It’s not unheard of for a person to gain notoriety for writing a blog. There’s just so many examples all over the world that you can probably name one yourself. Most of these “notorious” bloggers have parlayed it to fame and popularity. But not everyone enjoys popularity and obscurity at the same time.

One of these people was the blogger who hid under the pseudonym Belle du Jour. Her titillating blog, Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl, chronicled her experiences working as a call girl. It was such a huge success, the blog was collected and published in two books, and was even turned into a hit TV series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”. But for years, no one knew who she was, which even led others to doubt if her blog was just a work of fiction.

But after years of speculation, Belle du Jour finally outed herself. Dr. Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist, finally revealed that she was the woman under the nom de plume. She revealed that it feels better not having to hide and tell lies to her family anymore.

I think it’s a brave move on her part to reveal her true identity considering how polarizing her journal is. It does make you wonder why she decided to reveal her true identity at this stage. But then it’s her life. She’s been non-apologetic about her past, why should she start doing so now?

Blogs are not just a pastime anymore. Many people are now earning money writing and operating blogs. Unfortunately, if earning money is involved you can be sure the government will be there sniffing around.

And sniff around it does. Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has set its eye on the blogging community. The FTC has issued a revision to its advertising practices rules. The first to be done in 30 years. The revision now addresses businesses involved in non traditional media like blogging.

The new rules now require advertisers to include the typical results for any claims they make. An example are those blogs that claim that you will lose weight if you get a certain product. The blogger is now required to include additional comments regarding the typical rate of loss. Failure to do so will mean they can be sued.

There’s more and more reasons to blog — and one of them is a growing number of people devoting most of their online time reading blogs and visiting social networks.

Based on a study conducted by Nielsen, Americans are using 17 percent of their time visiting blogging sites like Blogger and social network sites like Facebook. This was a significant rise from the six percent that was calculated last year.

The Nielsen study also showed that spending for ads on blogging sites and social networks has doubled from last year, with spending amounting to $108 million a month. What’s more significant is that the increase was posted even when ad spend on other industries have decreased.

If you’re a blogger you have better read up on what’s the latest on what rules and laws apply and affect you and your blog.

One very notable development happened when a Canadian model was able to win in the courts and compel an anonymous blogger who has been disparaging her person to reveal his identity. This case sets a precedent about the legal ramifications of slandering and posting negative or hurtful opinions online.

Bloggers, especially anonymous ones, have taken the anonymity the internet gives them as a license to insult other people or to spread false information. The general belief is that they will be free from prosecution because no one knows who they are. The lawsuit has now made anonymous bloggers “vulnerable”. They cannot hide behind the cloak of the internet anymore. Unfortunately, there is also an added complication. In the said lawsuit, the offending blogger has filed a lawsuit against Google — the company who was compelled to reveal the identity of the blogger. The blogger contends that her right to privacy was violated. These actions just means that the blogosphere is going to become a legal battleground where new legal precedents will be established.

Blog blow-hard, and co-founder of B5Media, Jeremy Wright has stepped down as B5Media CEO. He will be replaced by Elaine Kunda at the helmet of the blog network.

Wright used personal and family life conditions as the main reason for his decision:

I was burned out, unhappy in the work I was doing and looking for something more to life. I’m still exploring what that is, but suffice to say it should involve playing around with projects, family time and consulting… while I figure out what makes me HAPPY

Jeremy Wright published his personal statement over at Ensight his blog. He will now take some time off and start his consulting company Netmobs.

B5Media received more than $2m venture capital and went trough a delicate period last year when blogger fees were reduced.

More information over at The Blog Herald.

Movable Type recently release version 4.26 of its blog publishing platform.

Version 2.46 is considered an optional performance release that incorporates a number of bug fixes as well as some improvements on its features. This new version is recommended for those who are using Movable Type Enterprise 4.x because of how it improves the search performance for those who have to manage large datasets. It also gives improvements to background publishing and its overall reliability.

We want to let you all know that Movable Type 4.26 is now available. This is an optional performance release which includes bug fixes and feature improvements. The guys at Movable Type are recommending that users only update to 4.6 if the changes documented on the release notes.
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The people at Splashpress Media are undoubtedly such good guys that they’re implementing a very useful new service in one of their blogs.

The very popular Blog Herald recently got a new design revamp as preparation for the introduction of new resources, services and blog guides. And one of these services is now live.

Blog Herald will be putting up a Blog Conference Guide. To be compiled by Easton Ellsworth using Google Calendar. This handy service will give bloggers a quick and easy reference for all of the blog and blogger related events happening all over the world. This is not only a great help for bloggers but for organizers as well. The Blog Herald Team actually encourages people to contact them and contribute information.

From the Gawker network, the ever updated source on information on new media has raised the alarm on the adoption of new media by traditional print publishers. This has become the norm of today’s economically challenged firms, go to the net but many questions have been raised about such a move since the net was born and began to spread its global reach. This would not only be wise, but would allow these traditional print media to maintain their diverse talent pool while they try to find a way of salvaging their other businesses in print. read on

The global economy is down and more people lose jobs, luckily the social web has blogging and other writing jobs that allows you to pass time and earn some cash in the process. Sadly however, blogs have also been hit hard with many networks losing so much money they have been forced to cut back on people.
Putting all the negative stuff aside, blogging remains to be a wide open space for those who seek to earn a living through one of the products of the social internet. The only problem, even this form of media isn’t safe from people who are motivated by greed, earning a buck or two out of your hard earned blog posts. From “Copy-Paste” artists to scammers, they use or hijack blogs for their own benefit leaving you out of the equation. Plagiarism as it is called in technical terms has become so bad that our own Splashpress Media has launched it’s own Copyright Service. With support from Plagiarism Today with regards to the specific legalities involved, it hopes to cater to the needs of customers who want to protect their hard-earned reputations.
read on

The ReadWriteWeb network has disbanded, jettisoning its AltSearchEngines and last100 blogs. According to RWW’s Richard McManus, the decision was made in order for RWW to focus on building and extending their core brand.

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

I will retain a personal stake in both AltSearchEngines and last100, but as of 1 November they are under the majority ownership of Charles Knight (AltSearchEngines) and Steve O’Hear (last100). I’d like to thank Charles and Steve for putting in so much effort to build up AltSearchEngines and last100 respectively. Both have done a great job covering their respective niches and we wish them all the best in continuing to grow the sites.

Read the RWW announcement.