You already know my experiences at SOBCon08 – at least those I could get down in a reasonable amount of time.

But aren’t you curious what others have been saying about it?

Well, I’ve done my best to compile all the posts I could find about the event. While extensive, this is likely not a complete listing. So if you have a post you’d like to add, please do so in the comment box and I’ll add it to the post below.

Did I read them all…no. But I did read most of them and commented on those I had something to add too. What always intrigues me most is that people often report more about their time getting to know someone then then they do the event content. Is there a little business secret tied up there? What do you think?

• Lorelle VanFossen on Blog Herald – Blogging is Not About You
• Lorelle VanFossen on Blog Herald – SOBCon08: A Conference Experienced in the Moments
• Joanna Young’s Confident Writing – What I Learned From The Gifts I Received At SobCon08
• Joanna Young’s Confident Writing -Ā Chicago Pulse: Why The Windy City Was The Perfect Setting For SOBCon08
• Joanna Young’s Confident Writing -Ā Blog Writing Tips from 100 Successful Bloggers
• Joanna Young’s Confident Writing – 10 Outstanding Definitions of Powerful Writing
• David Bullock – Business and Blogging: Trust, Community Building and Profits
• Terry Starbucker from Ramblings From a Glass Half Full – We’ve Got The Dreamers Disease, Reflections on SOBCon08
• Liz Strauss (THE Liz Strauss) – Meet Sia, the Heart of a Web Hosting Company
• Liz Strauss (THE Liz Strauss) – How do you Build an Incredible Experience
• Liz Strauss (THE Liz Strauss) – SuperTramp, Terry Starbucker and Chicago
• Liz Strauss (THE Liz Strauss) – SOBCon Influence According to BuzzLogic
• Liz Strauss (THE Liz Strauss) – Terry Starbucker Brings Sexy Back at SOBCon08
• Easton Ellsworth’s Visionary Blogging – 139 Business and Blogging Improvement Tips from SOBCon08,
  
• Easton Ellsworth’s Visionary Blogging – The SOBCon08 Step Forward Challenge
• Denise Wakeman of Biz Tips Blog and The Blog Squad – SOBCon08 Provided Great Insights to Social Networking
• Chris Garrett from chrisg.com – People of SOBCon08 (flickr)
• Chris Garrett from chrisg.com – SOBCon Report: Landed Home
• Chris Cree of SuccessCREEations – Down To Business At SOBCon08
• Brian Gardner, creator of Revolution WordPress Theme – Social Networking in Action
• Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions – SOBCon08 – New Friends
• Jesse Peterson on Perfectly Peterson – Jesse’s SOBCon08 Takeaway
• Phil Gerbyshak of Make It Great – (Re)Connecting with Old Friends: Attitude Vitamin
• Zane Safrit – One great thing about social media
• Amy L from Earnest Parenting – What’s The Point of This Blog?
• Stephen Hopson from Adversity University – End of the Week Gratitude
• David Dalka – Remembering SOBCon08 – My House Guest Andrew Dubber
• John Gatrell from Spacially Relevant – SOBCon08: A Narrowcast Effort for Sponsors’ Brands
• Tammy Lenski of Conflict Zen – A Little Gift for the Weekend: Origami Crane
• J. Erik Potter – SOBCon08, Have We Met?
• Andrew Dubber – Postcard from Chicago – Blogger’s Beard
• Anita Bruzzese from 45 Things – Feeling Dumb May Be The Smartest Thing You’ve Ever Done
• Brad Shorr from WordSell, Inc. -A Question for SOBCon08 Attendees
• Matt Murphey from Matt’s Cuppa – Farewell SOBCon08
• Todd Jordan – Vong’s Thai Kitchen, SOBCon08 Dining Experience
• Chris Brogan – SOBCon08 Was Great
• Jared Goralnick from Technotheory – Why AwayFind? To Escape From Email (quick clip from SOBCon 2008)
• Sara from Suburban Oblivion – Suburban in the City
• Stephen Smith from Productivity in Context – Post Conference Productivity
• Stephen Smith from Productivity in Context – Oblique Strategy
• Derek Semmler from The Man Page – Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone
• Jen Knoedl – Liz Strauss’ Irresistable Offer
• Karen Hanrahan, Mother Earth herself – Thank You SOBCon08
• Michael Martine, the remarkablogger -76, 4, 58, 16, 12, 47: What Do These Numbers Mean?,
• Kristen King from Inkthinker – Can You State What You Do In Under 10 Words (or why I think my identity crisis may be ending)
• BuzzLogic’s Valerie Combs – The Top 25 Influential SOB’s
• Sonia Simone from Remarkable Communications – Monkeys and Bloggers and Tribes (oh my!)
• Derrick Sorles from Business Blogging Consultants – What is Social Media and Do I Need To Use It For My Business?
• Joe Hauckes from Working at Home on the Internet – My Take on SOBCon08: It Takes Passion to be Successful
• Karen Putz from A Deaf Mom Shares Her World – SOBCon08 – An Amazing Weekend
• Karen Putz from A Deaf Mom Shares Her World -Ā SOBCon08 – What’s the Deal with those Klondike Bars?
• Sheila Scarborough from The Perceptive Travel Blog – Lou Malnati’s: going local for Chicago-style deep dish pizza
• Debra Moorhead – TCB
• Naomi Dunford from IttyBiz – What REALLY Went Down at SOBCon08

So what’s the marketing secret I mentioned above? Any idea?

And for SOBConers and non-SOBConers alike, just one question: what’s one tool you’ve most recently started using that’s changed the way you use your blog or social media? How has it affected your marketing and your business?

(note: image from Tojosan on Flickr)

The only problem I see with RSS right now is that not enough people know what it is and how to use it. What’s worse is so many don’t know why they should be using it.

So I’m always looking for simple explanations and tutorials that can help spread the message of RSS.

Just yesterday I found this short video on YouTube put up by the guys from Sketch Basement. While it’s no where near as entertaining or interesting as the widely spread Common Craft video that went around last year, it’s still a nice tutorial for anyone who wants to begin using RSS. Take a peak (4 mins long):

I’d love to know what blog posts, videos, manuals, free ebooks, and audio programs you’ve seen that help explain RSS. Send it forward and I’ll take a look.

And I’d love to know how RSS has changed your business…and your experience of the web.

Ooh, wait a minute. I just found this video. More interesting than the one above. And definitely useful for people who don’t know what RSS is. Thanks to MarketingProfs.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_LUVwvUcN28

As you can see, I love RSS. So I’m still wanting to hear how RSS has changed the way you’re using the web, how it’s changed your business and what materials you’ve found.

So I’m a huge advocate for people who want to begin blogging. As a matter of fact, while I still design and build websites (and blogs), I’m doing far more coaching and consulting with people who want to use their blog to increase their reach and grow their business.

One thing I’m constantly doing is suggesting blogs that new bloggers can read to learn more about blogging. And it’s been my intention for quite some time to create a list of blogs as a resource for new bloggers. These would be blogs and bloggers who I hold in high regard and who I, myself, continue to learn from.

But it looks like my colleague Drew McClellan beat me to the punch. He’s just released his New Blogger’s Toolbox. The Toolbox is a listing of bloggers who many of us consider great resources for learning the art of blogging. And since his list is pretty much the same as the one I’d put together, I thought I’d simply recreate here for you and all the people I speak with about blogging.

Drew also divided his list into useful categories. So here you go:

Chock Full of Practical Tips

• Converstations
• Creating Comments
• Yotophoto
• Daily Blog Tips
• Logic + Emotion
• Business Blog Angel
• ProBlogger
• Perfect Blogger
• Internet Marketing Monitor
• WebWare

Living Lab on Writing Compelling Blog Posts

• CK’s blog
• Priscilla Palmer
• Noah Brier
• I’ve been mugged!
• Electric Venom
• Styles of Blogging
• CopyBlogger
• Copywriting Maven
• Modern B2B Marketing
• Servant of Chaos

How to Build Community

• Viral Garden
• Sparkplugging
• Dawud Miracle
• Robyn McMaster
• Noah Kagan
• Christine Kane
• Come Gather Round
• Create Business Growth

Teach Marketing Tools

• Lonely Marketer
• Drew’s Marketing Minute
• Todd And
• Duct Tape Marketing
• Diva Marketing
• David Meerman Scott
• Small Business Marketing Mavericks
• Russell Davies
• Greg Verdino
• Jason Lonsdale
• Matt Dickman
• MP Daily Fix
• BizSolutionsPlus
• PodPress Forum
• Seth Godin
• CrapHammer
• Blogopreneur
• Hee Haw Marketing
• Conversation Agent
• Note to CMO

Welcome Wagons for Newbies

• Successful & Outstanding Blogs
• Converstations
• The Good Blogs

Contributors to Drew’s Toolbox:

• Robyn McMaster
• C.B. Whittemore
• Lori Magno
• Janet Green
• Joanna Young
• Paul McEnany
• Mario Vellandi
• Richard Cockrum
• Ryan Karpeles
• Liz Strauss
• Lewis Green
• Patrick Schaber
• Gianandrea
  
• Facchini
• Chris Brown
• Spinning Silk Multimedia

Thanks Drew, for putting this list together and making it available to all of us. You know, if you combine this list with my Ultimate WordPress Resource Guide, you’ve got just about everything you need to be a successful blogger.

And, if you have a blog that you think should be included that isn’t, please let me know in the comment box so I can add them and pass them on to Drew.

Also, in the future I’ll be sending lots of people to this page as a resource. So if you have comments on how any of these bloggers have helped you, please include it below…and know you’re helping someone who is learning how to blog.

(note: image Confused from An’veula on Flickr)

I could browse around just fine on my blog itself. However when I tried to do anything else I got this error message:

Error 403

We’re sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for /wp-admin/moderation.php (requested file changes based on task) on this server.

Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity. See the listing below for more details on specific blacklists and removal procedures.

Your technical support key is: 4428-b779-1366-73cd

You can use this key to fix this problem yourself.

If you are unable to fix the problem yourself, please contact dawudmiracle at gmail.com and be sure to provide the technical support key shown above.

Didn’t matter what I tried – comments, add post, delete spam, even update my profile – nothing worked. So I tried logging out and back in only to find out that I couldn’t log back in.

After a bit of frustration I found the error related to the Bad Behavior plugin. Here’s what Michael Hampton, BB’s developer said:

…Yesterday I moved all of my sites to a new dedicated server. In the process, I decommissioned an old blacklist I was running which I thought wasnā€™t being used, not realizing that Bad Behavior was still set to use it. Shortly afterward, I found myself locked out of my own blog, just as you all did. So therefore, this release.

So if you use Bad Behavior, you probably want to upgrade immediately (link begins download).

To upgrade the plugin simply do the following:

1. Download the latest version of Bad Behavior (2.0.11)
2. Unzip the download
3. Create an FTP connect to your WordPress plugins folder (wp-content/plugins/)
4. Upload the entire Bad Behavior folder into your plugins folder, overwriting the one that’s currenly there.
5. Try logging back into your WordPress admin

This should be fixed. It certainly worked for me. Just to be clear, I could browse my blog just fine. I just couldn’t do anything on it.

And…thanks to Joanna Young from BusinessBlogAngel for first bringing this error to my attention when she tried to leave a comment. Joanna, and everyone else, the issue is resolved so please join back in the conversation.

For a moment, imagine the mountain of voicemail, email and blog posts I came back too.

The first few days I was back in my office, I have to say, were overwhelming. It took me almost an entire day to just to listen too, make notes on and begin wading through all the voicemail.

And email…do I even need to go down that road? I hadn’t checked my email at all in three weeks, at one point. That stretch, alone, left me with 1,500 messages to sort through – not including spam. I started sweating as I watched the number of new messages keep climbing in my various inboxes and folders. Needless to say, I didn’t even try to get through them. All told, I had thousands of messages waiting for me when I returned. Not through them all yet.

Then, there’s the 190 or so feeds I regularly follow in my reader.

I’m usually quite judicious at going through my reader; looking for the most interesting and useful post titles. When open my reader daily, it takes me less than an half-hour to scan and partially read all the posts on 190 feeds. But that’s usually a few hundred.

What do you think happened when I didn’t check my reader in a month? Same as email…but worse. Thousands of posts sitting unread in my feed reader. I know some of them have to be great. I know that some of them have to be helpful. What’s more, I know reading some of them would help me as a blogger and a business owner.

But there’s just no way I have the time to wade through all those posts to find the jewels.

My option…just not read any of them. Let them all go. Mark them all as read. What I missed, I missed. Simple as that.

I does pain a bit. But I guess that’s just comes from being afraid I’ll miss out on something amazing. And, well, I haven’t really. Information that’s that good will be back around. And I’ve certainly not missed out on the important things…like family.

Anyhow, when you’ve gotten way behind, what have you done to catch up? Have you slogged the mountain of email and lived to tell about it? How?

Letā€™s not waste each othersā€™ time! I want to help your blog or website quickly and efficiently AND youā€™ll get some link love on my blog.

That mention will drive traffic and help with your rankings in Technorati and the Search Engines. In order to do that, Iā€™ve got to sneak up on your blog, and tip it!

How to get your Blog Tipped:

1. Mention my blog in your post, hereā€™s the HTML:
   <a href=ā€http://www.douglaskarr.comā€ title=ā€The Marketing Technology Blogā€>Get your Blogging Tips from Douglas Karr at The Marketing Technology Blog</a>
2. Drop me a line in the comments of this post with a link to your post.

My promise: Iā€™ll spend a couple minutes reviewing your layout, usability, SEO, and your latest posts to find something that will help tweak your website or blog. Iā€™ll make an effort to make the tip unique to every blog or website rather than trying to wuss out and collectively ā€˜tipā€™ multiple blogs.

Sounds like a pretty cool deal, huh?

Well, he’s been part of the team that has been redesigning Google Analytics. You can read about the whole new experience with Google Analytics to get an idea of what’s changing. Or read a great overview from Avinash Kaushik. Avainash has a ton of screen shots of the new interface, highlighting a number of new features. Last thing, take a tour of Google Analytics new features and design – definitely worth watching.

Of course reading this in Jeffrey’s blog this morning, I jumped right over to my Analytics account to see the updates. I was a bit saddened to see the same interface. I soon learned that the updates will happen to everyone’s current Google Analytics accounts over the next few weeks.

All I can tell you is the changes look incredible. As do some of the new features. Can’t wait until my account is updated.

Are you using Google Analytics? Do you find it to be useful?

Thanks to Jeffrey Veen for use of the new Google Analytics screen shot.

UPDATE: I’ve found a bunch of others who have done reviews of the new Google Analytics.

• First Look: Google Analytics Launches New Interface and Reporting
• Google Analytics Gets A Pretty Reporting Interface
• Google Analytics Relaunches with a Simplified Interface
• Google Analytics Gets An Upgrade
• Google Analytics Gets A Beautiful New Interface
• New Version of Google Analytics
• Google Analytics Redesigns
• Google Analytics Relaunches
• Hurray, A New Version of Google Analytics
• A New Version of Google Analytics Released
• Google Analytics Relaunched
• Google Upgrades and Re-launches Analytics

1. Lorelle on Wordpress – If I need anything related to WP, I go to Lorelleā€™s site first. It is such a comprehensive resource. (Bookmark it NOW)
2. WordPress Codex – The second place I go when I need a question answered.
3. Probloggerā€™s WordPress Resources
4. Alex King – Iā€™m loving the Most Popular plugin (I have it running at CasualKeystrokes and it will be here soon)
5. cre8d design
6. Lisa Sabin-Wilson – her upcoming book Wordpress for Dummies is sure to be a must have resource
7. WASABI WP Plugins
8. Themes.wordpress.net – the huge sortable database of free WP themes
9. WP Designer – themes and support forums
10. Brian Gardner – more beautiful themes
11. Kaushel Sheth – and more great themes
12. ThemesBase – more themes and support forum
13. WordPress Station – a WP blog about WP

I used 1-3 regularly. And Alex King is a great resource for anything WordPress.

There are a few other resources I either use regularly or have found to be helpful for my clients:

1. WordPress.org – Home to everything WordPress.
2. WordPress Plugins – Finally a plugin directory on WordPress.org. Good initial place to search for plugins – growing quickly.
3. Weblog Tools Collection – Daily updates of new themes and plugins. I read feed daily.
4. BloggingPro – Up-to-Date news about many things WordPress.
5. The WordPress Podcast – WordPress Community Podcast. Nice listens. Most recent podcast covers WordPress 2.2 delay and how tagging figures into future updates.
6. 7 Essential WordPress Hacks – Tubetorial’s 7-part video how-to series. Well-done, easy to follow.
7. WordPress on YouTube – Over 11,000 More than 500 video clips related to using WordPress. Need to know how to do something, likely find it there. (updated)
8. UPDATE: www.wordpressthemes.com

So there’s a few more helpful WordPress Resources. You can find a ton of WordPress sites so if you have anything to add, please let me know.

What is popuri.us? It’s a single site where you can check a number of your blog’s rankings and popularity stats, including:

• Google Pagerank – Google Pagerank and the Prediction Tool
• Alexa Rank
• Compete Rank
• Quantcast Rank
• Google Backlinks
• Yahoo! Backlinks
• Live Search Backlinks
• Technorati inbound links
• del.icio.us bookmarks
• Bloglines subscribers

I used it and it ranked everything accurately as I know it. If nothing else, I got a bunch of information about the popularity of my blog with a simple click. Not bad. Useful to some degree.

What might be more useful is the popuri.us widget that can display live stats on your blog. I’m probably not going to use it just because I don’t want to add any clutter to my blog. But it could useful for others.

But I’ve always wondered if Google is always the best option.

Well Phil Bradley has compiled a list of what he calls Finding What You Need With The Best Search Engines. I’ve looked over the list and found the usuals like Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Live Search for keyword searches.

But there’s some other gems in the list. Like using Encarta and Answers.com for facts searching or GooFresh for new additions to Google. KartOO, of course, gives some beautiful, visual search results (try it if you haven’t) and can be fun to use. I’d never seen Quintura before, but I can see its usefulness. It displays search results with a tag could of similar search keywords.

There’s lots of good stuff on his list. Much you’ve probably seen but some I’m sure you haven’t. So take a look, and let me know what gems you find.

By the way, he plans to continue updating this list on a regular basis. Maybe this is a resource to bookmark.

I have a number of processes that help me keep a stable and productive workflow. Yet I’m always looking for better and more efficient ways to run my business.

So is Ben Yoskovitz. But he wants to help all of us with our productivity. That’s why he’s instigated (sorry Ben, couldn’t resist) the Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project Meme.

Ben kicked it off by tagging Alister Cameron, Adam Kayce, Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Wee, David Armano, Tony Clark, Mike Sansone and Chris Cree. As of tonight, Adam and Andrew have responded with some solid tips. I’d love to hear from everyone else Ben’s tagged.

You’re probably wondering how did I get here then? Well, Adam tagged me along with Dave Schoof, Char, Chris Garrett, and Karin H. H. Each should have some great feedback.

So are you ready to hear one of the ways I stay highly productive?

Focus. No, not you – if you’re reading you’re focused enough. My productivity tip is focus. For every 60 minutes of the workday, I stay micro focused for 50 minutes. Then I get out of my chair, away from my computer and out of my office for 8 minutes (give or take). The remaining two minutes I settle back down in my chair, look over my next todos and look at what I can accomplish in the next 50 minutes. Then I’m off to the races again.

During my 50 minutes of focus, I do nothing except what is on my todo list. If I’m writing code, I code for 50 minutes. If I’m returning phone calls, I do that for 50 minutes. If I’m writing a blog post, I do that for only 50 minutes. I keep a timer running in the background with an alarm so I don’t have to watch the clock.

This sounds similar to what Ben suggested about working in bursts. I take a bit different approach then being single tasked for a length of time. For me it’s all about how much I can get done in 50 minutes. Like Ben, I stay focused to one task at a time. But if I complete that task in under 50 minutes, I move on to the next task that needs to be done. Sometimes I can get dozens of tasks done in 50 minutes. Sometimes, like with coding and styling a website, I may work an entire day at 50 minute intervals. They key, for me, is in working uninterrupted for 50 minutes.

Also, during the 50 minutes I don’t answer the phone, I shut down my email client and turn off my feed reader. I minimize all programs that don’t directly relate to my task at hand. Not answering the phone and shutting down my mail client are TWO MAJOR KEYS to making this work.

So when do I answer email or return phone calls? Well, that happens in its own 50 minute block. As does scheduling coaching and consulting sessions with clients. I just don’t do these things during a 50 minute block where they’re not included.

One other trick to this…you have to walk away for the 8 minutes. Regardless of how little or much you’ve gotten done, stop at 50 minutes. Walk away. And then come back. That short break every hour has helped me stay even more focused during my 50 minute blocks. And, I find that I’m more refreshed at the end of the day.

So that’s it. This process has probably increased my productivity two fold, minimum. Probably more.

To summarize…

1. Begin with a clear task list for the day based on all the projects you have going on (I’ll let someone else tackle creating task lists)
2. Work through your task list in 50 minute intervals. Remain highly focused on the one task you’re working on.
3. If you complete your task in less time, move on to the next one. If not, stop at 50 minutes anyhow and pick up where you left off in the next interval.
4. At the end of 50 minutes – stop what you’re working on. Get away from your work, leave your computer/office for 8 minutes. Get some water, do something completely unrelated to work. Breathe…
5. After 8 minutes (or so) return to your office and spend the remaining two minutes preparing for the next 50 minute interval.
6. Repeat.

So now it’s time for me to tag some folks I’d love to hear from. I’m tagging Dave Taylor, Liz Strauss, David Airey, Ted Demopolous, Andy Beard, Mike Sansone (again), Edward Mills, Drew McLellan, Valeria Maltoni, Sarah Lewis, Doug Karr, Easton Ellsworth, Aaron Potts, and David Armano.

I’d love to hear feedback on anyone else who’s using or trying this method of working. It’s worked great for me.

I’d also love to hear your ideas for improving on it or adding to it with other productivity tips. So please, share your thoughts, ideas and tips.

And remember to visit Ben, Wendy Piersall, Kathie Thomas, Harrison Loke, Ploop, Engtech, Lorraine Pirihi, Janet Barclay – who have already shared their gems for productivity.

When I began blogging, I knew commenting on other blogs was important. My comments created interest in my blog, which led to increased traffic, which led to more readers.

I also thought it would lead to more links to my blog. Every day I’d visit and leave comments on anywhere from 12-20 blogs. And each day I’d check for link backs in Technorati and Google Blog Search. But I wasn’t getting any. I didn’t know why. I thought I might be doing something wrong.

It was only later that I learned that almost all blogs don’t reward commenters with link backs. That ticked me off a little bit so I looked into why.

It seems that all blogware – WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Movable Type, etc – inserts a little piece of code in all outgoing links that come from comments. In an attempt to stop comment spam, this little piece of code tells search engines not to follow and record any outgoing links placed in comments. Essentially it neuters your comments. And, what’s worse, it doesn’t stop comment spam.

So I say, let’s ditch it. Let’s get rid of this little piece of code. And let’s start giving link love to everyone who comments on our blog. Isn’t it the least we can do to thank them for being a part of our conversations?

This little piece of code looks like this rel=”nofollow”. If you haven’t done anything to remove it, you can guarantee it’s still there. With a very little effort, you can remove it from your blog. Below I offer you some simple options:

WordPress
Very, very easy to remove. You just need to install a plugin. There are many, but I like Kimmo Suominen’s Dofollow. The steps to install are easy:

1. Download the plugin
2. Unzip it
3. Upload it to your WordPress plugins folder on your server (wp-content/plugins/)
4. Login to your WordPress admin account, go to ‘Plugins’ and activate it.
5. That’s it. No more rel=”nofollow”

Blogger
BetaBlogger has the details of how to remove rel=”nofollow” from Googles Blogger.

TypePad
I’ve searched and been asking around – nothing yet. Will update if I find something. UPDATE: After a bit of investigation, it appears that removing rel=”nofollow” from TypePad is a bit more involved – requiring some coding. If anyone has a post about the process, I’d love to know about it.
Movable Type
Found one post from someone who tried to disable nofollow and eventually got nowhere.

If you use WordPress, it’s easy. So what are you waiting for? Remove that nofollow. Because don’t you think it’s time you give your commenters a little more link love?

SOAP is a free blogging tips exchange program. Easton wants to get 100 bloggers who can SOAP each other up and scratch each other’s backs by March 31, 2007. It’s free and all you have to do to get free blogging advice is give some free advice to another blogger that he will assign to you.

This sounds like a great opportunity to both share and learn, as well as meet other bloggers. Easton has more details at Pass The SOAP: Improve Blogs With The Scratch One Another Program.

And if you already know you’re interested, then head on over and fill-in the SOAP questionnaire.

One note, photo borrowed from Business Blogwire’s site.

Lucia from The Blog Studio posted a simple, easy-to-understand glossary of popular blog terms. It’s not the most comprehensive list I’ve seen, but it’s a pretty good start. And it’s written in a way that I think can benefit newbie bloggers.

As a matter of fact, their Beginner Blog Basics posts have been really good for beginning bloggers. To all newbie bloggers, I recommend getting their feed so you can keep up with their Beginner Blog Basics series.

I’ve done this plenty. But to keep in the conversation, I’ve had to do one of three things: Either I grab a comment rss feed – but those are rare; bookmark the page – easy to forget about; or send a link to myself by email – not efficient.

So engaging in conversations in comments has been quite a pain in the rear – until now.

A few weeks ago I got tired of trying to track the comments I had left on other blogs myself. So I poked around the web and found a few services that would help me track comments. I ended up choosing coComment (though I was really close to choosing co.mments).

Since choosing coComment, my blogging life has changed considerably. I now can comment on any number of blogs and then easily track the conversations around my comments in one, easy-to-use place. I select which comment threads I want to track – coComment does the rest. And I can stop tracking any comment at any time.
Of course, there are other features as well. But I’ll let The Blog Herald, TechCrunch, Solution Watch, Jason Powell, or Business Blogwire tell you more. As I said, co.mments is a pretty nice solution as well. You can read Michael’s review at TechCrunch.

CoComment really has changed the way I blog. Now I want to get into conversations in other blogger’s comments because I know I can easily track how the conversation goes.

How have you been tracking your comments? Do you even bother? Why/why not? As my three year-old daughter says to me, “tell me all about it.”

I’ve been officially blogging since January 8th and I’ve already collected and deleted more than 600 spam comments. In the same amount of time I’ve recorded more than 200 legitimate comments Akismet (thank you to all of you, by the way). If it wasn’t for , I can’t imagine how much more work blogging would be.

So far Akismet has caught every piece of comment spam while only catching three legitimate comments. So I want to send a shout out to Matt Mullenweg of WordPress for it’s development. As of 6:40am this morning, here’s the amount of spam Akismet has caught. I refreshed the page a few times and the numbers jump quite a bit in only seconds between refreshes. And look at this number – 94% of all comments Akismet catches is spam. WOW!

Steve Rubel reports that eBuilt Group tracked 8.8 million pings on weblogs.com between January 23rd and January 26th and found that 53% of all pings is spam, 64% of all pings from blogs in English is spam and 56% of all pinging blogs are spam. Amazing, huh?

And it’s not just post comments. The blogosphere is riddled with spammers. ProBlogger cites that MyBlogLog is having to create their own anti-spam policy. I guess where there’s success, there’s freeloading spammers waiting to pounce.
So that leads me to the question…does spam work? It has too, right? I mean if it didn’t work, why would it be so prevalent? So while I just delete it without as much as a glace, others must be allowing it on their blogs.

Well, we can all do something to combat it?

1. First moderate all your comments.
2. Second, get a comment spam filter in place for your blog. For WordPress Akismet or Spam Karma 2 work great. Movable Type and TypePad users, check out Six Apart’s Anti-Spam Plugin Page. If you use Blogger, you’re likely using captcha, which also works well.
3. Third, don’t ever click on a spam link. Doing so is like responding – you’ll get flooded with spam after that.
4. Fourth, when you’re moderating your comments, error on caution. I delete any comment that doesn’t look legitimate, even if the comment is a nice one. Look at the email and web addresses of the comment for origin. That often gives it away.

You really can combat comment spam. Most bloggers do it. If you don’t, begin with the steps above and you’ll find some immediate relief.

And, let’s ask our readers – what have you done to successfully combat comment spam?

Lots of folks followed up. I found it on through Obviousness & Tell Ten Friends.

• WordPress – in opinion, the blogger’s blogware. Easy install, themes, plugins gallore, easy-to-use interface and great development community. Best of all – free. I’ve not used MoveableType, but with WordPress I don’t fee like I’ll ever need too.
• FeedBurner – everything I want to know about my feeds. Who, what, where, when. And now, new and improved with site stats.
• Google Analytics – I’ve looked at a lot of stats packages. Google Analytics, for me, is the best of the free options. Lots and lots of stats, easy-to-read charts and graphs, Adwords integration, keyword tracking, e-commerce and marketing funnel tools. Great solution. Just glad it’s free.
• GMail – I don’t use my GMail account all the time. But when I do, I’m always impressed with some new feature I find. I’ve used Hotmail and YahooMail – I feel GMail is superior.
• Google BlogSearch – I’ve not been happy with the search results in Technorati. But I’ve been quite happy with the results in Google BlogSearch. Leave it to Google to get search right.
• YouTube – just an awesome resource for video. Love that I can stream video from YouTube on my blog.
• Skype – I get a handful of international clients each year. Skype has made it easier to work with them.
• MyBlogLog – so far, the best community I’ve joined. And some good stats.
• LiveOffice TeleConferencing – free, anytime, on-demand teleconferencing service up to 250 users. Also free mp3 recording.

What I’m turning too next

• Ma.gnolia – haven’t been into del.icio.us yet. Guess I’ve been waiting to check out Ma.gnolia.
• Blinksale – I may take my invoicing online (though I know the service isn’t free)

What are your favorite free web-based apps? And, what do you use that I should be checking out?

Yeah, like you, I thought it was one of the coolest things I’d seen when I first saw it in action. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t like an attractive, live popup window that gave you a preview of the site page you’re about to click on.

But soon the novelty wore off. Soon I saw Snap as a pain the rear-end. I began to dread mousing over links on blogs for fear that Snap would lurking. It really got in the way of me enjoying my blog reading experience. I found myself not wanting to click links on blogs that I knew used it.

It’s not that Snap Preview Anywhere isn’t a good idea. I may just be that it’s not ready for primetime. Ben Yoskovitz cites in his post Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere:

• It can be slow to load
• It sometimes hovers the preview popup image over text Iā€™m reading
• Itā€™s distracting

Nick Wilson goes on with 3 Reason Why Snap Preview is Ruining Your Blog and Hurting Your Readership:

1. Accidental triggers: …the unintentional triggering of the SPA popup is distracting, at best. It draws the eye away from the task at hand
2. Click stalling: …when trying to click a link…I have to click several times to get the damn thing to work.
3. I trust you:…despite…being really busy, im at your blog! …if you’re linking to it, that’s good enough for me.

I’ve had the same experiences and frustrations with this little plugin. Isn’t it about time we all just stop using it?

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger disabled it and he’s certainly a good lead to follow. Darren Barefoot’s Not Feeling It. The Montoya Herald says, It’s a bad idea, dumb bloggers love it (though I can’t support the name calling). Lorelle has even gone so far as to publicly apologize to her readers for having used it. Others who tried it are disabling it as well.

Now to be fair, there are some who love it and I don’t want to make them wrong. Who did you install it for? You or your readers? If the answer is the latter, then you need to poll your readership to see whether they like it. If so, keep it. If not, or if it was just some ‘awesome tool’ you wanted to add to your blog, reconsider. So due what Darren did and ask your readers.

The bottom line, blogging is about your readers. If everything you do with your blog is for them, they will come, read, return and possibly spread the word. If, however, you’re blogging for yourself, then likely you’re going to be the only one regularly reading your blog. It’s all in what you want.

What’s your experience with Snap Preview Anywhere?

(note to Ben, giving proper credit, I borrowed the image off your site. If there’s any problem, let me know. Thanks, in advance.)

My friend Rich Brooks from Flyte has tried to help with his post a few day back, How to Subscribe to a Blog Feed. Mike, from Converstations, the folks over at Business Blog Consulting, and I have tried to get the word out.

You may wonder how people can regularly read dozens or even hundreds of blogs . Do these people visit dozens or hundreds of blogs a day, on the hope that each one has a new post worth reading and reviewing? How do they get any work done? Don’t they have lives?!?

The answer is that they use newsreaders to subscribe to multiple blogs. With a newsreader–like my personal favorite, NetNewsWire, (sorry, Mac only!) or Bloglines–you can quickly scan dozens of different blogs in a format that looks a lot like an email program.

However, subscribing to a blog feed isn’t as intuitive as it should be. The very act that we’ve trained people to do on the Web–click on a link–brings up a page of XML mumbo-jumbo.

His video, How-To Subscribe to a Blog Feed: The Movie!, does a nice job covering subscribing to an online service, like Bloglines. Definitely worth a watch.

Thanks Rich.

As of today, MyBlogLog community has only 12 members. Yet, I’m so pleased that they’ve joined my community that I’d like to acknowledge them right here:

• Micah Schaeffer from Blogging on Blogging (MyBlogLog link)
• Mike Sansone from Converstations (MyBlogLog link)
• Catherine (cat) Morley from Designers who Blog (MyBlogLog link)
• Gary Conn from Google SEO, Successful Blogging, Online Marketing (MyBlogLog link)
• Chris Brown from Branding & Marketing (MyBlogLog link)
• Internet Strategy Blog (MyBlogLog link)
• Daily Domainer News (MyBlogLog link)
• Debojit Chowdbury from Free Life Coaching (MyBlogLog link)
• PayPerPost (MyBlogLog link)
• Tim Kevan from The Barrister Blog (MyBlogLog link)
• Laura from My Journey to One Million Dollars (MyBlogLog link)
• The SEO Fox Blog (MyBlogLog link)

So check out these blogs and their communities on MyBlogLog. And while you there, stop by my community and tell me about yourself.