On March 15, 2007 I wrote my first article for The Blog Herald. It was a very basic piece about fair use and blogging, sticking to my “home field” of copyright and blogging legal issues. Since then, nearly every Monday, I’ve written a column, well over 125 total.

During all of this time, I made a lot of great friends and covered a lot of topics. Though I started in just the legal field, I quickly branched out into other areas that might be of interest to bloggers including WordPress-related news as well was tips, tricks and applications that I discovered as well as blogging news.

However, today is the day where I announce that my time with the Blog Herald is now at an end. It has been a wonderful two-and-a-half years, but a lot has changed in that time. The biggest change is that, in August, I joined CopyByte.com, a Web startup I now manage that deals with practical copyright enforcement. It is that project that now takes up the bulk of my time.

As the year winds down to a close, with Paul Scrivens taking over as SplashPress’ Media Publisher and a bright future ahead for the Blog Herald, as well as all of SplashPress’ sites, the time has come for me to step aside both to focus on my new ventures and make room for the new faces and ideas to come to the site.

So, in this, my last column for the Blog Herald, I wanted to take a moment to give thanks to everyone who has helped me over the years here, especially Mark Saunders for taking a chance on an unknown bloggers such as myself, the many editors I have worked with over the years here at the Blog Herald and the other writers here who I have worked with proudly.

Thank you very much everyone for two and a half great years and I’m looking forward to seeing what great things come from the Blog Herald in the coming months and years.

I may not be writing my usual Monday columns, but I will definitely be around…

What separates a blog and a forum? It’s not as simple of an answer as it was just a few years ago.

Forums have long been making use of RSS feeds and some have even adopted more blog-like layouts. Now many forum applications have begun sending pingbacks and trackbacks to articles linked in posts, an activity that began and, previously was limited to, blogs.

However, blogs have also begun to become more and more forum-like. Though comments have always been a major part of blogging, many are also encouraging original submissions. They are also placing a heavier emphasis on comments and services such as Disqus and Intense Debate provide greater commenter identity and cross-site accounts.

In short, where forums have been pulling from the playbook of blogs in their newest features, blogs have been gradually becoming more community-oriented, turning away from the author-oriented approach they are often associated with.

This has had the effect of blurring the lines between the two and confusing many who are building new sites.

To help make sense of it, I decided to turn to my long-time friend, podcast co-host and all-around community expert Patrick O’Keefe in hopes he could provide some insights into their similarities and differences as well as help sites decide which format is right for them. read more

My “day” work is in magazine publishing – the past two years with men’s interest magazines. Over coffee, two friends from the IT industry asked why can’t more women in technology be featured in the magazines (one of them was referring to the lack of “beauty and brains” in model spreads). This does make sense — more often than not, the bikini + pretty face combination seems to work in the mainstream setting. But really, haven’t we had enough of that?
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Performancing Ads has implemented a new affiliate system that will potentially give you a very profitable passive income. read more

Most blogger success stories do not happen overnight. For the most part, its perseverance and sustained hard word that rewards online scribes. What that means, is that by the time you start generating serious traffic, some of your strongest content is behind you. (I’m sure you’ll still write amazing posts, but you’ve probably blown a lot of your load).

So let me pose a question:

How do you feel about reposting articles?

I’m not talking about links to past posts or a highlighted section – I mean a straight on repost.

Will duplicate content piss off the search engines? Annoy your readers?

What are your thoughts?

With Labor Day right around the corner here in the States, there’s not much to look forward to in the way of holidays after the summer ends. We might not get the day off, but there’s always Halloween!

With approximately one-third of all adults dressing up, and virtually all kids, it’s time to start scouting out that perfect costume. Characters that appear to be popular for 2008:

The Joker from The Dark Knight
Transformers’ Optimus Prime
High School Musical’s Gabriella
Indiana Jones
Hannah Montana

If you’re searching for yourself, your kids or a friend, be sure to check out the Halloween Costume Shopping Blog. FYI: The blog is run by a company that sells costumes, 0ver 5,000 of them!

From sexy to funny, the blog will profile different costumes all the way to October 31, 2008.

It might be early to think about carving pumpkins and collecting candy, but with the summer about to end, we need something to hold on to! Plus, word on the street is that Joker costumes are already selling out. Y so serious!?

Another neat Halloween costume blog: Costumzee

Enjoy the final days of summer, because according to the ‘09 Farmers’ Almanac, we’re in for a helluva a winter. The 192-year-old journal which claims an 85% weather accuracy rate, contradicts a report from the National Weather Service which predicted warmer winter weather.

Since blogging is basically an indoor activity, you might be wondering why you’re reading about weather on BlogHerald. Well, I’m curious to hear from you if the weather – or general seasonality – affects your ability to blog.

I know, it might sound silly, but think it through for a moment. The outside environment does impact our mood, no? Quite possibly, your writing follows suit.

So how does the weather outside and overall seasonality impact your blogging skills?

For example, I find myself busier and more distracted during the summer months. But cold weather stresses me out. So what’s my perfect blogging conditions? Gray and cool. Bring it on!

Michael of TechCrunch fame is reporting that Google is in talks to purchase Digg for approximately $200 million.

(TechCrunch) Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source. [...]

The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes.

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Mofuse, a web service dedicated to creating mobile versions of blogs (including one for the iPhone), is discontinuing their pro accounts and is instead giving away all of their premium features to new (and “freebie” users) without charging them a dime.
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Today’s New York Times profiles Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook, who left the company in early 2007 to begin work on Barack Obama’s new-media campaign as a part of his run for the presidency.

His efforts, using the lessons learned from founding and running Facebook, have paid off for Senator Obama in ways many could only imagine… read more