Tag: Blogs

We’ve just started to write for two new blogs this past month and wanted to share them with you.

American Boom

This blog is a “must visit” blog. I think that you will find the content interesting and thought provoking. For this blog we are writing eight posts per week and are team blogging – meaning we have three writers working on the same blog. The topics are related to the economy, outsourcing of jobs, unemployment, why Americans don’t buy American, and a watch on key economic indicators.

Visit American Boom now!

Permanently Beautiful

This blog is the brainchild of permanent cosmetics expert Melany Whitney from the Whitney Center for Permanent Cosmetics. It provides a platform for information exchange on permanently tattooed eyebrows, eye liner, lips, and even scar camouflage. Melany is the preeminent professional in her industry and has been called “The Voice of Permanent Cosmetics”. With offices in New York City, New Jersey, and South Florida, this firm has a strong market presence. I think that you will find the information interesting and maybe something you’ve never known existed. Make sure when you visit the blog to take a side trip to her website to review the photo gallery, you just will not believe the before and after photos.

Visit Permanently Beautiful now!

Your pen name is your brand. Just like any brand, it should be protected. I only write articles showing my own name for my website. When I supply ghost written articles, I do not brand them with my name.

Personally, I feel that by name should only be used to promote my own services and my own website. I do not lend out my name or for that matter my content to others. I want to retain close control of my brand and my intellectual property. Before you write for someone else under your own name you may want to consider these important points.

1. Will the content you supply be changed in any way after you provide it? If it will be you may not like the changes or the meaning of your original piece may be different.

2. Is the site where your content will reside a good match for your ideologies? How about types of advertisers? Remember your name will give credibility to the site. Are the products and services one with which you would want to be linked?

3. If you are writing under your own name, remember the Internet archives all content literally forever. Will joining your name to a site or cause be a problem in the future for potential clients or job opportunities.

4. You may even want to consider receiving a higher level of compensation for any pieces that you write for other websites using your own name.

Once you let something go, it is nearly impossible to get it back again, that goes not only with your reputation, but with the value of your own brand or pen name.

I watch a number of blogs and I found this post at the Blog Herald interesting reading and wanted to share it with you. I live in the Washington DC area and bad behavior on the road is typical here. We have some of the rudest drivers in the nation, as documented by the Washington Post. Not only will someone flip you off for following the law, but if you move into their lane when they are 10 car lengths behind you, they may get incensed as you are slowing their commute down, that you are sure to get honked at and maybe even flipped off. This post at the Blog Herald talks about similar rude behavior on the Web specifically on Twitter and on blogs.

Although I have never had a situation on any of my platforms with rude comments, bigotry, and flaming exchanges between participants, I know that bad behavior like this exists. I have seen it first hand on several webmaster professionals forums. It is unfortunate that the larger you get, the more readership you garner, and the more visible your platforms become, you do become targets for people who really should take a deep breath, step back, and review what they have written before they click publish. 

People who exhibit this type of bad behavior on forums and blogs are called Trolls and you really don’t want them commenting on your own media platforms. Yes, controversy can be good for traffic, but when controversy steps over the line to rude behavior, then it must be stopped.

The post that I mention in the first paragraph speaks on the topic that should you block comments from certain individuals due to their history on other blogs and forums that you are aware of or should you wait it out. So based on all of this, should you turn off commenting on your own blog? Should you enable comment moderation? My recommendation for the majority of blogs still is to let comments come and to not moderate them. If rude comments do be come a pattern, then turn on comment moderation, but only once you’ve had a documented problem. The free exchange on your blog or forum should not be hampered by possible bad behavior until you really need to address it.