i-Lights

Six Random Facts About Me

There's a tag meme currently sweeping the Internet. If you blog for fun, or even for profit, you were bound to come across a variation of the new game within the next week or so. But, since you're reading this article on the day of publication, you may have the jump on your friends.

Internet tag is similar to offline tag with a few twists. Your friend or contact sends you a directive to accomplish something, usually to write about something or to have some particular offline experience, then "tag" friends and contacts to do the same. The notice is the "tag." The game becomes viral as taggees credit taggors them with a link to their social networks, websites, or blogs.

I've already seen variations of the new game, but people can stick to the original requiring disclosure of six random personal facts. The possibilities are endless. And the memes are fun to read.

Some bloggers are naming their six taggees, while others are simply opening the game to anyone. Requiring link backs from six other bloggers is much better for site ranking, of course, but if you don't care about such things or don't know six bloggers by name, it's okay to do open tagging and let the chips fall where they may.

Energy Savers, Computers for Seniors, and Homepage Art from Google

I'd been wondering about the latest logo design from Google.com. Yes, credit was given to artist Jeff Koons, but the display didn't exactly jump off the page and speak to French me. What were those brilliant shapes and colors signifying? Metallic castanets? Digital tulips? Balloon animals? What significance to a day in the life of an Internet addict?

Thankfully, I came across the answer rather quickly. With the introduction of iGoogle Artist Themes, the good folks from the Googleplex now provide a way to pimp out iGoogle homepages. The art is rich and varied, a nice touch for those who start their day with Google. Designs from famous artists like Anne Geddes, Alice Mak, Edward Monkton, and the band Coldplay are in large supply.

Having unraveled the mystery of the Google logo, I decided to look for other news that might be of interest to i-Lighter aficionados. No telling what might appeal to people, right?

Social Networking Has A Life of Its Own

Extracting oneself from the vortex of social media is a difficult exercise in self-control.

Lighter Tips for Bloggers and the Art of Promotion

As the ever-expanding blogosphere enters a state of relative maturity, bloggers seem to be less concerned with the number of existing blogs.

Technorati, an aggregator of blog content and other social media, didn't issue a State of the Blogosphere report this year. Perhaps that's just as well. This shift in perception -- that numbers no longer matter -- signals an acceptance of blogs as legitimate medium, encouraging more people to publish and turn to blogs as a source of daily information. Companies are also hopping aboard the bandwagon, using blogs to inform their employees and the general public about company developments and related news.

Every week, this blog provides a tip or two for i-Lighter members. Today, those tips will be tailored to bloggers. Many of us, myself included, spend countless hours writing and maintaining blogs. I've come to learn some tricks of the i-Lighter trade by looking for ways to make my own blogging and promotion a bit easier.

Free Reading Material and Other Sites of Culture and Information

Search, gather, collect and save, like the survival methods of our ancient ancestors, the desire to make order of chaos must be encoded in our DNA. How else to explain the minutiae of information that proliferates online?

Since i-Lighter is a tool that streamlines the process of bringing snippets of information and other content together, I periodically review websites off the beaten path for unusual subject material or commendable form of presentation. These sites have nothing in common other than my own conjecture about their webmasters, a belief that they and the tiny yellow bot are a perfect match but for their possible ignorance of i-Lighter's existence. By connecting through The Light Stuff, I hope to bridge that gap as well as promote useful and enjoyable links.

Your opinions about this leap of faith are always welcome.

Monday Member Spotlight Celebrates Top 100 Twitterlights

Birds are tweeting, light rain continues to drip in a dull thudding monotone from the rooftop, and I have yet to put out last week's recycling. But, hey, it's Monday morning and I'm revved up to go.

Lots of mentions of i-Lighter and Twitterlights in the blogosphere which are always fun to read, yet only two user posts grabbed today's Monday Member Spotlight. I was thinking about including some honorable mentions. After all, it's wonderful for i-Lighter to be mentioned around the blogosphere, why not reciprocate? I haven't ruled out the possibility, but honorable mentions won't be lavished with any attention today. Something much more important caught my eye.

According to the Museum of Modern Betas Labs, sandwiched right between Madtwitter and Tweetchannel, Twitterlights is now #88 of the top 100 twitter mashups! Considering the number of mashups arriving on the scene almost daily, a ranking like this is fairly significant.

No really, it's incredibly gratifying to find Twitterlights ranked in the top 100. It means all you twitter users like us, you really like us.

Now get out there and tell all your friends, family, and anyone else who uses the Internet.

Forty-eight del.icio.us bookmarks can't be wrong.

I could go on and on about twitter mashups, but today is Member Spotlight day, so let's get cracking.