blogging

Seth's Blog: 12 proven ways to get your post to the top of digg

You know, there are a ton of tactics that you can use to increase readership. Plenty of blogs will tell you what they are.

My step-dad gave me a very profound lesson when I was a kid. He lit a cigarette, gave it to me and taught me how to hold it. He showed me how to roll my tongue out the way so it won't get burnt and how to "puff"...Then he took the cigarette and said never to smoke, and I haven't...

Seth Godin kinda said the same thing this weekend when he wrote how to get on Digg's better side. Is it beneficial traffic wise? Sure! Does it help your writing(typing?) technique? No. Most well written blogs fall by the wayside on Digg.

How about Techmeme? This member's only club is doing better. I do see "new" faces occasionally but the problem there is that the top blogs produce so much tech content, everyone else is relegated to the "related" section.

How about Yahoo Buzz? Ha! If you blog about celebrities and babies of celebrities...So it looks like your best choice would be Digg if that's what you're into.

Ok, so you wrote a deep probing post about the interaction between xmpp, linux and python(it could happen!) and besides submitting to the regular places, you feel the need to tell the world. First thing you need to do is re-read your article and find the most exciting part. Make that your title(make sure you put the word"linux"in it).Go to www.digg.com and click submit.Next, write a short desription that'll make them salivate. Then choose the closest subject that matches your creation (Linux would be best). After that show you're human, click the "yes it's original" button and there you have it! Note this will also work for Linux lovin' www.slashdot.com ....

SarahLacy.com: Maybe Blogging Is Just a Loss-Leader?

If you look at SarahLacy.com as a business, the blog isn’t a profit center. It’s my low cost personal PR, lead generation, networking, advertising all rolled in one.

Yes I read Sarah Lacy's blog. No she doesn't just promote her book. Thankfully she's a real tech reporter with great content. She hit the nail on the head today with the excerpt above. Blogging is at it's best when it's used to promote what you really do. I had a podcast that I did every friday discussing the tech work I did during the week. It went well for a while until I realized my low numbers was because the audience I wanted to help never heard of a "Podcast". My music related podcast was a hit on Itunes (Hiphop Bizness) but I wanted to separate myself from that field...
Anyway, if you are a coder, start a blog. Build Websites? Blog about it. Internet company owner? Yes, blog it! Free or cheap promotion is the Web 2.0 way to go. Getting to know your customers this way will give you a direct channel to their needs and wants. Sarah gets it, do you?

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2947888/31520500

My mom used to tell me a story of how when she was a little girl, she was sent to get water. Now she's from North Carolina and at that time sinks inside the house was a luxury. So she sat her bucket down and pulled the lever on the water pump. After a couple of pulls, it goes up and down by itself and fills up the bucket. So she's watching the lever and decides to jump on it for a horsey ride. Well, she does this for a little bit until she slips and the lever in an upswing pops her in the chin. I can't remember if it knocks her out or not but she learned something valuable that day: Don't play with the lever!

I'm not sure people are getting the point in Social Media. I asked Alejandro Reyes( www.successfool.com ) about Robert Scoble and on live video he said he didn't want to talk about him, curious... You would think Scoble is the perfect model to follow for Internet marketing: Be yourself 100% percent of the time. Gain a following and direct them to cool stuff you find interesting...Ohhh no profit making, hmph. Well I'm not too sure about that. After gaining the loyalty of so many tech hungry people, pulling the lever to get something out of it shouldn't be devious in my opinion. This was touched on before once he put ads on his blog. The question not answered though is how can we use these social media tools properly?

I'm certainly not an expert in this space but (wait for it..) I do have some ideas.

1) Use your Followers to work for a company promoting new tech things:
Ok that's not new since that's what Scoble is currently doing...

2) Start your own company working (for profit) with potential developers and test their products with your audience:
I guess this is the rub, since I feel your hard work to get a following, should allow you to be compensated for it in some way.

disqus1, originally uploaded by Solacetech.

Finally, it's 2008 on my website! I've added Disqus so I can encourage more to comment here. What's so good about this? My site comments can be aggregated via rss and trackbacks to this site should be easier. Also it automagically adds video. So if you are brave enough, tell us how you feel in Techie-color!!!

Official announcement regarding my retirement from blogging.

The Jason Calacanis Weblog
Official announcement regarding my retirement from blogging.

"It's with a heavy heart, and much consideration, that today I would like to announce my retirement from blogging."
Jason McCabe Calacanis, July 11th 2008.

He might've made fun of himself here but honestly, I'm Upset! When I entered the social media side of tech, I didn't see anyone I could connect to. The west coast feel was overwhelming and I really felt out place displaying my "Philly" wit. One day though I popped "This Week In Tech" into Miro and I was amazed! Who is this guy giving away FREE info about business, the internet and Social Media? I quickly did some digging and discovered this dude is from NYC! Close enough, his brash personality and business sense was eastcoast but his disarming transparency was 100% west coast. He learned how to adapt to his new situation. So if he could do it, so could I and any cynical, talk fast, city guy. I want to be sucessful online and use my intelligence to benefit my family. I don't want to work for a Tech Company my whole life. I want to successfully own a tech Company. Well Thanx for the years of advice JC. Still visit us on TWIT and Friendfeed though. We still need your help cuz....

http://valleywag.com/5024403/jason-nation-leads-to-resignation
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/07/11/jasons-long-goodbye-give-me-...
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2947888/31122568

(Still Testing Scribefire...) If You look at the right hand side of the pic, you'll notice a widget showcasing http://anzman.blogspot.com/ SEO and Tech Daily by Charlie Anzman. Why would I do that? Well for one he's also from Pennsylvania and 2), He has good articles explaining things in more detail than I. How does this benefit you? You get to click to someone in the same vein as my site but with more experience...
I don't think I benefit at all in this equation except for maybe brownie points (lol). Www.myphillynetwork.com is really about networking and I feel good knowing that's what I'm trying to do. If you have a local website, business or fancy you want to share, feel free to subscribe, register, advertise, I really don't care as long as coming here helps YOU in someway...

Well we'll see how this goes. I saw www.scribefire.com via www.problogger.com . He used it to post about making your blog more comment friendly. When I clicked on the comment box to thank him, it automagically went to his actual site...That was strange since I thought I was already there, I just thought he changed it's look. Tell me if my articles read better from scribefire.

Biella Mountains and a Sunny Field, originally uploaded by angie_real Angela Lobefaro (AWAY).

I really hope www.Flickr.com survives the www.yahoo.com meltdown. You want to know why? I was perusing through the beautiful photos online and noticed I can blog about any pic made public. O rly??? This is so cool. Anytime I feel the pressure from blogging daily I can just type in a subject and use the picture as inspiration!!!! Is that selfish? Do you have Pics you would like me to showcase? Let me know: solacetech@gmail.com

A famous blogger will probably flip or agree when she reads my comment on her site: http://shegeeks.net/my-blogging-burnout-experience/

"Good to see you back first of all and Second, good points on how to get the fire back. If seems you read points you chose not to follow: Writing a post about anything and writing multiple posts when the the fire is there so when it goes out, your audience isn't aware of it. Mental exercises such as forcing yourself to write puts you in places never seen. Look at Duncan he feels and writes like he's relieved not to write about tech 24/7. It's like getting eye strain from staring at one thing. Sometimes you have to look at the wall, then your finger....Mix it up sometimes :)

Why i stopped the music, originally uploaded by Solacetech.

As i think back, many things have been left "unresolved". Of course i understand the reasons for my actions but maybe it's not that easily discernable from the outside. Last year the third of like 6 websites I made was music based. Not the typical topics but the business of music and music production. I was really excited about this because no one covered the angle I had. As the posts and convos with artists and dj's continued, i lost the love for music. Why would a rapper say yes to promotion but no to a blog? Don't know what that is? Fine, say that then so i can show you. The last straw was after all The work I put into the site, it managed to lock me out somehow. It gave me a reason but by then i was already fed up. I LET IT GO. Then, what blew my mind was a statement from a dj "so how long before you get bored with this one too?" he was talking about my site here. What he said tells me people really don't understand the constant up hill battle content providers have. "BORED"...