The Cosmopolitan Blog

On my old PC that died, i had installed an RIA (Rich Internet Application) version of Google Analytics. It was basically a version of Google Analytics that you could install to your desktop (but you need to be connected to the web to have up2date data). I’m looking to re-download it from the web, but it seems that the guys who had it in beta, gave it a new home. But this new home is now capitalizing on it and looking to sell components of it (that’s what it seems like, anyway). So they have no direct link to download this application anymore.

Anyway / anyone know where to find a free download of this?

Living in Quebec, Canada, i spend a whole lot of time writing documents in both English and French. With a French mother and a French education, but having grown up in England, i consider myself 100% bilingual.

But even the best of us, occasionally, have moments when we can’t think of the equivalent word in the other language. So, in my browser, at all times, i have at least 2-3 sites bookmarked for finding the fastest answer.

Until now, my main resource was the “Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique” that lets you enter keywords in either languages. But actually, I find that for the “common” words, it always comes up with so many different uses, that it’s overwhelming.

In the past, i’ve used all the other common ones, Reverso, Babelfish… For those, i found that the interface was not user-friendly, especially for someone like me who uses my keyword for shortcuts and hardly uses my mouse.

In the past few weeks, i’ve been using Google Translate (the one that’s part of Google Dictionary, not the actual Google Translate, just follow this link and select your language choice from the dropdown), and my experience has been nothing compared to what it had been when i had tried it a few years back. It’s perfect now, simply interface, 100% accuracy (for me, so far), with just enough different options, but not too many.

Anyone else out there who translated a lot, all day? What are your favorite free tools? Do you pay for translation tools, and if so, is it worth it? Would love to hear from you.

I like Google, because they don’t seem very egocentric. Let me explain. They often do things without screaming it to the world, they’ve launched beta programs like Google Transit other things without making a big splash.

But sometimes they make corporate changes and i wish they would explain them. The latest is the change in browser favicons. A favicon is a little icon that appears at the top of your browser (near where you type the web URL address) and is associated with a particular website or webpage. Go to http://www.google.com and see for yourself, see the little icon at the top?

Until 2008, Google’s favicon was the first one below. Then they changed it to the middle one below, and now, on January 9, 2009, they changed it again, to the last one below. A few blogs had picked up on it back in 2008, I’ve seen nothing for this latest change though.

While i loved the first one, i was always confused by the second one, it never seemed to gel with Google’s identity. Now this new one is interesting, it’s more artsy… I like. But how long will it stay? Do they have a site that discusses this? What are your thoughts? Does the favicon of a company have an effect on you?

So i’m back to exploring how to best promote a blog, and realized that i a friend of mine owns a very prominent blog, and here’s the recipe to his success: find yourself a niche, make sure it’s not to restrictive but not too widespread, stick to it, post often and promote it.

This is nothing new. But it’s important, and it’s really the bottom line. Blogs are amazing still, because they are indexed by search engines a million times faster than static websites, simply because their content changes so quickly. Which is why, for example, when in summer i wrote about Al Gore, minutes later, i noticed that my post was featured on Al Gore’s Live Earth website. So, deconstructing the advice above, we have:

1. Find yourself a niche

You need to be a specialist in your topic. No, that doesn’t mean you have to have a degree in it. It just means you have to have something to offer in that topic. People have to have a reason to come to your blog, whether it’s just that you understand a specific topic, that you have great political insight, or that you’re a master at a playing a specific game. So pick a niche, it them becomes “your thing” that you’re known for.

2. Make sure it’s neither too restrictive or too widespread

Well, now that you’ve found your niche, let’s see. Are there only 3 other people interested in your topic? In the entire world? If so, while your blog may be the center of the universe for those 3 people, it won’t be for very many other people, so your blog probably won’t get a world-famous reputation. On the other hand, if your niche is discussing the latest Hollywood scandal or when the last time we spotted Britney Spear’s underwear (or lack thereof), then, well, um, you may not be the only person who talks about this, and so your message will get diluted in the masses. For your blog to gain a reputation, then, will be extremely difficult.

3. Stick to it

If you found a topic / niche, then stick to it. Don’t go talking about other stuff, because that’s not what you’re known for. If you digress too often, readers will stop coming. If you have a million topics (good tip, check the number of categories you have, there should be max 3-4), it will be hard for readers to understand what the value of your blog is, and so promoting it will be tough.

4. Post often

Well, this is the nature of a blog, it’s meant to be alive. If your topic is amazing, people will want to come and read. But if nothing gets updated, then they’ll come once, read what is there, and be done with it. If they see there is a new post every 4-5 days, then they will subscribe to your RSS feed, and keep up to date with what you’re saying.

5. Promote it

Write posts that encourage people to comment, thus generating traffic and discussion, again, a surefire way to promote your blog. Then, of course, use the tools out there to stretch your word. Link to your blog from Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Technorati, and even Facebook and Twitter if you want! Go visit other similar sites, and comment on their posts, remembering to link to your blog. Allow trackbacks to your posts/blog. Keep up to date with the latest places where you can promote, and that way you can be one of the first!

Well, now, all i need to do is eat some of my own dogfood, right? My readers will know that i don’t post often enough, if fact, i go through 3-4 day spurts where i post a lot, then i’m silent for a long time (ahem, *cough* *cough* 2 months *cough* *cough*). But this will change now that i have a super tool to update my blog with my twitter updates. The other thing i know would make my blog more popular is if i stuck to one topic, not tried to tackle politics, food, blogging and personal opinions, and if at least one of those topic was a little more “niche-ish”. Ah well, i never claimed by blog was perfect, i just like to use it to ramble