130 diggs The stats are in!

84 diggs Digg is down really down...

53 diggs US President Barack Obama is to release a children's book on 16 November, two weeks after Congressional mid-term elections.

87 diggs Well, at least they're consistent...

99 diggs List of the 20 worst TV shows of all time, with video. Includes Poochinski, Pink Lady And Jeff, The Swan, Cop Rock, Joey and more.

113 diggs Tropical Storm Karl is bearing down on Mexico, with two dangerous category four hurricanes - Igor and Julia - also sweeping in from the Atlantic

98 diggs How the hell did Joe and Cobra manage to hire so many ninjas? You can't exactly post the job on Craigslist.

109 diggs the intent of the semantic web is to enhance the usability and usefulness of the internet and its interconnected resources.

87 diggs Face smash!

129 diggs Science, you're really starting to chap our asses.

106 diggs It's even easier than you think.

99 diggs Seven years ago, John Ritter collapsed on the set of his sitcom, '8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter' and died later that day of an undiagnosed aortic dissection. His widow Amy Yasbeck has penned 'With Love and Laughter,' a beautiful and heartfelt memoir of her life with John that gives us a glimpse of what type of guy he really was. Turns out he was as terrific as you thought. Ritter left behind three children from a first marriage and a daughter with Yasbeck, named Stella, who turned five the day her dad died.

79 diggs I think I'll just have to stop here for lunch...and stay for dinner...and breakfast.

105 diggs Back to Earth

78 diggs Nature and it's beauty have always attracted mankind. Nature not only soothes the eyes but also put the body and the soul at solace and comfort. Lakes are God's

94 diggs The woman's daughters had left a web camera on so they could talk to her while they were not home. Cops reviewed 32 days worth of footage and found abuse every single day. "I've been in law enforcement for 30 years and I consider myself a pretty hardened individual, and I have a tough time watching this in its complete format," Jersey City Police Chief Tom Comey said.

90 diggs A Guest Post by Neal Rodriguez. With the release of the new Digg on August 25th, anybody with the ability to understand how a story, which is promoted to the popular section, is composed, has an edge in attaining viral exposure ranging from tens of thousands to millions of pageviews. Diggs users constitute a large proportion of bloggers. Thus stories promoted to their popular section, which was previously their homepage and now the Top News page, can attain anywhere from less than 10 to hundreds of links pointing to their websites. Digg also has millions of users; many of whom visit websites that reach the popular section at a rapid rate. My blog went down when I promoted my interview with Ben Huh The Most Popular SFW & NSFW Failblog Pics of the Decade to the popular section and more than 1,000 visitors loaded the page in the first few minutes after reaching the front page. No matter how much of an efficient promotor of content you are, you will not get your blogs pageview count passed the two people who made you nine months ago without writing content that people are willing to share among their online friends and acquaintances. There are just some stories that people are willing to pass on to their fellow digital networkers through email, Facebook Like action, retweet, pigeon carrier, or Greek messenger. What are some of the elements that increase the chance that a story will spread virally? 1. A Picture is Worth a Hundred Thousand Pageviews I was surprised to hear that my friend had launched his photo blog and had grown his traffic level to 100,000 monthly pageviews in 3 months. Now together with Digg he is behind one of the biggest viral campaigns on the web in the past few weeks: the dry erase girl. Photos on the web appear to have the hypnotic ability of making people share them upon first encounter. Ben Huh reportedly did nothing but post photos of people failing at everyday tasks on his blog. Last time I spoke with him he was driving 1 billion pageviews to his blog network every 4 months. On the blog post to which I alluded in the first paragraph, I aggregated the most popular photos posted on Bens blog in the last decade and performed some social outreach on the news aggregators. The post made the front page of Digg and drove 26,690 pageviews in the first few hours. It received 36,019 pageviews the following day. The post has received over 77,000 pageviews in total. You should add photos to every blog post you write. The funnier the picture the better. Even the most serious topics work great with a offbeat picture that can also represent the posts topic. Stunning pictures such as those posted on PDN Photo of the Day Aftermath (6 photographs) show the story of a womans breast cancer treatment in a series of self-portraits. I drove over 200,000 pageviews to this story on the first day of publication. It went popular on Stumbleupon and made the front page of Reddit, a social news aggregator, to drive over 90,000 views over the weekend when traffic is typically slowest. The only reason I didnt put it on Digg is because nudity was not allowed at the time. I have found I have been able to drive the most traffic when I aim to tell a story through pictures. 2. Opinionated Stories My first blog post on the Huffington Post briefly outlined reasons why I thought we as consumers brought the U.S. financial crisis upon ourselves. In short, my argument contended that increases in foreclosures were the product of people buying homes that they could not afford. Whether you think I was wrong or not, this post made the front page of Digg in 2007 and incited a huge response. If any of you have attempted to promote content on Digg, you know that solely stories that receive the most response and support from the community get promoted to its popular page. I got insulted on this post for my lack of substantiating my arguments with 3rd party facts. However, I did help people close no-paper A loans as a credit repair specialist back in 03; so, considering the amount of people for which I secured $300,000 loans without showing income documentation, I had a pretty good idea from which to draw an opinion. No excuse, nonetheless, in your iteration, ensure that you back up your content with solid facts, statistics, and other expert opinions to make your argument as credible as possible. My opinionated piece that called for the arrest of a Bart police officer who shot an unarmed man in 2009 also made the front page of Digg. My thoughts on why the Bart police officer who shot Oscar Grant should be held without bail was the most popular story on the Huffington Post on its day of publication with over 40,000 views through my outreach efforts. What also made this post popular stand out, is that mainstream media wasnt giving it the attention that the American people thought it should. Now touching on the subject of race, I received a hundreds of racist insults. Expect to get verbally abused when taking a strong stance on many subjects; especially touchy subjects that cover sensitive issues such as race. Just log out of Foursquare and Facebook Places before hitting the check-in button while you watch your 3-year old impersonate a Oreos commercial eating cookies in your house. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. 3. Infographics Infographics are visual representations of an outline of information. The graphic typically constitutes a skyscraper and rectangular image that is 500 pixels or wider. Inside the infographic, you can see factoids represented by smaller images. The smaller images can constitute pictures, graphs, and/or any other imagery associated with the information its representing. Infographics can get tough to do if you dont have a graphic designer. However, beyond the sparkling quality of the color and resolution of the images, the information conveyed in the infographic is what will determine its viral success. I put up a simple infographic on what other items could be bought with the money put into a Super Bowl ad and drove over 50,000 views to the Adfreak blog in a few hours. When creating a infographic keep in mind the following best practices: Research your topic from at least 10 resources. Try timelines and abstract ways to display diagrams, graphs, and charts; a popular way to graph data is by using rows or columns of images associated with the data e.g. stick figures like those used to identify public mens and womens rooms when providing information on people. Post key information that surprises or intensely interests people upon disclosing it; little-known historical facts and processes work well. Use colors for the fonts, background, and images that relate to the topic being discussed. In this case we used colors in relation to football. We used the two team colors that were playing: the Colts and Saints. The font size should poke readers eyes into their throats. Make them big, bold and colorful. Emphasize the words that are most important and experiment with different font sizes and styles. Add several facts that constitute the WOW factor; that your audience can relate to. So in the Super Bowl infographic, we related the factoids to popular memes on Digg since that was the initial channel of promotion. And again, although the graphic quality is important, put more focus on the information you will be embedding in the infographic. Visualize the image and draw a rough sketch outlining how you want it to look on paper or digitally. 4. Rewriting Headlines The new Digg allows you to edit a headline before submitting it to the community. Your headline is the first thing a user sees when the story is posted on his feed. You should incite the need to click and read what loads upon clicking the title. Top # Lists When content is already listed or outlined but the title doesnt read so, you may increase the chance of promoting a story to popularity using a numbered list title. A Forbes story once listed the most expensive private jets in the world. I rewrote the headline to The 10 Most Expensive Private Jets on the Planet. I successfully promoted the story and drove thousands of pageviews to it in a few hours. A good way to structure a list is by using the Cracked.com forumula The + (Number) + Most + (Over the top adjective) + (Subject) + Of All Time (Synonyms like in History or Ever will also be accepted) = Popularity Topics Important to the Digg Community Some stories generally cover an event or developing topic. At times you will find a something that is dear to the heart of Digg users. I promoted a story for PBS that was covering a political convention, which had a tent catered for bloggers. Digg was mentioned once as a the sponsor. You probably know what I did better than me. I stated how Digg was sponsoring the event as the title. I successfully promoted the story to the front page and exposed it to its million-person user base. Percentages I also take the most important percentage that proves the key fact in the story and have made it as a headline. A story explained how betting pools were operating for the upcoming Super Bowl. The storys key finding reported that 80% of bets were for the underdog, my NY Giants. I used this stat as the headline 80% of Super Bowl Bets are on the Giants and successfully promoted the story to the front page. How have you composed posts to drive the most traffic to your blogs? Neal Rodriguez is a social media marketing operator ready to jog in blizzards this winter to get ripped for the summer in New York City. This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips. 4 Ways I Compose Posts to Drive Millions of Pageviews to Blogs Through Digg Share This

56 diggs How did John Lennon and Paul McCartney (you know, from the Beatles) make music together? John and Paul did balance and complement each other magnificently, and we can pile example on example....

95 diggs Security chiefs from Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, and Holland America Line say they follow these procedures when hiring security personnel for their ships.

95 diggs In the mail yesterday, I received a bumper sticker from a new Austin service called Bumper Twit. Alarmingly, the bumper sticker had my Twitter ID printed on it. The implication, what I could figure out from an attached letter from Bruce Gardner at Genuine Recordings ATX, was that I was supposed to put this on my car. Now, let’s pause for a second to consider.

90 diggs The robotics industry is slowly moving towards one common goal - robots we can bump uglies with. On paper, it sounds like a great idea, but it really isn't.

111 diggs Mars, U.S. Department of Agriculture and IBM release preliminary cacao genome sequence to public domain.

128 diggs Jeb Corliss (professional base jumper) says if the birds can do it, so can he -- and he's got the vision, engineering plans & guts to do it...maybe.

116 diggs These nutritious foods will satisfy your appetite and help you get to your ideal weight. These meals and snacks are loaded with the nutrients your body needs and that will keep those hunger pangs at bay.

108 diggs If you like Jewel Staite as Kaylee from Firefly and Serenity and Dr. Jennifer Keller from Stargate: Atlantis, you'll love the REAL Jewel Staite! That's why we're so pleased she's agreed to join us regularly here at Blastr to answer your questions and share whatever happens to be on her mind.

110 diggs I have a couple friends who are big into building scale models of Gundams. I’ve never really understood the appeal (of building tiny giant robots, not of giant robots themselves – they’re the bee’s knees), but it seems to be quite a phenomenon.

75 diggs Rick Cook (author of the Wizadry series) once said, “Programmers are in a race with the Universe to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, while the Universe is trying to create bigger and better idiots. So far the Universe is winning.”

118 diggs With Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner revealed the good, bad, ugly and super freaky of the world around us. Here they address the feasibility of some surprising proposals - three geoengineering solutions to global warming.

97 diggs In honor of those fan-tastic fisticuffs, here’s a collection of fan fights in sports. Some are stay in the stands while others bleed over into the action, involving players and coaches.

96 diggs Watch the Cliché Skate team as they take on the streets of LA.

100 diggs If Apple plans on getting the iPhone to Verizon, it had better hurry up, because the competition in the superphone category is heating up.

104 diggs Oprah Winfrey has another shock in store for the 300 fans she surprised earlier this week with tickets for an all-inclusive trip to Australia - she's not paying

83 diggs Travel is supposed to be fun, and normally it is. Sure, sometimes things happen that raise your hackles. Airport security lines move too slowly. You're stuck in a middle seat between two heavyweights. Your hotel room isn't ready. Stuff like that. Good travelers adapt and keep their cool. Even so, there some things we all can live without.

104 diggs When you’re cruising the beer section of your local licka’ sto’ alcohol by volume or “ABV” is what you look for on the label when you want to reduce the number of bottles you won’t recycle and quickly lubricate your ‘social-bility’.

100 diggs Easily compare the cost of living in the United States to other selected cities and see the difference just a few years and a housing crash make.

113 diggs Somalia pirates hijack ships and demand ransom on the Indian Ocean after monsoon season ends.

116 diggs Europeans have enjoyed the Focus ST for years. Now, Americans will soon be able to obtain this turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder powered Focus with 247 horsepower on tap.

119 diggs An astonishing number of people struggle with their reading and writing skills every day, all over the world.

92 diggs That's not what those sprinkles were intended for..

96 diggs When you ride a tiger, you go wherever the tiger wants to go – even off a cliff.

110 diggs On the insistence of the FBI, Seattle's Molly Norris is "going ghost": moving, changing her name and essentially wiping away her identity. Why? Because of the appalling fatwa issued against her, following her infamous "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoon.

91 diggs Google “University of Nebraska Lincoln” and the second top result is Huskers.com, home to the university’s Athletic Department. The school is set to join the Big Ten conference in 2011–2012 and slam-dunks the No. 1 spot on Newsweek’s list of colleges stocked with jocks.

88 diggs A new campaign is underway to overcome one of the most frustrating hurdles of recycling in the U.S.: Inconsistent and unclear signs for what you can recycle.

129 diggs When we released our report on the colors of the social web, based on data analyzed by our Twitter theme tool, we were surprised that blue was such a dominant color in people's profile designs. Was Twitter's default color influencing their design decisions? Or is blue really THE most popular and dominant color online? ...We decided to look at the colors in the brands from the top 100 sites in the world to see if we could paint a more colorful picture.

124 diggs If you're a Star Wars fanboy/fangirl, you'll be in agreement that The Empire Strikes Back is the greatest movie ever made. No debate. It just is. Anyone who disagrees is Bantha Poodoo. Following the amazing Making of Star Wars Book, J.W. Rinzler has done the same for Empire and the results look incredible.

92 diggs Katherine Margaret Watson says that if she'd tried shopping in Sturgis wearing nothing but a thong, pasties and whipped cream, no one would have batted an eyelid.

107 diggs There's been somewhat of a battle between Kanye West and Taylor Swift fans ever since the 2009 VMAs. Here's a look at who really comes out on top...financially.

107 diggs We end up in the friend zone more often than not. Then 2009 happened. All of a sudden chicks are coming up to us and saying, "Oh my god, you look like the guy from The Hangover." And boom, pants off.

121 diggs If you watch the Jersey Shore or for that matter no anyone who pops their collar or GTL's on regular basis then you'll be more than familiar with qualities of a classic Douche bag!

86 diggs September 15, 2010 Dr. Anklesnap Stephon Marbury has been one one crazy character in the NBA for a long time. He is a media darling and a PR nightmare all at the same time due to his antics and odd off the court behaviour. But hes in China now, trying to salvage whats left of his playing days. And from what we have seen and heard hes not doing too bad on the court. Financially on the other hand. But Marbury must be getting a bit lonely on the other side of the world because if you follow his twitter account youll see he first wanted Iverson to join him in China to make history. But he also wants all the rest of the NBA stars to keep an open mind to the Chinese league when the lockout comes. Oh and by the way, Marbury is callin it before it happens, so take it to the bank folks the lockout is obviously a done deal.

140 diggs Posted rules don't seem to bother most travelers, and the age-old common sense type don't seem to register, either. These are the top 15 unwritten rules of public transportation -- and they're broken every day.

125 diggs IBM will acquire the firm for an undisclosed sum

117 diggs Am too intelligent or may be my owner is dumb :P

85 diggs The sentencing hearing was reportedly an emotional marathon, with many of those who Merriman admits to bilking either attending or testifying about the damage he did to their lives.

106 diggs Who's up for some frog heart and ant larvae? Yummy

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132 diggs Finding a job in a recession is difficult, but the jobs are out there. You just have to know where to look, and for some jobs, be willing to think outside the cube -- imagine selling tequila shots to drunken men for up to $600 a night, diving for pearls for $1,200 a day or diving below an oil rig for $80,000 a year.

114 diggs Check out this interactive trailer for the upcoming David Fincher film, 'The Social Network.' Click throughout the playback to reveal interesting facts and links to articles about the film and its subject - Mark Zuckerberg and the creation and history of Facebook.

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99 diggs Some men take great pride in their lawns, and that’s nothing new. However, Bruce Modder is a guy who takes lawn care very seriously.

124 diggs Here is our salute to sand in the cinema, ten momentous moments when the beach really had its day in the sun.

146 diggs These are the streets where you are gonna want to make sure you engage the parking brake before you get out of your car.

115 diggs George Lucas’ net worth is estimated to be over $3 billion dollars, owing largely to the unparalleled success of the Star Wars franchise. Here’s a look at the economics of the franchise that set him up for life.

107 diggs Members of the creative collective Neozoon , a group of artists based in Paris and Berlin, are staging a protest against using animal furs as fashion by turning the pelts and coats into street art graffiti.

110 diggs If you’ve been following Android, you’ll be more than familiar with the HTC Desire HD as the evolution of the big-screen Android superphone.

43 diggs Lucas Cruikshank will star as his alter ego, Fred Figglehorn, in a TV-movie version of the hit videos the young comedian has created on YouTube.

116 diggs Elis Stenman, an engineer who invented the paper clip machine, began work on this unique building in 1922. He was curious about whether rolled newspaper could be used as an effective insulation.

117 diggs Leatherwork studio Bob Basset and artist Tom Banwell both focus on steampunk art works. By repurposing something as practical as a gas mask, the form is turned into something fantastic.

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107 diggs Team Ico and Shadow of Colossus listed in Famitsu teases TGS announcement

128 diggs It looks like Apple may soon introduce the ability for app makers to charge on a subscription basis, which would make devices like the Apple iPad an ideal device for newspapers and magazines.

110 diggs We have scoured the far corners of the earth and spent many months at sea to bring you this…. The most uncommon and unique list of kitten names on the internet!

115 diggs Audi has given its lust-worthy TT RS the green light to tear up U.S. roads. With 360 bhp, it’ll be plenty capable.

131 diggs As an ode to all the great games this sub-genre has given us, take a look at top 7 Sandbox games of all time

119 diggs The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (NPMSRP) was started in the March of 2009 as a method of recording and analyzing police misconduct in the United States through the utilization of news media reports to generate statistical and trending information.

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118 diggs The hyperactive hedgehog's classic adventure is available on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is coming to PlayStation Network September 22.

96 diggs At least the work they did was always tasteful and top-tier. Wait. No it wasn’t. The items below are glorious examples of bad ideas, bad acting, and bad timing by many of the biggest names in sports.

91 diggs Itsasickness.com, the world’s first “object networking” website for obsessions, was founded by actor Alan Cumming and two other New Yorkers. It's about establishing deeper ties to the things that we obsess over, and in the process recognizing that our relationships with these things—favorite foods, TV shows, political causes, you name it—help define us.

53 diggs Google wants the data in Facebook and CEO Eric Schmidt isn't afraid to say that they'll find a way to get it.

71 diggs Micro hybrids are big business in Europe, because they can offer the mpg boost of start stop engines in a cheaper package. Conversion kits are also a real possibility for retrofitting standard cars here in the U.S., and may be coming sooner than you think.

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123 diggs According to the image one of the thing devils do is keeping track of every time people masturbate.

86 diggs A Man Crush is just a guy's way of saying "thanks for being you", without sounding all lame and sappy.

113 diggs Fisker Automotive has just announced that it will unveil its first factory-built Karma (presumably from the Valmet plant in Finland) at the 2010 Paris Auto Show.