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Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page and ... - Writer's Digest Editors - Google Books

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Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page and ... - Writer's Digest Editors - Google Books

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Develop a voice that captures readers' attention! All writers bring a unique set of skills to their work: One author might write outstanding characters, while another might dazzle with dialogue. You don't have to master every aspect of the craft in order to succeed, but the one quality required of every writer is a compelling, original voice.

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15 of the Best YouTube Channels for Writers

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15 of the Best YouTube Channels for Writers

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We write a lot about great blogs, courses, books, etc. for writers, but there's a whole 'nother realm of resources we've never explored with you before - and it's time we make that right.

I'm talking about YouTube channels.

You may currently know YouTube only as that place you go to watch far too many cute animal videos rather than facing your writer's block. (No judgment from me; have you the one with the tiny hedgehog birthday party?!)

But YouTube also contains a wealth of useful advice on everything from novel writing to marketing your work, and you'd be remiss if you didn't tap into it.

I'll make you a deal: for every animal video you watch, watch just one of the videos from the 15 awesome YouTube channels below. I guarantee your writing will be better for it.

Sci-fi writer Moreci's videos are hilarious, no-holds-barred and highly entertaining.

(Note: if you've got kiddos or day job bosses hanging around your computer on your lunch break, perhaps save Moreci's videos for another time or plug in some headphones as her delightful frankness also includes plenty of NSFW words.)

From New York Times and bestselling author Joanna Penn (who runs the writing website of the same name ), this popular YouTube channel provides tips on self-publishing, marketing, the business of being a writer, and more.

Penn and other successful writers draw from their own experiences and life lessons to teach you everything you need to know to turn your writing dreams into reality.

Book reviewer and aspiring author Kat O'Keefe's YouTube channel is chock full of writing videos with everything from micro advice like word choices to macro advice like world building.

Her upbeat personality and sense of humor make every lesson feel fun.

If you're a participant, she's got a few geared towards how to survive (and win) that challenge.

Topics range from dialogue creation to plotting to making your own magic systems (if you're a fellow fantasy/sci-fi writer).

This YA sci-fi writer, whose debut novel The Elysian Prophecy is due out soon, is a great resource for newbie novel writers trying to make sense of the whole overwhelming process.

Ava Jae is a self-described "nerdy, awkward, book-loving writer" who draws from experience as a YA author, freelance editor and assistant editor.

If you're working on writing a novel, professional novel editor Brock's videos will help you whip your story into shape with tons of nuts-and-bolts tips on everything from introducing your protagonist to creating believable conflict.

Screenwriting guru and "story doctor" McKee's former students include Academy Award Winners, Emmy Award Winners and Writers of Guild of America Winners numbering in the hundreds (nominees number in the thousands).

His renowned seminars on the art of storytelling were even portrayed in the film Adaptation . But you don't need to be a screenwriter to learn from him; his advice on story structure and design applies to literature, too.

As bestseller Steven Pressfield has said, " McKee is not only the best teacher of writing I've ever had, but the best teacher of anything."

You know the bestselling author of books like 5,000 Words Per Hour and Write to Market: Deliver a Book That Sells knows how to get the job done.

And in his YouTube videos, Fox delves into how you can become a productive and business-minded writer yourself. Whether you're editing your writing, prepping to launch or just need some motivation, he'll help you get your work out the door and into the hands of an audience that will appreciate it.

As the New York Times bestselling YA author of The Selection Series , Cass offer a unique behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to write a book that becomes a hit.

While her last update was posted a year ago, going through her videos from start to finish provides a rare glimpse into the real-life reactions and thoughts of someone whose work found unsuspected success. Cass talks about things like what editorial letters are, how royalties and rights work, and what it's like to write a sequel, all with an approachable, refreshing genuineness that reminds us successful authors really are just like us.

Chance teaches high school English and journalism and decided to show her students how awesome reading and writing can be by getting her own work published.

While currently seeking representation for YA novel , she produces instructional videos that run the gamut from grammar and writing tips to marketing and publishing advice.

She's perky and polished and delivers even "bad" news in a way that feels comforting (see video below).

At a mere 19 years of age, creative writing student Shaelin Bishop has written eight novels and garnered a following on YouTube that regularly lands on her on lists alongside bigger-name vloggers like Moreci.

With six "WordNerds" producing nearly 1,000 videos to date, this channel has a little bit of everything.

Different topics are posted on different days of the week, so you'll find everything from inspiration to interviews to book recommendations. Follow your favorite vloggers' updates or peruse them all; it's sort of like a writers' roundtable whose sessions you can pop into at any time.
This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you're supporting The Write Life - and we thank you for that!

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15 of the Best YouTube Channels for Writers

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We write a lot about great blogs, courses, books, etc. for writers, but there's a whole 'nother realm of resources we've never explored with you before - and it's time we make that right. I'm talking about YouTube channels.

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27 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills and Escape Content Mediocrity - Enchanting Marketing

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27 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills and Escape Content Mediocrity - Enchanting Marketing

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Writing well is difficult, isn't it?

Sure, you can string a few sentences together to communicate your thoughts.

You know how to correct there's and theirs, then and than, and you're and your.

But to write persuasive copy? To create content that goes viral? To engage and enchant?

It can feel like an insurmountable task.

Depressing, huh?

But it doesn't need to be that hard.

To improve your writing skills, start with mastering different mini-skills

Summary

Learning to write is like learning to cook.

A chef needs to learn chopping, sautéing, roasting, and grilling. She needs to understand what makes a meal nutritious and how to select dishes that taste well together. She needs to practice separating eggs, making roti, and cutting a perfect carrot flower.

Just like you can practice your cooking skills, you can practice writing mini-skills, too.

Shall I explain?

Practice specific writing skills

The 9 techniques below are the chopping, boiling, and frying of writing.

Practice each mini-skill one by one:

1. Learn how to write good sentences- a sparkling sentence is the basic ingredient of good writing.

2. Become more conversational by including questions in your writing.

3. Study how to choose flavored words; and learn how to avoid bland phrases that make your writing tasteless and yuck.

4. Compose smooth transitions so readers glide from sentence to sentence, and from paragraph to paragraph.

5. Experiment with your voice by changing punctuation and adding a dynamic rhythm.

6. Create a mesmerizing flow by outlining or reverse-outlining your content.

7. Practice writing soundbites that linger in your reader's minds.

8. Cook up fresh metaphors to make abstract concepts concrete and entertaining.

9. Play with mini-stories to engage your readers.

Practice your basic writing skills like a sushi chef practices filleting fish. Practice more, and writing becomes a joy.

Develop sticky writing habits

How did you learn how to cook? By watching TV and reading recipe books? Or by practicing in the kitchen?

1. Put on your chef's hat, switch off your phone, set a timer for 25 minutes, and do the work.

2. Book time in your calendar for writing; and try writing at the same time each day.

3. Hold yourself accountable-publish at least one piece of content every week.

4. Apply a structured process to your writing-plan, draft, edit, and format.

5. Edit your content in several rounds because scintillating content requires careful adjustment of each ingredient.

6. Nurture a sense of play and experiment with different techniques-start with these creative writing exercises for business content.

Make your content more nourishing

Baking a chocolate fudge cake won't impress guests on a diet. Cooking the most delicious seafood paella is a waste of your effort, if your guest is allergic to prawns and mussels.

With writing it's the same. Mediocre writing bores your readers to tears. But nourishing content engages, delights, and inspires your readers.

Start with the following 6 tips to engage your audience:

1. Practice empathy-understanding how you can help your reader is the basic ingredient of nourishing content.

2. Apply the principles of persuasion, so you can inspire your reader to implement your tips and nudge him to buy from you.

3. Make your advice more practical by demonstrating your tips with lively examples.

4. Make your content memorable by including rich details that breathe life into your arguments.

5. Borrow authority by including expert quotes and stats.

6. Share tasty nuggets of information by digging deeper into your topic to reveal more specific tips.

Your readers are hungry for ideas, advice, comfort, and inspiration. Serve them the right mix of nourishing content, and make them crave more.

Find inspiration by studying the masters

We're not born with a unique voice, just like a chef isn't born with a signature dish in her mind.

Instead, we learn how to write and cook by studying the masters and 'stealing' proven recipes:

1. Study Cosmopolitan covers and learn how to write attention-grabbing headlines.

2. Pay attention to words in movie reviews, sports reports, and novels-which words grab you?

3. Read children's books to learn how to discuss big topics in simple words.

4. Enjoy the sensory experience of poetry.

5. Polish your persuasive writing techniques by studying direct mail and sales copy.

6. Embrace serendipity-you can find inspiration anywhere.

Stop telling yourself you lack talent

You have good ideas. You want to inspire your audience.

So get to work.

And write.

We're waiting to hear from you.

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27 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills (and Escape Content Mediocrity)

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Writing well is difficult, isn't it? Sure, you can string a few sentences together to communicate your thoughts. You know how to correct there's and theirs, then and than, and you're and your. But to write persuasive copy? To create content that goes viral? To engage and enchant?

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16 Thought-Provoking Social Justice Blogs On Tumblr | The Huffington Post

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16 Thought-Provoking Social Justice Blogs On Tumblr | The Huffington Post

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Most people know about " Black Twitter," the virtual community of black Twitter users who provide cultural perspective on issues of race and current events online. But did you know that Tumblr is also a hotbed of social justice junkies?

Common topics on the site include racism, cultural appropriation and sexism as told through personal essays, gifs, memes and vlogs. It can be a goldmine of knowledge for cultural diversity, but we've rounded up the best of the best.

Here's our list of the 16 most thought-provoking social justice blogs on Tumblr:

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16 Thought-Provoking Social Justice Blogs On Tumblr

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Most people know about " Black Twitter," the virtual community of black Twitter users who provide cultural perspective on issues of race and current events online. But did you know that Tumblr is also a hotbed of social justice junkies? Common topics on the site include racism, cultural appropriation and sexism as told through personal essays, gifs, memes and vlogs.

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Shayboarder.com | The World of Snowboarding Through Fembot Eyes

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Shayboarder.com | The World of Snowboarding Through Fembot Eyes

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It's that time of year! When the mountains are calling, the snow is falling, and all it takes is a 2 hour flight to head to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.Years ago, I used to live in Steamboat and now I'm happy that I can make the annual trek back to the town and mountain.

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I love travel stories - whether entire books, short stories, or blog posts. I can never get enough!

Since I'm on my computer so often, I'm always looking for new blogs to quench my literary thirst. I read hundreds of new blogs each year, and most of them I decide I can live without. But I always find a few gems, and I want to showcase the blogs I started reading often in 2015:

Kiersten's site focuses on the intersection of fashion and travel. She gives tips and advice for women on what wear, pack, and see while overseas and focuses more on higher-end, comfort travel than I do. I think her blog is one of the best for female travelers and, though it's not targeted to me, I find useful information that I share with others. Kiersten and I are friends, and I love seeing her site grow and expand, especially over the last year. She seems to be everywhere!

This popular YouTube channel by Nadine Sykora documents her experiences as she travels around the world. Nadine's zany, nerdy take on travel makes her videos entertaining to watch! She's funny, smart, and a bit awkward, but her filmmaking style really puts you there in the destination with her. There's a reason she's one of the biggest travel channels on YouTube!

Gary Leff is the "OG" of travel hacking. While I read many travel-hacking blogs, I follow Gary because he provides industry analysis and behind-the-scenes information on loyalty programs and airlines. Gary doesn't just provide trip reports or share deals and reward opportunities, he gives you context and greater understanding of how travel hacking and airlines operate.

This is my go-to resource for all travel-related news and industry information. It breaks stories and provides detailed analysis on the latest trends in travel, on both the business and consumer sides of the industry. If you love travel as much as I do and think listening to what CEOs have to say about revenue and consumer tastes is fun, this is the only website that's worth reading.

I'm sure you're surprised to see BuzzFeed listed here, but hear me out: sometimes all you want is a little inspirational list to get you through the day. That's BuzzFeed. Its simple, easily digestible stories and portraits of travelers make me feel good. It may not have long-form writing or loads of practical tips, but it brings inspiration to others, and I'm a fan of its quirky angles and funny stories!

My kindred spirit, Earl is a vagabonding nomad backpacker like myself. We both love budget travel, backpacking, blogging, and everything in between (and yes, we're good friends in real life too). I read Earl's blog because he goes to places few people ever visit (Kurdistan, anyone?) and tells raw, honest travel stories that don't sugarcoat the travel experience. Very few blogs do that, and for that, I think he's one of the best travel websites out there. I've been reading him for years and he deserves a feature! (He's also one of the few other bloggers I know that doesn't accept sponsored content or trips!)

Mark and I go back to the days when I was living in Bangkok. Mark blogs about food, especially Asian food. He's my food guru when it comes to all things Southeast Asian and has detailed information on where to eat and what to order throughout the region. But more than that, he tells the story of the place and its culture through the food he's eating. It's not just about what dishes to order - it's about how food has shaped culture and vice versa.

These seven blogs aren't the only ones I read, and since it's been awhile since I've written about my favorite travel blogs, here's a list of my favorites from pervious years that shouldn't be forgotten:

There you have it: my current reading list of websites and blogs! I hope you add them to your reading list and enjoy them as much as I do.

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I love travel stories - whether entire books, short stories, or blog posts. I can never get enough! Since I'm on my computer so often, I'm always looking for new blogs to quench my literary thirst. I read hundreds of new blogs each year, and most of them I decide I can live without.

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49 Amazing Examples of How to Use Blogging to Promote Your Art

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49 Amazing Examples of How to Use Blogging to Promote Your Art

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Note from Jon: I talk to a lot of bloggers who'd love to spend more time painting, storytelling, photographing, or some other creative pursuit, but don't, because they feel it's not pragmatic. And that's sad, because it can be. Just as a blog can build buzz around a book or business, it can also be used to promote your art. Regardless of your passion, you'll find someone in Leanne's list you can use to inspire your own success. I also urge you to download The Rebel Artist's Manifesto. It's free, and it'll give you one extra kick in the butt to get you started.
You've watched artists, performers and writers like Hugh McLeod, Amanda Palmer, Chase Jarvis, and Jeff Goins sell boatloads of creative work thanks to the platforms they have built from their blogs.

You tinker with your own creative projects and wonder if you could use a blog to promote them too.

But despite all the blogging advice out there, you sense that blogging for art is different.

You know you don't want to be spammy, but have no idea how to use a blog to sell those musical compositions, show tickets, short horror stories, family paintings with Fido, or handmade grandfather clocks.

The one thing artists need to be successful today

The Internet has turned selling creative work on its head.

No longer can you simply get good at your craft and then find someone to champion you, manage you, or sponsor you.

Want a publishing deal? You better have built a solid fan base for your work first.

Want a chance at a record deal or even just make a decent side income from your work? You'll need an engaged audience and good-sized list.

For today's artist, building a tribe is non-negotiable.

It's not about schlepping your art or begging for attention

Like a first date, you need something more to talk about other than just your work.

People connect with people. Your blog is the place where you give fans not only the emotional experience that attracted them to you in the first place, but also ways to get to know you as a person and artist.

Your audience expects to see a different side of you on your blog.

Your job is to find these hooks - the things that your people are most curious about. Perhaps what lens you used in a photo or what inspired you to write that song. Or hilarious personal stories from your travels. Or exclusive material not available to the general public.

And since artists learn from each other, you could help others by teaching what you know.

But the secret is to get fans, clients, and customers interacting with you on many levels.

Let them get to know you and what matters to you.

Let them into your world as an artist.

What works for artists in the real world?

The theory's nice. But how does this work in real life? How do artists succeed online?

The problem with theory - creative people are so diverse in their talents and interests that seeing how this advice applies to your own situation is difficult.

What works for a musician might not work for a painter. What delights the fans of a writer might be a complete turn-off for the fans of a filmmaker.

Even creative people in the same field might need to relate to their audiences in different ways.

But let's say you do have some concrete ideas for your own creative blog; how do you know if they will work in practice?

What you need is some help from artists who've already blazed a trail and discovered what actually works.

Because some of those ideas might work for you too.

So check out the following list of excellent role models for tons of ideas.

And don't just stick to your own field - cross-pollinate and explore ideas from other disciplines.

After all, great artists draw their influences from many places and you never know where your next killer idea will come from.

49 Creative Blogs You Can Shamelessly Plunder for Inspiration

1. Hugh MacLeod - The poster boy of blogging success for artists

Hugh began blogging in 2001, long before most people had any idea what a weblog even was. He's been a champion of blogging for artists ever since. Hugh has not only built an extremely successful business out of drawing on the backs of business cards, but he's also had three best-selling books, all of which grew out of recording and sharing his thoughts on his work while he made it. If you haven't picked up Hugh's books yet, do so sooner rather than later. He's got great insight for all creative types. If you don't mind straight talk, learn why most artists' blogs fail.

2. Austin Kleon - "A writer who draws" and is engaging, inspiring, and funny

Hugh MacLeod pointed me in Austin's direction, and he's definitely a great example to follow. Austin's insights into his creative process are fascinating and guaranteed to draw you in. He's written two best-selling books and is working on his third. Steal Like An Artist is a must-read for all creative types. Austin speaks regularly on creativity and has been featured at SXSW, TEDx, Google, Pixar, and The Economist.

3. Michael Nobbs - Writer and artist with a passion for consistent and sustainable creativity

Michael is a writer and artist who has built a whole community around encouraging others to create every day, make drawing a habit, and build solid platforms to be viably creative. Like others on this list, you'll see Michael's work in many formats, including courses, books, an online forum, and podcasts as well as his blog. Don't miss his Top-20 lists of drawing blogs to follow here and here.

4. Amy Ng - Illustrator and blogger with inspiration, good business sense, and lots of smiles

Amy is a writer and illustrator from Malaysia who has been sharing creative ideas, tutorials, business guidance, and courses since 2008 at her site. She is a prolific blogger and her personality definitely shines through in her writing. You can't visit her site without feeling happy.

5. Abbey Ryan - Classic still life and trompe l'oeil artist who connects with a painting a day

Abbey started blogging in 2007, posting a painting a day. Since then she's attracted over a half million visitors from 100 countries to her site. She has an unassuming and generous style that endears her students and readers to her. Her work is beautiful and her blog commentary centers around her experiences while creating each piece - stories about the objects she paints, what part of the world she's in, and the people she paints with. She's been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, and Seth Godin's Linchpin.

6. Ed Terpening - Plein air painter with plain good advice and beautiful work

Art is Ed's third career, which probably explains why he is a prolific blogger on many topics, including business, technique, styles, equipment, traveling and much more. Over the years, he's been a musician, teacher, software engineer, high-tech manager, and Internet media executive. His artistic career grew out of his desire to leave a legacy to the world that would be longer-lasting than his technical work could ever be. I'd say he's succeeding, not only with getting his paintings out into the world, but also with his engaging and thought-provoking writing style.

7. Dan Duhrkoop - A painter with all the answers in a comprehensive knowledge base

Dan has an incredible resource-packed blog for independent painters at Empty Easel. You'll find practical, technical tips on the art side, and a goldmine of solid advice on the business side, including how to sell online, how to use blogging to increase your art sales, and how to make the most of SEO for artwork. Empty Easel is a popular site that attracts over a quarter million page views each month.

8. Lisa Congdon - Colorful artist and illustrator at the Today Is Going to be Awesome blog.

Lisa did not begin painting until she was 31 years old. She worked outside of the art establishment and shares her learning process and growing collections on her blog. Her site is now filled with her cool artwork and illustrations, but she also features other artists' work and throws in some relatable personal experiences, history, current events and how-to's as well.

9. Lucy Chen - Figurative artist and visual storyteller committed to inspiring a full and expressive life

Lucy Chen embraced painting as an adult; she enrolled in her first art class at age 29. Lucy was born in Southern China and now lives in Australia. She explores cross-cultural tension and identity in her work, and aims to encourage all her readers to live expressive and creative lives through her blog.

10. Amanda Palmer - Social-savvy musician who masterminded a record $1.2 million Kickstarter campaign

If Hugh MacLeod is the poster boy for blogging success, then Amanda Palmer has got to be the poster girl. She is a master of fan connection, raising a record $1.2 million through Kickstarter for her recent CD. She's spoken about her experiences at TED and has been interviewed and covered in the press countless times. Love her or hate her, she's open about her strategies and values - which means we can all learn something from her.

11. Bob Baker - Consummate artist and all-around nice guy with infinite marketing ideas

Bob is a prolific author, musician, pop-art painter and former stand-up comedian. He knows artists' business and marketing challenges inside and out, and his mission is to help them on their paths. Bob uses several methods to get his messages out to the world - you'll find traditional blog posts and YouTube videos as well as podcasts and all his many books - one of which was featured in the movie School of Rock with Jack Black.

12. Cari Cole - Musician who's "been there, done that" and can get you there too

Cari is a vocalist and songwriter who has performed on top stages including CBGB's, the Bluebird Café, the legendary Bitter End, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall (where she got a standing ovation), and the Apollo Theatre. Her writing is full of hard-won experience and practical, down-to-earth advice to help you achieve the same levels of success, whatever that means for you. Her always-positive, yet still no-nonsense approach is worth studying and emulating regardless of your field.

13. Joy Ike - Songstress who delivers grassroots marketing strategies with the voice of an angel

Joy is a talented songwriter with an eclectic musical style and captivating voice. She's also passionate about helping her fellow artists with marketing. Joy blogs at her artist's site as well as at Grassrootsy. She is generous in sharing her experiences and opinions for her readers' benefit and she's not afraid to take a stand. You know what things Joy values in life and art and I like that about her.

14. Mark Hermann - Rock star storyteller who will help you find your voice and rock your story

Mark's passions are music, guitars, and telling stories, and he blends these wonderfully in Rock and Roll Zen. Mark has great narratives from his years on the road, and he knows how to tell them in ways that will encourage you to excel at whatever creative endeavor you choose. Read this blog for stories that entertain and inspire, and for advice you can apply immediately to developing your own story and memorable brand.

15. Praverb The Wyse - MBA rapper blending solid research with street-wise advice

Praverb chose his rap name well - you'll find loads of wisdom in both his blog and his music. Praverb writes about marketing, branding, increasing fan engagement and much more. He puts his MBA background to great use with well-researched and thought-out posts, all written in an accessible style. He's got amazing compilations of resources and connections for Do-It-Yourself musicians - especially rappers and hop-hop artists - including blogs, social media tips, and podcasts. His advice and analyses are spot-on and helpful. Nice guy and smart blogger who's invested in his readers' success.

16. FuNkwoRm - Music producer and hip-hop lover with featured artists, great industry insight and advice

FuNkwoRm is a music producer who loves hip-hop and decided to do something about it through his blog. You'll find great indie business advice, reflections on the industry, and technical tips and interviews, as well as MP3s and videos of featured independent artists. FuNkwoRm also encourages artists to blog, which is how I found him and what made me an immediate fan of his work.

17. Ari Herstand - Rocking the full-time indie music career dream and helping you do the same

Ari has been a full-time musician for over five years and has over 500 shows to his credit. He's opened for some major acts and played some impressive music festivals. His blog tackles the nitty-gritty details of making an indie music career work; from protecting yourself against instrument theft and getting 250 people to a CD release, to clearly explaining the ins and outs of song publishing, royalties, and more. Ari's done a great job of building his audience through guest posting (which is how I found him.)

18. Wil Wheaton - Blogging where no actor has gone before

If you know anything about Sci-Fi fans, you know they are extremely loyal and even fanatical. Wil has tapped into this trait of his fan base to great success. He is an actor, author, blogger, podcaster, avid Twitter user, and self-proclaimed champion of geek culture. Wil's been blogging since 2001 and has won numerous awards, including Lifetime Achievement Bloggie and Best Celebrity Blogger.

19. Josh Pais - Veteran actor who delivers creative rocket fuel, Ninja Turtle style

Josh is a cool, fun dude. He's been acting steadily and impressively for over 25 years in some high-profile roles. His first big break was as Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He's also brave and smart enough to challenge conventional wisdom on how we should prepare to go out onstage, for a job interview, or for a corporate presentation - really anything we do in life. He's got the tools to help you shine brilliantly in whatever you attempt, and he cares. Check him out, seriously.

20. Eliot Rausch - Filmmaker with a love for truth and storytelling

Eliot is a director from Los Angeles whose career was launched when he filmed a short documentary about a friend's last hours with his dog, called Last Minutes With Oden. The video went viral with 30,000 views overnight and won two prestigious Vimeo awards. Eliot is now known as one of the most respected independent filmmakers in the business. His blog includes thoughts and quotes regarding film, society, and creativity as well as personal stories and observations - all of it poignant and fascinating.

21. Devin Henderson - Magician who gives you the keys to living your own magical life

Devin is a magician, corporate entertainer and keynote speaker based in Kansas City. He blogs about life, entertainment, inspiration, and humor, and even reveals the how-to's behind a few magic tricks. Devin's message helps everyone in his audience find and use their own magic - the unique gifts they bring to the world - in both business and life. Devin is an excellent example of combining your talents with your beliefs and values in order to create a great fan experience and raving, loyal fans.

22. Ted Greenberg - Emmy-winning comedian with side-splitting humor and New York taxi rides

For over five years, the Emmy-award winning Letterman writer Ted Greenberg has hosted his weekly one-man show, The Complete Performer, at the SoHo Playhouse in downtown Manhattan. After every Saturday night show, Ted drives one lucky audience group home in a New York City taxi. Ted's blog includes reviews, festivals, comedy news and history, interviews, and video clips from his performances - tons of great comedy-related content that's both interesting and fun to read.

23. Matt Ruby - Standup comedian with a love for all things comedy related

NYC standup comedian Matt Ruby started blogging in 2006, and his site is packed with great stories, videos, podcasts, jokes and just plain interesting content. He's got intelligent and humorous commentary on what makes material funny, his thought processes, and comedy in general.

24. Barry Kerollis - Bucking the trend in traditional ballet

Barry is a freelance ballet dancer, choreographer, and teacher who started blogging in 2004. Being a freelancer in an industry where most dancers are in companies is tough work, and Barry is open about sharing his experiences so that all his readers benefit. Barry is not afraid to take on difficult topics like standing up for yourself when "dancer's code" says you should be submissive and when negotiating for a fair, living wage. You'll find great insights for dancers and all independent artists there.

25. Sara Kubik - Irish dancer taking you behind the scenes of competition

Sara is a former gymnast turned Irish dancer. She started dancing at 18 years old and began competing a little more than three years later. Since then she's competed in two North American and two world championships. Her blog chronicles her personal journey as a competitor and educates readers with instructional videos and a glossary of Irish dance terms.

26. Don Baarns - Ballroom dancer who fell into the unlikely role of teacher

Like many other artists/bloggers on this list, Don is also a book author and instructs through video as well. Don helps dancers understand musicality so they can improve their skillset and engage audiences. In his posts, Don addresses questions that readers might otherwise be afraid to ask, like, "Why don't more men ask me to dance?" The lesson? Don't be afraid to tackle your readers' fears head-on; it will help you stand out.

27. Jeff Goins - Writer with empowering, refreshing inspiration in a busy, noisy world

Jeff is a blogger, speaker, and the author of three popular books. He launched his most recent blog in 2010 in order to help other writers master their craft and overcome fear and resistance. His fast-growing GoinsWriter site has gained much attention and praise and won a Top-10 Blogs for Writers award in 2011. He takes serving his audience seriously, sees his writing as his art, and appreciates his blog readers as the patrons who support his art.

28. Hugh Howey - Self-published author who takes the Sci-Fi charts by storm

Hugh is the author of the New York Times and USA Today's best-selling series, Wool. He first released the stand-alone short story in 2011. It became hugely popular, with fans begging for more installments. Wool eventually reached the Top 5 in science fiction on Amazon. Hugh has since sold film rights to 20th Century Fox and distribution rights to Simon and Schuster, although he has retained e-book rights. Hugh has also written the Molly Fyde series, about a girl from the 25th century who is constantly told she can't do things because she's a girl - so she does them anyway.

29. CJ Lyons - ER pediatric doctor turned award-winning, critically acclaimed author

CJ has a fascinating background. She never trained as a writer, although she has always spun stories. She was an ER doctor at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh when a fellow intern was murdered. She began writing crime fiction to deal with the emotional horror. Soon other published authors began to tell CJ that her writing should be published. She ended up a finalist in a national writing competition and landed a publishing deal soon after. CJ now also mentors other writers at No Rules, Just Write.

30. Edward W. Robertson - Best-selling fantasy and science fiction self-publisher

Ed has been a full-time fantasy and science fiction writer since 2011. He's published numerous short stories in both online and print magazines and has penned the Amazon Best-selling post-apocalyptic Breakers series and The Cycle of Arawn fantasy trilogy. His blog includes a great analysis on self-publishing, including e-book strategy, stores, and pricing.

31. Joanna Penn - IT consultant turned author sells over 75,000 copies of her novels

Joanna self-published her first non-fiction book in 2008. She made a lot of mistakes in that first attempt, but she honed her writing skills, learned to market, and now helps other authors avoid the same traps at her blog The Creative Penn. Joanna became a full-time writer in 2011 and has had best-sellers in the Thriller, Crime, and Action Adventure categories. She's also written a #1 Amazon best-seller How To Market A Book.

32. Johnny B. Truant - Writer whose humor, irreverence, and inspiration hits right between the eyes

Johnny's story is fascinating to me, which is why he's one of my idols. (Not in a creepy stalker sense but in an admiring sense.) Johnny has transformed his online business several times - he started as a blogger building websites for people. He found his writing voice and built a solid platform with a super-loyal following, and he is a frequent guest blogger on major sites, including Smart Blogger. Now he's helping others become legendary while at the same time writing captivating, humorous fiction novels and producing podcasts like crazy. His strategy worked for him, and I think we can all learn from it.

33. David Wright - Self-publishing master of cliffhangers and audience building

David is a pioneer in serialized fiction along with his partner Sean Platt. They are both fans of serialized TV series such as LOST, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, and they became fascinated with bringing that same experience to fiction. Early on, David saw the opportunities offered by Amazon Kindle to allow writers to reach their fans directly, without needing a publisher. He hosts the Self-Publishing Podcast along with Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant, a great resource for anyone with a sense of humor who wants to learn the ins and outs of self-publishing.

34. Sean Platt - Pioneer of self-published serialized fiction

Sean is a best-selling indie author, entrepreneur, husband, and dad. He's co-founded two publishing ventures: Realm & Sands with Johnny B. Truant and Collective Inkwell with David Wright. With Johnny alone he has published about 1.5 million words in 2013. Sean and David began releasing serialized fiction on Amazon more than a year before Amazon launched its Serials program. Yesterday's Gone has gotten more than 600 5-star reviews and placed in Amazon's Top 100 Best Reviewed Fiction Books. Sean completes the triple threat in the Self-Publishing Podcast with David Wright and Johnny B. Truant.

35. Chase Jarvis - Photographer and champion of creative entrepreneurship

Chase is as strong of a business guy as he is a photographer and director, and he shares his hard-earned wisdom and experience through his blog posts, videos, and interviews of the best creative entrepreneurs on the web. In addition to photography tutorials and examples, you'll find great resources for branding, pitching your work as an artist, and building a creative career. Watch a couple of his featured concerts while you're at it. Chase connects to his audience through multiple passions -you'll surely find something you like there.

36. Maria Killam - Interior designer whose blog helped her build niche dominance

Maria is an interior design blogger, decorator, stylist, trainer, author and internationally sought-after color expert. Her down-to-earth, no-nonsense color advice and accessible, inspiring writing style quickly turned Colour Me Happy into one of the top-10 color blogs in North America with over 200,000 readers in 150 countries. Maria has done a fantastic job of using her blog to validate her expertise and build dominance in her niche. Read her posts on blogging as well - and kudos to Maria for encouraging her fellow designers to blog.

37. Joe McNally - National Geographic master photographer blogs about decades of inspiration and experience

Joe has over 30 years of photography experience and has been called one of the 100 Most Important People in Photography. His photos have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Fortune, LIFE, Sports Illustrated magazines and many more, and he's worked for National Geographic for the past 23 years. His work has taken him to 54 countries and all 50 states. He's written two Amazon Top 10-sellers and he teaches workshops all over the world. Joe's blog covers as much ground as he has in real life - check it out and learn by absorption.

38. Samantha Hahn - Lifelong artist shares lessons and thoughts on art, design, and style

Samantha has been an artist all her life. She recently published a book called Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction's Most Beloved Heroines, which earned her much praise and recognition. She strongly encourages artists to blog and her own blog, Maquette, is an in-depth collection of thoughts on art, design, style, and craft.

39. Jasmine Star - Globe-hopping wedding photographer engages audiences with her work and personal stories

Jasmine is an international wedding photographer from California. She started blogging in 2007 to "empower clients to become the voice of her brand". Her blog features her photography, technical tips and discussions, and personal stories. Jasmine does a great job of showcasing content that both engages her readers and encourages comments, questions, and shares.

40. Mark and Agnes Hage - Adventure photography from happy world wanderers

Hage Photo is an outdoor adventure, sports, and travel photography blog. This husband-and-wife team's site includes stunning photos and the stories behind them. Their clients send them around the world to photograph remote and exotic places. The Hages obviously love being thrill-seeking, globetrotting nomads and have discovered how to get paid for it.

41. Karen Walrond - Photographer and writer who shines a light on the beauty in the world and in you

Karen is a blogger, photographer, speaker, and author of the best-selling Amazon book, The Beauty of Different. She's won awards and recognition for her work from both the writing and photography sides, as well as in the mom-blog space. She is "wildly convinced that you are uncommonly beautiful," and her blog definitely is that. Look to her site for great examples of combining personal stories with fantastic photos - including some submitted by her fans and followers.

42. Daymond John - Pioneer of urban, hip-hop fashion and Shark Tank marketing master

Daymond grew up in Queens, NY, surrounded by up-and-comers like RUN DMC, Salt-n-Pepa and LL Cool J in an emerging hip-hop music scene. Daymond had an eye for fashion and the smarts to recognize a completely underserved market. He built the urban clothing brand For Us, By Us or FUBU, from the ground up. He's since become a marketing and business mogul with a blog dating back to 2006 and two popular books to his credit. You may recognize him from the TV series Shark Tank.

43. Thomas Mahon - Savile Row tailor whose blog breathed new life into a traditional, close-knit industry

Thomas started his blog in 2005, encouraged by his friend Hugh MacLeod. It is probably one of the earliest craft blogs. Bespoke, or custom-made tailoring for men, is a high-end service steeped in years of tradition. Thomas's blog went behind the scenes and educated clients on the benefits and value of custom-made suits. For the first time, it allowed the world to see the skills, service, and people behind Savile Row tailoring and paved the way for future generations of new enthusiasts.

44. Shannon Okey - Expert crafter with a passion for spreading her knowledge

Shannon is a knitting and crafting/fiber expert as well as a writer with several books and a publishing company to her credit. Her blog is filled with stories, patterns, and material and technique advice. You can find archives of her call-in radio show podcasts and YouTube videos from her various classes and workshops on her site. Her blog stands out because it's filled with personality and her obvious passion and expertise in her crafts.

45. Tilly Walnes - DIY Dressmaker demystifies sewing so you can create your own style

Tilly is a former filmmaker who learned to sew, became obsessed with the freedom that comes from defining her own style, and never looked back. She discovered that much of the instruction on sewing was out of reach for beginners so she started blogging in easy-to-understand terms with loads of examples and descriptions. Tilly has built quite a following, garnered much press, and has been featured on the BBC television's The Great British Sewing Bee.

46. David Airey - Internationally renowned design expert writes on the business and craft

David is a designer and Amazon #1 best-selling author from Northern Ireland with clients from all over the world. His blog is filled with top-notch content about the business and craft of design, tackling tough topics like measuring the ROI on design, creating corporate identities, and building a business from scratch - great information and insights that are well worth checking out.

47. Tina Roth Eisenberg - Designer with an eye for projects that go viral

Tina is a designer from Switzerland who visited New York City after college and never left. Her blog began as a personal archive of ideas and inspiration, but eventually grew to well over a million unique visitors per month. Tina is a big fan of side projects. She has launched several of them into businesses which now allow her to be client-less: Tattly is a cool, design-friendly temporary tattoo company. She also runs Teux-Deux, a simple online to-do app, and launched a monthly breakfast lecture series called Creative Mornings, which now has 65 chapters all over the world.

48. Timothy Brand - Designer who makes web design and brand expertise accessible

Timothy is a graphic and web designer who posts insights on marketing, branding, social media, and design. His posts are generally short, easily digestible, interesting, and easy to implement. His blog gives his clients the confidence that a) he knows what he's doing, and b) he will suggest the right approaches for them.

49. Josh Spear - A world-traveling designer shares observations on all things life and design

Josh's blog is filled with inspiration from all over the globe on art, design, technology, culture, marketing, branding, social issues and more. Josh consults and speaks on all these topics and advises startups in the gaming, social, and commerce arenas. He serves on the Global Agenda Council on the Marketing and Branding World Economic Forum. He's been blogging since 2004 and in that time has accumulated quite a bit of fascinating content to share.

Now is the time to get your art out in the world

Blogging is revolutionizing the world of art, but many artists hesitate to start a blog because they don't know how to approach it, or simply don't understand what it could do for them.

And by failing to connect with a global audience, you could be condemning your creativity to a life in the shadows. Not to mention falling further behind as Google increasingly rewards high-quality, sharable content over SEO acrobatics.

As these 49 artists demonstrate, you can build a following online and use blogging to:

raise your public profile as an artist

establish yourself as an expert in your creative field

reach new fans, customers and clients

So you have no excuse now. Start building your platform as an artist.

These role models have shown it can be done - and how to do it.

Now is the time to join the ranks of artists who are thriving online through blogging. Artists who enhance the lives of people all over the world with their work. And who aren't afraid to make a good living doing it.

So what are you waiting for?

Show us what you've got!

About the Author: Leanne Regalla teaches creative people how to pursue their art without going broke, living in their cars, or starving to death. Download a free copy of The Rebel Artist's Manifesto - Having the Audacity to Make Good Money From Your Creative Work at her blog, Make Creativity Pay. While you're at it - why not also follow her on Twitter?

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49 Amazing Examples of How to Use Blogging to Promote Your Art

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Note from Jon: I talk to a lot of bloggers who'd love to spend more time painting, storytelling, photographing, or some other creative pursuit, but don't, because they feel it's not pragmatic. And that's sad, because it can be. Just as a blog can build buzz around a book or business, it can also be used to promote your art.

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The SAVEUR Blog Awards are here, and from a pool of tens of thousands of reader nominations we've selected 78 finalists in 13 categories. Now it's your turn to vote for a winner. Cast your ballot here early and often; you can vote as many times as you like by August 31st. Today: meet the finalists for our Best Baking & Sweets award.

Cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and lots of chocolate-that's what you can expect from this year's batch of Best Baking and Sweets bloggers. Their drool-worthy photos of delicious sweets give us a serious sugar craving, and their recipes make it easy to bring these desserts to your home kitchen.

The Blog: When blogger Jack Volpi was laid off from his previous job, he started baking as a way to pass time. 100 Cookies was a challenge to himself to see how many different kinds of cookies he could make. His approach to baking, though, is inspired by his Italian grandma. She's a no-frills bird and is always happy to improvise. He tries to make baking as fun as possible and hopes his blog reflects that. As of right now, he's on #45. He's getting quite fat doing this, so the next blog will likely be 100 Vegetables.

The Blogger: Jack Volpi is a 39-year-old Columbus, Ohio gay who started baking as a way to fill the days while he was unemployed last year. He went to Northwestern (go Cats! Meow!) and also OSU (two degrees!). He works in marketing for a real big company. When he's not baking/eating cookies, he's traveling and writing a movie about Benjamin Franklin's doctors appointments. His Instagram account is @jacktivities.
See all the finalists for the Blog Awards "

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Meet the SAVEUR Blog Awards Finalists: 6 Outstanding Baking Blogs

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The SAVEUR Blog Awards are here, and from a pool of tens of thousands of reader nominations we've selected 78 finalists in 13 categories. Now it's your turn to vote for a winner. Cast your ballot here early and often; you can vote as many times as you like by August 31st.

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18 Great Photography Blogs You Should Be Reading – Resource Magazine

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18 Great Photography Blogs You Should Be Reading – Resource Magazine

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Resource Magazine has just recently talked about the 25 tools to better show off your work online. So now, it is important to go out there and find the best blogs to follow, read and in some cases emulate. This does not mean one should plagiarize: rather, you should look at these blogs for inspiration and to see how one is properly managed. So here is the list, in no particular order, of eighteen great photography blogs that we think you should follow.

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Great Photography Blogs to Follow

1 - PhotoFocus

PhotoFocus is the website created by Scott Bourne: a man whose career in photography is over four decades long. The website, which started in 1998, serves as an educational guide for those seeking to pursue photography as a profession. On top of this, the site dabbles in product reviews and podcasts, and apparently has the industries best writers.

2 - Joe McNally

Photographer Joe McNally, who's career has spanned decades, is an extremely famous photographer with a blog that perfectly displays his work. The two things that are important to note about McNally's site is that it has a great layout and is easily accessible. It also does not hurt to have some gorgeous photography, as well as some firsthand accounts of McNally's amazing feats.

3 - Skip Cohen University

When people refer to you as " The God Father Of Photography" it's only fitting that you maintain one of the best all around photo blogs on the internet. Skip Cohen University is chalked full of education, interviews and solid business advice from a man that has been in the industry for longer than some of have been alive. Skip Cohen uses his industry influence and long time relationships to curate content that can only be described as a must read for any photographer looking to grow their business and improve their work.

4 - Sprouting Photographer

Sprouting Photographer is one of those blogs we just can't stop going back to. With a beautiful, clean aesthetic and a plethora of useful educational content this is one site we've really come to appreciate. Know primarily as an educational resource for the business aspects of photography, site owners Bryan Caporicci and Rob Nowell, collaborate with some of the photo industry's most influential players to help photographers access the knowledge and tools they need to develop their professional careers.

5 - Fstoppers

It's hard to believe Fstoppers has only been around since 2010. I think we've all seen the infamous iPhone fashion shoot video that rocketed the Fstoppers team in to the spotlight. To date the video has been seen over 1 million times. Now, the online community for all things photography and video has since become a anchor site for creatives to visit when searching for online content like gear reviews, how-to's, news and BTS videos. The dynamic photo duo of Lee Morris and Patrick Hall have built an outstanding team of contributors that continue to educate and inspire over a million photographers worldwide each month.

6 - David duChemin

If done right, traveling photobloggers have the best sites to visit. One blog everyone should visit is David duChemin's: the man lists himself as a "humanitarian, assignment photographer, best-selling author, international workshop leader, and accidental founder of Craft & Vision." Now, anyone could give themselves titles, but it is duChemin's portfolios that truly back his claims up.

7 - The Sartorialist

A blog created by Scott Schuman, The Sartorialist has been featured in countless magazines (New York Magazine) and has won countless awards. Simply put, Scott Schuman has been able to create, with The Sartorialist, an amazingly famous blog because of its focus on fashion photography and worldly images.

8 - Feature Shoot

Feature Shoot is a famous blog to visit for inspiration, as well as a place to get your photos seen: the company has been known to show both up and comers, as well as distinguished photographers. On top of this, Feature Shoot "won LIFE.com 's 2011 Photo Blog Awards as "The Web's 20 most compelling, most consistently insightful and surprising photography blogs." By far the best part of the site is the fact that Feature Shoot covers a wide variety of topics, from fine art to NSFW photography.

9 - PetaPixel

If you are just starting out in photogtaphy, PetaPixel is a fantastic place to start; with all of their tutorials, as well as product reviews, you cannot go wrong. While this format is widely used among photography blogs, I find PetaPixel a good read because of its 'down to earth' writing, which does not baby the reader.

10 - Shutterstock Blog

Shutterstock is a fantastic site that offers stock photos for an inexpensive monthly subscription; as for the blog, it provides the latest Shutterstock news, articles for inspiration, artist spotlight and even written or video tutorials. Needless to say, it is jam-packed; and though the overall directory could use some work, it is a fantastic website to visit.

11 - Phoblographer

Another blog that displays the latest news, gear, events and reviews in the photography world, The PhoBlographer has an easy to use interface filled with fantastic writing by a diverse staff. While it does not do anything new for the photography blog format, its in depth coverage certainly warrants your time.

12 - Strobist

The Strobist is extremely famous for two reasons: first it was placed on Time's 2010 Best Blogs List and second it is run by world famous photographer David Hobby. The biggest problem when recommending The Strobist is that the site, which is made through blogspot, appears to be the most dated on this list. But if you get past its horribly early 2000s look, you will be treated to vast amounts of knowledge about lighting.

13 - Chase Jarvis

If you want to simply go to a blog to see amazing pictures and videos, as well as read weekly insightful posts, then you should go to Chase Jarvis' site. On top of this, Chase Jarvis, who also happens to be an award-winning photographer, hosts live conversations with other professionals through his blog and YouTube channel.

14 - Rachel Branke - The Law Tog

Resource Magazine has done countless articles about photography law, which is vital to know for anyone seeking this profession. Rachel Branke runs a fantastic blog called The Law Tog, a site that takes an unglamorous look at the world of photography. Again, as previously talked about, most sites show tutorials, reviews and gear; The Law Tog separates itself by its variety of information, like photography law tutorials and consultant services.

15 - Jeremy Cowart

Jeremy Cowart is clearly a renaissance man: part painter, graphic designer, photographer and humanitarian, Jeremy seems to be a 'jack of all trades.' His wonderfully designed site has a great directory that can lead any user to Jeremy's blog, portfolio, videos and shop. His actual blog entries feel personal, as he describes his latest projects and techniques, which gives everyday readers an insight to his day-to-day life.

16 - Trey Ratcliff

Stuck in Customs is a personal favorite of mine; while it does not reinvent photo blogs, it has some of the prettiest images from around the world. Trey Ratcliff is a master craftsmen behind the camera: and it is not shocking to find out that Stuck in Customs happens to be the number one travel photo blog on the Internet.

17 - Richard Bernabe

Another traveling photo blogger, Richard Bernabe, has a great blog to subscribe to. He constantly updates his site with amazing photos from around the world: he even lists the location, type of camera and a brief description with each photo. But perhaps the coolest thing about Richard is his story: "in 2003, [he] left behind a pointless corporate life to pursue a passion: to share with the world [his] love for the wilderness, wild places, and the creatures that inhabit them." Clearly, he is an inspiration to all aspiring photographers who are currently stuck in dead end corporate jobs.

18 - Flak Photo

Last, but definitely not least, is Flak Photo. A constant source of inspiration, the site is dedicated to showcasing the very best photography from artists, curators, bookmakers and photo organizations around the world. Editor and founder Andy Adams is constantly raising the bar and bringing attention to the industry's rising stars, best kept secrets and names we as image makers and lovers need to know. It is without a doubt that we can say Andy Adams is one of the leading voices in contemporary photography today and is definitely someone we should all be paying attention to.
Like these photography blogs? Here are the best photography blogs you should be reading in 2017.

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18 Great Photography Blogs You Should Be Reading

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Resource Magazine has just recently talked about the 25 tools to better show off your work online. So now, it is important to go out there and find the best blogs to follow, read and in some cases emulate.

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The top snowboard blogs in the world... ever.

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The top snowboard blogs in the world... ever.

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The top snowboard blogs in the world... ever.

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SnowSkool brings you a comprehensive run down of their favourite snowboard blogs on the internet today.

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The world's 50 most powerful blogs | Media | The Guardian

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The world's 50 most powerful blogs | Media | The Guardian

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The following apology was published in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday March 16 2008

The article below said 'Psychodwarf' was Beppe Grillo's nickname for 'Mario Mastella, leader of the Popular-UDEUR centre-right party', but it's actually his nickname for Silvio Berlusconi. Mastella's first name is Clemente and Popular-UDEUR was part of Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition. And Peter Rojas, not Ryan Block, founded Engadget and co-founded Gizmodo. Apologies.

1. The Huffington Post

The history of political blogging might usefully be divided into the periods pre- and post-Huffington. Before the millionaire socialite Arianna Huffington decided to get in on the act, bloggers operated in a spirit of underdog solidarity. They hated the mainstream media - and the feeling was mutual.

Bloggers saw themselves as gadflies, pricking the arrogance of established elites from their home computers, in their pyjamas, late into the night. So when, in 2005, Huffington decided to mobilise her fortune and media connections to create, from scratch, a flagship liberal blog she was roundly derided. Who, spluttered the original bloggerati, did she think she was?

But the pyjama purists were confounded. Arianna's money talked just as loudly online as off, and the Huffington Post quickly became one of the most influential and popular journals on the web. It recruited professional columnists and celebrity bloggers. It hoovered up traffic. Its launch was a landmark moment in the evolution of the web because it showed that many of the old rules still applied to the new medium: a bit of marketing savvy and deep pockets could go just as far as geek credibility, and get there faster.

To borrow the gold-rush simile beloved of web pioneers, Huffington's success made the first generation of bloggers look like two-bit prospectors panning for nuggets in shallow creeks before the big mining operations moved in. In the era pre-Huffington, big media companies ignored the web, or feared it; post-Huffington they started to treat it as just another marketplace, open to exploitation. Three years on, Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace, while newbie amateur bloggers have to gather traffic crumbs from under the table of the big-time publishers.

Least likely to post 'I'm so over this story - check out the New York Times'
huffingtonpost.com
2. Boing Boing

Lego reconstructions of pop videos and cakes baked in the shape of iPods are not generally considered relevant to serious political debate. But even the most earnest bloggers will often take time out of their busy schedule to pass on some titbit of mildly entertaining geek ephemera. No one has done more to promote pointless, yet strangely cool, time-wasting stuff on the net than the editors of Boing Boing (subtitle: A Directory of Wonderful Things). It launched in January 2000 and has had an immeasurable influence on the style and idiom of blogging. But hidden among the pictures of steam-powered CD players and Darth Vader tea towels there is a steely, ultra-liberal political agenda: championing the web as a global medium free of state and corporate control.

Boing Boing chronicles cases where despotic regimes have silenced or imprisoned bloggers. It helped channel blogger scorn on to Yahoo and Google when they kowtowed to China's censors in order to win investment opportunities. It was instrumental in exposing the creeping erosion of civil liberties in the US under post-9/11 'Homeland Security' legislation. And it routinely ridicules attempts by the music and film industries to persecute small-time file sharers and bedroom pirates instead of getting their own web strategies in order. It does it all with gentle, irreverent charm, polluted only occasionally with gratuitous smut.

Their dominance of the terrain where technology meets politics makes the Boing Boing crew geek aristocracy.

Least likely to post 'Has anyone got a stamp?'

boingboing.net

3. Techcrunch

Techcrunch began in 2005 as a blog about dotcom start-ups in Silicon Valley, but has quickly become one of the most influential news websites across the entire technology industry. Founder Michael Arrington had lived through the internet goldrush as a lawyer and entrepreneur before deciding that writing about new companies was more of an opportunity than starting them himself. His site is now ranked the third-most popular blog in the world by search engine Technorati, spawning a mini-empire of websites and conferences as a result. Business Week named Arrington one of the 25 most influential people on the web, and Techcrunch has even scored interviews with Barack Obama and John McCain.

With a horde of hungry geeks and big money investors online, Techcrunch is the largest of a wave of technology-focused blog publishers to tap into the market - GigaOm, PaidContent and Mashable among them - but often proves more contentious than its rivals, thanks to Arrington's aggressive relationships with traditional media and his conflicts of interest as an investor himself.

Least likely to post 'YouTube? It'll never catch on'

techcrunch.com

4. Kottke

One of the early wave of blogging pioneers, web designer Jason Kottke started keeping track of interesting things on the internet as far back as 1998. The site took off, boosted partly through close links to popular blog-building website Blogger (he later married one of the founders). And as the phenomenon grew quickly, Kottke became a well-known filter for surfers on the lookout for interesting reading.

Kottke remains one of the purest old-skool bloggers on the block - it's a selection of links to websites and articles rather than a repository for detailed personal opinion - and although it remains fairly esoteric, his favourite topics include film, science, graphic design and sport. He often picks up trends and happenings before friends start forwarding them to your inbox. Kottke's decision to consciously avoid politics could be part of his appeal (he declares himself 'not a fan'), particularly since the blog's voice is literate, sober and inquiring, unlike much of the red-faced ranting found elsewhere online.

A couple of key moments boosted Kottke's fame: first, being threatened with legal action by Sony for breaking news about a TV show, but most notably quitting his web-design job and going solo three years ago. A host of 'micropatrons' and readers donated cash to cover his salary, but these days he gets enough advertising to pay the bills. He continues to plug away at the site as it enters its 10th year.

Least likely to post 'Look at this well wicked vid of a dog on a skateboard'

5. Dooce

One of the best-known personal bloggers (those who provide more of a diary than a soapbox or reporting service), Heather Armstrong has been writing online since 2001. Though there were personal websites that came before hers, certain elements conspired to make Dooce one of the biggest public diaries since Samuel Pepys's (whose diary is itself available, transcribed in blog form, at Pepysdiary.com). Primarily, Armstrong became one of the first high-profile cases of somebody being fired for writing about her job. After describing events that her employer - a dotcom start-up - thought reflected badly on them, Armstrong was sacked. The incident caused such fierce debate that Dooce found itself turned into a verb that is used in popular parlance (often without users realising its evolution): 'dooced - to be fired from one's job as a direct result of one's personal website'.

Behind Dooce stands an army of personal bloggers perhaps not directly influenced by, or even aware of, her work - she represents the hundreds of thousands who decide to share part of their life with strangers.

Armstrong's honesty has added to her popularity, and she has written about work, family life, postnatal depression, motherhood, puppies and her Mormon upbringing with the same candid and engaging voice. Readers feel that they have been brought into her life, and reward her with their loyalty. Since 2005 the advertising revenue on her blog alone has been enough to support her family.

Least likely to post 'I like babies but I couldn't eat a whole one'

6. Perezhilton

Once dubbed 'Hollywood's most hated website', Perezhilton (authored by Mario Lavandeira since 2005) is the gossip site celebrities fear most. Mario, 29, is famous for scrawling rude things (typically doodles about drug use) over pap photos and outing closeted stars. On the day of Lindsay Lohan's arrest for drink-driving, he posted 60 updates, and 8m readers logged on.

He's a shameless publicity whore, too. His reality show premiered on VH1 last year, and his blogsite is peppered with snaps of him cuddling Paris Hilton at premieres. Fergie from Black Eyed Peas alluded to him in a song, and Avril Lavigne phoned, asking him to stop writing about her after he repeatedly blogged about her lack of talent and her 'freakishly long arm'.

Least likely to post 'Log on tomorrow for Kofi Annan's live webchat'

perezhilton.com

7. Talking points memo

At some point during the disputed US election of 2000 - when Al Gore was famously defeated by a few hanging chads - Joshua Micah Marshall lost patience. Despite working as a magazine editor, Marshall chose to vent on the web. Eight years later Talking Points Memo and its three siblings draw in more than 400,000 viewers a day from their base in New York.

Marshall has forged a reputation, and now makes enough money to run a small team of reporters who have made an impact by sniffing out political scandal and conspiracy. 'I think in many cases the reporting we do is more honest, more straight than a lot of things you see even on the front pages of great papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post,' he said in an interview last year. 'But I think both kinds of journalism should exist, should co-exist.'

Although his unabashed partisan approach is admonished by many old-fashioned American reporters, Marshall's skills at pulling together the threads of a story have paid dividends. Last year he helped set the agenda after George Bush covertly fired a string of US attorneys deemed disloyal to the White House. While respected mainstream media figures accused Marshall of seeing conspiracy, he kept digging: the result was the resignation of attorney general Alberto Gonzales, and a prestigious George Polk journalism award for Marshall, the first ever for a blogger.

Least likely to post 'Barack is so, like, gnarly to the max'

talkingpointsmemo.com

8. Icanhascheezburger

Amused by a photo of a smiling cat, idiosyncratically captioned with the query 'I Can Has A Cheezburger?', which he found on the internet while between jobs in early 2007, Eric Nakagawa of Hawaii emailed a copy of it to a friend (known now only as Tofuburger). Then, on a whim, they began a website, first comprising only that one captioned photo but which has since grown into one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Millions of visitors visit Icanhascheezburger.com to see, create, submit and vote on Lolcats (captioned photos of characterful cats in different settings). The 'language' used in the captions, which this blog has helped to spread globally, is known as Lolspeak, aka Kitty Pidgin. In Lolspeak, human becomes 'hooman', Sunday 'bunday', exactly 'xackly' and asthma 'azma'. There is now an effort to develop a LOLCode computer-programming language and another to translate the Bible into Lolspeak.

Least likely to post 'Actually, dogs are much more interesting..."

icanhascheezburger.com

9. Beppe Grillo

Among the most visited blogs in the world is that of Beppe Grillo, a popular Italian comedian and political commentator, long persona non grata on state TV, who is infuriated daily - especially by corruption and financial scandal in his country.

A typical blog by Grillo calls, satirically or otherwise, for the people of Naples and Campania to declare independence, requests that Germany declare war on Italy to help its people ('We will throw violets and mimosa to your Franz and Gunther as they march through') or reports on Grillo's ongoing campaign to introduce a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove from office all members of the Italian parliament who've ever had a criminal conviction. Grillo's name for Mario Mastella, leader of the Popular-UDEUR centre-right party, is Psychodwarf. 'In another country, he would have been the dishwasher in a pizzeria,' says Grillo. Through his blog, he rallied many marchers in 280 Italian towns and cities for his 'Fuck You' Day last September.

Least likely to post 'Sign up to our campaign to grant Silvo Berlusconi immunity'

beppegrillo.it

10. Gawker

A New York blog of 'snarky' gossip and commentary about the media industry, Gawker was founded in 2002 by journalist Nick Denton, who had previously helped set up a networking site called First Tuesday for web and media entrepreneurs. Gawker's earliest fascination was gossip about Vogue editor Anna Wintour, garnered from underlings at Conde Nast. This set the tone for amassing a readership of movers and shakers on the Upper East Side, as well as 'the angry creative underclass' wishing either to be, or not be, like them, or both ('the charmingly incompetent X... the wildly successful blowhard'). Within a year Gawker's readers were making 500,000 page views per month. Nowadays the figure is 11m, recovering from a recent dip to 8m thanks to the showing of a Tom Cruise 'Indoctrination Video' which Scientologists had legally persuaded YouTube to take down. Gawker remains the flagship of Gawker Media, which now comprises 14 blogs, although gossiping by ex-Gawker insiders, a fixation on clicks (which its bloggers are now paid on the basis of) and fresh anxiety over defining itself have led some to claim Gawker has become more 'tabloidy' and celeb- and It-girl-orientated, and less New York-centric. But its core value - 'media criticism' - appears to be intact.

Least likely to post 'We can only wish Rupert Murdoch well with his new venture'

11. The Drudge Report

The Report started life as an email gossip sheet, and then became a trashy webzine with negligible traffic. But thanks to the decision in 1998 to run a scurrilous rumour - untouched by mainstream media - about Bill Clinton and a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, it became a national phenomenon. Recent scoops include Barack Obama dressed in tribal garb and the fact Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan. Drudge is scorned by journalists and serious bloggers for his tabloid sensibilities, but his place in the media history books is guaranteed. And much though they hate him, the hacks all still check his front page - just in case he gets another president-nobbling scoop.

Least likely to post 'Oops, one sec - just got to check the facts...'
drudgereport.com
12. Xu Jinglei

Jinglei is a popular actress (and director of Letter From An Unknown Woman) in China, who in 2005 began a blog ('I got the joy of expressing myself') which within a few months had garnered 11.5m visits and spurred thousands of other Chinese to blog. In 2006 statisticians at Technorati, having previously not factored China into their calculations, realised Jinglei's blog was the most popular in the world. In it she reports on her day-to-day moods, reflections, travels, social life and cats ('Finally the first kitten's been born!!! Just waiting for the second, in the middle of the third one now!!!!!!!! It's midnight, she gave birth to another one!!!!!!'). She blogs in an uncontroversial but quite reflective manner, aiming to show a 'real person' behind the celebrity. Each posting, usually ending with 'I have to be up early' or a promise to report tomorrow on a DVD she is watching, is followed by many hundreds of comments from readers - affirming their love, offering advice, insisting she take care. Last year her blog passed the 1bn clicks mark.

Least likely to post 'Forget the kittens - get a Kalashnikov!!!!!!!'
blog.sina.com.cn/xujinglei
13. Treehugger

Treehugger is a green consumer blog with a mission to bring a sustainable lifestyle to the masses. Its ethos, that a green lifestyle does not have to mean sacrifice, and its positive, upbeat feel have attracted over 1.8m unique users a month. Consistently ranked among the top 20 blogs on Technorati, Treehugger has 10 staff but also boasts 40 writers from a wide variety of backgrounds in more than 10 countries around the world, who generate more than 30 new posts a day across eight categories, ranging from fashion and beauty, travel and nature, to science and technology. Treehugger began as an MBA class project four years ago and says it now generates enough revenue from sponsorship and advertising to pay all its staffers and writers. It has developed a highly engaged community and has added popular services like TreeHugger.tv, and a user-generated blog, Hugg. It was bought by the Discovery Channel last year for a rumoured $10m.

Least likely to post 'Why Plastic Bags rock'
treehugger.com
14. Microsiervos

Microsiervos, which began in 2001, took its name from Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs, a diary entry-style novel about internet pioneers. It is run by Alvy, Nacho and Wicho, three friends in Madrid, who blog in Spanish. The second most popular blog in Europe and the 13th most popular in the world (according to eBizMBA), Microsiervos concerns itself with science, curiosities, strange reality, chance, games, puzzles, quotations, conspiracies, computers, hacking, graffiti and design. It is informal, friendly and humorous, moving from news of an eccentric new letter font to reflections on the discovery of the Milky Way having double the thickness it was previously thought to have.

Least likely to post 'The internet is, like, so over'
microsiervos.com
15. TMZ

You want relentless celebrity gossip on tap? TMZ will provide it, and when we say relentless, we mean relentless. The US site is dripping with 'breaking news' stories, pictures and videos, and deems celeb activity as mundane as stars walking to their cars worthy of a video post. TMZ was launched in 2005 by AOL and reportedly employs around 20 writers to keep the celeb juice flowing. It pulls in 1.6m readers a month and is endlessly cited as the source for red-top celeb stories. It was the first to break Alec Baldwin's now infamous 'rude little pig' voicemail last April, for instance. TMZ prides itself on being close to the action, so close, in fact, a TMZ photographer had his foot run over by Britney Spears mid-meltdown. They auctioned the tyre-tracked sock on eBay in aid of US charity the Children's Defense Fund last autumn.

Least likely to post 'Paris is a metaphor for Third World debt'

16. Engadget

Engadget provides breaking news, rumours and commentary on, for instance, a camera able to track a head automatically, the very latest HD screen or 'visual pollution' concerns prompted by hand-held pico laser-projectors. The world's most popular blog on gadgets and consumer electronics, Engadget was founded by Peter Rojas in 2004 and won the Web Blogs Awards that year and each year since. Now part of Weblogs Inc (owned by AOL), it is offered on many other sites (including GoogleMail) as a default RSS feed, and is published in English, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. Last year, a mistake confirmed Engadget's power - upon reporting a supposed email (which turned out to be a hoax) from Apple, informing Apple employees of a delay in the launch of iPhone, Apple's share price fell by 3 per cent within minutes. Rojas also co-founded rival gadget blog Gizmodo.

Least likely to post 'An iWhat?'

engadget.com

17. Marbury

No matter what happens between now and 4 November, you can be certain the US presidential election of 2008 will be among the most historically important and dramatic of any fought. Having an informed opinion will be a must, but if you are as yet unable to tell your Iowa Caucus from your Feiler Faster Thesis, Marbury - a British blog on American politics - is the place to start. The site's creator, Ian Leslie, is an ex-expat who fell for American politics during a four-year stint living in New York. The site signposts important events and interesting analyses, gives context and witty commentary on everything from the most serious speeches to the silliest election-themed YouTube clips. And West Wing fans will be pleased to note that the blog's name is a reference to the show's British ambassador to the United States, Lord John Marbury, who, appropriately enough, provided an eccentrically British but reliably insightful appraisal of American politics.

Least likely to post 'Is it just me or is Romney getting cuter?'
marbury.typepad.com
18. Chez Pim

Attracting around 10,000 people from all over the globe to her site every week, Pim Techamuanvivit has tried and tested an awful lot of food. From Michelin-starred restaurants to street food and diners, she samples it all, and posts her thoughts and pictures to share with other foodie fans. She advises her readers on what cooking equipment to go for, posts recipe suggestions for them to try, and gives them a nudge in the direction of which food shows are worth a watch. She's not just famous on the net, she's attracted global coverage in the media with her writing, recipes and interviews appearing in such diverse publications as the New York Times, Le Monde and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Least likely to post 'Chocolate's my favourite flavour of Pop Tart'
chezpim.typepad.com
19. Basic thinking

Recently rated the 18th most influential blog in the world by Wikio, Basic Thinking, which has the tag line 'Mein Haus, Mein Himmel, Mein Blog', is run by Robert Basic of Usingen, Germany, who aims 'to boldly blog what no one has blogged before', and recently posted his 10,000th entry. Basic Thinking reports on technology and odds and ends, encouraging readers to rummage through an 1851 edition of the New York Times one minute and to contemplate the differences between mooses and elks the next.

Least likely to post 'Mein heim, mein gott - I need to get a life'
basicthinking.de/blog
20. The Sartorialist

As ideas go, this one is pretty simple. Man wanders around Manhattan with a camera. Spots someone whose outfit he likes. Asks if he can take a picture. Goes home and posts it on his blog. But the man in question is Scott Schuman, who had 15 years' experience working at the high-fashion end of the clothing industry before starting The Sartorialist. He's got a sharp eye for a good look, a gift for grabbing an on-the-hoof pic and an unwavering enthusiasm for people going the extra mile in the name of style. Minimalist it might be, but his site - a basic scroll of full-length street portraits, occasionally annotated with a brief note - is mesmeric and oddly beautiful. The site attracts more than 70,000 readers a day and has been named one of Time's Top 100 Design Influences. So if you're out and about and a guy called Scott asks to take your picture, just smile. You're about to become a style icon.

Least likely to post 'Sometimes you need to chill in a shellsuit'
thesartorialist.blogspot.com
21. Students for a free Tibet

Taking the protest online, Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) is a global, grassroots network of students campaigning to free Tibet, which has been occupied by China since 1950. Students in Tibet face arrest for posting on the site, but many escape to blog about their experiences in exile. With a history of direct action, the group is now uniting worldwide members through the web, blogging to spread word of news and protests, and using sites like Facebook to raise funds. The organisation, which was founded in 1994 in New York, spans more than 35 countries and gets up to 100,000 hits a month. In 2006, SFT used a satellite link at Mount Everest base camp to stream live footage on to YouTube of a demonstration against Chinese Olympic athletes practising carrying the torch there. Later this year the web will be a critical tool in organising and reporting protests during the games. 'SFT plans to stage protests in Beijing during the games and post blogs as events unfold,' says Iain Thom, the SFT UK national co-ordinator. 'But for security reasons we can't reveal details of how or where yet.' Similarly, a massive protest in London on 10 March will be the subject of intense cyber comment. In response, the site has fallen victim to increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Investigations have traced the sources back to China, leading to speculation that the Chinese authorities are trying to sabotage the site to stop online critics.

Least likely to post 'Hey guyz, any hotties in the Nepal region?!'
studentsforafreetibet.org
22. Jezebel

Last year Gawker Media launched Jezebel - a blog which aimed to become a brilliant version of a women's magazine. It succeeded quickly, in part by acknowledging the five big lies perpetuated by the women's media: The Cover Lie (female forgeries of computer-aided artistry); The Celebrity-Profile Lie (flattery, more nakedly consumerist and less imaginative than the movies they're shilling for); The Must-Have Lie (magazine editors are buried in free shit); The Affirmation Crap Lie (you are insecure about things you didn't know it was possible to be insecure about); and The Big Meta Lie (we're devastatingly affected by the celebrity media). Their regular 'Crap Email From a Dude' feature is especially fantastic, as is their coverage of current stories (opinionated and consistently hilarious) and politics. It offers the best lady-aimed writing on the web, along with lots of nice pictures of Amy Winehouse getting out of cars.

Least likely to post 'How To Look Skinny While Pleasing Your Man!'
jezebel.com
23. Gigazine

Created by Satoshi Yamasaki and Mazaki Keito of Osaka, Gigazine is the most popular blog in Japan, covering the latest in junk foods and beverages, games, toys and other ingredients of colourful pop product culture. Visitors first witness 'eye candy' such as David Beckham condoms (from China), 75 turtles in a fridge, the packaging for Mega Frankfurters or a life-size Ferrari knitted from wool, learn of a second X-Files movie moving into pre-pre-production, watch a vacuum-cleaning robot being tested and compare taste reports of Kentucky Fried Chicken's new Shrimp Tsuisuta Chilli.

Least likely to post 'Anyone seen these charming croquet mallets?'
gigazine.net
24. Girl with a one-track mind

Following in the footsteps of Belle de Jour - the anonymous blogger claiming to be a sex worker - the girl with a one track mind started writing in open, explicit terms about her lively sex life in 2004. By 2006, the blog was bookified and published by Ebury, and spent much time on bestseller lists, beach towels and hidden behind the newspapers of serious-looking commuters. Though she was keen to retain her anonymity and continue her career in the film industry, author 'Abby Lee' was soon outed as north Londoner Zoe Margolis by a Sunday newspaper.

Least likely to post 'I've got a headache'
girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com
25. Mashable

Founded by Peter Cashmore in 2005, Mashable is a social-networking news blog, reporting on and reviewing the latest developments, applications and features available in or for MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and countless lesser-known social-networking sites and services, with a special emphasis on functionality. The blog's name Mashable is derived from Mashup, a term for the fusing of multiple web services. Readers range from top web 2.0 developers to savvy 13-year-olds wishing for the latest plug-ins to pimp up their MySpace pages.

Least likely to post 'But why don't you just phone them up?'

mashable.com

26. Greek tragedy

Stephanie Klein's blog allows her to 'create an online scrapbook of my life, complete with drawings, photos and my daily musings' or, rather, tell tawdry tales of dating nightmares, sexual encounters and bodily dysfunctions. Thousands of women tune in for daily accounts of her narcissistic husband and nightmarish mother-in-law and leave equally self-revealing comments transforming the pages into something of a group confessional. The blog has been so successful that Klein has penned a book, Straight Up and Dirty, and has featured in countless magazine and newspaper articles around the globe. Not bad for what Klein describes as 'angst online'.

Least likely to post 'Enough about me - what's your news?'
stephanieklein.blogs.com
27. Holy Moly

If a weekly flick through Heat just isn't enough, then a daily intake of Holy Moly will certainly top up those celeb gossip levels. The UK blog attracts 750,000 visitors a month and 240,000 celeb-obsessees subscribe to the accompanying weekly mail-out. It's an established resource for newspaper columnists - both tabloid and broadsheet - and there's a daily 'News from the Molehill' slot in the free London paper The Metro. Last month Holy Moly created headlines in its own right by announcing a rethink on publishing paparazzi shots. The blog will no longer publish pics obtained when 'pursuing people in cars and on bikes', as well as 'celebrities with their kids', 'people in distress at being photographed' and off-duty celebs. But don't think that means the omnipresent celeb blog that sends shivers round offices up and down the country on 'mail-out day' is slowing down - there has been talk of Holy Moly expanding into TV.

Least likely to post 'What do you think of the new Hanif Kureishi?'
holymoly.co.uk
28. Michelle Malkin

Most surveys of web use show a fairly even gender balance online, but political blogging is dominated by men. One exception is Michelle Malkin, a conservative newspaper columnist and author with one of the most widely read conservative blogs in the US. That makes her one of the most influential women online. Her main theme is how liberals betray America by being soft on terrorism, peddling lies about global warming and generally lacking patriotism and moral fibre.

Least likely to post 'That Obama's got a lovely smile, hasn't he?'
www.michellemalkin.com
29. Cranky flier

There's nowhere to hide for airlines these days. Not with self-confessed 'airline dork' Brett Snyder, aka Cranky Flier, keeping tabs on their progress. He's moved on from spending his childhood birthdays in airport hotels, face pressed against the window watching the planes come in, and turned his attention to reporting on the state of airlines. His CV is crammed with various US airline jobs, which gives him the insider knowledge to cast his expert eye over everything from the recent 777 emergency landing at Heathrow to spiralling baggage handling costs and the distribution of air miles to 'virtual assistants'.

Least likely to post 'There's nothing wrong with a well-conducted cavity search'
crankyflier.com
30. Go fug yourself

It's a neat word, fug - just a simple contraction of 'ugly' and its preceding expletive - but from those three letters an entire fugging industry has grown. At Go Fug Yourself, celebrity offenders against style, elegance and the basic concept of making sure you're covering your reproductive organs with some form of clothing before you leave the house are 'fugged' by the site's writers, Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks. In their hands, the simple pleasure of yelping 'Does she even OWN a mirror?' at a paparazzi shot of some B-list headcase in fuchsia becomes an epic battle against dull Oscar gowns, ill-fitting formalwear and Lindsay Lohan's leggings. The site stays on the right side of gratuitous nastiness by dishing out generous praise when due (the coveted 'Well Played'), being genuinely thoughtful on questions of taste and funnier on the subject of random starlets in sequined sweatpants than you could possibly even imagine.

Least likely to post 'Oprah looked great in those stretch jeans'
gofugyourself.typepad.com
31. Gaping void

In the middle of a career as an adman in New York, Hugh MacLeod found himself doodling acerbic and almost surreal cartoons on the back of people's business cards to pass the time in bars. Everyone seemed to like the idea, so he kept going. Things started going gangbusters when he pimped his cartoons on the internet, and as he built an audience through his blog, he started writing about his other passion - the new world of understanding how to adapt marketing to the new world of the net. Remember when everybody was madly printing off vouchers from the web that saved you 40 per cent? That was one of his: aimed at helping shift more bottles from Stormhoek, the South African vintner he works with.

Least likely to post 'This product really sells itself'
gapingvoid.com
32. Dirtydirty dancing

If someone stole your camera, took it out for the night to parties you yourself aren't cool enough to go to and returned it in the morning, you would probably find it loaded up with pictures like those posted on DirtyDirtyDancing. The site seems pretty lo-fi - just entries called things like 'Robin's birthday' and 'FEB16' featuring pages of images of hip young things getting their party on. And that's it. The original delight was in logging on to see if you'd made it on to the site - your chances increase exponentially if you're beautiful, avant-garde and hang out at clubs and parties in the edgier parts of London - but now the site can get up to 900,000 hits a month from all over the world.

Least likely to post 'Revellers at the Earl of Strathdore's hunt ball'
dirtydirtydancing.com
33. Crooked timber

With a title pulled from Immanuel Kant's famous statement that 'out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made', it's an amalgam of academic and political writing that has muscled its way into the epicentre of intelligent discussion since its conception in 2003. Formed as an internet supergroup, pulling several popular intellectual blogs together, Crooked Timber now has 16 members - largely academics - across the US, Europe, Australia and Asia. The site has built itself a reputation as something of an intellectual powerhouse; a sort of global philosophical thinktank conducted via blog.

Least likely to post 'Did anyone see Casualty last night?'
crookedtimber.org
34. Beansprouts

Combining diary, opinion and green lifestyle tips, Beansprouts is a blog that covers one family's 'search for the good life'. Melanie Rimmer and her family of five live in a 'small ex-council house' with a garden on the edge of farmland in Poynton, Cheshire. They grow food on an allotment nearby, keep chickens and bees and 'try to be green, whatever that means'. Rimmer set up the blog nearly two years ago when she first got the allotment and says she felt it was something worth writing about. With one post a day, often more, topics for discussion can range from top 10 uses for apples to making scrap quilts.

Least likely to post 'Make mine a Happy Meal'
bean-sprouts.blogspot.com
35. The offside

Launched by 'Bob' after the success of his WorldCupBlog in 2006, Offside is a UK-based blog covering football leagues globally, gathering news and visuals on all of it, inviting countless match reports and promoting discussion on all things soccer, from the attack by a colony of red ants on a player in the Sao Paulo state championship third division, to the particular qualities of every one of Cristiano Ronaldo's goals so far this season. Considered by many to be the best 'serious' blog in the game, it nevertheless promises irreverently, 'If there is a sex scandal in England, we'll be stuck in the middle of it. If a player is traded for 1,000lb of beef in Romania, we'll cook the steak. And if something interesting happens in Major League Soccer, we'll be just as surprised as you.'

Least likely to post 'Check out Ronaldo's bubble butt'
theoffside.com
36. Peteite Anglaise

The tagline of a new book hitting British shelves reads 'In Paris, in love, in trouble', but if it were telling the whole story, perhaps it should read 'In public' too. Bored at work one day in 2004, expat secretary Catherine Sanderson happened upon the concept of blogging. With a few clicks and an impulse she created her own blog, and quickly gathered fans who followed her life in Paris, the strained relationship with her partner and adventures with her toddler. And there was plenty of drama to watch: within a year her relationship had broken up, and she'd met a new man who wooed her online. Readers were mesmerised by her unflinching dedication to telling the whole story, no matter how she would be judged. Soon afterwards, however, Sanderson's employers found out about the blog and promptly fired her. Defeat turned into victory, however, with the press attention she gathered from the dismissal not only securing victory in an industrial tribunal, but also helping her score a lucrative two-book deal with Penguin.

Least likely to post 'J'ai assez parle de moi, qu'est-ce que vous pensez?'
petiteanglaise.com
37. Crooks and liars

Founded in 2004 by John Amato (a professional saxophonist and flautist), Crooks and Liars is a progressive/liberal-leaning political blog, with over 200m visitors to date, which is illustrated by video and audio clips of politicians and commentators on podiums, radio and TV. Readers post a variety of comments on political talking points of the day, although 9/11 conspiracy theories are often deleted, and there is a daily round-up of notable stories on other political blogs.

Least likely to post 'So just what is a caucus?'
crooksandliars.com
38. Chocolate and Zucchini

For Clothilde Dusoulier, a young woman working in computing and living in the Paris district of Montmartre, starting a blog was a way of venting her boundless enthusiasm for food without worrying she might be boring her friends with it. Five years later Chocolate and Zucchini, one of the most popular cooking blogs, has moved from being a hobby to a full-time career. The mixture of an insider's view on gastronomic Paris, conversational, bilingual writing and the sheer irresistibility of her recipes pull in thousands of readers every day. This, in turn, has led to multiple books and the ability to forge a dream career as a food writer.The name of the blog is, she says, a good metaphor for her cooking style: 'The zucchini illustrates my focus on healthy and natural eating... and the chocolate represents my decidedly marked taste for anything sweet.'

Least likely to post 'Just add instant mash'
chocolateandzucchini.com
39. Samizdata

Samizdata is one of Britain's oldest blogs. Written by a bunch of anarcho-libertarians, tax rebels, Eurosceptics and Wildean individualists, it has a special niche in the political blogosphere: like a dive bar, on the rational side of the border between fringe opinion and foam-flecked paranoid ranting. Samizdata serves its opinions up strong and neat, but still recognisable as politics. On the other side of the border, in the wilderness, the real nutters start.

Least likely to post 'I'd say it's six of one, half a dozen of the other'
samizdata.net
40. The daily dish

Andrew Sullivan is an expat Brit, blogging pioneer and defier-in-chief of American political stereotypes. He is an economic conservative (anti-tax), a social liberal (soft on drugs) and a foreign policy hawk (pro-war). He endorsed George Bush in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Barack Obama is his preferred Democrat candidate in 2008. So he is either confused, a hypocrite or a champion of honest non-partisanship - depending on your point of view. He is also gay, a practising Roman Catholic and HIV-positive, a set of credentials he routinely deploys in arguments to confuse atheist liberals and evangelical conservatives.

Least likely to post 'Sorry, I can't think of anything to say'
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
41. The F word

Founded in 2001, the UK's first feminist webzine is responsible for reviving debates around feminism in Britain. Edited by Jess McCabe, the site, which receives around 3,000 hits a day, is dedicated to providing a forum for contemporary feminist voices, with a daily news blog, features on stereotypes and censorship, podcasts on pornography and regular feminist film reviews.

Least likely to post 'What's the difference between a woman and a condom?'

thefword.org.uk

42. Jonny B's private secret diary

Growing in popularity since its debut in 2003, Jonny B's diary - which is clearly neither private nor terribly secret - catalogues the rock and bowls lifestyle of one man in the depths of rural Norfolk. With the mocking self-awareness of a modern Diary of a Nobody, the author tells tales of wild nights at the village pub and the fortunes of the local bowls team. As a slow, gentle satire on modern village life, it is often held up as an example of blog as sitcom, and has not only attracted a loyal band of readers, but a dedicated fan club on Facebook desperate to work out the real identity of the wit behind the site. Previous guesses have included Chris Evans and Johnny Vaughan, though both have been strenuously denied.

Least likely to post 'OMG, I saw Jessica Simpson in Lidl and she signed my bum!'
privatesecretdiary.com
43. Popjustice

When Smash Hits! died, Popjustice became the new home of pop music. Founded in 2000 by Peter Robinson, it combines fandom with music news and raw critique, all hilarious, and all blindingly correct. Recent features include a review of Eurovision failure Daz Sampson's new single 'Do A Little Dance' ('The listener is invited to muse on the sad inevitability of their own death') and a furious debate about the future of Girls Aloud.

Least likely to post 'I prefer Pierre Boulez's interpretation of Mahler's third'
popjustice.com
44. Waiter rant

Rant isn't quite the right word for this collection of carefully crafted stories from the sharp end of the service industry in a busy New York restaurant. 'The Waiter', as the author is known, has been blogging his experiences with fussy customers and bad tippers since 2004, winning a gong at blogging's biggest awards, the Bloggies, in 2007. It's representative - but by no means the first - of the so-called 'job-blogs', with people from all walks of life, from ambulance drivers ( randomactsofreality.net) and policemen ( coppersblog.blogspot.com) to the greatly loved but now defunct Call Centre Confidential. Between them they chronicle life in their trade, and usually from behind a veil of anonymity. Something about the everyday nature of The Waiter - a person we like to pretend is invisible or treat with servile disdain - deconstructing the event later with a subtle, erudite typestroke, has captured the public imagination and (hopefully) made some people behave better in restaurants than they otherwise might.

Least likely to post 'The customer is always right'
waiterrant.net
45. Hecklerspray

The internet's not exactly short of gossip websites providing scurrilous rumours of who did what to whom, but some stand out from the rest. Sharply written and often laugh-out-loud funny, Hecklerspray has been called the British alternative to Perez Hilton, but it's different in important ways: the emphasis here is on style and wit, with a stated aim to 'chronicle the ups and downs of all that is populist and niche within the murky world of entertainment'. Basically, it's gossip for grown-ups.

Least likely to post 'If you can't say anything nice...'
hecklerspray.com
46. WoWinsider

WoWinsider is a blog about the World of Warcraft, which is the most popular online role-playing game in the world, one for which over 10m pay subscriptions each month in order to control an avatar (a character, chosen from 10 races) and have it explore landscapes, perform quests, build skills, fight monsters to the death and interact with others' avatars. WoWinsider reports on what's happening within WoW ('Sun's Reach Harbor has been captured'). It also reports on outside developments and rumours ('A future patch will bring a new feature: threat meters'). Supporters of US presidential candidate Ron Paul promoted on WoWInsider their recent virtual mass march through the WoW. And the blog recently reported that America's Homeland Security are - seriously - looking for a terrorist operating within WoW.

Least likely to post 'Who fancies a game of space invaders?'
WoWinsider.com
47. Angry black bitch

Angry Black Bitch, which has the tagline, 'Practising the Fine Art of Bitchitude', is the four-year-old blog of Shark Fu of St Louis, Missouri. She has never posted a photo of herself and this 'anonymity' has led recently to her having to fend off claims she's really a white man, even a drag queen. But taken as read, Shark Fu is a much-discussed, 35-year-old black woman, tired of the 'brutal weight' of her 'invisibility'.

Least likely to post 'I'm off to anger-management'
angryblackbitch.blogspot.com
48. Stylebubble

Fashion blogger Susie Lau says Stylebubble is just a diary of what she wears and why. But few diaries are read by 10,000 people a day. Lau, 23, admits to spending up to 60 per cent of her pay from her day job in advertising on clothes, but now she's viewed as a fashion opinion former, she's being paid in kind. Her influence is such that fashion editors namecheck her blog, Chanel invites her to product launches and advertisers have come calling.

Least likely to post 'I even wear my Ugg boots in bed'
stylebubble.typepad.com
49. AfterEllen

Afterellen takes an irreverent look at how the lesbian community is represented in the media. Started by lesbian pop-culture guru Sarah Warn in 2002, the name of the site gives a nod to the groundbreaking moment Ellen DeGeneres came out on her hit TV show, Ellen, in 1997. Since then, lesbian and bisexual women have moved from the margins on to primetime TV, and this blog analyses the good, the bad and the ugly of how they're portrayed. It's now the biggest website for LGBT women, with half a million hits a month.

Least likely to post 'George Clooney - I wouldn't kick him out of bed'
afterellen.com
50. Copyblogger

It's dry, real, and deafeningly practical, but for an online writing-for-the-internet blog, Copyblogger, founded in 2006, is remarkably interesting. Swelling with advice on online writing, it's an essential tool for anyone trying to make themselves heard online, whether commenting on a discussion board or putting together a corporate website.

Least likely to post 'Social networking - it's just a phase'
copyblogger.com
· Join the Debate: If you would like to comment about our choice of blogs, go to blogs.theguardian.com/digitalcontent

· This article was amended on Friday March 14 2008. In the article above we wrongly said that Ryan Block founded Engadget and co-founded gadget blog Gizmodo. They were actually founded and co-founded by Peter Rojas. This has been corrected.
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The following apology was published in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday March 16 2008 The article below said 'Psychodwarf' was Beppe Grillo's nickname for 'Mario Mastella, leader of the Popular-UDEUR centre-right party', but it's actually his nickname for Silvio Berlusconi. Mastella's first name is Clemente and Popular-UDEUR was part of Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition.

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The 100 Best, Most Interesting Blogs and Websites of 2015 - DailyTekk

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The 100 Best, Most Interesting Blogs and Websites of 2015 - DailyTekk

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A list of the best author blogs on Writers Write

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Top 10 Most Inspirational Bloggers In The World

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Top 10 Most Inspirational Bloggers In The World

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If you feel like you're the awkward person at social events or you struggle to enter into conversations because you're shy, it can impact your social life and your career.

However, you can start improving your social skills by following these 12 strategies and soon, you'll be able to enter into conversations with confidence.

1. Behave Like a Social Person

You can behave like a more social creature, even if you don't feel like it.

Don't allow anxiety to hold you back. Make the decision to talk to new people and to enter into conversations even when you're feeling nervous about it.

Over time, it will get easier and you'll quickly start improving your social skills.

2. Start Small if Necessary

If going to a party or spending time in a crowd seems overwhelming, start small.

Go into the grocery store and say, "Thank you," to the clerk or go to a restaurant and order your food. Practice making small talk gradually.

3. Ask Open-Ended Questions

If you want the attention off you in a conversation, get familiar with open-ended questions. Encourage others to talk so you won't have to make the idle chit-chat.

Ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer and you may open the door to invite the other person to keep the conversation going.

Take a look at these tips on How to Be Amazingly Good at Asking Questions.

4. Encourage Others to Talk About Themselves

Most people really enjoy talking about themselves. Ask a question about a person's career, hobbies, or family. Show you're interested in hearing what is being said.

If you want to keep the conversation going, you should make it like playing ping pong. Learn more about it here:
How to Connect With Someone Deeper Within a Short Time
5. Create Goals For Yourself

Establish some small goals for yourself. Perhaps you want to practice one particular skill or maybe you want to start attending a social activity in your community.

Establish a goal and begin to work on strategies that will improve your social life.

Even better, learn to use Use SMART Goal to help you communicate better.

6. Offer Compliments Generously

Compliments can be a great way to open the door to a conversation. Offer a co-worker a compliment on a presentation he gave at a meeting or compliment your neighbor on his new car.

Compliments can show others that you are friendly and there're more reasons Why You Should Pay a Compliment to Someone Every Day.

7. Read Books About Social Skills

There are many books on the market that can help you learn specific social skills and ways to start conversations.

Scroll down to continue reading article

However, keep in mind that reading about these skills won't make you an expert. You'll need to practice them over and over again.

Some books recommendations here:
20 Powerful Books to Win You Friends and Influence More People
8. Practice Good Manners

Good manners go a long way in improving social skills. Practice being polite, showing gratitude, and using good table manners.

9. Pay Attention to Your Body Language

Non-verbal communication is very important. Pay attention to the type of body language you use.

Try to appear relaxed, make appropriate amounts of eye contact, and appear open to conversation.

Learn more about body languages here:
Be Instantly Irresistible With These 10 Body Language Tips
10. Join a Social Skills Support Group

Many communities offer social skill support groups. Support groups help people who feel shy, awkward, or extremely anxious in social situations learn and practice new skills.

You'll start improving social skills and may be able to make new friends who understand your difficulties.

11. Stay Up to Date on Current Events

Read up on current trends and news stories so you have something to talk about with people.

Try to avoid anything that is too controversial, such as politics, but do talk about other news stories that may be of interest.

It can be a great way to start a conversation and can help you stick to neutral subjects.

12. Identify and Replace Negative Thoughts

If you have a lot of negative thoughts about your social interactions, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For example, a person who thinks, "I'm really awkward and I will embarrass myself," may sit in the corner at a party. As a result, he may leave the party thinking that he must be really awkward because no one talked to him.

Identify negative thoughts that are likely dragging you down. Replace them with more realistic thoughts such as, "I can make conversation and I can meet new people."

Don't allow yourself to dwell on thoughts that aren't productive! Find out How Not to Let Negative Thoughts Trump the Positive Vibes.

Good social skills are essential for effective communication. If you find socializing with others a challenge, start to take on my suggestions and practice each of them consistently.

Great social skills don't come easily, you need to practice yourself and really try these tips by talking with others.

Featured photo credit: Pexels via pexels.com

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Top 10 Most Inspirational Bloggers In The World

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If you feel like you're the awkward person at social events or you struggle to enter into conversations because you're shy, it can impact your social life and your career. However, you can start improving your social skills by following these 12 strategies and soon, you'll be able to enter into conversations with confidence.