Blog reader Jeremy recently wrote to me with a couple of blogging questions. One of them was asking how can someone find a lot of news and info right when it’s been announced to blog about. I decided a blog post would suffice as an acceptable response to help him out (and hopefully a few others) with finding things to blog about.
If I’m stuck on ideas, I generally head to a social news site, or other similar blogs for ideas and inspiration. I like to come up with creative content myself, but sometimes it can be refreshing to blog about current news in my (your) industry. Here are four ways to find fresh content ideas.
Digg
Digg is what I would label as the most active site on the internet. It’s the best resource to find any type of news, video, picture, or podcast which is currently popular in it’s respective section. If you blog about the news and current topics in the spotlight, Digg is the best place to go for up to the minute reports, news, and announcements.
Other Blogs
I have around 75 blogs in my RSS reader of choice (NewsFire) which get updated every hour. This keeps a stream of content coming through and let’s see see all of my favourite blogs latest content from one simple location. When I’m going through reading in the RSS reader, I have a notebook handy and I take notes of interesting topics I see that I could expand my views on and possibly create a blog post from.
Technorati
Technorati latest feature Where’s the Fire? (WTF) are short blurbs that explain the buzz around people, things, or events—why the hot topics are so hot—and you can vote the best ones to the top. These can be helpful for bloggers as it gives you another option to keep tab on the most popular things on the web. It’s a handy source if you are running low on ideas.
Blank Paper
Last but not least, sit down with a blank notepad and come up with some original ideas. Sure, it might require time and inspiration – but your most popular blog posts will always be ones you’ve come up with solely by yourself.