How to commit social suicide
- By:Qwaider
- On:Monday, September 20, 2010
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:10302 times
- (12) Comments
Social media, and social engineering are the new frontiers for people who are seeking to virally appeal to the masses. It helps people on small budgets have global reach way beyond their actual size.
Additionally, people can be as large as their dreams take them. Anyone can be an overnight hit, anyone can reach unprecedented levels of fame. Many enjoy these moments and spend the rest of their life savoring this "success".
But there are those who feel that the only way to stay in the lime light is to start fabricating news. Or picking up some imaginary friends (or enemies) and simply fighting these windmills, tirelessly!
For example, take the -once promising- ArabCrunch. Despite the big hype behind it and how it was going to change the world (for some), it barely brought anything note worthy. Other than something like the Yahoo-Maktoob deal. Possibly due to internal connections. But other than that, there was nothing important or even interesting that you couldn't find on other services like, say Startup Arabia.
The idea is, if you have a mediocre technology blog that is struggling to barely exist, make some news, or even perhaps the headlines of some yellow third class papers and you get your fame back.
Or so some people think!
HELP! My blog has popups!
- By:Qwaider
- On:Tuesday, May 19, 2009
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:13060 times
- (7) Comments
[UPDATED]
I received this cry for help from a fellow blogger (who will remain anonymous) and upon investigating the cause, it turns out, they have installed a little flash control that looks really cool, but has a major problem. It comes Free, with POPUPS!
Not the simple kind of popups, but those that are really hard to detect. Like the one I outlined here
The new culprit appears to be www.widgeo.net, another one had http://goooogleadsence.biz/, which was wreaking havoc on another website in the Arab sphere. A third had rankwidget.com. (Links broken deliberately)
Now, here's how these evil dudes work
All Flash, is NOT 2.0
- By:Qwaider
- On:Saturday, April 18, 2009
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:5387 times
- (0) Comments
It amuses me at times to take a stroll among the upcoming and promising Jordanian radio stations and their websites. Which I have criticized in the past as being, backward, non-functional and stuck in the 1990s.
So what do 80% of them do? Not due to my criticism, they decide to redesign their sites using all flash.
Bravo, it's flashy. It still sucks!
(Jordan radio guide courtesy of Nasimjo)
Ads or no Ads, that is the question
- By:Qwaider
- On:Saturday, March 07, 2009
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:5389 times
- (4) Comments
Have you thought of monetizing from your blog? Have you been contemplating with the idea of accepting ads to help with the costs? Are you struggling with what to do, and if you should do it? Are you trying to know if it's worth your while?
Well, after running ads on my blog for a good while I can confidently say, go for it. Run ads, Monetize on your blog's success and help offset those costs.
Here, I will help demystify some of the common misconceptions about running Ads on your blog/Forum/Social Network or any kind of web presence that you might have. It's free, easy and almost guaranteed to make you money.
It has been ... for me. If it wasn't for binding contracts, and policy of the advertisers. I would have revealed how much. But I can't. Let's just say it's considerable. Enough for me, to positively recommend it.
Anyway, on with the tips, and some thoughts
Add Qwaider Planet to your Live Messenger
- By:Qwaider
- On:Saturday, February 21, 2009
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:6788 times
- (4) Comments
It's been a while since I last introduced something new to Qwaider Planet readers. New, Messenger integration.
Now you can get notified anytime there's a new article on Qwaider Planet. Through your Messenger Account, all you have to do is click on the image below and sign up, you can later select to have the notifications go to your Messenger, your email or even (if you're that savvy) to your mobile phone
When you blog, follow these tips too
- By:Qwaider
- On:Tuesday, February 10, 2009
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:9447 times
- (13) Comments
I'm going to continue with my blogging tips to help anyone in need. My usual disclaimer applies. These are by no means rules or regulations. There's no way you can regulate a creative process like blogging. To make this point clearer; In photography, there's a common rule called rule of Thirds. Where the object of your picture is always one third away from one edge. Why? Because research show that people respond better to things when they're a third away from one of the Edges
Now with that said, (and since this is not a photography tips post), I have to add that perhaps 90% of the best pictures in the world, violate that rule. Know why? Because it's an Artistic process, just like blogging. Which concludes my disclaimer. So use loosely as you deem necessary.
Tip: Copy TO word, don't copy FROM word
This is VERY important, Especially for people who are comfortable composing their articles/posts in Word or some other "Rich text" editing tool. Truth is, there is a very long and technical reason for this, but suffice to say, Word adds a lot of "fluff" as in decorations for the words, letters and styles. This "fluff" is invisible when you Copy-paste it. But it doesn't go away. What does all of this mean? It means, you will end up with a LOT more than you can see. A classic case where more is actually less. This "fluff" ends showing up in your RSS feeds, it shows up for tools that scan your posts (Like Google crawlers) and might contain styles and decorations that are not related to your Blog general theme and style and would be hard to remove (or even detect)
Solution? ...
More blogging tips for the eager blogger
- By:Qwaider
- On:Thursday, February 05, 2009
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:5942 times
- (9) Comments
It's been a while since I last posted blogging tips, many people find these to be helpful therefore, I decided to keep up with the tradition and post some new ones
Please keep in mind that these are guidelines, advices, recommendations, and by no way are meant to force one opinion on anyone. People differ in the way they want people to perceive their blogs. So, without placing any cap on your creativity, take what suits you
Tip: Your blog is not a newspaper
Blogs represent an alternate form of media, yes, you can post news, you can link to news you find interesting. You may dedicate full posts just for the news. But at the end of the day, blogs must add their own value. In other words, try to add your own opinion. Your view, how you agree or disagree with the news. Or the person you're quoting. It's THAT that differentiate your blog.
Mohamed Marwen Meddah of StartupArabia named among 'Top 100 Most Influential Marketers'
- By:Qwaider
- On:Friday, December 19, 2008
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:5951 times
- (9) Comments
This is great news. Talented and humble Mohamed Marwen Meddah, has been named one of the top 100 Most influential Marketers of 2008. His amazing work with Startup Arabia in both Arabic and English languages.
Marwen, a veteran blogger, assisted by his wonderful (and also blogger wife Eman) have achieved a level of proficiency and talanet that a relatively new site like Startup Arabia has achieved great success in relatively a short period of time
Startup Arabia helped propel a big number of Arab startups, websites, Online communities and helped them spread the word about them. With great level of professionalism and credibility.
Read all of Mohamed Marwen Meddah of StartupArabia named among 'Top 100 Most Influential Marketers'
You poor pathetic life form, AKA Blogger!
- By:Qwaider
- On:Tuesday, December 02, 2008
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:6290 times
- (5) Comments
Just as the last few years have seen the rise of blogging as a serious contender to the more mainstream media, and winning the hearts and souls of people around the world, but also carving a place in popular culture from sitcoms to newspapers. The world Blog and Blogger have become almost as "Googling". Maybe not as mainstream as googling, but nevertheless it's there.
Blogging has broken into the social norms in ways "forums" could only dream about, which I'm afraid have come and gone without gaining any respect or credit.
But, what's the future for blogging? Just as we've seen the dawn of this amazing new medium, I guess there will come a time when people will look at bloggers as criminals, thrill seekers, liars, rumor spreaders and just about anything negative you can imagine.
But that's not enough, there are people who will try to mandate what a blogger should talk about. Either by force or by downplaying all other forms of blogging. Which in it's simplest definitions is a creative process like music composition, like painting. In fact, the most prevalent from of blogging is composition! A creative process
Double blogging!
- By:Qwaider
- On:Tuesday, November 25, 2008
- In:Blogging Tips
- Viewed:6672 times
- (10) Comments
It's been a while since I last posted any blogging tips so today, I'll be talking about a common mistake. The mistake many new (and sometimes old) bloggers appear undertake
And that would be, Double blogging... Here's how it goes
You're new to blogging. You discover that this thing is Amazing, you love it. You discover that you have "the blogging bug" you decide that you're too committed and too enthusiastic about it and you decide that one blog is not enough. What do you do?
You know that it's pretty much free to create a blog on Wordpress, Blogspot, Jeeran or many others and you run to that site, 15 minutes later you're the proud owner of your amazingly -empty- new blog.
You look around, and you decide that you have to fill some content and you actually start writing because, you're enthusiastic and passionate about blogging. Wonderful!
It all goes well until ....