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1. DBT keeps me from eating normally every night

   Oh lord! It can be 3 am, and when no other e-mail is coming in, I hope that some DBT subscription e-mail comes in. It is very interesting to read the tips that Daniel has to share with the rest of the planet. I like getting daily DBT subscription e-mails.

   If I had to choose between eating cheesecake in the middle of the night and reading an e-mail, I would prefer eating cheesecakes and talking to a very good friend [ ]. However, if my good friend is not online, DBT e-mails are so interesting, I will usually put off my eating and read the latest DBT posts and any related comments. By the time I get done with DBT posts and comments, I forget about eating. Not good. Really not good. DBT should start writing boring posts on a daily basis, so that I can get bored easily and resume eating my food.

2. Daniel from DBT makes me wonder if I am chatting with him, or if I am dreaming

   Daniel, the owner of DBT, is usually online around the same times. “Why is he so accessible?” I wonder. Daniel is considered one of the finest A-list bloggers by many people, and yet he is always online, ready to interact when he has to. I sometimes wonder “Am I dreaming?” when I find it so easy to chat with Daniel compared to other A-list bloggers. Not nice, Daniel and DBT, for making Bes wonder every other night whether or not he is dreaming.

   “Hey Bes!” He usually says. “Am I still dreaming? He still remembers me?” I think to myself, wondering if forces of blogosphere nature and lack of sleep are playing with my mind. DBT sucks because it spoils me into thinking that all “A-list bloggers can still think about other people and not act too stuck up after getting their blogs famous.” Other A-list bloggers, take note: Daniel sets a few good examples to follow on how to communicate with others based on the topic at hand, and not based on how rich or elite one feels.

3. DBT discriminates, but less than most other A-list blogs

   Wow. I remember getting together with an A-list blogger last year who told me that he only wanted to write for advertisors, so that the readers could click on more sponsored links. DBT, on the other hand, does not care if you look at ads or not. DBT also does not discriminate based on whether or not you link back to it. DBT does have one criteria on which it wants to discriminate: you having a blog. If you do not have a blog and you do not want a blog, you will probably have a hard time realizing the potential of DBT. Other DBT lovers will probably hate you for not having a blog. You will not be able to show your face in the DBT world, for you do not have a blog, while everyone else does, and everyone else learns from DBT about ways to improve their blogs.

   That is bad, since such a discrimination forces all of us bloggers to force ourselves to keep having blogs, whether we like it or not, just because we want to keep DBT happy and we want to keep reading DBT posts. DBT’s business model discriminates against people who do not have blogs, because it does not cater to them. Will I ever be able to free myself from the chains of blogging, considering the fact than if I stop having a blog, I will be looked down upon by other DBT lovers who are not being discriminated against because of having blogs? It sounds highly unlikely. Boohooo!

So there you have it. That is my list of 3 random reasons why Daily Blog Tips sucks so much, that I like reading it everyday via e-mail to learn about different tips and techniques, or to see what Daniel thinks of different ideas and concepts that I am already familiar with.

What do you think? Can you think of some more reasons? Did you find anything interesting in this list, or does TR [The Reasoner] suck for not being able to make you smile even a little bit? Now if you must excuse me, I must do something which I have been saying and doing recently in many of my posts: eating, I have to go eat now.

Thank you for reading.

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Pros:

• Track some people who visit your site
• Get traffic by having other MyBlogLog members visit your site, similar to a traffic exchange network where members visit anyone voluntarily who visits their site
• The MyBlogLog team is trying hard to listen to the readers and improve the service as one of their main priorities, thus you have greater chances of having your suggestions implemented than before
• Be able to see a list of regular MyBlogLog readers who like your website on a regular basis

Cons:

• Track only other MyBlogLog members
• Available only if the widget is displayed
• MyBlogLog code can slow down or halt your site - for an example, see the attached image of how MyBlogLog sometimes halts The Reasoner - opens in a new window. The screenshot image is an example of how the MyBlogLog code keeps waiting for something to load from the Yahoo/MyBlogLog servers, and my website is never completely loaded in such cases.
• MyBlogLog widget is not customizable
• MyBlogLog communities are currently blogrolls being spammed by many members

Do the MyBlogLog Pros outweigh the Cons for you, or vice versa?

So, if you have a blog, do you like using MyBlogLog? If you do not have a blog, or have not used MyBlogLog yet, would you like using MyBlogLog on your site?

Please let me know. Thank you.

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1. You know what will happen

   What is the point of seeing a movie with enthusiasm when you know what will happen through the movie? Movie sequels usually end up being boring because of this exact reason. For example, take Mission Impossible Series. By the time Mission Impossible III came out, one knew that no matter what happens, Tom Cruise, the main character of the movie, will not die in the end.

   On the other hand, take The Last King of Scotland. Neither from the trailer, nor from the first 99% of the movie itself do you realize what will happen in the end. You simply do not know who will die, who will live, etc. That is a good movie, even if many people know a bit about the actual story it was based on.

2. You know what will not happen

   Similar to knowing what will happen, you can know what will not happen and thus not be watching a movie with a 100% surprised interest. Typical date movies and many sequels depend on this reason to market themselves: if you saw XXX: State Of The Union, you probably knew all along that the new XXX will not allow the rebels to take over the government. Period. It’s XXX, and there is a franchise to be made with more sequels, thus XXX can never be wrong and XXX can never lose.

   In contrast, take the movie “1408.” You have no idea what will not happen as the movie progresses, and at some points almost everyone in the theater thought John Cusack was going to die, and those same people later in the movie started wondering if he will hopefully survive. That is what a movie should do; make you wonder, as the movie goes around, about the exact thing the main character is wondering about in a good, intelligent horror movie: surviving!

3. The trailer tells you most of the story

   I love teaser trailers. They are different than the full trailers that tell you the whole story. Teaser trailers are usually half the length of full trailers. I love teaser trailers as they show some glimpse of an upcoming movie without being specific on the exact storyline. The regular trailers, however, tell you a lot about what will happen. Take the new Die Hard 4 trailer. The trailer tells you John Mcclane daughter gets kidnapped by internet terrorists, he saves the country and his daughter, and that along the way some kid ends up being with him the way Samuel L. Jackson was with him. You also get an idea that John Mcclane will not die in the end.

   In contrast to this, consider the current teaser trailer for “I am Legend.” I wish they could keep that trailer and never release any other trailer for the movie. The trailer has me hooked, and I simply cannot wait for the movie to come out. Would you rather see a trailer which tells you that the last human being on this earth is not alone, like Will Smith in the movie, or would you watch a trailer which tells you the whole storyline, that some events caused Will Smith to be the last human in this world, and that the rest of the human beings have all turned into vampires? I would prefer the teaser trailer, whether it is 1 minute long or 5 minutes, which tells me absolutely nothing about the actual storyline other than hints of what I can expect in the movie.

4. The storyline is typical

   How many date movies do you know which have the lead actors and actresses not getting the person they love? How many action movies do you know in which the action hero will save the day? How many big budget action movies these days only have lead actresses as the main character? Halloween is a typical horror movie series where we know the poor psychologically disturbed and traumatized by childhood freak will keep coming back.

   On the other hand, The Descent is not a typical movie, and has an unusual and one of the best storyline of any horror movie in the last 10 years. Similarly, Cast Away was a good movie where in the end, Tom Hanks does not end up with the love of his life, as she has married someone else. Is it not nice to know that a character could still value life even if, unlike typical movie plot lines, the main character ends up being alone?

5. Special Effects are more prioritized than the actual reality of the movie

   Almost every other action movie today wants to use computerized special effects. Even simple car crash scenes are being digitized, and more and more movies are looking crappier instead of looking cooler. Take the movie “Next“, from this year, 2007, which uses special effects in many places and you can notice them. The scene in the first few minutes of the movie, where Nicolas Cage is running away from the cops and crashing into the train, is something that even a 10 year will look at and probably say “Cartoon!”

   On the other hand, take the Mad Max series from 1977, 1981 and 1985, which stars Mel Gibson Max who has gone mad: the computerized special effects for crashing automobiles do not exist in the movies, and the actual stunts, car crash and car chase scenes are still some of the greatest in movie history.

   Another example could be the 4th, 5th and 6th Star Wars episodes, and the first 3. Episodes IV, V and VI were made in the late 70’s and 80’s, while the first three episodes were made in the last 10 years. Episodes 4, 5 and 6 used a lot of effects, and yet, when you saw those movies, you thought “AAAAAH! RUN RUN, GET DOWN!! YEAAAH!!” Why? Because everything in the movie had a realistic look: the flying ships had dents and scratches, creatures had fighting marks and bruises on their faces and bodies, and even buildings showed signs of tear and wear.

   The first, second and third Star Wars Episodes, however, make you say “Wow, nice graphics!” BAM! That is failure right there. The movie production crew has focused on the graphics instead of the storyline, and thus the movie has failed. The movie may have made a lot of money, but any hyped up movie can make a lot of money. The newer 3 episodes have creatures and objects which are shiny, perfect, so unreal that you immediately realize they are computer graphics. In my view, the first 3 released Star Wars episodes used special effects more realistically in the 70’s and 80’s than the the latter 3 released recently.

These reasons are also points you can use to analyze the effectiveness of a movie as a whole and decide whether or not it was a good movie in your opinion.

Consider this: I can guarantee a lot of things in the movies that have not come out yet. Harry Potter and his 2 close friends will not die in the new movie. John Mcclane’s daughter will not die in the new movie, and John will succeed in stopping the internet terrorists.

What is your opinion on this? Can you think of more ways and reasons many movies may not be effective us at all?

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Following are 10 random reasons which show that you may want to blog regularly because you want to:

1. Have more readers.
2. Have more commentors.
3. Have more search engine exposure.
4. Attract more advertisors for your blog.
5. Tell others about your personal life.
6. Keep an online diary for yourself.
7. Meet online people more in order to make more online friends [different than making online contacts in order to make money].
8. Post more as your current income depends on it.
9. Express your views on a certain issue more; like global warming, the myth of global warming, etc.
10. Showcase skills to potential employers through your blog, like writing, video editing, design, etc.

Do you prefer having a regular blog schedule which depends on some element like time, your offline life, etc? Do you feel obligated to blog on a regular schedule?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

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1. You own an iPod, or something similar.

   Think of the iPod as a luxury. Majority of the world cannot afford to buy food once a day, yet you have an iPod. You could have gotten the iPod as a gift from someone, or you could have bought it yourself. Now, how does this make sure that you are not poor? If you ask someone to lend you $100, while your iPod can be sold for $70, it means you want someone else to be inconvenienced by them giving you their money, while you do not want to give up listening to your iPod. Similarly, if you have something along the same lines, like a new laptop, and cannot part with it, you may not be poor. You can easily sell a laptop and get some money for it.

   Exceptions: Your job may depend on the laptop, or in some very rare cases, the iPod. Someone close to you may have given you the iPod and thus you cannot sell it, or else they will be greatly offended. Your iPod may probably be so old that you can only get $5 from it while you do not have money to pay the rent, which costs a couple of thousand dollars, etc. Of course, I can also say that if you can get $5 from your iPod, it means you are doing your best to make sure you utilize every resource possible before feeling that you are helpless and poor.

2. You can afford to buy a home or pay rent

   Home is another important factor that people and society have worked together to create. If you can afford to buy a home or pay rent for your current place of living, you are most probably not poor. Some ways to save money could be to cut off on living expenses: using less electricity, finding a cheaper place, selling off the home, renting a room to someone, etc.

   Exceptions: Even if you find a cheaper place, you may still not have the money you need. You may also already have the cheapest place anyone could get, unless you had a gun to force the landlord into lowering your rent. However, a gun usually costs money, so a really poor person may not be able to afford that. Unless, however, you use a knife to get a gun, but a knife costs too. Unless you use…..ok, never mind.

3. You can buy large combo meals from fast food places every day

   Food prices are a good way to measure the performance of an economy, and food is also a good way to measure the strength of your bank account, if you have one. If you can buy at least 2 large combo meals at McDonald’s or Carls. Jr.s every day, you are probably not poor. Why? You can buy cheaper stuff at grocery stores and cook things yourself for weeks, saving more than half the money you spend in a month on fast food.

   Exceptions: You don’t know how to cook, you do not have a kitchen, you get gift cards or coupons for the fast food purchase, etc.

4. You can buy the things you want

   The things you need are usually different than the things you want. Wanting to eat food daily is something you need. Wanting to buy coffee and chocolate everyday, in addition to other kinds of food, can be something you want. If you can afford to buy things that can be avoided on a regular basis, chances are you are not poor. Paying for a blog, host, design and extra features for your site just for a hobby also means that you are probably not poor since you can afford such a thing.

   I knew this guy once who would drink coffee 3 times a day, finish a pack of premium cigarettes every day, buy food supplies and also eat at fast food places multiple times a day. On top of that, he would ask from time to time to lend him something so he could pay his rent. I calculated his expenses with him and in front of him, and figured that he was spending around $250 for the things I just listed above. How much did he want me to lend him? Around $100 or so. I told him about this, and he stopped being friendly after that.

   Exceptions: You are addicted to smoking. By addicted, I do not mean that if you do not smoke you feel weird. No, feeling weird for not smoking is an excuse for people who want a lame excuse to keep spending money. By addicted, I mean if you stop smoking or drinking you feel extreme depression, or you get seizures and have to go to the hospital, etc. Also, without things like coffee, you may actually get literal headaches throughout the day resulting in you getting admitted to the hospital. Also, things like blog may maintain your sanity by allowing you to express yourself, and without that, you would be poor and insane, though some can say that such a reason is simply an excuse to spend on your blog while you do not have enough money for offline things.

   Another important exception to this rule is if you are Bes: Bes needs and wants chocolate every single day; no exception to this rule. Period. Bes used to give packs of chocolate to homeless people before someone threw it back at Bes and yelled “I want some change! What the HELL am I gonna do with that?” Bes apologized and moved on, and ever since, Bes has been thinking of never giving away any chocolate, but keeping it in the fridge to devour while writing posts at night.

5. You can buy things for others

   If you can buy things for others, you are most probably the opposite of poor. You may be rich. There is nothing wrong with buying a $500 watch for your boy/girlfriend, but there is something wrong with buying a $500 watch to impress someone and asking someone else to lend you $200 for your car payment at the same time.

   Exceptions: You feel your job or some relationship depends on you buying something for others so much, that you do not even have enough money for some personal things, like your own rent, enough food, etc. Sure, such an exception means you do not know how to have a good relationship and are in touch with the wrong people, but it also means that you may be poor and cannot help it. Another exception may be that you are raising a child or someone, and you want that child or anyone depending on your financially to be really happy, and thus you are sacrificing your own financial happiness.

I hope this list helps you realize whether or not you are really poor. Also, if you want to borrow money from someone, you may think twice before asking someone to part with their money, while you do not part with yours.

Can you think of more things to add to this list?

A good next topic could be “5 situations in which you wish you were poor.” Thanks for reading.

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Following are 5 random reasons you may be hiding from other people online on instant messengers and other forms of live, instant communication.

1. You are busy

   You may be working on some projects online, or you may be researching something online. You may even have accidentally opened your instant messenger program to check e-mails or something. However, someone has caught you, and now they are continuously talking about different things. In the future, you just remain offline or invisible because you are busy and do not want to be disturbed. You may even be just wanting to go to sleep at night, and thus you turn off your instant messenger or your computer.

2. You think you have done something wrong

   You may have stolen someone’s design or ideas. You may have even said or done something in public, whether good or bad, and may want to avoid people who may ask you embarrassing questions. For example, I know people who have tried to hide from online people because one of them told his friends that he was gay, and the other one told her friends about dating a close friend’s ex. Whatever the reason, you may feel as if your action of any sort may be being taken in a negative manner, even if what you did was a good thing in your view.

3. You want to avoid the other person

   You may have some grudge or some feeling against another person. You may even have strong, good feelings for the other person. You may simply not want to talk to a person because you want to talk to them for long, and you may not have enough free time right now. Such feelings and thoughts may result in you wanting to avoid that specific person only. One of the ways to do that would be to stay offline, to block someone, or to even come online during times when the other person is usually not online.

4. You do not know how to, or do not want to, interact with others online

   One of the things many people may not realize is that they may not be good at communicating and interacting with others, either offline or online, or even both. People may be shy, or they may not feel like talking to people most of the time. Whatever the reason may be, many people come online only to talk about specific, absolutely necessary things like personal or business related issues, and then they go offline right away.

   You may also simply not like communicating with others. That is why going online and telling others about your daily personal events or even work-related jokes may not sound appealing to you.

5. You have a great offline life

   This can probably be the simplest or the most complex reason for many people. For you, your offline life overshadows the online one completely, and there is probably nothing online that you cannot find in your offline life. You prefer being offline, as it makes you more happy. You do not feel the need to go online that much, or at all. Cell phones, meeting people in person, mailing postal letters, doing offline activities, and even e-mailing people sounds better to you than chatting instantly with people online.

That is a list of various reasons you and others may want to hide from other online people. These are not the only reasons people hide from others online, though these reasons will give you a good idea how our own personal and offline mentality about things is resulting in us applying many offline principles to the online world.

Can you think of more reasons why you or someone else may be hiding from others in the online world of chats and instant messengers? Do you agree with the above points, or disagree with any point? Have you ever thought about such a topic and such reasons? What is your opinion on this?

Thank you for reading.

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1. Infatuated with Stats

   Your blogging depends on checking your blog stats. If you get a lot of traffic on one day, your whole life seems happy. Otherwise, you feel depressed and may think that you are doing something wrong. For you, RSS feed subscriber count, site visitors, and similar numbers are more important than blogging or your blog content itself.

2. Yearning for Comments

   You write to get comments, even if what you write does not deserve any comments. You think about commentors not to appreciate them, but to get their comments on your site in order to get more comments on your site. You do not care if you get a useful or a useless comment; you are happy as long as you get a comment.

3. Failure to Have a Back Bone

   When you get criticized, you may feel like shutting down your blog. Just as in real life, there will always be people who may disagree with you. Same is the case with blogs; it is very easy to leave a comment that says “I think that’s stupid.” Be prepared; otherwise, you will not last long in the blogging world, which is fast becoming a very vicious, competitive place. You should probably figure out the Art of Reacting to Criticizing Comments, as you probably do not know how to react to criticizing comments.

4. You are Blinded by Money Prospects

   You blog for money without caring for readers. Period. You write in order to gain sponsors, and you write in order to gain readers who will click on ads. You value and thank sponsors more than your readers. Whether or not you actually ever earn money is a different thing, though you do not focus on what you offer to your readers. For you, the idea that you can try to make money signifies that you are on a noble path, and that you are a hard working person who wants to earn a living. The idea of making money blinds you with such a misconception.

5. You Think You Will be Famous

   Many bloggers simply focus on getting attention for the sake of getting attention, and if you are one of them, you will do many random, weird things, including posting random things to please people, just to try to be famous. You do not realize that being a real famous person means you do things naturally that result in someone noticing that you do those things, thus making you a famous person. You do not work on becoming famous. You work on doing important things that can make others believe that you are famous. You also do not realize that becoming famous does not mean you did something good; you could be doing relatively evil things, even in your own view, and getting attention. All you want is attention.

6. You Think You Can Actually Make a Difference

   We all want to do something in our lives, hopefully. Many people think that they can change the world or the blogosphere overnight. If you are such a person, you may be wanting to change things right away, without changing yourself first. Sure, it is not necessary to change yourself all the time, though if you do not know first hand what the change feels like, how can you expect to change the world, since you would not know how to achieve such a change. If your blogging relies on making a difference, you may be disappointed. Blogging in order to try to infuse an idea of a change in people is a much more realistic goal, as voluntary change is more permanent and more effective than an overnight, emotional, emotionally manipulated or forced change.

7. You Think You Can Make People Change

   It can be next to impossible to convince many people to stop drinking coffee. Yet, many people think that they can change the entire lives of others simply by giving them a lecture or two. Blogging in order to tell people that they are wrong and that they should change can be a sign that you do not know how human interaction works.

8. You Blame Others for Your Blog Problems

   If your site goes down, you blame your host. If the number of commentors you get on a regular basis goes down, you blame others for not linking to you enough. If your RSS feed subscriber base shrinks, you blame the blogging advice others give you. You never blame yourself. Every choice you make on your blog is your choice, so blaming others all the time for your blog problems is a very naïve thing to do. If someone forced you at gunpoint or threatened to do something, like shutting down your blog if you do not do what they say, then sure, go ahead and blame that someone. Otherwise, stop blaming and start thinking. Thinking while crying is better than crying and blaming someone else.

9. You Rely on the Latest Blog Fad

   If a famous blogger talks about it, you talk about it. If others are using the same gadget on their blogs, you want to use it on your blog too. You follow the trend simply because there is a trend to be followed. You do not follow things because they make sense. You follow things because you are naïve.

10. You step on others to get ahead without realizing the political consequences

    This may be surprising to you. If you use people for your own personal gain, you are probably a naïve blogger. You have to understand that using tactics to manipulate people may result in many people being blinded easily at the moment, but as time passes and new trends and views come to surface, more and more people will start realizing that you used them without appreciating them, or without giving them anything useful in return. You are naïve because you try to use people without realizing how such an action will be noticed by others. You simply want to use people and get away with it.

This list will surely help me focus on my blogging more. I hope such a list will help you also, by allowing you to identify similar traits not only in your own blogging style but also in others. Sometimes, a blogger may simply be naïve and may not want to hurt others intentionally. Other times, a blogger may be naïve because they want to use others and they do not think of any consequences.

What is your view on this? Do you agree or disagree with something? Can you think of more points that may be a signify someone being a naïve blogger?

Thank you for reading.

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1. Stop learning new things: One of the reasons your blogging skills may be getting outdated can be because of your reluctance to learn new online programming languages, or new ways to do different blog things, like creating new blog themes or creating new kinds of blog content. You may be compensating for such a deficiency by experimenting a lot with what you already know.
2. Have outside factors control your skills: If you allow outside tools to do specific things on your blog, you are depending on those tools. While it is good to use external tools like MyBlogLog or plugins for your site, it is even better to know how such services work in order to come up with your own alternative or replacement if you ever wish to stop using such external tools which are not under your direct control. Otherwise, just because you know how to use an external blogging service does not mean you know how to provide to your own blog, on your own, the same functionality as that external blogging service.
3. Blog about the same thing repeatedly: There is no doubt that you can blog about topics like “Catchy Headlines“, but if you write 20 posts on the same topic even from different perspectives, you should either have a blog that focuses solely on headlines or you should have a plan that incorporates those 20 posts into a larger picture. Otherwise, blogging about the same thing repeatedly may signify that you do not know what to blog about, and are probably not looking into different areas of your life or the offline world in order to come up with fresh topics or different messages to express.
4. Blog about the same things as everyone else: If you are like many news reporting sites or blogs, you probably blog about things that everyone else is blogging about, in almost the same manner too. There is nothing wrong with blogging about something that everyone is also talking about. However, such a behavior from your side shows that your blogging skills are outdated because they depend on the blogging skills of other people. You apparently cannot come up with your own content, and you probably do not even know how to present commonly discussed topics in your own words.
5. Avoid the latest blogging tools: Even though I mentioned in the first point above that knowing how external tools work can be a good idea, you may have noticed that I did not say in that point that using external tools was a bad thing. External tools can be more than good. Use external tools if they allow you to do necessary tasks more efficiently and with better results than otherwise possible. Similarly, trying to do complex things manually, when you can instead use software like WordPress, results in your attention being diverted unnecessarily, and inefficiently, to things that can be done quickly and more efficiently through tools already developed and available for use by others. The more time you focus on different things on your blog, the less time you focus on actually coming up with great ways to convey your thoughts on your blog.

The above 5 are some of the many reasons that can result in your blogging skills to become outdated. You may simply be doing or avoiding one of these things, but along the way, you may be neglecting something more important because of paying attention to something of lesser value. As a result, your blogging skills may not be up to date on many levels. That puts you at a risk of not being taken seriously by employers looking for specific skills, or even your readers who realize that a lot of the things you do are not beneficial in the long term, for both you and your readers.

What is your opinion on this? Is there any point you disagree with, or have an example for? Can you think of other points that signify that you are slowly starting to lose control of your blogging skills and may be falling behind?

Thank you for reading.

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User participation

• Comments - increase or decrease in number of blog comments
• Visitors - increase or decrease in number of blog visitors
• Feed/Email subscribers - increase or decrease in number of e-mail or RSS feed subscribers for your blog

Blogger participation

• Posts - whether you write posts more or less regularly on your blog
• Design - whether you change or keep the same blog design
• Content - whether you add more types of content on your blog, like photos, audio files, videos, etc

These two categories can give you an idea on how you can think about where your blog will be in the future. You can also look at anything else on your blog to see how or where you see your blog in a year, like the fonts you choose, the type of topics you pursue, etc. It is your blog. You define your blog future.

What do you think? Where do you see your blog in 1 year? Where do you see your blog in 6 months, 3 months or even 1 month?

Please let me know what you think, thank you.

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Following are 5 things that I think MyBlogLog, or Yahoo, need to improve or work on in the long run. Just because a business model exists does not mean it will work. It has to be fixed and improved constantly. It is more important to fix current bugs that affect users or the overall service instead of introducing new fancy features.

5 things MyBlogLog needs to improve

1. MyBlogLog only tracks other MyBlogLog users

   MyBlogLog lets you discover people who visit your site only if they are also MyBlogLog users. Otherwise, you get even fewer stats than your regular stats program.

   “MyBlogLog was designed to track only registered MyBlogLog users“, you say? Then why is everyone running around, including MyBlogLog admins, claiming that anyone who visits your site can be tracked? The original promise of the program was to discover who visited your site, and not which MyBlogLog members visit your site.

   This bad point about MyBlogLog is also its strongest selling point: if a user is registered, it allows a site owner to find out exactly who was visiting a site including their name and site url.

2. I visit your site only if I see you on my MyBlogLog widget

   Many bloggers have stopped visiting other sites unless they see someone in their MyBlogLog widget. That means these bloggers are only visiting the sites of those MyBlogLog members who visit them. That also means these bloggers do not visit, or rarely visit, the sites of their commentors or people who are not MyBlogLog users.

   MyBlogLog is supposed to let you find out who visits you. It is not supposed to let you prefer MyBlogLog users over non-MyBlogLog users. MyBlogLog needs to promote a mentality through the MyBlogLog blog that will allow people to realize that they should not avoid visiting sites that do not appear in their MyBlogLog stats.

3. Using MyBlogLog makes you depend on MyBlogLog servers for your site to load

   The MyBlogLog code loads a lot of things from the MyBlogLog servers. That means if the MyBlogLog servers go down, your site will load slow or keep loading. That has happened to me a lot, where my site has taken up to a minute to load simply because some image from the MyBlogLog server was not loading.

4. MyBlogLog widget is not customizable

   When you show the MyBlogLog code or the widget on your site, one of the only things you can customize is the colors. Otherwise, you are stuck with showing the standard format of the MyBlogLog widget, including the advertisement link that points back to their site.

   Some people may say that a free service comes with a link pointing back to the service. My point here is not to argue whether or not the link back to MyBlogLog should be necessary; what I am showing you is one of the things that show how and why the MyBlogLog widget is not customizable.

5. MyBlogLog communities are spammable blogrolls in disguise

   These can be two points, though I will combine them as one. The MyBlogLog communities are supposedly places where people can interact and find out more about each other. In reality, the MyBlogLog communities are nothing more than blogrolls. MyBlogLog communities currently display only the names and links to people and sites you are associated with.

   MyBlogLog does allow you to e-mail other people, though that has resulted in spam messages, including people sending “Thank you for visiting me” emails to you everytime you visit their site or MyBlogLog profile, probably resulting in spam advertisement to be disguised in unwanted “thank you” e-mails. Such a trend is increasing, turning MyBlogLog into more of a MySpace community where many spammers spam every profile they come across just to get someone to visit a specific profile in return.

So, what is the verdict?

The verdict is that you have to figure out your own verdict. If the above things are insignificant to you and you still consider MyBlogLog to have an actual purpose, go ahead and keep hugging MyBlogLog. Personally, I am still using the MyBlogLog service as of this post, as it does one thing for me that has made me keep it on my site: it shows me new MyBlogLog members who visit my site. It does introduce new people to me, and it is easy to find out who has visited my site.

How Yahoo’s control of MyBlogLog is shaping things

One of the things, in addition to the above list, that I would love MyBlogLog to have is to allow anonymous users to register their site addresses, using relevant e-mail addresses from the same site domain, so that people are not required to register new accounts, but are allowed to enter in a url that is kept in a cookie or associated with their IP. That way, we can have more non-MyBlogLog members tracked also.

However, considering the fact that Yahoo bought MyBlogLog, we may probably see more strict registration requirements where people who do not register will continue to be left out of the MyBlogLog service. Recently Yahoo announced about improving MyBlogLog, though the above issues are not being addressed yet, according to the announcement. At least it is a good thing that Yahoo is working on improving some things about the service it acquired not too long ago.

What do you think?

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Hoping for comments vs. expecting comments

Expecting comments : You feel that readers have an obligation to comment on your blog.

Hoping for comments : You feel that readers do not have an obligation to comment on your blog.

So, do you expect your blog readers to comment, or do you hope that they will comment? Or do you combine the above two feelings together and come up with something different when it comes to blog comments? Why and how did you arrive at those conclusions or views related to reader comments?

Please let me know, thank you.

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1. Brushing teeth
2. Eating breakfast
3. Doing laundry [if you skip this today to blog instead, imagine you have to wait a week before doing laundry again]
4. Finding out the latest news [Reading a newspaper, watching news online or on tv, or listening to the news via radio]
5. Exercising in the morning
6. Showering
7. Spending time, romantic and non-romantic, with your significant other
8. Combing hair
9. Cleaning the house - considering the fact that if you do not clean right away, there might be ants or insects by the time you get back home
10. Taking a 10 minute nap, considering the fact that you are not feeling well because of not having enough sleep for days

What would you give up for blogging, and what would you not give up for blogging? Please let me know, thank you.

Ronald helped me with the above list. Thanks Ronald.

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What are niches and subniches?

A niche is simply another word for specialization, or a specific category for something. For example, the newspaper industry is a category, and newspapers focusing on traffic in your city have a very specific niche, or specialization, in the broader, more general newspaper industry. Chris Garrett wrote an article on the concept of niches on Performancing back in 2005, which you may find interesting. You may also read a post by Anthony Baggett in which he talked about his site Antbag focusing on not focusing on a niche.

I am not sure if other people use the same word, but a “subniche” is a word I just came up with, while talking with Valerie, to express how someone can specialize within something that has already been assumed to be specialized in by other people.

By a subniche, I am simply referring to a subcategory within a broader category, which can be a niche. Many people consider a niche to be a very specific and a very targeted category of something. In my view, however, as the blogging world starts to mature further, we need to start focusing on targets within targets, and subcategories within categories. Thus, in my view, a subniche is a specific niche within a niche.

Personal blogging niche is the most crowded, yet one of the most underdeveloped blogging niches on the internet

The personal blogging arena is one of the most under-developed blogging niches on the internet. The personal blogging market has without much doubt become very crowded, but personal bloggers are not yet specializing in specific personal blogging subcategories. Sure, we can read all sorts of personal posts ranging from cats attacking their owners to bloggers using their keyboards to play baseball. However, most of such personal blog posts are random. They move from one topic to another, trying their best to be the perfect examples of a personal blog:

Since a personal life has a lot of random things happening every minute, why can personal blogs not focus on everything at the same time, all the time?

That very question is the reason there are too many general personal blogs on the internet today, since many people think that personal bloggers do not have to follow any rules or guidelines, and can simply post whatever they wish, whenever they wish and however they wish. That same question is also the reason personal blogs have yet to mature into more specific and specialized forms.

Many, if not most, personal blogs are too random

Majority of the personal blogs today are too general in their writing. Personal blogging is thought by many to have no clear focus because of the misunderstanding that personal blogs must treat personal lives as being too big and general. Personal bloggers have yet to stake claims in different types of personal blogs. If you look deep enough, you will realize that the personal blogging niche can be broken down into dozens, of not hundreds, of sub-topics or subniches that different personal bloggers can choose from to focus on.

Bes Z’s 7 Types of Personal Blogging Subniches

To give you an example of what I mean by personal blogging subniches, I present to you the following 7 subcategories of the main personal blogging niche that need to be developed and specialized further in my view. I came up with the different subniche names to help you remember what each subniche is all about.

1. Personal Emotions Blogging

   Emotional blogging, or Emo blogging, usually revolves around emotions. Personal Emotional Bloggers talk about emotions they feel daily due to different things. This is a very specific niche where people talk about emotions they feel daily due to all sorts of random things. This can be divided further into smaller categories, where different emotions are categorized based on things that trigger such emotions.

2. Personal Criticism Blogging

   This is the kind of personal blog where a blogger critically analyzes different things and probably criticizes things. Personal Criticism Bloggers may even be critical of their own actions, feelings and emotions, and will explain such criticisms in their criticizing posts. People in such a subniche may focus simply on criticizing things they run into in their daily lives, including their own selves.

3. Personal Positive/Negative Blogging

   These kinds of personal blogs focus on the positive and negative things that are seen in daily lives. Personal Positive/Negative Bloggers do not need to criticize things, though they can talk specifically about things they like and things they do not like. Again, this is a very specific niche that needs to be specialized in.

4. Personal Relationships blogging

   This can be a big separate category on its own. Many personal bloggers talk about relationships in their lives. Such relationships range from dating relationships to relationships with parents, and even business relationships. This subcategory of life, relationships with others, can be specialized in very easily by many personal bloggers who already post a lot about their analysis of the relationships they observe and the relationships they themselves run into daily. A Personal Relationships Blogger may even devote their entire blog to one specific relationship, like relationship with their child, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or even a friendly relationship with a specific neighbor.

5. Personal Moods blogging

   Many people go through mood swings every hour of the day, and my recent series on moody signs of moody people may have shed some more light on the topic for you. Personal Moods Bloggers can specialize on moody blogging, where they either blog about their mood swings, or they blog because of their mood swings. I think this can be one of the most random type of blogging types out there, as such bloggers can change the entire focus of their blogs based on their moods.

   While many personal blogs today talk about random things because of feeling the need to write such things on specific days, you should know that Personal Moods Blogs will be different than the usual types of blogs we see today, as Personal Mood Blogs depend solely on the mood swings and revolve around the mood swings and talk about mood swings as being influential, whereas today’s blogs simply post random stuff because of feeling different everyday. A Personal Moods Blogger specifically outlines the mood swings that cause different blog posts to be written.

6. Personal Feelings Blogging

   Feelings blogs can usually revolved around 2 specific feelings: happy feelings and unhappy feelings. Personal bloggers can also specialize in confused feelings if they wish. Personal Feelings Bloggers can talk either about the things that made them happy unhappy, or confused, or the things that happened because of the bloggers feeling happy or unhappy, or even confused. The same way Personal Moods Bloggers rely on moods to run and revolve their blogs around and explain the moods behind their posts, Personal Feelings Bloggers run and revolve their blogs around feelings, and actually cite those feelings so that readers can know which happy, unhappy or even confusing feelings caused which actions or blog posts to be written, and why.

7. General/Random Personal Blogging

   This is the type of personal blogs you see today. General or Random Personal Bloggers can blog about anything, as they try to cover the concept of personal blogs in general and in depth while at the same time covering everything in their lives that they can. Thus, many of the personal bloggers you see today could continue to blog about personal things, since that would become a specialty of its own.

Those are 7 of the many other Personal Blogging Subniches that can be developed further by personal bloggers. Since the very concept of a personal daily life is probably unique to almost every blogger, the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating a subniche within the main personal blogging category.

Life is full of different things. Personal blogs should also specialize in different personal things instead of not specializing in anything.

The fact that life itself is full of random things when analyzed with care makes many personal bloggers forget the fact that life is divided into smaller parts, and that personal blogs can also be divided into smaller parts with each part dealing with a specific part of life. There is a lot of potential for specialization and categorization within the main personal blogging niche.

The personal blogging niche is far from being crowded, because of the possibilities of having personal blogging subniches. In fact, I think the personal blogging niche has the highest growth potential than any other type of blogging niche, because it focuses on life. Life itself probably has no boundaries other than death, and many would argue that even death is not a sign of a limitation of life. Why, then, should personal blogs focus on life with only one perspective, the general perspective, when personal blogs can instead focus on life in depth by talking about specific and different things?

Wait! What about people who think personal blogging is not a niche at all?!

Of course, many people still say that personal blogs are not niches at all, that they are too general or boring to have any kind of a niche. For such people, the very concept of having subniches within the personal blogging niche may have sounded weird throughout this article. Many people take the fact that some prominent bloggers got their blogging ideas from their personal blogging, like Darren Rowse talking about getting an idea for a niche from his personal blog, to assume that personal blogs are not niches. Personal blogs are niches. Making money from niches is a completely different topic and issue to pursue, and should not be confused with the concept of what niches are, and how and why personal blogs are niches.

I am working on an article, to be published soon, that talks about the reasons why and how personal blogging is definitely a niche.

Thank you, and please let me know what you think!

Please let me know what you think of this article, and about the 7 different subniches I mentioned. Also, please let me know whether or not you agree that personal blogging is itself a niche. Thank you for reading.

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