In the last article in this new series called Nothing to Blog About, I asked you to go back to your roots, in a sense, to start over and find that “lovin’ feeling” you’ve lost about your blog subject matter to re-energize your creative blogging spirit.

What happens if you can’t find it? What happens if you’ve really lost that lovin’ feeling? read more

A big turn-off for many people online are the rants, attacks and snarks that we see all too often in blogs. Really negativity is not attractive, and those who use negativity to attract an audience are storing up problems for the future. Sometimes though we have valid criticisms, how can we get our point across without making our audience think less of us? read more

One front page story at Philippine Star a few days ago involved four students of the Quezon City Science High School (a government-run science-oriented institution) being suspended due to several blog posts being severely critical of the school’s administration, particularly its principal.

Officials of the Quezon City Science High School (QCSHS) recently suspended four students who allegedly posted a blog that criticized the school’s principal.

The concerned blog … contains articles and photographs against Sadsad’s policies and person as well as the students’ gripes over irregular lunch hours and required subjects, among others.

The personal attacks against Sadsad in the blog even included violent declarations such as “Sadsad must die.”

While much of the students’ blog postings are on locked Multiply accounts–meaning they not for public consumption, but rather accessible to friends only–the Star cited another Multiply account as subject of the controversy.

I’m not taking sides on this issue yet. For all I know, the students’ gripes might be valid. But i usually get taken aback when people overdo it when they air their gripes online–especially if one resorts to personal attacks. This often results in a knee-jerk reaction, which can similarly be personal in nature. As bloggers, are we becoming a community of whiners? And because of this, are other people becoming overly defensive and over-reacting whenever they are attacked online? And why do we resort to ad hominem attacks?

On some forums and sites that I manage, I have experienced being on the receiving end of personally-directed attacks, too. Some are through private emails, some through public comments. Sometimes the argument gets lost in the midst of name-calling, swearing, and typing in all caps (probably the worst of ‘em all, eh?).

Then again, there’s a difference between launching an attack on one’s person and the recipient’s taking a valid argument too personally. But whether it’s one thing or the other, the perception of people reading rabidly-written complaint blog posts might not be too good. read more

The b5media WordPress mastermind, Mark Jaquith, has a great tip on merging multiple WordPress blogs.

Here’s my tip: do not select an existing blog user to “own” the imported content! Instead, create a new temporary user just for that content. Here is why: the imported posts may need some manual cleanup, like integration into the new blog’s category structure, or adding/removing tags.

Why? Check out his post for an answer to that. Wise words, take it from someone who’s merged 7 blogs into 1 successfully…

There comes a time in a blogger’s life when time for writing is a bit too sparse, and you can only post once in a while. And one mistake that most bloggers make is to do those “I’ve been busy …” and “Sorry I haven’t posted much lately …” posts, or something to that effect, where you detail practically everything that makes you busy, to the extent that you miss the point of your post, and focus only on why you weren’t able to post for the past few days/weeks/months.

I’ve been reading through Stephane Grenier’s Blog Blazers (my review at Performancing) and one of the common blogging mistakes cited by the interviewed top bloggers was exactly this. The point is that if you’ve been busy, then you shouldn’t have to explain yourself. Just write. Just publish. Just blog.

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For anyone who wants to grow their blog and improve their writing there is a wealth of advice out there, from sites like this where news and tips are shared in equal measure, and then there are problogger and a million problogger wannabes. Fact is, sometimes it seems there is too much advice … how do you know who to listen to? read more

I am currently reading through a great ebook by my friends at Invesp called “Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide” and it made me realize something about what seperates successes from everyone else.

My theory is out of all the people you meet, the most successful people are never satisfied. read more