[Note from the Proprietor: In case you're wondering what it's all about, well, we're smack in the middle of BLOGAPALOOZA! Hey, you're welcome to join in the fun if you like! All ya gotta do is click that cute little link and read all about it!]

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Guest post by Mark Dykeman who writes over at Broadcasting Brain

I started blogging at Broadcasting Brain in December 2007, so I have twelve months worth of posts to consider. Here’s what I came up with:

January – Social Media – Your Will Is Your Only Limit:  I learned that the years that I spent collecting and reading comics gave me a bunch of interesting ideas to mix and match with other concepts to try to come up with blog posts.

February – Buried – Analysis of a Digg Submission:  Digg.com is a popular social news site that can drive a lot of traffic to your blog or website if a story submitted to Digg becomes popular with the Digg users. This is the story of one of my blog posts which almost became popular on Digg, what happened to it, and what I learned from the experience.

March – Surprising Twitter Exchange:  I learned that you might be surprised at who is listening when you talk about them online.

April – 8 Things About StumbleUpon That Annoy Me:  I learned that the best way to get traffic from a website is to write about it. Plus, sometimes people are more interested in negative things than positive things.

May – Social media blog ideas for desperate people:  I learned how to start getting search engine traffic by writing this post. I also learned that search engine traffic doesn’t always stick around despite your best efforts.

June – Disqus comment system now used here:  I learned about Disqus, a third-party commenting tool which I’ve been using since June. It really, really cut down on the spam comments.

July – Coinage envy – what to do? I learned that it’s hard to try to introduce new phrases into society or small parts thereof.

August – Introverted sharing (blogging) vs. extroverted sharing (lifestreaming):  I learned that some people didn’t share my opinions on whether or not blogging was an introvert’s activity, compared to lifestreaming. And that’s OK.

September – Self-linking could make you go blind:  I learned that self-linking doesn’t actually make you go blind, but link bait can be fun.

October – Twitter is a never-ending festival of bytes:  I learned that I really do like Twitter. A lot.

November – A page full of thank yous for some great people:  I learned that it’s a good idea to thank people who’ve supported you in your creative efforts.

December – 22 Ultra Inspiring Blogs About Creativity and Idea Generation :  I found some really, really cool blogs.

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Mark Dykeman is the author of Broadcasting Brain:  harvesting cognitive surplus to create uncanny content.

Thanks to Robert for this opportunity to share these posts with you!

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[Further note from the Proprietor: Hey, if you're interested in having your own "best of 2008" posts highlighted right here at the Middle Zone, then by all means, click on this link: (BLOGAPALOOZA: What I Learned From 2008) and read all about it! BLOGAPALOOZA will be open for entries from now until Sunday, January 25.]

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