Use Blogger or Install a Blog on Your Own Site?

I was recently asked this question:

Do you find that its beneficial to start a blog on the blogger platform versus installing it on your own site?

My opinion on this has changed in the last few months. I used to think that blogger or wordpress.com were "good enough". I now think you should host your own blog on your own domain. My only reason for this is the amount of control you have by doing so.

I have started several new blogs (on tech topics) on my own domains. I chose wordpress a my blog software. The number of plug ins that help me format and control my blogs is amazing. I don't want to spend a lot of time tweaking and with these plug ins, it's mostly install and move on.

NOTE: Don't confuse wordpress with wordpress.com. Wordpress is a blogging package (that you can get from wordpress.org). Wordpress.com is a hosting service that uses wordpress as it's blogging software. You can use wordpress the software on your own domain and if you chose wordpress.com as your blogging provider, you will be using wordpress the software (and can ONLY use wordpress the software).

From talking to family, friends, peers and co-workers, I don't think most people care about the domain being a custom domain or the blogspot domain. I have read some bloggers who feel that a custom domain gives you a certain amount of legitimacy that a blogspot or wordpress domain wouldn't. I don't agree.

So, the short answer is that if you want a very quick start up with no muss and no fuss, blogger (or one of the other hosted domains) is a perfectly fine choice. If however, you are like me and want the additional control, you should buy a domain and install your own blogging software. All of the major blogging packages are incredibly simple to install and most web hosters offer additional assistance in the option of cPanel and SimpleScripts.

LewisC

Technorati : blogger, blogspot, domain, hosting, wordpress

Change in Posting Schedule

Well, I guess it's time to hang it up (not totally). While I enjoy writing topics for this blog, it looks like I will have to put it on the back burner. I've changed jobs and am spending an extra 2 - 2.5 hours per day in traffic; that's better than 10 hours per week. If I had access to mass transportation, those would be some very productive hours. Unfortunately, that's not the case and I need to concentrate on my tech blogs (and I've shut down a few of those also).

I will continue to post here when I have something interesting to say but I won't be able to post regularly.

If anyone would like to post a guest entry, send me an email with the entry topic. It will be good for a link to your site and let people see what kind of content you write.

LewisC

Technorati : job, posting

Participate in a blogging Survey

Hi All,

I got an email from Technorati this evening. The subject is:

Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere Survey

I am a survey taker (I just can't resist). It's not exactly a short survey. I guess it took about 15 minutes to finish. They say they will release the results on Technorati in late September.

Here's the message:

Bloggers,

Technorati has been tracking the Blogosphere for the past several years through our State of the Blogosphere study. This year we have decided to expand our study beyond the sheer size and characteristics of the blogosphere in order to hear more from you, the bloggers. How, when and why are you blogging? Is this a side business, full time job or something you do for fun? Our goal is to analyze the growth of the field as well as understand the people who make the space tick. Help us and join the study of the ongoing global conversation!

Click here to take the survey! http://v2.decipherinc.com/survey/mmc/mmc08001

We hope you will find this survey enjoyable. It should take just 15-20 minutes of your time, and your responses are entirely confidential. Be sure to check back on Technorati in late September for a summary of the results.

Thank you,

The Technorati Team

http://technorati.com/

I hope you'll choose to participate. In an survey like this, the more respondents, the better.

LewisC

Technorati : blogging, survey, tecnorati

Who or What is your blog for?

So, have you decided why you want a blog? Do you want to share information? Make money? Have a place where distant relatives can keep track of you? Post funny jokes and links?

Before you start blogging, you should decide why you're blogging. That will help you decide where to blog (which type of host) and how to name your blog. An example is Wordpress.com; no advertising so no money. Also, if you're blogging for relatives, the name doesn't matter but if you plan to monetize, you need a name the is related to your blog topic.

In addition to name, the reason you blog will also affect things like frequency and topic. Again, if this a personal blog, no big decisions need to be made. Same with a blog designed to just share information; call it whatever, and post whenever, you like.

If you want regular traffic though, you need to be on topic and at least somewhat consistent. I consider this blog a tips blog (as in sharing info, not holding out my hand. ;-) ), not a money blog. I try to be consistent for my regular readers but I don't beat myself up if I'm not. I stay pretty consistently on the topic of blogging and the name of the blog is pretty much dead on for the topic I've chosen.

If I wanted to make money, I think the topic is a decent one although the blogosphere is pretty crowded for a blogging blogs. I think the title of the blog is winner. I named it well. Blogger isn't a bad choice for hosts as it has integrated Adsense and I can put any other advertising or banners that I want to. I would need to do something about my frequency though, I think.

If you want to make money with blogging, you need to build a traffic stream and the stream has to be interested in your blog topic (which is why I don't understand why there are so many spam blogs). To build traffic you need to post daily (at least in the beginning) and you need a lot of content.

When people show up, you want them to stick around for a while. That means plenty of articles. The faster you generate that content (multiple posts per day), the faster you will build traffic.

Right now, the vast majority of the traffic to this blog is from Google. I'm ok with that. My goal is to provide what tips I can. If people are finding me via google, and getting some use out of this blog, then I am succeeding.

Why are you blogging? What do you look for in a blog like this?

LewisC

P.S. This entry ended up being one of those that started at one place and ended up in another.

Technorati : blogging, writing

MIT Courseware - Free Internet Communications

MIT has, for a few years now, opened its courses to the public. Colleges and university's world wide can either use the courseware as a template for their own, or just them as is. Individuals can use them for self training. I love self training. Especially when it's free. I'm cheap. ;-)

Anyway, you can check out the entire list of courses. I guarantee there are at least a few worthy blog entries in there. However, there is one course in particular that is relevant to bloggers. It's getting a little old now but is still worth looking at. The course is Communicating in Cyberspace. Cyberspace is just so yesterday. ;-)

In the related resources section, there is a list of Excellent Websites, Poorly Designed Websites and Useful Resources. There's even a list of useful books, some of which I own already.

This course has less in the way of presentation and lecture notes than many of the courses but it does give a good over in general. There are several writing courses available. I always like the history courses as that is a hobby of mine.

Enjoy,

LewisC

Technorati : college, courses, free, mit, university

Controversy and Lawsuits

A good way to drive traffic is to write controversial posts. I tend not to do that. No particular reason, it's just that the topics I write about generally aren't controversial.

One thing you have to be careful of is becoming identified as a link baiter. Some one who writes nothing but headlines to grab attention will eventually be identified as a link baiter. That can be good or bad I guess. If you are primarily in it for the money, you can wrack up some dollars that way. I'd prefer people to actually want to read my writing. Again, that's just me.

Another issue with controversy is the possibility of moving from attracting attention to attracting lawsuits. Libel is when you write something that is not true and is either embarrassing or damaging to that person. Even truth is not an out because if there is no newsworthy reason to say what you've said, you can still potentially lose a lawsuit.

Let me say right here, just in case it is not obvious, I'm not a lawyer. I just have read quite a bit about slander, libel and defamation.

Even if you win a lawsuit, it will still cost you time and money. So the point is to be careful.

A case in point, yesterday, I was doing a search and ran across a blog entry from a tech blogger. It's not a blog I have read before so I don't know any background on the people involved. The post is fairly long. If you read just the technical aspects, it makes a lot of sense and, IMHO, the author makes some very good points (again, I mean from a technical angle).

The post is 50% to 70% Of all Programmers are con-artists. If you are interested in programming, you can read it. It is interesting. Where it becomes pertinent to this discussion are some of the claims made:

Joanna, if you ever come across this post or someone else finds it for you, let it be known that I'm officially accusing you of being a charlatan.

And they artificially inflate your capabilities which is fraud, if you intent to use your new found prowess for financial gain.

People who have hired you in good faith, should be getting their money back (if they've paid you) for being so thoroughly cheated.

Joanna has her misinformation posted on Articlebase, EzineArticles, GoArticles, and the king of all shameless plugs, Promotion World.

There is actually more of that in the article. I think those are enough to get the point across.

Charlatan, fraud, cheated, misinformation. Actionable? As I said, I am not a lawyer, so I would be hesitant to publish something like that with first speaking with one. If the author can prove those things, and maybe the author can, it would probably be a pretty good defense. But is it worth going to court for?

I wouldn't call this link bait as it is not a (un)popular stand, for or against. I think the author feels very strongly what he wrote. I think if I wrote it, I would have kept the "debunking" but dropped the accusations.

What do you think?

Technorati : controversy, slander, traffic

Sometimes, Everything I Write Sucks!

Yesterday I wrote about persistence paying off for bloggers. Brad made some good comments:

I come up with idea's for blogs and internally shoot them down as "not worth writing about" or "everyone knows this already, why write about it".

Oooh, I hate that. This is such a good point and is something I think every blogger runs into now and then. I call it my internal editor. If you read writing books, that is a major topic. Most of those books give the same advice: Write! Write! Write! Ignore the internal editor and go for broke.

It's not always advice I want to hear, that's for sure. I have to admit though, that it is true. When I wrote my book, I got up everyday, 7 days a week and wrote. During the work week, I did a couple of hours, usually starting at 4am, before getting ready for work. I'd do another couple of hours at night before bed. On the weekends, I would do a full day. 120,000 words in 4.5 months. And I maintained a blog at the same time.

I wasn't always motivated (for the book or the blog) but once I sat down and started putting words on paper, it usually started flowing. The same is true for blogging. Just type something. Even stupid ideas are a start. Many times, I start writing on a topic and I either spontaneously generate ideas for future posts, or I change direction and write a different post than I intended.

When it comes to "not worth writing about", you never know. One man's garbage is another man's gold. If nothing else, it might be entertaining.

On the topic of "everyone knows this already, why write about it". You might be an expert but not all of your readers will be. Sometimes something very basic will help someone else tremendously.

Every entry you write helps give life to your blog. Not every book is war and peace and not every blog entry will be a front page digg item. But that's ok. I don't want to read war and peace every time I open a book. Sometimes, I just want to be entertained or have some downtime.

So, my tip of the day is Write! Even when you don't want to. I'll try to do as I say, too.

LewisC

Technorati : blogging, persistence, writing

Persistence Pays Off

Persistence pays off. What does that mean? Well, in my case, in means that I continue to blog even through job changes, house moves and children being born. I've taken breaks from blogging, usually unplanned. It just kind of happens. That's a bad thing but I always come back. Persistence.

Why do I persist?

Well, I like writing for one thing. I keep coming back because I have something I want to say. As much as I like writing, I want someone to read it. For that, I need to be consistent. I haven't been lately, but I plan to return to it. If I don't write, I think I would go crazy. ;-)

I'd also like to make some money from my blogs. I don't expect to get rich but I have a paid host (for a different kind of web site) and I like the fact that my blogging pays for that. Actually, it recently paid for a Wii and a bunch of games, too. Actually, my blogging income has never been better. It's a great time for bloggers.

I also like to share what I learn. That's why I blog on so many different topics. I learn a lot from reading other people's blogs. I want to return the favor.

Why do you persist?

What makes you write on those days when you really don't feel like it? I'd like to know.

Technorati : blogging, monetization, traffic

Ethics in blogging?

I apologize for having been away for so long. My previous job ate up a lot of non-work related blogging time. Anyway, I'm back and I hope you're still with me.

I was reading a good article today and wanted to give my opinion and maybe get some feed back. I am totally open to advertising on blogs (as long as they're obviously advertising) and to a sponsor, as long as that's disclosed.

There seems to be some disagreement about this in the blogosphere. Pat Phelan, who writes a technology blog, calls out one Sarah Austin. According to Sarah, she is "one of the first live streaming, life-casters popularized on Justin.TV and now hosts a weekly live show in conjunction with Pop17 at Mogulus." Also in her about page, she says:

Pop17 is a two-to-three minute daily exploration to track, analyze and understand the new cultural phenomenon of online micro-celebrity.

On this blog, I guess she has sponsors that she does not disclose. For the details of this, read Pat's blog entry. I won't repeat them here. Sarah has her say on her blog. Personally, it seems like the whole thing just helps here in her micro-celebrity and may be a joint marketing thing between the two of them. Conflict drives page hits (which is a completely different aspect of ethics). I don't know either player so I can't say.

It does bring to light a very interesting point about ethics. As in, what are the ethics of blogging? Are blogger journalists? Are bloggers self-obsessed celebrity seekers? Something in between? I think that has to be answered before we can talk about ethics.

I think a lot of it has to do with how you present yourself and what you blog about. If you are presenting a professional appearance, and you blog as if you were a journalist, which seems to be how the blog in question operates, then I think the ethics of disclosure is obvious. The ethics of the situation are even cleared when someone is comparing a sponsor's products to those of its competitors. That's OK to do, but it must be disclosed (IMHO).

Disclosure is required for long term credibility. If something just does not look or feel honest, people will pick up on it and dishonesty will destroy long term success for a blogger.

What do you think?

Technorati : blogging, ethics, fraud, sponsorship

Blog Editors

How To Make a Blog

I am a blog editor convert. If you aren't sure what a blog editor is, it's a graphical editor that makes it easy for you to write, save drafts and post blog entries. Have you ever been typing a blog entry and had the browser crash? Argh! Many of the blog editors have autosave so that you don't have to worry about that.

They also make including links, adding graphics, block quotes, etc very easy with a visual preview. Have you ever hand coded an HTML table for tabular data display? I hate doing that. With a blog editor, it's a couple of button clicks and then you just enter your data.

I've used several to see how they perform. I narrowed it down to two editors: Windows Live Writer and Zoundry Raven.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer (WLW) is a free offering from Microsoft. I'm not an MS basher. I think MS tends to write very usable software. WLW is a very good looking, very functional tool.

WLW has a graphical UI and follows along with most other MS GUI tools. It has plenty of features

Zoundry Raven

Even though WLW is a good tool, I have settled on Zoundry Raven. I've used the support forums and I have to say I am very happy with them. The tool itself fits the way I work. It's easy to configure and run.

Some of the better features are:

• A true WYSIWYG editor. When I post a blog entry, it looks on my blog exactly like it does on the editor.


• Multiple blog support. I write about 15 blogs now. I can easily select the blog I am working on, post to multiple blogs at once and view previously published blog entries at any time.


• Great trackback, ping and tag support. Global and blog configurations make these painless.


• It can run from a USB drive. Go on the road and take your blog editors (and your blog posts) on the road with you.

Depending on how you write and what you're looking for in an editor, I would recommend either of these editors. Both are free so you won't lose anything more than a little time by trying either (or both).

Technorati : blogging, editor, raven, zoundry

Del.icio.us : blogging, editor, raven, zoundry

ScrnShots - Free Screen Shot Hosting

LewisC's An Expert's Guide To Oracle Technology

This ain't no Flickr! Every blogger needs a place to host screen shots. Flickr is the best place for photos (IMHO) but they ask that all the images you post be photos (not that they're rabid about that). But now there's SCRNSHOTS.com. Unlimited screen shot uploads. You can tag them for easy searching. The photo below is a screen shot of scrnshots.com and it is hosted on scrnshots.com. How recursive is that!

It works pretty much like flickr. Take a screen shot and save it on your computer. Upload it, add a description and tags. Embed it using the provided html. They do ask that you link back to them which is the same thing flickr asks.

On the social side, I've found that people frequently comment on shots. It's fun to browse around and look at the shots other people are taking. I'm going to try to post at least one interesting shot per day and I'll try to comment on any interesting ones that I find.

I am very happy to have this available. I'm not sure what the financial model is for this. I'm hoping they don't disappear anytime soon. Flickr seems to be going strong, especially now that they got bought. Maybe google will buy this one.

LewisC