Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Here’s volume 2 in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

1. AOL Launches SafeSocial…To Screen Your Kid’s Every Friend Posted (Katy Gathright – Social Times)
2. 4 Ways to Make Content Go Viral in Social Media (Kyle Lacy)
3. How Freelancers Might Use Social Media in the Future (Stephanie Marcus – Mashable)
4. Make Shareability a Priority (Chris Brogan)
5. Marketing Your Business through the Use of Podcasts (Gini Dietrich)
6. 100 Ways to Measure Social Media (Pam Dyer)
7. Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation (Matt Silverman – Mashable)
8. 12 Ways to Market Your Event With Social Media (Rich Brooks – Social Media Examiner)
9. Twitter And The Nine-Month Bounce (Erick Schonfeld – Tech Crunch)
10. Winemakers shun social media grapevine (Leslie Gevirtz – Reuters)

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

When I saw this story this morning, my jaw dropped.

Taking a step closer to an eerie Orwellian state where creativity is crushed in the name of “the greater good,” the city of Philadelphia is demanding that bloggers pay $300 for the privilege of writing on the Internet.

This $300 “business privilege license” is for all local bloggers – even the ones that make no money off their words.

The city doesn’t stop there. In addition to the $300 for the license to write on the World Wide Web, bloggers must pay city wage taxes, business privilege taxes and taxes on any net profits — on top of state and federal taxes — even if the blogger only made $11 over two years, reports the City Paper.

Full story at NBC Philadelphia

Even though I’ve never heard of anything like a blanket “business privilege license”, I understand paying taxes is something we all have to do. If that’s how it is in Philly for any business, then fine.  But when you automatically label bloggers as businesses then I have a problem with that.

Taking a step back to the mid-1990′s, I used to publish a ‘zine (and yes, ‘zines are still alive and well in 2010).  We printed 100 copies, got some free music to review, had a few small ad sales, and if we were lucky we broke even.  But it was about our passion for the subject and it was nothing more than a hobby for a group of college kids.

Step forward to 2002 and I jumped head first into blogging and haven’t looked back.  The idea of being a zinester & the idea of being a blogger were pretty much the same thing for me, but with blogging there was a lot less overhead and many more potential eyeballs.

Now jump to present day 2010 and I find myself making a living off of blogging.  (Note that I didn’t say from blogging.)

When Watershed Studio was started back in 2004 our focus was on web design and building PHP based web  applications since that’s what I was doing as a day job back then. Today that has morphed into a lot of WordPress development for clients as well as social media related consulting, coaching & training.  Last year WordSprung was launched as an extension of our WordPress services and earlier this year we launched Indy Media School to focus on the social media training side of things.

On the flip side of the coin, in 2006 the decision was made to separate our content (blogs, podcasts, writings, etc) from the design & consulting side of things and Surge Bucket Media was formed.  Four years later Surge Bucket Media (SBM) consists of dozens of web properties, many of which are networked together.  The difference here being that SBM is currently nowhere near the money maker that everything under the Watershed Studio umbrella is.  And a lot of that is on purpose as we are trying to keep advertising down to an absolute minimum and frankly we do that because we like to do it.

All of that to say, we have seen quite the spectrum of blogs & bloggers throughout the years. While many of our clients are businesses, both small and large, we also have numerous clients who blog out of their own pockets. In other words, their blogs are their passion and they are funding them themselves without a concern for monetary gain.  And it’s this crowd that the vast majority of bloggers would fall into.

Going back to Philadelphia, I honestly don’t see how this will hold up. There are just too many issues at hand, not to mention the moment when freedom of speech and press are brought up (and Philly should be pretty familiar with those, right?).   If I were a small potatoes blogger in Philly I wouldn’t be packing my bags just yet, but I certainly would raise a ruckus with your city government.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Please leave us a comment or leave a voicemail at 317-565-4250.

Now through August 31st, 2010 you can purchase OIOpublisher* for just $37 (normally $47) by using coupon code “SOLAR-WSHED” (no quotes).

If you’re unfamiliar with OIOpublisher, it is a PHP based ad platform with a focus on performance, control and ease of use. It allows you to easily serve advertising on your blog or website and keep 100% of the revenue you bring in. For those of you using WordPress, it includes a plugin that allows for easy integration. And if you need consulting help setting it up, please contact us.

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Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Starting today we’ll share some of the top reads we come across in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

1. 7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America (Jay Baer – Convince & Convert)
2. Delivering Wow! (Jeff Stanger – Blue Trolley Press)
3. Five ways to integrate social media into your overall marketing mix (Catherine Parker – Memeburn)
4. How to be the Life of the Social Media Party (Darren Rowse – ProBlogger)
5. How to Use Proactive Social Customer Service to Build Your Brand (American Express OPEN Forum)
6. IndyCar Drivers now tussle through Twitter posts (Curt Cavin – Indy Star)
7. More small businesses use Twitter, Facebook to promote (Jon Swartz – USA Today)
8. Social media: why there’s no point trying to escape (Shane Richmond – Telegraph Media Group)
9. The Power of Social Media: Educate Embrace and Empower (Kyle Lacy)
10. When Someone Blindsides You With a Negative Blog Post (Liz Strauss)

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

What is it that separates the millions of mediocre bloggers from the ones who build traffic and achieve amazing results? What is it that propels some onward and upward into fame and fortune while others find themselves struggling just to get a small handful of readers?

If you’re like most bloggers, then you’ve probably been kicking yourself trying to figure out the answer to these questions…trying to find the key that unlocks the large steel doors that are holding you back from the success you’ve been looking for.

In his book, Blogging to the Third Power, Nicholas Cardot shares what he has discovered as being the essential elements necessary to connect with people on a large scale.

eBook Edition: Click here to view more details
Print Edition: Click here to view more details