With the recent announcement that Facebook reached the 30 million active users milestone, yes, 30 MILLION!!!, you can’t ignore what the site has become. From what is essentially a very simple idea, it has grown to a massive site. Facebook has also opened up it’s API allowing anyone to create applications for everyone to use meaning that more sticky content can be created without the facebook team lifting a finger…. nice!

With that sort of audience, it also has the potential for driving traffic to your own site. Once registered you can create groups on just about any subject you like, and if you look at some of the groups you will see that it can be about absolutely anything. So, if you have a site that has a reasonable user base, why not create your own Facebook group for it. Drive traffic to that group via your site, then as it grows in size on facebook it will help drive traffic back to your site. All for free!

Every little helps, as an advert for a supermarket says.

Well, you can’t win a web site on my site, but I am trying to win a web site from Scott off of selfmademinds.com

Scott is running a competition to win fictionforum.net which requires me to write what I would do with the domain should I be the lucky winner.

Well, here goes.

If I was to win fictionforum.net I would initially keep it as it is, but maybe moneytise it with amazon affiliate links. I would then work on an idea that sprung to mind when I heard the domain name. Did you ever read those ‘choose your own adventure’ books where you read a bit of the book and then had a few choices of where you wanted the book to go. Well how about a community driven site where they build the choices.

From a starting paragraph or two, people can register and then submit a choice for the route the story would take. Maybe there could be a limit to the amount of choices each juncture could have, and the amount they could write would be limited too. So a story will unfold, from people writing their own fiction.

When someone reads the story, it records what choices they make, thus giving them a complete book …. if the story ever ends of course.

How about that idea then Scott?

The web designers have to use the different kinds of strategic tools for the website development. The web hosting providers offer the multitude features of hosting in different price packages for the customers. The services of shared web hosting are not reliable due to the insufficient uptime and data coverage due to the shared servers which provide the shared services. The wireless internet services provide the fine and high-speed broadband services in the most reasonable prices. The scope of affiliate marketing has been flourishing rapidly with the introduction of online advertising and marketing of the products and services. The cheap hosting services are considered not a good one due to the inappropriate and limited services. The freelance web designers are earning a lot of money by having web design contract from online sources. The webhosting review provides very authentic information about the different hosting companies with all their pros and cons.

It’s a bank holiday here in the UK, which is basically what we call a public holiday and I’ve spent the morning packing up some of my old photography gear that I sold on ebay and watching Star Wars Empire Strikes Back, the original laser disc version not the one that George Lucas has fiddled with.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a round up of the sites that I look at on a daily basis for various purposes, so here you go:

Dynax Digital Forums - this is forum site that I run. I have to check it daily, sometimes several times a day, just to make sure it hasn’t been targetted by spammers and that things are running as they should. I don’t think anyone really realises the amount of work involved in running a forum, but it’s worth it when you start to see a great community building from something you’ve done.

Self Made Minds - I came across this blog purely by accident while clicking a few links in articles on other sites. I eventually ended up at this great site. For someone who wants to make money from their web site, it’s well worth a visit. The writing style and the tips and ideas, and the honesty from the authors too, make it a handy site to keep an eye on.

Daily Blog Tips - I check this almost daily as Daniel usually has a handy well written article on running a blog to read. His site is really taking off, so good work fella!

The Register - for an IT chap like myself, it’s good to keep up to date on the latest news in the IT world. The way the articles are written make it good to read.

BBC News - I generally don’t read or watch the news. It’s always full of doom and gloom, but I use the BBC’s news portal to keep up to date on what’s going on in the world. I don’t read all the news, just the bits that catch my attention.

Flickr - I check and see what my contacts are getting up to, see if anyone has commented on my photos or just get some inspiration.

Techzi - I also check David’s site Techzi from time to time. Reading his comments on what’s going on in the techy world can be quite amusing, even though he is a young whipper snapper. Hope the exams go well for you!

So that’s my regular set of sites, there are numerous others I check occasionally but these are the main ones. I used to check out ProBlogger daily too, but for some reason I’ve gone off it, the site just doesn’t grab my attention anymore even if some of the articles are useful. Maybe it’s the design, maybe it’s the writing style, or maybe I’ve just found other sites that suit me better, I don’t know. Sorry Darren. I’m sure you won’t lose sleep over me not stopping by as often!

So there you go, a Bank Holiday update. Now it’s time to get to back to Empire Strikes Back, there’s 2 star destroyers coming and the hyperdriver motivator on the millennium falcon isn’t working! Serious stuff!

I’ve been reading the Self Made Minds blog for the last few weeks, and really like the writing style and the info that the dynamic duo Scott and Al produce.

It has, however, caused me loss of sleep trying to come up with that idea, the holy grail, that niche that will start to bring in some regular income and make a name for myself. So far, I’ve not had that moment of inspiration, but I am positive it will come…… when, well there’s another story.

So many people are out there making reasonable money from web sites. Some people are making a lot and there are a lot of people making money telling people how to make money. Now I’m not after making millions, although that would be nice, what I’d like to achieve is a regular amount that would cover some of my bills making working for myself a little more comfortable.

I always say that anything is possible on the web, it just takes time, and in most cases, money. I am lucky that I already have pretty much everything in place to try stuff out, I have hosting, domains, web design and development skills and experience. I can string sentences together, so content isn’t a major concern, it’s just that idea. Maybe I need to get out more for inspiration, or maybe I just need to try the ideas.

When I do have an idea, I am very good at thinking too much about it and eventually talking myself out of it. OK, you need to do some research to see if it’s possible and whether there is a need for it, but I get to the point of thinking “if I do that, I’ll need to do this, but in order for me to do that in that way I should do this” etc etc blah blah blah and I get to the point of turning every idea into some massive project that needs a team of 20 people to make it happen.

So, is it time for just going for it, make mistakes, fly by the seat of my pants a bit more, sometimes fail, sometimes succeed, or is a lot of thought a good thing?

OK, I’m sure there are lots of t-shirts designed for bloggers, but none are as cool as these!

That’s right, gazraa.com has opened it’s shop. More witty slogans will be added to the choice soon, as well as more t-shirt designs and other clothing options.

If you have a witty slogan, or a request for a certain style of clothing then don’t hesitate to let me know. If you are one of those stylish bloggers who do end up wearing a gazraa.com t-shirt, then send in your pictures so we can see just how stylish you really are!

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to get out more, or at least do more that other people may find interesting and useful that I can blog about. When I started this blog, and my photography blog I thought I could make a couple of updates a week at first and see how things go. It appears that I am struggling to make ONE update a week, if that, which is bad, very bad.

I think reaching the status of pro blogger is a long way off and I haven’t yet reached pre pro blogger yet. What I have found is that I think of something to post about, but then think “hmmm if I talk about this, then I should explain this, but by explaining that I will need to explain that otherwise it won’t make sense”. So that’s my first problem…. maybe I’m a PROcrastinating Blogger, the blogger that never quite blogs.

I then think “well if I post about that, I need to make sure I link to some other sites and blogs, so I need to find and read related sites and see what they are saying about what I want to say” so then I might have a look at some other blogs, but then I get caught up in the “oooh this blog is good, and that link takes me to another good blog, and that blog takes to me to another site with something funny on, or possibly something interesting, then a client phones up needing changes to their web site done, then I need a cup of tea, then life gets in the way of letting me remember what it was I was first going to blog about….. etc etc blah blah blah”.

It’s very tricky!

I do admit to being easily distracted, if fact I nearly went off to look at another web site before finishing this post off, maybe I have Attention Deficit ……….. something or other….. what was I saying?

Ah yes, focus, I need focus. I am still new to this though, but I can’t use that as an excuse for too long……. any suggestions for helping me focus are gratefully received.

Just been reading an article over at The Register entitled “Bruce Sterling gives blogs 10 years to live“. An interesting point of view, but in my view it’s utter bollocks. How can he even predict what will be happening in 10 years time?

OK, so a blog as we know it today may not be the type of blog we see in ten years time, but people will still want to write what they do and feel on a regular basis.

Blogs are no more than web sites. Before ‘blogs’ people would create there own web pages about what they wanted to talk about. Web Logs was the term used to describe them, the term Blog came about and scripts were created to make creating regular updates easier, but they are still just web sites, and web sites aren’t going to die in 10 years.

Blogs have become community driven, bloggers link to other blogs, and the word is spread. OK, there are a lot of blogs that do a lot of linking, but not much talking. There are bizarre blogs, weird blogs, rubbish blogs, pointless blogs and of course, really good blogs, some of the more pointless ones may dwindle and die but there is still going to be blogs in one form or another.

Apparently Bruce said “You are never going to see a painting by committee that is a great painting,”. That may be true, but I don’t think you can compare blogs to a painting in that way as they serve different purposes. Paintings are there to please and show what the author was feeling at the time of creating it. Emotion and feeling are part of it.

While bloggers do put their emotion and feeling into their posts, and share their views (just like I’m doing here) it would be a pretty boring thing if there weren’t views from others and discussion about what the blogger is saying. That is what the community is great for, and that is why it will continue in some form long beyond 2017.

On one of my regular reads of Darren Rowse’s blog ProBlogger, his post title Lessons from the Heart for Would-be Bloggers caught my attention. It also makes reference to the blog called Bokardo and a similar article there and I’ve bookmarked that site too. A new one for the list of daily reads.

As I’m fairly new to blogging, and running two blogs, I do find it hard coming up with ideas that I think will be worthwhile posting. One of my blogs is on a more specific subject, but this one is more general. Some of the points Darren and Josh made really helped me feel a little more positive about running my blogs.

One point was “When in doubt, post” and I will try and do that. I spend a lot of time browsing the web, so surely I must find things that other people will find useful, so I’ll try and post more about sites and information that I find useful, even if it’s only a snippet of info, it may be of use to someone.

“Everything is beta” is another great thought. It is true, nothing should ever be classed as finished as nothing is ever perfect. I have made some posts that I know I will probably improve on at a later date, or at least follow on with more posts.

So onwards and upwards. I’m positive abut running the two blogs but I guess I need to start getting into the right blogging routine and mentality to make it a little more natural.

I blog. This web site is a blog, well really it’s a web log, said quickly without the “we..” bit. Blogging has become something you can do at home, at work, via your mobile phone, via email and just about anywhere you can access the internet in some way or another.

So why do I do it? Well being a freelance web developer I have been aware of blogs and blogging for a few years but I’ve never really delved into it too much. Boy do I wish I had though. After just a small bit of research on the web I saw just how big the blogging community was and just what the potential of running a blog has for traffic generation, popularity, notoriety, earning and simplicty of running a site.

At the time I had an idea for a web site to teach the basics of digital photography, and a blog suited what I wanted to do. I’d seen other blogs like strobist, digital photography school and Flickr’s Blog work well, plus a whole host of useful blogs. So I thought this would be the way to go. Wordpress was my blog script of choice as it’s just so flexible and simple to set up and use, but how do you go about setting up a blog so it is successful?

Rather than jump in with two feet and completely mess it up, I did a bit of research and found some excellent blogs which helped a lot and really gave me motivation to get it all going. Darren Rowse is what’s known as a Pro Blogger and one of his blogs is about just that. A Pro Blogger basically gets paid to blog in some capacity, a lucky chap, but if he can do it, why can’t I? Daniel set up the fairly new blog Daily Blog Tips which has bundles of info, and helped me a lot too. It was also the first blog I ever commented on, so I’ll send him a certificate at some point when I’m rich and famous and have fixed my printer. These two sites alone gave me the info I needed and the links to everything I’d need, but there are a lot more available if you want to look.

Then came the design. I’m not the most creative person in the world although I can get my crayons working sometimes. I wanted a ready made theme that I could tweak a bit to my liking. My first choice was ok, but a bit of a kick from Vivien over at Inspiration Bit was enough to help me choose a better theme and now you can see Photography Basics in all it’s glory.

Then there came a new name that I came across while reading a guest post on Darren’s Blog, and his post was really good. Useful, informative, easy to understand…. and the author was 12! At first I thought, nah, I bet he’s not really, but on further investigation and contact with David Wilkinson he is in fact 13. He’s just had a birthday, and he lives about 10 miles from me. Small world innit. He runs a blog over at Techzi and covers the latest gadget and techy info. A lot of things are spiffy apparently.
So with all these great bits of advice, tips and pointers, how could I possibly fail. Whether my photography blog will be a success or not is up to me really. We shall see. This blog is one to run along side it to make the most of the blogging community and all it involves. Having the freedom to blog about anything on a blog like this should hopefully be another string to my bow and all that.