I was having a discussion with a friend over tea last evening on how we could further promote our blogs. Yes, I know that we should leave our blog URL in message boards, leave comments on blogs that are of similar interest as our own, and submit articles and press releases, blog directories and what not. However, we wanted something different.

I know that many people love freebies so I thought that giving away things like t-shirts, caps, pens, notepads and other Promotional Products with our blog logo and URL would be an awesome idea. I believe that by doing so, not only will it attract more visitors, the effect of word of mouth marketing will continue on.

Although I think that this is a brilliant idea, I am not prepared to spend too much money implementing it. After all, my blog doesn’t bring in revenue. Not just yet.

I went through the promotional products on AnyPromo and am glad to notice their vast selection of products to choose from. And yes, they do help us to emboss each product with our blog logo and desired text. To me, though, the most important is that they are within budget.

I admit that I may be naïve into thinking that giving away promotional products would help to improve readership. Well, if you know of a better way, let me know.

If you are a blogger, I am sure you would know that blog posts with photos attract more readers. Believe me, I tried to look for appropriate pictures to include in my blog but have failed so far. The problem is that I keep worrying about using images without violation of copyright.

Acobox.com offers free blog pictures. I know of them for quite a while already but never tried them before. Let me just try it then!

I read with delight that Google has come out with an open source project called Google Blog Converters which supposedly helps bloggers to move their blog from one platform to another.

Basically, what it does is that it will help to convert our blog from one format to another that could be recognised by our new blog platform. However, the script is written in Python so you’d have to know this to be able to run Google Blog Converters.

This is good news to me even though I have no plans to move any blog for the time being. However, I am happy that there is an easy way for me to host my blog easily in another blog platform if I so wish. I have three Blogger blogs that I KNOW I should move away but I am so lazy. Besides, I would need someone who could help me run Google Blog Converters because I don’t know Python.

I think this is a matter that all of us bloggers would be interested in.

Apparently, Canadian model Liskula Cohen has taken Google to court to compel Google to disclose a blogger’s identity. This blogger uses the blog services of Blogger.com and has posted statements on Liskula Cohen which the model claims are defamatory. The blogger has also published photos of Liskula Cohen in the blog.

Google has not disclosed the blogger’s identity to date but said that they will do so if ordered by the court. Google will also remove the blogger’s content if the court deems it to be defamatory.

If Google loses this lawsuit and forced to reveal the as yet anonymous blogger, I guess Liskula Cohen will be taking the blogger to court then. This would be interesting to watch since it will affect all bloggers and how we blog.

Vietnamese authorities have warned bloggers to just blog about mundane everyday stuff like the weather and their dog, what they had for lunch or dinner and not write about anything controversial that would cause discontent or conflict among the people or disrupts social order.

Vietnamese officials have also sought the help of Google and Yahoo! for their co-operation, presumably to disclose to Vietnamese officials on the activities of web users in Vietnam that are against the rules.

We all still remember how Yahoo! provided information to Chinese officials which led to the imprisonment of a Chinese dissent. While Yahoo! was put in a spot and forced to do so if they wanted to continue to do business in China, I believe that Vietnam does not hold such “power” to force Google or Yahoo! into disclosing personal information of bloggers in Vietnam.

Let’s hope that Vietnamese bloggers would have a fair arena on the web to voice their thoughts and opinions and not get into trouble with the authorities like Malaysian bloggers.

Some of you may know that I host several blogs with different web hosts. Not too long ago, I switched hosts because the previous one had a lot of downtime and as a paid blogger, it was very frustration as I was not able to work on my blogs as and when I like.

Switching hosts, although not difficult, was a hassle for me, I guess because I did not have any technical knowledge at all. Well, if you are planning to switch to a better web hosting channel, you should check out Exabytes Switchhhh Program.

Exabytes have provided step by step instructions on how you could purchase a domain name, if you do not already have one, and move your current website to be hosted with Exabytes. Now that I have watched their videos, it really is a breeze. It doesn’t matter if you are looking for corporate or private webhosting, the steps are basically the same.

Exabytes is currently running a promotion in conjunction with Christmas and their EBiz Gold Web Hosting, their corporate hosting solution, is only RM299 per year with a savings of RM100 per year. On the other hand, their EBiz Plus Web Hosting, for private individuals, are only RM199 per year, saving you RM70 per year.

To encourage webmasters to switch, Exabytes will be giving us the balance of hosting time we have with our current webhost so we wouldn’t lose but have all to gain with a better hosting solution from an award winning professional hosting provider like Exabytes. What I like the most, though, is the guaranteed 99.9% network uptime and 99.5% server uptime which means a worry-free paid blogging experience.

Recently, checking the email that was sent to RSS subscribers by email, I noticed a small speaker icon in the email. It’s funny that I never noticed that even though I am subscribed to my own blogs. I subscribe to have a back up copy of my posts, OK, not to jack up my subscriber count!

Anyway, I clicked on the icon and it took me to an audio version of my blog. There is an option to download it in mp3 format and if you are so inclined, you could sync it to your iPod, iTouch or iPhone and listen to the “podcast” of the blog on the go.

I downloaded my own audio file out of curiosity and I have to say that the audio was of high quality and would make a great addition to my blog. I would be greater if it’s easier to integrate that audio podcast to every post instead of just available to email subscribers. I don’t know if there is such a plug-in already but so far I couldn’t find anything that would be able to do such a thing.

If you know of any, please let me know!