Gosh I come back from my trips away and find that PPT is ranked in the top 10 for the search term “neopets” on Google! Can somebody give me a woot woot?! That’s way too freakin’ awesome! I’m totally stoked.

So now that I am back and on summer vacation, I will totally kick PPT into high gear and kick some major coverage. Expect some awesome things to come including some very festive forum events held by our very own Jasujo at the PPT Forum. I’ll also be looking at introducing the PPTbies for 2008 and the annual PPT Collage!

I’ve also got a couple of staff applications for news posting positions as well so I’ll be going through those over the next few days to kick start the Neopets news on PPT Main. Coming soon as well are a ton of new articles (thanks everyone for sending them in) and a couple of feature tweaks and addition of new features! Keep your eyes on PPT because we’re going to shake up the entire Neopets community PPT style.

Carlos, who owns Virtual Pets List, Myspace Codes and the Virtual Pets Blog, recently approached me and we considered how we could unite the Neopets community so that everyone could benefit overall. It got me thinking a bit, and I actually really like the idea. I remember pulling away from the entire Neopets webmaster community a long time ago because I didn’t want to become involved in the bickering that was occurring at the time, but I think it’s time to head back in and learn a few new things; after all, we don’t exist in a vacuum and every website would benefit.

Case in point, myself and Dave Moyer from Neocast operate the two largest Neopets podcasts in the world. You’d think we’d be at each other’s throats but we regularly appear on each other’s shows and discuss all things podcasting like say… podcasting gear… best ways to record and mix shows… we’ve even saved each other numeroues times due to unforeseen circumstances. This is resulted in the quality of both shows improving immensely and hey… what can I say… we both. officially. ROCK. From planning future projects to everything in between, it has made internet time a little more enjoyable; so yes to competition friendliness!

So what will I be doing? I’ve opened up affiliation applications on PPT to every Neopets webmaster out there. (Pretty big step too as we’re going to be displaying links/buttons on EVERY page at PPT.) So come on Neopets webmasters! Step up and make us proud!!

Today I logged onto PPT for a pleasant surprise. The chat box on PPT Main had 146 users online simultaneously, something which I haven’t seen in a long time. This made me think about the days when Neopets was at the peak of their popularity and the community was everything. Playing the game had a sense of personal enjoyment and a sense of purpose and sites like PPT were able to provide Neopets information and Neopets cheats; the community was something that inadvertently developed and drove the site to bigger success.

Now that new Neopets websites spring up every other day and that the original founders Adam Powell and Donna Williams are no longer at the site, it seems to many that the spark that initially drew the crowds, the degree of personality behind the website is no more; this is something myself and the hosts of The PPT Show have discussed at length in the podcast episodes.

So it it with this frame of mind that I was pleasantly surprised to see the community pick up again; can Neopets regain the community that it lost of die-hard fans and core supporters? In truth, the heart of every website is the community, and I feel like I need to invest more time into my site’s community and encourage it to grow which is what I’ve begun to do now. I’m just thankful the site already has such a rich diversity of members from all around the globe who I now call friends. (If you see me online, give me a bell! I love chatting.)

Let’s see how Neopets does over the next few months OK?

Alright I’ll admit it. I’ve been an Apple-nazi for years. I love it. I breathe it. I live it. I identify with it. I love it (again) and I whisper sweet, sweet words of nothingness like careless whispers of the wind to it every night before I go to bed. Just kidding … but really.

Alas, I found that with a MacBook Pro, updating PPT was near impossible. All the programs that I use on the PC were just not there! What was I suppose to do?? With the backlog of PPT articles sitting in my inbox growing at an exponential rate, I had to do something quickly before the world turned topsy turvy again, and I only just fixed it the other day. (Can’t you people keep it fixed just for a second!!)

Ladies and gentlepeople, if you look up, I have installed Windows XP into my Mac OSX using the great platform called “Parallels”. This means I can now run Windows concurrently with OSX! (Previously, I tried doing this via Apple’s Bootcamp but I didn’t like the option of running either/or. I wanted to run both at the same time!!) Isn’t that just sweet or what?

To celebrate, I added a couple of new articles into PPT, got roaring into how PPT is formatted now, and added some great SEO techniques to the main site for some good measure.

Love ya’ll!