Saturday, December 31, 2011

Random Musings - December 2011

Random Musings of the Month

Hello and welcome to another of my Random Musings.  A monthly roundup of various thoughts and things that don't fit into my usual daily posts.

Even though this is the last one for 2011, I'm not going to do a lengthy recap and just report on what went on over the past month.

You may or may not have noticed, but I've been working on a few cosmetic touches here and there, mostly minor things, but I think they improve the overall look of the blog.  Changes to the menu at the top, and the navigation bar at the bottom, and a change of the default post font from Corbel to Verdana, which hopefully makes the text more readable.

Earlier this month, I also added a dedicated Best New Films page that automatically updates itself as new films are tagged with the Best New Film tag.  I also used that code to make a Movies of the Month page, and have some more ideas to expand on that in the future.

In other developments, I noticed that Google has started showing rich snippets with stars and ratings in my search results.  I've been formatting my posts for these for several months and its cool to see it finally in action, hopefully this leads to many more readers clicking my results.

An example of Rich Snippets in action.

Random Blogging Tip of the Month

To draw some attention to my oft neglected second blog, Stupid Blog Tricks.  I've decided to start a new segment in this monthly post and offer a small piece of blogging advice every month. 

This first tip is a simple one and one that only concerns people on the Blogger platform.   One of the most annoying things I run into on my daily blog rounds is the dreaded Word Verification window that pops up on some people's blogs when you try to post a comment. 

Does your blog do this?
My advice and request to all my fellow bloggers out there is to please save your readers from this annoyance and make sure to turn the bloody thing off.

If you are not sure how to do this, you can read my simple instructions here: Turn Off Comment Word Verification.  A big thank you in advance!

Random Links of the Month

I follow a ton of bloggers, critics, and online publications in my Google Reader, and many have already posted their year end lists.  Here are some that I've come across in the last little while.

A List of year end movie lists:

AFI: Ten Films of the year
A Hero Never Dies: Top Ten Pick of 2011's Films 
Andy Buckle's Film Emporium: 30 Best Films of 2011, 10 Worst Films of 2011
Anomalous Material: Castor's Top 10 Movies of 2011
A.V. Club: Best Films of 2011
Aziza's Picks: A Look Back at 2011 
Big Thoughts From a Small Mind: My Top Films of 2011
The Boston Globe: Wesley Morris and Ty Burr's Top movies of 2011
Cahiers du Cinema: Top Ten of 2011
Can't Stop the Movies: Danny's Best Films of 2011
Cinematic Delights: Top 10 Films of 2011
Cinematic Paradox: 10 Best Films of 2011, 10 Worst Films of 2011
Cinezilla: The 20+1 2011 list!
Criterion Corner: 25 Best Films of 2011: A Video Countdown
Duke and the Movies: Counterparts of 2011
FilmLand Empire: Top 11 of 2011
FrontRoomCinema: Top Films of 2011
Genkinahito's Blog: Best Movie of 2011
The Guardian: Peter Bradshaw's Best Films of 2011
The Hollywood Reporter: Scott Feinberg's Top 10 Films of 2011
IFC: Matt Singer's Best movies of 2011.
Impassioned Cinema:  Top 10 Movies of 2011
Inspired Ground: Top 20 Movies in 2011
LA Weekly: Karina Longworth's Top 10 Films of 2011 
The Matinee: Ryan's Top Five of 2011
me likes art.: Best Movie Scenes of 2011
The Movie411: 2011 In Review: Mel's Best Films
MsMariah's Space Blog-yssey: The Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films of 2011
Multiplex Slut: Slut Awards 2011
Nerve: 15 Best Movies of 2011
New York Times: Manohla Dargis' and A.O. Scott's Best of 2011
Ninja Dixon: Top Ten Genre Favourites of 2011
NPR: David Edelstein's 2011 Top 10 Films
Philadelphia Inquirer: Steven Rea's Top 10 Movies of 2011
Phil on Film: The Best and Worst 2011
pick'n'mix flix: The Pick'n'Mix Award Winners 2011
Rockets & Robots are GO!: 2011: The Worst
Roger Ebert's Journal: Best Films of 2011
RollingStone: 10 Best Movies of 2011
Salon: Andrew O'Hehir's 10 best movies of 2011
Sight & Sound: Top 10 of 2011 Poll
Slant Magazine: 25 Best Films of 2011
Slate: Dana Stevens' top 10 movies of 2011
Surrender to the Void: Unofficial Best Films of 2011
Thompson on Hollywood: TOH! Top Tens of 2011
Thrill Fiction: The 10 Best Horror Films of 2011
Time Out London: Dave Calhoun's Best Five Films of 2011
Time Out New York: David Fear's best (and worst) films of 2011
Total Film: 50 Best Movies of 2011
The Velvet Café: Top List of 2011
Village Voice: Year-End Film Poll
We Told You what to Dream: My Top 10 of 2011
Wildside Cinema: Best of 2011 
The Wooden Kimono: 10 favourite films of the year. 
The World of Disgruntled Monkey: My Top 10 Movies of 2011

I'd like to invite anyone else who has a list to please let me know in the comments below and I will gladly add a link to it here.

Happy New Year!

-Bonjour Tristesse.

24 comments:

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah that is a cool feature of Google, but it takes awhile for them to pick it up after you start doing it.  For me that was 5 or 6 months, I don't know if it's like that for everyone. 

Eric said...

Thanks for sharing that tip about review data in Google. I had no idea there was a way to do that. I agree about those Blogger captcha codes -- they seem to be more annoying than effective.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 No problem!  Thanks for dropping by.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You're welcome!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You're welcome and Happy New Year to you! 

Check out the google webmaster blog, they have some info on how to do it here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/rich-snippets-instructional-videos.html

Inspired Ground said...

Thank you for the mention :) I'm interested to know how you put that rating in Google. Looking forward for your blogging advice. And your blog is definitely greater than before. Happy New Year!

Andrew Buckle said...

Thanks for the mention BT! Here's to another fantastic year of film!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks D4, that is a good point I forgot to mention.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

You're welcome, and Happy New Year to you!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Happy New Year Jack!

Hmm, are you surprised that IFC has a list, or that I linked to it?

I do agree Ms. Mariah's blog is very cool.

Thanks for visiting!

d_4 said...

I noticed the new films, I've used it! The ratings are awesome too. Totally loved the tutorial on the captcha, the problem is people don't realize they have it. If you have captcha on and you comment on your own blog, it doesn't appear.

Jason said...

Happy New Year Bonjour :)

Thanks for the link! I'll see you in 2012.

Jack Deth said...

Happy New Year, Bonjour and company!

Some great musings, advice and links.

Was surprised to see one for IFC. I like Ms.Mariah's Space Blog~yssey.

Thanks for the 'Turn Off comment Word Verification' thingie. Deciphering those letter jumbles give me a headache.

Stay safe and have a great year!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks, I added it to the list, and thanks for always providing me with new tunes to check out. 

Happy New Year!

365 moviesandsongs365 said...

Great idea to post that link compilation above, you missed colins  list at pick n mix flix

Happy new year, bonjour,  and all the best for 2012! Thanks mate for commenting on my songs for your ipod posts duringt 2011

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Cool!  Thanks Michael, and Happy New Year!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

 Thanks Max, your link is added.  Happy New Year!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Happy New Year!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

No problem!

Yeah you have to 'mark up' the relevant attributes of the review with special code that Google can see.  See here for details: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146645

Michael Parent said...

I turned off word verification! And I would make a top list of 2011 but I haven't seen 10 films of the current year... But I am doing some catching up lately... Maybe in the next weeks we'll have this showing up on my blog!
Happy New Year BT!

Max Covill said...

I'm so happy your blog is doing well. I'm not sure if google will see my review system eventually but that would really be cool. 

I did a top 10 list of 2011 last night that I would like to share. 
http://www.impassionedcinema.com/2011/12/30/top-10-movies-2011/

Thanks and here's to a wonderful 2012. 

FrontRoomCinema said...

Oh and Happy New Year

FrontRoomCinema said...

Hi BT, Thanks for the linkage!! Very kind of you indeed.

I will have to look into this RICH SNIPPETS thing. DO I have to post a bit of code in every review?

Stevee said...

Thanks for the link - you've had a great year on the blog here! I don't know if I have word verification on my blog...but I'll definitely look into it now! Thanks for the tip.

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