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Image via Wikipedia I was doing my blogging rounds this morning and I happened to stop by We Blog Better.com. To my delight the author was hinting at running a blog writing contest. She proposed that contestants could write a creative post to illustrate the use of metaphors, similes or analogies. As a real twist you have to use "oyster" as the basis for the literary device used in your post. How funky is that? Somehow this tickled me to no end and I challenged her to take it from a possible blog writing contest and formalize it. Which she did. If you are interested, you should check out her blog to get all the deatails then write a killer post and submit it for your chance to be on top of the oyster pile. Your blog post entry could win you a free advertising spot on her blog, good til the end of the month. And all participants in the contest will receive links back to their post entry. This promises to be a great blog writing exercise and a whole barrel of fun!. Blogging contests are the best! Check out the 2 post below for more information: The Official Iron Blogger Contest Blog Food Series: Secret Blog Ingredient #3 I've already got a draft for my entry in this awesome blog writing contest. Come on shuck yourself some oysters and participate! you'll get a chance to strut your stuff and meet some other great bloggers. See you there! Related articles by Zemanta: I Want More Comments Membership Drive For Where Bloggers Meet Use a blog contest to drive traffic and boost your blog. Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
I find some of the most interesting things as I wander the web. So every Friday, come rain or shine, I will publish them here on Blogs With Wings. Here are 21 items you may find interesting, helpful or just plain entertaining. Social Media News & Views! Twitter Stockings Say Follow Me Not much surprises me anymore. But a pair of legs that feature stockings with a Twitter bird and the classic "Follow me" text. That gets my attention. Facebook Launches "Promote your Post" Facebook continues to show it's new found respect and support for bloggers with this new service. They are now giving bloggers a chance to promote their post by advetising them on Facebook. New Twitterers and Tweets Slow in February There are those who say that Twitter is dead or dying. Could this drop in Tweets and Twitters be an indication that it's true? Look for Ways to Manage Your Social Media Time Better Social media is the life blood of blog promotion. But most of us fall far short when it comes to doing enough with it. Maybe all we need is better time management. William Shatner Lands Role in Comedy Based on Twitter Stream Shatner, you old Energizer Bunny, I don't think even death will stop you from working.(He's Canadian eh?) YouTube Producer Gets $300 Million Contract Wow! Talented people still get discovered in the most mundane ways. I think I feel the need to get my video camera out. What Happens to Twitter Ad Networks When Twitter Launches Ads? Hopefully, not a whole lot will happen. Cause I'm getting ready to incorporate ads into my Twitter now. Blogger Buzz From Around The Web! Blog Angel Invited To Become Author On Link-Assistant.com It's true! I recently received an email from the kind folks at Link Assistant inviting me to become a guest author. I feel so honored! The Official Iron Blogger Contest I'm already working my post to rise to this fun challenge. Check it out, you could win a free advertising spot on the host's blog. Promote Your Blog Via License Plate Well why not? Celebreties and businesses use custom license plates to strut their stuff. Why can't bloggers do the same? New Competition for Bloggers: Fast Food Content Today, I discovered that I am what is known as a "Mom & Pop" blogger. I like that. But I was dismayed to discover I and bloggers like me, may be an endagered species. Headway customer Tom Drake and his Canadian Finance Blog Kudos to Tom, his finacial blog is up for an award. This proud Canadian salutes you! Good Blogging is like Good Standup I love it when bloggers use literary devices like metaphors or parables to illustrate their articles. This one is primo! Avoid These Common Grammar Mistakes When English is Your Second Language My hat is off to anyone who blogs in English and it's not their first language. Here's some help for making your posts sound more natural. Tools, Software & Services For Your Arsenal! This week's focus is on tools, software and services to help you fight blog plagiarism. Creative Commons Get a free license for your blog. Make your usage conditions clear. My Free Copyright Get a registered free digital fingerprint for every post your publish Copy Gator Free constant monitoring of your blog feed and the web for copied content. Embed Article Discourage fair sharing of your content with this script that enforces proper linking and citation. Tynt Insight Another script that enforces proper link backs when your content is copied and pasted. Fair Share Another free online monitoring service. What interesting, informative or entertaining tidbits did you find online this past week? Leave a comment with a link so we can all check it out. Blog Angel loves it when you share!Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Image via Wikipedia The last week or so here at Blogs With Wings has been pretty intense. I've been posting about some very heavy topics, such as blog plagiarism. So I figured I needed something less serious to post about, but what should it be? The answer came to me while I was out and about doing my daily blog rounds. My attention was captured by a post on Tycoon Blogger about an online blog personality test. The site is called Typealyzer and it will analyze your blog's personality type, though I think it's more accurate to say that it uses the writing style it finds on your blog to create a analysis of the writing. Oh oh, might it really be the personality of the author that is getting analyzed? Whatever it is, it's a lot fun. You can see my results below: Hmmm... do you think that was an accurate analysis of Blog Angel - uh, I mean of Blogs With Wings? Actually there is some definite truths in there. Especially when you consider that I feel duty bound to keep producing posts that are useful to my readers, sharing information that will genuinely help them be better bloggers. Who knew? An online personality test that gets me pretty well. How about you? Why not take the test yourself? I'd love to know what you find out. If you're the curious type or you have and interest in psychology there is even an about page that explains how Typealyzer works. Apparently it's based on Jungian type theory. As Freud would say, while stroking his beard and peering over his wire-rimmed glasses, "Very interesting and how does that make you feel?". The idea for this post was inspired by: Find out your blog’s personality type Posted by Dan Keller on Tycoon Blogger. Many thanks Dan! I'm wondering... Is Blog Angel an archetype? Have a great whimsy filled Wednesday! Joella a.k.a. Blog Angel Related articles by Zemanta: Battle Of The Sexes - Do Men Dominate The Blogsphere? The perils of small talk Eieio Psychological Science: Sigmund Freud - A Personal and Scientific Coward? Part 2 Following up on the plagiarism What are the Research Findings on Projective Tests? Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
I recently got unexpectedly ill and just as I thought I was recovering, my compromised immune system got slammed with the flu. And there I was down and out for the count again. It was incredibly frustrating as I was unable to keep up my posting here on Blogs With Wings for several weeks. My blog began to suffer for it, my post frequency became spotty at best and dealing with email,comments, blog backups and other chores became almost non-existent. It's just in the last few days that I've been getting back to normal. But now I'm so behind I just want to crawl under a rock and hide... This kind of thing can happen to any blogger any time, anywhere. The dreaded personal crisis. It can take the form of illness, personal tragedy, family emergency or any number of other unexpected events. But no matter what form it takes, having to deal with a personal crisis can severely hurt your blog. The most common side effect is that your posting drops off considerably or altogether and leaves your readers wondering what happened to you. Don't let this happen to your blog, all it takes is a little planning and advanced preparation. The most obvious concern is a lack of posting. Most bloggers realize how important regular posting is to the health of their blog. Readers come to expect your to posts on a regular basis and if you suddenly stop or your posting becomes spotty and unpredictable, you're lible to loose readers. But there are things you can do to make sure you're covered in those stressful times and unpredictable situations. One of the easiest things you can do is stockpile draft posts to hold in reserve. The first thing we need to do is to establish the minimum number of articles you want to have automatically post in an emergency. The magic number here is 3. If you can manage to get just 3 posts up per week, you will probably be able to keep your readers mostly happy and unaware of what is going on. You can of course go with a higher number, but that means more work for you. Just don't go lower than 3 posts per week or readers may indeed give up on your blog. And remember these aren't epic posts, you aren't concerned with providing pillar content, keep these on the lighter side. Here are 7 ideas for producing your reserve posts quickly and easily: 1. Recycle Older Posts - One thing I recommend doing is going through your older posts and find articles that don't see much action any more. Chances are the information in them is still good, but as is the nature of the blog, they are too far in the past be noticed. Now rewrite 3 or 4 of these articles, add some fresh references, sharpen up the points you covered, give them a brand new title... and boom! You have some reserve posts you can keep on ice until you need them. 2. YouTube Will Help You Out - Find 3 or 4 videos on YouTube that relate in some way to your blog topic. Write a quick blurb about each video and how it relates to your readers. Embed each video in a post, set it to draft and you're done. 3. Write 3 Or 4 Original Short Posts - These should be about general topics related to your blog niche. Good timely advice type articles that are just good common sense. It helps if you have written about or touched these topics in older posts. Then you can include in post links back to the related older posts. This will give your readers someplace to find more in-depth information on the topic and helps reduce your bounce rate. Again, these shouldn't be epic posts, but should link back to older foundation articles already on your blog. 4. Create 3 Or 4 Recommended List Posts - These are posts that list products, services, software, books... anything you can think of and can link to, that would be of interest to readers. You can even create a list of software and services you use to help you produce your blog. People love lists, especially if they have new and interesting things for them to explore. These posts might need to be updated from time to time to keep them current, but that's a lot less work than writing full posts. 5. Make A Blogging Buddy Pact - Get together with a few of your blogging friends and make a pact to be ready at a moment's notice to create a guest post should tragedy strike any one of you. What a great way for bloggers to show their solidarity and be there for each other. I know I have blogging friends who would do this for me, it just never ocurred to me (until now) to formalize a comittment to helping one another in a time of need. All of you will benefit from the peice of mind that comes from knowing you will have help if you need it, so ask them already. 6. Media Based Posts - There are lots of sites online that will provide you with funny cartoons and other content that you can post on your blog. Google the terms "free blog content". When you use this kind of content in your post, just make sure you comply with their license requirements and give credit accordingly. Lot's of blogs run weekly media based posts like wordless Wendsdays or Friday's Feature where they post comics, music or photos. These give the blog a break from serious content and give your reader's a lighter perspective. You don't want to do this every day, but if you have 3 or 4 funnies, musical pieces or photos in draft posts, there is no reason why you can't run one per week while you're gone. 7. Host Free Content From Article Submisions Sites - There are several sites that provide free content for you on pretty much every topic imaginable. All that is required is that you keep the author's credit and the publishing site's information intact. Find 3 or 4 that deal with subjects related to your niche. Copy these into posts and save each as a draft to be published later if needed. Check out this comprehensive list of 50 Article Directories to find free content you can use on your blog. So, there you have it, 7 different ideas for coming up with reserve posts. You just create them as time allows, try working them into your daily blogging schedule for a few weeks. Save them as drafts and before you know it, you'll have weeks worth of stockpiled posts. So if and when the need arises, you just set them to automatically post on future dates to cover the time you are likely to be away from your blog. These reserve post can also come in handy for vacation time or when you hit a dry spell and just can't seem to get past the dreaded blog writer's block. The important thing here is that you are prepared and not left feeling overwhelmed and demoralized when you can't keep up with your blogging chores. Like the Boy Scout's say: "Be prepared!". Related articles by Zemanta: If I Had To Start Over... How To Spice Up A Boring Blog The Benefits of Guest Blogging 17 Useful Blog Marketing And Optimization Tips Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Image via Wikipedia My recent 3 part series on blog plagarism here on Blogs With Wings was a huge undertaking and I hope that many of you benefit from the advice and tools recommended for helping you to fight blog content theft. Just as I was finishing the last article, I discovered 2 more free online resources that you might find useful in defending your blog content against would be blog thieves. The first service is called Tynt Insight and was brought to my attention from one my regular visitors, Glenn from Man Over Board. This script is somewhat similar to another script, Article Embed, that I mentioned in part 2 of the series. Both work to stop people from copying and pasting of your content without providing proper credit. Embed Article is a more comprehensive solution, but Tynt Insight, which is less obvious may be preferred by some. You can check it out and sign up on the Tynt Insight page if you think it would a useful service in your stand against blog content theft. The second service is one I stumbled across as I was completing the last installment on discouraging, detecting and responding blog plagiarism and is called Fair Share. This service is similar to Copy Gator, but goes beyond the simple detection of blog content theft and offers you the option of requesting compensation from the advertisers featured on the site that is using your stolen content. This aspect of the service isn't fully actualized yet, but they are researching and attempting to form more partnerships with various advertising networks. It is definitely worth checking out and it may be helpful for the detection service alone. If you know of some worthy service or software I may have missed, please leave a comment so others can check out your ideas. For now I think you are well armed for combatting blog plagiarism. They aren't getting my blog content without a fight and I hope you stand up for yours as well. If you missed the 3 part series on blog content theft here are the links: Blog Plagiarism Part One - Discouraging Blog Content TheftBlog Plagiarism Part Two - Detecting Blog Content TheftBlog Plagiarism Part Three - Responding To Blog Content Theft Related articles by Zemanta: Add links when people cut and paste your content with Tynt 1 reviews of Fightnews.ca (Fightnews' Canadian Version) I lifted (but attributed) most of this post on plagiarism A preposterous argument for plagiarism More plagiarism Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Be My Guest! Image via WikipediaWhen you guest post on someone else's blog, you get added exposure for your own blog. It's great to be able to strut your stuff for a new audience and know that new readers will be enticed to stop by and check out your own blog. And all because of guest posts you leave around the web. In addition, you get more backlinks to your site and you know how search engines just love those backlinks.At Blogs With Wings, I'm always on the look out for guest post authors and I'm always up for writing a guest post for my readers too. But sometimes it can be hard to find people to exchange guest posts with. So just how do you find other blog authors who want to write guest posts for you or want you to guest post for them. Well I have some easy ideas and services that will help you make connections with other blog owners and hopefully increase your guest post exchanges.Why not advertise your desire for guest authors on your blog? Just use a button or text link that encourages your readers to contact you if they are interested in guest posting. On some blogs you'll even see a button or link as part of the site's navigation that says something like "Write Here" or "Write For Me". Advertising your desire to have guest post authors is an easy and effective way to reach other bloggers.Just ask. If you are visiting other blogs that are in your niche, you have the perfect pool of resources from which to pull guest post authors. Send the author an email and ask if they'd be interested in a guest post exchange, the worst thing that could happen is they say no, but you'd be surprised how many say yes. But you'll never know if you don't ask. Blogging communities, such as Blog Catalog are another good place to locate like-minded bloggers who might be interested in exchanging blog posts. You can contact other members directly through most blogging community messaging systemsThere are also two of online resources that I can recommend to you as sources for guest post authors. Both services exist to deliberation make it easier for bloggers to come together and help each other specifically with guest posting.The first service I'd like to recommend is the brain child of Kathy Stuker also known as the Idea Lady. The service she provides is called Blogger LinkUp. She sends out daily emails to her list of subscribers that acts as a clearinghouse for bloggers looking to guest post or bloggers interested in guest posting for others. There are also people interested in doing interviews or round-up articles that are looking for sources. But generally this list is very heavy with guest posting possibilities. It's free to join and post requests to the list. So sign-up today and start your search for guest post participants.Our second option is a forum dedicated to one thing and one thing only, bringing bloggers together for the sole purpose of guest posting. It's the brainchild of Ann Smarty and it's an excellent resource. The name of the forum is My Blog Guest and it is an excellently excuted asset for locating guest post authors. When you join, you fill in a profile that helps provide other forum members with detailed information about you and your blog(s). The members are listed by category and it is very easy to find blogs to write guest posts for or people willing to guest post for you. All you need to do join up and fill out your profile, then start making connections with other bloggers who can help you out.Guest posting on other blogs is good for your blog and having a pool of guest authors to draw on means you can help cover yourself if you ever have one of those unforeseen emergencies that prevent you from posting. Every now and then it's good to just change things up a little and a guest post author can do that for you, but only if you can find them. And now you can.Blog Angel loves hosting guest authors. If you have a blog then you're probably qualified to guest post here on BWW. I'm sure you can come up with a post about what you've learned from blogging or good story or anecdote related to your blogging experiences. I'd love to share that with my readers. Just use my contact form or leave a comment and let me know you're interested. Same goes if you're looking for a guest post, I'd be happy to write one for your blog. Related articles by Zemanta: How to Find Guest Post Opportunities For Your Blog Web Traffic Tips: Niche Directories Guest Blogging Benefits 9 Ways Become an Exceptional Guest Poster Web Traffic Tips: Guest Posting Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
What To Do If Your Blog Content Is Plagiarized If all your attempts at discouraging blog content theft have failed and your blog content has been plagiarized, it's time to respond. If you have visions of lawyers and huge legal fees dancing tauntingly around in that over-imaginative brain of yours - stop it right now! Responding to blog plagiarism is not time consuming nor does it generally require the services of a lawyer. All you need is a simple, well-formulated plan for giving blog thieves an effective jolt of reality. Here at Blogs With Wings we are great believers in the K.I.S.S. theory. Keep It Seriously Simple, that includes responding to blog content theft. I'm going to give you a number of simple strategies for responding to blog plagiarism. But before I do, I want to caution you about some things you definitely should not do when confronting blog content theft. How Not To Respond To A Blog Content Thief Don't send a threatening email to the perpetrator. Don't leave comments on their blog about what they've done. Don't publish a post about the theft that identifies the person or their site. Don't identify this person or their site to your friends or family. This is not Total Drama Island, it's not your own personal reality show. Don't act like a 5 year old in the sandbox and then expect the teacher to hurry over to sort it all out. This is between you and the content thief. Dragging other people into it and going public will only open you, your family and your friends to the possibility of being libel for defamation. And most importantly, it won't solve the problem. This is not the time to be a drama queen. How You Should Respond To Blog Content Theft Step 1. - Take A Screenshot. Take a screenshot of the page that is displaying your stolen content. Make sure it is clear and readable and clearly shows the blog identification - web address, title, date etc. Make copies of data from any third party service, such as Copy Gator, that was used to detect the blog content theft. Save these on your hard drive in an easy to find location. Bookmark the offending site containing your copied content on a third party public bookmarking site such as Furl. Probably not absolutely necessary, but the more verification you have of the offense the better. NOTE - before proceeding: Steps 2 and 3 will only work if the offending blog offers you a way to contact the owner. If this is not the case and comments are open, leave a comment informing the owner that you have an urgent matter to discuss with them and request they contact you immediately. Don't tell them why or accuse them of anything, just a leave a discrete request for contact. If email and comments are both unavailable or they do not respond to your attempts to establish contact, use a whois service to look up the domain host, and then contact the host and inform them that there is copyright issue and you are unable to contact the site owner. Make sure to provide all the facts, URLs, attach your screenshot and other pertinent information. The host provider may attempt to contact the site owner on your behalf or inform you of other options available to you, through them. If all this fails to get you in contact with the owner or provide a desirable outcome go to Step 4. Step 2. - Send A Polite Email. If the site provides contact information, email the person and let them know that you are flattered that they find your content worthy of republishing. Include the web address of both their copy and your original work in your email. Attach the screenshot you took in step 1. Inform them that you have noticed that they are not citing and attributing the work as clearly required by your license. Link to your license. Request that they comply with the license requirement or remove the work from their site. Keep copies of any and all correspondence between you and the offending blog's owner. If they do not respond to and/or comply with your request within a week's time go to step 3. Step 3. - Send A Cease And Desist Message. Now we're taking off the gloves. Don't be rude or threatening, but send a cease and desist notification. I've included a list of templates from which you can draft your own cease and desist notice. A cease and desist order requests that an activity be halted or legal measures will be taken. It does not have to be drafted by or sent by a lawyer. Be sure to indicate to the culprit that your stolen blog content is verified by a third party service and include a link to My Free Copyright or other service if you are using one. I would also inform them that further action will include reporting the copyright violation to the service provider hosting their blog, to several major search engines and any advertisers that sponsor their blog as well. Here is more information and some templates to help you draft a cease and desist order of your own: More About Cease And Desist From Wikipedia Cease And Desist Letter Template #1 Cease And Desist Letter Template #2 Cease And Desist Letter Template #3 (MS Word document format.) Cease And Desist Order Template #4 (Available as RTF download.) At this point, I believe that most sane individuals are going to either remove your content or apply the cite and credit requirements as set out in your license. You've got them and they will know it. But, if the individual is still not compliant or has made it impossible to contact them, move on to step 4. Step 4. - Take Action In Accordance With The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) We've now reached the stage where you have no other choice but to send a formal DMCA letter to the offender's web hosting company, search engines and advertising partners such as Google Adsense. I am not going to walk you through this one. It's been done by others before me and done very well. Below are sites that will provide you with information, templates and process walk-throughs for filing all the DMCA notices you could ever need. None of these requires a lawyer or a law degree to implment yourself. Explanation of the DMCA from Wikipedia. Walk through from SEO Logic. More plagiarism info from SEO Logic. Reporting Blog Content Thieves from the Blog Herald Excellent example letter from Digitial Inspiration. Another notice template from Furture Quest. At this point it's out of your hands. Once you file your DMCA notices, the teachers will indeed step into the sandbox and take over dealing with the nasty child in question. The blog content thief will now have to face the very real possibilities of having their web site or blog suspended, their search engine indexing pulled and the loss of their advertising networks. If you do it right all this and more, can and will come down on the head of the one who thought they could get away with blog content theft. At this point, when confronted with blog plagiarism, I hope you have learned that you shouldn't sit back and say: "Oh well, nothing I can do about it." or "It really doesn't matter.". It does matter because unethical people are violating the hard work of others, their rights and the copyright laws. But ultimately they can't get away with blog content theft unless we let them. We as bloggers are not powerless, we have many options to discourage, detect and hold content thieves accountable. I don't know who said it originally, but I agree that: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men [people] do nothing." (Square brackets mine.) Here are the first two articles from this 3 part series: Blog Plagiarism Part One - Discouraging Blog Content TheftBlog Plagiarism Part Two - Detecting Blog Content Theft I hope that this series of articles has informed, equipped and empowered you to respond to blog content theft. Please leave comments with your own views and any additional resources I might have missed. Sincerely, The Avenging Blog Angel Related articles by Zemanta: Hey That Blogger Stole My Content: How to Deal with Content Theft Plagiarized! Perfect Pitch Jesse Stay hits the Copyright Wall Online Plagiarism: How To Detect, Fight And Report The Unlicensed Republication Of Your Content Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Verifying Your Original Work & Detecting Blog Content Theft Some people think there is nothing they can do about blog plagiarism. But they're wrong and I for one, am not ready to rollover and let the content thieves use the articles here on Blogs With Wings any way they like. It's true, that in part one of this article, I said it's not possible to 100% prevent blog content theft, but guess what? You have an excellent chance of catching them when they do steal your content. That's because it's actually very easy to monitor the web for duplicates of your blog content. And once people like you and I start standing up for our rights and holding content theives accountable for their actions, they will think twice before messing with legitimate bloggers everywhere. I'm glad that I got that off my chest, so now let's get on with how ridiculously simple it is to monitor and detect content theft, if not prevent it Before you start a detection program, it's important to make sure that you can verify your blog content is indeed yours. Should you find yourself a victim of blog plagiarism, you want to be able to reliably verify that you are the originator of the content in dispute. Let me share with you what I've learned and how I am now verifying my blog content and protecting that content here on Blogs With Wings. 1. Third Party Verification Of Your Original Blog Content Before you go to war over stolen blog content, you should make sure that you can verify that it is indeed your original work and the actual publication date of the content in question. Having it on your blog is not enough, even if it's dated and time stamped it's a good idea to have it verified by a third party. This is very easily done for you by a free service called My Free Copyright. It is ridiculously easy to set up this service, you simply go to My Free Copyright and register. They use your RSS feed to monitor your blog for new blog posts. Each peice of content you write is securely uploaded to their servers, then a digital fingerprint of your original creation is captured, logged, stored and emailed from My Free Copyright to you. Each original post that you create is registered and protected. And you have your own copy to prove it. I know of no other free service that does this, but it occurred to me that I also have another 3rd party online record of my content. I run a daily backup of my site automatically with a service called Backupr. They do daily XML backups of my blog every day and I'm pretty sure this could also be used as a third party verification of my original content, as well as recording creation dates and times. 2. Detecting Copies Of Your Blog Content Online Many content thieves aren't all that bright. They often do little if anything to alter your original content. As a result it can be quite easy to spot the stolen blog content on their sites. But the question is just how do you do that effectively? You could pay for specialized plagiarism detection software or a premium online service to monitor your site for content theft. But there is a free option that will do the job for you and if you are like me, blogging isn't bringing in the big bucks, yet. So I explored the free blog plagiarism monitoring options and found one I liked. If you look at the top of the left sidebar of my blog, you will see a small image of a "gator", his name is Copy Gator and he is my blog's watchdog - I mean watchgator. He is constantly monitoring the web and comparing my content to everything he sees, ever-vigilant, he is watching for content that has been stolen from my blog. How does he do that? Here it is in a nutshell quote from the Copy Gator site: The CopyGator service aggregates data from over two million blog feeds, and parses over a half million new blog posts a day. Our servers then crunch all of this data and evaluates every post against each other to determine if any two are roughly, nearly, or exactly alike. When two posts are determined to be alike, we show this "collision" of content in the overview page for both websites that published the post. We show whether the post borrows some elements or is a flat out exact copy. And just to be sure that I know when my pet gator has spotted content theft of my original work, the badge on my site (top left sidebar) will turn red to alert me to the problem. Then I go to Copy Gator and get the full info. I never thought I'd want a Gator for a pet, but now I think every blogger should have one. Are there other free blog plagiarism detection services online? Yes there are. Am I going to review them here? Heck no! None of them come even close to the thoroughness of Copy Gator. In comparison each and every one of them is severely limited in their features set. And anybody who tells you that you can use Google to check or monitor your content obviously has more time on their hands than I do. Using Google is crude, time consuming and not terribly effective. Use the Copy Gator, just set it and forget it, makes life so simple. It all boils down to 5 easy steps that you can take to protect yourself from blog plagiarism. And all the blog protection services I urge you to use are free: License your blog. Obtain a Creative Commons license for your blog content. Encourage sharing in accordance with that license. Use in content linking to help mark your content as your own. Discourage copying and pasting of your content with Article Embed. Setup My Free Copyright third party digital verification of your blog. Initiate Copy Gator monitoring to alert you to possible content theft. You may not be able to completely stop blog content theft, but you can discourage the perpetrators. Just license your content and monitor the web to catch the thieves with copies of your work. Don't just sit back and say that there isn't anything you can do about blog plagiarism. That simply isn't true. And don't think that blog content theft can't happen to you, it can. It happened to me and I was totally caught unawares, but no more. Prepare yourself and be ready to to take action once they try to rip you off, you and your blog deserve credit where credit is due. Tomorrow we'll go over what to do once you've found your blog content has been stolen and displayed outside of your license parameters. If you missed out yesterday on part one of this three part series you can catch it here. Related articles by Zemanta: Protect Your Blog Copyrights Stop Scrapers and Spammers Fast Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Part One - Discourage Blog Content Theft & Blog Scrappers My recent brush with the heartbreak of blog plagarism, here at Blogs With Wings, has left a bad taste in my mouth and really got me wondering... Just how does one go about protecting themselves from blog content theft? It's so easy for the unscrupulous to steal blog articles, they just copy your post, paste it into their blogging software, publish it and call it their own. Or the really unambitious and unprincipled use scraper software that crawls the web looking for fresh blog content, scoops it up and deposits it on their own sites. This totally automatic creation of blog content is favored by individuals who have no respect for your hard work or copyright, they are in pursuit of the almighty dollar and could care less about how they get it. The bottom line is that you can't prevent blog content theft 100% of the time, blog theft is easy to achieve and almost impossible to prevent. But I have discovered some techniques and services that will at least thwart most attempts at blog plagiarism. In this 3 part series of articles, we'll also explore ways you can track and identify stolen content as your own original works. And lastly, we'll take a look at how to respond to blog plagarism and defend your right to your original works should you discover theft of your blog content. Let's start by looking at ways you can help discourage and thwart the uncredited use of your blog content 1. License Your Blog Content - Display License Prominently You work hard at producing high quality, unique content for your blog. You should be proud of that and you have a right to stake a claim the materials you produce on your blog. The easiest way to do this is to license your blog and it's content. Then ensure that you display that license prominently on your site. Creative Commons.org will provide you with a free Creative Commons license, which lets you keep your copyright but will allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify. This will help people recognize the legalities involved with copying and using content from your site. A license leaves no doubt about where you stand. To obtain your own free license, simply visit their license page, fill out the form and they will generate the script you can use to display your license on your blog. You can see my Creative Commons license now displayed at the top right of my blog in the sidebar. 2. Give People An Easy Way To Comply With Your License If you do use a creative commons license you are granting people the right to use your content under the conditions described in that license.Once someone opts to use your content in accordance with your license, which usually requires that they cite and link back to the original article on your site, it can actually help your blog. Think about it... linkbacks will show up in search engines and people who read the article may find a good reason to check your site out for more of your original content. Now you're actually getting the would be blog content thieves to promote your site instead of simply ripping it off. Now let's give those would be criminals an easy, free and legal option to use your content on their website or blog. Embed Article.com provides a great way to get people to cite and link back to your original content. It comes in the form of a script that you install on your blog that is triggered when someone attempts to copy any content on your page. The script generates a box asking the person attempting to copy your content if they would like to copy and paste this into their own website or blog. It gives them the option to copy a script that they can use to embed your article or a portion thereof, on their own site. The embeddable script automatically inserts the proper citation and links back to your blog and blog post. In addition, you can also place a button at the end of your posts that will trigger the box and offer the embed script for the entire article. Go ahead and test it. Try copying a portion of this post right now. If you have JavaScript enabled, you should get the Embed Article box. One of the things that I particularly like about the Embed Article script is that it discourages the use of the right click mouse function to copy content. Many sites will recommend using JavaScript and other techniques to disable right click to help prevent content theft. This is not a good idea, as you are disabling many functions users access by using the right click option. You should not so severely limit people from using tools they expect to have at their disposal. You ultimately do serious damage to the usability of your blog and effectively piss people off. Embed Article is a much less invasive choice and targets only the people attempting to copy content instead of punishing everybody who right clicks a mouse for some function other than copying. Embed Article is worthy of it's own post and I will shortly be writing an article highlighting the use and benefits of this awesome tool. In the meantime visit them to download and make use of this awesome blog theft protection and content sharing tool. 3. Use In Content Linking In Every Post You Write Establish ownership of your blog right from the start, mention and link back to your blog home page in the first few lines of every post you write. This establishes the originating blog right away and puts it out there for all to see. This is easy to do and is just a matter of starting a new blog writing habit. Next, in every blog post you write, link back to 3 or 4 articles already on your blog. Linking back to older posts should be a practice you employ in every post you write. It is a good SEO practice and also helps newer readers make connections with older content that they may not have been exposed to. If people click on an in post link you will effectively be reducing your bounce rate. Also check to see if your blog's RSS feed inserts a citation at the end of each post, one that indicates that it originates on your site. If not consider using FeedBurner for your RSS feeds. They provide FeedFlare as well, which can be used to help establish your ownership with various links associated to your blog. Read this article from Theme Lab to learn more. Linkbacks can be a deterrent to some degree. Automatic blog scrapper software users don't usually take the time to review the articles being dropped into their scrapper blogs. Having those links in your post content will help you identify where and by whom your content is being used. Also, if an owner of one of these illegitimate blogs does notice these links, he/she is likely to blacklist you from being scraped. After all, they don't want to have to review and tweak the content they are stealing, nor do they want to get caught. As of this post, Blogs With Wings, will employ all 3 of the above mentioned techniques to help safeguard this site against blog content theft. While it is impossible to guarantee that these techniques will stop blog plagiarism 100% of the time, they should to some degree deter blog content theft and help me identify my own unique content should it appear elsewhere on the web. It is my hope that you will also take some steps to help protect your own site from blog content theft. Tomorrow, in part 2 of this 3 part series, we will explore how to detect your stolen content. Part of that post will include how to uniquely mark and identify your content as truly being yours. Related articles by Zemanta: Hey That Blogger Stole My Content: How to Deal with Content Theft Whats Happening to Copyright Plagiarism's Murky New Rules Be a Blogger, Not a Thief: Link Where Linkage is Due Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
It would seem that times they are a changing. For a long time, Yahoo was on the top of the heap. It was the most popular online site in the US. Then it got knocked off it's throne a couple of years ago by Google. Now it appears that the dynamic is changing once again. I believe that in an indirect fashion, bloggers are partly responsible for this shift in site popularity. And bloggers can definitely benefit from the rising popularity of Facebook. Let's take a look at what is going on... Today, over at Mashable.com, I stumbled upon a fascinating article that pointed out that Yahoo is no longer even #2, it has been supplanted and now is in third place. Yes it's true, Facebook is now getting more visitors than Yahoo. Everybody is jockeying for position. Below is a graph that shows the visitor trend for the 3 internet giants from January 2009 to January of 2010. Facebook is clearly galloping forward in popularity: Below you can also see the unique visitors statistics (also from Compete.com), that demonstrates the popularity of each site. I'm sure there are lot of different reasons for these trends, but I believe that some of the improvement in traffic for Facebook comes from their new found dedication to bloggers. You can see this new focus in the implementation of applications such as Facebook Fan Pages and Networked Blogs. So, if you are looking for a fresh way to promote your blog, check them out. As Facebook grows the potential audience for your blog promotion efforts will increase as well.Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Today, over at Need to Get Some.net you will find a guest post I wrote on How To Have A Sexy Blog. Well I decided that in addition to the post, a small gallery of blogs that are quite sexy was in order. So to that end, here is a collection of blogs that, for the most part, meet the criteria for a sexy blog. A sexy blog is like a truly sexy person, beautiful on the inside and the outside too. Check out the article to find out how to have a more successful blog by making it sexier. Check out these 15 blog images to get inspired: 1. Matt Mullenweg — aka Photo Matt — on WordPress, Web, Jazz, Life, and Photography 2. Sushimonstr — Informative Hoot by TJ Dhillon 3. One Score and Four, The Final Hour: The Queen’s Head 4. Kupferwerk Blog 5. Brown Blog Films · the official blog of Brown Bag Films, an Irish animation studio 6. Sparklette Restaurant Guide - Dining & Travel Deals - Hotels & Resorts 7. Cosmic Diary 8. Blogfullbliss - Design Trends, Tutorials and Talk 9. Gisele Jaquenod & Birdie 10. The Junk Drawer 11. ...but I had a coupon! 12. Beautiful You 14. Macey's Daily Parade 15. The Other Mama So, now that you've had an opportunity to check out these inspiring blogs, make sure you stop by and visit the article: How To Have A Sexy Blog that is being hosted by over at Need to Get Some.net. If you are looking for more blog template inspiration check out: Wordpress Showcase: 40+ Beautiful And Well Designed Blogs Powered By Wordpress 100 Nice and Beautiful Blog Designs 70 Fresh and Inspirational Blog DesignsOriginal post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
You do know that it's important to offer your blog as an RSS subscription to your readers right? Of course you do. And being the savvy blogger that you are, you make sure that your readers have the option to subscribe both in a reader and by email. This lets your readers stay connected with the content on your page without having to specifically seek out and visit your blog every day. They can see what's new at a glance and drop by when something catches their eye. RSS (really simple syndication) is sort of like having your blog transformed into a magazine supscription that people get delivered to their door. Now, as much as I love RSS and know that it is essential to every blog, it usually isn't very pretty. Your RSS subscriptions are generally delivered in a fairly austere fashion. Plain Jane and bare bones, as far as styling and presentation goes, but it doesn't have to be that way anymore, there is a new way to let people follow your blog in the fashionable and convenient style that it deserves. Time to show your blog some love and give your readers the option to follow your blog with Bloglovin' - after all your blog deserves to be showcased! Bloglovin' is a free online service, that allows you to follow and read your favorite blogs all from one web site. Not only that, Bloglovin' sends you a daily email with a summary of new posts from the blogs that you choose to follow. I always found that RSS readers and RSS to email subscriptions somewhat less than user friendly, this isn't the case with Bloglovin'. They have created a very positve and aesthetically pleasing interface for keeping track of all the blogs you follow. What does this mean for your readers? Simple, it means that you can give them an option to follow your blog that does not require them to use an RSS feed reader or sign up for an email subscription. And that's a good thing because some people just can't be bothered with feed readers and email subscriptions, but Bloglovin' is a whole new way to connect with and follow blogs. It's very appealing and easy to use. Users only have to sign up for the Bloglovin' service once. Then they add the blogs they want to follow, as many as they wish. After that, they will receive a daily email that shows a quick summary of the blogs that they are following, as they are updated with new posts. They can then visit Bloglovin to read the new posts. Here is what a typical email looks like: Clicking on any of the linked post titles in the email will open the post in a new window in your default browser. Or you can go to your Bloglovin' main page and view your post lists with a thumbnail of the blog, the blog post title, a post excerpt, the age of the post and an image associated with the post, if one is available: Once you decide you want to read a complete post, just click on it and it will open in a new browser window. And to make your blogging experience even better, a small unobtrusive toolbar will be at the bottom of the browser window and it will let you navigate through the posts by clicking the next arrow. It's like flipping through the pages of a magazine, but each new page is a post from one of your favorite blogs. If you really like a post and want to keep it around just click the save button and it will stay available on Bloglovin' as long as you like. Otherwise, once you have viewed it, the post will be marked as read. There are even more features for users, but my favorite is the ability to create custom groups for you blogs. Once you've created your custom categories and added your blogs to them, you will see your blogs organized by category on your main page and be able to see the number of new posts for each one: You also have the option on your main page to add new blogs and to manage your blogs and blog categories. Everything is right there at your fingertips, just a mouse click away. It's the most esthetically pleasing and convenient way I have found to follow my favorite blogs. You just can't beat a well designed interface and this site does very well. So how does all this help your blog? Simple, by giving your readers the option to follow your blog on Bloglovin', you can increase your number of regular readers. Every option you can give your readers to stay connected to your blog helps you increase your readership. You can use Bloglovin's buttons and counters to help encourage readers to follow your blog with their service: They also have a widget that you can display in your sidebar. I think this is a great alternative to the typical blogroll widgets that you see on many blogs. It even shows a thumbnail for each blog displayed: To be able to use the follow buttons, counters and the widget, you must first claim your blog. This is a simple process, just click on the My Blog option under the Account menu and follow the instructions for claiming your blog: Once you have claimed your blog or blogs, you will have access to statistics about how many followers your blog or blogs may have. The data is provided as a simple count and an easy to read graphical format. Well there you have it, a new service that will allow your readers to follow and stay connected with your blog. You can never give your readers too many options to follow your blog. With Bloglovin' you will probably find that you get a whole new slew of subscribers because of how easy and pleasing the site is to use. So sign up today, claim your blog and add a button or link for this great service, your readers will thank you. NOTICE:This is not a paid endorsement. All opinions are 100% those of the author and have in no way been solicited by any product, site, service or business interest. Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Follow my blog with bloglovin tweetcount_src = 'RT @Blogs With Wings:'; tweetcount_via = false; tweetcount_links = true; tweetcount_size = 'small'; tweetcount_background = 'FFFFFF'; tweetcount_border = 'CCCCCC'; tweetcount_api_key = '5c3bba3f5d77a46a13453091e36dc Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
So far in this article series, we've been discussing ways of personalizing your blog, most notably by the use of a profile picture and an about page. We've also touched on how a profile page, provided by an online service can be used to great effect in lieu of a self-hosted about section. And I briefly mentioned Gravatar's avatar hosting, Intense Debate's and Disqus' commenting systems as ways to get your face online and have them be associated with your blog. (You'll find the full list of the articles at the end of this post.) Uploaded with plasq's Skitch! All the techniques we've explored so far, are excellent ways to personalize your blog, to humanize it, and give your blog a recognizable face. But now that you've done that, it's time to take your face online and make some meaningful connections. It's like dating, your choice of potential mates only grows if you get out there and mingle. Same thing with your blog, your potential readers list only grows when you get out there where people can see you. Your goal is to build a web of connections online, ideally these connections should lead back to you and your blog or blogs. Ah, free blog promotion at its best. One of the most important things you can do is put your profile picture everywhere! Don't stop at just displaying it on your blog, on your about page and on comments you leave around the web. Take it a step further, really promote yourself and by association, your blog. You're aiming to make your image a high profile commodity. This isn't hard to do, all it takes is a little time and effort, plus the use of some free online services that you can't afford to ignore. I'm going to take great pleasure in telling you where to go: 1. - Join And Participate In Social Bookmarking Sites - Generally speaking, most social bookmarking sites give you a personal profile page where you can upload your avatar or profile picture, include a link to your blog, add a bio and some personal interests. Of course the other great thing is that you can submit your favorite posts, your own and from other sites as well. In most cases other members can vote on these and if they are popular, can end up on the front page of the site. Don't go overboard only post your best stuff and things you think are truly outstanding from other sites as well. You'll gain a reputation as a quality social bookmarker and other members will check your links often. Remember quality over quantity. Here is a list of my 10 personal favorite social bookmarking sites: Digg Dofollow Reddit Dofollow Mixx Dofollow Mister Wong Dofollow Folkd Dofollow Propeller Dofollow Spurl Dofollow Sphinn Dofollow Searchles Dofollow Buddymarks Dofollow Page rank buttons courtesy of Page Rank Checker: http://www.prchecker.info/ You may notice that there are some popular and well known sites missing from my social bookmarks list. That's because I'm only interested in posting links that will have a high visibility to the search engines. As a result I only post on do-follow sites with a page rank of 5 and higher. You can still benefit from sites such as StumbleUpon and Delicious, but you must work very hard to get the attention of other users to boost your links' popularity and visibility. 2. - Join And Participate In Blogging Communities such as, Blogged, Bloghology and Entrecard. The value of interacting with these communities is something I've posted about before. But I want to point out that these services provide you a profile page where you can post your picture, your blog link and personal information. In addition, many of these sites have groups you can join or form, discussions you can engage in or start, messaging systems to connect with others and usually the ability to friend or follow other users. As a bonus sites such as Entrecard and Adgetize let you earn advertising spots across other users sites. Remember, your level of sociability will correlate directly with how many people find you and visit your blog. Here's a list of blogging communities for you to check out: Bloghology Blogged Blog Catalog Linknami Entrecard Blog Engage Adgetize Blog Clicker Networked Blogs (You need a facebook account for this one.) Linkbacklink Blogger Community Fuel My Blog 4. - Join And Participate In Forums - whatever your blogging niche or blog topic, there are probably forums galore related to your niche. You just need to type your blog topic with the word "forums" into a search engine such as Google and it will spit out tons of options. If you are not familiar with forums, simply put, they are sites designed to let users interact with each other around a central theme. People go to foums to have questions answered and share with other like-minded individuals. Once you've joined a forum, they will probably give you the option of setting up a typical online profile with your picture, your website or blog url, a signature and possibly a bio and interests section. Great, fill these out, pay special attention to your signature. Don't just sign with your name, but make sure you add a link to your blog as well. And don't leave yet, you're not finished. Poke around some and see what people are discussing. After all, this is about your blog topic. Here's your chance to join in, contribute your opinion, answer some questions, help people and make yourself known. When you do this you will reach a whole audience of people who might not otherwise not ever know you or your blog. Forums can be powerful promotional tools. If you are truly helpful with others you will gain a reputation for knowing what you are talking about and people will think your blog is worth visiting. You'll notice that each of the options above are all prefaced with the same words, " Join And Participate In". Social bookmarking, blog communities and forums can all be powerful tools to promote your blog, but if you don't join or you join, don't add an enticing profile and do nothing with them, they won't get you anywhere. Your aim is to be knowable, personable, helpful and accessible, everywhere you go online. Relax and take a little time to be sociable, you will meet some great people, make some awesome friends and connect with your colleagues. And all the while, you will be promoting yourself and your blog. Maybe it seems like a lot, just start small - just join a few key sites to start with. Be organized about it, if you slot this kind of social networking activity into your blogging schedule on a regular basis, your blog will indeed begin to attract a great deal of interest from across the web. Bonus ideas for getting your personable little self and your blog out there: post articles on article submissions sites exchange guest posts with other bloggers (I'm looking for guest authors - contact me!) micro-blogging on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Zannel, etc. Well, that concludes the series on personalizing your blog. I hope you found it useful. You should now have a better understanding of how to personalize your blog, establish a profile and promote yourself and your blog through various free online services. Here are the first 5 articles in the series, just in case you missed them: 1. Putting A Face On Your Blog - Don't Be A Mystery Blogger 2. Choosing & Using A Blog Profile Picture - Putting Your Best Blog Face Forward 3. Your Blog Profile Page - Blog Authors Should Be Knowable 4. Online Hosted Profile Pages - Alternatives For A Blog About Page 5. Put A Face On The Comments You Leave Around The WebOriginal post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
Put A Face On The Comments You Leave Around The Web We've been discussing the importance of personalizing your blog. We've explored doing this with the use of a profile picture, adding an about page and some offsite options for creating and linking to a profile page offline that helps increase your social reach. If you missed the first 4 post in the series, here's the list: 1. Putting A Face On Your Blog - Don't Be A Mystery Blogger 2. Choosing & Using A Blog Profile Picture - Putting Your Best Blog Face Forward 3. Your Blog Profile Page - Blog Authors Should Be Knowable 4. Online Hosted Profile Pages - Alternatives For A Blog About Page Today we're going to extend the topic to not only putting a face on your blog, but getting your face out there for more people to see. Maybe this seems like self-promotion to you and that's because it is. Your blog is an extension of you. So putting your face on your blog, getting your face along with your blog's name and location out there for all to see, all go together. One of the easiest ways to do this is to leave comments on other people's blogs and take steps to ensure that your profile image is posted along with your blog url. You may have noticed that more and more blog comments are showing peoples avatars or profile pictures. If you're one of those you've been wondering why your picture doesn't show up and what you can can do to change that, let me point you in the right direction. The first thing you need to do is to sign up for a free Gravatar. You are probably wondering just what a Gravatar is and why you need one, right? Simple, a Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar. It is a picture that will automatically be displayed on Gravatar enabled commenting system when you leave a comment. Systems that use the plugin such as Wordpress and Intense Debate are both very common online. It's a simple process, you sign up, upload your image and forget it. Once you do, your smiling face will now appear on any Gravatar enabled system where you leave a comment. Clipped from: Intense Debate Blog As a quick side-note, if you've never heard of IntenseDebate, it is a comment plugin available for use on almost all blog platforms. It is highly social and adds many interactive features to the blog commenting function. Clipped from: Intense Debate.com
clipped from www.genyvoodoo.com Well, it's time to get back to the real chore of blogging. And to that end, here is the fourth installment in a series of articles on personalizing your blog and extending your personal reach online. If you missed the first 3 post in the series, here's the list: 1. Putting A Face On Your Blog - Don't Be A Mystery Blogger 2. Choosing & Using A Blog Profile Picture - Putting Your Best Blog Face Forward 3. Your Blog Profile Page - Blog Authors Should Be Knowable Wouldn't it be great if you could have an awesome about page that didn't require you to do much of anything at all? Something that helped others know more about you and gave them easy access to finding and connecting with you online? Well it is possible to have a profile page that is just that easy. It all comes down to linking to an online profile that you can set up or already have established on a separate online community. There are a number of possibilities here, depending on what is important to you. With a little thought, planning and tweaking, a profile that you have online may be the perfect solution to adding an about section to your blog. If you have more than one blog it can be a real boon to be able to link them all to one about page. In addition to giving you a place to park your profile, these sites have a number of other features that can help make your profile more interactive and accessible to others who use the same community sites. This means that other members may friend or follow you and may very well click through to visit your blog. This makes your profile page all that much more powerful for reaching potential new readers. Ah, social networking at its best. Here are the features that are common to most of these sites: Profile page. Profile picture. About/Profile Bio. Recent visitor activity. RSS Blog Feed. RSS Twitter Feed. Email Notifications of activity from site. A list of your social network memberships. Ability to follow &/or friend members. Ability accept/reject follow &/or friend requests. Send messages to other members. Receive messages from other members. DoFollow Links back to your blog or site. Embeddable widgets for your blog or site. Below is an example of some of the embeddable widgets these sites provide that you can embed in sidebar to help promote your about page or profile. You can see another widget, from Retaggr, in my sidebar. I find this one to be one of the more attractive and functional widgets available from any of the online communities. Instead of writing incessantly about the various services, I've set up profile pages on each one. You can click on any of my links below to get a better idea of how each one looks, the information they provide about you and the individual features they offer. When you're done viewing a profile page just click your browser back button to return to this post. Blog Catalog MyBlogLog Other Ego You Are My Google Profile Retaggr I have personally chosen to use the Retaggr service for my own about page and am very happy with it. Here are some of the features I found most appealing: Saves me having to add a Twitter widget and a Social Profile widget such JustAddMe from Widgets Lab. Both these functions are already incorporated into the Retagger widget. The service allows me to create an attractive and feature rich About Page, hosted on their site without having to bother with any HTML or CSS code. In addition they have a subscription service that offers advanced options such as premium themes for the about page, personalizing your profile's web address and more. The pro service is available for only $9.99 per year, very reasonable, but the free service is feature rich and more than adequate for most people's needs. If you do choose to use an online community profile page for your about option, all you have to do is provide a small about blurb in your sidebar with your profile picture and link to your online profile of choice. Or you can embed a widget in your sidebar that links to your online profile as well. No matter how you decide to execute your own about page will depend on the your needs, resources, skills and the time you have to set it all up. The important thing is to take a look at all your options and choose something that works best for you. An about page is just another way to make your blog more interactive, appealing and personal. The possibilities are many and all depend on you. Next time we'll be exploring the second last topic in this series: Putting A Face On The Comments You Leave Around The Web Again, in case you missed them, here are the first three posts in this series: 1. Putting A Face On Your Blog - Don't Be A Mystery Blogger 2. Choosing & Using A Blog Profile Picture - Putting Your Best Blog Face Forward 3. Your Blog Profile Page - Blog Authors Should Be Knowable tweetcount_src = 'RT @Blogs With Wings:'; tweetcount_via = false; tweetcount_links = true; tweetcount_size = 'small'; tweetcount_background = 'FFFFFF'; tweetcount_border = 'CCCCCC'; tweetcount_api_key = '5c3bba3f5d77a46a13453091e36dc Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
I am so touched by your support and want to explain a little of what has transpired. I and a few of my friends tried to reason with this guy, but it did not work. He ultimately accused me of taking monetary kickbacks from people who were getting traffic from my drop list. Seriously, any of you who are sending money - I didn't get it. Gee I wonder why? To get rid of us and shut us up, he removed "his list" to another undisclosed location. No he didn't take it down, just hid it from us. He also removed all the comments associated with our conversations. Good thing because he was getting completely out of line and I think he knew it. After much debate it was decided that we would not publish his name or blog address for a couple of reasons: First, his blog gets almost no traffic, why would we send him any? Even bad traffic still makes him look better to the search engines. And this kind of debate would garner him all kinds of attention he really doesn't deserve. Secondly, a number of his friends began getting overtly aggressive and threatening towards myself, my blog and my supporters. False accusations and threats were flying at us like mortar rounds. If we published his name and blog's url, it would get very ugly very fast and solve nothing. It would only serve to drag you all into a mess not of your making. And I don't think it would improve this person in any way. Some people just don't learn no matter how you try to reason with them. I have taken steps to protect the new All Above The Crease Entrecard drop list from theft. They are not completely foolproof, but should dissuade all but the most determined individuals that it is not worth the trouble. I briefly considered just removing the list altogether, eliminating the possibility of having this happen again. It would give ME more free time to concentrate on MY BLOG, put more time and energy into making ME a success. But ultimately that isn't how I think. I believe that blogging is about more than just individuals. We are all very different, but we all blog on the same web, that makes us a community. I believe that when we realize this and make ourselves accountable and responsible to one another, as members of that community, we all have a better chance of success. Sadly, people who can't see past their own ambitions will never understand this. Now I just want to get back to posting to the blog and updating the list on a regular basis. But before I do, I want to thank you all for everything. If it wasn't for all you wonderful people I wouldn't even bother blogging at all. Your concern and support are all the "kickbacks" I could ever want. With Much Sincere Gratitude, Blog Angel a.k.a. JoellaOriginal post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
This is a post by a dear friend of mine, Glenn, who mans one of my favorite blogs Man Over Board. Next to me, Glenn was incredibly upset about what happened yesterday. As a result, he asked if he could post here about the whole mess. I agreed. I'm so upset I don't trust myself to write about yet, so without further adieu, here is Glenn's post: First of all, I thank Joella allowing me to come on her blog and guest post. I wrote the below post during the day yesterday, because I was somewhat involved with the fact that Joella must now redo her blog. In order to protect her work and her intellectual property. Because someone decided to copy her entire drop list. She must re do it so that this does not happen again. Thus leaving her with a lot of new work she must do and keeping her away from adding her daily post. 99% of all us bloggers are good people who trust each other and also look out for one another. We are a small community, those of us who use Entrecard. Being such, I have seen an ethical standard we all go by. We also have TOS statements about the fact if there is an article someone would like to use, they first must ask the blogs owners permission. The person that copied Joellas list never bothered to ask, and defended their use of it, stating how they made it much better (they didn't) and that it was easy for anyone to build such a list (then why didn't they) and lastly couldn't understand what the big deal was, as it is only a blog. This persons profession is a journalist for a broadcast station that covers a large portion or three states. I am sure Joella would rather have me talk about anything else in the post but what had transpired yesterday. But I took a day to think about it and I am just as disheartened today about this incident and by the person behind it. If this enlightens one person that doing such a blatant act as stealing from another blog, think twice. Then it was worth the time and effort it took me to write this and also for Joella to have to put in all kinds of safe guards. Lastly, shes does this as a courtesy for us bloggers to help us with saving time in doing our daily drops. She does this willingly on her own time and her own effort. She does not ask for anything in return. This is not how she should be paid back. Here is the post I was going to post on my blog, but feel it deserves to go here where it belongs and let you, her readers know the whole story. This morning like most mornings , I went to my blog and checked my overnight stats. Within those stats I have various programs that let me know when and where any of my articles are mentioned and also where all my traffic originates from. I am sure most of you have the same programs also. Being a blogger to me is special, because I have joined a group of people who put out their own personal thoughts and work hard into them. I am especially proud because we all originate our own ideas, no matter how large or small the idea is. It is ours and therefore our property. It also affords us an opportunity to meet other good people who also have great blogs. A community in essence. I am always asking other bloggers to guest post on my blog, so that I may be able to share a new audience for them and help if I can, to see their blog grow larger with more visitors. And I also know they wish me the same. Not to mention they have great posts that we get to share with you our readers. I believe most of us when we borrow something, like a picture or a poem, etc from another source, that source is given it's due credit, with links back to the original post. Most bloggers enjoy to know that their words are being utilize by others and it helps not only get back links, but also some new readers. This morning as I was going through my stats I noticed I was getting traffic from a new blog from Entrecard. I was going to name the blog, but in doing so, why should I give this person who plagiarized from someones blog that I think highly of, any new traffic to their blog. I know I can be vicious when I am PISSED!!!. And yes I was mad as hell, not only because they copied verbatim a drop list someone worked very hard on. But throughout the day their replies were so very nonchalant with a could care less attitude. As they also stated it's only a blog why get so worked up? I clicked on the backlink to find an exact duplicate of "Above The Crease Droplist" which is a list that Joella from at Blogs With Wings created. It's a wonderful list to help us bloggers to become more efficient and quicker when making our daily drops. That list was a work of love and many long hours and continues to be, because Joella does it on her own!! The owner of this blog that STOLE the entire list verbatim, also added how we should click on links of ads, as they call it" few ki$$e$" , which again if you are not aware is fraud. People pay good money to advertise on our blogs and asking other people to click on ads just to increase the click rate is again fradulent. (They later explained it was meant for people to donate money to their blog, like "buy me a beer button" but that blogger didn't have the capability to add a PayPal donation button.) I do not use blogger or blogspot so I am not sure if that is true or not, maybe someone could tell me who uses blogspot if there is a way for people to receive donations. Why they felt they deserved a donations is a mystery to me. Most of this person's blog is basically links to other blogs/websites about stories they saw and their contribution is a sentence to tell people to go check it out. I have NO PROBLEM with that. If you believe writing a blog is about surfing the net and finding stories and making a post filled with someone else's links, then that is 100% legal and fine. It would be easier for this person to just get one of the auto-pilot blog set ups and fill it with Google ads. Hell I am sure we would all love to be able to put up a new post each day and be done in less then 15 minutes and feel as thou we truly believed we did a good job. That is their right to do so. I myself would rather just go to the front page of Yahoo, MSN or Google and get the links they find instead. They also have a TOS on their blog that states and I quote blank is intended for your own personal use. If you download or print something from my site, you should retain any advertisements, copyright or related proprietary notices which the material contains. You may not reproduce, transmit, license, sell or otherwise exploit for any purpose any content that appears on my site without my prior written consent. Well then aren't all of us afforded the same rights. Lastly this person is new to EC, perhaps I could say they were not aware, but that is not the case here. I also feel like an idiot because I advertised on this site when it first appeared. Before I had known this was how the blog was being run. I hold this person to a higher standard, because in many places through out the blog and advertising sites like EC, they tell us that they are a professional journalist. I hope they don't think this is the wild west and they can do whatever they please, to whoever they want. I can only imagine what their employers might think of this blog and if this is something they also condone? Does his professional employer merely copy the New York Times, then put their names to it? I doubt it, it's called ethics.Original post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
I will not be posting today and possibly tomorrow as I find it necessary to deal with the theft of my Entrecard Droplist. I will be spending the next couple of days moving the list to a static HTML page and will be implementing measures to prevent further theft of the list. I have been working on and maintaining this list since December 2008 and have done so as a labor of love. It has taken countless hours of my time and I don't ask for payment of any kind. Instead of encoding it in Java script and displaying it as buttons, that render the list inaccessible to search engines, I have kept it as a searchable list in order to provide the sites on the list valuable backlinks that may help their search engine standings. After I have moved and safeguarded the list I will resume the next post in the series on personalizing your blog. Thank you for your understanding. Please know that I appreciate your readership and ongoing support. Sincerely, Blog Angel a.k.a. JoellaOriginal post blogged on Blogs With Wings.
