Web 2.0 is all about sharing, and the role that Youtube dot com played in increasing communication between people has been invaluable. We all know that videos consume a lot of bandwidth and computer resources, but a service like youtube made viewing videos online easy, fun and effortless. It also inspired people to be creative. Have something to share to the world, take your cam phone and create a 2 minute video; upload it to youtube and tag it in such a way that people will find it.

I have seen Youtube.com evolve from being a video depot to a video sharing site, and I am not at all surprised at the transition was encouraged by the millions of youtube users who continue to make friends with other video enthusiasts. This service has definitely improved the way people interact online. Instead of just photos, people have been taping their daily endeavors and sharing these with people.

Accessibility is the main thing that made youtube popular, and I think the no-porn rule helped a lot. Reporting porn is very easy, and more often than not, Youtube management will listen to users’ views of what is unacceptable and lewd. Our families and friends watch youtube, and I don’t think there’s an easier way to show people videos and discuss them together. If we wanted to tell our friends about a particular clip that we made, we can just invite them over to the page by sending them the link. Putting the video up in  youtube is easier than mailing the big video file to a person.

It has also become a repository for online tutorials. Demonstrating how well you know your blog topic through a video or talking about an interest and showing how it should be done increases credibility. There are many marketers who have used the service to increase their audience size. People who would ever have known about them see their videos, comment and subscribe. Building friendships is also easy, and there are certain advantages to “friending” other people. People can limit access to their videos to their community. The best way to help people find your videos is to tag them well. Appropriate tagging, putting in relevant titles, and descriptions are skills that every “Youtuber” should know.

There us no doubt that video sharing helps bloggers and web entrepreneurs create new connections and develop networks. A video is very personal and sharing a part of yourself and your knowledge with others becomes an experience that they don’t easily forget. You can use your youtube profile to boost company sales, promote products and even services. The potential for collaboration is limitless. People who were not friends with each other in the past collaborate and create videos together.  Some even claim to have found long lost friends through communities in youtube. It’s like facebook, but a more creative and fun.

A good idea is a curious thing. The one who came up with it will get the chance to test it, and if it works, he will stay complacent and try to smooth the details out. In some instances, someone else comes along to improve things and sets up a similar service with bonuses. Now, let’s talk about Plurk and Twitter. Two web 2.0 services that are free to join and extremely addictive. Twitter was “it” until Plurk arrived. I’ve noticed that Twitter use has decreased among my own circle, while Plurk has been attracting more members. Both sites ask users a question, which basically means “what’s up with you.” You can tell the world what you’ve been doing, what you’re crazy about as of the moment, or what you plan to do today. You can start a conversation within your circle and read what others have to say in small windows.

•    In Twitter, updates (called “twits”), yours and others, are posted on your profile. People can follow you and they will see your updates, as well as your current followers, and people you have been following. You, in turn can follow the individuals that your followers are following, until you form a complicated community when everyone can see what everyone else is doing. It’s fun! In Twitter, you can send private messages, presented in the same way as updates, to others. Other systems have evolved as a result of this Twitter fandom, one of which is Twhirl. Numerous plugins have also been created to put your twitters on your blogs.

•    In Plurk, when other users want to read your updates, they may add you as a fan. They stay as your fans until you add them back, which will turn them into friends. A private plurk (message) may also be sent to a user you want to talk to privately. Like Twitter, there are many applications for plurk that you can use to enhance your messaging and community building experience.

The Main Differences Between Twitter and Plurk

•    The Update Management. We hate spammers, and we hate how updates at Twitter move off the list so easily in just a few hours because of some spammers.  Twitter displays updates one after the other, and place the newest items at the top, and the older ones at the bottom. How about if we want to view the older ones, do we have to go through the numbers at the bottom just t view this morning’s twits? Plurk presents user updates in a timeline, putting the newer items on the left. This timeline can be dragged across your screen to display other dates. You can even customize your viewing of messages and only show new comments, An option to not see a discussion about an update is also available and you can do this by “muting” if you don’t want to read any further comments on an update.

•    Discussing an update also becomes confusing in Twitter because you can reply to an update by typing the at sign before a user’s name and clicking reply. In Plurk, you can isolate one discussion (read: further comments) to one update, so that those who want to join in may do so.

The Above-the-Fold Power Spots and What Should Stay There

Do you notice how magazine covers are laid out? There are headlines and taglines that are bigger and more colorful than most, and there’s a very good reason for this. They realize that people view a page a certain way, and that’s from top to bottom. Blog advertising is not much different. You can control what your readers see first. The first things that they see without scrolling downwards should reflect your priorities on your blog. When you place advertisements on top, it tells of your blog’s purpose. Those who are focused on getting readers place their subscribe buttons or banners at the top spot, and around this is the link box pointing to their recent posts, most popular posts and categories.

The term “above the fold” is usually associated with newspaper, and this refers to the main headline, main photos and main issues that aim to make the reader pick up the paper and buy it. This is the most important spot on a news page, and your blog functions the same way. What you write about is news to others and so what you deem will catch their attention and continue reading will have to be placed above the fold. You will notice that popular sites place self serving ads above the fold, or widgets that get them the most traffic.

Some other sources delineate the most important spot on a page according to the way a reader browses. We are trained to read from left to right, and so the most valuable place above the fold seems to be the left hand corner. Web 2.0 themes are designed to show the content first (left side) and then the ad banners or the subscribe button.

What to put on your power spots?

1.    A tasteful header image which tells people exactly what your blog is about. Something that doesn’t cover the whole screen, maybe 100 px or so in height.

2.    A link to the homepage, so that readers who might have arrived on more obscure pages on your blog have a means of getting to your front page with minimum hassle.

3.    If you don’t mind placing a photo of yourself on your blog, you can place this inside your About Me box at the top spot, adjacent to your latest post.

4.    Links to your best posts (using the Most Popular Wordpress plugin)

5.    Top commentors plugin widget. This is for those who believe that rewarding their blog’s most avid commenters will encourage participation in others.

6.    Your community banner. I have seen blogs with Twitter, Stumbleupon, MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog widgets above the fold and have always asked: what’s the logic behind the placement. Now, I realize that getting people to join their communities in these blog directories and social networks so that they can have a long term traffic source.

Using Squidoo Lens to Increase Traffic and Earnings

Squidoo.com has become very valuable to webmasters, in terms of building traffic to their blogs. A squidoo page or a lens can be a place to aggregate a webmaster’s many interests all over the web. These lenses are user-generated, and you get to decide what to put there. Think of it as one page that asks you a single question: What are you about?

You can place RSS feeds from your blog, which could be a good way to build traffic. You can also enhance your credibility by showing a side of you other than that they see on your blog. Think of it as your about page away from your blog, or another place over the web where you can self-promote. This can be your personal announcement page, where you tell your fans and squidoo community that you are connected with a particular blog, your accomplishments so far and why you do they things you do. This could also be your poll place, if you don’t have much space for a poll on your blog. Other stuffs you can place here include youtube videos and photos. A squidoo lens is particularly useful if you have an offline business and you just want a page on the net to inform your customers about your travels, favorite food, and recent activities.

How does one monetize a Squidoo lens? Here are several ways:

Keep your topic relevant and get extra adsense earnings from the traffic your lens attracts. Remember that lenses can be about anything, such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy, and politics. Squidoo splits the adsense earnings with their lensmasters, and donates a portion of your earnings to charity. The earning scheme is co-op style and 5% goes straight to charity first; 50% goes to the lensmasters (you) and 45% goes to Squidoo.

This isn’t a content place, and people do not expect to see articles. Just an introduction about you or a topic; and other things related to you that you want to announce. In this sense, it is ok to recommend products from ebay auctions, amazon and other companies that you are partnered with The second earning option is relevant to us because we can have an additional free place on the web to place links to sales pages or ebook downloads.

Of course, build your lens with your visitor in mind. Do not build a lens that contains ONLY links to affiliate or sales pages. The best way to do this is to alternate your links and lens parts. Your affiliate links may go in between videos, RSS feeds and photos. This way, you dictate how a reader browses your page. First he sees something interesting like a travel photo, then he sees a recommendation from you to try a new camera, then he sees summaries of your blog posts (as RSS) or links to your other blogs. Use your lens to tell a story about what you do online and offline, by pointing your viewers to relevant sites.

Why a New or Established Blogger Should Join Technorati

Several sources all over the internet say that technorati has becomes a mandatory thing when building a new blog or increasing a blog’s community. Simply put, it is a blog directory that helps a blog gain exposure. Apparently, when a blog becomes added to someone else’s favorites and tags, its traffic increases because those who are friends with the other blogger will be able to access your post feeds too. I am impressed by technorati’s authority in the blogosphere and looking around the system alerted me to more opportunities to interact with other bloggers. It is basically a popular search engine for blogs, and if you are an avid bloghopper, the technorati free service is for you .

It’s more than a feed aggregator, It’s a vote of confidence. Having your feed in another person’s technorati page means they are telling their own circle to visit you and also add you to their favorites. Web 2.0 is all about interaction and building communities and technorati makes introduction to a wider audience possible.

Tehnorati tags and why you should take Tagging Seriously

A Technorati tag is a keyword or category name that you associate with a blog post, an article or a whole blog. When you add someone else’s blog as a favorite on technorati, you can assign an appropriate tag that represents the blog. There is an option on a technorati member’s page to “search their favorites”, and this is where the role of tags come into play. Anyone searching for “culture” will find the posts or the blogs of those you assigned to this tag. The algorithm for this is not clear to me but as far as looking for posts about a certain topic is concerned, efficient tagging is useful. There are technorati widgets available to allow your site visitors to explore your site according to the technorati tags you assigned. Joining Technorati is easy. You just have to sign up, claim your blog (through 2 simple processes) and categorize your blogs by putting in keywords that you want your blog to be associated with.

What is technorati authority? This authority is the number of blogs linking to your blog during the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority you have. It simply means that your blog is being talked about in other places. Every time someone mentions you in a post, or puts your link on the blogroll, you gain technorati rank. Aptly given the term “blog reactions”, this ranking system simply tells you how popular you are in the blogosphere. These system is one of the reasons why other bloggers post linkbait content, which are simply blog posts that contain strong opinions, funny stories, astounding facts and even fallacies. Sensationalism is a good way to increase your technorati authority, as more and more bloggers mention you as the source of the news.

Using Twitter to increase your Blog’s Traffic and Interaction

It’s interesting to note how some people get into blogging. One particular person I know of got into it just by clicking links to blog posts on Twitter. Some Twitter members link to blogs that are so well done and the followers can’t help but be envious and be encouraged to blog. Is it safe to assume that most of the people on twitter are bloggers? Not really. Some are simply there to connect with relatives abroad, find out who’s friends with who and to promote their blogs. The fun part is getting followers. Yes, this is fun for me, but maybe not to some. See, most people feel compelled to follow you when you follow them first, and doing that over and over with really interesting people can be gratifying.

How do you fast track interaction on your blog through Twitter?
I’ve seen it done time and time again, and those who use their Twitter space wisely can enjoy the benefits of getting more blog subscribers, and more comments. I view each twit as bait; a colorful lure that invites people to explore more, ask more and follow more. Do you have a strong opinion about the economic crisis or the political standing of a presidential candidate? Simply telling your community that you have posted your thoughts about a hot topic on your blog will make them come running to read.

Comments can be ego fodder to some, and blog boost to some. It doesn’t matter whether you are a seasoned blogger or a new one, the feeling that comes after you see someone comment on a post is indescribable. The thing is, comments mean interaction. It also increases the relevance of a post. Comments mean that people have read your post and would like to put in their two cents. Remember that Twitter communities are expanding and your friends could be following the friends of the people in your community. Everyone’s getting to know everyone else, and because there is a character limit to every twit, your first words must be interesting enough for people to get curious and follow the link provided. If they disagree too strongly to your views, they won’t be able to expound more about why they disagree via Twitter so they go to your blog to reply there.

There are spammers on twitter, like everywhere else, but the beauty of it is that oen can simply delete a spammer from a list. You can spam all you want, but if you have no friends, no one will see it.

Building curiosity as well as community is the best thing about Twitter for me. There’s just so much wit that you can inject in one or two sentences, but those who manage to keep people rapt and tuned in to their twits have the power to invite anyone to their blogs, affiliate programs and company sites. The representatives of companies can even increase brand awareness by simply describing in frequent twits what’s so unique about their product. Again, the ability to avoid turning off spam-sensitive people comes into play. If you build a reputation of sending useful, non-spam information, or extremely entertaining one-liners, you could be the most popular Twitterati in your growing community.

Domain Name Selection and Keywords Selection

The most exciting part of building a self-hosted blog for me is choosing the perfect domain name for it. It is, after all, the face that you will present to people. Your blog’s domain name will be the digital imprint or signature that you will leave on other people’s blogs when you comment. Some people won’t even remember what your real name is, but they will remember which blog you are associated with. As you continue blogging, you will realize that you answer to your blog’s domain name in the same manner as you answer to your given name. The domain name will become a part of you so choose well.

Choosing Domains With Your Niche in Mind

You can begin your search by first identifying the keywords associated with your blog.
Note most “real words” are already taken and so you will have to make do with a domain with several real words in it. Alternatively, you can invent a word that “sounds” like it could be good for your niche.

Your domain name must be short, with very few syllables. However, there is another technique related with domain ownership that teaches us about using long tailed keywords as domain names. These keywords are the exact ones that people type in the search bar to look for something online (e.g. whatisablog). The likelihood that you could grab their attention faster is high if your domain name reflects the things they went online for.

Brandability

When I encounter quite a few domain names that are similar in quality and worth, the thing to consider would have to be the brandability of the name. Will it look good on a business card? Is it sticky (will it stay with the passers by?).

Aim for the dot com

It’s extremely difficult to compete with a site bearing the dot com version of your dot net domain name because a lot of direct browser searches will go to the dot com version by default. When searching for available domain names for your blog, always check the dot com extensions first, but also be on the lookout for worthy dot net names. If you find a short ‘real word’ domain name but it is only available as a dot net, it is advisable to get it. Investing on a very good dot com domain name could also mean buying it directly from the current owner. You should do this only when you are completely sure your investment will pay off.

Lists of Expiring Domains

There are hundreds of thousands of domain names that expire daily. When you find one you like on a list, the first step you should take is to research the history of the domain name. Was the previous owner careful with it (i.e. did he use it ethically)? The domain names in the expiring or expired lists may have an existing traffic source and even google page rank. Use the search engines to find out what types of articles were previously published on the domain, as these articles could still be included in the cache.

When you start your blog, you know that there are certain people who you think can appreciate your topic. Some of these can be your friends, co-workers and relatives who, of course, will read anything you are going to put out. However, one cannot earn from a blog by having just a handful of readers. You need a big crowd of fans, or at the very least, interested people who will hang out for a while and listen to what you have to say about a certain product or service. For you to earn decently through your blog, you need visitors who are already interested in your site’s topic, will likely be interested in your topic and those who will most likely benefit from your tips or endorsements.

Where do you find these interested and highly excitable people?

Forums – Online communities have been around for a long time, and some have evolved out of one particular interest that thousands of people share. Joining a forum that directly attracts posters who are more than a bit interested in what you have to say about a certain subject area is powerful. These forums may provide signature space where you can place a link to your blog, or may even allow you to include your blog link or banner in your forum profile. Discussion of your interest in the forum will lead to curiosity. The people who will develop a keen interest in your opinions will probably visit your blog to know more about you and to read more about your thoughts. Developing a good relationship with some of these forum posters will increase your credibility, and subsequently, the amount of traffic going to your blog.

Your Competition – Using the search box at Google (particularly google blog search) and Yahoo will reveal several sites that already talk about your exact blog topic. Visit the most relevant ones and observe the interaction of the webmaster with his readers, check out how he has developed his topic and learn about the trend of his posts. When you have deemed this blog as a “kindred spirit” (someone who has the same level of authority in your field), you may opt to contact him to ask to advertise on his blog. If you are the shy type and wouldn’t approach another easily, you may opt to simply observe what advertising systems the blogger uses on his blog and find ways to place your banner there. Having an advertisement on another blogger’s site will increase your chances of attracting a part of his traffic. Most webmasters will appreciate your business because you represent a related site, which their readers will enjoy. There are some others, however, who will not allow you to advertise on their site because they don’t want the competition.

Remember that finding readers for your blog is easy if you work with the concept of relevance. Also, there are several offline ways of increasing traffic to your blog. One of these is by creating business cards with your blog logo and a short description of what you talk about. You can distribute these in related events that you yourself attend.