Contestants, we at the end-stretch of the Blogging Idol contest!
Blog Idol Changes its Contestants
To answer Don’s most recent question, this contest has gotten me to read Shane’s regular blogs and to browse the content of the online content of Computer World.
My Favorite Blogs
I tend to draw solution ideas and mind sets around progress from other areas unrelated to the field of I.T. The Online Photographer is a big name in the photography world.
Side question: what printed computer publications do you read? My list includes:
– Computer World
– Eweek
– Intelligent Enterprise
– CIO Canada
Do you have time to read all of your publications? For me, the contest topics complimented the articles from the above publications.
To Blog or not to Blog
In response to Don’s last entry, I have been blogging off and on at www.xanga.com for the past 5 years. My initial rationale was to improve the way I communicated with an online audience. In that time, I learnt taht the audience most liked blogs that included photos. Random “how-to” topics in areas like computer tweaking were popular, and vacation blogging was well-received. Are you ready to start your own blgo?
Be warned! Web traffic for blog sites can only increase if you:
1) Interact with other bloggers through comments
2) Ongoing, regular updates
Here are some sites to consider for hosting your blog:
https://www.blogger.com/start
http://www.livejournal.com/
http://spaces.live.com/default.aspx
It is unfortunate that blogging isn’t billable if your site isn’t at the top 1% of the host’s bloggers. It needs to generate massive traffic, be ad-supported, and must generate click-thru.
Here’s a theoretical question for everyone: if editors at IT World Canada offered you a freelance job to blog, would you do it?
Finally, if the trend of “surfing A.D.D.” continues, or one simply doesn’t have the time to blog, one might want to consider twitter instead. It might even make for a good software developer’s blog:
“Great, Bugs!”
“Not another System Crash!”
“Whoops BSOD – what to do?”