Copyright part three

A short note about YouTube 

If you use YouTube to post videos I hope you read your user agreement closely. Did you know that you authorize others to post your video within specific parameters?

“You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service.” (YouTube terms of service section 6C)

This also has an impact on bloggers. This means that you can post other peoples YouTube videos on your blog. You must have it linked back to the original YouTube post though. I would also ensure that you cite your source appropriately. I would be careful but you are covered by the YouTube TOS if you want to do it. 

Pocket - Review

Keep your reading organized

If you are like me, you do a lot of surfing on the internet to find ideas to write about. You also follow a fair amount of people on twitter and Facebook. I find a lot of articles that I want to read but generally don’t have the time. I wanted to share my solution with you.

I use a program called Pocket. Pocket is an amazing website that lets you save articles to be read when you have the time. It has an Android and iPhone app also. It is very simple also. First make an account. Then add their link to your bookmark bar or you can use their browser extensions. Add articles as you find them. You can also save from your phone using the "share" feature on a website or in your browser.

When you have time, waiting for an appointment, riding a train, whenever, you can read your articles. The best part is that on your mobile device, it is all saved offline so you don’t need to have internet access to read.

Pocket has a lot of options when reading an article. You can modify the layout, change the font size, or share the article to other applications. After reading you can delete the article, save it, or star it. Pocket also saves the images embedded in articles. Pocket saves the original link back to the article so you can always get back to where you found it at.

I love Pocket for keeping track of articles I want to read. I also use it to save websites that I want to review later. I spend time in the morning roaming the internet and saving articles to Pocket. Then, throughout the day I read them and determine if they might be useful to my readers. If not it gets deleted. If it could be useful I save it and write a post about it later that night or when I have time.

Check out GetPocket.com. Oh, and did I mention that it is completely free? 

7 keys to blogging success

Be successful in your blog:

I found this while roaming the internet. I thought it was a really quick and concise starter:

AdSense... part two

My experience with AdSense

So I applied for Adsense about two days after starting my blog. I very quickly got a form email back stating that I didn’t have enough content. They need content in order to decide what, if any, ads were pertinent to my blog. That sounded reasonable. I waited two weeks or so and then re-applied. I wasn’t hopeful but I wanted to see what would happen. I got the same form letter back. Again, I understand. I am not even remotely established. I am still growing and finding my feet. So I waited a few more weeks and applied again. Then I got something I did not expect.

I got an email back a day or two later. It stated, essentially, that Google AdSense was too big to deal with the little guy. Ok, that’s how it felt at least. What it really said was that AdSense was not able to contract with me because they have to be selective in who they choose to advertise with.

I will accept that I am naive when it comes to these things.  I have only been at this for a little over a month. I have done a lot of research though. I also roam other peoples blogs and YouTube pages. Google Adsense is seen on a lot of different websites and YouTube streams. Based on this roaming, I assumed that anyone with an active blog or YouTube stream qualified for Adsense. I was wrong.  It is my guess that AdSense has grown too large to pay attention to the little guy now.  I will look around and see what other options are available and report back. 

HootSuite - Review

Don't let Twitter overwhelm you

If you are like me, you started blogging and used twitter to draw in to your blog page. For me, it was a great way to start getting my name out there. I had never used Twitter before so it took me awhile to get the hang of it. As time went on and I started using Twitter more frequently it became apparent that I needed to change the way I was doing things. That’s when I found HootSuite.

HootSuite is a great website that helps you manage your Twitter feed(s) and Facebook posts. You can set up streams of content depending on what you want to view. There are also plug-ins for it for other things like Reddit and Linkedin.

The best part of HootSuite, to me at least, is the Publish feature. This allows me to schedule my Tweets. I try to schedule three days out. I have heard that people with a more established blog/community schedule a week out. I don't have enough to say to do that.

The website is really simple to use and they have a good tutorial to walk you through how to use it if needed. To sweeten the deal, there is a mobile app. I am running it on my android phone. It doesn't slow my phone down or interact with other apps, like general twitter apps do. I like that because I work hard to keep my private life separate from my blogging one.

To top everything off, it is free. They have a professional version that does cost cash but for a small time or new blogger/twitterer (I don’t know if that is a word) the basic version is perfect. The professional version is an reasonable price also, if you need the upgrade.

So check out Hootsuite.com. 

Copyrights...part two

Infringement and Creative Commons

With the invention of the internet a lot of issues have come up around copyright laws. In the past few years there have been a lot of questions about what is and is not covered by copyright. Is anything I post on the internet automatically protected? Can you use any picture you find on the internet for whatever you want?

First off let me say, no, you cannot use anything you find on the internet for your business use. You must check to see if it is covered by a copyright, patent, or trade mark. It is your responsibility to check. If someone else is using an image in violation of a copyright and you also use it, you are still guilty of copyright infringement. So check your source or purchase your images from a reputable source.

With the ongoing arguments and lawsuits over copyright infringement, there are a lot of different ways that peoples works are protected. The first and easiest is a copyright. In part one of this series I explained that when you put something in print, or post it on your website, it is covered by a limited copyright. It is your idea that you have memorialized in print and is protected. Applying for a copyright gives you more protection though.

So, how can you get your work out there without losing your connection to it? Creative Commons license might be your answer. (http://creativecommons.org) There are different levels or types of creative commons license but in general, they let other people use your work as long as they cite and link back to you. You can allow people to modify your work if you want or limit commercial use of it. It is simple and free to use.

Citations: http://creativecommons.org, http://www.youtube.com/t/creative_commons

Other work from home ideas

Not into blogging?

I understand that everyone might not be into blogging or writing constantly. If not, I have added a page to help out. I do a lot of research for this blog and sometimes come across things that are cool but not directly applicable to blogging. I have added a page to post these cool finds. So if you are interested in working from home but not blogging, check out the Other Work from Home Idea's page.