Part 1 of 5: Beginning an Animal Jam Blog

Hello jammers! Panda here, with a new blogging series: How to Build An Epic Animal Jam Blog From Scratch. 

Today (in Part 1 of 5) we will be discussing how to pick a blogging platform and how to create a blog. This part may not be the most helpful for those of you who already have a blog, but the upcoming parts in this series (see below) will hopefully help you more.

Here's a brief overview of the series and what each of the parts will contain:

Part 1: Choosing a Platform & Creating a Blog

Part 2: Creating a Post & Choosing a Commenting System

Part 3: Choosing a Theme & Customizing It

Part 4: The Foundation of a Successful Blog & How to Get Viewers + Followers

Part 5: Final Tips to Building + Maintaining a Successful Animal Jam Blog

Hope this sounds exciting to all of you bloggers out there! ^.^

Without further ado... let's get right to the post!

A Fresh Start : The AJ Newspaper

Hello jammers! Let me squeeze in one last (important) post before I leave to go to the movies. ^.^

My good buddy, Mimi5000 has begun a new blog, The AJ Newspaper. Something got messed up on her old blog, Animal Jam Paw Up, so she decided to get a fresh start. I would really appreciate it if you could stop by and give her a comment or two. ^.^ Her new blog looks really awesome, and I'm sure that we can all expect great things from it! :)

Have a great day jammers!

-Panda

RIM

Hey jammers! ^.^ I apologize for my lack of posting over the past few days... as I said, I will be posting much less frequently.

I am going to see a movie soon, so I'm just going to post the RIM with some feedback. :)

The RIM is the rare eagle hat for sale in Jam Mart Clothing. (Is it just me, or are practically all of the RIM's in Jam Mart Clothing now?) I really like this item because 1) it is non-member; 2) it is purple. I mean, pretty good as RIM's go, eh?

Have a great day, jammers! Don't forget to check out the post before this one to learn about the 4th of July giveaway and party!

-Panda

4th of July Giveaway + Party

Hi jammers! I'm here today with an awesome event to tell you about! Since I was gone for a long time, and since my school is over now, I have the time to put a bit more work into the blog. And to celebrate the 4th of July, I'll be hosting a giveaway and party in honor of this epic holiday and the blog reaching 25+ followers and 35,000+ views! Yay!!!!

The giveaway will be small, but it will be pretty easy to win. Simply comment which flooring in which den the following image depicts.

The winner will receive these:

I might also choose another person or two to win some items at the party as well... ;)

Speaking of the party... on Thursday, July 2nd at 3:00 PM AJGC time, a special 4th of July party will be held at my (awesomepanda868) den. I hope you can make it! We will have a ton of fun, play games and do whatever else you guys want to do. :P

Hope those will be fun for you guys. :) 

-Panda

Llamas

Hi. I bought a llama:

My school ended today... :DDDDDD SOOOOOO HAPPPPPPPPYYYYY!!! 

There are lots of other new updates... the interface changed (the currency and trophy icons are no longer in the top menu, they are in the player profile/clothing menu) and there are some new additions to the game.

Awesomeness, people:

Which new pet did you vote for? I voted for the elephant... :)

-Panda

My Most Favorite Quote about Animal Jam

Hello people of the AJGC!

My name is nafaria9, but you can just call me Naffy, or Naffy Taffy; however you want to say/spell it. As you can see, I am a new author, but you can't expect too much posts from me. Just a few words now and then, that's all.

Now onto the post!

There's this old inactive blog I've been exploring the past year or two called Jamaa's Written Truth. It belongs to Goldfishypuppy, also known as XxFreeSpiritxX. She was famous during 2011 and 2012, and some part of 2013.

Anyway, one of her many interesting posts had a quote in it by an unknown Jammer. It reads:

"I don't care about rares. It's not like I can put them on my resume when I'm older."

I 100%, flat-down agree with this quote. If you didn't know already, a resume is a form you type up when you apply for a job. A resume is full of necessary information about yourself, like skills, talents, and other places you've worked.

Imagine that you won three medals for a state track meet, you love to play the piano, and you're great at math.

Now, imagine that for four years straight, your life was spent on the computer, playing Animal Jam, trading for rares. When you typed your resume, you said that you owned two long black spiked collars, three beta tiaras, a magenta furry hat, twelve den betas, and a pink top hat.

Which one of these situations will win the job spot?

Duh! It's so obvious!

The first circumstance will get to make a living as a wealthy chiropractor, and the other? An employee at McDonald's.

Do you get what I'm trying to say here?

I'm trying to teach you guys a lesson. To summarize:

Don't spend your entire life playing Animal Jam. It won't benefit you in the future. I promise. Eventually you may get bored of it, and even if the whole world is begging you to stay, including your buddies or subscribers or followers or fans or whatever, make your own choices. BE the bone aligner. DON'T work for the Golden Arches.

:)

Posting Changes

NOTICE: ALL COMMISSIONS REQUESTED AFTER MAY 11TH, 2015 ARE TEMPORARILY POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Okay. I'm really sorry that all of the posts lately have been super serious and depressing. :( But this one is pretty important, so please at least read the bold text below:

I will now be posting longer, non-update related posts (once or twice a week). This way, my content will be valuable to jammers in the future, not just jammers that day.

Previously, AJGC has been an Animal Jam updates blog. To be honest, blogging about AJ updates wasn't the most exciting thing in the world. Writing up Fate chapters or creating Jamaasian land info pages was much more fun. If I write about a new item, it won't really benefit jammers in a month. Or two months. And definitely not a year from now. So now, I'll be posting longer posts, except less frequently. This way, jammers can stop by AJGC years from now and will still benefit. See what I mean? I want this blog to contribute something to this amazing AJ community, not just post mindless updates like 20 billion other AJ blogs do. (Not that those blogs aren't epic -- I just don't want to blog about AJ updates anymore.)

I'll begin these "longer" posts in 2 days, since that is when my school ends. (Yipee!)

Thank you all for your continuous support...

-Pandie

RIM

I've got to go soon, so I'll just post the RIM real quick.

-Panda

Dear Panda // 2

Can I have some overall feedback on my site?

I just added ______ to my site -- does it look okay?

What do you think of my design?

Is my sidebar/footer too cluttered?

How can I _____?

I just began a blog -- how can I gain more viewers and encourage them to comment?

The Dear Panda weekly blog design advice column is open until 11:30 PM AJGC time tonight, and until then, you can post blogging-related questions for me to answer sometime during the day tomorrow.

You have the mic. What questions do you have? Remember, the more questions you ask, the more we learn from each other, so don't forget to tell your buddies about this, share this on social media/reblog this and post all the questions you have! 

-Panda

Pineapples + Nerdy Math Calculations + (Important) Business-y Stuff

Hey jammers!

I'm not posting the new item very often anymore because... yeah. Tons of other blogs do that. (More on all of this kind of "business-y stuff" later in the post.)

But I might post reeeeeally epic items. Like this pineapple hat. Pineapple hat = life.

Am I the only one who isn't a huge fan of the new cloud party? It doesn't seem as interesting or big as the other parties. Those rainbow clothes and furniture and awesome though. 

(Ugh, Blogger is making the images so blurry now! >:O I found out a way to make it super high resolution though: >>tutorial<<)

Now for the nerdy math calculations. Since I was really bored this morning, I calculated the unit price of a Summer Carnival ticket for each of the ticket packs.

500 gems for 1,000 tickets: .5 gems per ticket

1,000 gems for 2,000 tickets: .5 gems per ticket

2,500 gems for 5,000 tickets: .5 gems per ticket

What I wish AJ would do is make the larger pack (2,500 gems for 5,000 tickets) a better deal. For example: 2,000 gems for 5,000 tickets instead of 2,500 gems for 5,000 tickets. This way, kids can learn about unit rates and finding a good deal. Having each pack be the same value is sort of boring. :T Anyways... enough of my ranting...

Before we get onto the "business-y stuff," I'd like to thank you for all sticking with me and still viewing this blog after we've been gone for awhile. Love y'all. <3 p="">

So I'll be posting 1 to 4 times a week now, not every day. As you know, I relaunched The Dancing Panda, and it takes up most of my time now. After all, that site actually makes money, and (though I love blogging and don't care much about the money) this one doesn't. Also, I've begun to slowly lose interest in AJ, and it probably won't be long until the amount of time I spend of there dramatically decreases.I'm not sure what I'll do yet...

Got to go!

-Panda

@Paypayrod

Here is your (high-res) smoothie machine graphic.

Enjoy...

~awesomepanda868

I'm back?

Hi jammers! Wow... it's been weird not typing that every day. :P

Too much has happened since I've been gone for me to both making a post about all the updates, right?

I'm (sort of) back (for now)! (Everyone groans. "But I thought she was gone for good..." :sobs:) I've done a lot since we last interacted: I relaunched The Dancing Panda and am actually beginning to make some money! I made $3 last night, actually. Got to start somewhere, eh? XD Also, I've been checking the blog every day and seeing all of your lovely comments and how many views this blog has is truly inspiring. It seems like only yesterday that I was posting about how this blog got 400 views...

As I said, I'm only "sort of" back. I'll make the occasional commission and graphic, and will keep the blog updated sometimes. Maybe once to three times a week? And I'll only follow the posting schedule sometimes. Everything is basically a huge "maybe" and "sometimes" and "occasional."

So... maybe I'll post this weekend?

-Panda

Llamas and Hats

Hey jammers,

It's Suzi00, the unknown author who never posts! Since the other authors are busy, I've decided to poke out of my shell and actually post for once! Hooray!

Happy June 1std, y'all! It's the first day of my birthday month! June's monthly flower is Rose, and it's Birthstone is Pearl, both of which you should go check out (Epic Wonders and Treetop Gardens)! For some of you it might be the first or second day of Summer (for me it's my third). What are your plans for this summer? Go to the beach tons? Go camping? Go to that summer camp? Play Animal Jam all day, every day?

Does anyone know where I took this picture?

Now, today's rare item Monday is perfect for your summer adventures!

(picture credit Animal Jam Spirit, specifically BonsaiiSpirits, since I can't be on this early)

Am I the only one in Jamaa who loves this hat? It has a nice shade of green, a lovely purple butterfly... 

And then there is this:

Is this penguin not just the cutest? The purple, green and brown is nicely matched, and it's smile shows I'm not the only one in Jamaa who appreciates this hat. 

Now, some of you may be wondering what this next aninal is, or what the secret image is. First, you should at least try to find the secret image yourself (it's a cave painting like aninal on a rock wall).

Spoiler Alert!

(picture credit to the lovely Naffy Taffy of the Animal Jam Whip, because this post is being written on my iPad)

It's a Llama! Ohhhh, it's so exciting!

There is also a leaked picture of a jammer with a Llama! Spoiler Alert once more!

(Picture credit Meloetta385 of the Animal Jam Flash)

Fuzzy... Those ears... I'm in love...This better not be diamond shop...

Now, to finish things up, I present you Monday Animal Facts!

• Llamas are close relatives to the camel, but without the hump.
• Llamas come from South America
• Llamas are used as pack animals
• Llamas actually have wool 
• Llamas are intelligent, but also stubborn. When a load on a Llama's back is too great, it'll refuse to move until the load is removed from it's back.
• A lifespan of a Llama is between 20 and 30 years

That's all I have to share today! Keep jamming and stay positive! 

Check out my own, personal blog at animaljamgoodtimes.blogspot.com 

Daily posts and llamas not included

(Oh, and if the authors here want me to continue doing daily posts, comment and let me know!)