I see a number of bloggers who are starting out with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. I have been into Twitter before sponsored tweet opportunities had started out. Now I noticed an increase in the number of people who use Twitter to tap the potential of earning bucks from their Tweets.

In case you are not yet aware on what Twitter is all about, it is a site that allows anybody to answer the simple question: “What are you doing?”. However, I don’t use Twitter only to report what I am doing. I use Twitter to announce that I have a new blog post, share some news or ask help. This combination is the most effective way for me. The video below describes what Twitter is about.

Twitter in Plain English

Follow me on Twitter if you like. I have already gained some followers in this social network site.

Like blogging, there are some sites that offer opportunities to make money from Twittering away. Except for SocialSpark, I have not used all of these sites personally so I cannot guarantee success with these services. Read the rest of this entry

Since I had decided to embark on full-time freelance ventures, there is only one application that I use most often than any other installed in my computer – Firefox. I just realized that without this beloved browser, I would find it difficult to do freelance work. It is actually the tons of add-ons that are already written for the browser which made my work a lot easier to do.

I have around 25 plugins which I find indispensable in doing web design work and blogging. I don’t plan to discuss all these twenty-five plugins here but I would like to mention those that relate to my blogging work.

useful Firefox plugins for blogging

Read the rest of this entry

UPDATE: CarloReid had already made his own blog post packed with more commands to the PlurkYM bot. Check out his post about PlurkYM in his blog.

Plurk had not yet offered the capability to send status updates and microblogs through YM. Carlo Reid had suddenly thought of creating PlurkYM that makes it possible for users Yahoo Messenger to post status and microblog updates on Plurk. I caught him testing this and I got curious: he was trying to make PlurkYM work!

Yahoo Messenger cannot post updates to Plurk

From the screenshot above, Plurk can post updates using Google Talk, MSN and is now trying to add AIM to list. I was disappointed to see that Yahoo Messenger is not included.

PlurkYM is still in its testing stage. Please direct all comments, suggestions and bug reports to Carlo Reid through his blog.

Privacy

To make this work, the PlurkYM bot asks for the Plurk username and password during registration. Carlo Reid assures privacy of this information:

PlurkYM saves your password in encrypted format that isn’t readable by an ordinary human being. It’s transmitted to plurk.com in an encrypted format too. I am committed to provide maximum security on personal information that PlurkYM collects. Please be assured that all information gathered by the PlurkYM bot are safe, secured and will never be shared with anyone. If you feel that your information has been compromised, please unregister with the service immediately and report the problem to me.

There are actually other sites that ask for your username and password to use Twitter and Plurk, such ping.fm and many third-party Facebook applications.

How to Setup PlurkYM Read the rest of this entry

Those avatars are my followers on Twitter. You might not believe me, but some very famous bloggers who are earning five to six-figures are my Twitter followers! Can you spot them?

Current twitter follower count:

Get your twitter mosaic here.

If you had not been following me, then follow me in Twitter now. Also, you can get your own Twitter mosaic by clicking the link below.

There’s more to this than simply showing a mosaic. You can order a shirt or a mug and show up some of your Twitter friends or followers (you can manually remove the ones that you don’t want to show on your mug or shirt).

Thanks to Jaypee for this idea.

One of the first things I did with Twitter was to announce what I am working on. As I use Twitter more often, I noted that many bloggers had been using it to promote their blog posts. Like many of these enlightened bloggers I followed what they had been doing and began to announce my post as soon as I hit the publish button. I even got Twhirl installed to help me manage and post out tweets.

What makes me visit and reply to your tweet? Of course the message has to be interesting enough.

• You are one of the first few to blog or announce breaking news.
• You have written those posts like “how to”, “top ten” and other catchy titles similar to the title of this post.
• You always have other articles, videos and pictures to share other than your own blog posts.
• You have an opportunity to offer that make some money or other similar incentive.
• You really interact with people by sending replies.
• You ask help.
• You ask questions.
• You’re not too obvious in announcing a new blog post.
• You post out status updates on what you’re doing, thinking and feeling - without being negative.
• You love to spread the positive attitude around and easily relate to everyone by simple greetings.

I had noticed that most of the people I am following on Twitter often start their tweets with the words “new blog post”. With the Twitter population growing, I think “new blog post” is fast becoming an outdated style of promoting a blog. Being creative and interactive is must! Most of those tweets that belong to the reasons would get me scurrying out to check your blog post.

Of course, that’s what attracts me in using Twitter. I might be on a lonely planet where everyone does not agree with me.

Don’t forget to join me in Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ladyprogrammer