Nice slogan, eh? However, 9rules do not open for submission all the time. Hence, I call it the “Big day” for bloggers who wish to submit their blogs to the 9rules community.

Question is “How to let your blog has the ?”

• Sign up an account for FREE in 9rules.
• Submit your blog today! (5th November, 2008. EST 12.00am)
• Wait for approval.

Read more about how to join 9rules here.

If you want to join 9rules, remember that it only open for submssion at certain time. Now is the last chance for you to submit your blog in this year. If you miss out this day, you’ll have to wait for the next round, probably next year.

9rules do not accept submissions outside of the 24 hour submission period.

Once the submission period closes, 9rules do not accept submissions. The submission period opens at midnight Eastern Standard Time on 5th November 2008.

Are you in the different time zone? Check out the actual date in your country with Time Zone Converter.

For those in Malaysia, the submission period will start from 1pm of 5th November 2008. I’m going to try submit Blogging For Novice to 9rules and lets hope it got approved.

Have you joined 9rules?

Update:

I’ve submitted my blog to 9rules. You can submit your blog to 9rules at http://9rules.com/submit/

So, I will have to check 9rules blog for approval announcement. You can also follow 9rules at Twitter.

I’m a BlogRush user. I joined BlogRush as early as November 2007 when it just started launching. Few months ago, I removed BlogRush widget in my personal blog, as I think it’s not performing well for a mixed content blog. I kept the BlogRush widget here in this blog as I thought it could attract readers with more similar topics or bloggers from similar niche.

Sad to see that BlogRush failed its objective. Here is a quote from BlogRush.

BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.

Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else. BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later. Unfortunately, the service didn’t work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)

Another sister project known as TrafficJam dies together with BlogRush. It’s sad that BlogRush is never out of BETA and has to be shut down now.

Are you a BlogRush user? If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it. It’s no longer working now. It will show an empty space at the location which you have placed the widget code. I’m going to remove mine once I finish this post.

Wish John Reese all the best in his future projects.

What is Micro-blogging?

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually 140 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web. [ Source ]

Other than Twitter, there are several similar services such as Pownce, Plurk, Jaiku, etc…

But why Twitter?

Base on Google PageRank (PR) ranking, Twitter has higher importance than its competitors. Take a look at the comparison with the recent Google PR updates.

You can read a very good article from Mr. Javo on Micro-blogging, to learn more about the importance of this technique to drive traffic to your blog.

You can also download a 7 pages e-book, Beginner’s Guide to Using Twitter for Business, by Duct Tape Marketing. It’s a very short and simple guide for those who want to learn about Twitter. Here are some useful tools which are also introduced in the e-book:

• Twitter Tools for WordPress – a nice plugin for WordPress
• Twitterrific – an application that can read and post “Tweets”
• Twhirl – another application to enhance your Twitter experience, required Adobe AIR platform.
• Get more Twitter tools here…

Are you a Twitter user? Feel free to follow me @xiaoyenzi to get my Twitter updates.

Idiot’s Guide to Blogging (IGTB) is offering a FREE blog review to those who wish to expose their blogs to more new readers as well as to get tips to improve their blogs.

Your blog has to fulfill some simple requirements:

• Your blog must be at least 6 months old, and updated often.
• Your blog must be acceptable for all audiences.
• Tell your friends! A link back to IGTB is not required, but it would be very much appreciated.

How to join?
Email your blog URL to Raivyn85[at]yahoo[dot]com with the subject “Blog Review“. Raivyn will get back to you as soon as possible.

For more details read here.

My thoughts on IGTB:

I enjoy reading IGTB as you can see that Raivyn is putting a lot of effort in giving tips and guiding new bloggers on a lot of blogging issues. Although IGTB has no fancy layout, content is still the king. It’s a recommended blog for all bloggers.

EntreCard is really a great tool to generate traffic and also a chance to gain potential readers. Other than that, through the EntreCard network, you can find out more blogs that share the same interest. I have found several nice blogs via the EntreCard network.

What is an Entrecard?

Entrecard is your business card 2.0. It’s a 125×125 image which represents you and your blog. Its part advertisement, part business card. It comes with a widget you place on your blog, so that others can leave their Entrecard for you. You can also use Entrecard to promote your blog and launch free advertising campaigns. [directly quoted from EntreCard]

Requirements to join EntreCard:

• Must be blog owner.
• Blog must be written in English.
• Not a spam blog.

Before joining EntreCard, make sure your blog is qualified by following a list of new EntreCard Blog Quality Standards:

1. No nudity:Entrecard, and its members blogs, are generally family friendly. Blogs with images containing nudity are not permitted. This includes nudity in advertisements.
2. English only: Until we develop the infrastructure necessary to facilitate non-English language blogs, English is the only language allowed in Entrecard.
3. Minimum 5 posts: Blogs with no posts, or less than 5 posts, will be removed.
4. Content must be original: Unoriginal content provides no value to the reader. A site that consists only of posts from “free article” sites, copies of articles from news sites, stolen or scraped content is not allowed.
5. No full-screen ads: Blogs that include a “Skip This Ad” popup or other full-screen ads will be removed.
6. No illegal file downloads: Blogs that link to illegally shared files, such as music, movies or software, will be removed. By “illegal” we mean content that you do not have the right to distribute. Linking to free, legal music and software is permitted.
7. Entrecard widget must be present: Including the widget on your site is a requirement if you wish to participate in Entrecard.
8. No redirects: Sites that use a redirect (such as tinyurl links) as the URL on their account will be deleted.
9. No duplicate accounts: If you have more than one account for the same blog, the duplicate account will be deleted.
10. URLs must be valid: Sites with URLs that do not work or are wrongly typed will be deleted.
11. No autoplaying audio: This includes music that plays automatically when you visit the page, or short audio ads that come up unannounced.
12. Content must be recent: Sites that have not been updated in six months will be removed.

Also remember to check out the FAQ.

My Two Cents

The emerge of EntreCard has drawn to a question: Can you really gain loyal readership or EC members just come and drop their cards?

Base on my own experience (from my personal blog), some EC droppers really spend some time reading your blog content, and most of them just come-and-drop visitors, in order to earn the EC credits. I’m going to monitor the traffic brought by EntreCard to BFN. Welcome all EC members to drop your EC cards here, and for this blog, I will be slightly “picky” for free EentreCard ads requests. I will only approve blogs with the same niche or similar / related niche.

Blogger’s Hideout is a brand new blog that acts like a blog directory, but with pseronal reviews done by the admin. This is a good start for promoting your blog and also gain traffic to your blog, specially amatuer / part time bloggers like us.

Why Blogger’s Hideout?

1. Expose your blog
2. Increase blog traffic
3. Get opinion from readers
4. Making new friends in the community
5. Discover new blogs

Who need Blogger’s Hideout?

1. New bloggers
2. Bloggers who want more exposure and traffic

Are you interested? It’s free to get a review from Blogger’s Hideout. How?

Then Jason, the author fo Blogger’s Hideout, will write a review for your blog.

When you click on the icon below a blog post, provided you are signed in to your Facebook account, that particular blog post link will be added to your Facebook Mini-Feed. Now, everyone in your network will be able to see your posted link. If they are interested and click on the link, you gain traffic to your blog!

Yes, of course you can click on the icon at your own blog post. Haven’t got the social bookmarking icons / buttons? Try Sociable for own hosted WordPress or AddThis for other blogging platforms. If you don’t implement such social bookmarking buttons, you will have to post the link to Facebook manually.

Adding a post link to your Facebook account with the icon is easy.

First, look for the post that you want to share with your Facebook friends and click on the icon. (I’m using my other blog as an example)

If you already login to your Facebook account, you will see something like this:

When you are done with the setting, just click on the Post button below that page. The post will then be posted to your Facebook profile. If you want to send this link to your friend instead, choose the Send a Message and follow the instruction.

Go to your profile and now you can see the post. When someone click on the post link, he/she will then be directed to the orginal blog post. Anyone can leave comment or share with others.

Easy, isn’t it? This is how you can boost some traffic to your blog. Try it out.

Oh, you can add me in Facebook too!

1. You want to be heard, someone to appreciate your hard work.
2. You want discussion on the topic you post.
3. You want to find new friends with similar interests.
4. You want to generate some revenue. (this should always be the last to consider)

There are many ways to boost your blog traffic. One of them is to join blog directories.  If you are a blogger from Malaysia, here is a good blog directory that you should give it a try.  It’s new but the community is growing rapidly. It’s BlogMalaysia, a bloggers directory for Malaysian bloggers.

The founder of BlogMalaysia is Kho King from Malaysia but currently reside in Japan.  All the blogs submitted to this BlogMalaysia will be manually reviewed by the admins before listing into the directory, to revoid spam blogs.  Hence, blog quality assurance.

Why BlogMalaysia?

• Free traffic to your blog!
• Get your blogs featured!
• BlogMalaysia is advertised in Hight PR websites.
• Get detailed statistic of your submitted blogs.
• Best of all, it’s FREE.

Who should join BlogMalaysia?

• Any Malaysian bloggers who want to promote their blogs.
• Any Malaysian bloggers who want to discover new blogs operated by other Malaysian bloggers.
• Malaysian blogs in English, Chinese or Malay.

Other than that, BlogMalaysia also launched a forum for members to communicate with each other and bring along discussion on blog related topics as well as free chat discussion.  All members are encourage to participate in the forum for any updates or gain knowledge on blogging issues.

However, the BlogMalaysia directory account is separated from the forum account. Meaning, you will have to register in the directory in order to submit your blogs to the directory. And you will have to register in the forum in order to participate in the forum discussion.

Click to join the blog directory.

Click to join the forum discussion.

See you around and happy blogging

We only have 24 hours a day, which we need to spend time on our daily routines, accompanying our family members, as well as reading blogs or blogging. We wouldn’t want to waste extra time by checking updates from our favorite blogs one by one – the so called “blog hopping“.

Some people may argue that they prefer blog hopping, visiting their favorite blogs one by one just to check for updates. Some claim that if there isn’t any updates, they will still leave a message in the chat box. The real intention behind the message usually indicate the owner something like “Oh! Hi there, I was here before and hope you can hop over to my blog too.” I used to do that too for a short period of time. It did boost up some traffic. In fact, that’s what most blog hoppers really want. They may not even read your blog content but just leave a “hi hi” message and hoping that you will head back to them. Most of the time, it works.

This may not be one of the best ways to gain blog traffic. I would suggest you to save up the blog hopping time, and make full use of the RSS button by subscribing to your favorite blogs. Maybe you still think that visiting your favorite blogs daily to check for updates manually is better. You won’t have any problems if you are just visiting 10 or 20 blogs per day. What if you have more than 100 favorite blogs just like me?

That sounds impossible for me to visit 100 favorite blogs daily to check for updates, because I still need to spend some time updating my own blogs or deal with other things in real life. And here comes the solution – subscribe to the feed of my favorite blogs.

You will need a feed reader to do so. There are many free feed readers available. Some popular ones are Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo! and such. Choose your favorite feed (RSS) reader and signup for an account. Subscribing to a blog is just as easy as ABC.

Step 1: Click on the RSS button/link

Step 2: Choose your feed reader

If it is a FeedBurner feed, you will see something similar like the above.

Step 3: Follow according to the instructions of your feed reader.

Now, you are ready to receive notification (blog content) of any updates of your favorite blogs! If you prefer receiving blog updates in your inbox, then you can subscribe via email instead, provided the blog enable email subscription at the first place.

Quick Tips:

Autodiscovery
Modern web browsers can automatically detect feeds and will allow people to subscribe to them simply by clicking on the icon in their web browser. [via EpicBlogger]

P/S: The above steps is just a general demonstration of subscribing to blog feed, it may varies due to different blog feed setup.

I used to read blog feeds via My Yahoo! feed reader. I found it a little hard for me to navigate around, but if you are using new Yahoo Mail, there’s a feature which will display all feeds that you have subscribed to – very convenient. Just before I think of switching to Google Reader, I found out a free feed reader software called FeedDemon which is developed by NewsGator.

I really enjoy using FeedDemon to manage all my RSS feeds. After downloading FeedDemon installer, you will have to install it in your PC. Yes, it’s an independent software. Follow the instructions and you will setup everything within minutes. You will have to create a FeedDemon account in order for the server to store your RSS feeds details and syndication of feeds. Free, of course.

What if you are not using your computer, say, you are in your friend’s house and want to check your feed reader? No problem. Still remember you have signed up for an account? Yes, you can use the same account and login via NewsGator Online in any web browser.

FeedDemon interface – click for full view

You can easily create folders for different categories of blogs. The best feature which I like most is when you want to add a new feed. If you can’t find the RSS feed button, you can just enter the blog URL and FeedDemon will do the searching for you.

FeedDemon is for Windows. For Mac users, try NetNewsWire instead.