Blog Information | Blogging Tips | Blog Community

If you are not new to the Internet and have spent some time here, you must have heard about these terms - “Blogging” and “Blogs”. However, if you are feeling a little difficulty in understanding properly what exactly is this blog and how you can use it, then read this simple explanation of blog and blogging which will clear the everything for you.

What is a Blog?

In simplest terms, a blog is a daily journal of your thoughts maintained you (a Blogger) on the web. When posting to a blog you will notice that it is arranged in chronological order - with the most recent additions on top. As you keep postings more and more posts, the older posts will enter into an Archive folder so that visitors can view your past posts easily.

You can allow your readers to add their own comments/feedback on any of your Blog post. You can add audio to your blog known as Podcast, which readers can listen to. In fact it’s a great way be in touch with your customers.

How I can start a Blog ?

It’s very easy really. There are numerous options available. If you want to have an experience of Blogging without spending money, you can opt for the blogging service from Blogger.com or from Wordpress.com. These two websites are world’s most popular free blogs providers and have some excellent tools for starting a blog. On Blogger.com you also have the option to earn money from your free blog through Google Adsense program. Basically you only need to register at these blogging service for a free account, fill some information and lo your blog is ready ! Starting a Blog is just like opening a new email account !

However, I strongly advise you that once you get a sufficient experience of running a blog on these free blogging platform, you should switch to a professional blog by having your own domain name and host. This can be easily done by using the Wordpress Blogging tool (wordpress.org) which is the most powerful and free blogging software on earth. Working on wordpress is as simple as a breeze. There are zillions of wordpress tutorials for newbies on internet. Further, there are many web hosting companies which offered wordpress enabled site hosting where installing wordpress is just a matter of point and click.

What a blog can do for me?

Well, a blog can changed your life literally. If your blog become successful, you will be freed from all your financial worries. For many people, their blog has become a virtual moneymaking machine. If you have any doubts over power of a blog ask Steve Pavlina, the guy who is earning $1000 a day (probably more) from his personal Blog.

What are other benefit of having a blog :

There are many and some of them are :

1. A blog is a strong communication tool to keep in touch with your customers.

2. A blog allows you to get to know your customers and their needs, as well as, allowing your customers to know the blogger - that is you J

3. A blog (if updated regularly) can provide daily, quality content - which the Search engines love and thus, increase your traffic.

4. A blog can be used to advertise your links. You can write on an affiliate product in your blog post thus increasing the chance of a sale.

5. A blog can be used to answer inquiries that people may have about your product.

6. A blog can be used to bring social change as is doing by some bloggers from China, Myanmar and Iran despite stiff resistance from their Governments.

Well , the list is not exhaustive and I have not mentioned all the benefits of a blog as it’s an introductory article on blogging. In my opinion there is only one draw back of starting a blog ­­­­­ — you’ll have to maintain it constantly

I read somewhere that a Blog is like a shark. It’ll die if it stops. A blog needs constant feeding of your thought matter to survive. The blog should be maintained on a regular basis or it’ll lose it’s power and effectiveness.

Now enough of my ranting on blogging. Get up and go blogging. Best of luck to you.

Americas Athletes Blogs

Was there a reason that you made reasonable money on Blogging? On what type of subject? Thank you for your time

Americas Athletes Blogging

There is a wide variety of blogs currently available. Internet users are fortunate to have a large number of blogs to choose from when seeking a blog to read regularly. There are also often many blogs available which cover a particular subject. Blogs can be about any subject imaginable. Some blogs are created to entertain while others are created to inform. Some blogs are created to generate a profit while other blogs are created to help others. With so many blogs currently available online it can be difficult to determine which blogs are worth reading and which are not. It can also make it difficult to limit the number of blogs the Internet user reads. This article will provide information on finding and selecting blogs to read including using search engines to find blogs, finding blogs through participation in message boards and seeking recommendations for blogs from friends or family members.

Using Search Engines to Find Blogs

Search engines are one of the most reliable resources Internet users often rely on to find useful websites. However, it is important to note search engines can also be extremely helpful for Internet users who are interested in finding blogs to read. An Internet user who is looking for a blog on a particular subject can start the process of finding these blogs by entering relevant keywords or phrases into a popular search engine and carefully reviewing the results provided for this search. However, this type of search will not necessarily provide the Internet users with blogs. In fact the search results may not include a blog on any of the first few pages in the search results despite returning pages upon pages of links to useful websites.

One simple way the Internet user can use search engines to find blogs relating to a particular subject is to include the word blog with the keywords or phrases entered into the search engine. This will help to filter the search results and may push blogs towards the front of search results. However, Internet users are better off searching for collections of blogs and then searching within these collections for ones of interest.

Finding Blogs on Message Boards

Many Internet users rely on message boards to find interesting and informative blogs. This is because many message board participants who have a blog often find ways to make others aware of this blog. This may either be through the process of incorporating a link to the blog in the message board user’s signature or, when appropriate, supplying the link to the blog directly in the message body of a post on the message board. Although many bloggers may take advantage of the opportunity to promote their own blog through message boards, those who are interested in finding new blogs will likely not have time to review all of these blogs. Therefore, it is wise for these Internet users to be somewhat discriminating about the blogs they choose to visit. One way to do this is to only visit blogs of regular forum posters who offer valuable information to the conversations on the message board. The Internet user may also wish to avoid blogs which appear to be posted as spam. This is important because these blogs are not only likely poor quality but also visiting these blogs only encourages the blog owner to continue to spam message boards with his link.

Seeking Recommendations for Blogs

Finally, Internet users who are seeking blogs to read on a regular basis can consider seeking recommendations from friends or family members who share a particular interest. Friends or family members who are interested in the same subject as you may already regularly read blogs relevant to this interest. Asking them for recommendations is worthwhile because they have no reason to do anything but recommend blogs they really enjoy and assume you will be interested in as well. Also, this method of finding blogs is ideal because your friends and family members likely know your tastes and expectations well and will likely steer you in the right direction.

Turn your little dumb blog into profits with Make Money Online Blogging.

Americas Athletes Blogs

Bloggers Are A Lot Like Pigeons

So I’m sure many of you read the title and thought, “Where is he going to go with this one?”

Okay, I agree it sounds corny, but it is amazing how your mind frames things early on a cold, wet Midwest winter morning walking to the train station (remember, a perfect morning involves staying in my sweats, not leaving the house, working on the computer). Now granted, I do hope most of us are potty trained better, have a more permanent residence and a sharper mind when it comes to avoiding traffic, but stay with me and read on.

Both bloggers and pigeons are:

1. Vastly colorful and individual.
The flock of pigeons that served as my inspiration reminded me of how unique each one was physically. At a glance they may appear similar when you see a flock together as a tapestry, yet, it is remarkable how distinct the markings are to each bird. Just like our blogs; each possesses personal font-image-layout-color preferences, variances and nuances specific to distinguish us.

2. Tend to bobble, hunt and peck.
I don’t know about you, but I feel I resemble a pigeon as I hunt and peck across the keyboard with my head bobbling most the day! It’s crazy too how their always pecking at something they can see on the ground, or think they can see, and I can’t see it! Do we do that?

3. Friendly and respectful.
Pigeons and bloggers are a genuinely friendly, communal group. Even when pigeons are being fed they are respectful to one another as they go in for their share–unlike seagulls. Granted, every now and then, one in the group gets a little “randy” and starts climbing on the other, but we know the motivation behind that behavior. Overall, they get along tremendously.

4. Very vocal.
Ever notice how much cooing goes on-especially when they congregate? I am amazed everyday as I sit with my feed reader at the wealth of intellect and insight shared daily amongst us all! Maybe that’s why pigeons huddle too, because they have so much to share with one another!

5. Free to travel.
Well, bloggers can travel anywhere Wi-Fi to blog, but isn’t that almost the same today as having wings? What a beautiful thing to no longer be bound to a brick and mortar model and be able to blog from the beach (its really funny here in Chicago along lakeshore beaches we have both pigeons and gulls out in the sand!).

6. Helpful.
Fellow worldwide bloggers I have been privileged to “meet” are some of the most amazing people I have ever had any fellowship with. Although most bloggers are willing to lend a hand with information or a project, if they have the time, don’t forget that they might have to refuse or even not reply because of time constraints, heavy workloads, set principles, or a simple distaste with your lack of proper etiquette. You know what I am saying, don’t get so consumed with your own needs that you behave or come across disrespectfully to your fellow bloggers. Even pigeons do get ruffled and fly away.
Let me know what you think!

Derrick Sorles
copyright 2007

Americas Athletes Blogging

i wanna blog and get paid. what are some good sites for that?

Americas Blog Community

Blogging is one of the most popular activities people do on the Internet today. According to Technorati, there currently are seventy-five thousand (75,000) new blogs everyday and about 1.2 million new blog updates everyday. As the activity of blogging gets more popular, there will be more and more tools that will be created to specifically address the needs of the blogging population of the Internet users. This article will attempt to catalog some of the best ever blogging tools created for users. To help users find the tools that they need, these blog tools are classified here into four main categories - blog publishing, blog reading, blog searching and the blog toolbox - a collection of tools important to the serious blogger.

Blog publishing

Blog publishing tools can be further categorized into three sub-categories: Online blogging services, do-it-yourself blog publishing platforms, and accessory blog-publishing tools. Blogging services provide the blog engine that you need to get yourself started in blogging as well as the hosting. Though most of the services offer this for free, some of them require that you become paying members in order to fully enjoy all the benefits.

Blogger - Google’s Blogger is one of the earliest blogging services and it helped popularize blogging. It is one of the easiest ways to get started blogging because of the focus on usability and easy blog creation. The Blog this feature, which is integrated in many Google tools, makes posting to Blogger possible in many different situations. It is also integrated with Google’s Adsense advertising program that makes monetization of your blog quick and easy.

TypePad - Typepad is the largest paid-blogging service around. As mentioned, a paid subscription is required to create a blog using the service. It uses the Movable Type blogging technology but it caters more to the non-technical users.

Wordpress.com - one of the newcomers in the online blogging services, Wordpress gets its credibility from the success and popularity of the blogging engine that it uses -Wordpress.

Xanga - Xanga is one of the largest blog-networks, boasting a user base of 27 million users worldwide. It edges over its competitors by offering excellent community features such as blog rings, metros, and a social networking profile system.

MSN Spaces - Although it is relatively a newcomer in the blogging services space, MSN Spaces boasts of a huge user base, because of the ease at which existing MSN services users were able to start blogging. The integration with the rest of MSN’s services (hotmail, messenger) makes Spaces a very good blogging option for the existing users.

Do-it-yourself blogging platforms on the other hand, only provide the blogging engine. Although you have to find your own hosting service, DIY blogging platforms give you more control in configuring your blog. Below are some of the best DIY Blogging platforms.

Movable Type - Movable Type powers TypePad and it adds the usual advantages of a server-side blogging platform: flexibility, more advanced configuration, and total control over your blog.

Wordpress - Wordpress is an increasingly popular open-source blogging platform that is written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database.

Radio Userland - Radio Userland, one of the earliest content management systems used by the pioneering bloggers, is still a good blogging platform choice. It has solid RSS features that include a built-in aggregator. Configuration is done in a desktop web server then it is upstreamed or sync to the web server. This gives the blogger a cached copy of the whole blog.

Blog posting tools are third-party applications that are used to compose and publish blog posts. These tools usually support multiple blogging services and are ideal for those without a persistent Internet connection.

W. Bloggar and BlogJet - these are two of the best blog-posting tools in the market, and both are available for free. They support almost all of the blogging platforms. They do what most web-based posting apps does, including rich text editing, with the added feature of being able to save your drafts offline.

Performancing for Firefox - a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows you to immediately compose a blog post while using the Firefox browser. It is Ideal for active bloggers who use Firefox as their web browser. It automatically saves your unpublished posts.

Blog Reading

RSS/Atom aggregators and other RSS tools belong to this category.

My Yahoo - My Yahoo tried to bring the concept of RSS subscription to the Internet masses. Though it lacks the more advanced features, it serves well as a good aggregator.

Google Reader - Google’s web-based RSS aggregator that features an AJAX-driven user interface. It has a good support for tags or labels, and features a very nice reading interface. One of its best features is its labels-sharing feature that allows you to put aggregated content to your blog.

Bloglines - Bloglines is one of the most widely-used web-based RSS Reader. It uses the traditional two-frame reading interface, and subscriptions are grouped into folders. It has a good blog-suggest feature, that uses linking analysis to suggest which blogs might be of interest to you based on your existing subscription set. You can also share your subscriptions using Bloglines.

Blog Search

Tools used to search information and blogs, and to watch the blogosphere for topics or issues being actively discussed.

Technorati – Technorati is one of the best blog search engine, feature wise, and is indexing over 49.4 million web blogs. It serves as a one-stop shop for those who want to know the current happenings in the blogosphere, including features such as blog ranking based on linking, personal aggregator (for those who login) and many other nifty tools.

Sphere - one of the newcomers in blog search that came even after many other engines have folded down already. It promised to deliver more relevant blog search results, and it rightfully did so, as attested by its early beta testers. It features a “sphere it” feature that allows you automatically query http://sphere.com to see topics that might be related to what you’re currently reading.

Blogger’s Toolbox

A collection of other tools essential to the serious blogger

Mint / Measure Map /Google Analytics - these are three different tools used to analyze your blog statistics. Mint specializes in giving you a big-picture snapshot of your traffic, somewhat lacking in the providing specific details, something that Google Analytics is good at. Analytics can provide detailed information on what’s happening on your blog, which contents are popular, what keywords used in searches that bring you readers, and many others. It features a calendar to specify the time range of the analysis that you want to see. Measure Map, like Analytics is a fresh acquisition of Google, but still in early stages. It somewhat sits in the middle of Mint and Google Map in terms of what information is provided.

Akismet - Akismet is a highly-acclaimed anti-comment spam plugin for Wordpress blogs. It is free for personal use.

Feedburner - Feedburner is a tool that “burns” your RSS feeds in order to add tracking and analysis features. This way you can see statistics regarding your RSS subscribers.

The tools listed above are just a few of the many others that can help users; from those who are just starting to blog to those who want to become even better bloggers. It also includes some tools for searching and aggregating blogs, because a good blogger must learn to watch the blogosphere closely if it wants to be able to make more effective blog contents.

Blog Community

A blog is basically an online journal wherein you can digitally pen down your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to read. Blogs come in different styles, formats, and settings, depending on the preference of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built in features such as hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video and mp3’s on your blogs.

Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.

Basically a blog contains these features:

title- which allows you to label your post

body- this is the content of your post

trackback- other sites can be linked back to your blog

permanent link- every article that you write has a URL

comments- this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

One of the advantages of blogging, is that it is made of only a few templates. Unlike, other websites that is made up of numerous individual pages. This make it easier for blog users to create new pages, because it already has a fix setting that include: slots for title, body of the post, category, etc.

This is especially useful for first time users, since they can start blogging right away. They can chose from a number of templates that blogging websites provide.

Anyone who wants to start a blog can do so by becoming a member of a blogging website of their choice. Once they’ve become members, they automatically become a part of that particular blogging community. They can browse through other bloggers pages, and link them back to their own blogs. They can also make comments on other members’ blogs.

Blogging is not just limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy, social commentary, etc. These blogs espouse on their specific themes. This way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics.

Some bloggers even use their blogs as a means to advertise. Some authors advertise their books on their blogs. While other bloggers, use their blogs to shed light to currents issues, events, news and catastrophes.

Nowadays in education, blogs also play an important part. Professors use blogging to document the lessons that they have discussed and taught. This way, students who who have missed classes, can easily catch up with their assignments.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs, with millions and millions of people logging onto the net everyday, blogging has become a lucrative move. Some bloggers who run online businesses promote their merchandise online. While others profit through advertisement.

But by far, the most popular blog type is the one that takes the form of a personal journal. This is the kind that is usually used by first time bloggers. Individuals who want to document the daily struggle of their everyday lives, poems, rants, opinions, find that blogging offers them a medium in which to express themselves.

Bloggers usually communicate within themselves. This is one of the appeals of blogging. It creates a community of people sharing their ideas, thoughts, and comments with each other.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories. First time users who want to get an idea of what the blogging world is all about can browse through a number of blogs using these directories. This way they’d get an idea of what these blogging communities are like.

Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There are no rules when it comes to blogging. Bloggers have the freedom to express themselves how ever way they want, and the best thing about blogging, is that most blogging sites are free.

There are numerous blogging websites to choose from in the net. This give first time users the option of joining a blogging community that appeals to their interests.

Americas Athletes Blogging

Copyright © Dennis Koray

http://www.myfortuneformula.com

PROBLOGGING: MAKING MONEY FROM BLOGS

A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that ‘publishes’ or features articles (which are called ‘blog posts’, ‘posts’, or ‘entries’), written by an individual or a group that make use of any or a combination of the following:

· Straight texts

· Photographs or images (photoblog)

· Video (videoblog)

· Audio files (audioblog)

· Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially used for the following purposes:

· Online journal or a web diary

· Content managament system

· Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

· Post date -the date and time of the blog entry

· Category - the category that the blog belongs to

· Title - the title of the blog

· Main body - the main content of the blog

· RSS and trackback - links the blog back from other sites

· Comments - commentaries that are added by readers

· Permalinks - the URL of the full article

· Other optional items - calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the category, and the ’stats’ (the nubmer of comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog - on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as campaigning).

2. Personal blog - also known as online diary that may include an individual’s day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications between friends.

3. Topical blog - with focus either on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog - on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog - also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog - with focus on a traveler’s stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog - on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog - on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as ‘blawgs’.

9. Media blog - focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.

10. Religious blog - on religious topics

11. Educational blog - on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.

12. Collaborative or collective blog - a specific topic written by a group of people.

13. Directory blog - contains a collection of numerous web sites.

14. Business blog - used by entrepreneurs and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.

15. Personification blog - focus on non-human being or objects (such as dogs).

16. Spam blogs - used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as ’splogs’.

Blogging is typically done on a regular (almost daily) basis. The term “blogging” refers to the act of authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing blog, while the term “blogger” refers to a person or a group who keeps a blog.

Today, more than 3 million blogs can be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

· Personal bloggers - people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.

· Business bloggers - people who focus on promoting products and services.

· Organizational bloggers - people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.

· Professional bloggers - people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging (professional blogging) refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for probloggers:

· Advertising programs

· RSS advertising

· Sponsorship

· Affiliate Programs

· Digital assets

· Blog network writing gigs

· Business blog writing gigs

· Non blogging writing gigs

· Donations

· Flipping blogs

· Merchandising

· Consulting and speaking

The following are a few things that you need to consider if you want to be successful in problogging:

1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.

2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience or group is a key to building a readership.

3. Be an ‘expert’. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the “go-to” blogger on that topic.

4. Diversify. Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable you to make money online (aside from blogging).

5. Do not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to take risks, the passion, and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

Americas Athletes Blogging

I’m not talking about embed a video clip from YouTube or Google Video, etc. Blogger got the function of allowing us blogger to upload video to our blog so how many of you been using this function.

I’m one of the people using it, how about you people?

Americas Blog Community

Making money from blogging has become easier over the past two years. Advertisements, sponsorships, fundraising and even blogging jobs are only some of the ways a blogger can earn money these days. So, if up until now you weren’t financially rewarded for sharing your world view with the blogosphere, continue reading to find out how to make your blogging efforts more profitable.

Advertisements

Google’s Adsense is one of the easiest and most popular ways to earn money by putting advertisements in your blog. Anyone who owns a blog (or a website) can open an Adsense account, place ads in his blog (or website) and earn money depending on the number of clicks on the Adsense links from the blog. Adsense advertisements fit themselves to the target audience of the blog. For example, if you write a blog on the popular board game backgammon, the ads would probably lead to online gaming sites. Therefore, the size of the revenue from your blog is subject to the appeal of the ads among your readers.

Sponsorships

If your blog gets a lot of traffic, you can try to approach a certain company or a business and offer them to run an advertisement campaign at your blog. Many of today’s companies appreciate the widespread potential hidden in popular blogs so you might even receive a positive answer.

However, it would be easier to get sponsorship for your blog if you are willing to settle for your original content ideas and include a preordered review on a specific product chosen by the company that will pay your hosting bills. Services such as Pay Per Post (PPP) or Review Me, specialize in connecting between advertisers and bloggers. Of course that if you write a beauty blog, you will not be paid to post a review on a set of golf woods and vice versa.

This money making method has its pros and cons. Looking at the bright side, you get free products, content idea at no cost, plus you get paid to post. On the other hand, you can never be the same independent and free of commercial considerations blogger you used to be.

Fundraising

If blogging takes over most of your spare time and your community of readers still can’t get enough of you, why don’t you ask them to lay a few pennies at your donation box? Fundraising buttons, also known as tip jars, ask the readers to take part in the blog maintaining expenses or to help the blog owner to spare part or all of his day job to become a full time blogger, have been in use for a long time. Over the past few years, rumors on the effectiveness of this monetizing method supported the growth in its popularity among successful bloggers.

More Ways to Make Money from Your Blog

Additional ways to make money from blogging include joining an affiliate program (such as Amazon Associates) in which by linking your readers to the business you receive an agreed share of their revenues; developing blogging related career which can range from a ghost blogger to newspaper columnist through business blogging counselor and merchandizing, whether by offering t-shirts with your blog logo for sale or by selling an e-book on your field of expertise.

Americas Athletes Blog Community