Expression Equals Freedom and Vice Versa

January 18th (2012) will be the day in the history known as the Largest Online Protest for the Freedom of Expression. As participants we hope to be able to make a difference, and preserve the common sense. Learn more by clicking on the image below or watch this video.

Please share the info to build awareness. Together we can do more.

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Custom Domain Blogs Love

Our goal is to make your experience with us very simple and enjoyable. Now with a custom domain blog on Blogger.com you benefit from quick-add feature. We detect blog's engine and automatically offer the "Add to Blogger" button, to make it a breeze for you. It saves you time with copying widget-code and locating the gadget for embedding. This is applicable for all blogs with upgraded templates.

Also worth mentioning in this context is the simplified ability provided by Blogger.com in collaboration with GoDaddy to get new custom domains up and running. Learn more in this Blogger Buzz blog post, or bookmark the following link for your convenience - x.co/BloggerDNS.

Easy blogging to everyone.

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Great News: Featured on Blogger.com

We are so honored to have BlogUpp featured on Blogger.com in the official list of recommended blog gadgets.

Now millions of bloggers can install the blog promotion service with just one click on the featured listing. To keep everyone happy, the gadget integrates seamlessly with blog templates for its simple and clean design.

As active Blogger.com users (with this blog inclusively), we highly recommend it as the blogging platform of your choice. Blogger.com has got a new look lately with tons of cool improvements, which most of you will love.

Happy blogging to you all!

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Get Points and More Blog Exposure

We've been giving away welcome points to every community blog so far. Today we've changed it slightly, so that points will be automatically assigned upon enabling Facebook and Twitter cross-posting.

Hence we'd like to invite all our community bloggers to benefit of this change and get the extra-points. Basically each point equals an additional view across the community and the chance to be discovered by new blog readers. You get 1,000 points for enabling Facebook cross-post, and 500 points for Twitter cross-posting.

Your feedback is invited, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thank you, and enjoy your blogging!

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Improve Blog Rank via Validation Badge

Since the introduction of content discovery toolbar blog readers are able to contribute to blog ranking, besides using other toolbar features.

Rating blogs is available by default to blog readers sent by BlogUpp - either via the widget, content discovery toolbar, blog directory or social media cross-posting.

Now here's how to improve blog rank and encourage your blog visitors build a better blog rating. Simply place the following code anywhere on your blog, replacing in it prior to that the part "blog.blogupp.com" with your actual blog URL, without "http://".

Recommended for white backgrounds: <div style="display: block; text-align:center;"><a href="http://adv.blogupp.com/nextblog/blog.blogupp.com" target="_blank" title="Vote my Blog. Thanks!"><img alt="Authentic Blog, featured by BlogUpp" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/blogupppreview/Authentic-Blog.gif" /></a></div>

Recommended for colored backgrounds: <div style="display: block; text-align:center;"><a href="http://adv.blogupp.com/nextblog/blog.blogupp.com" target="_blank" title="Vote my Blog. Thanks!"><img alt="Authentic Blog, featured by BlogUpp" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/blogupppreview/Authentic-Blog.png" /></a></div>

This will show up the following badge, which should link your blog, and will have the blog rating feature enabled in the toolbar displayed. Please be sure to check the final link after you add the badge; if it doesn't lead to your blog, then simply adding (or removing) "www" before your blog URL will make it work.

At the same time by displaying the badge you tell your blog readers that your blog has been curated as an authentic blog.

Have more great tips to share? Let us know in the comments.

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Let's Celebrate the Blog Day!

Dear blogger / blog reader, did you know that August 31st has been declared the Blog Day? The initiative started on BlogDay.org, and we'd like to pass it on, since great blogs deserve their special dedicated day.

The idea behind this is simple and yet powerful to create new connections between bloggers and blog readers. It's about getting to know other fellow bloggers from all over the world and show appreciation to their blogs. On this day bloggers usually recommend new and interesting blogs to their blog readers, to help discover worthy blogs. One way to start exploring is simply by accessing the interactive widget in this blog's sidebar, or via blog directory that is being updated regularly with new blog posts.

The blogosphere and social media space is powered by you, and each small action keeps it evolving. Let's take this opportunity to share noteworthy blogs and mark this Blog Day. Cheers!

// Image by ParadisoPerduto

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Notes for Asian bloggers

As you probably know, our mission is to support authentic bloggers who produce high quality content.

Since we review each blog for terms compliance, we've noticed along the time that most Asian blogs are of unacceptable quality. In this context we'll be treating those specially, which in consequence might take longer to review them.

Herein we invite comments from Asian bloggers who believe their blogs deserve timely consideration. This will also be kind of additional quality filter for Asian blogs. Thanks everyone in advance for your understanding and support.

Cheers to the great bloggers from all around the world!

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Contest: Community based Design

Hi there! We are excited to announce 2 new blogger contests and hereby invite the participation of our blogger community.

1) The first one is a design contest addressing everyone with a design eye. Have a great suggestion for BlogUpp's home page and directory design, to give it a gorgeous new look? You are most welcome to send your preview by email. When more previews are gathered - they'll be selected and voted by the community. The author of chosen design will be rewarded with a generous blog promotion pack across our content distribution channels, as well as featuring and recognition across our social media profiles.

2) The second blogger contest invites international bloggers, whose contribution is required to reflect the content of our current English home page to translated BlogUpp pages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, Russian, Chinese Simplified / Traditional or Japanese). Are you a native speaker of one of the languages available and would like to be in? Simply send us an email to coordinate and confirm whether yours isn't being handled by someone else already; first comers are advantaged. The reward - same as for design blogger contest - a generous blog promotion package, featuring and recognition across social media.

The only entry prerequisite is to have a blog we'd be happy to share. No closing dates are being set for these 2 blogger contests, and they'll be open till we select what's best for the community.

Be invited and have a lovely winning summer!

Yours sincerely,
The BlogUpp Team

// Image by kees straver

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5 Best Practices for Blog Success

From our experience reviewing lots of blogs here's a list of blog tips and blogger best practices on how to build a successful blog.

1. Go for shorter blog layouts to make the blog load faster.
Simply by limiting the number of blog posts per page to 10 (at most) - the blog can get more reader friendly as well as it does good for SEO. That's because longer layouts require more time to load and crawl blog pages, while most blog readers might not be patient enough till all content shows up.

2. Use only essential blog gadgets that help the blog and entertain readers.
A good practice is to reduce the number of blog add-ons towards optimizing blog loading time, since each gadget adds it up. Besides, too many gadgets installed result in a blog sidebar that is longer than content section itself, which is neither aestetic, nor good for the gadgets.

3. Use images and videos in blog posts.
Relevant visuals make the blog more attractive and interactive. Important though - blog videos and audio embeds should not be auto-played. Advertising visuals should be moderate in number (if any), and relevant to blog content. In the same context, be advised to ping us to update blog snapshot whenever your layout changes, or a cool visual is used.

4. Configure only one blog feed for RSS auto-discovery.
While offering multiple feeds to blog readers might be a good idea, the RSS auto-discovery link is mostly for blog services and RSS based apps. When there are more than one auto-discovery link - the blogger service scanning your blog might not get the right feed, which was meant to be considered.

5. Write about the things you are passionate about and be original.
Above all - authentic blog content is what matters the most. In context of right blog layout, published quality content will get to its readers. It only needs to be distributed/shared, and we at BlogUpp are dedicated to support bloggers with that, towards your blog success.

// Image by Tim Jones

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Celebrate Blogger Appreciation Day

Howdy! This is to salute and thank You - for being a blogger, or simply a blogosphere consumer. On "Blogger Appreciation Day" in continuation to previous year's initiative we encourage to spread appreciation to the bloggers you follow and respect.

This call is published in advance of April 14, to allow time for your preparation. To all of our community members, current and future ones – we send friendly greetings and much appreciation for sharing knowledge, for creating and leading opinions, as well as for making BlogUpp possible.

// Image by Jeff Bauche

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