Today is BlogDay. Happy BlogDay.
I’m sure most of you have never heard of BlogDay, and that even includes most long-time bloggers. Depending on who you ask, BlogDay was on March 29th, April 20th, May 11th, August 1st, or most commonly referenced on October 17th (but only in the United Kingdom and only in 2006). But I’m here to tell everybody that, for the fifth year now, BlogDay is today, August 31st.
Why August 31st and not any of the other dates thoughtlessly thrown around in the past. Because today is day 31 in month 08, or “3108″, which is visually similar to the word “Blog”. (Go ahead, at it look again.)
According to the BlogDay website, “on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.” If this were just a straight forward list of my top 5 recommend blogs I’d undoubtedly start off with Lifehacker, but since Lifehacker is already one of the top 10 most popular blogs on the planet, that would go against BlogDay’s premise to promote new blogs worth discovering. So without further adieu here are my five BlogDay 2009 recommendations (in no particular order)…
1) CLT Blog – http://cltblog.com/
CLT Blog (I’m not sure if you’re supposed to say “Charlotte” or “C-L-T”) is a very well done local blog covering Charlotte, North Carolina, especially its music, art, nightlife, and politics. With a team of over 20 creative journalists, they produce a product that in most ways is good enough to compete with the major media players in town. I especially appreciate their on-scene coverage of events with videos and photos, which tend to be more documentary style than story-telling.
2) Addie’s Charlotte Blog – http://charlotte.about.com/b/
Sticking with the local blogs theme, Addie’s Charlotte Blog covers the Queen City for the well known uber-guidance website About.com. Unlike CLT Blog mentioned earlier, this local blog is maintained by just one person; Addie Rising, a former writer for Charlotte magazine and Charlotte Business Journal. She focuses on just a handful of short posts per week about light, positive, and family friendly topics. Some people may feel otherwise but I appreciate not being bombarded with the information overload of multiple posts per day on every minor subject. And while CLT Blog delivers coverage of local events, Addie tends to alert you of key upcoming events before they happen so it’s not too late for you attend it yourself. Her blog seems to be fairly unknown but that’s why I’m pointing it out as one worth checking out.
3) Bits – http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
Bits is the technology blog from the New York Times. You can get breaking technology news from a lot of sources but Bits does a great job of going beyond just the headlines and initial factoids, and explains indepth how the news will affect the industry and perhaps you. Being part of the New York Times, Bits also does a great job of finding interesting off-the-radar topics too.
4) In the Woods – http://blog.themeforest.net/
ThemeForest is an online marketplace where webmasters can buy and sell website design templates and themes. I subscribed to their blog, In the Woods, only to stay informed of their occasional deals and freebies, but I found that they give a lot of great tutorials on how webmasters can create cool and useful website elements. For example, their last two posts explained how to design a website with a specific font that may not already be installed on the visitor’s computer (normally you have to use safe fonts that you know everybody has) and how to make your own social bookmarking tags (the kind that lets you easily share a webpage with others on Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us, Digg, etc.).
5) All Facebook – http://www.allfacebook.com/
It wasn’t long ago that I thought Facebook was stupid. It wasn’t long ago that I finally signed up and started finding old friends. It wasn’t long ago that I reluctantly began to give in and start utilizing it more. None of that was long ago but it seems like forever, because I’m on Facebook a lot now and I really enjoy it. All Facebook is a unofficial blog about the mega social networking site. They mainly focus on content for application developers and those who use Facebook as a business venture (which I find useful since I help manage my business’ Facebook presence), but they often have some good articles for any Facebook user, like “How To Configure Your Facebook Page In Under 15 Minutes”.
blogday2009P.S. Since I just recommended five websites (plus Blog Day and Lifehacker too) I won’t be posting a Website Wednesday this week.
I really appreciate you mentioning us here, and your kind words. Addie's blog is a great recommendation too, definitely underappreciated.
Thx for reading See-El-Tea Blog.
Thanks for the mention Mike! I appreciate it.