Blogging requires a lot of dedication, so over the course of time, you might have abandoned one of your blogs. Maybe months might have passed and you did not add any new content. You barely receive any visitors, and have very few RSS subscribers. Is it worth restarting such a dormant blog? I believe it might be a good idea for a few reasons:
-This blog will have an older domain. Older domains seem to be more trusted by search engines. This means that your articles might get ranked higher in search engines.
-Existing back links are another reason why restarting your old blog is a good idea. Relevant back links often lead to increased traffic. Old blogs often have a lot of links coming from various sources.
-Existing subscribers. If you create a new domain, in the beginning you are not going to have any subscribers. Even if you currently have very few RSS subscribers left, at least you will have a few loyal readers from the start. Of course, if your blog has been abandoned for a very long time, then there might not be many subscribers left.
I think that there is no doubt that there are many advantages to restarting a dead blog.
Blog, Web
There are millions of blogs out there. While bloggers communicate with their readers with written language, I am wondering how attractive it would be for readers to view videos of bloggers speaking on various subjects. Qik Video Streaming allows streaming videos from mobile phones, and such content could appear on blogs or related sites like Facebook. I am pretty sure that video streaming blogs will not replace traditional blogs. On the other hand, I am also pretty sure that some bloggers will want to integrate video streaming to some degree. Qik Video Streaming has a latency of around 1-2 seconds, so it is pretty efficient. Time will tell how popular it will become. While it may not become very popular within a year or two, I think that video streaming will gain on popularity when fast broadband connections will be even more accessible. Many Internet users have download limits set by their Internet service providers so they cannot download as much data as they would like. However, this is also likely to change and this is one of the reasons why video streaming might gain on popularity in the future. Of course, it does not mean that regular blogs will disappear.
Blog, Tech, Web
Do you sometimes wonder whether participating in contests is a good idea or just a waste of time? So far I have participated in quite a few contests. Different contests have different entry requirements. I am not going to write about those contests that require entrants to pay a certain amount of money, because I do not think participants should be charged for such things.
The contests I am usually participating in do not have high requirements, although the exception was one contest where ten highest ranked posts written by ten different bloggers were winning an award. All of the winners of that particular contest put a lot of work into writing their posts.
Generally, I am more interested to participate in contests that will give me something valuable for my blog, like a link back, or directed traffic. I especially like if the organizer promises to link back to each participant just for entering the event.
I am almost always avoiding contests that have high entry requirements, and want me to do at least a few things like leave a comment, subscribe to RSS feed, write a post, and so on. Additionally, if there are many participants, and there will be only one winner, then do not get your hopes up too high.
To sum up, I would like to say that the right contests can be really great. Simply participate in contests you are interested in, and make sure you have a chance to win.
Blog, Web
Have you ever wondered why Craigslist achieved such a success? The site is the seventh most viewed site on the Internet. Not bad, is it not? Even though the website is originally based in San Francisco, it operates worldwide. The idea behind the website is very simple. People like to buy and sell used things, and Craigslist allows them to sell items in a very convenient way. There are thousands upon thousands of classified ads on their site, no wonder that the site has so many visitors. People will always need to be buying and selling various items, and this is why sites like this will always stay popular. These days Craigslist is so popular that almost everyone knows what it is. I remember seeing Craig the founder of Craigslist on TV some time ago. While he seems like an intelligent person, he is also in many ways an ordinary guy, which proves that anyone can achieve success on the Web. Of course, not every online entrepreneur will achieve success, but it is definitely worth trying. Do you have any ideas for an innovative website? Who knows, maybe your website will become one of the most popular sites on the Internet?
Biz, Web
I agree that there are some general guidelines when it comes to determining the quality of content. Articles that contain useful information are definitely an example of high quality content.
However, this time I would like to share some of my thoughts about the subjective nature of the quality of content. It might have been stated before by many other bloggers, but I think that it is important to emphasize that quality is subjective. What that means is that there are many different types of bloggers and many types of readers. Reader preferences will vary when it comes to length of posts, topic of posts, and style of writing. This depends on different aspects such as education, sense of humor, general knowledge, writing style, gender, and age. High quality content simply means content that other people appreciate. However, since there are different definitions of high quality content, we cannot simply compare two blogs and decide which one is of higher quality. I would say that the only exception is if you would like to compare two blogs which try to attract the same type of readers. On the other hand, it would be hard to compare two blogs that have a completely different topics and reader base.
Blog, Web
CAPTCHA is very often used as a method to reduce the number of spam comments on websites. It is a way to verify that the person who leaves a comment is real, and is not an automated script. For those who do not know, CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. “CAPTCHA” is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, and it is often incorporated it in a way that visitors have to type the letters of a distorted image. Most spam comments are posted by bots or programs which are specifically designed for spamming. They automatically visit sites on the Internet to look for places where it is possible to submit comments. They do this in order to post unwanted advertisements of websites or services. One of the best ways to stop these bots is to use the CAPTCHA system which requires the visitor to write down the letters that he sees. Since computer programs do not know how to analyze images, only humans will be able to decipher the letters. While some CAPTCHA’s have been broken like phpBB’s, it is still a very good method to avoid scripts spamming forums or other websites. A lot of sites are recently adding the CAPTCHA verification system. I think that this will not make them necessarily less enjoyable to visit, but will rather prevent spammers and hackers. However, when using CAPTCHA it is important to make it readable to for average person. After all, we want to stop bots from visiting our site, not our loyal visitors.
Blog, Tech, Web
Email has become increasingly popular during the last few years. This, however, led to many people abusing it. Spam is an example of people abusing email. I am sure you do not want to be classified as a spammer, or somebody who sends unwanted emails. If that is the case, simply make sure that you personally know the recipient. Of course, there are also other rules that email users may wish to follow:
-If you decide to have an email box, check it regularly. Email etiquette requires that emails should be responded to after the maximum of a few days after receiving them. It is the best if you answer the same day you received an email. If this is a spam or unwanted message that you received, you do not have to respond at all.
-While composing a message do not forget to insert a subject. People like to know in advance what an email is going to be about before they open it. Make sure you are specific, but you also do not have to reveal too much information.
-Do not use capital letters in your emails. On the Internet it is considered to be the same as shouting, so try to avoid that.
Web
Sites like Flickr have been growing in popularity for the last few years. Taking photos and uploading them to sites like Flickr has been a hobby of many enthusiasts. Unfortunately, some people try to take advantage out of it, and are selling pictures taken from Flickr on sites like eBay. Usually, they claim that they are their own, which of course is not true. It is not easy to identify such people, and even if you are the one who took the pictures, it will not be easy for you to track each photograph you have made. Even if you are using some tool to detect duplicate images, it is easy to change the size of the picture by slightly cutting the bottom or right/left side of it. This way it should be impossible to track whether your photos are being posted anywhere else. Your best bet is to watermark your pictures.
Of course, if you are taking pictures simply for fun, then you are not going to lose any money because someone is selling your pictures. If would be a completely different situation if you were a professional photographer because people who downloaded your pictures from Flickr could undercut your prices very easily. That is because they would have no costs associated with downloading your pictures. I am not saying that sites like Flickr are a bad thing, but I am simply reminding everyone that it is easy for people to take someone’s work and claim it as their own.
Tech, Web
As a blog author and web publisher my accent is obviously not that important, since I spread my thoughts in a written format. Even though my accent might not be that important, I think that some of you would be interested in what way do I speak. Having this in mind, I took the ‘What American Accent Do You Have’ quiz in order to see for myself. The result of the quiz was that I have the Midland accent, which actually is another way of saying that I do not have any specific accent. So, if you are wondering in what way I speak, then try to imagine someone from Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri or maybe someone from Florida or Charleston, as I speak in a similar way they do. You can take the quiz by visiting gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have.
Tech, Web
Wikipedia is currently the king of all online encyclopedias. Until now, there were no real competitors which would undermine that. Naturally, there were some sites which tried to repeat the success of Wikipedia. However, they either lacked funding, had the wrong motivation, or were simply released too late. Currently, the largest competitor of Wikipedia is Google’s Knol. I believe that Knol might achieve a big success because it is backed up by Google. Google might implement ads on Knol, and it might even share part of the revenue with the creators of pages. This could bring a lot of users from Wikipedia to Knol, especially those who hope to be paid for their hard work.
In some countries, sites like Wikipedia are very controversial. Until very recently, Chinese Internet users were prohibited from seeing some of the Wikipedia pages. This was due to the fact that they were considered to be inappropriate by the Chinese government. The site has been reported to be unblocked in several major cities in this country, including its capital city. As China was hosting Olympics in August 2008, the International Olympic Committee was urging the Chinese to give free access to Internet to everybody before the Games started. Wikipedia, as well as other sites, are still having a hard time in China. Not such a long time ago, a person who is probably China’s number one dissident, was jailed for three and a half years in prison. It was stated that it was because of publishing “inappropriate” articles on the Internet.
Biz, Web