Probably, like many bloggers, I get some of my posts ‘stolen’ and then published on other blogs. It’s okay if there are proper return links – though personally I still think permission should be asked before publishing complete posts.

I even heard about one blogger who had his full site stolen – design, content – everything.

It can be frustrating when you find out that information you have sweated over and researched is copied without a second thought by lazy bloggers.

One of the big problems is the automated feeds brigade. They use other people’s content to fill their sites. It’s easy for them and they don’t have to worry about writing anything.

There seems to be no way to stop these as there is usually no contact details on such blogs. I have one person who copies nearly all of my posts.

With the automated feeds it was suggested to me that the best way to partly overcome this is to set the blog settings so that only short feeds are used. This way any readers will have to go to the original source to read the full post/article.

I was wondering what other bloggers thoughts are about having posts stolen, especially by automated feeds? What are others doing to combat this – if anything? Or perhaps you don’t see what the problem is?

Mike.
Mike’s Money Making Mission
Celebrity Insider – Photos & News

UPDATE: Thanks to Nate Whitehill for voting this a Powerful Post.

Over the past few months we’ve seen the traffic “trains” come down the trails. There was one for Technorati, another for Alexa, and a few others that were not “trains”, but given the name “viral” tags and served the same purpose.

All were designed to build traffic and backlinks to those who participated in them. I, myself, participated in some of these, but for the most part, they were a flash in the pan.

I’ve made an observation over the past few weeks. I’ve noticed that more bloggers are doing more “link love” posts.

What’s link love? You may know them as “speed linking” or “round-ups”. Whatever term you choose, it’s when bloggers simply post links to other blogs for one reason or another. In my humble opinion, this type of promotion is far more meaningful to readers and has more impact.

Word-of-mouth is alive and well

By nature, we’ve always taken the word over someone else’s when it comes from a friend or source that we trust. When you read a blog that you’ve connected with and they suggest something of interest, chances are you’re more likely to click the link.

Link love x 3 = win-win-win

1. For the blogger suggesting a link, they will gradually develop a reputation and thus authority over the topic they cover, which, in turn, will make their suggestions even more powerful down the road. But choose wisely, lest your reputation be that of a “collector of weak links”. 😉
2. For the reader, they benefit from a new resource. Granted, the find may not be a hit with every reader all the time, but for the most part, we all enjoy making new discoveries.
3. And this one’s obvious: whoever it is being linked to will undoubtedly appreciate the rise in traffic.

Perhaps you may consider doing a series of “link love” posts on your own blog, and if you’re already doing them, then keep spreading that love!

By Mark of MeAndMyDrum | Fave MAMD | Subscribe to MAMD

I wonder how many of you switched to desktop blog editors or even tried one after reading my 9 reasons to use a Desktop Blog Editor last week!

This week I would like to talk about a few reasons to consider using a desktop (installed or portable) RSS reader. As a blogger, I have found that a desktop RSS reader could be an important aid in your blogging toolkit.

I use the portable version of GreatNews RSS reader and have been a big fan of this free RSS reader for a while now. Most of these features are common to desktop feed readers but some may be specific to GreatNews.

Without much further ado, here they are:

1. Labels: This is similar to tagging. This allows you to label interesting posts in your feed reader that you might need for future reference. With a label’s cleanup frequency set to never, you can create your own library of posts. Some of mine: blog this, reading material, to comment, wordpress tips.
2. News Watches: Next to labels, this is a feature I use constantly. I have it configured for its simplest use – to watch for specific terms in my RSS feeds. For e.g. rss reader, firefox extension, paris hilton (just kidding about the last one). You can even use it to block certain news items. For instance if you are sick of all the iPhone coverage, you can do that too. Your own content filter!
3. Integrated Search: Most desktop readers have integrated search built in and they are very fast. I just blogged about this in ShanKri-la about how the most popular RSS reader, Google Reader doesn’t have this feature yet and a new comer Fast ladder does.
4. Easy Feed Organization: As much as I am a web 2.0 fan and use a lot of web applications, I still fnd it much easier to organize and maintain my feeds in a desktop reader. If you have hundreds of feeds, you’ll know that the best way to keep them tamed is to have meaningful groups. This will always be an evolving list for everyone and the ease of doing it is important.
5. Customizable reading panes: My favorite is the 3-pane structure like an email client where the left pane shows the list of feeds & feed groups, the right top portion has the list of headlines for the selected feed/group and the right bottom pane shows the content from the selected headline.
   GreatNews has button in this pane which makes collapsing and adding these panes back are so quick. You can switch from reading the headlines in the 3-pane or 2-pane mode to reading a long post or a series of posts from a feed in full screen so fast, you’ll be addicted to it.
6. Individual feed settings: You can set how often you want your feed to be refreshed automatically or you can set to feed to update only manually (I have a hundred feeds that I don’t read everyday but only once a week). You can set different styles to different feed groups and choose the frequency in which you want it cleaned up. You can set these features on a feed group but can override any of this for an individual feed by setting its own.
7. Styles: Most desktop readers allows some level of customization to the look and feel of the feed content.
   GreatNews comes with a few nice styles plus there are some user created styles that you can add to it or if you are CSS savvy, you can create your own to suit your taste.
8. Track comments: This is an excellent hidden feature in GreatNews or atleast I just found it and love it. If a blog offers a comment feed like BAYB does, you can track comments right under the post content from within your feed reader. No more jumping to your email to followup comments where you may not even know what the comments are about after a week.
9. Quick reference: You can control the cleanup schedule for an individual feed or a feed group. You could use your desktop RSS reader as a offline copy of a part of a blog by setting it to never cleanup. I have my ShanKri-la feed set to never cleanup which means I have instant access to my past posts since the time I added it to my feed reader. You can get creative with other blogs that you use frequently for tips or for the Weblog Tools Collection blog to have a quick reference to plugins/themes, etc.

If you are a RSS feed reader, then you are already committed to saving time and improving productivity by reading more content than you would be able to, by visiting every site. Why not take it to the next level of productivity, by using a desktop feed reader?

I haven’t ditched my web based feed reader. I still use Google Reader or Netvibes for casual surfing once in a while. But, GreatNews has definitely helped me with blogging efficiently as a lot of us are doing this besides our day jobs and anything that saves me time, I am all for it.

A few desktop readers to try: GreatNews, Omea Reader, FeedReader, etc. I use GreatNews for its excellent features and its portable so I use it from my USB drive.

Do you think a desktop RSS reader could increase your productivity as a blogger? If not, I’d love to hear why.

I write about more technology related topics at ShanKri-la – where technology meets daily life!. My goal is to make your life on the Internet a little bit easier, a little bit manageable and a little bit more enjoyable.

I thought we would get entries to our day planner contest from comments, but the response we’ve gotten has been great. Not only have we gotten a bunch of entries by comments, lots of people are blogging about the contest, which is great. There are about 50 comments of entries and link backs.

I wish I could give everyone a day planner, but I can’t. What I am going to do is add ANOTHER day planner to the mix. Emma has decided to part with the one she received at the make money online conference.

So of course, we will draw two winners for the day planners, and no you can’t win both! If you haven’t entered the contest you only have until Tuesday July 17th. We will not accept entries after that date (midnight pst).

I want to thank everyone for participating, I am working on another contest to launch shortly after we finish this one. I am contacting a few websites to sponsor the competition so we can really give away a great prize.

I should post all of the entries on the contest post soon, and I may even give some link love to those who did everything and got the full 5 entries!

Comment Friday received 23 responses, not too bad. I have already went through and joined everyones MyBlogLog community that left a comment. I also visited each blog. If I am not in your mybloglog community, leave me a comment with the link. I’d be happy to join.

We had several great comments, and most decided to stay on “topic” and talk about contests. You can’t win if you don’t enter! What’s the problem with entering easy contests, you just may win. Remember if you leave a comment at our day planner giveaway you are entered to win! How easy is that?

Now on to the winner of Comment Friday. I have chosen Jamaipanese. He has been a pretty active member of our community since he found our blog. Jamaipanese.Com is a blog updated by a Jamaican who finds Japan and the Japanese culture interesting. Talk about a very detailed niche eh? He is also proudly displaying the IReply Button.

If you want to be considered for blog of the week make sure to come by and comment on fridays!

I’m a little late on Comment Friday, but that’s okay. Last week I stumbled everyone’s blog who left a comment. This week I will go through and join everyone’s MyBlogLog if I haven’t already. *Don’t forget to join ours!*

The topic this week shouldn’t surprise many. I have been blogging about contests lately, they have been pretty popular lately. There are tons of contests going around, and for good reason. We want to know, have you ever won a contest? What have you won? This would also be an excellent time to plug your contest if you are running one.

Remember we chose several contests to blog about on the weekend, so we might just pick yours. Send your bribes to me!

You don’t have to comment about the “topic”, just let us know whats on your mind. That may just start its own discussion. Thank you for participating!

“I love getting up in the morning. I clap my hands and say, ‘This is gonna be a great day’.”

Show your enthusiasm! People want to read your posts because the words are passionate about whatever the topic of the day is. It doesn’t matter which expert you speak to ‘content is king’ and always will be. Pick topics that you are interested in, I mean come on!? If you’re not interested how can you expect your readers to be?

Look around your daily life to find inspiration, I like to carry around a notepad so when I see something that sticks out in my mind I quickly jot down the idea so it’s not lost to the ages!

“The key to this business is personal relationships.”

Without your readers your blog is nothing… well not nothing but without readers your ideas aren’t getting out there and you’ve probably got some great things to say.

When people come to your blog they want to connect with you and the best way to do so is to become part of a community. They want to let you know if they agree or disagree or know what you’re talking about! But they also want to know that you’re listening as well as talking. Answer their comments! Acknowledge what they’ve taking the time to say even if they simply say hi.

“Hey… I don’t have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.”

Lee
Quit Your Day Job
Urban Cultivation
Pop Culture Heroines