Website Design by Teli

It seems that podcasting is set to take off, but I was recently enlightened on MP3 licensing issues. Apparently, MP3 is not a free to use technology and the patent is owned by a wealthy French company who likes to enforce its licensing/royalty regulations.

Since podcasts are generally distributed in MP3 format, I wonder how it will affect the many podcasters and soon to be podcasters. Their licensing affects those who use MP3 for commercial purposes and earn over $100,000 gross annually and ‘commercial’ can be as simple as earning a nice chunk of change from running AdSense or an Amazon affiliate program on the website distributing the MP3 files.

I don’t know how they would be able to truly enforce the licensing/royalty fee, but frankly, I would not want to be on the business end of a cease/desist followed by a bill for past due royalties.

So your comment stats are barren (or pretty close) and you want more people to offer feedback, but you don’t know where to start without sounding desperate — that’s where 10 Tips For Getting More Comments on Your Blog [PDF 150k] steps in. (more…)

BlogJet is a desktop blogging application which allows the user to update their blog without needing to open their web browser to do so. The review below is focused on BlogJet version 1.5, the latest stable release available for download at their website. (more…)

Website: http://www.qumana.com/
Price: Free

QumanaLE Strong Points

• Installation and account set up was a breeze.
• • When you add your blog’s URL, it automatically detects your blogging software and inputs the necessary information for you.
• All of your accounts can be accessed from a drop down menu which means you can easily switch between blogs.
• Their “DropPad” allows you to copy text/images and “drop” them onto the drop pad and save them there until you’re ready to post it.
• You can have more than one editor window open at a time allowing you to edit more than one blog post.*
• Built in thesaurus. Pretty much all desktop blogging applications have a dictionary, but you don’t find too many that have a thesaurus. (more…)

Sometimes it’s inevitable that we must step down from blogging at a certain point and time, but you should abandon your blog with some dignity and grace.

A couple of months ago, Rick Bruner announced that he would be taking a hiatus from the Business Blog Consulting blog to further evolve his career and as a fan, I was a little sad to see him go, but I was happy to hear of the new opportunities that came his way.

Following a link to his blog, I quickly realized that he had made the one mistake when leaving his blog that no blogger should ever make: he didn’t turn off comments or trackbacks. The warning signs of spam to come are there and a great source of information is starting to turn into a seedy spam playground. If left untended, the problem will worsen.

Spam can discredit a site faster than lightening. If you would still like to have your blog online for posterity and feel the information would be a great resource for people although it won’t be updated, make sure to turn off the commenting system, or if you’d still like to hear what people are saying, use comment moderation and clean up the comments every once in a while.

Abandoned blogs are what keep spammers doing what they’re doing. Abandoned blogs are the 1% rule (i.e. the 1% of the blogs that it will get through on so as long as the 1% exists, spammers will continue). Please don’t become one of the 1%.