Dear folks, I’ve been thinking of a way to give back some of the appreciation you’ve shown me since day one, a way to compensate for the time you spend reading these blog posts and commenting upon them.

Initially, the famous “Top Commentators” plugin crossed my mind, but since it will be hard to keep out those who (unfortunately) try to “beat the system”, I’ve decided to choose another method.

Since I already go through every comment I receive and appreciate those comments that contribute to the amount of quality information of this blog, every month, I will pick one of my commentators to be awarded as “Reader of the Month”.
Click here to read the full blog post!

Tyme White of 9rules published today the results of the 8th round of selections for new network members.

Among the newly accepted blogs you’ll also find Blogsessive and OnSimplicity.net. I personally wanted to congratulate Sara from OnSimplicity for the achievement, as I have had the pleasure of interacting with her and she is such an amazing blogger!

Congratulations to all bloggers who also got accepted this round. Blog on!

Hello friends and with a bit of delay, Happy New Year to each and everyone of you! Back in December I wrote a post letting you know that the activity on Blogsessive will be slow in this period and it has.

I cannot tell you how hard it has been to stay away from blogging, especially when so many interesting things have happened in the past one, one and a half month, but it was a really necessary time-out for me. I needed to focus my maximum attention on my recently started design studio and also to spend some quality time with my family (something I’ve failed to do in the past months).

Today, a post published back on January 10th on MastersOfSEO.com caught my attention and even if I planned my comeback for the following Monday, I really felt the need to write this post earlier.

As I said before, the time out was required in order to give my 100% to some other things that needed to be sorted out in my life, but that’s only half of the real reason. The other half of the truth is that, as many of you already know from your own experience, blogging and constantly delivering good quality resources can be a very exhausting task. Such a task proved to be fatal for some fellow bloggers, despite their enormous followship and appreciation.
Click here to read the full blog post!

Dear friends, first of all, I’d like to apologize for the slow rhythm of updates in the past two weeks. In the activity of a design agency, December is a pretty busy period, and pretty short too, as everyone goes on vacation after the middle of the month and project need to be finished before that moment.

The past weeks have been crazy for me and my partner at QBKL Media, trying and succeeding at ending this year in a good state with all of our projects and clients.

Due to this, Blogsessive has suffered, but rest assured, I’ve been here everyday, reading and answering emails and comments. From the next week, things should get back to normal, and, just to get in the holiday spirit, I’m going to release a ‘Christmas’ color scheme for Simple Balance.

Thank you for remaining loyal to this blog through better or worse periods of time!

You rock!

In today’s edition, I have a new selection of news and interesting links to share from all around the blogosphere.

WordPress News

WordPress 2.7 is approaching rapidly. The 3rd Beta version is up for grabs and the Icon design competition ended with the folks at WP selecting two wonderful contest entries as their main icon sets for WordPress 2.7.

I’d suggest taking a quick look at Technosailor’s post, as Aaron shares 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.7.

Blog monetization

MediaWhiz (Text Link Ads) launched a new advertising product called InLinks. This product allows advertisers to buy “do follow” links in your blog’s content, a thing that doesn’t quite appeal to Google and so, I’d advise you to proceed carefully with this advertising method.

Find out more about InLinks on:

• ProBlogger: InLinks – TextLinkAds 2.0
• BloggingTips.com: TLA InLinks Officially Launched

Tip’d – The Financial Digg – is out of Beta

Tip’d, a social bookmarking site, similar to Digg, but focusing of the financial niche, has officially ended the public Beta and is running the 1.0 version. Looking at the figures, this milestone is proving to be a good achievement in a field where more and more diggers and stumblers are being banned because of their “financial interests”.

Read more about Tip’d on ‘The Blog Herald’.

Group Writing Projects

The folks at ‘Blog Design Studio’ have launched an interesting group writing project. The topic is wide enough and gives you the possibility to approach from many angles: Blog Design. Why should you join? Exposure, backlinks, fun, amazing prizes and…. I’m one of the jury members! Looking forward to reading your ultra-cool blog design posts! Project ends November 30th.

Quite a while ago, Joanna Young from ConfidentWriting.com launched her own group writing project on “experimenting”. A nice selection of entries seem to already be added to the list and you can still submit yours, since the deadline is November the 30th. Do drop by her blog and find out more about this project.

Quickfire News and Links

Also, if you’re looking to read something good today, take a look at the following link:

• Syed Balkhi puts up a compilation of 113 Ways to Make Money Online;
• Adrian Diaconescu (Rubiqube.com) share eight, well documented, tips for writing clean WordPress blog posts;
• ShoeMoney launches a new, revamped Keyword Tracking Tool

I’m sure that those of you who have been following my posts for a while, know that I’m a pretty passionate blogger, enthusiastic and always looking to try new things and experiment.

I take pride in what I do since it’s what I love to do and wouldn’t want to do anything else, even more whenever my experiments and efforts are successful.

Today, Blogsessive hit another milestone in its journey in the blogosphere. This happened:

According to Technorati, Blogsessive has become one of the top 10.000 blogs in their system, and considering the millions of blogs they watch, that’s a huge achievement!

My friends, thank you! It would have not been possible without your loyalty and friendship!

This post has been edited but kept for those coming here from different links.

The reason why I edited this post was to prevent the idea of it turning into a personal vendetta. It was not my intention and I’m only interested in helping out my community.

After rethinking the situation I decided that from this moment on, Blogsessive will focus solely on providing helpful advice and resources to its community and I’ll let aside any other matters that are not of interest to you, my loyal readers and companions in my online journey.

Once again, I apologize if you came here expecting to read something else, or if reading the original article has created a discomfort with you.

Thank you for being here during the past, the present and hopefully, the future of Blogsessive.

Alex

The 9Rules Network has opened up Round 8 and it’s now accepting entries. If you would like to join their network, make sure your submit your blog for review quickly as you’ve only got a 24 hour window to do so.

Here’s the official announcement from Scrivs, and a few words by Tyme, just before the 8th round started.

Also, before submitting, you could take an objective look at your blog and compare it with the information Tyme has presented in this blog post. It should prove useful if you wand to secure your chances.

Welcome to another episode of “Blogosphere News”. What’s interesting, what’s new in the blogosphere? Let’s find out!

Darren Rowse launched TwiTip.com

The mastermind behind ProBlogger.net, Darren Rowse embarked on a new journey. Being a long time Twitter user, Darren has gathered enough experience and has learned so many things about this wonderful microblogging platform. He’s now ready to share that experience with you, on his newly launched blog, TwiTip.com.

Good luck Darren!

WordPress 2.7 Beta 1 goes public

On November 1st, the folks at WordPress.org announced that the first beta version of WordPress 2.7 is publicly available. This is said to be a turning point in WordPress’ history, just as 2.5 was.

If you want to give it a try, you can download WordPress 2.7 Beta 1. I’d advise you not to test it on your live server though. After all, it’s still a beta.

Rapid fire news and links

• Fresh New Look for Words of a Broken Mirror (redesigned by yours truly)
• BlogRush Shutting Down
• The Revolution Theme Goes Open Source
• 7 Blogging Tips from David Ogilvy
• Why Web Design Matters (for SEO)

A few days ago, Codrut Turcanu of Remarkable Blogging contacted me asking if I was available for a small interview, which we did.

Today, Codrut published the interview with me and you can read it here. A PDF version is also available for download.

Enjoy reading, and if you have additional questions, I’m looking forward to reading them in the comments section!