Profilactic Mashup - JayGarmon

Google Reader: Six Apart acquires and shuts down Pownce » VentureBeat

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:38:36 GMT

Blogging company Six Apart has acquired micro-blogging startup Pownce for undisclosed financial terms. It looks like one of those acquisitions where the buyer was more interested in the people than the product — the Pownce service will shut down in two weeks.

Diggs: American Airlines Now Charging Fees To Non-Passengers

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:03:29 GMT

FORT WORTH, TX—Cash-strapped American Airlines announced a new series of fees this week that will apply to all customers not currently flying, scheduled to fly, or even thinking about flying aboard the commercial carrier.

Diggs: Why College Football BCS Rankings Are So Mysterious

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:02:44 GMT

During a Nov. 16 "60 Minutes" interview, Obama elaborated on his plans: "Eight teams. That would be three rounds to determine a national champion. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

Diggs: Desert Bus For Hope marathon for Child Play Charity

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:01:21 GMT

Desert Bus Marathon for charity. The more you donate the longer the suffering. It’s going to begin at 6:00PM on Friday November 28th. Last year desertbus.org raised $22,000 for ChildsPlay Charity www.desertbus.org http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

twitter: @michellej Here you go http://bit.ly/12Yzh The products themselves may be a bit techy, but the suppliers, especially ThinkGeek, are great.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:45:38 GMT

jaygarmon: @michellej Here you go http://bit.ly/12Yzh The products themselves may be a bit techy, but the suppliers, especially ThinkGeek, are great.

twitter: @michellej Sadly, that's my writers' group night.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:33:54 GMT

jaygarmon: @michellej Sadly, that's my writers' group night.

twitter: Why is it that the tastiest lunch options are also the most slef-destructive. Looking at you, Penn Station.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:21:26 GMT

jaygarmon: Why is it that the tastiest lunch options are also the most slef-destructive. Looking at you, Penn Station.

twitter: @michellej Wednesdays are good for me

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:40:32 GMT

jaygarmon: @michellej Wednesdays are good for me

twitter: Lunch is upon me, and I have no plans. Anybody got ideas?

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:18:09 GMT

jaygarmon: Lunch is upon me, and I have no plans. Anybody got ideas?

Google Reader: The FASTForward Blog » The uncertain future of Blogging: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:07:39 GMT

Are bloggers the new Luddites? Those who expect too much value in a single piece of content may have an expectation that is out of date

twitter: @DavidGallaher Okay, even I'm not that dumb. Clearly, somebody has been reading a book on teamwork/motivation and totally missed the point.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:25:46 GMT

jaygarmon: @DavidGallaher Okay, even I'm not that dumb. Clearly, somebody has been reading a book on teamwork/motivation and totally missed the point.

twitter: @DavidGallaher As a stupid person who is currently sort of in charge, I can tell you we're equally mortified by the idiots who hire us.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:19:34 GMT

jaygarmon: @DavidGallaher As a stupid person who is currently sort of in charge, I can tell you we're equally mortified by the idiots who hire us.

twitter: @BethBlakely So, uh, are you just avoidng me, or are we actually going to have lunch someday?

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:09:58 GMT

jaygarmon: @BethBlakely So, uh, are you just avoidng me, or are we actually going to have lunch someday?

twitter: @michellej Once again, 37 SIgnals knows what you want before you do.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:09:12 GMT

jaygarmon: @michellej Once again, 37 SIgnals knows what you want before you do.

twitter: @RichLovatt I know exactly how you feel. That said, I'll take work over another hour with the in laws any day.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:20:14 GMT

jaygarmon: @RichLovatt I know exactly how you feel. That said, I'll take work over another hour with the in laws any day.

Google Reader: Characteristics of Traffic Generating Posts

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:14:00 GMT

When I set TwiTip up look after itself over the weekend (I set up a few posts to go live at specific times) I wasn’t expecting it to be a huge weekend of traffic. The posts were good - but there were less than during the week and past history shows weekends are quiet (particularly those after big holidays like Thanksgiving).

On Sunday night I logged into the blog to moderate comments and was surprised to see that on Saturday the blog had had it’s highest day of traffic since it was launched a few weeks back and Sunday was looking good to be a pretty decent day too.

What happened?

As I reflect upon the reasons for this traffic - it all comes down to content. Over the weekend I had two particular posts that drove the vast majority of traffic to the blog.

In this post I want to take a look at these two posts and reflect upon some of their characteristics that I think were responsible for the traffic.

1. Ten People All Twitter Beginners Should Be Following - this is the post that started it all. It was a guest post by Mark Hayward that I really should have known had the potential to go viral (I guess when I posted it on the Friday I was a little tired after a big week).

Why did the post draw in a lot of traffic? A number of reasons come to mind:

Controversy - while I don’t believe Mark intended it to be controversial - it was. There was quite a bit of talk around Twitter about those included in this list of Twitter users and whether they should have been included, who was missed out, whether the list should have been written…. etc. Of course every time it was discussed the link was passed on which of course drew people to have a look.
List - the ‘list’ format of post is a classic way of getting a post to go viral. Find out why in my post - 8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to Your Blog.
People Focus - there’s something about writing about other people that seems to draw a crowd. I’m not sure why it is - but I can think of numerous occasions that I’ve published posts about ‘people’ where the posts went viral. One of the reasons for this is that the people being written about (and their fans) often pass on these lists to others (a few retweeted it themselves).
Fulfilled a Need - whether you agree with the list or not - it actually seemed to connect with a lot of readers simply because they were beginner users of Twitter and didn’t know who to follow. This post gave people with this need an answer to this problem and a practical way to fix it.
Social Media - of course one of the advantages that a blog about Twitter has is that it tends to be read by fairly active Twitter users who are used to spreading links around as part of their normal web surfing. This post (and the next one) got linked to quite a bit on Twitter.
Repeat Tweets - one of the weaknesses with Twitter as a way of spreading news of a post on your blog is that when you tweet your links the impact of those tweets can be quite temporary because they tend to only be seen by people for a short period of time before your tweet is pushed down the list of tweets that they are following. I find that reweeting your own tweets every now and again can give fresh momentum to those who didnt’ see your first one (I only do it on my best posts and a maximum of 2-3 times a day.

2. Construct your own ‘Top 10 Must Follow’ List as it Relates to Your Own Niche - this next post was not planned and was written on the fly on Sunday morning after I logged in and saw some of the buzz around the first post above.

As I began to read some of the comments on the first post (both those that didn’t like the list and those that did) I realized that there was an opportunity to take the ‘buzz’ further.

Actually - if I am honest, the idea the idea actually came to me as I did damage control and as I wrote a comment on the first post answering some of the concerns that readers had with it. I didn’t really want things to blow up and was trying to find a way to turn some of the negativity into something more positive.

One of the recurring comments about the first post was that it was too narrow - that the list just focused upon those into social media as a topic. It struck me that while this was a valid critique that on another level it actually made the list more valuable to those with that interest.

A light bulb went on and in the comment I suggested people create more lists that focused upon specific niches/topics/industries. Within 20 minutes of making that suggestion people began to take up my idea and post comments. I quickly realized that the idea had energy and decided to make the idea into an actual post.

Once I did this - the post really took off. A number of reasons come to mind as to why it did:

Momentum - the first post fed the second (and the second fed the first). I find that when I write posts one after the other that build upon each other that it can have a powerful impact upon a blog’s traffic. This is a perfect example of what I talk about in a previous post - How to Keep Momentum Going by Building on Previous Posts. One of the take home lessons from this is that it’s important to monitor how people are responding to your posts because in those responses could be a seed for future ones.
Reader participation - this post gave readers a specific invitation to do something very practical and relevant to their own interests. People respond well to invitations to answer questions or do little challenges (as long as they are not too hard) and that is part of the reason for the success of this post. Interestingly, many of the people who constructed lists then went on to tweet links to their comments because they were proud of their submissions and they were relevant to what they used Twitter for.
Positive/Constructive Focus - while there was a slight negativity about some of the comments in the first post’s ‘controversy’ - there was a very different vibe in the comments on the second. People seemed to appreciate and respond well to the positive and constructive challenge.
Invitation to Blog about it - in this post I gave people the opportunity to leave their lists either in comments or on their own blogs. Most left comments but a number blogged about it - most of those that did linked back to my post to give their list context (even though I didn’t require or even ask for this).

Concluding Remarks

The lists of characteristics in these posts above are things that I think are some great starting points for writing popular posts. They don’t guarantee them - and you certainly couldn’t use them all in every post that you write - but as I look over them I see that many of them have worked for me in previous posts.

It also strikes me as I read through them that while I was quite strategic about my second post - that the first one was a little more accidental (at least from my perspective). Sometimes posts have a life of their own take off for reasons you didn’t anticipate. The key in these times is to be watching out for opportunities to extend the life of these traffic events.

PS: to further build the momentum on these two posts I’m going to take some of the reader submitted lists and turn them into posts themselves (see the update on the second post).

Tags: Blog Promotion

twitter: From the Geekend: Video: John Cleese pimps a paleo-laptop http://tinyurl.com/6857kp

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:59:02 GMT

jaygarmon: From the Geekend: Video: John Cleese pimps a paleo-laptop http://tinyurl.com/6857kp

The Geekend: Video: John Cleese pimps a paleo-laptop

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:00:03 GMT

Only a Pythonite would try to sell me a 22-pound "laptop" with 4.1 megabytes of RAM by comparing it to a dead fish. And it almost works. by Jay Garmon

Google Reader: Discipline

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:55:00 GMT

If you're a writer, there are many hurdles to overcome.

You have to commit to writing whenever you can, and then bludgeoning that prose into the best it can be.

Then you have to diligently search for an agent, and for a publisher (or several agents and publishers, as few writers stick with one.)

You must seek out new markets while maintaining relationships with old ones.

You have to keep in touch with the public through online social networks and face-to-face.

You must battle criticism, self-doubt, and apathy, and stay current with industry happenings.

And all the while, your only true boss is you.

So unless you have a great deal of self-control and determination, you will undoubtedly slack off once and a while.

A few weeks probably won't hurt. A few months won't help. A year or longer and you'll be rebuilding your career from the ground up.

Not an easy task for writers. There are so many failures for so few successes, and not many ways to truly measure the impact of your efforts. This means that success or failure is largely arbitrary, based on your personal goals, And those goals can change. This can result in lesser efforts, which almost always yield lesser results.

So how do you maintain the discipline required to succeed? Especially when success seems so elusive?

1. Set Goals. The only goals worth setting are those you have control over. Getting published or becoming a bestseller are not goals. Those are dreams. Goals are sending out ten queries in December and writing five pages a day. These are doable, and the first step to keeping on track.

2. Make Time. All the goals in the world won't mean anything unless your prioritize them. That will probably mean sacrificing other things to devote yourself to your goals.

3. Regiment. Any long-term goal requires determination, implementation, and repetition. We don't have to force ourselves to do things we love. And while we may love some aspects of writing, there are certainly things we don't enjoy. You are your own boss, and your boss has to be a hard-ass.

4. Reward. The more realistic goals you make and shoot for, the more productive you'll become. When you do reach a goal, celebrate by rewarding yourself. It might be with something simple, like a cup of coffee when you finish two pages, or something big, like a trip to Paris when you finish the book. But all work and no play is a sure way to burn out.

5. Heal. You'll have setbacks, guaranteed. And these setbacks may make you want to ditch your goals, your regimen, and the whole silly business. There are many ways to overcome adversity, such as ignoring it, working through it, commiserating with friends, mourning, reflecting, and reinventing yourself. But, ultimately, the only thing that heals wounds is time, so forgive yourself if it takes a while to get back on the horse. And if you never do get back on, this wasn't the career for you in the first place.

If you choose to write (or if writing chose you) then you have to be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. If you settle for less, your expectations will be met. Demand more from yourself.

The winners are the ones who never gave up. Be a winner.

Now get back to work.

Google Reader: Why Faceless Untargeted Ads Will Exist For a Long Time

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:46:08 GMT

This is from a 7 day test:

Whatever Google Adsense felt like showing you above my posts via RSS:

Hand-picked stuff I think you might like from Amazon:

AdSense paid me $50. Amazon paid me under $20. One took no work. The other was me trying to find what mattered to people I care about.

As I explore the different ways people make money from the web, it’s interesting to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m on the advisory board of Izea for the same reason. I want to better understand this. I follow Angel Djambazov’s work on Revenews for the same reason. I learn from smart people like Jim Kukral, Darren Rowse, and by going to shows like the Affiliate Summit.

But that result above merits noting. Not that one should festoon their site with ads. There are lots of ways to make money. I’m learning about them a bit at a time, to share with you, so that I have more to give to interesting causes (like buying some bricks), and so that I know how others are using the web. So, what does this mean for it all? How will ads be more relevant, less relevant?

And how does this affect the way companies look at the online space in general?

What do you think?