On my blog Tossing It Out I'm reporting on the Los Angeles BlogWorld Expo and New Media Expo, but here I want to give my report on BlogWorld and how my visit related to the A to Z Challenge.
Those who followed the Challenge of 2011 and my follow-up posts in May know that I am very interested in making the 2012 Challenge more organized and easier to participate in than the first two Challenges. Judging from last year's more than ten-fold growth, I have every reason to believe that next year will have at least the same participation as last year if not considerably more. In either case, as we saw in 2011 the Challenge becomes massive, and even overwhelming, for participants. For this reason I am looking for more ways to meet your requests, your needs, and in general to make the Challenge more fun for all of us.
The bottom line is that in order to achieve these goals of improving the Challenge I need to find some solutions that will involve some technology with which I am currently not familiar. Networking and knowledge gathering at the Expo was part of that learning process. You can believe that I was talking about the A to Z Challenge to get some feedback about it and some sources that I can go to for help later.
The response I got was consistently positive. Everyone that I talked to about the Challenge seemed interested and thought that it held some great potential. Now to see who will back me up in the months to come and join in the fun come April.
I got some indication of support from a representative in the Blogger booth who said to send in the info about what we're doing and she thought that they'd probably give us some mentions in the Blogger blog right before we are about to start up. Any additional support like that will not only be favorable for the Challenge, but also increase the possibilities of others to discover your blog.
However our biggest boost comes from you the participants and supporters alike. Keep the buzz going on your blogs. And if there is any realm of expertise that you can contribute to make the Challenge better please leave a suggestion in the comments or contact me at my email address.
A to Z got some nice mentions in the past week and I hope you will check them out if you haven't done so already:
Alex J. Cavanaugh was a co-host in the 2011 Challenge. He gave the A to Z Blog a nice plug in his post last Friday.
A big Thanks to Yvonne Lewis from Welcome to My World of Poetry for her poetic plug of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge.
Also, you must check out the post Sue at Jumping Aground did for the Challenge. She also offers a preview of what she's planning to do in April and offers some good tips for the rest of us.
Keep the plugs and mentions coming and let me know whenever something appears on your blog or wherever it appears so I can link to it on the Blogging from A to Z Blog.
--