I delved into blogging tools back in 2004 when I started my Masters degree in CS. I wanted some code to mess around with in my free time and everyone was talking about blogging. I looked into a variety of tools, built a small Linux server for myself at home, and installed a few of the tools that were freely available at that time. I had a heck of a time getting a hold of MT (Moveable Type, the most well-known name) and then found b2 by sheer luck. I loved the cool look of Michael’s blog and the people involved in the tool seemed to be open to comments and replied warmly to my emails and questions. Through the b2 forums I heard about WordPress and proceeded to install it on my own. To my astonishment, it worked without a hitch and I was blogging away in no time. I started looking through the code to understand how it worked and it drew me in every step of the way.

Within a few months of installing WordPress, I started to take part in the forums and wrote a few plugins and created some “hacks” for the tool. I even gained some notoriety with my MT VS WP post and that’s when the WordPress ecosphere started to look very attractive to me. I did not do this to seek attention, but I was getting a lot of attention and I was loving it. I believe that was when Matt first noticed me and we exchanged some emails and chatted with each other. With every month and with every release of WordPress I was getting more involved. At some point I realized that I could not do it alone and hired a few interested people to help me write posts and the blog started to get popular. I brought on some advertisers to help me offset costs. Matt gave me and my blog the highest honor of being included in the WordPress Planet and that’s when things really started to happen for this blog. I also started a WordPress Job blog (http://jobs.wordpress.net) which I still curate and I got involved in WordPress evangelism. Somewhere within this time, Matt had asked me to work for him at the new company he was starting and I had to turn him down because of visa restrictions and because I wanted to finish school (I kick myself every time I think about that).

WordPress started to mature and WordCamps started to happen. I graduated from school with a Master’s Degree in Computer Science and found a job. I wanted to stay involved but it was getting bigger than I could handle. I could either dive in and get into WordPress and the blogging world, or I could focus on my job, career and family. I decided to choose the latter. I still wanted to loosely be involved with WordPress and things went well for a couple of years with me being casually involved. I even visited and spoke at a couple of WordCamps.

When my son Lucien was born, all my time and attention was exhausted on him. I could not spend any time with WordPress or blogging at all. In addition to my growing family, I was diagnosed with a serious health condition just as I was starting a new job and moving to a new city. Needless to say, the blog was the last thing on my mind. James, who has been the sole author and curator for a long time, was my winning hand and just a fantastic helper and well wisher. He has kept things running for a long time and I have had no complaints.

But I have found very little time to come back and spend with my old friends, Weblog Tools Collection and WordPress. I do not want this blog’s content and conversations to be lost or forgotten because of my neglect. I am hoping this move will help it live on as an archive, or find new lifeblood in another form. I know that it is in the right hands.

So Adios and Gracias. I hope to see you in another blog, and take part in another conversation with you someday. It has been a wonderful journey and I appreciate everything that has taken place because of WordPress and every bit of help and encouragement that has been provided to me by so many of you. So thank to my wonderful audience of many years, thanks to my advertisers, thanks to my authors and finally thanks to Matt and to WordPress for making my life so much more fulfilling and successful.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All, And to All a Goodnight!

I’m quite surprised to see the near tie between 1 to 3 times a month and every day, two frequencies which a quite different indeed. Rest-assured, most of you are blogging more than once a week, which is great news! You should enjoy blogging, and nothing says “I enjoy Blogging!” more than cranking out a few posts every week. Blogging shouldn’t be so difficult that you put it off. If you do, you’re doing it wrong. Try to find some little things to share, like a video you enjoyed watching or an article you enjoyed reading. The more you blog, the better you’ll get, and the more fun you’ll have.

So, if you didn’t have a chance to tell us before, how often do you blog?

Putting those three reasons aside, one trend did emerge in the comments. Most of you blog because it’s fun. Sure, some of you blog for business and rarely have time for personal blogging, but it’s still fun, and that’s just great because if you consider blogging to be a chore, you’re doing it wrong. Even if it’s just for business, it should still be fun.

So, if you didn’t have a chance to earlier, let us know here. What do you blog for?

Don’t forget to vote and leave a comment below!

Don’t forget to vote and leave a comment below!

We have a comment policy here, and it’s as follows:

Comments will be accepted if they meet the following conditions:

• The comment is not spam.
• The comment is not left solely to drive traffic elsewhere. (Yes, this is spam.)
• The comment is not widely off topic.
• The comment is not obscene or profane.
• The commenter has left a real name or proper screen name. (“Cheap Lawn Chairs” and “Joe @ MyCellPhoneTips.blah” are not real names).

We do use a broad list of moderation keywords, but if your comment is held for moderation and abides by our comment policy, it will be accepted shortly.

By submitting a comment here you agree to the above comment policy and grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution.

You might notice that we’ve added a handy link to it above our comment form by just editing the theme’s comments template. It’s just about as easy as typing the desired text above the form fields. If you’d rather not get your hands dirty in the template, and you have a WordPress blog, try Comment License.

So, do you have a comment policy? If so, we’d love to hear what it is! If you don’t, what guidelines do you use to manage comments on your blog?

There are many ways to find more things to write about out. On of the most fun is to just plug yourself into various social media outlets, like Twitter and Facebook, and just follow along to find topics that interest you. Instead of replying with a 140 character tweet, write a fully detailed post on your blog. Similarly, if you comment on someone else’s blog, you might want to write a blog post to go with it.

If social networking isn’t your thing, and you’d prefer just some direct inspiration, stop by The Daily Post or Plinky for daily challenges and topics that might inspire you to write a quick post.

If words really aren’t your thing, but you still want to post more often, why not post a few photos? This is especially easy and fun if you have a WordPress blog and a mobile device with a camera that’s supported by one of the available mobile apps.

Either way you approach it, there are plenty of ways to fill your blog with content this year, so get out there and start posting, and don’t forget to have fun!

Are you going to pick a new theme, maybe customize the one you have, perhaps blog about more things and spice up your posts with some added media and links, or maybe something as simple as just blogging with an up-to-date browser?

Last year, I made a resolution to blog more often on my personal blog. I definitely met that goal with 107 posts in 2011 vs. a meager 28 in 2010. This year, I’m aiming for even more.

How about you? What’s your 2012 blogging resolution?

What I’ve always wondered is how website owners have any luck at all getting revenue from their websites?

With that question in mind, do you monetize your blog? If so, how do you do it? Do you display ads, charge a subscription fee, offer premium services, or something else entirely?

Despite some technical issues, the founders of platforms often thought of as rivals had some interesting thoughts to share about competition and community in the open source world. You can see the video below, and there are some choice quotes available at Schipul’s coverage of the event.

Premiered this year at SXSW, Blogger will be launching a completely overhauled user interface, putting to rest an interface that has begun to show its age. Following on its heels will be new mobile themes, and a new content discovery engine, “that lets you uncover interesting and related content based on the topics of the blog you’re currently reading.” Google promises that there will be more to come, but they are not ready to reveal anything else at this time.

2011 is starting to sound like a big year for the blogging giant, and it will certainly be interesting to see what comes of it.

If posting more often is your thing, head on over to WordPress.com’s The Daily Post, where you can find new topics, challenges, and helpful musings every day as part of their Post a Day initiative.

As for a new theme, finding free themes has never been easier or safer thanks to new changes made to the official Theme Directory.

If social networking is your thing, try Simple Facebook Connect and Simple Twitter Connect. If you’re after better Facebook and Twitter integration, these plugins do just about everything.

Well, what are you waiting for? Don’t wait too long on this year’s resolutions, otherwise they’ll become next year’s resolutions.

Are you going to try posting more often? Are you going to replace your outdated theme? Perhaps you’re finally going to take your blog to the profressional level, or maybe you’re considering starting a blog in the first place?

No matter what your plan is, we want to know! Please let us know in the comments below how you plan to change the way you blog or just change your blog itself in 2011.

The new interface provides real time stats for clicks, views, and podcast downloads, which means you can start seeing what content is drawing traffic from feed readers, Twitter, and other syndicated sources as it happens.

The interface can be accessed by clicking the “Try out the NEW (beta) version!” link at the top of your FeedBurner account page.  According to the launch article, “The best way to see these real time features is to publish a new post and then switch to the ‘Last two hours’ view to begin seeing updates.”

At this time, the new interface is primarily for the showcasing the new real-time stats.  All other account actions will still need to be done from the old interface.

What’s your take on the new FeedBurner upgrade? Is this just what FeedBurner needs to bring life back into the service, a step in the wrong direction, or too little too late?

Several popular blogs contributed this year, including The White House Blog and The Official Google Blog, and feel free to stop by our post for a great way to share your fundraising goals with your readers.

Despite the broad reach of this year’s Blog Action Day it was a rather steep decline from the over 31,000 blogs that participated last year regarding climate change. We’ll let you know as soon as voting begins for next year’s Blog Action Day topic, and hopefully we’ll wind up with a topic that more bloggers are passionate about.

If you published a post for this year’s Blog Action Day, kudos to you for participating, and please feel free to share it with us.