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Will You Be Joining The Kindle Store?

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The rush is on! Amazon has opened up Kindle Publishing to the public enabling them to submit their blog to be published on the service. The service is available for users of the Kindle, their e-book reading device. Kindle publishing has been around since the release of the first device but only a few blogs were selected to be part of their initial offering. Blogs range in price from $1.99 to $0.99.

How much will you earn? For most blogs this will be $0.99 per month, while the bigger blogs can draw up to $1.99 per month. Amazon will share 30% subscription revenue with you. So even if you get thousands of subscribers, the monthly earnings will be little. Moreover, you get paid by check.

I can see paying for newspapers in an electronic format, but for blogs? I don’t know about that. My quest for a digital device which is nothing but an awesome FeedReader combined with Roboform and WiFi continues. However, will you be adding your blog to Kindle Publishing? Do you think anyone will purchase access to it for 99 cents?

Enabling Visitors To Save Posts In PDF Format

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Are you the type of blogger who publishes content on a regular basis that would be good to have in a portable format such as PDF? Sure, you could print the article off but then you have to store that paper somewhere. I think it would be much more convenient to have those PDF files on your PC. Thanks to a post written by Amanda on BloggingTips.com, I’ve discovered a nifty service called Web2PDF Online.

The service quickly converts HTML content to PDF for free which provides another means for your visitors to save your content. All you have to do is place the Web2PDF button on your website and the service will do the rest. When you sign up for an account, you get to choose how the PDF will look in terms of content margins and the orientation of the content (portrait or landscape). I know Joomla provides this feature out of the box so it’s nice to see a web service provide this functionality free of charge for anyone to use.

Clearing The Muddy Waters With Your Blog

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Mark Cuban who is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks was in the news recently because of some comments he made towards Kenyon Martin’s mother. On Mark’s blog, he has published a public apology to Kenyon Martin and his mother. However, it looks like the Denver Nuggets are not taking his apology lightly and would rather have had Mark apologize face to face instead of doing it via cyberspace. With that said however, Mark’s blog has given him the opportunity to come clean without the media twisting his words around.

A Better Way To FollowFriday On Twitter

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Do you use Twitter? If so, chances are good that on Fridays, you see a number of people sending out messages which contain half of the users they are following on Twitter followed by #FollowFriday at the end. I’ve participated in one or two of these events and I don’t think they are doing the trend justice as much as they once were. As Andrew Mueller points out, it’s turned into a giant promotional orgy with no substance.

I think it’s better if people would recommend one person at a time that we should be following and then provide substance with that recommendation. This means recommendations will be of higher quality and everyone wins.

So if you participate on Twitter and want to revive the spirit of FollowFriday, use the hashtag #rec which stands for recommendation. The short length of the tag provides ample opportunity for you to provide reasons as to why we should be following that person.

Someone Else Claiming CAPTCHAS Are Dead

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Craig Butler of SitPoint.com has published an article which outlines his reasoning as to why CAPTHCAS have finally reached their end of life. Captchas are usually the first lines of defense for web forms to combat against automated bots/scripts who’s sole purpose is to spam. Here is the list Craig has for why Captchas need to be replaced with something that works.

  1. Accessibility
  2. Not A Turing Test
  3. All CAPTCHAS Can Be Cracked
  4. CAPTCHAS Are Getting More Difficult
  5. CAPTCHAS Measure Ability

I agree with practically every point mentioned in the article. I for one have a difficult time filling out CAPTCHAS let alone someone without sight, or hearing. At least on my blog, Akismet has been doing a great job allowing me to the keep the comment form Captcha free. I don’t know what the answer is to replace the Captcha system which is why I’ll be keeping an eye out for the follow up post which will include a set of alternatives to help spot hackers and bots without disrupting real users.

Did Twitter Kill RSS Readers?

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There seems to be a meme traveling across the web about whether or not RSS is dead and if it has been replaced by Twitter. The answer is no. While I can admit to not using my FeedReader as much since following some key figures on Twitter, RSS is still a staple fold for keeping an eye on things outside of the Twittersphere. Because I’ve paid special attention to who I follow on Twitter, I don’t have to worry so much about unwanted noise or seeing a bunch of links unrelated to what I write about. While I would still like to have stronger filtering, I’ve managed to simply deal with it and hone in on the good stuff.

However, to limit yourself to Twitter instead of RSS is a dumb move because your feedreader provides you the opportunity to see the bigger picture. You get to see many viewpoints instead of just one. You get to see trends outside of what people are talking about. Instead of updates or cool posts from here or their on the web, your feedreader serves the purpose of bringing all sorts of great information from across the web to you in one location.

So don’t let anyone fool you. RSS is not dead.

Do You Blog From One Of These Countries?

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The Committee to Protect Journalists has published what they consider to be the ten worst countries to blog from. Burma leads the pack at number one with a number of Middle Eastern and Asian countries rounding out the top ten.

Relying on a mix of detentions, regulations, and intimidation, authorities in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Egypt have emerged as the leading online oppressors in the Middle East and North Africa. China and Vietnam, where burgeoning blogging cultures have encountered extensive monitoring and restriction, are among Asia’s worst blogging nations. Cuba and Turkmenistan, nations where Internet access is heavily restricted, round out the dishonor roll.

The report was released on May 3rd to celebrate World Press Freedom Day and to call attention to online repression. Let me know if you blog from any of these countries or if you know someone who does. I’m interested in reading your story.