My top list of best blogs 2009 and some blog info (old post)

Ahead of the rest…

A summary of the top early birds blogs that get the news before the others!

Give yourself the upper hand, twitter these helpful blogs before anyone else

I often find that the best blogs are discovered through lists and word of mouth. It never ceases to surprise me how difficult it can be to find new and interesting blogs, simply by looking for them. It really takes some thorough investigation. In thinking about this, I brought in my staff and had them research, in-depth, about some really superb blogs. We compiled an overall list of 100 blogs, and narrowed this down to about 20 blogs that were repeatedly mentioned and had high popularity. It didn’t stop here though.. We wanted to now about which blogs were the first to post so that we could twitter about it, without having 100s of other users twitter about it before us. Basically, we wanted to know which blogs would enable us to twitter, the most relevant and up-to-date articles, possible. The blogs listed below were mostly selected as being in the top 20 because of this criteria. Altogether, we’ve racked up 150 hours compiling this list, so enjoy!

Here are the top blogs and the blogs that I now follow:

Best blogs of 2009





News Blogs

Regarded by many as the best online news blog in the world, I personally follow this blog to keep up-to-date on domestic US news.

While not being a standard blog this is the resource I use for world news. Their newly launched CNN NewsPulse is great for super fast updates. (Still in beta, top bar on the site, easy to find)

This is a good business review blog about the reasons behind the natural fluctuations in currency and the world market status from time to time.

This blog is about the hottest news right now in America and is based on the Fox news channel. This blog is good because it updates extremely fast and you are quit sure to be able to twitter about something as one of the first.

TOP PHOTO BLOGS

This blog offers a slightly different view to photography and often is the first to post stories related to photography

Highly popular site and is great, for reviews and news. While not being the first to post about photography news it is a well build site with lots of resources. A little like my own site. 🙂

Excellent overlooked blog. Simply great! Stunning cross platform between video and photography.

Famous photographer and self-promotion star, Chase Jarvis delivers an excellent blog and post’s regularly.

This blog is like an online tutorial for aspiring photographers and also an enlightenment on how to enhance your skills at photography.

TOP POLITICAL AND POLITICS BLOGS

Andrew declares himself not political at all. His radical views are highly politically potent and he has become quite famous over the years for his views and insights. He is mentioned in Time Magazines top 100 blogs of 2009.

A liberal economist blog by Nobel price winner Paul Krugman. This blog is extremely popular and hosted by the New York Times. Excellent insights for the kind of people that like leaning back with a cup of coffee and reading in a quiet environment…if you get my point.

A highly controversial blog about politics, known as “the Vlogfather” this blog has a reputation of its own. Check it out for yourself.

Here is an excellent analytical political report by Chris Cilliza, who is a renowned reporter for the Washington post and writes clearly with a sharp mind at work.

BLOGS ABOUT STUFF…

A cool blog on all kinds of things that almost always are interesting to read and talk about to others

An astronomical science blog that is not bad, but actually quite good.

A great technology blog about reviews on the latest internet based products and companies.

HIGHLY TALKED ABOUT BLOGS

This blog focuses on the latest techno gadgets, making it a popular blog.

A famous talked about Celebrity news blog

Most of you will know what a blog is already, but do you know what good blogs there are, where to host them, what design to use and what options to put on your blog?

My own experiences after two years of blogging

What exactly is a blog? A blog is a kind of online diary for a company or a person, where you regularly post about your life, your passions, business, news or other interests. It is a way of having your own space in the virtual world. If your blog becomes popular and you attract a lot of visitors you can earn good money from advertising for other companies or services on your blog. Some blogs are so popular that people pay a subscription fee to get the posts. 99% percent of all blogs let anyone sign up for it and it is absolutely free. As you have probably guessed, you are reading a blog now!

Blog definition, who blogs and why blog?

“A blog is a personal diary of thoughts that are channeled into an organized format and made readable on the internet” When a company has a blog, there is always someone from the company writing the blog posts. The company itself does not blog, a person in the company blogs. Irrespective of whether you read through an amateur blog, a hi-fi movie celebrity blog or even a business news blog, it is clear that to express oneself and to be heard is a cornerstone of human nature. This is the core feature that flavors the different blogs with content and also makes them so interesting to read.

How do I start a blog – How to have a blog?

Being inspired by other bloggers could be the right way to start one of your own. You must first decide whether you want to make a general blog for yourself or create it in a specific perspective, targeting topics like politics, sports, travel, business marketing purposes, etc

1. A personal blog is one where you combine your emotions, sentiments with certain facts of life. Facebook would be a good place to host a blog like that.

2. A general blog deals with a topic in particular like, travel, religion or spirituality, etc.

3. A moblog is a blog that can be accessed or updated even from a mobile device. One instance of a moblog is http://chris.pirillo.com/free-credit-report

4. Business blogs are created with a clear intention to make money from them

5. Podcasts are a cluster of digital media in the audio and video form that are frequently updated with latest episodes.

6. Radioblogs are audio streams that can be listened to online and basically function in the same manner as a normal blog. Radioblogs are often not broadcasted such as normal radio and can sometimes only be heard on the internet.

A very successful blog can generate as much as 50000USD per year income from advertising. The trend of blogging is catching up like wild fire but having it as a real job is almost impossible and is restricted to the very few top bloggers.

Here are some links to places that hosts your blog for free:

The word press home page looks like the screen shot that appears here. You can sign up for free and run your fingers over the keyboard to make an excellent piece of blog that will be displayed on a global front.

The screenshot above shows clearly an example of a facebook blog which also adopts a free sign up procedure. These blogs are categorized in the chronological order making it convenient to pick and read.

Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google for easily sharing your thoughts with the world. Blogger makes it simple to post text, photos and video onto your personal or team blog.

How to design a blog and a list of well designed blogs?

This can be done extensively with thousands of options available from websites online that guide you on designing your blog. It is all about how presentable you want your blog, to look and what you need to highlight in order to catch the readers. The choice made from various templates available, forms the base or framework of the blog. These customizable options, add to the uniqueness of your blog depending on the kind of header, footer, content area and of course the hues that you have chosen for the same. http://www.blogdesignblog.com/blog-design/how-to-blog-design-style-guide/ could be an excellent guide in giving your creativity a definite form and design.

List of well designed blogs to look at:

http://superfluousbanter.org

http://odds-and-ends.net/photolog

http://www.joshuaink.com

http://thebignoob.com

http://avalonstar.com/blog/

Sites that sell templates for blogs :



http://www.spicynodes.org

http://www.templatemonster.com/

http://my-web-template.blogspot.com

http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com

http://www.blogskins.com

http://www.eblogtemplates.com

How to get pictures for your blog ?

One of the biggest problems of having a blog is how and where to get pictures. A blog with text only is very boring to read. While you may not know this you are actually lucky, because you are reading this post on a site that will start offering a collection of about 40000 images absolutely free for blog usage. Until we have the launch, you are free to use the images in the portfolio section in your blog posts. Make sure to sign up on our blog in the upper right corner so you will be notified when we launch our collection. Just taking images from the internet and using it on your blog can cause massive legal problems even if you are just a student or private person and can be traced by image copyright software that searches the net for images.

Option for commenting and debate:

When your blog starts getting comments it means you are doing well. Giving your reader the option to comment gives them a feeling of belonging and you are on your way to creating a small community.

Chronological order of contents:

The latest post on a blog is always on the top and the older posts are either displayed below in categories, archives or other such links. This makes the process of accessing older blogs very organized.

Getting noticed with your blog.

A great way of bringing all keen readers’ attention is to add the link of your blog on facebook or other online forums. Writing in simple terms, easy to understand and good titles is what gets you into the good books of search engines.

RSS AND BLOGGING – ADVANCED READING

RSS is one feature that has made blogging more meticulous, organized and allowed for easier access of information from connected blogs. The full form of RSS being ‘rich site summary’ or ‘really simple syndication’, it allows for contracting information from various sites of your choice and bringing it in a readable format on one RSS reading platform. The RSS feeds are supported by XML which is a preferred way to store data on a file online.

The XML primarily is a tool that helps to describe information vividly through the use of tags. This gives scope for bulk data formatting online coming from groups of people who want it the similar way.

The perfect combination of RSS with blogging enables better reading and saves the reader the trouble of accessing various different websites or other blogs to get updated information on the same. The RSS feeds give readers the opportunity to subscribe for information on those specific websites and all of this can be read together at one place on your own blog itself. These tools have made the process of blogging and accessing updated information faster and effortless. This has been useful in the education line, where teachers and educators use the RSS feeds to communicate to pupils at large at a time.

On the whole, if you don’t blog, you could become obsolete. Some of the very famous blogs can be surveyed online and this could be a great way to take off on your personal or business blogging project. You needn’t be surprised if there comes a time when the world will look into this virtual window practically for all kinds of major connections, information and perfect communication so that all other processes in the world we live in are more orderly, falling perfectly in place.