Reading blogs is part of my daily routine. I’ve stumbled upon many nice blogs with plenty of helpful information. I discussed blog reader-friendliness in my Sunflower blog last year. Here I would like to share my points with you again.

Template
It’s the first impression for the visitors; therefore, it is critical to have a nice & simple template which matches the theme of your blog. The main colors should be selected very carefully as well.
Word Verification
Not many people like this because it wastes the readers’ time, although it can be used to avoid annoying comments spams and it is a personal preference.
Sidebar
A well-organized sidebar will definitely attract readers’ attention.
Interactivity
The Auto-linky and Chat-box are good examples to entertain and interact with the readers. Since not so many bloggers have these two features, make sure your commenting interface is easy to find and quick to load.
Post
Ideal posts are are not too long and don’t have distracting spelling or grammar errors (I especially need to improve my grammar). In addition, don’t display more than ten posts on your homepage because the readers have to spend more time loading your blog.
Content is King
Without interesting content, it is hard to maintain regular readership. The question is how to make your posts interesting enough to attract your readers. I always find I am lack of inspiration

In summary, your blog is just like any other service or product in the market place. If you want to promote you blog and establish reader-loyalty, you have to please your readers (your customers) by making their reading easier, saving their time and providing more value-added information.

BTW, I don’t mean that my Exploring Blogosphere is reader-friendly enough. I am still learning and experimenting……

What are your criteria for a reader-friendly blog?

Some fellow blogger friends asked me why I like blogging. I wrote a similar post in my Blogger blog a while back. I won’t mind repeating it here since Exploring Bloggosphere has different readers. Here goes the reasons why I liking blogging:

• Blogging is a new experience which can bring me more
• Blogging is free thanks to many Internet talents
• Blogging is creative: internet is all about ideas and innovation
• Blogging is a lot of fun & laugh
• Blogging helps me make wonderful blogging friends and reach large audiences
• Blogging helps me learn how to write better
• Blogging provides me chance to experiment and promote my own ideas
• Blogging can be an outlet when needed
• Blogging practises my skills in difference ways
• Blogging is freedom, just like my own backyard
• Blogging has great potential
• Blogging feedbacks and comments make me happy and healthy
• Exploring Blogosphere is a great place to share thoughts, experience & fun

Now it’s your turn – why do you like blogging?

Today I checked my pending comments – 4689 spams waiting for me to delete! Wordpress only allow me to delete 25 spams/time. Let’s say 10seconds/25 spam, I have to spend 32 minutes (4689/20*10 = 32) to delete all these spams!! What a pain!!

Here is what I did to deal with commenting spams:
1. Turned off some popular post commenting function
2. Created a Comment Blacklist including those popular key words in spams
3. Created a Comment Blacklist including those IP of current spams

There are some drawbacks of the comment blacklist since readers might use same key words as those on the list. In that case, their comments will be marked as spam

Anyone knows any idea to deal with spam? Thanks!

I had a post about What’s Web 2.0 ? back on April 16, 2007. Web 2.0 is popular now but still new for most people who don’t spend too much time online. Web 2.0 represents the recent evolution of the World Wide Web. Nowadays, many technologists, journalists, and industry leaders have used the term “Web 3.0″ to hypothesize about a future wave of Internet innovation.

Among those views from industry leaders, I like what Jerry Yang, founder and Chief of Yahoo, talked about Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 :

Web 2.0 is well documented and talked about. The power of the Net reached a critical mass, with capabilities that can be done on a network level. We are also seeing richer devices over last four years and richer ways of interacting with the network, not only in hardware like game consoles and mobile devices, but also in the software layer. You don’t have to be a computer scientist to create a program. We are seeing that manifest in Web 2.0 and 3.0 will be a great extension of that, a true communal medium…the distinction between professional, semi-professional and consumers will get blurred, creating a network effect of business and applications.

ExploringBlogosphere has been waiting for WordPress 2.5 for a long time. Based on WordPress website, “The improvements in 2.5 are numerous: multi-file uploading, one-click plugin upgrades, built-in galleries, customizable dashboard, salted passwords and cookie encryption, media library, a WYSIWYG that doesn’t mess with your code, concurrent post editing protection, full-screen writing, and search that covers posts and pages”.

I will let you know my opinions about WordPress2.5 later.

If you are a small business entrepreneur, most likely you will have to undertake different roles at the same time – CEO, accountant, designer, marketing VP, secretary,…etc. An eye-catching logo for your business or blogd is a key for the future success. Web 2.0 is a hot topic nowadays. Do you know how to create a Web 2.0 style logo? I did a lot search lately and found two Photoshop tutorial video on YouTube.

I just started my new website HappyTutors.com and I need a new theme for it. Today I went to WordPress Theme Viewer and found that there are hundreds of great WordPress themes avaiable. I remember that last year when I started ExploringBlogosphere, there were not so many themes that I like. The blogosphere has developed so fast in the last two year. It’s really a good thing for bloggers that so many internet and website designers out there offering us free templates. Thanks a lot!

Can you live one day without the Internet?

I came across a very interesting research at Analyst Webblog Hitwise Intelligence about Google and Yahoo! users. The research concludes that Yahoo! Search attracts more younger audience and Google users are more likely to be big online spenders.

I always use Google and hardly use Yahoo!. I sometimes do online shopping through Google. How about you?

Look at the post Social Neworking Sites I wrote in October 2007, Facebook grew fastest among social networking sites. Now we know that Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240m at the end of last year, valuing Facebook at $15b! As far as I know, in the blogosphere, WordPress is the higher profile, while Facebook is perceived as “Teenager”. However, Facebook demonstrates the stronger power of social networking and larger share of searching market. Anything can happen in the web – One day my ExploringBlogosphere might be acquired by a giant:-)