This entry is all about Twitter, nothing too fancy. Just a general overview and some links.
Twitter is all about social networking and micro-blogging. You can create a status message of up to 140 characters in length which everyone (who is following you) can see. The service is very open and there are many apps and tools for it as well.
Some apps and tools are:
Desktop
Twhirl - A desktop client which enables you to connect and update your Twitter account. So far this one is my favorite as it provides everything there is on Twitter in a convienient accessible way in your desktop.
Firefox Add-on
TwitterFox - Don’t want to navigate away from your page? Easy, just install this in your Firefox browser and you’ll have some of the Twitter power at your hands, or more like in a corner of your window.
Cellphones
TwitterBerry - For all you people that have a Blackberry, this app is for you.Tweetie - And for all you people that have a iPhone, this app is for you.
E-Mail
TwitterMail - Here you provide your Twitter credentials, then they give you an email address which ends in @twittermail.com and then when you send an email to the email provided it updates your Twitter status.
Counter
TwitterCounter - Just like the Feedburner counter, this web tool counts how many followers you have.
Trends
Twist - With this service you can monitor Twitter trends
Now if you’re just starting out and you have no interesting people to follow, these are people I follow and they constantly update with useful stuff. So I suggest following them as well.
- @freshfocus
- @lizstrauss
- @garyvee
- @Ribeezie
- @Garcya
- @lorellewp
So that’s it for today, stay tuned for more articles soon.
We bloggers just NEED to reach some type of zen when we’re about to write an article. I’ve been blogging for a while and I’ve noticed certain things that affect me when I’m writing depending if “x” or “y” thing is there or not. To write an article we have to have the fundamentals, the understanding, and… zen. Writing and publishing an article on your blog can always either give you a step forward, or a step back. We want the forward. So how do we prevent going back?
Let me open your eyes and see that your mind sometimes plays tricks on you and you don’t even realize this. While you’re sitting on your chair there are many factor which can prevent you from doing your work correctly. Work these days is very important, and you want to make sure whatever it is that you do, you do it right. Since this is a blog about the blogosphere let’s pretend this work that you do is, well, blogging.
I will list things to keep in mind and/or to analyze and correct. The point of the list is to reach writing zen.
Factors To Consider & Correct
- Sleep - You need sleep. Now this was a bit obvious right? Well let me go into this furthur. Some people actually don’t sleep. They rely on coffee, products like Redbull, or some other measures. I don’t recommend doing this, sleep helps the mind relax, protects your health, your body to clean itself, and so on. What I do recommend sleeping 6-8 hours, and after than you can have your cup of coffee to be more active. Note: Sleeping in excess doesn’t help, it relaxes you more than you need and then you’ll be tired. So there’s no point in sleeping in order to try and achieve a state of full energy.
- Clean Desk - A clean desk is a happy author. Keeping your desk clean helps remove any stuff that may distract you or anything that may get in the way of typing, looking for materials (like a book you want some reference on) and so on.
- Desk Chair - Huh? What does the chair have to do with anything? Yes, the chair is a factor in this. You need to level your chair in a way that will perfectly balance you and the keyboard and mouse. Not being leveled can sometimes incommode you, you start moving and trying to force yourself to type well. In my honest opinion a chair with wheels is better than a chair with just 4 legs just making you sit there still, making your mobility a limited one.
- Music - This can vary, some people work better with audio, but generally music or other sounds are highly distracting. Although if you select some ambient type of music its more probable that you will relax and thus help you reach writing zen.
- Exercise - The mind works better when oxygen is flows through it. What better way than walking or jogging for 20-30 minutes? This not only helps send oxygen to your brain, but it stimulates alertness and helps for a more healthy body.
- Glasses - Last but not least, glasses are important if you need them. You may think that since the monitor is right in your face glasses are not need, but this is wrong. The computer screen is likely to affect your eyesight, therefore almost everybody that sits long hours in the computer needs glasses (although this can vary). Glasses are proven to help you stay focused, so this is an important factor in our discussion.
There you have it, 6 tips to reach writing zen. It won’t hurt to try them and see if you get results (although trust me you will). You have to set the lazy in you apart and start working seriously, since I take blogging as a serious matter I do these 6 steps daily, and it not only helps me with the writing but in other things in life as well. It’s just a matter of you finding your own type of writing zen.
Good luck, and keep your blogging zen and spirit up.
So I have been looking for ways to better my blogging techniques, skills, and so on. But mainly I’ve been looking for ways to get my name out there and I think I’m gonna go with freelance blogging. I’ve read a lot about the topic so let me enlighten you about this exciting and fun way of blogging.
Freelance blogging is a way you can earn money and build reputation by writing on other peoples blogs instead of your own. Starting out you’ll probably earn the minimum, which should be around $10. As your reputation goes up and your writing skills improve you’ll be earning 10 to 20 times that amount.
First step should be, once you think you’re ready (and your audience as well), then on your blog set up a page stating you are for hire. People that read your blog are probably the first ones that will hire you, seeing as they know you better than the rest of the people that randomly enter your blog and thus have some sort of trust in you.
Second step, apply to online job ads. There are quite a few job boards, but I’m just going to present you with some of the best I know.
But site owners don’t just search for any old blogger, they often ask themselves these questions:
- Can they write original content?
- Does their style suit my audience?
- Will I get more value back than what I payed?
So its your job to fit… the job!
Now, maybe you’re asking yourself, why would they hire me? Here’s a detailed list of why:
- Simple, they want to increase visibility, traffic, and search engine rankings.
- Increase sales and repeat customers
- To supply constant content
- Build credibility and authority
To sum it all up, freelance blogging is basically a great way to build netowork with other site owners, build reputation, and make money. If you’re just starting out, you might not want to charge anything but instead do a guest post. Else, you’ll look like you’re just a money-hungry writer. Which isn’t cool! Just do things patiently and step-by-step and you’ll see how it works out.
Now go search blog directories, search for the most promising blog that suits you and start blogging as if it were your own blog.
Hey everyone. I was surfing Digg and I found out about an article from former Lifehacker contributor Tamar Weinberg who did an entry called The Ultimate Productivity Toolbox for Creative People on Lateral Action (he is now an associate editor over there).
Its a great post for creative and work efficient people who strive toward being able to raise the quality of their work. I’m always searching for web tools on the Internet (Google, I want to thank you for many successful searches). See, everyone needs help once in a while and that is why developers bring you these tools. So you can excel in all your areas of interest. Don’t just depend on yourself, don’t sit there and use whatever tool first comes installed in your operating system. No. Search for tools and use them to your advantage.
Of course, some tools require payment. But this shouldn’t prevent you from moving forward. No, dear reader, I’m not going to say you should download the tool illegally. Support the tools! Anyways, I know some tools are just too pricey, but don’t get mislead by the price. Some tools are very expensive, but at the end they just don’t deliver. Now, the trick is simple. Bookmark the tool you want to buy, study it. How? Search for reviews, ask people that are using the tool, e-mail the product’s creator and/or the company that created it. Its simple really, always be smart when buying on the Internet.
So don’t wait any longer, go find tools that will make your Internet experience an excellent one. 
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We bloggers are always trying to attract people to our websites, and we want them to read all of our posts we’ve worked our behinds off for. But in reality we can’t show them all the posts at once, we can only direct them to do so. So how do we do this? Categories. There are a few people that say this is an unnecessary feature in blogs but it is very much the contrary.
Using categories can help users swim through your blog posts in an organized way. But you have to use them wisely, you can’t just pick any old category for each and every single one of your posts. You have to keep it generic but at the same time a bit narrow, try to find a happy-medium.
Things to keep in mind are:
- Keep It Relevant - Make sure you put yourself in the position of the reader. What would you be looking for if you were looking for ‘x’ post? Making the categories as accurate as possible can mean a potential new reader to your blog.
- Quantity - Keep your categories to a small range, putting too many categories can throw off readers and in effect they might just give up seeing its too much of a hassle for the person to figure out where the content is located.
- Don’t Over-Categorize - Inserting your post into too many categories is not a wise decision. Yes, the post can have more than one topic in it therefore you would like to put it in 2 categories but inserting it in, say, 4 categories looks unprofessional and spammish also. Try to keep your categories organized and with unique content in them.
Now, onto tags. Why use tags at all? Well, we can’t just rely on categories to do all our work for us.
Here are a few ideas for using tags on your blog:
- Use precise tags - Search your posts, highlight the most important words and use them in the tags.
- Tag Cloud - Use a tag cloud, it helps people see which are popular, which aren’t and so on. Also, a tag cloud is easily scan-able so its a breeze for users to find content using the cloud.
These 2 elements are key to blogging. If you can’t let people see all of your fantastic posts, provide a way for them to search for it. Just find the right combination, be precise and find the technique that will lure your readers into searching for content on your blog.
What is good content? This is hard to explain because good content is like asking something like What’s a good movie to watch? What’s a good book to read? It all depends. Each person sees content in a different way and thus, you must find a way to provide direct content while making it wide, general and unique at the same time. Each blogger has his or her way of providing content, but is it any of the latter?
It all depends on your users needs. Know your reader, use tools to find out what they are searching for (this will help you find what your users are looking for) and more importantly relate with them in every single way you can.
Content is a very open word, but let’s narrow it down to a few categories which can guide you to good content:
- Educational - Readers like learning about specific things, provide them with powerful, factual knowledge and not only will you be respected by your intellectual capacity of a given topic but your readers will enjoy your content and thus become loyal readers.
- Humorous/Entertaining - You can use your blog as an entertainment portal. Popular topics like gossip, celebrities, jokes, satires, etc. are getting popular in the blogosphere and people every day enjoy it even more.
- Discussable Content - Today Internet users love to debate online, what better way to provide them their discussion satisfaction by providing them debatable or controversial content? All in good heart of course.
- Informative - Inform your readers, bring them news and updates on what interests them most.
Use the SezWho plugin to check out what blogs are users commenting on. What type of blog is it, and what kind of response they did on the blog.
Another thing to note is to be unique. But how? Well, one step closer to being unique is to find your inner blog character. Find your tone, voice and style. You’ll find that many (at least the dedicated and/or successful ones) bloggers today have uniqueness in all the latter.
Let me tell you a bit about tone, voice and style.
- Style - Your style provides the way you are. In other words your personality. There are a few writing styles you should know about.
- Expository - writing in which the purpose of the author is to inform, explain, describe or define his or her subject to the reader.
- Narration - ‘storytelling’ in the most obvious sense, as found in short stories, novels, drama, and personal accounts; but also intrinsic to any piece of writing in which chronology/time is a factor, as in cause/effect
- Persuasive- the writer tries to persuade the reader to agree to a new belief or to take a course of action.
- Description - the writer uses sensory details to show the reader what is being written about.
- Tone - This is the writer’s attitude towards the topic he or she is writing about. You don’t want to throw off your readers by talking in an arrogant tone but at the same time you want that firmness that keeps your readers captivated and focused on what you’re writing about.
- Voice - This is what distinguishes you from the rest of the bunch. This is your actual writing style and therefore you must come across your obstacles to accomplish this. Having a strong and confident voice can be the thing that keeps your readers loyal or getting left by them.
Bring yourself together, get in character, be confident, follow the tips I have you so you’ll be one step closer to a successful blogger.
So what is this new way of blogging denominated micro-blogging? Allow me to explain. Micro-blogging is a way of blogging where you can post a small update so every contact you have can see. Usually these are limited to around 140 characters so the concept of micro-blogging stays intact. There are many ways to update your micro-blog including by cellphone (mobile web and text messenging), 3rd party programs, or e-mail.
Don’t know of any micro-blogging services? Don’t worry, I’ll post some of the most popular ones here.
- Twitter - Most popular micro-blogging service. With over 2,200,000 accounts registered as of July 2008.
- Plurk - Another popular micro-blogging service. Features a horizontal time-line which organizes your updates in chronological order.
- Posterous - Posterous lets you post things online fast using email. Great for those electronic mail addicts.
- Pownce - With Pownce you can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more.
- Identi.ca - For those who love using open source programs, this is the right service for you.
So why use micro-blogging?
- Its a great way to establish an online network friends.
- Good for sharing, informing, and entertaining whatever you want with people.
- Communicate with your friends through private messages (not all MB’s offer this).
- You can inform yourself by reading what other people post.
- Be creative! You decide how you want your micro-blogging experience benefit you.
To sum it all up, micro-blogging is the excellent way to network all in one place. As simple as that. So select your favorite service (every single one has their ups and downs, pros and cons) and start micro-blogging today.
Hey readers, today I’m going to talk about why you should have a niche blog. Yes I know CBI is not a niche blog, but please do realize CBI is my first serious blog ever. But since I’ve realize I can’t have a lot of topics on one blog I will be starting a blog network soon. But that is a conversation for another time, let’s begin.
First of all, ask yourself these things:
- Do you have what it takes and enough interest to write about your topic? This is important because this will determine how much focus and dedication you will give to your blog’s niche topic.
- Is the topic you chose of interest to people? Of course its your choice on what you want your topic to be on, but if you want to make your blog popular or profitable you have to choose a topic that is of interest to the public.
- Is my topic going to have competitors?Yes, it will. Especially if you chose a popular topic. Make sure you select your topic wisely, because if you don’t have what it takes to back it up the competition may end up defeating you in the blogosphere.
- Can I make money with this topic?Not all blogs fit in the revenue world, you have to select your revenue source wisely. Some blogs work with affiliates, others with Google AdSense, selling direct adspots and so on. It is up to you to select what revenue source will work right for you depending on your niche blog.
Niche blogs are important, you can’t have too much topics on one blog. You can write more on 5 different blogs with 5 different topics than on 1 blog with 5 different topics. Also, if you do the latter, you will overwhelm your readers with too much content at once. If you choose your correct niche blog, you will see increased interest on your blog, and most probably higher traffic too. Just find the correct topic that you’re experienced and have interest with and you’ll have a successful niche blog.
One the next entry, I’ll talk about how to choose your niche blogs with tools from the web.
