I’ve gone through the site and done a few updates, removing old widgets from the sidebar. I found a few new widgets to take their place. One of the widgets, the Publicity Wheel, will have its own post later this week.

I added a widget called EntreDroppers. Some of you may be familiar with it. It displays links to the last ten EC droppers on my sidebar, directly underneath the EC widget. So if you’re dropping on me, you can expect to see a link back to your site on the sidebar shortly afterwards. I think it’s a good way to give back to anyone who drops. What do you think of it? The links are no-follow.

The Boom Shelter

I also updated the Boom Shelter with some announcements and new links to popular posts on the blog. I have a few things going on this month for my readers. If you want to have me review your blog, then just send me a note through the contact form. I haven’t received any messages yet, so I have four spots still open. It’s your chance to get a free Powder Keg Review.

Also, Si Philps announced he’ll be giving away EC credits when my next Boombox Podcast airs. I suppose this is both an impetus for me and for you. I have to create it, you have to submit it. Be on the look out for that.

Have you missed me? I had an eventful April — full of article writing and a trip to sunny California. The problem was I didn’t make time for my blog. When you have a blog and let the content slip for more than a few weeks, readers tend to wonder what happened. They write emails, send out telegraphs, and post disturbing photos to blackmail you back to the writer’s table.

So what stole my time away? My freelance writing and travel. OK, and maybe some GTA action. I have it under control — really I do.

I can’t say things will be 100% better, but I plan on writing at least a few posts a week. I’ve got a few topics in mind. I want to write posts on writing better, to bring the blog back to life with a review, and to stimulate your senses with some lists style posts. I’m pumped. I will also post the May contest. So what have you all been up to? Leave me a comment, send a link, but, please, no more blackmailing.

I’ve had some friends in the past few weeks ask me, “How did you come up with the name Jason Boom dot com?” Can you guess my favorite response? I’ll give you a hint — it’s a scientific creationist theory.

“It was a Big Bang”

Even more people have asked how I received so much traffic so quickly. That’s a little more difficult to answer with one phrase. For that reason, I’m writing this post to blow apart what’s happened since January 12th and look at each individual piece of the experience, with a little back-story.

The Big Bang
My About page describes my situation fairly well. I’m a technical writer, freelance writer, small-time web host, and computer savant. For about 12 years, I had a ‘fuse’ that I refused to give up — cigarettes. January 7th of this year, I quit. I threw the fuse away. With that came increased energy and a renewed interest in pursuing my dreams.

One Friday evening, I sat down at my desk to surf popular blogs. I revisited my Google Reader which I’d largely ignored for several months, and sifted through some posts. One post from ProBlogger attracted me to the idea of writing my own blog. I read so many of his posts that day that I can’t pinpoint now which one it was. I’ll think of it eventually.

So then I went to my GoDaddy account to see what domains I owned. There were around eight to ten in there. Of the ones I had, I only considered one a viable name. I setup the domain and installed Wordpress. This was a Friday. By Saturday, I posted to this blog, under a different name.

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1. Be a guest blogger on JohnCow.com.
2. Make more than $0.33 in AdSense revenue for one month.  
3. Get mentioned by a news media outfit as a source.
4. Sell all my available 125×125 ads space for $100 a piece.
5. Blog about some topic  and have it catch like wildfire around the blogosphere.
6. Do a video blog entry without sounding like an idiot.
7. Make it to the top 100 favorites in Technorati.
8. Have John Chow (or Cow) do a review of my blog without having to pay.
9. Take over the Internet with EC credits, buying up ad real estate on hundreds of blogs all at once.
10. Actually gain some traffic from BlogRush.
11. Offer Darren Rowse free spelling lessons.
12. Break a story on something relevant to millions of people. Have my server buckle under the traffic.
13. Make it to the frontpage of DIGG!

Naming is the process of assigning a particular word or phrase to a particular object or property. This can be quite deliberate or a natural process that occurs in the flow of life as some phenomenon comes to the attention of the users of a language. Many new words or phrases come into existence during translation as attempts are made to express concepts from one language in another.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name

Last night, I talked with my wife about my new blog, Geeks’ End. I wasn’t satisfied with the name, I told her. How will people relate to the name? Will they remember it for its simplicity or will it be forgotten for its tiresomeness? We talked a bit more, and we decided that I should choose a new name with a little more forethought. So that’s exactly what we did. We discussed the following criteria for my new domain name.

The domain name should…

1. be memorable.
2. have a meme that could be used to market the blog. (Geeks’ End was too confusing. I needed something that strung up lights and shocked you when you plugged in to the socket.)
3. not be cheesy (too much).
4. be easy to type.
5. be available for purchase, preferably below the $50 range. (sorry blog.us, maybe next time)
6. appeal to me! 

We both decided the meme would be my first name coupled with a word that conveyed excitement. I wanted people to feel the burst of energy when they came to my site. We went through a few variations, including Jason Nice, Jason Hardcore, until finally hitting on, Jason Boom. My wife came up with the name,like it popped through her eyeballs. Her eyes dancing with the idea of it. Jason Boom, I rolled the name around my mind for a while. I could have a character to make the blog more exciting, lively. I could market the blog using all the imagery of a explosions, bombs, fire. I loved it.

I’ve bought the www.jasonboom.com domain and transfered the www.geeksend.com site over to it. Wordpress migrated relatively simply. However, the site does have a few problems updating comment counts, and displaying the title correctly in the browser title bar.

Unfortunately, my RSS feed had to change on feedburner, so please resubscribe using the link on the right or below the post. And don’t forget to tell me what you think in the comment section.

UPDATE: I realize the title bar name wasn’t showing up because there was no value in the All in One SEO plugin field for title. It’s been fixed!