Why I’m resurrecting the ‘link journalism’ argument
June 25, 2008
(hat tip to Chris Brogan for mentioning this issue (and the Scott Karp post) on his AWESOME blog!)
About two years ago, before I lost everything to the ‘oh dear lord’ crash of 2006, I had a tonne of articles talking about a disturbing trend in the blogging/journalistic communities - and that was ‘link love’/'link journalism’.
Are you drifting?
May 9, 2008
Image from FlickrOne of the goals I’ve made myself for this year is that I take care of my small procrastination ‘issue’ once and for all. But before I do, I was wondering who else was ‘drifting’.
If enough of us are, I could always drag everyone else along for the hell of it 
Comment or email y’know the drill…
One of the main time management problems most people find themselves in is either overcommitting or ineffective planning or the other dreaded p word. Procrastination.
Recommended reading - Chris Brogan
April 17, 2008
I’ve been following Chris Brogan by both Tweet, and his blog and he’s running a subscription drive at the moment, so I thought I’d do a ‘nice’ intro for him, and more importantly - recommend him to y’all.
Chris has a lot of great views on social media, blogging, writing and more - and he’s well worth the read. So if you’re looking for a new expert to get a perspective from, then I’d really recommend Chris.
You can sign up at Chris has a subscription drive, and let me know what you think!
Do you niche?
April 14, 2008
Image by FotoosVanRobin via Flickr
Recently, over at Mamaneedsabookcontract, we talked about niches (we choose a theme each week, and blog on it - its amazing how simple a topic becomes diverse and complex answers).
This week our theme was ‘niches’ - which is important to bloggers.
All of the answers that were posted resonated with me, but Heather’s post was the best for bloggers. So, go read it, and then come back.
A plugin that’s not a plugin?
April 2, 2008
Image from Wikipedia
Normally, I save my ‘tech’ talk for other blogs - but I thought this warranted sharing.
I don’t know who recommended it to me, but I’ve found this really awesome plugin called ‘Zemanta‘ It installs into your browser, and is a tool that ’suggests’ images and articles to you as you’re writing posts.
It might not sound like much, but I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to work out how to add images and make sure I’m pcoviding decent links to people. And Zemanta is a great step towards that.
The blogger code of conduct?
March 20, 2008
Via Steve Hodson
I saw this last year and didn’t say anything, because, at the time, I was still trying to work out where I *stood* in the blogging community…. The long and short of it is I’m not an A-lister, so I felt that I had to get closer to being ‘that’ before I started advising other people.
It now occurs to me that advising people on blogging is what I do as naturally as breathing, and though I’m tweaking my blogs to clean up the messages I’m offering. I’m ‘branding’ each blog to be a lot clearer if you will.
Where’s the ’secret’ post then?
March 16, 2008
About a week ago, I made a post that garnered 93 comments.
93!
If you’ve come to Ardentwriter since last night, you won’t have seen the post, but I wanted to say to those of you that took part - thank you. Those that followed the instructions to the letter were great - and those that didn’t also gave me food for thought.
So, over the next few weeks and months (cause, err…I was expecting 10, not 93) I’ll post the stuff you’ve asked about.
And the next time I make a post like that I might leave it for longer
Muse-ili
March 14, 2008
My muse is an informant. She comes in the night, and whispers stories to me. Constantly.
The problem is, she’s very easily led.
You see – most people can’t write without inspiration – and if you write – long term, you have to keep feeding your muse, or they starve. And a starved muse is probably a form of torture for writers, to be honest.
So, ratting on your muse and sharing everything starts with reading, and absorbing experiences. WE can only write about the things we have a passing knowledge of after all – even if it’s creating events in our head and following them through to logical conclusions. Or illogical ones.
Can yahoo pipes actually HELP your blogging?
March 10, 2008
Recently, I discovered a cool API that Yahoo had set up called ‘Yahoo Pipes’. Basically, what it does is ‘pipe’ feeds together into one ‘uber feed’, like connecting up a lot of little pipes to the main line.
It then spits that main line out in order of posts, into one feed, over however many blogs you’ve added to it.
The beauty of it is I can add any RSS based feed to it, and then republish it on ANY website I choose - so, any blog, free article site that I publish my work on, forum that allows me to grab feeds and more - and et voila, I’m able to combine it all into one constantly updating and evolving data stream that lets people see what I’m writing, where, and how its going.
How to blog series - sample article - Where do I start with blogging?
March 6, 2008
It has become THE single biggest web crazes online, and I was one of the first people to actually vocalise using blogging as a business model on Ryze and other online forums (and I so wish I’d followed through that thought too), so I’ve been doing this for several years now - and every year, it evolves that little bit more.