In the weeee hours of the morning, Scripps relaunched diynetwork.com after a long time in the making.  There’s a lot of great features like the “easy project finder” which makes it easy to find exactly what your trying to do.  Another nice feature is how easy it is now to find projects that you saw on tv.  Be sure to check it out when you get a chance and maybe you’ll even find a project that you’ll want to try over the upcoming weekend. Oh and be sure to keep and eye out for our marketing campaign slated to start soon for it

www.diynetwork.com

We have a lot of Facebook fan pages at my day job for example (FoodNetwork & HGTV) As an advertiser you want these pages to be engaging and to actually give people a reason to become a fan and use them. As these pages become more popular customization and how-to questions arise. Today I had to drop a flash widget in which had been developed by a vendor so I thought I’d list the steps below on how to go about adding flash onto a Facebook fan page.

1. In the search box at the top right hand side of the page, type in “FBML” which stands for Facebook Markup Language
2. Click to Application
3. Select Add to my Page
4. Navigate back to your Fan page and under your logo on the left hand side click “Edit Page”
5. Under Applications, you should see something which says ” FBML - Add advanced functionality to your Page using the Facebook Static FBML application. This application will add a box to your Page in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for enhanced Page customization.”
6. Click the small pencil on the top right of this box and choose “Edit”
7. Give your box a title then in the area which says FBML drop in your swf file. You must use the following tag style:
<fb:swf swfsrc='link to swf file' />
8. Save your changes and your done.

You should see the box on the left hand side of your fan page. If you’d rather the box not be on the left hand side, you can also add it as a tab at the top by clicking the “+” icon.

I was doing some searching on Facebook for ads that we’re currently running for HGTV and came across an ad promoting the HGTV Green Home giveaway that we have going on now. The ad didn’t look like anything we would write internally and the display url was to another website which appears to be syphoning off our traffic.

Take a look at the ad:

This happens to us pretty often unfortunately, but here’s the kicker. When I clicked the ad to take a look at what sort of landing page their attempting to use this time, it ends up sending me to OUR HGTV Green Home page as opposed to their website which attempts to gather peoples information.

I thought about not posting this simply because we’re getting free traffic from them but this was just to funny to pass up. I wonder how long it’ll be, before they realize their sending us free traffic. (BTW They had no tracking codes on their urls)

Earlier today, we launched the beta version of www.food2.com with the full site coming May 1st. For the past few months it had been running as a blog, but now its a much richer experience including videos, food challenges, recipes, food tips and of course the blog.

Our group has been working on this for a while now and based on the content of the site and the demographic its geared to, the largest part of our marketing has been through the social networks and twitter.

So what is Food2? Basically its a site for food and drink lovers. Whether your a food n00b or a more experienced foodie, the hope is that you’ll find something of value on the site. Whereas the more traditional food recipes sites offer your typical chicken or beef recipes, food2 brings extra flair to the table that speaks to people my age by the way of recipes based on mood (like romantic or muchies) as well as cooking styles like (quick & easy and budget-friendly)

Be sure to check out the celeb at 1:15 in the vid below:

Beyond the recipes, there are some great video series for site launch as well as some others in the works. One of the shows that I’ve been excited about is “Kelsey & Spike Cook” If you’ve ever watched Food Network, Kelsey was from Next Food Network Star, and Spike was from Top Chef. In their show designed exclusively for Food2, they both cook up similar foods but with much different styles. It’s a fun show but its also educational at the same time.

A few other video series are Kitchen Conspirators (see video below) and $12 Challenge.

Challenges are also another piece of the site. Basically there will be a food challenge which site visitors can take part in. The current one which is open for the next 25 days is called “The Great Food Shoot Out” which is where you take a photo of your sexiest food for a chance to win great prizes. New challenges will be announced regularly.

Another thing thats worth mentioning is the social functionality of the site. Unlike most sites, that have a built in registration system, the registration setup for Food2 is strictly through Facebook Connect. If you have a Facebook your good to go. By having this funtionality it allows you to share site activity and cool finds with your friends, but this is only the beginning.

We’d love your feedback and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter

A lot of folks have been eagerly awaiting the launch of this years HGTV Green Home giveaway, but now the wait is over. Starting today, you’ll have the opportunity to enter once a day through June 5, 2009 for your chance to win the beautiful home located in Tradition in Port St. Lucie Florida (an area I know well from living there a few years) valued at $750,000. It also comes with a 2009 GMC Sierra Hybrid. If you have a blog you might want to add our green home widget below, which makes the entering process a breeze. Happy entering!