Blog News Watch

Blogger vs. Wordpress Who is the better blogger?

Don’t you find it somewhat weird that blogger constantly names their private blogs www.somethinghere.blogspot.com. They always have that blogspot.com ending, whereas wordpress always has the wordpress.com ending. Do you know why blogger does this and why wordpress doesn’t?

Well, fortunately for you, I’m not quite sure of it myself, but I can only assume that blogger is too ashamed to let other bloggers take their blogger.com names for themselves. What a selfish blogging site!

Of course, it is completely up to you what blogger you want to use, personally, I like to have wordpress, because it has a lot of features that blogger doesn’t have. Once upon a time, a young blogger such as I, did partake in blogging for myself at blogger.com.

Fortunately, wordpress convinced me of its better resources. One of them, for example, is a word count. No matter how many words I type into the blog, it always counts how many I have written for each post, and also I can change that at any time.

Another feature that wordpress has is posting in the future. Unfortunately, spending how much time I did with blogger, I never found a resource that let me post into the future, which I heavily depend on because time is of value, and like all things, there is never enough of it.

I can’t be too sure, but I hear that the engadget blog uses Wordpress. If they use wordpress, you know that wordpress is higher in the pyramid that blogger. Trust me on this one

Oh, by the way, did I tell you that I am the new writer for blognewswatch? Well, its true, and you’ll just have to learn to accept it lol.

If there is anything you would like to bring up, please feel free to comment! yes… comment

So, you know how I was talking about how to avoid all of the blogging scams out there in the world wide internet:?:

Well, I think I found a very good blogging scam to debunk, but first we have to keep in mind the whole point of the post: Knowing the enemy before you face it will always be better than not knowing the enemy: in this case the enemy is scamming blogs.

THIS is a scamming blog. Sure it looks all colorful and whatnot, but thats only their for your viewing pleasure. Inside all of the beautiful colors is a scam completely a WASTE OF TIME.

First thing we want to note is who the author of the blog is: It says that the post was written by “Movie Star.” People who don’t put there names on their blogs only do it to remain in their Privacy. They remain in their privacy so that other people can’t actually find out who they are.

Unfortunately, one needs to keep a lookout for these kinds of things.

The next thing that one needs to look for is the quality of the links: linkage. The linkage is a vital part of finding out whether blogs are scams or not. DON’T click on the link, but just move your mouse over the link to see where the link takes you.

What I mean by this is that when you move your mouse over the link, in the bottom left corner of your Firefox window (or Internet Explorer, but I don’t think this works for Mac users, sorry), you will see that the “click” link on the scamming websites shows us this

http://bux.to/?r=indianrupee67

If you’ve ever been to sites like these, you will understand that the “r=indianrupee67″ is a referral link. Any referral link only gives the referrer a 100% commission, in this case at the site bux.to.

The next thing we look at is the reliability of the posts. One way of doing this is seeing all of the posts written by this author: Movie Star, and also by seeing the feedback this author gets. Just like all scamming blogs, this blog has no comments written to it, and it only has a few posts written all in the same topic.

What this guy is really doing is persuading you to click on his links so that he can make money without actually looking at the links. So, whatever you do, don’t sign up. In fact, if you could, go to this website and at the top of the page, click on “FLAG BLOG.”

This is it for now, but I warn thee: Beware of the scam artists out there, like every profession, they are good at what they do, which means that you have to be careful as to what you do.

Take care now, and Happy Surfing.

To see a forum of a scam that wreaks controvery: Click here.
Dont worry, the link is not a scam, test it for yourself

You ask what considers a blogger to be good and one to be bad. Well, a blogger, a real blogger, is one who updates his blog daily (weekends if he likes to) and also has a plethora of different types of posts to encourage his readers to keep reading the blog, or if its just for the bloggers purpose, has a vast knowledge of what to write about.

Along with the good assortment of bloggers comes the bad. There are a lot of blogs out there simply trying to make money, pay per post companies are one of them (including PayPerPost.com). Also, there are blogs that make other blogs have a bad reputation. For example, they get a pick a random site which a person is allowed to “earn” based on viewing a website for 30 seconds. (adbux & bux are just 2 examples).

With such sites, they are given a referrer information, in which they are allowed to attract other people towards their site. The more referrals a person has the more money they make on viewing ads. Of course this itself is not a scam.

The scam comes in when they make their Post headings saying that they will give out something if they click on the referral link and view the 30 second ads. The scamming comes in when the writer of the blog has no intent on giving out anything that they say the will.

Watch out for these sites because you make a bad decision and waste your time if you think that you are going to get something that the blogger says. Fortunately, these bloggers only limit themselves to remaining undiscovered. All of their information is falsified, therefore, they can only blog under Bloggers, Wordpress, or typepad.

And then, here is a image for your pleasure. Well, for some of you.

Click on the image if you dare

I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve just moved house, and was pretty sure that I’d be able to post as soon as I moved in.

The phone company promised the line would be on Friday, the 14th of December - the day we moved in. Even if I had no internet for a week, I could at least find some antiquated modem cord and even more antiquated dial-up account and posted.

But it’s been more than two weeks now, and the phone line is still not installed, and the internet can’t even be ordered until the phone line is on. Recommendation to Australians: steer clear of AAPT if you need the phone on fast.

That’s when I realized that blogging sucks. Truly, like everything else in life, it has its downsides.

1. You rely on others to access your audience

Those day-job oddballs drive a car to work. Well, most of them, and let’s just ignore the smart people who use public transportation for a moment.

When you can drive yourself to work, with a car you own, your access to your job or to the people you work with is in your control. You own the car. You can make it work or stop working. You can also get it fixed when it has problems.

Not bloggers! Our method of access, the Internet, is in the hands of companies who don’t really care who you are as long as you’re paying them. You can lose your access - and your livelihood - in the blink of an eye.

Without the access, you’ll be stuck writing headlines because you can’t research the posts or post breaking news.

2. You lose touch with faces

The people on the Internet that you communicate with day-to-day when you’re a blogger can be great, fun people, but it’s easy to forget that they are people. For all you know, they could be some kind of bot that passed the Turing test.

Human contact is important to your sanity, and even when you live with your family that contact starts to disappear. While family is great for keeping you that little bit sane, a more varied and wider amount of contact is best.

3. The confinement is insanely infuriating!

If you are a full-time blogger who works from home, the confinement can get pretty bad. No, not the confinement from other people - we already talked about that - but the confinement in space. Whether you’re in a home office or at your dining room table, the confines of the room/house/tent will start to get to you after a few hours/days/weeks in the same place.

Especially if your wife does all the shopping. Then you’ll never see sunlight again.

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Boing Boing is a great blog. If you don’t read it, you should.

It’s one of those role model blogs, a success story, that everybody looks up to and admires.

Truth is, it’s also one of those success stories that seems overnight, but wasn’t quite - they’ve been at it for many more years than blogs have been around, beginning life as a paper zine. Remember paper?

Michael Martine has just written a fantastic post called What You Can Learn about Blogging from Boing Boing that covers some of the lessons you can glean from this most mighty of blogs. It brought a smile to my face to learn that Michael’s article was inspired by one of mine.

Cory Doctorow once said you should pretend you’re a news wire writer when you write your headlines; simple and to-the-point. The key to remember is that if you’re writing a blog that isn’t quite as newsy as Boing Boing is to use that principle… but only for the headline.

It differs for blogs that write anything other than news. Here’s how:

During your post, stick to some of those newswriting conventions - short paragraphs (1 sentence per paragraph for news but 2-3 will do for blogs), aggressive removal of tautologies and redundant words - and even paragraphs if you’re that kind of writer - and remaining on topic at all times.

That said, create a voice for yourself and use it. Show your personality when you write. Don’t make it self-obsessed, and watch out for the overuse of the word “I” - the key is to develop a personality, not talk about yours.

One trap that many writers following this advice fall into is adding in useless “I think” or “I reckon” or - you get the point. You’re writing the piece. It’s obvious that it’s about what you think, and you don’t have to point it out. If you do, it just makes you look uncertain.

So visit Michael’s blog and learn the lessons of blogging that Boing Boing offers.

But remember, if you don’t write a Boing Boing style blog, don’t try to write as if it is one.

Internet users do not care if you can come up with a cute headline.

They don’t care if you can come up with some awesome wordplay or a lame pun to - as far as you are concerned - spice it up.

The attention span of the average internet user as they surf through site after site is microscopic. Nanoscopic, even. You may as well not even call it an attention span because it just doesn’t span.

But while you’re trying to get some of their nanoscopic attention, you have to make it damn clear what they could be clicking on or reading for the next few minutes.

If there is a niggling doubt as to what the page will actually be about, you’re out of luck.

If your pun is really bad… well, expect your RSS subscription to drop to zero. Just kidding about that part. Don’t panic.

Simple, descriptive, and as short as clearly possible.

What are the basic elements of a good blog post title? We all know there are a million ways to get attention above and beyond the basics. I used a “How To” in the title of this post, which makes part of an attractive headline for many web surfers. But forget them for now and leave them until another time; we just want the basics.

1. Simple

Keep it simple, stupid. Save the jokes for the text. Just blurt it out, clearly and simply, without embellishment.

We’re not going for a literary prize here. It’s a friggin’ blog post, remember? It just needs to say what the post is about and…

2. Descriptive

It needs to actively describe what the reader can expect from the post. If you intended to write a post about how to write headlines for blog posts and instead spend a whole post talking about why headlines are important, change the title.

If a reader wastes time reading something that was not what they were told it will be, they will feel cheated. Cheated of their precious time, that could be spent reading an article that truly is about blog post titles. This one, perhaps.

3. Short

“Short” does not mean sticking to a word count. It doesn’t mean cutting good information out for the sake of brevity. It just means: don’t repeat, don’t embellish, don’t make anything any longer than it has to be.

Some people make the mistake that embellishing or repeating facts will help the reader understand something better. If you have simply and descriptively stated something in the first place, there is no need to say it again and again in different ways. There’s no reason to add adjectives to nouns that don’t change the meaning to begin with.

Leave that crap to the tautologists (yes, I invented the word because so many of you bloggers seem to be running your articles on tautologies alone!).

There are a million psychological tricks and tips you can use to improve your blog post headlines. There are all sorts of simple changes you can make.

But without the basics, those tricks won’t make a damn bit of difference.

In fact, you’ll just be bloating something that was already bad to begin with.

When it comes to headlines, first and foremost: say it like it is, no more, and no less.

“Prominence” is a news value that many bloggers claim to hate.

But even they perpetrate it, because when some small-time blogger with two posts does something controversial, it’s going to receive much more coverage when, say, Darren Rowse does the same thing.

And, of course, it draws in more traffic, especially from search engines - why? Because people are actually searching for information on that person.

Prominence refers to how prominent and popular an individual or group is in any given community.

It’s truly the crux of much of the media, and when it comes to celebrity and gossip mags, pretty much the exclusive news value. Doesn’t matter how stupid or trivial something is… you can be sure the gossip mags will pick it up if it’s about someone famous!

Apply this one when appropriate for your blog, and with caution, but when you do use it, it can certainly help.

Prominence and Conflict are great news values to use in combination. On my blog Musician’s Notebook a post about the tensions between Dimebag Darrell and Phil Anselmo of Pantera might’ve been a great post around the time of Dimebag’s death, so long as I kept it relevant to the fact that my readers want information for musicians, not music fans (how to keep tension among musicians to a minimum might have been a good basis for the post).

Check the front page of your daily paper next time you’re walking past a news agency. I bet you that the majority of the stories on the front page have something to do with a prominent individual or group. The past few weeks here in Australia, it has been about politicians almost every day (we just had a federal election).

Now if only I could meet another Australian who cares about politics…

Just a few nights ago, Australia’s prime minister of 11.5 years, John Howard, was voted out and Kevin Rudd of the Labor party was voted in.

One of the key differences in the way the election campaigns were run was the use of the web and social networking quite heavily.

Howard used the traditional television-and-newspapers campaign in his attempt to win the public’s continued support. He lost.

Rudd used the Web 2.0 gamut (including a MySpace profile) in his bid pretty extensively. He won.

Was the election’s result simply because everyone is likely to get sick of any politician after nearly twelve years? Was it because the Labor party offered better policies? And how much did the social networking campaign really impact on the result?

It’s almost impossible to quantify, but I believe that it certainly would’ve had an impact on many of those in the younger age bracket who are new to politics, and perhaps taking an interest for the first time now that they are old enough to vote. In Australia, that’s 18 years and over.

I voted Rudd, but was never involved in his online campaigns at all - the first time I heard about them was when the press covered it because they thought it was way too strange. Truth is, as my American readers would know, American politicians are all doing this now and have been for some time.

However, the “Kevin 07″ catchphrase spread like wildfire through the net and really made a difference in the online component of the campaign.

We can never say for certain how many votes are to be attributed to social networking or blogging.

But we do know that he won, and that he was the only major candidate to use this tactic. What do you think?

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I did a little experiment recently on another blog I am involved in.

This blog rarely uses graphics in its posts, but I have started including an image in each and every post, in part because it’s good practice and secondly because, while I started this practice on 451 Press blogs much earlier, I wanted to be able to quantify the effects of this small change.

I’m not at liberty to release all the statistics to you, but I can tell you for a fact that using images increases page views by a factor of four, at the minimum.

Sometimes it was a factor of four, and sometimes it skyrocketed to a twenty.

That’s up to twenty times the average number of page views just by throwing in an image or two.

This blog was not doing too well before and the average page views per post was almost ridiculously constant, so we can safely assume that these increases are almost solely thanks to the inclusion of images.

The Many Aspects of Successful Images

Not just any image thrown in anywhere in the article will work.

You need to consider a variety of factors to optimize the results that images help you secure.

The contents of the image

We’ve probably all heard the story of the blogger who used images of hot women in every post, regardless of relevancy. It worked. Hot women increased his traffic.

While I like to go for something a little more relevant (I have used the above tactic with success and relevancy), consider how attention-grabbing the contents of your image are. Even if it’s not a hot half-naked woman, something that is odd, intriguing or just interesting works better than something mundane.

The colors of the image

This one is a no-brainer: bright, interesting colors work better than dull and subdued colors. Black and white pictures can draw interest, but on the internet, they have a lot harder time of it.

Not only is it better when colors are bright and interesting, they should also be bold. Instead of that lighter red, choose that in-your-face blood red.

The placement of the image

You can and should use more than one image per post. Spread them out fairly evenly throughout the post, with the first one right at the top - either to the side of the first paragraph or above it, beneath the title.

The lower down in your post, the less effective your image will be.

The size of the image

You obviously have to work within the confines of your blog’s theme and the widths it allows, but the bigger you can get the image without detracting from the content, the better. It’s there to grab attention so having an image right at the top of the post that takes up the maximum width of the content area is fantastic. Small images don’t get noticed.

The number of images

As I briefly mentioned in placement, the more images you can put in a post the better. Balance is important, though, and you shouldn’t overcrowd your content.

One image to every three paragraphs is a good rule of thumb, but you can get away with less. I only use one image per post, right at the top, most of the time.

There you have it; the five factors that determine how successful your images are in increasing an article’s page views. I hope you learned something from this post, and please feel free to leave your questions and comments.

For quite some time, the sentiments expressed throughout the blogosphere regarding Technorati have been less than picture perfect. Bloggers are unhappy with a number of things going on with the popular site, and one of those things is the spam.

rssHugger is apparently the answer, according to guys like John Chow. We’ll get to why in a moment.

What does the rssHugger service provide?

For the $20 that you pay - it’s $10 if you write a post about the service first (that’s not why I’m writing this, by the way) - you basically get a listing in a web directory for RSS feeds. Feeds are ranked and promoted in a variety of ways, and the goal is to send more readers in the direction of rssHugger’s members.

The service makes use of a Top 100 list, though these are only good for ranking stuff and supporting existing hegemonies rather than giving newbies or unknown bloggers using the service half a chance.

To make up for this, there is a Random Blog feature that takes you to the contents of a completely randomly chosen feed, and a New RSS Feeds page.

How is rssHugger supposed to replace Technorati?

The main complaint bloggers make about Technorati is the amount of spam and splogging going on there. rssHugger hopes to avoid this problem by charging a $20 fee that will allow them to manually review each blog that is submitted, as well as deter the cheap n’ dirty spammers from applying in the first place.

If it beats spam, my best wishes for the success of their endeavor.

PS - for those who have been asking, I am still using Dvorak on the laptop and getting faster - if improvements continue at this pace I will switch the Mac mini’s keyboard too.

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