Chris Brandrick

As some of you who follow me on Twitter or have me added on Facebook may have realised I am now back in the UK, after my holiday away to Turkey. I had a really nice break away, and you can now check out the pictures of my trip on my Flickr page, I also have some on my Facebook too.

Now I’m back I would also like to announce that Kufu (as previously blogged) is now officially open for business, and we are on the look out for new clients. So drop us an email!

In addition to working for Kufu, the rest of my summer will involve finally getting Gamebrit off the ground, which has been ridiculously delayed for several reasons, it’s amazing to think I have had the domain for nearly a year now! But yeah keep an eye out for updates on that one.

But in the mean time, keep it on ChrisBrandrick.com! Subscribe to my RSS feed, or even add me as a Technorati fave.

Yesterday I posted about the various blogs I read, and within it I mentioned TylerCruz’s blog. Today I intend to touch upon further the competition I mentioned in that post, so here we go:

Tyler Cruz is currently holding a competition versus his good blogging friend Gyutae Park, the aim for the competition is to get blog readers (like myself) to write a blog post (like this) about the competition and nominate a winner. I am choosing Tyler of course, not only because I wouldn’t mind a chance at winning the $100 prize, but due to Tyler having a great blog!

I have been reading Tyler’s blog for well over a year now, and more of my thoughts can be found on my old review here, but if you have yet to check out his blog and are interested in making money online then his entrepreneur blog is highly recommended. I see his blog as something of an inspiration for me starting this blog, as one day I hope to be in a similar position to Tyler, making money through a series of successful websites and living off the earnings. Being your own boss sure does sound good.

If you have a blog it may also be worth getting in on the blogging action and voting for TylerCruz, as all entries will receive a link back in a future post, and considering Tyler’s high RSS and Technorati rankings you can only stand to benefit from being linked to via this well positioned blog. Tyler is also on Entrecard so if you are after a free way to advertise on his blog, entrecard it is!

I wish Tyler the best of luck in his competition and sure do hope he wins. No doubt I will update this blog with the results, regardless of who wins. Vote for TylerCruz.

Since Wordpress 2.3 hit it introduced tagging into the back end system, allowing blog owners a simple way to associate quick terms of information to their posts and display a tag cloud on their blog. Now this all may well seem all well and good, but was the addition of any value? Personally I think adding a tagging system is a move forward, but it was handled in the wrong way. It’s far to basic and does not share your tagging data at all.

Tagging not only allows the visitor a quick and easy way to see what a blog blogs about most (via the tag cloud) it also acts as a simple search to a collection of content surrounding a certain keyword. But tagging, as far as I am concerned is much more than that. Tagging when put in a social environment helps paint a rich tapestry of what bloggers, and the web, is talking about.

At this point of course I am talking about blogging networking services like the popular Technorati. Not only can bloggers benefit from the traffic and various other benefits having a Technorati account can bring, but via linking up your blog and it’s tags to Technorati you will be contributing to a live view of what bloggers are talking about. For example, for the past few months a lot of bloggers have been discussing entrecard and its strengths and weaknesses, say you blogged about it, tagged it, and then gain visitors and potential subscribers via them finding your thoughts via Technorati. Your helping yourself out, and your helping create a more true image as to what folks are blogging about.

Of course for the introduction of tagging in to the back end to be truly perfect Wordpress and Technorati would have to come to some form of partnership, but they haven’t (yet) so it’s down to you to make that partnership yourself. If you don’t already have Technorati tagging set up I recommend you do. First up sort yourself out with a Technorati account, and then install this great plugin from David Gibbs over at Geeky Ramblings: WP Tags to Technorati, with everything installed and activated your tags should now appear below your post and on your Technorati page.

You are now adding to the greater view of the blogging world. Enjoy the benefits.