One of the most divisive issues among bloggers is whether it is better to use a blog editor, such as Windows Live Writer or MarsEdit, or just your default Web-based writing panel in WordPress or MovableType.

There are strong believers in both camps and both sides have excellent points. As with most great debates, it comes down to a matter of personal choice but before you decide which camp you are in, it’s important to understand at least some of the arguments for and against using a stand alone blog editor application.

Whether it is a Firefox extension, such as Scribefire, a whole new application, such as Blogo, or something else altogether, there are drawbacks and benefits to doing your writing outside of your blog’s admin panel and it is best to be aware of them.

So here are five of the biggest arguments for and against using a new application to create your blog posts. read more

Media companies with vast budgets who produce “professional content” should get some preferential treatment from Google, according to a weekend report in Advertising Age.

I’ve avoided using sensationalist headlines because I think there’s value in looking at the underlying principles here.

It would be very easy for me, as a blogger, to have a knee-jerk reaction against those calling for Google to favour certain brands, particularly as one content executive described bloggers as “parasites off the true produces of content”. read more

Huffington Post has an interesting piece up on Omid Reza Mir Sayafi’s death in an Iranian prison, written by an Iranian student (under a pseudonym of course). It brings some perspective, and springs from Sayafi’s writing, which is interesting of course. You can read his blog too, despite it being pulled offline, using the amazing Wayback machine.

Another interesting post on the topic is on Global Voices Online, about the Iranian online censorship. It puts things into perspective.

Let’s face it: Twitter is huge, and is just gonna get bigger for quite some time at least. Three years in we’re seeing it hitting mainstream, getting more funding, rejecting Facebook buyouts, and still searching for its business model. It’s pretty amazing really. A somewhat late happy birthday Twitter!

More on Techmeme, as usual when Twitter is involved.

In my last post, I gave the first step to finding good long tail keywords. Here is the second step.  Also, I’ll talk about part three next Sunday.

• Part 1: Generate an initial keyword list.
• Part 2: Target the keywords.

Part 2: Target the keywords.

Targeting your keywords is a pretty simple process.  But many bloggers make one of these two common mistakes.

First, don’t spam the keyword in your blog post.  Most bloggers don’t seem to have this problem, but it’s worth mentioning just in case.  Google has penalties for keyword spamming.  Also, keyword spam is annoying to your readers.

The second mistake is more common: not being aggressive enough with your targeting.  Yes, I know I just talked about not spamming but some bloggers make the mistake on the other end of the spectrum.  They barely include the keywords in their posts. read more

Twitter. Facebook. MySpace. Flickr. YouTube.

Are these and other social media hangouts hurting or helping your blog?

No matter what your answer is, you must admit that blogs no longer dominate the social media landscape as they did in, say, 2006. While blogs still form the center of many companies’ social media marketing efforts, they’re now joined by a wide variety of other platforms and services.

2009: A Crossroads of Social Confluence

We stand at a crossroads of sorts. The online world is undergoing so much convergence that blogs and other so-called “social media” tools are becoming quite difficult to distinguish from each other.

We used to publish and discuss material at our blogs, reaching out on fledgling online social networks to find readers and approval. We still do that, but we now have more options and more reasons for holding substantial conversations outside of our blogs. read more

Buzznet, which operates the web’s largest community of pop culture web sites with an audience of 40 million unique monthly users, has changed its name to Buzz Media. The newly-named company will focus on the continued growth of its socially programmed web sites, including Celebuzz, Buzznet, the Superficial, SocialiteLife, What Would Tyler Durden Do, Stereogum, Idolator, Just Jared and Absolute Punk.

Buzz Media announced that it has secured a new round of financing totaling $12.5 million. Focus Ventures joined the latest round. Existing investors, including Anthem Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures, also participated in the round.

Buzz Media will use the funds for the continued growth of its portfolio of leading pop culture properties. More than 40 million people worldwide visit Buzz Media properties every month. The company’s pop culture focused portfolio includes leading online music and celebrity destinations.

With social media tools we have the ability to instantly become a citizen of the world. We probably have more interactions in a single day than many people from our grandparents times met in their whole life. This has both advantages and negatives, and navigating these will have a profound impact on your happiness and your success. read more

I’m not the right person to judge the new Facebook design because I find the social network utterly boring, and the only reason I even reactivated my account was to get in touch with people addicted to the service. I will say that the previous design was cluttered, while this one is nicer on the eye. That is, however, not the most important thing when it comes to app-like services and sites like Facebook, and a lot of users dislike the new design.

A new Facebook application, called New Layout Vote, lets you vote on the new design. These are disheartening numbers for Zuckerberg & Co., because as of now, some 900,911 users have voted and the score is a whopping 94% against the new design. As in don’t like it. The app will break 1 million in a few hours time, if the increase in votes right now is anything to go by.

More on Techmeme, of course.

So what do you think about the (fairly) new Facebook design?

It’s not news that many journalists working in traditional print media are feeling the pinch, but a new survey published in Nature journal suggests that science journalism is really under pressure.

Surveying nearly 500 science journalists from Europe and North America, it found that jobs are being lost because the science sections of newspapers aren’t making money.

Conversely, it found that science blogs and web sites run by researchers are growing in number and readership, and are often looked to by traditional journalists for story ideas.

Of course there are plenty of issues to contend with when it comes to science blogging — authenticity and trustworthiness, for a start, as well as how to monetise, particularly when sponsorship and advertising could come from drug companies, threatening readers’ perception of a site’s impartiality.

Are science blogs a good substitute for the in-depth research and analysis found in the papers?

(Via Xinhua Net)