Regular readers to ProBlogger will notice that the advertising campaign that I was running with Entrecard has come to an end and there’s no longer any Entrecard widget on the blog here.
I want to thank Entrecard for their sponsorship and giveaway the credits that I earned from the widget today.
I’ve got a total of 36,723 credits at present and am going to divide them up into three prizes of 12,241 credits for three winners of this quick little competition.
Here’s what you’ve got to do to put yourself in the running to win.
In 250 words or less tell me in comments below tell me about a quality undiscovered blog.
The catch is – it can’t be your own (and it can’t be mine). You will also need to be an Entrecard user to win – otherwise the prize is kind of pointless.
I want to know a URL and up to 250 words on why it’s a great blog in your eyes. I and a secret judge will pick three winners to win the prize in three days time.
Hello. Recently I’ve come across a blog called MonkeyBlogger. The site is located at http://www.monkeyblogger.com. The main reason I like the blog is because the blogger writes about blogging tips in an easy to understand way. I like the theme too. Personally, I think it is a cool site.
I think http://successfool.com is one of the blogs that I just discovered today via twitter. Awesome guy who is rambling about entrepreneurs and other stuff tied to that topic.
My nomination goes to Phil Taylor’s blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/).
Phil is in charge of the development team behind Flight Simulator X (relevant to me, as I run a Flight Sim blog myself).
What makes it almost unique is the amount of technical detail that Phil goes into, really exposing the inner workings of both the application itself and the company behind it (e.g. Aces Studio and Microsoft).
It’s almost unheard of to get this level of exposure regarding the inner workings of a major corporation and is a real breath of fresh air.
The blog is both insightful and entertaining. Phil adds an air of humour to most posts, making for a very enjoyable read.
wow thats a big price to grab best of luck to all the contestant
and advance congrats to who ever win it ;)
I don’t know if you’ve visited this blog or not. But taking a look at the blog’s age and its MBL community, I think it still has a great discoverability.
Why do I choose http://www.SmallFishBigMoney.com as a quality blog?
It’s contents are not just common hypes other bloggers usually write to add some crowd to the blogosphere. And even if they’re about things people familiar with, the author (Fabien) present them in a different approach, or a different point of view at least. (like the post “Steps to Improve Site’s Usability…, Leveraging Social Media to Increase Readership).
More important, they’re not about getting rich online quick. But more on educating the readers to have the right attitude and technique to reach their goals online.
Second, I find the design is “flowing”. It’s how I describe it. I mean, navigation is comfortable. Each section is placed accordingly so my eyes don’t jump from one area to another, if you know what I mean.
One more thing I agree with is Fabien also thinks that it is more important to provide great content, but it is way more essential to know about what people like and don’t like and acting on this knowledge (taken from his “About” page).
I’m gonna give props (I believe that’s the word all the cool kids are using) to Cody Robert’s blog. Cody writes about what he does – freelancing – and offers hints and tips for others in that field (or those considering making the leap).
Typical content includes artiles about coding and design, business, freelancing and travel.
His recent post on ‘usability design’ (“How Do Your Doors Open?”) has a lot of great tips on making sure your site is a positive experience for all of your visitors.
It’s a relatively new site but there’s already some great content on there, and his blog also has a pretty unique design that is very pleasing on the eye. Check it out!
My favourite entrecard blog is http://thecuso.info, it’s a blog about card magic and flourishes, a new art also called cardistry or xtreme card manipulation.
Cardistry is more than “magic”. The exact definition is: The non-magical manipulation of playing cards, designed to impress through dexterity and style rather than by fooling people.
But, it’s is nowadays commonly used in visual magic routines to increase their appeal and make them more eyecandy.
The potential readers are from new-school magicians, jugglers, penspinners and poker players (most of them like to fiddle with their chips) to even skateboarders (if you watch a couple of videos you’ll see what i mean)
The blog is updated constantly and has a nice little community where people share the tutorials of their own moves and help new people starting in the art.
My five stars go to TheCuso for his great job and i wish him very good luck!
I’m a bit confused about the undiscovered part , and the task of picking one great blog is a bit hard , but for me Rockfuse is a quality blog that deserves some mention.The tag line “Helping Bloggers stand out” is exactly the thing its doing with some great tips on how to improve the quality your blog , how to get ranked better in search engines and of course how to make money online from your blog. It was one of the first blogs I added to my feed reader and never regretted adding it.I have already implemented some of the things mentioned in his posts and seeing results. And the design of the blog is great to say the least. And to be making money from a country like Sri Lanka where even Paypal is send only you must be writing some good content. So for me thats the quality undiscovered blog , although with 248 RSS subscribers already its not that undiscovered.
Hi Darren,
I came across this one while looking through some sites at entrecard actually.
http://www.searchenginepanel.com/
Its focus is discussions on search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Tips, help, and news on search marketing, website optimization, and high organic ranking. Based in Toronto, Canada.
I like to read: http://www.5xmom.com
Every article is nice and really catchy to read, from right angle of somebody making money online. Aff. programs, SEO and much more !
ReconstructingRick is a new website I found while on Entrecard.
Rick is an addict trying to recover. He shares his past drug use and abuse as well as his more intimate and painful memories before his drug abuse began the downward spiral of torment and hell.
Freshly clean and sober with about 35 days today, I have discovered a wounded but strong soul in Rick. He has become a genuine friend of whom I care greatly about.
I had even written about his website at my own website just a couple of weeks ago because his story touches me. I want to support this man reconstructing himself and encourage all people who have been touched by addiction to offer their encouragement as well.
His blog may have a funky theme going on with it, but I wholly nominate him for the true to life and honest-to-heart writing. It’s poignant, sad, and sometimes angry and hopeless. But in all cases, Rick is making every attempt to reconstruct himself from his previous destruction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks Darren, for this platform in letting me share about my new friends inspiring blog.
Samsara
http://retireat21.com has been a site I’ve been visiting for a little while now. It’s got a lot of decent information relating to becoming a successful entrepreneur on the internet or other, no matter your age.
One of the only sites I’ve found in it’s market, especially with the entrepreneur interviews.
The undiscovered blog I wish to talk about is called The Truth About Lies, by emerging author Jim Murdoch, who writes on a variety of subjects in the literature/poetry niche.
The first impressions of this blog are that the author is not an accomplished web page designer. It uses a simple blogspot template with a bland colour scheme. I don’t imagine his readership is made up of people drawn in by the eye candy.
Another thing that may turn away the casual surfer is the typical length of his posts. Often reaching the 1,500 word mark, they are meatier than most. A lot of time he has even more to say on a given subject, but mercifully they get split into numerous parts.
To his relatively small but loyal readership though, the posts are never too long. Once you get into The Truth About Lies, you might find that the posts are ending too soon!
No matter, as they all seem to promote lively discussions. The author takes time to answer every reply intelligently.
Each post is meticulously researched. The writing style is both informative and entertaining, self indulgent prattle it most certainly is not.
If you are at all interested in writing or poetry, I implore you to put on the kettle and give it a try.
I have no doubt that if Jim Murdoch continues to churn out the same quality of product, The Truth About Lies will eventually earn its rightful place as a “medium sized blog”.
I recommend http://www.stanleytang.com
It’s a great blog sharing some very useful Internet marketing strategies. Plus, he’s only 15 years old.
Yuvraj
Being something of a dunce, I have neglected to include a url of the blog I was raving about. Here it is…
http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/
I know of a blog http://eblogtemplates.com owned by David. The blog is great in terms of providing quality blog templates for WordPress and Blogger. It also provides much useful info relating to blog design, adding widgets, step by step tutorials for bloggers. I was helpless in finding good templates for my blog. But then I came across EBlogTemplates.com. It has a great collection of free Blogger templates many of which have been included in the “Mashable’s 70 Fresh Blogger Templates”. I got one of my choice (Langit Template) and am using it right now. What I like about EBlogTemplates is that it not only provides cool templates but it also gives a very good step by step tutorial on how to safely install that template. It also feature very good articles that help bloggers to correctly do just anything with your blog. One more thing David is quite active in his blog so if you have any problem just comment and you will find your answers pretty soon.
I would highly recommend EBlogTemplates to every newbie and if you don’t agree with me just take a look at my blog and you will understand why I like http://eblogtemplates.com
:D
half way through the post i started to scream me me me… and thought i will jump straight to comments but when i finished reading the rules … i thought sigh it’s not for me…
Darren nice idea for user interaction though… i love the way you keep implementing idea’s that you talk about in your post.
http://www.blahblahtech.com/
Actually I don’t really care if I win or not, just thought since we are posting awesome new blogs, I would put in this one. I’ve been following Wayne Smallman on Plurk and when he posted his blog in response, I checked it out. I was completely floored by his entry. His layout, thoughts and information were a joy to experience. Please check him out and give him the kudos he deserves. You can bet I will be a regular follower from now on!
Hey Darren
Haven’t you forgot to add something in this article. Don’t you think you should also tell the commentators to write about just one blog.
I write in the pet space and read a lot of pet blogs to keep up with the pet world at large. Sadly, there’s a lot of fluff to comb through to find the treats (sorry, couldn’t resist) but there are some quality blogs that are worth their weight in gold.
So that’s why I would like to draw attention to the leader of the pack http://www.petconnection.com/blog/. The driving force behind the blog is columnist and author Gina Spadafori, with excellent assistence from Christie Keith and Kim Campbell Thornton. Their posts are thoughtful, no holds barred, and tell it like it is on a topic that others treat as warm and fuzzy.
Pet Connection is everything a blog should be – original, value add, and often controversial. I was hooked when Gina told off (ahem, it was a bit more “colorful” than that) the readers who questioned how she could love animals (why they were reading her blog and commenting in the first place, I cannot imagine – masochists I suppose). She did it in no uncertain terms, blasting those who had strayed in her path. I thought “here’s a woman who knows where she stands and is not afraid to make it clear, VERY clear.”
While I imagine the number of entries for this competition will be great, I hope that Pet Connection gains more readers interested in intelligent and gutsy conversations about the pets in our lives.
http://amitbhawani.com/blog – Perhaps the best undiscovered quality blog i have ever seen.His content are filled with blogging tips,ideas,gadgets,technology and vaious unique tricks which he gets from his vast 3 years research.
Also one thing which amazes me “is his capacity to blog”,he knows everything and talks basic info to problogging techniques.I would like to boost about this guy for a page or so (though I dont know him personally) but i just want him to be selected as a Quality best blogger.
I love this article a lot http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/no-one-helps-you-to-make-money-online/
Pretty interesting contest. I am not here only to win the credits but to point out that there are tons of good blogs in the blogosphere. I made my choice and placed #1 http://www.prisonerblogger.com , not for the content , but for the idea . Drawing those caricatures and all that stuff. If I were to choose a blog for it`s content there is no other blog competing with ProBlogger.
Oh that’s easy – http://lightheadedbooks.blogspot.com/. This lady writes about books, reviews them and gives readers a sneak peek of what books are out there. Her range of subject is from the silly to the serious and she has covered a LOT of ground in over two years. I have to admit she’s a friend but I would love to have people discover her and the gazillion books she’s writing about. She makes no pretense in reviewing those she’s read and she does read tons of books in a week. It’s a review from a regular gal chatting with a friend or a new acquaintance, the posts are engaging and makes you pause and think … hmmnn, I’ll make a note to check that one out next time I’m at the bookstore.
I still confused which one the best blogs in Entrecard, because for me each blogs is unique, each ones have good and brilliant idea and have different perspective ;) so which one the best?
I don’t know :)
I am glad you are giving us a chance to recommend our favorite blogs, but never quite given attention.
Anyway, I would recommend none other than a blog of a 12-year old Indian girl named Meghna. I met her last year through a social bookmarking site. I am really amaze that a young girl at her age can write such wonderful poems about life, school and almost everything under the sun. Not to mention other useful topics that you will not imagine that as young as her can write well.
I have been telling this to her, If she continues to improve her self, I will not be surprise that in the near future, she will be among the top bloggers / writers on line.
She is also among my inspiration whenever I make posts on my family tips blog. She never fails to thank me and even show to her parents about my tips. My daughter who is also 12 loves to read her posts.
I remember when I made a controversial post about allowing child bloggers like her. Although I got some negative comments, I still insist that we should allow our children to blog as long we have enough time to guide them and watch them from bad influences on line. This is because I beieve that blogging is a great way for our child to improve their writing and communication skills.
With this, I am strongly suggesting to everyone (including you, Darren) to find time to visit her and be inspired, too.
Thanks.
Delve into the Mind of A Budding Blogger – http://www.meghnaspages.blogspot.com/
I personally enjoyed Marc and Angel Hack Life. It is a simple blog highlighting practical tips for productivity. And I must stress the word practical, since almost all of the tips addressed can be straight away practised.
Now, to explain why this blog is different from other blogs. I guess it’s because somehow the content have that fresh taste in it. You just know that they are produced out of experience and not some copy-pasting work.
I wish both Marc and Angel the best. And hopefully this humble comment will help put the blog
The Sports Dollar, http://www.thesportsdollar.com, is hardly undiscovered among sports bloggers, but has yet to gain acclaim amongst the masses. It has helped me find ways to improve my writing, increase my revenue, and market my sports blog in a productive way. The Sports Dollar’s author has leveraged guest-posts in a way that adds to the site and enriches the readers experience. I have subscribed to this site for over a month now, and eagerly anticipate each new post.
My vote goes to: http://www.macuha.com
Top 3 reasons why it’s a great blog DESPITE the fact that the blog looks ugly (and the author admits it)
1. The author shares a lot of his SEO techniques and even the high trend low density keywords he discovers (he even encourages his readers to hijack his keywords)
2. He does not only show but actually teaches how he was able to get his blogging income to inspire his readers to persist in blogging
3. When not writing for the search engines, he posts humorous anecdotes of his life
Cheap Healthy Good (http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/) is a great healthy eating blog. It has inexpensive recipes; a clear voice behind it (though I disagree with Kris’s stance on mayo); and she also compiles fun things like 40 food-related songs and video clips. I appreciate the balance of her original content and aggregation of cool stuff on the web.
Thanks “banji – LessonInLife” for the link :) Thats a very cool website!
Darren, let him win ;-)
First of all, I would like give all my credits away plus an Ad space on my blog, if I ever won the prize. I am already giving away 4000 credit on my blog now.
I would like to introduce a new blog friend I met on the Internet. Mag is one of the most talented Fashion Jewelry Designer in Australia, who I met originally on StumbleUpOn. She recently moved her blog from StumbleUpOn to Blogger. Her blog is dedicated to passion of jewelry making and showing her journey as an entrepreneur in Jewelry Making. It’s like reading someone’s diary and see how a person grow from zero to a true success business owner.
She sent me many jewelry she made from Australia cross the whole world to USA, when I was just asking for some suggestion on jewelry making. She doesn’t even want me to pay back to her. She also includes a jewelry making DVD for me to learn how to make jewelry on my own.
She is very kind and warm heart as a stranger, who I have never met in my life face to face. She has helped and motivated me to move on. She deserves some link love, at least.
Here you go!
A lazy girl’s blog – Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.
Thank you for doing this! You rock!
That is a pity, I don’t use entrecard. ah well maybe next time!
I’m a food blogger so food blogs interest me a lot and almost always catches my interest. My recent gem of a find is The Pioneer Woman Cooks!
I like the blog because it has most of the elements to a good blog that you’ve mentioned in your articles on how to blog better.
Foremost, the content is original, terrific, useful and entertaining. The pioneer woman not only blogs about cooking and food, she shows beautifully photographed step by step photos of the process. Her writing style is very witty and personal; and I love that she writes about regular, home made food that everyone can prepare at home, not some high fallutin’ fancy gourmet stuff. Although, don’t get me wrong, her cooking can pass for gourmet any day. You just have to go see for yourself.
When you get over drooling over the photos and giggling over her writing, you’ll also see that the site design is very appropriate to her theme and it’s easy on the eyes. It’s easy to navigate, and it encourages you to riffle through her archives. I don’t know if she earns any revenue from blogging or just blogs for the love of it, but there are no ads on her site that are not glaringly obvious. They are not the first thing you see and they don’t distract you from the content.
Overall, a very well designed and undiscovered treasure, I think.
Darren, I just want to take a moment to thank you for working with us in our mission to help bloggers achieve success. Entrecard is now delivering millions of visits to our members every month for free, and it is undeniable that you have been a huge help in our mission.
http://amitbhawani.com/blog – Perhaps the best undiscovered quality blog i have ever seen.His content are filled with blogging tips,ideas,gadgets,technology and vaious unique tricks which he gets from his vast 3 years research.
Also one thing which amazes me “is his capacity to blog”,he knows everything and talks basic info to problogging techniques.I would like to boost about this guy for a page or so (though I dont know him personally) but i just want him to be selected as a Quality best blogger.
A blog that i recently discovered is
http://www.larissameek.com
Her blog have probably the best design i’ve seen in blogs. Its nice and sleek and really artistic that could capture your attention when you first visits it. Its got this cute girl candy design. Its loads pretty fast when you enters it and is not complex at all.. its really simple and clean.
PS. As a Bonus the Author is HOT. She was a Miss USA finalist, model, actress and reality TV star. She is just dame beautiful..
I personally don’t use Entrecard. Well, I have used it, but then I figured out the trick blogging. Anyway, Entrecard is a good way to start if you have no other source of traffic and if you’re a noob. Which is fine… Entrecard is nice because it builds up traffic, which builds up readers, alexa rank, and page rank. The negative to Entrecard is that it is very time consuming.
However, all bloggers should know other sources to get traffic besides entrecard! For real. It’s really not that hard to figure out. Pro, you know what I am talking about. Hopefully… ;)
I would have to send a vote for http://bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com. This is an EXCELLENT personal finance blog. I visit it every day to find money saving ideas and encouragement to live within my means. Written by a husband and wife team, they’ve done a phenomenal job of helping their relatively new blog attract national media attention.
I also love, love, love, http://www.freebies4mom.com. Heather does a fabulous job of compiling freebies, coupons, sweepstakes and frugal living articles. This blog is a must-read!
I also enjoy the blog http://www.breakingeven.typepad.com. Nicole has a great sense of humor and practical money saving ideas.
I know, I was only supposed to do one… but there are so many good ones out there!
I want to know is it ok to ask my friend to nominate me? JK
I would like to say that you are such a great person doing what you do. Giving advice and showing people how to be a successful blogger. Thanks.
I would like to nominate http://www.thesassysoutherner.com/ her site makes me laugh everyday. She say’s things most people would only think but dare not write it for all to see. I go to her site a few times a day to see what else she has come up with.
I nominate Turnip – http://turnipofpower.com/
His blog is extremely helpful, has a lot of information about blogging social networks, and more. He is a very talented with graphics, has a great sense of humor, and his blog is a great example of a well designed, easy to navigate site. His blog and name (turnip) are also very creative and catchy – his blog and name are definitely memorably.
It may not fit into your niche but http://www.secondlifeupdate.com is a very interesting blog about the 3d virtual worlds and virtual economy such as Second Life. I knew nothing about this and this blog really showed me some of the interesting experiences and possibilities of 3d virtual worlds. There are many videos, images, and just interesting topics and posts.
Hey Darren,
I would like to nominate this site – http://congressratings.com – With the popular trend of political news and sites popping up this blog gives great information on our politicians and lets us rate them. It also gives us an opportunity to see how others view their politicians. All in all it’s just a different and fun site about politics with a great design. I found it on a boring day at work.
Cheers
Paul
Considering how “metro” or “uber” sexual us scruffy dudes are becoming, keeping up with useful beauty products is secretly necessary :) So for women, I would guess that it is really useful. Recently cited in Reuters and the Chicago Sun Times, http://beyondbeautybasics.com/, is doing all the grunt work and research for us. Us men need all the advice we can get!
I’m going to give my vote to N-Cog-Neato http://n-cog-neato.blogspot.com/
The guy who writes it is a psychology student / research assistant and writes about interesting psychological effects.
I only found his blog through EntreCard, I don’t normally read psychology-type blogs (although it is an area that I find interesting), but his articles are usually well written, opions/commentary and deal with some pretty cool topics which he manages to explain in simple terms.
In short – it’s just what I want from fringe interest blog, well written, to the point, bringing me up to speed on things I don’t usually interact with, but have some interest in. Well worth a look.
http://www.fromthewoodshed.com is my pick for favorite. The author, Joe, is one sick puppy – and I love it.
He quit his job and has been living off his savings for the past year as he dedicates his days to practicing guitar. Ergo, the “woodshed” name.
You can read about his discoveries, caffeine consumption, epiphanies and much more on his blog. He even practiced 24 hours straight and lived to tell about it!
http://www.davidalison.com would be my pick for favorite upcoming blog.
He has a small amount of traffic so far, but his posts are always very interesting. He is a technology and business blogger, who talks a lot about his switch to Mac (he developed on Windows for 15 years) as well as his experience in his entrepreneurial endeavors.
Thanks,
The Tech Juice
I’d like to nominate Aussie Bloggers for a constant stream of high-quality content, written by a great team of writers. Better still, the attached forum is the best blogging forum I’ve found so far – it’s very friendly, informative, and deals with spam about as quickly as it’s possible to do!
http://www.aussiebloggers.com.au/
http://www.BlogCriticizer.com
This blog is very new but from what I see it is filling a huge void in the blogosphere. Technorati says there are over 120,000 blogs are being started each day. . .that’s around 1.5 blogs every second. Many of these bloggers need to focus on what is
important. . .the content. This is why a lot of professional web
publishers spend hundreds of dollars to have their website optimized
for not only search engines, but also for reader usability.
I know for me, it is a LOT easier to learn ‘by example’, instead of just reading plain text. When you(the reader) can go to the very blog being reviewed and look at each critique, point by point, it causes less confusion.
This is also a great way for small, unknown bloggers to get a little traffic to ‘get started’.
http://www.BlogCriticizer.com
If you’re looking for an undiscovered, witty and quirky blog, then you can’t go far wrong with http://punintended.com/blog/
It transports you to a whole new world inhabited by characters such as Bamboo Forest & Flying LlamaFish (I know!) with its unique writing style and choice of topics.
Summed up as “an all-you-can-eat buffet made up of all the foods you love, masterfully presented and tailored to your liking. Think of it as a buffet your imagination once envisioned but only now has become reality.”
Post titles such as: “7 Great Ways to Be Insane”, “The Beauty of Cloudy Days” & “Yodel Like Your Mama Taught You” suggest its eclectic mix of humor and inspired storytelling.
To me, a quality blog is one that strives to offer content that is highly readable, different and isn’t available elsewhere. There’s too much “sameiness” around.
After exploring the world of Pun Intended, I hope you’ll agree that it’s an enticing little treasure that stands apart and deserves to be unearthed by many more readers.
Hi Darren,
I would like to nominate The Brain Stimulant, http://brainstimulant.blogspot.com/, for best undiscovered blog. If you enjoy brain science and lively discussion in the comments, then this is the place. Mike, its author, is a posting machine with a high quality, well written story every day. I’m also impressed that Mike shows his pure interest in blogging, without the 101 widgets, etc. that adorn most of our blogs. His goal, it seems, is to put out lots of quality information, period. His one widget on his site is EntreCard, so I’m sure he would appreciate the prize.
Thanks!
Dan