Sueblimely - Discovering Blogging

This project provided a refreshing and relaxing break for me, as I allowed myself to browse freely rather than concentrate purely on the type of sites I would normally visit for research purposes. It was hard to restrict my list to five sites that interested me but here they are - not in any particular order;

• The Happiness Project - by Gretchen Rubin, who writes about her quest to be happier by a year of "test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study" she could find including those of Aristotle, St. Therese,Martin Seligman and Oprah.


• Tech Burrow by Hisham Hamdan; a young man from Lebanon who was recently introduced to blogging by a teacher. He writes about technology and shows much promise.


• Psych Matters: Reflections of a Psychology Tutor by Charmayne Paul. It was Charmayne's 'About Me' description that prompted me to go on and read her blog. urban nomad, scholar, merry prankster.


• Life Clever shares tips that "make life a little easier" - design advice, productivity tips and hacks software reviews.


• Cognitive Daily reports on fascinating developments in cognition from the most respected scientists in the field.

The BlogDay website

On Technorati

Please let me know if you have taken part so that I can come and take a look at your recommendations.

I am going to talk today about the value for bloggers of actively participating in forums.

I can hear you groaning now as you think that there is enough to do, peripheral to your actual blogging, without adding another element to your work load. Do not dismiss the idea out of hand though, remember moderation is the key. If you take time out to work out which blogging promotion tools and resources are the most useful to you and ditch the rest, then adding a forum or two to your 'to do' list will not be quite so bad.

You may have noticed that I have been going through a culling process myself; my sidebar is shorter and the page is loading faster.

Why use Forums?

Participating in forums is a valuable means of getting you and your blog known as well as a great source of information, tips and help; whatever your blog topic.

Promoting yourself and your blog:

• Show your site off - there are often sub forum topics specifically for posting your site details.
  

• Find people interested in your blog topic.


• Answer and post forum questions, show your expertise and get yourself known.


• Participate in link exchanges


• Develop contacts

Learning and research

• Ask for reviews and feedback on your blog


• Get advice, tips and information


• Find templates and template Help


• Find scripts, blog add-ins and coding help


• Tutorials - offered by some forums


• Ask questions and/or find answers.


• Learn about the latest news applicable to your topic

Other Uses

• Learn about making money online and blog marketing.


• Making friends and participating in general chat for leisure purposesm


• Learn about video blogging and podcasting.
  

Forums related to Blogging

Here is a list of just some of the blogging forums I have come across myself or had recommended to me:

There are a multitude of forums out there so it is a matter of having a look round and working out which ones would be the more valuable for you and your blog. Most forums allow you to read posts without registering but usually require you to register to post. You can have a look round before you decide whether or not to join up. You could also ask other blogging friends what they use or look for lists of recommendations similar to the list above.

Please let me know if you know of any forums that you find useful or interesting as I am planning to compile a directory listing.

I find it really encouraging to have so many comments and I thank all the following for their input and kind words.

Bloggers tend to either love 'em or hate 'em but if you are in the first group here is a new site for you. Fancy Gems contains quite a few new unusual fun widgets such as a lava lamp, fancy text and banner generators.

Not really having use for more widgets I thought I would give one of the more frivolous items a go, The Secret Message Scratcher.

Riddle
What does man love more than life?
Fear more than death or mortal strife?
What do the poor have, what the rich require,
And what contented men desire?
What does the miser spend, the spendthrift save,
And all men carry to their graves?

Answer



Get Your Own Scratch

Widgets, sueblimely alexa

I have diverted away from blogging perhaps too much this week but it is Sunday and now my self allotted time to change hats and write my SSS - Sueblimely's Silly Sunday post.

Today I would like to share with you some of the more unusual items available for purchase online.

How about commemorating a pregnancy with a 'Belly of Love' cast kit.

I could not help but wonder if the kits are cheaper earlier in a pregnancy?

This product amazed me - how clever:

Apparently the effect is achieved due to the viscosity of the different colors. Various clan tartans are available for order.

You know I almost believed it until I saw the small print "One Coat 2.5 litre tartan paint, matt finish, low odour, washable. Contains Haggis"

The web site title should have been enough of a give away. Silly Jokes, Joke and Party Shop

Flush with the excitement of finding such a novelty I decided to concentrate on similar sites and came across Archie McPhee. I am so tempted to buy these BooBoo Kiss Bandages. I wonder what Sigmund Freud would have had to say about this.

He would probably say as he often did:

"Sometimes a lollipop is just a lollipop."

If your id is not satisfied with the image you can buy these mouth watering psychologists on sticks here

(Wikipedia says that Sigmund Freud was always "head of his class").

Thanks to Malkie whose comment on my last post on Google Adsense, led me to his site and the discovery of Adsense keyword finder tools. You saved me some research time, Malkie.

• Google Keyword Tool
  
  
• Technobloggie Keyword Tool

I am going to tell you no more about them as I did not find these tools myself. Instead I will refer you to Malkie's post:

Some of you may be interested in Malkie's latest post which includes a video of Wanda Nara. (I thought I would do a little name dropping as part of my experiment on keywords on my adsense ads).

**What a silly place to put that sentence - many male readers - and some female - have probably hightailed it out of here by now.

Traffic blogging tip - Adnan, Blogtrepreneur, tells me I must not include so many outbound links in my posts as they take people away from my own blog.

Traffic blogging tip 2 - please do as Adnan suggests, don't do as I do.

Maybe I should not disclose where I find details of the blog tools I mention. I could quite easily have said here that I merely discovered two keyword tools and no one would be any wiser. I do not think it particularly fair that someone has taken the time and trouble to research without giving them credit for it. I spend many hours researching and I know I would not like others to take advantage of it.

What do you think? Am I right with my maybe strict blog ethics or silly for including so many outbound links and sending people away from my site (maybe never to return)?

I think if I can make my content interesting enough readers will return anyway and I will gain more - My reader levels are slowly rising and number of comments increasing - making me Sueblimely content.

**Some of you may be interested in Malkie's latest post which includes a video of Wanda Nara. (I thought I would do a little name dropping as part of my experiment on keywords on my adsense ads and wonder if that is one of the reasons Malkie did the post too?).

Anyone still here? In case you are, Wanda is an Argentinian model who is recently found fame for revealing more than clothes. I am not going to use the three letter word that rhymes with hex - the adsense ads that appear may make me blush - much like the spam emails that I have recently been receiving.

I am no prude but unsolicited emails which contain graphic images really offend me, especially the thought of children receiving them. I have turned off images showing by default and set up yet more word filters but need to do more research on the issue to more reliably get rid of this latest email nastiness. Any ideas would be very gratefully accepted.

I often find blogs of interest that I would really like to post about but doing so would take me totally off topic. I have also been told that spreading my link love too much, as I have a tendency to do, is likely to take too many readers from my own site.

As I do enjoy giving credit where credit is due I thought that taking part in BlogDay 2007 would; given me a wonderful excuse to get round both issues. BlogDay is aimed at bringing bloggers together with bloggers in other countries and other areas of interest.

To take part in the contest on 31st August you must:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
   

1. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007


2. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs


3. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and


4. Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2007and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org

What a great way of making contact with bloggers you would not normally come across and reading about subjects you don't normally make the time for, as well as helping promote sites that are worthy of notice.

I am going to enjoy the time of browsing freely. Please let me know if you are taking part and I can then have a look at the sites you recommend too.

I just made a blogging boo boo and want to say sorry to Google Adsense. Google must take part of the blame though.

I just committed the sin of clicking one one of my own Google Ads - because it caught my interest. I wrote a post on laughter therapy a couple of weeks ago and clever Google Adsense Bot (I am just assuming there must be one) "read" this post and delivered an ad for a laughter therapy session taking place in my home town of Melbourne. Very clever really.



I included the image because it made me smile and I thought it may do the same for you.

I think I may do an experiment and include some words I would not normally use, to see if they get picked up on by Adsense. It is not that I think I will make any money out of adsense but I am now curious as to how responsive it is to my content.

Google - you can have my $0.00000000000001 adsense payment back if you want it. In the future if I see anything of interest on there I will just copy the link and go to it from the browser rather than from this blog.

I don't think it is my day - I just discovered that my sidebar has lost my treasured rocking girl blogger badge. If anyone sees it please send it back via Google - they know where to find me!! (sometimes I wonder what this "big brother" doesn't know about me).

Blog Catalog has set bloggers a new and very worthwhile challenge - to be part of the largest group of bloggers ever to blog on the same day about an important cause.

On September 27th you are asked to write a post about putting an end to abuse - there are unfortunately many forms of abuse in this world. The specific topic is left up to you to decide on so blog about an aspect of abuse that you feel the most passionately about or blog about abuse in general - please make an effort to take part.

You can read more about this on the Blogcatalog blog at:

I have spent a lot of time this week pondering the direction in which I want my blog to go but I will talk of this some other day. As it is "Sueblimely Silly Sunday" time again I will instead let you have a peek into the less serious side of these thoughts. If I don't keep my mind focused it tends to wander off in all sorts of wild and wonderful and absolutely silly directions. Do I hear you saying 'keep taking the tablets dear"?

The main focus of my more deep and meaningful thoughts was the social psychological aspects of blogging and the need it fills in today's society. I will bore you with all this in the near future, when I have had time to do more research - to make sure I am not talking a lot of bull. It is over 20 years since I formally studied the Social Sciences and although my interest in the subject has not waned I tend to get my Durkheims and Mazlo's confused. Weber has become just a type of BBQ and Wertheimer a vacuum cleaner. (I did not think a little name dropping would go astray here)

Here is a lighter look at how blogging mirrors real life.

Blogging (B) versus a business meeting (BM):

BM - This is an important issue and I am going to try my hardest to contribute; to help achieve the best outcome.
B - I am going to make an effort to leave a well thought out comment on this post and make a valuable contribution.

BM - I must get my word in here to show that I know my subject/have done enough preparation.
B - I need to leave a comment here just so that readers may come visit my blog.

BM - I want a chance of that promotion - work will be much more satisfying /I really need the extra cash. I will make a real effort to contribute to get noticed.
B - I will work hard and comment on as many blogs as I can to the best of my ability.

BM - I have a real need to be heard, my opinions just must be aired. I will end up trying to dominate the meeting as usual.
B - My ego is even bigger than my space, other ego, me.com and facebook combined. I will give my opinion anywhere and everywhere I can.

BM - I have strong ambitions to succeed - work is my life/money is my motivator. I will agree with anyone in this meeting who can help me reach my goals. I don't care how brown my nose gets.
B -I want to be on the 'A' List. John Chow is my hero. I will comment profusely after much thought but only on blogs that will help me reach my goal / I call it 'social' networking but a blogger is really just an affiliate in the making. I had better work out which bloggers have the best potential downline.

BM - not another b... meeting - I suppose I had better say something, the less the better.
B - Comment - "Nice post"

BM - I want to succeed but am not sure how to go about it/ I can't be bothered to make the effort required. I will say as little as possible.
B - Comment - "Nice post - visit my blog at www...."

BM - I will do anything and say anything that will help me succeed (however obvious and unethical it appears to others).
B - Spam is my friend. I will leave the same comment on as many blogs as I have the time to visit. Better still I will use a spambot.

Please tune in for more silliness next week. I have lots to say and, think my intelligent contributions to the blogging world of great value. (please don't laugh so loudly at that, I heard you from here and my ego is fragile!). I need the readers (boy do I need the readers), my adsense account balance won't buy me a sip of water let alone a coffee or a beer. My bank manager wishes my surname was Chow or even Cow.

Coming up next in this series of posts -

101 sure fire ways to bring readers to your blog

When I say 'next' that may not mean next week as I have only made up 12 ways as yet.

Many thanks to to those who have recently lingered here a while to read and to those who were kind enough to take the time to comment.

A special mention to Erica from Mom's Journal who took me up on my Altruistic Link Love Challenge to create a link to a cause close to her heart. Erica chose ACLU. I am not going to say what the letters stand for so that you go take a peek for yourselves - (there is method in my madness - although some may say there is madness in my methods)

Thanks to Colin - Life for leaving the most comments.

• Colin - Life
• Erica - Mom's Journal
• Kuanyin - Who's Yo Mama
• Sandy Carlson writing in faith
• Anna - Wealth of Women/blog
• R'aquel - aka r'aquel
• Michelle Gartner - Smart Not Cheap
• Saboma - Maryannasville
• Bobby Griffin - Fechr
• Lisa - Lisa Reviews
• Deborah - Life in the Fast Lane
• Pearl - Interesting Observations

commenting, I-follow, sueblimely alexa

I will say at the outset that I am partly writing this post to enter the blogLOUDER - Blog Consulting Competition on the Blogtrepreneur site. However the consultation services offered by Blogtepreneur are enticing and if you want to spend some cash to save time and effort and promote your blog more effectively then this may be for you.

Services offered by blogLouder include helping bloggers:

• Increase RSS subscribership
• Increase blogging income
• Build a rock-solid community and increasing comments on your blog
• Raise traffic levels through creative writing

This advice comes via two main packages:

• Blog Consulting package - a live chat with me via Instant Messenger for 1 hour ($60) or 30 minute ($40) slots, and a
• Blog Review package - ($95) a full critique of your site, which you can choose to have published on Blogtrepreneur, is sent to you by email.

When I say this will save you time and effort, I am referring to the work you need to put in yourself to research the best way to promote your blog. If you are not an expert on the subject, a lot of this time may also be wasted by going down the wrong track. After a consultation you will still have to carry out the tasks recommended but, in theory, these should be fruitful.

I am not willing to recommend anything just for the sake of competitions or links. The best way I could think of to find out if this service may be of use was to research how successful Adnan, who offers the services, has been in promoting his own blog.

An Interview with Adnan from Blogtrepreneur

Oh dear, my figures do not look at all good compared to Adnan's. It certainly looks as if he knows what he is doing.

The contest: blogLOUDER - Blog Consulting Competition

The Prizes:

The winner of the contest will receive either a full Blog Review worth $95 or 1 hour of Blog Consulting time worth $60 - they choose!

2 runners up will win 30 minutes of Blog Consulting time worth $40 each.

Kuanyin is running an unusual sort of contest on her blog 'Who's Yo Mama'.

To be in the running for a $50 Amazon voucher all you need to do is subscribe to the blog, watch a music video clip and post a comment describing what memories or feelings the music creates for you.

To enter the competition head on over to this post:

It is recommended that bloggers post regularly and frequently to develop and maintain their readership. This can create a lot of pressure on blog authors, especially if the time available for blogging is limited, you have a lot of research to do or you simply do not have the quantity of ideas or material to do so.

In these sort of situations frequent regular posting can be counter productive:

• The quality of your riting may not be up to your best standard. (Not to mention the attention to detail - e.g. spelling!)


• It may be obvious that not enough research has been carried out.


• You do not allow enough time for ideas to form fully and your content reflects this. (er - now what was I going to say next)


• You are forced to neglect other aspects of blogging. (commenting, replying to your comments etc). I tend to be an offender here - sorry.


• You can start to lose interest because you are not enjoying blogging and you are less than satisfied with not satisfied with your content.


• Readership actually declines.

What do you do?

The simple answer of course is to post less frequently and concentrate on quality rather than quantity. If you now blog daily change this to every other day and so on.

If you think your frequency of posting is too low and do not want to reduce it even more, there are a few ways to keep your posting levels up while still reducing your time commitment.

• If you have the time or inspiration to create a few posts at once, do not publish them all on the same day. Publish them one at a time over a one week or two week period.
  


• Split longer articles into two or more posts and publish them on different days. Identify these posts by giving them common titles. I have do so in this series of posts which start with Blogging Stress. (I thankfully resisted the urge to create an acroynm as I did with my SSS posts just realizing what the letters may have been interpreted as - BS)This is also a valuable way of bringing readers back to your blog - to find out the conclusion to your post.
  


• Work out which of your topics or posts are the most popular and consider changing the focus of your blog to concentrate more on these. It is likely that these posts are the ones that interest you the most too and are less likely to be a chore to write.
  


• Don't attempt to create a whole blogosphere in one blog. Try to make your blog unique. Do not create long posts about topics that have been covered elsewhere, unless you are bringing a new perspective to the subject.
  


• You may feel the need to post about everything related to your blog's topic, to provide a comprehensive resource for your readers. You can do still do this but save time by using what is already available online.
  
  
  
  • Link to other posts/blogs with a short introduction rather than writing a full article yourself; adding your own points if necessary.
  
  
  • Add useful resources to a sidebar blogroll.
  
  
  • Post a reading list from time to time.
    

  If you are concerned about sending readers away from your blog to another site, keep in mind the value of linking and developing contacts with other blog authors.
  

• Don't worry about adding graphics to your posts. They do add interest to a blog's appearance but can take up a disproportionate amount of time. Adding graphics to some but not all posts can be as effective. I enjoy dabbling with photoshop so creating graphics is a leisure activity for me; but I only add them to a few posts.
  
  
• Conversely do add graphics in some circumstances. Jazz up a post that is short on content. Better to do this than pad it out with less useful text. Use images to explain subjects you are finding hard to describe. Don't spend a lot of time on the images and use open source/royalty free images rather than creating your own.
  

I have run out of ideas now and am not going to pad this out further. I can always revisit the topic later on to add other relevant points and hopefully receive some other ideas from those that comment on the post. (Blatant hint/plea.)

To conclude.
Concentrating on quality rather than quantity of posting can save you time as well as raising the standard of your blog.

If you don't find these at all funny you could always try to laugh.. Laughter, even for no reason at all, is meant to have healing powers over mind and body.

Weekly laughter classes are held at a community hall not far from where I live. I thought I would check online to see if laughter therapy was becoming popular. It certainly looks that way.

2007 Laughter Yoga Cruise (It is beyond my comprehension how anyone can find contorting themselves into unnatural positions any way amusing. *Yoga classes did help me though. I was suffering badly from nerves and had a long term problem with finger nail biting. I no longer need to wear gloves to hide my embarrassment. No one seems to notice that I don't wear open toe shoes any more.*

I think Laughter Mystery Flights would be more fun than a cruise (although I am not sure if they would take off).

If this does not appeal to you, how about making others laugh, you may find it catching.

Steven M. Sultanoff, Ph.D gives us some ideas on how to do this. He suggests that you carry around a clown nose for a week and wear it at least once a day, or you could follow his own practice of blowing bubbles from my his car while stopped at traffic lights.

You may of course think you are too 'normal' to attempt this and dismiss the suggestions as ridiculous. If, however, you are considering Steven's ideas and are now concerned that you may not be normal, maybe it would be wise to read this article What is Normal? Having read this you may think that you are suffering from NPD, but don't stress out, just wear a silly hat, and laugh instead.

'Holistic online' reports on a "study published in the Journal of Holistic Nursing where patients were told one-liners after surgery and before painful medication was administered. Those exposed to humor perceived less pain when compared to patients who didn't get a dose of humor as part of their therapy." *You may not have read the findings of this study but you will be familiar with the concept that developed from it, namely, "I laughed until it hurt".*

It is hard to be serious about the subject of laughter but I will now do my best; I really do believe in its therapeutic value. Howard Langmead, an Australian 'social commentator, comedian and cleric', lists the benefits on his website. Howard runs free weekly Laughter Groups. If you visit his website, with speakers on, and do not laugh I suspect you may benefit from classes.

This Youtube video shows quite clearly that laughter is infectious:

I will leave you with a quote to tickle your funny bone:

" Rideo, ergo sum" (trans. I laugh, therefore I am.) *by Ossis Humorus - an ancient Roman satirist.*

Footnote:

* "Don't believe everything you read" by the Haile Dubious

There is some mutual back-scratching happening over at Fechr . Write a post about the Fechr site, saying what you think about it, and you may be chosen as the featured blog of the day. The site plans charging for the priviledge in the future, with this free offer only then available on a Friday. Charges in the future will start out at a "modest $5 to $10" but they do not say what the immodest price will be.

Fetchr is pronounced 'feature' but I am not sure I would remember to call it that.

photo from PetHINTS

I decided to have a look round to see if there was anything being said about the site other than what Fechr suggests is said. It does seem that if you are featured your site will benefit from a fair few hits:

• A comment on One of a Kind Wisconsin LLC, by Michelle Gartner who says she got over 200 unique hits from being featured on Fechr
  
  
• Lisa of Lisa Reviews says she "ended up with 592 hits from Fechr"

• Adracker recommends "alerting your hosting company for the extra traffic" after Fechr has notified you that you are going to be featured.
  
  
• This is a great little traffic site by Harmony from At the Study - I added this one just because she is new to blogging and says she does not have many readers yet.
  
  
• My favorite comment came from the Chilli Technology blog - "I would do nearly everything to make my blog known". To save him from himself, I favorited him on MyBlogLog and suggested he join Blogging to Fame fans for some guidance on what not to do to get your blog noticed.

Fechr will come and visit your blog after you have done a post about them, submitted your details and post URL.

Don’t forget about the Digg/Stumble/Reddit/Delicious buttons on the top. Hitting these not only helps Fechr.com, but it helps the feature that day (with some extra traffic) and future features (by perhaps bringing in some repeat visitors).

(Fechr leaves a comment on your post too - I wonder what they will say in reply to this post?)

Following my article Blogged Out, Stressed Out I have been concentrating on researching the issue of Social Networking with a view to cutting back on some of the groups I am a member of. My aim is to make my social networking activities more productive as well as less time consuming.

To gain the full benefit from Social Networking sites you need to be an active participant. In general adding contacts, commenting on their blogs, favoring those you like and messaging are necessary to make your membership worthwhile. If you join multiple such sites, time constraints mean that you have to spread yourself too thinly and you cannot give each of them the attention required. Many times I find the same people are joining the same sites that I am a member of. One face may appear four times in my sidebar widgets (MyBlogLog, Bumpzee, SpicyPage, Blog Catalog). It is a good reminder for me to catch up with some of the people behind the images, but then I have to decide which is the best site to visit to contact them through.

I took a little time out to think about this and did some research on where my visitors were being referred from and which sites my main contributors belonged to. When I first registered with these sites I keenly joined up with many groups, accepted all friend requests, trying to keep up with my increasingly bulging email inbox.

I am now going to be much more selective. I will join social networking site groups/communities only after I have worked out if I share common interest with other members so that I can contribute to the group. I am now turning down requests to join groups if I don't think them worthwhile for me or if I think the time involved means I cannot contribute. I have stopped bookmarking on multiple bookmarking only sites.

I will concentrate more on keeping in contact with current contacts, realizing that more close contacts have developed because of other close contacts rather than from the networking sites. Apart from this I feel bad about taking longer than I should to respond to these friends. For me social networking is not all about gaining readers it is a form of socializing and a way of gaining friends too.

Specifically these are sites I am going to pay the most attention to:

• For the kind of site where favoring individual posts is the main aim I am going to favor Stumbleupon.
• If a blog has a Digg button and I enjoy an article, I will continue digging. I will Digg friends who request one.
  
• I have become more involved with Ning lately due to the Blogging to Fame Fans site but have started refusing invitations to join other groups.
• I am considering mainly concentrating only on MyBlogLog rather than multiple such sites. I will continue following only the Bumpzee groups that are of the most interest.
  
• Del.icio.us is to be my favored bookmarking site.
• I will continue to use Pownce to see if that takes off among my blogging friends as it promises to be a good direct way of communicating if I don't have direct email contact or if I want to send a message to a few contacts at once. I find it hard to keep up with a conversation if part of it takes place on Facebook, part on MyBlogLog, part by email....
  
• I will continue with Facebook as I also have non blogging friends and family on there.
• After success with gaining members and new friends on Blogging to Fame Fans I am going to think more about creating my own topic specific Social Networking sites.
  

I most definitely do not want the sites in my list above to be viewed as recommendations but as examples. Your needs and requirements are most likely to be different to mine. I do suggest that, if you are getting snowed under with your social networking activities, you do your own research. Work out which sites have been the most valuable to you personally and which may be so in the future. Take into consideration your blog topic, your most popular types of post, who your current readers are and where they are more likely to 'hang out'. For example, are your readers young or more mature (the two are not mutually exclusive, I was referring to actual age).

Here are some posts that may help you with the decision.

• Picking Two Social Networks - Reddit and StumbleUpon - A Small Office Australia blog post whose author has declared a 'Minimalist Month', is dumping social networking sites and concentrating on Stumbleupon and Reddit. (Oh dear I have not paid much attention to Reddit at all, maybe I should. Maybe I should also stick to my own minimalist resolve!). The post also has links to useful pages on these two applications.
  
  
• DoshDosh has some useful hints on making the most of social networking participation - Social MediaEvangelism: How to Turn Visitors into Supporters of your Website and Are Social Bookmarking Buttons Useless. DoshDosh has many valuable articles even if it is not your aim to make money online.
  
  
• 30 Largest Bookmarking Sites - July 2007
  
  
• Four memediggers compared: Digg, Reddit, Meneame and Hugg from the Social Software Blog (now to being run by The Download Squad in their Social Software category Take care reading this blog if you are a compulsive 'joiner' as it will provide you with logs of sites to join!)

I could find many others but one of my resolves is not to get sidetracked by surfing too much!

If you know of any useful articles with advice on which Social Networking sites are the most useful please let me know and I will feature them in this blog - with a mention of you in thanks of course.

Hearing of your own experiences would be wonderful too.

I will be continuing this series with posts on time saving, useful tools and being organized.

My blogosphere wanderings led me to these pages this week.

Mary Ann of Maryannaville posted an incredible photo View a spectacular view of the moon from an aircraft.

Some Lessons in Logic in the Must Read Files by Dunn

An irresistible offer from w3schools Download the internet

Colin of Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe gives us some insights into this fair land of mine - and his too of course.Things You Need to Know Before You Visit Australia and Reasons to Visit Australia. To reassure you: the only dangerous things from his list that I have come across in my 26 years in Australia are politicians and XXXbeer. Living in Melbourne does help of course. To help give you a more balanced picture here are some Australian Photo Blogs: Melbourne Today and St Kilda Today (St Kilda is an inner Melbourne suburb) both by Michael Blaney and Sydney Irresistible by Mike Hitchen and a couple of images that hold fond memories for me:

Finally a few things I wish I had thought up myself:

Answering Machine Messages:

"Hi, we aren't in at the moment, if you are trying to sell us something please start speaking now and hang up at the beep, everyone else start speaking at the beep and hang up when you've finished."

Bob here. I'm home right now, I'm just screening my calls. So start talking and if you're someone I want to speak with I'll pick up the phone. Otherwise, well, what can I say?

C'mon... you can do it... just a little one. That's the way... just a little beep, just a little one. C'mon... good boy... here we go... like this -- beeeeep, just a little one, beeeeeeeeeep, c'mon... There you go!

Hello, this is Ron. I'm not home right now, but I can take a message. Hang on a second while I get a pencil. [Open a drawer and shuffle stuff around.] OK, what would you like me to tell me?

Unfortunately I did not make these up myself, I found them on the Good Quotes Answering Machine page where you can find many more of the same.

Enjoy your Sunday.

To get round the Blogger automatic nofollow feature in the comments window, I have had to do a manual workaround to express gratitude for my reader's comments, claiming a right to freedom of choice.

You can read my latest comments in the footer of this blog; the links there will take you to the actual post and comment window. Next to this you will find a list of people who made those comments with 'followed' links to their blogs.

My thanks this week go to:

• Velin - Multiple Infinities
  
• Frank - Sugar & Spice
  
• Colin - Life
  
• Colin - Colin Campbell Profile
  
• Deborah - Life in the Fast Lane
  
• Anonymous from Stirredup
• Pearl - Interesting Observations
• Roaringrow - Unknown - Blogspot?
  

I will shortly run a poll here too to see if the same preferences show up. In the meantime please feel free to contact me if you would like to see me do more posts on a particular aspect of blogging.

Blogging is meant to be fun, right? Most of the time it is but, are you ever:

• Overwhelmed by the amount of work your blog itself creates.
  
• Feel stressed trying to keep up with all the social networking you feel that you have to do?
• Worried that your posts are good enough, your site is designed well enough, you are running out of ideas ....
• Concerned you are missing out on some new trend.
  

If you are keen to increase readership and gain recognition in the blogging world, as most of us are to some extent, there are many things we are advised to do. When you are not blogging your mind may be filled with thoughts of having to blog daily, answer comments, comment on other blogs .... and then you have to spend the time actually doing it.

With the advent of all the new social networking tools it is sometimes hard to keep up. It was simpler (although probably less effective) when the main things you had to do to get your blog noticed was to submit to blog directories and search engines, make sure your meta tag keywords were adequate and comment on other blogs.

That changed. Along came del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati, Stumble upon, MySpace, Linked In, MyBlogLog ..... many many others ...... Facebook, Pownce Twitter .... Mashable (who also have their own community feature) have a good list of the main ones on: The social network grid.

.... an hour later - I had not logged in to Mashable for a while - I had mail! It was my lucky day it seems:

I'm a Indian guy age 30 with fun luving character and good looking. I'm working as an Computer professional, India I'm looking for a female (married/unmarried) friend she really wants a honest, healthy and true male friendship.

If anyone is interested let me know - you are welcome to him!

Back to the topic now (after some self-talk re: concentrating). There are bookmarking sites, feed sites, profile sites, photo sites, video sites, miniblogs, seemingly pointless chatter sites and who knows what is round the corner.

All of these require your time and effort to one degree or other.. Answering friend requests, making friend requests, joining communities, sending messages, replying to messages... If you are a member of multiple such sites then the amount of time involved can become too much and counterproductive to blogging. It can get to the extent that you get behind on posting.

In my case I tend to join new things because I want to check them out for possible reviewing on here. I know others join because it may be the next big thing or their contacts have joined. This only adds to your work load.

Whether you are blogging for relaxation, to make friends, to make money or as an adjunct to a business, you need to manage your time effectively. Otherwise blogging becomes a chore.

Unfortunately some of the solutions also take time and effort but will be worth it in the long run. I will be writing a series of posts covering this topic over the next weeks. In the meantime please go and have a look at the post that motivated me to make a start on this topic, which I had been in the pipeline for quite a while: Pearl, the talented author of Fresh Perspectives talks about what to do when you have writer's block - Make a Decision and Stick with it

Please let me know if you sometimes find blogging hard work rather than fun and if you have found ways to deal with it.

I recently came across Stirredup, a site whose aim is to promote content that "generates spirited conversation".



Submitted articles are awarded points based on how much response they get. Points are gained mainly through clicks through to an article and the number of comments it generates. (Considering that very few comments are made the clicks must be all important). It is not possible to favor a post without having read it at its source blog or website, the idea being that it must generate real interest to achieve importance.

Whether you agree or disagree with the content of the article is not important it is the actions you take with regard to it that count. Hopefully this will avoid the link exchange 'shakedown' - "I will only favor you if you favor me" kind of thing.

You are encouraged to submit your own posts to the site. New posts are shown in the 'Stirring' section. If enough points are awarded, articles are then promoted to the Hot News pages which start on the Stirredup home page. Private messaging between members is possible.

I have joined up and had a look around but it is too early for me to form an opinion on its usefulness as a way of increasing your blog readership. A catchy title will certainly help bring you some traffic, but it is returning readers that you need. I would suggest that, if you do post to this site, you make your catchy title relevant to the post's topic.

I am very tempted though to post something similar to the most awarded site for the last four weeks, but perhaps I will wait until a Sunday to do that (for an SSS post) - Turn off the light, babe! [pic} - I am aware of the reason the title raised curiosity so you may be disappointed what the link leads to!

Other high scoring posts:

• The Cuba Michael Moore Won’t Show You - this one did stir some lively debate not through the Stirredup comments but on the blog itself.


• 14 Ways To Procrastinate Productively - This was a title that caught my eye - what a wonderful concept. I look forward to another similar - 'How to sleep in on a Sunday productively'. Seriously, the article does have some good points and I found it worth reading.
  

... and the top rating Stirredup article of all time.

• What happens to your body if you drink a Coke right now? I am not sure I want to know so instead I will go off and procrastinate - productively of course.
  

... having put off productive procrastinating until tomorrow, I submitted this post as my first contribution to Stirredup -

If you ever feel strongly enough about a YouTube video and desire to download it for later viewing pleasure simply give it a kiss. Truly - it will be yours forever.

How to Kiss a YouTube Video?

If you are watching a video in YouTube the address that appears in the address bar will look like e.g:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqLgiUv5FEk

Add the word kiss directly before the YouTube name:

Eg. http://kisswww.youtube.com/watch?v=EqLgiUv5FEk

Press 'enter' and you are taken to a service called Kiss YouTube. The address of the video you want to download is shown in a box at the top of the page. Simply press the 'Go' button next to this and a you are taken to a page where you can download the video to your machine. You must ensure the file is saved with the .flv extension.

(If you do not have a program that will play .flv files then Kiss provides a list of .flv players to download and converters that will allow you to watch the videos in your normal player.)

Another alternative is to copy the url of the YouTube video you wish to download, go to the Kiss YouTube site and paste the url into the box at the top of the page.

The video in this example is called 'Strange and Beautiful in New Haven, Connecticut', created by Sandy Carlson. Sandy has uploaded 217 video clips to date as part of 'Strange Attractions, Exploring Graffiti', her ongoing research project into the creative aspects of this visual art form. You'll find more on this topic at Sandy's blog Strange Attractions: Exploring Graffiti.

KissYouTube also has a video tutorial on YouTube.

I am not sure what the copyright restrictions would be if you were to convert the a downloaded video to flash format and upload it to your site rather than linking to it from YouTube. Perhaps someone could enlighten us on this? I was able to download a video that, in YouTube, does not allow embedding on web sites

If you cherish a YouTube video don't forget to show your love and kiss it.