FocalPower…the blog

Looks like San Francisco’s Embarcadero will be shutdown this coming Sunday as previously reported.  In an effort to open up parts of the city for pedestrian activities, Sunday Streets San Francisco will shutdown a number of city streets to car traffic from 9am to 1pm on Sunday August 31st and September 14th.  There are a number of activies that are planned along the route.  These two Sundays are shaping up to be not only an interesting time for pedestrians, but also photographers in the San Francisco area.  Not often when you get the chance to stand in the middle of the Embarcadero and be able to take you time to arrange a photo.

Today Dave and I spent hob-nobbing with the WordPress jet set.  At WordCamp San Francisco there were WordPress users and developers from across the country–we meet people from Seattle all the way to Florida. With a track for WordPress users as well as developers, there was something for everyone.  It was great talking with all the photographers I meet that use WordPress to power their sites.

For those photographers that use WordPress for their photography blogs or websites, I wanted to share some of what was learned from Stephan Spencer’s SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make (download presentation).  To get the most out of the work you do on your blog, you want to ensure you’re doing what you can to make it search engine friendly.  Besides the great tips and tricks in Stephan’s presentation, he recommends the following great SEO plugins:

• UTW Theme Compatibility Thing
• Yet Another Related Posts
• Popularity Contest
• WP-PageNavi
• SEO Title Tag
• WP-Sticky

If you’re a WordPress user, make sure you check out these plugins and let us know which ones help your blog’s SEO the most.

(Personally, I have been using the all-in-one-seo-pack plugin, which is the one of the top five plugins for the WordPress platform.  I would love see a gap analysis for the list above and all-in-one-seo-pack.  Any SEO experts out there willing to take up the challenge?)

More Early Access Codes Available

We had set aside a group of early access codes to the FocalPower service just for WordCampers.  But we didn’t give them all out!  So anyone out there who is interested in getting one, let us know by commenting on this post (please include your website/blog address in your post).  We’ll give out the access codes on a first come basis until they are gone.  Please Note: FocalPower is still in an Alpha state, some features are not complete and still under development.  We are looking for those who can handle the rough edges, use the system and provide us feedback help us get the features right.

Just a quick announcement that the FocalPower team will be attending WordCamp tomorrow (August 16th) in San Francisco.  If you’re planning on being their, let us know and we can coordinate some time together.  We are looking forward to hearing what challenges people are facing regarding photography and their blogs as well as to hear what exciting WordPress related developments people are working on.  We’ll also have some additional early access passes to the FocalPower system available for those interested in seeing what we have been working on.

Apparently San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is pushing for a closure of San Francisco’s Embarcadero (the road that sweeps around the city on along the bay).  This closure would happen just for 4 hours during two Sundays this summer.  The San Francisco Chronoical is reporting on the Car-free parties planned for Embarcadero.

The idea by Newsom is to shut down a 6 mile stretch of the Embarcadero (San Francisco is essentially 7 miles by 7 miles in size) to cars on August 31st and September 14th.  Allowing only pedestrians and bicycles on the Embarcadero from from 9am to 1pm.  The idea is to have a roller skating area, bicycle training wheels area, and yoga classes held on the Embarcadero during the closure. The idea is for residents to partake of physical activity in a wide, open space not usually available in this section of San Francisco.

If this idea passes (there is considerable opposition by business along the Embarcadero concerned the closure will cut into their business during these two busy Sundays) it would make for some intersting photography during that 4 hour stretch.  I have images already be pre-visualized about a yoga class in the middle of this 3 lane road with the San Francisco Ferry Building or Finacial District buildings in the background.

Bay Area photographers should keep an eye on this story and be ready to photograph should this closure go through.  This is definately a photogrpahy opportunity you don’t want to miss.

(Photo Credit: MD111)

For those who are local to the San Francisco Bay Area, this coming Wednesday (April 9th) a historic event will occur on the streets of San Francisco: the Olympic torch will be making it’s only North American appearance. For Bay Area photographers, this is a wonderful chance to capture both the Olypmic Spirit as well as the protesters who will be present during the torch’s passing.

If you are planning on attending, best advice would be to take public transportation: The Embarcadero BART stop is right near the finish for the route, and the starting point can be reached by taking MUNI to SBC Park. The event is expected to start at 1 p.m. and it should take the torch about an hour and a half to traverse the approximately 6-mile route. Expect large crowds and plan to scout locations for the best shots, as well as routes to get from point to point along the route, well in advance. Due to the nature of the politics and protests around the torch’s appearance, I would expect crowds to start building by 9am or earlier.

Here is a list of sites with more information about the Olympic Torch Relay:

• Official Beijing 2008 Olympics Torch Relay site
• SFGate’s Olympic Torch in San Francisco Portal
• SFGate: San Francisco’s Torchbearers (includes the essays they wrote to earn the honor of being a bearer).

If anyone attends the Torch Bearing, please send us a link to your photos or post a link in the comments. It will be great to see the images that everyone captures of the event!
(Map courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate)