How To Make Money From Your Blog Content

Writing a blog can be fun and exciting, but it can also be rewarding. If you do not know how to make money from your blog content then you need to consider implementing the following suggestions in your blog.

Make Money Tip #1 Adsense
Adsense is an incredible service offered by Google to help you make money and help others advertise as well. Basically, with Adsense you choose several ads that blend or complement the information talked about in your blog. Then, when individuals click on the ads that are present in your blog, you receive money! Best of all, Adsense is free to use on your site, so this is a great opportunity to make money without really having to do very much.

Make Money Tip #2 Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs are another great way to make money as well and work on the same premise of Adsense. The web surfer has to click on the affiliate website’s link and when they do so they are redirected from your blog to the link they clicked on. You will get paid affiliate income for the click, and if they make a purchase when they are on that website you will get paid affiliate income again.

Make Money Tip #3 Blog Ads
Blog ads can help you make money as well. Blog ads are not too different from Adsense or Affiliate marketing, but they are in the sense that blog ads connect web surfers with advertisers. Then, when any ad placements are made a commission is exchanged.

Make Money Tip #4 Business Blog
You can use your blog to simply converse about any topic that is important to you, but you can also use your blog as a tool to help you make money. Advertise your business services; make your blog a business blog by focusing at least part of your blog on your business services. This way, you can still communicate whatever it is you need to and make money as well.

When it comes to making money from your blog you can do so easily with these tried and true tricks of the trade. Whether you utilize Adsense, affiliate marketing, blog ads, a business blog, or a combination of all of the above, you will certainly benefit and make money. Don’t delay and start implementing these types of money making strategies in your blog today. Not only will you make money, but your blog will become more popular as well.

by: Evelyn Lim

Source: http://galangdollars.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog.html

Writing Good Blogs

There's a lot of blogs out there on the Web, most of which don't entice one to go back regularly to read updates. What is missing from these on-line journals that would essentially make them 'good' blogs? Well, the answers in life usually come down to simplicities. So let's look at the problem like we were children. Children don't complicate life with miscellaneous information, and when they speak they tell you straight to the point exactly how they feel and think about a subject. First of all, we should ask the questions," Why do blogs exist? And what are they here for?" Well, in an ideal world 'good' blogs would help people connect, sharing knowledge and feelings about issues in life. As they are journals written by individuals we would hope that they'd be readable and open to comment by all other people, not just a select group of friends. The key is speaking in a way that is understandable by the masses, get rid of acronyms and local slang that only few will comprehend. Keep the sentences grammatically simple and generally short and concise. Try to write in your blog as often as possible because if people enjoy reading your thoughts and ideas they'll want to communicate or at least be filled in regularly on 'your world'. Ask questions, comment on other blogs of similar content, start communities with others you've never met, based on your interests. Keep focused; if your blog is about thoughts on war and peace, keep your thoughts on the latest movie and how hungry you are for somewhere else. The idea is to incite intelligent communication so that in time our collective stockpile of knowledge and wisdom will gradually grow like a tree in fertile soil. I think of most importance is the fact that you want this journal to be 'good' reading. Of course we all have ideas about what genres and styles we like, but writing from your heart and soul is imperative for the connection with others that you're looking for. Share yourself; don't hide behind walls of fear of ridicule and judgment. In real life relationships trust, respect, intimacy, and unity are all necessary for a bond to form. It's the same in the 'virtual' world; people want to hear from real people-not just one-sided, highly opinionated arguments from egos that don't want to hear the 'other side of the coin'. Now, in my last article I really tore apart most writers out there, and here I'm giving some pretty complex ideas on how to fix the problem of 'bad' writing. In my next article I'll attempt to go back to the simple basics of how to write for beginners. I hope I haven't come across as too judgmental, I just truly believe the 'blog world' could become a real asset to humanity, and at the moment it's missing the mark. Ideas about sentence structure, grammar, paragraphing, using a thesaurus (varying terms used so as not to sound repetitive), whether or not your blog is suitable for a personal or professional approach, are all important to creating a simple and enjoyable read for the blogging visitor. If you are a beginner, please check out my next article on the basics.
By : Jesse S. Somer

Source: http://galangdollars.blogspot.com/2008/04/writing-good-blogs.html

13 Steps to Successful Blogging

Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home or Blogger. Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service is, in the case your blog doesn't become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your "move". Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved" and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family...you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the "About the Author" passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines is bound to find your site in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accounts the better. You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture of the Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" and the blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

source: http://galangdollars.blogspot.com/2008/04/13-steps-to-successful-blogging.html

Introduction to Blogging for money..

I had been blogging for quite some time now. Recently I explored the options for earning through blogging, read a lot of articles on it and tried out few options.
Some worked good for me, some didn't.

This blog is meant to share my ideas and experiences along with relevant articles on blogging for money. If you have any suggestion or thoughts to share then feel free to drop a mail at submit4blog@gmail.com

BlogDesk - free software for Blog writing and publishing

Sometimes, blog post preparation for publishing takes more time than post generation. It is not suppose to be like that. You should delegate as much responsibilities for the post publishing to your secretary (if you have one), or software.

BlogDesk is an offline software client that assists you in comfortable writing and easy publishing new posts to your blog.

Software Features:
* The main feature - it is totally free to use.

* Software is optimized for the following blogging platforms: WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity, and ExpressionEngine.

* Insert images directly with WYSIWYG editor, edit them with built-in ImageWizard, and even create linked thumbnails.

* Easily insert and edit links. If you link to local files (such as MP3 or PDF), BlogDesk will automatically upload them to your blog file storage.

* For multi-language blogging, you got 14 Dictionaries to conduct spell checking.

* Interesting feature of Frequently Used Phrases saves time on typing of often used phrases, sentences, acronyms or complex formulations.

* Define and insert tags instead of retyping them with Tags-Generator.

* Publish you post simultaneously to multiple blogs with one click.

* Keep your ideas and notes for the future posts in the convenience of Notebook, where you are able to create multiple entries under multiple categories.

Download the software from authors’s Web Site: http://www.blogdesk.org/en/index.htm
P.S. The only thing, I do not like in this software - is that it does not support Blogger.

Bringing more traffic to your blog - April 25, 2008 - 4th Ed.





Welcome to the Fourth, April 25, 2008 edition of "Bringing more traffic to your blog" Blog Carnival. Some statistics: Submitted Articles - 92. Published Articles - 48. I want to thank all the authors contributing to the issue. Some articles were excluded from the review, since their topic of discussion did not match the main target of the carnival. I am sorry, that not all submissions were accepted, as some of the excluded articles carried a significant value.

Mark Riffey presents Be the Google of your market niche posted at Business is Personal.

Matthew Paulson presents Writers: Make $1000 a Month Through Associated Content » American Small Business News posted at American Entrepreneurship.

Praveen presents Importance of Testing Websites posted at My Simple Trading System.

Raymond Le Blanc presents 5 Great Reasons to Start a Blog posted at Internet Business.

Ian Richardson presents EzyFileZipper is now available. posted at Make Everything EzyAs123, saying, "Use free software giveaways to attract more traffic to your blog. EzyFileZipper is available and can help."

Steve Oliphant presents Discover how to accept all major credit cards on your website with these simple steps. posted at Steve Oliphant’s Musings.

Sabrina Jefferson presents Internet Marketing Newbie Action Plan posted at Sabrina Jefferson.

Sarah Paine presents Products for Dummies posted at Sarah Paine.

Bill Mcintosh presents Submitting To BlogCatalog: Is it worth it? posted at Bill McIntosh.

Shaun Connell presents Write Less, Blog More posted at Work at Home, saying, "Get more traffic to your blog by ... blogging less."

Stephen Pierce presents YouTube?s Amazing Overlooked Traffic Secret? REVEALED! posted at DTAlpha TalkBack with Stephen Pierce.

Brian Terry presents 4 Steps To A Big Selling Website posted at Big Selling Website Design.

James Lee presents 9 Non Internet Marketing Sites to Get the Creative Juices Flowing, the Blood Stirring, and the Ideas Percolating posted at Online Business Freedom.

George Tzenos presents 7 Tips to Drive Traffic To Your Blog posted at Traffic2MyPage Blog.

Fred Black presents Google WebMaster Tools posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..

R.Pettinger presents Simple Tip for More Traffic posted at Net Writing, saying, "Making use of valuable keyword subheadings is a powerful, but simple way to increase traffic"

Adie Dornom presents 28 Free Marketing Tools I Couldn’t Live Without - Part I posted at Lee McIntyre’s Honest Marketing Blog.

Adie Dornom presents Do You Need A Squeeze Page For Your Business? posted at Lee McIntyre’s Honest Marketing Blog.

Adie Dornom presents Not Just List Building posted at Lee McIntyre’s Honest Marketing Blog.

George Tzenos presents Viral Marketing Methods and Applications posted at Traffic2MyPage Blog.

Les Dysom presents Subscribers and Sales posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Robert Phillips presents 3 Simple Ways to Increase Blog Traffic posted at How to Create a DVD without Spending a Dime.

Vandelay Website Design presents Getting Social Media Votes posted at Traffikd, saying, "Social media is a great way to bring traffic to your blog. Here are some tips for getting more votes."

Jeremy Neal presents 10 Things I’ve Learned about Professional Blogging posted at Lead Inspectors.

John Landells presents 3 Tactics Every Affiliate Marketer Needs to Know posted at John’s Tech Blog.

Cindy King presents How Do Your Foreign Prospects Use Their Search Engines posted at Cindy King.

Deborah Dera presents Blog Technology: The MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer posted at The Rhythm of Write, saying, "The MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer is an excellent plug-in designed to help bloggers NOT get labeled as spammers while driving more traffic to their blogs."

Woody Maxim presents Traffic Questions Answered posted at Woody Maxim.

seanjames presents Practical Jokes, Blogging Tips, Adsense, Insurance and Phew!!: How to Get Blog Traffic... posted at Practical Jokes, Blogging Tips, Adsense, Insurance and Phew!!, saying, "Please read and post some comments. thank you"

Bill Mcintosh presents Should You Integrate Feedburner and Aweber? posted at Bill McIntosh.

Sam Carrara presents My Six Figure Affiliate Check posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Wakish presents Wonderful Blogging Ideas - How To Breed Them In Your Garden? => PART 1 Wakish Wonderz posted at Wakish Wonderz.

Keith_R presents yourli.st WordPress Plugin posted at skillzdesign.com, saying, "This is a WordPress plugin which enables your readers to send e-mail reminders regarding article posts utilizing the free, no-registration-required YourLi.st service."

Sarah Paine presents Automate Site Content with Quality Articles posted at Sarah Paine.

Gley Yahya presents What Link Popularity Can Do For Your Business? posted at Work At Home Start Up Guide, saying, "You can do all what you want to improve your website or blog rankings, select the best keywords for your subject theme, create as many pages full of content as you want and develop a search-engine friendly navigation scheme. But without a well-planned link-development campaign, most search engines and especially MSN won’t rank your blog high at their search results."

Kelly Ifrah presents Adding The Category Description To The Category Page posted at OnTheNetDollars.com.

Cindy King presents Knowing How Your Foreign Prospects Use Their Search Engines Can Get You More International Clients posted at Get International Clients.

James DeLelys presents WORDSBlog » MONEY ONLINE posted at Author James DeLelys.

Terry Dean presents Are You A Prolific Product Developer? posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Michael Bass presents Wordpress SEO and Google Adsense posted at Debt Prison, saying, "I’ve used Wordpress for about 6 months now and thought I would share my experience with SEO, duplicate content, google adsense, google analytics, and partial vs. full feeds."

Terry Dean presents Traffic And Conversion posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Brian Terry presents The Results Are In? posted at Big Selling Website Design.

James Lee presents The Seduction Game… of Marketing posted at Online Business Freedom.

the baglady presents What Makes a Blog Article Popular? posted at xynny.

Matthew Paulson presents How to Turn Your Blog into a Business posted at American Entrepreneurship.

Craig Andrews presents Membership Has Its Privileges posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.

Kevin presents 101 Internet Traffic Generation Strategies - Part 1 posted at Trafficteria.com Blog Optimization.

Mert Erkal presents How I Quadrupled My Blog’s Traffic In 3 Months posted at www.searchforblogging.com, saying, "Thanks for this opportunity! Cheers, Mert Erkal"

Michael Bass presents Stumbleupon.com Brought Me 60,000 Hits in 60 days posted at Debt Prison, saying, "Here is a screen shot from Google analytics showing the amount of web traffic I’ve had to this post within 60 days of posting. On February 25 it had over 7,700 views."


That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of bringing more traffic to your blog using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Create your own Internet Radio Station with MediaMaster

MediaMaster is offering you unlimited network web space, where you can store all you audio tracks and access them from any computer connected to Internet or from a streaming player.

Once your tracks are uploaded, you can create and manage playlists, rate individual songs, and share your music with others with embeddable widgets for blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles.

You can even create your own streaming network radio station on the basis of your collection, and allow visitors of your personal blog or your profile on social networking sites to listen it. You have a complete control over the musical tracks that you would like to share with your virtual friends.

You should not be worried about copyright issues as neither the widget or radio subscriptions actually give people copies of your music, it's all streamed. And, there's no way for them to actually download the music.



MediaMaster

If the proposal sounds interesting, sign in: http://www.mediamaster.com/

For those who prefer a visual presentation, I am attaching a small video clip:

It should be cool to give your blog visitors one more reason to visit your site!

Baywords: censorship-free blogging community from Pirate Bay!

If you know, what torrent means, most likely, you are familiar with Pirate Bay, one of the biggest BitTorrent trackers, the online file sharing community, distributes torrents that not always point to licensed copies of copyrighted material. In some countries, offering such torrents might be illegal as copyright violations, but in Sweden, where company operates, the torrent trackers are not a subject of legal prosecution.

Pirate Bay recently came to the community focus in relation with the music industry lobby group - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) - going to court to force Danish ISP Tele2 blocking access to the enemy website accusing it of aiding and abetting copyright infringement. In return, Pirate Bay is seeking damages from IFPI for blocking access to its website; even thou the block generating a very limited negative effect on the company popularity and operations.

Devoted to the free information flow on Internet, The Pirate Bay has established an uncensored image-hosting site call BayIMG and is planning to open an uncensored video-hosting community. While the image-hosting is censorship free, host kindly requests not to put porn images on it, using available alternative services instead.

As logical extension of its policy, Pirate Bay has launched a blogging service where bloggers won’t have to fear censorship, Baywords (http://baywords.com/), based on the Wordpress blogging platform.

The Pirate Bay team explains:

“We’re proud to present a new service - baywords.com. Because of the need of freedom of speech and secure hosting facility of the words being said we could not agree to how people behave towards bloggers. Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don’t break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it”.

For people who are considering moving their Wordpress or Blogger account over to Baywords, importing is pretty straightforward and compatible with all the popular blog platforms.

Additional Reading:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/piratebay_sues_music_industry/

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9920714-7.html?tag=nefd.top

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/04/16/pirate-bay-opens-uncensored-blogging-service

http://torrentfreak.com/baywords-pirate-bay-blog-080416/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/the-pirate-bay-launches-uncensored-blogging-service/

Blog to Death! Is Blogging a Health Hazard?

Blogs are a curious phenomenon. Like modern poetry, they have more writers than readers…those who have lost their health in their determination to sate their readers’ interest are, after their fashion, martyrs to a worthy cause.

Telegraph

TubeImage.com

Three well-known tech bloggers have had heart attacks since December, and a story in the New York Times suggests that the high stress of blogging may be a cause. Many obsessive bloggers complain of weight fluctuation, insomnia and exhaustion. "There is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic," said the newspaper. "But friends and family of the deceased ... say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style."


Even amateur and occasional bloggers know what I mean. The urgency to express an original thought, to think it over, and to post it first, before everyone else, is a permanent driver. There is and permanent strain to find interesting topics of discussion and appealing ideas that will resonate with readers. Most important, it is the constant pressure to drive page views that is burdensome.


It is impossible, of course, to know whether blogging played a role in the heart attacks of bloggers Russell Shaw, of ZDNet, Marc Orchant of blognation, and Om Malik. “The longstanding observation that rates of coronary heart disease vary markedly among occupations-more than can be accounted for by conventional risk factors for coronary heart disease-has generated a quest for specific components of work that might be of aetiological importance,” as a review of the literature on psychosocial factors and cardiovascular disease put it in the British Medical Journal a few years back.


So, can blogging be included in the high-risk occupations list? I doubt so. Quoting Larry Dignan, who also has been interviewed for the Times story, but did not support the cases generalization outlook, so his opinion was not counted: “Yes, blogging is stressful. Yes, it can be insane. But is it any worse than being a corporate lawyer? How many of those folks dropped in the last six months? How about mortgage brokers? Hedge fund traders? FBI agents? Any job where you gnash your teeth together? We write for a living, yap all day and don’t have to wear suits. You could do worse than blogging”.


So, it is opinion of the professional blogger, whose financial state depends on the blog popularity. For most of you, it is just mostly fun, and slightly income. Do not get obsessed by blogging, do not let it to hook you up. There is life in the Real World as well. Look around! Your friends and families need you even more than your readers! Do not Blog to Death!


Sources and additional reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/04/blogging_as_fas.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/07/dl0703.xml

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/04/07/can-blogging-kill-you-we-dont-think-so/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8389

How to Add Page Elements to Blogger Header

Adding page Elements to Blogger Blogs

When you create a Blogger Blog the template comes with a pre-defined number of page elements. If you would like to increase the number the following step by step tutorial will show you how. This lesson will deal with adding more Page Elements to the Header section of your Blogger Template.

Update Oct 2008 - Since this post was written Blogger has changed the name "Element" to "Widget". Don't be confused as "widget" is the same thing as "element".

Always download a backup before making changes.

The screenshot below shows a standard Blogger Minima Template.

Click all images to enlarge.



As you can see there is only one element available for the Header section on top.

This is how you can add more.

Under "layout" click "Edit HTML".

Click the "Expand Widget Template" Box.



Scroll down until you come to the section that looks like this;



As you can see the "maxwidget" is set to 1 - this means that there is only one widget (element) available for use in the Header. You can change this to whatever amount you like. I am going to change it to 3.

After making the change be sure to change the "showaddelement" to "yes" so that you will see the option to add another element on the "layout" page.




Click "Save Template" and you are done.

Your "Layout" - "Page Elements" page should now look like this.



And that is how you can add or modify the page elements in Blogger. I will show you how to do this with the other sections in future posts but you may want to try it on your own. The process is the same for all the sections - Main Wrapper, Sidebar Wrapper and Footer.

Cheers,

Griz

Be carefull: Blogging might be dangerous!


Twenty-two-year-old Lisa called in sick one Friday afternoon. But she wasn’t really sick. She was planning to start the weekend early by going to the beach with her friends. Days later, she posted pictures of the outing on her blog. Someone in her office found the link. Soon, she was called to her boss’ office. She didn’t lose her job, but she got into a lot of trouble.
Eighteen-year-old Anne enjoys an independent life. Both parents are in the US. She blogged freely about her misadventures—drunken nights out, failed tests, her penchant for bad boys. She thought her blog was being read only by her friends.
But a concerned relative sent the link to her parents who immediately jumped to action, calling Anne up and threatening to fly her to the US where she could be put under their watch. Anne is still in the country but has deleted her blog.
The two girls have experienced blog backfire. Things they posted online ended up working against them.
Make sure it doesn’t happen to you, too. Here are some things to think about when you blog.
1. You don’t know who is reading your page.
Unless your entries are locked and you have total control over who has access to them, you’re never sure who is reading your entries. Your parents, your teachers—they’re all just a google search away from unlocking your deepest thoughts.
2. What you post can make or break your career.
While some people have gotten book deals after building a huge blog readership, most bloggers need to realize that employers have started using Google searches as a tool to scan job applicants.
3. Will your post hurt anyone?
It is easy to vent online your anger with a friend or a family member. But let the anger simmer before hitting the “publish” button. Sleep on it, think it over because once it’s online, it will not be easy to get rid of—not with the cache features of online searches.
4. Can your entries be lifted and used against you?
Your blog entries may be lifted anytime by anyone who knows how to highlight and press Ctrl and C. Your photos may be stolen as easily and defaced, like some have been on gossip blogs. It may be smart to add javascript that prevents readers from right-clicking on your page. It’s not total protection, but it may save you from the less-techie lurkers.
5. Will your entries attract the wrong kind of people?
Most blog readers are kind. They leave comments, they send you e-mails and sometimes, you even find people you can be friends with. But some of the more popular bloggers have had problems with blog stalkers. High internet traffic is a good thing, but not when it leads to scary encounters.
Source:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/you/blogaddicts/view/20080401-127751/Yes-blogs-can-ruin-your-life

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