5 Prerequisites For Blogging Success
I thought we would start things off with what I believe are 5 things that are necessary to grow one’s blog.
Despite the number one tip in this “5 things” post by ConverStations, I’m not going to tell you my name.
I’ve been flying by web sites, blogs and community portals long enough to discern whether there’s good community opportunities almost instantly. It’s not just a gut reaction, but muscles I’ve built up over the years.
OK, this is a lot more than five things, but it’s worth the effort. Blogging Tips - Hundreds of Resources for Finding Content for Your Blog.
I’ve put together a huge list of content resources for you to peruse and investigate for possible blog content. It certainly isn’t a list of all the content, resources, and information out there, but it is designed to get you thinking about all the content, resources, and information out there for you to blog about. And there is a lot out there. If I have missed a favorite resource of yours, please add it below in the comments. I love looking up new avenues of inspiration.
5 Prerequisites For Blogging Success
I thought we would start things off with what I believe are 5 things that are necessary to grow one’s blog.
Despite the number one tip in this “5 things” post by ConverStations, I’m not going to tell you my name.
I’ve been flying by web sites, blogs and community portals long enough to discern whether there’s good community opportunities almost instantly. It’s not just a gut reaction, but muscles I’ve built up over the years.
OK, this is a lot more than five things, but it’s worth the effort. Blogging Tips - Hundreds of Resources for Finding Content for Your Blog.
I’ve put together a huge list of content resources for you to peruse and investigate for possible blog content. It certainly isn’t a list of all the content, resources, and information out there, but it is designed to get you thinking about all the content, resources, and information out there for you to blog about. And there is a lot out there. If I have missed a favorite resource of yours, please add it below in the comments. I love looking up new avenues of inspiration.
The Official Google Blog is of course a Blogger.com site. Google uses the site to announce new products, upgrades, and how-to information. According to their own statistics, they received: “More for the numerically inclined: 7.6 million unique visitors generated nearly 15 million pageviews this year.”
Style:
Google Blog, how I hate you… Let me count the ways:
I realize that they have a distinct style on their search engine pages, but this isn’t Google.com. This is a unique site which could have a distinct style of it’s own. It should have a distinct style of it’s own, but it doesn’t.
The only trace of color on the site is in the trademark Google logo, and the default blue links. They have carefully stripped away anything that might have given this site visual interest. Black text on a white background. (Yawn) Undefined link color. A simplistic header overpowered by a simple sidebar. Once again, someone has confused lack of style with design neutrality. This site should have been something fantastic, a credit to the forward looking company behind it. It isn’t.
A short list of the good design aspects of the site:
Did I say it was a short list?
Structure:
The Google Blog is a Blogger based site with the simplest of templates. It doesn’t even have a valid HTML Doctype declaration.
According to HTML standards, each HTML document requires a document type declaration. The “DOCTYPE” begins the HTML document and tells a validator which version of HTML to use in checking the document’s syntax. - Web Design Group
While I normally cut sites a break when their advertiser’s code is poorly written, I won’t here. I won’t, because it’s Google’s own code that’s poorly written. Their own advertisements use invalid, and poorly written code. I’m sure that there’s some obscure coding reason that they do it, but it’s annoying. People try to put together good, well written sites, and they have to put up with the gibberish that Google puts in their ads. It could be done better.
Content:
The Google blog is used to announce new products, upgrades, and how-to information for Google.com, and it’s associated sites. More or less a the public face to a public company.
What I would change:
What a subject, what I would change… Simply? Everything! Dump the whole design and start over.
The header needs to be much stronger, the logo larger.
The sidebar needs to be pushed down in prominence.
For a company known for it’s colorful logo, let’s see some color in its’ blog. Add some color to the header, and the sidebar. Consider some simple graphical elements to differentiate posts. This should be able to be done with little or no decrease in load time.
Consider the priorities for the sidebar. The first three quarters of the sidebar is taken up with links promoting other Google sites, let’s give this site some space. Leave the search feature high up, but give the archives some space too. Bring the blogroll up too. Give one good ad priority up high, and push most of the other promotional links down the page.
Define the color scheme of the links. If you want the site to have blue links, define it as blue links. Give it a distinct and clearly defined color scheme. Currently link color is left to fall to individual user’s default settings, and that’s just silly. My default settings made visited links all but illegible, and I doubt I’m the only one.
Summary:
This is a poorly designed blog, not because of the way it was designed, but because for the way it wasn’t designed. There’s nothing wrong with minimalistic design, but it needs to be designed. This is a poor representative of what otherwise appears to be a very good company. No other aspect of the Google empire has been left undesigned and neglected like this site. It’s time that this was remedied. I won’t hold my breath.
The Official Google Blog is of course a Blogger.com site. Google uses the site to announce new products, upgrades, and how-to information. According to their own statistics, they received: “More for the numerically inclined: 7.6 million unique visitors generated nearly 15 million pageviews this year.”
Style:
Google Blog, how I hate you… Let me count the ways:
I realize that they have a distinct style on their search engine pages, but this isn’t Google.com. This is a unique site which could have a distinct style of it’s own. It should have a distinct style of it’s own, but it doesn’t.
The only trace of color on the site is in the trademark Google logo, and the default blue links. They have carefully stripped away anything that might have given this site visual interest. Black text on a white background. (Yawn) Undefined link color. A simplistic header overpowered by a simple sidebar. Once again, someone has confused lack of style with design neutrality. This site should have been something fantastic, a credit to the forward looking company behind it. It isn’t.
A short list of the good design aspects of the site:
Did I say it was a short list?
Structure:
The Google Blog is a Blogger based site with the simplest of templates. It doesn’t even have a valid HTML Doctype declaration.
According to HTML standards, each HTML document requires a document type declaration. The “DOCTYPE” begins the HTML document and tells a validator which version of HTML to use in checking the document’s syntax. - Web Design Group
While I normally cut sites a break when their advertiser’s code is poorly written, I won’t here. I won’t, because it’s Google’s own code that’s poorly written. Their own advertisements use invalid, and poorly written code. I’m sure that there’s some obscure coding reason that they do it, but it’s annoying. People try to put together good, well written sites, and they have to put up with the gibberish that Google puts in their ads. It could be done better.
Content:
The Google blog is used to announce new products, upgrades, and how-to information for Google.com, and it’s associated sites. More or less a the public face to a public company.
What I would change:
What a subject, what I would change… Simply? Everything! Dump the whole design and start over.
The header needs to be much stronger, the logo larger.
The sidebar needs to be pushed down in prominence.
For a company known for it’s colorful logo, let’s see some color in its’ blog. Add some color to the header, and the sidebar. Consider some simple graphical elements to differentiate posts. This should be able to be done with little or no decrease in load time.
Consider the priorities for the sidebar. The first three quarters of the sidebar is taken up with links promoting other Google sites, let’s give this site some space. Leave the search feature high up, but give the archives some space too. Bring the blogroll up too. Give one good ad priority up high, and push most of the other promotional links down the page.
Define the color scheme of the links. If you want the site to have blue links, define it as blue links. Give it a distinct and clearly defined color scheme. Currently link color is left to fall to individual user’s default settings, and that’s just silly. My default settings made visited links all but illegible, and I doubt I’m the only one.
Summary:
This is a poorly designed blog, not because of the way it was designed, but because for the way it wasn’t designed. There’s nothing wrong with minimalistic design, but it needs to be designed. This is a poor representative of what otherwise appears to be a very good company. No other aspect of the Google empire has been left undesigned and neglected like this site. It’s time that this was remedied. I won’t hold my breath.
After 630 odd posts, it might seem an odd time to do an “about me” post, but it’s been on my to-do list since I lost my Blogger profile in the transition to WordPress.
I’m a professional graphic and web designer currently working in SW Virginia. I’ve been doing graphic design for print almost fourteen years. Web design became a major part of my work two and a half years ago.
I grew up in a very small town, one of fifteen in my high school class. My family has a strong belief in the value of an education, with a large percentage of them being teachers, doctors, or artists. I was undecided on which path to take and ended up with a BS degree in Animal Science and a BA in Sculpture.
Graphic design, as you can tell from the subtitle on this blog (it currently reads “Random mutterings of a wandering cowboy turned graphic designer”) wasn’t my first career choice. My first job, when I was 14, was working with cattle from horseback. I loved it. I had every intention of spending my life working with horses… Time passes, things change.
I found I had to reevaluate my choices when, in my mid-twenties, I was preparing to get married. Breaking horses, as I’d been doing since my late teens, just wasn’t a viable profession any more. I’d had three concussions, a back injury, various torn ligaments, and some bones in my foot fused already and retirement wasn’t exactly looming near. I started looking for another career. Something that would allow me to fuse my education with my passion for art. I lucked upon a graphic design job with someone who liked to train his own designers. He recognized in me something I didn’t see myself, the designer. It was a fantastic stroke of luck, and I’ll be forever grateful for his training.
I’m not by nature a talkative type, my wife would tell you that I act like I have a lifetime quota on words and I’m trying not to run out too early. I do however, like to say what I think. I took up blogging because I have almost exclusively worked where I was one of few if not the only, designer. Blogging not only allows me a place to speak my mind, but also allows me to be a part of a community of people who have similar interests. While I’m often the lone designer at work, I’m one among many online. This is something that I’ve found that I appreciate.
While I make an effort to focus on design and design related subjects, I’m afraid that I often wander off topic. You’ll notice for instance, that I veer into discussing politics on regular basis. Bare with me, and I come back to discussing graphic and web design before too long.
I’m a problem solver by nature, I’m fascinated by almost any sort of puzzle. Trouble shooting design problems is a particular pleasure for me. I often find myself giving people unsolicited advice on how to fix problems on their sites that they aren’t even aware of. I’ve recently started a series on Design Review to take advantage of that. This series is intended to give people a look into how a designer sees design.
My restless nature, and my wife’s career choices, have moved us around the country in the last decade. From my native Washington, I’ve worked in Idaho, Maryland and now Virginia. I’ve designed things varying from newspaper ads to cookbooks and furniture. I even designed custom carpet for a while. I find print design the most interesting, though the technical challenge of web design has a strong appeal as well. I think I’ll pass on custom carpet in the future. I’ve enjoyed the the journey, I’ve enjoyed each place I’ve lived. While I’d like to find a place to settle down, another move is being considered as I write this. Where next? I don’t know yet, maybe the Midwest. We’ll see where this road leads.
Consider this post to be guest book of sorts. If you’re reading this, drop me a comment. Let me know who you are, and where you’re from. I’m always interested in seeing who stops by.
After 630 odd posts, it might seem an odd time to do an “about me” post, but it’s been on my to-do list since I lost my Blogger profile in the transition to WordPress.
I’m a professional graphic and web designer currently working in SW Virginia. I’ve been doing graphic design for print almost fourteen years. Web design became a major part of my work two and a half years ago.
I grew up in a very small town, one of fifteen in my high school class. My family has a strong belief in the value of an education, with a large percentage of them being teachers, doctors, or artists. I was undecided on which path to take and ended up with a BS degree in Animal Science and a BA in Sculpture.
Graphic design, as you can tell from the subtitle on this blog (it currently reads “Random mutterings of a wandering cowboy turned graphic designer”) wasn’t my first career choice. My first job, when I was 14, was working with cattle from horseback. I loved it. I had every intention of spending my life working with horses… Time passes, things change.
I found I had to reevaluate my choices when, in my mid-twenties, I was preparing to get married. Breaking horses, as I’d been doing since my late teens, just wasn’t a viable profession any more. I’d had three concussions, a back injury, various torn ligaments, and some bones in my foot fused already and retirement wasn’t exactly looming near. I started looking for another career. Something that would allow me to fuse my education with my passion for art. I lucked upon a graphic design job with someone who liked to train his own designers. He recognized in me something I didn’t see myself, the designer. It was a fantastic stroke of luck, and I’ll be forever grateful for his training.
I’m not by nature a talkative type, my wife would tell you that I act like I have a lifetime quota on words and I’m trying not to run out too early. I do however, like to say what I think. I took up blogging because I have almost exclusively worked where I was one of few if not the only, designer. Blogging not only allows me a place to speak my mind, but also allows me to be a part of a community of people who have similar interests. While I’m often the lone designer at work, I’m one among many online. This is something that I’ve found that I appreciate.
While I make an effort to focus on design and design related subjects, I’m afraid that I often wander off topic. You’ll notice for instance, that I veer into discussing politics on regular basis. Bare with me, and I come back to discussing graphic and web design before too long.
I’m a problem solver by nature, I’m fascinated by almost any sort of puzzle. Trouble shooting design problems is a particular pleasure for me. I often find myself giving people unsolicited advice on how to fix problems on their sites that they aren’t even aware of. I’ve recently started a series on Design Review to take advantage of that. This series is intended to give people a look into how a designer sees design.
My restless nature, and my wife’s career choices, have moved us around the country in the last decade. From my native Washington, I’ve worked in Idaho, Maryland and now Virginia. I’ve designed things varying from newspaper ads to cookbooks and furniture. I even designed custom carpet for a while. I find print design the most interesting, though the technical challenge of web design has a strong appeal as well. I think I’ll pass on custom carpet in the future. I’ve enjoyed the the journey, I’ve enjoyed each place I’ve lived. While I’d like to find a place to settle down, another move is being considered as I write this. Where next? I don’t know yet, maybe the Midwest. We’ll see where this road leads.
Consider this post to be guest book of sorts. If you’re reading this, drop me a comment. Let me know who you are, and where you’re from. I’m always interested in seeing who stops by.
I was feeling pretty good this morning, so I thought I’d risk life and limb today and review the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. According to Google Analytics, they have 6,380,170 hits as of this post.
Style:
Love it or hate it, the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has a distinct style. Strongly black and red, with content in white columns, it incorporates a fluid three column layout on the home page, with two columns on interior pages. While the content columns float free of a containing background in a manner that I criticized Argghhh! for in my last review, it works here. The solid background and fluid layout act as the container, giving it the grounded look I thought was needed at Argghhh!.
The use of color is well done, with a strong black background and red used liberally as an accent. (The only liberal aspect you’re likely to find on this site.) Gray blockquotes with red outlines nicely compliment this simple color scheme. The links are blue, which manages to be clearly visible without being overpowering.
Graphics are well done in a very unified theme.
Structure:
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler is a WordPress site with an entirely CSS layout. The site structure is well done and should be represented well in any modern browser. Load time is high with 48.94 seconds on DSL or 157.08 seconds on 56K modem. This is quite high by blog standards and should be improved upon. A lot of the load time is caused by the high number of images. There were 72 images on the homepage when I tested it.
The CSS is well thought out and complete, though it could use a little clean up work. It has a some non-standard coding that should be fixed or removed.
While the site structure is good, the WordPress theme could use some minor updates. A quick validation check of the home page shows no true errors, but 442 warnings. Most of them are insignificant, but should be easy to fix too. A site with this level of traffic should really have this fixed. Most of them seem to be minor bits of extraneous code which could be easily removed from the base PHP of the theme. There is also some misuse of the CSS element ID which should be fixed. The ID element is used to describe a unique element which can occur once on a page, but is being used multiple times here.
While most if not all of the questionable code I’m seeing is not in the posts themselves, I’m concerned that it may affect RSS feeds and possibly the long term stability of the site. Without correction, what should be minor changes to the CSS or PHP could have much more dramatic effects than intended. The theme’s PHP and CSS should be carefully checked and cleaned of offending and extraneous bits.
Content:
It is politically off the charts to the right and pulls no punches. The authors’ vocabulary of obscene and profane language is vast and well used. This site doesn’t tolerate idiots of any stripe. While its authors will openly mock and ridicule anyone they feel is less than honest or sincere about their beliefs and/or politics, they are reasonably tolerant of polite disagreement. That said, their commenters are not always so polite.
What would I change:
I’d update the PHP to remove extraneous code.
I’d lower the number of images and optimize their use in an effort to decrease load time. Some improvement should be possible with little or no effect on the overall style.
I’d make minor changes to the CSS to make it more closely meet modern standards.
I’d add High Desert Wanderer to the blogroll, because… it appears to be tragically missing.
Summary:
While the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has a very distinct style, minor changes should be made to images, CSS and PHP in order improve load time and to make it more closely meet modern web standards.
As I said before, the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has a distinct style. By intention or accident, a unique and very marketable brand has been created here. Great care should be taken to maintain this style while improvements are being made.
This morning I received a copy of Joseph Rago's article, "The blog mob." A subscription might be required to see the article. I think probably the most interesting of Mr. Rago's comments might well be the subheading of the article on the WSJ main opinion page.
"Written by fools to be read by imbeciles."
That is a fairly generalized and inflammatory subtitle for an article written by someone who seems so concerned about the loss of the "checks and balances" of the mainstream media establishment ("MSM").
Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness.
Perhaps my worldview here on the Southern Outer Banks might be a little different than that of Mr. Rago's view from his WSJ office. I am certainly no enemy of the printed word. As I admitted in my post, "The morning newspaper," I am a newspaper junkie so I often read the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Washington. I sometimes read a little farther down the food chain and will pick up copies of The Carteret County Times and The Tideland News. I would hate to find out what our esteemed Mr. Rago would think of them, but he does offer us some clues.
Nobody wants to be an imbecile. Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments. Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.
Immediately the assumption that I pick up from paragraph is that the only way we in the masses can be gratified is by subscribing and paying money to read the likes of Mr. Rago. I wonder exactly what enlightenment I might pick up from Mr. Grasso's writing. Is it that he is highly educated because he likes to use words like "vastation," "logorrheic," and "fatuities." I actually come way with the opinion that his writing reeks of elitism.
Perhaps Mr. Rago, who is so unimpressed with the world of blogs, is overly impressed with his own importance as an "assistant editorial features editor" at one of the few newspapers in American which actually brings in enough revenue from its online business to take it seriously and not have to worry very much about firing people. According to a March 14, 2005 NY Times article, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?," the WSJ has a total of 700,000 paying online subscribers including me. That probably makes Mr. Rago's immensely important job fairly safe.
That's actually a rarity in this day and age. However for those businesses and publications not so fortunate, the Internet and even blogs come to the rescue. The same issue of the Journal which Mr. Rago's article even has an audio post about the Internet saving my small business.
Our latest Internet revolution is all about the localization of content. Now very little of it may be relevant to Mr. Rago, who appears to be a big fish in a fairly well mapped big and prominent pond. Yet to those of us who either are no longer in that race or never chose to be there, there is a whole world out here where information is scarce and the mainstream media hasn't seen fit to grace us with their enlightenment.
I am admittedly a member of a significant minority. I use Macintosh computers. That means that while I have the choice of products from many manufacturers whose products claim compatibility, in reality the products may or may not work with my Macs. While I might not know as much as about editing articles as Mr. Rago, I can generally make technology hum. I did a fair amount of research before I went out and purchased a new HP AIO Photosmart C6180. In the end my purchase was a gamble of sorts because information much of it from the mainstream media was scarce and conflicting, and sometimes tainted by the somewhat obvious need to not offend an advertiser.
My safety net when I purchase the HP C6180 was that while I wanted the product to work on a Mac, knew that I had a Windows machine to fall back on if needed. When I actually got the product to work on my Mac, I wrote up a couple of posts, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180" and "The not so reluctant home system engineer," about my experiences. Now while these posts might not be of much value to Mr. Rago, I suspect the well over 3,000 people who have read just the first one might disagree that they were written by fool to be read by imbeciles. I apologize for taking the liberty of slightly altering the subtitle for "The Blog Mob."
Those posts about the HP AIO filled in a little but significant crack of knowledge that the mainstream media had chosen to ignore because it would not draw enough readership that anyone cared to track so that someone could be paid to write the review. Even more significantly it is likely that no one in the mainstream media cared enough to even think of writing the article.
So if we are to judge by the standard that the only things worth reading are those where people have been paid to write them, I would argue that we make our lives immensely less satisfying. If paying writers makes content better, then I wonder what happened to television and the writers whose content happens to offend my sensibilities. I am not so sure that writing for free is something we should discourage. If I am providing my best judgment on a product, service, or an issue and someone has decided that they would rather have my opinion than one from someone who is receiving money to promote something, who is Mr. Rago to declare that this is just "gratifying the mediocrity of the masses." Perhaps reading the WSJ's paid articles is just filling the pockets of wealthy publishers.
I could suggest one article for Mr. Rago, "Let the Seller Beware," which is a WSJ review of a book by that name. Just maybe it might help him understand what's happening on the Internet a little more fully before the mediocre masses completely take over the world.
While my writing expertise or that of many others on the web might not be as financially well rewarded as Mr. Rago's, that does not mean that our opinions and posts are worthless dribble as Mr. Rago seems to hint.
While Mr. Rago's opinion piece has the benefit of being supported by the likes Fidelity and Toshiba. Mine has to supported by the time and effort that I take from earning money. Generally that means I have to believe that what I write has value before I even start. Then when I start writing, I take it very seriously. My considerable good reputation is on the line.
I often write about small businesses which again is an area which the mainstream media has found unprofitable or at least hard to capture except by the likes of Google. When I find a hidden gem like Kelchner's Cocktail sauce, The Depot at Cody Creek, or Backpack, I write about it. By the traffic that I see and comments that I receive, I know these posts have some positive impact.
Do I sometimes get ideas from the mainstream media, certainly. Do I "ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps?" I don't think so. Do I exactly know what my niche is? Probably I don't even care. I have written things as diverse as "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth" and "The Dippy Egg." I even chronicled how to plant and care for tomato plants in the hope that the wisdom my mother passed down to me along with what I've learned might somehow be valuable to my kids.
I added all the links in the last two paragraphs just as a statement that I believe interactivity in media has great value. It certainly allows even us mediocre masses to do a little exploring on our own without the divine guidance of the mainstream media.
I would also take exception with the following comment by Mr. Rago.
But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting -- the news -- already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.
I would argue that there is a certain rigor enforced by doing it now and trying to do it right the first time with only one set of eyes for a safety net. I try hard to check for facts and just as religiously correct for errors when I find them or they are pointed out to me. Just because you have the luxury of doing something slowly doesn't mean that it is going to turn out well. Those of us writing out without pay would love to have a second set of eyes to scan our works. Often it turns out that it is our readers who find and report errors and omissions which can easily be corrected in our instant world of blogs.
Long ago I learned that wisdom and beauty are where you find them, not exclusively in a gated community where you have to pay to enter. The idea that all blogs are "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles," makes as much sense as every article which has an editor and a dollar value attached to it is enlightening.
Finally in stating the obvious, "Journalism requires journalists," let me remind Mr. Rago of the second definition for "journalist" which is "a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events."
That sounds remarkably like writing a blog. I wonder if that might be acceptable training for the next generation of professional journalists? It will certainly require a closer look than the one Mr. Rago gave the world of blogs.
This morning I received a copy of Joseph Rago's article, "The blog mob." A subscription might be required to see the article. I think probably the most interesting of Mr. Rago's comments might well be the subheading of the article on the WSJ main opinion page.
"Written by fools to be read by imbeciles."
That is a fairly generalized and inflammatory subtitle for an article written by someone who seems so concerned about the loss of the "checks and balances" of the mainstream media establishment ("MSM").
Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness.
Perhaps my worldview here on the Southern Outer Banks might be a little different than that of Mr. Rago's view from his WSJ office. I am certainly no enemy of the printed word. As I admitted in my post, "The morning newspaper," I am a newspaper junkie so I often read the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Washington. I sometimes read a little farther down the food chain and will pick up copies of The Carteret County Times and The Tideland News. I would hate to find out what our esteemed Mr. Rago would think of them, but he does offer us some clues.
Nobody wants to be an imbecile. Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments. Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.
Immediately the assumption that I pick up from paragraph is that the only way we in the masses can be gratified is by subscribing and paying money to read the likes of Mr. Rago. I wonder exactly what enlightenment I might pick up from Mr. Grasso's writing. Is it that he is highly educated because he likes to use words like "vastation," "logorrheic," and "fatuities." I actually come way with the opinion that his writing reeks of elitism.
Perhaps Mr. Rago, who is so unimpressed with the world of blogs, is overly impressed with his own importance as an "assistant editorial features editor" at one of the few newspapers in American which actually brings in enough revenue from its online business to take it seriously and not have to worry very much about firing people. According to a March 14, 2005 NY Times article, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?," the WSJ has a total of 700,000 paying online subscribers including me. That probably makes Mr. Rago's immensely important job fairly safe.
That's actually a rarity in this day and age. However for those businesses and publications not so fortunate, the Internet and even blogs come to the rescue. The same issue of the Journal which Mr. Rago's article even has an audio post about the Internet saving my small business.
Our latest Internet revolution is all about the localization of content. Now very little of it may be relevant to Mr. Rago, who appears to be a big fish in a fairly well mapped big and prominent pond. Yet to those of us who either are no longer in that race or never chose to be there, there is a whole world out here where information is scarce and the mainstream media hasn't seen fit to grace us with their enlightenment.
I am admittedly a member of a significant minority. I use Macintosh computers. That means that while I have the choice of products from many manufacturers whose products claim compatibility, in reality the products may or may not work with my Macs. While I might not know as much as about editing articles as Mr. Rago, I can generally make technology hum. I did a fair amount of research before I went out and purchased a new HP AIO Photosmart C6180. In the end my purchase was a gamble of sorts because information much of it from the mainstream media was scarce and conflicting, and sometimes tainted by the somewhat obvious need to not offend an advertiser.
My safety net when I purchase the HP C6180 was that while I wanted the product to work on a Mac, knew that I had a Windows machine to fall back on if needed. When I actually got the product to work on my Mac, I wrote up a couple of posts, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180" and "The not so reluctant home system engineer," about my experiences. Now while these posts might not be of much value to Mr. Rago, I suspect the well over 3,000 people who have read just the first one might disagree that they were written by fool to be read by imbeciles. I apologize for taking the liberty of slightly altering the subtitle for "The Blog Mob."
Those posts about the HP AIO filled in a little but significant crack of knowledge that the mainstream media had chosen to ignore because it would not draw enough readership that anyone cared to track so that someone could be paid to write the review. Even more significantly it is likely that no one in the mainstream media cared enough to even think of writing the article.
So if we are to judge by the standard that the only things worth reading are those where people have been paid to write them, I would argue that we make our lives immensely less satisfying. If paying writers makes content better, then I wonder what happened to television and the writers whose content happens to offend my sensibilities. I am not so sure that writing for free is something we should discourage. If I am providing my best judgment on a product, service, or an issue and someone has decided that they would rather have my opinion than one from someone who is receiving money to promote something, who is Mr. Rago to declare that this is just "gratifying the mediocrity of the masses." Perhaps reading the WSJ's paid articles is just filling the pockets of wealthy publishers.
I could suggest one article for Mr. Rago, "Let the Seller Beware," which is a WSJ review of a book by that name. Just maybe it might help him understand what's happening on the Internet a little more fully before the mediocre masses completely take over the world.
While my writing expertise or that of many others on the web might not be as financially well rewarded as Mr. Rago's, that does not mean that our opinions and posts are worthless dribble as Mr. Rago seems to hint.
While Mr. Rago's opinion piece has the benefit of being supported by the likes Fidelity and Toshiba. Mine has to supported by the time and effort that I take from earning money. Generally that means I have to believe that what I write has value before I even start. Then when I start writing, I take it very seriously. My considerable good reputation is on the line.
I often write about small businesses which again is an area which the mainstream media has found unprofitable or at least hard to capture except by the likes of Google. When I find a hidden gem like Kelchner's Cocktail sauce, The Depot at Cody Creek, or Backpack, I write about it. By the traffic that I see and comments that I receive, I know these posts have some positive impact.
Do I sometimes get ideas from the mainstream media, certainly. Do I "ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps?" I don't think so. Do I exactly know what my niche is? Probably I don't even care. I have written things as diverse as "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth" and "The Dippy Egg." I even chronicled how to plant and care for tomato plants in the hope that the wisdom my mother passed down to me along with what I've learned might somehow be valuable to my kids.
I added all the links in the last two paragraphs just as a statement that I believe interactivity in media has great value. It certainly allows even us mediocre masses to do a little exploring on our own without the divine guidance of the mainstream media.
I would also take exception with the following comment by Mr. Rago.
But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting -- the news -- already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.
I would argue that there is a certain rigor enforced by doing it now and trying to do it right the first time with only one set of eyes for a safety net. I try hard to check for facts and just as religiously correct for errors when I find them or they are pointed out to me. Just because you have the luxury of doing something slowly doesn't mean that it is going to turn out well. Those of us writing out without pay would love to have a second set of eyes to scan our works. Often it turns out that it is our readers who find and report errors and omissions which can easily be corrected in our instant world of blogs.
Long ago I learned that wisdom and beauty are where you find them, not exclusively in a gated community where you have to pay to enter. The idea that all blogs are "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles," makes as much sense as every article which has an editor and a dollar value attached to it is enlightening.
Finally in stating the obvious, "Journalism requires journalists," let me remind Mr. Rago of the second definition for "journalist" which is "a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events."
That sounds remarkably like writing a blog. I wonder if that might be acceptable training for the next generation of professional journalists? It will certainly require a closer look than the one Mr. Rago gave the world of blogs.
Why should you regularly review the design and structure of your site? Because presentation is very important. I see sites on a regular basis that have serious flaws. Flaws with structure, flaws with RSS, images, etc. These flaws will keep the authors from getting their message, whatever it is, to at least some of the people who want to see it. Consider RSS feeds. If you have readers on your site that view the site via RSS, and your RSS doesn’t reliably work, some of those people will stop reading.
The point of this Design Review series is to make people think about design and site structure. A website is like a person giving a presentation. Presentation effects a readers perception of the validity of the message. You make a poor presentation, people won’t be interested and won’t believe in you. Some of them might not even hear or understand the message at all.
So, consider your design. Does it fit you? Does it reflect who you are and the message you’d like to pass on? Does your site reliably work in all common browser? Do your RSS feeds work properly? All these things should be reviewed regularly to make sure your presentation is what you want it to be.
Update:
If you don’t think presentation is important, consider what would you think a fairly good presentation given by a woman in a very nice business suit. Now consider the same presentation given by a man in hiking boots, argyle socks, and a poorly fitting cocktail dress. Presentation does make a difference.
Why should you regularly review the design and structure of your site? Because presentation is very important. I see sites on a regular basis that have serious flaws. Flaws with structure, flaws with RSS, images, etc. These flaws will keep the authors from getting their message, whatever it is, to at least some of the people who want to see it. Consider RSS feeds. If you have readers on your site that view the site via RSS, and your RSS doesn’t reliably work, some of those people will stop reading.
The point of this Design Review series is to make people think about design and site structure. A website is like a person giving a presentation. Presentation effects a readers perception of the validity of the message. You make a poor presentation, people won’t be interested and won’t believe in you. Some of them might not even hear or understand the message at all.
So, consider your design. Does it fit you? Does it reflect who you are and the message you’d like to pass on? Does your site reliably work in all common browser? Do your RSS feeds work properly? All these things should be reviewed regularly to make sure your presentation is what you want it to be.
Update:
If you don’t think presentation is important, consider what would you think a fairly good presentation given by a woman in a very nice business suit. Now consider the same presentation given by a man in hiking boots, argyle socks, and a poorly fitting cocktail dress. Presentation does make a difference.
lgf: LGF Wins Two Categories in Warblogger Awards
“Best Designed Blog†and “Best Blog Overall.”
I’m glad to see that Little Green Footballs won best designed blog at the Warblogger Awards. It’s well deserved, it is a very well done site. A nice, clean three column layout which still has plenty of content space. A lot of three column layouts crowd the content, but lgf has struck a very nice balance.