Window in the Web

Widgets: Toys for Bloggers

2008-01-30T20:32:16Z

Welcome to the first edition of Thursday Thirteen on Window in the Web.

I have assembled for your blogging pleasure a list of widgets that are fun, informative and useful.

Before we begin, one caveat: While widgets can add much to our blogs, we must alway use with care. Too many widgets can slow loading time and add unnecessary clutter.

With that in mind, here are some widgets to play with:

1. Blogcatalog - See who has visited your blog. Another feature is the social networking like ability to send broadcasts and messages as well as start conversations with your contacts. Beware of spammy sites "friending" your blog. See my sidebar for example.

2. MyBlogLog - Same concept as Blogcatalog without as much social networking. It does offer a unique feature to allow you to join a blog's community automatically upon a preset number of visits. Much less useful for those looking to use the system for spam because it doesn't have as many social networking features. Also on my sidebar.

3. Entrecard - A newer concept, this widget allows bloggers to drop their "card" - a 125X125 image linking to their blog - when they visit other blogs that use Entrecard. Widgets are designed to advertise approved cards at the discretion of the blog owner. Bloggers earn advertising credits by visiting other blogs and dropping their cards. At publication date, it is not possible to have more than one blog registered in an account, but updates to the system have been promised to make it possible soon. Bloggers who wish to register multiple blogs at this time must use multiple email addresses to sign up. I'm currently using it only on my personal blog.

4. Blogrush - This widget offers up titles and blog names of four post at a time from a similar category as you pick for your blog. The idea is that you appear on other bloggers widgets in exchange for page impressions and click through on your widget. While plenty of bloggers are still using it, I jumped ship after several months of poor results.

5. Amazon.com - The original affiliate program for web masters offers a myriad of widgets to link your posts to products in their catalog. If you blog about books as often as I do, you'll find them invaluable. It doesn't hurt to know if your review inspires your reader to get whatever you talked about, you'll be rewarded with a cut of the profit. For an example, check out my post about Stephen King's short story collection Skeleton Crew.

6. Scoreboard by SpringWidgets - This scoreboard is powered by Fox Sports and offers scores for games across the the major US sports leagues. SpringWidgets has thousands of widgets, but this is the one I have experience with is sports scores. My husband Chris has it on his blog. My favorite thing is that the widget sizes can be customized to fit any blog perfectly. Even if sports isn't your thing, SpringWidgets likely has some useful babble for your blog.

7. Spock.com - Half people search engine, half social networking, Spock.com provides widgets to highlight search results. Here is one with the result when you search for little old me:

8. Yahoo! Answers - My personal guilty pleasure of a social networking and forum combo offers a widget to display your personal questions and answers. As you can see, I answer more often than I question.

9. Twitter - Twitter gives users a place to send short text message type update to be viewed by your group of friends. You can actually Twitter from your cell phone via text message. It's a great way to keep your online crew updated from when away from the computer. Allow me to admit, I do not Twitter or text message. Rest assured, I've found an example at Simple Kind of Life (scroll down a bit).

10. Clicky - While not strictly a widget, Clicky provides statistical data and analytics for your blog or web page once you install the code. Ever wonder how many visitors you have each day? Where they come from? What they look at? My favorite feature is the details on what search engine results drive traffic to my blog best.

11. Hit Counter by quadium32 - If letting your visitors know they are not alone is important to you, this little widget is perfect. I have one on my personal blog. Quadium32 has plenty of other goodies for webmasters to play with. Check them out.

12. Clock by ClockLink - We bloggers span the globe. It is easy to forget the pesky time difference when visiting one's blogroll. My friend Skeet blogs from Hawaii, a full five hours time difference, displays one.

13. AccuWeather - Displaying the local weather on your sidebar is fun on a personal blog. Again, Skeet is my example. In the winter, I don't look at it because I don't want to know how beautiful it may be in Waianae, HI.

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Juuust a Bit Outside Moves to it's Own Domain

2008-01-09T14:55:28Z

My husband Chris began blogging on a blogger domain around six months ago. Much like his life, the blog is about sports.

After much consideration, we have purchased juuustabitoutside.com. As with my blogs, it is hosted on Go Daddy and constructed with Go Daddy's Quick Blogcast. While it does not offer as much flexibility as Wordpress, it's simplicity is why it works for us.

Chris and I both work with companies that connect advertisers with bloggers to have their products featured in blog entries. One reason for the move is that blogs on Blogger and other free blogging platforms are not considered as valuable to advertisers.

Along with the assumption that bloggers who use free hosting are less serious about blogging (not always true), a real possibility that sponsored posts could be banned by the service provider at any time. It happened with Wordpress' free subdomains some time ago.

With Google owning Blogger, there is a real treat that terms of service with change to disallow any paid advertising. Google has come down hard on blogs around the blogosphere for "selling links" which is what they consider any work for PayPerPost or any other company. Not to beat the dead horse of this topic, but Google removed PageRank from thousands of blogs for going about their business, stating publicly that those blogs are worthless in their eyes.

My reason for sharing this here is that I would encourage any blogger who has a goal of making any income on their blog to make the transition to paid hosting on their own domain. It is not expensive or difficult. You have compete assurance that no one can tell you what you can or cannot publish on your site.

For sports fans, check out Juuust a Bit Outside. Without bias, I can say that Chris is knowledgeable and entertaining when it comes to the arena of sports.

Behind Every Blog

2007-12-31T15:22:58Z

Do you ever get the feeling with some blogs that although you read what the blogger writes nearly every day, you don't know them at all? In topical blogs, this is a common feeling, because those blogs are not about a person. It can be jarring to have too much personal info in a blog about tech or something with the occasional post about the blogger's personal life.

On the other hand, I suspect a blog devoid of all personal information will not be widely read for long. After all, blogging is part writing and part conversation. It's hard to have a conversation when you know nothing about the person you are interacting with.

One blogger has addressed this problem in a novel way. It's called Behind Every Blog. There is a set of questions each blogger answers via email to be featured in daily posts. Can you say: Link love? I sent my answers today.

The blogger behind the fun is Jenn. Her answers are the first entry. I'm nosy. I had to look.

My fellow bloggers, now it's your turn.

Kisseo E-cards

2007-12-16T22:41:33Z

With Christmas quickly approaching, time is running out for sending greeting cards through the mail. As usual, I haven't sent out any cards yet. I have a box of cards that I am going to take to work tomorrow to prepare to be mailed on Tuesday. I don't have a large list of friends and family to send cards to - less than a dozen - so I like to write a personal note in each one.

I'll also be spending some time sending out FREE online greeting cards to my friends in the online world. Some services for e-cards charge a yearly fee, but when I can choose from over a 1000 unique digital cards? Many are animated and all are beautifully designed.

You can bet there will be someone who will send me a Christmas card via snail mail that I didn't expect. It happens most years with at least one person from my off-line life. (Contrary to popular belief, I do have one.) I hope whoever it is this year assumes I'm out to save trees when I email them their last minute Christmas card from Kisseo.

Touch Type Refresher

2007-12-15T22:48:01Z

The most useful class I ever took in school was keyboarding. I took it my junior year of high school.

Around that same time, my family got our first internet connection. It was 1996, so we had the coolest of service providers at the time - America Online. Yes, someday I'll be able to tell my children that I remember when AOL was the ISP of savvy surfers.

My goal in class was always accuracy first. At home, my goal was keeping up with a chat room plus a dozen IM windows. I attribute these dual typing goals to my comfort at the keyboard. The mere fact that I can type as fast as I compose is certainly an accomplishment.

All these years later, my typing is not entirely 'touch type.' I consider it a modified touch type that has me looking at the keyboard more the more tired I am. I'm on a computer all day at work, then come home to blog and network so my sore fingers and brain sometime need some visual help.

When I came across the 10-Fast-Fingers Speedtest, I was inspired to see if I still had any real touch type skill remaining. Not only do I allow my eyes to slip down to the keyboard, I seldom type something that I am reading like you do in keyboarding classes.

As for my score (drum roll please), I typed around 163 characters in a minute with reasonable accuracy of 21 correct words to 1 incorrect. It certainly is poor compared to the 65 or 70 words per minutes I scored back in keyboarding. On the other hand, that score is with honest no-look typing which I haven't practiced in nearly a decade.

For the beginning typist, 10-Fast-Fingers offers free online touch type lessons. We all know I love free. I'll be recommending this program to my newbie friends for years to come. Certainly, it is easier to enjoy a computer when one can input information in a timely manner. Can you imagine hunt and pecking a blog?

Even a long time computer user can benefit from a refresher course. I'll be practicing now that a realize how rusty I've gotten over the years. Maybe I'll actually get back to the practice of touch typing rather slacker typing.

Blogging for Readability

2007-12-12T16:03:42Z

I am not, nor have I ever been, impressed with pseudointellectual snobbery. I've always thought that when a person is truly smart, they do not have to tell you ahead of time. Rather, people will notice as time goes on. I doubt Stephen Hawking ever has made a big deal of telling how smart he is, because when he communicates it's obvious that he is a genius.

Have you seen The Blog Readability Test? It's a neat little program where you plug in your URL. I am not sure exactly what the script measures. It bills itself as testing the level of education necessary to read the blog or website.

Both this blog and my personal blog score a junior high school level:

Every blog I have seen this widget displayed on has scored something lofty like post-graduate degree needed to understand the blog.

Is that something to be proud of?

I remember learning when I took journalism that when writing for a general audience it is important to use everyday language. A newspaper or magazine article should be simple to read for any literate American. Uncommon words and jargon should be banned if a writer wants to be read and understood.

Based on that understanding of journalism, I am pleased to find that my blogs are simple to read. It is not my goal to have readers toggle between my site and dictionary.com in an effort to understand what I am trying to say.

My goal as a blogger is to communicate.

I am a poor communicator if the average reader must struggle to make sense of what I have written. I would hope that my intelligence with show in what I say, rather than big words and complicated sentence structure that I could choose to say it with.

Jason's FanaticSpace

2007-12-05T19:39:13Z

I love the tag line for Jason Wigley's FanaticSpace: Everyone Loves Something.

Jason, who goes by the screen name 2xKnight, is a veteran webmaster and programmer. In FanaticSpace, he has created a place for fans as of things as varied as Anime and Star Trek.

While the FanaticSpace Forums have yet to take off, Jason shows his knowledge and passion for pop culture cult worthy topics on the FanaticSpace Blog. I'd love to see the forums filled with all manor of passionate geeks of every strip, from hard core Harry Potter fans to those people who dress up as Storm Troopers every chance they get. There is, after all, a certain joy in that over-the-edge passionate fan.

One reason to visit is the in depth analysis on the differences between the British and American versions of The Office.

On a personal level, I'm happy to met any online or in real life that takes Star Trek as serious as I do. Since both of my parents are old school Trekkie and the show spawned my life long love affair with science fiction, not to mention that Trek was one of the first things I had in common with my best friend Kate.

As I am always impressed with bloggers that maintain multiple blogs, I must mention that Jason also maintains Anime Fans Online and a personal self titled Jason Wigley. I somehow escaped Anime fandom despite several high school friends who where big Anime junkies. I have one in mind that will get an email of this article, because I know she'd love more Anime obsessed friends.

I do, however, read the personal blog frequently. His take on blogging and the online world is always clever and well written. The one thing I would like to see is a more personal "About" page and more personal posts. Maybe not so many as it becomes over whelming, just enough to tell us who you are rather than just what you like. Don't be so shy.

On the whole, the biggest thing I'd like to see on FanaticSpace is more participants. It'll take time, but as more fans join in, it could be a truly fun place to connect with other people who love what I love.

Bad Blogger

2007-12-03T21:03:23Z

I admit I've been a bad and neglectful blogger when it comes to this blog. It has been nearly a month since I've updated here despite every intention to keep it up on a regular basis.

It's always sad when a blog is abandoned. I've seen blogs on BlogRush widgets that haven't been updated since BlogRush launched. That's not so much an honest blog, but an attempt at passive income from advertising.

I digress, because I'm not talking about other bloggers. Certainly there are very good reasons some blogs get abandoned. I had no reason for not continuing this blog. I did think of reabsorbing the articles from this blog into my personal blog.

I was not sure I could handle two blogs. Just the investment of time is something I find challenging. It's never been a lack of ideas for this blog. I have around a hundred and fifty blogs and web sites in my delicious account just waiting to be shared.

My other reason for recommiting to Window in the Web is all bundled up in Google's decision a few weeks ago to drop page rank of bloggers who were suspected of "selling links." My blogs and Chris blog were all dropped from Page Rank 2, down to zero. This whole topic has been beaten to death on the PayPerPost Forums and PPP's parent company Izea's blog.

The major problem with Google taking away Page Rank based on those paid links is that advertisers have primarily judged a blog's reach and worth by page rank. If all bloggers that are willing to sell links and write paid content are "N/A" in Google's eyes, how then, can advertisers judge a blogs relative to the rest of the Blogosphere?

The solution from the folks over at Izea is called Real Rank. The revolution in ranking blogs by actual day to day statistical data rather than using ranks assigned in secret by one company cannot be overstated. Where Google's Page Rank is heavy based on incoming links along with other non-public factors, we know exactly what Real Rank is based on:

70% weighted towards visitors per day
20% weighted towards amount of ACTIVE inbound links per day
10% weighted towards pageviews per day

This means that a blogger knows exactly where they stand and how to go about improving. That's exciting for this blogger. It's also exciting for advertisers, because they'll know how many eyeballs their dollars are getting when they get space on a blog.

What does all this have to do with my renewed dedication to this blog?

Window in the Web has always been about my love of the internet as a whole and blogs specifically. Since active links mean links that people have actually click on, I am inspired to link to keep up my vision for this blog. That vision is that my readers would go enjoy the blogs that inspire me.

Retro-Food

2007-11-06T11:50:48Z

If you are the type of person that gets hungry when they get nostalgic, do not visit Retro-Food. Your diet will be blown with old time delights like Macaroni and Cheese Mousse that you just won't find in today's cook books.

Since kitsch is one of my great loves, I adore the retro public service film footage featured every Friday. There is something otherworldly yet familiar about a sou's educational film about exercise.

A new feature is Wiggle Wednesday - devoted to Jello recipes that may or may not suit the modern palliate. My mom used to make a Jello salad that set up in a can of pineapple rings. It was old fashioned when she made it for baby showers and ladies' Bible studies in the 1980's. To this day, there is nothing that provides the same satisfaction as Jello, the ultimate in jiggly Americana.

Izea Arrives and Arugus Preview

2007-11-04T17:22:14Z

I wrote about PayPerPost's search for a new name to include all the services the company provides. Long time users of PPP were outspoken in their unhappiness about the name change, along with concern of the wisdom of changing such a well known brand. Still, with Blogger's Choice Awards, Blogs in Space, and many other blog centered services calling the company PayPerPost does seem to lack an explanation of it's purpose.

The new site, Izea, launched Halloween night. The event was announced to the world (the blogging world, that is) on Colleen's Simple Kind of Life the very next day.

The new name is exciting, but the real vital news is the new system, codenamed Argus, that CEO Ted Murphy assures will revolutionize blogging and earning as a blogger.
Attendees at PostieCon, only five days away, plus a small number of volunteers will be provided with access to Argus' closed Alpha.

Due to recent developments with Google Page Rank system appearing to punish bloggers providing sponsored content, the promise of Argus measuring blogs by other criteria is more exciting then ever.

Any news of Argus is of interest to this blogger. Ted posted the following video today on the company blog. It was taken during a meeting where he gave some Posties a preview.

One Old Green Bus

2007-11-01T19:50:29Z

I am thrilled to feature a blog that I love. One Old Green Bus is a blog based on a Toronto family's quest to buy an old English double decker bus. Their bus is in danger of being scraped. The money the blog earns is being saved toward their dream of buying the bus and having it shipped from California, of all places, where it currently resides to their home.

Although the blog is bus driven, the reason to visit is the smart writing and commentary of blogger Matthew. Certainly, he is an interesting soul as evidenced by the blog he co-authors with wife Sue, Paranormal Blog. Both husband and wife are paranormal researchers.

Although I am always happy to spread the linky love over to Matthew and family, my inspiration for including him here was a Thursday Thirteen detailing things bloggers do that he finds annoying. I am guilty of posting my weekly memes early on occasion, but understand perfectly why this is bothersome.

Even with that confession, I feel his list of blog pet peeves is worth sharing. Since bloggers are generally nice folks, it would be easy to make a blog error without realizing how much your reader is annoyed. I say, if you learn something from the list, donate to the Bus.

Slackers and Tunes... Pass the Doritos

2007-10-22T23:15:51Z

Browser based custom radio stations have been around for over a decade. I remember a friend of mine from AOL chats had a station on one such service. I've used Yahoo Music's LAUNCHcast from time to time over the years. I never found the concept compelling enough to fight through the huge number of clicks required to truly customize a station.

In the new world of MP3, mobile phones made for music, and satellite radio there seems to be little need to use web based radio. Even the CD is an endangered species.

When I read about Slacker in PC Magazine's Top 200 Web Sites, I planned to check them out simply to review the service for this very blog. I'd introduce it to my readers, then forget about it.

It was a week ago when I first checked them out. I'm still using the site. In fact, I have a browser widow going right now. My custom station is playing "Good Times Bad Times" - those Zeppelin boys had such trouble with their women.

The first thing I noticed about Slacker was the ability to start building a station and listening to the music without signing up or signing in. This is so rare on the web now, I was figuring that I would have lost the chance to save the station I was building. When I signed up for an account, already listening to the station I dubbed "Chris & Tina's Classic Rock Mix," I was able to save my settings.

The second feature that impressed me is how the software recommends similar artists. When you type in the first artist to add to your station, you are prompted with a list of twenty artists that are related musically. This neatly solves the problem of "blanking" when attempting to fill your station with all the music you love.

It's also possible to make further choices with the "Fine Tune" options. By setting Artist Discovery, Popularity (Song), Favorites, and Year one's music taste can me matched perfectly.

Hands down, my favorite thing Slacker offers is making as many stations as you like, plus listening to preset stations and other users' stations. Those are even customizable, too, in one's own account.

In addtion to "Chris & Tina's Classic Rock Mix," I've created a station just for me. I call it "Eclectically Mine." With the feature designed for Web 2.0, I can bring you my station right here, or on a social networking site:

Create your own Slacker Station now

Ugly Mailbox

2007-11-01T19:49:19Z

Niche bloggers that pull off writing well and consistency in a narrow, offbeat topic amaze me. The more narrow the topic, the more I'm impressed every time I visit to find new content.

That is so much more difficult than either my personal blog, where I write about whatever I'm interested in, or this blog about whatever I am interested in online. When I'm stick for am idea, there is always something on TV, in a magazine, or on the web that I find worthy of writing about.

One of the coolest, most unique, tiniest niche blogs is Ugly Mailbox.

Linda, the blogger behind Ugly Mailboxes, is a Florida based stay at home mom. She has been posting pictures of mailboxes from her area since May 2007.

Some are worthy of the moniker ugly. Some are unique to the point of weird. Some are works of postal art.

Not only should you visit this fun blog, make sure to keep your camera handy when you're out in your neighborhood, so you can help keep Linda in mailbox photos.

Wink: Yet another social networking site

2007-10-15T00:11:45Z

I often feel too old and too married when visiting social networking sites. Seems like everyone is involved to hook up, or hasn't graduated high school.

As a blogger, I use social networks as part of my overall strategy to get maximum exposure for my blogs. I don't know if general social sites do much good, but for the small time investment I think it's worth signing up.

Wink bills itself as "the people search engine." It culls information from the other social sites based on a name. You can control what results show for a search for your name by building a profile. As you can see in the screen shot, it is a simple layout. Best of all, it was easy to make it all about my blogs.

I have the Wink equivalent of Myspace's Tom as a friend, plus some guy from China who friended me. I only signed up a couple of hours ago, so it's hard to say if Wink is going to be useful.

If anyone decides to sign up, I'll accept you as a friend.

PC Magazine's Top 200 Web Sites

2007-10-14T14:50:59Z

First, I have to be upfront with the fact that I accepted a free promotional subscription to PC Magazine. Although it's a good magazine with interesting editorials, there are other magazines I would buy subscriptions to first.

Like all the magazines I get, I read them then they become craft material. I spent several hours today catching up on my magazine reading. I found a great article in the November 6, 2007 PC Magazine issue featuring 100 "under the radar" websites and 100 "classic" websites.

I attempted to find the lists at pcmag.com to link to, but the site doesn't have it anywhere. What the heck?

Are readers suppose to cut out the pages to keep by the computer for those moments when you remember that site review in that piece you read two months back. For a techie publication, I was surprised to see that utter lack of understanding the nature of web browsing.

That oversight compounds my complain that the "classic" list includes their own page. Along with the likes of Yahoo Mail and Ebay, can I just say wishful thinking? The "undiscovered" list includes two or three sites run by their editorial staff. No matter how good those sites are, it seems cheesy to plug them that way.

Still there are lots of goodies on the list. I would have rather have bookmarked the list, but I'll be leaving the issue on the computer table until I've had time to check out all the one's I'm interested in.

On the "unknown" sites, I've only visited one. Of all things, it's I Can Has Cheezburger?

For my Blogger friends, I have to mention The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs is on the list. It's a blog hosted at fakesteve.blogspot.com that gets plenty of respect.

On the classic list, I was most surprised that the free email service highlighted is the Beta Version of Yahoo! Mail. Got to say, I've switched and switched back to the old version twice now. I've used Yahoo! email for years, but I don't think it's the hottest, most savvy web based mail service out there. That distinction is usually reserved for Gmail.

If the sites in this article live up to the reviews, you can be sure that I'll be covering them here eventually.

You'll want to read what Patrick Says

2007-10-10T20:08:47Z

My frequent statement is that I like to read personal blogs written by interesting, funny people. When the blogger is interesting, I'll read whatever they write about.

I especially enjoy bloggers who blog their insights on everyday topics in a humorous yet thoughtful way. For a perfect illustration of this kind of blog, I present Patrick Says v2.0 for your reading pleasure.

As a lover of language, I found his observation on sarcastic use of a common phrase both funny and smart. This is the kind of writing that I strive toward, because it zooms in on a tiny slice of life, illuminating something ordinary people can relate to.

I found one post that makes me admire Patrick's fearlessness. He writes candidly about the day he discovered girls are interesting. Considering the details are online for all to see, that story is a brave, honest thing to blog about.

As a nod to paid blogging, I had to include a link to this video. My advice: stick with your day job and blogging on the side, because your dream of being a puppeteer is miles from working out.

Spiritualized - "Wordless" film Created by Vancouver Film School student Roy Margalit

2007-10-10T10:54:32Z

Visit all the fine wordless wednesday folks.

BlogRush Update

2007-10-10T01:15:02Z

I wrote about BlogRush and their revolutionary new widget calling it "networking without the working."

After logging into my BlogRush account this evening, I am wondering if this idea is going to work at all. My dashboard page shows 845 page impressions in the last 30 days. This stat includes this blog, my personal blog, and my husband's sports blog (I install all his widgets, so I might as well have them in the same account).

However, I've had zero clicks. Zero!

Although I am a bit disappointed by the numbers, I am pleased that the creators of BlogRush are keeping the blogging community up to date on what they are doing to improve the service. They have sent out several emails and have a blog that's been frequently updated since the Beta launch.

I am pleased with the "flavors" that have already been rolled out to allow custom colors. It was super simple to update without reinstalling the code. The Java updates with a couple of clicks on their site. I hate messing with my sidebar for fear of messing it up, so this was a relief.

I'm also happy to read that all blogs will be subject to manual - HUMAN - review. I hate splogs and certainly would not want to be a party to driving traffic to anything that isn't a real blog with a real blogger struggling to write quality content.

My only major complaint about BlogRush at this point is that the site itself takes so, so long to load. I'm sure this is just a bandwidth thing, or some such technical issue. Still, it's annoying and hopefully short term.

I am of the firm belief that if bloggers want BlogRush to succeed, it will succeed. As with all services pioneered in cyberspace, adoption is key. If not, no amount of improvements to their system will help. My opinion is based on the oft unspoken truth that bloggers are the one's reading blogs.

If BlogRush is to drive traffic, bloggers must not only install the widget, we must also click through on the widgets of our fellow bloggers. We are, remember, not only the content creators, but the consumers of content.

In the spirit of what BlogRush is trying to do, I personally commit to click through to at least one article of interest to me on each blog I visit regularly. The worst thing that could happen is a tie between either: a) finding only horrible blogs I never want to visit again or b) finding wonderful blogs I want to visit every day.

Blogs about Bloggin' for Bucks

2007-10-09T02:06:49Z

I'm not a mean, in-your-face person online or in real life. I tend to try to give my opinions in the nicest way possible. I would rather avoid telling someone something that would hurt them on a personal level. This seems like common kindness, however there are those in person and on the web that relish telling others the hard, cold truth.

Sometimes there are things I have to say that don't "spin" well. And sometimes the same issue happens over, again and again, where I cannot say silent.

So if you are personally involved in what I am about to say, know I am not speaking out of cruelty. With that in mind, here goes:

I have been participating on several forums for bloggers over the last few months. A common practice on forums is a "review my blog" tread. It's a great way for bloggers to get input and luckily bloggers are the nicest community on the net. Although there are often honest critiques, most reviewers accentuate the positive aspects of a blog.

One type of blog that I consider to be overpopulated on the net is the "blog about making money on the web" and "make money on your blog" blogs.

One of my problems with this genre of blogs is that most of the information found on them is just as easily found with a simple Google search or by visiting any good blogger's forum. Plus, the limited amount of things that can be blogging about on that type of blog would lead me to believe that either entries would have to be far between, or the blogs will often be abandoned for lack of fodder for regular content.

There are several other inevitable issues with these types of blogs.

The natural question: What makes you an expert? If this is your first foray into blogging, I am skeptical. I would at least hope to see some proof of previous web-based endeavors. Ideally, I would like to see one or two blogs by the same author with quality content over the course of a year or more.

If that seems picky, please remember, I personally have been making money blogging for an entire year. I managed to make money blogging on MySpace, for crying out loud. Since I got serious about blogging and making money at it along the way, I have read on forums, asked questions, Googled all kinds of information about making money as a blogger. I've read hundreds of blogs at least once, learning what I like and don't like in a blog.

Can someone who's posted a half dozen entries on their first blog possibly have something to teach me? And make no mistake, I am a newbie in the arena of blogging for fun and profit.

There is another credibility leach that often appears holding hands with the problems I have outlined above.

The blog about making money blogging with a blogspot.com domain.

Let me break this down: I should take the advice of a blogger on how to make my blog a monetary success when that blogger couldn't make enough to invest in a $9.95 domain name?

Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful blogger's that use Blogger. Check the blog roll on my personal blog for proof that I enjoy Blogger blogs without any snobbery.

The difference is simply that those blogs are not promising to teach me how to make vast quantities of money via blogging. Not only do I not believe those promises, I do not consider blogging to be a cash cow. The problem with this style of blog maintained in hopes of making big money fast is that there is seldom the kind of content the makes a reader bookmark and return.

None of the blogs I read are primarily maintained with the goal of making money. I read blogs for smart, insightful writing and interesting personalties. These bloggers, like myself, would blog even if there was not money to be made. It is more about self expression not making a buck for anyone who can truly call themselves a blogger.

Bluntly put, I do not want to see your flashing banner ads. Nor do I want to read an article on how I can get my own flashing banner ad.

Let your Inner Geek shine

2007-10-03T22:57:26Z

Yes, I'm a geek.

I've even been told that everyone and anyone who blogs is a geek. Of course, this was the opinion of a non-blogger.

From a linguistic standpoint, I find it interesting to see "geek" being worn like a badge of honor. It is a small part to the cultural phenomenon of groups "reclaiming" terms used terms used to degrade them. Right or wrong, the "N" word and the "B" word are both commonly used as positive slang. For a good article on this trend check out historymike's take.

The classic Geek Test has lived at Inner Geek since 2003. I first took it over a year ago. Back then, I was only a "major geek."

I am proud to announce that my geekiness has only advanced, in part thanks to my investment in my own domain:

The geek test is enough in itself to prompt a visit. Everyone should reassess their score on a regular basis. Think about it: wither you aspire to be a geek or to avoid being a geek frequent testing is the only sure fire way to be sure what you are doing is producing the desired results.

My only complaint about the test is that it has not been updated in all that time to reflect all things geeks are doing these days. I'd replace, for example, the questions about LAN and listserv. This is need to make room for questions about blogs, ie I have: 1 > blogs, 2 - 5 blogs, 6 > blogs, a directory, a forum, made enough on adSense to get a check. You get the idea.

Still for pure geek nostalgia, there's nothing better.

If you need another reason to stop on by, let me just tell you that the geek in charge at Inner Geek is a GIRL GEEK!

Do I need to spell out how happy that makes me?

That's right - the geek responsible for keeping a piece of Geek history alive and online is a woman. Her name is Yvette. She's kept Yvette's Inner Geek Blog since December 2005. Although the posts not as regular as I would like, but she does have a geek husband, a geek job, and even geeky cats to keep her busy.

Since she is a true geek, I believe she would be happy blogging more. As a blogger, knowing you're being read gives meaning to all the time and effort. So my plan is to become a regular reader and commenter, thus motivating Yvette to become her personal best blogger.

Blogging geeks, feel free to follow me over to Yvette's Geekdom.