More and more examples seem to be coming out of the woodwork every day ...last week or so Hugh Macleod introduced us to a bespoke tailor who's blogging, and now my friend Rob Paterson introduces us to the design world's initiation into blogging.
January 27, 2005
Design and Blogging
More on small business and how the blog will connect it to the consumer. The New York Times today heralded the use of blogs to link designers directly to consumers.
The revolution in small business using blogging is accelerating.
"Now that blogs, or Web journals, influence just about everything from politics to technology news, they are starting to transform the once clubby design community. On design blogs, readers who are normally not privy to chatter among interior decorators and tastemakers can participate in debates on burning topics (sample: Is the designer Karim Rashid overrated?); get advance word on design trends, like erotic stained glass; and find answers to practical issues, such as how to quiet an obnoxiously loud apartment buzzer. These tips and tidbits are sometimes dispensed by bloggers who support themselves with day jobs within the design industry.
Sara Antunovich, 24, said she turned to blogs for furnishing ideas when she moved from Chicago to Brooklyn last summer. "I trust bloggers," she said. "They're just normal people walking around saying, 'This is cool.' "
As design blogs proliferate and develop loyal followers the sites are forcing the established shelter and design publications to take notice. "As an editor, I can't see everything all the time," said Amara Holstein, an associate editor at Dwell, the design magazine. "Blogs provide me with what's new."
For designers trying to gain a foothold in a competitive market, blogs are a direct and usually free route to potential customers, and one that bypasses the usual middleman: retailers.
Last year, Greg Blonder, 49, a furniture designer in Summit, N.J., was looking for ways to sell a table he created that can be configured into various modern shapes. So he sent an e-mail to Harry Wakefield, who runs a design blog called MoCo Loco (www.mocoloco.com) from his home in Montreal. After Mr. Wakefield posted a note about Mr. Blonder's Talus Table, which retails for $1,800, traffic to his Web site spiked from 50 visitors a day to more than 4,000. One inquiry converted to a sale. "For a higher-end designer like me, it's a big deal," Mr. Blonder said.
Like many sites in the expanding blogosphere those focusing on design can become a habit, drawing visitors back to read posts that are added throughout the day."
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Monday, January 31
Small Business, Design, Craft and Blogging
by
jonh
on January 31, 2005 08:35PM (PST)
Sunday, January 30
Blogs, Things your Passionate About and AdSense
by
fred
on January 30, 2005 05:09PM (PST)
Most of us, whether we recognize it or not, have a passion about something. Now that expertise has a place to go. Bit by bit over the past 10 years, the Web has erected a global platform for personal wisdom. Services like AdSense—along with other advertising outfits, including one called Blogads, which focuses exclusively on blogs—are simply the final plank. You can now compose, design, publish, promote, and make money from your writing without ever leaving your desk. Steven Berlin Johnson author of "Emergence: Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software." writes about using AdSense in your blog in the current issue of Discovery. The title is "This is not a dream: You can make a chunk of change by writing a Web log" Read the article here: Emerging Technology - Discover Magazine - science
Johnson says:
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Building traffic to your blog
by
Tris Hussey
on January 30, 2005 12:25PM (PST)
I will not claim to be the definitive source on this, but in the almost a year that I've been blogging, I've picked up some pointers--they aren't tricks, they are techniques, almost etiquette--on how to start building more and more and better and better traffic on your blog. One part of building traffic is linking to others--even your competitors--so in the spirit of this at the end of this post are some folks who have great things to say about building traffic, or brands, or just plain old good advice. If you've started a blog, and you can track the traffic statistics for it, (Blogware does this well), you might be wondering where everybody is. ProBloggers and Blog Consultants all say that "blogs are search engine magnets" and they are, but. There is always a but. But first you have to make sure that your blog is "pinging" the blog indices and engines when you have a new post. If you're using Blogger, Typepad, or Blogware this means making sure the check-box or radio button "This is a public blog" (or the like) is checked. This is done, often, when you set up a blog, but if you want to be sure, it's in the settings of your blog's administration panel. Okay, great, you're pinging. What's next. Now submit your webfeed (RSS or Atom) to the search engines proactively. I do this with Thomas Korte' FeedSubmitter. It's easy, web-based, and free. Wait, what's a webfeed? Okay on most blogs it is put there automatically. It is usually textually represented as "Syndicate this site" (or the like) or with a little orange button. Blogger is a little odd. Your feed might be automatically be created but they still don't make it drop-dead easy to add that link to your site. Now we have the basics down, let's move onto the fun stuff--the writing. To generate traffic to your blog you have to write. A lot. Try for at least three to four times a week as a start. I am currently doing over two posts a day (I have a little bet going on right now). Why does writing and posting more bring more traffic? Because by writing more, the search engines visit more and the better the chance that something you wrote will get picked up in someone's search for information. Really it almost becomes a statistics thing at some level. There is one extremely important part about writing. You need to link to other people. Blogging is fundamentally about connections, networks, relationships (the Wirearchy concept). When you see an interesting article on someone's blog, blog it. Talk about the post. Agree? Disagree? Have more personal insight? Just write it out. And have fun with it. So now you might be wondering, but where will I find these blogs? Start with a Google search on your topic(s) of interest. The stuff you want to blog about. Read those people who come up. Read the comments. Follow the trackback links (who has already linked to the article). You're quickly going to find yourself in need of a news aggregator. On Windows I recommend Lektora or Bloglines. Macs, Bloglines or NetNewsWire. Aggregators let you keep up with the blogs that you find interesting. I, personally, track 379 feeds. Not all are blogs, some are news sources, some are feeds from Flickr, others are just silly and fun. The end result, though, is that I have plenty of fodder for my posts/articles (my paid and unpaid). What linking does is create those trackbacks from the original author's site to yours. Many bloggers visit all the sites that trackback to them (I do). I also often send a personal e-mail or leave a comment thanking them for the link. This is a good habit to be in. It builds connections and you never know what cool friends you'll make. Let's recap quickly. You're:
Now, I alluded to this above. Connect with the people who's writing you enjoy. Leave a (nice or constructive) comment on their site. Don't do it anonymously, leave your name and URL. Thank people for linking to you and leaving comments. In essence, build relationships with the potential traffic influencers. This is not sucking up. This is letting people who are established in your niche know you're out there. You, very likely, have important things to say. Someone will get something out of what you're writing, if nothing else a link to something interesting that they didn't know about before. So how long will it take? This is hard to say. If you write a killer post that gets linked to by someone like Scoble, well, your traffic will explode overnight. Otherwise, it will be a slow and steady increase over time. My other professional blog doesn't get huge amounts of traffic. I think it's respectable and growing. Now, for a bit of product pitch (I purposely saved it for last). We developed Qumana to make the process of writing a blog post so easy that you can doing almost unconsciously. Having a tool that lets you post to your blog easily, check the spelling, save it for later, add multimedia like images or MP3s for podcasts, easily link to others, makes it all come together. If you're interested. Well, I invite you to join a little beta program we have going for a new and very, very easy version of Qumana. Please e-mail me if you're interested. It's free and works will all the major--and many minor--blogging platforms. End product spiel. I'll sum up my advice:
I hope this article has helped you and you have thoughts or comments, please leave them here. If you leave a link to your website or e-mail I will, I promise, contact you. Finally below is a list (longer now than when I started writing this!) of must-read blogs and articles. See? Linking. Reading. Got it? Great.
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Saturday, January 29
What is the buzz about tags?
by
fred
on January 29, 2005 02:19PM (PST)
One of the designers at Technorati talks about his perspective on tags. A very interesting read.
Source link: Powazek Just a Thought Searching vs. Browsing Powered By Qumana
The State of Analyst Weblogs
by
fred
on January 29, 2005 12:06PM (PST)
Below are excerpts from an interesting two part piece by Tekrati, The State of Analyst Weblogs, Part 1, investigating how the various analyst firms are adopting blogs in their business models.
Read the full report. This report represents what is happening or going to happen in many different industries. Blogs are simply changing the way we work. There are creating an entirely new environment for developing and communicating knowledge and information to both large and small audiences. Source link: Special Report The State of Analyst Weblogs Powered By Qumana
Friday, January 28
1 part blog, 1 part opinion, stir...passionate reactions
by
Tris Hussey
on January 28, 2005 08:57PM (PST)
 From: smallbusinessbranding blog - small business marketing: Smart Blogging Babe Says Start Pissin'em Off Here's the idea. Blog passionately. Blog about what you're excited about. And blog to stir up some controversy. Not the kind of controversy that brings negative press, but something that gets people thinking. Well that's what Kathy Sierra says. Here are a couple good quotes from her:
Nobody attracted attention by playing it safe. Marketing, especially for small businesses, is about risk. You're taking a risk being a small business. Take a risk in your blogging. Maybe challenge the conventional wisdom in your industry. You might find that you have allies. You might find people link to you--and then visit your website to learn more about you--just because you're saying something interesting, challenging and thought provoking. Go ahead, stir it up. You never know what might rise to the top. Thursday, January 27
Qumana and professional blogging
by
Tris Hussey
on January 27, 2005 02:50PM (PST)
In addition to my role as Qumana product manager, I am a consultant in my own right. In fact, I am a new breed of consultant--I'm a professional blogger. I am one of the Founding 20 members of the Professional Bloggers Association and on its executive board. So, what do I do as a "professional blogger". Essentially I write and help others to do the same. The only difference is that this writing is posted to a blog instead of a newspaper or magazine. Specifically I help clients in two ways. First, I write content, preferably as me for transparency reasons, for their blogs. The idea is that I start adding the content that attracts visitors and search engines while they work on their style and voice. This reduces the pressure of staring at a blank page and worrying that after the first "hey we're blogging" post there isn't any other content coming. Second, I consult with them on blogging in general--how to pick the right platform to blog on, customization, monetizing, writing, and (moral) support. Who do I write for? Well here's the list of public sites that I write for semi-regularly.
That's a lot of writing. Those are a lot of different blogs and represent six different blogging platforms (Typepad, Blogware, .Text, WordPress, Drupal, and Blogger). So, first, how do I find the content? At last count I check 366 webfeeds. Most are blogs, some are news sources (CNET, eWeek, Internet News ,NYT, etc), and I have a few Flickr feeds in there too (you have to have some fun!). I use Lektora (Windows only right now, buy Jeff says he's working on a OSX version). I've tried a lot of feed aggregators. For me I need two things, skimability and savable searches that really work. Lektora does this for me. I've shaved at least 30 minutes off my morning news reading time using Lektora. It works within Firefox or IE as a browser window. It's free during this beta period and I really encourage you to check it out. Disclosure: I am not getting paid by Lektora, I just really like it and like to encourage young Canadian software developers and companies. Now, the writing. Okay so I have content from 366 feeds, how do I get it onto all these blogs? One word: Qumana. Here within our small Qumana team I am the most active (prolific?) blogger and publish to the most places. I've been using Q--as we like to call it--as my primary blogging tool for nearly six months. Let me tell you it's come a long way from the first version and Graham, our programmer, has some even cooler things up his sleeve that I can't talk about yet. So how does Q help me? Integral to Q is the DropPad. With most offline editors it's like bloggis interruptus. Stop, blog, continue. With the DropPad I drag and drop a URL from the address bar to it, then maybe a couple quotes from the page, maybe an image too. If I drop a file from my local drive (a picture, PDF, Word doc, whatever) Qumana handles the uploading to my choice of my blogs. I have a dozen, easy, blogs already configured to publish to and Qumana handles them with ease and grace. Okay you say, other clients can do drag and drop. Yeah, but can you store those bits for later? Items dropped into the DropPad go into the WorkPad in the main Qumana application. From the WorkPad you can reorder them, add a new HTML-based item, or just click the Compose button and everything in the WorkPad is put into a fully functional, WYSIWYG editor (with spell check!). Now, if you don't want all that stuff on the WorkPad to go into the post now, drag into a folder in the searchable Library. I use the Library for the umpteen links to careers pages I need for the jobs blogs above. Once you've written your content you can save it for later and it goes into the Library or publish it right away. Here's the best part. Have a few blogs to publish to? Once you've added them to the publishers list, you just select them from the pull-down menu and hit Post again. During the Blog Business Summit I wrote an article once and published to four blogs (two Blogware, one Blogger, and one WP) in just a couple minutes (you have to figure for Internet traffic). So as a professional blogger this lets me focus on writing in a word processor-like interface and then just save and republish as needed. For the jobs blogs sometimes one article is appropriate for more than one blog. I don't have to copy and paste the content from one browser window to another, I just select the next blog and post. It's really that easy. Honestly, without Qumana I couldn't write for all these blogs on all these platforms without pulling out my hair and screaming. Adding Lektora to the mix has now just made my life much more efficient. Ready to try it? Download Qumana and request a 30-day registration key. Now, if you'd like to try something a little different we've been working on a version that doesn't have the library, but still has the DropPad and some improvements in the editor. If you would like to try that one, it's in an alpha/beta testing slash prototyping period right now so its free. I'm not going to put the link here, but if you're interested in this scaled-down version (that is no WorkPad or Library, but still with the DropPad, WYSIWYG editor and multiple publishing destinations) e-mail me. So these are a couple of the secrets to professional blogging--having great tools. The other secret is that you have to write and write and keep writing. Give it a whirl. If you're interested in Pro Blogging as a career you can e-mail me about that too.
Tuesday, January 25
Blog Business Summit Day 2
by
Tris Hussey
on January 25, 2005 01:51PM (PST)
Wow, what a morning. Because I couldn't get online last night after dinner I had to catch up on work during the morning sessions. So instead of trying to rehash other people's stuff go toBlog Business Summit and check out the other folks blogging today. I will say that the discussion around corporate blogging with Scoble's boss Lenn Pryor and Matthew Oliphant (from what I listened to) was very good. Listening to Pete Blackshaw is always interesting, I think, the Intelliseek blog tracking tools are cool. No, not as good as Feedster, PubSub, etc...they are different. The other interesting part of all this is whole Flickr thing going on. Here is the main set of photos:Flickr- Photos tagged with bbs05. And a couple with me in them:Tris and Jacob on Flickr - Photo Sharing! -- Blog Summit Monday Night 012 on Flickr Monday, January 24
Stowe Boyd and Halley Suitt: The Art and Science of Blog Writing
by
Tris Hussey
on January 24, 2005 05:41PM (PST)
This is going to be great. Two great writers talking about writing. Let it roll... Halley's tips and points:
Halley holds up Mena Trott's blog Mena's Corner as a great example of a great blog writer as well as Biz Stone of Google. Halley said that the more she writes, the better she writes and man I can agree with that! If you want to blog well, blog a lot. Just write, write, write. Stowe Boyd, True Voice. "put yourself in first person, in front of the story". Again, be passionate. Have an opinion and express it... Blogging is a social media... the conversations that go on, the interactions that are important. The social aspect is critical to developing good blog writing. It is the conversation, the comments that help you refine, refresh and improve your writing. It's you and your audience. [Man...that's heavy]. Read, then write...Okay I started out this way. I broke all the rules. I started blogging before I really read any blog. But now with 340+ feeds...I have to read to have anything to actually write about. Authenticity & Authority...keep writing what you know and learn more Draw a line...have your line. Have your limits and know when something is important and stand firm. Scribble, scribble, scribble...write and write and write a lot. On editing posts...unless you're fixing something like a bad image or the like, don't edit. Yeah, that's hard, but yeah. Keep it. I update a post, but keep the old and just say updated or something. But keep the original. Follow up posts are good. And yeah we all have typos and spelling errors. That just makes it more real doesn't it? Aggregators...Halley doesn't use them Stowe does. Boy do I. I am trying to develop more and more the skills and brain focus to be a gister. The large funnel coming down to a few tidbits. The conversation on aggregating and editing, correcting, and linking back to the original source. The conversation, the dialog. This is the key. This is the power of blogging, the power of the medium. Humour, having the sense of humour is maybe that special ingredient that pulls it all together. Halley writes her funniest, sexiest stuff for Monday mornings. Boy do I have something to look forward to next week! And the last bit of advice...know when not to publish...so you maybe that flame war doesn't become flame Armageddon. Powered By Qumana
Picking a Platform- Blogging Engines Compared
by
Tris Hussey
on January 24, 2005 04:20PM (PST)
Okay DL Byron and Molly Holzschlag are talking about choosing a blog engine. Their presentation is good, the audience feedback and commentary is almost more interesting than the talk itself--a truly bloggy experience--the presentation is below. So what should you use? There isn't an easy answer, but really here's my advice and it's a continuum. Start with Blogger. Get your feet wet. Get into blogging. Have fun and develop your voice. Then, once you want to get into other fun things like trackbacks and categories move to... Blogware. Blogware lets you import Blogger entries. I did this and it was pretty painless--yes, I am a techie, but the step-by-step instructions are clear. It supports so much that you might just stop there. I think for most blog users there are all the features you need. For the next level... Drupal/Bryght: This is for power users or people who want to build a complete, dynamic site that also has a blog. Molly is big on WP, I think Byron is an MT guy. I've tried almost all of them now and I'll still go with the three above. Powered By Qumana
Since Scoble talked....
by
Tris Hussey
on January 24, 2005 02:54PM (PST)
Wow, what a morning! Since Scoble gave his great keynote lot's of folks have given fun and interesting talks. Marc Canter and Chris Pirillo gave a fun talk. A good bit off topic, but man was it interesting. Not any huge thing to talk about, except the Marc has some very interesting ideas for digital lifestyle aggregator and Chris says Google AdSense can make you money if you do it right. Next was Molly Holzschlag. Her talk was really about building traffic. It deserves a post of its own, and shall have it, but later. Bottom line she had great advice for starting a blog--and if you have a blog--so I'll give her the space she deserves. Then was lunch and I by happen stance to run into a new client. Then I caught the Corante Get Real webcast hosted by Stowe Boyd and Scoble and the guy doing Beercasting (and I'm sorry I can't remember your name) on problogging. Just fun to be there and listen. I did introduce myself to Stowe (who will be at NorthernVoice) and Pete Blackshaw (who I had exchanged e-mails with...and remembered me!). So right now Steve Broback and Glenn Fleishman are talking about monetizing blogs and I'm learning how to use AdWords to see what value there might be in starting a blog on a topic. Glenn is talking about expanding your audience and how to do coverage well. It seems that Google AdSense can make you money, but it seems to me that there has got to be a trick that I'm not getting (I have recently added Google ads to View from the Isle). Glenn is giving some good examples of different kinds of ads and where he's put them. But it is really about the content. If you don't have good content you won't have readers, no readers, no people to click ads. I waited until my traffic reached a certain threshold before I decided to add Google ads, hopefully it will pay off. Now, below are a bunch of links, some are people mentioned above, others are cool folks who I've just met. Bottom line: No matter what, just being here is fun.
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BBS05: Scoble's keynote
by
Tris Hussey
on January 24, 2005 10:04AM (PST)
Robert Scoble's keynote at Blog Business Summit. Scoble is a great speaker, not great with slides, but a great speaks. He's got a great way to putting things and really down to earth. So here is sort of a play by play of the key note. Okay...I'm not going to flesh this out much. I do an end of the day wrap up and write more--and more logically--later. This is more stream of consciousness. Enjoy! Blogging is a tool Bootstrapping..weblogs.com Dave Winer could read all the updated blogs in a day in the beginning. Now it's impossible. Now the blogsphere has reached the point where without syndication there is no way to keep up. Blogs: Website in a reverse chron order The five reasons of blogging
In the 90's you only watched about 10 sites...syndication allows you to watch more site..."listen to a lot of voices" over two hours of load time alone if you visited 1,000 sites in a night. Scoble: "most passionate people in society are the people who are changing society" The press are watching the passionate people...because the passionate people chose it. Think about that. So don't tone down your passion, passion is the key! Results and ROI
Influence
Blogging fears...get over the fear, just write! Being provocative is a great way to drive traffic. We love good stories...Blogs are good stories. Conflict, conflict is exciting and energizing. Attention overload
And so it ends...and on time! Powered by Qumana
Saturday, January 22
Blog Business Summit in a little over a day
by
Tris Hussey
on January 22, 2005 08:45PM (PST)
The Blog Business Summit 2005 starts Monday morning and I'll be there. Steve Broback, who is organizing the event (and a fellow member of the Professional Bloggers Association), hopes to have a WiFi network running so I'll be blogging from the meetings as they take place. The members of the PBA who are there will be getting together tomorrow night for dinner. So maybe I'll be able to get some pictures posted too. If you're going to be there too...I hope to see you there! Thursday, January 20
Writing Optimized Press Releases for Search Engines
by
fred
on January 20, 2005 01:21PM (PST)
Search engine optimization is a hot topic these days and for good reason. That's how we find the things that we are looking for on the Web. The article below contains good practical advice on how to be found. This article refers specifically to press releases, but it also applies to websites and blog posts just as well.
Read the article here: Room 2Blog Writing Optimized Press Releases Powered By Qumana
Monday, January 17
A perspective form the financial markets on blogging
by
fred
on January 17, 2005 09:36AM (PST)
It's clear to me that on lot of pieces will be moving around the blogging chess board this year. Trader Mike has a view from the financial markets that is worth noting. And this is only the beginning.
Source link: Trader Mike Powered By Qumana
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