Blogging: What you need to know to start your own Blog right now!

1. What’s a “Blog”?

“Blog” is the shortened form of the word ‘weblog’, coined by John Barger, one of the earliest weblog authors. According to Wikipedia, Peter Merholz abbreviated the term to just “blog” with the line “I’ve decided to pronounce the word “weblog” as wee’- blog. Or “blog” for short.” And a new Internet sensation had a brand new name.

2. What Are They Used For?

When weblogs first began, they were generally just a daily [public] journal, or a list of web links the author found interesting or useful, and sometimes some commentary on the links.  Today, blogs are ubiquitous and serve purposes ranging from the original - a daily public diary - to the commercial, containing information and commentary about products or services. A political candidate almost has to have a blog these days, where he can rally his supporters and tell them what his platform is and what he’s doing. Many businesses create blogs that allow them to inform customers and clients about current and future events, new products, or new ways to use the products they already own. Individuals create blogs to express themselves, to record the events in their lives, or to keep wide-spread families updated on their personal events.  People create blogs about their hobbies, their cars, their dogs… the list goes on. There are as many reasons for creating blogs as there are blogs, and they are extremely popular. Technorati.com - a site that tracks and aggregates blogs - is currently tracking 112.8 million of them!

Before you set out to create a blog, you’ll need to decide what your blog will do. Will it be your public diary? Will it be the place where you wax enthusiastic about your Mustang, or your garden? Will it be the place you review the music that you love, or the art that you find compelling? Will you talk about books, or furniture construction, or fishing? Only you can decide. You should already have an idea what you want to blog about before you set out to build one.

3. Hosting Considerations 

Having decided what to blog about, you’ll still be faced with some important decisions that are technical in nature. Hosting is the term describing the service performed by the web server - it hosts the blog, or stores the blog’s information locally and serves it up to web browsers when they ask for it by name. A blogger can host their blog in several ways.

Hosted on their own server, provided their ISP’s terms of service allow it. This solution is labor intensive and security intensive. Any web server will be faced with many attempted attacks from “black hats” - the generic term for people who want to do something bad to your system, whether it’s simply crash it, deface it, or take it over and use it to send spam. For this reason and others, you should only host your own blog if you’re extremely comfortable securing and maintaining servers.
Hosted at a web hosting company, where a staff maintains the servers’ hardware, but the blogger is responsible for maintaining the web server software, and installing and maintaining their own blog software, like Movable Type, WordPress, or B2Evolution. This is a solution for someone who’s very technically competent, but doesn’t want to host their own web site. This might be because of the labor overhead or the terms of service from the ISP, since most of them prohibit running ’servers’ on residential Internet service.
Hosted at a dedicated blog hosting site. There are quite a few such sites that aggregate multiple blogs on one hosting substrate. Usually they’ll have a domain, and your blog will be distinguished by the bit of the name known as the hostname. For instance, you might have myblog.blogspot.com. Blogger.com is a popular blog hosting site, and if you establish a blog there, your blog’s name will be prepended to the domain name.

For most beginning bloggers, the third solution is going to be the right one, for several reasons:

Maintenance - These blog hosting services have a staff that maintains the hardware and software involved in delivering your blog to Internet at large. You don’t have to buy, power, or maintain anything but your blog itself.
Reliability - Most of these hosting services are much more reliable than you could expect your PC to be as a server platform.
Exposure - Most of these hosting services have their own aggregation processes that can highlight your content for other users, and have features that make it simple for you to update the common aggregation and syndication sites, like Technorati.com and feedburner.com.
Simplicity - Most of these services make it extremely simple to create posts, manage archives, and generate RSS or Atom feeds (we’ll talk about those in a bit).

4. Getting Started

You can search Google for the phrase “blog hosting sites” and find, literally, twenty or more sites that will allow you to set up a blog for free. Some of the most popular are blogger.com, livejournal.com, typepad.com, and wordpress.com. Any one of the services would serve the purposes of a beginning blogger very well.

To sign up, all you’ll need is an email address. Blogger.com is one of my favorites, and it’s as good a place as any to start your journey. When you go there to sign up, you’ll be asked to create a “Google Account”.  If you already have a gmail account, you can use that - if you don’t, you should probably get one, as it’s useful far beyond the scope of blogger.com. But if you’re in a hurry, you can use your current address. You’ll need to supply your email address, a password, a Display Name (this is the name that blogger will put in the byline on all of your blog posts). You’ll need to confirm the captcha, which is an image of distorted alphanumeric text designed to make sure that you’re a human and not a spammer. It doesn’t always work, but it’s a pretty good protection.  Finally, you’ll need to read and accept the terms of service.

If you’ve filled out all the proper information, the next screen you’ll see asks you for a blog title. Fill that in - it’s what will show up on the blog page. It can be whatever you want. “Steve’s Blog” or similar. Choose a URL that you like (and that’s not taken!) - this is the address that will go in the address bar of the browser. Pick a template you like, and click continue. You can change the template later if you decide you don’t like it. You’ll see a confirmation page that says “Your blog has been created”, and you can click on “Start Blogging”.

You’re ready to create your first blog post! Put in a title, click on the main window and start writing. Blogger now autosaves drafts, so even if you get disconnected, you won’t lose your post. Click on “Publish Post” and you’ve completed your very first blog post.  Click on “View Blog” to see what it will look like to the rest of the Internet when they stumble across your little corner.

5. Comments

On the internet, comments can be problematic. If you turn them off, you’ll turn off a certain percentage of viewers, because blogs are widely viewed as interactive media. If you leave them on, you’d better have thick skin - a certain percentage of Internet commenters feel that it is their personal job to be scathingly critical of everyone who attempts to express themselves in a public forum. “Comment Spam” is another common problem of blogs, where “bots” (scripts) or hired flunkies post comments that are not much more than a list of links to sites featuring all kinds of “services” ranging from anatomical treatments to “ch3ap v1agra”. Many sites have spam fighting techniques implemented, like registration or captchas, and this can save you a LOT of work. The alternative is comment moderation.  Comment moderation is a system where you, the blog owner, have to review every comment posted and approve or reject it. This approach is labor intensive, but ultimately ensures the highest quality of dialog, provided the blog owner (you) is prompt.

Another type of response is called a trackback, sometimes referred to as a pingback. This is when someone sees your blog post and wants to respond to it, but feels that the response requires more space than the comment system allows. They post on their own blog and send a trackback to your site. If your site supports trackbacks, the response will appear in your comment area with a link to the entire post on the responder’s blog.

6. Feeds

A feed is a means of syndication, such as RSS or Atom, that offer blog readers a means of aggregating the blogs they read into a convenient format. Probably the single most popular syndication reader is Google Reader, but there are many standalone readers, generically referred to as “RSS Readers”, even though they support Atom as well, in general. Most of the blog hosting sites will provide these feeds for you, with a link that says something like “Subscribe to this Blog”. Users can copy this link and paste it into Google Reader, and whenever you make a post it will show up in their Google Reader views.

7. Notification

There are several services that track new posts and update various search engines and aggregators with the information that your blog has been updated. The one I use is called “Ping-O-Matic”, at pingomatic.com. This service will update 21 search engines and aggregation sites with one notice from you, making it efficient and useful.  You can visit the site and look at the list of services that it updates for an idea of the type of sites that need to know about your blog. Why do we want to do this? So people can find your blog. That’s the beauty of the Internet - it democratizes information. You can have thousands of eyeballs on your site in a matter of days if your topic is compelling enough and you show up in the right search engines.

8. Profit?

There are blogs that make money for their owners. They are few and far between. Blogs make money with advertisements, and the only way to make money with advertisements is to put them on your blog. Many Internet businesses will pay you per click or per sale for people coming to their site from your links. This may sound too good to be true - and it is. You need a LOT of pageviews and targeted advertisements to make enough money to matter. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Google’s pay per click system, or Amazon’s affiliate program, I’m just telling you that you probably won’t get rich at it.

But if you decide to try an make money with your blog, I have a few suggestions for you.
Don’t become a link farm - sites that build articles solely to drive traffic to their list of links become easily recognizable as spam very quickly. You might make a hundred bucks the first month, but after that you’ve got a domain that’s spoiled.
Be selective about advertisements. If you have a blog about cars, don’t run advertisements about home vacuum cleaners. Run ads about car wax or car wheels or even auto photo albums, but make sure that people who are actually interested in your topic will probably be interested in your advertisements, as well.
Engage in SEO in a good sense. We don’t want to drive just anyone to the site. We want to drive people to the site that are actually interested in what you, the blogger, have to say. This makes it much easier to target advertisements, as well, and if you provide good content, no one will be irritated by the advertisements on your blog.

Conclusion

You now have your very own blog. It’s a place you can express yourself, a place where millions of people might see what you have to say. It’s a very simple process, and it can be very rewarding if you put some thought and time into it. If you do it for long enough, you can build a fairly impressive body of work, essays that you can then assemble into your own personal book, be it commentary, opinion, or just narrative. So get busy, and Happy Blogging!

Learn From 15 Ebay PowerSellers How They Raked In Over $11,726,200 Last Year Alone

Eight Steps to Making Money with a Social Network Site

You don’t need to be a major metropolitan broadcaster or newspaper or a large corporation to succeed with social networking, nor must you take a major leap to get started. You can test the social waters slowly with just a feature or two, if that is your business’ comfort level and budget. 

Here are the steps:

Before you buy equipment, hire contractors or staff or advertise your social media product, you must plan.  It is vital that you give a lot of thought to what you are doing and why.  Is it because your current readers, clients, customers, patients or community members are asking for it? The biggest mistake business people make in setting up a social network or user-generated community site is that they forget to research and plan. You must set policies in place, know the step-by-step procedures you are going to take, and who is going to do what. You must also determine if you are going to police community-contributed content. If so, who is going to be responsible for that and when? The best wisdom is that you allow comments uncensored and let other community members flag them for review if they find them offensive.

Assign a product manager. This should be someone who really understands the community you’re targeting, and someone that many community members know and trust.  It might be a well-known local business owner, performer or prominent activist.    If your community isn’t geographic but rather a niche community of like-minded individuals, you’ll want someone recognizable in that avocation, occupation or interest.

You should decide on what features you want to offer immediately, and those you’ll add later. This will help you decide on any vendors you must hire. 

You might:

• Offer blogs or allow community members to upload their own
• Allow individual profiles
• Provide online entry of user-generated photos, videos and/or articles, reviews, ratings or contribution of events to your community calendar.
• Include classified advertising and allow buyer /seller conversations.
• Hold contests and sweepstakes
• Enable an audio player for music listening and uploading

You must detail all aspects of your social media profit.  Of course it’s important to determine how you are going to make money with your social network site. Beyond that, however, you must decide who is going to sell your products and how you are going to compensate them for that. You must set your fees and make sure you have a platform that will allow for short term specials. Will you offer classified advertising, banner advertising, pay per click or other form of advertising such as sponsorships?  

You must choose the vendors that will help you launch and maintain your social network site. For this you’ll want companies that pledge themselves to your success and not those that just want to sell you a product and then disappear.  Look for a vendor that has several clients akin to you in size and target market. If the vendor is new and without a track record, study the background of its founders and key personnel. See if they have familiarity with your type of product or service. 

You must then lure contributors. Most social network sites do not compensate their contributors. Most folks love to see themselves, their families, their neighbors and their pets pictured and talked about on the Web. If, however, you are trying to find community photographers to go out on a regular basis and take multiple photos of community events, consider enabling online sales of the photos. You could then commission your photographers based on the sales.

You have to market your social network site. Grass roots seems to be the preferred marketing method for numerous community user-generated sites. What works best is showing up at community events, sometimes helping to sponsor the events, speaking at local clubs, and handing out tchotchkes.    

Don’t forget to track the results of your social networking efforts. It’s important that you know who is viewing your site, how often, and how long they’re staying.  Your advertisers and advertising prospects will know to know this too.   There are a number of excellent lead generation and CRM products, some that work hand in glove with each other, that will help you keep track of consumer activity on and about your site, and will also let you know what advertising resources companies in your target area or interest are now using.

Keep in mind, as you progress through the creation of your social networking site that there are three key ingredients in your success.  You must first know what it is that you want to accomplish; you must then know what you are going to do each step of the way to make that happen; and, finally, you must take steps to recognize that you accomplished it. With detailed market research and planning, a smart mix of social features and tools, help from the right vendor, the buy-in of your staff, and plenty of grass roots marketing, you can succeed at social networking.

Learn From 15 Ebay PowerSellers How They Raked In Over $11,726,200 Last Year Alone

7 Steps to Successful Buying on EBay

EBay is an online store where you can find almost anything you could ever hope to purchase, but buying on eBay is not without its perils. By following the tips set out below however, you should quickly be able to find what you are looking for and successfully bid on it without falling into any traps!

1. Define your search criteria carefully.  If you want a large size blue dress, then type in blue dress large - or blue dress L.  If you were to type dress L or worse, just dress, you are going to get a lot of items to look though!  Although buying on eBay isn’t tiring on your feet, it can be tiring on your eyes if you have too many pages to look at before finding your ideal item.  If you can’t find anything with your perfect search, widen it slightly (by taking away the specified color for example) and see the search engine shows you.  Only give a general search term when you have exhausted all other possibilities.

2. If you are buying electronics, try and do some research before logging into eBay so that you have some idea what it is you are looking for in terms of makes/models and features. 

3. If you are buying for a gift for someone else, add the word “new” to your search criteria - for example “New Elizabeth Arden moisturizer”.  Other ways new items are defined at eBay are NRFB (never removed from box) and MIB (mint in box).  The second, MIB doesn’t mean that the item hasn’t been removed from the box however so you might like to ask the seller about this if it’s important.  It’s possible that the seller may send it direct to the gift recipient, and some sellers even advertise that they will gift wrap.

4. Once you locate an item, check where the eBay seller will send it.  If they don’t send to your location you have two choices, move on to the next item on the search list, or if there isn’t another choice, ask the seller if they will make an exception.  Although it’s not always the case, if you have 100% positive feedback, and can pay via Paypal, the answer is often yes.

5. Having found an item which the eBay seller will ship to you, check out the shipping costs.  Are these the actual costs or is the seller quoting a “set” figure for all.  This means that regardless of what you buy, you will pay the same amount - and this could include a payment to cover packaging which can be excessive in some cases.  If the seller indicates that there will be packaging fee to add to the shipping, don’t bid until you find out what this is.

6. Check the payment options.  If you can’t pay by the methods requested by the eBay seller, move onto the next item on the search list.

7. If everything seems to be in order, place a bid.  Think about how much you are willing to pay for the item and then put this figure in as your bid amount.  It won’t register immediately at that amount unless someone has bid just below it.  Instead it will automatically keep bidding on your behalf until your maximum is reached.  If this happens, don’t be tempted to bid higher - start the search process again and find a similar item and bid on that instead!

Learn From 15 Ebay PowerSellers How They Raked In Over $11,726,200 Last Year Alone

Successful Selling Techniques on eBay

One’s man’s trash is another man’s treasure and this is certainly proved time and again at eBay.  When decluttering your home, you could raise some extra cash by selling off your unwanted sale buys, or unused wedding gifts, as well as clearing a space in your home.  Selling on eBay isn’t just a case of putting up a small ad and hoping for the best however, follow the ideas below and you’ll be in good shape to start turning all of your clutter into cash!

1. Sell the item!  You might not like it, but there will be someone else who will so really sell it!  In your item description give the general condition of the item, is it complete, does it have the original box, does it have an instruction manual if needed, and most importantly is it new, or never used?  These are all points that will help a buyer ascertain whether or not your item is better than a similar one being sold by another eBay seller.

2. Be honest!  Whilst you want to sell the item, you must be honest about it.  If there is a chip or tear, if the item is new but the packaging a bit crumpled, if there is one Lego missing, etc - make sure that you note this in your description.  Whilst you want to sell the item, you want the buyer to be happy so that you get a good feedback rating as this will help towards gaining you future buyers.  Negative feedback from buyers means that other buyers will be reluctant to deal with you so make sure the buyer is absolutely clear about what they will be getting.

3. Pictures speak louder than words!  If possible get a photo of your item and put this on the auction page.  If there are any faults with the item, or if it is still in its original packaging, take a photo to show this also.  If you are offering a number of items as one “lot”, take a photo of each of them so that all items are shown - perhaps a buyer doesn’t want them all but is interested enough in one or two of them to make a bid on the entire lot!

4. Explore shipping costs and give an accurate shipping price on your page!  If you accept international buyers, give the domestic shipping rates and tell the international buyers that you will ship via whatever mail option you choose and that they should contact you for prices before placing a bid.

5. Choose your payment methods to allow the greatest number of buyers possible! 

6. Set a price to start your bidding! this should be the lowest amount you are willing to accept for the item and take account of any costs involved in selling it on eBay which could include the listing fee, any Paypal costs, packaging etc. 

7. Decide how many days the auction will run for! the longer you leave it the more buyers will see it, but most of the action usually happens in the last day or so.

8. Put your item up for auction! Now just wait for the bids to start coming in.

Learn From 15 Ebay PowerSellers How They Raked In Over $11,726,200 Last Year Alone

The Best Store Anywhere - eBay!

It doesn’t matter what you want, you are sure to find it at eBay!  The largest auction site on the Internet is home to every product from the mundane to the magical with everything in between.  If it’s possible to package it up and sell it, then you stand more chance of finding it on eBay than any other retail outlet in the world!

Not only is eBay THE place to find the missing piece from your chess set, or the last item in your collection of special edition print, it’s also the place where thousands of people are making money!  Starting off selling their own clutter when eBay started to make its mark online, sellers are now running home businesses where they purchase items from other sources that they then sell through the site.  Some people have started a business selling their services, or products which cater to specific buyers, and have become very successful in the process. 

Decluttering is the in-thing these days.  Homes are supposed to become more functional with unused or unwanted items being disposed of.  By putting them in an eBay auction you gain in two ways - firstly by getting the item out of your home, and secondly by earning a little cash into the bargain.  It’s a win-win situation with the buyer getting something that they need or want at a price that is usually much less than they’d pay in a store.

As with all things you do have to be careful however.  Not all eBay people are sincere and play nice.  Make sure that you protect yourself by not sending out your item until it is paid for.  Don’t buy anything that has a description which doesn’t say that the item is working or refer to its general condition.  Whether you are the buyer or seller, read the feedback of the person you are going to be doing business with before entering into a transaction so that you are as sure as you can be that the sale will be genuine. Buyers need to look for hidden costs in items they are interested in bidding on, and sellers need to make sure they take their costs into account when setting the start price for the item. 

Bidding on items at eBay couldn’t be easier with the automated system allowing you to place a maximum bid and then leave the system to bid on your behalf up to that amount.  Watch out for last minute snipers however, these are the buyers who wait until the auction is almost up and then place a large bid knowing that no-one will have time to better it!  The experienced eBay buyer will have two screens open on the items they are really desperate to own and are ready to match any lurking snipers - this sometimes becomes a power play until one of them emerges the victor when the auction automatically ends cutting of the chance to bid higher!

Shopping on eBay is fun and exciting.  It’s the largest store in the world and it really does have something for everyone!

How to Find People on MySpace

In the top toolbar, next to the <Home> link, you will see a <Browse> and a <Search> link. Though they sound similar in function, the two pages are quite different. The Browse page is used to search the entire MySpace network, while the Search page has more specific searches, such as Classmate Finder.

Browse Profiles
Let’s explore the <Browse> link now. You’ll notice a bunch of profile pictures with a search box at the top of the page.  The search form has two tabs:  basic and advanced search.  Both can be used to search the entire network, or only your friends.  That option is found just under the search engine tab.  On the left-side of the basic search box you can select if you want to search for men, women, or both.  You can then choose an age bracket from pull down menus.  Ages start at 18 and end with 100.  Hey, don’t smirk at that, people are living longer!  Next you can select one or more status options such as single or divorced.  Why are you searching for people?  Is it to make friends?  Find a job?  Or date?  Make the relevant selections and then move to the bottom of the search box. You can narrow you search by choosing a country from the drop-down menu, and if that particular country has a zip or post code, you can further narrow down the results to a certain number of miles from a specific region. (i.e. 30 miles from 60610.) If you are just looking for online friends, this really doesn’t matter.  

If you would like to see only profiles with photos, or names and photos, choose that option in the far bottom right side of the search box.  Last but not least, decide how you want the results presented:  recently updated, last login, new to MySpace, or distance.  Click <Update>.  This will update the pictures that show on the Browse page.  If the user is online, a small “Online Now” flashing icon will appear under the picture.

The Advanced Search engine let’s you really narrow down the specific from body type to ethnicity.  The basic search engine is good if you’re looking for online friends, the advanced option is more for people who date offline.

Search
There are five main options on the search page:  general MySpace search, finding people you already know, locating old classmates, searching for affiliations for networking, and links to see results for the 10 most popular searches.

MySpace Search
The top search box is a general MySpace search.  Chose an area of the site from the drop down menu (i.e. blogs, music, etc.) then type in your keyword, click <Find> and review the results.

Friend Finder
The next search box allows you to find people you know.  First decide if you’re going to search by their name, display name, or email.  Chose the appropriate radio button, type in the information, then click <Find>.  If there is a match, you will the person’s profile picture and heading, personal information he/she has elected to shared, the date of the last profile update, and links to view the profile, send a message or IM, forward to a friend, or ad to blog list.

Classmate Finder
Next you can find classmates, by entering your school name in the “Find Classmates” search engine.   Enter in your country and state, and then press <Find>. The search engine is pretty fussy, so be sure to enter the exact name of your school including any hyphens if applicable.  A screen may appear staying MySpace can’t locate your school.  You then have the option to click the first letter of the city where the school is located.  Click the letter, and then if you see your town, click on the link.  From there you can either choose to see schools in a specific grade level (first grade through college) or you can opt to see all school in that particular city.

When/if you see your school’s name, click on the link you and you will be taken to a page with profiles on the bottom half, and a search engine on top half.  The search engine allows you to narrow down your classmate search from date of attendance to present marital status.

Affiliations for Networking
To find people with certain affiliations to network with, first enter a category field from the pull-down menu. Once a selection is made, a menu of appropriate sub-fields is activated.  Choose the appropriate one from the pull-down menu.  Next, choose the role of the person you wish to network with.  For example, if you choose the Publishing field, Business sub-field, some of the available roles to choose from would be agent, publisher, buyer, etc.  Adding a keyword for your search is option.  Remember, anyone can claim to be a talent or literary agent on MySpace, so never meet with, or relinquish your work to anyone, without full contact information and a list of references that you check out.  It is also not a bad idea to check their file with the Better Business Bureau and do a background check on the agency.

How to Make (or get rid of) Friends

Okay, so you know how to find people, and visit their profile, but how do you make friends, and interact with current ones on MySpace?  For starters, perform a search, or browse profiles as you previously learned.  It’s best to search for people you know, or people with similar interests. 

The Contact Menu
When you see a site you’d like to visit, click on the profile link.  As with your profile, you’ll notice a contact menu, normally in the left-side menu bar.  Your options are to 1) send an email; 2) add the member to your friends list; 3) send an instant message; 4) add the member to one of your groups; 5) forward the profile to a friend; 6) add the profile to your favorites list; 7) block the user; and 8) rank the user.

Send a Message
The option to send a message allows you to send an email through your MySpace email account, which you learned how to do earlier.  Just click <Send Message>, add a subject if any, type your message in the body and click <Send.> The next time the person logs in, a “New Message” notice will appear in their mail center.  Once your message is sent you have the option to return to the user’s profile, or your inbox.

Add to Friends
When you find the profile of someone you would like to include as a friend, click the <Add to Friends> option.  A message will appear asking if you really want to add this user to your Friends list.  Click <Yes> to proceed and <No> to cancel and reconsider  The next time the user logs in, a message will appear just above the contact menu alerting that he/she has a new friend request.  It is up to that person to accept or deny the request.

Likewise, when someone requests to be your friend, you see a message that says “New Friend Request” in your mail center.  When click the link, you’ll see the date of the request, the requestor’s picture if any, and their username with a link to the profile.  You have three options:  Approve, Deny, Send a Message.  If you have many to approve or deny you can click the box next to the requests you wish to accept, and then hit the <Approve Selected> or <Deny Selected> buttons.  Once approved, your new friend’s photo (if any) now appears in your Friend’s Space on the right-hand side of your profile.  They are not able to post comments to your page.

Delete Friends
To delete a friend, click <Home> to get to our main edit page if you’re not there already.  Now, keep in mind that when you delete a friend, they will not receive a message, so this person will only figure it out if they try to send a comment.  So, be aware of this.  Go to your Friends Space (right-hand corner just above Comments.)  Click on the < Edit Friends> link.

Check the box next to the profile you wish to delete, then click the <Delete Selected> button and poof-they disappear from the list.

Instant Message
If the user’s “online” icon is showing you can send an instant message or IM, by clicking the <Instant Message> link.  A window will appear allowing you to type in a message.  Once you submit the message, it will instantly pop up on the recipients screen, provided he/she is still online.  You may receive a message that the user does not accept Instant Messages, in that case, you will be unable to send one.

Add to Groups
To invite a member to join a group you must first of all belong to a group and secondly, have the authority to invite new members. If you do, click <Add to Groups> to send an invite request.

Forward to Friends/Add to Favorites
Let’s say that you’re on MySpace online, and you’ve found the profile of a long lost friend, or a profile that you find interesting, you can forward it to your other friends by clicking the <Forward to Friend> link and selecting the friends from the drop down menu that you want to inform.  You can also click <Add to Favorites> to save this to your favorites folder.

Block User
If there is a particular user you would like to block, just visit his/her profile and click <Block User> from the contact list.  You will then be asked to confirm by clicking <Yes> or cancel the block request by clicking <No>. 

Rank User
Yes, that’s right, users can rank other users.  When you click the Rank User option, you will see a scale from 1 (cold) to ten (hot).  Choose the number you feel is appropriate for the profile.  There is no need to press a submit button, however, if you’d rather not rank the user, click <Skip>.

So, how do your fair in the MySpace world?  To see your ranking, click <Home> to go to your main edit page. 

To the right, you’ll see a data menu like the one pictured here. This shows how many people are in your network (this number increase fast), the number of views your profile has received, and your last login in.  Under this information are links that show your rank, favorites folder, invite history, classified and bulletin posts, and your groups. 

When you upload a photo, you are asked if you want to add that image to the rankings.  If you click yes, then users can view, and rate the picture on a scale from 1-10.  This is designed for pictures of people, but you can add any picture you want.  Hey, our daisy photo was ranked a four—thanks for…..that. 

Adding Comments
On the right side of the user’s profile page, you will see, towards the bottom, a list of that person’s friends, and below that, a list of comments people have made.  Comments are a fun way to interact on MySpace.  For teens it would be like that passing remark in the hallways at school, or that note left on dorm room bulletin board.  To add a comment to someone’s profile, go to the comment section (bottom right-hand side) and look for “Friends Comments.”  Next to that you will see an “Add Comment” link.  Simply type your message into the box, and click <Submit>.

If you are not an approved friend of the person, you will receive a message telling you, that you cannot post a comment. 

If you are a friend, and your comment does not show up immediately the person approves all comments before they’re posted.  This was covered earlier in Privacy Settings.  If you allow all posts on your comment pages, be sure to regularly check and edit comments, and you never know what people will say—or what information may be divulged about you.  To delete a comment, click <View My Profile> under your picture, and then scroll down to your comments area (right-hand side). At the top of the section you will see a “View/Edit” link.  If you click this, you will see all the comments with a link to delete each one separately.

Photo Comments
You can also add comments to people’s pictures. From their profile page, click <View My Pics> under the profile picture, and you will see a photo album of images with links underneath to comment, email the picture to a friend, or report the image to MySpace.  Again, you must be a friend of the person to comment on images.  

Other MySpace Features

Home
The Home link will always take you to the main edit page.

Film
This is your directory to mainstream, Indie, and even small label films.  MySpace members can also submit a request to participate in free screenings.  If you have a film to promote you can submit it to MySpace, then include a clip on your side (video option) and possible be featured on the Film page.  You will also find some very cool forum topics on this page, like how to write a script.  Forum links are found in the left-side menu bar towards the bottom of the page. If you’re looking for profiles of famous faces, this is also the place to look. Often times when a new film is promoted on MySpace, the MySpace pages of a director, actor/actress, writer, etc. will be linked to the film information.

Music
This takes you to the main music page which you learned about in the Add Music section.

Comedy
If you like jokes, searching for the next big comedian, or sketch comedy, click the Comedy link.  You can also participate in fun forums like the funniest movie line. Each comedienne is listed with their picture, profile name, type of comedy they perform, location, last time their page was updated, how many times it’s been viewed or played, and how many fanes he/she has.  Click on a profile that catches your eye to go to that page. (Keep in mind that there may be some inappropriate material for people under 21.)

Go back to the main comedy page.  To the right, above profiles, you’ll see links to view the Top Comedians, Gigs, the Comedian Forum, and to Sign Up as a Comedian.  To add yourself to the funny pages of MySpace, you will be taken to a registration page. 

Promote
If you click on the <Promote> link in the bottom menu bar (very bottom of the screen) you will see a list of banners and codes.  You can add that code to any other web page you have (or even our MySpace page), but if you change the URL to your MySpace URL then anyone who signs up is automatically added to your friends list.

Buying/Selling/Finding a Job
MySpace has an extensive listing of classifieds for US and international members. Posting a classified ad is free too!  Use the MySpace classifieds to buy and sell items, find or post a job, find a new home or apartment, and buy or sell services.  Ironically, this is an under-advertised section of MySpace! You can find the Classified section on the top tool bar, all the way to the right.

On your first visit to the Classifieds, you’ll notice the page defaults to the My Ads page for Los Angeles.  Click the <Change City> link under Los Angeles to pick a different city.   A page showing all the available cities and regions will appear.  Just click on the one you want.  This will then become your default city for your Classifieds page.

Once you choose a different city, you’ll notice that a page with ad categories now appears.  Click on a main, or sub category to view all ads.  If you see something you like, click on it and learn how to respond. Also, notice in the upper right-hand corner of the page, are links for posting or viewing your ads.  This is a great place to find or post a job, or buy or sell items.  Remember, don’t post personal information such as your home phone or address in your ad, but rather have responses sent to your MySpace email address.  The <My Ads> link in the upper right-hand corner will show you all the ads you have listed.

Career Forum
If you click on the <Forum> link in the top menu bar, you’ll find a Career/Jobs forum about four folders down.  Click on the forum folder to the far left and then click the <General> folder.  As you look over the subject lines of the posts, you’ll notice most are either people looking for work, to get rich quick opportunities.