Confused yet? Don’t be – its really quite simple. To put it as simply as possible – a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.

Have a look at the main page of my blog at here for an example. for a different example you might like to look at this one (another of mine).

Ok – now you are a seasoned blog reader – you’ve seen two already at least.

Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic – there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies – blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.

Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader. Lets examine a couple briefly.

Archives – You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else. However its worth knowing that there is a lot more going on under the surface that might initially meet the eye. For example in addition to the main page of this blog – at the time of writing this post there are over 520 other pages or posts below the surface that I’ve written over the past few months.

When I write a post like this one it goes to the top of the front page. As it gets older and as I add more current posts it begins its journey down the page until it disappears from it. This is not the end of its life however, because it goes into the ‘Archives’ of my blog. It sounds like a dusty dark place but its really just like a filing cabinet that is easily accessible in a couple of ways. You can read my ‘archives’ simply by looking on the ’sidebar’ (over on the left of this blog) at the ‘archives’ or ‘categories’ section. There you will see links to all my old posts which you can access either by category. You’ll see a category for ‘Advertising’ – click that link and you’ll see all my old posts on the topic of Advertising with the most recent at the top and the oldest at the bottom.

Comments – Not all blogs use comments – but most do. This blog is not a monologue but a conversation. You can give me feedback on almost everything I write simply by clicking the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of each one of my posts. This will take you to a little form where you leave your name, email and a link to your own blog if you have one as well as your feedback, comment, critique, question, essay on why you love my blog, promise of money…. etc). Try it now. Scroll to the bottom of this page, click ‘comments’ and fill in the blanks with a little introduction to yourself.

A great way to learn about blogs is to read a few. Leave some comments, ask questions and bookmark your favourites. An even better way to learn about blogs is to start your own. Ok – you might be laughing at me now – you think you are not web savy enough to have your own site? You wouldn’t know where to start? You don’t know how?

My Secret

Let me share a secret with you – three years ago I knew nothing about blogs, I had never used the internet for anything more than email, surfing and chatting to friends and I could only barely do any of that! But one day I discovered a blog and after surfing from one to another (blogs tend to link up to other blogs a lot) for a few hours I was hooked and wanted to start my own. I found that there are free blog services that almost anyone could set up in a matter of minutes. Really it is that simple. Literally millions of people blog from around the world. Its not just something for young people, or geeks, or cool folk, or Westerners, or even for people with their own computers – instead its something virtually anyone with access to a computer and the internet once or twice a week can start up.

Are you still confused? Would you like more information? Below are a few helpful articles on the topic – there are many more on the web – just do a search on your favourite search engine. Otherwise shoot me an email using my ‘contact’ button with your question and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

• Rebecca Blood has written a helpful history of blogging for those who are interested in learning more about the blogging evolution over the past few years.
• Harvard Law has a helpful article titled What makes a Weblog a Weblog
• Trudy Schuett writes a good article title What is a blog and why do we need one?
• WordPress: Introduction to Blogging

If you are new to blogging and want some hints on how to get started – keep an eye on my Blogging for Beginners Page for more ways to explore blogging.

One more post you might be interested in – What Is RSS?

Lastly – let me finish with a video that explores the question of what is a blog in a visual form that I’m sure many of you will find helpful.

Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant, unobtrusive Google ads on their website’s content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your users are looking for on your site, you’ll finally have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages.It’s also a way for web site publishers to provide Google search to their site users, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages.
The program is free, and combines pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising – meaning you get paid for valid clicks on the ads on your site or search results pages as well as impressions on your content pages. So go ahead and try this program. If you comply with this program policies, just complete online application and select either or both of AdSense for content pages and AdSense for search. One application gets you approved for both AdSense and AdSense for search – you can decide to use any combination of these products on your pages.

Google will review your application and follow up with an email within 2-3 days. If you are accepted into the program, you can log in to your new account and get the HTML code to insert into your web pages.

Earning Types: CPC, CPM, CPA
Payment: Check, EFT
Ad Types: Text, Image and Video based ads are available. Different ads on will pay different CPCs (EG Debt Consolidation CPCs might be $5 while game site CPCs might be $0.02)
payout: %40 – %70

following these simple rules will help keep your account in good standing:
1.Don’t click on your own Google ads.
2.Don’t ask others to click on Google ads.
3.Don’t employ pop-up prompts or automatic software installations.
4.Be aware of how your site is promoted.
5.Don’t place Google ads on sites that contain prohibited content.
6.Respect Google trademarks.
7.Don’t tamper with the AdSense code.
8.Provide a positive user experience.
9.Provide a good environment for advertisers.
10.Be responsive.
11.Do not mask ad elements.
12.Do not place more than 3 ad units and 3 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page.
13.Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site.
14.Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default.
15.Place ads only on Content Pages.
16.Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches

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Spock is one of those social applications that spreads virally and that is supposed to be a search engine of sorts for the billions of bits and bytes of information generated from social networks. It’s supposed to make it easy to find information about people you now on the internet. Trouble is, some people think it pries too deeply into the information people place on their social network profiles. Some also feel it generates an insane amount of email notifications and it makes it nearly impossible to stop the notifications and the collection of information.

Some might argue, what’s the big deal? That’s exactly what Google does. Apparently, snooping for, tagging and categorizing people’s social networking information which is supposed to be viewable only by “friends” is a bit much for some.

The second interesting bit of information we found to day came from Copyblogger, a blog that has seen its subscriptions rise from 6,000 to 29,000 in one year. Most of that growth came from “appealing to social news and bookmarking sites” and bloggers. As Copyblogger’s Brian Clark explains, bookmarking site Digg played a very parge part in his sites growth. Over the past year, Copyblogger landed on the front page of Digg a couple times each month drawing tonss of readers to his blog. Some of the people who came didn’t stick around. Enough did though to help the site become as successful as it is.

All good one would think but not every story has a happy ending. This one, apparently, doesn’t. For some time, people have surmised Digg has an “auto-bury list,” a list that purportedly eliminates a site’s ability to appear high in Digg’s listings and eliminates the ability of the listed site’s content to appear on the front page. Clark says Copyblogger has been placed on this list which will dramatically harm Copyblogger’s visibility on Digg. That translates into lower traffic and lower potential subscriptions. Not good for a site that wishes to expand its reach and, to date, has done a great job. If the list truly does exist, it’s certainly a clandestine blemish on the world of social networking.

Though Digg, apparently, won’t acknowledge it, the list’s existence certainly does have a purpose. After all, there’s all sorts of autobot crap out there that automatically submits sites to Digg and man other social bookmarking sites. And eliminating these sites from social bookmarking sites is, indeed, a very good thing. Let’s just hope the list is used only for that purpose and not to wield authority over organic social bookmarking.

So there you have it, some non-holiday news as you, well, approach the holidays.