Using a few related keywords and combining it with “merchant.mvc” I was able to find numerous sites that fell into my thought process. Fun sites – toys for kids, toys for grown ups (the G-rated kind). Fur sites – great stuff for dogs and cats.

For feather sites, I already knew of something unique, unusual, and fun – Avian Fashions – Home of the Revolutionary Bird Diaper, the FlightSuit! I have know about this feathers site for over ten years now. It has always been loaded with fun. The site has great step-by-step cartoons that guide you through how to put their product – a bird diaper – on your bird. They make use of video clips, a blog and Twitter, how could that not be considered fun?

While I was hunting for furry sites, another “F” type site came to mind – Faith. Perhaps because I have had the opportunity to work on a Priest’s site, a Rabbi’s site, a Deacon’s site, a group of Nun’s and to work at EWTN – the largest religious media network in the world. So I search for a few sites of faith that also used Miva Merchant.

I found myself narrowing my list of sites down to 15 to keep the post manageable. Some of sites didn’t play nicely with ScreenGrab so I resorted to my most favor key combination on a Mac ?-shift-4 which let me drag and capture the portion of my screen that I wanted.

With text and images completed, I submitted my article for publication. It is with great pleasure, I share with you Get Smart – 15 Fun & Quirky Ecommerce Designs*

*it should be noted my submitted title was Finding Fun, Fur and Feathers using Miva Merchant

Gmail Account – create a Gmail account, it will come in handy for other items on the list.

Google Analytics – use that newly created Gmail/Google account and setup Google Analytics.

Google Webmaster Tools – another perk from having created a Gmail/Google account.

Feedburner ID – while you are rumbling around with your Google account grab one of these too. The theme I used for my father-in-law’s site had a built in subscribe to Feedburner.

YouTube Account – another benefit from Google. Take a few minutes to create a YouTube account, then you can associate it with your Google account. Even if you don’t have videos of your own, you can still search and share favorites that you find.

Twitter Account – a must have. I’ll recommend a great WordPress plugin to go along with this in just a bit.

bit.ly – this will come in handy to create shortened URL’s.

Facebook Account – huh? Why would you need a Facebook account or Facebook Fan page if you have a WordPress blog? I’ll get back to you on that one too.

Next you will need to be able to tie these into your WordPress blog, so here is my recommended list of WordPress plug-ins:

Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk - this plugin with allow you to easily add your Google Analytic tracking number into your WordPress blog.

Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold – this plugin will very nicely handle creating the XML Sitemap that you will submit to the Google Webmaster Tools you signed up for.

Twitter Tools by Alex King – this plugin is by far my favorite plugin to use with Twitter. Not only will it create and send Tweets about your blog posts, it can also create blog posts from your tweets. Alex has also added the capability to create Bit.ly URLs when you opt to send posts to Twitter – hence the need for a Bit.ly account.

Sociable by Blogplay – you need to have a way for your readers to easily share your posts to their favorite social bookmarking or media.

Akismet is a built in plugin but is worth it’s weight in gold when it comes to trapping spam. Signing up for your WordPress.com API key is so much easier now, no more having to create a WordPress.com account to get one.

There are other plugins that I use depending on what features and functionality the site owner needs.

That brings me to my next point – I recommend that you host your own WordPress blog. Yes, you can get one at WordPress.com, but your options are limited, you can’t tweak the look & feel of the installed themes and you can’t install any additional plugins. If you are wanting to have your WordPress blog look like your E-commerce site, then this is the only way to go.

So now why should you have a Facebook account too? Not everybody will find your WordPress blog, not everyone is using Twitter, so by also adding Facebook you giving yourself another avenue to help people find you. If you are a business, then set up a “Fan” page (a business page). You will be able to post links to your blog updates and your site here too. With a personal account you can even have your blog posts automatically feed into your Facebook page.

These are a few of my favorite things…

What did the Gift Mart have to offer me? Connie had told me that Social Media had become a hot topic at previous Markets. She thought it might be a good place to try and drum up some business within a group of people and products that I understood – ornaments, holiday collectibles, glitter, with my roots back to Holiday Treasures. I would be able to connect with Designers, Manufacturers and Buyers. With buyers being the store owners.

I also had the opportunity to listen to Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business. It was a good reinforcement to what I already knew and was putting into practice.

As I followed Connie around while she worked – see  A Day With Connie – we also talked about her successes with Facebook, Twitter and her WordPress blog with the people she was gathering information from for her publication Celebrate365. Most of the people we talked with knew about and used Facebook, while many didn’t understand Twitter. That gave to the opportunity to explain it’s micro-blogging abilities.

My only disappointment at AmericasMart Atlanta was the lack of wifi availiblity. I had wanted to be able to show people what we were talking about, so I toted both my laptop and my iPod Touch. I figured an event that touted “Project Social” would have wanted to make sure that all means of access were available. I was able to tweet and post to Facebook via text message but the true interaction was lost because I didn’t have a “smart phone” with a data plan (not really a smart thing to have when you don’t have a job). I did try hunting for the wifi signal, but if it wasn’t where I was trying to explain the benefits of Facebook and Twitter it wasn’t worth the snipe hunt.

It was a fun time catching up with old friends and even other users of Miva Merchant. How could I not have a good time, wearing a hat like this? It was a great promotional giveaway for a new company – Glory B Hats.

Many of you also knew me as the owner of Webs Your Way and also as a Web Developer at EWTN. Two years ago I was approached with an offer of a lifetime – to be able to work with my favorite application full time for eMediaSales with James Harrell as a Web Production Manager. It has been a wonderful opportunity, but effective January 1, 2010 I will no longer be with the company. I was let go.

I’m now looking to rebuild my independent consultant/contractor/developer status again. I also need to tweak my resume for those of you who are so inclined to peruse it, please feel free to provide your input. I haven’t updated it a while and know I need to include some of the Social Media tools like Twitter, Facebook and WordPress. I’ve also been working on a list of Project sites and even created one for sites that are no longer with us.

I’ll continue to be a moderator for the Miva Merchant Community Forums. Some of you may have known me as Leslie Nord, some of you are getting to know me as Leslie Kirk. I will be moderating and posting as lesliekirk (my posts as leslienord will still be there too). You can look for me on Twitter as mivaleslie, on AIM as lesliemiva and occasionally on Skype as mivaleslie.

I hope to be able to attend the Miva Merchant Conference 2010 and continue to bring you my photo blogging of the events. It’s going to boil down to being to afford an airline ticket.

In the mean time, while I do have a few Friends & Family type projects to keep my mind occupied, I’d love to hear from you if you are needing any assistance with projects that you might have in the works.

I’m going to take a look at what is getting written to the .htaccess file but that would mean that Word Press is writing the wrong data to the file. Time to get this figured out. I just realized I posted this issue to the WordPress Support Forms TEN months ago:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/242229?replies=5#post-1328306