“Aaron Weiche of Five [Technology] wanted a home for the great web design work close to home here in Minnesota.”

There are only 14 designers listed in their directory, so, I encourage all of you to add yourselves and those designers whose work you love, same for blogs².

1. I’m hoping this isn’t just part of their heavy SEO campaign visible on the fivetechnology.com site, e.g. linking the phrase ‘Minneapolis, Minnesota area web design’ to yourself….yeah, um, could you at least link it to Websota. kthxbye.

2. Cullect – one of my projects – has an number of reading lists aggregating Minnesota-based blogs in a number of categories. Minnesota Design, MN Local, Twin Cities are just a few.

For me, the following:

• Posts with publication dates
• Search
• Feeds
• Clean, descriptive, human readable URLs
• Supports one of the weblog APIs (Blogger, MetaWeblog, Atom)

Currently I have no site of of my own. I used to host JakeFreeberg.com off a machine at home, but that’s just a bad solution. It allowed me to play with WordPress and MovableType installs and learn a few things, I really need to put some cash down and get myself a real web host.

I’m posting here in with the hope that someone here will recommend the perfect hosting solution for my needs, which I will list below:

• It need to be affordable (None of what I plan to do with it will generate any revenue, but I am willing to sign up for a 2 year term and pay upfront if it’s a really good deal)
• I’d like to start a new WordPress Blog at Jakefreeberg.com
• I’d like to do a Drupal install with the hopes of building a site for a friend of mine who’s running for chair of an organization.
• Both of the above require PHP and MySQL databases.
• I’ve already purchased a .mn domain name for that campaign and need name server hosting to point that domain at the Drupal install.
• I’ll most likely end up hosting other domains in the future and I’d like to have the ability to host many domains within this same account.
• Knowledgeable, friendly telephone-based technical support is important
• Easy to use Tools that allow me to manage file permissions, email, domains, etc.
• I will probably end up hosting some video and audio which will require a lot of server space.

Things that I don’t care as much about:

• Bandwidth (I probably won’t be getting that many hits)
• Microsoft Server Software (I’ll avoid ASP and .Net)
• Email accounts (most people have a half dozen already, but forwarding would be nice)
• E-Commerce (If I sold anything I’d probably send people through Paypal or something)

So that’s about it.

I’m wondering who people have used, and what they’ve like and disliked about the services.

All help will be appreciated.

coComment + the Troll Cap.

Tell me and TechCrunch when you whip mash it up.

Thanks anonymous mighty guy.

Like all service firms should – 37signals is migrating to product development model. They’ve got a handful of products I’m sure you’ve heard about.

You’ve heard about them because Jason et al. talk about them constantly on the Signal vs. Noise blog. Yes, I try out each one when they’re released and no, none of them have clicked for me. But that’s beside the point – 37signals’ products are less interesting than their promotion and marketing. I don’t know of a better example of using a blog to promote and build your business.

Case in point: Their recently announced $700
The Getting Real Workshop sold out in 12 hours.

A couple days back, Jason asked his readers if “we jumped the shark”. Surprisingly, many comments said ‘yes’. Tonight, citing “the negative energy filling up the threads” Jason turned off the commenting at Signal vs. Noise.

Here at MNteractive.com, first-time commenters are moderated. That’s simply a response to the amount of comment spam we get. So, if you comment here and it doesn’t show up immediately – no worries – it will shortly and if it doesn’t – feel free to contact me directly.

Two things come to mind:

1. MNteractive doesn’t have 16,000 subscribers to our RSS feed or anywhere near 100 comments per post. Hell, I was bouncing off the walls with the 20 comments in the recent ‘end of recording industry‘ post.
2. I’m of the belief that in a transparent environment like weblogs any “negative energy” bounces back to the snotty author. Then again, see point #1.

With the WebTwoOh vibe of openness and reader-contributed information – this move is akin to locking the doors on the best neighborhood coffee shop, or – well – jumping the shark. Given how frequently the guys at 37signals explicitly ask their readers how to solve a specific problem or position an offering – this is one of the stupidest things they themselves could do.

Kottke.org, a blog I’ve read as long as SvN also doesn’t have comments, nor does Seth Godin’s blog. Instead, they have trackbacks – a linking-mechanism to connect posts across weblogs. This distributes the conversation across many blogs rather than the hoisting the entire comment burden on the original blogger. Trackbacks eliminate the risk that one anonymous commenter will control the comment thread.

When Jason turned off comments – he turned his back on the community and conversation he build over the past 6 years. If Jason and the rest of the 37signals gang still believe in the power of weblogs and the community it builds – they’ll open up the trackbacks. Otherwise, I think they’ve lost their voice of credibility, a pile of loyal readers, and even worse – customers.

1. No Author Biographies
   Sure, a general “I like puppies and long walks on the beach, I dislike mean people” is useful. We’ve got that here at MNteractive, just click on one of the authors’ names. In the end though, the archive of posts provides a much more accurate picture of the author.
2. No Author Photo
   Speaking of pictures of the author. Um, two things; first – only real estate agents have their photo on their business cards, second – “face for radio”. Sometimes it’s better not to have a photo. With a photo, you always run the risk of having the wrong photo, without a photo – you don’t.
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
   Yes, I agree with this one. Same as email, give me an idea of what I’m getting into. Secondly, search engines read post titles – put some keywords in your post title.
4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go
   I disagree with this one, for the same reason I agree with the the previous point. Linking to sites using specific words is a vote in the eyes of Google – there are times when you want to talk about something without boosting their Google Juice.
5. Classic Hits are Buried
   As much as this might be helpful in the hands of the author – I’m happy to outsource this to the rest of the world (i.e. other bloggers) and Google. The rest of the world knows better where the gems are.
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
   Agreed. Actually, I don’t understand the value of posting a month-view calendar on a weblog. All it shows is whether or not I’ve posted on a specific day – without any additional information (how many posts, what topics, any good?) the calendar is useless.
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
   This is what RSS is for. Publish when you have something to say. Not before. Weblogs don’t have a press time to meet. If you need a schedule to publish regularly, great, make one. There’s nothing inherent about this medium that dictates one.
8. Mixing Topics
   As someone with 5 different weblogs (not counting flickr & 43things) I strongly disagree. Don’t use your pre-existing format as a reason not to say something you think readers will find interesting. Besides, what if my topic is mixing topics?
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
   If there was ever a edict to not blog, this is it. Jakob also assumes hiring managers and bosses won’t have a weblog of their own in 10 years. If “your future boss” is going to give you crap for something you wrote on a blog a decade back, do you really want to work for them?
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
    This must be the addendum to the previous point. Frankly, unless the weblog service is slogspot it doesn’t matter.

Blogging is writing and publishing. There’s no reason to put artifical obstacles, like header images and custom themes, ahead of writing and hitting the ‘save’ button.