The initial goal of 30 Second Words were a series of GRE and SAT words, defined in humorous or conversational style, thus making the word memorable. Each podcast is are no more than 30 seconds long. Folding in some short, well-produced 30 Second learning lessons into your random IPOD playlists may be useful to a budding academic. I have the content as I hired voice talent Steve Anderson to write and record fifty of these so-called 30 Second Words. They have some limited interweb-based commercial value in terms of advertising.

Fifty of these 30SecondWords have produced and await editting. We’re gonna start-out slow and podcast a “30 Second GRE Word” once a week. But, its not just about words for standardized tests. A friday schedule will allows for more content into the programming schedule during the week.

So I will produce and voice the short, but well-produced, podcasts on a myriad of topics. I would like to have a large enough population of listeners to support advertising for growth and more ambitious projects.

2008 was the year of the blog for me.  I started with Robot in the Woods, which was no failure, but lacked focus.  Then 30 Second Words came along.  It started as a sort of graduate school application advice site, but morphed into a Podcast site for students studying for their GREs by providing brief audio of a GRE word and an informal, sometimes humorous definition.  At this point, fifty so-called “30 Second Words” have been produced, but not posted… so this blog is still viable.  Then I started Open Source Geography as a placeholder for my thoughts about teaching and learning Geography, as I was hired as an Adjunct Geography Professor at Virginia International University.

Additionally, contributed to the Time to Quit Podcast, a podcast about learning how to live without cigarettes.  This site is managed by my good buddy SP Gass who also manages “The Low-Tech Times” and “Old Dominion Wildlife.”

In terms of priority, I am going to keep Robot in the Woods alive, but dormant for another year.  For the 30 Second Words Podcast site, I will keep alive and actually post the Podcasts.  I would have done that sooner, however, the Geography course took much of my time.  Since I was not hired on for a second semester, I may let Open Source Geography to pursue other blogs.

There are two blogs I am anticipating starting in 2009.  The key this year is focus.  Open Source Geography did better than the others, but there was still no cohesive theme or niche.  Therefore, I am announcing a photoblog called Shaker of the Day, dedicated to photos of my aunt’s 2500+ salt and pepper shaker collection.  Also, for 2009, I will be creating a blog called “First Time Farmer” about my dreams of rural life.

Finally, I really enjoyed creating Amazon bookstores for these sites.

My Favorite Bookstores

• The Influencers of Kevin Matthews
• Fabulous Works of Science Fiction Art
• Greatest Robots in Science Fiction
• Cryptozoology
• The Soviet Space Race
  
• The Works of Stanislaw Fernandes
• The Works of Arthur C. Clarke

Miscellaneous

• Graphic Design Resources
• References for 30 Second Words
• Web 3.0 Books
  

2009 Blogs

• Salt and Pepper Shaker of the Day
• First Time Farmer