Author Archives: Dustin Luther

About Dustin Luther

Founder and original blogger on Rain City Guide, Dustin has since started #InterestedIn Marketing where his team provides content and social media services that helps industry experts earn recognition as thought leaders. You can find me on Twitter (@tyr) and LinkedIn (/DustinLuther)

RCG's New Look!

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So, it finally happened.  After a few years of the same theme, I gave RCG a new look last night.

There are more than a few changes to the site, but the one that will probably stick out the most are:

  • New theme.  I based it on the Andreas theme by Andreas Viklund.  It’s the same theme I’m using on 4realz.net, although I modified it a bit before launching it on 4realz and even more modifications before launching it on RCG.
  • New header graphic.  I switched out the photos.  As part of the process, some of the contributors gave me some photos to use.   Deborah Burns was extremely helpful and sent me dozens of photos of which I used both the farmers market and the space needle.
  • Updated the color scheme! (If you’re curious, I based the color pattern on color combo 220)
  • Author mini-bio at the bottom of ever post. I replaced the one photo that was at the top of every post with a “About the author” section at the bottom of each post.  Not only will this make it easier than ever to learn more about the RCG contributors, but it will also mean we won’t have the funny formatting issues that sometimes came with having a photo at the top-right of ever post.
  • Page navigation.  By moving the page navigation from tabs at the top to the left side, we’ll be able to do a bunch more with page navigation in the near future on the site.

I’m sure there’s even more, but I just wanted to pop off a quick note to get everyone up to speed.

Interestingly, in the process of looking at photos for the new theme, I came across this screenshot of the original RCG site (back when we had only 2 posts!).  My how times have changed!  😉

Rain City Guide's original theme!

Rain City Guide's original theme

Update:

Just realized I should have added that if you have feedback of any kind, especially if something is not working as you’d expect it to work, I’d definitely appreciate hearing about it!

Update #2:

I also wanted to mention that we added “avatars” for all people leaving comments.   If you want your own avatar, it’s as simple as signing up for a free one at gravatar.com (and explained in a bit more detail on 4realz).

What Drives an Active Online Community?

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You do with your comments!

When I give talks about the value of blogs, I always brag about how active the rain city guide community is, but I hadn’t thought to try quantify it until I saw John Cook’s post this morning.

Over the past 3+ years, we’ve had 30,802 comments from 1,744 posts!

This is an average of over 17 comments for every post!  That’s pretty darn impressive!

It’s kind of fun to look back at the posts that have generated the most conversations, so I thought I’d list all the posts that have generated over 100 comments:

* 200+ comments

So much great stuff thanks to the entire RCG community!

Join me for a Housing Market Conversation with Lawrence Yun

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I don’t normally cross-post between 4realz.net and Rain City Guide, but tomorrow I’m having a conversation with the Chief Economist of the National Association of REALTORS that I think will interest many people in the Rain City Guide community.   We’re going to be talking about the effect that the recent news associated with the FDIC bailing out IndyMac and the Treasuring providing support to Freddie/Fannie will have on the housing market.

I fully expect this radio show to be interesting, lively and informative and welcome you to join.   As with Rain City Radio, there’ll be an associated chat, and I’ll be picking out questions from the chat room.   Please consider joining us!

Join us for a Ballard Conversation with Cory & Kate @ 4pm

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MyBallard.com screenshotI’m really excited that today’s episode of Rain City Radio will feature Cory and Kate of MyBallard.   I have an obvious Ballard-bias because I think it is one of the best areas in all of Seattle, so it should be a lot of fun to explore this neighborhood with some of the best local bloggers!

You can listen to the conversation starting at 4pm by simply clicking on the play button on the radio widget on the right panel, or call-in to the program by following the instructions on the TalkShoe page.

Arrive with questions, concerns, and comments as I expect another great conversation like our previous calls with local bloggers like Tracy of West Seattle and Justin of Capitol Hill.

UPDATE:

I thought it was a wondeful conversation with Cory and Kate of MyBallard!  You can listen to the entire conversation by using the “TalkShoe” widget to on the sidepanel of Rain City Guide!

We covered a mix of topics around both local blogging and their take on Ballard.   I found it particularly interesting that they both have only lived in Ballard for less than a year, and yet have quickly developed a strong connection to the neighborhood. Also interesting, is that like Tracy from the West Seattle blog, they both of journalism degrees and see this local blog as a future in terms of how news will spread through communities.

Rain City Radio with Justin of the Capitol Hill Blog at 4pm!

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Capitol Hill Blog ScreenshotAs I mentioned last week, this next episode of Rain City Radio will feature Justin of the Capitol HIll Blog!  So, if you want to learn about the ins-and-outs of this great neighborhood in Seattle, then check in with us at 4pm today (July 8th).

And if you want to call in to ask your own questions of our guest, then you can follow the simple instuctions on this page… and if all you want to do is stream the conversation live, then a few minutes before the show, you should see that option on the talkshoe widget on our sidepanel!

One of the things I’m most excited to learn about is the new format that their using for this community site.   It’s got all kinds of ways for people to interact on a very local level and I’ll be curious to get Justin’s feedback on how this is working.

UPDATE!

The recorded conversation is now live and you can listen to it using the player on the sidepanel!    Justin was a most gracious guest and shared lots of great insights about Capitol Hill with us… including the best place to get waffles!  The new platform their running at Capitol Hill blog is extremely interesting and has spurred a lot of ideas for ways I might be able to add similar features to RCG…

Rain City Radio: Join the Conversation with Tim Ellis today at 4pm!

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Please join us as we have a conversation about the Seattle bubble and the Naked Loon starting at 4pm PST!

All it takes to get involved is a telephone OR an internet connection:   You can call in to listen to the show via any phone… You can log into TalkShoe to stream the show to your computer and/or take part in the chat.  All the details (and there really aren’t many) can be found on Rain City Radio’s Talkshoe page.

UPDATE!

What a great conversation!   Thanks again Tim for taking part in Rain City Radio.   And if you missed the live call, then you can listen to Tim tell us all about how/why he started the Seattle Bubble, some of the things he has learned, what inspired him to start the Naked Loon and much more!   Just click on the play button on the widget to the right!

Also, I am excited to announce that next week, we’re going to have a conversation with Justin of the Capitol HIll Blog!  (same time/same place 4pm on Tuesday, July 8).   I really enjoyed our conversation last week with Tracy from the West Seattle blog and I’m hoping to learn a similar amount about Capitol Hill next week!  🙂

SocialNotes for Blog Posts?

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Click the button below to try out this tool from PopularMedia that makes it that much easier to share articles with others. If I get positive feedback, I’ll add it to all the posts on RCG!

Next Week on Rain City Radio: Tim Ellis

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Seattle Bubble ScreenshotFresh off an great conversation with Tracy Record of the West Seattle Blog, I’m really excited to have Tim on our show next week!   I’m sure we’ll talk about all things Seattle bubble as well as Tim’s great new parody project: Naked Loon.

Please set aside Tuesday, July 1st at 4pm to join us!   And if you have some suggested topics you’d like us to cover in the conversation, then please let me know in the comments!