Tag: blogging

bookmark_borderThe Great Blog Hope?

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An open letter to SixApart.

Dear TypeKey,

You came promising much, the chance to be able to track myself across the comment boxes of the land, the opportunity to build relations and create networks. A unique insight to my self, my habits and passions. Ohh how you have failed me.

Maybe I expected too much, maybe I didn’t really ‘get’ what you are all about, and if that is the case then accept my apologies and my excuses for my apathy. Mind you, you can’t even be bothered to remember me for longer than two weeks so it’s not like you are trying so hard yourself.

Do you treat others this way? Or have you stopped caring altogether? I once thought of you as a saviour, a guiding light, constant and unwavering, through the maze of commenting systems and blogging platforms. Little did I realise you were just an optical illusion, a dazzling artefact that flattered to deceive.

Don’t worry I’ll keep in touch, I’m not abandoning you, I still care. I just wanted to write to make sure you realised my disappointment.

Yours in apathy,

Gordon McLean

For those who are currently wondering what the chuff I’m waffling on about (and let’s be honest, it’s not the first time):

“TypeKey is a free, open system providing you a central identity for posting comments on weblogs and logging into other websites.”

So, to my mind, what this service could (should) do is, for every website I visit that is TypeKey enabled, allow me to generate a list of all the comments I’ve ever made. Alas that doesn’t seem to be the reasoning.

But why not? It’s the one thing ‘missing’ in most blogging stats, and the hardest one to crack, yet there is an API available so why hasn’t anyone risen to this challenge? Are there pitfalls I can’t see? Why isn’t there a tool to do this? There are a plethora of online tools, with more and more focus on blogs then surely this is a ‘must-have’ item??

I’m confused, let-down and wondering if I should take up the baton myself. Except I’m kinda busy at the moment…

Ohhh and apologies for the title, it’s supposed to be a take on the Great White Hope but not sure it works too well.

bookmark_border9rules Network

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Back in April I mentioned that I was going to apply to join the 9rules network and my what a stooshie it caused:

If people want to sell their souls to advertising or to networks, why not write for the paper press? The 9rules thing seems 180 degrees opposed to everything I love about blogging and bloggers.

joining a ‘network’ seems a bit cliquey for me.

OK, maybe I’m overstating a little, it was little more than a ripple, and it was the bit about including adverts that really got people riled for, as diamond geezer recently found, the majority of “hobbyist” bloggers (within our little UK clique at least) don’t like the idea of blogs having adverts.

So let me clear some things up.

  1. I have not sold my soul to the devil
  2. I will not, ever, have adverts on this site
  3. Joining the 9rules network will have ZERO impact on you dear reader
  4. Point 3 isn’t entirely accurate as I hope the content will improve
  5. I have a very good reason for wanting to join, but more on that later this week

As it says on the 9rules website: “The 9rules Network is about building a community of high quality websites as well as a community of highly discerning readers. Content is king and looking good helps.”

I’m pretty excited about this and hopefully it’ll be the start of good things, things I’ve wanted to pursue for a while. The list of members is quite daunting, a lot were already respected regular reads of mine, even if I didn’t spot that they were members of the network. All in all I feel quite privileged that I was accepted, and I’m looking forward to learning new things and getting to know a whole new set of people.

I’ll post more about this later in the week, and I’ll include my reasons for joining. I’m sure a few of you will have guessed what I’ve been planning, so suffice to say that my main motivation for joining the 9rules network was focussed on THAT, not this site.

bookmark_borderGet a grip

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“Good grip!”

Isn’t it funny how the mind works, how seemingly trivial everyday comments open a little trapdoor in your brain allowing those little mental connections to trickle out.

Take the title of this post as an example. Ring any bells for anyone? The first line is what my brain conjured up, can you name the film?

The reason I mention this is because, during moments of pause and “blogging malaise”, my brain seems to take some delight in flinging open these trapdoors at all sorts of moments, particularly late at night when I’m trying to sleep. Most bothersome of it, I’m thinking of having it removed.

There I lay, watching the flicker of neon glow mark each passing minute with my brain leaping from trapdoor to trapdoor in an endless succession of self-referential connections that only I and possibly my wife (lying snoring next to me) would understand. Like a dream they float past my memory, tauntingly close but out of reach. Or to put it another way, I can’t remember a single thing that struck me as “bloggable” last night. Typical.

To more mundane matters then.

Louise’s brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner last night and the ever reliable Bombay Cottage did the business once again. Also got to play with Centarsia, a photo mosiac application, with surprisingly good results (some samples here). It’s a bit fiddly to start with but once you get to grips with it, and with a little care and some pre-editing, you can get some nice images… hmmm, there’s a space on the living room wall that might suit…

What else, what else?

This morning I came into work to find my mug was in the “just turned on” dishwasher. Not a happy bunny as I like my routine in the morning (in office before everyone, coffee, email, news… start work at 9). Isn’t it funny how little things like this can affect us.

Finally – anyone else noticed a drop in the number of spam emails? I hardly get any at all now, so either BlueYonder have beefed up their spam filters or spammers are targetting elsewhere… mind you, I don’t get that many real emails.. *sniffs*

Right. Enough. Work to do.

REAL content later, if yer lucky (and if I can decide on a topic – suggestions?).

bookmark_borderKerchinng!

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Apparently “Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.” according to Jules Renard.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball agrees and has kicked off another campaign to raise some funds to support his site. Whilst it’s certainly an issue to take stock of I’d venture that very few people make any kind of money running their sites – although Neil has announced that he made about £175 last month, which isn’t too shabby. Of course the highest profile (blog-wise) news on this front was most certainly Jason Kottke and his drive towards reader-supported blogging.

A quick caveat: I’m not concerned with those who are blogging specifically to make money. I’m talking largely about the hobbyist blogger, the majority of whom run their sites at a loss.

Thankfully my stats remain low so I don’t have any issues with bandwidth charges and the like but what if you do? Which is better? Adverts or a member/sponsor drive? Would it be possible for me to cover my costs for running this site? And more to the point, how much would YOU pay to read this site? (or perhaps how much should I be paying you?)

I will happily admit to having considered running adverts on this site but each time I do I find I can’t really justify them. My readership, whilst hugely intelligent and esoteric (somewhat good looking too), isn’t exactly numerous, and if I’m honest I think adverts just LOOK bad. In saying that, the idea of actually making a little cash, however paltry the figure, out of this hobby that I spend a lot of time on does hold some appeal. After all, what would be better than to get some cash for doing something you enjoy?

No, I don’t think I’ll ever go down the advert route (feel free to remind me of this if I ever do) but it does get a little draining to put time and effort into something with no reward. Ahhh now we are now approaching the crux of the matter.

I don’t begrudge John his readership (I’ve enjoyed his writing for some time myself), and he certainly has his own reasons for asking his readers to cough up a little cash (it’s not a huge amount, relatively) but I think just doing that crosses a line and possibly reveals one of the reasons you are involved in this funny little land of blogs. Yes, that age old question of “why do we blog?” rears it’s head again.

Do I blog for fame and fortune? Or something else, something a little harder to get a handle on, a little harder to define. Do I REALLY blog for me?

Well that question will remain unanswered but I can take Saturday as the perfect example of getting something good out of blogging. I got the chance to meet some interesting people, and as ever I came away with several good ideas, new points of view and a better take on myself.

Tell me, what price can you put on that?

bookmark_borderOhh a navel!

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Does blogging about your own site count as navel-gazing?

Anyhoo… you may have noticed that the entries in the miniblog are getting longer. If you haven’t noticed let me state that “the entries in the miniblog are getting longer”.It started unconsciously but as with most things the habits we form and the way we use our own sites leads us down certain paths. I think the current “type” of posts I have, with mainly longer ones here and shorter ones in the miniblog, suite ME better and I certainly feel more comfortable about posting these days.

When I did my last re-design of this site, I made the post titles deliberately big to both lend them some visual weight and to challenge me to write posts that would be worthy of such a grand (in size at least) title. In addition, the posts I wrote up before I went on holiday a few months back, gathered quite a few comments and I’m quite proud of a couple of them. I took my time to draft and edit them, thought them through, and – and this is probably the crucial bit – I didn’t post them day after day. The gap between posts allowed more people to “see” the posts and the number of comments rose in direct relation.

So I’ve been trying to post the smaller posts in the miniblog, and keep this area free for longer posts, it’s something I’ll be continuing but does leave me with a problem. The miniblog is a bit cramped at the moment (I think) and could do with a little more room, so – and I’ve hinted at this recently – I’m redesigning. Again. Wanna peek?

bookmark_borderCounting

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Thundering at the window. Rain slams into glass. A million impacts. A staccato beat of tiny sharp flat…

Ohhh bugger that, too tired to be creative…

It’s chucking it down, blowing a gale and keeping me awake. Rather than lie in bed and wonder if that new dripping noise is a drip or, um, something non-drip related… ohh it’s just stopped. Phew.

Dammit, a new one has just started.

My home is my castle and my mind keeps me awake lest I miss any damage reports from this whooshing groaning screaming building.

Now, I think I got a couple of hours sleep as the last time I saw on the clock, before I got back up, was 11.54pm. It’s now 3am.

At a push I can function(ish) on around 6 hours sleep. But, of course, tomorrow morning is THE ONE AND ONLY MORNING THIS WEEK when my alarm is set early. It goes off in 3 hours and 30 minutes.

But I’m sitting here. I’m not in bed. I’m not sleeping. With each passing sentence my sleep quota for the day decreases.

I can’t believe I’m blogging this.

Enough. To bed, perchance to dream.

Hang on! I know why I’m blogging this… because it’s likely to be all you get from me today. If you want more please scroll down, there’s plenty more nonsense if you seek it.