1) Original Posts: Sure, there are blog posts you could call “original” articles. Usually, though, these means telling a personal narrative rather than discussing a current idea, topic or news item. Why? Because as soon as you are talking about news or anything outside of your personal life you will inevitably be repeating information. Still, this applies to a rather limited set of blogs and blogging styles or one-off articles.

2) Collections of Information: One of the best ways to add value for a reader is to collect information (whether in list format or otherwise) in one place. In this case the creative act comes not in the discovery but in the presentation of said information. Take the Discovery or History channels for example: they typically are not showing you anything you couldn’t find out in some obscure source or possibly even a textbook. Still, many of us don’t have time to research topics so we tune in to regularly scheduled programs for a dose of information on a particular topic. Is the information completely original? Not typically, but it is presented in a new and easily legible format.

3) Connecting Readers to Resources: A great way to bring value to your readers is to bring your readers to other resources that they value. This is often something that is done in conjunction with the above strategy. You can create an article collecting a variety of information on a single topic and link intelligently so that readers can learn more about the specific aspect of that topic that they are interested in. Again, you aren’t creating entirely original content but you may be pointing readers to other original (or not!) content in a unique way.

So, while it might not be terribly useful to simple reword what someone else writes about on another blog you can add value without being the first and only person to know about something. The question you should always ask yourself, though, is whether what you are doing adds value for your readers – whether it gives them something that they couldn’t find (at least not as easily, quickly and legibly) somewhere else.

Perhaps you some enjoy pages you find on StumbleUpon but a lot of the results aren’t relevant? Maybe many of your finds are relevant but you want more people to share them with? Or maybe you just love StumbleUpon, have some people you know using it, but want to find even more? If any of these rings true perhaps you could use some better methods of finding ‘friends’ on SU.

While many StumbleUpon users merrily Stumble away without interacting with others, a fair number of people join StumbleUpon in part because they want to network with others in the community. Whether you want to find people with similar interests or simply want to find more interesting things to StumbleUpon it is worthwhile for every Stumbler to make Stumble-friends.

A good first step is to be sure you have ‘Stumblers’ selected as a StumbleUpon interest. That way in the course of your normal Stumbling you will come across other users. You can choose to either add these users as friends or simply Stumble on. To add this category go to your StumbleUpon page (username.stumbleupon.com), select ‘preferences’ then ‘Stumbling’ then ‘Update Your Topics’ then ‘Society’ and check the ‘Stumblers’ box.

Another great way to find and friend Stumblers is by clicking the bubble dialog box on pages you like (the cartoon talk bubble you see next to your ‘I like it’ thumbs up and thumbs down buttons). See who discovered the page and/or who left interesting and positive comments on it. Then go to that person’s Stumble-page and see what common interests you share.

For those who use various social media sites: be sure to check friends’ profiles in places like Digg and Pownce to see if they list their StumbleUpon social media profile. For some people, they may have the same username across multiple sites. Other users may have a variant so simply checking username.stumbleupon.com may not be enough to find them!

If a person has more than 200 friends (the limit on StumbleUpon) you may wish to ping them and ask if they would be interested in adding you back – otherwise you could decide you’d rather wait for someone who will be a mutual friend. Some Stumblers who regularly find or rate interesting things may be worth adding regardless of whether they ‘friend’ you back.

Don’t worry about networking on StumbleUpon all at once. Usually these things happen over time and some people will become inactive over time as well, buying you more free ‘space’ in your friends network to add new people as you encounter them. Maybe you know of some better ways than those listed here to find people, places and things on StumbleUpon – if so feel free to share below!

1) Digg is a democracy: in point of fact there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes on with regards to upcoming stories making the front page of Digg. The algorithms of Digg are designed to enable newer users and new sites to frontpage more easily. However, the flipside is: new users on and sites submitted to Digg are watched more closely as possible spam. Further, there are even “secret editors” (Digg employees) that make final decisions on some content and who might choose to promote something (or not) for unknown reasons.

2) Digg is completely corrupt: while some users come in with rose-colored glasses others come in with huge skepticism about the Digg voting and promoting systems. Anything as extreme as “completely corrupt” is, as you might have guessed, going to far. Sure there is corruption but there are also checks and balances in the form of Digg’s algorithm, manual bury features (including a “bury as spam” option) and Digg’s secret editors.

3) Digg is all about who you know: there is definitely an element of trust when it comes to veteran Diggers submitting content. However, a completely new user could frontpage their first story if it were completely exciting, extremely original or breaking news. Another way to break in as a new user without many “Digg friends” is to watch the RSS feeds of top sites like Ars Technica that have a huge following – you can then “piggy-back” off the popularity of the site.

These are just a few, really, and my final advice would be: seek out someone who knows the ropes on Digg and ask them what’s what. Honestly, at first (at least for me) the idea of approaching a veteran user was a wee bit frightening, but looking back on it any one of a number of top users would have been happy to answer questions related to Digg.

For one thing, they are long, cumbersome, awkward and hard to remember at times. They also tell any web-savvy visitor that you are doing whatever you can to come up on searches – that your goal is traffic and that you’re ‘working the system’ to get it. To people like me at least that is a warning light, a red flag that you might have poor content you are simply trying to dress up with targetted Google-friendly keywords.

There is another thing, though, that a lot of people don’t think about: the prestige of the domain name. A short, quirky and memorable domain is hard to think of and many or most are taken. Anyone can go out and find three generic words to string together (e.g. BlogHomeZone.com or MedicalTreatmentSolutions) but few can find 5 to 8 letter domains that aren’t a jumble of consonants and vowels. In short, when people see a shorter domain name they are cued into the owner’s credibility in one (or all) of three ways:

(1) they can see the owner spent time and thought coming up with a creative name and thus that they have a personal investment in the site

(2) they understand that the owner has paid something for the domain and, as in the point above, that the author consequently has an investment (monetary in this case) that they wish to protect

(3) they realize that the owner has probably had the domain for a long time and thus has already invested considerable time and effort into the site

These kinds of things may not be readily apparent to a new blogger or website developer but that is precisely the point: they are common pitfalls made when people purchase their first domains. Are you stuck with a domain you don’t like? It might be best to learn from it and move on. Still picking one? Think about how tech-savvy individuals will perceive it and let that guide you in your purchase!

StumbleUpon is arguably the ultimate social media network. It is easy to use: jumping from page to interesting page takes just a click of a button. It is diverse: unlike Digg and Reddit, StumbleUpon isn’t dominated by a few niche interest groups or a limited demographic. It is incredibly friendly: there is very little trash-talk on SU as compared to other social media sites. However, StumbleUpon does have one major shortcoming: it is somewhat difficult to move from the status of ‘casual Stumbler’ to ‘StumbleUpon expert’ because SU has hidden complexity beyond the Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down and Stumble buttons we know and love.

A number of people have compiled lists over time emphasizing different aspects of StumbleUpon for different kinds of users. These are, fortunately or unfortunately, quite diverse. Instead of compiling a list oriented toward a single type of Stumbler or subset of Stumblers I took the liberty of compiling these lists into a metalist. Finding these took longer than I expected. In the process I found some links I learned from, some I skipped over, but instead of subjectively selecting my own favorites I will simply describe the links and leave the rest up to you. Without further ado, here are 5 of the top StumbleUpon resource lists. Enjoy!

The Definitive StumbleUpon Resource List is a pretty good place to start off. It is conveniently organized by category for various kinds of Stumblers with different interests. The list starts with Stumbling Basics and Veteran Stumblers, then moves on to discuss ways to drive traffic via StumbleUpon, become a power Stumbler, advertising on StumbleUpon and closes with a list of additional tools to enhance one’s Stumbling experience.

These 34 StumbleUpon Posts that Aren’t Crap for the most part do live up to the title. Better yet, they are also well organized: starting with introductory and beginner StumbleUpon links through blogging with StumbleUpon in mind and finally some humorous Stumble-related posts that aren’t really about using SU, simply poking fun at aspects of StumbleUpon and so on.

The Top 5 Resources for Stumblers Outside StumbleUpon has a good scope within the context of being a short list of links. These links include a blog about how to use StumbleUpon, another one dedicated to interesting things found on StumbleUpon and sites for finding useful addons for SU as well as alternative ways to search SU. In short: this is a brief but powerful list of StumbleUpon resources.

StumbleUpon Tools to Stumble Around the Web is, as it suggests, a tightly focused list that is dedicated to tools that enhance one’s experiencing using StumbleUpon. Some of these are for people who own blogs or websites and want to integrate SU voting more directly into their sites, and othersare oriented toward the Stumbler and allow new, different and/or faster ways to use StumbleUpon.

The so-called Ultimate StumbleUpon Resource List is perhaps somewhat misleadingly labeled. While the list does contain a variety of resources most of these are oriented toward people who want to become influential on StumbleUpon and/or send lots of traffic to their own sites for fun or for profit. I would not recommend most of the links provided here for the casual Stumbler or the Stumbler looking to find more interesting things and network for the sake of friendship and other personal reasons.

Note on the above strikethrough: a reader kindly pointed out that some of the resources on that list are quite black-hat. As such I plan to find a fifth list with the strikethrough as a replacement until that happens – I have no interest in referring people to poor sources. Any suggestions or recommendations?

Now, if you are here and you are a Stumbler, I’m not going to insult your intelligence and experience by asking you to Stumble this page. That’s the beauty of StumbleUpon – we can all choose to vote up, vote down or simply Stumble (Up)on. I hope you enjoyed this list of lists and that you found at least one resource worth your while!

Still, today, I see the bigger picture and the algorithmic changes aren’t going to do what Digg wants – they aren’t going to give the newer or less frequent Digg users more of a chance, and here are some of the reasons why:

1) Veteran users get a lot of stories to the front page with good reason: they are trusted by others to submit top content from around the internet on a variety of subjects. This trust is built up over time. It is only natural that users who submit and participate more will have higher quality submissions worthy of the front page.

2) Spammers can easily fill the void when veteran Digger submissions can no longer rise to the top. In fact, they can do so with much less effort since their submissions require fewer votes to succeed.

3) With blocks to top Diggers they are forced to result to the same tactics spammers use: mass shouting, begging for Diggs, submitting only the craziest and most offbeat content. This simultaneously lowers the bar on quality content while also forcing quality users to work harder and arguably less ethically to get good content to the front page of Digg.

At the end of the day, we have seen the introduction of shouts and algorithm changes that have resulted in more and more poor content reaching the front page of Digg. Worse yet, quality submitters like CosmikDebris (who specializes in scientific and space-related links) suffer from low frontpage ratios because their content – while very interesting, newsworthy and educational simply isn’t sensational enough to compete with shout-spammers who focus primarily on offbeat news. This isn’t about top Diggers having their egos bruised, it is about people who invest time and effort to bring good content to all Digg users having their hands tied and about the mainstream everyday Digg reader seeing worse and worse stories on the front page.

There are of course other issues at hand right now and many of them are longstanding. The infamous autobury list remains in full effect and Digg’s creators remain in full denial despite the overwhelming evidence (it kind of reminds me of creationists denying fossils). Top users still remain banned for unknown reasons. Many other users have simply left Digg because of all of the uproar. Digg’s Alexa stats are suffering and frankly if they don’t work out a serious overhaul soon they will be vulnerable when the Next Big Thing comes along.

But how do you come up with a branded domain? Well, you could take the approach of this site and simply go for something short, random and fairly spellable that doesn’t tie you to any particular niche. Another good strategy is to think of main keywords in your niche and change endings/beginnings, spelling or add suffixes and prefixes like this one and many others.

Things to keep in mind each time you search:

(1) Vary the suffixes/prefixes, maybe add something on both ends

(2) Change the spelling, replacing, removing or adding letters

(3) Think outside the box for uncommon but still niche-related terms

(4) Keep spellability in mind but remember it isn’t everything (e.g. Flickr)

(5) Memorability and brevity are key: keep it interesting and short

Personally, if I have a particular one in mind I just jump to GoDaddy and do a search to see if my idea is taken. Let’s say, though, that your first choice (e.g. AllSucks.com) is taken. Avoid going to the .net or .org options unless they fit the site (e.g. an internet-related site might do well on a .net or an environmental or non-profit site could work as a .org). Instead, look for other variants in the spelling and so on. If you’re on a roll, use a bulk domain search tool instead.

Of course, you often won’t be the first one trying to do this. You want to make a movie review site, let’s say, and aren’t sure where to start. You might try things like Movified, Cineviews, or other combinations that speak immediately to the subject matter only to find they are all taken. Don’t get frustrated and give yourself a break then try again later – if it hasn’t already been taken that perfect match is probably going to survive a few more days! Also, don’t forget, you can ultimately brand anything, but some things are easier than others.

Other thoughts … let’s see here … Gil has to be one of the hardest-working bloggers I know, and a great guy to boot … he’s building up real momentum on his site and I highly recommend checking it out. There are a lot of nifty Diggers (yup, been spending a lot of time on Digg) I should call out as well but I’ve been thinking of saving that for a future post that highlights Diggers by niche.

Oh, yes, I just got back from Chicago where I flew in a small plane for the first time – with my brother (of all people) at the wheel. There’s also nothing quite like going from Seattle to Chicago to remind you just how big a big city truly is, but I digress. There’s also nothing like going shopping on Black Friday to stir up images of the opulent Roman Empire before its collapse!