PureBlogging

It is not my intention to just link to my own articles on WebProNews everyday on this blog. It just so happens that I’ve been covering stuff that seems relevant here, so if the shoe fits…

Those of you out there who blog about current news topics might be interested to know that Yahoo! News has a redesign in the works that will feature a section where blogs covering news items can get some links.

To see the new design, you can go to any Yahoo! News article page and alter the URL slightly, replacing the “S” with “Story” in the following manner:

news.yahoo.com/s/…

news.yahoo.com/story/…

I have not heard anything about when Yahoo! intends to roll this new design out, but once they do, it should be a good way for bloggers to pick up some good promotion. Yahoo! News is pretty popular, so it should drive a good amount of traffic to the blogs it features.

For more on the topic, read my WebProNews piece.

I promise this blog won’t consist entirely of retreads of my own work as time goes on, but I don’t know how many of you are WebProNews readers anyway, and there’s some crossover in topics of interest.

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Links are often used in blogging to provide reference to a point or a hat tip, which is why one of the latest things Google is up to could provide an excellent resource for bloggers. Google is archiving print newspapers, and not just new ones. They’re going back in history.

Not only will this provide great linking material for more interesting blog posts, it could open up a plethora of resources to draw inspiration from in the first place.

We all know that writer’s block is a problem that commonly plagues bloggers, particularly those trying to earn some income from their efforts. The need for interesting content is a constant one, and thanks to Google the Search Giant, the inspiration is going to flow more rapidly than ever, I don’t care what niche you’re in.

If Google truly gets anywhere close to the number of newspaper publications even in America, let alone the entire world, into its archives, there are going to be so many interesting subjects out there worth (at least to somebody) discussing. There’s going to be a lot of information for all audiences.

All of the small town news items that never quite make it to national news, “from revolutions and politics to fashion to local weather or high school football scores,” as Google itself says. They’re even including all of the photographs, headlines, articles, and advertisements from these publications. There’s got to be plenty of fuel for advertising and photography blogs alone right there.

What I’m really getting at, is that there is a ton of information on the Internet waiting to be blogged about, but Google is bringing a great deal of the offline information online too, and that is a whole lot of information, stories, and history. Google even has North America’s oldest newspaper as a partner. It’s publication dates back 244 years!

I think you see my point. From now on, if you are suffering from blog writer’s block, you’re not looking for a topic hard enough. For more on Google’s latest project, I wrote this piece for WebProNews.

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Lately there seems to be a lot of efforts being made to make blogging even more social than it already is. I have written several times on sites like WebProNews and SmallBusinessNewz about some of the things different platforms like Movable Type, WordPress, and Blogger are doing to make their services more social, and why blogs are really kind of like social networks anyway.

Rather than rewrite these articles here, I will just provide you with a few links. I don’t intend for posts on this blog to just be collections of links in the future, but since I am new to the blog, maybe it will give you a little taste of where I’m coming from.

- The Social Part of Blogging

- Google’s New Blogger Features

- Movable Type: Blogs Not Social Enough

- Facebook Connect Plugin for WordPress Glimpsed

Anyhow, I just thought the topic of blogs as social tools seemed like a good topic for me to start with here, so I thought I’d throw these at you.

As far as this blog itself, you can start expecting at least one new post usually about 5 days a week. So those who don’t subscribe to the feed, please come back frequently!

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Good morning! Anybody else see Hellboy II over the weekend? I was sorely disappointed — I was hoping for something vastly better than the first movie, but got something only marginally better. Oh well — I’m still looking forward to this weekend’s double-whammy of The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia.

And speaking of Batman…

Warren Ellis has called for an end to linkblogs. Maybe the whole Boing Boing vs Violet Blue thing soured him — I know it soured me. Meanwhile, Quark Soup makes some pretty reasonable complaints about blogs in general (h/t Gerry Canavan). Remember: There’s no niche too small. As blogs become more and more localized, will we stop caring about the generalists and focusing more on the experts?

The Writers’ Bag offers a cool tutorial on speed writing. As someone who keeps a moleskine handy at all times, I think I’m going to try this, since my brain often works much faster than my hands.

MetaFilter reminds us that Terry Rossio, half of the screenwriting team that brought you Captain Jack Sparrow, is blogging again. The blog itself seems to indicate that the table of contents was last updated in Fall of ’07, but hey, a goldmine is a goldmine.

“Trust and credibility are worth more than a fast buck,” say the Men With Pens. It’s a lesson many of us could stand to keep learning. Not me, of course. I am a paragon of virtue.

The adorable manga girls at Dosh Dosh remind us to contextualize the information we share. Also at Dosh Dosh: You’re not just a writer, you’re the editor in chief.

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Well, it’s still Monday morning on the West Coast. For a little while longer, anyway.

37 Signals offers some great motivation (and good ideas) for finding revenue streams.

Hacker News has a great discussion on the nature of SEO.

Copyblogger has tips on managing the length of your blog posts.

Men With Pens asks the Ultimate Question: Why do we blog?

Seth Godin makes a great observation about Wall-E and the bravery of creating great content.

Has anyone seen Wall-E, by the way? For my dollar it’s the best movie of the year. If I ever make it as an actor, I’ll be able to cry like a hungry baby, on command, just by thinking of the scene where EVE is trying frantically to find a new circuit board to replace Wall-E’s broken one. See, there I go right now. Big salty tears, right in the keyboard.

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If you are serious about being a better blogger, you’re probably already highly familiar with the name Darren Rowse (or at least his Problogger blog). You might also know Chris Garrett who blogs about new media. These guys are leaders in the industry who have gained recognition for their success (including their financial success) in the business. Yesterday they both published announcements on their respective blogs about the fact that they have co-written a book about blogging together that will be released within the next few weeks.

The ProBlogger Book

You really only need to know the title of the book to understand what it’s all about; it’s called ProBlogger Book: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. If you want to know more, Chris’s announcement says that the book was quite difficult for the two of them to work on over the course of the last year due in no small part to the fact that they really wanted to live up to the book’s title. These are guys that have done well in the business of blogging and they want the readers of the book to benefit from their experience.

The bloggers behind the book

If for some strange reason, you don’t know about these bloggers, they are guys who have gotten attention for leading the areas in which they work. Here’s a little bit more information for you to chew on:

Darren Rowse, who is probably best known from his leading blog about blogging ProBlogger, is an Australian blogger who got attention in part because of his Six Figure Blogging telecourse. He was among the first to suggest the bloggers can not only survive off of their blogging income but can actually do quite well for themselves if they put in the time and effort to do so. In addition to the Problogger blog, Darren is the co-founder and VP of the b5 media blog network which includes numerous different blogs. He has contributed to numerous blogs and websites and has gained experience in blogging from the ground up.

Chris Garrett is a name that’s not as well known to many bloggers but is even more well-known than Darren to a few. That’s because his specialty is working in “new media” and he has worked as a consultant for numerous people who are making their living in the new media world. That includes blogging, of course, with which he is familiar for a number of different reasons. The main reason is that he is a founding member of Performancing, a site which is geared towards helping bloggers succeed in blogging.

Why bloggers would want to read this book

The main reason that you’d want to read this book as a blogger is because there is bound to be a lot of good advice for you about how to be financially successful at blogging. Additionally, you can probably avoid a lot of beginning blogger mistakes by reading a summary such as this one from two bloggers who have already been there before you. But there’s a more important reason that bloggers should consider reading this book. If you want to take blogging seriously then you need to know what’s going on in the world of blogging around you. You can’t just stay confined to the niche of your own blog. And right now, what’s going on is that two leading blog consultants have published a book about blogging that is sure to be read by a majority of your blogging competition. In order to be a leading blogger yourself, you have to know what others are referencing and this book is sure to make that list.

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