Welcome to the first ever MetaSpring Blog Carnival! Over the last few weeks, we asked our readers to submit their favorite blog posts for inclusion in our new monthly Blog Carnival and we received a ton of great submissions - much thanks to everyone who participated!

For our first Carnival, we thought we’d keep it varied, so the following batch of posts span across the topics of link building, web design and development, social media and search engine optimization. We’ve already started to receive submissions for next month’s carnival (which will focus on web design) - so make sure to submit your post soon!

Design and Development

All the way from Northern Ireland, freelance web designer, Lee Munroe, shares some neat CSS 3 tricks and explains why he thinks Internet Explorer Users Don’t Care About Rounded Corners. It’s a bold statement, but somebody had to say it!

Steve Hamilton of Ann Arbor’s own, Nology Design, sent in a bit of advice for those seeking to build a website in his post, I Need a Website, What Do I Do Now?. Steve stresses the need for in-depth planning and scope definition and provides some noteworthy advice on ROI expectations.

Next up, John Laugherton presents his Top 50 Web Design Resource Blogs. I know - a list of recommended blogs within a list of recommended blogs - how very meta of us!

Another great post from Lee Munroe highlights 21 iPhone integrated websites to get your creative momentum flowing - Web Design Trends: iPhones.

Social Media

Our friend Jason Spector sends in this post entitled, The Twitter Elevator Pitch: Rethinking Your Social Bio. Jason explains how elevator pitches falls short in this world of social media and how your social bio can represent your elevator pitch, personal brand, and more.

Our friends over at Simply Zesty, a social media marketing company in Ireland, discuss the concept of Virtually Dressing for Success. Could avatar dress codes be in our near future?

Jody Fransch broke down the statistics from the September “Did You Know?” video in her post, The Media World Is Changing Fast! The “Did You Know?” series reveals eye-opening internet and tech-related factoids in a short, quirky format.

Writing Effectively

Evan Gould’s cleverly titled post, Five Ways to Write Blog Posts without Writing, offers a few tools and techniques to get you started on that next blog post. That old writer’s block excuse isn’t going to work after reading this.

In the last few years, we’ve heard it over and over - “content is king,” but Larry Brooks, guest author for CopyBlogger thinks that king is dead and a new one has taken the thrown. Why Content is No Longer King (And Who’s Taking His Place) offers insight as to how context usurped the crown.

Patricia F. Anderson, another Ann Arborite, was kind enough to share this post urging you to Consider Your Content. She runs down the why, where, when, who, and how of generating content for social media profiles and other forums around the web.

Link Building

Here’s a vlog from Welly Mulia titled, “Backlink Analysis Using Free Tools“. Welly has documented a few practices to save you time and money when it comes to analyzing your domain’s backlinks. The video is a tad long, but I’ve got some bookmarks for you - he covers the Yahoo! backlink tool from 5:00-13:00, and the SEO Quake Firefox plugin is covered from 13:00-24:00.

Posting guides on eHow is a great way to build links back to your site in a natural, and helpful way - and you can even make a little money in the process. Brian shares his tricks in his guide: Increase SERP Rank on eHow.

Next Month’s Issue: Web Design

Thanks for checking out MetaSpring’s first ever Blog Carnival - be sure to check out next month’s issue on Web Design. If you have a design post you’d like to share, submissions will be accepted through November 15.

If there is a specific theme that you’d like to see covered, email us with your request at media@metaspring.com.