Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The Controversy Around Corporate Blogging

Corporate blogging is a relatively new idea, and the juryis still out on whether it will succeed. This controversialmarketing tool may be the beginning of a new kind ofadvertising strategy, or it may fizzle out in a matter ofmonths. Many companies are looking for ways tocapitalize on the blogging trend, and many of thesecorporations have determined that a great way to ridethe blogging wave is to keep a blog on their corporatewebsite. These blogs are often created to appeal to thedemographic that the company needs to court, and thecontent may have quite a lot to do with the activities ofthe corporation, or it may have very little to do with thecompany itself. Often, a corporate blog will focus onthe kinds of content likely to attract the desired surfers,even if that content is not related to the product orservice that the company provides.
Some bloggers feel that corporate blogging is a kind ofvalidation for the blogging movement, and shows thatthis exciting new medium has really infiltrated themainstream. Other bloggers consider the kind of viralmarketing that corporate blogs practice to be unethicalor distasteful. In any case, watching the evolution ofcorporate blogs and whether they survive andproliferate or fail and disappear promises to providesome interesting insight into today's consumers.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Picking The Best Free Blogging Site

Choosing a free blogging site can feel overwhelmingbecause there are so many options. There are severallarge free blog-hosting sites that dominate theblogosphere, but there are also smaller sites. Whetheryou decide to join up with an established site likeblogger or whether you choose to sign on with arelatively new venture depends on what your prioritiesare.
Reliability is perhaps the best reason to opt for a largeand well known free blogging site. When you choose tohave an established brand host your blog, you can feelsecure that your blog will not crash often and will notdisappear in the middle of the night. A company thathas been around for a while is likely to have theresources to make sure that its clients aren'tunpleasantly surprised by any technical glitches.However, many bloggers decide that this isn't enoughof a selling
point. The bloggers who choose to go withsmaller, newer blog hosting sites do so for a variety ofreasons, but perhaps the number one advantage is afairly abstract one. Bloggers tend to relish the fact thatthe internet is a place where the underdog has a strongchance of success, and by choosing to have a smallcompany as a blog host, a blogger is casting his or hervote for David against Goliath.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Photo Blogging May be the Pinnacle of Modern Technology

Many people feel that photo blogging is the mostexciting kind of blogging that exists. Building andmaintaining a photo blog is no more difficult thancreating and updating a text-based blog, and manypeople feel that the internet's high speed, full-colortechnology reaches the pinnacle of its appeal with thetransmission of images. Posting photographs in a blogformat on a daily, weekly, or occasional basis is a greatway to express yourself while reaching viewers in anemotionally charged and aesthetically engaging way,and surfing photo blogs can help you to get a wholenew perspective on the world in which we live.
Many people who run image blogs are photographers bytrade, but photo blogging is also very popular amonghobbyists and amateur shutterbugs. To be certain, a lotof the most popular photo blogs have gained attentionbecause the pictures on them are of the highest artisticcaliber, and a lot of the people who run these strikingblogs are graduates of prestigious art schools and haveimpressive professional portfolios. However, some ofthe most well known and most often visited photo blogsare as notable for their concepts as for the picturesthemselves. Certain photo blogs, like the popular "CuteOverload" which features picture after picture ofadorable animals, are more about the thematic contentof the pictures than they are about the style in which thesnapshots are taken.
The fact that photo blogs range from forums to displaythe work of highly skilled artisans to playful collectionsof curiosities shows that photo blogging is a trulydiverse form. The fact that photo blogs are so easy tobuild and to update makes this kind of visualcommunication very democratic, and enables people atall skill levels to become a part of the globalconversation about the nature and value of photographytoday.
Whether you are an artist or hobbyist who wants tocreate a photo blog, or whether you are just somebodywho enjoys learning about new places and things,spending some time looking at the most popularphotography blogs on the internet can be a veryrewarding endeavor. You can travel to another place oranother time by seeing pictures of faraway locations andlong-gone eras. You can see your own neighborhoodwith fresh eyes by discover how local artists havephotographed the town or city in which you live. Photoblogging allows people to communicate all of thesethings and more, which makes it a very exciting part ofthe modern blogosphere. If the best thing about webtechnology is that it allows people to reach each other ina very personal way from across great distances, then inmany ways photo blogs are the most successful kind ofweb sites.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Photo Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Personal Blogging, Documentary, and History

When it comes to personal blogging, documentary isthe default genre. There are plenty of blogs that serveother functions, but many blogs are primarily cataloguesof the life experiences of their author. Although thereare quite a few blogs that focus on collecting poetry andother forms of creative writing, the vast majority ofpersonal blogs are in some sense documentaries.
For many years, the act of making a documentary wasmeant to be an objective act of reporting the sights andsounds that the filmmaker, writer, or photographerencountered. However, in contemporary times there hasbeen a movement towards embracing the subjectivityinherent in the documentary form. This means thatmodern documentaries often reflect the distinctivevoice and sensibility of their creator, and the fact thattodays documentaries often revolve around personalityblurs the lines between documentary and memoir. Blogsrest somewhere between these two genres, muddyingthe distinctions even further. Personal blogging,documentary, and memoir are now irrevocablyintertwined, for better or for worse.
Although few bloggers think of themselves as makingdocumentaries in any formal sense, every timesomebody sits down in front of a computer and types upa record of their day, they are documenting their ownhistorical moment. The things that we take for grantedabout our daily lives, like the way that we use specificmodes of transportation, or the kinds of products thatwe buy, often seem quite fascinating to people who livein circumstances different from ours, and it is this kindof fascination that is at the heart of many documentaryprojects. When people think about blogging,documentary is not very likely to be the first adjectivethat crosses their minds, but a few decades down theroad it is very likely that todays blogs will be seenprimarily as very subjective documentaries of our era.The people of tomorrow will almost certainly look tothe blogs of today for insight into our historicalmoment.
When it comes to blogging, documentary may not bethe aim of most people who spend their time postingtheir thoughts and ideas on the internet. In some ways,the documentary aspect of blogging is more of a sideeffect than a primary goal. However, the fact that somany people are interested in publishing these publiconline diaries shows that personal blogs are about morethan just rumination. The fact that bloggers are sostimulated by and interested in sharing their ideas witheach other reinforces the idea that personal blogs are, insome ways, documentaries meant for publicconsumption. Documentaries appeal to people who arecurious about other ways of life, and many people whoregularly read others personal blogs are looking for this same kind of new perspective.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Personal Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Mobile Blogging is on the Cutting Edge

Mobile blogging is an exciting phenomenon that issweeping the blogosphere. One of the reasons why a lotof bloggers are attracted to the medium of blogging inthe first place is that they enjoy being able to makefrequent updates and posts that keep all of their visitorsup to speed with current situations. Mobile blogs, or"moblogs," take this to the extreme by allowing users topost things literally as they happen. This new wave ofmoblogs and mobloggers keep web surfers up to datewith good and bad events of importance as they occurall over the world, helping to make internationalcommunication faster and more accurate.
Many people feel that the limitations of blogging have alot to do with geography. After all, there is only socurrent that a blog can be when you need to run homeand boot up in order to update it. However, mobileblogging marks the beginning of an thrilling new erawhen web-based communication can happenspontaneously from any location. Moblogging devicesmean that there is almost nowhere on the planet thatremains off-limits for bloggers.
Mobile blogging is still in its infancy because thetechnology that makes it possible has only recently hitthe global market. The first moblog technology becameavailable over a decade ago, but it is only the past twoor three years that mobile web devices have becomeuser-friendly enough to appeal to most consumers. Ascamera phones and other mobile technology becomemore popular, more and more bloggers are getting awayfrom their desks and are hitting the streets. Mobloggingis becoming much more widespread that it was even afew months ago, and mobloggers are quickly attractinga lot of attention with the blogging community. It is notyet clear whether moblogs will become the dominantkinds of blogs in the years to come, but the currenttrend seems to imply that moblogs are here to stay.
Mobile devices make it possible to blog from the siteswhere current events are unfolding, which is one of thereasons why mobile blogging has so much thrillingpotential to revolutionize the blogosphere. A mobloggerwith a camera phone can post blog entries from, say, thefoot of the podium at a presidential speech, or from thestands during the final moments of the world series.This enables bloggers to experience the same real timethrills that live television coverage provides, but in amore democratic medium. The combination of mobilityand individual control that moblogging providescertainly places mobloggers on the cutting edge oftoday's communications technology, and it is hard toimagine that the number and prestige of moblogs willnot continue to grow in the coming years.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Moblie Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Learning How to Make Money Blogging

There are two major types of business models thatentrepreneurs use to make money blogging. The firstand most common way to turn a blog into a profitmaking machine is to sell advertising to differentcompanies and brands who want to reach that blog'sreaders. The second kind of money making blog is onethat helps a single brand improve its image by creatingpositive associations between the blog and the productin the mind of consumers. Both kinds of blogs canmake a lot of money, especially if the creator has a keenmind for marketing.
If you are blogging with the goal of selling advertising,there are two basic ways that you can go aboutrecruiting sponsors who want to put ads on your site;you can let someone else do all of the legwork, or youcan do the work yourself and keep all of the revenue.Within the first group, many people make moneyblogging by selling space through Google's AdSenseprogram. The advantages of this program are numerous,as it requires very little effort on the part of the bloggeror webmaster to begin raking in profits. However, mostpeople discover that they make less money through thismethod than they had hoped that their blog would earn.
Selling advertising directly to companies who want toput banner ads or sponsored links on your blog can takequite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative. If youhave a lot of contacts in industries that are related to thetopic of your blog, you may want to try to go this route.People who have a strong background in sales and areexperienced at pitching proposals can make quite a bitof money by renting blog space to interested companies.The most serious problem with this model is that youoften have to build quite a sizable readership before youcan attract advertisers, which can mean that you have todo several months of work before you start to makemoney blogging.
As blogging becomes a more and more lucrativebusiness, a lot of established companies are consideringhow they can get into the action. One way thatcompanies are capitalizing on the blog movement is byhaving blogs that provide a kind of friendly face fortheir corporation. Often, a company will employ anestablished blogger to create a weblog designedspecifically to appeal to that company's customers andto create positive associations with the brand inconsumers' minds. More than one writer who nevereven dreamed that he or she could make moneyblogging has been approached by a company andoffered quite a pretty penny for this kind of gig.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Already Blogging, Money May be Just a Click Away

If you already spend a fair amount of time blogging,money may come to you literally as soon as you ask forit. Once you have an established blog with a regularreadership, it is easy to turn a profit through advertising.By hosting sponsored links or banners, you can seeincome from your hobby almost overnight. Even if youdid not start your blog intending to turn a profit, makingsupplementary income from your blog may be easierthan you think.
Of course, even for people who have spent months oryears blogging, money from advertising revenue maynot add up to a large sum. The amount of money thatyou can make as a blogger depends on a lot of differentfactors, but perhaps the most important element of theequation is the topic of your blog. If your blog is on asubject that appeals to a demographic that advertisershave a strong desire to reach, you will be more likely tobe able to turn a large profit on your blog than if yourblog is on a fairly obscure subject that does not drawthe kind of audience that advertisers need to appeal to.Of course, the only way to find out where you fall onthis spectrum is to try hosting some ads. If you arealready blogging, you have nothing to lose.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

How to Learn Blogging Software

A lot of blogging software is specifically designed to besimple to use, but even the least intimidating bloggingprogram can feel very overwhelming to somebody whohas not spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs ofdifferent kinds of software. Particularly for newerbloggers, learning how to use the interface of bloggingsoftware is the most difficult part of blogging. If you aresomebody who feels comfortable expressing themselvesin another medium, it may prove to be well worth yourtime and effort to learn blogging software, but thatdoesn't mean that the task will be easy.
The main thing that will help you find success as youlearn how to use a new kind of blogging software is totry and take things slowly. Many people get so excitedabout learning to blog that they try to rush into the thickof it and start exploring the most complicated featuresof a program right away. This can lead to gettingconfused and feeling frustrated, and all too manypotential bloggers burn out during this stage of theprocess. If you take your time learning the basics ofyour blog software program before you move on tomore advanced techniques, you will be more likely toretain what you have learned, and to keep feelingpositive about your ability to understand the world ofblogging.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Software, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Blogging Teens

Every day, blogs are created by people of all ages andfrom all walks of life, but when it comes to blogging,teen writers are truly on the cutting edge of themovement. Because today's teenagers are the firstgeneration of people to have grown up using theinternet at every stage of their development, manyadolescents have a seemingly innate sense of how to useweb technology to express their innermost thoughts andideas. Older writers often experience a kind of learningcurve when they begin to blog, but many young peoplefind that using a word processor and blogging softwarefeels more natural and direct a mode of communicationthan writing in a diary ever could.
One of the reasons why blogs have undergone a kind ofexplosion in the teen community and are growing byleaps and bounds is the fact that they provide a uniquemixture of visibility and anonymity. A teenager caninvite friends and peers to read his or her blog with asimple email, thereby winning attention or possiblyeven praise. Of course, with visibility usually comes thepossibility of embarrassment, but the fact that it ispossible to blog anonymously with an invented handleor nickname negates a lot of the potential forhumiliation. Many a blogging teen lives in fear that aparent or guardian will discover his or her blog, but bypublishing under an alias a teenager can spill his or hersecrets without fear of being traced.
Outside the world of blogging, teen writers often havevery limited opportunities to be published. Magazinesand journals are often reticent to publish young writerswho may not have as much credibility as older writerswith a lot of experience and extensive credits to theirnames. This can discourage adolescents from writing orfrom seeking chances to publish their work. Byblogging, young people can begin to gain a following ofreaders without first having to win the attention andsupport of an editor or publisher who may not be veryinterested in teenaged authors.
Between the fact that blogs provide young people with achance to exercise their impressive technical aptitude,to gain visibility without compromising privacy, and tobuild a readership for their writing without having tojump through the traditional hoops of the publishingindustry, it is little wonder that are so many teenagerswith blogs. For some teenagers, blogging is even a verysocial endeavor that allows them to meet people withsimilar interests from all over the world. Many ablogging teen has discovered that having a weblog onthe internet is a great way to explore self-expressionand, often, to win positive feedback from new friends.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Blogging News Stories as They Happen

Blogging news stories as they unfold is one of the mostexciting and controversial applications of technologythat bloggers have discovered. One thing that makes theblogosphere so active is the fact that it is possible toupdate a blog instantaneously, so the news on blogstends to be more current than the news in the paper, oron television. Unlike news delivered by these othermedia, news that appears on blogs does not have totravel through a series of editors and administratorsbefore it reaches the public eye. This has someadvantages, and some distinct disadvantages.
One of the most notable cases of news hitting a blogbefore appearing in other media took place in July 2005when terrorism struck London. As passengers wereevacuated from a subway car near an explosion, oneman took several photographs of the scene with hiscellular phone, and within an hour these images wereposted online. First-person accounts of the catastrophebegan appearing on blogs soon after these photosappeared, and people all over the world learned aboutthe events in London by reading the words and seeingthe photos posted by bloggers.
The fact that these stories and images were being spreaddirectly by individuals operating without the addedfilter of a reporter helped to make the crisis feel veryimmediate to people across the globe. When it comes toblogging, news often appears in a very personal context.This has the potential to be the beginning of an excitingnew era of reporting, one that takes "New Journalism"to it's logical next step by putting the power to shapehow the news is written and read directly into the handsof the public.
Many bloggers and cultural commentators who arechampions of the weblog movement feel that thisgrowing trend of individuals who getting their newsfrom blogs is a good thing, because it makes the flow ofinformation more democratic. By decentralizing thecontrol of news, blogs allow more voices to enter thefield of debate about important current events.However, many people are adamantly opposed to theuse of blogs as news outlets, and there are plenty ofgood arguments on this side of the debate. Unlikenewspapers or television stations, few blogs have fact-checkers, and there is little attention paid to journalisticaccountability on many blogs. This can lead to the rapidspread of misinformation, and more than one falsehoodhas taken the blogosphere by storm. The questionsabout whether blogging news as it happens is ethical ornot are very complicated, but no matter where you standon the topic of current events blogs you are almost sureto agree that this movement has the potential torevolutionize how modern people get their news.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best Blogging Ideas, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com