Building an Interactive Blog – Hip Hop Style
I was reading this morning on John Chow Dot Com, an article from a guest blogger of his named Jamie Haropp, the article was entitled “How to Bring Interactivity to Your Blog.” Jamie had some good points:
These are some great ideas for bloggers to use on their blogs. However, how do you get to the resources? Lets take a look at Polls. If you have a Wordpress blog, I suggest Lester Chan’s “WP-Polls.” Also consider Polldaddy and JS-Kit to get polls on your sites.
Guest Bloggers are cool when you may need some fresh ideas for your blog. Many bloggers want to get their names out there on the web and are seeking “established blogs” as a medium to establish themselves. You can Google and a find freelance bloggers that is willing to guest blog a column or two.
Live Streaming Video is great. Beware, you better have something good to say to your audience. Another great tool to use is Coveritlive. I’ve used it on Flavaflav.net when it first came out over a year ago. The technology, like my site back then, was raw. But now they have added live video, live commenting, polls, audio and much more. I’ve noticed that even some online newspapers and magazines host live events with Coveritlive. Check it out at www.coveritlive.com. The best thing is it is still FREE!
For you Wordpress users, sign-up for Kaltura or use the new “All In One Video Pack 2.0” plugin from Kaltura. It’s a fast and easy way to place video, audio, photos and more on your blog. Kaltura has partnered with YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, CCMixter, Jamendo, New York Public Library, any URL on the web for you to use. Also, you can upload your own video, embed the video and remix the video later using Kaltura. I created a commericial for a non-profit organization, Hope for Families, Inc. using Kaltura, and remixed it several times. Go to www.hopeforfamiliesinc.org and take a look at the online video.
Finally, don’t forget Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Entrecard and Stumbleupon to help bring some interactivity to your blog. Especially Twitter and Linkedin. If you have a professional or business related site, use LinkedIn to connect with decision makers online and invite them to your site.
Don’t forget to learn how to Podcast. Wordpress has some great plugins for podcasting.
If you have any more ideas, email me at ideas@hiphopbloggers.net. Remember, “it is our turn to eat!” My Twitter address is http://www.twitter.com/hiphopblogger
Kyle T. Mosley – Blogger and Publisher
kmosley@hiphopbloggers.net