The start of the Spring, 2008 Blogging For Progress Scholarship is upon us!

We've officially started the Spring 2008 Blogging for Progress scholarship, and we've launched a few extra things to get it started.

First off, we'd like to point out two new links in your menu. These links allow you to donate to ProgressiveU via PayPal. We'd like to expand the site beyond just this main site, and we've already begun that process, but of course, these efforts are always held back by funding. So, if you like what we do and want to give a little back (even $5), check out this feature.

We'd also like to announce our pages on several social networking sites. You can now link up with us on Facebook, Myspace, and Bebo. In the coming weeks, we'll have some special announcements for individuals linked to us through these sites, so stay tuned for that.

For those of you who are new to Progressive U, the Coalition For Good Blogging Group, led by Fanaile Essence, has begun publishing tips and tricks to help you maximize your readership and gain more exposure for your blogs. You can find those in the discussion forums under "How to Blog a Better Blog".

We've launched a new rating system. It allows easier rating, however, this happens at the expense of not allowing us to give you points for rating. So, as of this contest, you will no longer receive 5 points for each rating you give. You will not, though, have to refresh the page in order to submit your review. So click away and rate those blogs. You can see the highest rated blogs at any given time in the left sidebar. We also now have a 'Link Alert' form you can fill out if there's a website you see that you'd like to bring to our attention.

In case you didn't know already, ProgressiveU features many RSS feeds, so you don't always have to come to the site to enjoy the content. You can find the RSS icon located at the bottom of any listing of blogs (such as a user's blog, the front page, etc). You can import these into facebook via notes or an RSS feeder as Progressive U has on their page, or import them into an RSS reader such as Google Reader.

And just because it's a new semester doesn't mean you should forget about our past features. Check out the Topic of the Week, updated each Sunday. Also, we frequently featured 'looked over' blogs in the Choice Picks area. Finally, each week we feature a new blogger nominated by YOU. Check out this week's blogger here and remember that we can't feature them unless you nominate them (and you get points for each successful nomination you make!). You can find links to all of these features at any time in the right sidebar.

Additionally, you can see all sorts of information posted every so often in our column, Between The Lines. Get reviews of books you may or may not have heard before, learn about what you can do for an in the upcoming election, and read some (sometimes humorous) interviews of all sorts of people, incluing Mr. Diety himself.

And, although it's not officially a part of the Blogging For Progress Scholarship, we've also launched our new sister site for Creative Writing! We do hope you appreciate the features we have brought, and if you have any further recommendations, feel free to send us a note at info[at]progressiveu.org.

For those of you who are new to the contest (or just need a little refresher), here's a quick summary of what you get points for: 50 points for each blog you post, 10 points for each comment you post, 1 point for every read on your blog, and 100 points for each (accepted) blogger you nominate to be featured. There are also a host of bonus point opportunities available throughout the semester, so stay tuned for those.

Good luck to everyone participating in the scholarship contest!

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