The success of a blog is measured in various terms like the Traffic Rank, Number of subscribers, activity on the blog (comments) and buzz about the blogger in the Social Media.There are quite a few things that I have learned from blogging last year and I would like to share some things that are critical to follow and commit to, if you would like to get better results for your blog.

1) Plan a schedule carefully and stick to it:

You might have a 9 to 5 job and you barely get time to blog, or maybe you are a full-time blogger, who gives all his time to blogging. Either way a proper schedule will help propel your blog to the next level. If you follow a schedule you can get more things done and be more productive. I have seen that I have always been able to post regularly and get more subscribers, traffic and activity on my blog if I follow a schedule.You should plan well so that you can accommodate reading blogs, posting on your own blog and social networking properly. Try and keep a track of not only of posting time, but how much time do you dedicate to reading other blogs, skimming through RSS Feeds and interacting in Social Networks.

Also, keep a notebook ,or a diary or a cell phone, to note down ideas. No Idea is a small idea and with some brain storming, you can make it a big one. Noting down would help you accumulate some nice concepts to write about in the  future or a rainy day. It is also effective against writers block.

2)Write for your readers,but don’t ignore the search engines and Social Media:

Before you write every post, think how would this benefit my readers. Will writing this post add value to my blog. Will this post be valuable from a year from now? Its not always that a post can fit all these criterion. Sometime you need to blog about a special offer or a free service, which may not be valid for more than a few days. But don’t make this a regular feature. Make sure every post you write benefits the reader in someway.

As on this blog, I don’t have a clearly defined niche. I am a technology enthusiast who is a interested in blogging and involved in social media. What I write is about technology that would benefit bloggers and regular internet users. As I learn about new tips that would benefit any of these 3 niches, I write about it. And this is why The community I have around this blog are people who are interested in any or all of these niches.

Writing for search engines is important as, after the tons of traffic you receive from social sits starts waning, the search engines provide a constant source of quality traffic.You should try and make sure each post has proper SEO attributes and use a plugin like AIO SEO Pack to get maximum benefit from search traffic.

Also try and build a culture around your blog, in which you encourage your readers to submit your articles to social media, if they are good enough.

3)Start building a community around your blog:

Building a community around your blog can be a difficult task,but if you invest time in it, it will pay both in terms of loyal readers and also regular traffic and promotion. In order to start building a community you should first set a minimum number of subscriber number, like about 500 to 1000, as small communities tend not to work very well.

Get your readers involved by helping them out in any way possible. If you are a technology blogger you can ask them to send technical queries. Same goes for other niches. Not only would you help readers and build goodwill, but also get great ideas for future posts.

Surround yourself with bloggers from your niche to keep abreast with the latest happenings and to learn from collective experience, what works and what doesn’t and plan the content accordingly. You can also build a community and connect well with other bloggers by either offering to guest post on their blogs or letting them guest post.

4)Link to blogs in your Niche:

One of the mistakes I made last year was not to connect to some excellent content produced by bloggers in my niche. You can start a post which would contain some of the best work produced from around the blog-O-sphere, related to your niche. This has two advantages. Not only would you provide you readers with valuable content but also get get appreciation from a fellow blogger for linking.

Think about it for a second. You work on a post for several hours and create value for your readers. If some fellow blogger appreciates this and shares it with his readers,he would not only provide some good content for his readers but also get your gratitude. You can make great friends in this process. I missed this last year, but from this year, I would share with you some of the most original and well written content from around the web, from now on.

5) Don’t pretend to be A-List, Be an A-List blogger:

What does an A-List blogger have that you do not?? Hmmm….Answer anyone? Traffic you say. Yes, thats correct, but you don’t have enough of what he does : Value Packed content. All A-List Bloggers, have been known to be different from the crowd. Creating head turning, jaw dropping, link baiting content. Its not that tough really. If you take some time out (about 30 mins everyday) for contemplating, how you can write about an already written story from a different angle, you can make heads turn too and get more back links than you had imagined.

If you dedicate some time to read 30-40 blogs, you can note some idea, about a post that you a different opinion about or may be written in a different way. Another way is to check out the archives of A-List bloggers and apply the same procedure to write about things differently from your own point of view. From reading various blogs in your niche, you can generate and record ideas for future posts or follow up articles on your own past blog posts.

6) Become an expert in your niche:

As I mentioned in the point above about answering questions from your readers would be really easy if you are an expert in your niche or have an open mind to learn about new things about it. But before they ask any question, you need to prove you have a good knowledge by writing authoritative posts which pack some solid content.
Reading and following a lot of blogs in your niche would help you understand, what works and what doesn’t. Skimming through a lot of feeds daily would help you a lot in generating ideas for posts.

The day you are able to engage readers in this activity, you can safely assume that you have decent knowledge about the niche and now you can move towards more ambitions projects.

7) Create resourceful posts:

Take a Pledge. Pledge that you would invest time for creating at least one resources related post for your readers every week. If not every week then every fortnight. These are the kinds of post that have the highest rate of success among your readers and social media. Not only will this a source of perpetual traffic, but also would be accessed and bookmarked the most.

I have written just one resources post last year about Top 50 YouTube Tools and Resources on the web. I examined my traffic and feed stats for the last 4 months and I have seen that this post has been most visited and clicked on through all these months, and brings in traffic from search engines and social media alike. I now think If I had invested time in writing resources post every week for last 3 months, I would have a much better traffic flow and subscriber base.

8)Create backup for the unseen future:

When I speak about back up, I am talking about 2 things. The literal backing up of your blog and creating content for the future for days you just cant find time to post.

I learned a very important lesson a very hard way last year, when I almost lost my blog to a server crash. I moved from a cheap web host to a reliable host after that but the damage had already been done. I was able to recover all my posts, but lost all comments and had to re-upload all the pictures in the post. Make sure you back up your blog atleast once per week so that in case something goes wrong you would have things backed up and you would not lose out on all the hours of time you invested in writing for your blog. I have written a guide about backing up your blog, if you are interested in knowing the process.

There are days when you would not be able to find time to post. Either you have some important business to attend to or you have a writers block. One way or the other, in order to stick to a schedule you would need to post something. According to the resolve of being an A-List blogger you can’t just post anything. So for such a rainy day, keep some posts in your arsenal, that can be posted anytime. Make sure they are the kind that provide value and can be posted anytime.

A very good example of such posts would be resource posts that have very few resources, like 3 or 5 resources about your niche. But not only would you not break the schedule but also provide some valuable content to your readers. Your regularity would be appreciated in the long run.

9) Create a strong social presence:

2007 was the year of Social Media. Bloggers who were aware about this at the beginning of the year, not only strengthened their social profiles but also capitalized on their reach on these networks. A strong social network presence would help you build a brand name for your blog and for you as well, and get boatloads of traffic.

To build a good presence, you should at least dedicate a couple of hours for your favorite social bookmarking and networking sites, submit good content and connect with fellow bloggers and people who like the same stuff you do. A strong social presence give boost to your traffic and branding in more ways than you can imagine.

10) Encourage Readers to Subscribe and Stay:

Getting readers is easy compared to the task of making them stay. First, You are doing nothing wrong, if you ask visitors of your blog to subscribers 2-3 times on the blog, or maybe use some tricks to get their attention for subscription. You work hard to create content and you can tell the readers that subscribing would help them to stay updated with more good content that is in the pipe line, so that they don’t miss it. You can use subscriptions encouragement plugins or can ask visitors to subscribe manually by posting the link in between the posts, which reminds me, do subscribe to this blog, if you would like to get good tips about Blogging, Technology and Social Networking.

I have lost boatloads of subscribers when my blog crashed. I needed to work even more to get those 200+ subscribers back. This is something that isn’t common but you should prepare for it. There are many plugins that can spice up your feeds. In the feed you can remind the readers, that you are a good content producer and if there is no activity on the blog for a couple of days, they shouldn’t just go ahead and unsubscribe, but wait, as time interval in between indicates a great post in the making. You can use these words to encourage present subscribers to stay.

Following any and all of these resolutions would take your blog to a higher level in all the “terms” we use to measure the blogs success. This is not a compiled list of resources, but something I have learned and shared with you to help you in a little way I can, to propel your blog to the next level.

If you think any more tips that may benefit bloggers, please feel free to share them in the comments!

There are several emulators that can make a Macintosh OS work and look like Windows, but I never found a good software that can act as a MAC emulator on my Windows OS.There are various ways by which you can make Windows look like MAC by changing one feature at a time, but I didnt know any software that did it all at one go. Yesterday I came across a software called as FlyakiteOSX, that can make a Windows XP computer look like MAC OS X. If you like the looks of Mac but prefer to stay with Windows, then you can install the software and combine the the looks and functionality together. It almost works like Windows-Blinds, which is a Theme changing software for Windows OS.

To harness the complete functionality, this software makes several changes on the computer, ranging from replacing the cursors to creating relevant system related files. At the beginning of the installation it prompts you to create a restore point so that if something goes wrong you can just restore your computer to pre- installation state and wouldn’t even know something went wrong. The installation takes up 191.8MB of space. However, you can also customize the installation yourself by ticking off the check boxes.

FlyakiteOSX is compatible with following versions of Windows:

- Windows XP (Home, Pro, RTM, SP1, SP2, Corporate)
- Windows 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, RTM, SP1)
- Windows Media Center Edition (2003, 2004, 2005)
- All Language Versions.(Available in 42 languages)
- Does NOT work with 64 bit versions of Windows!

Once you have installed the software and restarted the computer, you see the a new Mac look alike startup screen.

Even the Control Panel of Windows is converted into the System Preferences of MAC OS X. It looks just like a MAC, however you have all your regular Windows options like the Control Panel, Date and Times, Sounds, Printer etc.

One disadvantage is once installed this program would change the look for all the users on the computer. It cant be applied for just one user. But is you like the MAC interface, but are used to Windows OS, you can use this program.

The latest version can be downloaded from FlyaKiteOSX 3.5 from osx-e.com.

The author’s site has a list of mirrors for download.

Have you used any software like this in the past? Do you like the idea of combining the looks of MAC and the functionality of Windows on your computer? Let us know in the comments below.
[via:How To Geek]

After a long haul of 13 years, AOL has finally decided to discontinue any further development and technical support for Netscape Navigator, the first commercial browser on the internet. The support would be ON till 1st Feb ‘08. AOL, the owners of Netscape have decided to develop Netscape as an advertising business instead of the development and maintenance of the software. The software would be available for use, but there would be no further security or software updates. The small pool of users who still use Netscape are advised to download and use Mozilla FireFox instead.

“While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,” Netscape Director Tom Drapeau wrote in a blog entry Friday.

The decline of Netscape navigator started in 2002, when Microsoft saw a huge potential in the Web Browser market and started giving out Internet Explore, as a bundled package with the Windows Operating System. Netscape initially developed on a platform called as Mosaic, the internet very first browser, that could display both images and text at the same time. It went through various updates, and the latest version was Netscape 9.0. However the present Netscape version was just a skin of Netscape on the Firefox platform. This showed that AOL had stopped working on development of the software further.

The Web Browser Usage statistics for November 2007 are:

Browser usage in Nov 2007

[Stats Source:W3Schools]

As we can see, Netscape isn’t mentioned in the list of browsers being used. The current approximate usage of Netscape Navigator is about 0.6%.

I would actually miss Netscape Navigator, as I currently use it to experiment with all the Firefox add-ons and various tool-bars. If I find them useful, I incorporate them in Firefox. But now that Netscape would stop any further security and software updates, many of the add-ons wouldn’t work with Netscape navigator.

However,AOL has decided to keep the archived version of Netscape Navigator online and Netscape website would continue as a online portal.

Computer-Active along with Girsoft,the company behind the highly popular Anti-Virus AVG, is giving away free copy of AVG Anti- Virus 7.5 version, for free. AVG is one of the most popular and successful Anti-Virus softwares on the internet, largely because the free version of the AVG Anti-Virus has a very good track record of PC security.

The AVG Pro version costs $29.95 for a yearly subscription. This news got out on the internet quite soon and a lot of guys started the download. This has slowed down their servers almost to a stand still. The file size is 37 MB, so might take a bit of time as the servers have slowed down, due to multiple simultaneous downloads. Our friends at Ghacks, recommend using a download manager to download it, as if the download breaks in between, you would need to start all over again. They have also mentioned, if you are having a hard time downloading the file, some mirrors have been posted at Cybernet news which is a respected site. These download links however point to RapidShare and MegaUpload, so download it from these links if you are comfortable with these file sharing websites.

I have used AVG pro edition before and currently have the Free version, after the License expired. So now, I can move back to full version, hopefully for one full year or two, but they haven’t mentioned this in the promotion. However when I compared these two editions, I found the Free version quite competitive to the Full version.

A complete comparison between the Professional and Free edition is given below.

AVG Professional VS AVG Free Anti Virus:

When you look at these features carefully, you can see, there isn’t much missing in the Free version and hence its so popular.

Few features that can be deemed as missing are:

1)Technical Support: Free version doesn’t get tech support, but there is enough help in the Forums.

2)Update Servers: Updates for Pro version are though High speed servers, and Free version are left out to non-priority servers. But hey, thats not much of a problem huh!

3)Language Support: Language support for Free version is only in English, again not much of a problem!

4)Windows 64 Support: Support for Windows 64 bit isnt available - Well if you have Windows 64 bit, its better to get the Pro version, especially now that its free!

5)Intrusion detection: Detection of potentially unwanted Programs isn’t there…If we get AVG to do that too, What would the Anti Spyware and Firewalls do…again not much of a disadvantage.

6)Schedules: Scheduled Update and Scanning isnt flexible in free as its in Professional version. Not a big concern.

7) User Defined Tests: Well If you are good enough to understand User defined testing, you would go for the Pro version any way!

8)Resident Shields: AVG Resident shields absence is a bit of concern, but things can be managed, if you don’t frequently visit Warez and Crack sites.

9)Alternate update server: Well we can always update later in Free version. In Pro however, you have alternate download servers. useful in a Virus attack situation. Kinda rare though.

10)Tests results analysis: Professional gives advanced analysis, Free version just gives Basic reports.

I think after comparing and analyzing these features,one can say AVG Free Version is up to the task. The professional version, is for guys who are more in the favor of complete peace of mind.

So would you go for the Professional version, now that its free. Or stick to Good old AVG Free edition?

Privacy advocates have been opposing the Google-DoubleClick merger and Microsoft appealed to the US Senate panel to stop this deal from going through.As far as online privacy is concerned, you may not want to disclose your name for personal or business reasons, or not show your online activity to anyone else. You may like to share stuff with friends, but there are also things that you would rather keep private. So if at this moment Google jumps in and discloses one part of your account to all your contacts? Not even bothering to ask you, just lay it out in the open.

So How did Google breach your Privacy?

What I am talking about here is the new Google reader feature that allows you to share your feeds with your friends. I think its a good feature, if you have a network of friends, who read similar stories and news. Its adds a bit of Social Flavor to the Google reader.

But what if you are using a Google account that you have used to interact with several people, just for correspondence?
3 days ago I corresponded with “some guy” about”something”, that doesnt make him my friend, and since I have exchanged mails with him, Google assumes he is a friend and adds my shared data to his feed reader. In a way he is reading stuff he isn’t supposed to and gets an idea about my online activity! This is the major complaint by many Google Reader users.This invoked a lot of criticism from some readers.

Some Comments on the new feature:

The Google Reader Help started a thread, where the Google reader users vented out their anger. Felipe Hoffa has recorded some interesting comments in his Slash Dot Journal. I found a few amusing so I have listed them below:

“This is a terrible idea, and a violation of privacy, and it contradicts your own documentation”. “Please don’t turn the best feed reader on the web into the shittiest social network on the web.”

“Please fix this and let us OPT IN to who we want to share with. PLEASE. Don’t make me leave my Google Apps!!”

“I have parents, relatives, business associates, all who use Gmail, in my contact list, and the only way to not share with them is to remove the contact? That’s INSANE.”

“I find the “social networkization” of Google’s services unattractive, and unfortunately, I can’t really opt-out of them.”

“I’m complaining because the articles I shared with my wife are now shared with my entire contact list, with no warning. In fact, this is precisely the worst sort of violation of privacy.”

Whew! There may be many reasons why anyone wouldn’t want to share, stuff one subscribers to. The main reason for this very vocal criticism was that Google brought this feature in as a surprise, with no opt out option.

Google has a very good reputation dealing with the privacy of their users.Its number one on my “Internet’s Most trusted Companies List”. They have been known to fix privacy related glitches in a blink of an eye, and have always worked hard towards maintaining the user privacy. But a new feature recently launched by them, really rocked their boat.

Google has a very well defined privacy policy. You can read it here. It clearly states that, “When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.” Although Google hasnt actually violated privacy, because there isnt any defined rule under which this data falls, the closest description about sharing of your personal data in their Privacy Policy is here.

But The Google Team has come out with an answer, unfortunately after about a week of criticism, but things will get back to normal now. They have introduced a feature via which you can better manage who sees your shared feeds.

You can now share the various tags under which you have saved the feeds, or can choose to keep them private.

Also, you can now, clear all you shared items or, can move them to a specific tag, which you would like to share from now on.

This isn’t actually a privacy violation, except for a few people, who would not like to share items on their feed reader. And now with these new features, they can control, who can see their feeds. So I guess, Google actually saved the day by responding to these complaints quickly. Enjoy using the Google reader, Its one of the best online feed readers around!

Would you be concerned if the feeds you read are shared without your consent? Do you think Google invaded your privacy by making all you feeds public?

It was in November that I first read about Digg.com being put up for sale.However this rumor quickly died down. But now after about a month its come up in the open that Digg is has put up a price tag of $300 million and has hired Allen and Company which specializes in Media deals to find buyers.

Allen & Company traditionally uses an “event” to do what it terms “direct research” on potential buyers and sellers, then inserts itself as banker. You can read more about how they do it, here.

I found the news about Digg being on sale, quite amusing as recently I have read a lot of stuff about Digg, that tells me, lot of people, specially top diggers, are unhappy with Digg. I am a regular Digg user but haven’t been a very active member.Maybe I started using Digg, when it has passed its golden period.

There have been many strong reactions all over the blogosphere about this proposed sale. Some of the Top Diggers I know have actually opposed this sale and suggested anyone who might be interested not to buy Digg. Tamar of Techipedia.com, is one of the Top 40 Digg users. You can see the list of Top Digg users here.

On Digg community is everything:

Like any other social networking website, on Digg you can form your own community of fellow Diggers, who have similar taste as yours and share news and stories. This was the initial idea behind Digg. Although now a days, instead of a wide range of users opinion, some top users can drive a story to the front page where it gets maximum attention. So the reigns of a particular story or website and the consequent traffic generated is in hands of some Top Diggers.

From Democracy to Oligarchy to Autocracy?

Digg has always been seen as a reliable source of informative stories, mostly about technology, with the backing of user generated content. This was the “hit” formula which made Digg so popular. Its was all Democratic atmosphere. Later, as Digg became more and more popular, it was targeted by spammers to gain traffic. The quality of content went down. Also many of the Front Page stories were the ones submitted by a specific set of Top Diggers. A few guys started influencing the content which wasnt exactly “bad”, as most of these guys were hardcore Digg users, and mostly brought forward good posts. But not all, submitted quality content. As it is true or all social networks, popular Diggers got more friends and had a good following, due to which stories submitted by specific users got more exposure than others and some good stories were left behind. As some like to call it, It became an “Editors Playground”

Digg has some rules about how the content is submitted, and if a users submits a potential Front Page story, he should get the proper credit. Thats the reason for the Duplicate Story Filter. Now these rules are for all users new and old alike. But is the owner of the website exempt from them? Read on, to know How Kevin Rose is actually free from these rules!

Digg’s Popularity Decreasing?

Since I started using Digg seriously, I have seen its traffic decrease steadily and the traffic related ranks go down. Does this mean Digg is becoming less popular? Not necessarily, some may argue, but there has been a lot of discontent in the Digg community and lot of users have stopped using Digg. Some have taken refuge with other bookmarking sites like, Mixx and ShoutWire. Digg receives less traffic, as compared to same period last year. The graph from Alexa.com shows the trend.

I dont know if this is a technique to pacify the Digg users who have been banned, or a Publicity stunt, but the Mixx.com community has a section named Digg Refugees. TechCrunch has an interesting post about it here. This is also one of the reasons why Kevin Rose is having difficulty finding interested buyers at the price tag he has specified.

Kevin Rose: Where art thou?

I have always seen Kevin Rose as an idea guy. After all he came up with something as innovative as Digg. Kevin is considered as a poster boy for the Web 2.0 crowd with his name listed in the Forbes Top 25 Web Celebrities list. There has been a lot of account banning activity in the past few days, and a lot of people are not very happy about it. Is all this happening with your knowledge,Kevin? What happened to the community spirit?

As Tamar as quoted on her blog:
Just remember, Digg and Kevin Rose: you built the platform. We, however, built the success. You can turn your backs on us if you want to, but don’t expect to get things done the way you want it to be.

Tamar has written about how her friends who were hardcore Digg users got their accounts banned and why she is losing faith in this system? If you want o understand how healthy a website is, ask its users and they would tell you whats happening. At present they diagnose Digg not to be in healthy spirits.

Another interesting fact that she brought fore was, How the account of a 17 year old kid was banned because he created a Digg-FaceBook group saying its an attempt to launch an attack, and after a few days Kevin himself created a FaceBook group which got more than 1000 votes. The story with screen shots can be found here.

Digg, Auto Bury: Reality or Myth?

Now this is one scary feature on Digg. There exists a list on the Digg servers which has names of sites and their urls, which would get buried after submission. Digg has always denied about censoring content. They say its a user driven website and only other users can bury Digg stories. So is it your jealous competing blogger who is burying your stories or, its the system thats stealthily working against you?

Here are some interesting stories about Digg’s auto burying system . One of the most read blogs about Copywriting, Brian Clarks CopyBlogger is on the list. He has written about it saying Ding-Dong-Digg-Is-Dead.

Another famous Blog Pronet Advertising attests to this fact with evidence, that Digg is censoring content.

Dont get me wrong, I have been an active participant on Digg since last few months, but its now I understand the system properly and have started communicating with other Digg users. No wonder Digg is so addictive. Its a really cool concept, and if you get involved and give enough time to it, you would get hooked as well.

With all this going on would an interested party go for it and buy Digg or seeing all this commotion in the community that drives it, stay away?

So What is your opinion?

As a user driven website, Digg has really taken a path which leads to absolute Rule and only the content that they want would go to the Front Page. I think this would really suck as the whole democracy idea totally takes a backseat. Do you think this might change in the future or something can be done about it. After all we are also a part of the Digg community, would you see it deteriorate like this?
Please let everyone know whats your opinion in the comment section!

Digg is a phenomenal revolution is UGC, that has opened an entire dimension to the world. But the fact remains that there is just an inequity that haunts it.Reddit and Netscape as well had these problems.

Digg is great in that it is positive, but the bias towards top users and friends have left many great stories with just a few diggs because the submitter did not have many contacts. Do you think these are the problems plaguing Digg?

Speaking about the goals for 2008, I would like to let my present readers know where this blog would be heading. As you know this blog focuses on tips about Blogging, Technology and Social Media and doesn’t have a razor sharp niche. So my readers are distributed, but they are exactly the people who I want to connect with, because they have similar interests like mine. One of the commitments for 2008 is that posting schedule will be well planned and would be followed religiously,unlike in 2007. Its best to put down the numbers on the table as it helps one focus better. These are some objectives, I intend to achieve by the end of next year.

Blog Stats - Present and Predicted:

RSS Subscribers:

Present: I have a current subscriber base of 122 readers, which varies. It goes up after a good post and goes down if there is a interval between two posts.

Aim: I have a lofty aim for this as I have already crossed 350+ subscribers in the past but I lost over 200 subscribers when my blog crashed and had no activity for a week. Some of the guys later told me, they though the blog was dead. Don’t worry guys I have risen from the ashes and plan to stay with you for a really long time. The aim is to cross the mark of 3000 RSS readers in 2008.

Unique Visitors:

Present: Currently Digital Musings get around 500 unique visitors every day on an average. If a post does well on social networking site, it jumps up to 1000.

Aim: The aim for next year is to take the daily unique visitor count up to ~2000 unique visitors. I am not very active in some Social Networking sites, that generate a lot of traffic. I would see if participating in them helps for a better exposure for my posts and the blog as a whole - increasing traffic along the way.

Revenue:

Present: At present I have no advertising options, neither have I encouraged anyone to approach for advertising. However I plan to put up an advertising options for certain interested services. Digital Musings makes ~ $100 at present.

Aim: I am going to open up advertising options for interested advertisers. Couple of services have shown interest in advertising and that is encouraging. The aim is to become self sufficient so that I can do justice to this blog and give it enough time to take it to a higher level, both in levels of quality and success.

Posting Schedule:

Present: Erratic. Some of my readers have actually emailed me and asked why I have such gaps in posting. I have lost a lot of subscribers due to this reason. The reason for this was I had taken up more work than I could handle, but from January ‘08, things would be different and you would see a significant difference in the posting schedule.

Aim: Follow a proper posting schedule, religiously. At least take it up to 7 posts a week against 3 posts per week on an average now.

Being more Innovative:

Present: I have worked on being different from other blogs in a good way. Building a popular blog in such competitive niches is a real challenge. However I haven’t actually achieved what I was really looking for yet. Having great ideas just in mind isn’t great, we need to put them on paper, and that exactly what I plan to do.

Aim: I plan to start some informative and fresh series for bloggers. Something new and fresh. Keep a look out.

Various Ranks:

Present: Digital Musings is a PR 4 blog. I was very happy with the progress as in the very first go it got a PR 4. Also the Alexa rank has been moving up steadily. Although some think its inaccurate, I have seen the spikes going up and down in accordance with the flow of traffic on this blog, so I think its pretty reliable and gives a good Snap Shot of traffic on a blog.

Aim: I hope to see this blog to got one notch up in the Google PR upto PR 5, as I have been receiving decent number of back links. Also, I want to break into the Top 50000 Alexa rank. One step at a time!

Social Networking:

Present: Social Media wasn’t utilized properly this year by me. First of all it took me some time to get out of the mis-conception that social networks are just for traffic. But I have mend my ways and enjoying it for what it can really offer, a chance to stay updated and make some good friends.

Aim: My Strategy and attitude towards social networking has changed a lot and I intend to have a strong presence on most of the Social sites that I use, as it is one of the stepping stones for building a successful brand around one’s blog.

I have observed, that if one puts a good amount of time and effort in something, it succeeds. So, If I put enough effort, this blog would grow as well.

What one man can do - another can do!

What one blogger can do - another can do!

Congratulations to all my fellow bloggers who saw success in 2007 and Good luck to all who are seeking it in 2008. And a heartfelt thanks to all my readers, who have been here reading and appreciating my posts! I hope I would be able to meet your expectations better in 2008!

See you at the top! Merry Christmas and Happy New year 2008!

When I first got into blogging and was introduced to this fascinating trend, all I saw and read, pasted all over other blogs is bookmarking brings you traffic, use all the services, get a lot of friends in your network and viola its raining traffic. And being a new blogger, I took the advice. I started with great spirit and made a lot of friends on various networks, it worked out quite well. I have received most of my traffic and subscribers via this channel.But, the charm seemed to wear off after some time. Less people wanted to join in my network and the not many interacted, which isn’t much fun, if you are on “Social” site.

Now why did this happen, traffic was steady but the activity on my profiles was way down as compared to before. I thought what might be the reason, and then I realized what I was missing. Many people have been on these sites for quite some time and are smart enough to understand whats going on. As the time passes and your bookmarks are seem you can either be labeled as an active users - who get a good response from the community, a traffic greedy webmaster - who are ignored after sometime or the spammer - who is either blocked, ignored or removed from the community.

The whole point of social bookmarking is not just using it to get petty traffic but to share your knowledge, your reach and expertise on a subject. If you read a lot about technology or gadgets or blogging or any other niche and you bookmark some really awesome stuff that you encounter on the internet, your peers would appreciate this effort and reward you by joining your network, or sending traffic to your blogs.

To be frank I was initially shown the wrong way and approach. Its after using these networks for sometime I realized where I was going wrong. And believe me, if you do it right, you actually get to learn a lot. After I understood the approach and changed my stance and started bookmarking meaningful and useful stuff, I got a good response from my friends on these sites.

The two ways of going about sharing stuff you find on the internet:Just for Fun and Learning more about your interest.

Just for fun Approach:

First is just for fun. There are many sites that are for fun like online flash games, comic strips, funny videos and pictures, jokes etc. These are something that you can share with your friends while enjoying the great resource the internet is. Some of the sites that are good to share this stuff are:

1. StumbleUpon
2. Leaptag (now a Facebook application)
3. Tumblr
4. Twitter

Now since I have labeled them for just for fun doesn’t mean everyone uses them for fun, some use these sites for saving and sharing important stuff. These are the sites that I would use for sharing some fun stuff with my friends.

The Serious Approach:

The second approach is saving some really important stuff for future reference as a part of a research or study or just for more knowledge on a specific subject. Some really good websites to save this stuff and share them with specific users are:

1. Del.icio.us
2. Furl
3. Netvouz
4. Linkagogo

These sites are excellent to store your bookmarks and organize them in different folders and tags. They also provide an option to share it with friends, and if you want to keep some bookmarks private, we have than option too.

So its my advice to the new bloggers and Social sites users out there to start using these sites correctly as they are a great resource for those who understand the importance of collective knowledge. These sites are a road map of the web, based on the recommendations of people who have traveled it extensively. So either you can learn a lot from others and extend your knowledge while sharing it with others or just keep on bookmarking your own site till its ignored by everyone or worse banned from these networks.

So whats your approach?
Are you a Greedy webmaster hungry for traffic, a spammer or a active user who is valued a lot in these communities?

If you are new to this whole sharing business, let me explain it in brief. Google Reader automatically creates a public page for any items that you mark as “shared.” You can also choose to create public pages for your starred items, or for items you have marked with a particular tag. If you decide to share some feeds with your friends, all you need to do is click on the share link at the bottom of the post and the icon turns orange indicating that now the feed is being displayed on the shared page, and is visible to friends on your Gtalk list. To view which posts have been shared till now, you can click on the shared items link (on left sidebar of the reader) and it would display your public page, with the shared posts.

Also, you can decide while setting up the sharing feature, which friends can see the public page. If its shared, it doesn’t mean everyone on the list can see that page. If you like you can share information just with your close friends or co-workers. If you want a fresh start you also have an option to erase previous sharing history. How about that?

This is an interesting feature and can be put to good use, if you have a decent social network, especially on IM clients.
I had written about growing one’s social network through IM Network some time back, and I was able to get acquainted with some really famous bloggers like Daniel from DaliyBlogTips, Fred Peters from Newestonthenet and Maki from Dosh Dosh. Also I have a lot of fellow bloggers who share a lot of stuff common to our niche through various social networking sites. However if one is on IM, you would get to share stuff in real time.

I just cant stress enough the importance of being on top of things in your niche by being the first one to blog about a certain topic. Yesterday I wrote about the Yahoo Shortcut WordPress plugin, immediately after it was released. Now that post ranks 11th in Google results along with blogs like Weblog Tools Collection and Read Write Web and I have received more than 300 unique visitors to that posts already.

Now a days, the RSS feeds have penetrated almost every aspect of the internet and now they are making their way into Instant Messaging, the original social networking tool. I have always been an IM fan as I like to do things in real time. So I guess this would be quite useful for me to share stuff with my fellow bloggers.

Can you think of any other use this can be put to? Would you start using this feature?

This could be as a good a time as any for any service to capitalize on the reach of WordPress, and Yahoo! has just jumped in. After Yahoo got together with Adobe for PDF Ads, Yahoo has just released a plugin for WordPress users called as Yahoo! Shortcuts, which creates small pop ups containing relevant information linked to the term. It works something like the Snaps from Snapshots.com. However the content that is displayed in these shortcut pop ups is that of Yahoo itself.

As you type the content for your blog post, this plugin looks for Flickr Photos, Maps to any locations that you might mention in the post, any products that are listed or even related news to your blogs post.

If your content regularly mentions some companies regularly, Yahoo shortcuts can bring up latest financial information related to that company.

Relevant search results would also come up for certain terms like in the image shown UNIX Pipes would pop up a Yahoo shortcut with relevant contextual search results. Some bloggers may find some shortcuts annoying and irrelevant to their blogs content, but some might really find it useful. It all depends on what you blog about.

However the best feature I think is the auto detection of relevant images to your blog post. Images can really enlighten the posts and make them more interesting.

Best Yahoo Shortcut feature: Relevant photos for your Blog Post.

Yahoo shortcut comes up with the most relevant images for your post. As mentioned in the image above the images are licensed images and when you insert a related image in the blogs post the credit is provided to the owner automatically. This feature is quite useful and can save you some time hunting around for images on the web. Also attribution issues are taken care of automatically.The Creative Commons license aggresments for these images can be found here.

Another faeture is the various size choices that one has while adding a photo to the post. It has been displayed in the image below.

Images below display the small pop up that comes up when you hover the mouse pointer on a location or address. There is a feature called as “Badges” in this plugin using which you can embed the entire map as an image in the blogs post.The users have complete control over which links should show up and if required they can just remove all the links from the option that comes up in the writing pane of the blog post.

These two images display Yahoo short cut as a pop up and the actual Badge as embedded in a post. As you can see both of them contain information from Yahoo database from yahoo maps.

In a way yahoo has found a use of WordPress while helping bloggers find relevant content for their blg posts.

Use of Yahoo shortcut Images and other contents are under a BSD License. You can read more about BSD license here and here. The terms of use for Yahoo shortcuts is here.

Get a T-Shirt for using this plugin.

Since the plugin is new, yahoo is promoting it by offering T-Shits to bloggers who use this Plug in. You can get a Charcoal gray T-Shirt with “Pimp my Blog” written on the front and “shortcuts.yahoo.com” written on the back.

I would like to have this T-Shirt as I already started using this plugin and find it useful for getting blog images. However, its only for guys who live in USA. Unfortunately for me, since am not in the US I can’t get it.

 

You can see the Irony of the situation. Yahoo has released a plugin for WordPress which requires the version of WordPress to be 2.2 and since Yahoo powered hosting is still using Wordpress2.0.2 the Yahoo shortcuts plugin is not compatible with yahoo hosting itself.
Details of Yahoo hosting are here.

I think this plugin would draw mixed reactions. Flickr users would most probably like it. However bloggers who prefer to look for images themselves and have a source of getting images for their blogs would not use it.

You might wonder why my links are not Yahoo shortcuts enabled,even though I am using th plugin? An update for Yahoo shortcut guys, my blog breaks the Yahoo shortcut images and pop ups, so it looks kind of messy and so I had to remove all the links. I guess that is a part they need to work on and might soon need to send an Update.