Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

Not that I would now anything about this, but this bloke did all the hard work for us and compiled a list of lessons he had learnt while surfing researching Porn sites. Very funny and a wonderful insight in an industry that was largely responsible for e-commerce and the internet boom (after the dot com boom).

Here is a summary write up of his list:

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For the longest time I’ve wondered why Technorati or Google do not pick up web addresses in comment boxes left on other blogs. Well the reason, thanks again to David Airey, is that all links left in comment boxes have the “nofollow” tag. The origins of this system was really to prevent spammers from leaving comments in your posts to drive some of your traffic to their site or to create false web link-backs to their site to increase their Google Page Rank.

I think this is no longer necessary, simply because my Akismet spam control plugin works really well for me, (52, 679 Spam killed to date), and secondly I police each and every comment I get. Not because I’m obsessive, but because each comment left on my blog is important to me. Therefore I am on the band wagon that feels NoFollow Tags Suck. I mean if you are a legitimate blogger traveling the blogosphere, wanting to contribute to discussions at the Design Sojourn community and knowledge pool, why should I not send a “thank you” in a form of a link back currency?

Still not convinced? Do check out the ultimate Dofollow Guide by Andy Beard.

Finally I can say a big “Thank You!” to all my friends that have visited and stayed awhile.

Edit 1: Hmm I cant seem to get Link Love to work. So i’m dropping it for another more matured plugin. Please stand by as I have to run some errands and will only get back to this later today.

Edit 2: All right I’m up an running with the straight forward DoFollow plugin from Kimmo Suominen. So do comment and stand by for some link love!

Thanks for the graphic David!

Yet again I’m catching up with my tags. After graciously getting nudged by David, which I hoped my previous nudge to him returned the favor, here are my 5 reasons why I blog.

1) I wanted to learn all about the fuss that scared huddled people call Blogging and the Web 2.0.

2) Blogging is an outlet for my thoughts, which most people don’t get to hear, and wish I could write down somewhere.

3) I wanted to know how I would fair as a designer playing in the global arena. I seek answers for the question: “Is my design ability of a world class standard?”

4) To make a few Million dollars. Well it’s a nice dream eh?

5) Recently I found that its a great way to make friends with like minded people, when everyone around me did not understand what I’m babbling about.

Well all in all, I don’t think I could have written this post any earlier than today as I only was able to come up with my 5th point recently (guess I’m shallow?). Its this merging of the like minds that really excites me, so as fitting here are some smart people that get my brain waves oscillating: reBang, David Report, Architectradure, Green Designers, and SGEntrepreuneurs.

Gosh being a royal slacko, I failed to remember to pass this Meme “hot potato” on since it was graciously passed to me. Thanks again, csven I’m flattered. I had to trawl to 36 days of technorati links to dig the meme rules out.

Those of you I have “tagged”, here are the rules of participation:

If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. {Note - find the meme origin by tracing back through the person who nominated you: reBang. As well see which of the blogs have already been tagged previously.}

Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

Here we go, I wont say too much about them except do check them out.

1) David Airey: A graphic designer with a great sense of humor and smart to boot.

2) Logic + Emotion: One of my latest favorite reads as David Armano is all about holistic design innovation.

3) Small Surfaces: Gabriel White is as passionate about Interface Design as he is blogging about “Design for mobile technology”.

4) Artist Hideout: Is nice to see Artist William Lehman tackle Art and the Internet by the horns.

5) Life Clever: I think these clever designers spend more time blogging than working…

View blog authority Its pretty scary to see that there are that many people listening to me, I better behave!

This might be a little late in the news, but Technorati has recently tweak their “blogs linked here” rank name and changed the name to Authority. Personally I feel this new name is a much better description of the implications of Technorati’s ranking system. It describes the amount of people, in the last 6 months, that are listening or reading a blog and hence how much “word power” that blog has. These days information IS power.

Via: Logic + Emotion

Just kidding! I’m always a big fan of discussing the different methods you can use to monetize your webpage. However there is no use talking about Google Adsense or Affiliate programs if you can’t see the big picture of how things actually work.

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I have been tinkering around with The Design Sojourn blog during the Easter break and have got some bugs sorted out, as well as added some cool widgets.

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It’s fast approaching Chinese New Year and its tradition for us Chinese to do some massive spring cleaning of our homes. Here at Design Sojourn it is no different. I’m currently updating categories, reorganizing chicklets and tweaking CSS, so please do excuse the odd hick-up you may experience while visiting. Also together with a few of my design datelines coming up, blogging will slow a little as well. If you like, you can subscribe with your RSS feed reader or by email so you’ll know right away if there is anything new? All you have to do is just click on the buttons on sidebar to your right –>

Edit: Amended the title to be more factually correct!

Cornering the link market some say, “counterfeit links” others mention…recently I wrote of the 2000 project that started slowly, gained a lot of momentum, and then just like the darlings of any stock market it fell from grace when the people who write the blogging rules stepped in and started slapping wrists.
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Oh dear, just one day late, but I like to announce that one of my posts has been selected for a Blog Carnival called, “The Carnival of the Mobilists”. My first ever and not only that, I have been awarded a “Posting of the Week”!
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