Blogs and Social Networks a review Part 3

Blogs and Social Networks in general are expanding and growing daily, scratch that, hourly. The amount of people reaching out for world wide friendship is amazing and exciting.

The first stop in our journey today will be to the video mogul of YouTube. Like the glamor and sparkle of the Las Vegas strip with the culture and information of the Museums, Hoover Dam, and The Grand Canyon, comedy like Ray Romano and Kevin James, shows and magic like Chris Angel and The Blue Man Group, YouTube has it all. Sign up, upload a video you created or just view the hundreds of thousands of videos already here. Join a group or enter a video contest, just broadcast yourself.

How about we visit the tops on the fun, chatty charts by taking a trip to the Twin Cities, MN, Greatest Shopping Mall Of America! IMVU!

IMVU is an outstanding, fun, digital, graphic image maker, and player site. You create a little "you" image, and dress up, buy items and clothes and hair styles and much more, take photos of the virtual "you" , go on a Ferris Wheel, in a cafe, disco, wherever the little "you" wants to play, get photographed, purchase items with credits, chat, engage, and virtually have the time of your Internet life! Missgreenbacks, Lucky, IMVUInc, and Charm are there to get you rolling and help your navigation! The Greatest Shopping Mall Of The Internet World awaits at IMVU.

Let's Move along now, down the cobblestone streets of Amsterdam and join in on the group activities and artistic Rembrandt talents of the members of WetPaint Wiki. Get a community gathering started and become a sightseeing tour down the Amsterdam canal. Design graphics and flourishes that match your Wiki design with Paint Splatters. Wikis are websites that everyone can build together. It's easy. Come to community fun and information spot, build a page, add a widget, leave your mark on the adventure of the Wiki!

Questing ever further into blogs and social networks we arrive, (and some say "finally") at the Blogs and Social Networks dream adventure. The Tibet, if you will, of the day. Friendster is the highest peak to reach and the most tranquil, easy-going of the industry. The Friendster crew is always helpful and pleasant. Add Apps, Get Connected, Explore, and Search through the mountainous region that is Friendster. With a separate, but unified blogging city, Friendster creates a collective environment of exploration, fun, and friends.

Getting and staying connecting in the blogs and social networks world on the Internet is an experience of a lifetime. Our pasts did not even include this awesome situational entertainment and friendship.
Stephanie Haile Google Me:) aka Wavecritter
www.StephanieHaile.com

Google Blogger How To Edit

This is a follow up video I made to help you with GOOGLE Blogger editing. I think will wrap up any questions about the GOOGLE Blog and Blogspot...;)

Stephanie Haile aka Wavecritter

Google Blogger How To Part 2

Here is Part Two, that covers "The Rest Of The Story" to get you on the automatic level to blogging. Repetitive nature of blogging, once you learn the steps, is a whole lot of fun...Enjoy;)

Stephanie Haile Google Me :)

Google Blogger How To Step By Step Part 1

This is a very basic step by step series of videos. I believe in learning by multiple methods. Visual, text, the spoken word, actual hands on...these are ways to let it all sink into to your brain, to get your actions on autopilot...that is the goal with learning a new task that you will doing over and over and over... To get it as easy to you as taking a breath or anything that comes natural.

Stephanie Haile Google Me :)

The Lone Blog - An Inner Tube On The Ocean

Have you ever really considered just how big the Internet is? Or the number of people currently connected or joining every day? It staggers the mind, doesn't it? With the playground of events, music choices, video on demand, photos and graphics, interests, personalities, news, business tips, information, and excitement out there the lone blog is like an inner tube on the ocean.

The lone blog, an inner tube on the ocean is a visual effect that should set this reality in perspective for you. So how does the lone blog become an island at sea? Or eventually a continent? Starting at the size of an inner tube, this goal might seem a daunting task. One step at a time and one link back at a time will create the island that you are building for the lone blog.

Begin this blogging journey by constructing three blogs on three separate blog networks. Make them each different, but have yourself in there as well so each blog is just an extension of parts of who you are and what you are all about. Work on them a little at time or get it done in a few days, it is entirely up to how much time you have and how quickly you can learn each blog site.

On most blog sites there is a "widget" or area to list links or something called a "blog roll" or "blog log". Here you will want to start your list with your own blogs from the other sites and any friends blog sites that you know about. You have just blew your inner tube for the lone blog up to a small fishing boat. If you have an organization, group, team, or club that you are a member of ask them if they have a blog site and add them to your list of blog sites on your lone blog. In turn, ask them to add you to their favorites list or blog roll.

Be sure to go and comment on your friends blogs every week or every other week, leaving your name and blog address as a signature. Every time they visit their own blog and see your comment, they will remember to go say hello back to you increasing your visitors and blog ranking in the system.

What is your favorite of your three blogs about? There is always a favorite after you put the time and effort into the creation of these blogs and each one comes into its own personality. Get a domain name, be creative in the choosing, pick a name that fits what your blog is all about, and redirect it to your blog site. As these blog sites are so generously made available by brilliant sites such as Google, Vox, Wordpress, Yahoo360, and countless others, they are also subject to terms of these companies. Be sure to read through the rules and what is and is not allowed on these blog sites. Even when you do follow the rules there is always the chance that your blog will be taken down. With a redirected personal URL, you can then put up another blog and redirect your URL to a new one. Better still, you can purchase your own blog site just like any domain name but if you need to keep all this as inexpensive as possible stay with the free sites.

Always be on the lookout for new blogs in your network that you can add as a favorite or to your blog list, if your blog site offers a group area, join a few groups that you are interested in. Add your blog sites to a host of blog submission sites available to the Internet world. MyBlogLog, Technorati, Digg, Article99 these are but a few of the sites that offer a blog submission area. Use the link to your blog site everywhere as your signature file. Everyone who comments be sure to comment back with a back link to your lone blog site.

The lone blog, an inner tube on the ocean has now stepped up to a tug boat. To bring it one step further, maybe to a great sailing ship, you will need to make a few comments on some heavy hitter pages. Find some outstanding sites that interest you and make a few comments to the author. These are not going to be regular pages generally, they are going to be sites owned and authored by big web site owners and gurus of the industry you are involved with or are curious about. These are pages of organizations and clubs with many members commenting on the pages. High traffic sites are a way to not only get your name out there, but they also benefit the site owner of the high traffic site. This is why they will readily post your positive comment on their site.

A sailing ship on the waves of the Internet sounds like a safer deal altogether than an inner tube floating haplessly and crashing among the bigger, more threatening vessels doesn't it? No longer the lone blog your visitors will enjoy your fresh, newly posted content every week and enjoy themselves.

How To Get Started At MySpace, on a Blog, Or Other Social Network Part 3

Here comes the fun part that we all have been waiting for! We all have our pages set, we can navigate around MySpace, now we put some "Wow" on our pages!

Let's log in to our MySpace pages and begin. Click on the "edit profile", which now has become second nature I believe. Have you gotten familiar with the about me, TV, music, etc. boxes on this page? Then let's get busy.

Open another browser window and search for MySpace layouts, or you can just get started with either mygirlyspace dot com, or pimp-my-profile dot com. These two spaces are easier to navigate than some, in my opinion. For this instruction, I will get you through the pimp-my-profile site. I chose this because men do not appreciate having an ad for the girly space on their pages. If you are a women, then I would encourage you to see the awesome layouts there as well. You see, wherever you go to choose a page layout, that site will include a small ad for there site in the layout HTML code. They have an ad to direct someone else who likes your page to the site you found your cool layout on.

After opening another browser window, type in www.pimp-my-profile.com. You do not have to log in or register here if you don't choose to, you are just browsing the layouts. About a third of the way down the page is a layout tab, and under it includes layouts for MySpace, Blogs, and other Social Network Sites. Click on the text MySpace Layouts, if you click on the MySpace box it will take you to the MySpace site and then just click your back arrow up by the address bar in your browser window.

Since you are an old pro at the copy and paste procedure, (remember, we did that in part one), I will only brush over it briefly. You find your layout, (this might take a while because there are so many great ones), look first through the category listing, choose your category by clicking the highlighted text, pick one to preview. Always preview before you select to see the code. It might look great small, but when you see it in a large view, there may not be an add friends button, or no place for people to message you, or worse yet, no area to get comments on your profile page! Check for these things during your preview. When you have selected one by navigating through the numbered pages on the pre-made layouts don't get tempted by the tweak your layout just now. After you have completed your page, you can then go use your talents to explore HTML tweaks for another site's page. Click the details and code highlighted text.

Under the profile selected, you will see a text box with your profiles HTML code in it. I showed you how to copy and paste using your mouse and the right click method. There is another way as well, to right click on the code and select all. While it is still highlighted, on your keyboard press the Ctrl button and the c button at the same time. Or you can just right click your mouse after it is highlighted and click copy. Never close your profile code page until you have pasted, saved changes, and then viewed you own profile to see if it takes. You just did a lot of work to choose the one you wanted, it will be that long again to find it the second time.

Go back to your MySpace edit profile, and in the About Me section, if you wish to tell the world a bit about yourself, type that in now. At the end of your text, click the enter button about 3 or 4 times to leave a space between your text and the code you are going to paste here. Make sure the cursor is down the 3 or 4 spaces and then either right click and paste or on your keyboard press Ctrl then v, holding the buttons down together for a second. You will then see the code you copied on your about me section! Click preview profile. This will not quite look the same as your view profile, but you will see if it is coming together at this point. If it is, click save all changes, then type the letters from the "capthcha" box into the bar and click save changes. This process will direct you back to your edit profile page, with red text saying "profile updated". If it does not say this, start the steps over until it does.

In the upper right hand corner, click view profile to see what you have created so far!
You can now go back to your edit profile, and type some extras about your books, movies, music, and TV if you wish. Remember to always preview profile and save all changes. I will cover the more detailed MySpace fluff in my next article, "How To Spice Up Your MySpace Page!" I will also cover posting comments on your friends profiles. I gave you my page name that I have had for a while, but I made a page with you for this article and subsequent articles. If you want to be friends with my writer page, I am also Surfcritter. Look me up, I am always willing to help!

Stephanie Haile AKA Wavecritter AKA Surfcritter
http://www.myspace.com/surfcritter

How To Get Started At MySpace, on a Blog, Or Other Social Site Part 2

Hello again future web site masters! Here we go with part two of How To Get Started At Myspace, on a Blog, Or Other Social network.

We left off with the display name change. OK, let's log back into MySpace and start again. You type in your email address and password that you used to get started and that will take you to your friend, the home page.

Did you get acquainted with this page and explore around awhile? If not, take some time and do that now. Pay particular attention to the "edit profile" link and the boxes on the page. After you click the "edit profile", a description of the boxes on that page follows.

The Headline space contains whatever you want to show just above your picture on your profile page. It will not be the same thing as on your home page. Remember, your home page is for your eyes only, but your profile is what your friends see. So feel free to type whatever you want here and change it as often as you wish to. Some, like myself, leave it the same all the time. I just type Wavecritter here so it is easy for all to know my username. Some, like to change it every week or so, depending on their mood. It is entirely up to you. When you start venturing out and making friends, you will see what others do. I recommend making one change in one box at a time. After you add the type for Headline, click save all changes. You will then see a red typed "profile updated" above the save all changes button.

Before we get into the other boxes, starting with the "About Me" section, I think we ought to cover the other type click areas along the horizontal line of the "interests and personality" link. The one next to the "interests and personality" is "Name", this one we covered last time, then, there is "Basic Info", let's click there now. Most of this is already filled out for you, but if you want, you can choose to type in your occupation, your ethnicity, your body type, height (if you fill this is be sure to unclick the little no answer box under height), and what you are here for, I click friends and networking. Then click "save changes". Again, you should see the red type "profile updated above gender.

On to "background and lifestyle", here you have options for marital status, sexual orientation, hometown, religion, whether you smoke or drink, if you have children, your education, and income. Feel free to leave any of these as "no answer". The only one that you will need to choose is the marital status, this is set to single as a default choice. Under "income" click "save changes" and once again you will see the red "profile updated". It's getting kind of easy now, isn't it? That is good, getting your comfort level higher, raising the bar.

Next is adding your schools, company you work for or wish to promote, and then "song and video on profile". Let's go over this one next, I am certain that you can handle the other two solo.

This link is fairly self explanatory as well, but I will walk you through a bit. First, decide if you want a song to play on your view profile page. If so, click on "find a band in MySpace music", (you can still see the home page link, you can always go back home and start over), the search artists box is where you will type in the artist or song title you are wanting to put on your site. After you type it in, click search. Don't stress over a song title or band name if you can't think of any because the next page you can just choose a type of music to search. Like Rock, Pop, Country, Hawaiian, or Jazz and many more. While you look around, remember that you can click on the blue type names of the bands and then go right back by clicking your back arrow button located by the address bar way up in your browser window. Also, there is a search criteria box on the right where you can change what music you are viewing. This is also a great way to make some celebrity friend while you choose your music. When you click on an artist name in blue type, you then go to their profile page. Find the "add friend" link under their picture or close by, click that, click confirm add, then it will say "an email has been sent to add this user. You then have the option to view the artist profile again, click the back button until you get back where you want, go home and start over, or go back and add a video.

When you do find a song that you would like to add that is on a player box, look next to the song on the right, there will be an "add" click. Click it, and a page with a box saying "Do you really want to add this song to your profile?" will show. Click yes, and it will say that the song has been added to your profile. You can now either go back to the artist's profile or go home.

Back at the home page click edit page again, and song and video on profile. This is all starting to come natural, isn't it? Now, the same process for a video, if you want to look for one. Although, when you get into the Myspace TV section, the home link is all the way at the top more toward the right side. It says MySpace Home. The link to add the video is directly under the playing video as you choose to view them, not in the long list of potential viewable videos. Then return to your home page.

Now, we will explore your account settings link just below the edit profile next to your picture. We already covered the time settings. The next link is your password. If you ever want to change your password, click here and fill in the boxes for current, new, verify (just retype your new password here) for passwords, then type in the letters from the safety box and click save changes. The privacy link is for your general privacy settings, here you can choose to show others your birthday, when you are online, profile viewable or not by everyone, photos, or you can choose to block a user here. The spam link is for more specific privacy settings. Read through the list and check or uncheck the "x boxes" and then save changes. Remember that whatever you do can be changed if you redo the step and click save changes. The notifications link is for e-mail and newsletter notifications. You choose whether or not you wish to receive these here, then click save changes. The mobile and calendar links work just the same way.

The miscellaneous tab has settings for your music to start automatically or not, your profile settings for HTML comments (the cool pictures that people like to post), and if you are going to be away from MySpace for a time to set a message for your friends.

Now, back to the home page and I will point out some important areas here. Just below your friends area will be a view birthdays. People love to get birthday wishes and this link will take you right to the friends having birthdays soon so you can click on their picture, view their profile, and add a comment to their profile page.

View your own profile at this time, the link to do that is directly under your picture, it will say view profile, pics, videos, blog, comments, friends, groups and get used to the layout. The message, add friend, view friends, add comment, subscribe to blog, and bulletins.

The difference between a message and a comment is that the message is private to your friend, and the comment goes directly on the profile page for everyone to see. Now, your blog listings do not get sent to anyone except people who subscribe to them. And the only way they can see them is to go to your profile page and click on your blog listings. The bulletin post section is for you to be able to post one comment for all of your friends at the same time, listed in their bulletin sections on their home page, not their profile page.

So, to view another persons profile, you click on their picture, and you will be taken to their profile page. From here you can add them as a friend or interact with them in other ways. The search and invite links will help you find friends, I am teaching you how to fluff your page, so I won't get into that. I am certain, once we are finished, you will be navigating like a pro.

The biggest and fluffiest part is yet to come. So, again, play around and get comfortable with the view of the boxes on your edit profile page, because part three will make your space shine.

Stephanie Haile AKA Wavecritter
http://www.myspace.com/wavecritter

How To Get Started At My Space, on a Blog, Or Other Social Network Part 1

I understand that it can be difficult at best to navigate around the Internet if you have not yet mastered your keyboard and mouse. Here is a fun way to get acquainted with your computer, mouse, keyboard, the Internet, and make some friends all at the same time.

I am going to show you how to add a profile layout, (those cool looking graphics and pictures you see on web pages) at a social network site called MySpace. You can then take what you have learned and start to play around at blog sites or other social network sites. If you use your search engine you can find some good ones and most of the time they are free to join, giving you a free web page to say hello to the world. Let's get started, type MySpace.com in your browser window, and click sign up on the front page. Fill in the short sign up form, click sign up. Be sure to write down your email address and password because that is your login information. You will come to a page where you must enter some text into a capcha box, fill in the charachters and enter. You will be prompted to upload a picture of yourself now. Be sure to have one saved on your computer in your "my pictures" file before you start this process so everyone will know who you are. Click browse, a window will open, look for the picture that you chose and double click it. The window will disappear and your picture code will then be in the box on the page. Click upload or if you want to, you can click the "skip this step" and do it later. Now, you will see an invite your friends page. The first box is where you can add email addresses of your friends, separate each email by a comma like this: w@es.com, sw@se.com. MySpace already typed out a nice welcome and invite for you, click invite or again, you have an option to skip this step if you like.

You should now see your home page and your picture, if you uploaded one. There will be a red box above your name that says "verify your email address. Click here. You will go to another page where there will be a button that has "request verification email", click that. You should have a screen that says verification email sent.

Go to your email account. The email will be from MySpace Admin called MySpace email verification. Open it and click on the link to complete the process. A new browser window will open up and you will be back at MySpace, email address verified, click return to home.

Just under your picture, you will find a red box that says "pick your MySpace name URL. Whatever name you pick here, will be your nickname in the MySpace community. Choose wisely, because this is what people will associate you with forever on MySpace. My name is Wavecritter, if you want to, see my page and make me your friend. I really enjoy helping people with fun and learning!

Read this next little bit on the site carefully. And choose accordingly. This name is going to stick and you cannot change it once you choose. This page also says a bit about your display name. We can change that if you want in a bit, so don't worry for now. Two little windows even come up to make sure you are happy with your name before it takes it as permanent.

The next screen is for you to enter your real name. I add mine here, so if someone who is looking for me, but does not know my nickname, can find me. Your real name never shows up anywhere on your profile, home page or anyplace easily accessible. Or, you can choose to skip this step as well. You are now at a page where your information like your username, real name, URL, and display name are. Be sure to take note of your URL. This is what you tell your friends to type into their address bar to view your profile when you have completed it. There is also a "grab this code to add your MySpace URL to your AIM profile. Whether or not you have an AIM profile, let's try to copy and paste this into your notepad or save it as a draft in your email. With your mouse, use the right click button while your cursor is over the code in the box, click your right click and choose select all. Then, while the highlight is still on the code in the box, right click it and choose copy. Now, go to your email, click compose message, or new mail to open like you are going to write a letter, right click on the page, choose paste and there you go! Save this email in your drafts so later you can go back and post this on one of your blog sites or other sites for an easy clickable link to your MySpace profile. Or, you can use your notepad to save this link.

You are now a master of cutting and pasting! And, you got a glimpse of an HTML code, saved it for later, and are on your way to an award winning page.

Returning to the page with your username, URL, display, and real name. Look at the upper part of the page. There is first an ad, then a horizontal line starting with a clickable MySpace, People, Web, Music, etc. Just below that is a Google search bar, and just below that is another horizontal line of clickables starting with "home". Let's keep that one in mind for now. This is the one to click on, if you ever get lost when you are exploring the site. You will be brought back to familiar territory, your picture. Click on that now. Take a few minutes to study the page and get real comfortable here. This is your home, no one but you sees it. This is where all the controls to create your wonder page will be found. Play around, get click friendly, just remember, you can always go back home. And too, don't forget to sign out before you leave. The sign out button is in the upper right hand corner.

My part two will be coming soon, so you can make your page special. But before I end this, I wanted to tell you how to change your display name and account settings. Next to your picture, there is a list of things on the right, starting with "edit profile", just below that is "account settings" click here. It will display your email address, preferred site location and time zone. You can change these by clicking the drop down menu and choosing the correct time zone and location. Then click save changes.

http://www.myspace.com/wavecritter

Go back to your home page, and click edit profile. Later, get familiar with this page. Just look it over, read the headers, and study the layout, so that when you read my next article, you will be more certain of yourself as we move on. OK, at the top of the page, it will say Profile Edit, Interests and Personality. Then, a smaller type interests and personality and name. Click on name. You will see your user name, real name, and display name. This is where you can click to erase and rename yourself. I chose my Wavecritter here as well. I figured, it took so much thought to choose this username in the beginning, with all of the consideration, that would be a good one to use. After you choose, type it in the display name box and click save changes. To see what your visitors and friends will see when they come to your page, click the "view my profile" text in the upper right hand corner.

I think you did a great job! Now, you can click home, sign out, explore a bit, and even make a friend if you like. Stay tuned for my follow up to make your site sparkle! In the meantime, Google search me, Wavecritter! For more How To's, tidbits, and thoughts.

Stephanie Haile AKA Wavecritter