April 27, 2008
While I’m involved in various other projects, it’s difficult to find time to write here. A very kind reader, Peter, of my articles elsewhere in the blogosphere suggested I post links to my other writing here. So I’ll start off with a list and after this post individual snippets and links.
Currently I’m writing weekly at FreelanceSwitch and FreelanceFolder, and daily at Performancing, as well as building up a new film site (more on that later). The list below is reverse chronological and covers back to late January (after I’d stopped posting to this site).
- FreelanceSwitch - How to Save: A Short Guide for Freelancers. This article covers why it’s so important for freelancers to save, and the types of saving to consider.
- FreelanceFolder - Jump-Starting Freelancing Productivity: Working Smarter. Do you find yourself working long hours at home? Maybe you’re spending too much time on each project. Why not try working smarter by spending less time on something, and taking breaks or working on something else in between.
- Performancing - How to Podcast Using SplashCast or YouTube. Add some still images to your audio podcast.
- Performancing - A Beginner’s Podcasting Guide.
- Performancing - Why I Love WordPress.
- Performancing - 9 Podcasting Tips.
- Performancing - Niche Monitoring: A Simple River of News Using Embedded Timelines.
- Performancing - Better Web Information Presentation: 10 Timeline Tools.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Moving a Static HTML Site to WordPress.
- Performancing - Why I Hate WordPress 2.5.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Using Custom Fields to Auto-Embed YouTube Videos.
- Performancing - What’s Wrong With the Blogosphere?
- Performancing - Can Other Bloggers Get Book Deals?
- Performancing - Research Tools: From River of News to Techmeme Clone - Part 3.
- Performancing - Jazz Up Your Site: 28 Ways to Use WordPress Custom Fields.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Techmeme River of News Clone - Part 2.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Build a Techmeme River of News Clone - Part 1.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Upgrading Versions.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Build a Photo or Movie Poster Gallery.
- Performancing - Problogging Tips: The Value and Structure of Comprehensive Content.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Build a Web Directory.
- Performancing - Practical Blogging Tips: Finding Information For Resource Articles.
- Performancing - WordPress Hacks: Adding TinyMCE Editor to the Prologue Theme. —- buggy
- Performancing - 11 Skills That a Freelance Blogger Should Have.
- Performancing - Practical Blogging Tips: Build Comprehensive Content.
- Performancing - Problogging Tips: Get Smart, Leverage Your Research.
- Performancing - Problogging Tips: Follow a Budget.
- Performancing - Should You Blog For Yourself or Freelance?
- Performancing - 48 Unique Ways to Use WordPress.
- Performancing - A Short Guide to Writing 4+ Large Resource Articles Each Month.
- Performancing - Monitoring Multiple Niches With a Personal Dashboard: Joining a Niche Conversation, Pt 7.
- Performancing - Advanced Feed Mashup: Yahoo Pipes By Example, Pt 2.
- Performancing - Monitoring Multiple Niches With a Personal Dashboard: Joining a Niche Conversation, Pt 6.
- Performancing - 8 Tips For Building Multiple Niches: Joining a Niche Conversation, Pt 5.
- Performancing - Yahoo Pipes By Example, Part 1: Mashing Up Multiple Feeds.
- Performancing - Yahoo Pipes By Example: Basic Functionality.
- Performancing - 5 More Tips on Increasing Blogging Productivity.
- Performancing - Why Should Bloggers Use Yahoo Pipes?
- Performancing - Joining a Niche Conversation, Part 4: Making Your Blog Stand Out.
- Performancing - Joining a Niche Conversation, Part 3: Don’t Be Afraid to Edit Archived Blog Posts.
- Performancing - New Opportunity For Tech-Savvy Bloggers: Remote Digital Coaching.
- Performancing - Joining a Niche Conversation, Part 2: Idea Generating for Bloggers.
- Performancing - Joining a Niche Conversation, Part 1: Determining the Top Blogs in Your Niche.
Posted in general, writing, online careers, tools, productivity, resources, technique, freelancing 
3 Comments »
December 31, 2007
<tirade>This post is just something I couldn’t resist writing, and sort of dates back to the whole “when does the millenium start kind of thing.” Marketing expert and popular author/ blogger Seth Godin has a post called Only Two Years Left.
It scared the heck out of me, thinking I’d lost a year for all my plans to move to Toronto, get into film school, and make movies. It just goes to show that even experts like Seth can get it wrong: there are three years left in this decade, not two. Once again, there WAS NO YEAR ZERO. This decade (and this millenium) started in 2001, not 2000. So we are finishing the seventh year of this first decade of this third millenium. And since a decade has ten years, there are three years left: 2008, 2009, 2010 - after which time I’m hoping to be a working screenwriter, director and/or producer. Don’t scare me like that!
And now back to your regularly unscheduled blog. Happy New Year.</tirade>
Posted in Asides No Comments »
December 27, 2007
Those of you that are “web workers” might be tempted to say that you can live pretty much anywhere if you work online. (You also don’t have to deal with the craziness of work Christmas parties.) I’m writing this as I watch a British TV show, Relocation, Relocation, where real estate brokers help a couple choose to purchase one of three houses. Seeing some of the old stone houses and the beautiful countryside, I’m thinking, “I’d love to have one of those.” Makes sense, since I work online and can live anywhere, right? Wrong.
There are some online jobs that cannot be done from anywhere. At least not immediately. For example, my plans to become a filmblogger have to be put on hold. Not only is there no longer a commercial movie theater near where I live - already isolated in the southend of a small city - but without a car as of yet, I’d have to settle for only reviewing repertory film at the local rep theater downtown. Except that I now work Mon-Sat, albeit online, and the wonderful city I currently live in has no bus service after 5 pm on Sundays. What’s more, the bus schedule changed from a 30-minute cycle to a 40 minute one, and the current generation of bus drivers in this city are mostly mean and rude and will not wait for you. No great option for me.
Of course, once I’m an established film blogger, no doubt some movie studios will send advanced copies for me to view and review. But I can’t become established covering only old movies shown on TMC and AMC, or Canadian TV networks. It’s a Catch-22, though there are some options.
Solution? One is to get a car, which I plan to do in a couple of months. But that adds a cost I don’t need once I move to Toronto for film school (assuming I get in). Since I have to cover the Toronto Film Festival, I have to move before Aug 1st, 2008 (anyone have an apartment?), where I won’t need a car. Toronto is very expensive and I know I can’t afford both a car and apartment there, as well as save for film school, amongst other financial issues. So my fingers are crossed that some of my online side projects will generate enough revenue to allow the move on time - else I’ll miss the festival yet again, and probably have to push film school further into 2009.
Maybe someday when movie theaters exist entirely online because everyone has a home theater, it’ll be a different story. Until then, working online isn’t always geographically-independent.
[Image: NWYH Stock Images]
Posted in online careers, productivity 2 Comments »
December 24, 2007
One thing “experts” have been saying for at least a year is that video editing on mobile phones will be huge. Well, I don’t just enjoy being a contrarian, but when it comes to ridiculous claims against functionality, I enjoy contradicting even more. Beet TV says that both video editing and uploading via mobile phones will be big in 2008, if I understand the article correctly. (They are referring to other articles, so I’m not picking on them per se.)
Well I have a hard time believing this:
- No way anyone wants to do video editing via their mobile phone. Repeated claims of this “hot activity” make me wonder if they’ll try to claim that people will eagerly shoot nails into their foreheads as well. I don’t know who is really pushing this agenda, but without an input device such as a mouse or sketch tablet pen, video editing isn’t exactly an easy activity, except maybe for experienced video editors.
Do you really want to do anything more than very simple “editing” on a tiny little screen, with no suitable input device? Even if you’re graced with an iPhone, I’m guessing it won’t be easy. (And do you really want to transfer all your finger oils all over your nice shiny iPhone by using it for more than basic Internet browsing and looking cool?)
- Yes, people will take more video clips with their cellphones cum video cameras. But while they might WANT easy upload to the Internet, not everyone has access to a reasonably priced cellular Internet connection plan. Sure that should change in the future, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be in 2008.
Seriously, wouldn’t you much rather work on a nice computer screen that’s not going to strain your eyes? And unless you fancy yourself a citizen journalist, is there any reason you absolutely have to upload your video from your cellphone, draining the batteries? You could purchase one of the new “wi-fi to go” types of modems that work on your carrier’s cellular network but don’t require a cellphone. All you need, once it’s activated, is an electrical outlet - which should be fairly readily available unless you’re in a vehicle or in a field somewhere.
[Image: Apple.com]
Posted in tools, visual media 1 Comment »
December 19, 2007
With regular movie ticket prices ranging between $8-12 versus tons of free content online, not to mention the fact that flat panel TVs and computer screens are increasing in size while dropping in price, movie theaters are potentially headed for extinction in the future. They’ve got to do something to differentiate themselves. The question is, is there anything they can do?
Ask yourself, if you can purchase the DVD of a movie you like for, say, $18-25 and you have at least a 22-inch widescreen computer screen or a 32-inch TV screen at home, would you favor that rather than an $11 movie ticket? That is, even if it’s a film you’re dying to see, would you spend the $11 and see it once, or wait possibly months to buy the DVD - which you can watch over and over at leisure. No trudging through snow-filled parking lots or whatever, screaming kids, sticky seats and so on?
Personally, I divide up movies into two categories: the type I absolutely have to see on the big screen - primarily because of the photography - and the kind that I can or have to wait for. Unfortunately, over the past two years, a lot of the movies that I “absolutely” had to see in a theater I missed. But now that I have a 22-inch widescreen computer screen, I’ve hooked up my TV capture card and I’m watching movies on TV there. Beats the 13-inch TV that I used to use.
Once I move to Toronto, though, and once I can afford it, I’m planning to have both a single larger flat screen (36-42 inches) as well as a computer screen array of 6-8 22-inch screens arranged in a matrix. This will allow me to work on video editing projects with more ease.
Will I stop going to theaters? Not at all. Toronto still has several theatres throughout the city with large or even giant screens - just like every movie theater used to have. There is also the IMAX monster screen at Ontario Place by Lake Ontario. The question really is, will anyone else be going to a movie theater in, say, 10-20 years? Or will we all have 65-inch screens at home? Or even those tiny mini-projectors that attach to special goggles/ spectacles and present the equivalent of a 65-inch screen right in front of your retina? And if so, how will this affect the standard “dinner and a movie” type of date? Or did those already go out of fashion?
Posted in movie watching 2 Comments »
December 19, 2007
As I’ve mentioned in a few places, I’m heading down a new path which is really part of an old path I once followed. I’m planning to move to Toronto by May or June 2008 so that I can cover the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and other festivals - as soon as I can find an apartment (anyone have one they want to rent to me, preferably a work/live studio?). I’m also hopefully entering film school in Jan 2009 or thereabouts, once I can come up with the life-affecting sum of $30,000 over six semesters. But going to film school will take me down the path I’ve long wanted: filmmaking.
After thinking long and hard for the past few weeks, I’ve found the urge to write about visual media as much as possible, and decided that that’s what I’ll do right here on this blog. That said, I’m planning to cover all sorts of visual media: photography, film, video, Internet video, IPTV, and peripherally-related subjects including the tools of the trade. I’ll be adding a gallery of 3D animations over time and so on.
There will also be movie reviews, though the biggest problem for me right now is that there’s no theater nearby any longer, and not yet having a car means I’m pretty much out of luck for another month or two. So for the present time, I’m going to be writing about a variety of topics related to visual media, and maybe even run a few screencasts showing bloggers how to add visual media to their blogs. So I’m not giving up “how to blog” types of posts just yet.
Posted in visual media No Comments »
December 1, 2007
Earlier this year, you might have seen a post here about what’s it worth to a freelancer to take a full-time job. I’ve said before that money is not the overwhelming factor for me when deciding on a job, that resulting opportunities are far more important.
Having not to long ago remembered one of my original career goals - that of becoming a filmmaker - I decided to apply Goethe’s premise of how the “barriers come down” when you really decide you’re going to do something in particular. (He also said: whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve, which was echoed by other writers in later years.) I started writing about this personal dream, had my phone interview with a film school in Toronto, got a tentative offer to get involved behind the scenes on a few entertainment sites (including film blogging), and launched a few small partnerships involving entertainment sites.
As part of the transition of career, I’m taking a full-time online job. It’s tentative as of this moment but likely starting Dec 15th. As such, I’m focusing my online efforts like a laser. I’m dropping about 80+ domains and websites, focusing only a few niches, and closing off all my remaining contracts. [I’ll list a bunch of free domains on this site in a separate post soon.]
That means that while I’m no longer officially accepting contracts, I can accept work on a partnership basis with my new employer. However, we’ll be very selective, as I need to minimize niches. Freelance blogging in more than 3-4 niches isn’t impossible, but requires an enormous time commitment weekly, for research.
This really is a necessity for me, if I’m to focus towards entering film school, and doing all the preparations necessary. I will be blogging, but in a reduced capacity while I do other online work behind the scenes. In fact, watch for an announcement of a couple of currently secret projects.
Posted in online careers 2 Comments »
November 10, 2007
That’s probably the question on many bloggers’ minds since Google’s SEO Matt Cutts announced Google’s “snitch on your fellow bloggers just for making a living” project (not really, but that’s my name for it). The idea is that if you see a site selling/ buying links, please snitch on them by filling out some form somewhere on Google’s site. This and the big (but unknown) changes in their pagerank algorithm resulted in over 200,000 websites penalized with a lower pagerank.
Am I pissed? Hell, yeah. None of the links in the nav bar of this site are paid links. So wtf? Why did this site’s rank go down instead of up, considering how many high-PR sites I had links from (all of which got penalized, and almost all of which criticized Google). I did have paid links on some other sites, and Google has impacted my ability to earn some ad revenue - considering it’s taken me over two years to crack $100/month in AdSense, with some of that having to be split with partners. Because I’ve spent so much time freelancing in the past two years, to pay my bills, my sites are neglected and I’m kind of stuck in a loop.
Now, I know my neglect of my sites is my own doing, regardless of my situation. Google and all other search engines for the past 12+ years have been all about page relevance. I was the webmaster for one of the earliest search engines, and my employer sold “relevance” for a while by allowing people to buy positions for various search terms. This predated Google and their AdWords, and the more cynical amongst us probably feel Google is selling “visibility” if not relevance.
But is Google evil? Do they think humanity is evil? It makes me wonder why any company in the world would ever adopt the motto “Don’t be evil” for their employees. That implicitly suggests that they think humanity is evil unless reminded not to be. But why bother? While they’re swallowing up companies, they’re ensuring that most of humanity will never have any influence on the company’s direction. Their share price is at US$700 and has never been split. What average citizen can afford that? Why haven’t they split their share prices at least four or five times, like Microsoft did in the 1990s and no doubt IBM did in the 1980s? All three companies have been criticized for their acquisition trails in consecutive decades. However, when Google buys a company, they don’t hide the application somewhere in a more expensive software package like Microsoft did repeatedly. Instead, Google rebrands and then improves. You have to give them that.
Add to all this the “snitch on colleagues” campaign, and the fact that one of their representatives, SEO Matt Cutts, introduced it so casually on his blog and only answered the questions having easy answers - not the tough questions. Over at Performancing, my friend Ryan Caldwell asked the question: Is Matt Cutts the link nazi?
I think that’s a bit harsh because Matt’s only doing his job, albeit dictated by higher-ups at Google. But considering that most of my blogging colleagues give the same lament about not being able to communicate with Google, not getting a human answer to questions, being kept in the dark about so much of how Google does their business, etc., it makes me wonder if any other company could get away with all this.
Now, the net result of the pagerank and search rank changes this year is that my crappy, mostly image-only sites have shot up in daily pageviews and my more valuable sites are suffering. I hardly think that’s an improvement in terms of search relevance. What do you think?
Posted in online business, link building 1 Comment »
October 17, 2007
You already know that there are in fact people making a living online, some through blogging or related activities. Can you do it too? Say you want to earn $5,000/month through blogging. Is this possible?
Not many traditional writers manage that (other than copywriters and maybe technical writers). However, some tech bloggers reputedly make $3-5K/mth as a full-timer. Unless you score a full-time gig at a top blog already earning revenue, you have only two ways to earn that kind of money from pure blogging.
Problogging
One is to have your own blog that makes $5K/mth in advertising. But how long is that going to take, if ever? Most bloggers will not earn that kind of money from their blog - at least not yet.
The other way is to be a blogger for hire. But can you make $5000/mth being paid by the post as a freelancer? I’ve been told that the going rate for a relatively experienced blogger is $20-30/post. Do you know anyone getting that kind of rate? Are you at that level? Other estimates suggest that bloggers get between $5-75 for blog posts and feature articles. That does not include linkbaiting, which can pay more if you have the skills, the clients, and the network to promote the content.
Back to the for-hire option. Let’s use $25 for a quick calculation, but let’s work backwards. If you want to earn $5000/mth with 20 days of work (so that you’re not slaving 7 days per week), then you need to earn $250/day.
At $25/post, if you can get it, you would have to write 10 posts per day of at least 400 words each, maybe more.
Believe me, you simply cannot keep up such a pace. I used to write up to 25 posts/day in 2006, but it was gruelling, and my quality slipped. You have to factor in research, revisions, distractions, low-productivity and low-creativity days and personal tasks. And even then, you really have to know your topic. If you split up those 10 posts/day into 2-3 different topics, you then need to be on top of them. That’s a lot of research.
A Safer Approach
So how then can you earn $5K/mth online? This is merely my advice, but I suggest a mix of strategies:
- Invest in yourself: build your brand. While you’re still building up your client list, build your own blogs. Focus on no more than two or three. One should be your personal but professional blog - possibly using your name - which highlights your skills and topics of interest. Prove your authority in them by writing at least once per week.
- Build your money blog. Have a niche blog in a topic that interests you and work on monetizing it. This blog will take time, but could earn you a nice side income in a year or three.
- Hire yourself out. Check for writing/ blogging gigs at Performancing Jobs, Problogger Jobs, Freelance Writing Gigs, or wherever else you prefer to frequent.
- Be a guest writer. Build up your profile (and backlinks) by writing guest posts (usually free) for as many high-profile sites as you can manage to find time for. This will be key for the next step.
- Sell yourself. You should always try for multiple streams of income, not just pure blogging or ad income. As Brian Clark says in his new free Teaching Sells report, you should not rely on earning a living blogging just for Google. Only having AdSense on your “money” blog isn’t enough, nor is blogging for hire. The real money online always has been and probably always will be from teaching something that someone out there wants to learn.
If you can build yourself up as an authority on something, this can be the most lucrative facet of your online career. The topic depends on your own skillsets. The format might be ebooks, podcasts, videos, low-circulation e-newsletters, subscription services, CDs/ DVDs, print books, workshops or something else yet to come.
Read Yaro Starak’s articles The Sales Funnel Explained and Moving the Free Line for some great advice in this regard.
Summary
While there is a concern that small online publishers might bite the dust because of ad blocking, for the present, more blog publishers are paying higher per post rates than in 2006. Some do it because they can, others because they feel they have to. And rates will likely rise.
Some blog publishers are even offering a % of net revenue. You get a low monthly flat rate to tide you over, and you have to take an active, long-term role in a blog or blog network. If you have the time, it can pay off enormously. Some bloggers are earning $4-5K/mth this way. The number of these opportunities might increase over the years. But if you can’t wait to find out, or can’t afford to invest all your time on the promise of a big return later, the above strategy is my advice.
Posted in writing, online careers, productivity, freelancing 7 Comments »
October 16, 2007
Depends on perspective, right? Not really, it’s bloody simple. Ad blockers are harmful because they
- steal potential revenue from publishers.
- steal potential sales from advertisers
- ultimately put both small publishers and small advertisers out of business, leaving the person ad-blocking with less quality content choices.
Traditional publishers are already in danger, unless they adapt. Now, there are a lot of good bloggers I’ve come across who are on the verge of quitting. That means we all get cheated out of good content in the long run.
Consider this: a guy I knew, who worked for a large book publisher, told me back in the mid 1990s that many of the best books ever written will never get published because there’s no financial benefit for publishers. He spent his own hard-earned money to publish one book per year - a book his employer turned down but allowed him to publish.
Do we want good online content to go unpublished as well? Why should you get free content without expectation of giving something back in return, if just your eyeballs for, say, a banner ad?
So think twice before you ad block, lest we be left with blog spam and ancient scraped content.
In the meantime, bloggers should consider the advice of Brian Clark (Copyblogger), in his new free report, Teaching Sells (MP3 and PDF forms). I’ve listened to the MP3 three times today, while I blog. It’s worth every minute - especially if you’re fearful that readers will ultimately all block out the ads on your site, and that your freelance income will continue to ebb and flow. You can have a career online but it shouldn’t wholly reliant on a few cents per ad click.
Posted in revenue, online careers, freelancing No Comments »
October 16, 2007
The oncoming cold weather of late Fall affects me in ways most bloggers don’t have to deal with. For me it means my thyroid acts up and affects everything I do, including my blogging. It means being behind on all my blog reading, not to mention my writing and the goings on in the blogosphere. It also forces me into the position of sometimes being a copycat blogger, perpetually writing about a topic others have already covered, and occasionally getting the details wrong due to poor short-term memory. But the copycat part comes from an earlier incorrect shift in thinking. Read on and hopefully you’ll see what I mean.
Blog Action Day and the Environment
I’ve missed out on some important blogosphere events lately. One is Blog Action Day (BAD), where bloggers write about the environment. It’s a very honorable cause about a subject that affects us all: the health of Earth’s ecosystem. But that is not what I’m doing in this post. Not quite.
My favorite BAD post of those I’ve read so far is Brian Clark’s The Butterfly Effect at Copyblogger, and how little changes caused by us can affect the environment. The concept is an application of of Chaos Theory and “strange attractors”.
Brian very succinctly and beautifully covers some concepts that have been dear to me for a long time. I’ve been talking about Chaos Theory, the Butterfly Effect and Quantum Mechanics since 1989, but most especially in the mid 1990s. My old monthly print magazine, Chaos Review, was an attempt to discuss Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect in a more accessible manner, with a sugar coating of music, film/TV and book reviews thrown in.
Recognizing Your Passion
“Chaos” was not a household word in 1993, and even my good friends and acquaintances laughed at me. As Brian pointed out, the Butterfly Effect concept essentially suggests that small actions upon the environment taken by someone in one locale could have a cumulative or amplified negative impact somewhere else in the world.
This is why I believe that we could be in for some major environmental impacts in the decades to come. I say that from a theoretical math viewpoint, not from a political viewpoint.
But I had a tough time selling this idea to my friends back then. My problem? I made the mistake of discussing it in person, and with people who weren’t really receptive in the first place. That’s something you need to understand fundamentally about blogging: you’re blogging for those who might be interested, not for the readers who think they know everything or don’t care.
While I did write about the Butterfly Effect in my Chaos Review magazine (and other regional papers), one small-circulation monthly rag was not going to make a difference - even though copies of my mag found their way to the USA, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, from Canada.
My missed opportunity was not sticking with the topic, and not recognizing the Internet for what it was: the perfect vehicle for ideas - even supposedly crackpot ones. And the irony was that I’d even been a search engine webmaster and was a web programmer/ consultant. And I still couldn’t see the opportunity, blinded by my emotional reactions and other more personal factors.
Sometimes, the answer is staring you in the face. Nevertheless, by the time I started blogging in 2002, I’d left Chaos Theory behind and gone back to my old study of personal goal achievement, writing about it for my first blog. That didn’t last long because my thought was “who wants to read this stuff online?” My mistake. I’d spent many years helping people set and achieve goals, but missed the opportunity to be an authority online. Look how well Steve Pavlina and others have done with that niche on their blogs.
Realization or Lost Opportunity?
Once again, my big mistake: not recognizing an oportunity with something I was passionate about, and thus not sticking to it.
Are you recognizing a pattern here? Do you suffer from non-stick blogging? Do you flit like a butterfly but not sting like a bee?
I let external influences affect me - other people’s personal reactions. But my passion didn’t dissipate; it went into hiding. And this is something that I very much hope that you do not allow to happen to you.
Out of these lessons, I’ve learned a few things very relevant to blogging:
- Your friends can disagree with you and you can still be right.
- Do not let their disagreement put a dent in your passion, even if they’re a good friend. (Unless of course you’re a nut intent on hurting people.)
- Emotion can blind you to opportunities.
- Reactions to the same words in print can be drastically different than reaction to those words verbally.
- If you’re passionate about something, your writing “voice” will reflect it, and those receptive to it will find you.
Conclusion
Those last two points are particularly important. People aren’t always receptive to dense concepts in person. The same information in writing gives them the option to choose time and place. And if you have passion and your “voice” is true, you’ll have supporters - and possibly detractors far nastier than your friends; emotional vampires bent on making others miserable like themselves.
Ignore the vampires; focus on the passion. Share your unique viewpoint on your chosen topic. In a mass of about a billion Internet users, your future supporters will find you and your passion.
Unless of course you tuck your tail, give up your passion, and start yet another blog about X, parroting what everyone is already saying - a blog sin I’ve committed many times.
So would you rather blog about something dear to you or be a copycat blogger? Your passion play is lurking within you. Find it, let it out.
Posted in writing, online careers, productivity No Comments »
October 11, 2007
If you blog long enough, the thought of creating a blog network will probably cross your mind. That is, if you succeed in building one reasonably successful blog, or tire of freelance blogging. But it’s not something I suggest doing on your own.
For a while now, the thought of a team effort for building blogs has crossed my mind multiple times. A good Blogger or three, one Editor in Chief (EIC) for planning and vision, a Designer for the graphic branding work, and an SEO/ SEM/ SMM for optimization, analysis and promotion.
Makes sense, right? Magazines, for example, are produced every month by a team. But a website or blog is not a magazine. Can this team approach work for websites? Can they work for blogs? I believe they can, though this does not mean I’m advocating that each person has an equal say in every issue that arises. That is, don’t let the SEO make suggestions about design - unless they actually have design experience. And vice versa for the Designer.
So what is Seth Godin saying about creating a great website? He gives 10 tips for building websites, and the first one says don’t work by committee. (Also check out his article How to create a good enough website.)
Structured Roles
I’d have to agree with him on this, but I won’t get into details. His suggestions do not clash with what I’m saying. I’m talking about a team-based approach with distinct roles and no micro-management.
The ideal EIC is someone who has blogging experience - a Blogger in Chief. The ideal bloggers for a team are those with a bit of experience and loads of passion, whose work can be improved by the EIC/BIC.
The Designer would likely have a lesser role, as would an SEO. If however, you were launching a blog network, you then end up with a traditional hierarchy:
- The Designer and SEO/SMM can now probably be employed full-time or half-time.
- Each channel (cluster of related sites) would have a Channel Editor, which is more a guide/ editor than EIC/BIC.
- Each blog would have however many writers are necessary.
- The entire network would be overseen by a single visionary, though it might have more than one partner who has some say.
So each role is neatly compartmentalized, just like for a magazine. But everyone works as a team, not as a committee. However, you might have virtual Bullpen sessions where you brainstorm, using collaborative tools (Mercury Grove, Basecamp, Campfire, Comapping).
Will it Work?
This is in fact very similar to the way a number of blog projects are being run that I’ve been asked to be involved in. I can’t claim to know how some of the exiting networks are run, so for me, it’ll be interesting to see whether this model can work.
What’s possibly further unique is that everyone that is involved long-term will eventually get a share, though it’ll be done in a tiered fashion. Writers will get a flat monthly rate plus X% of net monthly revenue. The channel editor or editor (as the case may be) will get a flat rate and Y% of what’s left each month, after their own flat rate and payments to writers. Finally whomever is at the top of tiers will similarly be compensated.
This is unlike anything I’ve enountered in the offline world, but it does build upon profit-sharing models that some businesses have been following for years.
Posted in online careers, online business, website development 1 Comment »
October 7, 2007
Dee Barizo has an excellent article at Net Business Blog about Link Building, but it’s also filled with advice about networking with your up and coming blogging peers.
Dee emphasizes what I’ve been saying for a while: link building and web traffic take time to build. My feeling is that if you don’t have passion for the topic, it’ll show in your writing, and thus the traffic will never come. (Guilty, in the past, but I’m one of those weird “generalists” that can get passionate about many topics, serially.)
That’s also true if you don’t devote the time for consistent posting. Again, guilty, since I promised myself I’d post at least once per week here, but have slipped a few times. When I post, my RSS subscriptions go up significantly. When I don’t, well… they go down of course.
Towards the end of Dee’s article, he points out what I think is the most valuable advice in there: You’ll have a tough time getting noticed by the current A-C-list bloggers, so network with other up and coming bloggers like yourself. Some of you will someday move up the ranks. Best to build relationships now. This is what will lead you to pulling in a reasonable income on just a few hours work per week, like Yaro Starak.
Posted in online careers, link building, networking No Comments »
October 7, 2007
Nova Spivack’s definition of Web 3.0 as being a decade (2010-2020) of web technologies is, I think, probably a better one than something nebulous and open to interpretation - such as Web 2.0, which Tim O’Reilly defined but which most people just interpret for themselves. Nova defines Web 3.0 as being the set of technologies we’ll see on the Web from the decade 2010-2020. (Shouldn’t that be 2010-2019?) And it’ll bring lots of fascinating tools and platforms.
On the other hand, if it’s just whatever technology we’re currently using online in a given decade, then why “version” the web?
Well, I’ve been using public networks since the 80s, so I don’t really think of “versions” of the Web unless forced to. But it is easier to say “Web 3.0″ instead of “the Web technologies that were introduced from 2010 to 2020.” It also means that a version number won’t be appropriated to define some specific technology, or misinterpreted like Web 2.0 has been.
Web 2.0 is simultaneously “the social Web” and applications using AJAX or other backends and RIA (Rich Internet Application) front ends. But it is other things to other people now.
Web 3.0, according to Nova’s diagram, includes mashups (such as Yahoo Pipes, which I love), Widgets (which I don’t use), Semantic Search, Semantic Databases, and more.
This does mean that I have to stop calling the Semantic Web “Web 3.0″. As Nova points out, they are not the same. The Semantic Web will also no doubt play a big role in Web 4.0 (2020-2030), but most of the tools and platforms are expected to be released next decade.
If you’re interested in reading more, go check out Nova’s article and see his great graph of Web 3.0 and other technologies plotted on a timeline.
What I see, personally, is a larger integration of the Mobile Web (Mobile 2.0) with the “regular” Web - both in terms of tools and platforms.
Posted in tools, website development No Comments »
