I have a voice, and I want to share that with you.

Whether you like it or not.

I’m going to talk about my exploits as a freelance journalist and the editor of the happy little online magazine, Blast. This isn’t going to be a Live Journal or a diary. I hope to make some interesting observations and analysis on my job and what’s going on around me.

-john

So far so decent.

It is definitely a better visual interface than 2.6, but it’s a whole nother thing to get used to.

First, we do not use WordPress Widgets. We use WAY too many plugins and have about 15 different variations of a sidebar on Blast, so we aren’t using Widgets. But it seems like everyone is converting the best plugins to “Widget only” — that sucks for us and I get the feeling there’s a lot of actual bloggers out there that havne’t assimilated to the Widget world yet. 

My question: How do you manually insert/activate/use a Widget in a sidebar or a page without activating the dynamic/widget sidebar function? 

Number two: Importing text for dummies.

Blast has about 20 different people who insert articles or blog on the site. Many of them are not web savvy. But the two most common ways writers send us stories is by email (Gmail usually) and in Microsoft Word .doc (or that stupid .docx) format. 

The problem that leaves us with is that Gmail takes pasted text and inserts random linebreaks all over the place and Microsoft Word inserts all kinds of crazy crap, code, fonts, sizes, etc, etc, etc. I’ve training my editors on how to use the “Paste from Word” function, but even that’s not filtering out all of the MS Word garbage now.

Oh, and we could really use a good multi-author plugin that integrates to the post editor and lets us assign multiple authors to a single post…

The bulletin reported on my recent hire at The Sun Chronicle.

But I’m a writer, and I need to write.

So when I sit down to write a product review lately, it’s either a situation where I have something meaningful or unique to say, like in the instance of my 2000-word review of Gothic III (the longest review of the game out there) or when it’s a product that seems utterly cool, totally unique or just so out there that I simply must have a look.

That’s the case with “Trey,” a “gamers’ chair” that transforms shape and size in a zillion different ways. I’m cracking into one of these babies next week, so look out for the $250 chair in the June issue of Blast Magazine.

Instead of your usual leprechauns and shamrocks in March, Blast brings you a man and a woman who are fed up with all the stereotypes and myths about Irish culture. For instance, did you know that while most ethnic Irish people are fair-skinned, they usually have brown hair. The red hair we’ve come to associate with Irishness actually comes from Scotland, and blond hair comes from the conquering Vikings.

And it’s not all about beer, either. This month we sample some traditional Irish cuisine that will sell you on running to South Boston on St. Patrick’s Day.

Technology is still a hot topic in Blast, so lookout for a bunch of new game and software reviews.

Culture steps it up a notch too as we introduce Dinah Alobeid writing about some amazing ballet and dance shows.

So stay tuned to Blast!

• B Media Ventures, LLC was born on Nov. 14 and will publish Blast Magazine
• Blast Magazine will launch its first issue on 1/1/07
• It will focus on the 18-35 demographic and be feature-heavy and design-intensive
• The current dedicated staff is approximately 40 and new writers and journalists are welcome to contact me to get involved

The magazine will be something completely different in online journalism. The design and layout will be just like a real magazine only living and breathing and updated constantly. It will have periodic “issues” and new “covers” but we’ll be added new content daily as new issues, product reviews and news rises.

Stay tuned for more!

Boston, Nov. 13, 2006

A new style of journalism is set to rise. Blast Magazine is set to launch January 1 with a New Year’s Eve kickoff!

What is Blast Magazine?

Blast (http://www.theblastarea.com) is an Internet magazine focused on what’s hot right now, including the latest fashion, cultural issues, new technology, sports, gaming, music and entertainment.

Blast is the fusion between traditional print journalism and online media. It combines the quality and nostalgia of print periodicals with the timeliness and convenience of the Internet media.

The secret behind Blast is “Hybrid Edition Content Delivery,” developed by the magazine’s three partners; Editor-in-Chief John Guilfoil, Chief Technical Officer Andy Whelan, and Design Editor Andrew Khan. The technology and method combines traditional “budgeted” journalism with up-to-the-minute updates, dynamic news stories and fresh daily product reviews.

The weekly online publication will feature new full-length stories and feature columns. The actual magazine will, however, consist of more than just the weekly issue. It will be updated several times each day with new content, making it a living, breathing piece of journalism. It also offers new value to advertisers by offering permanent advertisement that appear in issues and feature stories forever as part of Blast’s virtual library archive system.

“We are not an ‘e-zine,’” Guilfoil said, “we are a print magazine that has been literally thrown into cyberspace, given a heart and lungs and brought to life.”

Blast has an 18-35 demographic distributed evenly between males and females in market research. Features will include a weekly sex column and reviews of current trends in the world of poker, music, video games, movies and technology. Blast will cover the hottest fads!

The magazine will also be professionally designed and optimized so users with widescreen monitors can enjoy an enhanced experience and those with smaller monitors can still have an optimized viewing experience. The publication has a staff of over 30, including writers, photographers and graphic designers from all over the East Coast. They are a mixture of young professionals and talented students.

Preview content and news will come online in the coming days at http://www.theblastarea.com, but for the next 50 days the staff is focusing on the launch of a major marketing campaign to promote “Blast Off,” which will occur on New Year’s Eve when the full website launches.

John Guilfoil has worked in public relations and is a 10-year veteran of Internet journalism. He founded The Review Center (http://www.reviewcenter.com) in 1999 and has written numerous articles and product reviews.

So you may start to see the thumbnails appear when you move your mouse over links, but for now it’ll mostly say “Thumbnail has been queued” as it gathers site information.

It’s all in an effort to increase the interactivity of the site!

Your loving PR Guy,
John