There is a reason why journalists must study journalism before any serious news outlet even considers hiring them. That is because journalism involves more than simply observing and reporting in your own words. However, there are bloggers abound who operate news blogs, or write news blog posts, that never studied journalism and it shows. It may seem harmless, but humans have a nasty habit of believing anything they read at face value. This includes news blogs. These same readers then regurgitate what they’ve read on their own blogs, and the snowball effect gets under way. These bloggers would benefit from learning the following things that every journalist already knows:

Fact Checking

This is of prime importance. To avoid perpetuating false information, you must make sure that you have the facts 100% accurate or at the very least mention that your information was of the “to the best of my knowledge” type. In the newspaper industry, multiple people check and re-check all the factual information in a reporter’s story before printing it. Of course, many bloggers don’t have the luxury of an office staff, but a good substitute would be to check at least 2 independent sources.

News is News, Opinion is Opinion

If you are writing a news piece, you should remain as objective as possible throughout. The intended purpose of news is to offer the reader the facts, so they can then decide for themselves how they feel about it. Stick to the facts, don’t embellish, or sensationalize anything; that is the hallmark of a good news writer and blogger.

Strive for Balance

Even if you just report the facts, be sure to get facts from both sides of the issue whenever possible. Without intending to do so, you could influence the reader’s opinion by omitting the facts from the other side of the equation. For instance, has there ever been a time where you were bombarded with news about a particular issue and formed a strong opinion just from what you’ve read, but then later on heard new information that made you go “Wait a minute! I didn’t know that, this changes the whole issue”? So, just by reporting one side (even though all of it was factual) of the issue, the writer persuaded you by just omitting facts from the opposing view. Good news writers and bloggers don’t do that.

These 3 core concepts are the foundation of every good news writer and blogger. Just because you didn’t study journalism, if you write any kind of news then you are essentially a journalist. Hold yourself to the same standards, and you will be noticed for it.

In the last couple of years, guest posting on other people’s blogs has become a solid marketing technique. At first, the idea of letting some stranger post their content on your blog seemed ludicrous. However, many bloggers realized the benefits of more fresh unique content, and the wheel has been rolling ever since. I have personally guest posted on many different blogs, and I have noticed that guest posting is sometimes clumped together with article marketing as if they are “basically the same thing.” They are NOT the same thing. There are many differences, and that is what I want to explore. Let’s start with the similarities of the two: read more

As we all know, every blog has a beginning. The beauty of the web is that websites can be stored in a permanent cache; effectively taking a virtual snapshot of the way the blog exists at that moment in time and storing it for later retrieval. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could go back in time and see what certain blogs looked like then? Well, it turns out you can. Archive.org has a public cache that stores snapshots of websites at regular intervals. It is called the Wayback Machine, and works just like a regular search engine; I tapped into it to bring you some blog history. You punch in the URL of the blog/site you want to look up, and they show you what dates they have stored in their database. The tool is not flawless, and many searches turn up corrupted pages or missing images, but it is really cool nonetheless.   I did quite a bit of poking around on the database, and here are some of the snapshots I found:

The Blogs I Looked Up

From left to right, down the list in order, the blogs covered were Blog Herald, Boing Boing, Copyblogger, Engadget, John Chow, and Problogger. The thumbnails are in sequential order, so that you see the earliest snapshot of the blog to the most recent. To view each snapshot, just click on the thumbnail to load the full-size version of it. If you roll the mouse over each thumbnail, it will tell you what blog the snapshot is from and which date as well. This project was a lot of fun, and I could have gone on forever with it.

One thing that we can all take away from this example is the amazing amount of hard work and dedication the owners of these blogs have committed to their sites. We sometimes forget that everyone has a starting point, and everyone at one time was a nobody. Even Google. Now, I am gonna bet that after you read this post, you are going to head over to the Wayback Machine and start looking up all kinds of sites! Go for it.

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When you blog as much as I do, you feel like you’ve heard it all. I have never been offended by something an editor said, but I have certainly had those “did they really just say that?” moments. I think that one of the greatest parts about being a blogger is getting to meet a variety of different editors. You never know what to expect, and that’s what keeps the job interesting.

I would like to preface this list by saying a few things: First, I do not write for most of the editors that I have quoted below, so no use looking up my articles and trying to figure out which editors said what (I know you have a lot of time to do that). Second, the majority of these quotes were not taken out of context; in most cases, this was the only thing written in the email. Third, this is all completely true and was in no way exaggerated or made up (I couldn’t make this up if I tried).

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Even with the advent of social media, digital newspapers, smart phones, and tablets, targeted email marketing is still the most effective form of marketing online. We shouldn’t expect that to change anytime soon, so in the meantime, it would be a shame to pass-up email marketing as a revenue source. To help you capitalize on it as a blogger, I put together this resource kit that lists everything you need to get up and running with your own targeted email list and campaign except……..

Opt-In Incentive

Let’s face it; people aren’t going to join your mailing list because they think you’re a swell person. You see, people have been programmed to be automatically suspicious and reluctant to give out any personal information; including their email address. So, for them to give a total stranger their email address, it would be going against what they think is the safe choice, and if you want them to do that then you have to motivate them. The best way to do that is to give them something for free. EBooks work great; templates too, short reports as well, and even software. Creating a free product to giveaway is out of the scope of this email marketing kit, but it is something you will need to do before you will see any decent amount of opt-ins.

Email Marketing List Management Services

The first thing you need is a way to manage your list and automated bulk mailings. There are third-party services that can do this for you. Some people call them autoresponder services, but today’s services handle a lot more than just managing your autoresponder. Most of them handle list management, web forms, multiple lists, social media sharing, free scripts, and more. Nearly all of them have a free option that is limited to a certain number of subscribers, which can range from 200 to 2000 depending on the service and fluctuating terms. If you are just starting out, then build up your list until you max out your limit, and then upgrade to a paid plan as you go.

• Aweber
• Mail Chimp
• Campaign Monitor
• Email Brain
• Stream Send
• Benchmark Email
• Get Response
• Constant Contact
• iContact
• Graphic Mail
• Boomerang

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I honestly don’t fully know the best way to combat online piracy; but I do know that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) isn’t it. The bill would create a plethora of problems if it were passed. Let’s be real here, copyright infringement and piracy are real problems that need real solutions, but when you spot a weed growing in your front yard, do you dig up the entire lawn to get rid of it? No, you pull that weed, and ONLY that weed, out of the ground and you do your best to monitor the lawn for any future weeds.

User-Generated Content Sites and SOPA

One of the complaints that you’ll consistently hear about the SOPA bill is that it is way too generalized and all-encompassing. For instance, under SOPA, a site will be considered dedicated to the theft of U.S. intellectual property if it is “primarily designed or operated for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables or facilitates copyright infringement”. Well, take YouTube for example; the online video site serves an average of 100 million videos every single day. The majority of it is uploaded by users, who can remain anonymous with minimal effort if they so choose. Under SOPA, YouTube can be considered a site that is primarily designed in a way that enables copyright infringement because of those reasons. Totally nuts. Blog owners might find themselves harboring illegal content through RSS, and pay the price for it; who knows anymore? read more

While we’re opening up about blogging—I have an odd obsession with my blog contacts. People hear that I am a blogger and many instantly ask me where I guest post and how they can get involved. I am a huge blog enthusiast, so I love to hear that more people are becoming interested. I think blogging is a great way for people to connect with other like-minded people, and I love getting to know other bloggers. However, I find that I am very territorial over my editor contacts, and this is why:

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As someone who is somewhat new to the world of blogging, I found myself questioning many of the great blog posts. I assume that the blog community deems an article “great” when it gets more than 50 tweets or a lot of LinkedIn shares. The articles had great information, but there was one thing I couldn’t get past—the cheese. The majority of these articles had a long introduction that was cheesy and then a conclusion that summed up the cheesy metaphor. While some articles were clever and creative, I found the majority to be cheesy.

I continued to write my own blog posts and as time went on, I found that I was beginning to sound cheesy. I wanted something original, so I would force some extended metaphor onto the article. It started to seem as though this type of language was the mark of a good blog, so I began to adopt this tone. This led me to wonder: Have all the other bloggers done the same? Does anyone really like a cheesy sounding blog post, or is that just expected?

I decided to weigh the pros and the cons of the issue to see if the annoyance is actually beneficial:

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It’s never a bad time to launch a blog. And with the New Year upon nearly here, it’s actually a great time to get started. After all, a resolution to create a business blog is much more likely to be realized than one, say, to join a gym.

Starting a blog is quick, easy and won’t require web hosting services. That’s the good news. The better news is that a blog will successfully engage current and potential customers in a casual way that does not involve direct sales messages. This method establishes more personal relationship and builds trust.

Properly written and managed blogs are the most advantageous way to draw site traffic and create a buzz around your business. Fortunately for those considering a jump into the blogosphere, technology has advanced to the point where HTML knowledge is not needed and there are plenty of easy-to-use platforms available online.

How to Blog

To start your blog, you’ll need a catchy, SEO friendly name and an idea of what type of content you’ll want to focus your attention. Be sure to choose topics that would appeal to potential customers and ultimately generate sales. Sign up at a hosting service and use their software to get started.
Your blog should be linked to your business/corporate website through a keyword in the body of content.

Know the difference between the title and SEO title. The title will appear at the beginning of your article as posted on your blog. The SEO title is what search engines display in their directory listing. It is important for SEO purposes to use your selected keyword in the title and at the beginning of the title if possible.

The description is a short paragraph that puts your blog post into a nutshell for potential visitors who find it in a search engine ranking. Typically, descriptions should include the selected keyword(s) and be no more than 160 characters.

Meta tags should also be added to every blog post for increased search engine visibility. Use a keyword tool to put together a list of the highest ranking tags related to your business, industry or the particular blog post being created.

Don’t forget to optimize any pictures or video used with the blog post.

What to Write

A blog is an opportunity to engage an audience of potential customers. Discussions on topics related to the business or industry are encouraged, direct pleas for sales will likely turn off potential customers who gravitate toward blogs for their non-sales focus.

Write from a personal perspective that relays personality and character. Hopefully, this personal touch resonates with readers and will keep them coming back.

Blog visitor’s love to learn, and will return to sites that offer high quality content. How-to posts are extremely popular as are pieces that explain something in particular or add insight that is otherwise unavailable. Polls and contests are great ways to engage readers and create a buzz that can be shared through social media.

Blogging is very much a trial and error, evolutionary process. As you find an audience and engage their interests, topics and content will change as the formula is fine-tuned. Be flexible and pay attention to what types of blogs are getting more attention or generating comments and tweak content accordingly. With time and practice, you’ll be running a blog that successfully complements your online business/corporate presence.

What startup companies will get the love of venture capitalists in 2012?

It could be that the deflated web bubble is moving toward resurgence. That is if venture capitalists continue to fund their development effort with the vigor currently being seen. Based on current trends, it appears quite certain web and technology-based companies will continue in good graces.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s second annual listing of the top 50 venture-backed companies, investors are keen on Internet firms; particularly those with a consumer focus. To put the issue in focus, here are the five companies that topped the WSJ’s heap:
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