PureBlogging

Really Simple Syndication (often called “RSS”) feeds have become a growing trend within the blogosphere. Most blogs out there do have RSS feeds enabled within their content management system, allowing various blog readers to keep up-to-date with blog posts on the fly. This is mainly done through hand-held devices like cellphones and PDAs.

RSS feeds can also provide a way for you to view all the blogs that you read in one place, allowing readers a way to manage the numerous blog posts into just one system. To “subscribe” to the RSS feed on a blog which you desire, just click on the RSS icon () within the address bar of your browser.

The personal computer can also view and read RSS feeds as well. With companies like FeedBurner, RSS feeds have become mainstream within blogging circles.

I have provided a list below of a few free readers that you can download or utilize to view RSS content:

• Google Reader – If you have a Gmail account, you may use Google’s RSS reader to view your blog content just like you check your e-mail.
• FeedDemon – This reader presents your content in a Mozilla Thunderbird style arrangement, letting you sort your blog posts by folder.
• RSS Ticker – This is a Mozilla Firefox add-on that will let you view your RSS feeds in a stock market type arrangement as it scrolls across the status bar of your browser.

If you have any favorite RSS feed readers that you use, feel free to share them in the comments of this post.

Happy Blogging!

Popularity: 12% [?]

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?

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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.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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.

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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.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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?

Popularity: 6% [?]