a blog is really a "blahhh-g" unless you, the blogger, are a brand with valued equity. the blogger must be someone or something that has relevance to the world as a whole, validated by entities greater than blogger themself. otherwise that blog & the blogger are just part of the missing ozone in the blogosphere.
Here's a thought, what comes after the blog/blog?
It should also be noted that no one will read this blog... for now!
unless you, the blogger, are a brand with valued equity. the blogger must be someone or something that has relevance to the world as a whole, validated by entities greater than blogger themself.
Maybe a little true, if your primary goal is to be read...but not at all if your goal is to write. :-)
Which seriously isn't a bad place to start. Although more than a few people have succeeded in building a brand without a product, a product helps. It's easier to make people keep coming back if there's a reason to.
otherwise that blog & the blogger are just part of the missing ozone in the blogosphere.
That's true of any one-to-(theoretically) communication. The overwhelming majority of books listed at Amazon don't sell a single copy. Wow, remember when Amazon sold BOOKS? :-)
The last count I saw put the number of blogs somewhere north of 100,000,000. Many of them are there as "vanity" blogs, just like many webSITES rather than pages.
BTW, there's a well-established and very large business built around vanity books. Look for "vanity publishing" at Google. The first listings are sponsored links from vanity publishers. Look a little further down and you'll see a book at Amazon about how to publish your own book -- how's that for meta? I haven't looked it up, but when I sold books, I got the impression that it went well back into the 19th century.
The point is that most people doing most things do it for the recognition of people who already know them and the small crowd they can draw.
And indeed, if you're throwing a party, you start by sending invitations to the people you know and ask them to bring a friend. By all means, build up your content (in this metaphor, stock the place with food and drink), then send out invitations.
Just as with websites, there are some basic things you can do to draw a crowd, and they're often the same things. Use the URL of your blog in any postings you make around the web. (If you'd like, I can set you up a more interesting URL than the one you're given by default.)
That includes comments at other blogs, btw.
After you have a reason for people to visit more than once by having enough things for them to read, get in touch with the blogs you read and ask to exchange links. This is known as blogrolling. It helps if your primary area of interest is the same as the site you're asking to link to, and helps if you don't expect to get linked from large commercial blogs, but it's a step.
The point is that the first step to getting visible is to BE visible. Congratulations. :-)
And since you mention brand equity, we hope to use the brand equity of the Cow to help all of our bloggers draw a crowd. We're just getting started, so keep blogging and let us work on it.
Here's a thought, what comes after the blog/blog?
People like Adobe have invested big money on the belief that the next thing is "vlogging." Instead of using video sucked from YouTube, the idea is to use the cheap gear you already have to build blog-ish content out of video, graphics, music, etc. Adobe's entry level tool has built-in greenscreen capability for you to swap in a new background, a teleprompter so you don't have to speak off the top of your head, graphic tools for lower thirds and much more -- starting at $99.
There are others who think that blogs, vlogs and existing websites will all be small parts of Web 2.0, built on a backbone of social networking like MySpace -- which already has millions of blogs built in, linked through a web of recommendations from other MySpacers. FaceBook is just getting their act together, and one wrinkle there is real-time updates - you can often tell where the people in your network are at this very second. Pretty wild stuff.
The point of web 2.0 is the audience is already built-in, and any new content is disseminated at lightning speed.
Again, we're working on it. We don't have the billions in equity that MySpace and Facebook do yet...but there's a reason why they have billions of dollars in equity. Money too is drawn to big crowds -- even though virtually all of the content is vanity publishing -- especially at MySpace, which is why it will always have a bigger audience than the ultimately sponsor-driven nature that Facebook is evolving into.
It should also be noted that no one will read this blog... for now!
first off, that was an amazing response to my first post!
i have to admit, i didn't expect a response at all much less one with as much detail and useful, thoughtful writing. i have to admit, it's changed my thinking on the whole blog world, now that there's the possibility someone/anyone might be paying attention.
also, thank you for the offer of an alternate URL. i may take you up on that in the future, right now i think i'll need to get some posts up as well as add my URL to my signatures. not too mention i need to do some research into web 2.0, and how to do proper blogrolling. jeremy garchow already rolled onto my page. wow again.
thanks for the words of knowledge and the words of support. it's interesting to know i'm not completely lost in the missing ozone of the blogosphere. hopefully i'll have some posts worth reading.
Digg it
Brand equity and the world
A couple of thoughts in no particular order:
unless you, the blogger, are a brand with valued equity. the blogger must be someone or something that has relevance to the world as a whole, validated by entities greater than blogger themself.
Maybe a little true, if your primary goal is to be read...but not at all if your goal is to write. :-)
Which seriously isn't a bad place to start. Although more than a few people have succeeded in building a brand without a product, a product helps. It's easier to make people keep coming back if there's a reason to.
otherwise that blog & the blogger are just part of the missing ozone in the blogosphere.
That's true of any one-to-(theoretically) communication. The overwhelming majority of books listed at Amazon don't sell a single copy. Wow, remember when Amazon sold BOOKS? :-)
The last count I saw put the number of blogs somewhere north of 100,000,000. Many of them are there as "vanity" blogs, just like many webSITES rather than pages.
BTW, there's a well-established and very large business built around vanity books. Look for "vanity publishing" at Google. The first listings are sponsored links from vanity publishers. Look a little further down and you'll see a book at Amazon about how to publish your own book -- how's that for meta? I haven't looked it up, but when I sold books, I got the impression that it went well back into the 19th century.
The point is that most people doing most things do it for the recognition of people who already know them and the small crowd they can draw.
And indeed, if you're throwing a party, you start by sending invitations to the people you know and ask them to bring a friend. By all means, build up your content (in this metaphor, stock the place with food and drink), then send out invitations.
Just as with websites, there are some basic things you can do to draw a crowd, and they're often the same things. Use the URL of your blog in any postings you make around the web. (If you'd like, I can set you up a more interesting URL than the one you're given by default.)
That includes comments at other blogs, btw.
After you have a reason for people to visit more than once by having enough things for them to read, get in touch with the blogs you read and ask to exchange links. This is known as blogrolling. It helps if your primary area of interest is the same as the site you're asking to link to, and helps if you don't expect to get linked from large commercial blogs, but it's a step.
The point is that the first step to getting visible is to BE visible. Congratulations. :-)
And since you mention brand equity, we hope to use the brand equity of the Cow to help all of our bloggers draw a crowd. We're just getting started, so keep blogging and let us work on it.
Here's a thought, what comes after the blog/blog?
People like Adobe have invested big money on the belief that the next thing is "vlogging." Instead of using video sucked from YouTube, the idea is to use the cheap gear you already have to build blog-ish content out of video, graphics, music, etc. Adobe's entry level tool has built-in greenscreen capability for you to swap in a new background, a teleprompter so you don't have to speak off the top of your head, graphic tools for lower thirds and much more -- starting at $99.
There are others who think that blogs, vlogs and existing websites will all be small parts of Web 2.0, built on a backbone of social networking like MySpace -- which already has millions of blogs built in, linked through a web of recommendations from other MySpacers. FaceBook is just getting their act together, and one wrinkle there is real-time updates - you can often tell where the people in your network are at this very second. Pretty wild stuff.
The point of web 2.0 is the audience is already built-in, and any new content is disseminated at lightning speed.
Again, we're working on it. We don't have the billions in equity that MySpace and Facebook do yet...but there's a reason why they have billions of dollars in equity. Money too is drawn to big crowds -- even though virtually all of the content is vanity publishing -- especially at MySpace, which is why it will always have a bigger audience than the ultimately sponsor-driven nature that Facebook is evolving into.
It should also be noted that no one will read this blog... for now!
Good morning. :-)
WOW!
first off, that was an amazing response to my first post!
i have to admit, i didn't expect a response at all much less one with as much detail and useful, thoughtful writing. i have to admit, it's changed my thinking on the whole blog world, now that there's the possibility someone/anyone might be paying attention.
also, thank you for the offer of an alternate URL. i may take you up on that in the future, right now i think i'll need to get some posts up as well as add my URL to my signatures. not too mention i need to do some research into web 2.0, and how to do proper blogrolling. jeremy garchow already rolled onto my page. wow again.
thanks for the words of knowledge and the words of support. it's interesting to know i'm not completely lost in the missing ozone of the blogosphere. hopefully i'll have some posts worth reading.
onward, upward and good morning to you!
Please join my cause:
(my first blogroll, that actually might be a term I can live with).
http://blogs.creativecow.net/node/376