| New Features |
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New BloggersBase Layout
BloggersBase is happy to present our new site layout. The new layout was designed to better suit the needs of our readers and bloggers. It was designed in such a way that is more user-friendly and user-oriented. Let us introduce you to some of the new features:
Drop-Down Blog Menu
In an attempt to make the interface more comfortable for our users we have changed the menu to drop down menus. You no longer have to wait for a category to load in order to view the blogs it consists of. You can switch to Upcoming Blogs by using the tabs above the menu.
Sliding Menu
The new sliding menu is situated at the top of every individual post. This allows users to see which posts have been recommended from within the same blog. These recommended posts are the most interesting posts for the reader based on interaction with previous history, present scores and user feedback.
Related Posts
 If you found the post you were reading interesting and want to read more on the same topic, click one of the related posts titles at the bottom of the post for further reading on similar topics.
Please note: Both the sliding menu and the related post feature present posts with excerpt images. To read more about the importance of these excerpts refer to “Tip of the Month”
Comments Design
The new comments design demonstrates the difference between who’s commenting on your post. If the author comments on their own post, this comment box will show up in golden color. If a BloggersBase administrator comments on a post, the comment box will show up in green. Any other comments will remain white. This allows users to clearly see and know when a comment is made by the actual author or by a BloggersBase administrator.
New Upcoming Blogs
Here are some of the new upcoming blogs that have been added to BloggersBase.
Music
 We are excited to present our new Music blog. Before we started this upcoming blog feature many people wrote about music in the media blog and we believed that opening this blog would allow music lovers and artists to write about specific issues in the music scene. Here you can see an example of one of our top bloggers music posts. We would like to thank Cougarmicrobes for his amazing contributions to the Music blog. They also maintain a personal blog called “Cougar Microbes Photography Club”.
Interior design
BloggersBase also presents the “Interior Design” blog. This blog reveals unique and interesting ways in which to decorate your home. This entails tips on how to use space more efficiently, latest trends and exciting new ideas.
Cheller is an amazing contributor to the BloggersBase community as a whole. One of the blogs that has benefited from her posts is “Interior Design”. To read more of her posts on various subjects visit her profile.
Facebook connect
Facebook Connect increases our involved readers' community by allowing users to login to BloggersBase without having to be a registered member of BloggersBase. Although such a user has many limitations compared to a BloggersBase registered user, using one's Facebook account will allow interaction with BloggersBase in three ways:
- Ability to thumb up and thumb down comments.
- Ability to leave comments on posts with FB username and avatar.
- Ability to rate posts with more influence than by voting anonymously.
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| Questions and Answers section |
| Q: |
What are the different payment methods used by BloggersBase? |
| A: |
Currently the only method of payment used by BloggersBase to handle winnings is via PayPal. For this you need a valid PayPal account. Be sure to insert your PayPal data on your BloggersBase profile. However, if it is not possible for you to use PayPal for any reason your winning will accumulate on BloggersBase and you won’t lose any of your winnings until such a time that a new solution might present itself. |
| Q: |
What should I do if I cannot find an appropriate blog for a post that I have written? |
| A: |
BloggersBase provides a feature that allows you to propose a new blog. Here is how: Once you get to the publish tab of writing a new post and you cannot find an appropriate blog in the “post in” list, click the “cannot find an appropriate blog?” link on the right hand side. Once the “upcoming blog” lists appears scroll down and choose “propose a new blog”. This allows BloggersBase to avoid having posts in inappropriate blogs and expand our variety of subjects.
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| Q: |
Why are people allowed to vote on old posts after the competition is over? |
| A: |
The reason BloggersBase allows users to vote on posts after the competition is over is to allow more user participation. Your posts are constantly being read by new users on BloggersBase and allowing them to comment and vote adds to their user experience. The bloggers can benefit from the fact that people can still vote and comment on their posts because it allows them to gain more exposure and get feedback on older posts as well. |
| Q: |
Why can I only post one nugget per category? |
| A: |
When posting for the first time on a specific blog, the user's post will automatically be submitted as a Nugget. This post will enter the weekly competition, at the end of which, if the post gets one of the highest scores, it will allow the author to submit posts directly to the Surface (Main posts). This status has to be maintained by writing more posts every week and receiving appropriate grades. If the grades fail to reach a certain level or if the author did not post anything new, he or she will be forced to go through the process of publishing Nuggets again. Please note that every author can submit one Nugget per blog every week. Once you have become a prominent blogger on BloggersBase and you are receiving grades good enough to post on the Surface page you will be able to post as many posts in to the same blog as you wish. |
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| Alex's corner |
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Increasing self-exposure with Twitter
BloggersBase is about offering quality content for the readers and offering the exposure to the most talented bloggers around. Recently introduced Twitter account association feature serves the latter purpose. Automatic updates of the Twitter status with each new post published and with each comment added offer obvious exposure advantages. But actually there are more benefits from doing account association. Till now, we talked about updating your Twitter status automatically, which is a handy feature to have around – but apparently by associating your Twitter account you also gain an opportunity to have your name published on other users’ status feeds. This can happen in two cases: either someone commented on a post authored by or answered your comment. This is how the status update will look when an author of the post has Twitter account association set:
And this is how the status update will look when an author of the parent comment has Twitter account association set:
And in case that you didn’t do the association, your name will not appear in the user’s feed. What a waste. There are multiple place where the association can be made, one of them is a ‘Syndication Options’ box appearing inside the ‘Personal Info’ tab of the profile page.
You can both set and remove account association with one click from there. It is worth mentioning that the association process is done using OAuth protocol recently introduced by Twitter API, which unlike its predecessor allows connecting the accounts without exposing your Twitter password to the third party (which is us in this case). |
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| Featured User of the Month |
 Our featured user of the month for May is CaroleParker. Carole has recently achieved reviewer reader rank. We at BloggersBase are very impressed by her reading activity on our site, the high quality of her own posts and the useful feedback she has provided us with since joining BloggersBase. We are happy that CaroleParker agreed to grant us a short interview. Here it is:
| Q: |
What is the feature or aspect that you like the most about BloggersBase? |
| A: |
BloggersBase socializing is great! Here is all about sharing of blog posts and making comments on the posts of others. It's really exciting for bloggers to interact with each other throughout the BloggersBase and feel the community through a variety of shared interests. |
| Q: |
Which blog do you enjoy reading the most and why? |
| A: |
It’s easier for me to say what blog I don’t read :), because I enjoy reading all blogs here. More often I browse Media and Humor blogs, Internet and Computers blogs and all blogs of Lifestyle category. Everywhere I discover useful and interesting information about issues, I am interested in. I can’t name all authors here, but I am sure that all of them are the great bloggers and they share their own special valuable experience. I know everything what I want about movies from brilliant reviews of DrRus. FantasyArt, Cougarmicrobes and Maxgorilla feast my eyes on great examples of various art genres. I get helpful information about everything connected with computers and internet from posts of Bochiman, Mashable and Ramaraobobby. I like the structure of their articles: they are step-type instructions for practical use. It’s very valuable for newbies like me. Gttlrs is unsurpassed expert in criminology. I haven’t even suspected how interesting this theme is before reading her posts! During the reading of deeply affecting articles of Kaytiiangel and Cheller I feel all sorts of emotions. By Myqute’s comments I comprehend the science of making comments and communication at BloggersBase. And all BloggersBase fellows teach me the positive attitude to life and aspiration for success! |
| Q: |
What influenced you to start blogging? |
| A: |
Well, this story is rather commonplace. I always take an interest in healthy way of life and everything natural in skin care, beauty or food. Since I was a teenager, I’ve been collecting the natural homemade skin care recipes. I told one of BB fellows (kaytiiangel) before, that once, when I was looking at acne on my cheek and sighed, my Mom asked me to blender some leaves of kalanchoe and apply on my face for 15 minutes. I made that procedure once or twice, since kalanchoe was on my window-sill and the result exceeded my expectations. There were no acne on my face and my skin became clean and white. It was the first recipe in my collection :).
Firstly, blogging for me was my desire to share this great collection with other people. That is why the first posts with skin care recipes were written at my first and favorite blog – Beautiful Skin Blog. I work hard to make my blogs better and I believe BloggersBase helps me a lot. |
| Q: |
We see that you take the time to invest on your posts, what makes a quality post, in your eyes? |
| A: |
Actually, blogging is concept that helps people express their feelings, information and experience they have via Internet. Other people are able to appreciate this hard work at its true value and share their opinion on these issues. It's always attractive and interesting and in the same time, blogging potentially lets blogger hope to have some pecuniary interest. So there are tons of reasons to be involved in this popular trend of modern life.
To my mind blog posts should be positive and include some useful, thorough, completed information that will add value to blog. People want to know what other people think, so it's great idea to tell exactly what you think, using the least amount of words possible. Actually blogger should be attentive to his readers. I mean blogger should care about the accurate appearance of the article, simple and logical construction of article’s body, checked and unified links, and also politeness and attention to readers’ comments. |
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| BloggersBase on the Net |
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Ruben Ricart explains the opportunities for gaining traffic and recognition by using BloggersBase.
Sheryl writes on “Finding Money Online” and explains how the competition on BloggersBase works. She indicates the benefits of getting recognition as a blogger as well as the possible earnings. |
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| BloggersBase Recommends |
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New Tool for Bloggers
 As prominent, influential and trend-setting users in the blogosphere, BloggersBase is happy to introduce you from time to time to new services we think might give you added value as bloggers.
Wibiya is a platform that enables you to integrate the most exciting services, applications and widgets of your choice into your blogs through customized web-based toolbars. Their platform offers a one-stop easy solution for integrating, managing and tracking third-party applications (think about Facebook Connect and Twitter alerts to communicate with your fans, with many more coming).
Take a look at one of the blogs in their private beta group at http://bit.ly/Ku7Y (notice their bar on the very bottom) and visit their site for more information http://www.wibiya.com. |
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| Invite Your Friends! |
Help us spread the word about BloggersBase and you could win monetary prizes! Simply invite your friends or refer other bloggers by placing a link to BloggersBase on your own site. To do this, choose one of the banners offered in the 'My Account' tab of your profile page and place it on your web page. Each time a blogger who registers by following your link wins the competition in one of the surface blogs a cash bonus will be added to your balance. You can track the number of referred users and your bonuses in the 'My Account' tab of your profile.
You can also invite friends to join by clicking "Invite" on your profile widget to the same effect!
Contact Us
Regarding any questions about BloggersBase or suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact us here
If you wish to unsubscribe from our newsletter please update the ‘receive newsletter’ preference under the preferences tab in your profile. |
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| Tip of the month |
Previously we spoke about how important excerpt images are when publishing a post. In this monthly newsletter we would like to emphasize their importance in BloggersBase's new layout. The new features in the new interface including the before mentioned “Sliding Menu”, “Related Posts” and “Preview” use excerpt images. If you do not choose an excerpt for yourself, BloggersBase tries to choose one for you automatically.
Due to this being an automated service, the excerpt images might not perfectly fit your post, might not be to your liking, or might fail to locate the most appropriate image altogether. When you choose the excerpt image yourself, it provides a more accurate impression of what your post is about and serves the purpose you have intended, increasing your visibility and exposure. |
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