Last night I had an interesting conversation with a friend whom I had not previously spoken to regarding his career. He's got a day job since moving from the East Coast to Southern California and it has nothing to do with his background as an opera singer and web developer. As a vocalist, he's phenominolly gifted. As a website designer and developer, he's garnered some interesting experience.

I absolutely love the topic of news and how it has evolved with the onslaught of social media and the web in general. Hacks have earned the accolade of online news sources. Seasoned news hounds from the stuffy print newspaper newsrooms have been scooped and charge around with chips on their shoulders. Print editors who have allowed stories to slip in favor of allowing someone to slide have been greeted with pink slips. And infotainment editors who charge their way into the Google News feed serve as little more than the day's muckrakers of sensational and sometimes fraudulent headlines who often perform as nothing more than human aggregators or regurgitators. Well, the first link of the lot is not necessarily focused upon the specific subject of muckrackers but is an interesting piece on user-led content and the terms breaking news. Also in the mix is audience targeting when crafting SEO content for your blog or other social media outlet. Conversion rates and followup are also covered. Get your business on.

Got links? Here are some good reads. Perhaps the best of the lot is the 10 free social media tools every public relations (PR) pro should master. And if you're a small businesses and looking for some insight on how to increase the eyeballs landing upon your good name when conducting local business searches, then there's a great link for optimizing your business listing. For those looking for domains for an existing business or a startup, there are five tips to get you started. Got content? There's an excellent strategy for those charged with developing a web content strategy. In my experience, especially for those working as contractors, you'll want to maintain an open stream of communication between client and client assets. Social media strategy, tactics and success is yet another link worthy of a read.

DVS Shoes is hip. Any association with the action sports shoe manufacturer garners a certain amount of recognition. A mere mention of the name upon any website will earn amiable attention in the form of web traffic.

This race photo is the second shot in a four-shot sequence captured at the 2010 SNORE Mint 400 desert off-road race and features the Orange County Motorsports Trophy Truck. The truck is seen dropping down from a hairpin turn that quickly developed into a silt bed. Much of the race course, which was located just north of the Las Vegas Strip, consisted of rough rocks and deep silt beds.

I had mentioned I squeezed the trigger on a Gallery2 open source photo gallery install. Installing Gallery2 was quite simple. Though, integrating Gallery2 into the Joomla CMS was a bit more difficult but not like pulling teeth on a angry bear. I used the JFusion bridge component.

Numbed with the effects of a novocain-like spell. It must've been the easy-to-use user interface or perhaps the intuitive administrator interface. Maybe it was the search engine optimized capabilities or maybe even its overall extensibility.

It's late. It's me. And I'm tired. I have another site that generally serves to host all my off-road racing photos. It used to turn a profit on them and retail e-commerce sales. That is why I was long deserting the idea of hosting a photo gallery here. Why do so when the photos were contributing to my bottom line and double up on the work for nothing.

It was inevitable. I called it out the day I left. I understood full well, as managing editor (or "Managing Partner" =), who was taking reigns and how little they understood the dynamics of the industry and the core lifestyle of its community. It may have taken two years longer than I and many others had anticipated but it's official. Advastar Communications gave up Off-Road.com, selling it to (perhaps) a more formidably savvy web publisher, which appears geared to make gains on its investment straight way after squeezing the trigger. Off-Road.com, the once off-road industry mega site that was rumored to shut down its doors and even its web servers, sold to VerticalScope.

I rarely donate any time to my personal websites. I am not one who has been too zealous on self promotion. I don't promote many of the projects I have worked on or am actively working on and don't Tweet too many of my own blog posts. I'm trying to break the mold but still haven't gone full bore on the endeavor. This could change. One sign is that after the late evening's work, which consisted of strategizing a marketing effort and weighing its web presence against available search engine trends, I scrolled over the various Google Analytics accounts and landed onto the DIRT FORGE.com search engine analytics report.