I think the first thing that is needed in order to have a successful blog is to name the blog. There are just too many of us blogging. If you don’t have a catchy name for your blog then you are destined to drown in the ever growing ocean of bloggness.
My first venture into the world of blog was titled “Left Coast Hosers”. Actually it was something more like www.extendiamediapromotionhypersolutions.net/leftcoasthosers (I wanted a website, but I was too cheap to pay for one so I linked through one of these “free website offers”.) Despite the crazy link I was quite pleased with the work. Two friends and I randomly posted commentaries on a wide range of topics from sports to entertainment to politics to all sorts of obscure kinds of musing that you might expect from three 20 something Vancouverites living in Memphis, Tennessee. I loved the submissions, but like the next day perspective of someone who thought they were really funny at the office party –when in fact they were just drunk – most of my submissions were a lot better in my head than on paper. With that, I think the Left Coast Hosers blog should rest in peace in the Bluff City.
The next thought was to introduce “Lucas Spata’s Road Apples”. I love this phrase. It has so much going for it. It is an album for my favourite band (The Tragically Hip), it was the name I used for my first fantasy football team, it was the title of one of my early “novels” plus it is nice way of saying horse poop. For those who know me well know that saying the word “poop” has about a 99.99% chance of making me smile. (Yes, I am the complete package Children’s book Writer and child in one.)
But the beauty of “Road Apples” is that when I first heard this term, I had no idea of its real meaning. I actually remember a summer day as a child where our family was walking around farms in West Richmond and the sides of the roads where lined with apples that had fallen off of nearby trees. It was our mission to find those “apples” that had freshly fallen on to the “road” and had not suffered too much damage to not be inedible. Road apples. I swear this is the truth. (First bit of information you are learning about my thirftiness is a family inheritance -Free road fruit gathering as child leads to web hosting.)
It is in this story though that I realized I simply cannot associate my work with “Road Apples”. The whole world of blogging is full of “Road Apples”. For readers it is a hunt to try to find those few stories/comentaries written by bloggers with any real insight and value amongst the mounds of stinky produce. Or as is in in my case, not even realizing that these “free treasures” are not even old rotting fruit and they are just “poop”.
I have decided to go with “Xe-Blog”. First off, because Xebob has the “ah” sound that is so crucial to successful blog names who have a subject that sounds like or ryhmess with the word “blog”. I bet more people will choose to read a “Hog-Blog” or a “Frog-Blog” before considering a “Giraffe Blog” just because of the funny names.
Secondly, it is not a real word. Marketers spend sleepless nights struggling to create words like “Haagendaas” (means nothing in any language by the way) in hopes of breaking out of the norm of messaging.
Most importantly, Xebob is energy. Philmore’s goal is to save the universe from being sucked dry of Xebob. It is his courage and will to overcome the “impossible” to make this happen. This is what drives me everyday and what I hope to do with The Impossibility Theory Fund. With Xe-Blog, my goal is to have some fun and share some insights with readers as to who I am and what I think. There will likely be some road apples, but keep reading because I promise there will be some Xebob as well.
