Meg in her Recounting Australian Blogs has posted these questions. I have been thinking to write on these lines for a while. So, Here are my thoughts.

What ideas do you have for promoting Aussie blogs and bloggers?

1. Telly (television) will be my first medium to promote blogs and blogging. Do a special episode (or a series) about Blogging in prime-time shows such as current affairs, today tonight.
2. Running an advert on a newspaper is the next best thing. Even if we put together 50 cents each, we can publish an ad on the Sunday newspaper. The promotion lines could be ..”Start a blog, Change Australia”, “Express yourself with a blog” (dont laugh!).
3. Running a “Great Aussie Blogs” contest and let the readers vote on blogs under different categories.
4. Creating an awareness on different blogging media and platforms – I mean people can microblog with twitter, tumblr . Not only text – audio blogs, photo blogs, video blogs as well, there are plenty of opportunities.
5. Create blogs for your friends, parents and grandparents. We don’t have time, but there are people out there who have plenty of time. Ask them to blog, anything.

Do you think we do enough (considering the above named local blog searches and directories)? What are we lacking?

Blog directories, aggregation, rankings are good (from blogger’s perspective). But, it lacks the interaction from readers. I would like to see a blog posts aggregation page – which shows Most read posts, Most commented posts, Recent posts, Recently updated blogs (the last two things are already done by australian index) and a voting feature for the readers (a thumbs up or thumbs down sign).

How often do we stumble upon to a fresh aussie blog? Not often. We should work on a model where blogs can be discovered by readers – a stumble upon like toolbar (it could be web based as well) for australian bloggers. How about featuring a “Blog of the Day” on the Directory’s home page

There are plenty of such ‘Aussie Blog Directories’ but none of them is complete – all have rss aggregation, rankings and a search. Not enough if you want to develop a blog portal. As a reader, I enjoy reading a regional language (Tamil) portal named Thamizmanam (they have an English portal but – it didn’t go well). Another similar blog portal is Thenkoodu (in the same language). I can list the features they have if anyone wants to develop such a blog portal.

We can have forums – but people never would be the first to start posting in it. So, post a topic and invite people (pro bloggers) to write on a specific topic like this, “What ideas do you have for promoting Aussie blogs and bloggers?“. Everyone will chip in with their ideas.

If you were to set up a new domain for promoting the aussosphere what would you do with it?

I would develop a site from the reader’s perspective. Easy to browse, plenty of things to get lost into – is it a dream?

If you have more ideas, comment here or even better write them in your blog (a blog post gained).

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No, they are not the BIG Pro, A-list bloggers. They are like you and me, our nice, friendly next-door-bloggers, they often produce a stunning post that you wish you had written. Here’s a collection of such 25 top blog posts in five categories that are most-read by their readers. We can all learn something from each of these posts.

1. Utility Posts: You post something useful for everyone (blogger), if your post is convincing, readers will celebrate it. Do not think any topic is known to everyone. There are billions of people who still wants to know what a blog is. Keep your language simple, show them in a clear, concise steps.

Top 5 Steps for Choosing a Blog Theme – Meg is renowned for posting such easy-to-understand, jargon-free, illustrative articles at her blog Dipping into the Blog Pond. I would suggest her to make a “popular page” showing such posts.

Reframing: The sweetest idea for content ideas – Andrew addressed a most pressing issue faced by every blogger in this post. How do we develop ideas for blog posts, to create unique yet, special content which no one else can do.

Should you eat that – Tara, a nutrition student publishes the recipes she tries and the tips on our dietary, eating habits. The blog title Should you eat that reflects the utility for you – to help you to choose your food wisely. If you are looking for recipes, you should bookmark the blog Cook almost anything.

How To Replace the Color Wheel in Your Samsung DLP Television and Save $400 – You don’t need to go looking for such Do-IT-Yourself posts somewhere. Write your own experience how you overcome an issue, a tip that you have developed to solve a problem. That’s all the world is looking for – write from your own experience. This post published by Scott received 594 comments and has excellent photographs to illustrate every step he talks about.

How I stopped a bandwidth thief – Swollen pickles wrote a series of excellent posts to stop a person who stole the bandwidth by direct hot-linking of images. It teaches a lesson to the evil-doers and to you on how to handle if you are in such situation.

2. Surprise Posts: Surprise posts grab your attention at once. You know you want to click and see what’s in there (they are referred as click-baits). You can make that happen with catchy, cheeky titles or opening sentences.

Rate My Ass – The title itself surprises you to know the content.

Amazing Upside Down House – The weird stories such as these are powerful crowd pullers.

Avoid Risk, Sure. Then Die! – Richard wrote a book, “Punk Marketing“, which is based on the mantra that, if you are afraid of risks, then you sure, are ready to die.

And now for an important announcement from the Prime Minister – Lizbee’s picture blog post has a real signature of the Prime Minister of Australia in it.

Australia’s Bizarre Sporting Fortunes – Knowing most of Australians love sports and like reading about them, Mark would never need another better topic other than this.

3. Popular-by-Demand Posts: Every one wants to know your success story (even if there is a pun) or a miserable failure and wants to get inspired or get a good laugh. These posts are always popular among readers, if only you do not disappoint them in delivery.

Snoskred made 5 million dollars online – How much money you could have made if the “spam marketers” were really very generous in their dealings? On a serious note, this post is an eye-opener.

How to grow your blog by over 2000 per cent in one month! – If you are a blogger, you know what it means to grow by 200%, let alone adding another 1800%. Alister who calls himself as “Blogologist” (Did I say that correctly?), posts the techniques he used to get more readership, more links and more comments.

13 signs that someone you know may have an eating disorder – A list of any sort is sure enough to attract your readers. Aussie mum posts a list of signs to check if you or any one you know might have an eating disorder.

Vinyl Beauties post series from Vanessa shows the vintage collection of vinyl records (music album) she presents the cover images in the series. Eye-catching.

How to Turn 300 Contacts Into 3.3 Million: My LinkedIn Network – Des at Thinking Home business talked on how you could develop your social network at a phenomenal rate.

4. Breezy Posts: They are lengthier but compelling enough to keep your attention till the very end of the post. A travel diary, a personal experience, book / restaurant review or just tips from your own life would form this category.

Relaxing weekend ingredients – Jaycee lists the essential ingredients for a successful, soothing weekend at her blog Semantically Driven.

How To Do A Mini Debrief With Traumatized Friends – Megan talks about dealing with a tough situation where most of us would keep silent.

Adelaide to Darwin Backpacking Road Trip Overview – Neerav often writes about his trips (backpackers reviews, travel tips) around Australia (I would like to travel around Australia as well). His travel diary is fascinating as well as informative.

B is for Boracay -It’s all about fantastic beach and real good time!

Personal post about Long Distance Relationships – A short post on her thoughts but I liked it instantly.

5. Analytical Posts: Start with a burning question and provide convincing arguments and you get a successful blog post. You can compare two services or even produce a list of ten best things.

Why Do Blogs Fail? – Dan at The Wrong Advices analyses the reasons behind why bloggers loose interest and close their blogs one-fine-day.

Why Most People Fail at AdSense – Lisa tells her ‘Hodgepodge theory’ on Adsense.

Why StumbleUpon is a better than Digg for promoting your blog posts – This is one of my favourite post where I compared at the stickiness of readers visiting from two giant social network sites.

Why Is Firefox Still Way Behind Internet Explorer? – Everyone hates George Bush. Any Australian whom I speak to hates John Howard. But, they get elected all the time. Everyone seems to love Firefox, but? I would recommend a serious discussion such as this one would be open to your readers. You can ask your readers to tell their reasons then, you can write a round-up of posts.

NO WATER, NO FUTURE AUSTRALIA – Jules shares her wise words on the Melbourne Water’s ‘Your water, Your future’ (now changed as Our water, our future) campaign and tips on changing the strategy to voluntarily involve people in environmental activism. Here’s Your water, your say group.

25 posts from 25 bloggers, now you know why the readers liked them all. Now is the time for you to speak, what type of blog posts you enjoy writing and why? Comment on.

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1. USB extension cord

2. USB Power point

3. USB Rubbish bin

4. USB Syringe

5. USB Plug-n-Play cable

6. USB Lock with Key

7. USB Phone Hand Receiver

8. USB Photo Frame

9. USB Belt

10. USB Kid’s Talk Phone

11. USB Wedding Rings?

12. USB Multi-threaded belt.

13. USB Stethoscope

14. USB Tie

15. USB Toolset?

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At 43 things, you say, “What you want to do?”

At WAYN, they ask, “Where are you now?”

Now, I propose a new idea for another web service. Answer a simple question, “Who are you?”

Huh, you don’t say a thing. Let your friends say all about you. Let your friends add tags (sort of one-word testimonials) on you saying, ‘sexy’, ‘brave’, ‘good guy’, ‘SOB’, ‘BS’ or whatever. Part this idea is inspired by the movie “Citizen Kane”. What if we sit back and ask our friends to describe us. We can borrow a dictionary of adjectives; let the users tag their friends. We need not develop this as a web service (enough of existing social networks), this service can be developed as a facebook application.

Ok, you heard this idea from me. But, I no nothing about programming or APIs (I know there are geeks out there, come on!). I can give more details on this idea, we can develop a cool widget.

Wants to get famous, Precious?

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Like you, I have been chasing my architect friends to explain my dream house in words, until I found this great web service that lets you do / change / re-do your house plan.

You can design the floor, drag and drop furnitures (over 300+ to choose from), then once you completed the design either you can save it as .jpg file or directly publish over your blog.

The floor plan will have accurate measurements so in case, if you want to talk to building professionals, shoot them an email with the image of a dream house.

How cool is that?

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This is one of my favourite quote from my favourite scientist. Now, tell me honestly how often we have ignored some happenings saying,

“I don’t care!”,

“What goes to my father”,

“None of my business”,

“It’s all F**King Howard (or whoever) Government” etc etc.

Bribery, Prostitution, Crime, Beggars, Theft, Abuse, Scandals.. What else. (We watch and sit silent , sometimes we discuss and forget ..Till we get a new topic!)

We are very happy to (including myself) sit and watch television, read newspapers – discuss in the canteen, then go back and do the same thing again and again. We always blame the system.

We forget that we are also part of the system. If you are not part of the solution, then you are also a problem. Is that sounds harsh? I don’t know from where to start.

Everyone is blaming everyone other than himself. I am Honest but, the world is NOT. If everyone thinks this way, what the world is?

Be the change you want to see or you will be consumed by the system one day!

Meanwhile, by asking some questions, I am not telling I am great.
I am also part of that problem. sometimes. or always.

So, next time when you think or speak about a problem give some moments pondering what can be done to solve it. Think, speak or write your solutions. Express your ideas. Do not set limits. Just discuss your ideas.

An idea can change your world. Sorry, our world!

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Like me, you might have experienced this. Internet Addiction! Take this Internet Addiction Quiz if you want to know where you stand.

Symptoms:

You wake up (or before sleep) at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail or Orkut scraps on the way back to bed.

When your friends asks to sugegst a name for the newborn kid, you say Firefox, Goggley, Eudora, Mozilla or Zing.

You start wondering how to use smileys in your phone talk conversations (u r using while you sign anything!)

Enough about symptoms..Now coming to the cure as suggested by askmen.com (another site..phew!)

Cure:
Practice The Opposite
For example, let’s say that your Internet habit involves checking your e-mail first thing in the morning. Instead, you should take a shower or start breakfast first instead of logging on. Or, perhaps you only use the Internet at night, and have an established pattern of coming home and sitting in front of the computer for the remainder of the evening. Then I suggest you wait until after dinner and the news before logging on. Got it?

Set Goals
In order to avoid Internet usage, you should program structured sessions by setting reasonable goals, perhaps 2 hours instead of the current 40 on the Net. Also, stop wandering (switching between) websites..it wud be like channel surfing on the Telly..

Develop Your Inventory
Start asking yourself, “What am I missing out on when I spend so much time on the Net?” Then, write these activities down. You’ll be surprised to find out that the list is endless. Painting, Reading, or just Scribbling..

Join A Support Group
By talking with others who are in the same boat as you, you will (first) make new, real friends, and then you will begin to realize that you are not alone in your fight to overcome this addiction. Support is very important. Dont start an Orkut Community for this please..

Family Support
Seek the support of family members, since they know you better than most people. Talk to your friends..

Take a walk, Smell fresh air, Go for Swimming (surfing may remind your old habits!).

Other resources (refer them online for one last time!):

PsychCentral Internet Addiction Guide

Be Web Aware – Internet Addiction

How Much is Too Much When Spending Time Online?

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Internet-addiction

Surfing Not Studying – Dealing with Student Internet Addiction on Campus

Internet Addiction: Personality Traits Associated with Its Development

originally published by me in one of my other blog

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(Early days, May2004)

Flickr has just celebrated its fourth birthday (Feb 2007), but it is widely known to the users as (arguably) the coolest web 2.0 application on the web.

(July 2004)

Flickr was founded by Stewart Butterfield (his flickr page) and Caterina Fake (her flickr page). Incidentally, they met through blogs (http://www.caterina.net/) and became life-partners.

(November 2004)

Flickr was born in Canada. It grew out of an online multi-player game named, ‘Game Never ending’ (shelved), that was being developed by LudiCorp. Fake and Butterfield’s company, Ludicorp, never did launch a game.

(March 2005)
Yahoo purchased Flickr in March 2005. Even at that time, it is was a small company managed by only 11 employees.

(January 2006)

Looking to buy a Digital Camera? Check Out The Camera Finder page on flickr that shows graphs that reflect the number of Flickr members who have uploaded at least one photo with a particular camera over the last year. See sample images, tech specs and how many others have purchased.

(throughout 2006 – same layout with different images)

As on 7th of July, Flickr hosts close to 75 million photos. How do you figure that number? Easy. Visit the Flickr Expore page and click on most recent uploads and click on the bottom-right photo (the last uploaded one), you will find a number something like 743708779 just divide that by 10 million (1 followed by 7 zeroes) you will get 74.4 million photos. Wow!

On an average (July 2007) about 1500 photos are being uploaded every minute.

(2007 – major change in layout)

In June 2007, the logo changed from ‘Flickr Gamma’ to “Flickr Loves You”.

According to Wikipedia, Yahoo is completely blocked in the United Arab Emirates and Chinese ISP’s have started blocking flickr since June 2007.

Yahoo is closing Yahoo photos in favour of flickr and provides options to easily move your photos to flickr.

Want to read more?

Birth of Flickr – USA Today – a good article covering the flickr history.

Caterina talks about the Early Days of Flickr – audio podcast on IT conversations.

Guess what has not changed all these years. Our love for Flickr!

Related Posts for flickr users:

How to get into Flickr Explore? (Revised)

25 Useful scripts for Flickr users that make your more productive

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Official Techical Specifications:

Positive Features (Why you will go for Apple iPhone):

1) The design is great, and we have not seen such a good designed gadget for a long time.

2) Touch screen feature is the most-talked-about one. It has a glass screen to minimise scratching marks.

3) It is the most anticipated gadget for the year in US. Well, we copy that.

4) Wirless Internet. Now, you can check your emails, facebook messages and orkut scraps while you are on the move.

5) Google is going to release exclusive web applications for Smart Phones especially, for the Apple iPhones.

6) The iPhone weighs 127.57 grams to be exact which is roughly equivalent of 1 box of 24 crayons.

Negative Points (Why I wont buy the first version):

1) Wow, it has a 2 mega-pixel camera. Duh, it is the age of 5 mp cam, bro. Wake up.

2) You need to pay A$ 590 for a 4GB storage and A$ 700 for an 8GB storage. Is that all?

3) You can only browse the web for 6 hours. Just 6 hours? At least I want that to be 8 hrs, dude.

4) The talktime is 8 hrs (Great). Recently, another smartphone, O2 Jet , was launched with 10 hours of talk and 540 hours of standby that costs just A$140.

5) Even though, Apple iPhone is open for sale from June 29th (2007) in the USA, it wont be available in Australian stores until 2008. So, unless I touch and feel, I wont buy it.

Well, those are the points that you need to ask yourself before you buy the ‘Big Product’. Will you go for it, still?

By the way, if you want a Free iPhone, take this offer. Easy.

If you like this post, I recommend you to subscribe to How to Live Online

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Here is a massive, A to Z list of Australian Blogs listed in BumpZee community. Feel free to copy this list and post it to your blog and add the tagline for your blog. If you want to get listed in all these 105 blogs, then do join in the Australian Blogs community.

Do you love reading blogs? Easy. Subscribe to Australian Blogs Community RSS feed to get updates from any of these 105+ blogs at one place.

Hurry up!

1. 2 Blog or not to Blog
   A Beyootaful Life
   Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe
   Alister Cameron // Blogologist
2. All for Women
   Alpesh Nakar’s Blogosphere
   Alternative Fuels
   aqualung
   Astronomy Down Under
3. Australian Car Advice / News Blog
   Australian Webworker
   Bargain Blog
   Brunette Stripped Bare
   Business and Blogging
4. Can’t Coach That
   Carpark at Accure
   Coffee, Tea or Baaboo
   Crapping on about whatever I feel like
   CruftBucket
5. Cut the Bullsh*t
   Dam Blog
   Decomposing Trees
   DejaMoo
   Diary and Other Rantings
6. Dipping into the Blogpond
   Disassociated.com
   Diva Days
   Donnielam Randomdaddythings
   Duncan’s Interactive
7. Duncan’s Music Videos
   Duncan’s Print
   Duncan’s TV Ad Land
   Enjoy Perth!
   Enough Wealth
8. Everybody Knows
   Francis Lee: Search Engine Optimisations & business strategy blog
   Freedom to Differ
   G2007
   Geek Etiquette
9. GENNIT
   Goldcoaster
   Hobart Daily
   How to Live Online – Wanna make a living on the web?
   I Want to Litigate
10. Imaginif…child protection became serious business
    Infotropism
    Invoice Place Blog
    It’s a Matter of Opinion
    IT’s all about Microsoft!
11. Jack of All Trades
    Japanese Ice Cream
    Joh Blogs
    Laketrees
    Life in the Country
12. Lori’s Cubes
    Love Forever Blog
    Mary and Martha
    Matt Vapor’s Blog
    Metroblogging Melbourne
13. Michael Visser
    Mick’s World
    Microsoft Talk
    Miscellaneous Adventures of an Aussie Mum
    Mooiness
14. My Shiny New Shoes
    My Surf Brands Blog
    MyPhotoBlog
    Nick Randolph’s .NET Travels
    Nothing’s Too Sacred
15. Patrick Hawke
    Personal Income Blog
    Pink Apple
    Proverbs31-woman.com
    Renegade Science
16. Road Less Travelled
    Scott Yang’s Playground
    Semfire Search Engine Marketing
    Small Office Australia
    Social Media in Australia
17. soho-life
    Souvlaki for the Soul
    St Vincents Hospital Darlinghurst – Male Nurses
    Sueblimely Discovering – Blogging & Tagging
    Sueblimely Practicing – the New Blogger
18. Swollen Pickles
    Talk it Out
    Tao of Defiance
    TechMate
    The Abundance Highway
19. The Big Move
    The Dead Roo
    The Local
    The Tall Poppy
    The Wodonga Online Times
20. The Wrong Advices
    Thinking Home Business
    Tonic Gifts
    Under the Rotunda
    Vanessa is..
21. Virtual Assistant – THE blog About Our Industry
    What I think about
    When I grow up…
    Working Solo
    Workplace-ministry.com

List updated on 22-June-2007; List prepared and maintained by Snøskred

Want to get listed here? Then join into BumpZee and come to Australian Blogs Community.

If you enjoy reading Australian blogs, then you mays subscribe to Australian Blogs RSS updates

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