Written on April 24th, 2007 at 05:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 24 April 2007
- Chitika’s month long Blog Bash continues with a post from me on the topic of - “Help me, my mom is my blog’s only reader!” - I hope you enjoy it
- Des writes on Why “More” Can be Less in a WordPress Feed at Business and Blogging
- Chris writes a post comparing advertising with Squidoo and StumbleUpon (coincidentally I’m also working up a post on advertising on StumbleUpon)
- PayPerPost have acquired blog newsletter provider Zookoda - TechCrunch broke the news today.
- Amit gives a rundown on what the perks of being an AdSense Premium Publisher are
Written on April 24th, 2007 at 02:04 am by Darren Rowse
Blogs as Launching Pads….
Are you jumping up and down on the one spot with your Blog or are you using it as a launching pad for something else?
While I was in Washington at the Underground Online Seminar, one of the speakers (I can’t remember which one) spoke in passing about an entrepreneurial principle of always looking at what you’re doing now as a springboard into what you will do next.
As he spoke I naturally started to apply it to blogging and found myself thinking about three types of bloggers:
1. Jumping Up and Down on the Same Spot - this blogger starts a blog, grows it to it’s potential but allows it to become stagnant but doing the same sorts of things that they’ve always done on it in the same ways. Their vision is generally to grow what they’re doing by doing what they’ve always done in the same way that they’ve always done it. While this type of blogger can build successful blogs - they could be missing out on reaching their potential by not leveraging their current success to do new things.
2. Jumping from One Random Thing to Another - this type of blogger is a serial starter of new blogs. They have an entrepreneurial spirit but find it difficult to stick at things and see them through to their potential. They’re easily distracted by the next ‘big thing’ and as a result don’t tend to fulfill their potential in the current things that they do.
3. Springboard Bloggers - this type of blogger probably falls somewhere between the first two types in that they have the ability to build successful blogs and stick with them long enough to see them reach some sort of tipping point - however they’re always thinking about their next venture and are often able to leverage their current and past success to launch their new thing.
This last group of springboard bloggers usually start out with smaller blogs but use even the small influence that they build their to launch themselves into new and bigger ventures. Perhaps one of the best recent examples of this was Wendy’s recent announcement that she’s about to start blogging for Entrepreneur.com’s new Women’s blog.
My Story - while I’ve not really thought of my blogging in this way before - my own growth in blogging has really happened in a springboard type way. In brief, here it is:
First Blog on Blogger - the day I discovered blogging I started my first Blogger blog. It was largely a personal journal talking about life and being involved in a church. Readership was tiny - a few friends, a few others thinking about similar styles of church.
LivingRoom Blog - after a few months on my blogger blog I began to see the potential of blogging to build a personal voice and connect with others around the world thinking about similar things. The few readers that I had suggested I start a blog on my own domain and get a more custom made design. One of my readers even volunteered to help me do it. My new LivingRoom blog was born. Again it was on a similar topic to my first but as a result of the new design and branding it grew in readership.
Digital Photography Blog - after a trip overseas when I wanted to share my photos with friends and family I started a photoblog on the livingroom domain. Really my vision for it was a personal photosharing site (this was pre Flickr). Of course no one looked at my photos - but the camera review that I wrote became popular in Google as the domain I was using was ranking well. I began to aggregate reviews and camera news and readership grew - largely based upon the search engine ranking of my previous blog on the domain.
enternetusers - this blog actually started on my personal blog on the livingroom domain. I was writing there about the lessons I was learning about blogging for money on my photography blog. While a segment of my readers appreciated my blog tips - others began to complain that I had to diverse a spread of topics on the one blog. I moved the archives that I’d already written and a segment of my readership over to enternetusers.net and launched with a smallish but loyal readership.
b5media - after blogging at enternetusers for a year or so and building a readership and profile as someone who knew something about blogging for money I was approached by a number of other bloggers to become partners in a new blog network - internetusers was born. As a result of the profile of us as founders we were able to attract some kick ass bloggers to the network and have been able to scale up pretty quickly.
Other Blogging Related Projects - a series of other opportunities have arisen since starting enternetusers including the Six Figure Blogging course, speaking engagements, writing opportunities and more. Each have come as a result of this blog.
DPS - launching off the back of my Digital Photography News and Reviews Aggregation blog I launched a digital photography tips blog - Kevin Carr. Having 10000 daily readers and a size-able newsletter list already on a similar topic a definitely helped launch this new venture. Writing about the blog here at enternetusers helped a little also. DPS is now a year old and in the coming months is likely to become my largest blog in terms of readership. In recent times I’ve also added a forum to DPS and have had approaches to write books/ebooks and do speaking on the topic also.
Tomorrow want to continue this discussion with a few tips on how to be a ’springboard’ blogger and to leverage your blog to bigger things.
In the mean time I’d love to stories from readers with examples of how they’ve used their blogs as a springboard (or are planning to).
Written on April 23rd, 2007 at 06:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Testing Moblogging
Today a package that i had been waiting for arrived - a new nokia n95.
Part of the appeal was its web browsing capabilities and wi-fi.
So the logical first move was a post via phone.
I doubt it will be a regular thing though as it is quite tedious.
I will use it for surfing and email a little though.
Written on April 22nd, 2007 at 01:04 am by Darren Rowse
Hosted or Standalone Blogging Platforms - Which is Best?
One of the most common questions that I get asked around blogging platforms is whether people should go for a hosted blog platform like Blogger, TypePad or WordPress.com or whether they should go for a stand alone platform that you host on your own domain and server like WordPress.org, Drupal or Movable Type.
I’ve talked previously about some of the Pros and Cons of Hosted and Standalone blog platforms - but thought it might make an interesting open mic discussion (or debate).
So what do you think?
- Do you use a hosted or stand alone blog platform? Why?
- Do you wish you’d made a different choice when you started?
- What are the Pros and Cons of the two options?
- What would you recommend to a new blogger?
Written on April 21st, 2007 at 02:04 am by Darren Rowse
The Future of Blogging?
Otto asks - “We’re reading almost the same posts on every top blogs - it makes me feel that either there’s nothing really new on making blogs and/or that blogs are past. So, what’s next?
Otto, I presume you’re talking about reading the same posts covered on blogs blogging about blogging? If so, you’re probably right on one level - there is a lot of posting on the same things in the niche of blogging about blogging.
One of the interesting things that I’ve observed lately is that the blogging about blogging space (and the ‘blogging for money’ space) has definitely become more cluttered. It seems that many bloggers go through a stage of being fascinated with the topic. Most watch each other and like in any niche their ideas and posts will bounce off each other also.
On one level I do get a little frustrated by it (it gets a little boring reading it all), but on another level I’m excited by the enthusiasm people have for blogging and I do learn by following what’s being written on the topic (there is some really original and worthwhile content being written).
I’m also always interested to see how long these sorts of blogs last. In my experience, most blogs about blogging tend to last about 6 months - I’m not sure if this is how long it takes people to realize its not easy to monetize it or whether it’s the time that people take to get to the end of their list of story ideas - but going beyond six months on the topic seems to be difficult (I suspect it is similar on other topics too).
Anyway - onto your real question - what’s next in blogging (or beyond blogging)?
I’d start by saying that I don’t think blogs are ‘past’ - but I would say that we seem to be in a period of consolidation and extension.
I see a lot of bloggers engaging in these sorts of activities at the moment:
- adding authors - group blogs are the new black
- clustering blogs around verticals - bloggers extending their blogs by adding sibling blogs on related topics
- networking - surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.was really the year of the blog network but it continues to happen in both loose and formal ways. Many of the blog networks didn’t really survive but there are quite a few that continue to bubble away and sustain themselves
- adding services and features - whether it be video, podcasts, forums, job boards, classifieds, chat features, voting tools… many bloggers are beginning to add interesting features to their blogs that attempt to add value to blogs. I think what we’re seeing is bloggers more willing to see the limitations of blogs and wanting to blur the edges of what is and isn’t a blog.
I’m not convinced any of the above is what’s ‘next’ as such - it’s all happening here and now already.
I’d be interested to hear what others think the future of blogging is? Are blogs a thing of the past? What is next?
Written on April 20th, 2007 at 04:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Leveraging Blog Profile to Open New Opportunties
I’m always looking for examples of how blogging opens up doors for those who write them to lead them into new opportunities to build their profile and make a living.
Today enternetusers guest blogger Wendy Piersall gave us a prime example with her post The Biggest Blog Post of My Life.
Wendy has been approached by Entrepreneur.com to write a blog for them as part of their new site for Women Entrepreneurs.
What a great opportunity and a great example of how blogging consistently and passionately on a topic can open up doors to bigger and better things. What a great way to celebrate a year of blogging at her blog (her first year blogaversary is in just a couple of days time). Congratulations Wendy!
Written on April 20th, 2007 at 08:04 am by Darren Rowse
How to List Your Blog in MySpace News
MySpace have recently launched their News service (complete with some very nauseating flashing ads that I’m seeing right now).
Loren from Search Engine Journal posts that blogs and news sites wanting to be considered for this new index can submit their link here.
This is a worthwhile endeavor for any blogger wanting to promote their blog as MySpace is bursting traffic and any new service that they add has every chance of sending the sites that they link to with some significant traffic - especially considering that their news service has a voting/social bookmarking type system attached to it.
Their FAQ doesn’t really outline what requirements your blog needs to meet to be included in the index other than that it should be topical, that it should publish regularly, that it has a a core audience and that other news sources link to the site.
Written on April 20th, 2007 at 05:04 am by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 20 April 2007
Taking a month off from reading a feed reader is a liberating thing…. until you come home and are confronted with tens of thousands of unread posts. Today I began the task of catching up - here’s some of the first pieces of news, tips and posts from the last month (more to come over the coming days):
- TLA have launched Post Level Text Link Ads - now you can not only sell text links on your sidebar on a site wide basis but can do it at the end of each post which gives potentially hundreds, if not thousands of text link sales per blog.
- Over at the Chitika Blog they’ve been running a 30 Day Blog Bash which features guest posts from 30 blogging experts.
- North x East wrote on 9 Essential posts that every blogger should know
- Rick from Feedburner has an interesting post reflecting upon Full Feeds. One interesting tidbit - he says that they’ve seen no evidence to back up the often cited reason for partial feeds - that it leads to more visitors to your actual site.
- PayPerPost is sponsoring the Bloggers Choice Awards. I like this ‘awards’ because it open for any blog to be nominated. While this leads to hundreds of blogs in each section it actually presents those looking for other blogs in their niche with a wealth of blogs to look at. For example in the Best Blog about Blogging category (thanks to those voting for enternetusers) there are hundreds of blogs nominated. I spent the afternoon surfing them and found a heap to add to my RSS feed.
- Dave Sifry released another State of the Blogosphere Live Web - full of all kinds of juicy stats for those who are turned on by such things.
- A new magazine for bloggers and podcasters is being released - Blogger & Podcaster.
- Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion - yep, old news now but I had to include it, this is an update post after-all.
- Loren at Search Engine Journal does some useful analysis of AdSense placement on MySpace pages. This is worth a look because MySpace and Google have a partnership around ad placement so one would expect that these are well optimized ads. Interestingly the ads are very plainly designed, almost in default colors with a blended (no borders, plain backgrounds) approach.
Written on April 20th, 2007 at 01:04 am by Darren Rowse
Interview with Gina Trapani of Lifehacker - Part 2
Today I’m going to continue my interview with Gina Trapani of Lifehacker. Yesterday in Part 1 we talked about how she got into blogging and talked a little about being involved in one of the biggest blog networks going around. Today we turn our attention to Lifehacker itself and how Gina runs and manages it.
You have a number of bloggers working for you at Lifehacker - how do you find them? How to you coordinate/manage them?
I have 3 co-editors at Lifehacker: senior editor Adam Pash, associate editor Rick Broida and our weekend editor, Wendy Boswell. Each of my co-editors also does about 6 posts a day and 1-2 feature articles per week. Our goal is to update the site about 20 times per weekday and a reduced rate on the weekends, and offer at least one original feature article per weekday. That’s not something I could do alone, so thank goodness for my team.
I’ve found my editors in various ways. Adam was an avid reader and prolific commenter, and his knowledgeable and well-written comments got him hired. Wendy and Rick both guest-edited the site for some time before they became permanent editors.
A lot of time and energy goes into coordinating the 4 Lifehacker editors. We do frequent post reviews of each other’s material, keep an internal editorial wiki for our style guides and other documentation, have a weekly chat to brainstorm feature ideas, and keep in constant touch via IM and email.
What are your top 5 Blogging Tools?
1. Google Reader for RSS feeds. (Here’s why I switched from Bloglines)
2. Gmail for handling the daily onslaught of reader email.
3. Google Analytics and Sitemeter for traffic stats. (Here’s how I use Analytics to constantly improve and tweak the site)
4. Firefox along with some key extensions - like AutoCopy
5. AutoHotKey (Windows) and TextExpander (Mack) for entering post markup. (Here’s how to make blog markup easy with AutoHotKey)
Being a developer I’ve also build a few bookmarklets and Greasemonkey scripts that help us generate post types, like roundups, and search the site archives to avoid posting duplicate items.
How do you find post ideas for Lifehacker?
Three places: in the comments of existing Lifehacker posts (our commenters are awesome), in my RSS reader, and in the tips email box. And, of course, just talking and listening to my fellow geeks and friends and family about what’s on their mind.
What tips would you give someone just starting out in blogging if they wanted to build a profitable blog?
First, pick a topic you love, one that you can’t wait to write about every day. If I wasn’t truly obsessed with productivity, I would have never lasted at Lifehacker. Second, center your site on the reader, not yourself. Provide useful, informative, entertaining material that readers will come back to over and over again. Third, measure your success by your readership and the response you get from others, not your Adsense checks. Once you build your audience, the money will follow.
Written on April 19th, 2007 at 02:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Melbourne Blogger Meetup - Coming Soon
While we’re talking about Australian Bloggers - I thought it was about time that I actually put my money where my mouth is and got together a Melbourne Bloggers Meetup. Alister Cameron and I have been getting our heads together on this and I’ve just signed up as the moderator of the The Melbourne Weblogger Meetup Group at Meetup.com.
This was a previously existing group without a moderator so we thought it worth taking it over instead of starting something new.
So if you’re in Melbourne (or surrounding areas) and are keen to meet up please head over and become a member. Also vote in the poll on meetup times and feel free to suggest a meetup place (preferably in the CBD at a bar or pub we wouldn’t need to book but could just show up to).
We’re looking to hold our first meetup in the coming month.
Looking forward to meeting other Melbourne Bloggers.
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