Enough Is Enough Campaign Protests BET Honor Awards

Jan 12th Update - The show goes on. Here is an article that summarizes the BET Honors Award show. The protest did take place, however, the show was still taped.

Jan 10th Update - Click here to read about WAOD call for action against the corporate sponsors that fund BET.com and their foolishness that exploits our Black women.

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Since mid-September 2007, the Enough is Enough Campaign has demonstrated each Saturday outside the Washington, DC residence of Debra Lee and the New York City home of Viacom CEO, Philippe Dauman.

Drumbeats from WAOD informed us that hundreds have agreed to protest peacefully yet persuasively outside the Warner Theater where the BET Honors award show is scheduled to be taped on Saturday, January 12, 2008 @ 7:00 p.m. EDT. The protest rally starts at 6:00 p.m. with assemblies on the corners of 13th and E Street and 13th and F Street N.W.

Enough is Enough Campaign supporters regard the BET Honors as a red herring – an attempt to mask the offensive musical content that is being aired on BET Networks by spotlighting the achievements of prominent African Americans. In a December 17, 2007 Washington Post article entitled, "Positively Honored", BET Networks CEO, Debra Lee, said, "People are clamoring all the time for positive images."

In point of fact, what the Enough Is Enough Campaign and others have been clamoring for is for BET to address the negative music video images and messages that degrade women and glorify violence and criminal activity. In a September 12, 2007 letter to Rev. Coates, Ms. Lee stated that BET does not air programming or music videos that endorse or condone illegal drugs, gratuitous violence, or contain graphic or excessive sexual activity.

Despite these written guidelines, BET continues to air music video content that does not conform to these guidelines on video shows geared towards youth and teens. Enough is Enough Campaign Organizer, Rev. Delman L. Coates, said that BET can best honor Black History Month by removing those videos that do not conform to BET’s own programming guidelines.

Citizens, students, Villagers and activists are encouraged to come out and let their voices be heard at the Saturday, January 12th protest outside the Warner Theater. For more information you can reach by Enough Is Enough folks via their website or email.

Marion Jones was Good, But She Wasn't Flo-Jo

Jan 11 Update - Marion Jones sentenced to six months in prison!

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If I had to name my all-time favorite Olympics athletes it is likely that Marion Jones would be high on the list. The #1 slot is reserved for Flo-Jo. Y'all young villagers don't know about Flo-Jo ... suffice to say that she is the most powerful and gorgeous athlete that I've ever seen in my life. Flo-Jo set 100m world record and 200m world record back in the day.

But I digress...

As a freshman in college Marion Jones wore #23 and took her North Carolina team to the NCAA championship. She was America's darling at the 2000 Olympics. At one point we thought she might win 5 gold medals. Marion Jones made some poor choices in men. She went with a big shot-put brother who eventually disgraced himself with steroids. Later she was coached by a guy that is currently on trial for doping. Earlier this year we learned that Marion had to sell her mama's house to pay the bills ... this millionaire had only $2,000 to her name at the time.

Today we learn that Marion wrote a letter to close family and friends, apologized to them and admitted using steroids before the 2000 Olympics. In the letter, Jones said that she took "the clear" for two years, beginning in 1999. "The clear" is a performance-enhancing drug linked to BALCO, the lab at the center of a federal steroids investigation. Until now, Jones has denied she ever took performance-enhancing drugs.

"I want to apologize for all of this," Jones wrote. "I am sorry for disappointing you all in so many ways."

In the letter Jones also said she planned to plead guilty in New York to two counts of lying to federal agents about her drug use and an unrelated financial matter. It is a sad day for people that supported Marion Jones during her career.

But, at least we still have Flo-Jo!

Hillary Clinton Wins in New Hampshire ... What Next for Barack Obama?

I am trying to understand what happened tonight in the New Hampshire primary. A few hours ago the polls showed Barack Obama was leading in New Hampshire by as much as 13% ... yet, when the New Hampshire voters went behind the curtain of the voting booth they changed their minds and voted for Hillary Clinton.

Why? What the heck happened up there in New Hampshire?

• Women Voters - Obama won among women voters in Iowa. Clinton won bigtime among women voters in New Hampshire. I guess her emotional moment where she cried on television was a turning point for the women of New Hampshire. That moment ... scripted by Hillary or real? Personally, I think that she did it on purpose to get sympathy ... and it appears to have worked. Who knew?
• Bill Clinton - Yesterday, the media was portraying Bill Clinton as Boo-Boo the fool. Today he is a queen-maker. It appears that Bill Clinton is paying back his wife for his infidelities by doing whatever it takes, including being the attack dog on Obama. Bill Clinton ... who many of us referred to as the first Black president is now willingly taking regular potshots at a truly competitive Black presidential candidate. Do we miss the 1990s so much that we want a re-run in the White House?
• Young Voters - It looks like the youngsters in New Hampshire willingly came out to the campaign events ... but, apparently, some of them forgot to go vote. It feels like the young voters in New Hampshire were enjoying the tailgating party ... but, didn't buy a ticket to the dayum game itself!.
• Black Voters - Oh yeah, there weren't many in New Hampshire. There are plenty in South Carolina. Will brothers and sisters in South Carolina buy into the 'Yes We Can' motto of Barack Obama ... or will we follow the lead of Civil Rights era Blacks like John Lewis, Andrew Young and others.
• Bradley Effect - I lived in Los Angeles back when Tom Bradley ran for governor of California. The polls all indicated that he would win. However, on election night the victory went to George Deukmejian. White voters simply lied to pollsters. But Villager ... the polls called it right in Iowa ... Yeah, but Iowa was a caucus state and you had to stand up in front of a crowd ... so your inner race-based fears of the Blackman can't show itself as easily as it can when it's just you behind the voting booth curtain.

What do you think? Why did the air come out of the Barack Obama balloon in the New Hampshire primary? Did racism begin to poke its head out from the voting booths in New Hampshire? Perhaps equally important ... what does this say about his chances in Nevada and South Carolina?

Villager Joins NPR Blogger Roundtable

La Shawn Barber of La Shawn Barber's Corner (BBR #9), Debra Dickerson of Mother Jones (BBR #4), and I joined Farai Chideya on her NPR News & Notes show on Wednesday, January 9. Our 15-minute discussion focused on the New Hampshire primary results, Cynthia McKinney's presidential bid, and another protest planned against BET.

This was the second time that I've been on this Blogger Roundtable. However, other AfroSpear bloggers are appearing more frequently in the mainstream media.

Click here to listen to the roundtable discussion. Villagers, any thoughts on the three topics we discussed on the NPR show this week?

If It is OK to 'Lynch' Tiger Woods ... Is It OK to 'Gas' a Jewish Golfer?

Drumbeats from SerenityLife told us about recent comments from broadcaster Kelly Tilghman who said young golfers challenging Tiger Woods should "lynch" him. Tilghman uttered the remark during coverage of Hawaii's Mercedes-Benz Championship on Friday, while she and and co-host Nick Faldo were bantering about how young golfers might challenge ever-dominant Woods.

Faldo said, "To take Tiger on, well yeah, they should just gang up for a while until ..."

"Lynch him in a back alley," Tilghman interrupted with a chuckle.

Woods says he considers Tilghman a friend, saw no malicious intent in remark. Villagers, at what point do we hold people accountable for hate-speech. I disagree with Tiger Woods. It is very malicious to indicate on public television that there is something to 'chuckle' about when you indicate that a Black man should be 'lynched'.

I'm confident that Ms. Tighman would not have chuckled in talking about a Jewish golfer and indicating that his opponents should 'gas him in a back alley'. She would know from her upbringing and from societial pressures that talking about gassing a Jewish person is beyond the pale. Just like talking about lynching a Black man is beyond the pale as well.

Brothers and sisters ... enough is enough! I agree with Al Sharpton on this one. Tilghman should be fired. Just like Imus. Just like Al Campanis. Just like any public figure that publically chuckles about lynching of a Black man. It is unacceptable in America and Tilghman should be called on the carpet about it. I'm uncertain if a two-week suspension is enough.

The Golf Channel, founded in 1991 by media entrepreneur Joseph Gibbs, employs 300+ people at their corporate headquarters in Orlando FL. Does anyone have contact information for Mr. Gibbs? If not, then I encourage you to express your feelings on Ms. Tilghman's racist comments directly to the The Golf Channel website.

I don't consider myself a "politically correct vigilante". I simply realize that the history of lynching is such in our country that it should never be a joking matter.

What say u?

You Rock My Socks Award

We were honored with the You Rock My Socks Award from Saboma at Maryannaville. We share this award with three sisters ... Mes Deux Cents, Invisible Woman and Shelia ... that have been in our readling list quite abit over the past few weeks and months. Here are others that received this award.

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0-Cotojo 1-Lisa 2-Kim 3-Deborah 4-Pearl 5-Sandy6-Jesse 7-Chris 8-Zubli 9-Santa 10-BlogElf11-Jackie 12-Marzie 13-Adrian 14-Jos 15-NAFASG16-Polli 17-Sue 18-Kathy 19-Maartje 20-Morgan21-Greg 22-MaryAnn 23-Eric 24-Hawk 25-Carol26-Diane 27-EvNucci 28-Surjit 29-Kuanyin 30-ChristyZ31-Sandee 32-Robin 33-Hanna 34-Maunie 35-Kim36-Bobby 37-Billy 38-David 39-Jennifer 40-Aryst41-Winston 42-Christy 43-LilyRuth 44-Jess 45-Rudy46-Lynda 47-Lili 48-SandyG 49-Ange 50-BlackWyrm51-Vincent 52-Colin&Anne 53-BlandlyUrbane 54-Marco 55-Mihaela56-John 57-Aziz 58-Ugyen 59-Lansy 60-Alex61-Victors 62-Nostalgia 63-Franco 64-Herby 65-Rubie66-Santaram&BVK 67-Jean-David 68-Namgay 69-Catherine 70-Yunita71-PJLighthouse 72-Lorimer 73-DreamCatcher 74-Fred 75-Anja76-MariaLourdes 77-JonB 78-Aayush 79-Denise 80-Dharmendra81-BrentD 82-Jerry&Daryl 83-BrianB 84-Calvin 85-Pieter86-Jessica 87-Taflas 88-Alex 89-Norie 90-Justin91-Ashish 92-David 93-Thanate 94-Kevin 95-Etienne96-Gerbera 97-Christina 98-AbhishekD 99-Uprai 100-TexasJam101-Azmiel 102-Daniel 103-Kristin 104-Luwis 105-Adavait106-NowSourcing 107-BuenAmigo 108-Kiran 109-Peterson 110-Lynn111-Chessnoid 112-LuisHipolito 113-Joliveira 114-Jennifer&Pete 115-TeamDog116-Megan 117-Mark 118-Raivyn 119-Mel 120-Andrea121-Jen 122-Mimi 123-Bobo 124-Lynda 125-DreadBob126-Julie 127-RennyBA 128-Bobbarama 129-Becky 130-Magdalena131-Michelle 132-Stacie 133-ClimateTeam 134-CashMarble 135-OilOffShore136-Jos 137-Piper 138-Barbara 139-Ann 140-Deb141-Headbanger 142-Danny 143-Morina 144-Aira 145-Jericho146-Mauro 147-Breigh 148-SecretMind 149-Awannabe 150-Gerri151-Colin 152-eRocker 153-Kitty 154-Mariuca 155-Donna156-Babyshern 157-Sanni 158-SatoNa 159-Cyn 160-Nessa161-Steve 162-Francisco 163-Em 164-Christo 165-Riccardo166-Naren 167-Denise 168-KingTang 169-El 170-Francesco171-Bella 172-Chris 173-Fe 174-Jim&Emma 175-Incinq176-Cristian 177-Matson 178-Kiwipulse 179-Sean 180-Anne181-Xerendipity 182-Omega 183-Debra 184-SJ 185-Joseph186-Nikki 187-Pocholo 188-BloggerNoob 189-Filot 190-Aseem191-Mark 192-Antonio 193-Henry 194-Jamiz 195-Tamsyn196-EverydayWeekender 197-JustMe 198-Brent 199-Ink 200-Alan 201-Nicole 202-Baby Fiona 203-Kenny 204-GoSmellTheFlowers 205-LiewCF 206-LivingSurfer 207-David 208-Dan 209-Zakry 210-Vincent Chow 211-IxusPhotos 212-Rogue Mei 213-download munkey 214-Crazy News 215-5Xmom 216-HighDenzity 217-Daniel 218-Gabreille 219-Sri 220-Steve 220-DotA 221 - Electronic Village 222-Mes Deux Cents 223-Invisible Woman 224-Black Tennis Pros

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We never take these awards and honors for granted. It is a sign that our efforts on this blog are appreciated by many of you in cyberspace. If you have time, please subscribe to the Electronic Village. We want to grow our subscriber base to at least 1,000 people by the end of this year. OK?

Will Bill Richardson Become the Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson for Hispanics?

I think that Bill Richardson is an honorable man. He is a lifetime politician who has a strong resume. Nobody else from either party can talk about experience in national politics as governor, Secretary of Energy, US Ambassador to the United Nations and a 14-year congressman. He participated in 24 presidential debates over the past few months. He was a strong advocate for ending the war and bringing our troops home from Iraq. He also felt strongly about the need for a comprehensive energy policy.

However, he never got traction with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. As such, he pulled out of the presidential campaign today. He joins Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton as a former presidential candidate. Jackson and Sharpton have been treated as the 'de facto spokespersons' for any and every issue impacting on the Black community since they became former presidential candidates. Others have noted the same thing. If something happens tomorrow morning that impacts on the Black community ... then the mainstream media will use their speed dial to contact Jackson or Sharpton for a comment.

Now that Richardson is the first Hispanic person to run a credible campaign for national office ... and he is now a former presidential candidate ... I wonder if he will become the face of the Hispanic community within the mainstream media?.

Did you ever wonder why no other community has so-called national spokespersons like we are given by the mainstream media in our Black community. If the Asian community jumps off into some controversy ... who does the mainstream media call? If the Italian community is upset by a movie that portrays their culture in a negative light ... who does the mainstream media call?

Villagers, will the mainstream media call on Bill Richardson the next time there is a national crisis in the Hispanic community now that he is a former presidential candidate? What say u?

Iowa Victory Speech * Barack Obama

I am sharing this video for any of you that did not to see this speech live. History was made on January 3, 2008 in Iowa when Barack Obama won the Democratic primary. I think that many of us will look back to this moment with great pride in our country. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy listening to a true statesman in action....

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday: Barack Obama

I'm glad to see the Dennis Kucinich is telling his supporters to vote for Obama tomorrow in Iowa.

Villagers, the first real voting for our next President of the United States begins tomorrow in Iowa. I support Barack Obama for a variety of reasons ... not the least of which is that he would become a remarkable role model for my 8-year old son.

Would you rather see Barack and Michelle Obama in your living rooms over the next 4-8 years? or Hillary and Bill Clinton? Personally, I'm ready for a change in Washington DC that can be felt deep down in our bones. A change that will uplift every family in America as well as every family in most other nations around the world.

How To Market Your Blog in 2008

There are over 600 Black blogs included in the Black Blog Rankings this month. We share the list of the Top 10 Black Blogs on the 1st day of each month. However, there are many blogs with great content that are not being widely recognized. They aren't getting comments ... they don't have high traffic rankings ... and their pagerank is low.

I read an article written last year by Tony Hung that I found quite inspiring. It helped me a lot, so I thought I'd share its main points here with you. Below you'll find tips from Tony with a few of my own comments attatched. I hope it will help you improve your blog's rankings and blogosphere influence in 2008.

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Persistence: All the marketing in the world won’t help you if you have a lame-duck blog. You must write well and write consistently. You can never give up! In your search for more traffic, more promotion, and more publicity, never forget it starts with great content — and needs to continue with great content on a regular schedule. There’s no question that maintaining quality and regularity is difficult while you’re starting out, particularly if you’re time strapped … but hang in there, because if you sacrifice this, all of your marketing efforts will be for naught.


Become an expert on something: It's my view that if you read one book per week on a given subject ... you will be a world-class expert on that subject within a year. Most people don't read regularly. You can develop a keen interest, continue to read and write intelligently, and after a while, your experience will make you an expert. Bloggers will seek out your expertise, your reknown will grow, and it will be easier to be noticed, linked to, and get cross promoted.


Design is more important than you think: You can only make a first impression once — first impressions count, and they can count for cash money. If you’re serious about blogging, you need to separate and elevate yourself from the blogging masses, and its impossible to do if you look exactly the same as them. Easy to say, hard to do, but absolutely necessary. I redesigned my blog using the services of someone who's work I kept seeing as I surfed the Internet. Do what you have to do to ensure that your blog looks professional, stands out, and screams "yes, I am worthy of your attention!".


Get Your SEO On: SEO = Search Engine Optimization — get your own domain name, host your own blogging software, enable permalinks, create keyword rich headlines, create unique title tags, enable trackback and ping functionality, ensure your blog pings pinging-services.


Publish full feeds: Publishing full feeds can increase your traffic. Feed subscriptions are critical; get your feeds burned through Feedburner so you can track how many are subscribing. People who subscribe to feeds rarely unsubscribe, and every single feed subscriber is a potential source of traffic to your blog.


Do interviews with other bloggers: Score interviews with newsworthy individuals (who may be linked to newsworthy content), to create link worthy content, but more importantly, create news on THEIR blog to get back to YOUR blog.


Break important stories: If you have an interest in an area, it is possible to break important stories as long as you’re willing to put in the time and energy to find stuff. Benefit: being picked up by A-list blogs, mainstream news outlets and more.


Have a contest: Or, have regular contests, which encourage participation and buzz in your corner of the blogosphere.


Publish original research: If you’ve got the time, start with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and "publish it". My fledgling efforts at researching and publishing the Black Blog Rankings is an example.


Put out Press Releases: Particularly if you have something new, unique, or particularly important to say (such as an important story, or research)


Work your long tail: A tip based on your SEO efforts; there is a free service called Hit Tail that will analyze the search terms leading to your blog traffic, and yank out high quality key words you should be focusing on that you might not immediately think of. This can help you focus your future posts as you are already getting traffic for those key words.


Answer your comments, in your comments, and off blog: - When you do get comments, answer as many as humanly possible, and if its an interesting enough issue or question, contact the poster directly for a friendly follow up. Treat every potential poster as a potential subscriber to your feed, and a future friend (we call them villagers) and contact.


Spend time to create links and trackbacks: In every post spend as much time as you can to create outbound links to relevant and high linking blogs; many blogs automatically have trackbacks enabled, so in their comments section they will have a link back to your blog. If its a highly trafficked and ranked blog, this can mean traffic BACK to your blog, and it can draw notice from the author themselves — because, let’s face it, we’re all vain ... even the big bloggers ... and we’re all interested in who is linking to us.


MyBlogLog My traffic on this blog tripled last year when I subscribed to MyBlogLog — I encourage you to know it, love it, and embrace it. Since its been acquired by Yahoo, it has exploded all over the blogosphere. MyBlogLog offers a free widget that enables you to build a free community around your blog, and to easily see which other bloggers have been to your blog. You can "add" friends, and generate traffic, but more importantly, your own network of like-minded blogging colleagues in a way that is relatively easy and efficient. Just go easy on the unsolicited messages.


Join a blog carnival: Where every blogger who joins one blogs about a topic, then each blog gets promoted. Here’s an index of blog carnivals to get you started.


Join blog network: Between Afrosphere Bloggers Association, The AfroSpear and others, there is networking potential, income potential, and a link-a-palooza waiting for you (through the linkroll as every member may have to link to every other member) if you’re able to get into one.


Participate in forums: Forums with tons of pages, huge lists of members, and a responsive community are an easy way to not only connect with other individuals, but an opportunity to tastefully demonstrate your expertise and a link back to your blog. I recently created a forum for Black IT professionals.


Participate on larger blogs in comments: By participating directly in another blogger’s comments you a) get their recognition and b) get the recognition of the blogging community. Also, here’s a tip: try and be one of the first few commenters on heavily trafficked sites to get recognized — most people won’t read past the first 10-20 comments. Here’s another tip for traffic: IF (and ONLY IF) you have posted something relevant that is pursuant to the ongoing conversation and IF the blog has a commenting policy that will allow you to do so, post a link back to a post on your own site ("hey guys, I wrote about how we can solve this problem! — check out the link over here, but let me summarize it for you … "). Sometimes you’ll be surprised at how much traffic comes back.


Join Blogburst: Blogburst is a type of "blog network" (see #16), that syndicates content across American newspaper’s websites, such as USA Today and Reuters. Highly ranked inbound links + traffic + bragging rights to your crew that your post got featured in a newspaper. Not too shabby. Also on the upside, they have a new revenue sharing scheme. The bad: read their terms of service carefully — you give up certain rights when they republish your content, and the revenue sharing works on the top 100 publishers only.


Participate in Wordless Wednesday meme: They publish links to all of the participants.


Submit to blog directories: So people can find your blog.


Submit to Google sitemaps: Google will be able to find you so much easier when you use Google sitemaps. As you gain more Google juice, you'll get more traffic, resulting in higher rankings faster.


Submit to article directories: You might want to submit your favourite posts to article directories, where they will enable you to have a biobox / blurb with a link back to your own blog. Again, demonstrating your expertise, and moreover, the article might get picked up in a ezine or another blog, leading to more traffic and more inbound links.


Get interviewed: If you’ve demonstrated your expertise, or have done something newsworthy, or reported on something newsworthy, try and get interviewed. As long as its done in a fair way (doesn’t need to be a completely puffpiece) by a site or blogger with some reknown, its more traffic for you.


Get listed on a news aggregator, or blog aggregator: Like Techmeme for technews, or Tailrank for blogging news.


Create free stuff for yourself and give it away: Like ebooks, digests of your favourite posts, pdfs, and so on. Make sure to include a link back in the document, back to your site.


Create free stuff for other people: the same, let them distribute it, get a link back.


Pay for pub: Efficient means of using your cash is to buy targeted Adwords, or keywords in Yahoo’s advertising network; you could get other bloggers to write about you using PayPerPost or ReviewMe; or you purchase text link ads through Text-Link-Ads.com


Make friends with other bloggers: Ridiculously simple, but its true. Benefits of "networking" (making friends) include more mentions on other blogs, more requests for interviews, more partnerships in future deals, more "ads" into their MyBlogLog network, more "ads" into someone else’s blogroll (and therefore links back to your blog) — it goes on and on.


Guest blog: Offer to do it for free, and you’ll be able to demonstrate what you know to an entirely new audience. Gives you great credibility, and of course, most will allow a courtesy link back to your own blog. A free foot-in-the-door to some communities as well.


Volunteer, intern, scut-monkey your way into a blogger’s graces: Maintaining a highly trafficked site is a lot of work. Offer to volunteer your time with menial behind the scenes stuff (moderating posts, acting as a bird dog for news) for free and with a smile, and you’ll get a foot-in-the-door with the blogger, their network, and future opportunities.


Get hired: You never know which blog organizations are looking to hire new bloggers; again, an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge, meet new bloggers, and open tons of professional "doors" … because now that you’re getting paid ... you’re a "pro-blogger"


Network in person: Find other local bloggers using services like Meetup, and see if they’re literally getting together to commiserate about blogging or their topic of blogging. If you’ve got the time, there’s nothing that makes an impression as actually meeting someone in person. Tip: bring a business card; Another tip: if you don’t have any, make some; yet another tip: if important people are going to be there, really — try and go. A great opportunity is coming up later this year at the Blogging While Brown conference!


Join virtual groups: Through Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, CollectiveX, and more; then bring the conversation off the group with emails and instant messages. Be friendly, be helpful, and it will pay dividends.


Cross promote: Once you’ve gotten to know people, you can kindly remind them to promote posts that you’re particularly proud of; or, vote for your submissions on Digg or your social bookmarking site of choice. Reciprocate.


Facebook: Its a social network that has opened its doors behind its college beginnings. Anyone can sign up. Start connecting with old friends and colleagues, like any other social network. You can import your own blog’s RSS feed, so that your connections can see what you’re blogging. Who knows where that might lead?


Join Helium: Helium actively looks for people to head new categories of content. Think a paid "about.com" — for its authors. If you have a particular interest that isn’t yet served on Helium you might want to check it out; besides giving you cash for content, it’ll also demonstrate your authority in a topic, and you’ll be able to leverage Helium’s own traffic for your own blog through a linkback on your profile.


Yahoo Answers! A similar idea; but this time, you’re answering questions that people are posting. Yahoo! is quite careful about spam, however, and including a "signature" is a dicey proposition at times. There is a fairly sophisticated registry and voting system that tries to prevent "gaming", but given how much traffic yahoo! answers gets, AND its inclusion as a separate result area in Yahoo SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) it might be something worth looking into.


Join LinkedIn Network: More of a professional network that is an important part of any blogger's toolkit. Here is my Linkedin Profile.


Create a Squidoo Page Lens: On a given related topic to your blog; participate in the Squidoo community; Squidoo has a ton of traffic, and you could funnel traffic and tastefully include links to other relevant sites and perhaps your own blog.


Use MySpace Marketing: The idea is to capitalize on the HUGE amount of traffic MySpace gets (some interesting thoughts over here). Create a profile, create relevant content and links back. Start adding friends. Comment on your friends space. Join groups. Start enjoying the trickle back traffic. Here is my profile on MySpace.


Get Dugg / Netscaped / Reddited / Stumbled upon: Whole articles (and sites) are written about the intricacies of socially bookmarking. Here’s a tip: focus on creating great content, make friends on these sites if they allow you to, and submit your stories judiciously.

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Do you have other marketing ideas for bloggers that aren't included in this list? Villagers, I'm going to redouble my efforts in 2008 to implement many of these 42 ideas in the coming days and weeks. How about you?