1. Using normal lens at 55mm
2. Using lens at 18mm
3. Using lens at 200mm

All 3 picture will have a subject positioned 12 feet in front of a green wall (trees) and 6 feet across the camera, with sunlight hitting the subject from either side.

These are the pictures for the assignment:

18-mm

55-mm

200-mm

• One photo that shows the water still
•  One photo that shows the water movement

Still water

Motion water

1. Still subject. Preset settings: Shutter Speed: 1/200 | ISO: 200 | F-Stop: F16
2. Still subject. Preset settings: Shutter Speed: ? | ISO: 200 | F-Stop: F5.6. Used shutter speed: 1/3200
3. Motion subject. Preset settings: Shutter Speed: 1/1000 | ISO: ? | F-Stop: F16. Used ISO: 5000

The submitted photos are below:

All preset values

Find right shutter speed

Find right ISO

While researching on this topic, I came across this great article “Too Much Information on social networking sites, you may be giving away more than you think” that pinpoints all major risks associated with having too much information displayed in our online social media accounts, and also how to make use of these sites in a positive way instead.

I found this article very helpful because it first gives a brief summary of how social media sites work, and then it explains how to make fruitful use out of the social media boom, instead of just becoming the next overexposed victim of the social media world.

The author divides the article in the following topics:

• Social networking sites explained
• Making your online profile work for you instead of against you
• Just a quick background check…
• Social networking sites can make life easier for spammers and stalkers
• The risks to children and teens
• Ways to protect yourself on social networking sites
  • Limit who can see what you post
  • Limit what you post.
• Remember, you can’t take it back!

I like the way the author summarizes every topic with the key elements pertaining to that particular section instead of dragging the reader around unnecessary information, especially with such a catchy and popular subject (social media sites). He explains in a very clear and concise manner how to avoid overexposing ourselves online and how to avoid getting rejected at a job interview by having the wrong kind of information or pictures posted in our profiles.  He also explains how young children and teenagers can become easy targets for sexual predators and other sorts of criminals.

Even though the article seems to be lengthy, it flows very naturally. You read it A to Z without getting bored or tired, or skipping paragraphs just to get to the end.

I believe the author broke down the article in the right sections, and also gave to each one of them the right title to catch the reader’s attention. He also makes excellent use of formatting techniques by using headers, sub headers, bulleted lists, underlined links, quotation marks, etc.

During the article, the author provides a few links to other websites for the readers who are interested in reading more about the main topic of the article, and some other related and useful material. He also provides links to other articles of him that are somehow related to the main topic.

Overall, I was very pleased with the article’s content and flow. My only suggestion would be to integrate a few images here and there (besides the ad and banners) that are related to the topic of the article. Some eye candy never hurts!

Generating Useful Content:

- Blogging: A blog is a type of website or part of a website with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or comments on a particular subject. There are also blogs that function more like personal online diaries. Most blogs display other material such as graphics or videos also related to an specific topic. The Blog entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each . This interactivity is what distinguishes blogs from other static websites.

– Micro Blogging: Is a passive broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size. A microblog entry could consist of nothing but a short sentence fragment, an image or embedded video.

As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, personal posts to thematic and professional or commercial microblogs. Professional microblogs are typically used to promote websites, services and/or products, and to promote collaboration within an organization.

Some microblogging services offer features such as privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs (like twitter), or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface. These may include text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, or digital audio.

Build Followers:

After we have our blog set up our blog and generate useful and meaningful content to our subject through it, we can promote our blog or website (or both) with the help of social media networks like facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Even though these websites are commonly used for personal affairs, it’s becoming more popular to have a separate one for business purposes.

- Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc., with more than 500 million active users registered in July 2010. In facebook, users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.

* How to use facebook to build followers? You can post catchy messages on your status box with links to your business’ facebook page and/or to your main website or blog, leading users to go to site’s homepage  for general information about your company or blog. You can also make the links to redirect visitors to any particular page of your site or blog, to display a special promotion or discount or to a contact page or form that will generate leads for you by capturing the users information (name, email, phone number, or any other information you may require).

- Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service which enables its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile  page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.

All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as, for smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries. The website is based in San Bruno, California near San Francisco (where the website was first based). Twitter also has servers and offices in San Antonio, Texas and Boston, Massachusetts.

Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide and currently has more than 100 million users worldwide.

* How to use twitter to build followers? You can use twitter to post short messages and links to your website or blog, hoping to increase your followers numbers by having users navigate through your website and subscribe to any mailings or promotions you currently have on your site, to generate business leads.

- Commenting on other websites or blogs: Another way to increase your followers number is by periodically visiting other people’s websites or blogs that blog about related topics to your own blog or site, and leave comments on their posts. You can add a link that will redirect users to content on your website pertinent to the subject you just commented on.

Interaction with Fellow Bloggers:

In order to drive more traffic to your website, you can also interact with fellow bloggers and be a guest writer or speaker on their blogs, websites or radio and TV shows, or have them do the same for you.

Contributing in well known bloggers or writer’s pages will generate good traffic to your site or blog and will also increase credibility on your name and online presence.

Internal and External Links:

A website can be composed of internal and external links. Internal links are the ones that will redirect the user to another section or page within the same website domain, while external links will redirect users to pages outside their domain.

The correct usage of internal and external links on your website or blog can greatly contribute to the traffic your site generates.

- Internal Links should be used in a logical and organized manner to help users navigate through your website in a quick and intuitive way. If you have a page with a heavy load of content, it would be ideal to have anchor links placed at the end of each section that will redirect the user back to the main portion o the page, or any other menu or submenu that will allow the navigation of this page to be clean and user-friendly.

- External Links should be used wisely as these will redirect your users to other pages outside your domain. If you are the owner of various domains, having external links could be very useful to links your websites together. This way you can offer all your distinct products and services to your users without overwhelming them with one massive website overloaded with content and or products that are not exactly related to each other.

* Link-baiting: Link bait is any content or feature, within a website, designed specifically to gain attention or encourage others to link to the website. the main purpose of link-baiting is  to catch people’s attention, and from there to lead them to make a purchase or perform an action in the site, like to fill out a form.

The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the many metrics used by a search engine ranking algorithm to rank a website. Social media traffic can generate a substantial amount of links to a single web page. Sustainable link bait is rooted in quality content.

Although there are no clear-cut subdivisions within link bait, the following is a short list of some of the most common approaches with brief descriptions:

* Informational hooks: Provide information that a reader may find very useful. Some rare tips and tricks or any personal experience through which readers can benefit.

* News hooks: Provide fresh information and obtain citations and links as the news spreads.

* Humor hooks: Tell a funny story or a joke. A bizarre picture of your subject or mocking cartoons can also prove to be link bait.

* Evil hooks: Saying something unpopular or mean may also yield a lot of attention. Writing about something that is not appealing about a product or a popular blogger. Provide strong reasons for it.

* Tool hooks: Create some sort of tool that is useful enough that people link to it.

* Widgets hooks: A badge or tool, that can be placed or embedded on other websites, with a link included.

* Unique content hooks: This hook is intended for people that are in need of unique contents or articles for traffic or AdSense revenue. This became popular after Google implemented Duplicate Contents Filter and sites with duplicate contents saw fall in traffic. To use this hook, you have to create unique contents and give it out to Bloggers and webmasters with an obligation to put link back to your site.

- Email Blast or E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail  as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

* sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,

* sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,

* adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and

* sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet (e.g., network e-mail and FIDO).

* Advantages of Email Blasting:

E-mail marketing is popular with companies for several reasons:

* An exact return on investment can be tracked (“track to basket”) and has proven to be high when done properly. E-mail marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.

* Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them.

* Over half of Internet users check or send e-mail on a typical day.

*  E-mail is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to £292m in the UK.

* E-mail allows marketers to reach out to consumers with personalized, relevant, dynamic messages.

* Transactional e-mails allow businesses to respond automatically to important consumer events like purchases or shop-cart abandonment.

* Disadvantages of Email Blasting:

A report issued by the e-mail services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 e-mail deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages were rejected, and eight percent were filtered.

Companies considering the use of an e-mail marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States’ Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM),[6] the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider’s acceptable use policy.

SEO-Oriented Writing:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines in the organic (non-paid)  search results.

In order to optimize a website to be searchable, we may have to make changes to its content and HTML code.  But we need to keep in mind that we need to have not only content, but good content relevant to the products or services we are trying to advertise or sell online. It will be pointless to spend a lot of time optimizing your website, and then have visitors leave right away because the content is not good enough to keep them engaged.

To achieve good SEO we need to choose the right key words and phrases, relevant to our subject matter, and inject them throughout the website in the general content areas of each page, as well as in the meta data and tags in the HTML code. The parts within the HTML code we need to optimize are:

• Page Title
• Meta data (name, description, and keywords)
• Tooltips

- Page Title: Each page should  be named accordingly to its content. This is also a good way to implement keywords to each page and at the same time help your site’s visitors to know which page they are navigating at the time.

- Meta data: Is the basic information about a particular page. The most common used data types for web pages are name, description and keywords.

o   Name: The name of the website or particular page

o   Description: Brief description of the content of the page

o   Keywords: List of relevant words related to the content of the website or the particular page

- Tooltips: This is text that appears over a graphical element (usually an image) describing the same with a word or phrase relevant to its content. This text appears when the user hovers over the image.

Sources:

Wikipedia

For my Writing For Interactive Media Blog, I will be telling stories and facts on how technology is impacting our cultures and our familiar relationships across the globe. Living in such a melting pot of cultures like Miami, I witness pretty much every day how technology is inevitably changing the way we socialize and treat each other in different cultures and social settings.

In this, my first post on the subject, I will talk about my personal experience with technology in my native country -Dominican Republic.

Throughout the rest of the quarter, I’d like to go in more depth on the following topics:

• Being a kid in this technologically overcharged era
• How much technology is too much?
• Having Family overseas, how technology helps
• Social Media Networks: Have we created a monster?
• How to make peace with technology

Let’s Talk About Me:

I was born and raised in The Dominican Republic, a small Island in the Caribbean, that even though is considered a third world country, is also one of the countries with the most advanced telecommunications infrastructures in Latin America. Growing up there was a real blessing. I had just the right amount of technology needed and I turned out just fine! I moved out of there about eight years ago, and every time I go back, I find something new is going on when it comes to technology.

When I was a teenager I didn’t even have a computer at home. I had to go to school or to my mother’s office to get a hold of one. Also, I didn’t have a video game console, my brother did but for some reason I was never into video games. I enjoyed playing outside with my gazillion cousins and friends, and to me is very sad how these days kids barely see the day of light because they much rather stay home and play video games or use their computers 24/7.

By the time I moved out of my country, things had already changed and I was lucky enough to have a computer at home, but it was still a shared computer and we didn’t have high speed internet. Last time I was there, all my cousins had their own computers and/or laptops and of course, DSL Internet! I also noticed how everyone, everywhere had a cell phone, even my little cousins. I remember how I had to work to buy my first cell phone because my mom refused to buy me one! Now, I am grateful she didn’t.

Blackberry Invasion:

I noticed how people over there are obsessed with Blackberry phones and how they are constantly chatting and ignoring the people they have in front of them. In one occasion I had to warn one of my cousins to leave her precious phone behind or I was going to walk away on her! It got me really upset at times, how little attention people pay to each other face to face, yet they can’t stop chatting with the friends that are not present.

People from here and other countries usually think my country is just full of dead-end roads and monkeys, but to tell you the truth, when I go there I don’t feel I am missing any of the technologies we have here. Sometimes I actually wish I was, so I could get real vacation time, but then again, I am a technology junkie and enjoy having a cell phone and internet access everywhere I go!

My Take on Things:

If it was up to me, in my platonic little world, I would not change a thing in my country. I’d like for my little cousins to grow up in the same kind of environment I did, being innocent and being just children happy to play outside. But I know that is not real, and unfortunately, technology spoils many aspects of being a kid these days, but it also brings help, and no matter how I feel about it, there is nothing I can do to stop it. All I know is I am extremely thankful I grew up just before the technology boom hit my beautiful Island!

Qianli Wellness is a program (mix of a dietary supplement and inspirational elements) designed to help individuals in pain (from diseases) to live a healthy life and get rid of their aches. However, if you visit their website, in order to decipher this, you have to either scroll all the way down to the bottom footer menu and click on the “About Us” tab, or figure out that by clicking on the arrows of the homepage banner, you will get to the same page…

The information on this website seems to be all over the place, and the names on the main menu didn’t really say much to me. Also, I am not sure why they have the “About Us” tab incorporated within the footer menu, instead of doing so in the main menu, where expected.

Even though this company has a very clean layout and design, the information gets lots somehow. There seem to be too much information about too many subjects, instead of a brief summary of what the company and their products and services are all about. Is hard to predict what kind of information I may find here, relevant to any particular disease me or a relative one may have. I am not sure if their products are the magic cure for everything or why exactly I should take them. Maybe if I had a few more hours, I could read on and find out, but at a glance is very difficult to pinpoint this company or their products.

What strikes me the most about this page, is that this is meant to be directed to sick people interested in achieving overall well being, yet there is no images of people in their homepage, and only one of a child (which most likely can’t or will not use their products as much as an adult) somewhere in one of their inner pages. I think they would benefit from adding more images of human beings throughout the site, and eliminating most of the long paragraphs of text from the homepage, and to section these in an intuitive way, so users know where to click in order to read the information they are hoping to find.

Site Sample Users:

• People who are already sick, that have some sort of illness that drives them to seek information and possible cure for their condition. These people will probably get frustrated  trying to find useful information about their condition, and finding it soon. The page should have more intuitive names for their sections and more useful links and images to support them.

• Relatives of people who are sick, and are looking for particular information on a disease or maybe about the products Quanli Wellness offers, and like the previous users, want to find the information they are looking for easy and quick, and then stop to read, if they found exactly what they were looking for.

• Doctors and physicians that may be looking to recommend this product to their patients or even use it themselves. Someone within the medical field will at least understand the literature on this site easier, but would still have a hard time trying to identify what this company and its products are about just by taking a quick glance at their homepage.

Recommended Pathways:

The first step to guide site users throughout their page should be to have a more intuitive main menu with the following tab names:

-       Home
-       About Us
-       Our Programs
-       Our Products
-       Online Store
-       Health & Lifestyle

- About pH
- Acidosis
- Diseases (list and information on each)
- Forums
- Downloads

-       Our Partners
-       Contact Us

Possible Pathways:

• People who are already sick:

- Home/ Health & Lifestyle/ Acidosis/Our Products

- Home/ Health & Lifestyle/ Diseases/Our Products

- Home/ Our Programs/Our Products

- Home/ About us/Our Products

• Relatives of people who are sick:

- Home/ Our Programs/Our Products

- Home/ About us/Our Products

- Home/ Health & Lifestyle/ Acidosis/Our Products

- Home/ Health & Lifestyle/ Diseases/Our Products

• Doctors and physicians:

  - Home/ Our Programs/Our Products
  - Home/ About us/Our Products

I just finished reading Liz Strauss’ article: 10 Reasons Readers Don’t Leave Comments and it was good to find out I am not the only one out there not leaving comments in all the good online content.

These are the 10 reasons, plus one, the author’s makes reference to:

1. What you write is so complete, that I don’t know what to say except good job. I feel silly writing that, so I read and move on.

2. You’ve taught me something I didn’t know, and I need to think about it before I even have a question. Much like number 1, I don’t want to embarrass myself. I’m better off moving on.

3. I get ready to type a comment, but I notice you only respond to a few friends who mostly share inside jokes. I won’t take the risk of being overlooked in public.

4. The folks who comment on your posts like to argue and I don’t. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to fight my way into the crowd.

5. You rarely respond to comments. So, there’s no point in writing one.

6. Your blog has geeky attitude and I’m not geeky enough to keep up.

7. I really like your blog and your post, but I’m too tired, busy, or any one of a number things that you can’t control. I’ll comment the next I come back to read.

8. You end your posts with a giant general question like “What do you think of the Big Bang Theory?” That question is such a big one. I don’t have time to answer it. I feel strange answering with a lesser comment.

9. You put up a fence by making me login to comment. I have too many passwords already and I don’t know you well enough to add one to my list.

10. Your content wasn’t fresh and exciting, and I couldn’t find anything YOU inside it. It seemed the same post that I’ve read on 10 other blogs. If I commented, I would have to tell you that.

PLUS ONE: Your post was negative. Negative is scary. Most folks don’t like negative stuff, because they know they could be next to be the recipient. I don’t comment, because I don’t want to be part of it.

I personally identify with items #1, 2 and 7. Specially number 7, because I have a very busy schedule being a full-time student and a full-time employee. I know it may sound cliché, but I seriously don’t have the time a day to leave comments on people’s good content. I do spend some time leaving comments on my friends’ facebook pages but those comments don’t need to be revised or meaningful. When I read something that moves me or interests me enough for me to at least consider leaving a comment, I’d like for the comment to be as good or close enough to the good content that originated it. Therefore, if I don’t have enough time to write a decent comment, I rather not to comment at all.

Regarding items 1 and 2, I agree with Ms. Strauss, when it comes to leaving something posted on the net, if I feel I may look unintelligent or that I don’t know enough on the subject, I don’t post a comment. I am assuming there is lots of people that share my fear of being “called out” online, after all once content is online, is out there for the world to devour.

The author closes her article saying:

“Yet when the content is rich and compelling, I lose all self-consciousness. My fingers can’t wait to share what you’ve started me thinking. My hands literally jump to the keyboard and start typing out the words. Other readers have said that is true for them too.”

I will sadly admit that in my case, regardless of how good the content is, 99/100 times, I do not leave a comment on the article. Most of the time is because I truly don’t have the time; the others, just because I get distracted and forget to leave the comment.

I am not sure what would be the “answer” for people like me, but I keep thinking that once I have less things on my plate, I’ll have the time not to only leave comments on people’s blogs and articles but to hopefully start a blog of my own, or at least a good article section on my website. I guess time will tell, as of now, I feel I just don’t have the time!

Wake up in the morning, have some coffee, go to work/school, come back home at the end of the day, and tomorrow, do it all again. Sometimes is hard to find inspiration in between our daily routine. Sure, I’d love to travel more, and to pursue new hobbies, but who will provide for me if I decide not to work so much?

Motivational speakers, and other sources often want to make us believe that the universe has a purpose for us, that the key is to hold a positive attitude at all times. But how is it possible to do so in the middle of a crisis? or just when you don’t have enough money or simply not enough time to do things that need to be done.

I believe instead of counting just in a positive attitude, they way to go is to set ourselves with approachable goals, and to improve and move forward to the next phase once we know we have reached that first step. Sure, a positive attitude is a blessing and it helps, but to me the key of being truly satisfied about life, is to work on whatever it is YOU have planned for yourself. Leaving all up to fate or to the universe will not be enough, at least not in my book. But then again, I typically do things not necessarily in the conventional way.

I believe there is always more than one way to get to places, and you should stick to the one that works best for you. Trying to follow someone else’s advice just because you feel you don’t have a clue doesn’t make much sense to me. When I agree with people, is because I truly do, not just because I am trying to find a way.

For me, motivation is not for sale. Once you set up your own goals and work on them, inspiration is just a given, it is what started you off in the first place.

This is the era where nearly anyone can and have a website, blog, or a social media page, where we are free to write our feelings away or just about anything that crosses our minds. And this is OK as long as you don’t need of your writing skills to make a living or to drive traffic to your page.

While researching good topics to base this article on, that will teach you and I something about copywriting, I found this great article at CopyBlogger:
20 Warning Signs That Your Content Sucks by Jonathan Morrow, where he summarizes the 20 most common mistakes we make about writing.

I will group these mistakes in fives, and tell you what I learned from them and which ones were directly a slap on my face!

1. You think your content is “good enough”
2. Your posts read like journal entries
3. You’re not getting many (or any) comments
4. Your visitors stay less than two minutes, on average
5. You spend less than an hour on each post -slap no. 1!

Content doesn’t have mid-tones, it’s either great or it sucks! So you should always try your best on every piece you write. Writing web content the same way we wrote in our diaries when younger is just not going to cut it. A good way to measure if your content is good enough is by the amount of comments people leave on your posts, and the average amount a visitor spends on your site (you can install Google Analytics or find out if your web hosting company offers any website statistics tools).

Item number 5 was my first slap on the face, as I always try to do everything as fast as I can. I should always remember that writing good content is more about quality than quantity.

6. You’ve never received fan mail
7. You’ve never received hate mail
8. You focus on SEO before you get your first link - slap no. 2!
9. You believe SEO is the secret to building a popular blog
10. You’re saving your best ideas for later

Receiving emails from readers is always a good sign. Whether they are happy emails or just hateful ones, this means your content is good enough to make people take the time to write to you.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way to drive traffic to your website, but it’s useless if what people see/read when they arrive is crap. I never gave too much thought to this because when I do SEO for a client, I am just doing it thinking as the web developer, not as the marketing expert(which happens to be my boss) or a sensible reader. If you invest the time and money on SEO, you should make the same effort to have amazing content on your website that will not drive the traffic you’ve just earned away.

If you have great content to post, do so! Do not wait to get all the traffic on your site to then release the best yet to come. Your website or blog is not a movie trailer, so don’t treat it as such.

11. Your blog is about … well … everything
12. You don’t know the benefit
13. You think you deserve more traffic than you’re getting
14. You have a science, engineering, or technology background -slap no. 3!
15. You’ve never read a book on copywriting

A good strategy in any field, is to specialize in something you know you are good at. Same applies to writing: Write about something you know about or that you have enough interest to do reliable research for your readers. People can tell when you are consistent with your content and if they find it useful, they’ll come back for more. People will not like you just because, you should always have fresh and helpful content on your site if you want to keep the traffic flowing.

My third slap, and probably the hardest one was #14. Before being in the technology field, I was pursuing an engineering degree, so I am as logical as they come! It’s very hard for me to try to write something from “my heart” without over-analyzing and dissecting every bit and piece. So far, this is my biggest challenge when it comes to writing, as I am afraid to show emotions to readers. This is a work-in-progress task for me.

16. You have no idea what keeps your readers up at night
17. You write less than 1,000 words per day - slap no. 4!
18. You read less than 10 hours per week - slap no. 5!
19. You’ve never talked to a reader on the phone or in person
20. You’ve been blogging for less than six months - slap no. 6!

In order to do good writing you must bond with your readers. You should figure out what are your reader’s interests and try to connect with them by including their interests and feelings in your writing.

This last section in Mr. Morrow’s article was just slap after slap for me! I barely write, and definitely not in a daily basis. And for that matter, I don’t read much either, and I am a newbie to blogging and to writing in general.

But what I have learned from his article is to accept the fact that I am new at this, that my content will inevitably suck for some time, probably more than I would want it to, but it will and I just have to accept it, try my best, and not to settle for mediocrity. I have to think my content will be put to the test every single time is out there. Good content is hard work, and I should NEVER forget that!