Solid points. The same thing goes for your twitter do’s and dont’s. I’m glad to see someone so dedicated to making the web a more reader-friendly place.

One question – where did you get that amazing tagcloud? I’m working on something similar for a new design of http://www.leaftoronto.org – except shaped as a growing tree – if that makes sense.
Please let me know.

@mjwhigginson or @leaf_to

With regards to widgets and apps on a blog, I think there’s a fine balance, and it really depends on what the purpose of the apps you choose are. For example, a stat counter is great for you to monitor (i.e. Statpress) from the back end, but adds no value to your followers (unless you want to prove how popular your blog is).

It also depends on your audience. If you have readers mostly from your area, then a weather widget would be great and informative!

I’ve learned that adding too many widgets not only oversaturates the look of your page, but also dilutes the quality of the content because of information overload. It will also tend to slow down the time it takes to load your blog when there is too much information.

But do add apps and widgets that engage your readers… if you think about each app you’re considering strategically, there can be a lot of value in it for you and your community.

Good luck!

What’s your opinion on using lots of apps on blogs (widgets, stat counters, weather forecast boxes, lists …)? Does it make a blog more interesting or oversaturated?

check out permalinks in wordpress. it makes it so the hyperlink of your posts is by name/date rather than something random. good for linking to things and checking your blog stats.

by the way, love ur point on the 140 characters. man, after using twitter, so easy to misspell words