Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category
The NY Times published an interesting article about a very surprising (at least for me) statement: Around 95% of existing blogs are abandoned completely. According to a study made by Technorati, only 7.4 million of the 133 million blogs that the company tracks down had been updated in the past 120 days. Meaning that 95% of blogs existing on Internet are abandoned and never updated again.
Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.
But why is this happening? Why people just suddenly looses motivation to write or share experiences, information, articles, etc? The article also remarks that people usually confuse the idea of blogging as a fast way to financial independence and rapidly find themselves discouraged.
But, besides the possible financial disappointment, is it twitter related to this? In a small way, I think.
Over an year ago (maybe more) when I started to hear about Twitter I found this short comic (from Gapingvoid), metioned also on an old post of mine about Twitter:
For some cases, I’m sure this is a very realistic comic. After all, Twitter it is a way of micro blogging, share information and (current) experiences. And it is easier and simpler to keep updated your Twitter account instead of your blog. It is the same? Absolutely not.
Blogging is so much richer, states as a permanent document (Twitter also does, but not so friendly to review them), or even as your historical experience in a given subject. It’s all about sharing: information, opinions, expertiece, experiences, etc etc.
My take? Never stop blogging.
Have you ever wanted top quality customizable icons for your blog or site but cant really afford it? Well here is the solution, Iconza. Iconza is a new application that allows you to customise icons just the way you want them. It is completely free and very easy to use with a great interface.
Iconza lets you customise the colours of your icons, backgrounds, sizes and then lets you easily download them all for free. So if you are in the need of some top quality free icons for your site or blog then head over to Iconza.
IntenseDebate is a new wordpress plugin which offers an enhanced user commenting experience. Currently IntenseDebate has a easy to add wordpress plugin in which you can add straight into your platform and within a few clicks it can be live and working. Features include: commenting threading, reply by email, profiles, widgets, twitter integration and more.
IntenseDebate is one of many comment plugins that really help you try to increase traffic and build community around your site. I really think this idea has legs, but it needs to be part of a much bigger platform. It would be great if Wordpress took a few ideas from IntenseDebate and added them into their platform.
Imagination is a Fully Customizable WordPress Theme and comes pre-loaded with 9 different site-wide styles to choose from, with just a click.
Moreover, You can customize the style according to your mood, occasion or preferences. Use your imagination to create a unique look of your blog/website anytime you want. Imagination theme is free to use and distribute. Feel free to share this theme with anyone and everyone.
WordPress Testers and early adopters can now download Wordpress 2.8 and test the new features that promise to make WordPress better and more powerful than before.
There are lots of new features in WordPress 2.8 that are really interesting. Here are a few user features you can look out for
- New Theme Installer routines
- Add CodePress syntax highlighting to Theme and Plugin editors
- Use “Custom Header” for menu text and revise Default theme to reflect change
- Separate Comments into a separate postbox, from Discussion postbox, on the Edit Post screen
- Make tags accessible without Javascript on the edit screen
- Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam
- Don’t notify post author of own comments
- Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns as set via the Screen Options tab
- Add column “Rating” in Administration > Links > Edit
- Improve installer to help people entering wrong email addresses
- Per Page option for plugins
- Show absolute date instead of relative date for scheduled posts
- Autosave post/page when pressing Control/Command+S
- Add toggle all button to the Gallery tab in the uploader
- Support more than one gallery on the same page
- Add per page option to Screen Options for comments, posts, pages, media, categories, and tags
- Show Tools menu for all users so they can access Turbo
- Fix most popular link category list
- Add description field for tags
- “Choose a city in the same timezone as you” for Timezone in Administration > Settings > General
- In upgrade process, provide better explanation for database upgrade message
- Enforce unique email addresses in Add/Edit users
- Hide things that need to be available to screen readers via offscreen positioning
- Use invisible class for hiding labels and legends
- Use a semantic class name for text targeted to screen readers
Download Wordpress 2.8 Beta 1 now and try it out. Since its a beta release, don’t try it on your primary blog.
Over at Six Revisions they have released in partnership with Creative Nerds a new free RSS icon pack. There are eight RSS icons in the pack, and it includes the Photoshop file (PSD) in case you’d like to tweak the design.
Licensing details
The creative work featured here – entitled ” SlickRSS ” – is licensed under the Creative Commons license and can be used for personal and/or commercial purposes.
The Creative Commons license requires you to “attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor”. Our attribution specification: you don’t need to attribute the work to us (though you’re more then welcome to, and we will definitely appreciate it).
Download
The following file contains PNG files and a PSD file.
IsoTherm News is out and ready for professional use. It is magazine styled theme with everything you need to start publishing your own web journal with all the features you will need to attract new visitors. There is a Featured posts box. It supports Video and Popular Posts Widgets as well.
The other day I came across Seekopia which is an online blog magazine you can personalize according to your own tastes and interests. Combining online advertising and blogging, Seekopia has created a completely new way to blog and earn money. Create your free blog today and Seekopia will help you build a list of followers by promoting your posts and keeping track of your readers. By starting a blog, you instantly own a share of advertising on each and every blog post in Seekopia. Seekopia uses both contextual ads as well as custom user adverts throughout the entire network.
The site itself is very simple and the idea is very similar to what Google are trying to do with their Knol project. It seems as though there are a huge amount of these types of sites on the net at the moment and the only way they are going to stay alive in the long run is by providing quality content and giving back good revenues to contributors.
I must admit a lot of work needs to be done on the design of Seekopia. Currently there seems to be a lot of blank space at the bottom of the home page and even in the sidebars of each blog. It is interesting to see that Seekopia is also using Google Adsense as their advertising provider, because this makes me wonder if they are providing the writers with 100% of the revenues or just splitting the percentage with the blogger.
There are many alternatives to blogging on a site like Seekopia, such as writing Paid per post on your own blog, writing for a blog network, writing on Google’s Knol project or simply writing your own blog with Wordpress and using Google Adsense to monetize your site. Overall I don’t really see the point of sites like Seekopia because they provide too much creative freedom to the journalist, but seems to provide little in return. As a user I would much rather read a highly targeted and professional blog compared to something like Seekopia.
Twitter has quickly become one of the most influencial services on the internet. It seems as though every celebrity, blogger, athlete, and musicians have a Twitter account. With so many people joining and promoting their Twitter accounts, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a great list of Twitter Icons and where you can find them.
Twitter Social Icons
Set of six social icons (Digg, Twitter, Delicious, RSS, Reddit & Stumbleupon) are free to use on your websites and blogs however you wish! Courtesy of Designreviver.
30 Free Vector Twitter Buttons Download
30 twitter buttons in EPS format.
31 Twiiter Button
A Little Bird Told Me
Inspired by Twitter and other vector designs. By mattknow
Create a Twitter Style Bird Mascot
Tutorial on how to create a Twitter mascot for your blog or website.
FREE Twitter Icons For Your Website/Blog
Flockey’s Twitter Icons for websites and blog. Availablei n .PNG, .PSD and .AI file format.
Twitter Icon
Created by PhireDesign.
Twitter Bird Icons & Illustration
Free Twitter Graphics
Here are some free graphics to put on your site for that purpose- just place the image on your site and link to your Twitter profile.
Twitter Birdy Icon
Cute birdy icon created by Kailoon. Available in transparency PNG format.
IconTexto Webdev Social Bookmark
Free Twitter Icon Set
This set contains 4 different poses of the Twitter bird. Both PNG and PSD versions has been included in the .zip file.
Twitter Icons with Attitude
Pracktika Free Icon Set
Designed by DryIcons, released by Smashing Magazine. Available in resolutions 64×64px, 128×128px and 256×256px, in 32-bit transparency PNG.
(max)Icone Blog, Set 3
Web 2.0rigami
Twitter icon, origami style.
Free vector twitter icon
Royalty-free vector icon.
Feed & Twitter Monster Icons
Feed and Twitter icons as monsters.
Twitter icon for a fluid app
Really big Twitter “t” icon.
High Resolution Twitter Bird Icons
WebInjection is an Icon Pack for webmasters and web developers. The set includes 26 stylish icons, each icon is a .png at 48×48px. It is free for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. This icon set is created by Midtone Design Studio, you can view his another Icon Pack – Colorful Mania Iconset as well.
For the last two years we have been developing RouteNote at Insomnia Media, and in that time have been closely keeping an eye on digital music news and where the shift is going. I thought I would write a quick post and let everyone know my favourite digital music blogs to follow.
Hypebot – Hypebot is written by Bruce Houghton and is a daily report on the last news in the digital music space. Bruce is also the founder and president of Skyline Music (booking agency) and Skyline Consultancy in which he is a music and technology consultant to many music startups.
Digital Music News – Digital Music News is the news and information authority for music industry and technology executives. Digital Music News is founded and edited by Paul Resnikoff. Paul writes daily posts on Digital Music News and also send out a dialy newsletter to industry executives called the Daily Snapshot.
Billboard.biz – Billboard.biz is the digital music arm of the Billboard website. Billboard.biz discusses digital music news with normally at least 10 articles per day. Articles on Billboard.biz don’t just come straight from the USA they as encompass International digital music news, so that you get the full picture.
Digital Audio Insider – Digital Audio Insider is written by David Harrell, who writes digital music news from an artists perspective. David is in a band based in the UK and they use all kinds of different digital music stores and partners to sell/stream their music, and David’s writings are a great insight into what the average artist is thinking and what they are looking for.
Coolfer – Glenn Peoples has worked in the music industry for over eight years and founded Coolfer.com while working and living in New York City. Coolfer was a total ad free blog which is pretty unheard of these days. A week or so ago Glenn announced on his site that he would stop writing because he was offered a new job over at Billboard.biz asSenior Editorial Analyst, so you can now read his work over there.
OneRoom is a beautiful three columns theme with fixed width and widget-ready free wordpress theme. It has built-in author section in sidebar and gravatar support for comments. This theme has been tested in all the major Web browsers (Firefox, IE6+, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari).
