Last month, I wrote about various timeline tools and how they're a great way to present temporally-based information. I've been using SIMILE Timeline and MyTimeline for a number of projects. (MyTimeline is built on SIMILE Timeline.) Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to embed videos into the timeline events in SIMILE Timeline.

Now there's TimeTube from Dipity [via NewTeeVee], which is all about presenting videos on a timeline. Enter in keywords, click the Build TubeLine button, and you'll get back an interactive timeline, aka a TubeLine, of YouTube videos tagged with your keywords.

TimeTube TubeLines have a very interesting presentation, which you can embed on a page, but there's no refined control over it. For example, here's a TubeLine for Saturday Night Live videos on YouTube:

You can actually link to specific events in the timeline - something you can't do with SIMILE Timeline. However, what I'm really looking to do is to present a timeline of all the SNL cast members since 1975, with a select video - if available - of each member. So for getting finer control, I'm sticking with SIMILE Timeline. I just wish I could figure out how to embed videos in its events.

As writing reviews teaches you brevity, writing short fiction helps you to develop non-fiction narratives that, if applied properly, could make your blogging more entertaining and/or inspiring. Brian Clark's Copyblogger post, The Snowboard, the Subdural Hematoma, and the Secret of Life, as an exampler. That post is inspirational, and has many elements of fictional storytelling woven into it - a process that can also be applied to structuring your blog posts for more impact.

What Short Fiction Is Not

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You're saying, "my blog isn't about reviews." Even still, writing reviews helps you to learn constructive criticism - assuming that you aren't out to be purely critical. Writing short reviews help you to be more succinct. And it's not all that hard if you practice.

Over the years, I've written many hundreds of reviews, which I believe has helped me be less verbose. (Don't mistake my long, more detailed posts for verbosity.) To do the same, ask yourself, "could the same thing be said in fewer words?

Here's one process towards brevity:

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If you thought white papers to promote your business were out and blogging in, join the club. But apparently there's life in them yet. Brian Clark at Copyblogger talks about how white papers earn author Mike Stelzner $300K/year. There's an affiliate link in that post to a free video where Stelzner discusses how he got into this writing niche. There are also additional free videos and other materials via subscription, some of which Brian is part of.

The video focuses on writing white papers for your business, but Stelzner earns his six-figure income from the fees he charges for writing white papers. So there are two ways that white papers can be beneficial to you, depending on whether you're a business owner or freelance writer.

While writing white papers may not be for everyone, if you think you have the stamina to write a well-structured, expert document that's longer than a blog post, you should look into this opportunity.

Is it just me or is anyone else having trouble with certain Google applications? I've been having consistent problems with Google Calendar for several weeks now. The items on one or more calendars often won't display, no matter how many times I refresh. What good is a calendar tool that doesn't work?

I've also had inconsistent render problems with both Google Docs and Google Mail. I have no plans to switch away from GMail, unless I'm absolutely forced to. But if the calendar problem goes on for another week, I'm forced to switch. Google, you really need to get on top of these problems. Then there's the AdSense reporting problems, as Problogger pointed out.

Anyone else seeing similar problems? Has Google grown too fast for their (and our) own good?

When you're stuck for what to blog, or you're stressed out, what do you do to relax? Besides taking the dogs for a walk, I enjoy two main stress relievers: strumming on the guitar or creating "art". I'm not a painter, and I'm an inconsistent pen and ink sketcher at best. I can spend 36 hours one weekend doing a charcoal reproduction of a David Bowie photo, then I can not pick up a pen or pencil again for several years. I can "draft" objects, but that's kind of boring. However, I did discover an incredible 3D program called Bryce, which I started using around 1999.

Bryce is unlike any "low-end" 3D software I've tried - what with its photorealistic landscapes, architecture and animations. It's a great way to implement some Art Therapy, if you don't feel like the traditional method of using paint or chalk, etc.  You don't have to be "troubled" to use art therapy. It's a way to relax and reduce stress, and can spark other types of creativity.

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You've probably heard/read the age-old advice to writers: write about what you know. Not to be contrarian, but there are ways to write about what you don't know - or at least don't know very well - and it's a good way to learn a topic better.

Back when I was a teaching assistant in college, I found that when I taught various programming concepts, I was forced to understand them better. In a similar vein, when it comes to blogging, I find that writing tutorials helps me understand something better - especially if I do screencasts where I have to provide the narration. If you want to do the same, here's a suggested process:

1. Start with podcasting and transition your skills to screencasting or web video.
2. Get free screencasting software such as Camstudio or Debut. When you have the budget, upgrade to TechSmith's Camtasia Studio. (All of these only run on Windows, and there's no free video screen capture tool for Mac that I'm aware of. Colleagues have found a few low-end Mac screen recording programs, but none seem as sophisticated as Camtasia Studio. Warning: I had technical problems using Debut. It hijacked my TV capture card as well as my sound. And the screen capture mode created one of those "infinite mirrors" types of screen recording of the visible windows.)
3. Read whatever you can about the software you want to do a screencast about, as well as get familiar with the features.
4. Choose a few features to write about and distill your knowledge into a tutorial article.
5. Supplement the article wth screensnaps.
6. If you can explain better with a screencast of you using some of the features, then add that to the article as well.

Once I've done a few screencasts/ tutorials about a subject/piece of software, I find that my understanding is much deeper. I'm only guessing but I think that part of the reason is because having to write/ teach/ screencast gives you a tangible goal of what you have to learn.

Of course, it's easier to do tutorials and screencasts when you're working with software. What do you if a tutorial or screencast isn't suitable? How do you learn new topics then? That's my question to you. Got any tips or links to articles you've written about learning and knowledge? Feel free to drop them off here.

After Perf's own James Mowery tore two strips off of me in the comments of my non-rant post, Twittering or Navel Gazing?, I went and used my Twitter account for only the second time since July 2007. I asked, "So help me out. Why do you love Twitter?" I'm not sure if Dan York was responding to me, but about 25 minutes later he tweeted about Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky's article on Twitter as a Technical Resource (in which Dan is mentioned as a Twitterer followed by over a thousand people - 1200+, in fact). Dr. Yudkowsky says,

If you haven't used it, Twitter is one of those "I don't think I get it" technologies... I'm fascinated by the capabilities of Twitter. Twitter is disaggregated: Twitter allows access to Twitter as a building block for other services. Now I've begun to wonder just where all this will lead.

In a similar vein, Chris Winfield writes Twitter Wrote This Column For Me. In it he explains how he asked several questions on Twitter and offered to link to the best answers - which he did, in his article. Of course, if you haven't realized it consciously, I used the same method to write this article. In fact, Alex at Geekpreneur says Twitter is a great way to stimulate ideas - for blog posts or otherwise - if your mind has gone blank.

Now these are some of the ways I'd be happy using Twitter, and I can't believe I didn't "get that" about Twitter until now. Why didn't I? A few reasons:

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You've probably heard of method acting, where an actor goes out and researches a role by interviewing people, learning as much as they can about certain types of people or a certain lifestyle, and spending time in real life acting as the character they're studying. Sometimes they go incognito in a little town, sometimes not. This is arguable, but I believe that the best actors all follow one "method" or another, and that there could be an application to blogging. The gist of using "method" is to get deeply involved in something so that you can understand it from other viewpoints and be convincing in your interpretation - an approach that's possibly applicable to blogging. [Updated: There's more than one type of "method" acting, and they don't all necesarily use this approach.]

In addition to actors, there are writers/novelists who apply a method writing style to research their books. I've done it for a lot of my "speculative" short fiction, but not originally on purpose. I mean, does anyone intentionally use "method" for mad partying and drunken stupors? (Other than, say, Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.?) If so, there are probably a lot of Hollywood celebrities doing method research right now, judging from all the DUI arrests for the past 2-3 years. (Although I have my own conspiracy theories about why that's happening.)

What's Method Blogging?

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RSS Awareness Day
Today is RSS Awareness Day. If you still don't know RSS is, check the RSSday.org site out to learn more.

Are You An Effective Blogger?
Learn the 7 habits of incredibly effective blogging. Number 1 (Have something to say) and #2 (Project your personality) go hand in hand. If you have nothing to say, it's kind of hard to project your personality.

Why Twitter?
For those who understand it (and I'm still learning), Twitter can actually be a great way to stimulate thinking and generate ideas. Watch for my "Twitter as Resource?" post later today. [Ref: Neil Patel's twittering.]

Web Developer Cheatsheet
Who needs to hire a site designer when SEOMoz is giving away their Web Developer Cheatsheet?

You've Got AdSense In Your Feedburner Feeds
Or you will have, soon, once Google finishes their Feedburner integration. Will this reduce feed scraping? I don't honestly know.

Google Ocean?!!
Google will be offering Google Ocean very soon, to join Earth and Sky. What will they index next? What's your guess?

If you're not a full-time blogger yet, and you're wondering whether you can earn a reasonable full-time wage over the course of a year, the short answer is yes. But will you earn it, and are you capable of putting in the time, effort and commitment necessary to earn a "career" salary? Do you have the patience to see the process through what could be 1, 2 or even 3 years? And do you have a financial fallback for that duration? (If you're already full-time blogger and earning a reasonable living, you're one of the favored few.)

Does Blogging Compare With Traditional Freelance Writing?

Whether you can transition to full-time career blogger is something you'll have to answer for yourself. The average freelance writer (for print) in North America historically made passable income. Only a few ever made a great, consistent income without long, long hours. And print writers are paid a lot more per feature articles than any given pro blogger. At least according to all the research I've done on the writing industry since 1981.

On the flipside, blogging on your own sites could earn you income - something for which there is no analog in writing for print (other than going through the headache of publishing your own magazine, or using vanity presses to publish your books). But as with any print publication, you have to do the necessary promotion and take on many roles - researcher, writer, facts-checker, editor, publisher, ad sales person.

What I've Learned About Blogging As a Career

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Patrick Altoft of BlogStorm, who always writes great articles, suggests joining Twitter now or regretting it. Though I can't understand why. Am I dense? James Mowery suggested here the other day that Twitter is the blogger's new sidekick. But despite being an opinionated blogger who needs to write about the stuff I believe (in), I still feel no compulsion to use Twitter regularly. I am either too private to Twitter, or too dense to see any value that won't be regarded as "gaming" or even "spamming". Or both.

And despite not having used my Twitter account for nearly a year, I'm getting emails everyday about all the new people following me. So help me out here. Are you following me? What the heck are you following me for (or anyone, for that matter)? Seriously. I'm sure you don't want to read tweets of the "must shave back of hand again and tweeze unibrow by Friday" variety. Would you want to to see links to articles I've written wherever? Or are you after my deepest, darkest thoughts? Or are you hoping I'll follow you too and see whatever it is you have to Twitter? What exactly are you twittering? Why should I follow you, too?

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A while back, Ryan posted a poll at Performancing asking Are You Afraid of Google? If you are afraid, you might want to check out InsideCRM's Tinfoil Hat Toolbox of 100 tips to protect your sites from the Borg Google. This article is relevant to those of you with multiple sites, or if you're planning to go that way. But even if you're a blogger with just one site, you might want to have a look, to learn how much Google already knows about you. There are also some good tips about what not to do if you are expanding your web properties.

Now, Google's logo was recently declared the most recognizable global brand. That's not hard to achieve, what with their search market share. But did you know what else Larry Page and Sergey Brin's baby has been up to? They've invested in solar power (under their philanthropic branch), electrical grids (for their own purposes), and they're now into EMR (Electronic Medical Records). They intend to index participating patients medical records and make them available from anywhere those people can get Internet access.

Then again, Google has openly stated that they intend to index the Earth's information, no matter how long it takes. (I mean, "googol" is a type of "infinity", so this goal isn't surprising.) It looks like they're on their way. Conspiracy theorists are probably wetting their beds like they did as kids, seeing bogeys in the dark corners of their electronic homes. Should you be scared, too, or do you think Google is harmless?

Some reading for today, and my occasional commentary:

1. Jonathan Bailey has an indepth article at Blog Herald about orphan works legislation, copyright, how bloggers and illustrators/ photographers could be affected, as well as what you can do about it.
2. Steve Imparl, a lawyer and writer/ blogger, has a guest post at Daily Blog Tips that enlightens us to some legal points for bloggers. (Though I'm surprised at his opening sentence, which says there are millions of bloggers posting daily. Are there really? Wow.)
3. Also at Daily Blog Tips, Daniel suggests we Twitter less, blog more, which is a counterpoint to James' post here about why Twitter is the blogger's new sidekick. Personally, I've yet to find Twitter as anything more than digital navel-gazing and an interesting sociological phenomena. If there were other elements/ features and it were turned into a sort of followable personal dashboard, then it would interest me. Okay, maybe there are some important uses, such as helping free an American student arrested in Egypt.
4. Jonathan Morrow has a very interesting post about who makes the better blogger: valedictorians or class clowns. Jonathan asks, "do you remember who your class valedictorian was?" He says none of the people he asked could remember, but that class clowns stand out. (I used to remember the valedictorian of my high school year, but not anymore. As for class clown, well that was me. So if Jonathan is right, that's good news for me.) Let me take a slightly different take on this. Class clowns feel the need to be recognized, for whatever reason, and I'm guessing those who blog actively (but not necessarily freelance bloggers) do too.
5. Eden, the people who've brought you PSDTUTS, NorthxEast (recently sold), FreelanceSwitch and other sites, now have NETTUTS, which covers the coding side of website development. The first three articles include building a portfolio site, creating tabbed content areas using CSS & jQuery, and creating PayPal payment forms. So for those of you wanting to delve more into coding but haven't the time to learn programming, you might find NETTUTS helpful.
6. jQuery is an increasingly hot JavaScript code library that makes it easier for non-programmers to slick up websites with all kinds of dynamic features. I linked to one jQuery tutorial in the last item, and Design Reviver has an article on horizontal accordion menus. If you find that these are the types of design features you'd like to add to your site, I urge you to look up more about jQuery. There are jQuery tutorial articles popping up in blogs all over, and if there's any demand for it, I might post some with screencasts.
7. David Peralty at Xfep mentions that WP 2.5.1 is out, but that 2.5.2 is probably about to follow soon. I can't find it, but I did come across another post elsewhere that strongly suggests NOT upgrading to 2.5.1 because several other features are broken. They suggest waiting for 2.5.2, or sticking with 2.3.3. If you're not sure what to do, you can read my Why I Hate WP 2.5 post - and  my Why I Love WordPress post for balance.
8. If you missed the announcement, V2.0 of ScribeFire, the fantastic in-browser (Firefox) editor extension, has just been released (and a 2.0.1 update). This version offers a long-awaited feature: multiple file editing using a tabbed interface. Now your blogging should be even more productive.
9. Webware recently announced the 2008 winners for their web apps awards. WordPress.com was amongst the winners in the publishing category.
10. I've recently started writing about freelancing at both FreelanceFolder and FreelanceSwitch, and I'll be contributing approximately weekly.
11. Brian Gardner, whose WP themes make up part of Performancing Themes' archives, recently released three variations of Revolution Blog theme. (Though despite having a name in common with a series of premium/ magazine themes, it's not a premium theme. However, it is clean and crisp. And free.) Variations include 2-column, 3-col right, 3-col left/right.

These are some of the blogging/ writing/ SEO-related articles posted this week that caught my attention. If you prefer audio, click on the SplashCast player below. In the audio version I expand on some, but not all, of the items listed below. [Time: 9:02]

1. If you sell something on your site, whether a service or a product, making a sale might be dependent on properly informing and educating your visitors. Chris Garrett at ChrisG explains why educating customers is important, and how blogging can help in that regard.
2. Love this title: How to be a Ruthless Blogger, by Darren Rowse at Problogger. Of course, Darren isn't talking about taking prisoners but rather about becoming focused and productive by being ruthless with yourself and your workflow. To supplement this, Darren has another great post about being a more interactive and accessible blogger.
3. Sonia Simone at Copyblogger has some bang-on advice for copywriting that can be applied to blogging in general. The key bit of takeaway info here is that your readers probably have a lot of information competing for their attention. So your writing has to capture their attention straight away.
4. Darren Rowse did a guest post over at Social Media Mom about what being a dad has taught him about social media. And Maki at Dosh Dosh covers seven characteristics required for building a popular social media profile. As a Digg and Sphinn power user, he tends to know what he's talking about, so if you haven't already seen this, check it out. Here's a summary of the seven characteristics:
   1. Strong profile visibility.
   2. Active participation.
   3. Practice reciprocity (win win outcomes).
   4. Effective communication.
   5. Support the community.
   6. Provide value above all.
   7. Demonstrate integrity.
5. The topic of social media leads to lifestreaming. Lifestreaming is the aggregating of personal info feeds such as Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku, in order to either let people know what you're up to or tofollow your friends' activities. Maki of Dosh Dosh talks about the benefits of social media aggregators. Ian Kennedy at Everwas feels that lifestream filtering will become an algorithm war.
6. Jeff Quipp at Search Engine Watch suggests a social media strategy for turning sensationalized content traffic into long-term traffic with additional resource content.
7. Hans Viens writes The Secret to Developing a Popular Blog at Search Engine Journal - one of the most indepth articles of its type that I've ever seen.
8. Richard V. Burckhardt provides the amusingly named 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love at Search Engine Journal.
9. Patrick Altoft of Blogstorm offers a quick guide to launching a new site. He also links to older articles there that provide some pretty impressive stats for a new site.
10. Patrick Altoft's guide to .htaccess was written about a year ago, but every blogger comes across a need for this eventually. Have a look. There are some simple cut and paste rules there for redirecting pages, etc., using .htaccess rules, and it's one of the more comprehensive guides of its type.