Two gadgets for sidebars

For our writing course, two of the most important gadgets to have in your sidebars are a Recent Comments gadget and a Labels gadget.

Labels gadget

Labels gadgets help visitors find posts of interest on your blogs. If you haven't added a Labels gadget to your blog yet, ask a classmate or peer who has to help you do so. Here's a breadcrumb trail you can follow:

• Dashboard (yours): Design: Page Elements: Add a Gadget (sidebar): Basics: Labels: "+"

Please remember to Save your Labels gadget after you make sure the title is in English ("Labels"), and after you configure it as shown in the first screenshot below. 

You also should note that Labels gadgets will be invisible on your blogs unless they have at least one post that has labels on it (see: Critical Step for Startup Labels posts, April 21, 2011).

Recent Comments gadget

The Recent Comments gadget, as you can see in the next screenshot (below), should be at – or very near – the top of (one of) your sidebar(s). (Some blog templates have more than one.) That will enable all blog visitors to see at a glance what's new (your most recent blog post) and what's hot (most recent comments) whenever they open your blog.

That is, as long as the graphic in your banner (and other elements in your header) aren't so big they force posts and sidebar elements out of sight. If they do, you probably need to rethink your blog layout (;-{))!

The breadcrumb trail leading to Recent Comments gadgets is as follows:

• Dashboard (yours): Design: Page Elements: Add a Gadget (sidebar): More Gadgets ...

From there, however, finding the right gadget gets tricky, unless you know some tricks, yourself. At present, there are over 1000 More Gadgets to choose from. The trick to remember here is to use the search function:

Though we'll be getting more gadgets where those came from, those two should be enough to get your through today!

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Blog Visits Rebound

In a post some time ago (2009.10.23), and in a follow-up comment later on (2010.01.15), I reflected on a two-thirds drop in year-on-year blog visits logged by ClustrMaps, from 3891 to 1297, 2007–2008 to 2008–2009. That may have been due to shrinkage of my blogosphere.

Yet in 2009–2010, there was a rebound to more than half the number of the first year visits on record. This graphic from a Google spreadsheet shows reversal of the downward trend:

Year-on-year blog visits logged by ClustrMaps

I'm looking forward to finding out whether the increase from 2009 to 2010 continues from 2010 into 2011.

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Commenting Tips

In class today, I invited students who had completed their self-assessments to go walk-about, so to speak, among peers' and near-peers' blogs. In case you didn't join us, or you want to have another go, this post will help you retrace our footsteps.

There is a link leading to lists of blogs for other classes on the Writing Studio Wiki, in §2.3. When you visit peers' blogs, please read their posts carefully and thoroughly; then post friendly, neighborly comments.

Now here's a tip to help you follow exchanges on the posts on which you comment, and to help you keep track of your out-going comments[, too]: Activate the follow-up mail option BEFORE you post your comments!

• In the comment interface on each post, click on the subscription link:
• Subscribe by mail (in English displays), OR
• メールで登録解除 (in Japanese displays).
• Then compose, preview, and publish your comments.

Afterwards, Blogger will send follow-up messages automatically to your gmail account to let you know when blog owners reply, or other visitors post additional comments. These follow-up messages will help you return easily to on-going comment exchanges. They also will help you remember how many comments you leave on classmates' and peers' blogs, for tallies in your Proto-Portfolios.

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Add Startup Labels to Your Blogs

The purpose of this activity is to enable you easily and quickly to label other posts on your blogs with appropriate labels. Labels, in addition to the reverse timelines on your blogs' home pages and archives, give blog visitors quick and easy access to posts of interest. The set of labels below includes those your classmates, peers, and I want you to use help us find and review your writing assignments.

Here's what I'd like you to do first:

1. 
   
   Create a new post entitled Startup Labels;
2. 
   
   Copy and paste the labels below into the body of your post;
3. 
   
   Copy and paste the labels below into the Labels field at the foot of the editing window, with commas between them;
4. 
   
   Preview your post, to make sure you have included all of the startup labels (15); and
5. 
   
   Publish your post with a word count in square brackets at the lower left corner.

Startup labels:

• books, brainstorms, drafts, essay prep., essays, free-writing, graphics, links, media, movies, outlines, quickposts, reviews, [revisions,] typing, websites

Next, you need to go to the blog Dashboard > Settings > Layout > Page Elements view (direct from Customize link in the top right side of the page frame on your blog's home page). In the sidebar area, click Add a Gadget, and select the gadget for Labels. The Configure Labels pop-up window offers several options; if you show All Labels, Alphabetically, they will be easy to find and use. 

Don't forget to save the changes you've made to your sidebar!

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Writing Studio Blog Visitors Diminished

Since I started using a cluster map in the sidebar to indicate where visitors came from, the number of visitors, year on year, has diminished. The image below shows how much.



Though each year the cluster map gets archived about the middle of October, and new hot spots start appearing in the sidebar display, it is still possible to see where previous visitors came from (ClustrMaps - archive of user maps). It will be interesting to see what happens this year.

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