Have a Blog? Thinking about starting a Blog? Here's a few interesting sites, lots of information to get you started, and our recommendation for a great hosting company.
On the other hand, those of you just looking to subscribe to your favorite blog, you need a blog reader or News Aggregator (same thing). Just scroll down to find "Blog Readers".
FOR BLOGGERS:
Feed Burner - A must for all Bloggers!
Blogkits - Building Blog Relationships
Free Traffic Directory - Business Blogging - 5 Tips for Writers
Free Traffic Tips - The Blog
Blogsnob - Grow Your Blog Traffic
Cutting Through - 10 Ways to Use Blogs For Managing Projects
Technorati - Blog Search Engine
Weblogs - Blog Search Engine
Get Blogs - Directory and Search Engine
Popdex - The Website Popularity Index
FOR BLOG READERS
What is a Reader or News Aggregator?
They are both the same. You are already accustomed to news aggregators on your home page. You have news headlines and feed customized to your particular interests.
Now websites and blogs have the same ability to deliver their headlines and latest posting to you in a simple form. This form is called a READER or NEWS AGGREGATOR. When you see small icons such as RSS, XML, Add to MyYahoo (for Yahoo users), News Gator, Atom, Feed Burner, etc., this is an indication to you that these sites provide a news subscription feed that can be added to your READER.
Instead of surfing from site to site, you can now view the latest updates from them all in a simple, easy to read format. Readers save you time by allowing you to catagorize sites and easily determine if recent updates have occured since your last visit.
Here's a list of some of the most popular Readers and News Aggregators. Some are free, while others charge a fee.
BLOG READERS:
Blog Express- BlogExpress is a full-featured news aggregator or a blog reader). BlogExpress is easy to use and yet powerful for most needs of a frequent blog reader. Download is FREE, donations are accepted.
Blog Lines - Check all your feeds from any web browser
News Gator - Read your favorite blogs or websites from Microsoft Outlook
Feed Demon - A more complicated reader for Windows
Sharp Reader - Simple, but gets the job done
Blog Host Recommendation
The hosting company for "My Barbados Blog" is Squarespace.
We are extremely happy with the ease of use to make consistent postings for our readers, and the ability to add great looking images. The blog software alerts blog search engines after you post, which will give you better search engine ranking. The built in software also takes care of alerting your blog to the top 3 search engines. And, last but certainly not least, it's affordable! You get the best of both worlds with Squarespace, a website and a blog, all in one place!
If you are looking for a blog hosting company, Travel 2 the Caribbean highly recommends Squarespace.
Give it a try, and let us know what you think.
HAPPY BLOGGING OR BLOG READING !
Linda Thompkins, Owner/Travel Consultant - Travel 2 the Caribbean