Blazing Minds

This is Sponsored Post, which is sponsored by Ebuzzing, all opinions in this post are mine and are not influenced by the sponsor

Many of us from time to time have tried price comparison websites in the past, maybe looking for that new TV or gift for a family member, and these days trying to find that item at a cheaper price is our main goal. But sometimes you also want to find a place that has a good online reputation, so that when you buy your product you know that you are getting exactly what you have paid for. So this is one of the reasons you can try Wikio Shopping; you can search for your product, find the best price available and buy it, and not only that, but Wikio Shopping also offers a vast range of products for your every need in one handy place. Now Wikio Shopping has launched in the UK and is giving us "Brits" the option of using this well-tailored website ourselves.

I’ve been asked the question “What puts you off from following people on Twitter?” many times by friends who join Twitter and want to increase Twitter followers, but are weary of who they follow back, so I thought I would take the opportunity to let you know what puts me off from following people on Twitter.

So I’m going to start this list with just the basics on what really put me off following someone on Twitter.

• Default Twitter Logo
  Now this really does annoy me, if you are serious about using Twitter then before you even attempt to follow someone, add an Avatar, it just looks so much better.
• Complete Your Twitter Bio
  Another easy and simple thing to do, by adding a bio on your Twitter profile, people will know what you tweet about etc, this will give them an incentive to possibly follow you back. Make sure that your link for your website is to your website and not a short URL or back to your Twitter page, people want to know what you do on your website. Add your location, even if it’s just the county you live in.
• Upload A Custom Background
  There are so many Twitter Tool out there now that will allow you to design a custom background, doing this will not only make your Twitter page look more professional, but, you can also use this opportunity to add a little more info about yourself on the left hand side of your Twitter page.
• Watch Your Follow and Followers Counters
  Speaking from experience, if a fellow twitter sees that you are following a large amount and hardly anyone is following you back, then they are going to be a bit dubious about you, either try to keep a healthy follow ratio or have more following you, if you have a lot following you, it usually shows that you are interesting enough to follow
• IMPORTANT – Don’t Spam
  This is one thing that everyone hates, once someone is followed they usually don’t mind a DM saying thanks for following, but constant DMs saying “buy this”, “get on of these free” and “is this you” will get them to unfollow you in a heartbeat, so just don’t do it.
• Be Yourself
  This is one thing that people don’t seem to do these days, I don’t mean tweeting things like “in the kitchen”, “watching TV”, “took the dog out”, “just had a drink” but, if you are going to tweet thing like that then add a bit of information to them, like where you are etc. eg “In the kitchen making a brilliant recipe, I’ll blog it for you all later”, “Watching a brilliant new program on TV starring @Schofe”, “Just had a drink with my good mates at the new club in London” if you are taking the dogs out, tweet some interesting photos, TweetPhoto, TwitPic or even Flickr.

So there you go, just some of the things that I follow and if you are new to Twitter then following this may improve your tweeting and hopefully your followers admiration for what you tweet about

The other day I got an email, telling me about a new site that will allow Twitter users to tweet about music they like and rate it, so I thought I would take the plunge and check it out.

The site is called Musicvault.fm and it’s just so simple to use, you can use the search engine that they have on the site, or even just do a direct tweet which they will pick up, all you have to do is tweet in this format “Group/Album” XX% your comment @musicvaultfm i.e: “Muse/The Resistance” 90% Awesome record! @musicvaultfm

Then once Musicvault.fm catch your tweet they publish your opinion on their website, it’s really that easy, so I gave it a try and did one for one of my favourite albums by Royksopp, Melody A.M. and then searched for another album, this time I tried my own band, Remergence and it didn’t find anything, but, you can also search via Last.fm and this did produce the results I would have expected..

Now I’m not entirely sure how often I would use Musicvault.fm, but saying that, it is a handy little Twitter website that I think a lot of music fans out there will use to spread the word about albums that they enjoy, maybe I should start using it to promote some of those many artists out there that I personally know that would love the extra links back to their albums to help them show off their talents, hmm.

It’s all a bit of fun, something that you may or may not take seriously, but at least your Twitter followers will know what music you like

As always Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland was going to see a lot of Hype, let’s face it, with films such as Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd in your catalogue, it is hard for anyone not to be excited about the latest movie that Burton has been imagined up.

After reading a few of the reviews, I have to say I was slightly disappointed as at the very most I had seen this film coming in at 3 stars from all the big reviewers. Nevertheless I cannot say I am the one for agreeing with the newspapers so I thought I would actually go and see this movie myself.

After the first ten minutes I was not impressed at all, that is until Alice once again found herself falling headfirst into the deepest hole and landing in Burton’s amazing rendition of Wonderland.

The leading lady Mia Wasikowska had no complaints from me as she played an older version of Alice perfectly keeping that innocence that the character is so famous for. As always it would seem Burton spent no expense on the costume creations with each being crazier than the last. The real life acting and animation is seamless and arguably just as good as seen in the blockbuster Avatar.

Although I first thought that Depp would be the favourite character here playing the Mad Hatter who has always been my personal favourite, I was very impressed with Matt Lucas as Tweedle Dee and Dum. However the March Hare had to be my favourite even though he only had a couple of lines which mostly consisted of the word SPOONS!

The only issues I had with the film are really just the beginning and end sequences which are very dull and almost an insult to the usual madness that we are so used to seeing in a Tim Burton film.

Only Burton could make a story such as Alice In Wonderland even stranger than it already is and he does it with his usual dark and mysterious storytelling ability that works even better with something like this. A great movie overall and I would recommend taking the entire family to go and see this.
The verdict- 4/5

Picture source Wikipedia

I’ve meant to do this for a while now, but thought it would be best until there were a few Guest Bloggers who were active on Blazing Minds, so now they are, it’s time for me to introduce them to you, I’m going to start with an introduction to a Guest Blogger who is very popular here and on his own blogs….

Dragon Blogger

Aka Justin Germino has contributed a few Guest Posts and is an Information Security Engineer by day who writes about software, blogging, technology and entertainment on the side, his blog Dragon Blogger is a fantastic blog that I highly recommend you stop by. Check out all of his Guest Posts here on Blazing Minds.

Angus

Angus Maiden dabbles in many things music-related: making his own music (The Peach Tree), reviewing albums, spinning decks (DJ Gamoneterik), and have his eyes set on starting up a record label. He is also a qualified sound-engineer.  Ink flows through his veins and he loves writing, which you can find in his Guest Posts..

Anand

Anand Srinivasan is the founder of the World’s first Ask & Answer Website – KnewThis.com for webmasters to earn targeted backlinks. Posts by Anand on Blazing Minds

Slappy Bear

Named in a competition by ExtremeJohn, Slappy Bear is a fun-loving bear with a passion for everything in life, well, within reason. Occasional blogger and tweeter, but all round joker! Posts by Slappy Bear on Blazing Minds

MsIleaneSpeaks

Is a blogger, podcaster and Twitter addict. You can usually find her blogging on her blog at Engaging With Ms. Ileane Speaks. She is also an avid commentator on many blogs across the internet. Ms Ileane Speaks on Blazing Minds

Latief

Former Teacher And Community Development Consultant and Now he’s a Full Time Blogger, a Husband and a Father for an Angel. Posts by Latief on Blazing Minds

Igor Kheifets

Igor Kheifets is a 21-year-old genius who’s hooked on growth, expansion of mind and peach-vanilla tea. Igor is the founder of IgorHelpsYouSucceed where he shares Daily Internet Marketing Tips For Online Entrepreneurs. Posts by Igor Kheifets on Blazing Minds

Dana

Dana is the founder of Blogging Tips Blog, a blog where he share much about blogging, and little about internet and IT. Yup, You will find knowledge sharing about blogging, Internet, and IT in his blog. You can subscribe the Blogging Tips Blog Feed to be updated. Posts by Dana on Blazing Minds

Duncan

Duncan is a search marketing expert who represents a Canada holidays company. He loves films but not premiers…or Jessica Alba any more. Posts by Duncan on Blazing Minds

So there we have it an introduction to the bloggers that have kindly decided to Guest Post here on Blazing Minds, my many thanks to them and also look out for their future posts here on Blazing Minds

Greetings fellow bloggers and readers of my blog, I’m a bit rushed for time this weekend, its mothers day and I can’t really spend that much time on the blog as I would like to, that’s why there has been a slump is posts this weekend, sorry about that, but here is the weekly round-up for those of you that enjoy reading them, I’ve made a few changes this week, mainly due to time and I have added some Google Graphics for some of the stats, thanks to Dragon Blogger for the inspiration on that one

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So, you may have noticed that a couple of days ago I added a new widget into my blogs sidebar, if you didn’t then let me tell you about it a little more..

The widget is called “TweetRoll” and can be found on the website TweetBurn, it a handy widget that you can add to your blog/website that display not only your SponsoredTweets button but also show your twitter followers and a “follow me on twitter” link, which is very important to all us Twiter users
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