I actually have just recently switched back to the standard commenting system (non-Disqus) ever since I reanalyzed the purpose and mission of LifeNotion. The mission and purpose were all reanalyzed with my new slogan, ‘Providing Tips for Your Lifestyle’ rather than ‘Tips to Make Life and Technology Easier’.

There are many people out there that do not comment just because they do not feel comfortable.

I have joined BlogEngage under the name ‘djj1758′.
I have some family in the Souix City area too, but I live about an hour outside of Des Moines.

Best Regards,
Derek

I like his blogging strategy. Wish you all happy new year…..

Site looks great (other than Disqus :-0) and I really like the design too.

Also, have you thought of joining Blog Engage? It is a great bookmarking site, and the visitors from there are likely to comment…..

Keep up the good work, and BTW my fam is from Iowa (Souix City area, have a bunch of corn and soybean farms there).

The StumbleUpon shortening service is something I used in the beginning when I did the interview. I currently do not use it as much as Twitter and Facebook. The reason I chose StumbleUpon and feel it is still valuable is that the content I provide is very random meaning that most of my content comes from my personal mind with no influence of outside sources like LifeHacker or Mashable (two blogs I love and look at all the time).

Additionally, I used StumbleUpon to see if I would get more people but refocused my attention to becoming popular on Twitter. Still not sure what StumbleUpon offers and how it helps out. Just for an update I currently use HootSuite so I use the ow.ly shortening service.

Still messing around.
Best Regards,

Derek

You have some great tips here that would help a lot of bloggers. Congratulations on a job well done!
I’m mostly interested in what you said about the StumbleUpon shortening service, because I’ve read a lot of tips’ posts from famous bloggers but I don’t think that was ever mentioned. Do you get more traffic from StumbleUpon users or did you mean that Twitter and Facebook users are more inclined to click on a link from StumbleUpon. I’d like to know please.

Keep it up and I’m going to be checking your blog soon!

Best Regards,
Manal aka @TheManalyst

I look forward to hearing from you and having further conversations about anything!

Best Regards,
Derek

Two things I feel are very important that were discussed here are about what you should do if you’re a beginner and about what he would do over if he had the chance.

Starting over: I think it’s very important not to heavily market yourself too much in the beginning and comment on other blogs as well. I myself post stuff on a bunch of networks I’m in and I’m new so this is interesting to me. The reason I agree and think this is so important is because commenting with useful comments is what builds up a relationship and makes the whole blog process much better and a lot more personal.

For new bloggers: I like here how Derek says to come up with about 10 blog posts to get a feel for what you would like writing about long term. This will do wonders because when you see and feel that you’ve got something in one article that you really have a passion for you will be able to go much further and improve things much more effectively.

Both great points though the entire interview was honestly fabulous. Great job.

I hope you also like my blog for other reasons. Haha

My top 3 favorite plugins would be:

-Apture
-All in One SEO
-Disqus Commenting System

Best Regards,
Derek

I wonder what are his top 3 favorite plugins… maybe he could answer here?