Over the last few years, blogging has taken the world by storm. Unfortunately, recent statistics reveal that many people abandon their blogs soon after they create them. Reasons include lack of genuine interest and communication with the readers.  Failure to post interesting content also acts as an additional reason sometimes.

Adam Sarner, who is associated with Gartner Inc., (a research and advisory firm) echoes this fact when he says that many people blog because they feel that it is a new way of communicating with a global audience. Unfortunately, within few months, they realize that they cannot blog regularly and abandon them.
If you have a design blog and want to know the secrets of successful blogs, read on.

Secret 1 – Figure out your target audience

Your blog revolves around the theme of web design and you write topics related to your theme. Have you ever wondered that writing about general web design topics can create disinterest amongst your readers?

The reason is that millions of design blogs are available in the Internet, with many publishing similar posts. In such a competitive situation, there is hardly any guarantee that people will read your blog.

To prevent failure of your blog, figure out your target audience. Opt for a blog customization. Write topics that cater to their special needs. If your target audiences are freelancers, you can choose topics such as ‘Motivating Tips for Freelancer’ or ‘Which is better – A Freelancing Career or a Full – Time Job’ ? Consider the fact that focusing on a particular niche will grant you a loyal audience.

Secret 2 – Give something back to the readers

Most people visit design blogs to gather valuable information about website design. While designing a website, they face certain issues and may refer to your blog for finding some solution. To maintain interest of the people, you have to offer something new to your readers. These can include how-to and problem-solving posts. Keep your articles short, crisp, and rich in content.

People usually look for good information and to fulfill their cravings, you can provide them with tutorials. Additionally, you can offer them a free e-book or share any useful link with them.

Secret 3 – Show genuine interest in connecting your audience

Many bloggers believe that only publishing information-rich articles will make a blog successful. However, this is not a completely right concept. It is true that people visit blogs to gather good information. However, at the same time, they want to stay connected with the person who is writing the blogs. If readers leave comments or questions and do not receive any reply, they may not feel interested in visiting the blog again.

Therefore, to engage your audience and retain their interest, you should connect with them regularly. Answer their queries or leave a reply to their comments. Convincing your readers that you are genuinely interested in solving their problems is critical for making your blog successful.

Developing a successful design blog will take time. Even if you do not receive a great response initially, do not feel disappointed. Work hard, and stay in touch with your audience. Most importantly, convince them that you are passionate about web design and solving their problems.

Tablet computing received new lease of life with iPad redefining this segment a year back. Since then, every major technology giant, including Lenovo and Dell, has been busy introducing its own versions of tablet touch screen devices.

Amazon, which is mostly known as a major online retailer with an impressive corporate identity, does not want to be left behind in this race to woo gadget users. It has revamped its popular Kindle e-book reader with new features and wants to give serious competition to Apple, which still owns a majority of stake in global tablet market.

Needless to say, increased use of tablets for web browsing has opened new career avenues for web developers who are exploring options to develop tablet based apps. They have several platforms to choose from, including iOS, Android and Blackberry OS. Windows 8 will hit shelves the next year, which is being touted by Microsoft as a tablet centric OS.

So, what does the release of Kindle Fire mean for web programming veterans specializing in tablet app development?

For a website development company focussing on tablet app development, Kindle Fire remains an intriguing device, more so for its unremarkable new hardware. It is true that Amazon has unveiled 4 variants of Kindle but basically, there is only one Color tablet and three Ink-based devices. These three Ink-based tablets offer more feature than earlier versions of Kindle, but they do not have any groundbreaking features as such. Kindle Touch comes with a touch based Infrared Sensor and lacks mechanical buttons. Only Kindle Fire offers a Touch screen with Color Display.

As a matter of fact, ink-based Kindle models cannot be classified as full-fledged tablets and developers do not have many reasons to warm up to them. Kindle Fire does run on Android, though Amazon has not highlighted on that aspect much, yet, in its promotional activities.

As a tablet, it falls far short of competition. For instance, it does not have a camera, GPS navigation and SD card slot, etc. As far as connectivity goes, there is WiFi and USB. This does limit scope for developers willing to make apps for Kindle Fire.
Amazon Kindle Fire is equipped with new Silk browser. This is useful for delivering good results where connectivity is sluggish. Given its feature set and usability, Kindle Fire does not pose much threat to Android tablets. It is more than an e-Book reader for sure, but does not contain any major new feature.

Developers rue the fact that Kindle KDK, unveiled almost a year back, is still in beta version. There are a handful of apps available for Kindle but prospect of final version of KDK is uncertain. Android developers are warming up to release of Android OS4, which is just a few days away. However, there is no likelihood of Amazon switching to this much talked about update for its flagship e-book tablet.

Kindle Fire is based on a modified version of Android Froyo, which can make developing apps for it rather cumbersome. Google is trying to do away with Android segment fragmentation and this may make things difficult for Kindle app development.

From initial developments, it seems that Amazon is not going all the way out to woo developers to make apps for its tablet, in contrast to Microsoft. Amazon did not talk much about developers at launch of new Kindle.