Microsoft releases a free and beta version of a new blog writing tool called Microsoft Live Writer. As with most graphical user interface blog writer tools, this one also let's you create blog content in WYSIWYG fashion. Of course, that is the Microsoft way for web content development anyway. Not a bad thing depending on how hardcore of a coder you are or the level of control you need for tweaking content on the back end your client tool or server.
Installation
Installing Live Writer is a simple process. Just download the Microsoft msi file and double-click to launch the installer (pictured at right). After the installation is complete you will prompted to configure Live Writer to create blog content for Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces or you can configure it for your custom blog setup. Currently, Live Writer supports the RSD, Metaweblog, and Movable Type API's. I haven't had a chance to test compatibility and usability across different blog software platforms yet.
Features
I just got back from a long deserved week long vacation in Jamaica. My wife's place of birth. I spent all of July on the road and traveling doing IT engagements which prevented me from posting here since I began publishing content here again a few months back.
My mention of my vacation to Jamaica provides a segue for mentioning the Map Publishing feature of Live Writer. It's like a smaller version of Google Maps for your blog. You can do a high level map like the one I've inserted at left or your can drive down to more details is that is suitable.
Wow factor his is pretty low for me but it is one of the things that may not be as cool because it won't be used that much but becomes really cool when you want to share a location or directions with our readers in a very visual way within your blog content. The Interface is pretty clean and simple to use. Standard formatting bar and menu's are located across the top of the interface with quick access to features located in a Sidebar to the right. The interface looks, feels and functions like the standard MS Office family of products so if you familiar with MS Office, you will right at home getting up and running with this blog content creation tool.
Overall...
Eh...it's okay. Being that it is beta, it seems to work well but which much left for the developer community to pick up on an implement such as support for Tagging, insertion of audio and video into blog posts, and photo sharing support for sites like Flikr. Definitely not a bad start for a free tool that is highly Microsoft-centric.
So my good friend Rich Brooks over at Flyte brings this blog (?) to my attention. Here is a classic example of how not to blog if you are going to blog. I know I've talked about this before but I will talk about it again. Automated blog spam tactics.Internet Success Strategies unkindly uses blog spam technology to grab large chunks of other peoples content to promote junk directory pages.
Apparently the tool this blog uses (I'm not sure which tool exactly) doesn't generate junk blog posts as I've seen a few other tools do. Instead, it grabs content other people write and then adds a link at the end of each post to a specified page to promote. In this case this blog posts links to pages generated by html page generators. This generates a more appealing post for search engine spiders since they post actually content real content.
The objective is to leverage blogs and get clicks on those links to the directory pages. These directory pages have random links scraped from search results and other websites and these directory page also contain plenty of Google Adsense ads. The bottom line is to generate decent Google Adsense revenue but getting...you guessed it - more clicks on Adsense ads.
Let's take a closer look. Internet Success Strategies has taken my post here and republished it here. You will notice a link at the end of the post that leads to a directory page here. You will also notice that the post does site the source and provides a live link back to me. Proper etiquette right? Not quite.
While this type of automated blogging may seem to be legitimate, I do still consider it uncool. There are some blogs that do a good job at reblogging but the Internet Success Strategies blog does not. Rebloggers actively select content for their readers so that their blogs may deliver good content to those readers. They don't reblog content solely for it's SEO benefits to get attention to useless directory pages. Rebloggers actively select and filter the best content for their readers. Automated blog spam tools do not. I've been reblogged a number of times and I think it is a great way to get your content syndicated an promoted to new readers just as if your content was being subscribed to and received in a news reader using RSS.
It seems my friend Priya Shah at Marketing Slave just recently posted about her continued frustration with such blog spam tactics.
Much to my surprise, I recently encountered a couple of times where Ping-O-Matic wasn't working properly but hey, that's technology. Ping-O-Matic has a very reliable history but for those who like multiple choice and alternative solutions just in case, Fred's solution might be of interest. I personally like RSS Submit with the SEO Expansion Plug-In Pack that comes with a Ping-O-Matic add-in. This solution however has a cost associated with it and therefore may not appeal to some. Fred's solution is a no-cost solution and could make for a good supplemental tool for you.
Interesting term Blogcrafting is...yet a fitting description of what we do as blog publishers no matter what type of content we are publishing. Fred publishes his thoughts on blogcrafting over at the Qumana blog. Fred lays out the parts of information gathering and repurposing for publishing. We all have our own way of implementing knowledge management tasks from researching, marking, filing and formulating information for disseminating to our networks.
The speed of information flow and blog publishing leads to the issue of usability with regards the tools that support the process of constructing or reconstructing the wide variety of content we gather for publishing through our blogs. Specifically, blog software for easy publishing and editing have been around for a short time and I've taken several windows-based blog editors for a spin with pretty satisfactory results.
Fred's post is interesting to me for two reasons. First, he sets out in clear fashion the process of content development and the dilemma of finding ways to developing content efficiently within a bloggers context. Secondly, Qumana is the publisher of a new blog editor software tool that is about the be released shortly. It was a bit interesting having this peek inside the mind of someone on the Qumana team and have them layout the content development process as they see it. Interesting to me because the Qumana tool really sets its design on streamlining the content development process from gathering, to processing publishing and a slightly differently way that isn't all that novel but does provide certain efficiencies and benefits unattainable in other blog post editor tools.
I've been beta testing this tool (this post is constructed with Qumana) behind the scenes and I'm pretty excited about where this tool is headed. It's a bit different from the standard fare of blog editor software currently available and this tool should shape up to be a major contender as it gets underway.
Much of what Qumana is planning to do with their blog editor (called Qumana LE) is to be kept under wraps for now but you should keep your eye on their blog for news on the official release and give it a spin. If you are like me and are always on the look out for ways to streamline your content development and construction process while bloging, Qumana should be on your watchlist. I'm going to do a full review of my experience with Qumana LE at a later date. Stay tuned.
Okay, so I'm checking my FeedDemon RSS updates (the best RSS Reader on planet earth...actually I do have a few secondary favorites but FeedDemon is my favorite) and I happen upon a find from Scripting News about a new and innovative search engine for Podcasts called Podscope.
New Podcast Search Engine Podscope is very unique and bleeding edge in that they are the first search engine that actually allows you to search for spoken words within any audio or video file. Er...that would mean that you would want to mention your keywords specifically within your audio and video stream for search optimization? Hmmmm...
You can read more about Podscope on their blog and FAQ pages. But make sure you go to Podscope and give it a try. You can submit your audio and video URLs here. Podscope just ... more»
I for one never tire of information on blogging and how to do it the right way. Improvement is the name of the game. Never stop learning. We live in an abundant world and there is room for anyone to carve a niche of their interest with their expertise. With the latest but the not least of the entries into the world of books about blogging, Denise Wakeman of Next Level Partnership blog and Patsi Krakoff of Coachzines Blog have put their collective expertise together and just recently released Build A Better Blog System.
Do you have all the clients you want? Are you getting the results you want from your marketing strategy? Build A Better Blog System will provide you with the tips, tools and techniques to building and professional blog the reflects your business, your knowledge and ... more»
FeedDemon is an RSS reader and RSS aggregator for microsoft windows.
I've been a user of FeedDemon for quite awhile now. There are many RSS readers on the market and most of them are free and for free software several of them in my opinion do their jobs well. FeeDemon is a bit more special however. FeedDemon is not a free RSS reader. It will cost you $29.95 to own but it is worth every single penny.
For those of you who don't know, FeedDemon is created by Nick BradBury of Bradbury Software. Nick was responsible for the HTML editor Homesite that I was also a big fan of way back earlier days of the Internet when the race was on for HTML publishing tools and editors. Nick had great success with Homes as it was bought by Allaire which ... more»
Sometimes a piece of software comes along that just plain makes certain tasks really simple. RSS feed marketing and promotion is part of and overall blog promotion strategy for communicating your content to targeted audiences across and broad range of content sources.
RSS Submit is a Windows software tool that allows you to submit your RSS feed to a number of directories at once with the click of a button. This tool is easy to use and must have piece of software for your blog promotion and RSS feed submission efforts.
Blogs and RSS are a powerful publishing (blog) and broadcasting (RSS feeds) tool set for content distribution. RSS marketing and promotion is extremely powerful because of the potential traffic you can generate to your blog.
Blogs matter because they are not just standard web publishing tools. Blogs also ... more»
In part one of How To Blog 103, I discussed what a blog is and how a blog differs from a standard or regular web site.
You learned that a blog and a web site are similar because they generally appear to be the same in form. They both allow you put content on the Internet in the form of a web page using HTML and read with a web browser.
But you also learned that blogs are distinctly different from a standard web site in several different ways. You learned about some features that are unique to blogs and make blogs an ideal tool for publishing content to the web.
In this second and final part to How To Blog 103 I'll discuss specific blog software tools, and I will conclud with a link to my growing list ... more»
In How To Blog 102 , the previous installment of this series you learned some basic essentials for planning your blog.
You learned about a few different types of bloggers plus different types of blogging styles. You learned a few pros and cons as well about the blog I.R.S factors.
I want to now discuss how to choose the right blog software tools for your blogging efforts. This lesson will be a two-part lesson because I want to cover some features that set blogs apart for regular web sites. Then I'll cover the remaining topic of evaluating blog software tools.
Blog Software Defined
Blog software is any software that allows you to blog. Now that may a bit like over stating the obvious but let's examine this for a minute. There are certainly characteristics that are unique to blogs and some features that some would ... more»
TypePad is a personal publishing and blog hosted service by Six Apart who is also the creator of MovableType, a self installable blog software application. TypePad is designed to provide a simple but full-featured environment that enables you to publish your thoughts, ideas, and experiences on the web, whether it be a weblog, journal, photo album, diary, or an entirely new creation.
TypePad doesn't require any installation or configuration. As a hosted service all of your your web publishing tools are provided as part of the service. TypePad was built upon the Movable Type platform, but it includes new functionality that is not available in MovableType. TypePad sports a rebuilt interface that is simpler, cleaner and easy to use. TypePad includes new features like photo albums and statistics tracking, and ample space for your weblog entries, photos, and the flexible archives. more»
Dmitry Chestnykh, creator ofBlogJet has just released the beta version of BlogJet 1.2. The current release version is BlogJet 1.1.x. Let say right off the bat that I really love this tool. There aren't many blog editors available that will allow you to publish to multiple blogs and manage that blog content remotely from a single tool. However, I'm sure that will change as blogging becomes even more popular and the need for this type of solution becomes more readily apparent.
BlogJet is a blog editor and as such it is a windows software client that allows to you write, publish, and edit content for multiple blogs. If you are familiar Microsoft Word, then you will find BlogJet intuitive.
Installation and Configuration
Right off the start BlogJet is a simple download at 8mb and is a cinch to install. Once installed the Account Wizard steps you through the process of setting up an account. Chances are you will be using a blog software supported by BlogJet. BlogJet supports the following software used to create blog sites: more»
Microsoft releases a free and beta version of a new blog writing tool called Microsoft Live Writer. As with most graphical user interface blog writer tools, this one also let's you create blog content in WYSIWYG fashion. Of course, that is the Microsoft way for web content development anyway. Not a bad thing depending on how hardcore of a coder you are or the level of control you need for tweaking content on the back end your client tool or server. 
the Microsoft msi file and double-click to launch the installer (pictured at right). After the installation is complete you will prompted to configure Live Writer to create blog content for Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces or you can configure it for your custom blog setup. Currently, Live Writer supports the RSD, Metaweblog, and Movable Type API's. I haven't had a chance to test compatibility and usability across different blog software platforms yet. 
The Interface is pretty clean and simple to use. Standard formatting bar and menu's are located across the top of the interface with quick access to features located in a Sidebar to the right. The interface looks, feels and functions like the standard MS Office family of products so if you familiar with MS Office, you will right at home getting up and running with this blog content creation tool. 
Interesting term Blogcrafting is...yet a fitting description of what we do as blog publishers no matter what type of content we are publishing. Fred publishes his thoughts on blogcrafting over at the 
Dmitry Chestnykh, creator ofBlogJet has just released the beta version of BlogJet 1.2. The current release version is BlogJet 1.1.x. Let say right off the bat that I really love this tool. There aren't many blog editors available that will allow you to publish to multiple blogs and manage that blog content remotely from a single tool. However, I'm sure that will change as blogging becomes even more popular and the need for this type of solution becomes more readily apparent.
