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Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts

50 Best Business Ethics Blogs

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With an ever growing number of eyes on business and the means to spread messages, ethics is more important than ever. Visit the below 50 sites for information on good business practices, high ethical standards, and those who got it wrong.
General
These blogs are written by everyone from professors to CEO’s and are a must visit for those looking to learn more about the ethics of business.
1. The Business Ethics Blog: Chris MacDonald teaches ethics at Saint Mary’s University and was named one of the most 100 influential people in business. Since 2005, he has been writing this blog and helping his readers get the latest news and commentary on corporate ethics. Regularly updated, post topics include bailouts, Ponzi schemes, and CEO bonuses.
2. Governance Focus: This blog is devoted to corporate and board governance, ethics, compliance, environment, development, and social responsibility. Information is obtained from many sources for the purpose of information, opinion, and debate.
3. Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics: The SCCE is dedicated to improving the quality of corporate governance, compliance, and ethics. They intend to champion ethical practice and compliance standards in all organizations and to provide the necessary resources for compliance professionals. Visit for the latest news, conference updates, and training.
4. Where’s The Line: Part of BNet, this blog focuses on the latest in ethics. Striving to find the right and wrong in the for profit world, they post on corporate citizenship, craigslist, and even rank companies by perceived responsibility.
5. The Becker-Posner Blog: Gary Becker is a professor at the Department of Economics and Sociology at The University of Chicago. Richard A. Posner is a Judge for the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. Together they have many lengthy posts on the economy, law, and ethics.
6. Sufficient Scruples: This blog focuses on bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues. Kevin is a graduate student from New York who has taught bioethics and participated in clinical ethics. With numerous posts, you can find topics such as healthcare, autonomy, and more.
7. The Consumerist: This blog gives the opportunity for the shopping public to bite back. It contains entire lists of products which are, as well as are not, ethical to buy. Among the “don’t buy” are Comcast, salad dressing, and cigarettes.
8. BusinessEthics.ca: This blog is the Canadian resource for business ethics. It studies ethical dilemmas, values, and decision-making in the world of commerce. You can get links to articles, other sites, and recommendations for reading materials.
9. Freakonomics Blog: Continuing in the trend of their bestseller, Dubner and Levitt continue their discussion. This blog covers everything from politics to business to ethics. A recent post examined the ups and downs of businesses leaving computers on.
10. Going Private: This anonymous blogger worked their way into a coveted position in private equity and may or may not regret it. Among the many topics discussed are management practices, getting in, banking, social equity, and others related to ethics. This blog is a real look at the behind the scenes world of private equity.
11. Working Life: This is a growing community of people who want to discuss, share ideas, and exchange information about their work. It is funded by the Labor Research Association, a New York City-based labor advocacy organization. There are also podcasts and videos on everything from illegal immigrants to corporate bailouts.
12. Scobleizer: Robert Scoble worked for Bill Gates and made videos to highlight new products. Although he often promoted Microsoft products, he also frequently criticized his own employer and praised its competitors, such as Apple and Google. His blog continues in that tradition with Robert blogging on everything from corporate decisions to new products.
13. PEA Soup: This blog is dedicated to Philosophy, Ethics, and Academia. Its mission is to provide moral philosophers a place to converse with colleagues across the world. The primary subject matter is ethics, as well as areas of philosophy, including political philosophy, philosophy of action, and personal identity.
14. Ethics Etc.: This is a forum for discussing contemporary philosophical issues in ethics and related areas. With a variety of contributors, posts include war and self defense, human shields, and corporations.
15. Ethics Crisis : Part of SRF Global Translations, this blog translates corporate codes of ethics and other compliance materials, as well as custom or specialized projects. They cover an array of topics including corporate and government ethics. Posts even include confessions of unethical practices.
16. The Open Compliance and Ethics Group: The mission of the OCEG is to help organizations align their governance, compliance, and risk management activities to drive business performance and promote integrity. With several contributors, categories include governance, risk management, audit, compliance, technology, and ethics.
17. Principled Profit: This blog devotes itself to good business. Shel Horowitz is an expert on business ethics as a success driver. His blog covers the intersections of ethics, politics, media, marketing, and sustainability.
18. The Business Ethics Blog: Lauren Bloom is the founder and CEO of Elegant Solutions Consulting, a consulting firm dedicated to helping professionals, business, and executives build trust with their clients, customers, and members by “walking the ethics talk” in their daily practices. Her blog is full of information on ethics, communications, law, and related topics.
19. Corporate Babysitter: Through parental awareness, public pressure, and legislation, this blog encourages corporations to adopt responsible practices that sustain the health of families. Parents for Ethical Marketing is a young, grassroots organization of people concerned about the effects of corporate marketing practices directed at young children. Read the latest news, get reviews, and more on this site.
20. The Ethicist: Randy is an ethicist and professional blogger for “The New York Times.” He post regularly on the topic and even gives readers the chance to send in their questions. Recent articles include the economy, bank accounts, and the adult industry.
21. Ethics Resource Center: With over 85 years of ethics surveys and research, the ERC runs this site. They are devoted to independent research and the advancement of high ethical standards in public and private institutions. You can read the latest news, watch a webcast, or more by visiting.
22. Knowledge@Wharton: This site centers on the business ethics research conducted at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. You can hear podcasts, read news, and even provide feedback. Categories of posts include finance, leadership, and many more.
23. Transparency Intl.: This organization is fighting against corruption and bringing people together to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women, and children around the world. Their site is full of interviews, guides, and news from every region in the world suffering from corruption.
24. The Josephson Institute of Ethics: The institute provides training, consulting, keynote speeches, and materials to maintain an ethical workplace. You can read a ton of ethics related topics relating to business, as well as sports, policing, public service, and youth. The institute also has a free newsletter and offers a catalog containing ethics related materials.
25. Ruder Finn Ethics: Ruder Finn, Inc. is a worldwide public relations firm that has devoted an entire blog to ethics. With a focus on corporate and public trust, categories include leadership, responsibility, and many more. Many recent posts are on the ups and downs of the current economic crisis.
26. Vineet Nayar: Vineet is the CEO of HCL Technologies and blogs for Harvard Business Publishing. Entitled “Inverted Wisdom,” this blog takes a frank look at business from someone on the inside. Also of note is the post on corporate honesty and flexible leadership.
27. Whistleblower Lawyer Blog: Know of a business with unscrupulous practices? Then visit this site for everything you need to know about whistleblowing laws. Finch McCranie, LLP prosecutes fraud and crimes against the government, and give visitors the latest on law changes, decisions, and pending cases.
28. Jane Turner’s FBI Whistleblower Blog: This short blog is about Jane’s experience as an FBI whistleblower. Published by the National Whistleblowers Legal Defense & Education Fund, read about the ups and downs of Jane’s experiences.
29. Ethics Bites Podcast: As the name implies, this podcast concerns the pros and cons of ethics. The episodes take a look at all ethical aspects, including for business and corporations. Part of the BBC, make time for these informative and entertaining podcasts.
Magazines and Journals
Those who publish on business and ethics also devote their websites to the topic. Visit the below for information from those who do it for a living.
30. Business Ethics: The magazine for corporate responsibility, “Business Ethics” is regularly updated with the latest corporate news. The blog provides a wealth of new ideas about business and the intersection of business and society. You can read about corporations that make the grade, get book reviews, or even listen to a podcast.
31. CSR Wire: The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire is a leading source of corporate social responsibility and sustainability news. They define the integration of business operations and values, whereby the interests of investors, customers, employees, the community, and the environment are reflected in the company’s policies and actions. By visiting this site you can get the latest news, become a member, or read various corporate reports.
32. Ethical Corp: The Ethical Corporation publishes a magazine printed ten times a year and runs this site. As a media business, their aim is to encourage debate and discussion on responsible business through publishing, conferences, independent research, and advisory work. Visit this site for conference information, as well as reports.
33. Ethicsworld: Get an array of articles on business ethics and corporate social responsibility from this site. Frank Vogl brings together practitioners, researchers, and students on this regularly updated site. Read about ethics in businesses from the Middle East to here at home.
34. Ethix: This bimonthly publication is available from the Center for Integrity in Business. The blog strives to promote the integration of good business, appropriate technology, and sound ethics. Join a forum or watch a training video by visiting this site.
36. Crooks and Liars: This is a virtual online magazine by John Amato. With many awards, he goes after the unethical and gives his opinion. There are also various videos to choose from.
Specialty Sites
These sites focus on a specific business, industry, or corporation.
37. Overlawyered: Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Ted Frank is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Together they started this blog to chronicle the high cost of the American legal system. They argue the system too often turns litigation into a weapon against guilty and innocent alike, erodes individual responsibility, rewards sharp practice, enriches its participants at the public’s expense, and resists even modest efforts at reform and accountability.
38. Walmart Watch: This blog is an open challenge to the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, to become a better employer, neighbor, and corporate citizen. Their aim is transparent and lasting change to benefit Wal-Mart communities. Among the many issues discussed are discrimination, environment, community impact, and corporate culture.
39. Tescopoly: Tesco controls over thirty percent of the grocery market in the UK. This blog has found growing evidence indicating that this success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers, and local shops. Learn what Tescopoly plans to do about it and how you can help on this blog.
40. The Responsible Marketing Blog: This is the site where commerce and conscience come together. After serving hundreds of clients in dozens of categories, Outsource Marketing found that the difference between success and failure comes down to one word: responsibility. In this blog, there are lots of tips for marketers, executives, and even consumers on the world of responsible marketing.
41. The Research Ethics Blog: Research that involves human subjects raises unique and complex ethical, legal, social and political issues. Nancy Walton, and her guest contributor Chris, analyze these issues. Nancy takes the latest stories in research ethics and breaks them down for the reader.
42. The Anti-Advertising Agency: This site calls into question the purpose and effects of advertising in public space. Through constructive parody and gentle humor, they critically consider the role and strategies of today’s marketing media as well as alternatives for the public arena. Recent posts include advertising in airports, the sign industry, and commercials directed at children.
43. PR Ethics: Amanda focuses her blog on ethics as they apply to the public relations business. She believes if public relations hopes to gain professional status, it must first emphasize ethics education to inspire higher standards. The blog includes definitions, review of theories, examples, and other resources for those interested.
44. Health Care Organizational Ethics: Jim has been in health care for 40 years as a psychiatrist, medical director, teacher/researcher, consultant, and leader of the ethics program at a health insurer. His blog is devoted to the discussion and debate about the ethics of health care organizations and the wider health system.
45. Secondhand Smoke: Wesley J. Smith is a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute. This blog is a regular seminar on bioethics and the importance of being human. It considers many topics including assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation.
46. PredictER Blog: Predictive Health Ethics Research is a multidisciplinary research, policy, and public education program of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics and maintains this blog. With a wealth of bloggers, topics include testing, the risks of IVF, gene progress, and more.
47. Neuroethics & Law Blog: This blog takes a look at ethical issues of the brain with a legal view in mind. It is written by Adam Kolber, the Associate Professor of Law at the University of San Diego. With a host of guest contributors, this blog puts ethics of neurology into perspective.
48. Association of Fundraising Professionals: For almost 50 years, the AFP has been the standard-bearer for professionalism in fundraising. The ethics section of this site provides guidelines, codes, and standards for fundraisers. Learn about ethics regarding donors, emerging issues, enforcement procedures, and more on this site.
49. Bioethics: This blog was named among the top 50 nature science blogs by “The American Journal of Bioethics.” With several contributors, this blog strives to cover the latest news in bioscience and put it into context. You can also listen to a podcast or format this blog to fit your iPhone.
50. Engineering Ethics Blog: Karl D. Stephan is an Associate Professor for the Department of Engineering and Technology at Texas State University. His blog is full of comments on current events with an engineering ethics angle. Read about nuclear power, stem cell research, and other hot topics by visiting this site.
As many of the above bloggers believe, businesses with ethical practices are the most likely to succeed. With a visit to the above, you can learn how to integrate ethics into your business while avoiding the numerous pitfalls.


READ MORE - 50 Best Business Ethics Blogs

Rotatee : Rotate Banners on your Blog

If you have a website and sell your ad space directly then Rotatee is for you. Rotatee lets you create different ad campaigns to manage different advertising spots on your website. Each campaign targets certain ad spot (ex. sidebar) and lets you specify how many ads should be shown there and how often you want each ad to appear. The implementation is very simple, simply setup your campaigns and copy’n paste provided code to your site’s template files. Sit back and watch your banners rotate.
Rotatee - Rotate Ads
Features
  • Rotate different banners in a certain area of your website.
  • Free account users are limited to 5 ad campaigns. That should be enough for most of the websites.
  • There is no restriction on the number of banners you can rotate in each campaign.
  • Make some banners appear more often by assigning to them higher ‘weight’ values.
  • Option to display multiple ads simultaneously at a random order. Quite useful for blogs with several 125 x 125 px ads.
  • Customize ads: change the background color, margins, etc.
  • Get number of views for each ad unit and campaign.
  • Visualize ad stats on a Pie Chart.
  • Premium accounts: Create as many campaigns as you need. Plus some additional features.

Rotatee - Rotate Banner Ads
Note: Rotatee is still in closed beta and available by invitation only.

Check out Rotatee @ www.rotatee.com
READ MORE - Rotatee : Rotate Banners on your Blog

SendMeRSS : Send RSS Feeds to Email

SendMeRSS is a simple ‘RSS to email service’ that allows you to receive latest posts from your favorite blogs or websites by email. SendMeRSS checks each of the websites you’ve selected at least once in every two hours. So if something new is published you should get it in your email within at most 2 hours.
SendMeRSS - Free RSS to Email Service
SendMeRSS Features
  • Subscribe to as many feeds or websites as you want. No registration required.
  • Compatibe with most of the email services (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, etc.) and programs (ex. Outlook.)
  • Subscribe and read feeds from your mobile phone or PDA.
  • Add “receive website updates by email” subscription widget to your website. See ours below.
  • How To Unsubscribe ? To stop receiving SendMeRSS emails at any time just use unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email.
  • Option to import existing feed subscritions to SendMeRSS.
  • Supports all major feed formats, including RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, RSS 0.9x, Atom 0.3 and Atom 1.0.
  • For additional info go to SendMeRSS FAQ page here.
Check out SendMeRSS @ www.sendmerss.com
READ MORE - SendMeRSS : Send RSS Feeds to Email

31 Ways to promote and improve your Blog

Since Blogging has become popular and useful to marketers today, here are few ways that may be useful for promoting your blog:

1. Commenting on other people's blogs : Comment fairly on other people's (similar to your's); Make sure you post relavant and useful comments, otherwise you'll be considered spam. Commenting helps you get : Spiders, New visitors and useful backlinks.

2. List your blog on blogtopsites (Google hasn't considered these linkfarms yet). May get you new visitors and SE placements.
www.blogtospsites.com .

[Link edited to make it work. Admin.]

3. Allowing commenting on your blog and inviting new users to contribute. This is a basic use within a blog itself. Comments help give your blog a certain popularity and maybe an identity. Blogs such as Wordpress and Blogger allow multiple users to contribute to a blog. However this may take time as you may have to wait till your blog gets some traffic.

4. Try traffic exchange for blogs such as www.blogxchange.com (similar to trafficswarm); I'am not keen on it.

5.Posting reviews of products that may help your visitors. Blogs not only allow you to give your personal opinion, thier main flexibilty lies in using other people's articles, reviews etc without copyright issues (Complete article and review duplication is harmful though; You may add your personal opinion on someone's articles; Usually they'll be happy because your sending them traffic)

6. If you're using blogs like Wordpress, several plugins (extensions) allow you to aggregate RSS feeds, Easy insertion and promotion of affiliate links etc. So consider changing over to Wordpress or MovableType over from Blogger-type blogs.

7. Use Services like www.feedburner.com which allow your Blog's feed to be easily distributed in a ready format to your site users. They also allow email subscription of your feeds.

8. Another way of posting fresh content is by using News sources such as News sections of Google, MSN, Yahoo etc. If you pick up an article fast, you may rank well in the SEs. You can also pick up fresh news from ww.PRweb.com or submit your press-releases which helped me getting some traffic from SEs (for my food blog)

9. Hosting your own blog is a better option (or use a host which give you free or cheap PHP hosting). Since many blogs are based on PHP, you are easily in control in case you want to expand your Blog.

10. Sometimes, if you look up your server stats, you may find that visitors may have landed up in a totally different post then they intended (from the Search Engines). try fixing up your Permalinks or post a new post related to the search term. For example people might have searched for " sports trivia " and somehow they landed up in your post " Sports in England" , where you have nothing to offer in "sports trivia". Then write a new post on sports trivia and make sure you link to this post from the "sports in England" post

11. Apart from regular adsense and other ads, you can opt for Ads for your feeds such as :

www.feeddirect.com
www.kanoodle.com

Though not popular, these ads allow you to monetize your RSS feeds.

12. For clickbank prducts you can try www.affiliatesensor.com which allow you to display contextual Clickbank ads (with or without images).

13. A popular way of promtion is through services like technorati which allow users to find your blog or post through tags. For example you've made a post on Traveling to the Vatican and tagged it as "Travel to Vatican", tecnorati may help people find your blog post on that topic. Technorati is a definite and a must-use option for any blogger. www.technorati.com

14. Social Bookmarking is another must-have for a blogger. Allowing people to Bookmark your Blog and specific posts help spread your blog's popularity. Social bookmarking sites are also a nice way to get many visitors fast to your site.

www.digg.com
www.furl.com
http://del.icio.us

Apart from social bookmarking these sites ( Digg and Furl) allow you to submit "stories" or to specific articles on your blog which may bring immediate traffic.

15. Some ways, other than news sources, to get articles are RSS feeds ffrom other sites/blogs. RSS feed search engines like

www.syndic8.com, www.pheeds.com allow you to get RSS feeds from million os sites.

16. If posting directly to blogs using thier GUI seems difficult to you try tools like Wbloggar ( free ) or Post2blog ( trial)
that allow you post, edit and retrieve to one or many of your blogs right from your desktop. This is helpful if you post many articles a day and hate to use your Blogger's interface. Post2Blog even allows you to add adsense and chitka codes to your ads.
www.wbloggar.com
www.post2blog.com

17. Sometimes your Sever Stats (Keywords, referrers) may give you valuable info on search terms that you may have improvised on. In such cases do a research for those terms and make new posts.

18. Some Plugins (Wordpress) allow you display Popular posts, related posts etc. These may help keep the Stickiness to your blog

19. Also make use of tradtional Link exchanges like : www.linkmarket.com and www.gotlinks.com (I think now they are a paid service). Even though some may not find this useful, Search engines and people may find you through these directories.

20. Sites like www.blogexplosion.com allow traffic exchanges. members of this service are required to surf other member blogs before they earn credits. These credits can then be used for Posting free ads on member blogs for a particular time-period.

21. Linking to other blogs can be made easier with www.blogrolling.com which allow you to easily add and manage links.

22. You may try for a blogger award from sites like www.bloggies.com ( a private awardee). These may make you famous (If you win Wink ) and more popular. Alternatively if money is lying in your bank sponsor an award and be famous Smile .

23. Another alternative to adsense is www.blogads.com. This is gaining popularity among bloggers and may provide you with additional monetizing opps.

24. Podcasting and Videoblogging are extras that you may use to enhance popularity (though I don't use them). Sites like www.youtube.com allow you to upload videos and then directly embed them in your blog using thier code.

25. Scripts like MagpieRSS, CARP RSS, FeedforALL allow you display other sites feed or feeds in a search engine friendly format. Helpful if you want additional content to supplement yours.

magpierss.sourceforge.net

www.feedforall.com

http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

26. Using Photo hosting services like www.Flickr.com (Yahoo) may save a lot of your bandwith ( If you're hosting your own blog). Wordpress and MovableType Blogs provide plugins which allow easy photo posting Through Flickr.

27. Though Pinging ( Announcing to the world when you've posted a new article) is part of many blogging platforms some don't offer that facility.

www.pingomatic.com(only pinging) and www.feedburner.com (pinging and many other features) offer you just that.

28. Stickiness to your blog may be improved by : Quizzes , Polls and other such fun-stuff. People may atleast be willing to play and have fun even though they didn't find what they were looking for.

29. Categorization of Posts (offered by many Blog softwares except Blogger) help vistors and SEs find relavant topics easily. If you 're using blogger consider switching over to Wordpress or Movabletype

30. www.weblogsinc.com which is a huge company running a blognetwork on different topics, accept Bloggers and content writes to write articles for thier blogs or allow you to run your own blogs. You're paid to write good articles. Apart from getting good publicity you also get good traffic and get paid fot that.


31. Last but not the least and the most important is CONTENT which keeps people coming over to blogs again and again.

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Cheers and Success be with us all.
READ MORE - 31 Ways to promote and improve your Blog

The Six Best Chat Rooms For Your Blog

In an effort to foster more real-time communication between users of your site, readers of your blog, or visitors to your social profile, a chat room is ideal. Fortunately, there are many free chat room services which allow you to create your own room and either provide a simple link to that room, or embed the room into your site’s pages.

New visitors to MakeUseOf may wish to review my previous article on creating and using a room on an IRC server, and then head over to WyldRide for the first method which I will cover.
WyldRide’s instructions are quite simple, so we’ll skip to step 4, which lets you create a Flash-based HTML widget to embed in your pages. All you must do is enter your channel’s name. If, for whatever reason, you cannot embed HTML on your pages, or perhaps want to use a nice neat text link instead, you may link to http://www.wyldryde.org/chat/chat.php?channel=channelname . You may play with an example WyldRide chat in my room, at irc.t1mwats0n.com.


Chatzy lets its users create public and private chat rooms, providing a link to the room in the form of, for example, http://www.chatzy.com/445348388829, which can easily be linked to on a webpage, or in an email. The site offers several ways to customize the chat experience to suit your needs.

ChatMaker offers a similar “disposable chat room” service which is very basic, without the features Chatzy offers. There is a paid-upgrade option for extra features. Check out an example at http://www.chatmaker.net/chatap/rooms/t1mwats0n/.

ParaChat’s room creator lets you embed your chat room in a site’s page, as a regular text link, or as a pop-up link. As with ChatMaker, there are paid upgrades available. I’ve created an example embedded chat at http://timdubssandbox.synthasite.com/parachatbasic so that you can see how it looks.

Web-based IM client Meebo also has a service-on-the-side called Meebo Rooms. The rooms are embeddable, simple to create and allow for sharing of video as well as text. Registering for a Meebo account beforehand will let you keep your room’s users in your buddy list with all your other contacts.
Lastly, Gabbly offers a unique service in that its chat rooms are tied to other websites. To understand what I mean. You are taken to the site, which has the chat window floating over it. Instantly, everyone visiting MakeUseOf from Gabbly will be in the chat.

While Gabbly allows you to embed in your site a button to launch the chat, you simply have to link to gabbly.com/example.com. Gabbly says that you can make money by placing your own ads in the chat window, but I’m not sure how lucrative such a practice would be.

Please let us know in the comments, if we have missed any stellar free chat room creators.
READ MORE - The Six Best Chat Rooms For Your Blog

100 Inspirational Posts to Make You a Better Writer

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As a writer, you need all the inspiration you can get. Much of this inspiration can be found from other writers online in a variety of blog posts. Check out this collection to find lots of great posts that can help you become a better writer.

Subject Inspiration

Learn how to write better headlines, create strong content and more from these posts.
  1. 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work: Copyblogger’s post explains a simple way to create compelling titles.

  2. How to Use Social News Aggregators as a Source for Content Ideas: If you’ve run out of ideas for writing, be sure to check out this post that offers a great strategy for finding inspiration.

  3. 31 Ways to Find Inspiration for Your Writing: Check out this blog post to find smart ways to get inspired in your writing.

  4. Who Needs Headlines?: Get insight into the art of writing effective headlines from this post.

  5. Zen Power Writing: 15 Tips on How to Generate Ideas and Write with Ease: This post will help you learn how to easily generate writing ideas.

  6. How to Write Great Headlines: Here you’ll learn about the art of creating a perfectly crafted headline.

  7. 50 Ways for Writers to Find Article Ideas: Here you’ll find 50 great ways to find inspiration for articles.

  8. Using Titles Effectively on Blogs: You can learn how to make a good first impression with the help of this post.

  9. Do You Feed Your Muse Well?: Learn about creating inspiration from this post.

  10. Are You Using the Right Content Development Strategy for Your Website: This post explains a smart way to develop writing content.

  11. The Discipline of Content Strategy: Learn how to plan for the creation of usable content from this post.

  12. Writing Inspiration: Check out this post to find writing inspiration from Raymond Chandler to Alex Barris.

  13. How to Build a Successful News Blog: 10 Information Sources You Can Use: This post explains how you can use information sources for news blog inspiration.

  14. Marinating Ideas into Blog Posts: Use the techniques found in this post to marinate great ideas for your writing.

  15. Sources of Inspiration for Your Blog: Find your muse through the resources in this post.

  16. The Lazy or Smart Blogger’s Way to Create Content for Niche Blogs: In this post, you’ll learn about easily creating content for your niche blog.

  17. How Great Headlines Score Traffic: This post explains why great writing headlines are so important.

  18. Blogging and My Inspiration: Find out how one blogger gets motivated by reading this post.

  19. Do You Digg This Headline?: Learn how to write headlines that attract attention on social networks from this blog post.
Techniques
Check out these posts to learn techniques for better writing.
  1. Learn to Be a Better Writer by Becoming a Better Critic: This post explains how becoming more critical will improve your writing skills.

  2. Putting the Fun Back Into Writing: Read this post to consider why it’s important to have fun when you write.

  3. The Benefits of Keeping a Private Journal: Read how keeping a private journal can help you think better as a writer.

  4. Pare a Phrase to Paraphrase: Correctly Use Paraphrases in Your Writing: This post will help you understand the art of proper paraphrasing.

  5. Writing Content That Works for a Living: This post aims to help you better write persuasive content and beyond.

  6. 3 Easy Ways to Write with Style: In this post, you’ll find out how to write with more style.

  7. How to Be Interesting: This blog post shares ideas for being a more interesting writer.

  8. How to Say Nothing in 500 Words (A Lesson on Writing: In this post, you’ll find a summary of 9 important points from the essay on writing, "How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words."

  9. Improve Your Writing with These Editing Tips: This post will help you understand how editing can make you a better writer.

  10. The Secret of Writing Funny: In this post, you’ll learn all about writing humorously.

  11. Writing for Busy People: This post explains how best to write for people who just don’t have time.

  12. Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques: This post will explain the essentials of persuasive writing.

  13. Better Writing Through Design: Learn how to improve your visual language from this post.

  14. How to Use Reading to Become a Better Writer: Read this post to find out how reading can improve your skills as a writer.

  15. Five Easy Steps to Editing Your Own Work: Follow these tips to learn how to edit your own work.
Productivity
Get inspired to be a more productive writer by these posts.
  1. Unlock Your Creativity: Read this in-depth article to find lots of great ideas for getting your creative juices flowing.

  2. Battling Bloggers Block: This post has great advice for getting around the wall and getting started writing.

  3. 10 Productivity Hacks for Freelancers: Check out this post to find 10 ways to get moving with your writing.

  4. Edit this Post on Editing: Find out how to edit effectively with the help of this post.

  5. Breaking Writer’s Block: Learn how to take down writer’s block with the help of this post.

  6. How to Slog Your Way Through a Boring Assignment: Get through your most boring assignments with the help of this post.

  7. Declaring War on Blogger Apathy: This post will teach you how to fight back against apathy.

  8. How to Write an Article in 20 Minutes: Try these techniques to speed up the process of your writing.

  9. Effective Writing, Effective Work Habits: Learn how working effectively can help improve your writing.

  10. 52 Simple Things You Can Do Right Now to Jumpstart Your Writing Efforts: Use these 52 techniques to give your inspiration and creativity a shot in the arm.

  11. My Trick for Writing Difficult Articles: Find out how to make difficult articles work with the help of this post.

  12. Managing Information Flow: How Prioritization Will Improve Your Work and Learning Efficiency: Make your stream of information flow just a little bit easier by applying the techniques in this post.

  13. When You Can’t Get Started Writing: Check out this post that discusses getting started with writing.

  14. Beating Burnout Creatively: This post will teach you how to get over burnout in some really smart ways.

  15. Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking?: Avoid these mental blocks to open up inspiration in your writing.

  16. 3 Can’t-Fail Steps for Writing Without Intimidation: Find out how to keep yourself from holding back on your writing from this post.
Mistakes
Check out these posts to learn what you need to avoid.
  1. Just Say No to These Three Enemies of Clear and Direct Writing: Make sure that you’ve avoiding these mistakes and writing as clearly as possible.

  2. That’s Not What I Thought I Wrote!: Read this post to find out how to write to be understood.

  3. Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When You Write?: In this post, you’ll see seven common mistakes that must be avoided.

  4. Want Your Ideas to Spread Easily? Try Narrowing Your Message Focus: Remember that keeping focus is essential to good writing-learn more about the concept in this post.

  5. The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words: This post will help you better understand how to use words correctly.

  6. Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb: Learn about grammatical errors that can destroy your credibility from this post.
Blogging
These posts offer a wealth of information and advice for writing online.
  1. Put on Your Game Face: This post discusses building your identity as a blogger.

  2. The 5 Immutable Laws of Persuasive Blogging: Follow these rules to become a better blogger.

  3. How to Write a Better Weblog: Here you’ll find useful advice for making your blog writing better.

  4. You’re Not Just a Writer, You’re the Editor-in-Chief: Bloggers should read this post to get inspiration for self-editing.

  5. 5 Ways Blogging Can Make You a Better Writer: Read this post to find out how blogging can help improve your writing in other areas.

  6. How to develop stickyness to your blog: Check out this blog post to learn how you can write in order to keep your readers coming back.

  7. 21 Ways to Write Posts That Are Guaranteed to Grow Your Blog: Here you’ll find 21 excellent strategies for effective blog writing.

  8. Writing Good Content: Learn some back to basics advice for creating good blog content from this post.

  9. 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web: Get advice for writing on an ever-changing platform from this post.

  10. 10 Tips for Writing a Blog Post: Get really simple tips for blog writing from this post.

  11. Bring Your A-game to Write for Blogs: This blogger explains how you can draw upon experience as a writer when working on a blog.

  12. Writing Blog Content-Make it Scannable: Learn about one of the most crucial techniques for bloggers-writing scannable copy.

  13. How to Craft a Blog Post-10 Crucial Points to Pause: Here you’ll find 10 important points for writing a blog post.

  14. A Dozen Online Writing Tips: CyberJournalist shares some insight for writing well online.

  15. How to Write Excellent Blog Content-What We Wish We Knew: Find out how and why it’s so important to create good blog content.
Tips & Advice
Find specific advice and tips for improving your writing in these posts.
  1. Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well: Find out what Ernest Hemingway has to say about being a good writer.

  2. The Easiest Way to Become a Better Writer: This post offers advice for significantly improving your writing skills.

  3. Joss Whedon’s Top 10 Writing Tips: Take some writing advice from Joss Whedon.

  4. How to Become a Better Writer: Read this post to take your writing to the next level.

  5. 15 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer: Follow this post to find 15 simple tips for improving your writing.

  6. Short Stories: 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers: Newbies to creative writing can develop their skills by following this resource.

  7. Writing, Briefly: Author Paul Graham shares his outlook on writing.

  8. How Can I Become a Better Writer?: wiseGEEK shares advice for the process of becoming a better writer.

  9. 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer: Check out this simple post to get inspiration for growing as a writer.

  10. Learning to Write Invisibly: Get some great advice on writing from novelist Elmore Leonard here.

  11. Do You Practice the Top 2 Traits of Good Writers?: Find out what the most important traits are for writers, and why they’re so important, from this post.

  12. A Guide to Becoming a Better Writer: 15 Practical Tips: This blog post offers 15 great ideas for becoming a better writer.

  13. 10 Ways to Become a Better Writer: Follow these 10 tips to improve your skills as a writer.

  14. How to Write (in a thousand words or less): Learn the basics of writing from this post.

  15. Writing for Readers-What’s My Promise as the Writer?: This post will help you learn how to fulfill promises to your readers.

  16. How to Become a Better Writer: Johnny Kramer shares some valuable advice for improving your writing.

  17. Advice for Students: 10 Steps Toward Better Writing: Get the basics of writing improvement from this post.

  18. How Can I Write a Strong Essay?: Check out this post to learn more about writing thoughtful essays.

  19. Ten Ways to Become a Better Writer: These tips will help you develop yourself to become a better writer.

  20. 2 Ways to Become a Better Writer: Here you’ll find 2 simple ways to make your writing better.

  21. 9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer: Check out this post to find out what your readers are looking for.
Tools
Check out these posts to find tools that can help make you a better writer.
  1. 30+ Tools for the Amateur Writer: Make use of these tools to make writing easier and more fun.

  2. Darkroom: A Text Editor That Helped Me to Writer Better Content: This post explains how to use Darkroom for better writing.

  3. Blogging Toolbox: 120+ Resources for Bloggers: Learn about some of the best resources online for bloggers from this post.

  4. Fifty (50!) Tools Which Can Help You in Writing: Make use of these tools to see a great improvement in your writing skills.

  5. Twenty Writing Tools: Find out which writing tools are Roy Peter Clark’s favorites.

  6. Discover Hundreds of Post Ideas for Your Blog with Mind Mapping: Learn how you can put mind mapping to work to gain inspiration through the knowledge in this post.

  7. Writer’s Toolbox: 35 Best Tools for Writing Online: Get loads of use out of these tools when doing your writing online.

  8. Back to School: Writing Tools, Part 1: Check out this list to find tools you can use for writing.
READ MORE - 100 Inspirational Posts to Make You a Better Writer

Useful Blog Add-Ons & Tools That Improve Visitor Experience

Here’s a collection of most useful blog add-ons or extras that can be easily integrated with any website and will help in enhancing your visitors’ experience.

All these 15 add-ons are free and you don’t have to be a geek to use them on your site.

gtalk 1. Google Talk Badge - This badge will enable site visitors to get in touch with you quickly. They won’t need a Google account and the badge is enabled only when you are online. Alternative is meebo me.

save_as_pdf
2. Web2PDF Online - Love this. People can download your articles as PDF files with a click. The PDFs are free of any advertising and you also get full access to stats so you know what articles downloaded most, etc. (example)
zohocreator
3. Zoho Creator - If you ever need to create web forms for your blog, use Zoho Creator. It lets you customize the form layouts, there are no data limits and best of all, readers can upload file attachments while submitting the form.
print
4. HP Blog Printing - This makes your blog printer friendly. Visitors can pick blog posts that they want to print and only the text + images get printed. Everything else including banners, sidebars, etc. are cut off from the printed version.
rating
5. Outbrain Ratings - The is the best way to add ratings to your blog posts. Outbrain offers two extra advantages as well - your readers can find more stories related to the one they are currently reading and two, they can rate stories even from feed readers.
feeds
6. ShareThis or AddThis - They help reduce clutter on your blog by neatly arranging icons in a CSS drop-down that appears only on mouse hover. Both are similar though I prefer AddThis as it is loads faster and allows branding.

7. Google Feed Wizard - This is useful if you have to embed RSS feeds in your blog - you can create blocks in either horizontal or vertical format. If your need options other than AJAX, try these RSS widgets or the static Google Gadgets.
vote
8. Skribit - This is again a great tool to get feedback and opinions from your site visitors.

For instance, you can put up a question like "What should I write about" or "How Can I improve" in the sidebar and readers can add opinions anonymously.  They can even vote on suggestions left by other visitors. See example.

visitors 9. who.amung.us - This helps you and your readers know how many people are currently on the site and what pages are they reading.  No sign-up required and amung.us will even tell you the exact location of different visitors on a map.

eco 10. Eco Safe Badge - This badge allows website visitors to send a full copy of your web page to any email address in HTML or PDF format. Alternatively, they can download a PDF version of the page in a click. The whole idea is to discourage visitors from printing web pages.

meebo 11. Meebo Rooms - This allows visitors on your website to interact with each other inside a chat room. Other options worth exploring include Google Lively but again, Lively requires installation at the client’s end.

scribd12. Scribd iPaper - If you frequently link to PDF files and Microsoft Office documents like doc or xls, the Scribd iPaper add-on will make sure that your content remains accessible even to readers who don’t have Microsoft Office or Adobe Reader.

You simply copy-and-paste a small block of code into your webpage, and QuickSwitch converts all the documents in your blog into Flash Paper format hosted on Scribd. If you only link to PDF files, try PDFMeNote script.

media 13. Yahoo! Media Player - If you have an audio blog or frequently link to MP3 files, integrate the Yahoo! media players in your blog template - this auto-detects any MP3 links and creates an embedded player so you are saved from all the hard work.

translate 14. Translate Gadget - This lets your non-English speaking visitors translate articles from your website in their native language using Google Translation.
Alternatively, you can create your own translation box with language flags or through a different translation service.

digg 15. Digg Your Blog - A good Digg widget that doesn’t get much attention.

Unlike the regular "Digg This" buttons, this widget creates a list of posts from your own blog that are currently getting votes on Digg. Put it in your sidebar to highlight "recently popular" content.
READ MORE - Useful Blog Add-Ons & Tools That Improve Visitor Experience

Mizoram is Spoken for : "The paradise in Mizoram"

 An excerpt from prateekvidya

Mizoram just tends to get counted among the 7 North Eastern Indian states… and is safely assumed as poor and disturbed by most people in the plains.. However, a visit to the place and you realise you got all your facts completely wrong..


Its very hard to believe a place like this can exist in India.. Unbelievable love, hospitability and serenity all around.. and herez all one can encounter durin their stay there..


The capital city Aizawl is entirely on the hills.. with the steepest roads of the country being its streets.. their homes are built on pillars which stand downhill.. so in many places you will find a person parking his car typically on his houses roof… then steppin down to enter the house..


The roads are so steep and the turns so risky that you cant drive a vehicle yourself.. and you cant really drive too many cars there.. Rule out the midsized.. rule out safaris and scorpios.. rule out even the santros and wagon R.. its just Maruti 800 which does rounds here.. as a personal car as well as taxis.. plenty of the plyin on these roads… no autos.. no other vehicles.. any bike has to be 120 cc or more.. scooters are painful but manageable.. and you only tend to realise the power of Maruti 800 there.. that babys got guts..


The people are extremely co-operative among themselves and hospitable to the people from outside.. of course they keep a stringent watch on outsiders for any unwanted activity they may indulge in.. Among themselves.. see a taxi graze another one and the drivers just responding by a smile.. a car waitin to let way to another one.. so much unlike other places where they scamper to rush in..
.. as for the hospitality front.. there is no attempt whatsoever by any of the shopkeepers to loot a tourist.. they are calm, peaceful.. and are selfless to suggest other shops if you are particularly interested in somethin.. the taxi drivers keep offerin u chips or candies or even cigarettes…
READ MORE - Mizoram is Spoken for : "The paradise in Mizoram"