10 Questions with JD Hodges.
JD Hodges together with my friends Ronnie and Murali are the folks behind the very successful Weblogs.us website. The goal with Weblogs.us is to do the setup and hosting for people that want a powerful blog but need some help. So far Weblogs.us hosts over a thousand free blogs.
[1] Paul: First, care to share with us, what does JD in your initial JD Hodges stands for?
JD: Jay Donaldson. =)
[2] Paul: You together with Ronnie and Murali actually set up blogs for non-commercial bloggers and do not even charge a nickel for what you do, are you guys for real? Why even bother?
JD: Yeah, we're for real :-) We do it because we can... I started by hosting ONE blog for my girlfriend Brandy then it just snowballed from there.
[3] Paul: Do you have any ideas the number of users you have on weblogs.us? Seems like you have quite a handful of people there.
JD: Over the years we've setup about 2000 blogs. I would guess right now there are a couple hundred active users. We've had users from all over the world, as a matter of fact MOST of the people that have signed up are from outside the US.
[4] Paul: Do you know that weblogs.us is worth $222,471,586.41 by blogshares.com and the price is going up by the minute? I guess that make you a billionaire, tell us how does it feel to be a billionaire?
JD: Wow, I haven't been to blogshares.com in a while! Thanks for letting me know about my billionaire status; it feels good but I think I'll cash in my shares now ;-)
[5] Paul: From the grades we saw for your law degree, you are doing quite well in this law thingy, any big plans for the future to be next Alan Shore or Denny Crane?
JD: Thanks for the compliment! And to be honest I don't know either of those names, but my big plans are all internet related... When I started law school it was kind of a plan B, just in case my internet plans didn't pan out (i.e. if I couldn't survive via the web, a law degree would be handy.) Now the law degree has turned into a real asset because of all the legal issues in being online (copyright/trademark/P2P/intellectual property etc.) My websites (not weblogs.us!) have paid for my education and my savings. NOTE: If I could (ideally) be like somebody in the legal field, it would probably be Laurence Lessig.
[6] Paul: Other than weblogs.us, are you working on anything right now? Anything we can expect from you in the near future?
JD: Ohh, I'm always working on things. Here's a sample, http://www.searchbuild.com/10-questions.blogspot.com That website will automatically track the number of webpages Google and MSN have indexed for any particular domain. http://www.searchbuild.com/www.jdhodges.com As you can tell, it's rather rough and ugly at the moment, but it will be better soon? NOTE: I had a goal of 1,000,000 of my webpages indexed by Google, then Google indexed TOO many of my pages (even the one's I had set as 'noindex') so now I am purposely reducing the number of pages that I have in their index.)
I have another more exciting project that is similar to DigitalPoint.com's keyword tracker, but my project is more an INDUSTRY tracker. For instance you could track the 'interview' field and see you (and other websites) rank over time for keywords like 'interesting interviews' or 'top 10 interview questions' etc.
Paul: I guess I will have to work on indexing for 10 Questions now. =( Haha.
[7] Paul: Describe to us JD Hodges in 5 words.
JD: Happy. Busy. Interested. Excited. Thankful.
[8] Paul: We all love to gossip, so you have to share with us, how did you meet a certain Brandy woman?
JD: We met at my college apartment in undergrad. I bough her some beer and kept the change. She tracked me down and demanded her change back. The next day we happened to go on a film trip together, after that trip I knew she was a cool girl! Since then we've had fun traveling and just being around each other. She is a wonderful person!
[9] Paul: Last two questions, if we were to find you, where can we go to find you? Any favorite hunt?
JD: You can find me at El Torro, it is a cheap (but good) Mexican restaurant about two miles from my apartment. I ride my bike there a lot. NOTE: once I'm out of school, you'll find me someplace in the country (away from the city.) Ohh, you might also find me at CompUSA here in Tulsa. I LOVE looking at all the tech goodies they have there (plus there is a good sushi place nearby.)
[10] Paul: Finally, any thing you want to tell our readers out there, we never knew about you.
JD: Here are three things: I am #1 in the world for swimsuit photography on Google. #2 Though born and raised in Oklahoma/Missouri I have spent 24 of my 25 summers in Colorado (the Rocky Mountaints). Thank you for having me as a guest on your website and I wish you the best of luck!
[1] Paul: First, care to share with us, what does JD in your initial JD Hodges stands for?
JD: Jay Donaldson. =)
[2] Paul: You together with Ronnie and Murali actually set up blogs for non-commercial bloggers and do not even charge a nickel for what you do, are you guys for real? Why even bother?
JD: Yeah, we're for real :-) We do it because we can... I started by hosting ONE blog for my girlfriend Brandy then it just snowballed from there.
[3] Paul: Do you have any ideas the number of users you have on weblogs.us? Seems like you have quite a handful of people there.
JD: Over the years we've setup about 2000 blogs. I would guess right now there are a couple hundred active users. We've had users from all over the world, as a matter of fact MOST of the people that have signed up are from outside the US.
[4] Paul: Do you know that weblogs.us is worth $222,471,586.41 by blogshares.com and the price is going up by the minute? I guess that make you a billionaire, tell us how does it feel to be a billionaire?
JD: Wow, I haven't been to blogshares.com in a while! Thanks for letting me know about my billionaire status; it feels good but I think I'll cash in my shares now ;-)
[5] Paul: From the grades we saw for your law degree, you are doing quite well in this law thingy, any big plans for the future to be next Alan Shore or Denny Crane?
JD: Thanks for the compliment! And to be honest I don't know either of those names, but my big plans are all internet related... When I started law school it was kind of a plan B, just in case my internet plans didn't pan out (i.e. if I couldn't survive via the web, a law degree would be handy.) Now the law degree has turned into a real asset because of all the legal issues in being online (copyright/trademark/P2P/intellectual property etc.) My websites (not weblogs.us!) have paid for my education and my savings. NOTE: If I could (ideally) be like somebody in the legal field, it would probably be Laurence Lessig.
[6] Paul: Other than weblogs.us, are you working on anything right now? Anything we can expect from you in the near future?
JD: Ohh, I'm always working on things. Here's a sample, http://www.searchbuild.com/10-questions.blogspot.com That website will automatically track the number of webpages Google and MSN have indexed for any particular domain. http://www.searchbuild.com/www.jdhodges.com As you can tell, it's rather rough and ugly at the moment, but it will be better soon? NOTE: I had a goal of 1,000,000 of my webpages indexed by Google, then Google indexed TOO many of my pages (even the one's I had set as 'noindex') so now I am purposely reducing the number of pages that I have in their index.)
I have another more exciting project that is similar to DigitalPoint.com's keyword tracker, but my project is more an INDUSTRY tracker. For instance you could track the 'interview' field and see you (and other websites) rank over time for keywords like 'interesting interviews' or 'top 10 interview questions' etc.
Paul: I guess I will have to work on indexing for 10 Questions now. =( Haha.
[7] Paul: Describe to us JD Hodges in 5 words.
JD: Happy. Busy. Interested. Excited. Thankful.
[8] Paul: We all love to gossip, so you have to share with us, how did you meet a certain Brandy woman?
JD: We met at my college apartment in undergrad. I bough her some beer and kept the change. She tracked me down and demanded her change back. The next day we happened to go on a film trip together, after that trip I knew she was a cool girl! Since then we've had fun traveling and just being around each other. She is a wonderful person!
[9] Paul: Last two questions, if we were to find you, where can we go to find you? Any favorite hunt?
JD: You can find me at El Torro, it is a cheap (but good) Mexican restaurant about two miles from my apartment. I ride my bike there a lot. NOTE: once I'm out of school, you'll find me someplace in the country (away from the city.) Ohh, you might also find me at CompUSA here in Tulsa. I LOVE looking at all the tech goodies they have there (plus there is a good sushi place nearby.)
[10] Paul: Finally, any thing you want to tell our readers out there, we never knew about you.
JD: Here are three things: I am #1 in the world for swimsuit photography on Google. #2 Though born and raised in Oklahoma/Missouri I have spent 24 of my 25 summers in Colorado (the Rocky Mountaints). Thank you for having me as a guest on your website and I wish you the best of luck!
posted by Wai Mun
at
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