Tag "“ I'm it. I have been tagged by Karl Ribas to give a little insight into why I blog. I see no reason not to, so here goes:

• Researching, Learning & Archiving Notes "“ I am of the same mindset of Karl in that I too get a lot out from writing posts. I don't know if it's the influence of schooling, but I feel that when I get something down on paper and structure a topic in my own words, I then know that I really understand a subject and can demonstrate this to others. I also like the fact that you can add your own tuppence worth to the table.

• Blogging is the new C.V. – Adam Darowskie sees 'the blog as being the new resume' and I have to agree. It provides a great way of letting your clients and prospects know who you are. Apart from showcasing your business, it also demonstrates a real passion for what you do.

• New Friends & New Ventures Opportunities "“ blogging enables you to meet like minded people in your area of expertise and interest "“ worldwide! You can bounce ideas of each other, plan new ventures together or just have a good old chin-wag about whatever is on your mind.

• Link Love & Rankings "“ a blog is a great way to market your business and rank organically. Many SEO folks will agree that links are the currency on the web and it's always rewarding when people like your content and link to you.

• Improvement of Communication Skills "“ story telling and writing has never been a real strength of mine, although through reading other blogs and spending time thinking about what the reader wants and not (always) what I want to tell, I am now in a stronger position to communicate written words compared to when I started 8 months ago.

Right, that's me done "“ here's tagging to 5 un-expecting souls!

Keith Bond

Kevin Gibbons

Lyndon Antcliff

Drew Meyers

Leo Babauta

As of Friday 16^th of Feb, Google is now reporting the number of subscribers a publisher has acquired through Google Reader and Google Personalized Homepage.

Joe’s Sem Blog subscribers stats:

I was shocked to see the number of subscribers for this blog had doubled and thought it must be a glitch. It appears not, with Feedburner also reporting and justifying the increase. Fellow bloggers have seen insanely amounts of increased subscribers.

It is nice ego boost, although I think a reality check is in order as the number of subscribers does not represent the click-through rates and subsequent traffic that a blog receives. I am also a little suspicious as to the accuracy of the count of subscribers – but hey, who am I to judge?

More news at TechCrunch and Wordpress.

Wikipedia or Wikia are following suite with Google, by offering lots of cool free online ools. Although Wikia’s collection are very different and the ads tools allows advertises to keep 100% of the Ad Revenue.

Wikia , the commercial branch of Wikipedia, has launched a range of free tools for bloggers and publishers that want to build collaborative features into their sites.

The service, called OpenServing, will offer free software, content and hosting to its subscribers, who can also keep all of the advertising revenues they generate from the apps they develop. E-consultancy blurb

I am sure we will here lots more about this in due course, but doesn’t it look exciting!