Sep 5, 2008
1000 things I’ve learned about blogging
To mark 1000 posts on this blog, I thought I’d reflect on what I’ve learned since post #1.
UPDATE: Now available in German, Spanish, Hebrew, and Portuguese.
UPDATE 2: I’ll be posting further ‘1000 things’ via Twitter - you can find them with this search or this RSS feed.
- Blogging is not ‘writing a blog’. Blogging is linking and commenting. Any writing is a bonus.
- Regular posting is important…
- But quality posting is even more important. Spending a week or more on a single post can be one of the most important things you ever do.
- First knowledge, then analysis, then ideas.
- A picture is worth a thousand words. More importantly, a picture is worth a thousand words in two hundred countries. The fact that readers don’t need to speak English to understand what you’re communicating can make a word-free post - or at least one with a good image - your most successful one.
- For similar reasons, video works. It may not be search engine-friendly, but if people can embed it the word is more likely to spread.
- When video meets conversation, good stuff can happen.
- Everyone looks ugly on video. Get over it.
- Online video is not online TV
- Podcasts work better when there’s more than one of you
- It takes time. Sometimes years. Persistence counts.
- Being early matters
- A big idea travels far
- Pingback/trackback is a wonderful thing, a form of distribution news websites are still struggling to match. What can be more interesting than someone who is interested in you?
- Cliques and old boys’ networks exist in the blogosphere too
- We are too fucking Anglo-American
- Language is a massive barrier (but having multilingual friends helps - see updates at top of post)
- BASIC principles matter
- Social bookmarking makes researching a post much easier
- The best reason to blog is not to show everyone else what you know, but to find out what everyone else knows
- RSS is one of the most undervalued technologies in the world. Once you understand what to do with it, you can bring the world to your desktop, your mobile, and your blog, and vice versa.
- A blog doesn’t open doors for you, it just gives you the idea to try knocking.
- When people Google you, it saves a lot of time explaining things.
- Blogs are just one part of a social media ecology. Half the stuff that used to go on this blog now goes on Twitter; more goes on Delicious; and some on Flickr and on Seesmic.
- Don’t get me started on FriendFeed, Plurk, Jaiku, etc.
- Humour is effective, but not everyone will get it
- I seem to like linking on verbs
- Streaming live video from your mobile is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it
- Streaming live video from your mobile uses up your battery quickly
- Web browsing on your mobile also uses up your battery quickly
- If you’re moblogging an event, bring a power lead, an extension lead - and a spare phone
- The N95 kicks iPhone’s ass
- (But I’m prepared to be persuaded otherwise)
- Wordpress plugins are addictive
- Firefox extensions are addictive
- Signing up for beta web services is addictive
- I don’t really care about Twitterspam
- A simple, fun idea can be around the world in minutes
- If you want to campaign against something, you already have the technology
- If you want a service, create it yourself
- Google is the biggest popularity contest in the world
- When you realise you don’t have a readership - you have a community - then you also realise you can mobilise, and get things done.
- Technology is easy; community is hard
- Meeting in person is important: I read blogs by people I’ve met much more often than those I haven’t
- Geography still matters
- Birmingham has a lot of bloggers
- Liveblogging and Twitter-blogging are not the same thing
- Privacy is a fluid concept: just because it’s in the public domain doesn’t mean it’s not private
- Wordpress.com is better than Blogger
- Wordpress.org is better than Wordpress.com (see Thing 34)
- Content is not king.
- Conversation is king.
- Conversation is the kingdom.
- We shouldn’t try to be the media
- If someone is sending you a press release about something, you shouldn’t blog about it
- As a journalist, blogging is a good way to rediscover the joy of journalism
- Blogging is also a great way to rediscover how great having a good editor can be
- Do what you do best and link to the rest
- Blogs aren’t worth dying for. That’s what family is for.
- Setting yourself a maximum number of posts per day is a good idea
- Setting yourself a set time to look at your RSS subs every day is also a good idea
- If you rely on third party services, prepare for the rug to be pulled from under your feet
- If you publish the comments widget high up on your blog, more people comment
- A blog without a comments facility is broken
- A site that has comments, but edits or buries them, is not just broken, it’s malevolent.
- Leave posts open ended if you want people to comment
- Leave a post at the top of your site for more than a day if you want people to comment
- Being transparent about your sources is not only good journalism, it’s good distribution.
- The search engine optimisation industry is the new snake oil. I can tell you all you need to know about SEO in five minutes
- Although it might take me another five hours to answer the resulting questions
- If you expect to make lots of money from blogging, you are either naive, stupid, or Robert Scoble.
- If you expect to make lots of money from blogging, don’t expect to make it through advertising
- Being read by a few, key, people can be worth more, professionally, than having lots of visitors
- Being frequently linked to can be worth more, commercially, than having lots of visitors
- Beware advertisers bearing text-based gifts, or generous offerings of ‘free’ articles. Understand linkspam
- Be aware that you have an ego
- Be aware that everyone else has an ego
- Unconferences are great
- There’s only so much talking you can do. Sometimes you have to do something.
- There should be more money available to do something
- Ideas aren’t a problem. Knowing which ones to pursue is
- Only 10% of Americans read blogs
- But 26% of Americans write blogs
- How does that work?
- Blogs are far more ethnically representative than mainstream media
- People may not trust the print and broadcast media, but they trust online news even less
- The 1-9-90 rule
- Rushing off a blog entry just before bed is a bad idea
- Rushing off a blog entry hours before your wife goes into labour is not a good idea either
- Some news travels faster than an aftershock
- People don’t need managers to organise them - just connections
- When I can record a video comment straight from my mobile phone, I’ll be a happy man
- Don’t underestimate the power of corporatisation
- Don’t underestimate the power of big corporations
- Don’t underestimate the power of governments
- If, after all this, we have to go back to living in caves and eating rats, it’ll be a real shame
- Lists have become the biggest cliche in blogging and the most shameless tactic for getting to the top of delicious/digg/reddit.
- But people still read them.
- Have you bookmarked this yet, by the way?
1000. I can’t count.
104 Comments, Comment or Ping
FionaC
Wow!
-so what about Plurk,Jaiku etc
Sep 5th, 2008
paulbradshaw
Don’t ask me.
Sep 5th, 2008
Happy
At least one item made the lightbulb go off. Thanks for the flash of inspiration.
Sep 5th, 2008
Adriana Degetau
I totally agree.
Sep 5th, 2008
Daniel Davies
Thank you for sharing this, as a relatively new blogger its been nice to read and a fair few of your points made me go ‘oooh yeah’. Little bit of self-reassurance and some food for thought, good post =)
Sep 5th, 2008
Adam
Thank goodness you stopped at 100. I looked at the headline in my reader and though “I hope that mad b*stard didn’t do all 1000″…
Sep 5th, 2008
sarah hartley
Go on, give us the rest of the list
Sep 5th, 2008
Adam
Are you trying to drive the poor man insane, Sarah?
Sep 5th, 2008
Michael Neumayr
Great stuff and very funny. Talking about fact 17. I translated the whole thing into German.
http://www.nachrichtenfluss.net/2008/09/1000-dinge-die-ich-uber-das-bloggen-gelernt-habe/
Maybe somebody would do that with other languages.
Sep 5th, 2008
rampantheart
I am all whoa!This post must have taken helluva lot of time!LOL!:P
Sep 6th, 2008
Pedro Morgado
Fantastic post.
Pedro Morgado, Portugal.
Sep 6th, 2008
tom kern
wow,now that is some powerful things to think about.
Sep 6th, 2008
Eric
great list - thanks for sharing
Sep 6th, 2008
Mark Evans
Sounds like you’ve learned a lot over the past 1,000 posts. Good to see some thought, reflection and good advice!
Mark
Sep 6th, 2008
shawal
A huge nice list, when first come in i wonder, the list is 1000 but why the page a shorts….
I wonder why???
hihihihihiii…
Good list and nice reading.
Sep 6th, 2008
gmasatasquirrel
What a Jip! I was all prepared to sit here and read 1000 reasons =) As somewhat of a new blogger, it’s sucks to know that there isn’t much money in it, but very good to know that others like you encourage bloggers like me to never give up! Thanks.
Sep 7th, 2008
Lex dePraxis
Hey, great and funny list.
Sep 7th, 2008
Andrew Slominski
I can’t count either, so you’re in good company. Thanks for the advice! I was getting really bent out of shape recently with not being able to get anyone else to contribute more to my site. I also felt a need for a post-a-day, no matter the quality of the content. Thanks again.
Sep 7th, 2008
Bill Bennett
Crikey, I’ve only learned six things about blogging.
http://tiny.cc/ZGgbb
Sep 7th, 2008
~Kat~
Quite a few gems in there. And a few that made me smile. Especially #1000. Good job!
Sep 7th, 2008
elizabeth
you’ve given me lots of ‘food’ to feed on.
Sep 7th, 2008
Navjot Singh
Great List. At first even I got scared of the number 1000, but after reading 99, I think I could have managed for the rest of 901 points too!
Come on…we need rest of 901 points too.
Sep 7th, 2008
Tal galili
Beautiful, thank you!
Sep 7th, 2008
Anthony
Very interesting !
I must admit I forgot some of the things you said, And I will refocus on them
Sep 7th, 2008
Sarbjit Singh
Thank you for the wonderful post.
I have not written 100 posts yet this made me learn all this early.
Sep 7th, 2008
Traci V.
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise - fantastic information!
I especially enjoyed the comments on WP plugins.
Traci
Sep 7th, 2008
Euphrosene Labon
Re #64 - what happens if most of your comments are emails (as are mine)… not still broken, eh?
Euphrosene
Sep 8th, 2008
Dr. House
Dude it is ultimate list. I am first time here but you have really good stuff.
Sep 8th, 2008
...tom...
…
RE: # 58: Do what you do best and link to the rest
So linking to this post would be a _good_thing_..??
…tom…
Sep 9th, 2008
Malcolm Bastien
I totally dig how it feels like there’s a conversation going on even though your talking in numbered points.
…and I honestly dedicated 20 minutes to sit here and look through 1000 points.
Sep 9th, 2008
steven
Good, really liked it.
But this: 64. A blog without comments is broken, may be not.
There´s a spanish blog called Microsiervos, they deleted the comments some years ago, and they´re the most famous spanish blog, the most read one.
Sep 9th, 2008
Anne
@ # 63 - Yet your comments are still down here
Thanks for the tips, they seem pretty down to earth and were interesting to read. I’ll be sure to keep them in mind with my blogging endeavors…
Sep 9th, 2008
Hye Munar
Ooops, where is the rest of the list? Thanks for sharing these by the way, these can help me in blogging since I am a newbie blogger.
Just a little comment about “a blog without comment is broken”. Isn’t it “a blog without visitors is broken”. Thanks ;0
Sep 10th, 2008
Adam Singer
“# Only 10% of Americans read blogs
# But 26% of Americans write blogs”
That isn’t possible, if 26% write they at least read their own blog, which counts !
Sep 11th, 2008
...tom...
…
Adam S: “That isn’t possible, if 26% write they at least read their own blog, which counts !
…smalllol…
Are you sure..?? I have read some posts (including my own) that make me wonder..!!
…tom…
.
Sep 11th, 2008
DJAx3L
Great article.
Sep 12th, 2008
Jashpal Mall
Paul,
1,000th post - what a feat - I’m inspired, so much so - I’m considering to finally start my own blog… watch this space - or should I say watch my space, blog, twitter, rss, etc!
M
Sep 12th, 2008
paulbradshaw
@Gmasatasquirrel @Navjot and @Malcolm - I will continue to post ‘1000 Things’ via Twitter - you can find them at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+%221000+things%22+from%3Apaulbradshaw or subscribe to an rss feed at http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=+%221000+things%22+from%3Apaulbradshaw
@Michael thanks for the translation! Have updated the post to include a link higher up.
@Anne re: comments widget - the recent comments ‘widget’ is in the second column at the top of the page - that’s different to post-specific comments which are also displayed at the end of each particular post.
Sep 15th, 2008
cendana
I got this link from Mike of http://ourtable.wordpress.com I’ve only started this a month ago. Thanks to this list, I’ll know what to do (whether I actually do it is another matter, of course)
Sep 16th, 2008
Luciano Mucelli
Nice post. I’d rescue what I consider the best ones.
http://prixma.com.ar/2008/09/rss-imgenes-y-calidad-la-clave-del-blog.html
Sep 16th, 2008
Khristofferson Silveira
Great post. I translated it to brazillian portuguese here:
http://ksilveira.blogspot.com/2008/09/1000-coisas-aprendidas-sobre-blogar.html
Sep 19th, 2008
The Worst of Perth
What about posting while drunk?
Sep 20th, 2008
Ian Hutchinson
Nice addition of humour at the end there dude..
Nov 9th, 2008
tiaras
Found this post really interesting, some great points made here. Thanks
Nov 26th, 2008
caca
see thing (99)
Yes
Feb 2nd, 2009
ALEXANDER
REALLY A SUPERB INFORMATIVE POST.THANK YOU THANK YOU VERY MUCH.BY THE WAY HAVE A LOOK ON THE FOLLOWING SITE.
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blogging for a living
Feb 4th, 2009
otimização de sites
I´ve learned blogging that I can understand better my costumers and also give them information about my services faster and cheaper.
Great post!
Mar 19th, 2009
Picken
gr8 resrch bro
Apr 8th, 2009
CLAT Guru
It was fun reading this hundred points..
And Yes.. Conversation is the King.. Content must be the queen alleast..
Apr 20th, 2009
Beamer
Oh, poo! I wondered how you’d ever get to 1000! And I was hoping you would. Great post! All 99! I liked “Do What You Do Best And Link To The Rest”. I’ll remember that one.
Apr 24th, 2009
cherie Corey
I was glad it wasn’t 1000, but disappointed only 100. Maybe you can spoonfeed it to us a little at a time? I’m a newbie and trying to be like a sponge..
TY 4 some gr8 advice
Cherie
Jun 5th, 2009
Tony V
This is outstanding! Thank you for your lessons learned on blogging!
Tony V
Jun 5th, 2009
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