I’m a fan of many great movies. I think the best would be classics from my youth — Pulp Fiction and the Big Lebowski for sure. I’m a huge fan of Dark City as well. I can go on, but will just leave it at that. I do have a point in telling you the movies I enjoy. The more memorable movies I watched came to me when I was younger. Maybe they made movies better back then. I think it had to do with time.

I had more time to watch and to appreciate a good movie. I could watch it more than once. I could revel in its scripted glory.

I think the same can be said of blogs. I found many that I fell for right away. I read them everyday. I have become attached to them. With all these great blogs in my feed reader, I find it hard to add new ones to my daily routine. I know I must branch out.  In this episode of the Weekly Implosion, I’m looking at various blogs and sites that affected me in a positive manner.

The Nominations Are…

I have found many sites helpful with my creation of this blog. One person in particular was there from the beginning. Jeff at Buzz my Blog who has also guest posted here.

I’m sure many of you have run across the goatee sporting tech guy’s website. Joe Tech needs no introduction, but his participation in my blog’s jettison to success has been formidable.

Ben Barden’s blog. What an inspirational blog. Need I say more?

Many blogs have affected me in a positive manner. I just wanted to shout out to a few of them in this post. They’ve won my Oscar.

Other Nominations
My blog would be nowhere without Entrecard. I signed up for the service probably ten days after launching my site. I have not looked back. At first, I dropped my cards on others politely. Now I push for 300 a day, and have built up quite a collection of ECs.

I found many of my current RSS subscriptions from the service. I also love the forums on the site, although they are a little slow. I have a few items for sale in the shop. One being a post idea, which actually is more difficult to fulfill than previously thought. Overall Entrecard has only been second to Stumbleupon as far as referrals to my site. The service continues to grow and become an internet success story.

I also enjoy the PostonFire.com site. I ran across the site when I was surfing through Entrecard. I was skeptical at first. I mean, it looks like Digg; it sounds like Digg; it must be a Digg wannabe, right? Only partially. The site has icons of fire, so that was a definite plus for me. I do like to ignite things. Along with the smart graphics, comes a really nice layout. Everything on the site appears readable, and friendly. The process of signing up wasn’t difficult, and adding friends, posting new articles, and firing other’s submissions all comes easy. Overall I love the site, and its helped me find a few new readers.

Upcoming Explosions
I swear I’m going to do a podcast. I’ve been busy with freelance writing lately. I’ll make some time though. Next week should see a recurrence of humor posts. I think they’re some of the hardest posts to write. Humor itself seems elusive in text form. I’ll try to capture some funny tidbits in a post I’ve been working on for a while.

A new barrel of fuctional blogging joy should be on the way. Look for a new Powder Keg Review this week.

Have you considered joining a blog network? I’ve been asked to put my blog into one. I’m thinking about it, and I’m going to write about it. The questions I have will be posted here with answers from the network owner.

It’s been another week. But its also been an exciting week, since this blog’s turned one month old. It seems like I’ve been blogging for a long time now, but only a month has passed by. It’s truly been a great experience. So on to this weeks happenings.

 Happenings this Week
I’m excited to announce I’m now a seller in the Entrecard shop. This week I spent a good amount of time racking up Entrecard credits to do an advertising push. In the meantime, I noticed more and more sellers in the shop selling everything from Stumbles to site reviews. I thought, I have some good ideas I can put in there. Why not shoot Entrecard support an email?

I’m currently selling a post idea item for 30 ECs, under the Consulting category. If you’re interested, you can pick one up here. I’ll be putting up other items this week as well.

Milestone Reached! Some of you may have noticed that I reached an exciting milestone this week. I now have 54 subscribers according to Feedburner’s count! Since I passed the imaginary 50 barrier, I thought it was time to include the Feedburner counter on the site. Have you seen it yet?

Site Tweakings. Thanks again to Si Philps for helping me sort out the div problem in my site’s header. I’ve included a random banner at the top, as well as an announcement box on every page. I hope to create a stickier website, with those images pulling in new readers to interesting content.

Guest Post. I posted a guest post on Buzz My Blog this week (who recently had a guest post on John Cow).  I’ve also been asked to guest post on a neighboring blog on a semi-occasional basis. I’ll reveal more on that later. I have also been commissioned to take the reins on a new blog. I’m looking forward to that opportunity.

Posts. I think my post was overlooked yesterday. I had some server trouble late in the evening and believe the email RSS didn’t go out on time. For those who didn’t see it, check out the interview with the Second Life character Kabalyero. It’s an exciting look into marketing and branding in the virtual world.

From the engaging comments, the Blog Perfume page post was a big success. I’m working on a followup to that discussion, as many readers had relevant questions that opened up new ideas for me. That will be coming this week.

Which brings me to…

Upcoming Explosions
As was just mentioned, I’ll be writing a second part to the art of branding through smell. It may evolve into a larger series as well. We’ll see.

I’m going to do a Podcast soon. It will be a trial thing. I think everyone has voiced their opinions and I will give it a shot.

As always, this week will find me hard at work providing new content, lively discussions, and exploring new opportunities. If you haven’t done so this week, backup your Wordpress installation. You may regret it otherwise.

In case you didn’t catch on, traffic is the theme for this weekly implosion. I had great success early in the week with the 100 Why Not Motivators for Bloggers post. Did you check that out? I’ll give a quick rundown of the results.

The post has been viewed 605 times in only one week. That’s great! The site saw 417 unique visitors the day it went live. Mainly because it was stumbled. I received quite a few good comments on that post.

I’m averaging over 150 uniques a day, but the numbers have been decreasing. You know what the answer to slowing traffic? More great content! I have some explosive posts in mind, and they’ll be rolling out next week.

Weekly Podcast?

I’m thinking of doing my own podcast. I’m not a radio personality by any means, but I think it would be fun. I’m considering explosive commentary as we speak. I’m not quite sure though. I would like to hear from my readers. Is this something you would enjoy? I’m not talking for 60 minutes or anything — just maybe a rant or two going anywhere from five to ten minutes. I’m still considering it. Let me know in the comments if you want to hear my booming voice.

Happenings this week

I did suspend the weekly contests, so there are no winners to announce. However, everyone has a chance to win a $100. Have you left a comment? It’s that simple to enter.

I also had another installment of the Powder Keg Review series. I’m excited about this series. I think it has the possibility of becoming the most popular feature of my site. I’ll be sure to do another one real soon. I’ve actually been in the process of writing the next installment, and it should be finished for Monday or Tuesday of this coming week.

Upcoming Explosions

I have a guest post that should be published this coming week on a neighboring blog. More about that when it’s revealed. I also have been developing the Boom Shelter that you see at the top of the screen. I hope to create and develop the page over this coming week. It will house the more static elements of this site. I’m still considering what all to do there. Keep checking it out for updates.

I’ll also be working on more inspiring blog posts. I want to write more about marketing your blog as well.

So let me know what you think in the comments: should I do a podcast?  

This week’s implosion brings us the winner of the contest that began on Monday.  If you didn’t know about the contest and wished you’d signed up for it, a new one will be up tomorrow. Stay tuned for that.

The Randomizer
There were quite a few entries into this week’s contest. But not so many you didn’t have an excellent chance of walking away a winner. I found the random.org site to be the best solution to a fair turnout. I did the two 125×125 month long ads first. The winners are…

 Erz from Blogodise

and

Andrew Pavelski from www.andrewpavelski.com

The next set of random numbers revealed who would win the 3 available links on the sidebar for a month. And the winners are…

Carl from ThatBlogSite.com

and

Sensei from ContestU.com

and

Chuck from www.southpawgolfclubs.com

Congratulations to all the winners! I’ll be putting the ads up this afternoon. I hope you all receive a ton of traffic from the deal. If you didn’t win, be sure to check back on Monday for another great contest.

The Meat and Potatoes
This week has been met with a ton of success. I’m continuing to explode on the internet, and meeting some great people along the way. I’ll recap this week’s accomplisments, and see just how far Jason Boom has gone since its inception. To see a recap of the first two weeks, take a look at The Big Bang Experience.

1. My guest post to John Cow dot com was published on Tuesday evening.

2. I received a flattering account of my own explosion on the internet from LinkBaitMe.com.

3. As a result of the LinkBaitMe article, I talked to Joe from JoeTech.com about ways to give out excess EC credits. The EC slots were born of that discussion.

4. Lorelle, writing at the BlogHerald.com, used some of my musings as a catalyst for a very interesting article.

5. I’ve become a part of the growing forum community at Bloggeries.com.

6. I’m currently on the frontpage of www.blogintro.com. So if you want, go there to vote for The Boom.

What’s Next?
It’s a new week on the horizon. I have plans to engage everyone with some awesome content, the weekly contest, and the possibility of a Fantasy Friday series. I’m exploring what sticks with my readers, so your feedback definitely matters the most around here. I enjoy the writing, but I need to know what reading you enjoy.

So stick around…as a commenter recently reminded me, this is just the beginning.

Why do we spend our days writing blogs? I’ve thought about this, as I’m sure all bloggers have at some point in their blogging careers. As with anything, its as much about the lifestyle as it is about the blog itself. We create content, network with other bloggers, join communities, rate blogs, write comments, surf listings, seek out new online thrills, buy advertising, sell advertising, trade links, buy links, fret over traffic, add widgets, join RSS feeds, gain readers, and have a great time doing it. All of which I’ve enjoyed doing this first full week at this blog.

The appeal of making money sure does sound great, but when that becomes the primary goal of anything it tends to outshine the other inherent qualities. Do we blog to make money, to increase our awareness of writing itself, to join communities, or do we do it simply because we love to blog? I think its the latter. We love this stuff. This is how we build a strong reader base.

I want to hear from you. I want you to tell me why you blog, either in a blog post or in the comments here.

This week I’ve seen other people’s blogs used in many different ways. I’ve seen blog posts written on the devastating effects of cancer, how to build strong ties to fellow bloggers, on topics similar to my own, and I’ve joined fellow bloggers in an attempt to win favorable ad space on CyberStreet Report.

Upcoming Posts
This week on JasonBoom.com we’ll be running a contest of our own. The details of that will be made public either Monday or Tuesday. Be sure to check back for that. We will also be starting a few new series of blog posts. The first of which will be powder keg reviews. The idea behind the powder keg is they can unlock a lot of potential for your blog. We’ll be reviewing new blog community sites, tools, widgets and plugins in this series.

The Weekly Implosion
This week has been jam packed with information, since the blog just went live under the Jason Boom name one week ago. I’ve made friends, photographed my office, did a quick review of what other bloggers have been saying, discussed the change of my blog name, unveiled the stellar logo, participated in Lorelle’s travel post challenge with this gruesome entry, submitted a guest blogger post to the vacationing cow, and a whole lot more.