This weekend will be the two-year anniversary of the launch of Knockoff Report.  Our readers have steadily grown to make it one of the most read IP blogs online.  On occasion I am asked by colleagues how to create a blog.  My answer always begins and ends with WordPress.  This platform has more ways to customize it than any I’ve ever seen.  On top of it, there are two hosting options:

One way to host a WordPress blog is through wordpress.com.  This is the most stable and reliable choice.  It is hosted by WordPress and completely free.  There are, though, upgrade options like domain mapping.  If you choose this hosting option I recommend this upgrade as, for $9.95 per year, you can have your domain be the destination instead of a subdomain.  For example, you visited this blog at www.knockoffreport.com as opposed to holmespi.wordpress.com.  The drawback to this platform is less options, about 89 themes from which to choose, and very few plug-ins.  Despite this, many famous bloggers use this option including GigaOm.

Another hosting option is self-hosting.  Installing WordPress on your self-hosted site is a cinch and there is more freedom.  There are tens of thousands of plug-ins and as many themes.  You can add shopping carts, maps, and almost anything else conceived by humankind.  The primary drawback is the fact that you are responsible for the site’s maintenance and its reliability.

I use a WordPress hosted site for my blog and a self-hosted WordPress install for my website IPCybercrime.  WordPress is so versatile, you probably did not even know at first glance that I used the WordPress framework to design it.

One great example of a blog that utilizes a self-install of WordPress is NamesSmash.  A colleague of mine, Ken Taylor of Marksmen, is a leading expert in the domain name business and has put together an impressive archive of articles written by himself and many guest authors.  If you do not read it, you should definitely start doing so.

Whichever your choice, WordPress is definitely the way to go in my opinion.  Grab WordPress for Dummies, lock yourself away for the weekend and you should be well on your way.

Now I’m going to finish my coffee.

Anyone who knows Nils Montan or Rob Holmes knows we love movies almost as much as anything else.   This week our guest is film critic Devin Pike who is the Editor-in-Chief of the entertainment website Red Carpet Crash.  Pike and his crew had unprecedented access to the Dallas International Film Festival last week so we wanted to get the scoop on the films, the awards and his celebrity interviews.

Press play above and give it a listen. Come on. You know you want to.

In the Intellectual Property world, few things matter as much as a name.  Since the advent of the business name and the trademarked word, nothing has been used to identify quality and individuality more than a unique name.  A unique name, as obvious as it sounds, is how people know to buy your product instead of something else.  This was common sense back when there were only billboards, magazines, radio and television.  It was also manageable.  Read the rest of the article here…