Not every weblog will be found easily, and every author is advised to think widely about how much effort will be placed into the blog’s promotion. Several good ideas for Weblog-Promotion can be found in an older article of Blogger Knowledge written by the google-employee Biz Stone. I specialized his issues for Blogspirit in order to find more suggestions and advancements for this service:
Technical Issues
These ideas concern the technical department of Blogspirit mostly. I believe Philippe and Thomas will surely become entertained…
– Set your blog to ping Directories
Its highly advisable to add the functionality to ping other weblogs. Any update will be notified by the readers of the weblogs automatically. At this time, Blogspirit pings technorati.com, blo.gs and weblog.com. So far as they told me, they are indeed working on a new feature to insert an indivual URL to ping any directory you want.
– Advance the Navbar
As each blog displays the navigation bar with the Blogspirit logo on top, an optional search function might help to integrate a higher community usability for every author.
– Install Email This Post
Not just to comment or permalink an enty, but to actively promote an email function will enable the readers to forward any post to friends, co-workers, family members, etc.
– Turn on your site feed
Never forget to implement the buttons for the RSS and Atom feeds. Many readers use different programs to browse blogs and other news media faster than using bookmarks and manual url editing to grab our daily digits.
Content and Quality Issues
Since these are mandatory to keep readers instead of scaring them away, the sublines shall suffice for everybody to understand. There’s a number of authors on Blogspirit who apparently forget a few of these important factors:
– Write quality content and do it well
– Publish regular updates
– Think of your audience
– Keep search engines in mind
– Keep your posts and paragraphs short
Marketing Action Issues
Certain of these ideas help to advertise your work while they reduce the interest in your site as much once you invalidate the above ideas concerning content and quality.
– Put your blog URL in your email signature
– Sumbit your address to blog search sites and directories
– Participate in meme games
– Advertise!
– Link to other blogs
– Install a blogroll
– Be an active commenter
– Pitch your posts via email to other bloggers
– Print your blog URL on cards, stickers, etc
In the end, there’s alot of more input to be found in a few other of my issues. Have fun blogging!
– Bandwidth Limitation for Robots
– E-Mail Address shown in RSS2/ATOM Feeds
– Lifeless Reasons for Blogging
– Against Comment Spam
How to promote your Weblog?
BlogkulturNot every weblog will be found easily, and every author is advised to think widely about how much effort will be placed into the blog’s promotion. Several good ideas for Weblog-Promotion can be found in an older article of Blogger Knowledge written by the google-employee Biz Stone. I specialized his issues for Blogspirit in order to find more suggestions and advancements for this service:
Technical Issues
These ideas concern the technical department of Blogspirit mostly. I believe Philippe and Thomas will surely become entertained…
– Set your blog to ping Directories
Its highly advisable to add the functionality to ping other weblogs. Any update will be notified by the readers of the weblogs automatically. At this time, Blogspirit pings technorati.com, blo.gs and weblog.com. So far as they told me, they are indeed working on a new feature to insert an indivual URL to ping any directory you want.
– Advance the Navbar
As each blog displays the navigation bar with the Blogspirit logo on top, an optional search function might help to integrate a higher community usability for every author.
– Install Email This Post
Not just to comment or permalink an enty, but to actively promote an email function will enable the readers to forward any post to friends, co-workers, family members, etc.
– Turn on your site feed
Never forget to implement the buttons for the RSS and Atom feeds. Many readers use different programs to browse blogs and other news media faster than using bookmarks and manual url editing to grab our daily digits.
Content and Quality Issues
Since these are mandatory to keep readers instead of scaring them away, the sublines shall suffice for everybody to understand. There’s a number of authors on Blogspirit who apparently forget a few of these important factors:
– Write quality content and do it well
– Publish regular updates
– Think of your audience
– Keep search engines in mind
– Keep your posts and paragraphs short
Marketing Action Issues
Certain of these ideas help to advertise your work while they reduce the interest in your site as much once you invalidate the above ideas concerning content and quality.
– Put your blog URL in your email signature
– Sumbit your address to blog search sites and directories
– Participate in meme games
– Advertise!
– Link to other blogs
– Install a blogroll
– Be an active commenter
– Pitch your posts via email to other bloggers
– Print your blog URL on cards, stickers, etc
In the end, there’s alot of more input to be found in a few other of my issues. Have fun blogging!
– Bandwidth Limitation for Robots
– E-Mail Address shown in RSS2/ATOM Feeds
– Lifeless Reasons for Blogging
– Against Comment Spam
Planetopia: How a TV magazine kills Bloggers off…
MedienLast night, the TV magazine „Planetopia“ spent a few minutes to report about the medial hype of blogging. Their report focussed on the authors of a few blogs and the possible reasons of the phenomenon of utilizing blogs for private and corporate uses. „Der Schockwellenreiter“ and „Spreeblick“ were previously interviewed, but apparently the entire episode caused an uproar in the German Blogosphere. The general message created by Planetopia can be roughly interpreted as: „Weblogs are evil! Trust nobody, because nobody controls them as you are used to it at our traditional media formats.“ Immediately this morning, each author published an account from their opposing point of view. But by reflecting the Blogosphere in a negative light, Planetopia only pokes the fire by fitting into their own teaser – „Planetopia about the blogger’s underestimated power.“
Bandwidth Limitation for Robots
BlogkulturI noticed the increasing ammount of searchbots trying to spider my blog. Especially „slurp“ and „msn bot“ are reaching a critical stage concerning the already limited bandwith. Already half of the bandwith is wasted to the robots, and the more active and publically aware my blog becomes, the sooner the bandwidth will be reached.
I suggest to allow the users at Blogspirit to create their own robot.txt file to limit, restrict and possibly exclude the robots‘ aggressive behavior. For example, the entry „User-Agent: slurp“ with a „Crawl-Delay: 20“ already helps to delay the robots, while the meta tag invites them to index the complete blog. Here is an example from the „Stats > Detailed Statistics“ page:
Robots (from search engines)
Prince Charles goes berzerk!
MedienLast night Prince Charles was furious over Prince Harry’s decision to dress as a Nazi on a party. Even Prince William must share the blame. Since both William and Harry bought the costumes together, the older brother should have stopped the younger one. Charles ordered both of the minor-monarchs to visit Auschwitz to learn and understand the the atrocities and horrors of the Holocaust. The british newspaper The Guardian communicates slightly different in their blog on „Meanwhile in Germany“ than The Sun – its very interesting to scroll through the comments of this blog…
E-Mail Address shown in RSS2/ATOM Feeds
BlogkulturWhile utilizing a few tools for this blog, I noticed a minor security leak in the RSS2 and Atom Feeds. I already informed Blogspirit’s support staff by using a support ticket. I advise everybody to manually edit their Feed-Templates to secure your email from being spidered by Spambots.
Britain’s Nazi Mess
MedienAnother most interesting and amusing article about Britain’s general problem of historical and cultural awareness. Prince Harry is not the only one who needs to be more educated about both local and global development of the political world. As Der Spiegel reports in Prince Harry Isn’t Alone in Needing a History Lesson:
This here is from an article found on The Jerusalem Post: Ignorance of the Holocaust in response to DJ’s comment.
Medial Death and Racist Devastation
MedienThe german designer Rudolf Moshammer was found dead in his appartment in Munich. Apparently, he was strangled to death with a telephone cable. But some germans already wondered why he wasn’t murdered sooner! Mr. Moshammer was a fat and chubby designer who continously pestered the german media with his endless gayish behaviour, want-to-be-spicey songs for the Grand Prix de la Eurovision Chanson.
Perhaps it was nobody else but Prince Harry who’s been tagged as a Nazi on a recent society party (When Harry Met Hitler). This disgusting little party youngster who freaks out the british high society through his nothingness and troublesome idiotism should be locked away once and for all. How else can we serve the Queen better?
By now, only Sven and Yannic had nothing else to do but to pester and complain about the fact that I’ve been blogging a little. This public soulstriptease is special, and its my priviledge – not theirs. At least my girlfriend seems to like it, too.
EFF: Rights for Bloggers
MedienAccording to golem.de, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will defend bloggers against Apple. The company filed a suit against the bloggers who wrote about an unofficial product named „Asteroid“ which appears to be an adaption for Apple’s software „GarageBand“. The EFF will aid the bloggers of AppleInsider and PowerPage who keep the names of their informants in secrecy.
Jason O’Grady of PowerPage expresses his disappointment on Apple’s behavior as he questions if corporate-paranoia is more important than article 1. More information can be found on golem.de in german.
BlogGates
MedienIn the original version of G-Money and Me: Bill Gates Interview, Bill Gates told the following about using a blog on his own:
Unfortunately, this paragraph has been erased. Perhaps Mr. Gates himself did not want to see further speculation circulating on other blogs? In the end, it is unavoidable – people will talk about this. I wonder if Mr. Gates would write his blog all alone or let some of his staff members produce the content similar to a corporate blog as found in GoogleBlog. Does the question concerning credibility arise again?
Reality Surfing: Seven Theses about Weblogs
Blogkultur, MedienSeven fischerAppelt-Theses about Weblogs
PRPortal.de concludes a few interesting ideas concerning the development and current situation about blogs. The article is in german and can be found here.
1. A flash in the Pan or Revolution?
The Blogging-Trend will change the public communication deeply in 2005
2. Anarchy or Democracy?
Weblogs soften the traditional borders between formal and informal communication.
3. Gossip Factory or Clearing?
The informal distribution and rapidity of weblogs can aid to support company crisis, serve as early warning system but may optimize crisis management.
4. Digital Whirring or Direct Dialogue?
Weblogs offer new chances for opinion research and corporate communication.
5. Radarcontrol or Overflow?
Weblogs challenge the media observers and analysis for companies.
6. Blog-Solo or Corporate Symphony?
As new tool for communication, corporate weblogs must become embedded into the communication strategy.
7. New Foglight or Transparency?
Corporate Weblogs will only become successful once they challenge the dialogue openly and credibly.