Testing Blogbooster

Was just thinking to myself today that I'd probably be more inclined to resume blogging if I could find an app that lets me create blog entries on the iPod.

A quick search turned up Blogbooster, which has both free and paid versions. This post is my first attempt to actually use the free version.

Whoever coined the phrase "there's an app for that" sure knew what they were talking about.

Out of Character

I did something a bit out of character today.

I contacted a total stranger because I felt he was making really spot-on observations and comments in a public mailing list. For once, I let curiosity get the better of me and I fired off an email because this guy was like a lone voice in the wilderness on that mailing list, and there was real meat in his insights.

The happy result after a quick flurry of e-mail exchanges? We're now contacts on LinkedIn.

* * *

For most of this evening, I've been trying to figure out why I feel really pleased about the way things turned out. I guess hovering at the back of my mind was the possibility that my first email would be perceived as intrusive; after all, it was unsolicited and I'd not had any interactions with that person before (we both mostly lurk in the list). I honestly did not imagine that we'd end up swapping virtual business cards.

There's also the fact that I rarely initiate conversations with strangers online, especially when I have no clue as to who they are. It's just not in my nature.

After some reflection, I attribute my out-of-character behavior to the fact that I've been more actively participating in conversations in the blogosphere over the past few months. I really think that my frequent participation in other blogs has re-conditioned my online interaction style enough that sending that initial email almost seemed like the natural thing to do.

* * *

I am suddenly remembering very strongly why I so much enjoyed BBSing during my college days. This new interaction is giving off pretty much the same kind of vibe as those old Fidonet bulletin boards.

Every Dot *Does* Connect

Last week, I found two new blogs to follow: Problogger and Writing Thoughts.

I wouldn't have found these blogs were it not for Twitter.

Here are the actual series of connections that led me to these blogs:

1. I follow Connie Reece on Twitter. She is founder of Every Dot Connects, a social media consortium that provides new media services. On June 2, she sent a tweet asking "How do you drive traffic to your blog?" and shared her own answer through a blogpost.
2. I read her blog post and learned it was inspired by a question from Darren Rowse, the Problogger. He had asked his readers: When was your biggest day of traffic and how did it happen?
3. I followed that link and started skimming through the comments on the Problogger post. I don't know what it was that made me stop and read comment #81, but it was a comment left by freelance writer Laura Spencer. I clicked on her name and ended up on her blog, Writing Thoughts.
   

So thanks to connecting these dots, I've got two new RSS subscriptions in my Google Reader.

Now if only I can remember who or what led me to Connie's Twitter account in the first place... :-P

What's in a name?

I've been following Molly E. Holzschlag for a while and was struck by a recent entry on her blog entitled How Private Are You?

I haven't figured out the answer to that question yet, but I'd like to think that privacy isn't dead for me, at least not yet.

* * *

A few months ago, I asked an old acquaintance whether or not he had a blog, and his response was a firm "No," adding that he had been burned early on by being way too public with his life.

Personally, I think it's a shame since he's an interesting chap with thought-provoking insights about tech matters. But I do understand why he's now more careful with his online presence.

* * *

Frankly, I'm content right now to participate in various online conversations in the blogosphere with nothing more than my tacky little M-logo as my avatar.

I may not have a full name publicly linked to that logo, but that little image gives me a consistent identity. That identity in turn allows me to comment and post my thoughts and opinions without worrying about any of it reflecting on my employer or my family. That's a good feeling.

I suppose some folks will contend that blogging this way means I don't own my own words; I'm not enlightened enough to know whether or not that's true. But since I'm blogging for myself right now, I won't lose any sleep over this particular question.

Either way, I'm glad that my real-life friends who know about this blog are kind enough to let me do things this way.

Thoughts on NCR #31

Just finished listening to Episode 31 of the New Comm Road podcast, which is hosted by Bryan Person.

The podcast "explores how new media tools are changing communication in business, in the media, and in our everyday lives" -- so naturally I find it interesting. I subscribe to it via iTunes.

In Episode 31, Bryan and guest Doug Haslam discuss a roadmap for Managing a Blogger Relations Campaign, and I agree completely with the five main points in the roadmap.

I also have a few thoughts to tack on, and rather than posting an incredibly long comment on the New Comm Road blog, I figured I might as well write a blog post.

* * *

The first of five points in the roadmap is: Identify the goal(s) of the campaign before you start it.

That statement may seem obvious, but I think it's really worth stating because not everyone begins with the end in mind. What I'd like to add is the notion that we should identify not just the goal(s) of the campaign, but also figure out how we will measure how successful we are in achieving the goal(s).

For example, if the original goal is to "raise awareness," we should take the extra time to think through just what that statement means. How many people have to become aware before we can say we've achieved our goal? How do we measure that awareness? How do we know they became aware because of the campaign?

I know from personal experience that it can be a real struggle to wrestle with a high-level objective and pin it down into something concrete and measurable, but the extra thinking effort is valuable because:

1. We may realize a need to add metrics collection to our campaign process; or
   
2. We may actually come to the realization that we have to change or re-frame our goal because there's no way to realistically measure our progress against it.
   

The idea is now old and overused, but there's still truth in that old saying that goals should be SMART.

* * *

The second comment that I'd like to make is related to the Tools of the Trade section of the podcast where Doug talked about the sites that he uses in his line of work.

I think it's worth pointing out that aside from using new media tools to look for blogs and bloggers, any blogger relations campaign should also be using new media tools to make it easier for bloggers to talk about the product, item, event, or company.

This point is illustrated perfectly in a recent book review by Tech PR Consultant, Drew Benvie. In his blog post, he says:

Now, I write about PR, so the first thing I noticed was how well the review process had been put together for a social media audience.

I was sent some YouTube footage (the book has its own channel on http://www.youtube.com/lifeisapitch), pics of the book, and shots of the authors. All as links. Very blog friendly! The website for the book's really thorough too, so I had plenty to sift through before the book even arrived.

The key point: when pitching Bloggers, by all means use the new media tools that they already know, to make it easy for them to talk about your product or event or company. There is enough evidence, after all, to suggest that convenience wins.

It also makes you seem more like "one of us" instead of "one of them" when you show yourself to be new media / social media aware, so your pitch will feel a lot less like a cold call.

Blogging's Raison d'être

Jarrod Trainque, an internet marketing specialist based in Massachusetts, asked an interesting question today on his personal blog:

In a sea of decentralized online services, what should the long-term purpose of a “personal blog” be?

• Does it end up being a catch-all for anything that doesn’t already have a home elsewhere?
• Should it function as a “portal,” aggregating other services?
• Could it be a place for editorial content and longer “essays” (instead of the sometimes typical 1-2 paragraph blog post)?
• Most importantly, what’ll happen to the future of blogs as specialized online services are introduced?

His question resonates with me because I also maintain a personal blog here, and have no illusions about turning it into a specialized or topic-centric site (although I must admit that I lately talk about Twitter so much that this sometimes feels like a satellite of the Twitter Fan Wiki. Hah!).

My use of specialized sites has not reduced my blogging

Like Jarrod, I also use specialized sites for different things: there's Twitter for random thoughts, Flickr for my photos, and del.icio.us plus Furl for my bookmarks. Google Reader also acts as my link blog.

But despite my almost daily use of all these specialized sites, I've actually been blogging more in the past few months than I ever have before (I created my first blog in 2003).

On the contrary, Twitter makes me think more, so I blog more

I actually think that Twitter has turned me into a more consistent blogger -- an experience that is certainly not shared by everyone. It's my theory that consistent Twitter usage has put me into a more 'meta' state of mind. By this, I mean that instead of just simply 'doing things', I now spend more time 'thinking about what I'm doing.'

Simply put, I'm in a more reflective state of mind these days because using Twitter forces me to stop and think. And when I'm more inclined to reflect, I find more topics to blog about.

It also helps that I blog for myself

I'm firmly on the "blogging for myself" (vs. blogging for my audience) side of the fence. While I appreciate it when people come and read, I'm a lot less interested in site stats, and definitely driven a lot more by the simple satisfaction of verbalizing my thoughts.

Therefore, I don't feel a need to censor myself when it comes to expressing an idea, and I don't worry about whether or not site visitors will be 'turned off' by a sudden change in topic. I just write whatever comes to mind (as my tagline says), and I feel no pressure about making any of this very insightful, life-altering, or illuminating. As long as it satisfies a need for me to express my thoughts, I write. If it means that the wheat-to-chaff ratio on this blog is lower than most, that is something I'm willing to live with.

Personal blogs are online journals

To close, I think personal blogs will continue to exist for as long as the people who write them continue to benefit from the act of writing.

Personal blogging is just one more modern manifestation of the instinctive and basic human need to record our lives, a need that has existed for centuries -- as evidenced by all the paper-based journals that our ancestors have left behind.

One Day Blog Silence

Learned about plans for One Day Blog Silence via Andy Beard today.

Excerpts from the support site:

On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech.

All you have to do is spread the word about it and post one of the images on your blog on 30th April 2007. No words and no comments. Just respect, reflect and empathy.

Steli Efti, a serial entrepreneur focused on education and e-learning, explains on his blog how he and his friends came up with the idea.

See also Lorelle VanFossen's very moving explanation as to why she's taking part.

The Dave Effect

Well, the Holy Week holidays have come and gone. Those were five wonderful days of rest, relaxation, reflection, and yes, endless web surfing.

Unfortunately, it's time to head "back to the slave pits," as our CEO is fond of saying.

But before I return completely to "real life," I wanted to cap off this fun period of blogging by sharing this little chart.



I call it "The Dave Effect" because it shows how the number of visits to this blog literally spiked in a single day, thanks to a couple of links from a prominent blogger on April 4.

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief, because it just goes to show how powerful two simple links can be. All you need is the right person saying, look this way, and an entire community of people will show up to take a look. That kind of influence is amazing.

At any rate, I expect traffic to settle back down to pre-Dave levels in another day or two.

Side note: I deliberately did not link Dave's name to his website or use his full name or his site's name in the text of this entry, since I now know that's how he found one of my earlier entries in the first place. I don't want him to think I'm some kind of attention junkie hoping to get another wave of traffic.

Blogging Advice

Drew Benvie, a London-based PR and social media consultant whom I follow on Twitter, posed an interesting question to his Twitter friends a couple of hours ago: Anyone got opinions on how to stay enthused about blogging?

I found the answers from his friends interesting, so I'm collecting them for future reference in this blogpost.

• Suw: Don't over do it, and don't sweat the quiet spells.
• Sbisson: Have a story to tell - whether in words or pictures. Don't make it your life.
• Paul Miller:Write about stuff you care about. Pick one side of the 'write for yourself/ write for your audience' fence.
• noodlepie: Do you *have* to stay enthused? If you are, you are. If you're not, you're not. No big deal either way.
• division6: Get blogging buddies - interlinking / tagging between friends can definitely help!
  
• Sbisson: It's a social thing. Need to tie it to human social networks - professional and personal.
• smudie: Love what you're blogging about! With that attitude, I lasted five years before I needed my first break.
• smudie: Think it helps to feel part of a community as well, so you're sharing with friends in a way you would anyway, even without a blog.
• mbites: Read blogs, Flickr, news to help inspire.Take a break. Refresh. Come back.
• fuelmyblog: The golden rule: never blog pissed.
• noodlepie: Step outside any bubble u find yrself in. Stumbleupon, deli.icio.us & explore flickr can help. As does going offline.

Personally, I blog because I have a terrible memory and I want to be able to remember: (a) events that have happened; and (b) things that I've found interesting or eye-opening.

The act of writing things down helps me process the experience and also helps me remember things better. Having a searchable archive also compensates for the lousy memory. hehe.

As long as blogging continues to fulfill one of those two purposes, I think it will be easy enough for me to keep blogging.

Update: This post has since been picked up by Chris Vallance of BBC Five Live Radio, Drew Benvie, and Armand David (aka division6). Thank you.

Google Custom Search

It never ceases to amaze me just how much stuff Google has going on behind the scenes.

My latest find is something called Google Custom Search (CSE) which, as the name implies, lets you build your own little customized search engine. The service launched in October 2006 and it took five months before I even realized it existed.

Customization is achieved by limiting the search to certain domains or by blocking others, which makes it ideal for, say, adding a blog search widget to your sidebar.

As always, monetization helps, so you can link your custom search engine to your Adsense account and make some extra moolah in the process.

I tried adding this to one of my blogs (not this one) last night, and the whole process took around five minutes or so (would have been faster if my 'net connection was up to snuff). The only part of the process that confused me was when I had to 'grant permission' to my custom search engine from within my Adsense account. The error message in CSE wasn't explicit enough for this sleepy head. hehe.

Anyway, do check it out. For more information, there's always the official Google Custom Search Blog.

Restructuring

My apologies to the handful of people who follow this blog via RSS.

I was doing a bit of experimentation these past couple of days by transferring some posts from one of my blogs to this one, and I'm afraid things got a bit messy with the timeline in the RSS feed.

I realize now (sheepishly and belatedly) that the RSS feed doesn't use the Blogger 'post date and time' and instead uses 'date of last update'... which I guess makes sense from a reader's standpoint.

Anyway, after sleeping on it for a while, I finally decided yesterday to set my other blog as private (now that Blogger has that feature) and will be moving posts that are more suitable for public consumption from the private blog into this 'public' one.

So if some weird things start showing up in your RSS feeds over the next week or so, please bear with me. Some of the stuff will seem really out of context (since my now-private blog has entries dating all the way back to 2003!) but hopefully the dust will settle soon and RSS life will be back to normal.

Again, sorry... and thanks for your patience.

Recent Sidebar Updates

Made a couple of updates to my blog's sidebar this week.

I updated the Twitter widget so it now displays the three most recent 'tweets' instead of just one. Also changed the display order somewhat by putting the time before the text. It was fairly easy to do, thanks to this great blogpost from Jon Aquino, which I found via Twitter's FAQs.

What I'd love to do eventually is to restyle the display to look like the Twitter widget in Brad Kellett's blog, Pantsland. He groups his entries by day and displays the actual time, rather than the relative time after each text blurb.

Also added a Google Reader widget to the sidebar, under 'Recent Reads'. This widget displays items that I've opted to 'share' while reading through my various RSS subscriptions using Google Reader.

It does not yet look quite as nice as I'd like... but I'm fairly confident I can prettify it once I've got some time on my hands, since it just takes a bit of CSS.

I can't help but feel happy when I look at the sidebar now, because these two recent changes really complement my existing Flickr widget, which displays my most recent public photos.

_______

Update - Feb 16:
Finally have my 'Recent Reads' widget styled, thanks to bits of CSS from the Google Reader Blog.

Finally!

It's taken what feels like forever but I'm finally able to log into Blogger from my home Internet connection.

Since the Taiwan earthquake knocked out Internet connectivity to and from the Philippines, it's been an absolutely horrible online experience surfing the 'Net. I try every night to log into Blogger but it's almost as if it's been blocked off.

So finally, here I am, able to log in again. It's late, but what the hey -- Happy New Year!

Migrated!

I'd been longing for quite some time to migrate my Blogger blogs to the new Beta version, especially since my initial exploration into the new Beta was such a positive experience.

Well, after three months of waiting, I finally saw a link on my Blogger profile today inviting me to migrate my blogs to the new Beta! Of course I clicked yes right away! The whole migration must have taken less than a couple of minutes.

Turns out that I couldn't be invited to migrate earlier because I am a member of a team blog, and that was among the last of the features to be migrated to the new Beta.

So with the migration completed, I literally went through all 60 of my blogposts on this blog to apply labels (aka tags) to each post. If you're following this blog on a feed, some of my old posts may reappear as "new" entries (my apologies for that).

It helps that I had just recently viewed a video interview with Eric Case, a Google developer who's been working on the Beta version. Watching that interview gave me a lot more confidence about the migration process (especially since there was a warning that there's no turning back after migrating). haha!

After publishing this post, I plan to explore the layout options with the new Beta. So don't be surprised if you see a few changes to the look and content of the template. :-p

Updated 8:30pm: Happy with the new look. Also updated my Twitter color scheme to match. Woot!

New Find: Food Blog

Just found a food blog today called Dessert Comes First.

It's incredibly pretty, and it looks like the type of blog that can provide hours of fascinating reading. Now I know where I will look the next time the family wants to try a new lunch venue.

Unlocked

Well, it took a few days longer than expected, but my blog has finally been unlocked and cleared from Blogger's "suspected spam blog" list. So the five entries that I had written during that time are all published now. Hooray! :D

Spam has got to be one of the most irritating things about the online experience, so I'm glad Blogger is doing its best to eliminate spammers who use their free blogging service to clutter up cyberspace.

The second most irritating thing about being online, IMHO, is the endless parade of chain letters that continue to be forwarded by good-intentioned people who don't do a Google check or visit breakthechain.org or snopes.com to verify whether or not the message they're reading is true.

I guess we're too much a product of our educational system. It's hard to get over the notion that if it's printed or "looks" printed (i.e., on the computer), it must be true. It's exactly that same mentality that makes it possible for phishing attacks to work on unsuspecting users, I think.

Blogger in Beta

Looks like Blogger is in the process of beta-testing a new version.

From the initial cursory look that I got this afternoon, I think I'm really going to love this new release.

Was hoping to get a little more exploring done this afternoon, but I think new changes are still being uploaded even as I type, so it's probably best that I wait until later tonight or maybe tomorrow evening before I go full blast exploring all the new and nifty features.

For the curious, you'll find my initial uber-positive impressions on the test blog that I created.

Twittering Away

After months of not keeping up, I finally revisited Odeo, the new company that Evan Williams decided to start after leaving Google/Blogger.

I was aware of the plans to do podcasting from way back, so seeing it actually up and now working wasn't a surprise. What caught my eye instead was Twitter.

Living as we do in the Philippines (the SMS capital of the world!) I wanted to try it out right away. Registering was a snap, and adding the javascript to my blog's sidebar was easy, especially since I've now gotten quite used to adding these little web widgets to the sidebar. After Sitemeter, Technorati, and Flickr, Twitter was easy.

I have no idea, though, how this affects my phone bills. Since we're not used to paying to receive SMS messages here, I'm not certain how Globe will react if I were to suddenly receive a lot of SMSes from outside the country (I hope I don't get charged for them).

I'm also leery of sending messages from my phone to Twitter's SMS gateway in the US (with the +1 country code) since I know from experience I'll get charged roughly P20 a pop. So for now, I really don't expect to be updating my Twitter status via my phone, which is a rather sad state of affairs considering that's what it's designed for. The cost involved is prohibitive, at least for me. Therefore, my updates will still primarily be web-based, I think.

Now, if they had a Philippine gateway that I can use to send my latest status update to (for say P1.00 or P2.50 per message), I'd probably use it more religiously, and I'd be more predisposed to inviting my friends to this.

Come to think of it, Twitter reminds me a lot of the Ktext and Fanatxt services of local entertainment talents... you know, the one where you subscribe to receive SMS or MMS updates on their new gigs or events. The difference is that Twitter is for the masses (well, the mobile and web-aware masses, that is) and for now it doesn't support MMS-based updates.

Wouldn't be surprised if Globe or Smart think about implementing a localized version of this service once they get wind of this.

__

Update: I decided to send a Twitter update through SMS so I can check how much it will actually cost on my next bill. Interestingly, there's a noticeable delay before the update gets posted. I sent the text msg at 9:29pm and it finally appeared on my Twitter archive at 10:16pm -- a lag of 47 minutes.

Vox Invites

Just got an invitation to try out VOX, the new blogging platform from Six Apart.

The templates they've got are so pretty! haha! Makes me want to change my Blogger template, despite the fact that I love it as it is.

From what I can tell, Vox isn't as flexible as Blogger, since the latter allows you to completely change your template and add whatever you'd like to your blog, while Vox is still parameter-driven.

But Vox is a far cry from the uber-restrictive interface of Friendster blogs (something I find somewhat ironic, since Friendster blogs are powered by TypePad, another SixApart service).

Anyway, since my VOX account is new, I've still got five (5) VOX invites to give away. If anyone would like to try this new service, please send me an email or leave me a comment.

Oh, and here's the link to my Vox blog in case you'd like to check out the template I chose. No need to bookmark it, though. For now, Blogger is still my homebase.