How I Use My iPhone for Blogging
I bought an iPhone - and in this post I’m going to tell you how I use it (so far) in my blogging…
A few weeks ago I ranted about the sorry state of Australian mobile carriers and how they (particularly the one I used, Telstra) make buying an iPhone a crazily expensive. In the days after writing the post I decided to bite the bullet and switch carriers to the one offering the most affordable option (Optus).
I settled on a black 16GB model and after waiting for 9 days for it to come into stock it arrived last Thursday.
I’ve been Tweeting a little about my initial experience of the iPhone and quite a few of my Twitter buddies have asked me to write a review of the iPhone as a blogging tool. I am not writing a general review here of the iPhone as a phone - but want to focus this upon it as a tool for bloggers.
My Review of The iPhone as a Blogging Tool
I should start out by saying that I didn’t buy the iPhone with the hope that it’d ever become my primary blogging tool - however I did hope that it would assist me in some areas of my blogging.
Blog Post Writing
The primary task of a blogger is to write and publish content. I do not see the iPhone as playing any real part in this task for me (with one exception which I’ll write about below).
The main reason for this is that my style of blogging is to write posts that go into a reasonable depth and which often go over 1000 words. The thought of having to write 1000 words on an iPhone is enough to make me want to curl up in the fetal position and start crying.
I know the speed and accuracy in which I’ll be able to input text into the iPhone will increase with practice - but this is not a gadget that has been designed with the goal of inputting large amounts of text. The on screen keyboard does the job well for small amounts of text (for Twitter it’s perfect) but unless Apple (or one of their partners) develops a keyboard that can be connected to the iPhone - I don’t see me using it to write posts.
The other reasons that I don’t see it as being that useful for writing posts is that my style of writing a post is one where I tend to use images, screen captures, flip between windows while writing etc - while some of this can be done on the iPhone it isn’t ideally suited to my posting workflow.
The WordPress Application is excellent. As you’ll see from the comments of my Twitter friends below, it is one of the most used applications that they’re using.
The exception to this would be for breaking news when posts need to go up quickly and need not be long. The iPhone will be very handy in this case.
I do think that some other bloggers will use the iPhone more for writing posts (for example Wayne Sutton has a blog where he’s ONLY posting with the iPhone) but it’ll be suited more for those who write shorter posts (or those with more patience than me).
All is not lost though fellow bloggers - let me share how I DO see myself using the iPhone as a blogger:
Capturing Ideas
I’ve written before about how I am a big user of notebooks and try to carry one with me everywhere so that I can capture ideas for posts as they hit me. I could definitely see the iPhone as replacing my Moleskine notebook as a tool for capturing ideas.
I’m still testing different applications for this type of task - however there are a few that are promising including Evernote (to be able to capture ideas as pictures, voice, text etc is very attractive), Younote (similar) or even just the default ‘notepad’ that comes with the iPhone (and there are a lot more that I’m going to test before settling on one).
Other Task Management
I suspect that whichever application that I choose to capture ideas for my blogs will also be used as a more general ‘task managing tool’ also. This is the other thing that I use my notebook for. This includes creating ‘to do’ lists, making notes for presentations, making notes for email newsletters etc.
Monitoring Stats
There are times where it can be particularly useful to know if there is a ‘traffic event’ happening on one of your blogs. For example it’s good to know when a post gets a rush of traffic from a social media site or another blog linking up. On the other hand it’s also good to know when your blog is down.
I saw the power of the iPhone as a monitoring tool this weekend when Sitemeter had issues and didn’t allow my blogs to be viewed by IE7 users. I knew of this problem within an hour of it happening because I received emails and tweets on my iPhone and also noticed stats were down when I checked them on it. I found all this out while out shopping with my family and was able to take action reasonably quickly all while away from my computers.
What I would like to do is set up some way to be notified of ‘traffic events’ on my blogs. For example to have some sort of notification service (SMS or email) when a post gets a lot of traffic or when servers go down for XX minutes. I know some hosting services offer this but it’d be interesting to see an analytics package develop one for smaller publishers.
Micro Blogging
My use of Twitter and Plurk over the last few days has probably increased slightly. While I still tend to do these activities in ‘batches’ being able to jump on these social messaging services in a spare minute when you’re out and about is quite handy.
Of course you could use these services to simply have fun, fill in time etc - but when services like Twitter are an important part of your blogging then it is effectively helping you to be a more productive blogger.
Networking
One of the things I played with over the weekend was instant messaging on my iPhone. I got on Gtalk and while I was just jumping on to ’see if I could’ and test the app I ended up having a conversation with another blogger which was really productive.
I don’t foresee me using IM much on my iPhone - but to know I can is handy.
Moderating Comments
Moderating comments is a job that needs to be done regularly and on the iPhone it’s a relatively simple job. I actually did it this morning over breakfast and it took me just as long on the iPhone as it does on my computer.
Again - I probably won’t do this daily but it’ll be handy to be able to quickly moderate comments when traveling.
Probably more useful will be when you have some sort of a situation in the comments on your blog that needs you to oversee it. For example when you have a flaming war happen between two readers and you need to step in.
Email Triage
One of the things that I’m enjoying most about the iPhone is being able to quickly flip through my email to do a little ‘processing’. Over the weekend it was great to be able to quickly scan the latest emails to see if anything was urgent (and to respond to these quickly), to spot any emails that could be deleted quickly (social media notifications for example) or to see what needed to be marked for ‘later’.
Being able to do this task quickly on the fly frees up time later when you’re actually on your computer for other important tasks.
Post Editing
Another task that I did a couple of times over the weekend was to edit posts. On one occassion it was simply logging into the back end of WordPress to set the time to publish for a post that I’d already written and on another occasion it was the editing of a spelling mistake. These small editing tasks are no brainers on the iPhone.
Feed Monitoring
I follow 600+ RSS feeds so I doubt very much whether the iPhone will ever be my primary place to read them all - however I’ve already used it to follow my ‘A-list’ (a handful of blogs that I read religiously because they are either so useful or consistantly break news that is relevant to the niches that I follow). I’m currently doing this via Google Reader directly - but am told that the Byline Application is useful and syncs well with Google Reader.
Concluding Thoughts and My Wishlist for the iPhone as a Blogger
The above list is simply how I’ve used the iPhone after a few days. I’m sure as I continue to use it I’ll discover that some of the above will be more important to me than other parts of it. I also know that as new applications are developed for the iPhone that other uses for it will arise.
In conclusion, as a blogging tool, the iPhone meets the expectations that I had when I bought it.
I didn’t expect it to be ever be a primary blogging device - and it isn’t - however it will be a very useful device to use as a secondary and supporting blogging device. It will save me time, allow me to be aware of important events that are relevant to my blogs and help me to connect better with readers and other bloggers.
I’m certain that other mobile devices can do similar things (in fact some like the Nokia 95 have a number of the things in my wishlist below) but for me, at least for the next little while, it’s the iPhone that I’ll be carrying in my pocket.
My Wishlist for the iPhone:
How could the iPhone be more useful for bloggers? Here’s a few ideas:
- External keyboard - without it I think I’ll rarely write posts on the iPhone. It’d also be handy to have for note taking at conferences.
- Video capture - I’d love to have the ability to record video on the iPhone, it’d make it a killer blogging device for me (till then I’ve just ordered a Flip which much more portable than my current camcorder).
- Copy and paste - almost every review of the iPhone that I’ve read has asked for this. As a blogger it’d be hugely useful.
- Battery life - I’m yet to go far from home with my iPhone but on those days when I’m out and about a lot I could see how I’m either going to have to take my power adaptor with me or really be careful how much I use it.
- Unlimited Data Plans (Australia) - I know many of you have these in your countries but here in Australia data remains ridiculously expensive (even on the cheaper carrier that I’m with). I currently have a 500MB allowance which on most days will be fine - but as soon as I travel I’m going to be in trouble).
What My Friends Said:
I asked on Twitter and Plurk how my friends there are using the iPhone in their blogging. Here’s how just a few of them responded:
@preneur said - “Taking photos (& autoposting from flckr), making notes for future posts, approving comments via the wodpress apps”
@RealitySEO said - “Since I usually write lengthy articles for one blog, not willing to use iPhone - but have used it for a daily money quotes blog”
@mayken said - “Just started using it myself, been twittering a bit, but the wordpress app is a great little program to use so far.”
@DrCris said - “Using iPhone to read feeds - means I get that when I sit down I already have all my information and all I have to do is post/”
@kriskarkoski said - “Right now mainly using my iPhone for keeping up on my email and feeds and doing some live blogging but hard w/o c&p”
@GrantGriffiths said - “blog editor with WP, RSS reader with netnewswire and Instapaper, check stats with Mint, twitter with twitterrific.”
Thomas Crampton emailed me links to a series of video interviews that he did with three fairly prominent bloggers (that’d be an understatement) which might make some interesting viewing this weekend for some of you with 20 or so minutes to spare:
The interviews are:
- Corey Doctorow (from BoingBoing) - How to be an uber Blogger
- Robert Scoble - 5 Tips for Better Video Blogging
- Erick Schonfeld (from TechCrunch) - Hot to TechCrunch
The experience that those three bloggers have together is pretty amazing - hope you get something out of the videos.
As part of a little research I’m doing for a post (or a short series of them) next week here at ProBlogger I’d like to ask readers to answer this question:
How Long Do You Take To Write a Blog Post?
I know each post varies depending upon what it is - but on average how long would you say you take to write a blog post? I’d be interested to not only hear the time it takes you but also you usually write posts in one sitting or come back to them over time. Also it’d probably help a little if you told us the type of posts you generally write.
Twitter is aflutter with blog owners wondering why their sites can’t be viewed at the moment and it seems that the commonality between them all is that they are running Sitemeter stats on their blogs and that they only seem to crash when viewed with IE7.
I’ve put an email into Sitemeter to get clarification on the problem but until it’s fixed the only way to have your blog viewed by IE7 seems to be removing Sitemeter’s code from your blog (as I’ve done here). It means your stats will be disrupted and inaccurate for today - but at least you’ll have everyone able to view your blog.
Will update when I hear more.
Update - Sitemeter have posted about the problem and say that they have resolved it on their blog. Read here for details.
Do you want to learn how to SNAP readers out of their zombie like surfing and HOOK them into your blog?
If so - read on….
Image by Essjay in NZ
Before I was a blogger I did a lot of public speaking. I did a number of courses in public speaking and used to spend a lot of time with my head in books on the topic.
One of the techniques that I was taught that I found to be very helpful was to include something at the start of every presentation that was there unashamedly to grab attention and create interest.
The theory was that in most presentations (whether it be in a work context, conference, church, school or even in a social context where a speech was given) the majority of your audience quickly will slip into a zombie like trance even as you’re getting up to speak. The act of sitting down and listening to someone speak in a monologue is not really something most of us are wired to do.
So to snap your audience out of this state where they’re incapable of comprehending your 16 point presentation the theory is that you do something, say something, show something or claim something that grabs their attention.
Whether it be a joke, question, controversial statement or claim, powerful story, funny title slide or intriguing and surprising opening line - the primary aim in the first moments of your presentation is to grab attention and create interest in what you’re about to present.
This same principle applies to blogging in two ways.
1. Grabbing Attention on a Post Level
Let me start with the more obvious place that you can (and should) be thinking about grabbing the attention of your readers - within each post.
Every time a reader see’s one of your posts in their RSS feed, stumbles upon it in search engine results, spots it linked to on another site or even sees it on your blog - they make a snap judgement whether they’ll read it or not. This is based upon a number of factors:
- The post’s title
- The opening lines of your post
- An intriguing question
- A Story
- The topic being covered and how relevant and useful it is to the reader
- Visual cues on the page (pictures, sub headings, comment numbers, page design)
- A controversial statement or bold claim
- A great promise
- The voice and style you’ve written in
We could probably add a lot more to this list - but I guess the point I’m wanting to make is that ‘grabbing attention’ is something a blogger needs to think about in the writing of each post.
2. Grabbing Attention on a Blog Level
While grabbing attention on a post by post level is important there’s another one that is worth thinking about also - on a bigger picture level as you think about your whole blog.
What hooks a first time reader into your blog?
Not just into the post that they’ve arrived on - but to your whole blog?
I’m not just talking about how to make your blog sticky (although many ’sticky’ techniques will help a lot) but I’m talking particularly about getting ‘attention’ of readers.
Many of the points on a post level (point #1 above) come into play on this as they will be the first thing that a new reader sees - however there are other factors too - particularly:
- Clear Communication of Topic - Communicating what your blog is about, who it is for, what needs it will fulfill etc all can potentially hook a reader.
- Distinct Site Design and Branding - Whether it be a bold logo, distinct colors, an eye catching picture or some other factor design can stop readers in their tracks momentarily and get them to take a second look at your blog.
What attention grabbing techniques have you tried on either a post by post level or a bigger picture blog level?
PS: As I’m hitting publish on this post I’m reminded of a great little book - Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons That Get People to Buy.
This book looks at a variety of buttons (or hooks) that marketers use to make customers buy. While this might not seem that relevant for blogging - I found that as I read the book that a lot of the buttons described were similar to what I’d seen work at engaging readers on my blogs.
Earlier in the week I offered ProBlogger readers signing up for the BlogMastermind Blog Mentoring program the chance to win a Flip video camera and 5 ProBlogger books. The 48 hour window to win is up and the winners (selected randomly) are:
- Winner of Flip Video Camera (I just bought one for myself too) - Becky Carroll
- Winners of the ProBlogger books - Rebecca Jones, Michael Singer, Paul Ermisc, Karyn Fleeting and Thomas J Stacey.
A special thanks to Marcus Chavers who won the book but asked for me to share the love and for it to be given to another person as he already had a copy (Thomas, you owe Marcus a beer).
Congratulations to the winners - I will be in contact with each of you via email shortly.
Bonus One Hour Session of Personal Coaching From Me Still Valid
I’m still offering all readers who sign up for six months to BlogMastermind through links here at ProBlogger the opportunity to have an hour of my time for me to do a session of personal coaching with you.
I’ll keep this bonus offer open for anyone who signs up until the end of August. Read more about this offer in my original announcement of BlogMastermind.
For those already signed up for 6 months - I’ll be in touch in the coming week or so to give you more details of how we’ll do the sessions.
Earlier in the week I offered ProBlogger readers signing up for the BlogMastermind Blog Mentoring program the chance to win a Flip video camera and 5 ProBlogger books. The 48 hour window to win is up and the winners (selected randomly) are:
- Winner of Flip Video Camera (I just bought one for myself too) - Becky Carroll
- Winners of the ProBlogger books - Rebecca Jones, Michael Singer, Paul Ermisc, Karyn Fleeting and Thomas J Stacey.
A special thanks to Marcus Chavers who won the book but asked for me to share the love and for it to be given to another person as he already had a copy (Thomas, you owe Marcus a beer).
Congratulations to the winners - I will be in contact with each of you via email shortly.
Bonus One Hour Session of Personal Coaching From Me Still Valid
I’m still offering all readers who sign up for six months to BlogMastermind through links here at ProBlogger the opportunity to have an hour of my time for me to do a session of personal coaching with you.
I’ll keep this bonus offer open for anyone who signs up until the end of August. Read more about this offer in my original announcement of BlogMastermind.
For those already signed up for 6 months - I’ll be in touch in the coming week or so to give you more details of how we’ll do the sessions.
In my last post I wrote that I’d just discovered that StumbleUpon had banned me.
I’m happy to announce that 1 hour and 44 minutes after posting that - I was unbanned.
How did it happen? I put it down to Social Media. Here’s the story:
- I had a number of people Tweet me 30 or so minutes before I posted my last post telling me that I was banned. I can only presume it happened around that times they all came at once.
- I reacted quickly by first emailing StumbleUpon using their contact form.
- I then posted my last post here at ProBlogger
- This post appeared moments later in my Twitter stream (this happens automatically)
- I plurked a link to the post.
- A few minutes later it was submitted to Digg (something I didn’t even consider doing)
- I received a heap of Twitter responses and the story was re-tweeted by quite a few of my followers
- I received a Direct Message tweet within moments fro a follower who gave me the email address of the community manager at StumbleUpon - I emailed him
- The post on Digg was at 90 Diggs within about half an hour
- Twitter was alive with the story (see this screen grab of Twitscoop which shows the tag cloud of what people were talking about on Twitter).
- Many readers emailed Stumbleupon
- I received an email and a comment on ProBlogger from the community manager at StumbleUpon an hour and a quarter after the post went live. He said that it could be resolved and that he’d like us to blog about the situation both here on ProBlogger and the SU blog. I emailed back that I would be happy to do so.
- ProBlogger was unbanned 1 hour and 44 minutes later.
- A few minutes later a story appeared on Digg about how I had been unbanned from StumbleUpon - linking to my Tweet about it.
- Now that I’m unbanned from SU the post saying that I’m banned is getting heaps of bookmarks…. ironically on StumbleUpon.
Here’s that Tag Cloud from Twitscoop
So what did I learn today?
- ProBlogger readers and Twitter followers are amazing. Between putting me in touch with the right person at SU and all your tweets, plurks and diggs you got this fixed really quick.
- StumbleUpon are responsive - or at least Walter their Community Manager is
- Social Media his powerful - while I knew this I don’t think I really had experienced it working so quickly on something that was personal to me
- When you’ve got a problem it can help to involve your friends, not completely lose it and blog a rant (while I was angry in my post I didn’t completely lose it - I tried to reach out to SU) and lastly - sometimes there is opportunity in when bad stuff happens. The buzz and traffic around this whole story has been quite amazing today. I think tomorrow I’ll get banned by Digg :-)
Thanks to everyone for your support, ideas, feedback and offers to help today. Thanks also to StumbleUpon for responding quickly. I look forward to hearing why all this happened and what we as bloggers can learn about it from your end. I’ll post more about this as Walter gets back to me.
The one thing that I do hope StumbleUpon will learn from and change is their ‘banned’ page. It has the potential to unfairly hurt reputations and tarnish sites that have not deserved that. I’m no lawyer but I suspect it could even border on some kind of defamation.
In my last post I wrote that I’d just discovered that StumbleUpon had banned me.
I’m happy to announce that 1 hour and 44 minutes after posting that - I was unbanned.
How did it happen? I put it down to Social Media. Here’s the story:
- I had a number of people Tweet me 30 or so minutes before I posted my last post telling me that I was banned. I can only presume it happened around that times they all came at once.
- I reacted quickly by first emailing StumbleUpon using their contact form.
- I then posted my last post here at ProBlogger
- This post appeared moments later in my Twitter stream (this happens automatically)
- I plurked a link to the post.
- A few minutes later it was submitted to Digg (something I didn’t even consider doing)
- I received a heap of Twitter responses and the story was re-tweeted by quite a few of my followers
- I received a Direct Message tweet within moments fro a follower who gave me the email address of the community manager at StumbleUpon - I emailed him
- The post on Digg was at 90 Diggs within about half an hour
- Twitter was alive with the story (see this screen grab of Twitscoop which shows the tag cloud of what people were talking about on Twitter).
- Many readers emailed Stumbleupon
- I received an email and a comment on ProBlogger from the community manager at StumbleUpon an hour and a quarter after the post went live. He said that it could be resolved and that he’d like us to blog about the situation both here on ProBlogger and the SU blog. I emailed back that I would be happy to do so.
- ProBlogger was unbanned 1 hour and 44 minutes later.
- A few minutes later a story appeared on Digg about how I had been unbanned from StumbleUpon - linking to my Tweet about it.
- Now that I’m unbanned from SU the post saying that I’m banned is getting heaps of bookmarks…. ironically on StumbleUpon.
Here’s that Tag Cloud from Twitscoop
So what did I learn today?
- ProBlogger readers and Twitter followers are amazing. Between putting me in touch with the right person at SU and all your tweets, plurks and diggs you got this fixed really quick.
- StumbleUpon are responsive - or at least Walter their Community Manager is
- Social Media his powerful - while I knew this I don’t think I really had experienced it working so quickly on something that was personal to me
- When you’ve got a problem it can help to involve your friends, not completely lose it and blog a rant (while I was angry in my post I didn’t completely lose it - I tried to reach out to SU) and lastly - sometimes there is opportunity in when bad stuff happens. The buzz and traffic around this whole story has been quite amazing today. I think tomorrow I’ll get banned by Digg :-)
Thanks to everyone for your support, ideas, feedback and offers to help today. Thanks also to StumbleUpon for responding quickly. I look forward to hearing why all this happened and what we as bloggers can learn about it from your end. I’ll post more about this as Walter gets back to me.
The one thing that I do hope StumbleUpon will learn from and change is their ‘banned’ page. It has the potential to unfairly hurt reputations and tarnish sites that have not deserved that. I’m no lawyer but I suspect it could even border on some kind of defamation.
This story has been updated at the bottom of this post.
This morning a number of readers have emailed or tweeted me to let me know that when they try to bookmark a post on ProBlogger that it leads them to a page saying that ProBlogger has been banned from StumbleUpon (thaks to @Fussypants on Twitter who was first).
You can see a screen capture of the page here - subtle isn’t it!?:
The page says that we’ve either been banned for abusing the service or have been asked for the site not to be included.
I can tell you that it was not the 2nd option (and if it had of been I would be pretty upset to see it presented as ‘banned’).
I’ve sent off an email using Stumbleupon’s contact form to ask for more information on this - but to be honest I’m pretty shocked and a little angry at this.
I can’t think of any way that I’ve abused StumbleUpon and if I had I would have thought that they’d have banned me as a user of it as well or instead of banning my URL.
I’ve got two theories as to why I may have been banned
1. ProBlogger does get a reasonable amount of traffic from StumbleUpon and perhaps the powers at be at SU think I’ve manipulated the system to get it. This is not the case and I’d suggest that perhaps I get more traffic from SU than some other sites because:
- I’ve written about StumbleUpon many times. Writing about any bookmarking site tends to get people who use that site to bookmark those posts
- I write to an audience who use social media a lot - ProBlogger readers are a very social media savvy lot and probably bookmark more than the general web user.
2. My recent social media love-in and list of bloggers who use StumbleUpon might have been interpreted abuse.
Perhaps I should have checked with SU before running that social media love-in but my motivations for doing it were not abusive. All I was hoping to do was to build community here on ProBlogger and give readers an opportunity to connect with one another in mediums other than here on this blog.
If anything I thought it would promote and build traffic on the social media sites that we developed lists for. If SU don’t want bloggers to use their service and don’t want sub communities within their user-base then this is their prerogative - but I’m a little put out that as someone who has actively promoted and used their service and even encouraged my readers to advertise on them that they simply banned me.
Some articles I’ve published on StumbleUpon for bloggers include:
- Why StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic than Digg
- How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog
- How to Write Posts that Set StumbleUpon on Fire
I’m also a little angry that people voting for my posts get led to a page that accuses me as the owner of this site of abusing their service. If that’s not a slur against my character then I’m not sure what is. If this upsets you I’d encourage you to Stumble a ProBlogger page, click the ‘contact us’ link and let them know what you think (that’s what they’ve asked for on the page anyway).
Dear StumbleUpon
I am obviously feeling a little put out by you banning my blog from your service.
I do love StumbleUpon and hope that you’ll reconsider your decision and I’d love to hear from you with how I can remedy any actions that I might have inadvertently taken that don’t fit with your terms and conditions.
update - just heard from StumbleUpon’s Community Manager (who I emailed) - he’s also commented his email in comments below. We’re going to work on sorting this out and then I’ll post about the results in the coming days so we can all learn a thing or two about why this happened and how we can avoid it happening to others. Fingers crossed that this is resolved soon.
update 2 - 1 hour and 44 minutes after I posted this post I’m no longer banned from StumbleUpon. I put this down to you - my amazing readership who reacted with emails, Diggs, Tweets and more. I’ve never seen first hand what a blog community can achieve like this so quickly. Now if only we could pull ourselves together and work so hard to do something that REALLY matters like doing something about poverty or the environment…. :-)
update 3 - Check out this post that I’ve written the full story of how I got banned and unbanned from StumbleUpon in under two hours.
This story has been updated at the bottom of this post.
This morning a number of readers have emailed or tweeted me to let me know that when they try to bookmark a post on ProBlogger that it leads them to a page saying that ProBlogger has been banned from StumbleUpon (thaks to @Fussypants on Twitter who was first).
You can see a screen capture of the page here - subtle isn’t it!?:
The page says that we’ve either been banned for abusing the service or have been asked for the site not to be included.
I can tell you that it was not the 2nd option (and if it had of been I would be pretty upset to see it presented as ‘banned’).
I’ve sent off an email using Stumbleupon’s contact form to ask for more information on this - but to be honest I’m pretty shocked and a little angry at this.
I can’t think of any way that I’ve abused StumbleUpon and if I had I would have thought that they’d have banned me as a user of it as well or instead of banning my URL.
I’ve got two theories as to why I may have been banned
1. ProBlogger does get a reasonable amount of traffic from StumbleUpon and perhaps the powers at be at SU think I’ve manipulated the system to get it. This is not the case and I’d suggest that perhaps I get more traffic from SU than some other sites because:
- I’ve written about StumbleUpon many times. Writing about any bookmarking site tends to get people who use that site to bookmark those posts
- I write to an audience who use social media a lot - ProBlogger readers are a very social media savvy lot and probably bookmark more than the general web user.
2. My recent social media love-in and list of bloggers who use StumbleUpon might have been interpreted abuse.
Perhaps I should have checked with SU before running that social media love-in but my motivations for doing it were not abusive. All I was hoping to do was to build community here on ProBlogger and give readers an opportunity to connect with one another in mediums other than here on this blog.
If anything I thought it would promote and build traffic on the social media sites that we developed lists for. If SU don’t want bloggers to use their service and don’t want sub communities within their user-base then this is their prerogative - but I’m a little put out that as someone who has actively promoted and used their service and even encouraged my readers to advertise on them that they simply banned me.
Some articles I’ve published on StumbleUpon for bloggers include:
- Why StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic than Digg
- How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog
- How to Write Posts that Set StumbleUpon on Fire
I’m also a little angry that people voting for my posts get led to a page that accuses me as the owner of this site of abusing their service. If that’s not a slur against my character then I’m not sure what is. If this upsets you I’d encourage you to Stumble a ProBlogger page, click the ‘contact us’ link and let them know what you think (that’s what they’ve asked for on the page anyway).
Dear StumbleUpon
I am obviously feeling a little put out by you banning my blog from your service.
I do love StumbleUpon and hope that you’ll reconsider your decision and I’d love to hear from you with how I can remedy any actions that I might have inadvertently taken that don’t fit with your terms and conditions.
update - just heard from StumbleUpon’s Community Manager (who I emailed) - he’s also commented his email in comments below. We’re going to work on sorting this out and then I’ll post about the results in the coming days so we can all learn a thing or two about why this happened and how we can avoid it happening to others. Fingers crossed that this is resolved soon.
update 2 - 1 hour and 44 minutes after I posted this post I’m no longer banned from StumbleUpon. I put this down to you - my amazing readership who reacted with emails, Diggs, Tweets and more. I’ve never seen first hand what a blog community can achieve like this so quickly. Now if only we could pull ourselves together and work so hard to do something that REALLY matters like doing something about poverty or the environment…. :-)
update 3 - Check out this post that I’ve written the full story of how I got banned and unbanned from StumbleUpon in under two hours.
There has been ALOT of talk around the blogosphere about blog networks lately - ALOT!
Some of it is as a result of the closing of the Know More Media blog network, some of it as a result of AOL and Gawker making changes to the way their networks pay bloggers and some of it is…. well…. just because every six or so months there seems to be talk about blog networks.
Today one of my co-founders in b5media (and our CEO) Jeremy Wright put together a post that I think picks up a lot of the themes and casts some light on what it’s like to run a blog network. Effectively Jeremy has written 6 posts in one (I really have to teach this guy about writing a series of posts :-) )and covers:
- A summary of some of the talk going on around the blogosphere on the topic with some great links
- 10 Reasons Managing Bloggers (and Blog Ads) Is Harder Than Your Grandma’s Corns
- 3 Simple Tips for Starting a Blog Network
- Thoughts on Starting a Blog Alliance
- 3 Tips for Starting a Blog Ad Network
- Final Tip(s) for Success for Everyone
Depending upon where you’re at in your own development of blogging I think there’s something in this post for everyone. Read it here.
Jeremy’s reasons why managing bloggers and blog ads is hard will be particularly insightful for those starting out with networks because I often come across bloggers who think blog networks an easy way to make money - you simply just hire extra writers and slap more ads on the blogs right? Ummm…. time for a reality check - my experience of blog networks is that while you can potentially multiple your income with more blogs you also multiple the headaches, challenges, problems and risks.
Jeremy’s tips for those starting out are also useful.
Further Reading
A few posts from my archives that might be useful for bloggers wanting to start or join blog networks:
- A Strategy for Building Niche Focused Blog Networks (if I were starting again today it’d be with this approach. While I fully believe in the model b5 is pursuing (we’ve gone wide with lots of niches) it is a lot harder to do this now and presents a lot of challenges)
- Why Should You Join a Blog Network
- Why You Shouldn’t Join a Blog Network
- How to Launch a Blog Network
There has been ALOT of talk around the blogosphere about blog networks lately - ALOT!
Some of it is as a result of the closing of the Know More Media blog network, some of it as a result of AOL and Gawker making changes to the way their networks pay bloggers and some of it is…. well…. just because every six or so months there seems to be talk about blog networks.
Today one of my co-founders in b5media (and our CEO) Jeremy Wright put together a post that I think picks up a lot of the themes and casts some light on what it’s like to run a blog network. Effectively Jeremy has written 6 posts in one (I really have to teach this guy about writing a series of posts :-) )and covers:
- A summary of some of the talk going on around the blogosphere on the topic with some great links
- 10 Reasons Managing Bloggers (and Blog Ads) Is Harder Than Your Grandma’s Corns
- 3 Simple Tips for Starting a Blog Network
- Thoughts on Starting a Blog Alliance
- 3 Tips for Starting a Blog Ad Network
- Final Tip(s) for Success for Everyone
Depending upon where you’re at in your own development of blogging I think there’s something in this post for everyone. Read it here.
Jeremy’s reasons why managing bloggers and blog ads is hard will be particularly insightful for those starting out with networks because I often come across bloggers who think blog networks an easy way to make money - you simply just hire extra writers and slap more ads on the blogs right? Ummm…. time for a reality check - my experience of blog networks is that while you can potentially multiple your income with more blogs you also multiple the headaches, challenges, problems and risks.
Jeremy’s tips for those starting out are also useful.
Further Reading
A few posts from my archives that might be useful for bloggers wanting to start or join blog networks:
- A Strategy for Building Niche Focused Blog Networks (if I were starting again today it’d be with this approach. While I fully believe in the model b5 is pursuing (we’ve gone wide with lots of niches) it is a lot harder to do this now and presents a lot of challenges)
- Why Should You Join a Blog Network
- Why You Shouldn’t Join a Blog Network
- How to Launch a Blog Network
Today Vered DeLeeuw from MomGrind suggests ways for turning a mommy blog into a business. These tips are not limited to mommy blogs: they can be applied to personal blogs in general. Image by KellyandApril.
MomGrind is a personal blog. It chronicles my thoughts and struggles. It is where I share a laugh with my readers, ask for their advice, post an occasional feminist rant, and wonder about the meaning of it all.
MomGrind is also a business.
Unlike marketing and business blogs, or even self-improvement and productivity blogs, mommy blogs are highly personal. They tell the story of an individual, the story of a family. “Making your blog more personal” is typically not an issue for mommy bloggers. It happens naturally.
When you talk with mommy bloggers, many of them will tell you that they are not blogging for money. Blogging is an outlet for their daily struggles and frustrations. They blog to document the joys and the frustrations that come with raising children. But mommy bloggers are powerful. They have the power to help big corporations reach an important audience. The big companies know it. Do the moms know it?
If you author a mom blog – or any other personal blog – and would like to turn your blog into a business and earn money doing something that you love, these tips will help you get started:
1. Acknowledge that your blog is a business
This is a crucial first step. Start taking yourself seriously and others will take you seriously too. If you have an opportunity to use direct advertising on your blog, go for it, and sell it for what it’s really worth: don’t leave money on the table. If a company emails you with questions, charge a consulting fee for answering them. Queen of Spain received a consulting fee of $6000 from Disney “for what essentially amounted to a few emails, a survey, and a meeting”. Needless to say, you should set up a Paypal account.
2. Decide how much you are willing to share with your readers
It’s impossible to write a post about mommy blogs without mentioning the queen of mommy blogging, Heather Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong has a very particular style that includes great writing, frequent use of profanity, lots of personal charm, and the ability to make fun of herself and her husband. Her definition of privacy is lax – she readily shares highly private family moments with her readers.
But does one have to use profanity or expose her family affairs on the Internet in order to turn her blog into a lucrative business? I don’t have the answer to this question, although I will venture a guess that if you want to REALLY make it as a mommy blogger, you must be willing to share A LOT. This is a very personal choice, of course. Define your limits, and once you have – be ready to defend them, to others and to yourself.
3. Subscribe to ProBlogger
I am a subscriber and a regular reader. Sure, the posts here are geared toward professional bloggers. But many of them are very relevant to me. For example, Darren’s recent post on 21 Ways To Make Your Blog Sticky was very helpful in improving MomGrind. I implemented several of Darren’s suggestions, including highlighting my best content and creating an engaging “About” page.
4. Educate yourself about advertising
You need to determine when to start using ads on your blog; where to place them to optimize revenue; how many ads to display; and how to handle direct advertising.
5. Start networking
If you want to earn decent money from your blog, you need to have enough daily unique visitors and page views to attract direct advertisers. Even if your content is great, this kind of traffic to your blog will not happen without networking.
A good place to start is visiting other blogs and making comments on them. You should also approach bloggers who run blogs that are approximately the size of your blog or bigger, and offer to write guest posts for them. This will expose you to new readers, and some of them will end up as new subscribers.
Perhaps one of the most important things you can do to build a community around your blog, is to participate in social media sites. Many prominent mommy bloggers, including Dooce, Sweetney and Her Bad Mother, use Twitter.
6. Keep writing about things that are interesting to you
While you should keep your growing audience in mind to some extent, it’s important that you stay true to yourself. Writing content that evokes emotions in your readers (Her Bad Mother excels at that), or content that has a high entertainment value (Dooce is highly entertaining), is fine. In fact, it’s more than fine. Don’t worry about other blogs providing information and advice. You are giving your readers something that is just as valuable: you are making other moms feel like they’re not alone, and in many cases, you are making them laugh.
7. Never apologize for those ad checks
Making money or wanting to make money from your blog is your prerogative. Get over the “good girl” mentality and be proud of your talent, of your networking abilities, of the wonderful, thriving business that you have started from scratch and are building with your own hands. I enjoyed reading another prominent mommy blogger - Don Mills Diva’s - recent post “Show Me The Money”. Don Mills Diva does NOT apologize for aspiring to make money from her blog. I couldn’t agree with her more.
8. Pace yourself
Creating a successful blog takes a lot of work. If you want to do this for the long haul and avoid burnout, it’s important to slow down. Darren recently said that it’s very easy to work 12 hours per day on a blog, if you don’t set limits. My advice: don’t. This is true for every blogger, and it’s especially true for you, because you have children to take care of and to enjoy. Don’t allow the Internet to rob you of enjoying the fleeting moments of your kids’ childhood.
Photo credit: R. Motti (link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/motti/298650667/)
Today Vered DeLeeuw from MomGrind suggests ways for turning a mommy blog into a business. These tips are not limited to mommy blogs: they can be applied to personal blogs in general. Image by KellyandApril.
MomGrind is a personal blog. It chronicles my thoughts and struggles. It is where I share a laugh with my readers, ask for their advice, post an occasional feminist rant, and wonder about the meaning of it all.
MomGrind is also a business.
Unlike marketing and business blogs, or even self-improvement and productivity blogs, mommy blogs are highly personal. They tell the story of an individual, the story of a family. “Making your blog more personal” is typically not an issue for mommy bloggers. It happens naturally.
When you talk with mommy bloggers, many of them will tell you that they are not blogging for money. Blogging is an outlet for their daily struggles and frustrations. They blog to document the joys and the frustrations that come with raising children. But mommy bloggers are powerful. They have the power to help big corporations reach an important audience. The big companies know it. Do the moms know it?
If you author a mom blog – or any other personal blog – and would like to turn your blog into a business and earn money doing something that you love, these tips will help you get started:
1. Acknowledge that your blog is a business
This is a crucial first step. Start taking yourself seriously and others will take you seriously too. If you have an opportunity to use direct advertising on your blog, go for it, and sell it for what it’s really worth: don’t leave money on the table. If a company emails you with questions, charge a consulting fee for answering them. Queen of Spain received a consulting fee of $6000 from Disney “for what essentially amounted to a few emails, a survey, and a meeting”. Needless to say, you should set up a Paypal account.
2. Decide how much you are willing to share with your readers
It’s impossible to write a post about mommy blogs without mentioning the queen of mommy blogging, Heather Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong has a very particular style that includes great writing, frequent use of profanity, lots of personal charm, and the ability to make fun of herself and her husband. Her definition of privacy is lax – she readily shares highly private family moments with her readers.
But does one have to use profanity or expose her family affairs on the Internet in order to turn her blog into a lucrative business? I don’t have the answer to this question, although I will venture a guess that if you want to REALLY make it as a mommy blogger, you must be willing to share A LOT. This is a very personal choice, of course. Define your limits, and once you have – be ready to defend them, to others and to yourself.
3. Subscribe to ProBlogger
I am a subscriber and a regular reader. Sure, the posts here are geared toward professional bloggers. But many of them are very relevant to me. For example, Darren’s recent post on 21 Ways To Make Your Blog Sticky was very helpful in improving MomGrind. I implemented several of Darren’s suggestions, including highlighting my best content and creating an engaging “About” page.
4. Educate yourself about advertising
You need to determine when to start using ads on your blog; where to place them to optimize revenue; how many ads to display; and how to handle direct advertising.
5. Start networking
If you want to earn decent money from your blog, you need to have enough daily unique visitors and page views to attract direct advertisers. Even if your content is great, this kind of traffic to your blog will not happen without networking.
A good place to start is visiting other blogs and making comments on them. You should also approach bloggers who run blogs that are approximately the size of your blog or bigger, and offer to write guest posts for them. This will expose you to new readers, and some of them will end up as new subscribers.
Perhaps one of the most important things you can do to build a community around your blog, is to participate in social media sites. Many prominent mommy bloggers, including Dooce, Sweetney and Her Bad Mother, use Twitter.
6. Keep writing about things that are interesting to you
While you should keep your growing audience in mind to some extent, it’s important that you stay true to yourself. Writing content that evokes emotions in your readers (Her Bad Mother excels at that), or content that has a high entertainment value (Dooce is highly entertaining), is fine. In fact, it’s more than fine. Don’t worry about other blogs providing information and advice. You are giving your readers something that is just as valuable: you are making other moms feel like they’re not alone, and in many cases, you are making them laugh.
7. Never apologize for those ad checks
Making money or wanting to make money from your blog is your prerogative. Get over the “good girl” mentality and be proud of your talent, of your networking abilities, of the wonderful, thriving business that you have started from scratch and are building with your own hands. I enjoyed reading another prominent mommy blogger - Don Mills Diva’s - recent post “Show Me The Money”. Don Mills Diva does NOT apologize for aspiring to make money from her blog. I couldn’t agree with her more.
8. Pace yourself
Creating a successful blog takes a lot of work. If you want to do this for the long haul and avoid burnout, it’s important to slow down. Darren recently said that it’s very easy to work 12 hours per day on a blog, if you don’t set limits. My advice: don’t. This is true for every blogger, and it’s especially true for you, because you have children to take care of and to enjoy. Don’t allow the Internet to rob you of enjoying the fleeting moments of your kids’ childhood.
Photo credit: R. Motti (link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/motti/298650667/)
36 hours ago I announced the re-launch of Yaro’s BlogMastermind Blog Mentoring program.
As part of my promotion of it I offered any ProBlogger reader who signs up the chance to win one of six prizes.
First prize is a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder (worth $179) and 5 runners up will win a copy of the ProBlogger book. The deadline to be included to win was 48 hours from when BlogMastermind opened it’s doors. This is in 12 hours from now.
So - to be in the running to win the Flip or a book you need to sign up soon.
What are your chances of winning?
To this point I’ve referred around 20 people to BlogMastermind - so you’ve got better than a 1 in 4 chance of winning at least something and a 1 in 20 chance of winning yourself a spiffy little new video camera.
Yaro tells me that over 200 people have already signed up - so BlogMastermind is truly cranking again.
Another Bonus - Get an Hour of My Time If You Sign Up for Six Months
Yaro offers three options at three different price points to invest in the BlogMastermind Program. For anyone who signs up via my affiliate links for option 2 (the six months all at once) or option 3 (the six months plus access to his next course) I am going to throw in one hour of time with me.
You can use this hour in a number of ways (happy to negotiate something that works for you):
- I can write a short report/review of your blog (I’d recommend that you have this done after you’ve been in BlogMastermind for a month or two and have implemented some of Yaro’s strategies)
Signup for BlogMastermind here to qualify
The only conditions that I’ll put on this ‘one hour bonus’ is that you need to signup for BM by the end of August to get it and you need to stay in the course for 31 days before claiming it as Yaro does offer a 30 day money back guarantee (which he honors) so if you don’t end up paying for BlogMastermind it’s not really fair to get the bonus.
Update: This competition is now over. I’ve chosen winners and will announce them on the blog tonight (my time). The bonus 1 hour consulting offer is still valid til the end of August.
36 hours ago I announced the re-launch of Yaro’s BlogMastermind Blog Mentoring program.
As part of my promotion of it I offered any ProBlogger reader who signs up the chance to win one of six prizes.
First prize is a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder (worth $179) and 5 runners up will win a copy of the ProBlogger book. The deadline to be included to win was 48 hours from when BlogMastermind opened it’s doors. This is in 12 hours from now.
So - to be in the running to win the Flip or a book you need to sign up soon.
What are your chances of winning?
To this point I’ve referred around 20 people to BlogMastermind - so you’ve got better than a 1 in 4 chance of winning at least something and a 1 in 20 chance of winning yourself a spiffy little new video camera.
Yaro tells me that over 200 people have already signed up - so BlogMastermind is truly cranking again.
Another Bonus - Get an Hour of My Time If You Sign Up for Six Months
Yaro offers three options at three different price points to invest in the BlogMastermind Program. For anyone who signs up via my affiliate links for option 2 (the six months all at once) or option 3 (the six months plus access to his next course) I am going to throw in one hour of time with me.
You can use this hour in a number of ways (happy to negotiate something that works for you):
- I can write a short report/review of your blog (I’d recommend that you have this done after you’ve been in BlogMastermind for a month or two and have implemented some of Yaro’s strategies)
Signup for BlogMastermind here to qualify
The only conditions that I’ll put on this ‘one hour bonus’ is that you need to signup for BM by the end of August to get it and you need to stay in the course for 31 days before claiming it as Yaro does offer a 30 day money back guarantee (which he honors) so if you don’t end up paying for BlogMastermind it’s not really fair to get the bonus.
Update: This competition is now over. I’ve chosen winners and will announce them on the blog tonight (my time). The bonus 1 hour consulting offer is still valid til the end of August.
Today the Social Media Love-In here at ProBlogger continues with a list of 145 bloggers who use Plurk.
So far we’ve presented you with bloggers who use Digg, some that use StumbleUpon and a lot of them who use Twitter. Today’s list is smaller than the others but I think it is just as worthwhile as Plurk has become a key part of my daily social media interactions and is a place of wonderfully rich conversation and networking.
As usual - if you didn’t get your profile in the list - all is not lost because these 145 profiles are a great place to start and you can benefit from adding them as they’re a great bunch of people.
Today the Social Media Love-In here at ProBlogger continues with a list of 145 bloggers who use Plurk.
So far we’ve presented you with bloggers who use Digg, some that use StumbleUpon and a lot of them who use Twitter. Today’s list is smaller than the others but I think it is just as worthwhile as Plurk has become a key part of my daily social media interactions and is a place of wonderfully rich conversation and networking.
As usual - if you didn’t get your profile in the list - all is not lost because these 145 profiles are a great place to start and you can benefit from adding them as they’re a great bunch of people.
One of my biggest regrets of 2007 was not being able to attend Blog World Expo.
The reports that came out of BWE from thousands of bloggers were quite amazing. Rich networking, great teaching, showcases of services and tools for bloggers and much much more.
This year Blog World Expo is on again (20-21 September) in Las Vegas.
I’m hoping to attend this year (I’m 50/50 at this point as we’re waiting to see how our new baby settles before I travel again) as the list of people that I know who are attending is quite amazing. They’ve started compiling a list of speakers here. If I’m going I’ll be involved in at least one panel and probably another session.
I emailed the Rick Calvert CEO of BWE earlier in the week and asked him if they’d be willing to put up a couple of free passes to attend - he generously agreed.
The passes are worth $400 each - there are two of them to go to two separate winners.
So here’s how we’re going to give them away - it’s time for a commenting competition.
Before entering - you need to know that these passes do NOT include travel or accommodation they simply give you free access to the conference once you’re there. Please don’t enter if you’re not willing to cover your other expenses or be there as I’d love for someone to win them that are actually certain to use them!
- In comments below I’d like to invite you to leave a comment telling us why you’d like to attend Blog World Expo in 250 words or less.
- Rick and his team will select two comments that they think are deserving of winning. They’ll judge the winners based on your comments.
- This will run for one week from the time this post goes live. I’ll then close off comments and get Rick to select the winners.
Looking forward to reading your entries and the possibility of meeting you in Vegas later in the year!
Just a place to consolidate all my favorite shit on the web.
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