Sunday Chatter – 1/31

How to Build a More Beautiful Blog

If you think throwing up a quick blog using Blogger is all you need to do to establish yourself in the blogosphere, you would be mistaken. Mashable has a great post this week in a roundup of sources, articles, and services you can utilize to build a better looking blog. Among the top of the list is to learn XHTML, which is the current web standard and most widely used programming element today. If you’re looking for a new theme, 2-column, 3-column, etc., there’s a number of those available, too. You can find some great ones online for free, but if you want to be unique and have your own look, themes can be purchased for about $50 or so.

Adobe Calls Out Apple Over No Flash Support

With the release of the iPad this week, one big feature missing from it, like with Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, is Flash. Over 70% of games and 75% of videos will not be able to be viewed, Adobe said in a blog post. If you were following any of the live blogs during Steve Jobs’ presentation Wednesday, you likely noticed the big white space filled with the blue block to symbolize a missing plugin. That was shown while Jobs surfed over to The New York Times website. It was most likely an ad placement using Flash, but even so, with the lack of Flash support, Apple is taking a step back instead of forward. These two companies need to resolve their differences in the name of what’s best for the user experience.

Does Your ‘Advertise Here’ Button Suck?

According to Zac Johnson it does. The hideous ‘Advertise Here’ buttons you see on some blogs are quite the eyesore and are only there to fill space that a perspective advertiser would occupy. There are a number of reasons why you should consider putting some thought into the button. No one wants to be the first advertiser, so put up some affiliate ads in the meantime and make it look decent. Secondly, if you insist on using a button, make it look professional and blend it in with your blog’s layout. Having a flashy GIF graphic or some hideously coloured blinking box will only turn advertisers away. Think about creating an advertising page with your formats, rates, traffic statistics, etc., and simply link to it in your footer. It’s much more professional that way.

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