During the evening he described how to set up a blog, what software to use, and how to pick a topic for your blog. You can add pictures to blogs and even create entries by just sending an email from your computer, cell phone, or PDA. What made his presentation so interesting were his passion and the excitement he expressed for the subject during his talk.

According to Mike, creating a blog is easy and so is maintaining it with the variety of tools now available. They range from free to minimal cost plus. Software such as Blogger and MSN Spaces are free and the more complex products such as TypePad, Moveable Type and WordPress come with a monthly cost.

He also described podcasting and video podcasting which are ways to create your own radio or TV show on the Internet which can be downloaded to an Ipod or like device and listened to while you are on the road or at home on your computer.

He spent time pointing out that if you have an area that you are passionate about you should consider creating your own blog. With Mike’s blog he is even able to generate income because of the number of people who now visit it. Last year he had 60 thousand unique visitors and this year the number is over 200 thousand.

Blogs numbers are growing rapidly and there are now an estimated 50+ million of them and they collectively get about 1.2 million posts a day.

If you want to start a blog Mike makes several suggestions. Read a number of blogs to get a better feeling about what they are all about. Pick a topic you are passionate about (you don’t have to be an expert on that topic). Have realistic expectations. Learn as you go. Network with other bloggers like crazy and above all be honest about what you say.

Mike’s presentation was very informative and thought provoking and DACS thanks him for his time and effort.