Posts Tagged ‘Weblogs’

Red Lights

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

As I was out and about driving this morning, I managed to hit every red stop light on the way. Frustrating? You bet…I was in a hurry.

However, it got me to thinking – there really is nothing wrong with a red light – it’s traffic control. So that got me to thinking about red lights in social media, blogging, programming, web development – you know all the things I am really enjoying in my technology portion of life.

Having a red light in these areas is a time to pause. A time to reflect on what you have learned, what you have shared. Help received, help given. It’s also a time to prepare for the upcoming green light – when you start writing more lines of code with a clearer thought process, write a new blog post after a great reflection or share something great with your community that was shared with you.

Is having a red light in your technology interactions a bad thing? I don’t think so. Is it good when you hit many red lights? Not really. Can you use a few to reorganize your thoughts, processes and gain some clarity about the road in front of you? I bet you can.

What do you think of red lights in your social media interactions, blogging, programming or whatever interactions you have on a daily basis? Good? Bad? Necessary evil?

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Evolution Of A Blogger

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Have you noticed what seems to the traditional evolution of a blogger? If there is such a tradition in such a relatively new area. I have noticed it, and the following seems to be what I have found most commonly.

  1. Free Blog Hosting: Starting out, many sign up for Blogger, Wordpress or some other “free” hosted blog. This gives them a great URL such as http://southplatte.wordpress.org that they can blog on and test the blogging waters out with. There is very little knowledge needed to do this, no hosting to figure out and pay for, no domain name to register or anything else. It also isn’t the best way to brand or build a phenomenal and popular blog, though it can be done.
  2. Commercial Hosted Blog: This is the next step for many bloggers. Registering a domain name, buying a blogger or basic hosting packing from a hosting company. Many times the domain is less than $10USD and the hosting as low as $5USD. Usually a host is found that is blogger friendly – meaning they will have a control panel with a one click installation of Wordpress or some other blogging software. Many time they will have a selection of themes to go with the blog package so users can get a good looking blog without any coding, graphic design or layout knowledge. This works great and there are many blogs that are popular that do just this. Many times in this area users will scour the web finding free themes for their blog – installing many, selecting a few and hoping that the design looks good and works for visitors. They hope and pray that 10,000 other blogs haven’t chosen the same theme, since after all they are trying to set themselves apart, right?
  3. The Custom Blogger: This blogger knows that to stand out they need it all. They need a custom domain name, custom hosting package and a custom design or theme. This blogger sees the value in being who they are, how they are. They also understand they should not have a blog that looks like 10,000 other blogs on the planet if they want to make a name for themselves. This is the blogger that is in it for the long haul, constantly writing, improving and trying new things.

Agree or disagree – leave a comment and discuss it and let’s see what others have to say!

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Do You Comment Just To Comment?

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Blog Comment Form

Blog Comment Form

One of the nice things about blogs is the ability on most of them to allow user interaction in the form of leaving comments on posts. I have done this, as I am sure most anyone who reads this has done as well. The question I pose today is this: Do you comment, just to comment?

The great thing about comments is, you can get a link back to your site. However, is that the only reason you leave a comment? If so, maybe you should re-think your strategy. Simply commenting for the sake of it, or the sake of a link is not only going to hurt you long run, but often times hinder the communication that is attempting to take place on the blog.

Just now I was reading a favorite blog, and had posted a comment earlier. So there I was reading other comments, and getting some brain-food from them, and I started clicking on the comment poster links. I visited probably about 10 different sites, one of which was a student who is currently doing freelance web design while going to school. Hmm….that sounds kind of where I started out at too!

That interaction found me retracing some steps I have taken, thinking of what success and failures I have had and reflecting on how to build into the future. All that from a comment on a blog post? You bet, because I took the time to read the post, comment something of positive value, and read those other positive value comments, and then actually visit the site to get “a look at” the comment poster.

Maybe you will just find another favorite blog to follow, maybe you will have a revelation, maybe you will see nothing of positive value. But if you aren’t truly interacting, following some of the comment poster links, and are just hoping everyone else sees yours, seems like a waste of effort since you aren’t giving any thing of positive value back to the blog poster or comment posters.

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