Blogging

How do people stay motivated if there's only a few people reading the posts? I've thought about blogging, but not sure I'd keep it up.
 
Out of interest how do people 'promote' their blogs? I have a friend who spams her facebook feed to say her blog is updated etc, shameless promotion, the sort of thing that I find cringeworthy and would really struggle to bring myself to do. Not to mention I might not want say work colleagues reading my blog. Although that arguably says something about how I compartmentalise my life.

I have considered writing a blog but my concern is that it will be a waste of time if nobody reads it, I mean aside from getting picked up on google or whatever realistically nobody is even going to visit it.

I understand there can be some sort of social networking going on e.g. fellow bloggers link to you and vice-versa, but again, I don't have the mentality for building up networks by backscratching etc, I'd have to be genuinely interested in what somebody has to say rather than just randomly 'liking' dozens of blogs and shamelessly saying "like me back!!!!"
 
When I've posted a blog post I post it to Facebook and Twitter, I don't see the problem to be honest. It's not spamming because it's not frequent like spam and it's not the same sort of stuff as spam.
 
Edrof said:
I keep meaning to start a blog to store all my online articles on, but I want to list them under their own titles and Blogspot only allows you to have dates as headings (I think) - what sites are you lot using?
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Anyone have an answer to this?
 
For ANY image I use off the interweb, do I need to ask for permission, for example I want to do a post about GTA Five, I'm going to have to ask permission from anywhere I wish to use the image from?
 
willhub said:
For ANY image I use off the interweb, do I need to ask for permission, for example I want to do a post about GTA Five, I'm going to have to ask permission from anywhere I wish to use the image from?
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If you're making money off it you certainly do have to ask permission. BUT there are quite a lot of images (and other material) out there that has no kind of copyright attached or has been released for use.

If you need more information, let me know and I'll post everything I know :D
 
Well, most images out there are not free to use (of course, you can 'wing it' and use anything you want in the hope nobody notices), so the real question is where to find the ones that are.

  • Firstly, you have to find the 'author' and ask their permission. If the subject is rather famous (or precious) then you might have a hard time convincing them to let you use their work. I wrote an article about wildlife photographer Nick Brandt and he was a bit unwilling to let me reproduce his work at first, I think the fact it was for an environmental conservation site was the only thing that swung it. But, it's always worth asking!
  • Secondly, there are web sites out there like Creative Commons that allow you to search other sites for images that have been labelled as free to use. Bookmark that link as it's invaluable!
  • Thirdly, images that are a certain age (usually something like 50 years after the author's death) are automatically released into the public domain. The actual age varies from country-to-country, so check what yours is.
  • Fourthly, as far as I know, things like screenshots from games, front covers and movie posters are a bit of a grey area, but I've always been told that they were fair game.

My top tip would be to remember that almost all Wikipedia images are free to use. The most important thing though, is to properly attribute. So, if you use someone's photo of the Eiffel Tower then give his/her name and a link back to their Flickr page (or wherever). If nothing else, it's only polite!

All of the above is from memory, so if you really want to know the absolute ins-and-outs then have a deeper look. Hopefully this has pointed you in the right direction, though!

I went ahead on Sunday and started a blog with some images. Take a look.
 
l027b.jpg


Who's the funny guy eh?
 
willhub said:
So I've sort of got into blogging, although I've not done anything yet, it came as part of my university assignment.

Perhaps I'm thinking the wrong way, but I just feel that if I post anything, unless I'm an absolute expert in the matter I'm just going to get slated by people and people saying "you don't know what you're on about" and "you suck" etc...

I found an interesting video article that I watched about gaming, and thought it'd be a good subject for my first blog post, as I have opinions on the matter and I can back up things I say when I need to, but I don't consider myself an expert...

I think of blogging as a way I can use my time more wisely, if I find anything interesting and have an opinion, then I can voice it and share it on a blog.

Am I just being a wuss? Am I thinking of blogging the wrong way?
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People say you're supposed to focus on particular subjects. But who cares. Write about what you want. It's your blog. Unless you want it to be hugely successful it doesn't really matter.

More to the point, the 'blogosphere' is so crammed now a days the chances are (in as non-harsh way as possible), that nobody is actually going to read it...

kd
 
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