Written on March 18th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 05:03 pm by David Shawver Stanton
TypePad Users Unite!
TypePad users unite! That’s what John T. Unger is hoping for with his new blog TypePad Hacks which has three main objectives:
- User Design: Collect useful hacks for extending the capabilities of TypePad blogs.
- User Forum: Provide a forum for issues, news and user concerns about SixApart products and service.
- User Power: Organize users into a unified voice to lobby SixApart for the features, fixes and changes to TypePad most important to us. Call it consumer advocacy.
You can read more about his objectives here. I know of a few bloggers that I’ll be sending over to connect with John.
Written on March 18th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 11:03 am by David Shawver Stanton
Blogging for Charity
I’ve long believed that blogging not only has the potential to build the reputation and income of people and businesses but that it also has the potential to give something back to the wider community.
I’ve seen this happen in a number of ways over the past few years and have attempted to do it myself on occasion also. Cameron Reilly and I had a long chat a few weeks ago while we travelled to a conference about how some of the new media networks that are out there could give something back in some way. We wondered what impact we could have as bloggers, podcasters and networks if we all focussed our attention on building awareness, raising money and lending expertise of charities.
It seems we’re not alone with our conversation as the bloggers at 9rules have just launched 9charities - a great idea to identify 9 charities per year and help them by developing their web presence for free. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
Blogathon - I also wanted to let readers know that I’ve decided to postpone my next blogathon for another month. For those who don’t know about it - each year (this will be my third) I blog for 24 hours and ask readers for donations and sponsorthips for a charity. I post once every 15 (ish) minutes for 24 hours (my goal is 100 posts over the 24 hours). In doing so my aim is to raise money but also awareness for the charity.
The reason I’ve postponed it (I was hoping to do it before the end of March) is that for the past few weeks I’ve been struggling with bronchitis and I just can’t throw it off - partly because of the long hours I’ve been working. As a result I’m not sure it’ll be a wise move to spend 24 hours awake blogging as each time I’ve done it before it’s left me pretty exhausted. I’m taking 10 days off early in April so once I’m back from that I’ll begin working towards it - hopefully at the end of April.
Written on March 18th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 12:03 am by David Shawver Stanton
A Negative Blogosphere?
Fascinating post over at Scobleizer on The new A list - some reflections by Robert on how he sees the the new breed of bloggers coming through treating his mate Dave Winer who recently announced he’s looking at stepping away from blogging. He describes this new ‘A-list’ of bloggers as a lynch mob.
“No one kept their head - the knives and guns just came out in this street fight. No one called both sides and did some real reporting. No one added any value. Built anyone up. No, all I read was “Dave’s an a++hole” kind of comments…. Ever notice that the new A list only tears down people and ideas but never puts new ideas, new products, new tools, out there to attack?”
My reaction to Robert’s post is mixed:
On the one hand I disagree that the new A-list never puts new ideas, products, tools out there. I see a lot of new bloggers developing interesting ideas and products. This is one of the things that excites me about the space we’re in at present - a new wave of fresh and creative sorts pushing into new space (not just in blogging but in it’s surrounding space also).
On the other hand I connect with the main thrust of Robert’s post.
I’ve noticed a change in the ‘vibe’ of the blogosphere over the last 12 months.
While there has always been arguments, fights, flame wars and snarkyness in the wider blogging community I wonder if it’s gone to new levels in the last year. Perhaps it is just me or the types of bloggers that I’ve been reading lately (and it could well be) - but I’ve noticed a significant increase in the mob mentality among some bloggers of late. Link baiting with ‘attack’ and/or ’shock’ tactics has been used quite successfully by some bloggers to build their own profile with little (if no) regard for the impact that these strategies have upon those around them.
Some of this happened in the blog network space late last year but by no means is it contained in those circles.
We could probably spend a lot of time asking why this is happening (I’m not going to - although here’s a few possibilities):
- is it a generational thing?
- has it always been this way?
- is it just about a new group attempting to establish themselves and/or an older group attempting to hold onto a space they’ve been in for a while?
- do ‘new’ bloggers tend to be a bit more aggressive than more experienced ones? (an untested theory that I have from my own experience)
- is this a symptom of a more crowded and competitive blogosphere?
I’m not completely sure on the answer but think it’s something worth exploring because it has the potential to impact us all in a number of ways:
- Blogging’s Reputation - one of the regular things I hear from non bloggers about blogging is that it’s just something for angry, egotistical and opinionated people. I personally don’t feel that this is the case as I know a lot of bloggers who are anything but this - however there is an element within blogging that do fit this description to some extent. While I’ve got nothing against different styles of blogging - I do worry that if viciousness and pointless personal attack does creep into the blogging styles of many high profiled bloggers that this just buys into the public perception. This does nothing to grow the numbers or quality of the blogosphere.
- Damaged People - I just don’t see the point of bringing others down for no good reason. I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life caring for and helping damaged people and don’t have much patience for those that inflict pain on others. Of course I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to critique each other (this is important in life - its how we grow) but the way we critique each other impacts not only the other person but those who witness it and ourselves. I’m speaking out of the consequences of critique upon myself here. We need to take responsibility for this.
- Culture of Attack - while I do not agree with Robert that the new bloggers coming through never put anything forward in the way of new ideas, products etc I do think that some bloggers get so sucked into the buzz of attacking others that they begin to lose perspective and buy into blogging that adds nothing of real worth. It’s all very well to critique someone or an idea - but it takes skill and insight to be able to give a positive alternative. I want to be a part of a blogosphere that moves beyond a culture of just tearing things down and that breaks new ground.
- individual’s rep - bloggers wanting to build a reputation on the back of attack need to be ready for the consequences of their own actions. For starters - ‘what comes around goes around’ and an attacking blogger can expect those they target (and their friends) to fight back and for their own blogging to come under intense scrutiny. Secondly blogs tend to attract readers that are like their bloggers and an attack blog can become a pretty negative and cynical place. Lastly - the web has a very long memory. Your written word becomes a permanent part of the web and can (and will) be used against you at a later time if you are not careful.
I don’t believe that we’ll ever take cynicism, negativity or critique out of the blogosphere (and nor would we want to) but I do hope that we find a more healthy way forward.
Written on March 17th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 04:03 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Alexa add Dubious Feature
Alexa has just added a new ‘feature’ to it’s service that show ‘other sites owned’ by the same people as the site being featured.
So for enternetusers it shows two other sites - gambling watch and idolblog (see screen cap below).
I see two problems with this.
Firstly some might argue that there are privacy issues at stake here. I don’t have a massive issue with it on this front as I don’t have any sites I’m ashamed of - but interestingly I’ve just used this feature on a few other blogs that I read and have found other blogs that I’d not heard of that do seem to be written by those bloggers (on one occasion it was a blog on a topic I don’t think that they’d like to be known publicly as the owner of).
Secondly (and more importantly) - I don’t own either of the two blogs that it says I own. I know for a fact that idolblog is hosted on the same server as mine - but gambling watch is a site I’m not really familiar with. I suspect it could also be hosted on the same server - but it’s definitely not one that I ‘own’.
I wonder how many others are being associated with sites that they have no connection to? What do you think of this feature?
Found via an email from Derrick who feels pretty passionately about the issue as you’ll see from his site. For more reading on this see Webmaster World’s forums.
Written on March 17th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 04:03 pm by David Shawver Stanton
AdWords Starter Edition
If you’ve been wondering whether you should try advertising with AdWords to promote your blog but have been a little overwhelmed by it’s complexity as a first time user you might find the new AdWords Starter Edition a useful way to start out.
In essence it’s, as it’s name suggests, a simplified AdWords designed specifically for those just starting out.
It allows you to create a single ad compaign from a one page sign up form. It only allows Basic targetting (ie you can’t target specific sites) but it seems a reasonably simple way to get in and learn some of the basics. You can compare the features of AdWords Starter Edition with the normal one here. Also read their FAQ page to learn how to sign up.
The good thing about AdWords is that you can set a budget and start off with a pretty inexpensive campaign to test it as you go.
Written on March 17th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 03:03 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Tangent - The Spider Monkey Trap
Regular readers of enternetusers know that I enjoy a good tangent or analogy - here’s a good one from Cameron on spider monkeys and the lure of nuts.
Update: Hmmm that didn’t quite come out right…
Written on March 17th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 02:03 am by David Shawver Stanton
Starting Multiple Blogs
One of the questions that I’m being asked quite a bit lately by bloggers who have been blogging for a while is whether it’s a wise thing to start multiple blogs and if so how should one manage it?
It’s a good question and one that I have a few random thoughts on (which I thought would be a good addition to the blogging for beginners series):
Diversification of Income Sources - I’ve posted many times here at enternetusers about the wisdom of diversifying your interests in blogging and the idea of multiple blogs is central in my own approach to this. While you do need to be careful of spreading yourself too thinly (more on this below) multiple blogs has been very beneficial for me and have been one of the main reasons for my own growth of income over the past three years. My own experience is that a blog’s traffic growth usually starts fairly slowly, then goes through a growth spurt before reaching a plateau where it becomes more difficult to add new readers in great numbers. At this point starting a second blog is often one good way to increase overall traffic.
The main reason that I became a believer in diversification through multiple blogs was as a result of an experience of seeing one of my main blogs suffer in it’s ranking in Google for a six week period. It struck me in this time how easily an income based around one single successful blog could disappear and I was motivated to build other blogs (and other non blogging income streams) so that if it happened again I would not be left completely high and dry.
More work - Of course a blog doesn’t run itself and to diversify your interests by adding new blogs means that you’re also multiplying the workload that you’ll need to take up to maintain them. I’ve seen a number of bloggers get sucked into taking on more than they can handle by starting multiple new blogs at the same time - simultaneously launching numerous blogs that they are the primary author for on the same day.
My recommendation if you’re looking to start multiple blogs is to stagger your launches over time. Start one up but then give yourself a few weeks to get into the rhythm of posting there and adjusting to your new workload before even thinking about your next one. If you don’t do this you run the risk of spreading yourself too thinly and the quality of your posting will suffer.
Don’t under estimate the time and energy that establishing a readership on a new blog can take - take your time.
Sub Domains or Multiple Domains? - This is one of the eternal questions that I’m asked. Which is a better way to go?
Having taken both approaches I can assure you that both have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. It IS possible to take either approach and establish a successful blog. Here’s a quick list of factors to consider (these are just some of the many things that are debated by proponents of the different methods):
- Multiple Domains will gerenally take longer to establish SEO for whereas Sub Domains generally get indexed quicker and ranked higher IF you have a well indexed and ranked domain already
- Once established Multiple domains be be very powerful with SEO when they link to one another. This is one of the reasons that blog networks are so successful (100 blogs all linking to each other virtually ensures good ranking in Google over a longer period of time). Note: this can take a long period of time to get working for you.
- Multiple Domains are easier to sell down the track (you might be able to sell a domain with multiple blogs but splitting them up would be a nightmare).
- Multiple Domains lend themselves to individual branding of your blogs. Of course a subdomain approach can be branded well also (check out about.com for example) but multiple domains are generally simpler to brand
- Sub Domains will obviously be cheaper to run in terms of buying domains - although they are so cheap these days that it’s hardly an issue.
- The only problem with them is that they might be a challenge to manage on an administrative level (especially when you have a lot of domains expiring all at different times.
- Some believe that covering multiple topics on the one domain can be detrimental for both SEO and systems like AdSense (there’s some debate over this).
My own preference these days is much more to register multiple domains as I have a long term approach which I think this lends itself to. However I can point to a variety of very successful examples of both methods so a blog’s success or failure doesn’t depend upon this choice alone.
Targeting neighboring niches - one strategy that I’m seeing numerous bloggers using these days is to expand their blogging activities by developing new blogs on topics that neighbor their existing blogs. A prime example of this is Manolo’s Shoe Blog which is now has a range of sister blogs on topics including bridal wear, men’s fashion etc.
The beauty of expanding into similar and related topics is that it opens up great opportunities for cross promotion (someone interested in one topic is likely to be interested in a similar one) and can cut down on the amount of time and effort that is put into research (a lot of research that bloggers do is often wasted because it doesn’t quite fit within a niche - but if you have multiple related blogs more of the research can be used).
Apart from this strategy of choosing similar topics - most of the principles that I outlined in my post on How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog will apply.
A Suggested Workflow - In order to manage multiple blogs a blogger quickly learns that they need to be smart in how they run their operation. As I say above - the more blogs you have the more work you’ll find yourself with.
My own blogging workflow consists largely of using Bloglines, Firefox and Ecto to post to my WordPress blogs.
I do outline the way I operate in my Day in the Life of a enternetusers post but in short:
- I give each blog that I write to a folder in Bloglines.
- In that folder I have a combination of RSS feeds from related blogs, bloglines keyword searches, Google News RSS feeds for keywords, Topix RSS feeds for keywords etc.
- Each day I work through the folders one at a time. I scan through them a feed at a time and open up those posts that interest me in new tabs in Firefox (up to 10 tabs at a time).
- I then go through each tab in turn. I close most of them that are not relevant but if one is I then post something on it using Ecto.
- Once I’ve finished with the open tabs I continue to go through bloglines until the folder I’m working on is empty/read.
- I then move onto the next folder.
Some folders I work through every day (and therefore post to those blogs on a daily basis) while others I have a less frequent rhythm for (every few days or even weekly).
I also have a couple of blogs that I have another blogger working on for me to lighten my load. She uses a similar workflow.
By no means is this the only workflow. I recently had a chat with a few other bloggers who told me their daily rhythms and it was fascinating to compare how we went about it. Some were remarkably similar and others were very different. What struck me is that each blogger had found (or was attempting to find) their own unique methods and while some things worked brilliantly for some - they didn’t for others (ie I can’t imagine blogging without tabbed browsing while other bloggers hate it).
It’s definitely worth trying your hand at a range of different tools and methods to see what works for you.
I’d be fascinated to know readers answers to some of these questions:
- How many blogs do you operate?
- Why this number? Are you planning more (or less)?
- How did you decide which new blogs to start?
- What’s your workflow like?
Written on March 17th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 01:03 am by David Shawver Stanton
Speed Linking - 17 March 2006
- Mark Nash asks (and answers) Why Should a Small Business Blog?
- Barry asks ‘How’re you doing with your AdSense ads?‘ and suggests 5 types of targets you might like to set for your AdSense earnings.
- Stephan Spencer has posted his Favorite 20 WordPress Plugins.
Written on March 16th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 03:03 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Baldiness
I’m quite often teased by many of my readers for being follicly challenged - so I’ve been really looking forward to this moment when my balding blogging brothers can unite in a blog home of our own a Baldiness - a b5 blog about baldness written by Cory Aldrich.
Actually - as I think about it - I suspect that it could be a popular blog with quite a few prominent bloggers. I actually suggested a club for bald bloggers to Steve a month or so ago and he said there’d be plenty of members - maybe we need a spin off forum for this blog or something :-)
Written on March 16th, surf Active Apparel website Men's Online Clothes Shopping 1 zone.at 09:03 am by David Shawver Stanton
Tell your AdSense Story
The team at AdSense are looking for stories from publishers about how AdSense has impacted them. If you feel like telling your story head to their AdSense story telling page and have your say. If you allow it your story might even be featured as a future AdSense case study.
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