John Marro's Blog

You will notice today that many of the top internet sites have blacked out their websites to users. Even the famous "Google" logo cannot be seen. This is a protest to show how the internet will look if this bill is passed by congress. The basic gist of this bill states, that if a company thinks or can show that there is copyright infringement, the site has to stop all links to that site. The problem is, it makes the site owners responsible even if they didn't post the content. 

We support copyright laws here at TheHive, but we do not support blanket bills that congress passes because they don't understand the way the internet works.

Ask your representatives to Stop SOPA, and write a better bill that protects everyone's interest. 

I ran across this post today on Facebook.  The photos are so moving and emotional, I wanted to share them with you... I've only posted the links to a couple of them, so please take a moment and view them all here... 

US gay service members march in a gay pride parade for the first time ever.

(Getty Images / Sandy Huffaker)

 Australian Scott Jones kisses his Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas after she was knocked to the ground by a police officer's riot shield in Vancouver, British Columbia. Canadians rioted after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins.

Hey Hivers! Sorry for the technical problems! Melissa and I are in the middle of transferring from Charelston, SC to St. Augustine, FL.  Needless to say, we have been without internet.  M is contacting our Tech Guru to see what is going on with the blog imports and comments, etc.

 thanks,

 John

Hello Hive members.  Today we were contacted by one of our members saying that she received an email from someone that was removed from TheHive.   We had to delete and block a member for repeated TOS violations.  We asked this member mulitple times to change bad habbits and we were ignored.  The member that was deleted sent out an email saying that if you get on the top two pages we would kick you out of the site.  This just isn't true. Does it make sense that we would eliminate our most active members?

Or goal here at TheHive is always to a fun enjoyable community where we can all learn and share with eachother.

Please if you have any questions about the Terms of Service here at TheHive, email me, Melissa, or Sue.

John

I have been away on business the last few days and have only heard of the rumblings via phone and what I see happening here on TheHive.  I just wanted to drop in a few notes about M! If you haven't figured it out, she is passionate about things she believes in.  She never gives anything but well over 100%.  Setbacks, like snide remarks and a folks that can't see her vision only seem to strengthen her resolve. 

Eighteen months ago when we were bantering about ideas that eventually lead to TheHive (we aren't even one year old yet BTW) she envisioned a community that people could come to share and learn and have fun. I think we have done that so far. I told her she would take over the world if she tried hard enough!

I normally would say, "Heap it on!, she is strong she can take it!" Because Melissa can. But like anything else, when someone trounces on your hopes and dreams it really feels like crud. 

I am rambling a bit in this post, but where I am going is, our Queen is strong, but feelings were hurt because of unprofessional rants. 

I love you M, you are strong and you have built an amazing place! Keep up the hard work in all of your endeavers and they will pay off!

Here are a few quick screen shots to show how to add a link within comments of a blog

step 1

step 2

step 3

Here at TheHive, Joni Nickrent started Twitter Tuesdays.  She started using the #twitterbees hashtag, and we quickly adopted it! Thanks, Joni :-)

But what is a hashtag and how can it help you?  I have been doing some research and experimenting with the hashtags as we Tweet our highlighted posts from TheHive on Twitter to figure this out.  

Accoding to Ben Parr of Mashable.com, " Twitter hashtags like #followfriday help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organize it." This is from his article HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags. This article has some great tips and ideas for maximizing your use of Twitter.

In addition to helping with searchs and organizing, the #hashtag, has also assisted in getting our posts on Twitter ReTweeted and thus spread to a totally different group of followers, which in turn, gets your information spread even farther! For example, I have used the #tutorial hashtag on our tutorial blogs that get highlighted. These have been retweeted by Twitter users that only post on tutorials, but they are NOT Hive members! 

Like tags on your blogs, twitter hashtags should be content appropriate as well. 

Here is a quick list of #hashtags that I have put together to help with our Twitter posts, please use these tags when posting to your twitter accounts as this will benefit all of us!

#twitterbees

#crafts

#stamping

#Facebook

#Freebie

#xmas

#fiberartsfriday - from wonderwhygal thanks

#tutorial

#socialmedia

One of our new Members - Chriss Fletcher gave me this idea from her blog Random Sources of Distraction

She posted a Wordle in her post.  I thought it was cool. So I pasted one of my blogs into the "word cloud" generator and this is what I got: 

So here is my proposal.  Take one of your favorite posts from here at TheHive. Make a Wordle and post it to the comments. Let's see what our blogs "look" like.

Enjoy!