Is it Thursday already? Have I leaked enough link love yet?
How about these three - all worth a read
Liz Strauss counts 10 Reasons Readers Don't Leave Comments
Angelo Racoma gives another perspective about Bloggers Unionizing
and Carolyn Manning educates with Thoughts on Mental Health, Addiction, You, And Me.
A little link love never hurts especially when on a search for more blogging material, blogging lessons, ideas to throw around or just good will. So here are my links to love today:
My favorite thing to think when I want to reassure myself that I'm at least a little bit semi-officially geeky is that I understand RSS.
Well, I don't really understand how it happens but I understand that it only comes to me when I want it to.
I guess it's a control issue.
And I officially know that I read RSS feeds. W00t! <- saying that is supposed to make me look geeky too
This is all even better for my self-esteem because so many people who get info via RSS don't know they are. Various sources say anyplace from 50 to 83 percent of users had no clue that they were reading a feed.
I blame Google & My Yahoo! for this cluelessness. They both make it possible to get the content you want without knowing anything about the RSS feeds. Ha; And it's not even cheating!
Just the idea that so many aren’t aware they’re using RSS means that the technology has passed from geekdome to real-world usage. All the better for online publishers. <- geeky name for people like me who write blogs and stuff
Wnat to be semi-officially geeky too? Read my RSS Guide for the Clueless here without being intimidated for even a minute!
Of course I'd love to have you visit the blog so you can see all the goodies here but if you'd like to get the content in a reader pick your favorite at this link and you'll get the Asylum posts all "fed" to you fresh out of the oven
Note: The RSS users who actually understand the technology are mostly guys (78%) and almost half have been internet users for close to fifteen years.
But even in the group that didn't understand that they were reading a feed it doesn't necessarily break down along lines of sex. Over half of those were male and over a third were longtime Internet users. Bwahaha guys!
You have got to be kidding me. Tonight as the month closed out I took a look at the blog readership. Good thing I was sitting down.
It's either a fluke or a bunch of really nice twitterers are reading what I'm writing.
All I can say is I love you all!
Now, back to my regularly scheduled random topics.
If you're trying to figure out which colors look good together - hopefully for your blog not your outfit - pop over to the 4096 Color Wheel where you'll also be able to find out if the colors you're using are web safe - which would mean that we could actually see what you've put up for us to see.
Please, no red, blue or yellow against a black background. Oh wait - spare me also the black background with green or pink or orange or . , , ,
Want more readers for your own blog? Working at Home on the Internet's guest writer Lara Kulpa has some great suggestions, pointing out that
". . . getting links, sharing links, spreading links… it can get overwhelming and sound like it’s a ton of work, when in reality, all you need to do is remember a few things . . ."
But is linking out even a good idea? Should you ask for a link in return?
I say yes to the first question and "no way" to asking something in return. Darren Rowse of Probloger is with me on the question of creating outgoing links and says that the strategy has helped his
blogs' popularity because of the benefit to his readers.
"Make your links useful and relevant to the topic and you take another step to producing the kind of blog people will come back to on a daily basis. In the process you might just make a friend or two with those you link up to which is another side benefit of the strategy."
On the same wave length,Liz Strauss of Successful Blog shares Strategy for Relationship Linking while a guest blogger for Rowse. Liz emphasizes continuity, keeping current with relationships you already have.
"Visit and link to the blogs that have been your friends all along. Relationships make for stronger, more relevant links. It’s relationships that will see you through when other links break or fall off. Linking for traffic or for incoming links is a short-term strategy."
For my part, I've made wonderful connections through creating outbound links and have never felt any any hesitation to pass links to those people with interesting things to say, tools I find helpful, or even weird stuff.
I am amazed however when I get one of those emails which pressures me for a "reciprocal" link because someone's blog contains an outbound link to me. It's so old school. As Michael Bluejay wrote in Why your link exchange request failed
"The web is supposed to be about sharing information. I link to sites all the time which I find useful and which I think will be of interest to my readers, without demanding (or usually even asking) that they link back.
"Linking to other high-quality sites increases the value of my own site. I link to these sites because it's good for my readers, not because I'm getting a return link."
Amen. So come on people, share some link love today and pass on the good will! You won't be losing readers by sending them off to other blogs; you'll be building credibility.
You'll also be gaining connections and your readers can't help but notice and appreciate your helpfulness and generosity.
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This is what happens when Monday rolls around and my brain is still on vacation. Or maybe my head's so full of crap it can't begin to let it all out and onto the page.
Are these signs of blog-writing avoidance?
From web2Expo: Word has it that in the ever changing world of the technorati top 100, 88% of those listed are different from the blogs that appeared there a year ago.
This means hope for all of us?
Additionally Darren Rowse of Problogger once crunched the numbers for the top 100 and discovered that:
".. those blogs that I was able to get a figure on had an average length (mean) of blogging of 33.8 months.
The median figure was 28 months (ie half the blogs have been going for longer than 28 months and half shorter than 28 months."
So it may be partly a matter of time - in addition to timing,
Idea: Move up in ranks by:
Chicago Transit Authority's Chair Carole Brown got the inspiration to blog in a bar... "while she waited for a friend in a bar during a CTA funding crisis . . . she was reading on her PDA all the caustic comments about her in an online forum. One person called her the "angel of death."
Carole has lots to blog about just answering questions and giving updates but it can't be easy all the time. So once we get the call to the bloggosphere, how do we best encourage out muse?
Tip: Scan the latest snippets of information that are traveling across and around the world brain maze on Twitter . It's sure to spark thoughts on one of them.
Developing topics brought up elsewhere works for a lot of bloggers but what about getting outside our current boxes?
When looking for ideas I found things I'd never heard of:
And as always there's the must-see Copyblogger with his bottomless bag of tips and insights including this one about Mark Twain's advice to bloggers. There's something for everyone here.
Other resources:
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From the "How did I miss this?" file comes Dave Winer's Scripting News entry dealing with that overriding question: What's a Blog?
I loved every word of it including these highlights:
"People use blogs primarily to discuss one question -- what is a blog? The discussion will continue as long as there are blogs. It's no different from other media, all they ever talk about is what they are."
I see his point. Work-at-homers blog about the process of blogging and working and reading other blogs. Moms blog about parenting . . . and blogs. And artist-bloggers blog their opinions on all sides of the blogger issue, including what constitutes a "real" art blog and whether one or another is too commercial or too naive or too self involved. Oy.
But we're not alone. Dave reminds us that reporters, while decrying bloggers because we do so much talking about other bloggers, but spend their own time talking about other reporters . . . when they're not talking about bloggers.
"In the early days we joked that they were watching us watch them watch us watch them. And so on."
And so it goes. But if anyone is talking about us - or blogging about us - it means someone's paying attention.
Links
- Blogging about Blogs
- Time Magazine
- Wordpress: Blogs about Blogs
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Matthew Stein: When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance and Planetary Survival
Women, Work, and Autoimmune Disease
Great information for those with any illness
Susan Piver: How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life
Opening Your Heart to Confidence, Intimacy, and Joy
Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower
A sweeping history explaining the roots of Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Rod Beckstrom - Ori Brafman: The Starfish and the Spider
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
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