Not so newbie questions | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

It's been a little over 3 years since I've actively managed a blog…a lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same.  Here are  a few questions that I would love your opinions on.  Please feel free to answer any or all…

Thanks in advance!

MC

What are the must have Wordpress plug-ins?
- For Spam
- For sharing content via Social Media
- To improve bounce rate (related posts…or do this w/o plugin?)
- Monetization (ad sense, amazon affiliates, etc)
- Stats (I use WP stats)
- Productivity / Optimization (bad link checkers, etc…)

What is the consensus on Commenting systems?
- Comment luv (that seemed to dwindle in use)
- Disqcus (sp?)
- Native WP

- What happened to Tipd?  Looks like it stopped around 2012….
Is there another site that replaced it?

- What happened to Carnival of Money Stories?  That was my favorite!
What are some top carnivals (besides Yakezie of course)

- Social Media:  I'm primarily using Twitter
Going to get the FB revved up pretty soon….
Anyone using Pintrest or Instragram with their followers

Is Aweber still considered the best platform for e-mail lists
(When is a good time to start with a newsletter – I feel I should focus on content for a while first….especially if I'm going to pay for a service)

Lot of talk about Feedburner going away – doesn't seem like it would make sense to be vested in that service.  What is a viable (hopefully free) alternative?  Is there a reason not to use my blogs native URL?  Is there a way I can track stats from the native URL?  I've replaced G-reader with Feedly, and Feedly shows how many readers there are….