Why I'll no longer read your no-comment blog

Earlier this evening, I followed a link from Techmeme and encountered an editorial that was, well, IMHO just flat out wrong.  Inaccurate, illogical, the whole nine yards.

As I was reading it, I considered adding a comment to provide corrections and contrasting opinions, but then reconsidered, since it's just not worth my effort to crime-fight every time someone is wrong on the Internet.  Furthermore, as I realized just moments later, I couldn't have sounded off on the piece even if I wanted to... since this author had decided not to accept comments for posting.

First, let me acknowledge up front this is absolutely within this blogger's rights.  And surely there are a number of understandable reasons they might have made such a choice:

• It can get tiring cleaning up comment spam.
• Commenters can be annoying, poorly behaved, and sometimes downright abusive, and dealing with these jerks is even less fun than dealing with spammers.
• Welcoming input from users (even the "good" ones) essentially results in the creation of an (oft-time-consuming) obligation to engage with the community of commenters, or risk being branded aloof, detached, etc.

However, there's a much less, well, neutral reason to have commenting disabled:  you can spout misleading nonsense and not get called out on it on your blog.

I no longer care whether a blogger's reasons for excluding comments on their blog are innocent or out of an intent to deceive.  I've decided I'm no longer going to read no-comment blogs for the following reasons:

How employment at prominent tech firms stymies open communication

Let me first get the disclaimers out of the way:

• I have worked at Google since March, 2006.
• I do not speak on behalf of Google in this blog, nor do my views necessarily dovetail with those of other Googlers; I've historically held more of a public-facing role than most Googlers, so I have heightened sensitivities.
• I believe prominent technology firms -- certainly including Google -- contribute many things to the world that improve communications and societal openness.

*  *  *

This particular question on Quora got me to thinking:

Do people who work at Google / Yahoo / Microsoft / Facebook resent the fact that they can't genuinely speak up on the Internet and have to do so anonymously, in most cases?

This really hit home for me, and I decided that I'd outline the many ways in which I (and presumably many others) are forbidden from communicating in some ways and -- more commonly -- feel uncomfortable expressing ourselves in specific ways or on a variety of topics.

Stuff I am not allowed to discuss...

This is perhaps the most obvious category, the list of what employees like me are typically forbidden from communicating. 

Is it wise spending our time writing for *other* sites?

I've been contributing to the Q&A site Quora a lot lately, and it's pretty neat. I've posed questions, answered questions, edited stuff, voted on a lot of answers, and so on.  And in a broader sense, like many of us, I've also spent probably hundreds of hours in the aggregate answering questions on Aardvark, posting often rather detailed comments on others' blogs, giving detailed assistance in various topical forums, writing reviews on Amazon and Hotpot, and so on.  And this got me to thinking...

How does all this compare with the volume of commentary and information I've contributed to my own web sites, including this blog and www.adamlasnik.net?  Ack! Let's just say that the imbalance is at least initially rather shocking and depressing.

Nearly all of my words... shared not in my cyberhome, but everywhere else?!  At the end of the day, what do I have to show for this, other than a widely scattered smattering of AdamBits here and there, just blips on the planets of giants and potentially-future-giants?

Yet... all of those other sites clearly offer a lot of value, or I and millions of others wouldn't be spending so much time, contributing so much of our knowledge and so many of our (hopefully useful) opinions to them, right?  Indeed.  Among other benefits, we get...

Dear techosphere -- my wishes for 2011

Hi techosphere!

I realize I don't have much right to demand stuff from you.  I've been a lackluster blogger lately, and as someone who sold his soul to a big evil Don't Be Evil corporation, I can't claim to understand the grinding challenges of running a profitable and popular tech blog.  But that's not going to stop me from asking, nay, begging you to do a better job in 2011.

• Focus on thoughtful coverage rather than fast coverage.
  Yes, yes, I know you covered the leaked whatsit 42 seconds faster than OtherTechBlog.  I know you think the world is just pee-in-their-pants excited to read live-blogging revelations like, "Oh wait!  He's now walking up to the stage..."  And even if this admittedly (and sadly) gets you a big traffic boost for the moment, no one is going to give a flying patootie about this shallow commentary two days later.  Substantive, thoughtful reporting will garner you far more long-time traffic and loyalty.
• This ain't the Killing Fields.  Cut out the "killing" crap, won't you?
  With few exceptions, the "winner-take-all" mentality is both stupid and false.
• Every time you blather that "[x] is the new [y]," a dog kills a kitten.
  'nuff said.
• Quit it with the "Ex-Googler" and "Former Facebooker" headlines, please
  Former employment at these firms pretty much means diddly-squat as a predictor of future entrepreneurial success. I've seen innumerable admirable successes and embarrassing flops from former Googlers/Facebookers, and probably around the same ratio of wins/failures as from other geeks.  Yeah, I guess, "Well-respected engineer experienced in [x & y]" makes for a longer and less-compelling lede, but still...

ExpressionEngine to Blogger -- My blog reborn

Well, that was a pain in the gluteus maximus! I've spent a total of over 20 hours (!) setting up a Blogger blog and moving all of my blog entries and comments over from my old blog home powered by ExpressionEngine.  I think I have pretty much everything transferred successfully now, but I'm counting on you, fine readers, to set me straight (in the comments) if I'm mistaken :-).

Why did I do this?
I felt I was spending too much time on technical issues and not enough time on, well, actually writing posts and replying to your comments.  The key factors in my decision to change blogging platforms were these two:
- Frustration with my blogging software (ExpressionEngine)
- Annoyance with my web host, and dealing with web hosting in general

ExpressionEngine

• Probably stemming from some file/template/database corruption somewhere down the line, I ended up having to spend 5+ hours troubleshooting each time I did even minor software upgrades.  EE staffers were always helpful and kind in working with me, but still... :(
• I never was able to find a way to add WYSIWIG post editing (yeah, yeah, I know... you're gonna make me surrender my geek badge, but hey, it often makes drafting posts easier/faster!). 
• I never became comfortable with the control panel / dashboard of EE, and sadly I did not feel their new 2.0 was an improvement.  I found the dashboard to be unintuitive, often requiring an enormous number of clicks just to do basic (and oft-needed) things... stuff was never where I expected or thought it should be, and so on.
• It became increasingly clear that EE was way overkill for what I wanted to do.  Enormously powerful but massively complex, I often had to spend a ton of time to figure out how to do even simple things with my blog.

Web hosting

• I had high hopes for NearlyFreeSpeech, but I've been disappointed.  I've experienced downtime, had my sites move to a new server (with no silent and persistent redirection on the part of the host), and surprisingly found the service not nearly as cheap as I thought I'd be.  I think the kicker was when I learned that they discourage users from serving gzip-compressed html pages to save load on their servers.  Uncool :(
• And in general, having to host one's own site is just a pain.  Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna miss a lot of things, including the ability to tweak, tune, customize, etc.  But I'm looking forward to never again wondering whether my site's down because their mySQL server died, apache choked, I forgot to pay my bill, etc. 

Why Blogger and not, say, Wordpress?
Because I want to spend time writing rather than learning php, patching my software or plugins to protect against yet another vulnerability, dealing with a web host, and so on.  Wordpress is truly an awesome, amazing piece of software... even moreso, considering that it's free.  But after spending a zillion hours tinkering with and cursing at Radio Userland, Movable Type, and ExpressionEngine, I'm looking forward to now shacking up with the not-so-powerful-but-generally-reliable partner of Blogger.

How did I move everything over?
Very carefully, and with great, great pain.  Here were the steps involved, as best as I can remember:

• Figured out how to export my entries and comments from ExpressionEngine.
  • My web host choked when I tried to export everything at once, so I did this in three batches, thus creating three export files.
• Copied relevant images and other files from my web host's server to my hard drive via FTP.
• Created an appengine account, created a Google Apps account, and then, using both of these products, somehow mapped a subdomain of mine to my app.
• Found a way to use appengine as a web host.  Apologies; I'm too lazy to find the info now, but hopefully lazyweb will help me and then I can link to it :). 
• Downloaded python to my Windows desktop, plus the Google App Engine launcher.
• Created a directory on my hard drive to store the images and other blog files referred to in my blog posts, and then uploaded them to my appengine account using the Google App Engine Launcher
  • And if anyone can tell me how I can deploy these files without having to enter in my Google Account credentials every time, I'd appreciate it :-)
• Back to the exported entry+comment files:  edited a ton of domain references, including pointers to images that I had uploaded using the EE software.
• Tried various Windows Grep programs to make batch changes to URLs in the export files, remove a lot of extra line-feeds from those same files, change emoticon smilies to text smilies, and a lot more.  I ended up paying $30 for Multiple File Search and Replace, which frankly isn't all that great usability-wise, but it seemed to be the best of the lot. 
  • On a related note, I learned (of course, the hard way) that Blogger silently discards any comment that has an img tag.  More specifically, it throws away comments that have any tags other than the following: A, B, BR, I, EM, and STRONG
• Armed with seemingly ready export files, I then had to convert these exports from MT (MovableType) format into a format suitable for Blogger importing, so I used the handy online MovableType to Blogger app.
• I then opened up a test blog to test the importing of the files.
  • This is important, because once you import and publish the entries, those URLs cannot be reused on that blog, so if your first import isn't perfect and you do a batch delete and re-import, you'll end up with even yuckier-than-usual Blogger URLs :-(.
• After doing some more adjustments via the steps above (e.g., more grepping to fix stuff), I then created my actual blog (this one) and mapped it to a subdomain.
  • Picked a template, customized it a bit, added some widgets, etc.
• Then... import time!  Only to find -- ack!  About half of my entries were imported with crappy line spacing.  So I spent literally hours going through and editing entries to fix egregiously bad (read: extra extra extra br's) line spacing.  In retrospect, I don't think better pre-processing of the export files could have prevented this.  Too many variables (amongst body formatting, comment formatting, etc.)
• Once I was reasonably sure that I was ready to move things over, it was time to have fun making 301 redirects from my old blog pages to my new blog pages!
  • I couldn't find any way to query Blogger for a time-ordered list of entry URLs, so I used Xenu's Link Sleuth.  Unfortunately, that didn't get me an actual time-ordered list, either, and I ended up having to spend a couple of hours correlating bladam.com URLs with grouped-by-month blogger URLs using an excel spreadsheet. (I was pretty easily able to get a list of URLs from ExpressionEngine to begin with by playing with existing templates).
  • I made sure to create sets of redirects for entries, months, and categories, including fixing old redirects from my last domain change, and then created separate .htaccesses per directory on my old server with these redirects in them.
• Dissatisfied with Blogger comments, I decided to implement commenting on this blog with Disqus.  But for more than a day, Disqus barfed up an error message whenenver I tried to import my Blogger comments into my Disqus account; luckily, Disqus apparently took some pepto-bismol this morning and the comments imported just fine this morning.
  • Note that replacing Blogger comments with Disqus commenting may or may not have SEO ramifications, depending upon whom you believe.  With no insider knowledge whatsoever -- just my own playing around and testing -- I have a sense that Disqus is not a happy thing for SEO, but in this case I just didn't care enough; I'd rather have fewer, happier readers and fewer comment-moderation headaches.

Whew!  I think that accounts for much of the process, though I've probably forgotten some of the zillions of steps involved in the transfer.  I also omitted the swearing parts.

What am I sorely missing from ExpressionEngine?
A lot!  Including...

• The ability to choose my own URL format for entries (rather than the ugly date format Blogger insists upon).
• The option to choose my own per-post URLs, for more memorable and scannable URLs to show up in search results and so on.
• Super-powerful templating in which it's possible to have almost any view for anything (tag lists, archives, etc.). 
• A lot of power-user stuff in general... the ability to set meta-descriptions, to futz with html title formats, to have a fav icon, and -- most importantly -- the ability to have a custom 404 page!

What is frustrating me about Blogger?

• A lof the defaults just seem ill-thought-out and often not even changeable unless you muck about in the template HTML, which is what I was aiming to avoid by coming to Blogger in the first place.  For instance, you can't change the size, the positioning, or pretty much anything about the template attribution :-(. 
• And, at least in this template, there are scary-awful padding and other css defaults that are a pain to override.  For example, every image is css'ingly placed into this hellish drop-image thing that looks out of place within the already-sorta-drop-shadowed content panels.  Okay for photos, but for every other image (e.g., icons)... ouch!
• Some things that I'd think should be really basic are just seemingly crazy-hard to accomplish.  For instance, I wanted to include a little blip of text in my sidebar which mentions how many posts and comments my blog has currently.  Simple, right?  Nope.  Despite Googling for this and trying a few suggestions, I've not found anything that works.
• No templates featuring 2 or 3-column fluid layout?  Aw :(
• Inline css, and lots of it, on every page?  Why on earth doesn't Blogger call a (user-editable) external stylesheet? :o  In general, reading through the source of Blogger-created makes me want to run and hide.

What do I like about Blogger?

• I like having a WYSIWIG editor (though I realize this might be partly to blame for the HTML output). It's nice to be able indent and exdent in bulleted lists without having to worry about nested ul and li tags and such.  In fact, the editor is pretty handy in general, letting you quickly add labels, move images around, backdate or postdate posts, and so on.
• The template editor has some neat functionality.  I like how I can change colors and fonts and such with just a few clicks and instantly see these changes reflected in my blog.
• I don't have to worry about my data.  While uptime isn't perfect, I'm rather darn sure that Google isn't going to lose my posts :-)
• It's free :)

Philosophical considerations
So I've spent way too much of a couple of weekends doing this blog transfer thing.  And for what?  I'm still not sure.  Looking through my bladam analytics, it's pretty clear that:

• I don't have a ton of visitors, typically around 250 a day.
• And most of those are reading just a handful of entries (often the, ahem, ones with titilating keywords; boy, must those folks be disappointed!)
• Looking back over a lot of my older entries, they're either stale, boring, embarrassing, or a combination of those attributes.  Do I even want that stuff still on the net?!
• Shouldn't I be spending time outside?  With friends?  Or making new stuff (music compositions, for instance)?

But what's done is done, and thank jeebus, it looks like the bulk of bladam (excepting subsequent tweaking) is now done and ready for new blog posts.  That, of course, raises many of the same questions:  is it true that those who can't do, write?  Or is the act of writing (and the hopeful pleasure and utility others derive from such writing) a substantive enough asset in itself?  That, my friends, is perhaps fodder for another post.  For now, I think I'm going to finally peel myself away from this computer and heave a few very big sighs of relief.

*  *  *

Anyway, thanks for reading my first post on bladam-on-Blogger, and I hope you like my new blog's home and (eventual) design and new content :-).

I, Robot

Hello.  Good day.  A little quiet?
I’m feeling a little blue myself.
You know, A little anxious for no particular reason
A little sad that I should feel anxious at this age.
You know, a little self-conscious anxiety resulting in non-specific sadness.
The state that I call blue.

- spoken by the narrator (“Man In Chair”) in the awesome musical “The Drowsy Chaperone”

Today I am a little sad because of a small heartbreak.
And a little anxious because, well, I should not be admitting this in public.

Real men

don’t

 do cry.  But real businessmen… the type who are strong, who manage or mentor, who think of respect and solidness and promotions… they are not bloviatingly blathering on a blog, blissfully or blamefully or otherwise.

Think.  Think of someone you look up to at work.  Do you want to know his private foibles, hear of his personal struggles?  Really?  No. You want someone to look up to.  Someone at least a little bit larger than life.  A rock, or minimally a damn large stone.

You have your own problems, and when you want to schadenfreudically delight in someone else’s problems, you have your TV or paper or favorite internet gossip sites within an arm or eyeball’s reach.

When your current or future dear leaders are feeling blue, they ideally do not show you, much less tell you.

Then again, maybe it’s different today.  Maybe the Live Journalers of the modern era will grow up to be respected leaders… warty angst, noserings and all.  Perhaps someday we’ll view an executive’s late night facebookings with indifference rather than annoyance or scorn.

Or maybe not.  Maybe he or she will methodically scrub, hoping the last trace of emotion is gone.  Here, look, a résumé.  A fine, level-headed portfolio indeed!

And only a strong, competitive, safe, and secure heart.

Bureaucratic snafu snags Catholic Priest and leaves me wondering: what's my role?

A friend of mine just let me know of a frustrating and seemingly unfair issue in his neck of the woods:  A popular and much-loved priest in South Dakota is apparently about to be deported due to what seems to be a pretty lame bureaucratic snafu (pemanent residency application accepted but later lost/misplaced).  An advocacy site is here: HelpFather.

But nothing is quite as simple or as black-and-white as it seems, of course, at least in my mind :-)

Here are reasons why I was tempted not to post this on my blog:
- I’m agnostic, and am not a fan of Catholic doctrine / influence / etc.
- This matter’s already gotten press.  What more could my humble blog do?
- Speaking of my humble blog, and selfishly for a moment, would my readers really care about this somewhat-local-oriented issue at all?
- This guy’s a priest.  Can’t he just pray for this to get fixed?  If that’s ineffective, maybe it’s God’s will for him to return to Ireland?
- There are always at least two sides to every issue.  Can we trust that the folks advocating on behalf of this priest are telling the whole story?

And reasons why I ultimately posted this:
- A favor to my friend :-)
- Someone’s gotta help the little guy.  And this one seems like a nice fella, mired in an uncaring and often-crappy bureaucracy.
- I do have some power as a blogger.  Perhaps by helping get this guy’s predicament known outside of South Dakota I—and my readers—could make a difference.
- Sometimes it’s the little things in life that matter.  Is this guy really important in the grand scheme of things?  Maybe not.  But he means a lot to my friend and my friend’s family.  Lots of small things, “small people”... they all add up, all contribute to the richness of communities, to our planet.
- And, let’s be honest here… I bet people are more interested in this story than in my swinger blatherings, no? :-P (hmm… I’m combining a priest-related posting with a swinger reference; it’s a good thing I am agnostic, or I’d be going to hell :D).

*  *  *

What about you?

What do you think of this priest’s situation? Of me posting this on my blog?

Vanessa Fox (nude!) urges me to expose my...

No ands, ifs, or butts—this titilating title and content isn't just a naked attempt to get a leg up on my subscriber numbers.

I normally keep this sort of thing close to my chest, but when Vanessa Fox invited me to bare all my reasons for blogging, I felt bound to oblige.

Ironically, just the day before, I was asking myself the very same thing (no, not why didn't I pick a more sexy blog name... okay, that too!... but primarily, why DO I blog?). Seriously.

And what I came up with at that time was this very-honest list:
1. I don't know.
2. I don't know.
3. I don't know.
4. I don't know.
5. Honestly, I don't really know.

That, of course, may go a long way towards explaining why I seem to average about a whopping post or two a month nowadays :-(.

But, to avoid disappointing Vanessa and all 42 of you others who read my blog, I did some more soul searching and came up with a decidedly more interesting list of reasons why I blog, or at least why I think I do.

I determined that I've had decidedly different motivations to blog before and after working for Google. And -- in contrast with some of the others participating in this meme -- apologies in advance for the more-serious / comparatively-boring nature of my answers.


Key reasons why I blogged before becoming a Googler

1. While working on my own and quite often working from home, blogging was an additional way of "connecting with the world," and especially with like-minded geeks.


2. On a related note, since I was spending very long hours in front of the computer doing client work, it was also a convenient way of blowing off steam.


3. I've been passionate about Google for ages, and figured by being a loudmouth about my Google wishes and gripes and such, I might effect positive change :-D.


4. As a contractor/consultant/online-communications-mercenary, I viewed my blog as a bit of a showcase. In particular, I felt it was important to demonstrate that I had a basic understanding of online communications, possessed information and also opinions (hopefully even interesting ones!) on a variety of geeky and non-geeky topics, and was, frankly, someone that'd not be too terribly boring to work with. Along those lines, I also viewed it as a bit of a filter; anyone who'd turn up their nose at my online-evident eccentricities was likely someone I wouldn't want to work with anyway :-D.

Reasons why I still blog

Well, I'm certainly not looking for any consulting gigs nowadays, and when I have Google ideas or gripes or questions, I just walk down the hall or bug a colleague by e-mail or IM. Still, though, I continue to blog (and enjoy doing so) for other reasons...

1. It entertains and amuses my friends and I guess others as well. I have good friends all over the world, and they've told me that even my lame entries make them smile.


2. I enjoy spotlighting geeky hobbies and passions that others might not know much about and might enjoy getting to know (e.g., Lindy Hop) :-D.


3. I've greatly appreciated what I've learned from others on the net and feel that it's karmic'ly right to share a bit in return (tips, reviews of products and services, and so on)


4. I kinda feel obligated to blog. That doesn't mean I don't find it fun and rewarding, but there's also the negative motivation of sorts: I've built up a brand, however insignificant and badly named, and invested a crapload of time into not only the content but the infrastructure/design/etc. behind this blog as well (don't laugh! just implementing that stupid menu above took forever, not to mention the re-templating + importing after switching from MT to EE. Abandon all that work?!!!!!!!)


5. I'm inspired by many other bloggers, seeing how much they inform and inspire. The generalist nature of my blog means I'm unlikely to ever become a major blogebrity and I'm rather content with that, but I know that even non-A-level-bloggers wield a power to do good through their writing, however cliched that may sound.

* * *

On that note, I'd like to tap five fine female friends of mine to give their top five reasons that they blog (or thwap me with a wet e-noodle for forgetting that they have already disclosed such info on their blog):
- Erica ("Erica's Joys")
- Jen ("Nonsense Verse")
- Meg ("Little Meg Goes to Grad School" -- where I even have a thankfully anonymous guest mention :-P)
- Susan ("Let's Eat")
- Thu ("Of cats and code and random stuff" -- and birthday girl this weekend!)

I hesitate to read your opinions when I can't talk back

Please forgive the unsexy title. I know it would have been far more Diggable if I had titled it "Top 10 Reasons Why Your Opinion Blog Needs Comments."

Anyway... I can sometimes enjoy link blogs ("101 uses for a paper mache African swallow. No, European!") without comments. Or info-blogs (new product released, site will be down next Tuesday, check out these new features).

But blogs in which the AUTHOR is mostly discussing his or her opinions about stuff, or blogs that cover controversial stuff (news stories, culture, etc.)... damn, those better have comments enabled, or they won’t get my eyeballs for long.

For instance, I’m looking at you, BoingBoing.  Aside from the fact that I have (somewhat) of a life that precludes reading a bazillion entries a day that are talking at me, not with me… when it’s uber-oh-so-important-or-popular sites, I’ll be bound to find the same links in my friends’ blogs anyway.

Yes, I know, comment and trackback spammers are a bitch.  I hope their nether-regions suffer from this and/or they are forced to be locked in a closet with Vanna White night after night after night after night.  But with good software, good plugins (YAY, Akismet!), and a little elbow grease, these cretins are substantially less of a problem.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to comments on corporate blogs.

Positives:

• Bullshit can be called out or, on a less severe note, readers can offer corrections, add useful contextual info, etc. (hopefully resulting in better blog entries in the future and more informed readers)
• Readers can request for clarifications or additional info from the company.  But see the flipside of this below.
• Occasional registration requirements aside, commenting has a comparatively low barrier to entry, meaning that quality input is sometimes more likely to be offered when commenting, not just forum posting, is available.
• Comments can often be generally insightful and/or entertaining… sometimes more than the blog entries themselves :-D.

Negatives:

• Someone’s gotta monitor those comments… to delete spam, to (ideally, IMHO) delete offensive and off-topic crapfests, to note info to take back to other employees, to correct misconceptions or outright lies, and to (potentially) answer questions in-line.  That takes time… sometimes a LOT of time.  Time that, one could argue, might be better spent actually tackling questions in a forum, fixing bugs, speaking at conferences, retooling UIs, or even getting sleep.  And let’s face it: tech support, at least, is most likely pretty damn inefficient via blog comments (“Help!  When I turn on my qpod, it doesn’t work!”).
• Sometimes comments can draw out the worst in folks, especially anonymous folks.  Even simple, informative posts can trigger shockingly nasty and uncomfortable exchanges… making the company not only less likely to blog, but (non-masochistic) customers or potential customers less likely to read the blog or even respect the company.
• Major companies can be attractive targets for comment/trackback-spamming script kiddies.

*  *  *

So I’m curious… do you feel the same way I do? 
- Do you also draw distinctions amongst link, info, and opinion/commentary blogs?
- Do you care one way or the other about comments on blogs or not?

Fair use, mashups, and profits - why hasn't anyone figured this out yet?

Lots of us love music and we love to share it; I think that’s even more powerful than simply “grab lots of music for free”—it’s the sharing that excites us, motivates us.  Music is a shared experience!

Why, then, hasn’t anyone made it easy to share music snippets legally from a simple iframe, a simple widget that someone can cut and paste or even drag and drop into their blog?

Let me give an example of how painful it is to share (within, IMHO, fair use) a music snippet:
1) Identify song you want to share with others.  Determine that it’s DRM’d.  Ack!
2) Remove DRM (yes, I know this may technically be illegal, but frankly I don’t give a damn.  Call it civil disobedience)
3) Use software to grab a relevant thirty second snippet and save it as an mp3.  Make sure tags are still embedded.
4) Upload to server.
5) Before all of this, download and install a good flash player so others can listen to your snippet whether on a Mac or PC.
6) Embed the appropriate code into your blog entry.

Check out this entry on the emotional wallop of strings for an example of the result. 

I think it took me at least 20 minutes just to prepare, upload, and post this one clip.  Does that sound very conducive to sharing to you?!

So you know what massively puzzles me?  Why on earth hasn’t any major player (Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, Apple, etc.) made this process easier… not only facilitating the discovery and sharing of music by the increasingly powerful blogosphere, but increasing subscriptions and download sales?!  Let me explain how I envision this working…

What the blogger / music lover does:
1) Blogger goes to associates.amazon.com or embed.rhapsody.com or whatever and looks up an album or specific track.
2) They then selects an embed method (php include, javascript, iframe, etc.) and optionally set other customizable widget options.
3) If not already logged in, they enter in their subscription ID or affiliate ID so they can get credit from referred subscriptions and purchases.
4) They copy the specified HTML and paste it into their blog, along with (hopefully) personal comments.

What the person visiting the blog sees:
A simple mini-player widget that contains a play button and a short description of the clip (title, artist, album), along with links to:
- "Learn more about this artist, album, or song"
- "Purchase this song" (on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.)
- "Subscribe to service for unlimited listening to 3 million songs" (again, on Rhapsody, Napster, etc.)

* * *

Of course, even cooler would be all the online music folks coming together to make a common standard of some sort, so this widget could actually have a small pulldown menu enabling listeners to buy the tune on or subscribe to their preferred online music service.

So why hasn't any of this happened? Some guesses:
- Music services are shortsighted and want to more tightly (and obnoxiously) control the listening experiences.
- Music services are scared crapless of lawsuits; despite the fact that any sane person would envision 30 seconds being pretty much fair use, the RIAA would probably sue anyway.
- Fears over brand tarnishing (putting the names of artists and music services on splog sites featuring child porn, for instance)

I'm skeptical about the third issue, though. After all, Amazon seemingly lets pretty much anyone embed jpegs of book covers or album covers on raunchy or spammy sites.

* * *

So, what to do in the meantime?
If I wanted to be lazy AND give the finger to non-Windows-users, I could just link to Amazon.com clips, for instance, like this clip of "Where Does the Wayward Footwear Go?" from The Bobs. But that's pretty inelegant, and it also depends upon Amazon:
- having the song I want to show off
- including a decent snippet
- not changing the URL or blocking folks from accessing it off the Amazon.com domain

And, to be fair, it's not a very attractive option for Amazon.com. I mean, what do they get out of it? No potential sales, no branding (except from my arbitrary mention), etc. And unless I manually create a link to the album ("Songs For Tomorrow Morning" ), it's not even easy for the listener to learn more about the album or group, much less purchase the CD. In other words, it's a lousy experience for everyone.

Surely there's got to be a better way?!

-- -

Update at 12:58am the next day:
Hmm... well, there's Napsterlinks.

But...
- They require people to register with Napster before hearing any music (even a 30 second snippet)
- Each registered user can hear a track only three times total (which is reasonable, IMHO)
- The embedded widget doesn't allow one to fast-forward in a song, nor can it contain multiple tracks (much less an album). Just one track per widget :(.
- There seems to be a bug whereby any page with the widget on it never finishes loading. Weird.

So, unsurprisingly, napsterlinks are seemingly quite unpopular (I had never actually seen them in the wild, and doing a blogsearch yielded just a tiny handful in existence). Such a lost opportunity!

And Rhapsody? Sure, you can listen to free tracks with them, but...
- You're limited to 25 total plays per month (kinda stingy).
- You have to download and install their plugin (not too time consuming, though)
- The player window can't be embedded :-(.
- Any click to play a song opens BOTH the player window and a full-sized Rhapsody page. Boo!

Obviously NOT a decent experience for bloggers :(.

So, hey, music services... we're still waiting. Yahoo? Apple?...

What makes a blog a community? And are such communities indeed highly fickle?

I’ve spent much of this weekend dealing with my blogfeeds.  I have well over 200 (haven’t bothered to count ‘em exactly), and I’m tens of thousands of posts behind.  Some feeds I’ve just had to (often regretfully) unsubscribe from, others I’ve “reset to zero” (admittedly just masking a larger problem), but—most interestingly to me—I’ve become more acutely aware that some blogs have a thriving community and others do not.

Some examples of blogs I perceive to have strong communities:

• Apophenia
• Google Blogoscoped
• Aaron Swartz’ “Raw Thought”

What indicates a strong community on a blog? (I’m not counting “meta” sites like Digg, Slashdot, MeFi, etc., by the way)

• Entries tend to have many comments.
• Commenters tend to stick around over time (there aren’t just a lot of one-off commenters on individual entries).
• Commenters aren’t just “talking” to the blogger, but also to each other.

So what helps establish and maintain a strong blog community?  Some guesses:

• Reasonably frequent posts (2+ a week)
• EASY commenting (e.g., no insane captchas, required registrations, etc.)
• A fixed topic that fascinates a lot of people (politics, gossip, sex, techie stuff, etc.)
• Many readers (though, perhaps unsurprisingly, this is clearly neither necessary nor sufficient)
• Popularity of the blogger in real life (due to career, good looks, large friend base, perceived influence, etc.)
• Popularity of the blogger online.

The last item is complex enough to merit its own subitems ;-).  Popular folks online recursively attract more popularity because:

• Their blogs are linked from many other sites (more traffic, greater perception of “importance”)
• Commenters (rightly) perceive that posting on their blogs will attract attention to *them* (the commenters).
• Additionally, commenters (again, often correctly) assume that A-listers may notice them and think more highly of them, link to them, etc.

Note, by the way, that “compelling, original content” and “engaging writing” don’t seem to correlate with the strength of blog communities.  I have plenty of blogs in my feed list that have amazing content and feature outstanding writing… but are devoid of any measurable sense of community.  Conversely, I’ve seen quite a few blogs (no, not the ones I listed at top!) that tend to offer somewhat stale writing and uncompelling content, yet still feature a thriving community.  I suppose it’s much like the Entertainment world at large, eh?  Popular megab(r)ands rake in the fans and the bucks while many independent artists starve for funds and attention.  But I digress.

*  *  *

I do have a somewhat obnoxious theory, though.  I think about 2% of blog readers account for 98% of blog comments.  The LC:  Loquacious Commenterati.  Often un- or independently-employed, quite often geeky (sitting at a computer all day and often into the night). 

Why does this matter?

1. Blog communities are likely to be less diverse than one might wish.  My very-smart-and-interesting parents, for instance, do e-mail, send IMs, read newspapers and look at photos online, but I am fairly certain they’ve never commented on a blog.
2. Blog communities (like any communities, I suppose) can be fickle, both due to selfish reasons (A-lister no longer works for Impressive Company, cute blogger is no longer single) or more extrinsic reasons (commenters get demanding full-time jobs, start getting laid, start having families—though not necessarily all at once!)
3. Blog communities can pressure bloggers to alter the frequency, topical focus, transparency, monetizeability, and other aspects of their blog, even when such modifications are not necessarily in the bloggers’ interests.

With all of that said, I must nonetheless insist that I am not attempting to denigrate all LCs (of which, admittedly, I am often one myself).  Many are my kind friends, colleagues I greatly respect, and so on.  But in the aggregate, I still find the seeming-capriciousness of blog communities and LCs to be both fascinating and occasionally disconcerting.

*  *  *

So now, in a rather ironic but not-unexpected twist, I welcome your comments below.

• Why do some blogs boast a thriving community, whereas others are commently-baren?
• If you’re an LC, what motivates you?  Do you feel that motivates most LCs?
• Are blog communities and LCs really as fickle as I suggest?  And if so, is that even a bad thing?

FINALLY - Bladam 2.0! :)

I finally took the plunge.  After blabbing about moving my blog over to Expression Engine software over a year ago, I’ve finally done it.

So what does it mean to you?  Here’s the skinny on the major new stuff:

• Comments post almost instantaneously.  And even non-members can opt to get e-mail-notified when someone posts a new comment in an entry they’ve replied to.
• No more three-column circus.  Everything’s less cluttered and manically colored now.
• Lots of miscellaneous goodies for “regulars” (see details)

If you’re interested in knowing more about the impetus behind the many, many changes and what it took to achieve them, read on!  But before you do, just one humble request: PLEASE do let me know if anything is clearly not working or looking right. I’d really appreciate it!

More info about the changes

• I’ve de-emphasized large date headers and eschewed a side-calendar; the focus is on my writing content, not the arbitrary dates I post things.
• Search and other navigation options have also been moved out of the main fold.  Most folks just visit my blog front page and individual entries they find via search :-).
• I chose Expression Engine over Movable Type because I felt that customizing and managing BLADAM would be much easier for me with the former.  MT’s a great program, but I wanted to try something new.
• EE also offers better blog-spam protection out of the box than MT, IMHO, and certainly more flexible and cool membership options.

There are some downsides to the changed infrastructure, however.  Since every page is literally written on the fly (via php) AND I’m altering page elements based on many variables, page accesses—especially initial ones—are slower than before.  Additionally, the nifty menu thingy I’ve put up top is also not very dialup friendly (a handful of javascript files have to be loaded the first time each person visits).  And lastly, MovableType is definitely the dominant player in the blogging space… with a larger community, more plugins, and so on.

Still, though, I’m admittedly pleased with how things have worked out so far, and I would indeed highly recommend Expression Engine to others based upon my experiences.

*  *  *

I still have a *TON* to do as part of the transition, but at least now I have the basics all set up :-)

I do appreciate your support, your feedback, and your patience, and am always delighted to hear from you.  Like the airlines say… I know you have a choice of pages on the Net to read, and I’m honored you’re reading mine :-).

Take care, and best of the New Year to you and yours!

(Now I’m finally off to bed.  It’s 6:21am here, and it’s high time I caught some zzzz’s!  Hopefully nothing goes too haywire in the meantime… eek!)

My experience with the Yahoo Publishing Network on my blog

I'm sorry I strayed. AdSense may not be the sexiest CAS (contextual advertising service) in the bunch, and occasionally she's a bit stubborn, unpredictable, and even cheap... but she's a lot better overall than my most recent fling.

I had heard so many great things about the mistress I recently shacked up with. Miss Yahoo was apparently far more generous, and she sure put out a lot more (cash) than AdSense did for a bunch of my blogger friends. And hey, though she initially played hard to get, once I had her, she was an easy lay(out job). I mean, with her live previews, I was even able to see what I was gonna get from her before I took her out on the town on my blog. Not only that, she came bundled with some pretty snazzy accessories, including handy RSS, Y! Maps, and Y!Q stuff.

* * *

At first, I thought she was a clever free thinker.

I read her a story about Song airlines.

"Vonage" she cooed back at me. How creative, I marveled... she knows that the airlines are looking to expand telephony options... and that some e-jetsetters may be able to use voice-over-IP services while flying to communicate with landlocked buddies.

Then I read her a story about a recent theatre production I saw.

"Vonage" she whispered back, coyly. Hmm. I was admittedly puzzled. I mean, you're really not supposed to have phone conversations while watching musicals!

I tried reading her a few other stories. And while she'd occasionally offer a minor new tidbit, she always managed to say something about Vonage.

* * *

The relationship was already getting stale. I invited some friends over for a blog reading and said, initially with pride, meet my new mate, Miss Yahoo P.N. But she just stared dully ahead and muttered "Vonage."

My friends were brutally honest with me when they took me aside. "Um, Adam" they insisted, politely but firmly, "She's not exactly the sharpest tool in the e-shed."

"She's still young!" I protested, "She'll learn! She's not even out of beta school yet!"

From around the corner, I heard again "Vonage. Vonage. Vonage."

* * *

It was about then that I realized that even though my old blogfriend AdSense was a bit miserly, at least she wasn't a moron and I wasn't embarrassed to be seen with her in public.

"Vonage. Vonage Vonage. Vonage, Vonage. Mortgages vonage. Vonage your mortgage. Vonage Vonagevonagevonagevon..."

"Yahoo. YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!" I yodeled in frustration, trying to get her attention. "I think we should see other people. Or rather, you should see other blogs."

"Vonage?"

I opened the door... pointed to the great beyond, and Yahoo was but a distant memory.

Then I called up AdSense. And like an annoyed and proud but still subtlely loyal cat, she returned.

AdSense, I'm really sorry. Welcome back!

In Brief: Things that every blog should have (but too many don't)

I'll note up front: my blog UI currently sucks (as I've said many times before) and I WILL fix it eventually. But like a brilliant marriage therapist that can't maintain a healthy relationship, I'm going to lecture y'all on some blog-musts :-)

- Include a CONTACT ME link or info. Oh yeah, and an ABOUT ME blurb or link.
- Enable "Subscribe to future comments." (why this isn't standard in blog software is beyond me!)
- Let me subscribe to your entries by e-mail. Not everyone uses or likes RSS.
- Categories! I know Blogger is working on this (really) but the rest of you not using Blogger have no excuses! :-)

RELATED ENTRIES:
- Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines
- Blogger DON'Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)

Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines

Jakob Nielsen is one of the granddaddies of Web Usability; he's offered for years lots of strong and (IMHO) often very smart opinions about what practices and designs on the Web make for good user experiences. I don't always agree with his assertions, but I am very impressed by his recent blogging guidelines.

Here are the key sins he warns against:

1. No author biography
I completely agree. This provides much-needed context. Is the person talking about their employer? A competitor? Are her political views colored by her association with a particular organization or religion? And so on.

2. No author photo
A photo is worth 1000 words. Particularly if it's a serious mugshot, a playful pic, a lovey-dovey shot, etc.

3. Non-descript posting titles
I like teasers sometimes, but (and I need to take this to heart) they should indeed be used sparingly. And as Nielsen notes, key words -- relevant to the specific audience -- should always be used up front.

4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
This is an important issue all around the Web. While I've been guilty of this sin in the past, I totally agree that it's rude and/or just annoying to link words like "here" and "like this" and so on. It's also really bad from a search-engine-optimization standpoint (HINT: Y! and Google et al DO care what you've used for your linked text ;-)

5. Classic Hits are Buried
I've been trying to avoid this problem by including a "Related Links" tidbit at the bottom of many of my newer posts. With that said, though, I still get really frustrated that my "best" writing sometimes goes completely undiscovered and unloved. :|

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
This is a pet peeve of mine. What were the Web log software designers thinking when the put a calendar front and center? I mean, seriously, how often do blog readers think: "Gee, I simply MUST see what Fred has written about on July 22nd, 2005!" Uh, no. Like Jakob wisely notes, people are curious to learn more about what you've said on a particular topic. I think I've done a good job bringing my topic lists front and center (listing related topics at the top of each post, and all topics on the right of each page), but perhaps I can do so both more efficiently and less obtrusively when I (finally) overhaul my blog.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
Here is where I strongly disagree with Jakob and other folks like Duncan of the Blog Herald. When publishing was in meatspace (e.g., via dead trees), sure, it made sense to stick to a schedule. After all, one was typically PAYING to receive a publication (magazine, newsletter, etc.) on a regular basis. And before RSS readers came along, it was also understandable that people wanted to know how often a particular site updated its content, so they could know to check it every Wednesday night or whatever.

But with RSS feeds so ubiquitous now, this is no longer relevant. In fact, not only am I perfectly happy to subscribe to blogs that post irregularly (but with interesting content), I'm often negatively overwhelmed by blogs that publish a zillion times a day. Hence, despite their consistently entertaining content, I rarely ever read Boing Boing or SFist anymore because I simply can't keep up. The unread items just pile up, and I end up just marking them all as read after a couple of weeks go by.

8. Mixing Topics
I'm really struggling with this issue myself. On one hand, I KNOW that if I trimmed this blog to talk only about Google or dancing, for instance, I'd likely get a much larger and more loyal audience. And probably more targeted and lucrative ads, too. But I blog stuff that I enjoy blogging about, and I hate to change that. The thought of maintaining a bunch of separate blogs sounds like a pain in the ass, and beyond that, I think of Jeremy Zawodny and Robert Scoble -- both of whom unrepentantly mix in talk about their personal interests -- and (not that I'm in their league) I note that somehow their blogs remain popular :-).

9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Amen. I've already written about the topic of cautious blogging in the past:
- "Got business aspirations? Neuter your blog or suffer the consequences."
- "'I know all about you, Adam' -- Context and queasiness"
- "Letting it all hang out."

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
This really is a no-brainer. Similarly, I highly advise folks to get an e-mail address in their own domain (e.g., lasnik.net). Sure, you can still easily use Yahoo! Mail or Gmail or whatever by using forwarding, but you then at least have excellent mobility should you choose to change Webmail providers in the future. Plus .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) looks rather professional and is a lot better than .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (or, frankly, any aol.com address; all of them scream "neeeeewbie!")

* * *

What are your thoughts? Do you think Jakob got it right? Do you agree with my comments as well? Any additional blogging sins to note?

* * *
Other related links:
- "Blogger DON'Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)"

$1 will cure the Blogspot splog problem (and related problems)

THE PROBLEM
As Chris Pirillo and others have noted, doing a search on practically anything nowadays returns a deluge of spam blogs, or "splogs," that are comprised of a bunch of randomly scraped-together sentences automatically stolen from around the Web. Typically, the sploggers create these blogspot blogs just so they can slap AdSense ads on them and earn cash from unwitting surfers who land there, see that all the content is crap, and then get away by clicking on one of the ads on the page.

Sounds stupid? It is. But sadly it's actually lucrative for the sploggers. And Google's caught in the middle because -- while, yes, they're earning money as well out of the deal -- their search index is becoming less and less useful... and that can undoubtedly hurt the company's long-term viability. Say what you will about Google, but they are nothing if not forward thinking... so this is a problem that they are certainly seriously tackling in the background.

THE SOLUTION
But I have an idea that'd solve the issue faster. It's not entirely 'democratic.' It also risks some 'friendly fire'. And initially, it'll be a major pain in the ass for Google and a minor pain in the ass for anyone wanting to set up a blog. But hear me out... :-)

Google should require a $1 credit card, ACH bank payment, or paper check payment from any blogger who wants his or her blog to be indexed.

But note that...
- Anyone could still create a blog for free.
If you wanted to have a blog to communicate with your friends or family or workgroup or whatever, no sweat. You'd just give 'em the URL, let them subscribe to your RSS feed, etc., no payment required.

- Google would create a special subdomain for the paid blogs.
blogspotgold.com or whatnot... so that other search engines could easily filter out anything in the blogspot domain.

- Google would allow any current blogspot user to 'upgrade' for $1 and would automatically redirect their URL permanently.

WHY THIS'D WORK
- It would likely no longer be economically feasible for spammers to create 10,000 disposable splogs.
- Even if the economics worked out, Google could limit the number of blogs created per credit card number or bank account.
- Google's creating its own payment processing solution anyway, so they'll soon have the payments part covered.

WHAT WILL HAMPER THIS SOLUTION
- Sploggers could use stolen credit cards, though I think it'd be difficult to do this in bulk.
- But most critically, there's the frustrating issue that even a $1 payment could end up publicly silencing voices that should be heard.

MORE ABOUT THE SILENCING-VOICES PROBLEM
While I'm all for accountability and taking personal responsibility for one's communications, I also recognize that there are instances in which folks desire -- and often should be accorded -- anonymity.

For instance, what about Chinese dissidents who may want to blog about their feelings and experiences or even blog about upcoming protests? Is it inconceivable that the Chinese government could pressure Google into handing over identity information gleaned from a dissident's $1 blogspot payment? Even if Google takes pains to sincerely insist that it will *NEVER* do such a thing, will everyone trust this promise? And what about whistleblowers?

Or what about those people -- particularly in non-industrialized countries -- who may not have a bank account or credit card but still want to blog?

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE SILENCED-VOICES PROBLEM
Perhaps, instead of denying indexing to all non-paid blogs, Google could simply -- upon request -- pre-screen all such blogs for indexing consideration. For instance, something like the following:
1) Person sets up free blog and blogs a minimum number of substantive (non-sploggy) posts over a minimum period of time.
2) They then submit this blog for indexing consideration to Google.
3) If Google determines it to be non-sploggy, they then elevate it to blogspotgold, and provide a free redirect from the old URL.

Admittedly, though, sploggers could retaliate in this context by submitting bazillions of obvious-crap blogs just to clog up the reviewing queue. However, if it were impossible to submit a blog for consideration until it had been around, say, 3 months or 6 months... that would make it harder to do a mass-submit "DOS" [denial of service style] attack. Spammers are not patient people.

* * *

So I'm curious... what do you think about all of this?
1) Would a $1 payment really prevent most or even all splog from getting into the indexes of Google, Y!, and all other major players?
2) Would there be bad 'collateral damage'... or could this be reasonably minimized by the ideas I've specified or through other means?
3) Know of any anti-splog options that are better than my $1 idea? (hint: capchas alone aren't the answer)

* * *

UPDATE at 9:00PM PST, 10/16/2005:
People have pointed out to me that children and young teens typically don't have credit cards or even bank accounts, and that it seems unfair to single them out for a waiting period. So here are some other ideas (with the first two stolen from current Gmail policies :D)

- Get a blogspotgold account via text message.
True, this requires a phone... or a friend's phone.

- Get a blogspotgold account via invite from current member.
Allow each current member to hand out up to 10 tokens a month, and if more than 2 of them are used to create splogs, then don't give that member any more tokens for a year.

- Distribute blogspotgold tokens via schools (administrators, teachers, whatever)

* * *

UPDATE, 10/18/2005 at 1:45AM PST:
Ah, Google responds to the outcry! I had no doubt that they'd be taking all of this seriously (I know that the Blogger folks are sincerely passionate about blogging!), but it's nice to see their public acknowledgment of the problem nonetheless.

Also, the prolific geek, Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome fame) has proposed his own top ten list of Blogspot anti-splog solutions.

Tips for corporate wannabe bloggers

Jeremy Zawodny recently posted that he's going to be speaking about blogging at the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference, and asked his readers what he should tell those folks.

Many people, understandably, responded that he should basically tell them to drop dead. Given the DMA's, ahem, relationship-challenged practices in the past (e.g., supporting opt-out, rather than opt-in e-mail lists), that's hardly surprising.

With that said, though, I figured it'd be worth it to suggest a few more friendly guidelines for the DMA folks, at least those genuinely interested in communicating decently and effectively with others online. Specifically, here's what I commented on Jeremy's blog:

* * *

Tell them to ask themselves this before they ever post anything on a blog:
"If you were out having a beer with someone you've recently become friends with, would you say this to their face?"

For instance, when you're (appropriately) talking a friend, you generally don't:
- shout
- hype
- badger
- monopolize
- ignore
- use fear

You do (or should), however:
- Talk like a human
- Listen
- Listen some more
- Respond appropriately
- Be sincere. No, *really* sincere, not faux sincere.
- Know your relationship-type. You don't hug and kiss a new friend and say "You're my best friend EVER!!!"

And the hardest, but IMHO most important:
Know yourself, know your limitations, and don't pretend to be someone you aren't. If you're a 300 pound frumpy housewife, you don't show up at a bar in a miniskirt and halter top to meet a friend. You'll embarrass yourself, you'll embarrass your friend, and no one will want to be seen with you, much less listen to you. For companies, this means that you shouldn't sweep who you are and what your history is under a rug; if you've had problems with a product or customer relationships, enter into a conversation humbly or even with an appropriate apologetic introduction. "We realize we haven't always worked with our customers in a way that would make our founder proud. Here's what we're doing to change that... and why we respectfully ask you to give us another chance."

Humility, thoughtfulness, subtlety, humanity. All attributes that the spam-defending DMA, sadly, seems to have in very short supply.

* * *

RELATED ENTRIES:
- Blogger Don'ts [from the consumer-side of blogging]

Bloglines, Newzcrawler... and the new Google Reader

A few weeks ago, I already started transitioning all of my feeds off of Bloglines. Why?
- It's slow.
- It's down too often.
- Reorganizing feeds (moving them to different folders, etc.) is worse than being stuck in a closet with Vanna White. Night after night after night after night.
- It's similarly painful to mark just a few articles in a feed as read or unread.

I've moved over to Newzcrawler, a stellar newsreader app for Windows. Beyond just tons of cool power features, it also lets me pretty easily sync my feeds between my desktop and laptop using an external FTP site (okay, geeky, I know).

* * *

With that said, I've still been hoping to see some vast improvements in the online-reader front. Rojo seems to be getting better. And I've heard rumblings over other cool services as well. When I learned today that Google had entered this space, I was extremely excited. Please, I thought, give us another Gmail. Or Maps! :D If not for me, at least for my less-geeky friends whom I'm dying to get into feed reading.

So far, alas, I'm rather disappointed in the Google Reader. I know it'll get better, but for now, Googlers...

1) It's too cluttered and overwhelming.
Hide some stuff. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but blog text blends into all the other text and I find it just tiring to spend more than a few minutes in Reader.

2) No mouseovers?!

3) Ambiguities
Is "Read items" a description or an action? Okay, admittedly this is rather a nitpick, but it is a top-line link ;-).

4) Search what?!
When I see a search box at the top of the page, I expect to be able to search the content-in-context. In other words, if I'm in my Gmail account, I expect to search my mail. If I'm in Reader, I expect to search for a string in my read and/or unread feed items. From an expected user-action standpoint, what's likely to be more common: adding new feeds, or working with the feeds one already has?

5) Save me from overload!
There's no way to mark an entire feed as read. Or group of feeds.

6) Why the weird quasi-breadcrumbs in center focus?!
Why do I want to see "New Subscription" "New Subscription" article article article... Just show me new articles. If I want to see what I'm subscribed to, I'll go to the Your Subscriptions tab! :-)

* * *

Other quick suggestions/observations:
- Add a space in "Subscriptions(#)" to make it "Subscriptions (#)"
- Include a shortcut key to go to the pulldown menus. Actually, quit using HTML-style pulldown menus as action-triggers. It's not good UI, IMHO, and it's confusing when more than one says "More actions..." (plus with more than one on a page, that sort of makes it hard to use a keyboard shortcut)
- Allow for the multi-selection (and from there, tagging) of feeds.
- Include a feedback link directly on the Reader page.
- Enable us to see ALL articles from a given feed in one fell swoop (ala Bloglines)
- Let us easily sort, reposition, edit, and delete labels and sets of labels.
- BUG: I unsubscribed from a feed, it's outta my list, but I'm still seeing items for it.
- Gimme feed icons, please! When I have 200+ feeds, it's how I can most easily spot some of my favs :-)
- Dim links if they're not applicable (e.g., dim the Page Up link if I'm already at the top)
- I tagged an entry. How do I search for it by tag now? (I only see how I can filter feed tags)

* * *

Okay, let me be a LITTLE less of a jerk here and note what I *DO* like about Reader:
- Keyboard shortcuts! :-)
- Ease of adding new feeds (by keyword, by title, by URL... very flexible!)
- Nice how the filter narrows as I type! (but it'd be even nicer if ESC cleared it)
- Pretty fast (excepting the short time earlier today when it was first released)

* * *

Anyway, I'll keep my fingers crossed that Google rapidly works on this beta, giving it top resources... rotating in seasoned PMs / APMs, providing needed equipment for scalability and so on. For now, though, I'll happily stick with Newzcrawler, and -- admittedly grudgingly -- suggest that my newbie friends start off with Bloglines for now.

Memory holes aren't cool. Corporate bloggers, cut it out!

UPDATE 9/23/05 2:34pm PST:
Looks like I was a bit too quick on the CrankyTrigger this morning. Apparently, Streamload had shifted over to Blogspot, but hadn't updated one of their primary links (1 step off of their home page). Certainly a frustrating but nonetheless innocent oversight. See Streamload's acknowledgment of the issue here in their P.S.

My apologies for jumping to conclusions. I'm keeping the rest of my blog entry intact so I'm not a hypocrite ;-)

* * *

I'm a paying member of Streamload -- a multimedia remote storage service -- and I regularly follow their blog in my aggregator.

Recently, they've been heralding their upcoming major service overhaul in their blog... a huge new feature set, new pricing, and so on. Everything was supposed to go live, well, a few days ago.

Well, a day or two ago, they blogged an apology for the delay, citing power outage issues stemming from a storm (no, not one of the hurricanes). I totally understood... these sort of things happen. But then imagine my amazement and annoyance today when, upon checking their blog, I notice that they've wiped out the last month's worth of entries. Poof, gone. Here's the Google cache of what they had written.

A firm message to Streamload and any other companies that may be thinking about, ahem, rewriting history: Don't do it.
1) People like me will catch it and call you on it.
2) This'll create ill-will and suspicions regarding your firm's integrity.

And for goodness sake, if you're nonetheless determined to cover your tracks, at least don't do it half-assedly; roll-back your press releases, too. Sheesh.

Blogger DON'Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)

I just came back from a blogger meetup, and am for some (possibly related) reason inspired to offer some blogging tips I've accumulated over the nearly three years I've been blogging.

0) THE SHORT VERSION FOR IMPATIENT FOLKS
- When in doubt, save-as-draft.
- Write about what you love.
- Publicize smartly.
- Add your blog to directories.
- Write smart blog titles and excerpts.
- Put ads in your blog unapologetically.
- Make sure you're pinging everyone.
- Use SE-friendly URLs.
- Make your contact info visible.
- Test your blog in different browsers.
- Ask your friends for blunt advice.
- Don't lose perspective.
- Ask me out (females only, please)

* * *

1) DON'T BE STUPID
This is key point #1, literally. While it's actually a superb idea to write when you're really angry or depressed or lovestruck or feeling very emotional in general, it's not smart to actually publish your entries without a cooling off period. Being first or speedy (e.g., impulsive) is not as valuable as being safe long term. Remember, what you post on your blog will likely last forever, even after you edit or delete it (in the Wayback Machine, Google cache, peoples' offline aggregators, etc.).

So, in other words, write when you are inspired but take yourself through this quick decision tree first:

Would I feel comfortable having my Mom, my friends, my current or future significant other, and my current and future work colleagues read this?

- [YES]: Are you sure?
- - [YES, DANGIT!]: Okay, hit publish [end]
- - [UM, NOT TOTALLY]: Hit save as draft. Revisit tomorrow [end]
- [NO]: Hit save as draft. Revisit tomorrow. [end]

2) DON'T FAKE IT
If you don't feel passionate about what you're blogging, it will show. Just because you figure you can make one MILLION dollars writing about texas hold'em poker doesn't mean that you'll be successful in doing so (unless you really, really love texas hold'em, and -- really, now -- is that whole shebang truly anything more than media hype and blog-comment-spam-insanity anyway? Does anyone REALLY play that game? Ah, but I digress.)

3) DON'T BE SHY
If you're proud of your blog (and dammit, you should be!), include a link to it in your e-mail signature, print up business cards (Vistaprint is hella cheap and makes good stuff), and mention your blog with your name when post on other blogs, write notes on forums, etc. But (and, obviously, this SHOULD go without saying), don't be a twit about it. Offer thoughtful or at least entertaining contributions instead of merely hyping your blog, and people WILL go see your blog because they like you and/or your writing, not because you screamed "Look at my blog!!!!!!!1"

And while we're talking about publicity stuff, let me offer some key (actually specific) tips about how to increase your readership and generally extend the reach of your blog:

- Use Feedburner
This service is free (except for their few Pro features) and really rocks. It'll help make your RSS feeds flexible, enable you to create an animated GIF with your latest headlines, and much more!

- Add your blog to relevant directories.
(sorry, I haven't kept a list of these lately, but I'm sure you can google this, and of course, I welcome input here, too!)

- Intelligently and cleverly write both your blog entry titles AND excerpts.
Include relevant keywords, a teaser, AND an honest description all in one whenever possible.

- Make your feeds easy to find!
As an example, look at my autodiscovery meta tags (view | source of my blog), and note how I advertise my feeds right up at the top of every page of my blog.

4) DON'T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT $$$ (or even just $)
Okay, so I'm a sell-out. And frankly, I think I probably have one too many ad blocks in my blog now (the whole blog is due for a redesign, honest-to-God, though I know I've been sincerely noting that for like five months now [sigh]). But with that said, I am completely unashamed that I have ads in my blog. I pay for hosting. I spend time offering (IMHO) oft-useful or at least amusing comments to 500-1000 folks each day. Putting Google's AdSense ads on my site doesn't make what I have to say any less interesting or valid (and, admittedly, doesn't make it any MORE interesting, either). Oh, and in case you're curious, I make about $2 a day. I'm not getting rich, and since I spend at least two hours on my blog a week, this means I make a mere $7/hour or so. But hey, $700 a year is still nothing to sneeze at :-).

Bottom line: Don't blog for money, but don't feel guilty about earning a bagel (with schmear) a day for your writing, either.

5) DON'T FORGET THE WHORISH UNDERPINNINGS

- Ping, ping, baby!
Are you pinging everyone you should ping? Here's my ping list, and I think it's pretty complete:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

- Make your individual blog entry URLs search-engine friendly!
I haven't yet had a chance to do this with my blog yet, but ideally, your entry about playful albino dolphins should be at http://www.yourblog.com/archives/playful-albino-dolphins

Hyphens are better than underscores.
Don't just trust me... I read it from GoogleGuy so it must be true (really).

6) DON'T OVERLOOK THE BASICS!

- Make it easy to contact you!
I can't tell you how many times I wanted to send a note to a blogger (to offer a tip or just congrats, to let them know one of their links is broken, etc.), and I was unable to find any way to reach them via e-mail. That's just stupid. If you're worried about spambots (which is understandable!), include a "Contact me" form, or obfuscate your address (e.g., "write me at adam at the domain lasnik.net").

- Make sure your site works in ALL popular browsers!
If you're on a PC, you should be using Firefox instead of IE anyway, but look at your blog in both no matter what. I discovered that a friend's blog, for instance, was completely unreadable in Firefox due to incompatible CSS. Not a very good way to build up readership! On the other hand, quit worrying about Netscape 4.7 folks. Sorry, people, but you're <1% of visitors now and no one other than masochists or stupid people will bother to specially-optimize / cripple their sites for you.

- Ask your friends for honest advice.
For instance, 9 out of 10 AdamFriends have unequivocably complained that my blog is too cluttered and has a lousy color scheme. Frankly, I think they're all nuts (well, except for the one suck-up who says my site is perfect :D). But clearly I'm outvoted. The only reason I've not yet cleaned up my blog is that I'm insanely busy with stuff that actually pays me more than $7/hr, delightfully entertains me, gets me laid, and/or all of the above. Hmm... that was actually more than one reason, I suppose, but oh well.

7) DON'T LOSE PERSPECTIVE!
I keep seeing bloggers apologize for going on hiatus. Heck, even I've been guilty of groveling to my readers, begging them to still love me even when I go weeks months without blogging.

What a crock of bovine excrement. We have no obligations to our readers. I'm serious. Friends are more important than blogging. Family is more important than blogging. Exercise, diet, inner peace, world peace, and steady employment -- more important than blogging. Going on a hike somewhere without your laptop or PDA and getting fresh, un-recirculated air -- more important than blogging. And here's a crazy idea: going on a vacation for a week and actually avoiding blogs, online and offline news (including TV, newspapers, etc.), and everything digital -- way more important than blogging.

I know, I know, I may sound like a hypocritical smarmy twit about all of this, but I really mean all of it. The week I spent in Port Townsend unplugged and at a camp for swingers made me far happier than any week in which I've gotten lots of blog traffic or broke $3/day from blogvertising.

Sometimes we just need to take a step back and put everything in perspective.

For the other 355 days, though, I hope my blog tips are helpful :-D. Please feel free to ask me for any clarifications ("What's a ping, daddy?"), offer suggestions, or simply tell me I'm full of crap.

Or, if you're a really cute and artistic female who likes geeks, ask me out. That's better than blogging, too :-).