It's Friday and we're letting our hair down. Today we're going to have some fun talking about how blogging is changing and what are the five things you should at least try in 2008. I should, too.
I limited my advice at The Blog Herald to things that are either emerging or have been sort of forgotten in the excitement of the new tool that was blogging even one year ago. Now it's time to take another look at them.
For example newsletters, digital photography sections on a site, even a new content area on a sub-domain are ways of diversifying for your readers. This year I may try more podcasts. I did not add this to my list at The Blog Herald because it is already a well known and popular way to share information online. However, perhaps you can add it to your list of things to try to diversify how you present content and information on your blog.
If you occasionally read a more spontaneous voice out of me it's all Twitter's fault. Although the jury is still out on that tool overall, I still think it worth checking out. I won't say more about it here, but look for a post coming up at one of the blogs I contribute to. One that no doubt will be a good conversation, with your help.
The screen shot you see here is from Pageflakes and was developed by Steve Woodruff who aggregated the feeds of several bogs on marketing, social media, advertising, design, writing, customer experience, social media, public relations and marketing tips. He created a niche portal for people interested in learning more about these topics. That is another good way to get the word out on your blogs and site.
Believe it or not, I have had no time to play around with my iPhone yet. When I purchased it, they threw in three personal training sessions at the local Apple store. I wanted to have the chance to use the phone a little before booking the first one. Now that I'm ready, I will explore mobile blogging while I'm at it. Just before the holidays I noticed a few Twitter friends using Utterz to do just that -- Todd Jordan (Tojosan) and Steve Garfield (stevegarfield) have both posted while on the road.
Steve is also a video blogger, he posts on Seesmic, which is a recent community driven video social software start up by entrepreneur Loic Le Meur. Bloggers have been using it to chat via video. Laura Fitton, Matt Dickman and Jim Long also make heavy use of video. [hat tip to Joe Cascio on video editing]
Are many of these tools time hogs? You bet, especially as you're ramping up and learning about how to use them. I will be trying a couple of them this year. How about you? Now, as I said in my post at The Blog Herald, put that Twitter down and step away from it.
I have Seesmic, but haven't 'friended' anyone or posted yet. I like EyeJot too for video, as I can quickly make a video comment on a website (small video in browser frame above website), or make a video email to people without them having to signup to view. Unfortunately, my audio isn't working [I think my fault :( ]
Time wasters? You betcha, but then again it's all relative.
Posted by: mvellandi | January 11, 2008 at 11:47 AM
Completely agree about the fact that most of the "time hog" aspect of all these new tools is in the learning curve. Once you get a routine that works for you, they can be great for allowing you to read and respond to what's going on in an efficient way.
As long as you have the self-discipline to not keep tweaking your system forever. ;)
Posted by: KatFrench | January 11, 2008 at 01:22 PM
@Mario -- I haven't ventured yet. But I used Skype successfully without a microphone from my iMac to call Italy on several occasions. Does that count?
@Kat -- Learning something new can be an investment as long as, as you say, we find a way to go to market at some point. Always in beta works only for some things.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | January 11, 2008 at 01:25 PM
Valeria, I did like you told me to... :-)
I'm keen to explore pageflakes - for example I meet up once a week with a group of Edinburgh bloggers and social media people and I figured we could create a page to show off what we do. Must get on to it, I don't think it's that hard.
I'm increasingly drawn into twitter (I blame the person who told me it was a question of waiting like at an Italian roundabout)and was intrigued by your line here:
"If you occasionally read a more spontaneous voice out of me it's all Twitter's fault."
It does encourage us to have fun, to chat, be experimental, conversational - in fact I was saying to a client the other day that she should give it a try as a way of practicing using her 'voice'. If it gives more people the confidence to get blogging and/or social media I think that will be a good thing.
Joanna
Posted by: Joanna Young | January 11, 2008 at 01:39 PM
Pageflakes is a great tool to aggregate blogs and sites by topic for a group. I've seen you make connections on Twitter. The secret is not to let it take over your life ;-)
I was happy to see news coverage in The Washington Post about the Frozen Pea fund, an initiative born and run on Twitter. So much good can come from being able to reach out and pull together.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | January 11, 2008 at 05:46 PM
Valeria, this is a great challenge for us all. I do have a question though. Somewhere I saw that bloggers are lucky if a visitor spends 17 seconds on a site. I'm very busy and do not have lots of time to visit so unless a blog really catches my fancy I merely skim it.
Is the time you would spend making a podcast or video worth it?
Posted by: Robyn | January 11, 2008 at 06:16 PM
Robyn:
You can check the average time spent on your blog in Google Analytics. The average time on my blog for example is 1:44, with a 64% bounce rate, which is actually pretty good. There are ways to measure stickiness even for web sites.
I blog to share and converse with other professionals, and part of it is also to learn, stretch, and improve my writing. Same reasons could apply to creating podcasts and videos.
My post on "Will New Media Re-Imagine Journalism?" of a couple of Sundays ago, for example, took four hours to research and write. Should I be upset that I go only a handful of comments? Of course not! It was a pleasure to learn about the ideas of other people on it during research and mine during composition. Each person in the end does their own assessment on whether it is worth it for them.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | January 12, 2008 at 02:59 PM
It's amazing how quickly this space is evolving. Ideas that I considered viable new product directions are being spun out on almost a daily basis. It definitely keeps me on my feet.
One interesting thing to note is that tools like Pageflakes were designed to be time savers, eliminating the need to visit each site individually to get caught up. But what usually happens is we get so much new link candy that we end up spending more time than ever. But I don't think that's the fault of the tool and in reality they probably are saving us time. It's just that there is _so_ much to stay on top of these days.
Regarding Twitter (great article on Blog Herald, btw) - it interests me by virtue of what it offers as a product and even more so by what is developing on top of the platform. #hashtags are a prime example of a technology innovation that will have a big impact in the coming years.
Posted by: Ray Grieselhuber | January 13, 2008 at 12:04 AM
It must be exciting and overwhelming at the same time to review new technology and its uses. In that respect, I appreciate your comment here. The sense that we may miss a beat and get buried into oblivion in very real.
Of course, that is only part of the equation. Sometimes it pays to test, observe, and find concrete ways to implement a technology or marketing strategy before touting its virtues to the world ;-)
Much has been discussed here and elsewhere on tags. Simpler is usually better for adoption and sharing. We shall see what develops from these beginnings. Thank you for your kind words on The Blog Herald post. Yes, some tools will evolve to platforms, some platforms may find completely new uses.
One of the places I am looking to dig a little deeper into is the tools that organizations use internally -- those are usually driven by relationships with vendors, vs. usability...
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | January 13, 2008 at 02:41 PM
"Of course, that is only part of the equation. Sometimes it pays to test, observe, and find concrete ways to implement a technology or marketing strategy before touting its virtues to the world ;-)"
The perennial challenge, especially as someone building products. :-) Your point is well taken, however. It takes time for the core benefits of these new technologies to prove their value, especially to large organizations with the capital to finance their continued development.
I'll look forward to reading your findings and ongoing conversations about conversations.
Posted by: Ray Grieselhuber | January 13, 2008 at 10:04 PM
Valeria, I, too, learn much from the research I do since that is where new ideas emerge. I love this aspect of blogging.
And, quite frankly, it's hard to keep up with all the innovations like Twitter just introduced.
What I'm really glad for is a great site like yours where I can learn so much about what's on the cutting edge in the media.
Thanks for the great work you do. I'm now inspired to check out a couple of those innovations. I don't want my head in the sand. ;-)
Posted by: Robyn | January 14, 2008 at 08:16 AM
@Ray -- there is commerce underlying how we are able to do what we do. I have worked in one start up and two companies with an acquisition as exit strategy. Having a product/service that works and the market needs and wants also means having a business strategy in place to know where the company is going. The market is self corrective, the best way to go though is grounding in reality, etc.
@Robyn -- there is balance between constantly adding new things and spending enough time evaluating the usefulness and business case for existing tools. Thank you for your kind words. I think out here we rely on each other to stay in the loop ;-)
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | January 14, 2008 at 01:18 PM