Nels Wadycki » Blogging

Quit the Twit

Nels — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:33:01 +0000

There is a reason that people who blog are quitting Twitter. Those people include John Mayer, Paul Carr, and (sort of) Leo Laporte. In case you didn’t hit the links (and who has time for that with all the Information Overload and whatnot?) the reason is: Length of Life. Not the life of the people who author the tweets or blog posts, but the length of life of the tweet versus the blog post. Most tweets are retweeted or replied to within an hour. After that? Good luck. (Unless you’re famous enough for people to write blog posts about your tweets, which, when taken together, are about as long as a blog post would be anyway.) Blog posts, though? When well written they can draw comments for days (for a news blog) or continue to garner hits for months or years if the content is truly high quality (or if they have pictures of Kim Kardashian).

Think about books compared to tweets. People still read books that are hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of years old. Is anyone going to read even the most retweeted of all tweets in 100 years. My money’s on No.*

And so, I’m going to do what Leo did and rededicate myself to the blog that bears my name. As Laporte said:

I should have been posting it here all along. Had I been doing so I’d have something to show for it. A record of my life for the last few years at the very least. But I ignored my blog and ran off with the sexy, shiny microblogs. Well no more. I’m sorry for having neglected you Leoville. From now on when I post a picture of a particularly delicious sandwich I’m posting it here. When I complain that Sookie is back with Bill, you’ll hear it here first. And the show notes for my shows will go here, too.

* Full disclosure: my money is actually mostly in mutual funds. I avoid making investments, let alone bets, with a 100 year payout time since I probably won’t be around to collect.

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Blogging is Easy

Nels — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:30:28 +0000

From a (sort of) recent Facebook status update:

While I agree for the most part with the “Tumblr > Twitter” sentiment, well, that’s kind of obvious. Twitter is definitely good for some things (mostly sharing short fleeting thoughts, but also sometimes for sharing links, and conversing with people who use Twitter as their main form of communication). I did not see “being a blog” in that list, though. And as Commenter #1 points out, you can view Twitter updates on your Tumblr dashboard while posting slightly longer commentaries on Tumblr. Of course, Commenter #1 also makes the fatal mistake of saying that he (or she) wishes they knew HTML.

I’m fairly certain that with a little practice, just about anyone could use a WordPress.com blog without knowing any HTML.

I think what’s really going on here is: People have gotten used to posting status updates and they’re cool with that, but what happens when they want to post something a little bit longer and ~~actually well thought out~~ more introspective? They secretly want to write a blog post, but are convinced that a) they need to know HTML, b) that no one will read it, c) they’ll have to keep doing it (or look like a failure), and d) it’s hard (for many reasons that probably just depend on who you’re talking to at the time).

Tumblr is building it’s popularity off of these popular misconceptions, and, well, good for them, I guess. I just wish that instead of throwing out Tumblr as the next step up from Tweeting, we could enlighten people as to how easy blogging really is.

For example (again, not to disparage what Tumblr is doing – just as a comparison): One can post text, quotes, links, and embed video in WordPress as easily as in Tumblr (plus you have Categories in addition to Tags). Posting a photo or audio file is more complicated, I can admit that, because WordPress’ media uploader requires some a little trial and error to figure out (even in its current super-simple form). That said, it’s still pretty easy, and when you want to post multiple pictures, it’s significantly easier. You can select them all from a single dialog, and then insert them individually (and select from multiple size options), or just make a gallery. Like I said, it’s not bash-your-head-in easy, but it’s got value-added at a pretty high ROI. So, the only thing that Tumblr can do much more easily than a WordPress blog is post a chat transcript. I don’t follow all that many people’s tumblr blogs, but I’ve never seen any of my friends post a chat transcript.

So, d) it’s not that hard, a) you don’t need to know HTML.

b) No one will read it?

You can have a Top 100 blog on Technorati just by picking a URL and posting photos that correspond in a somewhat ironic manner (or not at all) to that URL.

Finally… c) you’ll have to keep doing it. This is the One True Thing.

That said, you have to keep posting to your Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Anything Else or it will wither and attract tumbleweeds just like a regular old (brand new, awesome) blog.

And of course, this is also the rub. If you want people to read your blog, you have to post stuff. You have to post stuff even when it’s just your parents and the person you live with reading it. Even if your parents and the person you live with aren’t actually reading it. If you want people to look at and comment on your Tumblog or Twitter or Facebook or Anything Else, you have to put something there for them to comment on. I’ve already shown that using Tumblr doesn’t make it any easier to post content (although, it can provide the illusion that it does). But it doesn’t make you more creative or funny or insightful or emotional or powerful. That would be akin to saying “Oh, now that I can get the newspaper on my computer, I’ll actually read it.” Just because you can read it more easily on you computer without getting your fingers all dirty with ink doesn’t mean that you actually will.

Finally, if you use Tumblr, I’m pretty sure you don’t get analytics. While this is another somewhat in depth tool, you know you like checking how many people have visited your blog, and with Google Analytics it’s easy to see what people are searching for to get to your blog. I mean, how much more awesome is it when you can not just post something about vajazzling, but then also see that someone got to your post about vajazzling by looking for “how to vajazzle at home with swarovski”? Boom. Blogging FTW.

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3 Ways To Make Your Posts Live Forever [Blogging]

Nels — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:10:40 +0000

1. Host your own images

The first and most obvious is that if you hotlink from someone else’s site, you have no control over if that image stays on the web. If they shut their site down, the image is gone and you have a broken image link in your post.

And I also recommend that you don’t use any image hosting service if you can avoid it. I used to have an account at WebShots for hosting images at another of my blogs. Most of the images were ones that I photoshopped myself from screen captures, but I did have some images that I probably should have known were infringing on some copyrights. If you host your own images, and someone wants one taken down for infringement, they can contact you and you can delete it. At Webshots, however, they just deleted every picture in my account. The point of having the Webshots account in the first place was to try to drive more traffic to the site by putting links to the posts that contained them in the comments… but when all the images are gone, that doesn’t work so well.

2. Don’t use videos

The caveat here is that you can use videos that you’ve created and uploaded to an account that you own. You still run the risk of being shut down without notice, though.

But, as with images, you don’t want to rely on videos from someone else when they could remove the videos (or have them removed) at any time. I’m totally fine with throwing them on Facebook, because I know that if people don’t see it within a couple days, they’re never going to see it anyway, so if the video disappears, no big deal. But when I’ve taken the time to compose a post, even if it’s a single sentence and a picture, I want it to be there in it’s original form unless I decide to alter or remove it. I don’t want that decision in someone else’s hands.

3. Take out the date on individual post pages

This one I totally copycheated from Tim Ferriss’ presentation on creating a high-traffic blog. But it applies not just to making a high-traffic blog, but also to helping your posts stand the test of time. Tim’s advice was actually to just put the date at the bottom of the post on individual pages so that readers won’t know how old it is without reading it first or at least scrolling down the page. This is a good alternative to my more extreme idea of just removing the date completely.

There are obviously some blogs that should have a date very clearly displayed: mostly those that cover time-sensitive news stories. E.g., I don’t want to read about the beta release of a product a year after it’s been out of beta, or read about Jessica Simpson jinxing Tony Romo when they’ve already broken up. But, this kind of post right here should be relevant for longer than Jess and Romes were dating, so I feel I’d be within my means to remove the date, but I haven’t done so on this blog because I do still write about some time-sensitive news, and I ~~always~~ usually try to practice what I preach.

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Mcrblggng Vds

Nels — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:36:14 +0000

Mzng hw y cn ndrstnd ths wth n vwls rght?

Anyway, haven’t posted in 10 days, so what better way to rectify that than by posting videos?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.