adamyntium

Category: blogging

  • FINALLY – Bladam 2.0! 🙂

    I finally took the plunge.  After blabbing about moving my blog over to Expression Engine software over a year ago, I’ve finally done it.

    So what does it mean to you?  Here’s the skinny on the major new stuff:

    • Comments post almost instantaneously.  And even non-members can opt to get e-mail-notified when someone posts a new comment in an entry they’ve replied to.
    • No more three-column circus.  Everything’s less cluttered and manically colored now.
    • Lots of miscellaneous goodies for “regulars” (see details)

    If you’re interested in knowing more about the impetus behind the many, many changes and what it took to achieve them, read on!  But before you do, just one humble request: PLEASE do let me know if anything is clearly not working or looking right. I’d really appreciate it!

    More info about the changes

    • I’ve de-emphasized large date headers and eschewed a side-calendar; the focus is on my writing content, not the arbitrary dates I post things.
    • Search and other navigation options have also been moved out of the main fold.  Most folks just visit my blog front page and individual entries they find via search :-).
    • I chose Expression Engine over Movable Type because I felt that customizing and managing BLADAM would be much easier for me with the former.  MT’s a great program, but I wanted to try something new.
    • EE also offers better blog-spam protection out of the box than MT, IMHO, and certainly more flexible and cool membership options.

    There are some downsides to the changed infrastructure, however.  Since every page is literally written on the fly (via php) AND I’m altering page elements based on many variables, page accesses—especially initial ones—are slower than before.  Additionally, the nifty menu thingy I’ve put up top is also not very dialup friendly (a handful of javascript files have to be loaded the first time each person visits).  And lastly, MovableType is definitely the dominant player in the blogging space… with a larger community, more plugins, and so on.

    Still, though, I’m admittedly pleased with how things have worked out so far, and I would indeed highly recommend Expression Engine to others based upon my experiences.

    *  *  *

    I still have a *TON* to do as part of the transition, but at least now I have the basics all set up 🙂

    I do appreciate your support, your feedback, and your patience, and am always delighted to hear from you.  Like the airlines say… I know you have a choice of pages on the Net to read, and I’m honored you’re reading mine :-).

    Take care, and best of the New Year to you and yours!

    (Now I’m finally off to bed.  It’s 6:21am here, and it’s high time I caught some zzzz’s!  Hopefully nothing goes too haywire in the meantime… eek!)

  • My experience with the Yahoo Publishing Network on my blog

    I’m sorry I strayed. AdSense may not be the sexiest CAS (contextual advertising service) in the bunch, and occasionally she’s a bit stubborn, unpredictable, and even cheap… but she’s a lot better overall than my most recent fling.

    I had heard so many great things about the Miss Yahoo!  She was apparently far more generous, and she came bundled with some pretty snazzy accessories, including handy RSS, Y! Maps, and Y!Q stuff.

    At first, I thought she was a clever free thinker.

    I read her a story about Song airlines.

    “Vonage” she cooed back at me. How creative, I marveled… she knows that the airlines are looking to expand telephony options… and that some e-jetsetters may be able to use voice-over-IP services while flying to communicate with landlocked buddies.

    Then I read her a story about a recent theatre production I saw.

    “Vonage” she whispered back, coyly. Hmm. I was admittedly puzzled. I mean, you’re really not supposed to have phone conversations while watching musicals!

    I tried reading her a few other stories. And while she’d occasionally offer a minor new tidbit, she always managed to say something about Vonage.

    The relationship was already getting stale. I invited some friends over for a blog reading and said, initially with pride, meet my new mate, Miss Yahoo P.N. But she just stared dully ahead and muttered “Vonage.”

    My friends were brutally honest with me when they took me aside. “Um, Adam” they insisted, politely but firmly, “She’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the e-shed.”

    “She’s still young!” I protested, “She’ll learn! She’s not even out of beta school yet!”

    From around the corner, I heard again “Vonage. Vonage. Vonage.”

    It was about then that I realized that even though my old blogfriend AdSense was a bit miserly, at least she wasn’t a moron and I wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with her in public.

    “Vonage. Vonage Vonage. Vonage, Vonage. Mortgages vonage. Vonage your mortgage. Vonage Vonagevonagevonagevon…”

    “Yahoo. YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!” I yodeled in frustration, trying to get her attention. “I think we should see other people. Or rather, you should see other blogs.”

    “Vonage?”

    I opened the door… pointed to the great beyond, and Yahoo was but a distant memory.

    Then I called up AdSense. And like an annoyed and proud but still subtlely loyal cat, she returned.

    AdSense, I’m really sorry. Welcome back!

  • In Brief: Things that every blog should have (but too many don’t)

    I’ll note up front: my blog UI currently sucks (as I’ve said many times before) and I WILL fix it eventually. But like a brilliant marriage therapist that can’t maintain a healthy relationship, I’m going to lecture y’all on some blog-musts 🙂

    – Include a CONTACT ME link or info. Oh yeah, and an ABOUT ME blurb or link.
    – Enable “Subscribe to future comments.” (why this isn’t standard in blog software is beyond me!)
    – Let me subscribe to your entries by e-mail. Not everyone uses or likes RSS.
    – Categories! I know Blogger is working on this (really) but the rest of you not using Blogger have no excuses! 🙂

    RELATED ENTRIES:
    – Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines
    – Blogger DON’Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)

  • Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines

    Jakob Nielsen is one of the granddaddies of Web Usability; he’s offered for years lots of strong and (IMHO) often very smart opinions about what practices and designs on the Web make for good user experiences. I don’t always agree with his assertions, but I am very impressed by his recent blogging guidelines.

    Here are the key sins he warns against:

    1. No author biography
    I completely agree. This provides much-needed context. Is the person talking about their employer? A competitor? Are her political views colored by her association with a particular organization or religion? And so on.

    2. No author photo
    A photo is worth 1000 words. Particularly if it’s a serious mugshot, a playful pic, a lovey-dovey shot, etc.

    3. Non-descript posting titles
    I like teasers sometimes, but (and I need to take this to heart) they should indeed be used sparingly. And as Nielsen notes, key words — relevant to the specific audience — should always be used up front.

    4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go
    This is an important issue all around the Web. While I’ve been guilty of this sin in the past, I totally agree that it’s rude and/or just annoying to link words like “here” and “like this” and so on. It’s also really bad from a search-engine-optimization standpoint (HINT: Y! and Google et al DO care what you’ve used for your linked text 😉

    5. Classic Hits are Buried
    I’ve been trying to avoid this problem by including a “Related Links” tidbit at the bottom of many of my newer posts. With that said, though, I still get really frustrated that my “best” writing sometimes goes completely undiscovered and unloved. 😐

    6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
    This is a pet peeve of mine. What were the Web log software designers thinking when the put a calendar front and center? I mean, seriously, how often do blog readers think: “Gee, I simply MUST see what Fred has written about on July 22nd, 2005!” Uh, no. Like Jakob wisely notes, people are curious to learn more about what you’ve said on a particular topic. I think I’ve done a good job bringing my topic lists front and center (listing related topics at the top of each post, and all topics on the right of each page), but perhaps I can do so both more efficiently and less obtrusively when I (finally) overhaul my blog.

    7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
    Here is where I strongly disagree with Jakob and other folks like Duncan of the Blog Herald. When publishing was in meatspace (e.g., via dead trees), sure, it made sense to stick to a schedule. After all, one was typically PAYING to receive a publication (magazine, newsletter, etc.) on a regular basis. And before RSS readers came along, it was also understandable that people wanted to know how often a particular site updated its content, so they could know to check it every Wednesday night or whatever.

    But with RSS feeds so ubiquitous now, this is no longer relevant. In fact, not only am I perfectly happy to subscribe to blogs that post irregularly (but with interesting content), I’m often negatively overwhelmed by blogs that publish a zillion times a day. Hence, despite their consistently entertaining content, I rarely ever read Boing Boing or SFist anymore because I simply can’t keep up. The unread items just pile up, and I end up just marking them all as read after a couple of weeks go by.

    8. Mixing Topics
    I’m really struggling with this issue myself. On one hand, I KNOW that if I trimmed this blog to talk only about Google or dancing, for instance, I’d likely get a much larger and more loyal audience. And probably more targeted and lucrative ads, too. But I blog stuff that I enjoy blogging about, and I hate to change that. The thought of maintaining a bunch of separate blogs sounds like a pain in the ass, and beyond that, I think of Jeremy Zawodny and Robert Scoble — both of whom unrepentantly mix in talk about their personal interests — and (not that I’m in their league) I note that somehow their blogs remain popular :-).

    9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
    Amen. I’ve already written about the topic of cautious blogging in the past:
    – “Got business aspirations? Neuter your blog or suffer the consequences.“
    – “‘I know all about you, Adam’ — Context and queasiness“
    – “Letting it all hang out.“

    10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
    This really is a no-brainer. Similarly, I highly advise folks to get an e-mail address in their own domain (e.g., lasnik.net). Sure, you can still easily use Yahoo! Mail or Gmail or whatever by using forwarding, but you then at least have excellent mobility should you choose to change Webmail providers in the future. Plus .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) looks rather professional and is a lot better than .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (or, frankly, any aol.com address; all of them scream “neeeeewbie!”)

    * * *

    What are your thoughts? Do you think Jakob got it right? Do you agree with my comments as well? Any additional blogging sins to note?

    * * *
    Other related links:
    – “Blogger DON’Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)“

  • $1 will cure the Blogspot splog problem (and related problems)

    THE PROBLEM
    As Chris Pirillo and others have noted, doing a search on practically anything nowadays returns a deluge of spam blogs, or “splogs,” that are comprised of a bunch of randomly scraped-together sentences automatically stolen from around the Web. Typically, the sploggers create these blogspot blogs just so they can slap AdSense ads on them and earn cash from unwitting surfers who land there, see that all the content is crap, and then get away by clicking on one of the ads on the page.

    Sounds stupid? It is. But sadly it’s actually lucrative for the sploggers. And Google’s caught in the middle because — while, yes, they’re earning money as well out of the deal — their search index is becoming less and less useful… and that can undoubtedly hurt the company’s long-term viability. Say what you will about Google, but they are nothing if not forward thinking… so this is a problem that they are certainly seriously tackling in the background.

    THE SOLUTION
    But I have an idea that’d solve the issue faster. It’s not entirely ‘democratic.’ It also risks some ‘friendly fire’. And initially, it’ll be a major pain in the ass for Google and a minor pain in the ass for anyone wanting to set up a blog. But hear me out… 🙂

    Google should require a $1 credit card, ACH bank payment, or paper check payment from any blogger who wants his or her blog to be indexed.

    But note that…
    – Anyone could still create a blog for free.
    If you wanted to have a blog to communicate with your friends or family or workgroup or whatever, no sweat. You’d just give ’em the URL, let them subscribe to your RSS feed, etc., no payment required.

    – Google would create a special subdomain for the paid blogs.
    blogspotgold.com or whatnot… so that other search engines could easily filter out anything in the blogspot domain.

    – Google would allow any current blogspot user to ‘upgrade’ for $1 and would automatically redirect their URL permanently.

    WHY THIS’D WORK
    – It would likely no longer be economically feasible for spammers to create 10,000 disposable splogs.
    – Even if the economics worked out, Google could limit the number of blogs created per credit card number or bank account.
    – Google’s creating its own payment processing solution anyway, so they’ll soon have the payments part covered.

    WHAT WILL HAMPER THIS SOLUTION
    – Sploggers could use stolen credit cards, though I think it’d be difficult to do this in bulk.
    – But most critically, there’s the frustrating issue that even a $1 payment could end up publicly silencing voices that should be heard.

    MORE ABOUT THE SILENCING-VOICES PROBLEM
    While I’m all for accountability and taking personal responsibility for one’s communications, I also recognize that there are instances in which folks desire — and often should be accorded — anonymity.

    For instance, what about Chinese dissidents who may want to blog about their feelings and experiences or even blog about upcoming protests? Is it inconceivable that the Chinese government could pressure Google into handing over identity information gleaned from a dissident’s $1 blogspot payment? Even if Google takes pains to sincerely insist that it will *NEVER* do such a thing, will everyone trust this promise? And what about whistleblowers?

    Or what about those people — particularly in non-industrialized countries — who may not have a bank account or credit card but still want to blog?

    A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE SILENCED-VOICES PROBLEM
    Perhaps, instead of denying indexing to all non-paid blogs, Google could simply — upon request — pre-screen all such blogs for indexing consideration. For instance, something like the following:
    1) Person sets up free blog and blogs a minimum number of substantive (non-sploggy) posts over a minimum period of time.
    2) They then submit this blog for indexing consideration to Google.
    3) If Google determines it to be non-sploggy, they then elevate it to blogspotgold, and provide a free redirect from the old URL.

    Admittedly, though, sploggers could retaliate in this context by submitting bazillions of obvious-crap blogs just to clog up the reviewing queue. However, if it were impossible to submit a blog for consideration until it had been around, say, 3 months or 6 months… that would make it harder to do a mass-submit “DOS” [denial of service style] attack. Spammers are not patient people.

    * * *

    So I’m curious… what do you think about all of this?
    1) Would a $1 payment really prevent most or even all splog from getting into the indexes of Google, Y!, and all other major players?
    2) Would there be bad ‘collateral damage’… or could this be reasonably minimized by the ideas I’ve specified or through other means?
    3) Know of any anti-splog options that are better than my $1 idea? (hint: capchas alone aren’t the answer)

    * * *

    UPDATE at 9:00PM PST, 10/16/2005:
    People have pointed out to me that children and young teens typically don’t have credit cards or even bank accounts, and that it seems unfair to single them out for a waiting period. So here are some other ideas (with the first two stolen from current Gmail policies :D)

    – Get a blogspotgold account via text message.
    True, this requires a phone… or a friend’s phone.

    – Get a blogspotgold account via invite from current member.
    Allow each current member to hand out up to 10 tokens a month, and if more than 2 of them are used to create splogs, then don’t give that member any more tokens for a year.

    – Distribute blogspotgold tokens via schools (administrators, teachers, whatever)

    * * *

    UPDATE, 10/18/2005 at 1:45AM PST:
    Ah, Google responds to the outcry! I had no doubt that they’d be taking all of this seriously (I know that the Blogger folks are sincerely passionate about blogging!), but it’s nice to see their public acknowledgment of the problem nonetheless.

    Also, the prolific geek, Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome fame) has proposed his own top ten list of Blogspot anti-splog solutions.

  • Tips for corporate wannabe bloggers

    Jeremy Zawodny recently posted that he’s going to be speaking about blogging at the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference, and asked his readers what he should tell those folks.

    Many people, understandably, responded that he should basically tell them to drop dead. Given the DMA’s, ahem, relationship-challenged practices in the past (e.g., supporting opt-out, rather than opt-in e-mail lists), that’s hardly surprising.

    With that said, though, I figured it’d be worth it to suggest a few more friendly guidelines for the DMA folks, at least those genuinely interested in communicating decently and effectively with others online. Specifically, here’s what I commented on Jeremy’s blog:

    * * *

    Tell them to ask themselves this before they ever post anything on a blog:
    “If you were out having a beer with someone you’ve recently become friends with, would you say this to their face?”

    For instance, when you’re (appropriately) talking a friend, you generally don’t:
    – shout
    – hype
    – badger
    – monopolize
    – ignore
    – use fear

    You do (or should), however:
    – Talk like a human
    – Listen
    – Listen some more
    – Respond appropriately
    – Be sincere. No, *really* sincere, not faux sincere.
    – Know your relationship-type. You don’t hug and kiss a new friend and say “You’re my best friend EVER!!!”

    And the hardest, but IMHO most important:
    Know yourself, know your limitations, and don’t pretend to be someone you aren’t. If you’re a 300 pound frumpy housewife, you don’t show up at a bar in a miniskirt and halter top to meet a friend. You’ll embarrass yourself, you’ll embarrass your friend, and no one will want to be seen with you, much less listen to you. For companies, this means that you shouldn’t sweep who you are and what your history is under a rug; if you’ve had problems with a product or customer relationships, enter into a conversation humbly or even with an appropriate apologetic introduction. “We realize we haven’t always worked with our customers in a way that would make our founder proud. Here’s what we’re doing to change that… and why we respectfully ask you to give us another chance.”

    Humility, thoughtfulness, subtlety, humanity. All attributes that the spam-defending DMA, sadly, seems to have in very short supply.

    * * *

    RELATED ENTRIES:
    – Blogger Don’ts [from the consumer-side of blogging]

  • Bloglines, Newzcrawler… and the new Google Reader

    A few weeks ago, I already started transitioning all of my feeds off of Bloglines. Why?
    – It’s slow.
    – It’s down too often.
    – Reorganizing feeds (moving them to different folders, etc.) is worse than being stuck in a closet with Vanna White. Night after night after night after night.
    – It’s similarly painful to mark just a few articles in a feed as read or unread.

    I’ve moved over to Newzcrawler, a stellar newsreader app for Windows. Beyond just tons of cool power features, it also lets me pretty easily sync my feeds between my desktop and laptop using an external FTP site (okay, geeky, I know).

    * * *

    With that said, I’ve still been hoping to see some vast improvements in the online-reader front. Rojo seems to be getting better. And I’ve heard rumblings over other cool services as well. When I learned today that Google had entered this space, I was extremely excited. Please, I thought, give us another Gmail. Or Maps! 😀 If not for me, at least for my less-geeky friends whom I’m dying to get into feed reading.

    So far, alas, I’m rather disappointed in the Google Reader. I know it’ll get better, but for now, Googlers…

    1) It’s too cluttered and overwhelming.
    Hide some stuff. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but blog text blends into all the other text and I find it just tiring to spend more than a few minutes in Reader.

    2) No mouseovers?!

    3) Ambiguities
    Is “Read items” a description or an action? Okay, admittedly this is rather a nitpick, but it is a top-line link ;-).

    4) Search what?!
    When I see a search box at the top of the page, I expect to be able to search the content-in-context. In other words, if I’m in my Gmail account, I expect to search my mail. If I’m in Reader, I expect to search for a string in my read and/or unread feed items. From an expected user-action standpoint, what’s likely to be more common: adding new feeds, or working with the feeds one already has?

    5) Save me from overload!
    There’s no way to mark an entire feed as read. Or group of feeds.

    6) Why the weird quasi-breadcrumbs in center focus?!
    Why do I want to see “New Subscription” “New Subscription” article article article… Just show me new articles. If I want to see what I’m subscribed to, I’ll go to the Your Subscriptions tab! 🙂

    * * *

    Other quick suggestions/observations:
    – Add a space in “Subscriptions(#)” to make it “Subscriptions (#)”
    – Include a shortcut key to go to the pulldown menus. Actually, quit using HTML-style pulldown menus as action-triggers. It’s not good UI, IMHO, and it’s confusing when more than one says “More actions…” (plus with more than one on a page, that sort of makes it hard to use a keyboard shortcut)
    – Allow for the multi-selection (and from there, tagging) of feeds.
    – Include a feedback link directly on the Reader page.
    – Enable us to see ALL articles from a given feed in one fell swoop (ala Bloglines)
    – Let us easily sort, reposition, edit, and delete labels and sets of labels.
    – BUG: I unsubscribed from a feed, it’s outta my list, but I’m still seeing items for it.
    – Gimme feed icons, please! When I have 200+ feeds, it’s how I can most easily spot some of my favs 🙂
    – Dim links if they’re not applicable (e.g., dim the Page Up link if I’m already at the top)
    – I tagged an entry. How do I search for it by tag now? (I only see how I can filter feed tags)

    * * *

    Okay, let me be a LITTLE less of a jerk here and note what I *DO* like about Reader:
    – Keyboard shortcuts! 🙂
    – Ease of adding new feeds (by keyword, by title, by URL… very flexible!)
    – Nice how the filter narrows as I type! (but it’d be even nicer if ESC cleared it)
    – Pretty fast (excepting the short time earlier today when it was first released)

    * * *

    Anyway, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Google rapidly works on this beta, giving it top resources… rotating in seasoned PMs / APMs, providing needed equipment for scalability and so on. For now, though, I’ll happily stick with Newzcrawler, and — admittedly grudgingly — suggest that my newbie friends start off with Bloglines for now.

  • Memory holes aren’t cool. Corporate bloggers, cut it out!

    UPDATE 9/23/05 2:34pm PST:
    Looks like I was a bit too quick on the CrankyTrigger this morning. Apparently, Streamload had shifted over to Blogspot, but hadn’t updated one of their primary links (1 step off of their home page). Certainly a frustrating but nonetheless innocent oversight. See Streamload’s acknowledgment of the issue here in their P.S.

    My apologies for jumping to conclusions. I’m keeping the rest of my blog entry intact so I’m not a hypocrite 😉

    * * *

    I’m a paying member of Streamload — a multimedia remote storage service — and I regularly follow their blog in my aggregator.

    Recently, they’ve been heralding their upcoming major service overhaul in their blog… a huge new feature set, new pricing, and so on. Everything was supposed to go live, well, a few days ago.

    Well, a day or two ago, they blogged an apology for the delay, citing power outage issues stemming from a storm (no, not one of the hurricanes). I totally understood… these sort of things happen. But then imagine my amazement and annoyance today when, upon checking their blog, I notice that they’ve wiped out the last month’s worth of entries. Poof, gone. Here’s the Google cache of what they had written.

    A firm message to Streamload and any other companies that may be thinking about, ahem, rewriting history: Don’t do it.
    1) People like me will catch it and call you on it.
    2) This’ll create ill-will and suspicions regarding your firm’s integrity.

    And for goodness sake, if you’re nonetheless determined to cover your tracks, at least don’t do it half-assedly; roll-back your press releases, too. Sheesh.

  • Blogger DON’Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)

    I just came back from a blogger meetup, and am for some (possibly related) reason inspired to offer some blogging tips I’ve accumulated over the nearly three years I’ve been blogging.

    0) THE SHORT VERSION FOR IMPATIENT FOLKS
    – When in doubt, save-as-draft.
    – Write about what you love.
    – Publicize smartly.
    – Add your blog to directories.
    – Write smart blog titles and excerpts.
    – Put ads in your blog unapologetically.
    – Make sure you’re pinging everyone.
    – Use SE-friendly URLs.
    – Make your contact info visible.
    – Test your blog in different browsers.
    – Ask your friends for blunt advice.
    – Don’t lose perspective.
    – Ask me out (females only, please)

    * * *

    1) DON’T BE STUPID
    This is key point #1, literally. While it’s actually a superb idea to write when you’re really angry or depressed or lovestruck or feeling very emotional in general, it’s not smart to actually publish your entries without a cooling off period. Being first or speedy (e.g., impulsive) is not as valuable as being safe long term. Remember, what you post on your blog will likely last forever, even after you edit or delete it (in the Wayback Machine, Google cache, peoples’ offline aggregators, etc.).

    So, in other words, write when you are inspired but take yourself through this quick decision tree first:

    Would I feel comfortable having my Mom, my friends, my current or future significant other, and my current and future work colleagues read this?

    – [YES]: Are you sure?
    – – [YES, DANGIT!]: Okay, hit publish [end]
    – – [UM, NOT TOTALLY]: Hit save as draft. Revisit tomorrow [end]
    – [NO]: Hit save as draft. Revisit tomorrow. [end]

    2) DON’T FAKE IT
    If you don’t feel passionate about what you’re blogging, it will show. Just because you figure you can make one MILLION dollars writing about texas hold’em poker doesn’t mean that you’ll be successful in doing so (unless you really, really love texas hold’em, and — really, now — is that whole shebang truly anything more than media hype and blog-comment-spam-insanity anyway? Does anyone REALLY play that game? Ah, but I digress.)

    3) DON’T BE SHY
    If you’re proud of your blog (and dammit, you should be!), include a link to it in your e-mail signature, print up business cards (Vistaprint is hella cheap and makes good stuff), and mention your blog with your name when post on other blogs, write notes on forums, etc. But (and, obviously, this SHOULD go without saying), don’t be a twit about it. Offer thoughtful or at least entertaining contributions instead of merely hyping your blog, and people WILL go see your blog because they like you and/or your writing, not because you screamed “Look at my blog!!!!!!!1”

    And while we’re talking about publicity stuff, let me offer some key (actually specific) tips about how to increase your readership and generally extend the reach of your blog:

    – Use Feedburner
    This service is free (except for their few Pro features) and really rocks. It’ll help make your RSS feeds flexible, enable you to create an animated GIF with your latest headlines, and much more!

    – Add your blog to relevant directories.
    (sorry, I haven’t kept a list of these lately, but I’m sure you can google this, and of course, I welcome input here, too!)

    – Intelligently and cleverly write both your blog entry titles AND excerpts.
    Include relevant keywords, a teaser, AND an honest description all in one whenever possible.

    – Make your feeds easy to find!
    As an example, look at my autodiscovery meta tags (view | source of my blog), and note how I advertise my feeds right up at the top of every page of my blog.

    4) DON’T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT $$$ (or even just $)
    Okay, so I’m a sell-out. And frankly, I think I probably have one too many ad blocks in my blog now (the whole blog is due for a redesign, honest-to-God, though I know I’ve been sincerely noting that for like five months now [sigh]). But with that said, I am completely unashamed that I have ads in my blog. I pay for hosting. I spend time offering (IMHO) oft-useful or at least amusing comments to 500-1000 folks each day. Putting Google’s AdSense ads on my site doesn’t make what I have to say any less interesting or valid (and, admittedly, doesn’t make it any MORE interesting, either). Oh, and in case you’re curious, I make about $2 a day. I’m not getting rich, and since I spend at least two hours on my blog a week, this means I make a mere $7/hour or so. But hey, $700 a year is still nothing to sneeze at :-).

    Bottom line: Don’t blog for money, but don’t feel guilty about earning a bagel (with schmear) a day for your writing, either.

    5) DON’T FORGET THE WHORISH UNDERPINNINGS

    – Ping, ping, baby!
    Are you pinging everyone you should ping? Here’s my ping list, and I think it’s pretty complete:

    http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
    http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
    http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
    http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
    http://ping.feedburner.com
    http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

    – Make your individual blog entry URLs search-engine friendly!
    I haven’t yet had a chance to do this with my blog yet, but ideally, your entry about playful albino dolphins should be at http://www.yourblog.com/archives/playful-albino-dolphins

    Hyphens are better than underscores.
    Don’t just trust me… I read it from GoogleGuy so it must be true (really).

    6) DON’T OVERLOOK THE BASICS!

    – Make it easy to contact you!
    I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to send a note to a blogger (to offer a tip or just congrats, to let them know one of their links is broken, etc.), and I was unable to find any way to reach them via e-mail. That’s just stupid. If you’re worried about spambots (which is understandable!), include a “Contact me” form, or obfuscate your address (e.g., “write me at adam at the domain lasnik.net”).

    – Make sure your site works in ALL popular browsers!
    If you’re on a PC, you should be using Firefox instead of IE anyway, but look at your blog in both no matter what. I discovered that a friend’s blog, for instance, was completely unreadable in Firefox due to incompatible CSS. Not a very good way to build up readership! On the other hand, quit worrying about Netscape 4.7 folks. Sorry, people, but you’re <1% of visitors now and no one other than masochists or stupid people will bother to specially-optimize / cripple their sites for you. – Ask your friends for honest advice.
    For instance, 9 out of 10 AdamFriends have unequivocably complained that my blog is too cluttered and has a lousy color scheme. Frankly, I think they’re all nuts (well, except for the one suck-up who says my site is perfect :D). But clearly I’m outvoted. The only reason I’ve not yet cleaned up my blog is that I’m insanely busy with stuff that actually pays me more than $7/hr, delightfully entertains me, gets me laid, and/or all of the above. Hmm… that was actually more than one reason, I suppose, but oh well.

    7) DON’T LOSE PERSPECTIVE!
    I keep seeing bloggers apologize for going on hiatus. Heck, even I’ve been guilty of groveling to my readers, begging them to still love me even when I go weeks months without blogging.

    What a crock of bovine excrement. We have no obligations to our readers. I’m serious. Friends are more important than blogging. Family is more important than blogging. Exercise, diet, inner peace, world peace, and steady employment — more important than blogging. Going on a hike somewhere without your laptop or PDA and getting fresh, un-recirculated air — more important than blogging. And here’s a crazy idea: going on a vacation for a week and actually avoiding blogs, online and offline news (including TV, newspapers, etc.), and everything digital — way more important than blogging.

    I know, I know, I may sound like a hypocritical smarmy twit about all of this, but I really mean all of it. The week I spent in Port Townsend unplugged and at a camp for swingers made me far happier than any week in which I’ve gotten lots of blog traffic or broke $3/day from blogvertising.

    Sometimes we just need to take a step back and put everything in perspective.

    For the other 355 days, though, I hope my blog tips are helpful :-D. Please feel free to ask me for any clarifications (“What’s a ping, daddy?”), offer suggestions, or simply tell me I’m full of crap.

    Or, if you’re a really cute and artistic female who likes geeks, ask me out. That’s better than blogging, too :-).

  • Feed Fabulosity (Atom, RSS, Full, Summary… oh boy!)

    I’m at least temporarily offering both summary full feeds via FeedBurner… which delivers Atom, RSS, whatever your newsreader likes :-). Just look on over at the lefthand-side of any BLADAM page for the links.

    Since I do like people to actually visit my site, however (for both selfish and unselfish reasons) I’m debating on whether to keep the full feed or perhaps just run with the summary feed in a bit.

    If you have any strong opinions — heck, ANY opinions (:cough: comment whore :cough:) — please speak below or forever hold your peace.

    Or is it piece. I never did figure that out…

    Argh. Blasted late night foggy ramblings 😉