Shooting at Bubbles
taking joy in the popping of the social media bubble & other web 2.0 silliness
Really M.G.?
You, of all people, is calling out Mashable over their playing a SEO pageview grabbing stunt on the back of the Osama bin Laden raid?
That’s rich and really there is only one thing to say:
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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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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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One of the constant complaints you will hear about blogging, especially within the tech world, is that we are constantly repeating .. and repeating .. and repeating .. the same old stories that first get published by the top tier blogs. To be clear this doesn’t include things like splogs and scrapers since those can’t be classified as blogs of any value the charge to a very large degree is justified.
It’s also a charge that the mainstream media likes to lord over us lowly bloggers. Ya, like we don’t know that they all use Associated Press or Reuters sanitized articles to fill out the blank spaces thereby justifying their advertising rates. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
As irritating as this constant regurgitation of the same news is, there is really no escaping it. After all, consider the incredible amount of information a typical blogger takes in during the course of a day (and it only increases the further up the food chain they go). Myself, I currently have close to 300 RSS feeds I monitor in a day of which I would estimate that some 70% of those feeds update multiple times a day.
This might seem like a lot, but I know of bloggers who would consider that just scratching the surface of what they read. Now toss in Twitter streams, Google Reader Shared Items, Facebook pages and God knows how many other incidental sources of information. All this has to be processed at some level and decisions made about what to write something on plus the fact that we have to make sure that it is current and interesting.
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Isn’t blogging great?
You get to write whatever you feel like and publish it to the web where everyone can come rushing to read all your greatest and latest thoughts. You relish in the fact that your words spread far beyond your own little corner because people think what you have to say is so mind-boggling great that they just have to share them with everyone. You pinch yourself constantly thinking that your popularity must be a dream.
Well pinch a little harder because chances are it is a dream. A nice comfortable delusional dream that keeps you hoping that one day you will break through the closed circle that the blogging world has become.
Now you will find all kinds of suggestions out there about how you can connive, trick or otherwise SEO your way into that inner circle but for the most part they are a bunch of crap that gets constantly regurgitated by blogs more popular than you in order to keep their pageviews pulling in the bucks.
This post isn’t one of those. In fact it is a post about the things that you can do that will forever keep you in the minor leagues of blogging. Hopefully these points will help you achieve your dreams of blogging mediocrity – you can thank me later.
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Earlier today Mark Dykeman DM’ed a link to his posted reply to a post at the Globe and Mail by Margaret Wente titled Why are bloggers male?
I have to give Mark a tip of the hat because he managed to pull off a great even-handed response to what has to be one of the most moronic and arsine fourteen paragraphs of ill-informed opinion of the blogosphere that I have ever read. I’d suggest that even Andrew Keen and Nick Carr at the most cynical have a better understanding of the blogosphere except they are men so they probably wouldn’t count as valid references in Wente’s world.
She points to how tilted the blogosphere is towards the male gender and not just your gym change room type of males but rather 12-year-olds having pissing contests in the snow. She doesn’t deny that woman don’t have a place because after all they can do a better job of opinionizing than their male counterparts – they just don’t have any interest in doing so.
Excuse me?
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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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Note:Danny Sullivan was good enough to drop by and correct me on a few points so please read his comment at the end of the post.
I realize that the blogosphere is big on getting the news out there as fast as possible and then updating if and when new information comes available; or even wrong.
I have no problem with that but what I do have a problem with is when a supposedly reputable blog nukes a story and replaces it with one that might be more factually correct. Facts are good and that is something that we should all strive for but in the blogosphere one of the tenets is to add to the story not make the original disappear.
This is exactly the case with the original story on Search Engine Land about Google considering to split Buzz off from GMail in light of the uproar.
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