Bloggers Meeting Get Together 002

Yesterday, several Lebanese bloggers met at Alt City Mezzanine Cafe in Hamra as part of the second Bloggers meeting hosted by Lebanon Aggregator. The event was shared on Facebook. Thanks a lot to Alt City for always opening up their space for the bloggers and for their constant support!

It was great seeing everyone and it's always nice to just catch up with old friends and bloggers. It was quickly organized, so no agenda was prepared, the sole purpose was to group everyone under one roof.

Lebanon Aggregator - Bloggers Get Together 002

There were 3 questions asked prior to see if there is any room for actionable suggestions to improve the blogosphere in Lebanon. There were some interesting observations for sure! My favorite actionable answers for each won a gift. The winners were Racha (Spa retreat from Four Seasons), Tala (Dinner in Mosaic for two from Phoenicia Beirut) and Amal (A lovely Polo from Rectangle Jaune).

Here are the questions, and you can check all the answers under them:

Question 1: Do you think there is a redundancy in content among blogs? Is redundancy a good or a bad thing? How can we improve it?

Question 2: Should bloggers unite in certain occasions for certain causes? If so, suggest an efficient way.

Question 3: Should there be a syndicate of bloggers in Lebanon? If yes, how can we proceed to make it happen.

Thank you Anis, Jennifer, Youssef, Racha, Maggie, Yasmine, Abdelrahman, Mahmoud, Cynthia, Tala, David, Abir, Patrick, Rabab, Assaad, Joe, Darine, Amal, Sareen, Samer, Cyril, Roy, Nicolas, Dany, Khaled, Nour, Taher, Aisha, Paul, Lynn, Firas... for showing up and hoping I didn't forget anyone!

What's new on Lebanon Aggregator in 2013

As you would have noticed on the left side the blogroll now only shows the 25 most recent updated posts. The reason why the blogroll was restricted to 100 blogs before was not to overcrowd the page, but now that it is limited to 25 blogposts, this means we can include all bloggers in this blogroll. Since this is a one person job, do reach out to me and tell me to add your blog to this list.

As the Lebanese bloggers aggregator, we look forward to promote good posts whether it comes to humor, technical info, human rights, social, lifestyle, fashion or politics, our tip for you is to come up with new material and share new things with your own approach.

We closed 2012 with 788 blogs of which 172 were new and added during 2012. We also added a small friendly section on Blogs Directory that hosts our brothers in blogging from Jordan.

Every day, a selection of 1 to 3 blog posts from Lebanese bloggers or bloggers based in Lebanon are shared on the Facebook page of Lebanon Aggregator. If you wish to see yourself on that page, post good content and push it to us so we can share it.

Where does your opinion fit?

Have you ever wondered if your opinion is important? If what you’re saying is new and can make people change their minds about something? When you barge into a conversation and make a statement about war, adoption, racism, a local TV show, a celebrity, freedom of speech, nail polish or Formula 1, does it matter? Are you saying something that hasn’t been said before, are you looking at the issue from a new angle? Is your voice to be heard? Does it matter? Do you matter?

Many questions cross our minds on a daily basis, sometimes silly and sometimes meaningful. What do we do with them though? Do we ask out loud or just come up with our own analysis and stance? Many instances happen when you could be talking a lot but in fact saying a little. It doesn’t really matter if you’re making a point at the wrong time to the wrong audience. This is usually your cue to remain silent and keep it to yourself. The blogosphere usually reflects daily lives of everyone, and of this bunch, a few turn them into a digital essay. In general, we have to build a society where each person has an opinion.

In general, there are two or a maximum of three opinions for every subject: for or against and neutral/apathetic. People argue, discuss, provide facts or just debate skillfully, but eventually it’s hard to encourage people to change their minds. So why talk? Why blog? Just like in a community, you have the alpha male or alpha female, the ones who take garner all the attention- depending on the environment they’re in. Some deserve that spot, but in my opinion most don’t.

In a nutshell, and unless you are just logging a diary of thoughts, if your aim is to influence your audience and dazzle them with your advanced opinion, make it new, don’t repeat others and don’t copy other people’s styles. If it’s not yours, then you will always appear fake and your writings and thoughts will always be regarded as attention seeking material. We already have billions of people with billions of thoughts and opinions, so make it count. Either show us something new, inspire us, make us laugh, make us ponder or just stay quiet, listen and learn. If you don’t have any- thing to add to the table this means you have given a lot and you need to start taking in before you voice your opinion again. That is my own observation of the blogosphere and the community itself. Being loud and being everywhere all over the place is not what is we seek for content, but learning and evolving is certainly worth looking for.

Our aim as bloggers is not to gather fans and page views. We have a mission, believe it or not, and we have a big responsibility towards our audience, to bring something new, and add some- thing valuable to the table and most importantly something true, true to ourselves and to our readers.

Originally, the article has been written for Ragmag Lebanon

Top 3 Weddings-Related bloggers for April 2012 in Ragmag

If you know me, you would know that this was probably one of the hardest picks for me for the month of April. Wedding related bloggers. WOW! Well the challenges I faced was that there weren't many wedding related blogs to choose from. So, I got a bit creative and decided to translate the "related" part of the term as I will. For that, I come to you with the following 3 bloggers for April 2012

Louma Bardawil - From favours to design pieces | Wedding Specials

The first blog chosen is in fact a wedding blog, and it is a very good one, check out the text I wrote about her.

As for the second blog, and since brides are usually stressed out before their weddings, I thought of the best thing for them and it's the laughter magic, the queen of laughter in Lebanon is Sareen and her amazing Comics blog "Ink on the side"

Sareen Akharjalian - Ink on the side

And the final blogger was Raquel, who has a very niche and unique blog about Do It Yourself kind of things. I find handmade crafts to be very sentimental and.. well read the text :)

Raquel Saliba - Belles of Beirut

And as the tradition goes, there is a monthly feature of a post on The Cube, this month we chose to show what the Cubists are reading, perhaps you're reading the same thing and you might want to jump into the discussion.

The Cube Lebanon

Top 3 Relationships bloggers for February 2012 in Ragmag

If you know by now, I don’t pick out the 3 bloggers every month randomly, it truly takes me weeks to do so, to the extent that Fida becomes like my mom: “Liliane, bloggers?”, “Liliane, did you pick them?”, “Liliane, did you decide on the bloggers?”, “Anything?”, “Hello, bloggers?!” Sometimes it takes me a long time to pick them, and sometimes I pick them but I ponder on what I am going to write about them. Because I am a blogger, I understand that what I long to read when someone writes about me, is them describing me the way I see myself yet I am too shy to say it. We don’t have enough bloggers that post about relationships in Lebanon, so it was quite good news to see bloggers who cover such topics submit their blogs. I did not choose them because they are the only ones, I chose them because I truly believe they’re very good.

Blushing's blog - Yup this is it

Michael Oghia - LOVEanon

Gabriel Ghali - Gabe's

The Cube's review about "The Kite Runner"

Click on images for larger size. Or you can always pick up the magazine :)

Top 3 Addictive bloggers for January 2012 in Ragmag

When Fida asks me to pick bloggers following a certain theme, I'm able to immediately rattle off the ones that fit. This time it was quite hard to pick 3 addictive blogs. I must say, there are so many! I've chosen 3 of the top bloggers who are most certainly addictive- love 'em or hate 'em you keep going back. Continue to check my column every issue because the blogosphere is booming and there are so many bloggers out there covering a slew of topics!

Gino's Blog

Ivy Says 

Blog Baladi

The Cube Review - submitted by Hala Mubarak

Click on images for larger size. Or you can always pick up the magazine :)

Lebanese Blogosphere Facts & Figures of 2011

Just as we did last year, with the Lebanese Blogosphere Facts & Figures 2010, we honor this tradition which will hopefully last a long time and come to you this year with the newest updates and figures about the Lebanese bloggers and the blogs that have emerged and few turned into more.

• We closed 2010 with a bit more than 420 blogs. But this year, we have 639 blogs! This means +219 blogs have been added during 2011 alone.
• 7.3% of blogs are in Arabic. The rest are in English, with few in French.
• Lebanon Aggregator was born on Facebook in February 2011 and has now 1,643 "likers".
• Bloggers turned their blogs into books such as Our Man in Beirut and T0om Extra
• Others have had their materials used on TV such as Hummus Nation
• 11 Lebanese bloggers attended the 3rd Arab Bloggers meeting that took place in Tunis in October 2011.

• Many bloggers have been invited to talk on different TV shows about their blogs/causes/initiatives such as Miss Farah, The Cube, Ontornet, Beirut Street Photographers, Beirut Public Space, ...
• Several bloggers have been featured in international news websites such as CNN, Huffington Post, BBC... For example, Nadine Moawad / Nasawiya and the Girl Geek Camp initiative where many female bloggers gave sessions to teenagers about technological topics.
• Bloggers repeatedly invited to cover, as "media", many clubs / restaurants openings and closings, press releases, fundraisings and other events.
• Bloggers were also featured in Rectangle Jaune Blog/Magazine, they looked geeky, cool & elegant. Who says bloggers cannot be fashionable?
• Bloggers are present everywhere and in print too.
• Dozens of bloggers have been featured in Communicate magazine. You can see them all on LebAgg's facebook wall photos
• The Gate Magazine also dedicated a page to highlight bloggers of the month
• Le Commerce de Levant "Le who's who de la blogosphere libanaise"

• Starting June 2011, Ragmag Lebanon provided a nice cozy print space for the online Lebanese bloggers, where Lebanon Aggregator chooses 3 bloggers under a certain theme (Visual, Motorized, Health, Hung up on beautiful Lebanon, Influential male), and introduces them to the "offline" world. The column's name is World Vision, and you can read all previous issues here.
• Bloggers got together and collaborated for a cause to encourage people to read books, and the baby is called "The Cube". In addition to that, one review per month by The Cube is picked by Lebanon Aggregator and included in World Vision column in Ragmag.
• 5 blogs have been chosen as Blog of the week.
• Blogs types are becoming even more various and richer than ever. Blogs about Fashion, Food, Health & Nutrition, Sports, Football, Tech, Photography, Art, Relationships and much more.. are being added every day.
• Bloggers have discussed politicians on twitter, slow internet, minimum wage, design, politics, Lebanon, Voting for Jeita, copy cat ads & creatives, Steve Jobs death, technology, increasing crime rate in Lebanon, Lebanese behavioral change, their own travels and much more. 
• And before we forget, in 2011, Lebanon Aggregator celebrated its 5th anniversary. 

Illustration by Sareen

It has been a wonderful year, the increase of number of blogs per year is on the rise, quality of blogs is definitely impressive, variety of blogs is astounding, several blogs get thousands of hits per day reaching international audience, many times bloggers are inspiring traditional media to talk about topics they have covered on their blogs. There are many countless stories and events that occurred in 2011, and the bloggers in Lebanon have made it happen.

Cheers to all Lebanese bloggers and foreign bloggers who report from Lebanon. Cheers to another great and successful year. To more and more and more.

Just don't forget about the golden rules of being a blogger ;)

Click on image to view in larger size.

Lebanon Aggregator turns 5

From Lebanon, To Lebanon and About Lebanon

How it started
Lebanon Aggregator was created on 19 December 2006 (it looked horrid back then, but now looks nice and dandy thanks to [ abstract ] ). For now, I will keep the real reason of why I started it to myself, yet I will share it... in a month or so. Yes in a month, where the first Lebanese Bloggers meeting organized by Lebanon Aggregator will take place. So stay tuned for the when and where, there will be speakers, food, cake and well most importantly, the bloggers (and perhaps media?). And if you want to help organize it, please jump in!

What it taught me
I won't make this long, but I have to tell you, Lebanon Aggregator has taught me a lot. Because of it, I know a lot about the Lebanese blogosphere, I got to meet a lot of people, and I got to see what many people who cared had to say about it, many people encouraged me to do things to improve it and have given me advice, and many people showed interest in helping out. Bloggers became friends, and I am thankful for that.

5 years of this and that
It's been 5 years that I have been keeping this Aggregator up to date, removing dead links, adding new blogs, refreshing the blog roll with the most frequent bloggers, writing posts, writing about bloggers for print magazines, creating a facebook page, sharing bloggers' posts, shedding light on this blogger and that, sharing print magazines articles about bloggers, etc... Yep, 5 years of all that, and I love it. I love helping people realize that we have a gem of bloggers, bloggers that they can be proud of, that I am proud of.

Plans for more, care to help?
Sadly, I didn't have much time to prepare any way to celebrate this today except by writing this post. For now, it's mostly a one woman show, but I'd love to receive some help and maybe financing because I really want to renovate this website into what I have in mind, and what I have in mind will blow your mind and will be of benefit to all bloggers and the blogging scene.

So thank you for those wonderful 5 years, for commenting, reading, sharing, submitting, recommending... and cheers to another 5 years. Hopefully I won't be too senile by then to update the Aggregator.

Keep blogging,
Liliane

Edited: Thank you Sareen from Ink on the side for this great comic for the occasion of Leb Agg turning 5, I loved it :D

Blog Action Day 2011 topic this year is Food

Blog Action Day 2011 is about FOOD this year. Register here and stay tuned for more.

Food is something that we all share in common, but is distinct to each of our cultures. The way we produce, distribute and consume food is crucial to our shared future, and the unhealthy imbalance of food scarcity in developing world and food over-abundance in the developed world is unsustainable for us all.

Please visit http://blogactionday.org/ for more info on what Blog Action Day is. And the hashtag on twitter is #BAD11

Top 3 Health Blogs in Lebanon

Once again, RAGMAG Lebanon features the top 3 blogs from the Lebanese Blogosphere picked by Lebanon Aggregator based on this month's theme and that is: Healthier Body, Healthier Spirit. In addition to that, a book review from the online Book club in Lebanon "The Cube LB"

Nadine Issa - Point a la ligne

Cynthia Abou Jaoude - Strawberry Blu

Paty M's Nutrition World

The Cube LB 

Blog of the Week

We have amazing blogs in the Lebanese blogosphere. To make a blog a successful one, and as I have repeated extensively, is the ability to provide content that is unique to the blogger and that the reader does not see everywhere all the time. Usually this happens when the blogger shares a skill, is extremely funny, or gives you food for thought.

Yet there are few thought provoking blogs out there. And this is one of them. I read a lot of articles and posts on a daily basis, but this blogger actually pushed me into smiling or thinking or evolving beyond what he himself already suggested. And this is good!

So I highly recommend, you go after that blog and wait for the next post Fadi Bitar imagines, fabricates and creates.

Blog Name: Life with Subtitles
Blog URL: http://www.lifewithsubtitles.com/
Blogger: Fadi Bitar
Twitter: http://twitter.com/survivalfirst

Top 3 Hung up on beautiful Lebanon bloggers on Ragmag

For the second feature of World Vision column in Ragmag, where Lebanon Aggregator chooses 3 blogs we think are influential in the theme of the current month. For July 2011, Leb Agg chose those 3 because we think they're really very hung up on beautiful Lebanon and we're sure you will agree. And in addition to all that, the monthly feature of a review from The Cube Lebanon.

Sietske In Beiroet

+961 | Destination Lebanon

This is Beirut

Top 3 male bloggers on RAGMAG

Every month, Lebanon Aggregator will pick 3 blogs around a certain theme to be included in RAGMAG magazine. First of all, thanks a lot for RAGMAG for dedicating 2 pages for the Lebanese blogosphere.

Okay, so make sure you get your june issue of RAGMAG, and not only to see this awesome section of it, but also for the many other very interesting articles included.

Our pick for June, Force Issue, is Pascal Assaf - Jirah fi al thakira, BeirutSpring and Our Man in Beirut, and see why they were picked.

Moreover in that space, one book review from The Cube LB is featured.

Bloggers to co-create a tourism video for Lebanon

Since summer is right around the corner, a lot of tourists and expats come back to visit Lebanon, I thought maybe we can do something as bloggers where we can co-create a video that can promote tourism in Lebanon, our way!

I just want you to send me one small sentence, or a 10 seconds audio with a photo in the background or a 10 seconds video, about a place you love in Lebanon. It could be a coffee shop, a small bakery, a resort, a village, a beach, a pub, your parents summer house, anything! If you & your friends can be in it, would be great.

Tell us, you as a blogger, why you love Lebanon and that place in particular!

Let's start this summer with a positive attitude!

Send them to contact[at]funkyozzi[dot]com

Deadline: June 5th.
Length of clip: 10-15 seconds.

When your blog is more than just a blog

An American friend, well online recently made friend, who's coming for a visit to Beirut and wanted to know about the un-declared, underground, unpublished fun things someone can do in Beirut, sent me an email ask me what to visit, where to go etc... and moreover he also wrote the below:

I've been reading your blog and a few others found through the Lebanon Blog Aggregator. The best thing about blogs is being able to get a sense of what is going on somewhere beyond just the news. Looking at the news we see over here, all I'd know about is politics. I'm much more interested in what regular people are doing.

You can't help but smile when you see something like this. It makes me happy to know that our blogs help tourists and visitors get a better grasp about our country and like it even more. How does that make you feel? To know your blog is international..

Blog of The Week

There are many features that make a blog stand out:

1. being unique and offering unique content in its surrounding
2. well written
3. interesting subjects

And what makes this blog really neatly awesome, is that

1. It's unique, the only blog that talks about F1 and solely F1 in Lebanon
2. Well written? The dude is T3's editor :)
3. He doesn't just tells you the obvious, the dude has a keen eye, really knows what's happening, and gives you real insightful observations and analysis

Sakhir Circuit PitLane - March, 2006

Guessed it or not yet? Yes, yes! We are talking about Ramzi Ayash's blog. This is what he said about himself:

I am optimistic, selectively selfish, and incredibly passionate. Those three words aid my quest in consuming all of Formula 1′s vigor, until the end of time – or until they realize money can be better spent elsewhere (in building road cars?).

You can follow @Ramz_eh on Twitter and check out his blog "The Formula 1 Condition" here: http://thef1condition.wordpress.com/

A couple of SEO tips for your blog

Some tips to help bloggers make their blogs more SEO friendly.

1. Write better anchor text: while linking to other articles or blogs, don't link by saying "check this", instead use something like "you can also check how X dealt with Y concerning Z"
2. Create unique, accurate page titles: having 2 audience in mind, the people and the search engine. You need a catchy title for readers, but also a title that combines the most important keywords in your post, which would make it more search engine friendly. Think, what will the user write in the search box so they can land on my post?
3. Don't forget to fill the description META tag (in the head of the HTML page). Elaborate, use a combination of the keywords you're going to put in the keywords tag (in the head of the HTML page).
   <html><head><title>Katherine's Coffee Shop</title><meta name="description=" content="Katherine's Coffee Shop is a fusion of Lebanese and French culture, combined under one roof, situated in the most authentic city in Lebanon, etc..."></head>
4. Make use of heading tags (Heading 1, Heading2...): Select format text from the toolbar while creating a new post. Headings are used to present structure on the page to users.
5. Use images properly, it's preferred to use text to link to external websites, however if you must, make sure you put the description about this image in the "alt" attribute, which allows you to specify alternative text for the image if it cannot be displayed for some reason.
6. Choice of good keywords, use both single and combined keywords. Choose wisely. This is an interesting article about keywords optimization.

If you have any more questions, or wondering how to apply any of these tips, or want to add to them, make sure you comment :)

My daily SEO dose comes from this website.

This post was originally published on my Go Social Media blog. Hope it helps :)

Blogs of The Week

This week is an exception as you can see in the title. For this week, we have two blogs to tell you about. These blogs seem to be super popular among the bloggers' friends getting so many Facebook likes during the competition. And the winner are both. Thank you both for the exciting and keeping us on our toes competition.

Blog #1
Ladies first of course, so I will start talking about health and nutrition. What makes this blog special is the fact that it is unique and tackles a niche in the Lebanese blogosphere. For everyone who are feeling at a loss on what to eat, or know what to eat but are not motivated enough, Paty M's Nutrition blog surely gives you this motivation for all those colorful healthy food and fruits in her posts. Not only does she tell you what to eat, but she also tells you to be aware of certain foods. Now that is a blogger who cares.

Blogger Info:
Twitter: @PatyAMag
Blog Name: Paty M's Nutrition World
Blog URL: http://patymsnutritionworld.blogspot.com/

Blog #2
Now this blog is pretty different from the one above, and from most blogs I've chosen as Blog of The Week before. What I like about it is that it doesn't have one category of posts, you go there expecting a political post, and you'll stumble upon a movie review. You go there expecting to read about Lebanon, and then you see a post about Bahrain. You go there expecting seriousness, and you see an affectionate personal post. It is definitely one of my favorite reads. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do.

Blogger Info:

Twitter: @eliefares

Blog Name: A separate state of mind

Blog URL: http://stateofmind13.wordpress.com

What makes a blog post stand out

Been wondering lately about the quality of posts we bloggers post on a daily and weekly basis. What makes a blog post stand out?

Really, what makes a blog post stand out?

Truth is, the Lebanese blogosphere has been catching up lately, we've been having a surge of new blogs every week now, aggregated & added monthly to Lebanon Aggregator. However, how unique as a blogger are you? There are many other bloggers already on the scene, and there is very high possibility that they have posted about that same subject years ago. Therefore should you post about the same thing, you have to make it stand out, offer unique content and if content wasn't unique, there is a need to write it/draw it in a way that would draw a different reaction, a stronger one, with more impact. 

So now you're unique, what next?

What are you looking for as a blogger? True that, a blogger is in a way a listener, sort of seeing what his/her readers like, and channeling this energy towards that section to keep them readers satisfied, and certainly without losing credibility. But, a blogger puts in a lot of energy on their blog, from design, to creative interesting / useful content, and all that to keep bringing those readers back. Mission accomplished. But...

What's in it for the blogger?

There are three things a blogger looks for and let us all be honest about it. It's either Fame, Desire to make a change or Make money/connections. And it could be a combo of 2 of them or all 3. 

Let's talk about the last part, briefly. I know for a fact Advertising companies are interested in advertising or cooperating with bloggers, but they're not seeing the right content yet, more like a standard level in quality/regularity posting since there is fluctuation in that course.

So, in a nutshell, and I want to promise you that I will elaborate on this paragraph in another post, here's what I believe, we as a blogging community, should continue doing:

• keep blogging
• be selective on what posts to publish
• find yourself a niche
• blog by keeping a level of professionalism
• and of course, BE YOU!

Blog of The Week

There are many blogs in mind, all of them are amazing, but I will start with one that had really caught my attention in the past months. I personally really admire people with diverse knowledge, who know about different things from different fields presented in different ways! And this blogger really has an eye to unique, diverse and very interesting content.

To cut it short, please meet Un Peu de Kil Shi (http://unpeudekilshi.wordpress.com/) by Sahar Ghazale, and you can also follow her on twitter

Also note that Sahar and I came up with a generic quote, which you can feel free to use it :P

 "Ma 7adan m3attar ya Sahar"