Goodbye And Thankyou

My last update was almost a year ago.

Since then I have slowly returned to blogging and I am having fun. Right now I am not using Blogger and I don't wish to maintain a big project like a directory.

Big Blog Directory was a fun experiment and I "met" many interesting people through it. I would like to thank everyone who submitted blogs or commented here.

No new blogs will be added.

Leon

New Listings 9

The last "New Listings" post was on May 9th. Here are the blogs that were submitted and listed since then.

The first group lists blogs that are still active:

The Two Cents

Software Testing Zone

Coconut Girl Wireless

A Weird But Passionate World In South Africa

Soekershof; the 'scientific' backup

Andrew Owns Agloco

Kaldirimlar

NiggyBuzz Blog

Pastel Creations

Cine-Critic

Random Thoughts From The Rockies

DAIRIBLAWG

Creative UAE

Melancholy Musings

Two Write Hands

One Man's Travel Blog

Some blogs have removed their BBD links. I may delist them.

The following blogs were listed and have disappeared or have not been updated:

• Island Bird Rambles
• Tech 4 Novices
• i dedicate...
• Fishing For Big Sharks
• All Of Fun

Update: A Blogger's Confession

Getting back into this blog project has been very difficult. This has always been a work heavy blog because of the rules I set for submissions and for myself.

I began to feel the strain in May. Keeping up with blog news and dealing with so many inappropriate submissions may have been possible if I had stayed motivated. All my blogs suffered and I went from maintaining five to struggling with my personal blog and neglecting this one.

I even started a blog about one of my hobbies to make sure I keep blogging. I didn't need another blog - I needed something I enjoyed to blog about.

When you go public with any venture and say "use my service" you lose control of time. Other people don't wait for you to be motivated, or well, or not busy. They operate on their time and hope it coincides with yours. Lately I have been merely reacting rather than being proactive.

I don't want this blog/directory to die but I hate it being in limbo like this. I have two things to do (at least) to keep this blog going:

• Clean out dead blogs and links.
• Resume reviewing and posting submissions.

I don't want to add anything new until I can get the current situation fixed. So:

No new submissions will be reviewed for posting until further notice.

Submissions Reminder

I'll be catching up with submissions this week. One important reminder: your blog submission MUST have a link to Big Blog Directory (http://bigblogdir.blogspot.com)in the sidebar or designated link area. Blogs without a link will not be published.

There are two issues I would like to address. First of all: I get a lot of requests for link exchanges. This isn't a link exchange service. I want proper blog submissions. The second problem concerns where my link is placed. Please do NOT put the link in with advertisers and/or call it an advertisement on your blog. This is misrepresenting this blog.

Catching Up

I'll be reviewing submissions and cleaning up the directory over the next week or so. I probably wont be posting blog news or tutorials for a while. I haven't been blogging much in the last month and am a little out of touch with everything.

Now I understand how bloggers can get distracted by other activities.

August 9 Featured Feeds

I like it when the Featured Feeds posts turn into mini blog roundups. Last time they were photoblogs and this time craft blogs. Knitting Through Life and KnotGypsy's Journey of Creation are the featured blogs for the next few days.

Quick Update

I haven't had time to review and list the recent submissions. I'll do that this week. Thanks for your patience.

July 29 Featured Feeds

The next two featured blogs are both European photoblogs. Check out JENRIKS24hphoetry and Kaldırımlar.

July 23 Featured Feeds

Flotsam and Jetsam and Island Bird Rambles are the featured blogs until Saturday. Both are Canadian blogs produced in Victoria, BC.

July 15 Featured Feeds

Facing Autism in New Brunswick and Firemind are the featured blogs for the next few days. They are both Canadian blogs but deal with different issues from different parts of the country.

July 11 Featured Feeds

The new featured feeds are from Canadian blogs. EclecticBlogs is produced in Yellowknife, NWT, and EternaLee in Regina, Saskatchewan. Both of these blogs are updated regularly.

July 5 Featured Feeds

They say good things come in small packages. I am not sure I agree with that but good blogs can be about small things or from small companies. Chihuahua Tales and Dwarfed Films are the featured blogs for the next few days.

When you visit Dwarfed Films check out To Shoot A Rurf. It's a weird and enjoyable short film.

Directory Cleaning

One of the important things to remember is that only current blogs are listed in BBD. Blogs that are dormant for 60 days have their listings removed.

It's directory cleaning time again and I just de-listed nine blogs. Eight have been dormant since April and one since early May. I would have left the latter blog for a while but there were other issues involved.

Here are the blogs that were were removed:

• A view from three steps back...
• ANSWERS
• Adoption Tales
• Excribidinglish
• My Irish Football Blog
• Ridiculosity Report
• RedRag blog
• Romantically Cynical
• The Life and Times of an Endoscopy Technician

The blogs will be re-listed if the bloggers update and contact me - and they have linked to BBD.

Update: Adoption Tales has been updated and re-listed.

July 1 Featured Feeds

The featured blogs for the next few days are Blind Sight is 20/20 and Camoen.

Updated Feedblitz Feed

I have used Feedblitz to publish BBD since February. I only offered post headlines because I wanted subscribers to visit the blog.

I noticed a few more readers recently when I checked my stats. I changed the settings so Feedblitz subscribers get the full blog feed - just like users of other feed services.

The subscription form is in the sidebar.

June 27 Featured Feeds

Big Blue Wave and Brian Cormier's Blogtastic World are the featured feeds for the next few days. Both of these Canadian blogs are very active and both have been featured before.

Create A "Link To Me" Form

One way to link to blogs is by using buttons. They can be a nice alternative to text links - especially if the blog name is long.



Some of your readers may not know how to create the image links. You can write a short tutorial like I did but you may find that the html code gets messed up when you post. That's usually due to the long image file names.

You can fix this problem by using a simple html form:

<a href="http://bigblogdir.blogspot.com"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1176/373809733834064/320/button1..png"/></a>

When you right-click in the box and "select all" you can easily copy all of the text.

To create the form I used the following format:

<textarea rows="3" cols="40"><a href="BLOG URL"><img src="IMAGE URL"></a></textarea>

Change the capitalized letters to the appropriate code.

Adjust the rows and columns to fit your post or sidebar. A column width of 20 works for most sidebars in Blogger blogs.

Add the code to an html/javascript widget (in Blogger) titled "Link To Me!" or something similar.

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Check out: Buttons, Bows and Badges for Your Blog.

June 23 Featured Feeds

A weird but passionate world in South Africa and Boating Bitts are the featured feeds for the next few days. Stop by, read a few posts, and say hello. Everyone likes comments.

Blog Links June 20/07

Blog Links is a new feature that will appear whenever I find enough interesting links. Not every post will be as long or as detailed as this one.

In Linking Relationships Lorelle VanFosen discusses the importance of blog links.

Whether through intention or accident, the links from your blog to others are mini-letters of recommendation. When you link to an external site, you are inviting your readers, the ones you worked so hard to earn and keep, to click away. That link better be pretty special.

I tend to limit my sidebar links to sites I think are useful and/or promote what I think are good blogging habits.

I’m often asked to do link exchanges with all types of blogs and websites. I refuse all of them. If you really want to get my link attention, then give me something worth linking to, worth writing about, worth recommending to my readers. I’m not interested in your link. I’m interested in your content.

I have been asked to exchange links and have refused so far. Most of the people asking have only been interested in beefing up their pagerank. I'm not into pagerank much. I want links I like and which will help bloggers.

Read the full article.

Have you ever visited a blog that annoyed you? I have. The blogger has probably made one of the Top 13 Blogging Mistakes. The thing I hate most is background music. Every time an internal link is clicked the music starts again... and again...

Another blogging pet peeve of mine is finding so many dead blogs. When I search the 'net or visit directories I want to find blogs that are current.

In Millions of Dead Blogs Won't Stop Blogging the author says:

"200 million people call themselves ex-bloggers." That's a ton of dead blogs but it won't matter to most blog readers. Many readers may never even notice the dead blogs because sites like Digg will guide them to new sources.

These sites will help readers find blogs but they don't help with the searches. Google and other search engines will still index the dead blogs.

Bloggers will still be faced with unavailable URLs that are taken by dead blogs. This problem is made worse by spam blogs. If Blogger and other hosts delete the dead blogs then the URLs will likely be taken over by spam blogs and another problem arises.

Many people try blogging but don't stick with it. Those of us who do find our voices and stake a claim to a small piece of cyberspace. We help spread information and interact with others. As annoying as dead blogs and spam blogs are they can't stop the joy of finding a really good "living" blog to read.

June 20 Featured Feeds

Andy's Blog and Another Point of View are the featured feeds for the next few days.