Written on March 14th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 04:03 pm by Darren Rowse

Gabbly Chat

Blogging Tools and Services 16 comments

Just stumbled upon this interesting service called Gabbly that allows you to add a chat room to any page.

I’m going to hang out in one for enternetusers for the next little while. Come chat with me at http://gabbly.com/enternetusers.net

update: having used it now for a few hours my initial reflections are:

• It reminds me of my old IRC chat days although with less features (ie no private chats, whois, actions etc)
• it’s a nice little application and I can see some uses for it. Blogs with a lot of traffic might even like to leave links at the end of posts to a chat room for discussion of the post. I’m sure someone will develop a plugin for this.
• there’s no moderation so you’ve got no way of controlling what goes in on a chat that is linked to your own pages. In fact anyone can start a chat on any of your pages which is a little freaky.
• I’m not sure what I think about a page being served on gabbly.com that has my ads on it. Is this against AdSense TOS for instance?
• Things get a little messy when there’s a lot of people in the room - but this happens in most chat applications
• there’s no archives of conversation - this would be useful although I’m not sure if it’d be practical.
• I can see chat spammers as loving this - as they do with many chat mediums
• Almost every user who left had problems doing so as there is no ‘close’ button and you have to exit the browser (or the tab you’re in if you’re using tabbed browsing) to leave the conversation.
• I found having the chat window over the page annoying in the end. I’d love to have continued chatting in another window to allow me to keep surfing. I guess I could run two windows at once.

Feel free to add your own initial impressions of Gabbly in comments below.

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Written on March 14th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:03 am by Darren Rowse

Site Meter adds Outbound Clicks Tracking

Blogging Tools and Services 11 comments

There’s news over at the Site Meter blog today that the free website statistics package has added tracking of outbound links to it’s offering.

The free version of their service will now track the last 100 URLs that your readers leave your blog to visit if you have the javascript version of their tracker installed on your blog.

Not included in the tracking are clicks on AdSense ads (or most other advertising) and clicks generated by javascript. It only tracks the last click of a reader on your site (ie if a reader clicks multiple links during their visit it only shows the last one).

They also say that it doesn’t track clicks by readers using certain browsers (including Safari). This might explain why it seems to only be giving me a URL for about 1 in 10 of my outbound links (see screenshot below).

This is a welcome addition to Site Meter which is going to make stats packages like MyBlogLog have to rethink their service - but I have to say that the implementation of it is not as good as the Performancing Metrics package that should be released in beta in the next week or so.

Found via Makovision

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Written on March 14th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:03 am by Darren Rowse

Introduction to Blog Networks

Blog Networks 31 comments

I’ve done a little study in the past few years on ‘movements’ as part of my interest in emerging forms of spirituality and one of the things that I’ve come to know a little about is how new movements often start as fairly chaotic and disconnected entities but generally over time will (in order to survive and thrive) self organize and form clusters (that’s a terribly generalized comment - but for the sake of succinct communication I’ll leave it at that).

This can be seen in many instances throughout history across many different types of movements (big and small) and is currently happening in blogging (I guess we could call it a movement) also.

With the rise in popularity of blogging we’ve also seen a variety of ways for bloggers to self organize and cluster together. This has happened in many ways through people attempting to collate blogs (like technorati and blog pulse) but also through different blog directories and lists that attempt to categorize blogs (eg blogtopsites) and blogging communities (eg blogcritics) where bloggers work together on different projects.

This has also been seen in the emergence over the past couple of years of the ‘blog network’.

Blog Networks come in a range of shapes and sizes and have been designed with different purposes in mind - but in a sense if you strip them all back they are simply clusters of blogs that are in some way linked together under a common name or banner.

Most of these networks are have some commercial aspect to them while others are more about about promoting blogs and social networking.

The most prominent and long running of the current range of blog networks are Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc - both of which have numerous blogs with massive traffic and business models that make them quite large and profitable business ventures (in fact Weblogs Inc recently sold to AOL for a reported $25million (USD) - one of the reasons that I suspect the blog network space has become quite crowded in recent months).

In addition to these two large and prominent networks there are many others that have emerged around them. No one really knows how many there are (and there is some debate about what is and isn’t a network) but perhaps one of the best lists going around is that at the Blog Network List which currently tracks 75 networks. I’m certain it doesn’t cover every network out there but it’s a pretty good list.

As you’ll see by perusing the list - networks really do come in a large variety of configurations ranging from the very big with a large number of blogs with a wide range of topics, through to the very small and tightly focused networks that are targeting smaller niche topics.

I’m not going to talk here about specific networks or their pros and cons (I’m a co-owner of one myself so I’ll let others comment on that topic) but I do want to explore a common question that I’m asked by enternetusers readers:

‘What are the Benefits and Costs of Joining a Blog Network?’

This question (and variations of it) is something that I get quite a bit, especially from newer bloggers attempting to work out whether it’s better for them to set up a blog on their own as an independent or whether it’s worth working with others in their blogging.

In my experience (as someone who runs independent blogs, networked blogs and who co-owns a network) there are definitely both real benefits AND costs that should be carefully weighed up before entering into an established network (or starting your own). In the coming day or two I want to write at least two posts exploring these topics.

Obviously I have some vested interest in the topic and will write from this perspective (please keep this in mind) and would invite the comment of others who are both independent and networked bloggers.

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Written on March 14th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:03 am by Darren Rowse

enternetusers Wins Bloggie

enternetusers Site News 25 comments

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the Sixth Annual Weblog Awards. I was surprised to be nominated in the ‘best web development weblog’ as I focus upon such a small niche within that overall category and even more surprised to find that I’d taken out the category when announcements were made of winners today.

Thanks for your nominations and votes.

Now lets get on with some blogging.

PS: Did anyone else notice that Blogger.com was voted ‘Best Web Application for Weblogs’!?!?

That is truely bizarre!

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Written on March 14th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:03 am by Darren Rowse

How to be Lucky

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 28 comments

A few posts back I introduced the concept of ‘luck’ as a principle of entrepreneurship but also reflected that in my experience that my own ‘luck’ as a blogger has in part arisen out of decisions I’ve made.

I’m fascinated by the idea of people making their own luck - or creating a lifestyle that perhaps enhances their luckiness and thought that in this post I’d unpack 13 factors that I’ve seen in my own experience and the stories of others that might come into play when it comes to luck.

1. Put yourself out there - Warning, Tangent Ahead - I met a guy at a conference a few weeks back - a nice guy, a smart guy, a reasonably good looking guy…. and a lonely guy. We were having a beer and the conversation got around to ‘girls’. I was talking about my partner ‘V’ and he was lamenting (four beers later) that he couldn’t seem to meet girls. Hi comment: ‘There are no good chicks left’. To cut a long (and slightly slurred) conversation short I asked him a few questions that basically identified that he never puts himself in a position where he ever meets ‘chicks’. His life consists of work (in a male dominated workplace), playing football (in an all male team), playing video games (alone at home) and watching TV (sports - with mates or alone). Even at the conference he was hanging out with ‘the boys’. In short this ‘nice, smart, reasonably good looking, lonely guy was not putting himself in a position for a chance meeting with that ‘chick’ he was looking for to happen.

As I reflect upon the ‘lucky relationships’ that I’ve started in the last year in my business I would say that the main reason that every one of them happened was because I put myself in a position where it could happen. I’m a pretty shy guy and don’t always find it easy to meet people - but I know that the more you put yourself out there and present yourself as an approachable and contactable person the more people will approach and contact you. The more people approach and contact you the greater the chance of that lucky relationship that could emerge into something more profitable. So put yourself out there - present yourself as someone who is interested in meeting people and give them a way to contact you and you’re one step closer to a lucky encounter.

2. Know what You Want - One of the wisest pieces of advice I’ve had over the last couple of years was to think about the future and create some goals and objectives. I’ve written pretty extensively about strategy as it relates to blogging in recent months but I’d widen some of those concepts to ‘life’ also. You see when you know what you want and where you would like to be in the future - if an opportunity presents itself to you you are in a position to judge pretty quickly if its a good one or not.

Part of being lucky is knowing which opportunities to take as they present themselves to you. Goals and objectives will give you a filter to run the opportunities through.

3. Ensure Others know what You Want - Knowing what YOU want is important, but you can increase the chances of opportunities coming along that fit with your objectives when others know what you want and send opportunities your way.

Tangent Time - When I was young I collected Football Cards (cards with Australian Rules Football players on them that came with terrible bubble gum). My objectives was to collect the whole Carlton team (go Blues!) each year. Most of the team were easy to collect but every year there were always one or two elusive players (the card makers knew what they were doing) that were difficult to get. However I made sure my whole class knew that I was in the market for Carlton players - and would make a point of telling people which cards I still needed. As a result when one of them was trading cards with someone else in the school (or outside of school) and they saw a card I wanted they would generally know that and let me know of the opportunity to trade. I got the full set every year pretty easily - not because of my own connections - but because others in my social network knew what I wanted and sent anything that fitted with it my way.

The same is true in business (and life). Be clear of what you want and find ways to communicate it to those around you and step back and let nature take it’s course.

4.Know Your Stuff - It’s amazing what opportunities are served up to people who are perceived experts in a field. One of the things I love about blogging is the way that it gives ordinary people a voice on topics that they’d love and how through just creating spaces for conversations around these topics that they can become ‘go to people’ within their niche.

I’ve experienced this many times personally in the past year here at enternetusers. While I never present myself as ‘the expert’ on anything - this blog has demonstrated that I do know some things about certain aspects of blogging. As a result many opportunities have come my way that I’d not dreamed of before - purely because people believe I know my stuff.

5.Expect the Unexpected - Most ‘lucky’ people that I know have a real knack of spotting unexpected opportunities from a mile off. These sorts of people are not just observant (this is part of it) but also always asking themselves how what they see happening around them could potentially impact them in a positive way.

Of course being this type of person means creating space in your life to actually see what’s going on around you. Sometimes in my busiest times I wonder what amazing opportunities are passing me by simply because I don’t allow time to see them.

6. Be an Optimist - Seeing what’s going on around you is not enough on it’s own. Lots of people watch the world pass them by and are paralyzed by it because it all just seems so overwhelming. Lucky people have a knack of finding the gold specs in the grit of life.

My wife is a little like this. There’s something about ‘V’ that just seems to attract good fortune - but the more I’ve got to know her over the years the more I realize that she’s just on the look out for good fortune in life and when she sees it she grasps onto it and rides it for all it’s worth. In a very humble way ‘V’ almost seems to expect good things to happen to both herself and those around her and, almost spookily, good things do happen.

7. Be a Skeptic - Optimism should always be balanced with a healthy level of skepticism. One of the things about ‘putting yourself out there’ is that you will get approached, sometimes by a lot of people and sometimes by people with ideas that are just not good. Overdo it with the optimism and you could end up choosing the wrong opportunity and ‘luck out’.

A healthy level of skepticism (or perhaps discernment is a better word) can help to filter out the good from the bad and leave you with the true gems to go after.

8. Relax - I read somewhere (some time ago) that unlucky people are often more tense than lucky people and that anxiety disrupts ability to see and take opportunities. I’m not sure who did the study (or how) but this fits with my own experience of luck also.

While I think being single minded and focused can be a good attribute to have, too much of it can actually mean that you focus so much upon one thing that you can lose sight of the big picture and the opportunities that might exist around the edges.

9. Be Flexible - You can do all of the above and identify some great opportunities but be so enmeshed in different aspects of life that it’s impossible to maneuver to yourself into a position to take advantage of the ‘luck’ that comes your way. Being able to change directions quickly enough to ride the waves of luck that do come along from time to time is something that many businesses (and people) are unable to do.

10. Notice the Little Things - I chatted with one aspiring Web 2.0 type recently who was complaining that all the big ideas were being worked on already and that there was nothing left to do. As he talked I realized that he was talking about projects that others were doing that seemed so grand and large. I began to toss around with him where some of these ‘grand ideas’ must have come from and we came to the realization that in most cases they probably didn’t start with a massive plan or project but rather started by trying to solve a simple problem.

This is the impression I get when I read about the early stages of companies like Google. I’m pretty sure that it’s founders didn’t have the goal of organizing the world’s information (all of it) as their primary goal when they started - instead they started with a series of smaller problems (problems are potential opportunities) and issues and grew from there.

Most of what I see happening in the Web 2.0 space at the moment seems to emerge from this principle.

11. Turn Bad Luck into Good Luck - Perhaps one of the main skills that lucky people have is in dealing with bad luck when it happens (and it does happen to us all). When things go wrong, when obstacles get in our way and when it feels like time to give up - some people do in fact give up while others persist and ask ‘how can I turn my misfortune into a positive?’ Perhaps this is just another way of saying ‘be an optimist’ but I think it goes deeper.

12. Mix things up - While I’m all for establishing a rhythm or routine in one’s life (I find it helps me work better) I am very aware that one of the problems with routines is that they often lead people to become comfortable, content and safe. They also can lead to a life where ‘new things’ become uncommon. As I look back on some of the lucky things that have happened to me in the last couple of years I realize that most of them have happened as a result of exploring something new.

Routines are great - but Introduce an element of randomness into your life and you might be surprised by the chance encounters and new discoveries that you might make as the world as you know it bumps into new things.

13. Listen to your Gut - I’m a big believer in listening to my gut reactions to things. I don’t really understand why or how it happens but intuition is a fairly big part of the way I operate. For me it’s almost a spiritual thing at times and at other times it’s just a vibe or a feeling of resonating with or reacting against something that happens to me. Whatever it is I’m learning to listen to it more and more and find that when I do it often leads me in the right direction.

I’m sure I could find more things to talk about where it comes to talking about luck but 13 points seems an appropriate place to end. I’m sure others will share their own tips on how to be lucky in comments below - so feel free to add your own experiences.

photo source

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Written on March 13th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:03 pm by Darren Rowse

Feed Subscriber counts - Ego badges or Useful?

Blogging Tools and Services, RSS 16 comments

There’s a couple of posts over at cre8d which caught my attention today. Firstly Rachel writes about Subscriber count buttons and ask if they are the ‘new hit counter?’ She writes:

“On the other hand, some may find that displaying subscriber counts may come across as an ego badge, just as hit counters or other stats bothered some people.

Do you find subscriber counts useful in determining the value of blogs, do you like seeing them as a matter or interest or are they unnecessary?”

I’m interested to hear the discussion on this. Head over to Rachel’s post to have your say. I commented:

“I’ve actually found that quite a few of my readers seem to like watching the feed counter on my blog. I can’t quite work out why this is.

Perhaps people like to feel that they belong to something that is bigger than themselves - perhaps it taps into the voyeuristic nature in us - or perhaps people just like statistics….”

Rachel also points out a helpful WordPress Plugin - Auto links which will automatically link to URLs when you mention certain keywords. This is especially handy if you find yourself mentioning site’s regularly. It also has the ability to turn keywords into Amazon searches (with your associate/affiliate ID) which some will find handy.

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Written on March 13th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 11:03 am by Darren Rowse

Welcome to Readers of The Age

enternetusers Site News 8 comments

Welcome today to readers of The Age (a Melbourne newspaper) which today has the same article that SMH had a couple of days back on Online Ventures being bought up (update: it only seems to be in the Age’s online version - not their hardcopy).

If you’re here from the article you might like to read this welcome I wrote to Sydney Morning Herald readers on Saturday which will introduce you to my blog.

The article is the same but the pictures are different (same shoot… gee I’m glad my fly was done up on this one). This one makes me look a little stressed (I didn’t have a head ache). The one on the front page of The Age’s website (below) makes me laugh a little - the whole photo shoot reminded me of my wedding day - lots of staring off into the distance and placing of hands in unnatural positions :-)

Thanks to my various Melbourne friends for letting me know the article was in the paper today - I hadn’t known it would be.

I think next time b5media gets into the press we’ll send the photographers over to Shai’s place.

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Written on March 13th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:03 am by Darren Rowse

2Web Podcast

Podcasting 5 comments

I just listened to a good podcast at TPN by three of the guys (Nik, Ben and Cameron) from the new Aussie 2Web.

The highlight for me was Nik’s description of Web 2.0 - I’m not sure I’ve heard it explained better.

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Written on March 12th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:03 am by Darren Rowse

Be Lucky

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 39 comments

“Be Lucky” was advice I gave late last year in a post reflecting upon the lessons I’ve learnt as a blogger.

“I’m increasingly becoming aware that despite the many hours of hard work that I’ve put into building up my business that many others work just as hard and are much more talented than I am but do not enjoy the success that I’ve been fortunate to have. While I don’t believe that luck is the main ingredient in my own story I am convinced that in combination with some of the other things I’ll talk about below it has been of real importance….”

I’ve been pondering ‘luck’ as a principle of entrepreneurship over the past few days and am increasingly convinced that someone should write a book about it (if they haven’t already) as it’s been so central in my own experience of setting up this business around blogging.

Of course other principles of entrepreneurship come into play - such as hard work, resilience (Jason C’s word of the week in this podcast), creative thinking etc - but in the case of most successful enterprises that I’ve come across there is a sprinkling of luck mingled amongst everything else.

My own luck has come in many forms.

• Timing - I came across blogging at an ideal time when the blogosphere was young, uncluttered and still forming.
• People - I kept ‘bumping into’ people who were willing to collaborate and who had skill sets that complemented my own so well.
• Coincidence - Time after time I’ve found myself stumbling upon products and services that just seem to ‘fit’ with where my business is at - that take things to the next level
• Chance Encounters - I just happen to have responded to the right email or comment in the right way or time that leads to profitable relationships.

Blogging is a lucky game. I was speaking with one successful blogger yesterday and he told me about how he can identify the exact moment his blog took off. It was when another well known blogger linked to him as a blog to watch after he’d written a total three posts. That other blogger had found him in a keyword search out of the blue. This happened on his first day of blogging and he’s had a dream run ever since. Lucky Guy!

So why do some people seem to be more lucky than others? Can luck be enhanced in some way? Is there something to the old saying ‘you make your own luck’?

Lucky Quotes

“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Luck to me is something else. Hard work - and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.” - Lucille Ball

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more luck I have.” - Thomas Jefferson

“All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck - who keeps right on going - is the man who is there when the good luck comes - and is ready to receive it.” - Robert Collier

“Be ready when opportunity comes…Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.” - Roy D. Chapin Jr

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more Active. Show up more often.” - Brian Tracy

As I reflect upon my own luck over the last couple of years there are one or two occasions that do seem to just come out of the blue - perhaps they are true lucky situations - but most have arisen, at least in part, out of decisions that I’ve made that have put me in a position to be lucky. In essence - what I’m coming to believe is that there are things we can do to enhance our ‘luckiness’. In my next post I’ll examine some of these.

photo source

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Written on March 11th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:03 pm by Darren Rowse

Technorati Get a New Top 100 - Temporarily

Blogging Tools and Services 19 comments

100 bloggers usually ranked in the 400’s at Technorati’s rankings must be feeling pretty nice tonight as they’ve been elevated to the top 100 in what seems to be a glitch in the Technorati’s top 100 blogs list.

I have to say - it’s kind of nice to see some fresh faces at the top of the list for a change! Here’s a screen cap to commemorate the moment.

.

Update: Looks like its up and running as per normal again.

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