Gaia: Kosmic Blogging 101

Re: KB101: Blog for personal growth

http://organics.gaia.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:43:05 GMT

This site has helped me tremendously. I am following you on Twitter. Thanks for creating this ... what is now a library.

Re: Kosmic Blogging Network?

http://drane.gaia.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:05:23 GMT

Yeah, I've been thinking the same sort of thing recently. I'm seeing the seeds of something getting ready to happen in the social networking world (with integral peeps on Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, Integral Life, Open Source Integral, here on Gaia, etc.), but it seems like we could be doing more to unite the integral community through blogging and social networking generally.

~G

Kosmic Blogging Network?

http://shamansun.gaia.com — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:26:16 GMT

I've been talking about this on Open Source Integral, and I'm curious-- Would anyone be interested in starting a bloggers network, collaborating and sort of creating a "chain" of blogs, helping give each other exposure and inspiration?

This is the seed. I'm not sure where to take it from here, but I'd love to hear some feedback.

-shamansun

13 Apps to Turn Your iPhone into a Blogging Machine

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:06:46 GMT

via Mashable

13 Apps to Turn Your iPhone into a Blogging Machine

Seeing as how Web services today are becoming more and more multi-faceted and multi-functional, particularly in the social networking and social media space, it really is open to debate what is and what is not part of a specific segment of the market. Where blogging starts and where networking ends, for instance, is a gray area that has grown ever larger with time. Mobile utilities in particular have evolved to contain powerful assets that accomplish several tasks at once.

Perhaps nothing better exemplifies this fact than the items which can now be found within Apple’s App Store, where the supply of downloads for the iPhone (and its slightly-less-phenomenal sibling, the iPod touch) expand with each passing week. So we focus today on that very storefront, to determine which applications now available can help to best enable mobile blogging in all its myriad forms and purposes, wherever cellular, Wi-Fi, and/or GPS signals might be found.

Read more.

Bloggers' Interactions With Readers Decrease With Prominence

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:43:49 GMT

via LouisGray

Bloggers' Interactions With Readers Decrease With Prominence

...

Robert is right about this. Interactions really aren't a requirement for bloggers. Think about the core essence of blogging: things that you care about. Whether you get anyone else caring is secondary.

But of course, it's really not that simple, is it? You blog because you feel like you've something of value to impart, be it telling the world about feeding your cats or nailing the next trend in technology. A point I made to Robert was that interactions are important for learning. Assuming you are a student of life, you will need interactions with others to test out ideas and to learn different facts and perspectives.

Interactions with readers, wherever they occur, are also an important part of maintaining "presence" on the Web. No beginning blogger should have the conceit that people will just show up to read his or her blog. You've got to establish yourself out there by making your blog posts, and thinking, visible to a wider audience.

But at some point, bloggers seem to move into a different point in their blogging career. They no longer need the interactions with readers so much. They've arrived. And in the case of Jason Calacanis, after arriving, they leave.

One observation to make is this: the level of interaction seems to vary by the blogger's level of established reputation. As a blogger gets more well-known on the Web, the level of interaction declines.

In fact, I'd wager that blogger interactions follow a predictable curve.

Bloggers' Interactions Vary by Blogging Stage

The chart below graphs the level of blogger interaction with different levels of being "established":

Four stages are depicted along the X axis. Left-to-right, the stages indicate increasing degrees of success in blogging. "Success" in this case being defined as establishing a voice that resonates with the audience you want.

And what are "interactions"?

Read more

KB101: Blog for personal growth

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:44:53 GMT

Blog for personal growth. Blogging is one of the best tools for personal development. It’s not for the faint of heart. Try doing it straight for 90 days and see if you still think it’s for stupid teenage kids and dead-beat loser geeks. Know and understand that blogging is a transformative tool. As a tool, it could cut both ways. It could heal or inflict pain, inspire or depress, create or destroy. Blog responsibly, with passion and compassion, in every post, every word, and every hyperlink.

Blogging--It's Good for You - Scientific American

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:01:17 GMT

via Scientific American

"Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not."

Read more.

Exactly! Especially when you blog your heart out :)

Re: The Pocket-Sized Guide to Blogging

http://kathysmith.gaia.com — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:38:57 GMT

Thanks for this gem of a post referral.

I bookmarked it in my key files on how to do blogging from a very realistic point of view.

~kes

The Pocket-Sized Guide to Blogging

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:43:50 GMT

via http://www.skelliewag.org/the-pocket-sized-guide-to-blogging-282.htm

"The purpose of this post is to lay out the key principles of successful blogging in one place. The details of each point aren’t here — that’s where your own knowledge comes in — but I think it should be helpful in terms of reminding us about the skills and habits that are most important to what we do."

Read more.

Re: Introduce Yourself

http://shamansun.gaia.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:35:48 GMT

hey everyone....

i joined this pod some time ago but i haven't had the chance to really dive into the online communities. i've got a blog associated with Holons News: http://www.shamansun.blogspot.com

that has also been my nickname online for a few years now.

it doesn't receive too much traffic, but it gets a few readers. the point? to be an integral writer, to write with passion about the integral philosophy, to spirituality, science and philosophy- overall ideas on what's going on in my head about what's important to me, and hopefully be able discover that it's important to others....

i consider myself an old soul and often alone, so this blog is a new venture, an experiment for me socially.... check it out if you want.

CoveritLive for LiveBlogging

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:12:32 GMT

for those who are planning to do liveblogging, here's a nifty tool, and it's free :)

"CoveritLive's web based software takes your next live blog to a new level. Your commentary publishes in real time like an instant message. Our ‘one-click’ publishing lets you drop polls, videos, pictures, ads and audio clips as soon as they come to mind. Comments and questions from your readers instantly appear but you control what gets published. Try our software for your next live blog. Your readers will love it."

Read more.

A Remedy for Blogger Inferiority Complex

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:26:27 GMT

here's another excellent post from Pro Blogger.

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A Remedy for Blogger Inferiority Complex

Yesterday I wrote about the problem of blogger inferiority complex and how often as bloggers we can limit our potential by defining ourselves negatively.

Today I want to get a little more constructive and suggest a remedy for this common problem. In doing so I want to help those of us who struggle with a negative self view to make a mind-shift in our thinking.

How do you become more positive in the way that you think about yourself and your blog?

Today I want to suggest two starting points in tackling this problem. Tomorrow I’ll wrap up this mini-series with a third.

Read more

Re: Flickr Video

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:31:50 GMT

scribe,

for now, Gaia only support direct embedding via Youtube and Google videos. however, you can stil embed any videos on your blog and pods by following this old trick.

~C

Flickr Video

http://scribe-sky.gaia.com — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:22:44 GMT

I was trying to find out where to quickly ask this:

Does gaia support flickr new vid? (the embed says utube only, but I did see the google vid).

~ the scribe

There is such a thing as too much blogging

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:42:18 GMT

(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)

"SAN FRANCISCO — They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

"A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

"Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly." [read more]

I could relate to this because I also work from home. And I blog a lot too. Thank goodness I don't get paid by the blog. There are other things I do on the job. Blogging is my creative and reflective outlet. It's like doing yoga for me. I actually do my blogging on my free time, or from time to time when I'm compelled to share information or reflect on something.

Working from home is a double-edged sword. If you love your job (like me) you're more likely to end up logging more hours than with a regular nine-to-five. The challenge is to organize and prioritize, and to not get lost in the stream of information bombarding us constantly online.

Oh rats! It's way past my bedtime already, again!

Re: Introduce Yourself

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:40:44 GMT

thanks for joining, Wren. welcome. see you around!

~C

Re: Introduce Yourself

http://wiselittleraccoon.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:39 GMT

I'm Wren Tuatha, aka wiselittleraccoon. I blog, write poetry, film, teach, make stuff and sell it. I'm one of those "idea people" who is not afraid to try something. But I'm still bummed if it tanks. Now I'm on to my new exciting thing, a new site/blog I'm calling HippieChickDiaries! I'm looking forward to digging through these posts for pointers and ideas.

Visit me sometime! I like making friends!

The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:14:58 GMT

A free ebook from Skelliewag! Use it to improve your blogging and web presence...

-----

About the book:

Most hard questions have simple answers. The hard part is in the doing.

The question: how can I lose weight? can be answered truthfully in one sentence: eat three modest, healthy meals each day (and no more), and make exercising a habit.

But that isn’t good enough. It’s the how that gets us. It’s not enough to say what we have to do. We need to know how to do it.

As bloggers and webmasters, we want most or all of these things: more visitors, more subscribers, more comments, more money, more inbound links, and more people saying good things about us. Our wants aren’t in question. It’s the how that gets us. It’s the how that has us reading a dozen blogs a day, trying to find the answer (or at least a little piece of it).

You can stop searching, for now. The answer is in this eBook.

Click the cover below to download the 399 KB eBook .PDF

Cover source photography by visualpanic.

via Skelliewag

Script Frenzy Approaching

http://peacemonger.gaia.com — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:57:02 GMT

See my Script Frenzy blog for more info!
mu

10 Reasons For Bloggers To Get Involved With a Non-Profit

http://coolmel.gaia.com — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:36:45 GMT

(via ProBlogger)

10 Reasons For Bloggers To Get Involved With a Non-Profit

This post exploring reasons for getting involved with Non Profit organizations was written by Dr Mani Sivasubramanian from Money Power Wisdom.

Having my blogging structured around a charitable purpose has helped bring unique advantages, give greater visibility and made it deeply satisfying and enjoyable.

Here’s why you, as a blogger, might want to get involved with a non-profit too.

1. Karma. It’s the abstract, universal law that dictates that you reap what you sow - in the long run.

2. Prospects. Many people enjoy doing business with an organization that supports causes close to their heart.

3. Branding. Countless blogs and bloggers have enjoyed a ‘brand boost’ by being aligned with non-profit causes.

4. Inspiration. By seeing a bigger benefit from your blogging success, you’ll be inspired to work harder and push ahead to grow profits.

5. Purpose. While profits are ‘worthy’, a deeper meaning to what you do is a powerful driving force that guarantees sustainability and longevity.

6. Visibility. You get to leverage promotional activities the non-profit runs across multiple channels.

7. Taxes. In many cases, your expenses towards helping a non-profit will qualify for tax-breaks (but check with your accountant before you do anything).

8. Network. When you get behind a non-profit mission, you’ll quickly find yourself a part of a wide, caring network of like-minded people - with many benefits.

9. Sales. Yes, working with a non-profit can explode your sales, particularly when you tie it in with a promotion where your extra profits go to charity.

10. Happiness. In a deeply personal sense, peace, joy and contentment come from helping people less fortunate than ourselves.

These 10 reasons - and more - are what keep me involved in blogging, ezine publishing, website building and all my other online activities… because they all support my work at raising awareness and funds for congenital heart defects.

About the author:

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is a heart surgeon using his Internet marketing business to fund heart surgery for under-privileged children in India. On February 14th, in a worldwide event called “A DAY FOR HEARTS : Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Day”, he hopes to reach at least 500,000 people with the message of CHD awareness. You can help spread the word too.