Mcneri: wordpress

Showing posts with label wordpress. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 23

Sploggers: Spamming a Felony?

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Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Is spamming not a felony? A serious crime? When an internet user decides to spam, or worse still splog thereby deceiving internet users and infringing on copyright, it should be seen as a Felony. If you spam, it is a form of cybercrime since it is unsolicited intrusion of one's privacy/personal web space, and qualifies by virtue of the fact that a computer is being used as a tool in criminal activity, infringing on copyright.

Hello splogging spammer, I do not know which planet you come from, but at least you live here. Stop spamming. I think the laws should be tightened and enforced much more. Spammers should be brought to book. They not only scrape the web for other people's work, they also use it to make money for themselves through online adverting. I understand Google has done alot to curb them but they are still rampant. According to Mashable last month, Wordpress has up to 33% of its blogs, spam blogs. That is an obscene number.

For those new to the blogosphere, or old members learning new skills, make sure you do not spam. hard work pays off on the internet. If you play by the rules, you can not go wrong, or rather you would almost never go wrong.

Akismet, a wordpress anti-spam plugin has done a great deal to stop spam comments before they get published. Also Lorelle VanFossen, recently in a post on BlogHerald discussed how Google, Technorati and herself were responding to the spamming sploggers. Newer anti-spam software will be robots. they will spider the splogs, and destroy the contents down to the root directory. Then they will send the information into a database including the IP addresses, sign-on information, host account on server and location. If possible, the perpertrators should also be identified. Just dreaming? Well if was a programmer that would be my next project. Since I am not, I hope some of you out there will take up the challenge and get this problem out of the way.

Once again, if you want your blog to be a top-rated blog in your lifetime, do not spam and do not splog.

Monday, April 14

22 Must have Firefox add-ons for Bloggers (Blogging tip 2 of 22)

Image via Wikipedia
#2 Zemanta add-on for Firefox

This is an awesome Firefox add-on that beats me. I only recently started using it and all I can say is that it is great. According to the Zemanta homepage, the tool lets you

"Have your browser understand what you are blogging about and suggest pictures, links, articles and tags to make your posts more vibrant. We are making blogging fun again."

It is an impressive tool, as it eases off the having to flip between tabs to get content to make your blog relevant in the blogosphere. Zemanta goes and fetches the most relevant content from blogs around the web. More importantly, it fetches content that is recent and from higly ranked pages. That way, when you reference these posts, you are more likely to get references from the trackbacks. That is how to become a powerblogger, becoming more relevant in the blogosphere over time, as your blogging gets more references.

Wordpress 2.5 was recently released and that brought up a challenge for the Zemanta team, however within a few short days, the team came up with a fix. At the moment, the tool is compatible and works with all versions of Wordpress including the recently released 2.5 version. It also works with Blogger and Typepad.

In one of the earlier reviews was from Techcrunch's Mike Butcher entitled 'A content suggestion engine for blogging ?That could work...'. Other earlier reviews include this more extensive one on wordplayblog.com
This suggestion tool that also fetches images is really a blogger's dream. It is still an alpha release and the founders are a start-up, however the tool is likely to get popular real soon. The strongest potential I see is that of being referenced by subsequent blogs on the topic since you would be one of the most recent bloggers about that topic using Zemanta!

If you were to use Zemanta to blog this moment about say.....Zemanta, the tool will fetch relevant keywords, tags, blogs and images for you. Most of the images come from Wikipedia. Below your rich text editor, it keeps suggesting links and keywords which you may decide to take some , all or none. Beside the editor window also, you have the Zemified option of selecting related articles and letting them appear at the bottom of your post. In like manner, other blogs will see you at the side if they are using the add-on.

This tool is new and I do not know how robust its engine is, but there are indications that it is really smart. I will like to hear from you, how useful this one has been and any hiccups you may have experienced using it. It is a must have for bloggers, even though there are some skeptics who are worried about sploggers. What I do not know is when an IE plugin will be available (still beta testing). Or are we all going to FIREFOX?

The video below is from Zemanta. Enjoy!

Sunday, April 6

The best kept secrets about blog traffic building

In this 3 post series, I will outline certain principles that should guide you if you want to build a blog from the scratch. I will also explain why many blogs fall by the wayside and why blogs are the future of mankind.

In the begining:

I started my wordpress blog and approximately 30 days later, we recieved our 1500th unique visitor. By some standards, that is mediocre, while with others that is very impressive. Personally I am impressed. I am sure some readers are guessing that this is my umpteenth blog, no no no. My first blog.

Start

If you want to build blog traffic from the scratch, you have to start. Go to wordpress dot com and get a free blog. It is easier than getting an email address. Other alternatives include blogger, typepad and a zillion others out there. There are differences between the various platforms and wordpress dot com seems to be very advanced and user-friendly, especially with their continuous upgrades. The down side is that you are limited in terms of flexibility and if you hope to make money from blogging with advertisements, then this is not the free platform for you. Blogger dot com allows free users to insert adverts, so go there if you are keen on that.

Looking for content

Many advisers and bloggers will always tell you: "create your own niche", "be an expert in your niche" etc etc etc. While that is a valid fact, how many experts will there be? If I like techy stuff, how will I keep up with Techcrunch, Gizmodo and Lifehacker? There are editorial teams blogging about everything and anything on the web. I decided to blog so I have to start with what I have. Simply, you have to blog about the things that interest you online. With time, it will take shape and you will morph your blogging technique into what you really are best at. For some other topics, it may be a struggle. Do not stop. Let your target be at least 200 words, 500 would be better.

Many bloggers want to read as many blogs as possible within a short time and who has time for a 3000 word essay. Go straight to the "money". If you have a picture or a video, include it to give your blog some color. Even after writing, review your essay and correct any typos identified. If you run out of ideas, find out what the top blogs are blogging about and spin a variant of that. Let your personality reflect in what you write. I do not think one can get it wrong, being one's self.

Looking for readers

The best blog posts are just ones and zeros on some remote computer in a room being cooled by giant cooling systems in some high-rise building, somewhere out there. If theses numbers are not accessed by the blogger, they do not become blogs and are never read. Just like the customer, the most important person in the blog equation is the reader. Go and get them.

I looked for them in several ways for my Mcneri Wordpress Blog. I first sought to use the best background colors I could find:white. The most successful websites have white or almost white backgrounds, so I waded through wordpress themes until I got to journalist theme and stopped.

I activated my Feedburner for RSS. There is also an email subscription box available. I joined BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. I submitted my posts to Digg. I signed up with Technorati. I also included my link in a couple of forums that I belong to. I also submitted my posts to Google submit url the moment I finished posting it.

Starting the buzz

Your blog has to give something to the blogosphere, if you are expecting anything in return....naturally. I have initiated a complimentary service where I will highlight one website per week as site of the week. We have recieved a few entries and soon our first site will be show-cased. The how to become a world class section is also a new addition that guides readers on aspects of their career.

The traffic has not been fantastic, but has steadily increased. I did not spend any money on adverts, backlinks or link exchanges. I have attempted exchanges, but it has not yielded much and I am not keen anyway.

I have also commented on several blogs and some pay me a visit in return, while others do not even allow a link back to my poor little blog. We learn everyday. I have also tried to respond to any comments on my blog. Not too many for now so I have managed well. I guess, anyone with more than 200 comments in a day will have a real difficulty responding. However if you are small fry like me, make sure you respond to the visitors, promptly.

Monetizing the blog

This is an important aspect of blogging and I believe that since Google and Microsoft are making money, everyone that contributes to the web should. How do I do that? Juggling a full time and a half job leaves me very little time after family to blog, so I am taking it easy. Now I have started this blog on blogger. We have Google Adsense and Amazon Associates ads there. I may even be able to add Text Link Ads. I will then be positioned to monetize my blog. that is why there are very few links out of this blog post.

To be continued