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This post is coming your way via the new WordPress for iPhone app. I must say that I am now using my iPhone more and more for on the fly Internet based communications.
Twitted is becoming really useful in eavesdropping on the star web 2.0 players. The best way to learn is by modeling those who are more successful. I picked up several tips just this week which I would not have known on my own. The Twitterific app is the only way I tweet. Hardly ever use the web site(terrible UI design)
And now with this app I can post anywhere when the inspiration is hot. That reduces the feeling of burden which is a good thing.
So check it out. I think you too will feel a renewed inspiration.
Luckily my clients are not members of this union so I expect them all to post more actively to take up the slack caused by these slacker bloggers. We must keep the blogosphere growing. Long live the blogosphere.
Check out this video of a session at WordCamp 2007 in San Fransico, July 21. [unconference like blog philly sponsored by WordPress]
Jeremy Wright of blog network B5 did a great job moderating a panel on blog monitization. Its 50 minutes long so I will tell you some of the highlites for me.
A list blogger Darren Rouse made $150K in 2006 from his blog. In 2007 it is now possible for mere mortals to make a living from blogging. Still hard work but now doable.
One reason why is that advertisers are moving money into blogs in a big way. Proctor and Gamble will be spending $50 Million(yes with a M) on a social media ad campaign.
He cautioned though that the average blog with less than 30,000 page views/month will not earn a full time income from advertising. Most blogs still are best monitized as a promotional vehicle to get consulting projects, a job offer or speaking gigs.
Be careful with paid links, Google doesn’t like them. Be sure to use no follow setting so links thru works but page rank will not since Google might interpret that as bogus.
Every week make one part of your blog 1% better. Try something different even when you don’t know if it works. In fact blog about your experiments.
Be part of a community; get to know your fellow bloggers especially in your own area.
Don’t be isolated.
And lastly, never lose the passion. Write about what really interests you.
Around 300 people attended the two day(and evening party) event at the really nice Raddison Warwick hotel in downtown Philly. I found it really wonderful that the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp was a major sponsor. They are the people behind the new hip focused tourism site UWISHUNU ;Philly from an insider perspective.
This proves that Philly is no longer your father’s Philly but is finally changing it’s self concept to compete among the best cities in the US. Rocky and cheese steaks are so 20th century. Philly can be know as a hip, leading edge place that is not resting on past glories. BlogPhiladelphia is another step in that transformation. Already scheduled for September is the first Philly Podcamp to keep the momentum going.
A wonderful announcement was the formation of a new organization for supporting independent consultants called sure enough Independents Hall. This is the brainchild of Alex Hillman, an energetic web developer and true Philadelphia promoter. The concept is co-working. Instead of being isolated in your home office you hang out a communal office and share the energy.
Six Apart (makers of TypePad and Moveable Type) has an interesting ongoing series of posts about weblog history and its pioneers as the medium reaches itstenth year. The lastest interview is with Michael Sippey, who helped influence some of the fundamental thinking about blogging.
I wrote a toss-off piece in 1995 called “The Three C’s of Computing,” which argued that these tools (connected PCs) are good for Creating, Consuming and Connecting. At the time we had OK tools for creation (think MS Office), a growing set of tools for consumption (think AOL), and a very nascent set of connection that wasn’t being covered by the mainstream press (boards, listservs, USENET, etc.). I wrote back then that the dream would be combining the three “into one, glorious future: creating, consuming and connecting all at once.” I think we’re starting to realize that dream with blogs, social networks, photo sharing, presence broadcasting, etc.
What do you think are the big-picture trends for technologies like blogging? Is blogging a solved problem, like email, or are there more big leaps to be made?
Blogging is definitely not a solved problem. Go back to the three C’s. We’re getting to the point where normal people can start to use the “creation” tools…but we still have a long way to go to make it easier. If today’s RSS reading experience is the end of the line for “consumption” then someone should take our industry out back for a beating. And “connecting” is only starting to get interesting — every application is becoming social, and as a industry we’ll find more interesting ways to traverse and use the network graphs. Then take all of that and tear it away from the desktop. Here in the US we’re still remarkably PC-centric; the mobile and ambient modes have yet to be leveraged effectively. (Look, I used the words “leveraged” and “ambient” in the same sentence. Drink!)
If things were ever “solved” in the computer industry I suspect that the industry has died. The constant pushing in new directions is the very nature of it.
A really cool recent find I’d like to mention is MyBlogLog. You can find it in my sidebar on the right. How it works is that you sign up for the service(free) and list your blog(s) and post a picture or avatar of yourself. Then you drop the code snippet into your sidebar. When visitors who are members visit your blog their picture is added to the display. As new visitor get added, older ones fall off.
Now for the first time one can see the faces of your visitors not some anonymous entry in your web analytics program. I don’t know about you, but that moves the friendliness of the blogosphere up a giant notch.
Seeing the picture of my visitors really makes me curious. I just have to click. That takes me to their MyBlogLog page where I can see their blog site(s) and visit them. If I like what I see then I can join their community. Nothing like getting the approval of your fellow bloggers.
In a few weeks I have discovered many excellent bloggers that I would never have know otherwise. That is the breakthrough feature of MyblogLog. It make it so easy to met your virtual neighbor.
And that is what blogging is all about; creating community.
HitTail is an example of the truely inovative services that I bring to the attention of my readers and use myself and with clients. Stay tuned for ongoing reports about HitTail and how it levels the playing field for the small business person. Yea! Isn’t the Internet great.
