Posts with tag "bloggers"
this-cat

The state of comments and blacklisting entire hosting domains

Blogs live and breath because of comments.

For me they are the life blood of blogging. They are the rich tapestry of conversation around ideas that add so much value to what bloggers write. Sure there are the fluff you r0x0r type crap but for the most part they are overshadowed by comments that are sometimes worth of blog posts by themselves.

The problem is that comments are dying. At least the comments on the originating blogs are, if not dying, slowly fading away. Instead we are seeing them happening on social network sites like Facebook, Buzz, Twitter and others like them – many of which bloggers will never see or read.

I don’t blame our readers for deciding to move away from the blogs themselves, even if I really hate that it is happening. After all commenting has become a tangled web of sign-ons and other hindrances which do more to dissuade people from commenting at the original source. So in turn bloggers are put in a position of having to make sure their content is available everywhere possible. Personally I think this dilutes the pool of great conversations but like I said I understand.

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relax-2

Being comfortable with who you are

There’s a lot of blogs out there giving all kinds of advise; some good, some not so good, and some just plain bullshit meant for pageviews. I know because I see their posts almost everyday and it never ceases to amaze me just how many time the same basic principals get re-worded, mashed up, or pointified.

If it could all be boiled down into a simple one sentence idea it would probably be something like this: write with passion in a niche area that you are really passionate about and make sure to link out to as many people as you can because that is the economy of the web.

So we end up with a proliferation of SEO enriched posts with lots of bold text that devalue the principals of the link economy even worse than it is now. Sure that might pull in the pageviews for a period of time and might even make you some money but just how long can you carry this on. At what point does it all begin like you are on auto-pilot.

At what point does your writing see your carefully crafted sarcasm devolve into irritating snarkiness for snarkiness sake. When do you suddenly find yourself just hitting the post button in order to make sure you get something posted.How about when you read yous own post only to find it empty of any real value having turned into something that just is taking up space.

When do you arrive at the point when you have to look in the mirror ans ask how comfortable are you with yourself and what you are doing?

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Here, let me take that wool off of your eyes

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 1171 days ago

If there is one thing that is constantly being crammed down our blogging throats it is that if you write great content the masses will come.

New bloggers will hear this over and over as they scour the web for all the blogging tips that they can find. After all, we all want to be counted right up there with the big boys ’cause we know our ideas and thoughts are just as good; or better, than theirs.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but here is a simple truth: it’s bullshit.

You can write stuff that is as good as Godin, Scoble, Brogan; or any number of the great bloggers out there, and you’ll still; for the most part, end up being just another voice that is part of the great white noise known as the Blogosphere.

Sure there is nothing better for one’s ego to be recognized by Robert Scoble or have Om Malik say that the loves your stuff which I have had happen – a long time ago now though. It’s a rush; but a rush that will probably be gone at around the same point  those same people have forgotten who you are.

Blogging relationships are for the most part very transient especially when it comes to the big boys mixing with those of us out in the blogging ghetto. I’m not grousing here – just stating a simple fact: if you aren’t part of the blogging upper crust your chances of breaking into this old boys club is next to nil.

This doesn’t mean you should stop what you are doing and run with your tail tucked between your legs to the easy world of a 14o characters. The truth doesn’t change the fact that you probably can write stuff that is just as important or better than those big names.

You should write about what matters to you whether it be about the stupidity that Social Media is devolving into or the newest technology that rocks your boat. You might not reach the levels you dream about but you can be sure of one thing – your opinions and thoughts do matter.

And who knows …. maybe … just maybe you might hit the right sweet spot that will help make you one of those must read bloggers we would all like to be.

I’ll be keep my fingers crossed for you.

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If NYT goes with a paywall do we get a paycheck?

There is a lot of yammering going on about the supposed erection of a paywall at the New York Times with their blogs being stuck behind it.

Personally I think this is a stupid idea and one that will come back to bite them on the ass – hard. However Michael Masnick over at Techdirt raised an interesting point in a post this morning.

But this leads to a rather fascinating question that one of Samon’s readers asks in the comments (unfortunately, it looks like Reuters doesn’t let you link directly to comments): if a blog post drives traffic to the NY Times, and that counts against the quota of “free” articles, leading users to eventually sign up for the paywall, will the blogger get a cut of the paywall fee? After all, isn’t part of the argument from newspapers upset with aggregators that they’re getting some sort of “free ride”? Wouldn’t the same apply in reverse? If newspapers, such as the NY Times, are getting direct revenue from an action initiated by a blogger, then by the newspapers’ own convoluted logic, don’t those newspapers owe money to the bloggers?

As silly as this might sound on the surface when you really think about it there is a certain validity to the suggestion.

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In this town the talking points can change in five minutes or less

thousand_monkeys Ah the tech blogosphere and it’s rifle quick denizens who can snap a keyboard in half faster than you can start a rumor.

This is the town where in less than five minutes you can get two totally different stories based on the same original quote all under the guise of an Update Post.

And when I say less than five minutes I’m not kidding as the still fresh quote-mongering instance of Google rushing in to split the GMail and Buzz umbilical cord will testify to.

No sooner had Matt McGee of Search Engine Land blasted the Techmeme world with Danny Sullivan’s news of the impending possible split (which has been rewritten by this time to match up with the new facts) than VentureBeat slammed back with a report that the Google VP quoted by Danny had been misconstrued – there would be no divorce tonight – or any other night. However there may be a bastard child to totally confuse everyone even further.

This all happened in the space of one five minute refresh of my feed reader while I was reading.

I guess time doesn’t stand still for the truth eh.

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My women of the Web

  • Category: Uncategorized
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  • 9 comments
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  • Posted 1228 days ago

thumbs-up As part of making up my list of people I want to be a part of my “10 Questions” interview series (which will be returning this month) I realized that there were more women making up the list than men.

Sure we all know who Kara Swisher is or that the cupcake queen is Marissa Meyer but for the most it seems that when it comes to the tech field and social media it is the guys that get all the attention.

So I figured I’d pass along some of the women rockstars that are out there because if you aren’t reading them; or following them on Twitter you are missing out.

Marketing

HPC – Otherwise known as Tara Hunt (Twitter)
Michelle’s Blog – Michelle Greer (Twitter)
Liz Strauss / Successful Blog(gers) – Liz Strauss (Twitter)
Marketing Mystic – Mia Dand (Twitter)

Social Media

Altitude Branding – Amber Naslund (Twitter)
Penelope Trunk (Twitter)
Suze Muse (Twitter)

Technology

 Profy – Svetlana Gladkova
Go2WEB20 – Orli Yakuel (Twitter)
SheGeeks – Corvida Raven (Twitter)

And just because you should

Sex and the 405 (Twitter) – this isn’t the most work safe blog but it is definitely interesting or as their tagline goes “What your newspaper would look like
if it had a sex section.”. While there are a couple of men of the staff roster the majority of writers are women.

Cleavage – Kelly Diels (Twitter) – while those with tender sensibilities (read no sense of ha-ha) might not like Kelly’s writing I look forward to each of her posts.

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Indie blogger success may be too high of a mountain to climb

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  • 4 comments
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  • Posted 1289 days ago

MountainClimbing I’ve been thinking about this for some time now and as much as I really don’t want to acknowledge the possible truth of the matter I seriously think that the days of an independent blogger becoming a brand name success is over.

There are caveats of course. Those that are already famous before setting off on a blogging career will for the large part be successful. The degree of their success will depend entirely on the quality and honesty of their writing but by virtue of already being a recognizable name they are already half way up the mountain.

It is a different matter altogether for an individual who wants to become a professional blogger. Regardless of how many tips you might read about how anyone can be successful as long as they have great content the reality is that tips like that are nothing more than linkbait for people struggling to figure out why they aren’t getting thousands of readers.

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Chances are we won’t even be a footnote

  • Category: Uncategorized
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  • 3 comments
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  • Posted 1297 days ago

bertrand With the constant stream of information that is coning at us on a daily basis, or in the case of the real-time web minute by minute or even second by second, being able to pick out individual is getting to be exceedingly difficult. In the time before micro-blogging using Twitter has taken  off and Facebook has become the de facto Internet for millions blogs were consider the hot property.

Everyone it seemed to want to have  blog, to grab their niche, and make their millions. In most cases that has proven to be nothing more than a dream unfulfilled. Sure there were some voices that have become one’s that re easily identified and the poster boys/ladies of success in this new medium.

But then I was reading a post by Hugh MacLeod the other day where he said this

Nobody will ever care how many Twitter followers I had or how SEO-optimized my blog was.

This got me thinking about the whole permanence of what we as writers on blogs can expect at the point where we either quit or die. After all at some point hosting fees will go delinquent, domain fees will go unpaid, which means that there will come a point where everything we have poured out for anyone to read will be gone.

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