One of my motivations for starting AmBlogger is to hopefully contribute original thoughts to the Blogging community. As such, it is not very often that I use the daily stuff I read to generate new Blog ideas. I mean, I try my hardest not to. I wanted to sound in about blogging with passion, referring to Paul Chaney’s “The Joy Of Blogging“, but Darren has already done it.

I held off for more original ideas but none have come to me in the last few days. But if you enjoy my writing, please stay tuned. I’m not creative like Chartreuse but damn it if I got something to say one day, you’ll miss it if you don’t stay tuned!

Myself, I’m like the many bloggers that read a lot of other blogs and draw their inspirations from those. But too often I see the “echo chamber” in progress and though I try my earnest not to be a part of that problem, I’m not sure I’m part of the solution yet. I have an example that I would like to bring to dicussion in the near future about not being part of the “echo chamber”. Till then, I leave you with a quote I absolutely loved from a ThreadWatch discussion.

many bloggers do what a spam bot does, but manually, and then give quotes like:

“the ends wouldn’t justify the means in my books. They are using the hard work of others to launch their own business off.”

Its really nothing but a bunch of self-referential hypocritical bullshit.

I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with drawing inspiration from the writings of others. However, whether you’re remixing or you’re copying, it is really a thin line that still results in the same thing - a derivation of a product that was not your original thought. We keep saying content is king, but what we fail to say is that the content doesn’t have to be yours, it can be your version of some other people’s thoughts. Let’s all think about it!

I experienced some technical difficulties with RSS and Feedburner feeds for two of my blogs, including AmBlogger. Finally got around to fixing it, so feeds are back up! Whew… Thanks to Eric for pointing this out but it was sure sad to see “0 readers” show up on my Feedburner chiclet.

How did I fix it? I don’t really know. I checked out FeedMedic as Eric suggested and resyncing solved it for one of my blogs, for AmBlogger, I thought the plugin was not compatible with my recent WordPress 2.0.2 upgrade, after reloading and re-activating the plugin, it worked again? In any case, I like to look forward, not backwards. Back to the usual programming!

… that the most popular pro/am blogger or blog site has not been born yet! I also see that the blog will be in a non-english language with a potential audience of over 1 Billion. If this person chooses to monetize (or ever finds a way to do so), he (or she) could make Six Figure Blogging look like kindergarten?!?

[voiceover: this rant has been inspired by the many postings/comments about the results of the 2006 bloggies]

S Shreyas is hoping to start a new trend at his blog Chrono Tron. He is hoping to start a meme-like link-and-spread called the Neo-BlogTree.

His explanation makes it seems interesting, but its not anything that hasn’t been done before. I’d also argue that Bloggers link and read each other in a way that is more like a net rather than a tree.

At the risk of being labeled as a chain-link spam (discussed in comment # 4 on that post). I will still link to his post and also technorati tag the designated keyword. I wonder if anybody on his list has actually linked back. It is an obvious link-bait attempt since he’s linking to only the famous, well-known and those who are considered ‘A-lister’.

I’d be surprised if ProBlogger would link to Chrono even though we were both brought up in his post. Not surprisingly I wasn’t targetted, but ironically, I’m the one to respond. Am I just gullible or what!

I’ve started a new Blog! I haven’t launched it yet, but I’ve starting to write posts about it. I thought about how I would bring some exposure to the new Blog. Then it dawned on me, how about if I let it remain a secret?

Perhaps I could make it into a scavenger hunt or a contest! I would drop clues, and allow readers to guess where is my new blog. What would the prizes include? This is where my idea begins to break down. A small fish like me could not possibly generate enough interest to make this really work, or could I? Are you a sponsor that can see the potential of this idea? Please contact me!

And should I only reward the first person who guessed correctly? I’m leaning towards putting all correct entries into a draw for the prize because honestly, it would not be hard for the technically resourceful people to find my new Blog.

Will this idea fly? I don’t really know, maybe I’m just ranting. Maybe I’m testing for interest. Your thoughts please!

Oh no! Not another AmBlogger WordPress theme modification involving Darren and Rachel!

Did I have you for a minute there? Seriously, history is not repeating itself. But I thought, since the WordPress theme here used is called Zen Minimalist, why not be a minimalist and reduce the number of timestamps appearing in the comments? I’ll only keep the timestamp for the post for now.

Initial reaction? I don’t miss it. What do you think?

Announcement
By the way, I’m actually working on my own original AmBlogger WordPress Theme that I will let everybody use if they like! Is that a shocker? I don’t know when I will finish, but check back to see the final product when it’s ready!

Month #2 has come and gone for AmBlogger. The participation in February’s poll (19 votes) has been much less than January’s poll (60 votes). But it was a sweeter, more satisfying result!

Looking back at February’s poll. I made mistakes in putting up the choices on the poll. Nobody works a “5 to 9″! I was trying to set that choice for people who worked night shifts. I also should have known better to think people who read blogs don’t blog, it’s not the hottest fad going for no reason.

Here are the results:

The new poll of the month will have simple choices. March’s poll was inspired by my previous post - Bloggers, Journalists, Pros, Amateurs. I want to find out from you, money aside, whether you find advertising and advertisements on Blogs to be tacky and compromising the idea of blogging? Cast your votes!