Old School Blogging - Blogging in the old fashion way

Google in final negotiations to acquire Digg?

The on and off negotiations between Google and Digg have been back on in a big way for the last sex weeks. According to some sources, it looks like the two companies have reportedly signed a litter of intent and are close to a deal that will bring Digg under Google News’ property. The price is in the $200 million range, declares one source.

The two companies are in final negotiations, althought it could take a couple of weeks before it closes. Most of Digg’s revenue comes from a three year ad deal with Microsoft, which will be terminated on a sale to Google.

Meanwhile, users continue to digg for fresh articles.

Some Firefox 3 add-ons

After the recent release of Firefox 3, there are a lot of voices who are saying that there aren’t too many add-ons for this version. Well, i’ve found a lot of them, but i made a small list with one of the most important add-ons.

Photo by Sparrow*

1. Firebug - Allows you complete control over site’s CSS, HTML and JavaScript. Some additional plugins for Firebug is YSlow (for measuring site performance) and Rainbow (JavaScript code highlighting).

2. SearchStatus - Allows easy access to valuable site information like Google Page Rank and Alexa Rank

3. Foxmarks - Service that allows Bookmark synchronization. Meaning where ever I go, I can have my firefox bookmarks with me. I use this plugin for almost 1 year and i never had problems with my bookmarks. Slow and easy to use.

4. Google Global - Allows me to search Google as if I were in different countries.

5. Google Notebook - You can put down some thaughts, notes and excerpts while browsing.

6. IE Tab - Gives you the possibility to view the site in Internet Explorer.

7. Screen grab! - Saves a web page or a portion of it as an image.

8. Weave - It’s almost the same as Foxmarks (3) . It can save bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies and filled form data - practically everything you might need.

9. SEO for Firefox - gets SEO related information for sites (like nofollow tags and search result links).

Happy Birthday IZEA!

IZEA is quickly approaching their two-year birthday as a company and it’s a perfect moment to celebrate. After a couple of changes over the past couple of years and a quick development (IZEA Branding, SocialSpark, PostieCon), IZEA is going to celebrate their anniversary among the ones who helped them to become what they are, the Bloggers and the Advertisers.

The party will take place downtown Orlando at Wall Street Cantina, at 8pm. The party is totally free so you don’t have to worry about that, just go there and have some fun.

IZEA two-year anniversary party!
Wall Street Cantina
19 N Orange Avenue
Orlando, FL 32801
Wednesday, July 2nd from 8pm ’til….
- FREE admission
- FREE food
- FREE drink

Happy Birthday guys!

Friday Quick Links

It’s Friday so let’s see what interesting things were written in the blogosphere. Today’s quick links are brought to you by Elisabetta Gregoraci (Flavio Briatore’s recent wife) :

-John is teaching us how to get a girlfriend, actually he know there are a lot of geeks around here and it won’t be a bad thing to let them know that having somebody by your side is a good thing.
- The Affiliate Market has always been a highly attractive endeavor, that’s why Shawn is telling us about a study on affiliate marketing that indicates online marketers will spend a lot of money in this area.
- Yaro Starak is showing us how a customer service system should evolve.
- Are you really an entrepreneur ? That is what Rich Schefren asks us. It’s an interesting article because most online marketers can more accurately explain what a medical doctor is than an entrepreneur, even though they aspire to be one.
- David Peralty wrote an article regarding the ways to get more exposure in the blogosphere. One of the most important conditions to get known is to make friends and to attend events. Good Job David!
- I think every blogger is trying to make money by selling ad space. You have to agree with me that attracting quality advertisers to your blog is very hard. Read an interesting article written by Adnan regarding the ways to attract advertisers to your site/blog.
- Understanding your visitors mentality is very important. Why do they arrive at your website? How do they arrive? What are they looking for? What will make-or-break their visit? What will make them come back? Vandelay is telling us how to understand our visitors mentality. A high-quality article!

Setting a world record: Download Firefox 3

There is no doubt that Firefox is the most used internet browsers in the world. If you’re not using Firefox yet and want to try it, today is the day when you could do that and in the same time you could help to set a world record.

Today is the official launch date for Firefox 3, and the Mozilla foundation is trying to set a Guinness world record for the most downloaded software in a single day. Interesting! Don’t hessitate and download Firefox 3, you’ll love it because is the fastest browser out there!

5 Blogging mistakes you should avoid

Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster. Weston H. Agor

We should all accept the fact the we made and we will continue to make mistakes, even if we don’t want to. The best way to avoid doing mistakes is to learn from the ones that we’ve already made, and to know more about the decision we are going to take tomorrow. As a blogger there are a lot of mistakes which can waste valuable time and resources, so learning from them in order to avoid them is a must.

Here are the 5 tips to avoid in order to avoid making mistakes :

1. Do not take breaks from blogging!

Sometimes, when i’m too tired, all that i have in mind is a short holiday. Well, i’ve noticed that not publishing blog posts for several days in a row is not the way to go. So, everytime you need to recharge your batteries, don’t hessitate to use the timestamp features and to write a few blog posts before you leave.

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Third-Party ads now available on the Google content network

Great news for Google Adsense publishers: Adsense now supports the use of third-party ad serving techniques and technologies. Well, i don’t know if everybody understands the significants of this. To explain in a few words, large companies would not even think about placing an ad on publisher’s site without being able to track the results of those ads. And how can they do that ? Through a third-party ad serving as intermediary. Got it ?

The Google content network now accepts display ads served from qualified third-party vendors. Third-party ad serving has been a longstanding request from top brand AdWords advertisers who use third parties to create and manage their online campaigns. Initially, we will be only accepting third-party ads in English, but we hope to expand to other languages soon. Source : Adsense Blog

How to optimize your site to allow third-party ads ?

You’ll have to follow the following simple steps :

1. Opt into image ads (for now, the third-party ads are only available in image or Flash, so they won’t appear in text-only ad units)

2. Enable advertisers to target your AdSense channels
The advertisers who use third-party ads usually prefer to specify websites where their ads will appear in order to optimize the targeting and effectiveness of their campaigns.

3. Opt into placement targeting (this option will allow advertisers to target their ads to your site)

Choosing a blog name

Choosing a name for your blog is something you should consider carefully, because the right name can make the difference between a successful blog and an unsuccessful one. I have to admit that choosing a blog name might not be as important as naming your firstborn child but as we all know, the name is almost everything.

How to choose a blog name ?

First of all, there are some key elements you should keep in mind when you make the decision of choosing a blog name. I’m talking about the : branding, name length, topic relation, catchy and the last but not the least, search engines. Before choosing a blog name you should answer this questions :

• What is the topic of your blog ?
• What are your goals ?
• What tone will it be written in ?
• What kind of style will it represent?
• Who is it written for ? (audience)

Well, you’ve got the point. There are a few rules you should remember when you choose a blog name :

1. The name should reflect and describe your blog.

People usually are looking at the name of a blog and they can figure what the blog is about before having the chance to actually read it. A blog title should not be the owner’s name and the word blog. Do you know why ? Because a blog should have a name related to the topic and because it will be easier for visitors to remember the name of a blog if the subject or topic of the blog is in the name or title of the blog.

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