However, I might have just found a way to use Twitter.  That is where the new website Monnitter comes into play.  Monnitter allows you to type in up to three keywords to monitor on Twitter.  In realtime, Monnitter will bring to your attention any Twitter tweets mentioning your chosen keyword.

For me, I love to read about mont blanc fountain pens and buffalo gold coins.   Monnitter allows you to follow the online conversation that is occuring on Twitter regarding topics that are important to you.  I know that you wake up every morning wondering what your favorite make money online guru is having for breakfast.

Sure, sometime you can learn about something new on Twitter, but there are much more efficient ways to get your information.  Twitter is for narcissists, not for normal people.   Twitter can be a cool tool to talk to people you really care about, but not socializing with 100 followers.  So, make Twitter useful and try Monniter.

The My Diet Facebook Application is a great facebook application.  My Diet allows you to:

• track the food you are eating
• record the number of calories that you burned
• compare your dieting to you My Diet friends
• track you weight loss (I know I am being presumptuous)
• journal you progress
• calorie counter
• and more….

If you haven’t tried fatsecret.com, I highly recommend that you check out that website too.  It is a pretty cool community for dieters.  I think that dieting is a natural fit for social sites.  People like to diet with others.  Dieting becomes an all consuming hobby, and people like to talk about it with other dieters.

Well, I won’t lose any weight sitting here at my keyboard so I am going to wrap this up.

Happy New Year!!

Here are 10 steps to jump start your blog with bloggingzoom.

1. Join BloggingZoom.

2. Create a recognizable avatar that promotes your blog. Check mine out. I use a variation of my blog’s logo. I use this same avatar on every site that allows me to use an avatar. This helps me to build the Newest on the Net brand.

3. Create an interesting profile. Too often we forget to do this. Just as every blog giving blogging tips will tell you to focus on your blog’s about page, make sure that you focus on your social media profile pages. Tell people about yourself and your blog.

4. Place the BloggingZoom bookmarklet onto your browsers toolbar. This bookmarklet makes it very easy for your to submit blog articles to BloggingZoom.

5. Add me as a friend. I promise to add you as a friend back. Also, once you have added me as a friend, please send me a message saying hello. I love getting to know my readers and social media sites are a great way to get to know each other. I want to know what interests you. By seeing what blog articles you Zoom, I hope that I can create better articles for Newest on the Net.

6. Submit great articles. If you want to promote your blog using social media, you have to participate. The great thing about BloggingZoom is that you don’t have to feel guilty for submitting your own articles. That’s right, don’t shy. I want to read you work. Like most bloggers, I love blog articles. I think that you will find that most of the bloggingzoom users feel the same way.

7. Write catchy titles. A lot of social media users filter articles based on their titles. It is important for you to use this to your advantage. Make sure your title is interesting. Remember it does not have to be the exact title you use in your article.

8. Don’t forget about your article description. Unlike most social media sites, BloggingZoom requires that your description of your article contain at least 4 sentences and 350 characters. This is to help the search engines index your posts. Vic, one of the founders of BloggingZoom, has written a great article on how to increase search engine traffic to your blog by focusing on you article description.

9. Don’t forget your older posts. One nice thing about a new social media site coming onto the seen is that it gives you the ability to re-promote some of your older articles. Go back through your archives and submit some of your best articles. This will help you to start building your credibility with the community. However, make sure that you have completed steps 2 and 3 first. You want to be able to capitalize on the attention and traffic you will get.

10. Check out and zoom my bloggingzoom articles. It’s worth a try

• Mahalo Social
• Build Blog With StumbleUpon
• Use Social Media To Increase Blog Traffic
• Increase RSS Subscribers

On November 1, the launch of BloggingZoom gave bloggers the perfect social media site to promote their blogs and articles. Bloggers writing on every niche are gathering at BloggingZoom to share the best articles around the blogosphere. I am glad that I joined BloggingZoom right from the start.

Please add me as a friend on bloggingzoom.

BloggingZoom was created by Courtney and Vic to allow bloggers to promote their own works and gain the attention of other bloggers. This culture of open access is what makes BloggingZoom different from social voting sites like Digg, Reddit and Propeller.

This tolerance is a breathe of fresh air and has made BloggingZoom my favorite social media site to read quality original blog content.

Who should be using BloggingZoom?

EVERY blogger should be using BloggingZoom. That’s right. If you are not using it, you are missing out on getting your writing in front of thousands of bloggers.

While making the front page of BloggingZoom will not bring you the traffic that a Digg front page will bring you, gaining traffic is not my goal with BloggingZoom. Instead, I want other bloggers to know about my blog.

For a site like mine focused on blogging tips, BloggingZoom is a match made in heaven. This social media site allows me to attract bloggers looking for blogging help. Additionally, since this site’s core audience is bloggers who must be pretty savvy with computers, Newest on the Net’s focus on discussing the latest Internet news is a perfect fit.

Bloggers are great readers for you to attract. Bloggers like blogs. They write blogs, they read blogs and they like to participate by leaving comments. These readers will help you develop a community for your blog.

Since I started using BloggingZoom, I have networked with lots of great bloggers. I have also increased my RSS subscribers with many people who first learned about NOTN through BloggingZoom. I have also gained friends in other social media sites like StumbleUpon from people who have found me on BloggingZoom.

Blogging Zoom Spreads the Wealth

Getting an article on Digg can bring lots of benefits to your site; traffic, links and more traffic. However, the chances of getting on the frontpage of Digg are very slim. You need to tailor your articles to topics that are popular with Digg users and you need a strong network of supporters to help you along. This is not the case with BloggingZoom.

At the present time you only need 5 zooms (votes) to make it to BloggingZoom’s front page. Of the 34 articles that I have submitted to BloggingZoom, 27 have gone hot and made it to the front page.

I am happy to note that my article on how to increase RSS subscribers is on the top 10 list of zoomed articles.

Do you want to read more about BloggingZoom? Well, here are some other great articles about this new social media site,

• BloggingZoom Review By Jason Clark
• Do You Zoom? – BloggingZoom Review
• BloggingZoom Accelerates the Blogging Business

Are you using BloggingZoom? Please share your experience.

Social features have recently been added to many Web 1.0 sites. This is a trend that will continue. People want to interact on the web.

How should bloggers use these new social features?

Create a profile on Mahalo social.  Make sure that you describe your blog on your Mahalo “About Page.”  This is a great way to advertise your blog.  I also use an avatar image on all of my social sites that displays the logo of Newest on the Net.  This is like a billboard on the side of the highway.  If you frequent high traffic websites, this is great exposure.

Another great feature of Mahalo Social is that you can share your other social media profiles.  This is a great way to network with other social media users.  You can share your StumbleUpon profile, Twitter profile, Pownce profile, etc.

Hey you, don’t stop reading, add me as a friend on Mahalo Social.

StumbleUpon was the most effective social media tool that I used to attract 190,000 page views in just three months. In fact, StumbleUpon has delivered over 10,000 page views to one of my posts alone. There simply is no better source of consistent social media traffic than StumbleUpon.

What is StumbleUpon?

For those of you who have not used StumbleUpon, it provides a unique way to surf the Internet. By using StumbleUpon’s social browsing toolbar, you can connect with other bloggers and readers that share your interests. This is perfect for you niche bloggers out there.

Unlike some other social media sites, you will always be able to find an audience interested in your niche at StumbleUpon. For example, I also write a blog that discusses mmorpgs. It can be difficult to find social media sites to promote articles about video games. However, there are tons of StumbleUpon users that are interested in this niche.

Where can you find me on StumbleUpon?

I have been a StumbleUpon user since March 2007. Here is my StumbleUpon profile page. Please visit it, check it out and add me as a friend. If you are interested in blogging and social media, I think that you will really like my StumbleUpon blog. My StumbleUpon blog is a list of the websites to which I have given a “thumbs up.”

How do you use StumbleUpon to promote your articles?

1. The first step you must take is to download the StumbleUpon toolbar. The StumbleUpon toolbar allows you to find great websites, bookmark websites that you discover, send more traffic to those websites, search for articles in your niche, and much more. I will be writing more articles on how to use the StumbleUpon toolbar to take advantage of all of StumbleUpon’s features. Subscribe to Newest on the Net now to make sure you don’t miss any of these articles.

2. After you have downloaded the toolbar and joined StumbleUpon, become a part of the community. This is the most important thing to understand about social media sites. In order to achieve success with social media sites, you have to become a part of their communities.

Lucky for you, StumbleUpon has one of the best communities. The users are friendly and discover some great online content. You need to recommend sites to others, make friends, and provide well written reviews. Just like you want your blog readers to value your opinion, you need your StumbleUpon friends to value your opinion. Don’t be a social media abuser.

3. Once you have been using StumbleUpon for a month or so, you can start promoting your own content with great results. Every time I stumble one of my own articles, I get at least 200 to 500 views. As mentioned above, one of my articles on Firefox tips received over 8,000 views from StumbleUpon.

4. Other keys to gaining traffic with StumbleUpon:

• Use all of SU’s features. Stumble photos, stumble great sites you find, stumble great videos, stumble great blog articles (maybe like this one!).
• Make friends. Don’t forget that StumbleUpon is a SOCIAL media site. The point of StumbleUpon is to share great content with people who share similar interests. Start by adding me as a friend.
• Stumble great content. One key to increasing your StumbleUpon power is to give thumbs up to sites that other StumbleUpon users will thumb up. The more people who like your articles, the more traffic your stumbles will generate.
• Send messages to other StumbleUpon users. One of my favorite features on StumbleUpon is the ability to send message to other members. This is a great way to network. I ofter send messages to other bloggers.

If you want more information about StumbleUpon, here are 65 Articles About StumbleUpon. Of those 65 articles, you won’t want to miss these,

• 7 Reasons Why StumbleUpon Traffic is the Best on the Planet
• A Comprehensive Guide To StumbleUpon
• Building Your Blog With StumbleUpon
• Revealed: 16 Different Personality Types of StumbleUpon Users
• 25 Reasons You Get Thumbs Up
• 5000 Stumbles And Counting

My next article in this series will cover some very powerful, but under utilized features of StumbleUpon. Again, don’t miss my future articles. Subscribe to Newest on the Net.

Please share with me your StumbleUpon profile name. Additionally, please share your personal experiences and opinions of StumbleUpon. What topics do you think are most popular on StumbleUpon? What features are your favorite? Who is your favorite Stumbler?

Despite a rash of bad news over the last several weeks, Facebook is still the social media story for 2007.  And, I predict it will be more popular throughout 2008.

Application developers are developing new applications at an amazing rate.  People are using these applications to distribute their brand to the millions of Facebook users.  Here is an article that I wrote on the most popular Facebook applications.

Through the use of social media, Newest on the Net has grown from 6,300 unique visitors in September (NOTN’s first month), to 8,200 unique visitors in October, to 31,200 unique visitors in November.

In this series, I want to share how I used social media sites to jumpstart Newest on the Net’s blog traffic. This series will describe how I used social media to go from zero page views in September to over 190,000 page views in just three months.

I want to share with you the power of social media. I want to share with you what social media sites you can use to catapult your blog. This series will focus on the following social media sites:

• StumbleUpon – Add me as your StumbleUpon friend. My profile name is epsilon97.
• Mixx – Add me to you Mixx Friends. My Mixx profile name is fpeters.
• MyBlogLog – Join MyBlogLog Community.
• Bloggingzoom – Add me as your Bloggingzoom friend. My bloggingzoom name is fredpeters.
• Bumpzee – Join my bumpzee community.
• Twitter – Start following me on Twitter. My Twitter name is Fred_Peters.
• Sphinn – Add me as your Sphinn friend. My Sphinn name is fredpeters.
• Pownce – Add me s your Pownce friend.
• Facebook – Add me a Facebook friend.
• Del.icio.us – Add me to you Del.icio.us network. My del.icio.us name is epsilon97.
• Any other social sites that I decide to cover.

This series will (i) give an overview of these social media sites, (ii) describe the most effective ways to generate traffic using these social media sites, and (iii) give you a step-by-step approach to begin your social media jumpstart.

Please leave a comment sharing your social media profiles so that we can add each other as friends.

If you don’t want to miss any of the articles in this series, please subscribe to Newest on the Net.

Digg users have been demanding for a long time the ability to submit images and video.

Users will also find  several new categories.  The “Offbeat” category will become its own category and there will be a new “Lifestyle” category.  The Lifestyle category will include subtopics like autos, food & drink, and travel.

It is about time that Digg adds photos.  This is a great feature of StumbleUpon and Mixx.