Blogger

Out: Blogging for dollars. In: Blogging for pennies —

A new micropayment system designed specifically for bloggers will test the idea that on the Internet, there’s a wide audience who will pay for content directly, rather than expecting it to be either supported by ads, or flat-out free. By charging as little as a penny a post per person, its founders say, bloggers might make a decent income.

Fraxion Payments is the brainchild of Chris Wilkins and Dan Stevens. Fraxion’s payment system is built atop a plug-in for the popular blogging tool WordPress, used by both VentureBeat and The New York Times, which hosts well over 50 WordPress blogs.

Fraxion’s technology works like this: A blogger adds the plug-in to his or her site. He or she then sets a price for posts. Readers must use Fraxion to pay for the post before reading it. The company has made a demo video that walks through the process.

I spoke on the phone with Wilkins, an Australian-born communications (read: public relations) specialist who lives and works just outside Zürich, Switzerland. Wilkins isn’t yet another death-to-big-media blogger. If he wants to kill anything, it’s the ads on Web pages. “It’s ridiculous that on the Internet people should have to pay for advertising, rather than paying directly for the content they want,” he told me.

Wilkins is also dismissive of the idea that bloggers should live on voluntary donations, rather than selling each post at a price. “People aren’t going to put money in a tip jar,” he said. “Most will take the content for free.” It’s basic economics. Why pay when you don’t have to?

Most professional bloggers I know make between $22,000 and $40,000 a year. Some make more, but usually because they have other obligations such as editing or events planning. Some make less — low enough to qualify for food stamps in San Francisco.

Wilkins thinks Fraxion is only the start of a long-term experiment to get Internet readers and viewers to pay directly for the stuff they look at. The New York Times’ pending “metered model” for its content is based on the same principle: Fans of the Times will hopefully pay directly for its online stories, slide shows, videos and interactive presentations, rather than expecting advertising to cover the bills.

But will Internet users also pay for standalone bloggers who don’t come with the brand imprimatur of the Times? Wilkins says yes, but it will take some time to get people used to the idea.

I’ve usually got a short fuse for people who lecture me on micropayments from the comfort of their six-figure-salary-plus-shares-plus-benefits tech career. My standard reply is: You first. But Wilkins comes across as earnest rather than condescending. As I realized while talking to him, if I could get 5,000 people to pay me a nickel each for everything I post, I’d do better financially than I did as a senior editor for Condé Nast.

I’ll be curious to read about the experiences of bloggers and readers who try Fraxion. If you give it a try, keep me posted at paul@venturebeat.com on how it’s working for you.

Companies: Fraxion Payments

People: Chris Wilson

Apple To Build 5 Million iPads In First Half 2010, Analyst Says [Voices] —

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

Apple (AAPL) is on track to build 5 million iPads in the first half of 2010, according to FBR Capital chip analyst Craig Berger.

“We believe various news articles and competitor notes calling for a build delay were just false alarms,” he writes. The company, of course, has now set an April 3 launch for Wi-Fi versions of the iPad, with 3G versions to ship toward the end of April. Berger, who tracks the chip industry, thinks many iPhone component suppliers will also sell into the iPad, including Infineon (IFX), Skyworks (SKWS), Triquint (TQNT), Broadcom (BRCM) and Texas Instruments (TXN). Production in the 4-5 million unit range would “drive some material revenues” for these companies, he says, “particularly BRCM.”

Meanwhiile, Berger has revised his estimates on iPod, iPhone, notebook and desktop builds.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

While I get many questions from bloggers asking for advice on ‘how to blog‘ perhaps one of the biggest questions a new blogger needs to ask themselves before they move on to the HOW to blog question is ‘WHAT will I blog about?’

There is no real right or wrong answer to this question as blogs come in all shapes and sizes and focus upon all manner of topics. However thinking through the question before you start a blog will help you make some of the other decisions that you’ll want to make later on in this guide (for example the domain name and the name of your blog will probably come out of this decision).

Reasons to Focus Upon a Niche with Your Blog

Choosing a niche to blog about is important for a number of reasons. These include:

1. Niche Blogs Appeal to Readers

My first blog was a personal blog with no real niche focus. It did start with a main focus upon Spirituality, but over time began to cover a large range of topics including blogging, photography, culture, politics, personal stuff that I was doing etc. The more topics I covered the less I appealed to everyone.

Sure a certain group of people were interested in Spirituality and Blogging, but less of them were into photography, even less also liked my stuff about Australian Pop Culture….. each topic narrowed the chances of me writing something that would appeal to all of my readers. I started to get complaints from them – ’stop writing about XXXX’.

When I began to break topics out onto their own blogs my audience responded well – those who were into photography gathered around that topic, those that were into blogging gathered on that blog.

In the end this is about relevance – people seem to be drawn to niche focused blogs because they know that they’ll see content on them that focuses upon the things they are specifically interested in.

2. Niche Blogs Monetize Better

I tried to make money from my personal blog for a while but found the going really tough. At the time I mainly tried to make money from advertising and found that sponsors were simply not interested in promoting their product (which had a specific focus) to an audience who were there to read about a whole range of things.

What camera manufacturer wants to promote their latest camera on a blog about photography that also touches on spirituality, politics and what movie I saw on the weekend?

Niche blogs also tend to work better with contextual ad networks like AdSense. AdSense is getting better are providing ads that related strongly to what is on a specific page of content but I have seen instances where blogs covering lots of different topics attract ads that don’t always relate to content on a particular page.

The other thing about AdSense is that it is a system that gives advertisers the ability to target specific sites. These types of targeted campaigns can be quite profitable but they are less likely to happen if a blog covers a large range of topics, many of which don’t relate to that advertiser.

When I went niche I found monetizing with advertising a lot easier. In fact monetizing with a variety of methods seems to be easier on niche blogs. Affiliate promotions and selling your own products work better because your audience is there to get information on certain topics – so when you promote products on those topics…. they’re much more likely to buy.

3. Niche Blogs Do Better in Search Engines

It is possible to rank well for all kinds of topics on a generic/multi topic blog. It’s possible – but I find it is easier when you have a blog with a focus upon a niche topic. If your whole site is about the one topic Google treats it as more of an authority on that topic the more content you add, the more you interlink the posts, the more other sites in your niche link to it etc.

There are certainly exceptions (mega sites like Wikipedia are obvious ones) but unless you have the pulling power of a massive site like that a niche focused site could be the way to go.

4. Niche Blogs Build Credibility and Profile

One of the consequences of moving to more of a niche focus with my blogging was that I noticed I was starting to become known for that topic.

The first time this happened was after I started my first photography blog and 2 months later had a phone call from a city-wide newspaper asking for a quote on a photography related story. This had not happened to me before as a result of my personal/multi topic blog but having a site purely focused upon a single topic gave a perception that that topic was ‘my thing’.

For me having niche focuses has helped me to become known on different topics – which has led to all kinds of opportunities in those niches – including writing books, speaking opportunities around the world, main stream media appearances and all manner of partnership opportunities with wonderful people in my industries.

Not everyone wants to build their profile and become known in an industry – but if that’s part of your goal then a niche blog on those topics can be powerful.

Note: Niches Need Not Just be Topic Related

Before I conclude this post on niches I thought it might also be worth noting that a blogs niche need not only ever be focused upon a topic. I explored this more fully in a post titled – Does Your Blog Focus Upon a Niche Topic or a Niche Demographic? As the title of that post suggests – there are some successful blogs around that cover a variety of topics – that appeal to a similar type of person or demographic.

So instead of just writing about video games – a blog might choose to blog about topics that appeal to teenage boys – video games being one of the topics that they might have an interest in.

Worth noting though is that if you do decide to target a niche demographic rather than a niche topic – you could be opening yourself up for a lot of work. Covering a diverse range of topics can certainly work – but to cover them all comprehensively can take a lot of time and energy.

How to Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons WHY a niche can be a powerful thing to think about before you start looking at HOW to blog – later this week I’m going to continue this post with a followup post exploring a number of factors that those looking to start a blog might consider when choosing a niche.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Blog: Choose a Niche for Your Blog [Why Niches are Important]

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Fired Up —

Obama did yesterday what he will do this fall if the Democrats have the common sense to pass the health insurance reform bill. Start watching the video above at 9.30. I love his jab at Washington pundit bullshit. As I wrote in my column last Sunday,

The polling shows the bill isn’t as unpopular as the Republicans insist it is. In the latest poll of polls, about 48% oppose it and about 43% support it. That has been stable since November, as Nate Silver, the blogger, has noted. A Wall Street Journal poll found support at a mere 36%. But when the same sample was told what was in the bill — everyone gets insurance; it does not end when you lose your job; no one gets denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition — the support went up 20 points. Its component parts are far more popular than the total concept — and more easily explained to the public. Just because Obama hasn’t done this so far doesn’t mean he won’t.

And now he has. This is the kind of argument that, in a recovering economy, could shift the dynamic back to the president's party. Read the whole thing. It's the Obama many of you voted for:

The insurance companies continue to ration health care based on who’s sick and who’s healthy; on who can pay and who can’t pay.  That’s the status quo in America, and it is a status quo that is unsustainable for this country.  We can’t have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people.  (Applause.)  We need to give families and businesses more control over their own health insurance. And that’s why we need to pass health care reform -- not next year, not five years from now, not 10 years from now, but now.

Now, since we took this issue on a year ago, there have been plenty of folks in Washington who’ve said that the politics is just too hard.  They’ve warned us we may not win.  They’ve argued now is not the time for reform.  It’s going to hurt your poll numbers.  How is it going to affect Democrats in November?  Don’t do it now.

My question to them is:  When is the right time?  If not now, when?  If not us, who?

So how much higher do premiums have to rise until we do something about it? How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance? How many more businesses have to drop coverage?

Think about it.  We've been talking about health care for nearly a century.  I’m reading a biography of Teddy Roosevelt right now.  He was talking about it.  Teddy Roosevelt.  We have failed to meet this challenge during periods of prosperity and also during periods of decline.  Some people say, well, don't do it right now because the economy is weak.  When the economy was strong, we didn’t do it.  We’ve talked about it during Democratic administrations and Republican administrations.  I got all my Republican colleagues out there saying, well, no, no, no, we want to focus on things like cost.  You had 10 years.  What happened? What were you doing?  (Applause.)

Every year, the problem gets worse.  Every year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they’ve got preexisting conditions.  Every year, they drop more people’s coverage when they get sick right when they need it most.  Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher and higher.

Just last month, Anthem Blue Cross in California tried to jack up rates by nearly 40 percent -- 40 percent.  Anybody’s paycheck gone up 40 percent?

Attaboy. There is a very easy way to seize back the initiative: not Rahm-style surrenders to the Cheney right; not some kind of reframing. The same frame he won the election on: you want change or do you want nothing?

We recently wrote about how the NY Post was caught taking a blogger's story and rewriting it for itself -- noting the hypocrisy of a News Corp. newspaper copying from someone else, after Rupert Murdoch and his top execs have been going around decrying various news aggregators (and Google especially) for "stealing" from News Corp. newspapers. It's even more ridiculous when you think about it -- because the "stealing" that Rupert is upset about is Google linking to the original story -- a step that his NY Post writer couldn't even be bothered to do.

Of course, as a few people pointed out in the comments, this sort of "re-reporting" is quite common in the traditional news business. You see it all the time in newspapers, magazines and broadcast TV. They take a story that was found somewhere else and just "re-report" it, so that they have their own version of it. That this is incredibly inefficient and a total waste of reporters' resources never seems to be considered. But it's a very traditional reporting mindset.

But sometimes that leads to trouble. Felix Salmon has an excellent discussion going about how the recent NY Times plagiarism "scandal" really came about because of this mindset. First, he notes that the "reason" that reporter Zachary Kouwe gave for plagiarizing a variety of stories on his NY Times blog, was that he saw the stories elsewhere and wanted to re-report them and "in the essence of speed" clearly cut some corners in his re-reporting. But, as Salmon notes, this is a traditional reporting mindset. An internet blogging mindset would just see this story, and in the "essence of speed" link to it:

If there's a minor news story on a trustworthy wire service, and you think you need it on the blog, then link to it. You add no value by rushing -- with "essence of speed", no less -- to get the exact same story yourself. You're a well-paid full-time journalist at the New York Times; there are surely higher and better uses of your valuable time than going back to rewrite a story which already exists elsewhere.

The sin that resulted in Kouwe's departure from the NYT was that he rewrote badly, and left large chunks of other people's work unchanged in his own copy. But the true underlying sin was that he spent so much time rewriting in the first place: the beauty of blogs, which exist to link elsewhere, is that he should never have needed to do that at all.

Salmon goes on to point out that the big newspapers, like the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, keep putting traditional reporters in charge of their blogs (not always, but quite frequently), and they blog like reporters, rather than digital natives. That is, they re-report stuff, rather than linking. And that's often because traditional reporters lived by the "scoop" and the idea that they had to be first. Acknowledging that someone else got the story first is seen as an admission of failure. But in the blogging world, it's seen as a sign of respect and of gratitude. But it's difficult for those who've lived in that first world to get their heads wrapped around this.

We recently wrote about the important role of curation in journalism -- which includes the ability to link to other stories, and add value to those stories (whether by fact checking or commentary or discussion). But too many traditional newspapers still have no interest in that kind of journalism, even as greater and greater numbers of their readers are actively seeking it out.

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18 interesting firsts — I stumbled across this very interesting list of 18 firsts on the Internet. It's a good way to look at things. You could argue who invented what first, and you often get nowhere that way, because "invention" is such a poorly understood concept. Everyone's work builds on other people's. The guy who invented the car used a lot of other people's work to create something with four wheels and an engine. Did it have to have a steering wheel to be a car? We could argue about that, and that would change who the inventor was.

It may be more useful to say who had the first car. Who drove it, and where did they go?

And on the Internet, there's no doubt, for example that Tim Berners-Lee had the first website. Unless someone else says they did. (Haven't heard anyone say that, btw.)

I was glad to get credit for creating the first podcast.

Who wrote the first blog post? They give credit for that to Justin Hall (and mis-spell his name). I would dispute that. I don't think it's accurate. I wrote in the About page for weblogs.com that the first blog was also the first website. TBL's info.cern.ch was a reverse-chronologic list of new websites. That's how central to the web I think blogs are. But if that wasn't the first blog, let's see Hall's first post, and decide if that really was the first one. (BTW, I like Justin, and respect him. We were colleagues in the early days of Wired, and spent time hanging out in Copenhagen a few years ago.)

Who had the first feed? That's going to be an interesting debate for sure. I can show you mine, it was first published on December 15, 1997. But what makes something a feed? Can you have a feed with no aggregator? Is it the aggregator that makes something a feed? If so, we'll have to figure out who wrote the first aggregator and when, and what feed(s) it read.

One of the criteria for being "first" is, imho -- Did your work lead to other people imitating you? That's one argument against Hall as the first blogger, but in favor of TBL. As far as I know there were no bloggers that formed a community in the aftermath of his Links from the Underground. Pretty sure the first blogging community, in the sense that we think of blogging today, was formed around Scripting News. Most blogs today can trace their roots back to Scripting News, if you go back far enough. I suppose some communities are disjoint. Did LiveJournal spawn out of a blog that spawned out of something that came from Scripting? I have no idea. But I do know that most of the early bloggers were readers of this site, and many participated in the discussion group here. There was a website that traced the lineage, called BlogTree, and it verified that the root of the tree was Scripting News. This is something I'm proud of, I think justifiably.

There are a lot of very vocal people who work to remove credit rather than give it. I'm sure some of them will comment here. As long as their comments are respectful they will stand.

Social media: Vital in the newsroom —

PROFILE SERIES:

Starting this week, we’ll be bringing you a step closer to the Yahoos who make stuff happen behind the scenes  as well as guests from outside of the company to share their views on various hot topics.

Joey Alarilla, a prominent (some say famous) Filipino blogger and journalist who recently joined Yahoo! as our social media editor for Southeast Asia is our first guest. Read on to find out more about his new role and how social media is playing a critical part in the Yahoo! Southeast Asia newsroom as well as the upcoming Philippine Presidential election campaigns.

Welcome to Yahoo! Can you give us a brief introduction to yourself, for example, what were you doing before joining the company?

Prior to joining Yahoo!, I was the head of the Multimedia Department of the leading online game publisher in the Philippines, Level Up! My projects there included launching our live blogging and live video streaming services and producing/hosting a weekly online show for our community.

I was a tech journalist for over a decade. In 2000, I was one of the pioneer editors who spun off the leading Philippine online news site INQUIRER.net (then called INQ7.net) from the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper. As the multimedia editor, I launched the site’s blog network and online video service, while also hosting and producing several podcasts and editing the hackenslash gaming news site. I was also the founding president of the Asian Gaming Journalists Association and a tech blogger for CNET Asia.

Could you tell us what a social media editor at Yahoo! in the Philippines does?

As the social media editor, I listen and interact with the community, not just on Yahoo! properties, but also on other social networks. My job includes understanding and monitoring what’s trending on different social networks; engaging the communities on these networks to exchange ideas and get feedback; and sharing these insights with the editorial team and our content partners.

We are also looking for more user generated content and offering platforms for our users to have their stories covered by Yahoo! and their views heard and read by more audience.

Sounds exciting! Tell us more about the social media scene in the Philippines / Southeast Asia

The social media scene is quite vibrant not just in the Philippines but across the region. It’s becoming more and more mainstream, with celebrities, journalists, politicians, and other personalities becoming more active on social networks.

One of the factors contributing to the growth of social media is the increasing popularity of the mobile Internet. You could say that social media is starting to become the new SMS. When you see people typing on their phones here, they might not be texting, but actually posting status updates on their social networks, or chatting with other online users.

While Twitter and Facebook are gaining popularity in this region, Meme from Yahoo! has a huge fan base and growing very quickly. We have introduced themed Memes for comic book lovers and cosplay and anime fans – two popular topics in the Philippines.

Can you elaborate more on why you think social media has started to become a vital part for news gathering?

News organizations have to evolve to keep pace with the changing habits of their audience. Many Internet users, especially the younger ones, have embraced social media.

Their primary source of news is no longer newspapers, television or even online news. It’s trusted users on their social networks. That explains why you have a personal newspaper service like The Twitter Tim.es, which displays news and blog links from the people you trust on Twitter – you can even check out my personal newspaper.

Increasingly, social media users are “out-scooping” the breaking news teams from mainstream media. Social media is one of the key channels for delivering news and other information. In the Philippines, in the wake of the massive flooding caused by tropical storm Ondoy (international codename: Ketsana), Filipinos relied on social networks to keep themselves informed and coordinate relief and rescue operations. Through social media, different rescue groups were able to harness the spirit of volunteerism and encourage more people to help out the flood victims.

The fact is that news organizations that fail to adapt are in danger of becoming irrelevant. They can no longer assume that users will come to them, but must instead make sure their content is available wherever their users may be.

Due to different factors, some news organizations have been slow to integrate social media into the newsroom. I’m happy to say, however, that the situation is changing. Many news organizations in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia are embracing social media. This is a new and exciting frontier for many journalists, and Yahoo! will be here to help our media partners with our own insights based on our experiences and best practices.

During the recent social media forum in the Philippines, you discussed how social media is shaping the political landscape in the Philippines; do you think the candidates really understand the benefits/ use of social media?

Social media is generating a lot of hype in the upcoming Philippine presidential elections this May. Pundits are saying this will be the first Philippine elections in which social media will potentially be a game changer.

It’s good to see that many candidates recognize the importance of social media in their campaigns – no doubt inspired by the example of US President Barack Obama. What they have to keep in mind, however, is that social media is just one aspect of the campaign, and that their success will depend on how well they integrate it with their overall strategy.

The Obama team was able to reach out via social media but the crucial step was in translating this into actual grassroots support i.e, volunteers going door to door, and voters trooping out on Election Day. Social media is not a silver bullet. It’s not the be-all and end-all of a campaign, and if candidates become shortsighted, they might end up fighting an online popularity contest instead of inspiring action among their constituents.

Moreover, I would like to see candidates focus less on bombarding followers with their messages, and instead concentrate on interacting with voters online and listening to what they have to say. Social media is a conversation, and it’s a chance for voters to truly make their voices heard.

Empowering the voters through social media is the main goal of Yahoo!’s Purple Thumb site for the Philippine elections. We also held a social media forum, to examine the impact of social media on the upcoming elections. It’s all about the community – about putting the spotlight on what ordinary people have to say about the election issues that concern them most.

Social media is your chance to be heard. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

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The NYT Needs to Learn the Value of the Link —

In the coverage of New York Times writer Zachary Kouwe, who resigned recently amid accusations of plagiarism, much has been said about the demands of writing for the always-on Web, and how this might have contributed to Kouwe’s missteps – something the writer himself referred to in a discussion of the incident as described by NYT public editor Clark Hoyt. But Reuters columnist Felix Salmon was the first to put his finger on what I think is the real culprit: A lack of respect for the culture of the web, and specifically for the value and necessity of the link.

Kouwe described in an interview with the New York Observer how he felt under pressure to cover offbeat news items for the blog as they came up, and would pull together bits and pieces of coverage from elsewhere on a story and then rewrite them into his own post or story. This, he says, is how the plagiarism occurred: by not realizing which pieces of text he had pulled from somewhere else, and which he had written himself. As Salmon notes, what a blogger would do in this case (or at least a good blogger) is link to other sources of material on the same topic rather than rewriting them.

Anybody who can or would write such a thing has no place working on a blog. If it’s clear who had a story first, then the move into the age of blogs has made it much easier to cite who had it first: blogs and bloggers should be much more generous with their hat-tips and hyperlinks than any print reporter can be

Linking isn’t just a matter of etiquette or geek culture (although it is both of those things). It’s a fundamental aspect of writing for the web. In fact, the ability to link is arguably the most important feature of the web as a communications or information-delivery mechanism. Before the Web came along, journalism and other forms of media were like islands unto themselves, each trying to pretend that it existed alone, without any connection to what came before it. Links are like bridges and roads, allowing these islands to connect to each other, and making it easier for readers to draw connections.

Links also make it easier for readers to understand a writer’s perspective, and thus are an important tool in disclosing bias (in an eloquent discussion of how transparency is the new objectivity, author David Weinberger said that objectivity was something “you rely on when your medium can’t do links”).

Unfortunately, however, those bridges and roads can also take readers elsewhere, and if your business depends (or you think it depends) on keeping those readers on your island, you might think twice about building that bridge. So you might recreate information that exists elsewhere, in the hope that readers won’t notice. Is that part of what pushed Kouwe to rewrite material for the blog? Salmon suggests that it might be. And if it did, the NYT writer is far from alone.

That’s not to say web-only sites are free from this kind of behavior. Some news sites have become notorious for either rewriting an entire post from a competitor, or excerpting huge portions of the content on their own sites, with just a small link that credits the original source. The economic incentive is the same, whether it’s a web-only outlet or a traditional media web site: to aggregate pageviews and sell them to advertisers. But at least most web-only sites that do this tend to include links (even if they are in small print at the bottom). Similar behavior in print publications usually comes with no links at all.

Plenty of mainstream publications have avoided linking out until relatively recently, or at least have linked as little as possible. The New York Times is in that group, despite its status as a leader in so much of what we think of as “new media” online. For a long time, the newspaper’s web site would only link (when it linked at all) to internal NYT topic pages. It has started adding more links to external sites, but many stories still contain no links at all. Lots of newspapers do the same thing.

In some cases this is a technical issue, in that print-based content management systems often make it difficult to include links. But an even bigger part of the problem is cultural. Traditional print media workers are used to thinking of themselves as the be-all and end-all of information, the only source that anyone could possibly need (despite the fact that many stories are based either wholly or in part on reporting by wire services such as Associated Press and Reuters), and are loathe to give anyone else credit. That has to change.

The ethic of the web, as Jeff Jarvis repeatedly points out, is “do what you do best, and link to the rest.” If Kouwe or his employer had fully embraced that approach, he might not have had to apologize for anything.

Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr users Skedonk and Lujaz

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TiVo Tops Guidance [Voices] —

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s

TiVo this afternoon reported revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter ended January 31 of $45.3 million, ahead of guidance at $43 million to $45 million, although below the Street at $47.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $3.2 million, beating guidance of a loss of $5 million to $7 million. The company lost 9 cents a share; the Street had expected a loss of 12 cents.

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Dr. Philip Neches: The Sun Also Sets —

In 1989, the US semiconductor memory industry was on the ropes. Intel, the company that invented the DRAM, the most popular kind of memory chip, abandoned the business it pioneered to focus on microprocessors. Although that would turn out to be one of the most brilliant calls in the history of business, nobody knew at the time. US producers struggled with profitability and product quality.

In a larger sense, Japan was on a roll, dominating industry after industry: steel, shipbuilding, automobiles, consumer electronics. Japan was threatening to become the dominant power in fields as high tech as semiconductors and as primal to capitalism as banking and real estate.

The fear in executive suites and the halls of Congress was palpable. When I was a senior executive at NCR, IBM tried to get us, and the other major US computer companies, to join forces to make semiconductor memory in the US, using IBM's advanced designs. We declined, but with considerable trepidation.

One of the most important books I ever read came out that year, and it totally changed my view of the "threat" from Japan. Ironically named for the Ernest Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Sets by Bill Emmott methodically explained the rise, and the coming fall, of Japan in clear, simple terms of demographics, the science of human population.

The US had massive "baby boom" after World War II, which included your humble blogger. Japan did not. Japan, Emmott wrote, was shortly to face a rise in retirements not matched by young people entering the work force. Closed to immigration, Japan would have fewer workers supporting more retirees. While people working towards retirement are savers, retirees are "dis-savers" who must spend down their savings to support themselves. Since Japan's public social security system was (and is) quite weak relative to public retirement systems in the US and Europe, individual Japanese were compelled to be heavier savers during their working careers, and would become freer spenders in retirement.

This made far more sense to me than confused cultural stereotypes that floated around boardrooms, like a mistaken belief that saving is more of a virtue in Confucianism than Christianity. People on either side of the Pacific reacted in a rather rational way to the demographic and economic environment they lived in. This drove a higher savings rate in Japan and a lower rate in the US, which translated into cost of capital, which translated into corporate behavior. The Japanese could sell DRAMs for less that Americans could because their cost of capital was 6% and ours was 14%. They could invest more aggressively in the latest equipment. They could carry more inventory. And they could price lower in a highly capital intensive business, while still making a profit.

But it was all about to change, according to Emmott's book. Japanese salarymen would retire in every greater numbers. The national savings rate would fall. The cost of capital would rise. The values of the yen, Tokyo real estate, and Nikkei listed stocks would become unsupportable, and the bubble would burst. Japan would still be a modern, prosperous country. But it would not be in a position to dominate the world through commerce.

And it happened just that way. Japan was sitting on a demographic atom bomb, and it went off right on schedule in the 1990s.

Today, we worry about China dominating the world economy and thus world affairs. It is hard to go through a shopping mall without finding "Made in China" labels on every shelf. Every day, we read headlines in the business pages and front pages about China investing in everything from nuclear power plants to cell phone infrastructure to 3D movie theaters. The leaders of China don't have to abide lectures on civil rights from debtor governments, like us.

China, however, sits on a population H-bomb. Since the 1970s, China enforced a "one child" policy with ruthlessness and efficacy that democracies can not emulate and should not envy. The supply of young people dropped. At the same time, China had a public health revolution comparable to what took place in the US between 1890 and 1940. With control of infectious diseases, the death rate dropped to about a third of the historic rate. Life expectancy zoomed from 30+ years to 70+ years. In other words, China is creating a supply of old people at a rate that dwarfs its production of tschochkies for Wal*Mart.

Put bluntly, China is in a race to get rich before it gets old. They will lose.

Some of the consequences are predictable. The Yuan will strengthen relative to the dollar, making outsourcing to China less attractive. Asset values will fall, starting with foreign investments held by China, like US Treasuries. Market forces will drive down the value of similar assets within China. Like Japan, China can try to forestall the impact by a combination of "creative" accounting and government intervention. It will only prolong the agony.

The political consequences are harder to anticipate. The LDP, the party in power in Japan since World War II, fell just last year after over 15 years of economic underperformance. The Chinese Communist Party will try to stay in power with all of the effort and wiles of any dynasty. Chinese dynasties fall when popular unrest overwhelms the forces of control. Events within China, and what the Chinese government might do abroad to distract from internal problems, could be the headlines for decades to come.

It will happen. Demographics are destiny, and the sun also sets.

IBM Wants to Help Bloggers Overcome Writer's Block — Everyone out there has endured writer's block at some point. You don't have to be a novelist, or even a pro-blogger to have smacked up against the wall at some point. Sadly, if you're struggling with a school paper we can't help you, but IBM thinks it has a solution for those bloggers that might be stuck for topics.

Blog Muse is a social tool that allows users to suggest and vote on topics they think a blog should address. Issues are then presented to participating bloggers, who have the option to write about them if they so choose. If a blog covers a topic that a user suggested or approved, the user is notified and sent a link to the post by Blog Muse.

The system isn't yet open the public, but the initial test with IBM's internal BlogCentral has been characterized as a success. In a study of 1,000 participants, the posts harvested from Blog Muse's suggestions received more views and twice as many comments. Bloggers who view writing as a personal activity were largely resistant to taking suggestions from a database of ideas, but others who were more strapped for topics appreciated the tool.

Now that IBM has released its study (Warning: PDF), it'll have to move quickly if it plans to offer Blog Muse to all. We imagine it won't be long before someone copies it and starts offering it to users of Wordpress and Blogger that are just... stuck. [From: GigaOM, via: Download Squad]

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Get Better Customer Service by Knowing Exactly What You Want [Customer Service] —

Like it or not, customer service representatives don't exist to act as your personal grievance sounding board—they're there to resolve problems customers encounter. Speak their language and make action-based requests to get better service.

Photo by Seattle Municipal Archive.

Over at Computer Zen, blogger Scott Hanselman put together a great list of hacks for more efficient airline travel, but in doing so also highlighted an excellent tip that applies to working with customer service at virtually any industry you might deal with. Using terms and language that fits the industry and making clear and actionable requests is the path to customer service happiness:

Make their job easy: Speak their language and tell them what they can do to get you out of their hair. Refer to flights by number when calling reservations, it saves huge amounts of time. For example, today I called United and I said:

"Hi, I'm on delayed United 686 to LGA from Chicago. Can you get me on standby on United 680?"

Simple and sweet. I noted that UA680 was the FIRST of the 6 flights delayed and the next one to leave. I made a simple, clear request that was easy to grant. I told them where I was, what happened, and what I needed all in one breath. You want to ask questions where the easiest answer is "sure!"

Three important things are happening in the above example. He was informed about what was going on, he knew what he wanted, and he didn't waste any time telling the customer service representative how mad he was that the flight was delayed, what impact the delay would have on his life, or any other time-wasting monologues. If you want to vent, write a letter to the company. If you want results right then, tell the customer service representative explicitly what you would like done to resolve the issue.

For more airline travel tips, check out the full post at the link below. Have a trick for dealing with customer service either from the customer or the rep side of things? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Comcast Brings DVR Control to iPhone App Update —

Musings on the future of Microsoft, Windows — Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble and Microsoftie-turned-Googler Don Dodge talk about the future of Redmond with CNET's Ina Fried and Rafe Needleman. Also, Technologizer has other thoughts on what Microsoft needs to do with Windows.

Musings on the future of Microsoft, Windows — Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble and Microsoftie-turned-Googler Don Dodge talk about the future of Redmond with CNET's Ina Fried and Rafe Needleman. Also, Technologizer has others thoughts on what Microsoft needs to do with Windows.

What Do You Do When You Run Out of Knowledge? —

Bloggers have a distinct disadvantage.

When someone hires an expert in — oh, let’s say marketing — that expert can dispense the same information she did for the last client.

And the client before that one. And the one before that.

Not bloggers. Blogging is about breaking down everything you know into bite-sized chunks so that people can learn it all over a period of time. If they look back through the archives, they can often see the entire breadth of your knowledge.

Then one day, your well runs dry.

This is a scary moment for any blogger. It’s not like running out of inspiration or having writer’s block. This is when you’ve said it all. Your blog contains absolutely everything you know.

And let’s be fair — it’s a lot of knowledge. But you simply don’t have anything new to say.

What do you do?

Go get yourself some new knowledge

I’m always amazed by how few people continue to educate themselves on their topic after they’ve become an acknowledged expert in it.

Hey, everyone knows me as the number one guy on naked mole rats! Clearly, I know everything there is to know!

But as an old coach of mine used to say, you’ll never know everything there is to know in your field of expertise, and there’s always something new to learn. People make new discoveries and innovations every day. You have opinions about those innovations. You agree or disagree with them. You try them or manage to take them a step further.

Of course, if you don’t find out what those discoveries and innovations are, you don’t have anything to say about it. No wonder you’re stuck for posts.

Actively pursuing new knowledge about your area of expertise has a side benefit: it provides more value for your clients. You may find the inspiration for a new ebook or web course to help newcomers understand and benefit.

New knowledge could be the next big thing for your business — if you go out and find it.

Doctors are one of the few professions actually required to update their knowledge of their field of expertise continually. If a doctor doesn’t know the latest innovation in surgery, his next patient might die from the lack of that knowledge. That’s a huge incentive for the doctor to always be learning and for the patient — and the medical board — to insist on that continual education.

No one is going to force you to attend conferences or read books or take courses, but you’ll be much more respected as an expert if you continually update your knowledge. Your client’s life may not be on the line, but their business, their financial goals, and their happiness probably is — at least, their happiness with your products and services.

Where can you find new knowledge?

Well, you may not have heard about this gizmo called the internet, but it’s pretty handy for that sort of thing. It seems silly to mention using the internet to upgrade your knowledge on an online blog, but shocking numbers of people don’t use it for this particular purpose — even those who practically live online.

Libraries are an awesome (and free) resource for new knowledge too, and so is your local bookstore. Go pick up some new literature and get someone else’s perspective on what you do.

Magazines and trade journals, of course, are terrific for more recent innovations and information. Find ones that focus on your area of expertise and stay on the lookout for new ideas that sound interesting or innovative. Once an article grabs your attention, go do some independent research on that topic and find new resources to pursue.

Actively pursuing new knowledge won’t just make you a better businessperson — though that’s reason enough right there. It’ll also pretty much guarantee that you’ll never run out of blog topics ever again.

About the Author: For new knowledge that makes you a better businessperson — and that helps you hit the bullseye of success for your freelancing career, check out Men with Pens — or better yet, grab the RSS feed here.

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iPhone App Purge: Are Template-Based Apps Next? — Apple's campaign to get tough on iPhone applications is reportedly continuing with a new target: template-based iPhone applications. You can find services that build these so-called cookie cutter applications all over the Web, and they have been used by a variety of prominent celebrities, bloggers, and brands including Ashton Kutcher, blogger Seth Godin, and the U.S. Army. Cupertino's main concern is that some of these applications -- but by no means all of them -- are nothing more than "RSS feeds or glorified business cards," according to TechCrunch. Unlike previous App Store purges, like those that affected Wi-Fi stumblers and [<a

Stride gum hires ostriches to beat you down —

iPhone App Purge: Are Template-Based Apps Next? (PC World) — PC World - Apple's campaign to get tough on iPhone applications is reportedly continuing with a new target: template-based iPhone applications. You can find services that build these so-called cookie cutter applications all over the Web, and they have been used by a variety of prominent celebrities, bloggers, and brands including Ashton Kutcher, blogger Seth Godin, and the U.S.

Feeling “Blogged Out?” [10 Pro Bloggers Share Their Advice on What to Do] —

A Guest post by Heather Allard from The Mogul Mom.

If you’re a regular ProBlogger reader, you know that Darren dishes up heaps of incredible blogging advice 7 days a week, 365 days a year. His archives positively overflow with information on how to build a blog from the ground up, how to engage readers, how to earn a living from your blog, how to search engine optimize your blog, how to market your blog through social media and so much more.

If you’re a beginner blogger, there’s no better place to learn than at ProBlogger.

I know because when I started blogging in 2007, ProBlogger was like a launch pad for me.

I blasted into the blogosphere, writing posts in rapid fire succession as new idea after new idea spilled out of my bloggy brain faster than I could jot them down in trusty notebooks scattered around my house and car.

I churned out short posts, long posts, reviews, interviews, vlogs, linkies and more list posts than you could shake your cursor at. I SEO’d the daylights out of my blog, carved out a nice niche for myself and built up a pretty sweet subscriber base. I came, I blogged, I monetized. Oh yeah.

And then, after 3 solid years of blogging, I suddenly found myself with nothing left to say. No, not just blogger’s block. I’m talking not a damn thing to blog about. Zero, zip, nada. Last stop on the blogosphere for this lady.

350 posts, 1200 subscribers and 2000 comments later, I was officially all blogged out.

So I spent a week curled up in the fetal position deciding whether it’s better to burn out or fade away from the blogosphere, and then it hit me.

Surely I couldn’t be the first – or the only – blogger to feel this way!

So I did what any blogger worth her Alexa rank would do – I decided to BLOG about being all blogged out.

Newly invigorated, I set out in search of other solo bloggers who’d felt this same way to ask them what they did about it.

What I found was 10 top bloggers with very different takes – and advice – on being all blogged out.

Laura Roeder @lkr

Blogging Since:

Well I’ve been creating and sharing content online in various formats since about 1996. But I’ve never really considered myself a “blogger”or had one mega-popular blog. My current blog for my business has been running for about a year and a half.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Yes, definitely! I don’t blog that frequently so I usually don’t try to force it. I sometimes only update my blog once a month, it just depends on what I have going on and what I’m inspired to create. 99% of my blog is in video format, it is really difficult for me to write a beginning-middle-end article, it’s just not how my thoughts come I guess. But I could talk forever so video is the perfect format for me!

What did you do about it?

I plan out an editorial calendar at least 6 months in advance. This is the key part – you can’t just plan but you have to force yourself to stick to the weekly topic. I think too many bloggers wake up in the morning and try to think of a great topic that day – planning out a calendar in advance is a great solution. And then you have time to filter your ideas to make sure they’re all good instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperate to come up with ANYTHING to write about!

Chris Guillebeau @chrisguillebeau

Blogging Since:

2008 — although I had been writing in other formats for a couple of years prior.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Thankfully — no.

How have you avoided it?

I’ve avoided it by trying to be somewhat intentional about the process.

First, I don’t limit myself in writing about one specific, niche topic. I write about a number of topics (travel, entrepreneurship, motivation) for a number of venues (my own blog, other blogs, a newspaper column, magazines, books, etc.). The variety is very helpful, because even though I’m writing a lot, the deliverables are not always the same.

And second, writing is my job. It’s just what I do. If a plumber gets bored, she still shows up every day and goes to work. Why should it be different for creatives? Steven Pressfield wrote about this in the wonderful little book The War of Art, which I re-read regularly and would recommend to anyone feeling “blogged out.”

Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan

Blogging Since:

I started in 1998 back when it was called journaling. I’ve used several different sites before settling on my own domain, and my blog technologies used to be WYSIWYG website design tools, so those ones are lost to all but the Wayback machine.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Never. I have more blog posts than I have time to post them. I write two or three at a time, so that I have a few in my rainy day pile (though at the time of writing this, I ran out, so will have to blog a few things on the next two airplanes). I never feel all blogged out. We have TONS to cover, and lots of ways of looking at things.

How have you avoided it?

Blogging/writing is about practice. The more you do it, the easier it comes. It’s like exercise. You can’t join a gym and bench press 300 pounds the next day. It takes a while to work your muscles up into the shape you need to perform. Same with writing.

I keep my eyes open. I read. I spend lots of time on other people’s blogs. I cultivate relationships, where sometimes the question someone poses makes for a great blog topic. There are tons of ways to find blog topics. One trick to doing something about it is to maintain a list of blog topics to write about for rainy days. I’ve given people over 300 over the last few years.

Danielle LaPorte @daniellelaporte

Blogging Since:

2008

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

No, never, absolutely not, the very thought makes me gasp in horror. For real.

How have you avoided it?

Everything is content. Believing that it’s all around you will help you find it. The conversation that you had with your girlfriend about Haiti, or the absurdity of phone books being delivered, or why your barista gives you the best customer service. Notice what you notice and trust that you can create some value out of it.

Tell a story. My speaking coach, Gail Larsen told me something that changed how I approach both speaking gigs and writing: Creating good content is not about looking for stories that will support your message, it’s about letting the stories find you. The stories that you remember so vividly, that you recall with the most affection or emotional charge – they’re in your psyche for good reason. You’ve held on to them because they resonate with your truth, your message – and that’s where the creative sweet spot is. Find the message in the stories you’re inspired to tell.

Get interviewed. Ask a friend to ask you some questions. Keep it casual or turn on a video camera while you’re at. You will be amazed at how damn profound, informed, and creative you can be when you get to riff to someone who already thinks you’re great.

James Chartrand @MenwithPens

Blogging Since:

I began blogging in early 2007 for my own business blog at Men with Pens, and I also began guest blogging at various other sites around the blogosphere at the same time. This spring, it’ll be three years that I’ve been a full-time blogger.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Oh, absolutely. Since my focus has always been on freelance writing, and that’s what I’ve tried to blog about the most, there comes a point where you tell yourself that you’ve said all you could, that you can’t think of anything else to say. That feeling never lasts very long for me – I have a pretty active mind that seizes on new ideas and spins easily – but sure, I think every blogger goes through a period of feeling there’s nothing left to write about.

I feel that many people, when they hit this point, fall back on repeating the same messages or content, only in different words. It’s a way to break through the problem, but I didn’t want to go that route. I feel a sense of obligation not to cheap out just to be able to slap up a post – I worked hard to build my blog up, and it means more to me than that. Blogging is more than just a job you have to do; it’s a commitment you make and uphold.

What did you do about it?

To avoid feeling I was running on empty, I looked instead at the related subjects of freelance writing. I realized there’s a lot more to writing than just writing about writing. There’s the business side, the administration, the customer service, the branding, ways to land new jobs, etc. When I realized that I wasn’t limited to what I could write on and still stay within my specialty, a whole world of possible posts opened up. I revisit that vast pool of potential each time I feel tapped out.

Another trick I use when I’m feeling like I just have nothing to write about anymore is to write – about something else. I put the blogging aside and work on some fiction or creative writing, just for fun. Or, I go out for a day and screw off, and I find that taking myself away from feeling like I have to blog brings me new inspiration. As I enjoy my day, I think about how the experiences I have relate to my subject. How are buying a pair of boots and blogging the same, for example? How is grocery shopping and writing similar? What did I like about that sign, and why did it catch my attention?

Sometimes, to be creative, you have to get away from trying to be creative, and ask questions that you wouldn’t normally think of asking.

For tapped out bloggers, my best advice is to take away the pressure by reminding yourself that this isn’t an obligation. In the bigger scheme of life, missing a week of blog posts while you disconnect or cutting your posting frequency from five days a week to once every two weeks won’t really make much difference. It’ll give you some relief from that ‘have to blog’ feeling, remind you of what’s really important in life and let you take care of yourself first.

Johnny B Truant @JohnnyBTruant

Blogging Since:

I really only started seriously in late 2008, writing my old pure humor blog at theeconomyisnthappening.com. I’d been writing “blog-like” stuff for some time before that on and off, but never actually launched a blog until 08.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Oh yes. Around 2001, I used to write a humor newsletter that I’d manually e-mail out to my friends and family. (The salvageable newsletters became the earliest posts in the humor archive on my current site.) Although I haven’t hit a wall since starting blogging in earnest in 2008-9, I hit several with those old pseudo-blog writings.

I started that endeavor with a weekly newsletter, and then slipped into monthly. Several times, I’d re-run old posts because I had nothing to write about, and once I wrote a post about having nothing to write about. The reason that pseudo-blogging ended was because I got tired of feeling like I had nothing to say every week — or at least, nothing to say that was funny.

What did you do about it?

I just quit.

Now, I’m not particularly concerned about running out of material and here’s why: Back in the day, I wrote humor and only humor. If it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t fit to run — with one notable exception just after 9/11/01. So not only was I looking for funny things to happen, but I had to work hard to tell folks about them in funny ways. That’s really, really hard to do — especially ongoing.

My blog now is an unashamed hodge-podge. I’ve deliberately kept my blog from having a niche, a genre, or a focus. It’s just about me, my business, what I’ve learned, what I do, and whether or not wild turkeys have found their way into my barn. Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s dead serious. All I have to do now is write what’s in my life, my head, and my heart — whatever that may be.

Lastly, I’ve only run two guest posts ever on my blog, but I’ve had other offers and may just start accepting some if I do get bogged down. I’ve seen some of my blogging friends do that if they are running low or if they go on vacation. I haven’t done it yet, but it’s nice to know the option is there.

Sarah Bray @SarahJBray

Blogging Since:

Don’t tell anyone, but I actually started several failed blogs before having even a whiff of success. My first one was in 2004. And no, I’m not giving details (curse you, Google archives!).

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Heck yeah. Every blogger has those moments. We pressure ourselves to crank out amazing post after amazing post, and then we wonder why the wheels stop turning. For me, it was my subject matter — writing posts about the strategic side of web design for such a wide audience. I’ve got fellow designers who want to know how I do it, entrepreneurs who are completely new to the web (or the social web), entrepreneurs who are definitely NOT new to the web, people who are curious about my adamancy for content-driven websites…it’s just a really broad audience.

More challenges:

• Writing about technology without inducing cricket chirps or loud snoring
• Writing about things that anyone can do — not just super-technical people (which requires getting out of my super-technical brain and pretending I’m my computer-challenged mother…an interesting and involved process)
• Writing about new ideas that are not talked to death all over the internet already

All of that has the power to turn me into a headlight-mesmerized deer if I think about it too much.

What did you do about it?

I put a lot of pressure on myself to only publish stuff that gives me a blood-rushing-to-the-head feeling. It’s what I do instead of punching all of those people in the face who say that bloggers aren’t “real writers”. Or maybe it’s because I like that writerly high you get when you know that you’ve communicated something really effectively.

So to answer the question, I stick to a posting schedule that will allow me to do this. During some seasons of the work year, I publish three times a week. In this particular season, I publish once a week. I’m a huge believer in sticking to a posting schedule. It’s like your favorite show being on tv at the same time every week…you feel more committed to it when you can expect it. At the same time, I let myself be comfortable with changing my publishing schedule when that makes sense.

I wouldn’t recommend doing this if your entire job is to write. But for my situation, giving myself permission to change my posting schedule for a season makes more sense than writing crappy stuff, not writing at all out of sheer overwhelm, or not getting my client-related work done. It takes some of the pressure off during busy times, which somehow brings blog topic epiphanies out of the sky. I don’t know how it happens…magic, maybe.

Dave Navarro @RockYourDay



Blogging Since:

I started the RockYourDay.com blog in 2006, but didn’t really start building it seriously until the beginning of 2008, when I went all guns blazing (thanks to some inspiration from @menwithpens). I started The Launch Coach in early 2009 and hit the ground with a running start on that one, since it was making me money right off the bat, and that’s where I put 95% of my blogging time.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

I feel that way all the time – I think it’s a natural part of a writer’s psychology, when we wonder how we can write something good when it’s already been done. We worry that what we write might not be good enough compared to other people or compared to our own successful posts, and it’s draining.

What did (do) you do about it?

The way out of that is to remember you’re in this to help people, not achieve God-like status on a post-by-post basis. What I do to break the funk is look through old comments for where people talk about what they’re struggling with and write about that, imagining I’m writing to that one person. That breaks the all-about-me-drama and gets me back on track. (And if I haven’t had comments lately I go to other blogs and look at their comments).

Audrey McClelland @AudreyMcClellan



Blogging Since:

I started blogging in June 2008.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Definitely. I started my personal blog in June 2008, after I had my 4th son. After blogging about his birth and then about being the mother of 4 boys – I started to feel VERY “all blogged out” in November of 2008. I wanted to blog about things beyond my personal motherhood story. I think I kind of felt like, “What makes my story different or unique?” I kind of felt like nothing did… my blogs started to get very much of the same feel. So I made a conscious decision to change the direction of my blog in January 2009 because I felt it would infuse me with added energy.

What did you do about it?

I came out of it by starting my 365 Days of Fashion Advice for Moms. I loved sharing my experiences as a mom, but I wanted to get away from constantly talking about how difficult mealtime was or how I was so tired from not sleeping throughout the night. I wanted to add my love of fashion to the mix. So I started blogging about fashion advice for moms and I brought my own motherhood experiences to it, as the mother of 4 boys.

The advice I would give a blogger that is all blogged out is bring another dimension into your blog. I had worked in the fashion industry for 6 years previous in New York City and I had a love and a passion for fashion. I did and still do wake up every single morning excited to blog about it. I just needed to take that step to bring another piece of me onto the table and not be scared to do it. Things changed for me professionally when I did make the change and it was all because I was feeling “blogged out.” I didn’t feel like my writing had a direction in 2008 and I wanted it to. Niching my blog became the best thing I ever did.

Michael Martine@Remarkablogger



Blogging Since:

I had been creating and designing websites since 1994 (pretty much as soon as I got online when the Internet became available to anyone via AOL back in the day). I discovered Blogger in 1999 before Google bought them and have been a blogger ever since (though I switched to WordPress as soon as I discovered it).

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Never! My audience is made of up certain segments who all have specific problems. So between that, the basics, and the new stuff that keeps unfolding, there is no end of topics to blog about.

How have you avoided it?

There are several reasons why I’m never blogged out. My readers, clients, and customers are mostly business owners. Different businesses have different challenges when it comes to blog marketing, so by focusing on a specific niche (like, say, real estate agents or freelance web designers) and then addressing a specific problem someone in that niche faces, I simply never run out of topics. I don’t always focus on a specific industry, but I’m guaranteed an infinite number of blog post topics if I do.

This means my posts tend to be longer than the usual 250 – 500 words of a typical blog post. Because of this, it takes me longer to write a post and so I don’t publish as often as many other bloggers. At the least, I publish twice a week. At most, I may publish up to four times a week. But I never publish every day of the week. This makes it easier to come up with ideas and keeps the quality of the writing higher.

Here are some tips for coming up with post ideas:

• Think of a specific type of person in your blog audience and a problem they have, then write a post for that person that addresses the problem.
• The basics never go out of style. Tackle them in your own way or link to posts which cover the basics.
• Tell a story from your own life that has a lesson to teach your audience.
• Compile a list of resources your audience will find valuable.
• Accept guest posts from others in your niche (sometimes you have to ask for them).
• You can always interview others in your niche.

To prevent yourself from getting blogged out in the future, try these tips:

• Be in constant communication with your audience: ask what keeps them up at night, what their problems are, what information they are hungry for.
• Think of series of posts you can write. A series guarantees post ideas for many days. Note how successful Darren has been with his “31 days” series. You have to think of these in advance and plan them out.
• As you surf the web, collect links by topic in Evernote or some other note-taking system. Then, when they become numerous enough, you can publish them in a resources post. These can build up over time, so that very little work is involved in creating them.

Don’t let ideas get away from you when you do have them. There are many ways to capture ideas.

So, if you’re feeling all blogged out, you’re in good company. And you’re definitely not at the end of the blogging road.

Laura, Chris G., Chris B., Danielle, James, Johnny, Sarah, Dave, Audrey and Michael gave awesome ideas about what to do when you’re feeling all blogged out. And, I don’t know about you but my head is swimming with new blog ideas. Now…where’s my notebook?

Well? What about you? Have you ever felt all blogged out? What did you do about it?

Heather Allard lives in Rhode Island with her husband, three kids, Hope, Grace & Brendan and one big dog, The Dude. Since 2001, she’s started three businesses and sold one of them for six figures. Now she shows mom entrepreneurs how to build a business between diaper changes and play dates – without breaking the bank, or their spirit. Find her on Twitter as @HeathAll.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.


Feeling “Blogged Out?” [10 Pro Bloggers Share Their Advice on What to Do]

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Are you ignoring one of the most important rules of blogging? —
The most agonizing and frustrating blog post I ever wrote, was my first one.

It took me FOUR days to write that post. Actually it only took about an hour to write, but it took me four days to have the courage to hit 'Publish Post'.

And it wasn't because I was insecure about the post itself, it was because according to what I had read on other blogs, it was a 'bad' post. In preparing for the start of my blog-writing, I read a LOT of blogs in an effort to discover the 'tips' for writing a great blog. And one of the 'rules' for blogging I read over and over again was 'Make sure the post is only a couple of paragraphs long, otherwise it will be too long and readers will lose interest.'

My post was at least two pages long. So I stared intently at the screen trying to figure out a way to shorten the post to 2 paragraphs, and still tell the story I wanted to tell. After 4 days I realized that it couldn't be done, and hit 'Publish Post'.

Just like that, my blogging 'career' began by breaking the blogging rules. And I have to admit, it felt damn good!

I've been thinking about this recently because I'm really struggling to find 'new' blogs that get and maintain my interest. And I wonder if part of the reason why is because so many new bloggers are following the 'rules' of blogging. In 2005 and 2006, we didn't have Copy Blogger and ProBlogger to tell us the what the 'best' way to blog was. We all had to make our own rules, to a great extent.

But now, there's a zillion blogs giving you 'Ten Steps to Creating the Perfect Blog". Hell I've written those posts myself. And on the one hand these do definitely improve your blogging, but at the same time if everyone is following the same format, then it becomes MUCH harder for a blog to stand out.

Another example of purposely not following the blogging rules was the Z-List. This was the thing that first got me on a lot of people's radars. The premise was absurd to some; Take a list of blogs you think are under-appreciated, then invite everyone else to add their own favorite blogs and share the list. With one BIG caveat; You can't add your OWN blog to the list. Even though my blog wasn't on the original Z-List, I ended up gaining a few hundred links from the Z-list, and a few other blogs got several hundred.

So while you are following the 'rules' for better blogging, don't forget that you can always make and ADD your own rules. That might be the most important blogging rule of all.

Pic via Flickr user atibens

Steve Jobs hits the Oscars —

Steve Jobs made a rare public appearance at the Oscars at the same time as the first iPad ad was popping up on US TV. The Apple boss was spotted by an eagle-eyed blogger and appeared on Twitpic in a snapshot.

Despite being arguably the most famous face in technology, Steve Jobs wasn’t spotted by the massed ranks of the international press on the Oscars red carpet.

The credit for spotting Steve Jobs goes to blogger Wayne Sutton who had red carpet guest blogger access thanks to a scheme run by Kodak (the Oscars are held at the Kodak Theater). He spotted Jobs amongst the crowds.

Steve Jobs was at the Oscars to witness the success of Pixar’s UP which nabbed the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He bought Pixar in 1986 and sold it to Disney in 2006. He’s now the biggest shareholder in Disney.

As well as being spotted Where’s Wally style in the scrum on the red carpet, Steve Jobs posed for a TwitPic with Jon M Chu, a choreographer who was also attending the ceremony.

Out now | £free | Apple (via All Things D)

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