4 posts tagged “blogging”
Today is the last day to submit nominations for this year's Montana Weblog Awards. We are allowed to submit three nominations in each category. Wulfgar! tells us:
However, 6 categories remain without the appropriate number of nominees. Remember, for a weblog to be nominated it needs at least 3 people to nominate it. For a Category to go forward, it needs at least 3 nominees to appear.
. . . you do not need to be a Montanan or even have a website to submit your nominations. You simply must be a reader and aficionado of (some) Montana weblogs. I ask again that you submit your entries as comments to this website [A Chicken Is Not Pillage] (any post will do, what I really need is the email that comes with the comment), or submit to the email wulfgar.pillages@gmail.com.
This has been a tough one. For one thing, there are so many new Montana blogs that I'm not familiar with, and did not have time to get acquainted before this deadline (though I've added a few to my Bloglines.) So most of my nominations are for blogs I have been reading for awhile -- including this one. And yes, I have nominated my own blog, where I felt it would be competitive.
I didn't nominate in areas I don't know, and I didn't nominate for "Best Post" -- just too overwhelming. If anyone feels that one of my own posts is that good, hey -- go for it. You have until the end of the day to nominate; then the voting begins.
Here are my nominations -- go give them a look, and Happy reading! Oh -- and don't forget to stop by and Introduce Yourself!
Political
Best left leaning blog:
Best right leaning blog:
- I don't read them, so I don't know.
Best independent or libertarian blog:
Best Political blog:
Blog that had the most impact on the 2006 elections:
- I really don't know, so no nomination.
Culture
Montana Blog that best represents popular culture:
Best Montana history blog:
Most exemplifies Montana lifestyle:
Creativity
Most creative Montana blog:
Best photographic Montana blog:
Best written Montana blog:
Most humorous Montana blog:
- Montana Jones
- A Secular Franciscan Life
- A Drivel Runs Through It|Patia Stephens (I realize this is not thought of as a humor blog, but Patia has a sense of humor that runs through everything, and makes me laugh. I especially like her cranky posts. Not that I relate, or anything.)
Special
Best post:
Best series of posts relating to given topic:
- Prairie Mary's series on Animal Control. Sadly, Blogger does not provide categories -- but one of the posts is here, and others surround it. She reminds us: Humans are animals but animals are not human.
I.
Suzanne Stefanac, author of dispatches from blogistan; a travel guide for the modern blogger
is this month's guest at The Well's InkWell.vue. Non-members are welcome: Join us, or email questions and conversational contributions
to the Inkwell.vue hosts.
If, after hanging out there a bit, you would like to explore The Well
further, drop me a note.
Filled with practical, easy-to-implement advice for making blogging more enjoyable, useful, and profitable, this book covers everything from blogging and how it fits into the history of journalism to practical tips for planning and managing a blog, attracting and retaining an active readership, and even generating revenue. Written by noted technology journalist and interactive media veteran Suzanne Stefanac, the book's fresh and succinct design; quotes and commentary from noted and celebrity bloggers (authors Bruce Sterling, Steven Johnson and Cory Doctorow, Craig Newmark of craigslist.org, NPR news commentator Farai Chideya, blog pioneer Justin Hall among others), accompanying blog site; and more, make this a blog book like no other!
Suzanne also contributes now and then to Blogging Blog, and has her own site at dispatches from blogistan. I got this book a bit over a month ago, sat down and read it cover to cover. Now I look forward to reading it again, more slowly, and this great opportunity to discuss one of my favorite topics -- blogging blogging blogging! -- with a true expert. This is a very cool book!
II.
Well, I've finished this -- a post per day, all of November. And now it's time for:
III.
Holidailies is a free community writing project. All Holidailies 2006 participants promise to update their personal web sites every day from December 1 to January 1. Portal participants post summaries of their entries, which are aggregated on the front page of Holidailies 2006...
I did this a couple of years ago, then forgot and was too late to register last year. Since I seem to be on a roll, here, I thought I'd see if I can keep going.
And then we have:
IV.
The 2006 Montana Weblog Awards at A Chicken Is Not Pillage. Wulfgar! is soliciting nominations in many categories, including (hint hint):
Creativity
Most creative Montana blog.
Best photographic Montana blog.
Best written Montana blog.
Most humorous Montana blog.Special
Best post. (include a link, please.)
Best series of posts relating to given topic.
There are also categories for Political and Culture blogging. Voting has not yet begun; this (until next Tuesday, December 5th) is the nomination period. You needn't be a Montana blogger to nominate someone, or to vote, but the nominees must be Montana blogs.
Watermark won last year for Best Culture Website. I don't think Blogging Blog or Abide has ever been nominated -- and I'm not sure they would fit any of the categories anyway. And gosh, there are a lot of us. The competition will be as tough as Montanans.
I will be mentioning when voting opens.
I've been playing a bit with Vox, TypePad's new LiveJournal for grownups; or blog platform and social networking service; or half a blogging platform for newbies (albeit with rich and deep functionality) and half social network.
I've seen some huffiness somewhere (I forget where) about insulting folks with references to newbies and grandmas,
but I suspect that beginners and grandparents would not find such
references insulting. There is no shame in either -- and I think Vox
just might be on the right track for them, but also for those of us who
have struggled through the newbie phase to produce nice-looking,
professional (if not money-making) blogs -- but would still like a
place for easy, personal blogging with a range of privacy options.
I had thought that Yahoo360! might serve that purpose, but it just never felt comfortable for me. The only feature I really liked was the Blast,
which might be fun to see as a feature here at Vox. Yahoo was very slow
to get some of its more important features off the ground, and Vox,
while still in development, at least has what most folks would see as
the essentials.
The posting interface is supremely simple, and allows you to easily insert photos, audio, videos, book refereces, and "collections". The service is currently smoothly integrated with Flickr, PhotoBucket, iStockPhoto, Amazon, YouTube, and iFilm; and I've no doubt many others are waiting in line -- hopefully including Barnes & Noble, Powells, and Picasa Web Albums.
Not only is it not necessary to know HTML to use Vox, as far as I can tell, you can't use it; everything is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) with cute little iconized buttons. There are several designs available, but if you want total control over how your blog looks, Vox is not for you. This is clearly set up for folks who just want something presentable, quickly, to hold their content. You can switch the design of your site with two or three clicks. Also, there are ads (this is a free, ad-supported service) but they are, so far, inconspicuous.
Each post can be set to one of five levels of privacy: you only; public; friends only; family only; or family and friends, but not public. I haven't checked, but I assume that any media content in such posts would carry the same privacy level as the post. It is this feature that might be useful for folks like me. I have public blogs, but would occassionally like to write a personal, even boring to non-friends, post for those very few who might be interested -- and invisible to those whom I would not want to find it interesting.
Vox facilitates crossposting from Vox to TypePad blogs (which I am about to test with this post) but what I really want is vice-versa. I want to be able to easily include my public content on my personal blog; not so much the other way around. I could see integrating nearly all my material into the Vox site, with some posts more private than others, so that friends could choose to read what they liked, but know they aren't missing anything as it's all in one place.
There is, of course, the usual obstacle: one must be a member of Vox to post comments -- or to be included on family and friends lists. This is a perhaps necessary strategy to limit spam comments and other obnoxious behaviors, but means one more username and password for folks you want to view and comment on your blog.
In my introvert style, I've left the social networking features to the end. Vox has Neighborhoods, and Explore and Connect functions. All you need to do is get someone you know on there -- or chat up a few strangers -- and there you are -- a Neighborhood. Answering the Question of the Day (QOTD) and checking out what others have to say is another way to make connections.
Today's QOTD is: How well do you know your next-door neighbors?
And when I just checked, there were about 140 posts with that tag. I think they mean real life neighbors, though; not virtual, social-network-services neighbors.
Vox is still Beta; a few bugs now and then. I have three invites -- who wants one?
Since I am -- as most Voxrs (?) are, beginning a new blog here, I thought it might be useful to port over part of a post from Blogging Blog. Some of this won't apply to folks blogging/ journaling/ what-evering here at Vox, but some might be helpful:
problogger recently organized another Group Writing Project on the topic of ‘if I had to start my blog again’. Since this promised to offer lots of useful tips for new bloggers, I decided to peruse, summarize, and excerpt to give you a flavor of each post, some of which you will want to go read in full.
This is a long post; there's a lot in here --but I remember when I started out, I wanted to read everything that might be helpful. So this is all severely edited, but I included every post. At least, I tried.
It took a long time. I can't tell you how relieved I was to see the end of that list scroll up on my screen.
Unsurprisingly, there are several themes that repeat from one post to the next, and a bit of consistent advice:
- Host your site at your own domain name,
and choose both your domain name and your site title with care. I
suggest a quick Google search on anything you are considering to be
sure you won't be lost in a crowd. A dictionary and thesaurus search
might not be a bad idea, either; you don't want your site name to have
surprising connotations. [Even at Vox, one wants to choose with care; you want to be findable by those whom you want to find you.]
- Choose a platform that has
categories and named (not numbered) URL's, so that both readers and
search engines can more easily find your posts. In other words, not Blogspot/ Blogger. [I think Vox, with tags, is going to work fine for this. I like tags even better than categories.]
- Start yesterday.
- Have fun -- if you don't have fun, your readers won't, either.
- Think ahead: what is the goal/purpose of the site? How can you increase the chance of meeting your goal?
- Learn or hire the skills to do a
good (appealing and usable) design. [I'm assuming we will continue to have more choices here, and there is some advantage to being able to focus on content, rather than constant design tweaking.]
- Read, read, read (other blogs.)
- Comment, comment, comment (on other blogs.)
A few things that were seldom mentioned, but seem important:
- Backup your site (umm, I keep planning to do this...)
- Get a photo hosting account
- Select and use a good feed reader, to keep up with other blogs
Excerpts are [at Blogging Blog] but I'm going to lead with the one I already suspect will be my favorite, even though I've just begun reading. From My wabisabi blog:
Wabisabi: (侘寂) An aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.
My purpose in writing this is to encourage anyone who’s new to just take the first step and not worry about setting up a “perfect” thing, and anyone who’s redoing their blog not to be frustrated. We’ve already got too many other things in life that already exert this type of pressure ... Let’s not get lost in the numbers for once. Why not take advantage of a rare, low-risk opportunity like blogging and approach it with a creative eagerness rather than cautious fear about all the mistakes you might make? As long as it’s true to you, you probably can’t go wrong. It’s worked for me.
[Read the rest of this post at Blogging Blog]
