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7 Best Productivity Apps for Bloggers

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bigstock-Blog-824779 One of the biggest challenges with blogging is that it can be time consuming and hard to do when traveling. However, in recent years, thanks to wonderful and inspired app makers, there are now numerous tools available for bloggers which helps tremendously make blogging easy, convenient, and fun! With these productivity apps, blogging has become less complicated and you can get your daily tasks done, even while on the go.

Here are some of the best productivity tools for bloggers:

Blogger and WordPress

For iOS | For Android

Yes, blogging platforms top this list of productivity apps, since they make blogging on the go possible. Blogger is an app created by Google Inc. that makes writing, saving, scheduling, and publishing posts easy. The Blogger app also makes uploading pictures direct from the phone to the blog is very simple.

For bloggers who use travel a lot and who use the WordPress blogging platform, the WordPress app is another ‘must-have’ productivity tool. The interface is very user-friendly if you’re familiar with WordPress, making it easy to blog whenever you have time, even if you aren’t at home in front of your computer.

(Editor’s note: If you’re trying to decide between Blogger and WordPress, check out our post about choosing a blogging platform.)

Boomerang

For Gmail | For Outlook

Have you ever experienced forgetting to send an important email to a client or a boss? Boomerang is the answer. This app allows you to write the email ahead of time. You simply schedule when you want it sent; the app will do it for you. Boomerang can do more! This app is really like your virtual secretary. For example, if you sent an email containing a guest blog post to another blogger, you can set the application to remind you to get in touch with the recipient again if you don’t get a reply.

SEO Tool – Check Site Position

For iOS

For serious bloggers, knowing their search engine rankings is very important, and this used to be a challenge for bloggers who are always mobile or on the go. SEO Tool – Check Site Position provides the answer to this challenge. With this app created by Nopreset, bloggers can now easily check their page rankings wherever they are. It is also convenient to use especially for bloggers who have several domains or websites.

Memonic

For iOS | For Android | For Mac | For PC

Excellent posts often require lots of research. Researching however, can be very taxing. With memonic, bloggers now have a better way of tracking their research and saving it for later. Using this app, bloggers can effortlessly save any web content with just a click to their online notebook anytime. No need anymore to bookmark a lot of websites and visiting them again and again.

Otixo

For iOS | For Android

Bloggers who have challenges with too many files found their answer with Otixo, a convenient file manager for perfect for Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, and other popular cloud services. With Otixo, bloggers can easily find their files across cloud-based services, and with a single username and password, access these online services with ease. Here’s another thing that many bloggers like about this app: they can easily copy and/or move files from one service to another without the need to download them to their computer. The process is very easy because it’s just drag-and-drop and then it’s done!

Pixlr

For iOS | For Android

Great images make blogs more attractive to readers and visitors. For your not-so-perfect pictures that need editing, Pxilr is the perfect tool. This app is free and it allows the blogger on the go to edit pictures in order for them to fit perfectly to a blog post.

In your option, what are the best productivity tools out there? Do you have any favorite productivity apps that help you blog more efficiently when you’re not at your computer? Share them with a comment below!

Image Credit: Bigstock

46 Brilliant Bloggers Talk About Triberr

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Brilliant Bloggers is a weekly series here at BlogWorld where we look at the best posts from around the web all surrounding a specific topic. Every week, we’ll feature three of the most brilliant bloggers out there, along with a huge list of more resources where you can learn about the topic. You can see more Brilliant Blogger posts or learn how to submit your link for an upcoming edition here.

This Week’s Topic: Triberr

I want to dislike Triberr. I really do. When it comes to social media, the a-word – automation – is worse than any four-letter word out there. But everything I’ve read about this service really impresses me! The concept is simple – you join a tribe with bloggers you like and everyone in the tribe tweets out everyone else’s links. What makes me really like this concept is that not only do you have control over what tribes you join, ensuring that you aren’t promoting bloggers you don’t want to promote, but you also have the option to moderate the links you tweet out. So, even though it’s automation, it’s automation with a lot of moderation…and I like that.

Without a doubt, there are people who don’t like Triberr. As with everything, there are people going to take advantage of the tool, trying to game it for their own benefits. There’s also the social media “noise” factor. Those who don’t like Triberr definitely make some good points.

I don’t personally belong to Triberr…yet. Right now, as far as I can tell, it’s still invite-only. But it’s a really great concept and I’m starting to see more and more bloggers signing up to at least give it a try. Luckily, members are also starting to talk about their experiences with Triberr on their blogs as well, so today, I wanted to share with you some of the brilliant posts I’ve read about Triberr.

Advice from Brilliant Bloggers:

4 Things Triberr Reminded Me About Twitter by Neal Schaffer

In this post, Neal talks about his experiences with Triberr in a more traditional type of review, but then he goes on to talk in depth about some things using Triberr has taught him about the way people use Twitter. There are good and bad aspects of every social media tool, and I think Neal does a great job talking about both the good and bad of Triberr. Check it out and then find Neal on Twitter @NealSchaffer.

A Leap of Faith that Brought a Metric-Ton of Traffic by Robert Dempsey

I think this post by Robert Dempsey does a great job of giving readers a little overview of Triberr, but what I really like is seeing his stats and how Triberr has affected his traffic. Robder sums up his experience in three words: holy monkey butt. Check out the post to find out why and then follow him on Twitter @rdempsey.

How Triberr Achieved Massive Success by Beny Schonfeld

This is an awesome video interview with Dino, one of the co-founders of Triberr. He talks about what Triberr is and why is has become so successful, and as an added bonus, if you’re willing to send out a tweet about it, you can download a free ap success guide with all the lessons you can learn from Triberr’s success. After watching the video, check out Beny on Twitter @appeando.

BONUS: With so many posts about Triberr, it was hard to pick just three to highlight. If you’re on the fence about checking out this social media tool, the post you definitely should read is Review of Triberr: The Twitter Promotion Powerhouse by Ben Barden (@benbarden). This has detailed lists of pros and cons of Triberr and is, in my opinion, one of the best posts out there on this topic!

Even More Brilliant Advice:

Did I miss your post or a post by someone you know about Triberr? Unintentional! Help me out by leaving a comment below with the link!

Next Week’s Topic: Finding Post Ideas

I’d love to include a link to your post next week – and if you head to the Brilliant Bloggers Schedule, you can see even more upcoming posts. We all have something to learn from one another, so please don’t be shy! Head to the schedule today to learn how to submit your post so I won’t miss it.

14 Brilliant Bloggers Talk About Blogging Platforms

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Brilliant Bloggers is a weekly series here at BlogWorld where we look at the best posts from around the web all surrounding a specific topic. Every week, we’ll feature three of the most brilliant bloggers out there, along with a huge link of more resources where you can learn about the topic. You can see more Brilliant Blogger posts here.

Want to be a BlogWorld Brilliant Blogger? Scroll to the end to find out how to submit your post for an upcoming edition!

This Week’s Topic: WordPress Vs. Other Blogging Platforms

Although I’ve used other platforms in the past, I’m firmly a WordPress girl. Most of the bloggers out there who are making an income from blogging use WordPress, and in my opinion, it’s really the best way to go if you’re a serious blogger. Others disagree with me, for various reasons. Today, we’ll look at some brilliant comparisons of WordPress and other blogging platforms so that you can make a decision about which tool to use.

Advice from Brilliant Bloggers:

Blogging platform of the year 2010: Blogger or WordPress? by Andrew Paul

This is an awesome post if you’re interested in blogging but aren’t yet sure if you want to do it as a business instead of just a hobby. In this post, Andrew compares the free versions of Blogger and WordPress, and although your URL won’t be as pretty, it gives you the chance to start out blogging without paying for your own domain name and hosting. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @andrewpaul123.

WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal by Tim Stiffler-Dean

Tim’s post is an oldie but goodie. He leaves Blogger (as well as Typepad, Squarespace, and some other CMSs) out of the conversation, and focuses on three popular choices for bloggers. Some of the information is outdated at this point, but I think he does an awesome job at giving the pros and cons of each platform. Follow Tim on Twitter @anotherguy. (Hat tip to @JoshuaTitsworth for sending me this link!)

How did WordPress win? by Byrne Reese

While this post specifically compares WordPress to Movable Type, I think it makes a lot of great points that are relevant when comparing WordPress to any other CMS out there. There are a lot of great comments on this post as well, so check it out, and then follow Byrne on Twitter @byrnereese.

Even More Brilliant Advice:

Next Week’s Topic: Blogrolls and Link Love

Want your post included? Simple head to Blog Carnival and upload your link. Remember, only posts about this topic will be accepted. If you have another brilliant post, save it for a topic that better fits the post! Submissions will be accepted until February 16, 2011 at noon. Deadline pass already? Head to Blog Carnival and look under “about this edition” to find the current topic!

Top Gadgets & Tools For Blogging While Traveling

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As long as you can avoid the dreaded writer’s block, blogging while you’re at home – with a reliable internet connection and maybe even a second monitor – is the easy part. It’s blogging while traveling that can be a challenge.

I’m not even talking about the difficulties of finding time to blog while you’re on the road, either – I covered that topic in a BlogWorld Expo blog post in June. In this case, I’m talking about finding the best tools and gadgets to help make your blogging life easier while you travel.

Best Gadgets and Tools for Blogging While Traveling

What traveler doesn’t like travel gear? Sure, not every traveler is giddy at the thought of bringing the latest tech toys on a trip, but if your blog isn’t taking the same vacation you are then you might want to embrace just enough technology to keep your readers entertained while you’re traveling.

Bringing a desktop computer on a plane clearly isn’t an option, and sometimes even bringing your average laptop doesn’t make sense. My own everyday laptop isn’t huge by normal standards, but the 15″ screen makes it not exactly teeny, either. What’s more, if your whole life is stored on your laptop and something happened to it while you were traveling, you’d have more than a stagnant blog to worry about.

Some computing alternatives that help you blog while traveling are:

  • Netbooks – These tiny laptops aren’t the most powerful machines, but they’re incredibly travel-friendly. Even the best netbooks for traveling aren’t going to be powerful enough for you to do much in the way of photo or video editing, but if you can save that for when you get home then a netbook might be a good choice for you. They’ll stow easily in backpacks and even in many not-huge purses, and if you get one with a solid state hard drive you don’t even have to worry so much about being gentle with it. Blogging while bumping along in a chicken bus? No problem!
  • iPad – For many, the iPad is becoming the travel blogging weapon of choice over the old netbook. It’s definitely a versatile gadget, being more about media consumption than it is about media production, and is far prettier to look at than even the shiniest of netbooks. The main drawback for anyone who’s using an iPad for content production is its lack of an external keyboard (not everyone is skilled at or comfortable with typing on the screen). If your typing needs are minimal and you just want to be able to post the occasional photo or make sure previously scheduled blog posts go up as planned (plus be able to watch movies on long flights) then the iPad may be a more fun travel option than a netbook – and you can always buy a portable iPad keyboard, too. Be sure to get a durable iPad case for your toy, however, since there’s no close-able cover to protect the screen.
  • Smart Phone – Maybe you have no plans to do any blogging while you’re traveling because you’ve cleverly scheduled blog posts or have guest posts going while you’re on the road, but you’d like to be able to moderate comments, make sure posts publish when they should, and perhaps check email. You prefer books to movies on plane rides anyway, and you’re not interested in carrying a laptop-sized anything on your trip. Alrighty, then! A smart phone may be the only gadget you need. The iPhone is the most popular choice these days for traveling bloggers, but it’s not the only choice. There are Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and Flickr apps, for instance, on the BlackBerry and Android platforms, too. Whatever phone you have, just make absolutely sure you’re not going to a destination that will have you racking up enormous roaming and data charges (or that, if you are, you take appropriate measures on your phone to avoid them). Conversely, if you know you’ll need to get online with your smart phone while traveling, make sure you’ll be able to do that from wherever you’ll be.
  • Internet Cafes – Remember when you first started seeing internet cafes popping up when you traveled? Okay, you might be too young to remember a time before internet cafes, but for those of us who are a bit (ahem) older, the existence of an internet cafe sometimes served as the technological drink of water us wandering techno-philes longed for. Those of you who still relish the idea of traveling essentially without tech gear will be happy to know that there are still plenty of internet cafes to be found everywhere from Bali to Barcelona to Bamako. You can never be sure what kind of machinery you’ll encounter – not to mention how many will be on the fritz – and it may take you ages to type even a simple email on a foreign keyboard, but if your computing needs are minimal that may be more of an amusement than an annoyance.

It’s not all about the hardware, of course. So what are some other tools that can help you keep blogging while you’re traveling?

  • Google Docs – Even if you’re bringing your own netbook on your trip, storing an increasing amount of data on it will just slow it down over time. Saving documents out in the web-o-sphere means you can access them from anywhere and you aren’t taking up space on your computer.
  • iPhone Apps – As mentioned above, the iPhone is the most popular choice among traveling bloggers these days, and that’s due in part to the array of travel iPhone apps available. Your iPhone can now be your travel guide, your GPS device, your entertainment, and your blogging tool – in addition to being your phone. It’s not as easy to type on an iPhone as it is to type on an iPad or a computer keyboard, but that hasn’t stopped some people from relying entirely on an iPhone as a computing device when they travel.
  • Automatic Backups – This should go without saying, but too many people still don’t back up their data even when they’re at home… So obviously it needs to be repeated. Get thyself a backup system, people! At home, I have an external hard drive sitting on my desk, but I still use both that and a web-based backup method (I’m a belt-and-suspenders kind of girl when it comes to my data). When I’m traveling, however, the web-based backup is all I have. And don’t think that just because you’re carrying only an iPhone or solely using internet cafes that you don’t need to worry about backups – make sure your blog is set to back itself up regardless of where you are.
  • Travel Insurance – Carrying any amount of expensive tech travel gear is enough to make anyone nervous. Nevermind having your blog go without a new post for a few days, the consequences of having your netbook or iPad lost or stolen aren’t fun to contemplate. If you’re bringing gear that you care about on your travels, be sure to get travel insurance before you leave home. Some trip protection insurance will cover up to $2500 of “personal effects” if something happens to them on your trip, so be sure to look for that when you’re getting insurance quotes. This obviously won’t keep your gear from getting swiped, but if the unthinkable does happen at least you’ll have some recourse to get a new gadget. (And since you backed up all your data, you haven’t lost anything. Right?)

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of the gadgets and tools to keep your blog chugging while you travel. I haven’t even talked about camera gear, for one thing, or the various bags designed to more elegantly tote your gadgets around. So I’m going to conclude with a question – what is your favorite piece of equipment to blog when traveling? What devices make it possible for you to keep up with your blogging duties even while you’re out and about? Leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

Jessica Spiegel is a staff writer at BootsnAll (your resource for all things budget travel) and spends most of her energy on BootsnAll’s Italy Travel Guide, WhyGo Italy. She’ll answer all kinds of Italy travel questions, including how to find cheap flights to Italy, which Italy tours might be worth your time and money, and critical stuff like how to get from the Rome airport into Rome. When it comes to gear, Jessica is more of a netbook girl than an iPad girl, and she won’t go anywhere without a camera (although she’s afraid of water enough that a regular ole DSLR is preferable to even the coolest waterproof digital cameras).

Photo Credit: scriptingnews

College Admissions Using Social Networking Tools

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060914_college_myths2_shutterstockhmedium Think you are completely safe when it comes to what’s being posted on your social networking profiles?  Think all those photos of you or your kids that are tagged, all of those videos you or they might make little cameos in, are safe and sound and seen by no one but you?  Think again.  Turns out more people are seeing this information, even people you would not exactly want seeing some of it…think prospective employers, think college admissions.

That’s right, be afraid, be very afraid.  New reports are coming out that a growing number of college admissions around the country are turning to social networking tools to dive deeper into the candidates for admission into their schools.  Cue the great big collective *gasp* for high school seniors and their parents around the world.

The reports found that “one-fourth of colleges surveyed indicated that they used a Web search or social networking technology to locate information about prospective students.”  What’s more, it also dug up some interesting habits that pertain to social networking.  Try this on for size:

  • “More than half (53 percent) of colleges monitor social media for “buzz” about their school.”
  • “33 percent of colleges maintain a blog, 29 percent maintain a presence on social networking Web sites, 27 percent maintain message- or bulletin-boards, 19 percent use video blogging, and 14 percent issue podcasts. 39 percent of colleges surveyed reported using no social media technology.”
  • ” 88 percent of admission offices believed social media were either “somewhat” or “very” important to their future recruitment efforts”

Seems like we’re a far cry from the importance of the “Final Essay” on your application process.  Who knew that all those silly photos, videos and Wall Posts “can and will be held against you.”  Yikes.

(image via msnbc.com)

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