I was hoping to do NaBloPoMo this month, but unfortunately I missed the very first day of November, and then I missed yesterday. You’re probably wondering just what the heck NaBloPoMo is. NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month, and it’s all about blogging every single day for an entire month. November is the designated month for NaBloPoMo, and each year thousands of bloggers get together and pledge to blog every single day for the month of November.

I wish I could do it, but it seems like I always get busy on one or two days and get screwed up early in the month. Oh well, better to have to drop out early on than to chug through the entire month and then miss a day, right?

Coming up with a photo to use for online avatar purposes can be boring and painstaking. Instead of browsing through photos to find the right one, or going through the complicated setup of staging a new “perfect” photo, try something different. Try a Face Your Manga Avatar! The easy to follow process that allows you to define facial features, choose hair color and style, add accessories (even facial piercings), do your virtual makeup and more can be found here.

Here is my spiffy Face Your Manga avatar:

(New to paid blogging? Check out What is paid blogging?)

PayU2Blog is a company that pays bloggers to write sponsored posts for third party advertisers. Like other paid blogging companies, PayU2Blog compensates bloggers with a specific dollar amount in exchange for that blogger writing a sponsored post.

However, there are a few key differences with how PayU2Blog works. For starters, you don’t have to worry about getting first-come, first-serve assignments. Assignments are signed to you. This can be a distadvantage to bloggers who want to pick and choose their own assignments. PayU2Blog refer to this as “cherry picking”, and they do not allow it. In essence, you are to write about what you are assigned. Skipping over assignments can result in the permanent banning of your account.

PayU2Blog doesn’t want to overwhelm its bloggers, so there are options to limit the number of assignments you would like to receive in a month, or go on a hiatus (known as a black-out date).

Each typical writing assignment pays $5.00, unless it requires more words, links, and/or images or a video. More important, the average PayU2Blog assignment is freeform. This means you can write about whatever you want, so long as the required link is included somewhere in the blog entry. The word requirement is sixty words.

A blog is considered to be eligible if:

• the blog is at least thirty days old
• the blog is written in English
• the blog has original content
• the blog has only one author
• existing advertisements must not obscure the blog
• the owner of the blog must be at least eighteen years of age

There are a few other requirements, and a blog’s acceptance is ultimately up to PayU2Blog.

Payouts on assignments are done every other Friday, via PayPal.

(New to paid blogging? Check out What is paid blogging?)

PayPerPost is the granddaddy of paid blogging. While they may not be the first paid blogging company, they are surely the first to make paid blogging mainstream. PayperPost and paid blogging go hand in hand.

PayPerPost, who is also often referred to as PPP, was established in the summer of 2006, and currently operates several other companies under its parent company, IZEA.

PayPerPost has the following basic requirements for an eligible blog:

• the blog must be at least thirty days old
• the blog must be written in English
• the blog must have original content
• the blog must have only one author
• existing advertisements must not obscure the blog
• the owner of the blog must be at least eighteen years of age

PayPerPost’s paid blogging assignments are referred to as opportunities, or opps. Each opp outlines everything that you need to know in order to successfully write an accurate post. This includes what advertiser, product, service, event, website, etc., you are writing about, the tone the post should have (neutral, opinion, positive, buzz), what link(s)s and anchor keyword(s) you must include, what images, if any, you must include, and the minimum number of words the post should have (50, 100, 200 or 300).

Most opps will also have a transparent tracking image that you will be required to insert somewhere in your post. Some opps may also have a press release or other information that must be copied and pasted into your blog entry.

When you are ready to submit your completed post, you will be required to select the blog the post is on (only necessary if you have multiple blogs listed in the PayPerPost system), and specify the title and permalink URL to the post. Upon submission of a completed opportunity, the post may or may not be automatically approved. It then goes for manual approval, and another manual review right before the blogger receives their compensation.

A blogger is paid exactly thirty (30) calendar days from the date of their submitted blog post. All payments are made via PayPal.

All the cool kids are using Twitter. No really, they are.

So just what is Twitter? I have been asked that, but I have a hard time coming up with an explanation. I usually fumble a bit and tell people that it’s like mini-blogging, with constant interaction with other Twitter users via the real time updates on the website.

Twitter is social networking, but on a bare bones level. When you sign up for Twitter, you can add information to a basic profile, which includes your username, name, location, one line bio, and a website address, if you have one. When you’re ready to go, you can update Twitter with whatever is going on in your life. Your updates will be archived and display on your own Twitter page, which is http://www.twitter.com/your_user_name. You can choose to make your updates public or protected. Public: anyone can see what you’re Twittering. Protected: only those on your friends list (on Twitter this is known as your followers list) can see what you’re Twittering. Please note that it’s an all or nothing thing with public vs. protected. Everything is public, or everything is protected. There is no in between.

You can update Twitter from the website, from many Firefox extensions, from desktop applications, from your cell phone by sending text messages to 40404, and from your cell phone with the use of mobile applications (I use TinyTwitter).

You may be asking, “How does this tie into blogging?” I’ll tell you how. You can use an active Twitter account to generate more traffic to your blog by posting updates of blog entries to it. You can do this manually, and also with the use of blog posting plugins that are available for many blogging platforms (including WordPress).

I can’t tell you when I first discovered archive.org. I just know that I have known of its existence and kept it in the back of my mind for reference years for at least three years now! archive.org is just what it sounds like - the internet archive. It has several tools and resources, but my personal favorite feature of archive.org is the WayBack Machine.

The WayBack Machine is a handy little tool where you can input a web address - any web address! If archive.org has viewed that particular web address in the past, it will have an archived copy of it available for viewing. The dates of saved copies of websites can go as far back as three or four years, more if you’re lucky! What purpose does the WayBack Machine serve? Well, you can look up your old websites and layouts for a good laugh. Or if you have a server malfunction, check for archived copies of your website to grab a certain blog entry. Of course, there are people who use the WayBack Machine in order to gather information to use as ammunition against others, so remember what someone so wisely said: be careful of what you say/do, because it CAN come back to haunt you!

On a related note, if you’d prefer that the WayBack Machine not save copies of your website periodically, see their handy robots.txt WayBack Machine exclusion guide. A quick code insert, and WayBack Machine will respect your desire to not have your website archived on their server!