As we end the hustle and bustle of  Christmas and wrap up the 8 crazy nights of Chanukah we are slapped in the face with one more major event, New Years.  It’s hard to believe in just 6 days it will be 2009.  2009 brings with it a lot of personal milestones for me, including my ten year high school reunion and my five year wedding anniversary.  But it will also bring forth my first full year of being fully engulfed in blogging and social media.

Earlier this week I posted 5 blogs you should be reading if you’re not already and asked readers what blog they would recommend to someone who could only read one blog in 2009.  I posted the same question on a number of social networks to see what others thought and have taken the responses and compiled them in an organized list below for your reading pleasure.  I have added my own choices to a few of the categories just to add some variety to the ones that only had one entry.  I hope you find something of interest to ring in 2009 with.

SEO & Internet Marketing

Copyblogger – Recommended by Anna Bourland: “Copyblogger is a great one to read… I can’t think of “only one” but I’d say that has the most “bang for my buck” as a writer.”

The popular copywriting advice blog for bloggers and internet marketers has made waves throughout the blogging and internet marketing communities. Deemed as one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs by The Guardian and authored by Brian Clark who was named the most influential blogger of 2007 by the editors of Performancing, it’s no wonder this blog got a recommendation.

Search Engine Journal – Recommended by Brian Harnish

A long time standard in SEO blogging and search engine news Search Engine Journal brings to life the latest happenings in the search engine world as well as SEO opinion and research.  Considered an authority in Search Marketing it is another blog that makes a number of lists and gets a large amount of recognition in the search marketing community.

Seth Godin’s Blog – Recommended by mrakula: “I’d read Seth Godin’s blog… He writes everyday but usually only one post, maybe two every so often.”

The author of a number of bestselling marketing books and founder of Squidoo, Seth Godin is no stranger to the marketing world. Again a staple in many online marketing lists, Godin regularly updates his blog and discusses various facets of marketing.

Technology

Mashable – Ok I’m plugging my personal choice again here, but I feel that Mashable does an AMAZING job at spreading all things internet related. The site covers practically any news you can think of on the web from social networking, startups, mobile, music, politics and more. I love this site not only because of what they cover, but how they cover it.  Seriously if you’re a internet geek like myself and you’re not reading Mashable, start in 2009!

tuaw.com – Recommended by Stephen Sharon: “I like reading tuaw.com but I don’t know how much it appeals to others since it is entirely mac oriented. I like that just about every post has some humor thrown in.”

Labeled as “The Unofficial Apple Weblog” tuaw.com covers everything Apple from Macs, to apps, to the iPhone.

Music

B-Sides “R” Us – OK Again I have to throw in my two cents for this category simply because this site is incredible.  If you love music like I do you are always looking for something new from your favorite artists.  Thankfully B-Sides “R” Us gives just that.  The purpose of the blog is to post music that can’t be bought elsewhere, such as out of print albums, b-sides, demos, live sets, audio rips of Live DVD’s, acoustics, special edition or re-release bonus tracks, etc.  I have found a number of great tracks from bands like Jimmy Eat World, AFI, A Static Lullaby, and Thrice on this site.

Prefix – Recommended by Stereocache

A daily music news site, Prefix magazine hosts interviews, reviews, mp3’s, video’s and more for a number of music genres.

Sports

Dead Spin – Recommended by teduncan: “If I could only read one, I would have to chose Dead Spin not because I like it but because they seem to cover everything as far as gossip and funny videos in sports.”

Mother Pucker – Friends and family will tell you that one of the few things that is actually “manly” about me is the fact I like hockey.  My father was a long time Los Angeles Kings fan and got me into the game at a young age. I have been following the team and the sport of hockey ever since.  One night after tweeting about a game Mother Pucker started following me on Twitter and the rest is history. Mother Pucker offers some great hockey news and info and is not biased to any specific team. The blogs writer is an avid hockey fan and follows both NHL and international hockey.

Humor

Oddee – Recommended by Audrey Seiberling

A site made up of a number of funny finds and oddities from around the world.  Some of the most recent posts include The World’s Most Extreme Piercings, 12 Funniest Billboards, and 15 Most Bizarre Bears and Mustaches.

Fuck You, Penguin – Recommended by jonceramic: “NSFW, but the funniest thing I’ve read for a long time.”

Slated as “A blog where I tell cute animals what’s what.” Fuck You, Penguin does just that.  If you ever wondered what it was like for someone to rip on an animal this is the site for you.  It’s really something beyond explanation that you just need to experience first hand.

Personal

dooce – Recommended by Gaby R: “Heather Armstrong’s “dooce” blog. She’s a mom with a kick. I read every single post and am never bored. I love it.”

Dooce chronicles the life of Heather Armstrong from a time when she was a wealthy Los Angeles web designer to her current life as a stay at home mom.

Chickens in the Road – Recommended by Misty Wilton

Chickens in the Road chronicles the life of  Suzanne McMinn who gave up city life for the life of a farmer in the country outside of a tiny town in the Appalachian foothills.  She posts a daily farmhouse journal chronicling her photography, stories, recipes, crafts, and sentimental thoughts on the history, people, life, and beauty of rural Appalachia.

Misc

Boing Boing – Recommended by Russell Spica : “I’d have to go with Boing Boing. I’m always finding interesting things to read about on there.”

Honestly a potpourri of content here with no one way to define what the site offers, but they label themselves as “A Directory of Wonderful Things”

PostSecret – Recommended by Kristina Sanchez

Making the number 10 spot among college females in Youth Trends’ February 2008 “Top Ten List Report”, PostSecret is an ongoing community mail art project in which people mail their secrets anonymously and if they’re lucky get them posted on the website.  The site’s creator has also published 4 books composed of the many secrets he has received over the years.

At the moment I am writing this blog post for a blog that is down.  I’m also writing this post while I should be writing a post that is scheduled to go up tomorrow, but since the blog is down I can’t access the data I need.  Needless to say I’m NOT a happy camper.  But of course, the “…system administrator is working to resolve this matter and restore services as soon as possible.”  At the moment the ThinkHost Athena server is down.

Back in June I decided I was going to move Musings For A Darkened Room over from a Blogger hosted blog to a self hosted WordPress blog. At the time I put my feelers out there since I had only been familiar with 1&1 and HostGator through client work. Around that same time Donna Fontenot mentioned of the eco-friendly hosting provider ThinkHost.  Being a very green minded individual I thought using ThinkHost was a great opportunity since it was being recommended by someone I trusted AND it boasted being eco friendly being 100% carbon-neutral powered using wind and solar power.  The site also guaranteed 100% uptime.

The initial setup with ThinkHost was quick and painless, and I only ran into a few downtime and error issues in that first month.  And ThinkHost kindly applied a month hosting credit to my account for my troubles.  After that I didn’t run into many errors with my site, but then last month the errors returned and seemed to happen three fold.  This time it wasn’t just me experiencing the issue.  I had visitors e-mailing me and IMing me telling me the site was either down or giving them errors as they tried to use it.

I e-mailed ThinkHost at the beginning of the month explaining the increase in outages and errors and they basically told me there were no outages on my server but to provide them with more details and they would look into it.  I did, and their response was that nothing was wrong on their end and that it must have been an ISP problem.  I would have bought this excuse, but it wasn’t just me having the issues.  I was getting complaints from both local and non-local visitors, as well as friends who use a different ISP.

I have continued to have minor issues with accessing the site since then, and then tonight the site won’t load at all.  It won’t even give me an error.  Normally I wouldn’t publicly comment on things like this, but I feel that as of late the support I have received from ThinkHost has been less than adequate, especially when they are blaming ISP’s for outages that are being experienced at the same times across various networks.  Furthermore we are pushing the hour mark on this outage and I can still not access my site.  At a time when my blog traffic and revenue are at an all time high it’s frustrating.

I have again put my feelers out there for hosting providers and the name that keeps coming up is HostGator.  They are definitely cheaper than ThinkHost, but I really like the fact that ThinkHost is 100% carbon-neutral.  Right now I am leaning towards switching to HostGator, but if anyone out there knows of a green hosting alternative that they know is reliable I would LOVE to hear from you.

I don’t want to end this post on a totally negative note so I will say one thing positive about ThinkHost. I really like that they have a network status section in their Hosting Operations Center that gives you updates on outages.  I also like that you can view your entire issue history with their support department and read updates and statuses of your issues.

UPDATE: ThinkHost reported that the server came back online at 01:15AM EST…1 hour 9 minutes of downtime.  I believe that’s a month of hosting folks!

I just wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays. Whether I share my life with you online, offline, or both YOU are the reason Musings For A Darkened Room exists. I share a potpouri of things here in the room from music, to movies, to Social Media and SEM and yet you still wade through the stuff that doesn’t interest you and come back for what does.

I have made a ton of new friends and contacts this past year both through Musings For A Darkened Room and the numerous social sites I belong to.  And I am happy I have had the opportunity to share my experiences, my insight, and my life with each of you.

I hope that you and yours have a wonderful holiday season and a safe and happy new year. May you be blessed with everything you need to have a happy and healthy 2009.