Tag Archives: wordpress

My Blog Is Me

bloggingtonyburgess1969.net is my spot on the web, my official blog of record, my domain (yep I paid for it). No matter what goes on over at Facebook or Twitter this will always be where I will share what is on my heart and in my head without limit. Here I can be less filtered and a little more daring if you will. It is important to be genuine and real. Bloggers are special and we all have a connection with one another through our common interest. Of course I will remain courteous, kind and always silly. Here I am the star of my own blog.

This is a digital extension of who I am. What you see here is what I am like in person. I am grateful to each of you from far and wide who are following me, reading and commenting my posts. As I read on another blog a blog without readers isn’t a fun place to be. WordPress has provided us an awesome platform for expression and connection. So when you come here you will see my blog is me.

Thank You WordPress Followers – 1,337 Followers! #wordpressdotcom #wordpress

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This number is impressive, albeit an odd one. I thank you for following me.

Rambling About Originality And My Blog

I make every effort to make my blog as original as possible using my own thoughts and words to express who I am and to chronicle and curate the things I am interested in. With that said I do “borrow” from sources when my own words aren’t as good as the original. I do give credit where credit is due though. Occasionally I will re-blog a post from a fellow blogger if it fits the overall narrative of my blog.

I get a lot of material for my blog from Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, Websites that features quotes and saying from others, etc. There are images that help tell my story that come from various sources which are copyrights of the holders and creators of their work. My blog is a non-commercial work and I have no intention of monetizing it.

I am influenced and inspired by other bloggers and the culture and attitudes of the moment. Sometimes that influence rubs off and you end up copying someone without realizing it. However there are some who just seem to take someone else’s work and make it their own, which is wrong.

Our world is a mix of open source and copyrighted works so we have to be careful to do the right thing and credit sources as a best practice.

What is your experience with originality and blogging?

As always I encourage you to be original, be yourself, make your blog unique. Keep on blogging.

 

BTW, It’s Friday! It’s OK To Be Happy About That

I almost forgot it was Friday…Happy Friday (or Saturday) to all my peeps! Enjoy your day and the upcoming weekend everyone!

The World Has Been Serious Today

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Our Home!

The world from my perspective has been serious today. With the tragedy in Nice, France to a national blood supply shortage to all the political games going on we are in a serious place globally and locally. This weekend is the one year anniversary of five servicemen dying here in Chattanooga by a local young man who became a terrorist (that is a word I am not fond of using but sometimes you have to).

I am a guy with a wacky sense of humor. My blog reflects that but sometimes you have to be serious. We have to focus on current events that are impacting our lives and sometimes that requires us being somber and sober about how we relate to the world.

As Jon Bon Jovi once sang we got to hold on to what we got and that is our loved ones and our friends. We have to come together to do great things that will make the bad stuff less loud. You do this by being creative, loving one another and sharing the light of your higher power. Be alive and laugh at the people who are making the world hard for us all. I am kind of tired of all the stuff going on. We need a break from it all. Hang in there good people. Stick together. We got this.

Blogging For Bucks

blog-advertisingMany bloggers make a living with their blogs. Making money off ones blog is a great way to bring in extra dollars and to get paid to do what you love. If you are monetizing site please be smart about how your ads display. I worked for a newspaper in their classified advertising department and I understand about advertising being the life blood of many sites. Most blogs need a lot of ads to make money after expenses. Layout of your site and template selection is important. The important question is, what do you do to get all your sponsors on your site?

Some ads are well placed and do not interfere with the content of the site which is why you go to a site in the first place. However some blogs make you wade through a maze of ads to get to the good stuff, don’t do that. User experience is important. Never use a pop-up ad or a banner ad because those are so 2000. Ads that overlay on ones content can be nuisance too. Sidebar ads or perhaps one smallish ad at the top would work best.

Some computers have a hard time with lots of ads especially animated ones and video embedded. There is also connectivity and speed issues too. Users in some areas have a bandwidth cap so keeping that in mind is a best practice.

I don’t know everything about web advertising however I do know about using a site and as a end user its important to get to the content quickly and get on with the other things I need to do. There are some ads that inform me of new things I didn’t know about. Other ads just lead to other sites with more ads and that isn’t fun.

(This post was an exercise for me to write something different. Your feedback is appreciated.)