There is a right way and a wrong way to do things…

By Trina L.C. Schiller

Email marketing once proved to be immensely effective, but the greedy and idiotic polluted the well by spamming the planet with everything from weight-loss products to sexual enhancement drugs and beyond. Because of the stench, filters and laws have been created to attempt to fix the problem, but still the Internet is polluted with more and more junk each day. So obviously, filters and legislation are not the solution, for consumers, publishers, or marketers.

Everyone has been left scratching their heads and asking… What do I do to avoid this crap and make the Internet mine again? How do I build my business and promote it without having to deal with email? After all, what’s the point in spending money on email advertising campaigns when there is no guarantee that the emails will even reach their destination?

Enter… RSS.

RSS is the perfect communication tool. It’s applications far outreach those of email for marketing, publishing and personal communications. RSS is the answer to our communication woes.

Using RSS to create blogs for communicating with customers, affiliates, partners and family is far and away more effective and reliable than email ever was. As a marketing tool, it really packs a punch that email never could. The reason being is that blogs are targets for search engine spiders. They are themselves, a web presence, whereas email never was and never will be.

Just like a web page, search engine spiders hit blog pages and rank them. The difference between the static web page and the RSS feed is that web pages seldom update their content, RSS feeds, by design, are created to be dynamic and provide regularly updated content, in theory, depending on the blog owner of course. This prompts the search engine spiders to revisit and rerank them more often.

For writers, publishers and and anyone else with something to say, RSS has been a godsend. It has provided the answer to the question of what to do now. Blogging has replaced email for those who have become frustrated with dealing with the problems of email publishing and marketing. Publishers can now get their message out to their subscribers without the headaches associated with sending email, or posting static pages to the web. Even publishing an ezine to the Internet as a web page required the sending of email to make readers aware of the newest issue.

As with anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and blog publishing is no exception. Now that RSS has become the rage for marketing purposes, several people have taken it upon themselves, in the name of the almighty dollar, to pollute this well too. The newest rash of ‘RSS tools’ have created some issues of ethics and and credibility. With perhaps the honest intention of being search engine optimization tools, or an automated system for fetching content, this batch of stuff has too much potential for misuse. The result of misuse of these types of programs can be devastating. Already some of these programs have been banned from places like Google and Blogharbour because of this potential.

Programs such as these in the hands of the inexperienced, will cause future problems for bloggers down the road. More and more pages generated using these programs will be banned, and getting banned, right out of the gate, for a newbie, would be a sad thing indeed.

The right way to use blogging to increase your search engine presence is to publish good content. Period. Provide useful information to those who are looking for it. Become someone’s trusted information provider, and you have a customer for life. Publish keyword rich articles that give the searcher what they are looking for… solutions for problems.

Publish your information regularly. Weekly is good, daily is better. Sending pings and things too often will get you blacklisted too.

And here is where networking comes in… Find content for your blog from article banks, where authors submit their work for reprint. List yourself in databases as one who accepts article submissions. Get to know other authors and publishers and share content with them. Syndicate your blogs in exchange with other bloggers. Watch your world explode with new opportunities.

Automation in business is a good thing, but it has its place. Nothing beats human communication when dealing with people and creating partnerships. Do you want to talk to an autoresponder? No, and I doubt anyone else does either.

Some of the new programs designed for the automation of article collection have legal issues to consider. The biggest being copyright infringement. Not every author wants their work reprinted, or they require control over where their work is displayed. (Which is as it should be.) Without manually seeking your content, you could very well find yourself being served papers for publishing someone else’s work without permission.

Plagiarism is another issue. If you don’t follow certain rules for reprinting contributory work, you stand to be hounded for plagiarism. Yet another sticky issue.

Some of the new programs mock safelists, or resemble FFA sites. Before long, those types of blog pages will become banned as well. Search engines will figure out a way to block non-informational blog pages, those that carry nothing but links or classifieds. (Is your head sore from hitting that brick wall yet?)

Still, there are other programs designed to post spam to blogs using the comments feature. This is referred to as comment spam. The only solution thus far, to battle comment spam, is to disallow your readers the option of leaving comments. This is a bad thing, because allowing your readers to interact with you is supposed to be one of the benefits of using this form of communication.

The makers of these programs may have had good intentions to start with, but have ultimately created Frankenstein’s Monster. Many are stating that their programs are not spam, because they do not involve email. That is a cop out if I ever heard one. Spam is the transmission of unwanted stuff, whether it is sent to your inbox, or your blog, or even the search engines themselves. Search engines want relevant content, not pages of of keywords, or links. So feeding them page after page of nonsense is spam.

Everyone hates spam, except the spammers, so why be a part of something loathed by so many and embraced by a few? Bad business if you ask me.

The only real way to combat these issues is to simply not use the programs themselves. Do your due diligence and create a reputation as a trusted information provider, not a blog bomber, and your business will prosper. Using these programs will ultimately diminish your reputation and your livelihood.

Your customers are looking for information, a solution to a problem. Give that to them, not just endless pages of links. You will achieve your rightful spot in the ranks, and you stand a far better chance for longevity. There are good RSS tools available, you just need to look beneath the sales copy to find them. And if you are new to RSS and blogging, do some research. Find someone who knows, really knows what RSS is and how to use it, and ask some questions. Don’t go out and spend buckets of money on something you’re not sure how to use, because you could be doing yourself more harm than good.

A few good books to read some solid information on RSS and blogs…

RSS, Blogs and Syndication

http://www.ads-on-q.com/RSS.html

Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS

http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?trii65/mrktstudy

RSS Advertising Secrets

http://www.ebookadvertising.biz/products/rssad/

Taming The eBeastie

http://www.feedyourhungrymind.com/Taming-the-eBeastie.html

Copyright © 2005

The Trii-Zine Ezine

www.ezines1.com

–About–

Trina L.C. Schiller is a professional network marketer, the publisher of the Internet marketing ezine, “Trii-Zine” and owner of http://www.tlcpromotions.net,as well as a founding publisher at http://www.quikonnex.com,and President of http://www.AdsOnQ.com,the Internet’s first syndicated advertising agency. She has also authored the following ebooks: “Your Beginner’s Guide To Syndication” http://www.ads-on-q.com/booksales.htmlRSS, Blogs and Syndication… The Facts vs The guruese” http://www.ads-on-q.com/RSS.htmlKeywords: blog, blogging, blog spam, spam, spamming, rss, rss feed, rss tool

Source: ArticleTrader.com

There are many ways to increase content on your site, from manually creating it to purchasing software which will auto generate it for you.

While I highly recommend you stay away from anything which is automatically generated I also understand that many people don’t feel comfortable writing.

Therefore, in this article I look at another way to make your site appear as if its changing. That is, incorporating feeds into your site to improve return visits and build your brand.

Feeds have been growing in popularity for some time. In fact, there are people who measure such popularity.

While feeds are not the sole property of blogs, we can gauge how popular feeds are simply by looking at the “state of the blogosphere.”

According to Technorati, the blogosphere is doubling every 5 months or so. That means that 5 months from now there will be twice as many blogs (and feeds) as there are now.

In many cases, the only way to access that content, aside from regularly visiting a site, is through their feeds.

But that’s not the only use for feeds. Many services have sprung up which allow you to search and aggregate those feeds. Services such as Feedster and even Google News allow you to search for phrases and output an RSS feed which could then be imported into a feed reader.

In other words, if you wanted to get the most recent news about Google from Google News you could search for “Textlinkbrokers” in Google News and then copy the RSS feed URL into your favorite news reader.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Well that’s great news, but how does that help with my site?”

Well now that you know how to auto generate feeds for virtually any topic you want, you can then import the feeds into your site using various methods.

Inserting Feeds into your site

Obviously you can’t just link to the feed, or paste the XML output into your pages. It wouldn’t be readable. What you need is some tool to convert the feed into something that is readable. And there are many out there to do just that.

So let’s look at the easiest – a Javascript from a hosted service like FeedRoll.

Using a service like FeedRoll you can input the URL of the feed you want, make some basic style changes and it will provide you with a Javascript you can then install on your site pages that will display the feed within your page content. One problem I have with FeedRoll is that you are limited to the list of feeds they provide. There was a time when you could use any feed URL but they’ve since changed it.

The only other way to use FeedRoll with your own feed is to buy their software package which will allow you to export the feed into HTML code that you can paste on your site.

However, if the feed you do like is in the list, then you could simply make the style changes you want, copy the Javascript code onto your page(s) and you are done. Once you’ve saved the page, load it in your browser and voila – you have regularly updating news headlines on the page.

But what if you want something a little more sophisticated?

Well there are options here as well including ASP and PHP based code which can take a live feed and format it on the fly.

Therefore, if you have a dynamic site and don’t mind monkeying around in the code this may be the solution for you.

Using PHP to display feeds

The benefit of using PHP to display RSS is that the contents of the feed displayed on the page can be spidered and indexed by search engines. That means links can be followed. That also means that if you have your own feed, you can place it on your home page (for example) to offer crawlers quick and easy access to your latest new content.

One of my favorite PHP based converters is called CaRP. There are both free and commercial versions which allow you to not only display the feed as HTML but also customize it any way you want with style formatting and even images displayed in feeds (much like you see on Google News now).

It can be a little tricky to set up at first as it isn’t strictly PHP but once you start playing around with the values you begin to realize just how flexible it is.

I know I use it on a personal site to display no only latest industry news but also my most recent blog posts and forum entries. This way crawlers can get into that new content quickly through direct links on the home page.

Using ASP to display feeds

Just like the PHP example above there is also an ASP script which will take an RSS feed and output it as static HTML.

My favorite is this feed converter which also allows you some leeway in outputting the feed the way you see fit.

If you are comfortable with ASP you will see how easy it is to manipulate the script to suit you. Even if you aren’t an ASP guru you’ll find the script fairly easy to implement with commented prompts throughout the script telling you how to make it work.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many ways to display feeds on sites – from hosted services to scripts embedded in ASP or PHP. Really the only thing limiting you is your ability and imagination.

I can tell you from experience that I’ve used all the above versions and I’m happy with each of them.

Also, because they will take any feed, your options for what you want to show are also only limited by your ability and imagination.

For example, I use the ASP one on an ASP site to display recent news from Google News. I have pages set up that pull Google news into a Google page, Yahoo! News into a Yahoo! Page and so on.

With the PHP (CaRP) script, I have the most recent blog posts and forum entries displayed on the home page of my site to help crawlers find the new content quickly.

With clients who have limited abilities or technical support I’ve implemented hosted versions as they are much easier to do.

So my recommendation to you is try them out and find the one that best suits you. If you don’t like the ones I’ve suggested here a simple search on your favorite search engine should return you lots of different options.

–About–
About the Author: Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for http://www.textlinkbrokers.com. Please do place an active link when publishing this article.
Source: ArticleTrader.com

In previous parts of this series we taught how to get back-links to your site or blog. If you missed those parts you can click the link in the Author Box below. Getting back-links from other websites is not the only Free way to attract visitors to visit your blog. This time, we are going to explore alternative methods to attract high quality traffic.

The first thing you can do to generate traffic is to take advantage of all the content you already have posted on your blog. You can literally multiply your visibility across the internet with this simple, yet powerful, method. I use it often. I’m talking about making your blog posts available to millions of people by posting them in Article Directories.

Focus on your posts that help people solve their problems or offer valuable information and submit them to Article Directories. These Article Directories collect articles of similar themes together in one place, so they receive thousands and thousands of qualified visitors every day. Best of all, it’s Free!

When you submit your articles to these directories, you are exposing your name to the thousands of pairs of eyes visiting them for free! On all article directories, you are also permitted to include a “resource box” where you can include your contact details, a simple biography and so on. Most importantly, you include a link to your blog! This is where you can truly leverage for Free traffic! Once you get the hang of it, do a Search for “Article Directories”. There are literally hundreds of them.

I personally post to over 350 Directories, with one button, on a regular basis. If you go to my blog (see Author Box) you will find the software I use. The software is not free but it cuts hours off posting to the directories.

Another excellent way to gain traffic is to join internet forums that are based on your niche. Using our example web site in previous parts of this series, to find these kind of forums, just go to any search engine and enter “technological gadget + forum”, without the quotes. You want the most focused forum with a substantial number of active members and, preferably, always bustling with activity. Just check the dates of the threads posted on the forum to see how active it really is.

When you join active forums that focus on your field of discussion and post very useful and valuable posts, your peers will start noticing you and paying attention to what you have to say. In most forums, you are also allowed to add a link to your site in the signature line, which is under every post you make on the forums. People will click and visit your blog if they find your posts helpful and informative. This way, your credibility is built even before they land on your blog.

Traffic from the forums would be easier to turn into profits if your blog is selling your own products or recommending others’ as an affiliate since they are already convinced you are an “expert” in the field. A word of caution - do NOT blatantly advertise in your forum signature! Only use the signature to point to your web site/blog. See my Author Box below as an example.

The next strategy is word of mouth.
Suppose you already have a daily visitor count of 100. What if you compiled a small report or gift of an ebook and posted it on your blog saying that, if the visitor will refer three of their friends to visit your blog, the gift will be theirs for free? If your small report or gift is topical enough, it will generate a small buzz among your blog readers and they will surely refer their friends to you! There can be one problem with this. If you have a blog that does not allow you to upload your report to their server, you will need to find a separate web host to upload your gift to. Then, when a reader wants the gift, they click the download link which takes them to your web host where the gift can be had. I do this for several Christian ebooks. Readers click the links and are taken to the source for downloading.

Since I am on Blogger.com myself, I am currently looking into Free and paid web hosting as I have a number of Free Viral eBooks I want to offer my readers for download. What is a “Viral eBook”? That is for another lesson but, in short, it is a way to make money from ebooks written by other people.

Finally, whatever you do, be sure to use the “blog and ping” technique that everyone is talking about. I use this every time I post on my blogs. Basically, when you update your blog, you can let blog portals such as technorati.com know by pinging them. You can ping many portals at once by using free services such as: pingomatic.com or the one I use most, pingoat.com. When you ping you are telling the search engine spiders you have something good to eat and they will come crawling. This is a major method of getting listed (indexed) by the Search Engines for Free!

Besides the techniques described here, there are also paid methods like buying links from high-ranking pages or buying banner advertising space. Keep in mind, when buying paid traffic, always weigh your profits generated from the paid ads against expenses. I should not need to tell you that, if your profits do not offset the expense, you will end up losing money. Choose wisely. I know that sounds like common sense but, believe it or not, people throw away thousands of dollars simply because they do not know how to track the performance of their Ads.

Personally, I have not purchased Ads or links nor do I plan to in the near future. Until you master traffic generation by Free methods, hold onto your money and learn much more about it. It is definitely a gamble for a novice. It is sophisticated stuff in spite of claims to the contrary. Going the Free route takes longer but it is financially safer so watch out for claims that promise to make you rich overnight by buying advertising on the internet.

Yours for success in life.

Jim DeSantis

P.S. - Please forward this article to someone who can use it.

–About–
Use Jim’s 6 Part Series to boost your blog visibility and profit. Go to Jim’s series here!

Source: ArticleTrader.com

It is a simple truth. Yet while many of the biggest players on the web know it, most webmasters overlook the fact that customer reviews can provide for a source of constantly updated content that potential customers would find to be an invaluable source of information.

It is also true that by simply combining customer reviews with RSS feeds, you too can ride a new wave of shopping (or social) traffic.

Traffic! It is the one problem that webmasters continually face, and which can NEVER be fully solved. How to find visitors in a reliable, repeatable, and cost-effective way. Because without visitors all your beautiful content might as well be locked away in a vault–no one is ever going to see it. If the purpose of your site is to sell, you will sell nothing. If the purpose of your site is to build a social network, you might remain its only member. You need traffic to succeed. Lots of it.

In this article I am going to consider just one traffic building initiative–one that happens to be enjoying a growing wave of popularity. It involves harnessing the power of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to build traffic. You are probably aware of RSS as a means of syndicating news content. Websites that produce news have been building XML-formatted news stories for years. These files are retrieved by other websites, the new stories are extracted, and the content is placed (on these publisher sites) before a public ever-hungry for new information. The arrangement has worked well for everyone. Those who have displayed the RSS feeds have gained content to feed their visitors. Those who have produced the RSS feeds have obtained backlinks to their websites, which has helped to bring in new traffic. In fact the arrangement has worked so well that webmasters have been encouraged to move beyond simple news syndication.

This makes a lot of sense. News articles hardly represent the only content that surfers are looking for. Recipes, shopping coupons, MP3s, schedules for local events… The list of possible things that people search for is endless, and if you can provide “new” instances of such information, then RSS represents an ideal means of getting that information in front of the people searching for it. Sure, it used to be the case that everything you wrapped up in an RSS feed had to take a very simple form. Every item in your news feed was reduced to a title, a url (to the source of the information), and a short snippet, or description, to hook the reader. But RSS has sprouted wings over the years and now you can package practically any data structure into a feed that you like. Because of this there is no reason why we cannot suitably package customer reviews into a feed.

But what exactly would we put into an RSS-formatted customer review feed? And is this a good idea? Let me answer the second question first. Yes! It is a very good idea to package customer reviews as RSS feeds. Why? Because if you think about it, a customer review is very much like a news item. It is a packaged opinion that has been released for the express purpose of swaying the mindset of someone who is looking for information on the very topic it addresses, whatever that topic might be. To the person searching for the information, this review is news indeed, and more often than not it is welcome news.

So what should go into the feed? Well, a summary of the review, seems obvious. That can be used as the title element, and a snippet of the review can be used as the description. But there are other elements to a review that we have grown accustomed to over the years, and they can go into the feed too. Pros and cons of the reviewed item can be listed and highlighted. We can put in a numeric rating for several different attributes of the item being reviewed (for example, quality and robustness of the item, its ease of use, value for money, and so on). We can put in images too. Stars to represent the numeric ratings, maybe. A picture of the item. We could even put in a link to the profile of the reviewer if we wanted. When we do these things, the final formatted customer review feed can look very enticing indeed.

Of course, the prospect of collecting reviews, let alone formatting them into RSS feeds might very well seem daunting to the average webmaster. But there are low-cost commercial applications available which will do all of this work for you–for example, the review engine known as Red Queen (see the resource box below). Furthermore, you can now upload customer reviews (in RSS format) to Google Base and make them available to the various Google outlets. Admittedly these are early days for webmasters hoping to profitably hook into Google Base traffic sources, but the prospects are exciting nonetheless.

One thing that seems certain is that customer reviews as RSS feeds represent an as yet untapped opportunity for webmasters. Customer reviews have long been profitably used by big players on the web (Amazon.com being an obvious example) but have not been fully exploited. By coupling this popular opinion-based source of information with the technology of RSS syndication, savvy webmasters who take the reins today are sure to get first mover advantage on this new means of marketing, and build the traffic they need to assure the success of their online businesses. And, of course, there is really no reason why you should not be one of them!

–About–
Stephen Carter is the developer of Red Queen, powerful customer review software that allows webmasters to take advantage of the traffic building potential of customer reviews published as RSS feeds. To learn more, please see the accompanying tutorial: How To Publish Customer Reviews As RSS Feeds.
Source: ArticleTrader.com

Have you noticed the popularity of Blogs? Cheez, There’s a bunch of them out there. It’s getting more difficult to tell one from another. Having made that observation, it’s pretty safe to assume that you’d better have something pretty unique to offer and you’re going to have to decide who your target market is. Or what niche are you targeting and what do you have to offer that 9000 other marketers are not offering? What will your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) be?

Once you’ve answered those questions to your satisfaction, you’ll be able to build a loyal readership, maybe even make a few bucks, with a little luck and some hard work.

Now the Internet is an endless source of resources for finding those tasty little morsels and Blogging is a pretty simple way to get your message out there but only after you’ve done your research. Heck, you can set up a free blog at Blogger.com in all of five minutes. But answering the questions above could take anywhere from five hours to five days. Don’t mean to scare anyone off, it’s just the reality of the internet or any business for that matter. So if your looking for an easier, softer way? You may as well just pick up your marbles and get into a different game.

Experience has taught me that as an Internet Marketer I am in the business of solving problems. So, it is my job to find a group of people with a common problem. It doesn’t need to be a huge group, actually it usually begins with a small group and if I’ve done my job at solving their particular problem, it can grow to immense proportions. Let’s brainstorm a bit. Where can we go to discover a problem that needs solved? That’s Easy. Everywhere and anywhere.

You can open up your email and scan headlines to see what problems others are solving. How to find a date, what autoresponder is best, how to use an ftp program, how to end a relationship, how to make money, who’s offering the best airfares, anyone been to the Baja. I’m sure you see my point. Problems are everywhere. It’s simply a matter of identification and locating the solution.

You can also lurk or post in marketing forums in your search for an idea. Good blogging starts with a good idea. Once again, scan the posts and see if there’s a group of posts that has people stumped. Write an article or report and link to it in your signature. Provided the forum allows this. Make sure you know the rules of each forum as leaving a link where it’s not allowed can get you flamed at the least or banned from the board at the worst.

RSS Readers are available for free at www.rssreader.com/ You can subscribe to as many rss feeds as you want. This is a wonderful resource for niche research. As is Nichebot.com/ just enter a few keywords to see how many times that keyword has been searched for.

Inventory.Overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ works the same way. Just enter a keyword and bam, there you have it. Blog directories can be found on Google.com. Do a search to find out what people are blogging about. Ideas are everywhere.

Get used to the idea of writing articles, reports, ebooks etc. This will be your Golden Egg. You, of course will be the Goose! (:-). Once you’ve decided where your going and what your doing. Go ahead and start out with a free blog. Do a search on Google. Since Google owns Blogger.com that will come up in the #1 spot. There are others, plenty of others.

Interject as much of your own personality into your blog. Let people get to know you. Build relationships with people. Earn the Trust of your peers. Give freely of yourself, as it will serve you well.

Getting the word out about your blog will require some effort on your part. Like I mentioned earlier, Locate as many blog directories as you can and submit your blogs address to them.

Write articles about your chosen niche and leave a link to you blog in your resource box at the end of your article. Do the same thing with Newsletter and Ezine Publishers in the niche of your choice. Don’t forget to post those articles to your own blog.

Reading and Writing are absolutely necessary for your business survival. Spend time in article directories reading other authors articles in your niche. Take the time to sit down with a pen and tablet. Copy the work of noted writers like Marlon Sanders, Jim Edwards, Joe Vitale, And Jimmy Brown. I don’t mean copy and use their work. Just write down their work. I cannot explain it but something happens when you write it down. I guess it puts you in a creative frame of mind and you grow in understanding. It’s a wonderful thing.

Know This: Your not going to do it perfectly. You will look back on your early work and you’ll get a chuckle. To Quote Marlon Sanders, “You Don’t Have To Get It Right, You Just Have To Get It Going”! And whatever you do NEVER EVER QUIT!

Good Luck and God Bless,

Art Luff

–About–
“BuildBlogsFast” Is A Powerful New System That Shows You
How To Churn Out Money Making Blogs By The Dozens.
This Same System is Being Sold for $47. to $97.
Get It Here Free!:
http://lightninghotprofits.com/BuildBlogsFast.html
Source: ArticleTrader.com

Erie, PA - Oct. 4, 2006… The Congressman Foley Page scandal has embroiled the Republican Party in yet another political battle but, worse, it has plunged the Democrat Party to a new low. With the evidence still being sifted as to what House Speaker Dennis Hastert knew and when he knew it, at least one Democratic Party candidate is already running TV Ads erroneously attacking Mr. Hastert and the entire Republican Party leadership.

It is bottom-feeding politics at its worst.

In my 15+ years as a broadcast journalist I have seen the sleaziest of campaigns. They were based upon a thread of truth but most of the finished garment was woven by experts in the art of dirty politics. This is the case of the Foley Scandal - a thread of truth about Mr. Hastert, a finished garment of distortion. At the very least it is distortion regarding the facts as we know them at this moment.

I am not in a position, nor are Democrats, nor are you, to know what the full story is. For the purposes of this commentary, what Mr. Hastert knew, when he knew it, what he did about it (or didn’t do), are irrelevant. My purpose is simply to ask whether attack Ads are ever justifiable. In the case of the Foley scandal and Mr. Hastert, the answer is an emphatic - “No”. We will see them in greater and greater numbers as Election Day draws near. They are likely already on-the-air in your community.

Are attack Ads ever justifiable? The answer is definitely - “Yes” - when they expose the voting record of an incumbent or the political philosophy of a challenger that can be fully verified by facts. No one would argue against a fair game. Professional Sports has strict rules forcing both sides to play fair. When players cheat, they are penalized. They lose yardage or get ejected or pay a fine or get suspended. Pete Rose gambled and likely will never get into the Hall of Fame. He broke the rules.

Maybe it’s time for such rules in politics. Maybe it’s time Media took responsibility for vetting Ad content, something I have advocated for more than 30 years. During my years as News Director/Editor I would not allow political Ads in my News programs. None.

I am not calling for censorship of free speech. Vetting political advertising is the same as preventing a product advertiser from scamming the public. The unfounded attack Ads are, in fact, scamming the voters and should be prevented. They will stop when they have no outlet or, at the very least, when Media exposes them for what they are.

Recently, a local TV news program (WICU) examined a particular attack Ad for accuracy and aired their conclusions. The Ad was by an incumbent attacking the challenger for the sources of the challenger’s campaign contributions. They exposed that the facts did not support the Ad content. There was a thread of truth but the finished garment was distortion. The Ad was pulled by the incumbent. Local Media did its job. National Media should do the same. They owe it to us. After all, Media has a free license to the airwaves that we, the public, own. They are in business because we allowed it through our government.

The Democrat Party should do the honorable thing - pull the attack Ad. It’s bottom-feeding politics. Media should also do the right thing - expose the Ad for what it is.

–About–
I am a 15-year veteran of Radio and Television Journalism. For verification you will find a photo of me with Walter Cronkite (in younger days!) at my On Line Tribune Front Page blog from a promotional session for my local News program.

I run and edit 14 blogs on various self help topics. You are invited to contribute articles.

Source: ArticleTrader.com

Currently there are over 30 million blogs on the internet and thousands more being created each week. Assuming ownership of one blog per person, that’s a minimum of 30 million people slinging around their personal opinions on all that exists under the sun. This is a good thing. The free exchange of thoughts and ideas is what prevents the world from becoming a stagnant pool of dictatorship with the appropriate green scum floating on top.

However, to steal a line from the movie Spiderman, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. Blogging has become a way for the voice of the people to be heard. We must be careful, though, not to abuse our power through thoughtless acts that hurt the credibility of bloggers and blogging. One place that continues to be our Achilles heel is when good posts go bad.

In the United States, libel and slander are the two categories of defamation. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.

Since I’m psychic, I already know what you are thinking. ‘The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects me. As long as it is the truth, I can say whatever I want.’ Well, sort of. As crazy as it sounds, truth is not the silver bullet defense for every case of libel or slander. A judge may require that besides being true the information relayed is in the public interest to know.

So reporting that the CEO of a major corporation had been caught pilfering money from the employees’ retirement fund would probably get dismissed from civil court whereas telling the world that your neighbor has smelly feet could get you into more trouble than you want. Even if it were true, why would it be in the public interest to know that your neighbor’s feet could clear out Yankee Stadium?

Now, the First Amendment does protect your right to an opinion. If you think that the Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap, you are certainly free to tell anyone within earshot as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion on the subject. Likewise, if a person puts forth a negative sentiment with regards to their experience with you and it is clear to any reasonable person that it is their opinion, your legal recourse against them is severely limited.

Parody and satire are also protected. If they weren’t, Saturday Night Live and South Park would have never made it past the first episode. And criticism of a public performance such as a symphony, a play and even a book is protected under the Fair Criticism and Comment clause.

Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being contained in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. One of the major problems courts around the world are having to deal with is the one of jurisdiction. If I live in the US and I libel someone who lives in the UK where exactly does the case take place and who’s laws do we go by? Several cases have set a scary precedent that leans towards being able to sue anywhere around the world for libel published on the internet.

Then there is the issue of third party liability. Say you are a responsible blogger who is careful about her posts to avoid a troublesome libel accusation. One of your readers posts a libelous statement on your blog. Can you be held responsible for that person’s actions? Well, so far the law has only made provisions for internet service providers stating that they cannot be held responsible for how their customers use their services (as it pertains to defamation). Likewise, blog service providers such as Google and Six Apart would likely be immune to any lawsuits arising out of a person’s use of the service.

Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you moderate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you may be protected under Section 230 of the US Code (for US Citizens). It may be a different story, however, if you approve comments before posting them. It could be argued that your posting of the comments equates your agreement to them. To date, no one has shown up in court to argue this, hence the fact that we are kind of forced to make it up as we go along.

Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be tread carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble. Note: I am not an attorney. I don’t even get to play one on television. If you and your blog deal with some highly controversial issues or you’re just not sure how much trouble you would get into if you published that post about your best friend’s boyfriend, I recommend getting in touch with a lawyer to get the best advice.

1. Change the names. By far the easiest thing you can do is to change or to avoid using the name of the person you are talking about and to strip away as much identifying information as possible. If a reasonable person can visit your hometown and quickly identify the “mealy-mouth cow” you blogged about online, you might want to do some editing.

2. Make use of a disclaimer. Kevin S Brady has an excellent one on his website. Even something as basic as “By making use of this blog site, you agree that the opinions expressed are the property and responsibility of their respective owners” may provide some defense in the event of a lawsuit. (Check with a real attorney please).

3. Consider writing your rant as a parody or satire. Extreme exaggerations that no reasonable person would believe are not considered defamation because, quite frankly, they are unbelievable. Be careful though, this type of writing takes a certain je sais quoi, and could easily backfire on you. Have a reasonable person proofread your entry to make sure it passes the believability test.

4. Watch your language. Be sure to use wording that makes it clear that this is your opinion about the subject. Statements like, “That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap” makes it sound as though you are stating a fact when in all actuality you are making a personal judgment about the toy. Something like “I think that Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap” or “That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy fell apart after the first use” are safe bets. At least as far as the law is concerned.

5. And last but definitely not least, don’t tell false tales. Now this may seem like common sense but how common is common sense these days? Really. If you feel the need to resort to lying about a person, you may want to seek professional help in examining why you want to do that. ‘Cause chances are, it’s not to protect the public.

Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.

–About–
Indigo Black is a freelance writer with an innumerable number of interests that include: writing, blogging, erotica, mythology, philosophy, web and graphic design. Currently, she is the administrator of SmutWriter a resource site for erotica authors and Blogilepsy a resource site for novice and pro bloggers alike.
Source: ArticleTrader.com

When one gives a quick look at the articles written on blogging, the common theme seems to be making money from blogging. The authors invariably talk about adsense and how we can make money from blogs. Is blogging only for making money? Did blogs begin with that idea? Are we losing the direction somewhere?

A blog gives an opportunity to everyone to express himself/herself on the Internet. We feel that we are sharing our deepest thoughts with other members of the world. Blogging is bringing the world nearer to each other like never before. In certain cases, a blog is a great therapy for venting out anger, frustration and other negative feelings, which can otherwise damage the psyche. Blogging was never started with the object of making money on the Internet.

Imagine the scenario when the majority of blogs will somehow try to collect content from different sources and hope that their ad gets clicked. Is that not wasting of quality time? Will such blogs contribute to the Internet at all? Who will visit such blogs? Everyone is busy building a blog that makes money, so why should he/she visit other blogs?

A blog can contribute to very lively discussion. A blog can be a great platform to meet people and talk. A blog is a great way to help budding talents show case their work to the world. Let us not make blogs only as a money making tool.

–About–
The author, C.D.Mohatta writes for screensavers and desktop wallpapers on topics like nature, spirituality, motivation, love, holidays, animals, etc. He also writes fun quizzes and fun tests on topics like love, personality, dating, relationships, friendship, movies, tv, music, business, etc. Also try out some flash games at yourfungames.com.
Source: ArticleTrader.com

A blog is something all of us love. We express ourselves on our blogs. We have the freedom of writing whatever we want and there is no worry about what others will say. That makes our blog very special. It is an extension of our personality. Now you can add quiz cards in flash on your blogs. This is the latest inthing for blogs. Let me show you how and why?

Flash Quiz Cards are fun. You can click the answers and the flash adds a great charm to the whole thing. Play a quiz and share it with others on your blog. It is not plain text. It is in flash. Add it to your myspace or xanga blog and wow; look at your blog changing.

Fun quiz subjects- you will get quiz cards on all the subjects you can imagin. Persoanlity, fun, astrology, marriage, love, dating, business, career, friendship, holidays, music and so on. You think of it, and you will get it.

Fun quiz cards- how to add?

Below every quiz card, you will get a code. Copy the code on your blog. Save it. You are ready to show off. Ask your friends to come and try the quiz and put their result in the comments. Ask them to discuss the scores of others. Make a community on your blog.

Blog- make your blog colorful

Fun quizzes are available in different colors and effects. The flash effect adds its own charm. Tell people why you love some quizzes and why you hate some of them. Click fun quizzes cards and begin selection from more than five hundred quizzes.

–About–
The author, C.D.Mohatta writes for screensavers and desktop wallpapers on topics like nature, spirituality, motivation, love, holidays, animals, etc. He also writes fun quizzes for myspace blogs on topics like love, personality, dating, relationships, friendship, movies, tv, music, business, etc. The author also writes for free ecards and greetings on holidays, birthday, love, friendship, family, expressions, celebrations and all events and occasions.
Source: ArticleTrader.com

When I first heard about adsense by google I did not pay attention to it as I do not have my own website to put it on and I did not even know what a blog was back then.

I have spent many sleepless nights trying to find some way to earn money online without spending cash first, my mistake was overlooking adsense’s earning potential. Adsense works by inserting ads to a website through javascript injection to your HTML code, it will read the page contents and try to display ads that are relevant. When someone except you, clicks on the ads with your adsense ID you will get money creditted to you depending on how much the advertiser pays.

I have earned some money through adsense by placing my adsense ID on ad revenue sharing forums such as kingofdollars.com and forums.digitalpoint.com, but there are more places where you can basically earn with adsense without ever having a website of your own. I found this blog where several adsharing sites are listed, he has some nice articles to read about too.

To get an adsense account you need to register at http://google.adsense.com it will not cost you anything to register. If you do not have your own website like me there is a way to get an adsense account through www.blogger.com, it takes about 1-2 days for your adsense account to be activated.

Once you have your account activated you can already start placing your ID anywhere you want that is allowed by the adsense TOS, be sure to follow their guidelines and make sure you would not break any of their rules or you will get your account banned, and once your account is banned it is lost forever along with whatever earnings you had with it.

–About–
I have my blog at http://homework62.blogspot.com.
I am new at writing articles so I hope everyone likes what I write.
Source: ArticleTrader.com