Computer graphics: The brain of the blogger of early

This guest post is by Infolinks.com.

Today, it seems that everyone has a blog. But the creation of a successful and popular blog is not as simple as just to get a domain name and ranting off on everything that comes to mind a particular day.

Here, we take a blow of eye to some of the common misconceptions that novice bloggers on issues ranging from the content and SEO for graphics and the URL. For example, you never do a double-take when a URL can be read in two different ways (one being not so favourable step)? Or have you been completely disabled by a person "about me" page?

We hope by the debunking of the popular myths, enlighten bloggers growing there and help avoid these pitfalls.

Infolinks is the network of advertising in the text more strong growth, monetization of blogs of all levels solutions offering.

Understanding the Cycle of the Hype of a Blog

This guest post is by Nischala Murthy Kaushik.

It’s the start of a new year—the time when organizations work on their business strategies. And when you work on strategy, the one thing you definitely do is get a perspective of two facets of your operation:

internal aspects of your organizationwhat the external world is saying: your customers, your competitors, your partners and of course independent analysts.

One thing that I definitely read this time of the year are analysts’ reports by (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and so on.

I’m always looking for ways to learn, apply, adapt, and leverage new ideas, thoughts, and insights into my blogs. During one such pensive moment, I was mulling over whether there was any evidence of Gatner’s Hype Cycle on blogs. And yes, I believe there is!

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a methodology that’s been used effectively by Gartner since 1995. The Hype Cycle provides a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities.

The Gartner Hype Cycle methodology gives you a view of how a technology or application will evolve over time, providing insight into managing its deployment within the context of your specific business goals.

Each Hype Cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle.

Technology trigger: A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.Peak of inflated expectations: Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.Trough of disillusionment: Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.Slope of enlightenment: More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.Plateau of productivity: Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.

(Check the source of this information for more details.)

If you’ve been blogging, or watching the blogosphere for any length of time, you can likely see how the hype cycle applies to blogging. Let’s step through it in detail.

Every blog is triggered by something. Technology may not always be the trigger, but it is a definite enabler. Had technology not evolved to where it is, blogging may not have existed as it does today. The trigger for a blog could be:

a personal need to express, to capture, to consolidate, to be heard, to create a brand, to share, to learn, to connect, to belong to a community, to leave a legacya business need for new customer acquisition, marketing, branding, customer servicing, customer engagement, or revenue generation.

The key questions you need to answer when you start a blog are:

Why I am starting this blog?Who are my target readers?What do I really want to achieve by blogging?

It’s good to have some degree of clarity on these issues at the outset. Of course, they will change and evolve with time, but you need to have baseline answers in place if you are to move forward and start your blog.

In this phase, the blogger is usually unsure about many things:

Will there be any reader interest in my blog?How do I reach my potential readers?Will I be able to generate meaningful content over a period of time?

The best piece of advice for this phase of the Hype Cycle of a Blog is to test the waters by creating a blog. Keep at blogging, read about blogging, experiment, learn, and evolve. Along the way, you will discover your own commitment and interest towards blogging.

This is the phase in which one of the following happens to your blog:

One or more of your blog posts generates interest, a good amount of readers, shares, and comments. You almost feel like a mini-celebrity in select circles and begin to enjoy the elevated status you’ve achieved.One of more of your blogs is criticized, and you receive negative feedback and comments on your thoughts, and hence the content itself, or the way you’ve presented or written the information.Hardly anyone reads your blogs or ever leaves a comment.

The best piece of advice for bloggers experiencing this phase of the Hype Cycle of a Blog is:

Study, observe, and analyze the blogs you wish your blog was more likeRe-think these questions: Why I am starting this blog?Who are my target readers?What do I really want to achieve by blogging?How should I market my blog to ensure that I reach the right audience?Don’t assume that the past precedents are indications of how the future will pan out in your journey as a blogger.Keep a check on your future expectations of the blog

This next phase in the hype cycle of a blog is probably the most crucial as it will determine how long you will continue blogging. This is the phase when most bloggers are somewhat disenchanted with the results of their blogging efforts, either due to their own lack of interest in blogging, lack of a reader base, lack of interest from the blogosphere, limited shares and comments…

The best piece of advice for this phase of the hype cycle of a blog is:

Don’t let one or two highs or lows determine the future of your blog. Blogging is here to stay, and the way you leverage the power of this medium in your personal or professional context is completely your choice.Re-visit your own reasons for starting your blog and make any course corrections that are required. Following are the key areas that you need to critically evaluate and plan: quality of contentfrequency of postingidentification of your target readersblog marketing.

The reality is that many bloggers quit at this stage, disillusioned with their own capabilities at blogging as well as all the hype that surrounds blogging.

This is the best phase in the hype cycle of a blog—it’s at this point that a blogger has his or her “Eureka” moment and feels that:

they have found their niche in the blogospheretheir creative juices flow incessantly—there’s no dearth of ideas and, most importantly, they can convert anything and everything they see, hear, think, and feel into blog contentthey have found target readersmost importantly, they begin to enjoy blogging.

If you have reached this point, consider yourself lucky. Many congratulations to you!

The sky is the limit for what you can achieve here. You can sell products (like books), personal services (like consulting and advisory services), your own ideas, and other’s products services and ideas. You have the potential to become a cyber-celebrity and most importantly you have the opportunity to create an impact on those who read your blogs.

The only advice for this phase of the hype cycle of a blog is this:

Keep a self-check on your intent for blogging. It may have evolved along the way, but don’t lose sight of your answer to the question, “Why are you blogging?”Value your readers as they complete your blog. Any creative piece of work has a creator and a consumer and their mutual to co-existence is a necessity and reality. A movie has limited value till it is viewed by an audience. In the same light, the blogs you create have limited value till they are consumed by readers.

This is the phase when you mature as a blogger, and your blog matures too—both go to a new elevated level. Your blog has a brand of its own and you have a presence in the blogosphere. Not many bloggers get here simply because they don’t spend enough time asking and answering the key questions from the start of their blogging journey.

If you’re in this phase, you don’t need any advice: you know where to go and how to get there!

Which phase of the hype cycle is your blog in? Leave a comment to let me know.

Nischala Murthy Kaushik currently works at Wipro. She blogs at VERVE: The Quintessence of my Life, Nischala’s Space, Thoughts & Expressions, 12Most.com, PaulWriter, Wipro & Mindblogs. She has completed her MBA from IIMB, one of the premier Business schools in India. She takes pride in being a mother, philosopher, writer, scholar and guru of life for life. You can follow her on Twitter @ nimu9.

Good research: Simple ways to create sensational Images of Blog

This guest post is by Jo Gifford of Cherry Sorbet creative.

Superb blogs attract the attention of the reader, it is as easy as. Your content may be surprising, but if your blog has a terrible aesthetic you are missing alongside a slice of magic to inspire people to enjoy their stay.

2011 Platforms such as Pinterest and insta.gram social media exploded in use, a trend of lifecasting of signaling in a more visual way, which applies to the blogosphere too. readers want that your pages are interesting. More they stay on your site and engage, the most beautiful these statistics look too.

This post provides some simple and easy to create and generate original and superb images for blogs, without the need to be a designer. So, let's get looking good:

She loves or hates, instagr.am is a fantastic way to create stunning images for use on a blog, all of your mobile. I use inkstagram, which uses my instagram sign to produce an easily scrollable (instagram itself is a bit limited in the access of the image). From there, I click the image and copy the URL to add to the blog note. At this stage, the SEO wisdom among you will want to make sure you that your image and text replacement title is changed to something relevant.

Screen captures of images or text may be a tool for easy mounting. If your screen is full of images, text, perhaps a mindmap of the ongoing work, examine the screen capture and it has an image editor for a living and personal illustration for your blog.

I love using Picnik, an image editor online is currently free as a bonus until April, when it is fully taken over by creating Google kit. Picnik both the new Kit Creative in Google + allows images to be resized, added effects (including saturated and lomo effects), the inclusion of the polaroids images and the addition of text too. This makes great alternatives to Photoshop and is therefore easily accessible resources free online, is.

In editing and creating your own images you can have a fabulous blog research position without worrying about Creative Commons licenses or copyright feared, and you did not need be a designer!

Polyvore is a website used primarily for the world of fashion blogs, but it has some useful features for all bloggers. Simply create an account and go to "create a game". Then you can literally drag and drop a multitude of images, including things as computers laptops, post it notes, coffee staining and splash effects, along with all kinds of images of painting. Add text to some policies too much by dragging and dropping text.

Once the game is completed, you can click on the section "published in WordPress". before you go ahead with it, simply copy and paste the code and add to your html section in your post.  Polyvore automatically includes links to products on the whole, but you can deselect the check boxes for the code without the links. That is, the original, fabulous images with a footprint on another site to start!

There are a few great apps available to help you make collages for the inclusion of positions. Currently, I use Picframe for iPhone and iPad that allows pictures of your library to add into collages. You can drag and drop, resize and edit the effects and the edges of the image and also export to instagr.am to add a filter and share your stream or on Flikr.

I also use a manufacturer of collage for larger and more complex collages desktop application, the options available and a quick search google will provide some resources free collage for you. I use an Apple App store called Collage Maker, and I think that it is really very practical and effective.

It's great to take the camera put about with you if you have a. I use a Nikon D40 far places, signs, buildings and all kinds of interest. You never know what may appear which is important for a blog that you write, and you can always in cultures, change images and shape in a collage. With the help of a digital SLR allows a dedicated resolution zoom and crop the parts of images do not so easily with iPhonography.

Creative commons images are images under licensees by the creators to be used with a link of paternity. You can search images using the Creative Commons search tool, which can produce exciting work that you have permission to include on your site. Remember to attribute when necessary even though.

iStock is a fantastic and inexpensive images that are perfect for bloggers. Images and illustrations are purchased in bulk of credits, and web friendly images can be very profitable indeed for the strange post here and there.

Then, go and make creative! Your readers love you, I promise.

OJ Gifford is Designer, editor, Blogger and founder of creative Cherry Sorbet. Working primarily in the beauty, fashion and lifestyle industries, his work spans graphic design print and web, social media management and training, writing and editorial for the and offline publications. You will find his agile blog Diva on Twitter as agile Diva and Sorbet cherry and linked to.

Have you implemented the timeline on your Facebook "Page" yet?

In the last day Facebook made a calendar for Facebook brand pages. There is a lot of talk about whether people like them or not-, but the reality is that they are here and in a month they will be deployed on your brand page if you want to or not.

I've just pushed version 1 of my own page ProBlogger Facebook here (I am sure that I will be refined in the coming days, but he is alive) - but I would like to see what others are doing?

Have you enabled timeline on your brand Page yet? If so, share a link with us in the comments below so that we can get a small source of inspiration for what you have done.

blog Wise Tip 4: selecting a Structure that works for you

All bloggers, that we talked about that we did research on Blog Wise had an opinion on the structure.

Even those who, as Matt Kepnes of NomadicMatt.com, is not the blog to regular schedules, noted that they had specific moments that were good for some tasks and the special moments that tend to be less productive.

Matt, in equilibrium between desires work and discover destinations, that he travels, puts time on blogging daily tasks. "Internet, blogging, need as much time you can give," he said.

"Forcing me into boxes to work... to limit the amount of time that I'm working." He found it the easiest way to stay productive.

Jeff Goins, Goinswriter.com, takes the concept a little more: it will create a good "context" of the time, to make work more enjoyable. He explained his reasoning as follows: "I must do something, I do not want to do, so I'll create the context of most pleasant as possible." I listen to music, I'm gonna drink coffee and I'm gonna sit down and I will do it and I will cancel it much time to do so. »

For Jeff, it is not necessarily to hit a milestone or a purpose within that time; It is only the work itself - to get something.

Full time bloggers, time of segmentation in the daily schedule is important. "This way I know how I will spend my day," said Amy.

She explains that this helps priority tasks and whether it was time to step away from doing something extraordinary or source of inspiration a little more.

While Leo a full-time blogger, he is also a philosophy without goals. Which means that for the structure of his time? "When it is unstructured, [the day is] really a vessel open, huge, you can do anything you want with," he said. "I mean, you can fill it with anything.".

As he explains how it works to increase its productivity, it warns against the pitfalls of being too attached to the structure.

"When you're structured, it just eventually be frustrating," he said, "because you will always respect the structure you set… if you had a structure that you had planned, and it does not go according to plan, then you're messed up.".

A loose structure works for you? Or do you prefer something more prescriptive? Share your secrets for structuring your day of blogs below.

Tomorrow: management of distractions.

Blog wise Tip 6: build a Productive team

"You never merged together four different companies with four different partners and employees of a company and another company?" asked Brian Clark of the Copyblogger.net. "Oh my God, it was quite stressful."

But, he added, now that the transition is complete, "it is incredible for me, what we can do."

All bloggers, we talked about that we have done research on Blog Wise boasting the virtues of team work - even when the team is your readership, as in the case of the collaborative writing project of solo blogger Leo Babauta, life without effort.

But all stress the importance of clear communications team.

Brian explains that before the merger of his group, "I had all these smart people who have partners, and they were in different companies and they were not allowed to speak to each other, if you want, because there no was no profit motivation."

"I saw that the only way that I was going to go where I saw a vision of the future possible, is to bring together all these smart people so that they all had an interest in the future of others."

Our bloggers point out, however, that a philosophy of collaboration of team must be supported by tools.

Like many, Darren found useful digital collaboration tools. "Each ebook we produce has its own folder in the base camp, and I can tap that and get virtually any document, I want to along the way," he says.

Bloggers as Abby Larson of stylemepretty.com and Heather Armstrong of Dooce, whose spouses are also working on their blogs, use tools like Google Calendar and communication clear and close, to ensure that their husband-partners know what is happening at all time.

When you add shared responsibilities as children to the shared responsibility of a blog, communication is essential. As Abby, "because the site is so dependent on us both... We realize that we have both must commit to our family."

Do you work with other people on your blog? What methods to use to make your team as productive as possible?

Tomorrow: bloggers favorite productivity tools and systems.

Masterminding At The Bougainvillea Estate

written by John Chow on February 28, 2012

I am at a mastermind retreat this week at the Bougainvillea Estate in Indio (near Palms Springs), and I’m so blown away by this place that I just had to share it with you.

The estate sits on five manicured acres and features a man-make lake filled with rare black swans. The house offers 14,000 square feet of living space and includes 9 bedrooms (1000 square feet master bedroom), 10.5 bathrooms, tennis court, large pool, 14 person spa, movie theater, huge 28'x56' game room (billiard, game tables, Golden Tee Game, two pinball games, treadmill, punching dummy, massage chair), and two guest houses around the pool. It’s the ideal place to host a mastermind.

During its peak, Bougainvillea Estate was valued at $20 million. However, the real estate market in Palm Springs has been pretty depressed lately. The house is currently offered for sale at $8.9 million. If that’s still a bit rich for your blood, you can rent it for $2,250 a night, or $12,375 for a week. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go enjoy the rest of the house and get my money’s worth.

Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.