8 posts tagged “blogging”

Ok, there are a few things that I just don't do. Especially with my blogging. I don't go around spreading all the latest celebrity gossip. Honestly, there's enough blogs out there that do that, I don't need to. Besides, if I did do a blog about that, it'd basically be because I found the gossip on another blog anyways. And I'm not particularly into gossip anyways.

I don't do things like diet pill reviews. Yes, I might review a product, book, CD, or movie, but stuff like diet pills, I leave to the pros. I'm not experienced enough with those things to bother with reviewing them. In fact, my reviews of products, books, CDs, and movies aren't the greatest either.

The last thing I don't do with my blog is make concious attempts to bad mouth individual people. I might have an opinion about a group or organization, and I might actually speak out about that opinion on one of my many blogs, but you won't see me naming someone by name and saying what a jerk they are or what a deadbeat they are. Sorry, not my style. I might complain about the way someone around me is acting, but I'm not trying to bad mouth them per se,

So there are a few things I don't do on my blogs.

That bloggers and banner ad makers use the words click here an awful lot? I'm serious. It's always click here to read this, click here to get this great deal on this or that. We use the words click here constantly. It's really funny.

Bloggers also use a lot of links. We link to other blogs, to news articles that we're interested in, news article and items that make us mad, things we want to buy on various other websites. We link to everything under the sun. For some reason, we just love links. :)

And don't forget comments! We love comments. Most of us, note I say MOST of us, don't get that many comments but some of us do. :) And believe me, bloggers live for comments on their blogs. It tells us that we're being read. I mean, sure, you don't have to comment on every post we make, but every so often would be good. I'm one of these people that I might not comment on the newest entry, but I'll comment on one of the previous posts that I'm reading for the first time.

Just a few thoughts. :)

The cyber lounge at work. On a keyboard that has a crappy space bar. It’s me! LOL Ok, yeah, I know that was dorky. But I’m bored. I’m here way too early and I’m bored stiff. I figured I’d take care of some blogging since I didn’t get a chance to do it at home before I came to work. I’m also working on my typing skills. Not too bad so far. I haven’t really used the backspace that much. I have long nails, having had them done a couple weeks ago and I’m still getting used to typing with them on. LOL

In any case. I’m tired as all heck. I had about 4 hours of sleep last night. Thank goodness this is the last Friday I’ll have to do this. :) On another note, I was able to make the arrangements to pay my rent today, so I don’t have to worry about that at least. I’m glad because that was my main concern. I can do blogging and the like from the cyber lounge here at work if I have to, but I can’t live here. :)

Work is going pretty good. I got a 97% on the mid-term. So that was good. Actually, it was the highest grade in the class. We played a fastest fingers game on the computer for finding information and I kept winning. Guess all that mouse clicking at home paid off. LOL

Better get going for now. I have a couple things I need to take care of.

Ok, I'm sitting here with my thinking cap on. PPP has raised it's max opps per blog per day back to 3. However, they require at least one interim post of at least 75 words or more. Video and photo posts don't count unless you have at least 75 words to go with it.

Lately I've noticed on my blogs that are monetized that I have a great problem with paid vs non-paid posts. Everytime I look at my blog, even if they're personalized with things from my own life, experience, or dreams, I see mostly paid posts. It is a problem I have also seen on other blogs.

My question is: are we bloggers who do this kind of work trying too hard to make money with our blogs? Did we start our blogs to make money or to have a voice for our lives, talents, etc. Personally, I started this blog with the intent of just having a diary. It's become a lot more than that however, and I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I shouldn't start moving back towards my original goal....a diary of my life.

If you're a paid blogger, what do you think about this? Is this something that you face, the thought that your blog's original purpose has gone down the tubes because of monetization?

After I paid my bills, I went shopping for groceries. I spent $36 on dog treats, a cute little ceramic haunted house, a couple packs of tea lights, and my groceries. Then I spent $11 on toilet paper, clothespins, silverware, and fake cobwebs. Then I spent $3 for bread. Then I spent $28 (including tip) to get my nails done.

Now mind you, I shouldn't have gotten my nails done. I really couldn't afford it. But I splurged because I don't often get to do stuff like that for me. Yeah I may buy stuff, but it's usually necessities, not stuff that's just for me. I'm thinking I may get the new Linkin Park CD off iTunes later tonight, just because. :) I've had a rough week and I need a bit to cheer me up. I'll see how it goes. Perhaps later on I'll post a picture of my nails. They're just plain french manicure though. Nobody I've found here does the cool glitter-tipped solar nails. I had those in Texas. I had blue, red, and black glitter solar nails.

In any case, I always feel like I spent too much money even though almost every penny actually went for groceries or bills. I hate paydays. LOL

The sheer stupidity of the human race. My neighbors are a PRIME example of this. Now, I've complained about my neighbors before, but this time, I have a damn good reason for it. Picture this: 9:30 AM. I'm asleep. Yes, ASLEEP, I work nights you know. I wake up and mutter something about the neighbors cooking something and it smelling like it was burning. I dozed off again. 9:58 AM. I'm awake. WIDE awake. My entire apartment is filled with SMOKE. Nothing is on fire in my apartment however. So, like the good little tenant I am, I did what was expected of me. I called 9-1-1. The fire department determined, from the smoke coming out of one of the windows, that the fire was in apartment 2. The busted the door in, put out the fire.

Now for the stupidity part. The people next door had put something in a large pot on the stove to cook, and then WENT TO THE NEXT APARTMENT BUILDING OVER to visit a friend. And COMPLETELY FORGOT THEY WERE COOKING! Consequently, their supper caught fire. And I had to spend several hours with a cat and a dog in a car with my best friend and her mom while the smoke was being exhausted from my apartment via window fan.

To top this off, my apartment STINKS to high heaven. I mean, gag-me stinks. I lit an incense stick (I'm apparently a lot more careful than my neighbors with fire) in the hopes that it will at least alleviate SOME of the smell. But it really is horrible in here. Ick.

Thank goodness nobody was hurt.

Is your blog a do-follow blog or not? If you don't know what do-follow is, it means that when someone comments on your blog and they put their url in the website field, search engines such as Google will pick up on the link to the site. For example on Gothic-Peach.Net I have the do-follow plugin installed and active. If you leave a comment on that blog with your website url, Google will see that as a link from my site to yours and count it as an incoming link for you. At least that's how do-follow has been explained to me in the past.

However, many bloggers are reporting comment spam due to this. People who are commenting and putting in urls simply to have them seen by Google as a site linking to them. They're trying to boost their page ranks. Myself, I am not like that. If I comment, it's because I'm either from a commenting site like Despair, or because I've stumbled upon your blog somehow and found an entry that I felt compelled to comment on. Do I leave a url behind? Yes, because I'd like to think that if I came to your blog, you'd come to mine. So how about this do-follow thing? What do you think of it? Do you have your blog set to do-follow or not, and why?

What is ok, and what is not ok in blogging?

Well, let me think about that for a moment. I believe there are certain ethics to blogging. I believe that it is all right to accept payment for making blog posts as long as the people reading those posts know that they are sponsored/paid posts. I believe this is acceptable for products or business services, but I do not believe it is right to charge a person for linking back to their website from your sidebar, links page, or comments on your blog. I do not believe it is right to charge a person who simply requests that you review their personal blog. A business blog or business site, yes. But only if they offer you the money. Do not go to them saying  "I will review your product/site for $XX." That's just wrong in my opinion.

Recently I heard about a blogger who is charging people to remove the no follow tag from their comments. If you comment on his site and want the no follow tag for the search engines removed, you have to pay him $10 to do it. I believe this is unethical. It falls under the category of just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should do it. I could charge people for the same thing, but I don't because although I can, I shouldn't. Makes me glad I've never linked to his blog from any of mine!