Enkay Blog

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to 2010 and I hope all of you had a wonderful start to the new year and for those of you who celebrated a little beyond what you could handle – I hope you made it home safe and had a good time nonetheless. So, whats so important about the new year? Am I going to tell you that this year is going to be different? No, I probably wont. The only reason is because the year is not going to be any different if you dont try or want for it to be different.

Stay Motivated!
What I’m getting at, is that yes its a new year and yes, you probably have a lot of goals but, if you aren’t motivated or don’t try to achieve your goals then nothing will be different this year. You have to stay motivated and maintain the initiative to bring change about. It is you who can change your future and you can do it this year if you put your mind to it.

Do What Ian Says
I’m going to keep this post short but basically I wasn’t going to tell you what some others have told you. You can change your entire year if you start off on the right foot. This morning, I received an email from Ian Fernando and he said exactly what I’m saying in this post. Ian’s email stated the following:

“I hope you have your whiteboard ready with new goals which you will tackle and be persistent throughout the year and not just for the month of January. ”

He couldn’t be more right. You are the decider for your life and you can set your goals but you have to run after them – nothing comes to you! Make sure you do your part this year and stay focused and everything will pan out for you if you did all the right things. Stay persistent, motivated and maintain your initiative – dont give up! Happy New Year everyone!

New Years Resolutions

Every time around this year people make fake promises to themselves about the upcoming new year – resolutions. I’m just kidding.. As you all know the New Year is just hours away and we look upon the past year and think about some things that we would do differently or we would have liked to do differently.

For many, this is a time to decide to quit smoking, work harder, lose weight, etc. But how many of these resolutions actually come true. I mean, honestly, how many people even remember their resolutions after the first week or two of January have passed by? Not many, I’d imagine.

Well, either way, I think it would be a great idea to actually write out a few good resolution ideas and maybe some of you guys can chime in and tell me what you feel. These are just random suggestions dealing with life, your career, etc, so dont take these personally – these are merely for fun and entertainment. Also, I am doing the first 4 as what we should do more vs. what we should do less and the last is something we should try and maintain.

1) Learn More – Being a student, this sounds like a funny first thought, but think about it. The economy is kind of suffering and the competition for new jobs and even existing jobs is high so if you learn more, you will become more qualified to either retain your job or you may be one of the lucky few who actually receives a promotion. If you’re in the job market, then it will show your employers how motivated you are to learn and this will eventually help you get that job you’ve always wanted.

2) Worry Less – Some of the most enjoyable moments in life can be ruined or forgotten because you worry too much and carry too much stress on your shoulders. I know its easier said than done but staying positive an

3) Earn More – I think this is probably the most important for us MMO bloggers but earning more money should not be more important than improving yourself through learning and enjoying the moments of life more by worrying less and thats why this is third on the list. You have to realize that money isn’t everything however, having more money in the future years will only be another way to prove to oneself that you can do what you dream and you can make things happen if you really want them. Trying to earn more isn’t only about the money but about the feeling of achieving success.

4) Waste Less – With poverty being so prevalent, it is our duty as human being who have the basic necessities in life to try and waste as little as possible – whether its food, money, or anything else. There are people who starve every day around the world and the less we waste, the more they will have. The less money we spend on food that we won’t eat or finish completely, that money could go to a better place. We have to realize that our actions have an effect on such people and we can help reduce that by reducing the impact our lifestyles have on people who are less fortunate than us.

5) Maintain health and happiness – When I say maintain, my assumption is that you are already healthy and happy or striving to achieve a little more of both. In this sense, it is important to keep our health in mind and always remember that our health is very important – no matter what the cost may be. Remaining healthy will result in a more prosperous future. In addition, its important to stay happy and look at the brighter side of things as it will always help in making any situation better.

I hope these resolutions are ones that you can relate with. These are just a few of my suggestions however it would be nice to see what you have in mind for the upcoming New Year!

Lets Reduce Our Energy Impact

With things regarding the economy not seeing an upward trend lately, lots of people have been seeing how they can reduce costs and recently, I received a review request from Enigin PLC which is actually an energy saving association that exists to promote the ethos of cost-effective and considered energy saving strategies. They wish to facilitate the exchange of information to help build up a knowledge base to provide information to other individuals who may be interested in contributing to help the environment and reduce the effects of climate change.

Eingin basically endorses the aims and ethos of the ESA and really hopes to look into the future with a more fuel efficient and cost-effective viewpoint. They want to help humans realize their impact on the world around them and help them reduce it by offering them a way to do so. Basically, Eingin is hoping to reduce our impact on the world and do it in a way where we can raise awareness as well. They even have a link to Wrigleys Eingin blog which was a good link and a good read as well. So now I ask you guys, why would anyone not want to partake in something like this?

They have some good resources on the website, a membership program as well as lots of great news so we should all do our part and atleast take a look at Eingin with the hopes of creating a positive impact in the coming year!

Is Being Creative Useful?

Im sure many of you who read my blog have been blogging for a while and maybe haven’t seen results or the complete opposite. When you sit down one day and think about you, you wonder, whats the difference between me and the other guy who is actually doing quite well?

The answer is simple, if not pretty obvious – they attract more readers. Does that mean they write better or they’re more creative or their blog looks better? Who really knows – but when it all boils down, you have to know that you have to be creative. You have to try and use the resources you have in the best possible ways to achieve the results youre looking for.

Back in the day, I started wondering whether being creative in general was useful to being a good blogger and if so, how do we use our creativity to get more readers. The answer is simple and here are a few ways you can use your creativity.

1) Videos – get creative in the blogging business by using videos to enhance your posts. I’ve always said you can bring your blog posts to life by using videos instead of actual words. Staying away from fancy effects may be good but depends what youre doing. A lot of the fade in/fade out and transitions can affect you negatively but if you do some interesting video effects then it might actually help you but do remember that it would result in taking more time to put out videos.

2) Pictures – people love pictures and adding pictures to your post like I did to this one can really help attract and keep visitors on your page when they first visit the page. Pictures can also be used as graphs or to tell a story so you can use pictures to get creative. However, this does require you to sort of know how to use photo editing software such as Photoshop but hopefully you already know your way around that a little at least.

3) Humor – Humor is a big part of everything and some people are great at it and others arent. You have to see what youre good at and use it to your advantage so if humor is not your thing or your jokes just dont work then dont do it! Find something youre good at and try to use it to your advantange. I have done a few things with humor and they’ve turned out okay but nothing spectacular. ImWithJoe.com is a perfect example of using humor to attract readers. Do what you have to do, but humor is a good place to start – thats if youre good!

Theres a lot more creative tips but to keep from having long posts like I once did I’m going to stop here and try to pick up after the New Years post! Hope you all have a good week and a great New Years!

Is MMO Blogging Taking A Turn?

Hey guys, I have been noticing a lot of the MMO blogs lately going into different directions but some of the things I have seen have been quite a change in the MMO blogs that have been growing and expanding at rapid rates going into new areas and I kind of wanted to write about the trends here and see if anyone agrees with what i have noticed.

1) Magazine Style Blogs – It seems like what attracts readers is a comprehensive blog, one that incorporates video content, featured articles and actual blog content. The move towards magazine style blogs means that bloggers have to either put out content not as frequently as before allowing them to focus more on featured articles. The problem with magazine style themes is that they take away from the reader experience that most blogs bring to the table which can be a downer for some readers because readers want a easy to read page. By now however, some readers are used to it but it can still turn some readers off. Maintaining a standard blog layout like mine does mean that I’m not moving along with the trend but I also dont consider myself to be competing against the larger powerhouse blogs either.

2) Newsletters – This seems to be something that somewhat baffles me. Newsletters are becoming more and more popular and I am signed on to the ShoeMoney newsletter after a contest and all I can say is that its like receiving coupons in the mail – some are useful but most of it is just junk. Its a way to self-promote and although it might be helpful, it can get a bit frustrating to those who are signed on. I would like to say I receive emails every so often and although it started out that way, the emails have gotten more frequent. I like the idea of newsletters but not as a means of exploiting ones readers.

3) Sponsor / Ad Focused – Having ads and sponsors is not a bad idea specially when the idea is to help promote a good business out there and most of us started out that way. We found someone we had a good relationship with and we talked about it. Lately what seems to happen is that one blog will talk about 5 sponsors and say the same things about them – for example, “I really love using them, they’re the best”. It starts to sound like the same thing over and over again. I have stuck with Market Leverage, Clickbooth and InfoLinks and those are the only three that I promote because I think they offer their customers a lot more bang for their buck. The problem with sort of selling yourself out is that even though readers will still come and read it, the likelihood of receiving clicks goes does unless you have unique visitors from Google and the like.

I wonder if you guys have noticed the same thing. I don’t mean to rant about it but it seems like I might be the only one making these observations. It might be nice to get a little opinion from my readers as well. Do you think that MMO blogging (especially for the bigger bloggers) has now become a means of trying to commercialize their blog and make it a universal brand of sorts, without regard for the readers?