Craig McGinty

Chatting to BBC Radio Five Live

I WAS interviewed a few days ago by Chris Vallance of Radio Five Live's Pods and Blogs, about the potential of earning a living from blogs and it is up on his site to listen to now.

In my interview I stressed the importance of looking beyond just the pounds and pence generated by advertising on your site and said it was important to establish yourself within your chosen field.

There was also mention of Guy Kawasaki and the fact that despite having a very popular blog, by the way it is a good read, he earned very little from it.

But as Darren Rowse points out, Guy could use other methods and again is most probably gaining from the massive exposure his blog enjoys through things beyond advertising.

Flipping the advertising world

I THOUGHT I would point out an interesting article that looks into the world of online advertising and highlights how difficult it is for smaller publishers to attract ad spend.

Written by Sam Sethi, who has a real insight into the start up culture of the UK, he says that advertisers want eyeballs and are only keen to target large sites, or a collection of sites covering a similar subject.

Amazon ads on YouTube videos

JUST a few days ago I wrote about how writers and journalists could use their back catalogue of work to help boost their income, please see Make the most of your work.

One of the reasons I push this option is because there are so many new and innovative ways for your to earn money from your work, for example hooking up Amazon sales with YouTube videos.

Learn about RSS feeds

A GREAT site that I follow is US-based blogger Brian Brown's Small Business Blog of the Day and he is set to start a series on using RSS feeds and newsreaders.

I would say add it to your RSS reader, but that might not be too helpful, so all I'll say is pop the first page of his How to use RSS and newsreaders in your favourites and follow his five part tutorial.

It will be well worth taking a little time to read his advice.

Online PR and joining the conversation

I SPENT an interesting few hours at the Cube gallery in Manchester last night where a talk on using the social tools of the internet for PR was given.

There were three speakers offering a range of tips and advice on using blogs, podcasts and more to help both clients and the PR agency itself to engage with readers and listeners.

A workaround for hand coded links in TypePad

YOU can use this tip to place unique links in the side columns of your TypePad blog, for example, when you want to link to your own review of a book from a list of titles.

So if you are not completely clear on how you would write out a link so that it displays properly on your site, try this method instead.

I will use a link to a book review as an example, so first off log in to TypePad and start a new post.

Can today's crowds help Mitchell & Kenyon archive?

I HAVE just spent a very entertaining couple of hours at the Cornerhouse in Manchester watching a collection of films by Mitchell & Kenyon covering Manchester and Salford.

The clips offered a snapshot of life in the early 1900s and providing the background to each series of films was Mitchell & Kenyon Collection curator, Vanessa Toulmin.

Alongside each film was a selection of music from RNCM students, performed by fellow students, who joined Neil Brand on the piano.

The ethics of running a blog

A THOROUGH and interesting piece from Stuart on his Modern Life is Rubbish site covering the ethics and best practice involved in blogging.

Ethical Blogging 101

Making a blog work for you

I RECEIVED a comment recently from Julia Shuvalova who regularly writes to her Notebooks site.

Julia is originally from Russia, currently lives in Manchester and is a historian with a love of literature, music and cinema, and her site reflects this crossover of experiences.

Her comment highlights the use of Flickr and other tools to promote her site, but also asks about running advertising on the site such as Adsense and Amazon.

The Beeb heads to YouTube

DAMN smart move from the BBC to link up with YouTube and feature news, comedy clips, stand alone specials and the UK's greatest export, nature programmes by David Attenborough.

Robin Hamman, who works for the BBC, points out the press release and adds some comments.

Related article: Few interesting links to follow