Blogging Blog

Blog Memes for November

Every November (since 1999) is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) during which tens of thousands of slightly batty people (in accord with the season) attempt to write a novel in one month:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat- of- your- pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

While NaNoWriMo is not for bloggers only, many do participate, and some folks start blogs specifically for this exercise. The brave ones, the ones willing to share something of what spills out onto the keyboard during this marathon.

Blogging Blog Reviews

Uploaded by selva  *

We have recently received three excellent and helpful reviews here at Blogging Blog, and you will see the advice reflected here in our design changes. It's our hope that Blogging Blog might gain a wider readership, and we seem to be on our way. Subscribers are up; Blogging Blog has a respectable page rank of 4; and comes up on the front page -- sometimes even first -- on Yahoo searches for blogs about blogging.

Two weeks ago, Blogging Blog was reviewed at The Weblog Review, which gave us an average rating of 4.3750 out of 5.

Wendy said:

This blog is a great idea. People new to the blogging world start their own weblog on a daily basis, and [here] they can find “tips, tools, and toys for the personal blogger”. Those people will luck out when they find this site.

amusings said:

The Blogging Blog is a collection of tips and tricks to make your weblog look... well, more schnazzy.

The header graphic states that this is blog is "blogging for the fun of it," and they sure do have a host of fun items to liven up the average blog. Our authors have done a tremendous job over the past two years combing the web for interesting gizmos, gadgets, and doo dads to help you make your blog more interesting, and less Web 1.0.

They also each had some specific suggestions to improve navigation and fix some bugs; all done, I think.

Bears & Blog Resources @ Blogging Blog

Angel Baby Bear & Qwerty
Originally uploaded by l0ckergn0me

How could I resist this charming couple, found at Chris Pirillo?

Chris and Leo Laporte were very helpful to me (on that computer television network that no longer exists) when I first began blogging, and I still have a special fondness for their tolerance of non-geeks.

So -- a friendly illustration for my reminder to you that we have lots and lots of resources here at Blogging Blog. In addition to our thoughtful, helpful posts (heh) we provide links to many other sites that offer useful information for bloggers.

Just click the links on the sidebar, or below, to explore and discover something just right for you:

• BLOG NEWS & REVIEWS
• DESIGN
• DIRECTORIES
• FORUMS
• LINKS & BLOGROLLS
• MEMES & CARNIVALS
• NETWORKS
• TECH|nical & TECH|nology
• TOOLS
• WIDGETS & TOYS

I'll be writing a bit more about these lists in the coming weeks. If you have something you'd like to see here, please let us know.

One caveat: we don't link to sites that are mostly ads, and we don't link to sites with even one pop-up ad. Anytime I land on a page with a jumpy sparkly notice across the top that it's my lucky day I've just won... I move right on past.

I bet you do, too.

DoppelMe: A Fun & Easy Avatar

      

DoppelMe: The Free Dynamic Avatar Maker

With DoppelMe you can create a cool graphical likeness of yourself, your friends, family or any group of people for use as an avatar in forums, instant messenger, blogs and almost anywhere else on the web.

It's free and there are no Flash, ActiveX controls, downloads or toolbars needed - just your browser and a few mouse clicks. That's it!

. . . and it really is that easy. You select your preferred gender (only two choices are offered here, though I keep hearing there are more options...) and then choose from a variety of expressions, hair, eyewear, hats, tops, bottoms, shoes, extras & accessories.

You can also have a colored or transparent background. It's amazing how much individuality a few choices can provide -- though you can have only one avatar per account, you can keep changing how it looks.

Doppel then gives you the HTML code to pull the image from their site, or you can simply right-click and save to your own server.

They also provide different sizes and versions for different purposes:

             

. . . and you can add these to your email signature on Yahoo Mail, MS Outlook, or Hotmail.

So, it doesn't talk, or move, or aggregate your profiles -- but it's still pretty cool. I could see using it on a sidebar, for example, linked to your About Page.

Do click through, just to see how flexible this tool really is.

Thanks to Google Blogoscoped for the pointer.

Blog Action Day: What Kind of Blogger Are You?

Blog Action Day:

"On October 15th - Blog Action Day, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone's mind.

In its inaugural year, Blog Action Day will be co-ordinating bloggers to tackle the issue of the environment.

What Each Blogger Will Do

Bloggers can participate on Blog Action Day in one of two ways:

1. Publish a post on their blog which relates to an issue of their own choice pertaining to the environment.

   . . . Our aim is not to promote one particular viewpoint, only to push the issue to the table for discussion.

2. Commit to donating their day’s advertising earnings to an environmental charity of their choice. There is a list of "official" Blog Action Day charities on the site, however bloggers are also free to choose an alternate environmental charity to donate to if they wish.

And that’s it."

Waiting

This cartoon is by Dave Walker.

Via ProBlogger

Another Cool Profile Widget: imagini

[This is another flash widget, so the first images are screenshots, and the flash images will go under the cut to speed loading on the main page.]

The imagini widget isn't exactly an avatar, and it doesn't aggregate your networks, but it is a nice little widget that could spark up an About Page or MySpace profile. It's clearly designed for younger folk, but I had a good time with it nonetheless.

It offers a series of questions and images; and from the images you choose emerges your Visual DNA:

Imagini calculates your VisualDNA™ from your choices.
It's a new way of communicating using images instead of words.

It's fun, quick and free...

Each tab has nicely written text, presumably describing the user -- and I have to say, it's not far off. It's easy to say that, because I think it's designed to flatter. Which is fine with me.

There is also a social networking aspect to this widget; along the side of the screen the service lists other people with similar Visual DNA -- though I'm not sure similarity equals a good match?

In summary:

Pros:

• Visually appealing
• Very easy to use
• Easily shared
• Fun

Cons:

• It is still beta, though I've noticed no problems using it
• Flash, which some folks avoid
• Not a lot of creative scope

See mine below the cut:

   

Cool Avatars & Network Aggregation Profiles: profilebuilder

This profile can be embedded in a page, so that all information is visible (this is another flash profile, so the first images are screenshots, and the flash images will go under the cut to speed loading on the main page):

Click image to see larger:

or it can be quietly linked on a sidebar, like this:

Sharon Brogan 

Click that blue P, and up pops the profile (assuming you have flash enabled.)

I think profilebuilder has the most potential of any I've seen to be useful for both personal and professional/ business bloggers. It's the most flexible; it can be funny and quirky, or sleek and professional, depending on what you want to do with it.

Your profile is your online place, it's the place to put anything you want — such as your interests, activities and contacts. From now on, wherever you sign your name, you sign your icon with it.

Establish a consistent profile across the web;
Manage what people know about you;
Present the specific information that different types of people see;
Enable people to easily find out more about you;
Track when and where your profile is accessed.

You can make several different profiles -- or differing versions of a profile -- to link in many different places. You could have one, expansive profile for a personal page, that includes hobbies and family photos; and another, more circumspect, profile for a professional site that includes a resume and contact information, but doesn't highlight your MySpace page.

...you can add your Profil.es icon next to your name anywhere on the web, including your website, your email, social networking sites, message boards, etc. Your Profil.es are in your hands! [More linking options, including automatic blog and email insertion are coming shortly!]

The founder links his profile in a signature on his blog posts:

Boyan Josic, Founder & CEO 

This is extremely flexible. You can design your own channels and select your own content. It really seems that the sky's the limit with this.

So, if this is so cool, flexible, and useful, why aren't you seeing it everywhere?

I have some guesses, below the cut: