I had been using the Spotback rating system widget on the site, but I found that it screwed with my Google search results, so I canned it. What I really liked about Spotback was that it publicizes your blog on other Spotback users websites. I decided to look for an alternative and found Sphere.

Sphere doesn’t do ratings like Spotback, but it does find related articles to the post you just made and vice versa. The Sphere widget is free to use and can be found on the WordPress plug-ins page.

The subtitles make this so much better.

Michael Arrington, creator of the popular TechCrunch blog, is set to release another blog. MechCrunch, is the name of the newest blog in the “Crunch”network and it will be focusing on the walking mechanical vehicles, also known as the mech industry.Unfortunately, the mech industry is small, almost nonexistent, unlike the growing web 2.0/Internet industries he features in his other blogs. A quote from a recent email states:

MechCrunch will keep readers up-to-date with mech news, as well as introduce upcoming mech start-ups.”

The upcoming MechCrunch will be the only blog in the genre, which will make it a popular news source for mech enthusiasts and the Japanese. MechCrunch will be released to the public in the coming weeks even after repeated warning from fellow bloggers. Much of the blogging community believes Arrington (and co.) got a deal on the domain and decided create a blog to accompany it, but will it gain the success TechCrunch has reached?

What will Arrington think up next?!

Update: Critics are saying Arrington’s MechCrunch may be a “few” years ahead of the times.

I’ve been blogging for about three years and some of the them have been misses, but it’s been a great experience. Here are ten tips (not in any real order) for starting a blog:

1. Aesthetics are great, but content is king: The first time a person comes to your site they’ll see the theme or design of your site. The look of your site needs to bring people in, but that’s it. After seeing the site design, they’ll go straight for your content.

2. Promote yourself by promoting others: Really like a certain blog? Fan of a podcast? Write about it. Post a review of the site you like or just leave a link on your blog. Others will appreciate the recognition and they might even link back to your site.

3. Keep it simple: If your just starting a blog, just blog. There isn’t a reason to over extend yourself. I have made this mistake many times and have overcomplicated this blog, as well as many others. Before starting a forum or another blog make sure to get an audience.

4. Make friends (with fellow blog folk): I never thought that making friends with other bloggers would help my blog, but it does. Just break the ice and send a question to another blogger, they’ll be happy to respond.
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I am now a contributor at MacApper. At the moment I have two posts published and I will have a couple more this coming week (8/13). For those who have never heard of MacApper, it’s a blog about mac applications (hence the name, MacApper). I will still be updating this blog, but not as frequently as I once was. Thanks for your support and keep reading r3fresh (and MacApper).

BTW- Went a little crazy with the (parenthesize). Sorry.

My friend over at Ladybanana.co.uk posted this video. The video reminds me of the crazy cat lady from The Simpsons.

Digg. What was once my favorite news site, has begun to work under a new light. The “social” in Digg is slowly started to fade and turn into just another news site (ie Slashdot). Even though stories are submitted by the users, only certain users get “dugg.”

Only a small amount of users submit content to Digg, because they know they don’t have a chance in hell the world of their stories becoming popular. Time and time again I see people submit stories to Digg, but the duplicates (submitted by the popular users) get to the front page. You might think I’m bitter about not having my submitted stories dugg (and I am), but I’ve given up on submitting stories to Digg.

Diggnation, a podcast about Digg, has as also seemed to have lost it’s luster. Episodes are shorter and the chemistry of the show has changed. It’s too bad because it was one of the first podcasts I had listened too.

I thought about ways to remedy the problem with Digg, but I think it’s become too popular to change anything without community backlash. What I have decided to do is look for a Digg-like competitor that hasn’t fallen where Digg has. Any ideas? Leave them in the comments.

I became addicted to this after listening to Macbreak Weekly. This is probably my favorite YouTube video of all time! Video by Tay Zonday. Download the MP3 here.