PureBlogging

Twitter, the social networking site that allows users to describe what they are doing in less than 140 characters is becoming quite a companion for bloggers and the blogosphere.

You may even think that it even might be considered “a mini blog” since you are sharing the events in your life with fellow Twitter users that are following your account.

A trend that has been happening is that Twitter users have been using their account to spread the word about the happenings on their blog. You will often see users in the Recent Updates feed mentioning something like “New blog post!” followed by a link to their blog (mostly seen as a TinyURL redirect link). This method can also be an alternative to an RSS feed as people will “Tweet” the update of their blog right after it is posted.

If you have been blogging for quite a while, and have a vast amount of readers and blog partners, most likely that the majority of them will have an account there.

What are your thoughts on Twitter in relation to the blogosphere?

Hello! I’m Chad, and will now be providing the frequent content for this blog. I would like to commend Chris on his contributions to this amazing blogging resource. I am honored to blog here in his stead, but be on the lookout for occasional posts from him on here in the future.

Guess what? Blogging has it’s own month! If you are familiar with National Novel Writing Month (commonly known as NaNoWriMo), blogging now has it’s turn! National Blog Posting Month (nicknamed NaBloPoMo) is a challenge to write one post a day for the rest of the month. Are you up to this challenge?

There are various prizes (now I have your attention?) to be awarded to bloggers that win this contest–mostly donated by others that are contributing to this project.

If any of you out there are participating in this challenge, make yourself known by leaving a comment. It will be interesting to see how many readers of this blog are contenders of NaBloPoMo.

Here we go again. The blogosphere is dead. Nicholas Carr at RoughType.com writes:

Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they’re part of a “blogosphere” that is distinguishable from the “mainstream media” seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion.

And the fate of blogs conversation goes on.

Jason Miller at WebProNews has come good commentary on it.

For several days, I’ve been trying to spend a little time getting more organized to increase the efficiency of my work. What I have mostly been doing is reorganizing my Google Reader account.

As a writer/blogger, I have plenty of sources to draw from, and I subscribe to a ton of RSS feeds. I also write for a variety of different blogs/sites, and they’re not all in the exact same niche (plus I have other interests and subscriptions that don’t have much to do with my writing at all). I have been working for a while with pretty much a jumbled mess of all of these things. Don’t get me wrong. I had it organized to a certain extent. I had my work stuff separate from my non-work stuff, although as I take on new writing projects, the line on some of that begins to blur a bit.

But I have been breaking down my organizational structure as far as I can take it. For example, I have a folder dedicated to only blogging-related sources, that I will draw from for this blog in the future. This way, when I know it’s time to write something for PureBlogging.com, I can easily peruse this folder and find a topic that I wish to discuss (if I’m having writers block) or a reference that I can cite. I follow a similar pattern for my other writing projects.

I have also been going around seeking out new sources of information. The more sources the better as far as I’m concerned. The more information coming in, the more informed I am likely to be, which can only enhance my writing.

This is all probably common sense to a lot of you, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it can be a bit time consuming. That’s just the thing. I think sometimes we get caught up in our work (and non-work lives for that matter) and don’t take the time to get organized, which in the long run will likely save you a lot of time and increase your productivity.

I’ve been doing it a little at a time, from day to day as to not take too big a chunk out of my day. When it’s all said and done, my Reader is going to be a well-oiled machine and my writing quantity and quality should increase as a product of that.

David Peralty at Branding David has a post up that says it’s a big mistake to host your business blog on a hosted service. He makes the following points

- Bad for Branding

- Bad for Control

- Bad for User Experience

- Bad for SEO

He of course elaborates on each of these, and to be honest, his points are hard to argue with. Still, this doesn’t mean that using a hosted service is always inappropriate. Marshall Kirkpatrick shares some pros and cons on the matter.

“If blogging makes up less than 60% of your work, it might make sense to just go through a hosted service and leave the bulk of the set up and maintenance to them,” he concludes.

Looking around to see what others think, the general consensus seems to view hosted services as being best for amateurs, whereas serious bloggers who are counting on their blogs as their main source of income would do better to do the hosting themselves.

Your take on the matter? Anyone finding great success using a hosted service?

Well, history has been made and Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President, and the 1st African-American President of the United States Of America.  Some are overjoyed, and some not so much.

What are bloggers saying?

As to create a fair non-biased look, I’m just going to provide some quotes from the first 10 blogs that came up in a search for “Barack Obama” on Google Blog Search by date (some might consider this to be biased being how Google execs openly endorsed Obama, but it’s not like Google is creating this content, so make of it what you will):

There are positive and negative aspects of Barack Obama’s new economic plan. Some parts the plan should help us out as internet marketers. There are other parts that might hurt us. First, let’s start with the best news…we internet marketers are a resourceful bunch and we’ll probably make sure that everything goes well for our future no matter what.

- Dan Dimi - Site Reference

Obama will be 5th youngest US president . Barack Obama will be little over 47 years when he is sworn in as US President on January 20 next and will be the fifth youngest occupant of the White House.

- Myrtle’s Space

I just received via email a very insightful and poignant perspective on the election of Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Executive Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

” Last night as America elected its first black president, Barack Obama, the room I sat in, filled with tears whether or not they had experienced the pain of being black. At the same time there was much loud celebration. It reminded me of the time when my sisters and I would yell for my mother to come out of the kitchen because there was a black person on TV. And she would come running. Yet, I know that last night we were not only witnessing a black family on its way to the white house but that the true nature of things had been revealed once again. There has always been change.”

- Mike4U, Kalyana Mitta Sangha

Barack Obama has won the fight for presidency. Whether he was your candidate or not, the big winner of this election is not only Barack Obama but the tools and technologies he used to propel him to the presidency. Social networking, online display ads, television, a half hour infomercial, radio, mobile, gaming (18! COUNT 18! games including Guitar Hero and Madden 09 featured in-game ads from the Obama campaign in the last weeks leading up to the election), the list goes on and on. All of these platforms he utilized to encourage support and interactive participation from voters. His campaign used these channels not just to raise money and sway voters–but to mobilize supporters in a way that would translate a win.

- Devora Rogers, Future of Media

Today, Barack Obama is hope for a better tomorrow for all Americans. He stands on the shoulders of all those people who have incessantly prayed for a day when “justice will run down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24).

Perhaps one day, my two sons and I will have the opportunity to meet Barack Obama in person to express our gratitude to him for bringing our family full circle.

- Peggy Wallace, PoliticalMusic.Wordpress.com

Yesterday there were people praying for a John McCain victory. There were also people praying for a Barack Obama victory. Did the now President-Elect Barack Obama supporters pray harder? Did they have more faith? What is prayer’s role in this election? What should its role be in the Obama Administration? How should one feel toward an Obama presidency today if they were praying against it yesterday? These are some very real questions in the thoughts of many Americans today.

- Jeremy Bradshaw, Culture of Sacrifice

On September 2, 2008, RBO began working through Obama’s Illinois State Election Board records for his Friends of Obama political action committee, which commenced in 1995.

To date, RBO has documented…

- Procrustes, TheRealBarackObama.WordPress.com

Barack Obama has become the first African-American to be elected to the United States presidency.  Whether or not you were happy about the outcome, this is surely a historic election.  It is one that will certainly be remembered for the voter enthusiasm it generated.

People flocked to the polls in record numbers.  Some made a point to bring their children to share with them the privilege of voting.  It made you excited for the future and proud to be an American.

- Victoria, Read it Or Weep

On Tuesday, Barack Obama gave himself and his career as a present to the American people, a gift that promised them future miracles of reconciliation.

- Robert Fulford, National Post

There are positive and negative aspects of Barack Obama’s new economic plan. Some parts the plan should help us out as internet marketers. There are other parts that might hurt us. First, let’s start with the best news…we internet marketers are a resourceful bunch and we’ll probably make sure that everything goes well for our future no matter what.

- Dan Dimit - Site Reference

Note: a few listings were skipped because they were blank or only included video, quotes, or links.