Champagne Living

Zipporah writes about dancing and giving yourself permission to be who you are on I Am a Dancer & So Are You.

Dave Mora Content and Network

Because I love Chespirito’s creations—especially “El Chavo del Ocho”—, I can’t help but link to System of a Down and Chespirito, a post containing 3 YouTube videos created by Brazilian fans.

Spiral Scratch

I have mixed feelings about Liz’s post Don’t Stop Believin’…in Web 2.0?, so I’ll just invite you to read it and draw your own conclusions.

LaurieWrites

Laurie shares two pics from her trip to Vietnam on a post appropriately named Hanoi. It works as a teaser for her related Flickr album, which features much more images.

The Inspired Room

If you spend hours a day in your kitchen, you may want to get some Inspiration for a Creative & Unique Kitchen. The article contains several beautiful photos.

Razzball

On the post Diamond Mind Baseball Draft, Lou Poulas writes about fantasy league ATB (All Time Baseball), which is based on Diamond Mind Baseball’s simulation technology.

11 Minutes

The blog features an 11 minutes interview with Vladimir Oane, the creator of upcoming social media conversation tracker uberVU.

Girlfriend Celebrations

If you’re a girly type and enjoy parties, you’ll love the blog and will want to try their celebration ideas, such as the ones described at Dance Your Girls Night Away!

Rock&Roll Mama

Lindsay writes about catching up with Old Friends and also pays homage to her grandmother.

Ant

The author proves you can survive to the death of your blog. Read his story at What I Learnt from my Blog FAIL.

Idaho Wood Sheds Blog

The Idaho Wood Sheds team gave away nearly 1,000 balloons during Western Idaho Fair, and they share a video at 1000 balloons = 1000 smiles from Idaho Wood Sheds to show how they made children smile with their action.

Internet Submitter

From the post Blogging For Years and Years:

Its funny to me that something that’s been around for so long can be redesigned in a way to look fresh to the masses of people everywhere. What I mean by that is questioned in this following sentence. How long have people across the world been writing?

Mom-101

The blogger posts a letter to her children at Broken Promise Number X. Many moms will relate to her feelings for sure.

Pencils and Parakeets

Leave a comment on Planning an art tutorial post, Suggestions welcome to answer Crystal’s questions and tell her how you’d like her tutorial to be.

Fig & Cherry

Christie teaches you How to make Vegemite caramel. The recipe serves 4 people.

This was my longest post in this series so far. Let’s hope the next ones will be as long. *crossing fingers*

You didn’t come here to see me whining about lack of time, right? Ok, here are the next places you’ll want to visit:

Faith Family Homeschool

I can’t write (good) poetry. So the post 30 Days of Poetry immediately caught my attention and was chosen to be part of this list.

TimmyJohnBoy.com

Tim is totally right: cats aren’t only for girls. My dad is a huge cat lover. And Tim certainly is so too, as you’ll see when you read Peanut: the personification of unconditional love and affection.

Drive Away Holidays

Unfortunately, many of have had our cars stolen—and others who haven’t so far will someday. The blogger explains how it feels like at You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It’s…Stolen.

Let’s see if my next post in this series will be a bit longer. Meanwhile, the links above—and those posted on the previous parts—will keep you busy and happy.

Wasabi Bratwurst

Mayonnaise used to be a very popular sauce in my country… two decades ago. Anyway, the post The Beauty of Homemade Mayonnaise brought back too many childhood memories to be ignored, thus my choice.

Miapella

The blogger explains how she takes care of 7 (!!!!!!!) children on the post Supermom?, complete with photos.

Sunriver Real State

Thesa gives home renters a relevant warning at Do You Know Where Your Rent Is Going?.

Blog Design Blog

I’m sure many of my readers would love to read a good article on How to Design for Ads in Blog Design. Now you can go ahead and thank me for the link. Nah, save your “thank you” messages for the author.

Three Boys, One Mommy

Many of us are slaves to traffic stats. Sometimes the only way to cure ourselves is to take radical measures, like the one described at Feedjit Can Suck it and Fandango Bucks Take Two.

IN SEARCH OF MY SIX PACK

Dimitri Nosarev has written a great post on wrong eating habits entitled Eating for six pack - Part 1.

Thrifty Jinxy

I’m afraid most–if not all–of this blog’s posts are useless to those who don’t live in North America. Incidentally, that’s my case. Anyway, as an old magazine lover I can’t help but recommend this: Best Deal Magazines - Subscriptions Less than $5 for a Full Year.

Gorgeous & Home

You’ll find an amusing post on knitting–and unrealistic expectations–at Knit Two, Drink Two.

Postcards From Myself

Testing The Waters is a thought-provoking entry. Read it and tell the blogger what you think about the subject. I’ll also leave a link to Making The Break, because I somehow relate to the situation described on it.

A Blogger Blog

The blog has a cool concept: it’s structured as an online course for bloggers. I must highlight the Lesson 10: Quality Content because it can never be stressed enough.

Art for the Web

Instead of selecting an article–and this blog contains several good ones–I chose to link to their Web Designers Directory. If you’re looking for professional design services, that is a place where you can find what you need.

Die Toon Die!

This blog is so cool and funny that I couldn’t choose a single post to highlight. Go see the pics and then tell me which your favourite ones are.

All being well, I’ll be back tomorrow with more links. See you!

Without further delays, here are my initial recommendations:

Dog Halloween Costumes

I chose Dog Halloween Costume Cape Fights Storm Fears Barking because this is a cool mix of sales pitch and useful tip. Besides, I love dogs.

Five Blondes

A blog written by five blonde sisters. The post Thoughts on a Monday Night contains some Halloween pics and a lovely cat image.

Mortgage Advice - Wisconsin

This is how the article 5 Ways To Avoid PMI or Lower Your PMI Payment begins:

Below are 5 ways to avoid PMI if you have less than a 20% down payment or less than 20% equity in the home for a refinance.  This is quality information that most people don’t write about, so I won’t keep you waiting…

la’ Matriarch

Gina describes her experience with a diet on Diet Number 785, Post Script. I’m not into this diet thing, but the post is amusing.

North Shore Style

The author writes about a decision making process applied to both business and personal situations on Lets peruse some of my essentials of cool: Decisions Decisions…

Daily WordPress Tips

Im’ going to be very obvious now and recommend their featured post 20 Tips To Optimize WordPress - A Checklist. Beginners will find it helpful.

Time to call it a day. More links will come tomorrow!

If that was your reaction to this post’s title, take it easy. I’m not going to list all of those posts at once. In fact, I’m still to select them. All I’ve done so far was to choose the source from which I’ll get plenty of blogs to review. Here it is: Tell us about Your Blog in 140 Characters or Less.

Why did you choose Darren’s experiment as your source of blogs?

Because I want to give my fellow bloggers some additional exposure. After all, very few readers would be brave enough–and/or have the time–to visit all of the 1,400+ blogs linked in that post’s comment section.

So, I’m going to make things easier on my readers and better for the bloggers: every day I’ll pick one or two good posts from some of those blogs, until I’m done with the list.

Will you really promote a post from each and every blog listed on that page?

The short answer is “no.”

The not so short answer is that I reserve the right to skip any blog for any reason and even without reason. There are topics I don’t feel like promoting, anyway. Bloggers who don’t get a backlink from me shouldn’t take it personally. Conversely, the fact that I recommend someone’s articles doesn’t mean this person is “superior” to anyone. My choices will be influenced only by my own tastes and preferences, nothing else.

Ok, I’m ready to read your recommended blog posts. When will the fun begin?

Tomorrow! Or so I hope.

The best way to ensure you won’t miss any cool links is to subscribe to a1-fan-fun’s feed.

I am flat out like a lizard drinking with curling my hair, hoping you haven’t found other blogs, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to society in general. My day drifts aimlessly from mid-morning to well after sun-down. I am plotting and planning. I need some perspective.

I will try to remember I promised you I will update you with my nefarious activities as soon as I get a chance. Go with God, good friends. Don’t hold your breath though, you’re likely to turn blue.

*************

After finding this post — which led me to this hilarious tool –, I couldn’t help but update this blog. And instead of writing a long post about the advantages of being an amusing blogger, I’ve chosen to show you a practical example.

The piece above may look rather awkward, but nevermind. As I spend more and more weeks away from this blog, I’ll have to reuse that generator several times. With more practice, I’ll be able to make it generate better excuses for me.

* Promoting Older Posts With Social Media, by Steven Snell:

The common thought for bloggers is that new content should be created and promoted to get things moving. This isn’t always necessary.

* A Guide to StumbleUpon: Understanding and Beating The System, by Tibi Puiu:

My clear favorite out of the bunch of social giants is none other than the user friendly StumbleUpon and at over 4 million registered users, I’d say I’m not the only one.

* StumbleUpon: My Story So Far…, by Simon:

You heard it from many people before, they all claim to get hundreds if not thousands of page views a day, I was a little skeptical to start with but now after 3 weeks I can truly say it works.

* Why StumbleUpon is Better Than Digg, by Tejvan Pettinger:

I have used various social bookmarking. In my own experience I have had a much better experience with StumbleUpon than Digg.

* Frozen Pea Friday: Breast Cancer Info on StumbleUpon, by Isabella Mori:

In 1989 Jan Adrian became one of the 1.8 million women in this country diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatments recommended to Jan focused on the physical body, leaving psychological, social, and spiritual needs unmet.

* What is the best social media website? Digg, SU, Delicious, Reddit … or?, by Jacob Cass:

Usually SU users do not click on ads, so this is a bit tough, try using a CPM (Cost Per Mile) advertising solution, something I am going to try soon.

The following articles have been written by yours truly:

* My Current Views on StumbleUpon

* Networking At MySpace

* Silent Interaction With YouTube Users

And that’s about it.

One might argue that this post’s title is rather misleading, as there are several articles on StumbleUpon only. YouTube and MySpace have been totally ignored by other bloggers. Of course I couldn’t ignore those sites myself because I was this group writing project’s hostess. Anyway, I’m really not surprised at this outcome. I’m going to discuss this subject — along with the final results of the Social Media Mega Project — next week. Stay tunned by subscribing to a1-fan-fun.

Many 640-802 and 640-822 professionals become like this, hard. Blogging and web 2.0 go together for 70-649 as well as 640-863 only. In fact even 70-293 could recognize it.

Next Monday I’ll publish the final list of posts submitted to the StumbleUpon/MySpace/YouTube Group Writing Project. When the whole Social Media Mega Project is over, I’ll probably post an article containing my analysis of it.

In order to try this method, I’ve opened an account with another nickname and created a silly short video. It’s a mere slide show with only four frames and no soundtrack nor special effects. It lasts no more than 25 seconds. Yes, it’s totally trashy and it’s gotten the worst rates you can imagine. I don’t mind, though, because it was intended to be just a tool for my test.

After creating and uploading my trashy video, I visited my Account page and made sure that “Active Sharing” was turned on. Then I started watching other people’s videos. My video’s view count slowly increased afterwards. That’s about it.

As you must have guessed, “Active Sharing” is the key here. If you turn it on, whenever you watch a video on YouTube your username will be listed among others under “Also Watching Now.” Ideally, you’ll want to watch the videos featured on the site’s main page, because those are viewed by many people simultaneously. Therefore, they increase your chance of having your username seen and clicked on. But I’ve also gotten some good results when viewing stuff not listed on the main page.

When I first read about the “Active Sharing” feature and how it could help you get more views for your own videos, I was a bit sceptical. After trying it myself, I had to agree that it is a nice tactic. Apparently, YouTube users are rather curious about each other. Perhaps they think: “Well, if this girl or guy is watching the same video as me, maybe we have similar tastes. Let’s see if he/she has also some cool stuff to show.” Right away they click on the person’s username and take a look at their channel. If they find a title or screenshot that catches their attention, chances are they will click on it and watch the corresponding video.

Can you just imagine the possibilities? If I’ve managed to attract a few hundred visitors to my little piece of garbage just by playing that trick, guess how much interest a good, viral video might have generated?

Youtube mostly uses email marketing. I personally think that this is far better an internet marketing strategy than pay per click and all.

What you want to do is look for real people who may be really interested in whatever you do. Instead of using the site’s general search, I suggest you use the Groups search. Although the former lets you search people by interest, the latter will lead you directly to the places where people interested in a given subject gather to chat. This will also show you that such people are real and not fake accounts made by spammers. After all, why would a spammer post a reasonable message at a forum?

Before adding a person, of course you must take a look at their profile. On some social networking sites you are expected to at least leave a message to a member before adding him/her to your friends list (Orkut is the first example that comes to my mind). It isn’t the case on MySpace, though. People over there are more liberal in this sense. So, only leave a comment or send a private message if you feel it’s important — or if the person you’re about to add clearly states on their profile that they require it before adding back. On the other hand, if someone takes the initiative to add you, it would be a nice idea to leave them a “thank you for adding me” message after adding them back; this is a common practice at MySpace.

If the first people you’ve added have very specific interests, chances are their existing friends share such interests. So don’t forget to explore their friends lists. Better yet: explore the comments left by their friends. By reading their messages you’ll see who’s been active lately and what they are into.

Speaking of comments, they are your best choice when you want to promote something. After all, they are public, that is, they may be viewed by people who aren’t your friends. Besides, they tend to stand out when compared to bulletins. there is a very simple reason for this: bulletins are too easy to send and reach all friends at once, whereas comments must be posted on an individual basis; as a result, there uses to be much more bulletins than comments on MySpace. Guess which ones have more chances of being read?

Absolutely do not exaggerate when promoting your stuff. Treat your friends as friends. Be nice to the others if you want them to be nice to you. If someone sent you spammy bulletins every single day, how would you feel? Think very carefully about it before sending any messages.