I’ve been a productivity blogger for more than a year and a half now (related secret: I’m more of a simplicity blogger than productivity blogger, but don’t tell), and I’ve been keeping some secrets inside of me. But about six months ago, I began to realize that these secrets aren’t unique to me. In fact, every blogger I’ve talked to in this field seems to share them.

There are literally TONS of ways to make your blog popular. New blogs are coming online every day, and most,are using 'similar' techniques in reaching a critical mass.

Learning to blog well is no different to learning any skill, from painting to playing football.

A blog will only ever be successful if it fulfills a need for readers in some way. This need might be for information, tips, inspiration, entertainment, community etc.

How do you become more positive in the way that you think about yourself and your blog?

SAN FRANCISCO — They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

Do you like to read about new developments in science and other fields? Are you tired of "science by press release"? Research Blogging is your place. Research Blogging allows readers to easily find blog posts about serious peer-reviewed research, instead of just news reports and press releases.

Oy, it's navel-gazing time in the science blogosphere, prompted by a post at Bayblab that reveals some resentment or justifiable concern (depending on your perspective) about the inevitable problem that always crops up in blogging: somebody always has more than someone else.

We have a confession. You have all been part of an experiment in social engineering. This has been in the planning for a while now. But let me step back and explain the purpose of our experiment before we analyze the results.

Why do we blog about science? For us at the bayblab, it was just an extension to our conversations about science that tended to take place in the "cool" bay of the lab, the only place with a decent sound system. It wasn't initially intended to be public, it was just an efficient way to share stories among us so that we could have some conversation fodder. In fact, back when we started, blogging in general was mostly about personal journals and pictures of pets, and the science blogs were few and far between.