Are you doing your bit for the blog?

Yesterday Jonny, one of our authors, emailed me to let me know about the post he had written on the site he writes for (the Bassetti Foundation) where he wrote about the community awards he picked up, praised the blog and talked about and linked to the posts he has written for us.

Jonny asked that I promoted the idea of the community a little bit more through an article, which is exactly what I am going to do!

It is time for the poster again ๐Ÿ˜‰

Technology Bloggers needs your help!The idea of a community blog is that everyone benefits. It’s in our slogan:

“Read | Contribute | Benefit
A whole community of technology bloggers”

The three keywords there are contribute, benefit and community. We are a community blog, designed in such a way that everyone is able to benefit.

If everyone is helping to improve the blog, the better the blog is, therefore the more we all benefit. Basically the more we all put in the more we all get out.

I really do try hard with this blog, I give it my all, and I feel that if we all did a tiny bit more (like Jonny has) we could make this blog so much better – and it is already really good! A better blog means more benefit for all!

Let me explain.

PageRank

If all of our readers, writers and commenters (I know some of you are all three!) were to write a post like Jonny’s, more PageRank/link juice would be flowing into the blog. This would increase the blogs PageRank overall – not that a high PageRank is anything to really fantasise about.

If the blog is of a higher PageRank, more flows back to all those commenters and writers who have links on the blog, therefore they get an increase in PageRank too – a benefit directly derived from Technology Bloggers.

Traffic

PageRank is maybe not the best of examples, so let me give you another example, using traffic. If you write about the blog, include it in your bio, tweet about it, post about it on Facebook and generally share it via all your social internet channels, then the blog’s traffic will increase.

More people (traffic) means more people reading the content, more people commenting, a bigger, better and stronger community, more opportunities, more articles etc. it also means that for those writers who are adding AdSense to their posts (like Alan) the chance of making more money increases.

More people means more articles getting read, so writers are getting better exposure/greater publicity. Commenters links are more likely to be followed etc.

Brand

Having a bigger, better blog and community, make Technology Bloggers a stronger brand. This means that your association with the blog is a greater benefit for you. Saying you are a writer for TechCrunch brings you a lot of credibility, due to your association with the strong brand, we can make Technology Bloggers like that too!

The bigger we get, the more everyone involved gets out of the blog!

You

So what can you do to help your blog? The answer? Help us by promoting the blog further. We have a great community here, loads of fantastic writers, writing brilliant content daily, so what we really want to do now is expand, and to do that, we need to help more people find out about us.

Why not tweet if you read an interesting article here, also, if you can +1 it, share it via Facebook etc. please do!

Why not tweet or post a comment like:
I am part of the great dofollow community over at Technology Bloggers (www.technologybloggers.org) why don’t you come and join me?
or how about
Why not check out the great dofollow community over at Technology Bloggers – www.technologybloggers.org?

Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, share our articles!

If you are a blogger why not add us to your blogroll, or page of favourite sites? Why not add a link to us into your bio? You could even write a post like Jonny has done.

Here are some images you could add to your blog, or post via social media to help promote us:
Technology Bloggers - A Dofollow Community Blog a smaller version – more are available, just contact me ๐Ÿ™‚Technology Bloggers - A Dofollow Community Blogshow off that you are part of the community!
I Am Part Of The Technology Bloggers Dofollow Community! www.TechnologyBloggers.orgIf I was a normal blogger, that might have seemed like a very needy plea for help to improve our traffic (which is already very respectable) however I am not, I am a member of a community blog. That is the difference, I am doing this on your behalf. You reading this are going to benefit (hopefully!) from this article, through the communities (that includes you!) response.

What are you going to do to help the blog? Let us all know below! If we get enough people writing about what they have done, I might write a post promoting those people!

Technology Bloggers – a community blog from which we can all benefit!

Technology Bloggers community awards

At the end of 2011, here at Technology Bloggers we are going to celebrate with an award ceremony. We are a community blog, and thought the year, loads of fantastic people have been working on continuously improving the blog, taking it to new heights!

Now, at the end of the year, we shall celebrate the people who have helped make this blog the huge success it is today.

This year the awards have all been awarded by me (Christopher Roberts) as a member of the admin team. However next year I hope that we can vote on the awards, so that the community decide who in the community deserves the award.

So, without further ado, the awards!

This year we have 6 awards up for grabs:

  • Top Commenter – The person whoย posts valuable comments which help to create the fantastic community we have on the blog
  • Top Writer (Contributor) – The contributor who has made the most valuable contribution to the blog – in terms of the quantity and quality of articles published – this year
  • Top Writer (Author and Admin) – The author – or higher rank – who has made the greatest contribution in terms of the quantity and quality of articles published this year
  • Rising Star – Who is really going places? Who is helping to improve the blog and has great potential?
  • Most Friendly Member of the Community – Who has been the most pleasant and kind person on the blog this year?
  • Top All Rounder – The big one! Technology Bloggers ultimate award, who is the best example of a fantastic member of the community?

So, to the awards!

Top Commenter

The Nominations:

  • Alan Tay – Always among the first to add his view, Alan almost always adds interesting information to an article, and he also likes to interact with other commenters – the characteristic of a really good commenter
  • Diana Studer – Diana has taught me many lessons about respect in blogging and always writes very interesting and thought provoking comments!
  • David (from TheOnlyCog) – David speaks his mind, asks questions, adds information, therefore contributing a great deal to the commenting community
  • Chadrack Irobogo – Although Chadrack does not comment very often, when he does, he makes very valuable points, has very good grammar and is always full of support

And the winner is…

Chadrack's AvatarChadrack Irobogo! Pleasant mannered and well written, Chadrack’s comments often bring new information and ideas to the table, which help to improve the community.

Top Writer (Contributor)

The Nominations:

  • Marc Madrigal – Marc likes writing about technology and the web, and he does it very well – useful articles which can be both constructive and thought provoking
  • Alan Tay – Alan’s articles are always popular, probably due to them being well written, interesting and helpful
  • Andrew Doyle – Andrew writes well written articles, which often attract attention from the community

And the winner is…

Alan's AvatarAlan Tay! Alan is a really big member of the Technology Bloggers community, commenting, reading and writing, his articles make great reading and really do add value to the blog ๐Ÿ™‚

Top Writer (Author and Admin)

The Nominations:

  • Ron Fletcher –ย Ron’s articles are among some of the most popular on the blog, he focuses mainly on apps, and always writes good, interesting articles, and then often replies to the comments that arise from what he has written
  • Jonny Hankins – Jonny is new to WordPress, but is making giant steps towards becoming a really good author, he wrights interesting and insightful posts, which usually fire up a debate
  • Christopher Roberts (Admin Team) – Okay, I can’t give an award to myself, but the category was looking a bit empty, since we only have two authors, so I chucked myself in too ๐Ÿ™‚

And the winner is…

Jonny's AvatarJonny Hankins! With 8 articles in his inventory, Jonny is quickly gaining experience and becoming a very good writer, who is liked by the community.

Rising Star

Nominations:

  • Jonny Hankins
  • Alan Tay
  • Ron Fletcher

And the winner is…

Ron's AvatarRon Fletcher! Ron has been a great contributor to the blog since he joined us in July, he is getting really good at replying to his commenters, is writing more and more, and what he is writing is getting better as time goes on.

Most Friendly Member of the Community

The Nominations:

  • Chadrack Irobogo – Always giving support, Chadrack is a very friendly character
  • Marc Madrigal – Marc grins from ear to ear in his profile pick, and that happiness seems to come across in the friendliness of his comments
  • Goodwin A I Manson – A very new member of the community with just a handful of comments (3 I think!) Goodwin writes pleasant and friendly comments
  • Lillie Ammann – Lillie is always full of support and always writes in a kind way

And the winner is…

Marcโ€™s AvatarMarc Madrigal! Marc has been with the blog almost since the beginning, and he has contributed many helpful articles as well as interesting comments, the pleasant manner in which he conducts his writing and replying, makes the experience all the better ๐Ÿ™‚

Top All Rounder

Nominations:

  • Alan Tay
  • Jonny Hankins

And the winner is…

Jonny's AvatarJonny Hankins!ย I felt I had to choose someone who writes for us and comments for this award, and I didn’t want to nominate myself, so I had the choice of Jonny and Alan, both fantastic candidates, however I feel that because of the outstanding progress he has made, Jonny deserves this award ๐Ÿ™‚

Winners of Technology Bloggers Community Awards - 2011

The Nominees

Here are the 2011 nominees who didn’t get an award. They are also very deserving individuals, and I urge you to check out their sites!

To Conclude

There we have it, we had 6 awards, and 11 different people were nominated for those awards. Of those 11 people 5 of them now have one (or more – Jonny!) of Technology Bloggers first ever awards! Well done all ๐Ÿ™‚

I know I have only mentioned a few people, but it is all of us that make this blog what it is, so thank you everyone!

And finally…

A big big thank you to everyone for a fantastic year! 2011 has been great, so lets have have an even better 2012 ๐Ÿ™‚

Happy New Year!

Let it snow!

There are just 15 days to go before Christmas now, and I am a little behind on the old Christmas shopping – this one seems to have crept up rather quickly!

Trees in Lapland covered in snowTo get in the festive spirit, Technology Bloggers is now experiencing snow showers! Its winter (in the northern hemisphere at least) and in winter, it snows, therefore I thought it appropriate to let it snow on Technology Bloggers.

To create the snow, I am using a very clever little plugin called: Let it snow!


Let is snow! is a really easy to use and customise plugin. Just install the plugin via WordPress (or download it and then upload it to your site) and then click ‘Activate’. You then get snow on your blog, and it is that easy!

The plugin also creates a useful and really easy to use settings tab. Just look down the left hand side of your WordPress menu and find Let It Snow! There you can customise things like whether the snow follows the mouse, sticks to the bottom of the screen, how much snow their is, etc.

Why not give it a go on your own blog, its easy to do, and doesn’t actually appear to affect the performance of your site very much at all!

If anyone is experiencing lag (I am not) please don’t hesitate to contact me ๐Ÿ™‚

Merry Christmas everyone, stick with us for a fantastic future ๐Ÿ™‚