Get Your "I (Heart) My Blog" Buddy Icon

Okay, so I don't think I ever mentioned this, but did you know we have two blog-related Buddy Icons for AOL and AIM users? I (Heart) Blogs, and I (Heart) My Blog:

I (Heart) Blogs Buddy Icons (link will resize your browser window)

In fact, I don't think I even knew we had these -- I remember asking for them, though: A while back, Jason had done up a whole bunch of I (Heart) Icons.

Because of the transition from the old choosers to the new HTML choosers, some Expressions assets may have not have gotten copied over. But we have these.

So bloggers, wear your blogging icon with pride.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: expressions, buddy icons, i heart blogs

Hyperlocal and Hyperfocused Blogging

Here's another bloggy story from today:

Blogging at the UN: The New York Times looks at Matthew Lee, "the only blogger at the United Nations with media credentials."

His blog is Inner City Press, (it actually feels more to me like a regular news/newsletter-ish Web site, though it does feature an RSS-feed), and he comprehensively (some might say, "obsessively") chronicles goings-on at the UN.

What Lee is doing with his blog is very different from your average personal blogger, because he's focused on a single topic (the UN), and he's blogging specifically for an audience, and to perform a service for said audience.

While his blog may pull in a wider interest simply because it deals with the United Nations, at its heart, it's a hyperfocused, hyperlocal blog. Which makes it kind of a strange beast.

Most commonly, these kinds of blogs focus on very niche, very local things (especially politics). They'll include everything from the proceedings of the city council, or land-use and zoning issues, or environmental quality and general neighborhood issues (crime, development, traffic, etc.).

They're the kinds of issues that affect a relatively small number of people, but they affect them very directly and very intensely.

This kind of blogging takes a lot of dedication, and a lot of time. And it rarely pays. According to the article, Mr. Lee "...regularly works 13-hour days and lives on the money from several fellowships he won a few years ago." So it's definitely not for everyone.

One way to help spread the load is to gather groups of like-minded people together so that everyone does a share of the work -- this works especially well for time-limited events (back during the Scooter Libby trial, the Media Bloggers Association had a rotating roster of credentialed bloggers to liveblog the trial).

Anyway, hyperfocused blogging, like all good blogging, requires passion. As long as there's passion, the technologies and the supporting structures to help enable that passion should come along (hopefully).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: united nations, UN, hyperfocused blogging, inner city press, matthew lee

RSS Feeds in Plain English

So I haven't talked about RSS feeds in a while (mostly because I haven't been very good at it thus far).

Most blogs and many regular Web sites have feeds (one common type is called RSS); when you subscribe to a site's feed (using a program or Web site called a feedreader), you get updated whenever the site posts new content.

In the AOL Journals universe, we mainly use Alerts for this. However, Alerts tends to get unwieldy when you start subscribing to lots and lots of alerts. (For example, if you subscribe to the New Entry Alerts for 100 Journals, if every one of your subscribed blogs posts an entry, that's 100 e-mails.)

Also, if you use a feedreader, you can get updates on all the blogs you want to read (both AOL & non-AOL blogs and Web sites).

Anyway, I was looking in my own RSS feedreader (on my Mac at work, I use the free NetNewsWire Lite, though as I've mentioned before, my feeds are a mess, spread out all over the place), and saw that Frank Gruber, a product manager over here as well as profilic blogger in his own right, has an entry about a great, plain English demo about RSS Feeds.

It's a three-and-a-half-minute Flash video done by the people at Common Craft: "RSS in Plain English":

Click to play the video.

It's a pretty good tutorial (though I would add, in addition to Bloglines, Newsgator and Google Reader, you can also use My AOL for your feedreading needs -- I talked to JC on the Feeds team and confirmed that your feeds are now tied to your screen name when you're signed in, which means it'll remember the feeds you've added even after you clear your cookies. That was kind of deal-breaker before).

Anyway, take a look at the video and let me know if that helps explain to you what feeds and feedreaders do.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: feeds, rss readers, feedreaders, my aol

Not Quite a Perfect Day for Outdoor Blogging

Hi folks -- seeing as how it's partly- to mostly-gorgeous out right now, I'm taking advantage of the wireless internet connection to do some work in the courtyard.

Since it is a tad breezy (WNW wind up to 15mph, according to current weather), I had to go back inside and get a hat to keep hair (mine) out of my eyes, but other than that, it's been fine (barring the occasional wisp of smoke from someone on break).

Also, since there are no power outlets out here, I have a built-in time limit of about 90 minutes before my battery fades. (Which is happening right about now. I keep forgetting to bring an outdoor-rated extension cord.)

So, here's my list of factors that make for a perfect outdoor blogging day:

* Temperament: Face it, some folks are going to be able to get stuff done outside or out in public, and some folks won't. Can you concentrate on what you need to do, or will you be spending all your time listening to barking dogs, watching people and eavesdropping on conversations? Will you keep running in and out of the house to freshen your beverage or go to the bathroom? Only you will know.

(See also, 'You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing')

* Weather: For me, it should be a warm, still, dry, and cloudy day:

- Warm: Anything over 70 degrees or so
- Still: Gusts of wind make it hard to keep papers and such in place.
- Dry: Obviously, computers and moisture don't go together so good.
- Cloudy: Direct sunlight can make it impossible to see your screen, so a cloudy day is best, though a shaded spot also works.

* Noise: A little ambient sound is fine, but lawnwork, planes flying overhead, and traffic noise can be real productivity killers. Either have a quiet spot, or use earplugs or headphones.

* Technical Requirements: Definitely need to have a strong, consistent wireless internet connection, as well as access to electrical outlets.

* Other Things:
- Bugs are definitely a consideration; mosquitoes, biting gnats, and bees can definitely make it more trouble than it's worth.
- Don't forget a comfortable place to sit, and a wobble-free table that's at the right height. And bring a mouse pad if you'regoing to use a mouse.
- Try to bring everything you need with you (including a cordless phone or your cell phone) so you don't have to keep making trips inside.

Anyway, I have to go back in and re-tether myself, but leave a comment if you've known the pleasures of blogging while outside, and give any tips or hard-won wisdom you'd like to share.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: outdoor blogging

Local Blogging Interest

Cow-orker Erin sent this along to me -- hyperlocal community site Outside.in has a list of the 10 Bloggiest Neighborhoods in the US.

Number 1 is Clinton Hill, Brooklyn (which is not completely unexpected), though their Number 2 is the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. (DC represent! Holla! And yes, I know I live in the Northern Virginia suburbs.)

* Speaking of DC, the free alterna-weekly Washington City Paper has an article looking at how the Washington Post took advantage of blogs and social profile sites (especially Facebook) to garner eyewitness accounts and interviews for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings last week.

They liken the technique of surfing, searching and calling with the old LA Times reporter strategy of GOYA/KOD, or "Get Off Your Ass/Knock On Doors."

* The folks at DC Metroblogging report that the Library of Congress now has a blog. Check it out.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: social media, local blogging, goya/kod

Blogs Are Flat and Infested?

Here are a few items of interest to our blog-o-riffic world:

* "Blogs Are Now Infested With Offensive Content" (Present company excepted, of course): PC World talks about a threat analysis from an Internet security company that says up to 80 percent of blogs contain "offensive" content (which includes something as simple as swear words), and that up to six percent host active malware (stuff like viruses, trojan horse programs and spyware).

Now, if that sounds somewhat alarming, keep in mind that this is from a company that sells security solutions and the like to businesses.

* Is Blog Growth Flattening Out?: A Valleywag article suggests that the number of active blogs (as tracked by blog search service Technorati) has flattened out, after a few years of phenomenal growth.

Perhaps things are calming down after the faddish, initial rush of euphoria that surrounds any new technology, and that the dilettantes and gadflies have been weeded out (after they realize that blogging takes effort). It's hard to say.

* Following up on my entry on participation inequality, Time has article "Who's Really Participating in Web 2.0".

It mentions the "80-20 Rule", which says that 80% of your activity comes from 20% of your particpants.

Also, particularly interesting is a look at some of the demographics of Wikipedia, where older males (those over 35) make 82% of the edits on the site.

Of course, trends across the entire blogosphere shouldn't influence what any individual blogger does (one hopes), but it's interesting.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogging, social media, participation inequality

Friday Blogplugs

Hi folks -- here's another round of blogplugged entries, which are entries that people want to get in front of other people, either by sending them to me, or by labeling them with the tag blogplugs (click the blogplugs link to see everything that shares that tag):

* Christopher has a few entries from Earth Day last weekend with things you can do to help save energy (he also doesn't like the 25,000 character limit in entries)

* OK, so I have to admit -- I wasn't sure about Charity, who had a blogplugs tag on one of her Vox blog entries. (Some of her more recent entries are "sponsored by" various pay-per-post services, which have been controversial in the blogosphere.) But in her blogplugged entry, she talks about one of her movie review blogs, so judge for yourself.

* Gif and Jimmy, two of our most consistent and persistent blog pluggers, check in again.

* Paul lets us know that CarnivAOL #38 is open for submissions -- take your favorite recent blog entry and send it to Barbara at Life & Faith in Caneyhead by Sunday, April 29, if you want to participate.

Barbara also did an entry blogplugging some of her favorite Christian journals -- the links are in her main page sidebar (as a reminder, check out my entry on how to Make and Edit Hyperlinks in Your Entries).

If you want to blogplug an entry of yours (including an entry that talks about someone else's blog), just label it with the blogplugs tag so I and other people can find it.

(I've been considering putting a feed module on the Blogs main page that automatically displays entries that use the tag, but it's probably a little too vulnerable to manipulation and spammers, so I'll stick to the manual version for now.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

Thursday Things: The Pointy Haired Boss Blogs, and the Comment Conundrum

Hi folks -- there are a higher-than-usual number of little ones underfoot, so today must be Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. (With the impending approach of summer intern season, though, it can be hard to tell sometimes.)

In other Thursday news:

* Take a look at today's Dilbert -- looks like the Pointy-Haired Boss is venturing into corporate blogging. (In his own special way.)

I'm interested to see how this storyline plays out.

* The AP has a story entitled, Newspapers Debate Online Reader Comments -- it wraps up some of the recent experiences that newspapers have run into with comments on their Web sites.

Each Web site will have its own philosophy and pain threshhold as it tries to balance the desire to have open forums of communication, with the need to weed out trolls and obscenity.

As I've said many times before, things are kind of different with high-traffic Web sites, since it brings out idiots who just want to get on stage and spew in front of a lot of people.

Plus, with high-traffic items, trying to maintain a civil and useful discussion can be a real bear -- for example, the folks over at AOL Newsbloggers posted the Virginia Tech shooter's plays on April 17th. Ten days later, they're up to 10,207 comments (at 15 comments per page, that's 681 pages), the bulk of those posted in the first few days.

Human nature being what it is, you can't just look for technical solutions -- it takes a human touch to figure out what kind of discourse you want to have, then enforce it.

You can see one kind of approach -- public shaming -- over at the Wired News Danger Room blog, where blogger Noah Shachtman publicly calls out a sock puppet commenter (a person who posts under multiple identities).

While I'm sure it's a viscerally satisfying experience, it really doesn't scale well. (And of course, some people just have no shame.)

* Finally for now, the New York Times Tech section has an article on software and professional services for retouching photos (NYT link, but you should be able to see it without registering). You can hire photo experts to hide zits, straighten noses, and repairing tears and blotches in old photos -- but be prepared to pay.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: dilbert, commenting, danger room, sock puppets, photo retouching

Posters, Commenters and Lurkers: Looking at Participation Inequality

So, I was originally going to lump this one in with my slushpile links yesterday, but I decided to split it off into its own entry.

Last week, News.com had an article entitled, "Study finds weak participation on Web 2.0 sites", which quotes a study that suggests that the vast majority of visitors to social media sites (where users submit content like pictures, videos, links or stories), are sponging off the comparatively few people who are creating or submitting content.

The particular numbers they cite are:
* 0.2% of visits to photo sharing site Flickr are from people uploading photos
* 0.16% of visits to video sharing site YouTube are people uploading video

Now, this general phenomena is not a new thing; as anyone who's participated in an online community knows, you've typically got a small, core group of frequent participants, followed by  a slightly larger number of occasional contributors, then surrounded by a big crowd of lurkers.

Back in October, user interface guru Jakob Nielsen did an entry about this participation inequality and the 90-9-1 rule (90% lurkers/9% occasionals/1% frequent participants) -- the exact percentages will vary depending on where you are, of course, but it's a good rule of thumb.

You can also look at it from a personal level -- in your own blog, you'll have one content creator (you, the poster), a small number of commenters, and a larger number of lurkers -- people who read, but don't comment.

If you use a hit counter, you'll get a sense of how many people are reading, though sometimes, not knowing (or not caring) how many people read your blog can be kind of a saving grace.

Anyway, the Nielsen article suggests some ways that Web sites can encourage participation from more people. For regular folks, I always suggest asking questions that are meant to be answered, as well as making sure you do unto others what you would have them do unto you: Participate in other people's blogs and online media spaces (by linking to them and talking about their content in meaningful ways, as well as leaving comments to let them know that you saw what they posted).

Lastly, remember that no matter how low the participant ratio may be in online social media sites, take comfort in the fact that it's probably still tons higher than in older online media, and especially traditional media (where participation used to be limited to a letter to the editor, or a phone call to a radio call-in show).

Following my own advice, here are a few questions of my own:

* Have you found ways to increase people's participation in your blogs?

* Would you rather have a repeat visitor who lurks, or a drive-by commenter who just says "Hi"?

* Have you ever made a conscious effort to participate and comment in other people's blogs?

Leave a comment and let us know.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: jakob nielsen, participation inequality, lurkers, social media

Brief Journals Outage Tonight, 12 Midnight ET

Hi folks -- the Journals tech folks are continuing their late night work on the Journals databases and systems; they'll be starting at 12 midnight EDT tonight.

If you're up during this time, you might see some brief outages or slowness during the load-testing portion of the installs, but we don't forsee any major outages.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals status

How Many Blog Entries Do You Have?

It's been asked before (but not by me) -- how many blog entries do you have in your main blog? In the nearly 2 years I've been doing this, I'm up to 820 entries:

Well, 821, now.

This count is taken directly from my AOL Journals public list page -- http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor.

You can see any Journaler's public list page by going to:

http://journals.aol.com/SCREEN_NAME

It'll list all the Journals under that screen name that you have access to (public blogs, and private blogs that you belong to), and it will show when it was created, when it was last updated, and the number of entries it has.

Other blog platforms have similar entry counts in blogging dashboards or control panels, so feel free to play along.

Leave a comment below with your entry count and a link to your blog (Tip: In the comments below, clicking on a Journaler's screen name will show you their public list page).

And, if you do a entry talking about your entry count, leave a link, and use the tag blog entry count so that other people can find your entry.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, public list page, blog entry count

Slushpile Links: Mob Rule, Mapping the Blogosphere & Four Funnies

Hi folks -- here are a few of the items aging out of my blog slushpile, the list of links that I might potentially blog about:

* "Beware Mob Media" [via Metafilter]: InfoWorld columnist Ephraim Schwartz warns that, "For all its good intents, citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen."

That's a pretty strong lead-in, don't you think?

Schwartz warns that hyperlocal and citizen journalism sites could lead to a kind of hyper-busybodyism, leading to an informer-culture where neighbors denounce each other, leading to witch hunts and mob rule.

While I'm not a utopian when it comes to the "wisdom of crowds", this particular fear seems pretty overblown. Wacky, in fact.

Developing and maintaining communities is not an easy thing, and I hope to talk more about it in the future, but it seems to me that Mr. Schwartz doesn't really get it.

However, I do get a kick out of the way how he (intentionally or not) co-opts the term "thought leaders" and makes it into something sinister.

While there are good, cautionary tales to be told about citizen journalism or social media, I don't think this is one of them.

* Mapping the Blogosphere: Discover has yet another map of the blogosphere, visualizing some of the link relationships in the blogosphere, and highlighting a few particular clusters, like political blogs, porn blogs, LiveJournal bloggers, the sports blogosphere, and of course, Boing-Boing (home of gadget and Disney love, anti-DRM screeds, and drawn-out jokes about "long horses")

The map is color-coded -- green lines are one-way links, and blue lines are two-way links (you link to me, I link back to you). It's based on the work of Matt Hurst (whom I've actually met a few times) -- check out his blog entry on the article and some of the accompanying galleries.

* Four Comedy Video Sites: Industry gossip blog ValleyWag compared 4 comedy video sites that highlight both professionally-created and user-generated comedy videos. (The review page is clean, though some of the linked sites may not be agreeable to your sense of humor.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: slushpile, citizen journalism

Make Like a Tree and ... Get Planted?

So as I mentioned earlier, I was heading over to grab some lunch today, when I saw a line of folks headed to the parking lot:

My curiousity piqued, I followed them. (It was also a chance for me to try out the camera on my new phone, especially since I didn't feel like walking back to get my camera.)

When they started handing out shovels, I eventually put two and two together, and figured out that it was a bunch of employees volunteering their lunch breaks to plant trees on campus for Earth Day:

So, I walked a little around campus to take a few pics.

Some folks were dressed appropriately for the occasion:

And other folks... weren't:

There was much mulch:

And there was also moving of shrubbery:

Not to mention filling of holes:

Now, the cynics among us may see this as an easy way for the company to get free landscaping, though I think that's completely off base. (Especially since, after watching some of the planting, I get the feeling that they're going to have to call in some genuine arborists and landscapers to fix things up ... But it's the thought that counts.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol hq, earth day, photos, volunteerism

Brief Journals Outage Tonight, 12 Midnight ET

Hi folks -- forgot to mention that the Journals tech folks will be doing some more work on the database tonight, starting at 12 midnight EDT tonight.

There should only be two brief outages (a few minutes) at the start of the work, and at the end.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals status

Bard's Birthday and Bird Barriers

(Ah, alliteration: The first and best refuge for the hack writer.)

Today being April 23, it's the estimated birthday (as well as death day) of the Bard, William Shakespeare.

(The primary reason why I know this? It's mentioned in Robert Heinlein's novel Friday.)

Anyway, hope you all had a pleasant and productive Earth Day yesterday. To help commemorate Earth Day, about 150 employees were out planting trees on the AOL campus during lunch today. (This was mentioned in an e-mail of the company's green campus initiatives, which will include reserved parking for hybrids and carpoolers soon.)

I had my new cameraphone on me, so I took a few pictures of the tree-planting action... however, I don't have any way to get them off the phone right now (don't ask), so I'll have to do that later on.

After I realized this, I took my cameracamera and went to see if anyone was still out digging. There weren't, but as I looked out the windows, I noticed some strange wires strung up on the ledges:

Not electrified.

They're apparently bird barriers, to keep birds from roosting and leaving their, um, legacy on the building and people below.

They could also be grappling hooks for a tiny Batman and Robin.

Looks like one of the anchors got unglued, though:

Dangly.

It's a balmy 80 degrees right now. Outside, that is. Hope things are okay where you are.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol, earth day, shakespeare, aol hq

Friday Blogplugs and a Meteor Shower

Hi folks -- it's been a while since I highlighted some blogplugs, which are which are entries that people label with the tag blogplugs, so that other people can see them (remember, if you tag your entries with the blogplugs tag, you can see everyone else using the tag by clicking the link, without having to wait for me):

* In his blog, Jimmy's recent entries look at American Idol and, um, strong personalities [language warning]

* Monponsett, a Northeasterner who weathered the recent nor'easter, shows us stormy photos and the aftermath.

* Gifdude talks about Blue Man Group and horses.

In other news, I see in Instapundit that blogger John's latest book, The Last Colony is available now in bookstores all over the known universe. Buy a copy for everyone in your family.

Also, from my slushpile of links: You should be able to see the Lyrids Meteor Shower early morning Sunday.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs, slushpile

Remembering the Victims: What You Can Do

Hi folks -- just wanted to do a roundup of some of the things people are doing in the world of blogs and online social media in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings ... especially what they're doing to remember the victims.

* People Helping People: Leading the way is the Web site of the Virginia Tech campus newspaper, the Collegiate Times. On their main page, you'll find links to stories about students creating donation sites (like the student-created Donate VT, which also links to Virginia Tech's Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

(Update: Just heard from the AOL Community Investment group that AOL will be matching employee contributions, up to $100,000, which is great.)

They've also set up Hokies 4/16: A Memorial Project, a group blog where people can send in their words, photos, audio and video to remember Monday's events.

* Profiles of the Victims: The Washington Post has profiles of the 32 victims as part of their ongoing coverage. (An article notes that "The Washington region is home to an estimated 35,000 Virginia Tech alumni, most of them in Northern Virginia," so it's very much a local story.)

* The Role of Technology: Wired's blog coverage includes a look at a walking assist exoskeleton created by murdered Virginia Tech engineering and mechanics professor Kevin Granata.

They also look at the role of technology in disaster alert systems.

* Things You Can Do: Kathi, who journals over at Supporting the Troops, sent me a couple of links:

The people behind One Day Blog Silence encourage a day of blog silence on April 30th:

 I don't necessarily agree with their approach (I generally believe in more talk, and especially more intelligent talk, not less), but it's there if you want to participate.

 

She also sent along VA Tech Fallen Tribute, which is a site where you can get an animated gif to post to your Web sites, blogs, profiles, etc.

Thanks, Kathi.

Don't forget, AIM and AOL users can choose Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech Support Buddy Icons, too:

Also, Friday, April 20th is "Orange and Maroon Effect Day," where people are encouraged to wear the Hokie school colors as a way of showing support.

* Exploiting the Tragedy: PC World has a warning about a spam e-mail that claims to link to a video of the shooting, but actually links to a Trojan Horse program designed to capture banking information. (Link via NowPublic)

Similarly, Wired talked about domain name speculators grabbing Web site domain names related to the shooting; some of them may be hoping to grab a few quick bucks off the tragedy; others may use them for more nefarious things, like password phishing or trojaning, so be careful. (Again, if you want to help, there's an official memorial fund donation site on the Virginia Tech Web site.)

* International Reactions: Salon has a compilation of editorials and stories about the shootings from around the world. Also, the Web site Watching America offers translations of foreign language stories -- it's always interesting (and sometimes puzzling, and sometimes infuriating) to see how people outside the U.S. see things.

Remember the official donation site for the Memorial Fund.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: virginia tech shootings, hokie spirit memorial fund, hokies 416, orange and maroon effect day, one day blog silence

Cleared: Authentication Problems

Here's an update -- the SNS (Screen Name Service) authentication problems that I mentioned earlier that were affecting Journals were cleared up before noon.

We should be free of any residual affects, so your Journals and other products that use SNS should be behaving normally now.

Please let me know if you're continuing to have any problems.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals status, sns, authentication

Seeing Any Journals Problems Today?

Hi folks -- getting a few reports of random Journals problems popping up today. If you're experiencing any Journals problems, including but not limited to:

* "Forbidden" or "Internal Server Error" messages when trying to post entries.
* Edit or Add Entry buttons not showing up when they're supposed to.

Or any other continuing weirdness, please let me know, and I will pass your reports to the tech folks.

I'm guess it's an authentication problem -- will let you know when we hear more.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals status

Wednesday Update: Maintenance Complete and Bye to Bam Bam

Hi folks -- here we are on a couple of things I mentioned yesterday:

* Last Night's Journals Maintenance: As mentioned yesterday, the Journals team did some cleanup work last night starting at midnight Eastern time.

It went pretty smoothly, finishing early morning today. They re-indexed the Journals database, so we should see some performance improvements.

* Stephanie's Farewell Address: Journals Product Manager Stephanie changes to "AOL Alumni" status today; please see her farewell entry, where she says some very nice things about the AOL Journals community. I know I will miss her.

* Listening to the Web on the Radio: Also, there were a couple of bloggy stories on this morning's Morning Edition, including:

• The Blogger Code of Conduct That Won't Die: Interviews with Kathy Sierra and Tim O'Reilly about the proposed blogger code of conduct I mentioned last week.
  
  My feeling: It was a dumb idea then, and it's a dumb idea now.
  
  
• The Virginia Tech Collegiate Times: They also profile the Hokie campus newspaper, the Collegiate Times, and how they're serving the community and the international media with the coverage on their Web site.
  
  Right now, they're using a very bloggy front page format to do continuous updates, in addition to linking to other resources and stories.
  
  
Thanks -- Joe

Tags: social media, collegiate times, virginia tech shootings, stephaniebambam, aol journals status

Virginia Tech Support (Icons & More)

My cohorts at the AIM BuddyBlog have made 2 new icons for AOL & AIM users, so you can show your support for those affected by the Virginia Tech shootings. They're ribbon icons in the Support and Remembrance category, and their design is based on other online badges and memorials we've seen:

Thanks to Buckyhoo for the heads-up.

(Virginia Tech is one of the few universities we have existing licensing deals with, so we were able to do it quickly.)

Also, since anyone following the news of the Virginia Tech shootings on TV or online has probably already hit saturation point, I just wanted to cover some of the online/social media aspects of the story we've seen today:

* As I mentioned yesterday, AOL has a bunch of folks with Hokie ties. One of them is Ian MacFarlane, a Tech alum who now works at AOL. He had been in a writing class with the Cho Seung-Hi and provided two disturbing plays written by him, as well as his recollections of Cho.

(Cho is the family name. Not sure if he referred to himself in Western style [given name first] or Asian-style [family name first], though all the news reports have the family name first, which is different from what you'd expect for a guy who'd lived in the U.S. for 15 years.)

* The Roanoke Times has an article about how people at Tech and in Blacksburg used online and social media tools, like text messages, cell phone cameras, blogs and online profiles to communicate with others when cellular networks were overloaded. [Link via Fark.com, which is also mentioned in the story]

* Wired's Threat Level bloghas good running roundup of Virginia Tech-related stories (with a technical angle).

* News.com talks about how "Journalists look to bloggers for Virginia Tech story."

Not sure how I feel about this -- a lot of news outlets had messages on their pages asking for people to send in their eyewitness accounts, but posting requests for interviews in the blogs, profiles and groups of people affected by events like this seems a lot like ambulance chasing.

* Al's Morning Meeting also has a roundup with a lot of links talking about how people have been using online social media around the shootings

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: virginia tech shootings, citizen journalism, buddy icons, social media

Evidence of Wind and Sorrow

The AOL and Virginia state flags on the AOL campus flying at half-staff to commemorate the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.

It's been pretty gusty in Virginia these past few days (but at least it's dry now).

I was trying to figure out how to capture the wind (I'd been thinking video), when two things occurred: Blogger John's Monday Photo Shoot on Windy Days, and the shootings at Virginia Tech, which caused the flags to be flying at half-staff today.

So an unfortunate, yet fitting, confluence of events.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: photos, monday photo shoot, aol hq

Planned Journals Outage Midnight Tonight (4/17) and a Planned Stephanie Outage 4/18 to ...

Journals Product Manager Stephanie reports that there will be a Journals maintenance outage starting at midnight EDT tonight, 4/17.

The work will go on for about 2 hours, and Journals may be down periodically throughout this time.

It's all being done to improve site performance.

Also, in case you don't usually read Stephanie's blog (though as far as we can tell, it gets tons more traffic than mine), Wednesday 4/18 will be Stephanie's last day at AOL. I'm sure she'll be posting more about it tomorrow, so all I'll say right now is that I'm already missing her (and she's not even gone yet).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals status, stephaniebambam

Update on Inability to Create New Journals After Deleting Old Ones

Hi folks -- here's an excerpt of a mail I sent to a few people who were having a very specific problem creating new Journals after they'd deleted an old one. The Journals team looked at the database and identified everyone who had this problem, though if you think you're still having this problem, please let me know:

**********************************

Sorry for the blind e-mail. If you don't know me, I'm
Joe, the AOL Journals Editor. I do the Magic Smoke blog and help
program the AOL Blogs main page.


Previously, some of you folks had reported problems creating new AOL
Journals after deleting existing ones. This is what you were seeing:


1. You deleted an existing AOL Journal

2. You were then unable to create new AOL Journals, getting an error message screen.

3. An additional symptom of this problem was that your public list page
(http://journals.aol.com/YOUR_SCREENNAME), which displays all of your
publicly-available Journals, was no longer working.


The Journals team finally figured out why this was happening, and by
looking in the database, identified a few other people who'd had this
problem (all of you blind copied on this mail). So that's why you're
getting this mail.


Since it's been a while since the problem was first reported, you may
have moved over to other screen names or blogs by now. But if you're
interested in creating Journals under the screen name that I'm writing
to, you should be able to now. Please let me know if you're unable to
do so.


Now, if you're interested as to why this happened, the cause was the
"All About Me" sections of your blogs. They're basically really skinny
Journal entries, and they can hold up to 25,000 characters of HTML
text.


Now, the larger entries are treated a little differently in the
Journals database -- they're "extended entries" in the database, and
they're broken down and stored in separate chunks).


If you wrote above a certain length in your All About Me (but still
under the 25K limit), and later tried to delete your Journal, this
caused a problem in the database that caused the problem trying to
create new Journals.


(If you recall, the All About Me character limit was raised to 25,000
characters just over a year ago
-- we didn't realize that deleting blogs with the larger All About Me
sections would cause a problem.)


The problem has been fixed.


Sorry it took so long to figure out, and please let me know if you encounter any additional problems with Journals.

 

Thanks,

Joe

Tags: aol journals, journals status, extended entries

A Tiny Gesture of Solidarity for Virginia Tech

When a tragedy like the Virginia Tech shootings happens, we get continuous flow of reports from 24/7 live cable news coverage, realtime streaming online updates, and even eyewitness accounts from citizen journalists.

So it's possible to get a boatload of information -- even if a lot of it is rumor, conjecture, or just plain wrong -- and end up not really knowing anything at all.

You see this behavior reflected in online communities like discussion boards and blog comment threads, too -- lots of people taking the latest news tidbit and just running with it:

It was multiple shooters. It was two guys. One guy's dead, the other's in custody. It was just one guy. Maybe it was Islamic terrorists. I heard it was a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. We need more gun control. It was a gun-free campus, look what happened. You're full of it. No, you're full of it.

About the only thing I counsel is to wait for the facts to come in before you start running your mouth.

However, one thing we can do is express our sympathy and support for the victims, their families, and everyone affected by this terrible crime.

Now, I don't usually go in for these sorts of things, but for a tiny, tiny gesture of solidarity (especially since I know a lot of my friends and colleagues have ties to Virginia Tech), I've changed my Buddy Icon over to the Virginia Tech icon (it's available to AOL & AIM client users):

It's not much, I know.

Update, 4/17: My cohorts at the AIM BuddyBlog have created 2 new icons you can use to show your support for those affected by the Virginia Tech shootings; they're ribbon icons in the Support and Remembrance categories, and their design is based on other online badges and memorials we've seen -- I will blog about it a little more in a new entry:

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: virginia tech shootings, buddy icons

Weathering the Storm; Plus Shootings at Virginia Tech

Hi folks -- hope all you Northeasterners are weathering the, um, nor'easter okay.

Down here in the DC area, we had a very moist weekend, and it's pretty darn windy right now (Fairfax County schools are closing 3 hours early because of it), but it hasn't been nearly as bad as, say, New York City, which is getting drenched.)

However, I was just looking on the AOL.com main page to see the status of the rain up north (about 8 inches in Central Park), when I saw the lead about the mass shootings at Virginia Tech today; current reports say that at least 20 people are dead, which is nuts.

I'd called my mom a few minutes ago to see whether the house was floating away or not, and I was wondering why she was saying something about school shootings.

Virginia Tech is in Blacksburg, about 250 miles away from here. A lot of folks around here are alumni or have family at Tech, so my thoughts are with them as we get more info.

(I remember back in 1999; when Columbine happened, I was working on the AOL.com home page. That was also not a good day.)

On the social media side of things, the CNN story reports that:

"The university is updating its 26,000 students through e-mails, and an
Internet webcam is broadcasting live pictures of the campus."

I also expect a lot of cell phone camera photos and video, as well as eyewitness accounts and blogging and other social media and citizen journalism behavior as people try to figure out what happened.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: noreaster, virginia tech shootings

"A/S/L?" "41/F/Los Angeles/Halle Berry"

In an interview with the BBC, actress Halle Berry says that she's hung out in Internet chat rooms under pseudonyms, to try to get out from under the thumb of celebrity:

"I have gone online before in search of anonymity and an attempt to leave celebrity out of it and just have a normal chat."

She also says that no one believed her when she eventually revealed who she was:

"They were like: 'Right, sure, get out of here.' They didn't really believe me at that point. So chatting hasn't gone that well for me."

Now, here are a few thoughts:

• I knew it!
  
  
• Just a suggestion: If you're a celeb chatting under a pseudonym and you're having good time chatting, do you even have to bring your real name into it? While I've met many of my best online friends in person, there are still plenty of folks who I know only by nicks and screen names.
  
  Maybe the expections of showing who you are in your profile pics and such are further along than in the old days of classic chat rooms, but the relative anonymity of text-only chat is still pretty liberating.
  
  
• Of course, the joke/assumption behind Internet chat is that most of the women in chats (especially those looking for dirty, nasty chat) are guys playing pretend -- imagine the face of some chat room horndog learning that the person on the other end of the screen is actually Halle Berry?
  
  
• Lastly, the truth can be told: I'm actually the Prince of Denmark.
  

I guess random chat conversations are a little different than being on your own blog or profile. Nowadays, there are plenty of celebrities and semi-celebrities who blog, and you actually believe that they're behind the keyboard in a meaningful way (e.g. the Daily Show's Demetri Martin, comedian Joe Rogan, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Rosie O'Donnell, not to mention all the people who are known because of their blogs or profiles).

Live chats, though, seem a little more intimate, more immediate and unfiltered, as opposed to a blog or message board post.

What would you do if someone you'd been chatting with revealed that they were actually a famous celebrity, and you found out they were telling the truth? Do you think you'd be able to continue chatting with them the same way, before they dropped the bombshell? Leave a comment.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: online chat, halle berry, community, cmc

Friday Slushpile: Phantom Pickoffs, Stump the Bookseller & Stack the Vote

I haven't dipped into my blogging topic slushpile in a while, which is a list of links that I might or might not get around to blogging about:

* Remembering the Phantom Pickoff: I'm not a huge baseball fan, but this is pretty funny -- former Chicago Cub and Wichita State first baseman Phil Stephenson was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame this week. [That's not the funny part.]

So why is the Miami Herald writing about it? In a 1982 College World Series game against the University of Miami, Stephenson got burned by one of the most famous trick plays in baseball history -- the Phantom Pickoff, where the pitcher fakes an overthrow pickoff attempt to first, the runner takes off for second base, the pitcher throws to second, and the runner feels really, really dumb.

Check out the video in the article. (It also features a lot of mustaches.)

This play is used in the 1994 movie 'Little Big League' (though the goofs page notes that it would have resulted in a balk call in the bigs).

* Our Team - AOL People Connection: Jason put this together this week -- it's a bunch of photos, blurbs and AIM Pages profile links for everyone on the AOL People Connection team. Just to put some faces to names.

* USA Today Reporter Index: In a similar fashion, USA Today (which recently revamped its home page with a bunch of community and social news features) has a directory of reporters; each listing has a canned search that brings up the articles they've done.

Also, an intrepid few also have links to their public profiles, which are the same profiles the rest of the USA Today community users have; each profile has a bio and thumbnail, as well as tabs where you can leave messages and see photos they've posted.

A nice touch is that you can see the comments that each user has posted (with a link to where it was posted), which is pretty slick.

* Loganberry Books: Stump the Bookseller!: Trying to track down a children's book from your past, but only remember vague bits and pieces of the plot? If you've exhausted your search-fu, Loganberry Books, a used bookstore in Cleveland, has a service where, for two bucks a pop, you can submit your book recollections, and they'll try to figure out what book it is.

Looking through the archives, I rediscovered The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree, Eleanor Cameroon's Mushroom Planet books, and the Danny Dunn series.

(Maybe you can tell I read a lot of YA -- Young Adult -- Sci-Fi as a kid.)

Their posted annual success rate goes from 62%, 74% and 53% since 2003, so youse pays your money and youse takes your chances, but hey, it's two bucks.

* Rock the Vote? Stack the Vote!  Some folks in the DC area have set up an ongoing Best DC Blog competition, which is pretty much an excuse for cliquery, petty sniping and major blog drama.

Well, a friend of mine is up for Best DC Blog by the Sexiest Female Blogger -- she's a neuroscientist and photographer; check out her entry about it then please vote for her if you feel she's deserving (voting is open until 10 PM EDT Saturday).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: slushpile, phil stephenson, phantom pickoff, trick plays, loganberry books, stump the bookseller, childrens books, usa today, people connection, aol, best dc blog

Big, Freaky Smiley Faces

Hi folks -- you know, I could have sworn that I'd posted something since Tuesday, but going through my text files (I do my drafts offline and save them), I see that's not the case. It's been a hectic week.

So I thought I was seeing things when I was walking down to get lunch -- looking across the atrium, I saw this:

Yikes.

That's good for a double-take right there.

Here's a closer crop:

Big, Smiley Face.

Apparently, a trio of young hooliganettes (Victoria, Olivia, & Amelia, behind the pillow) had taken over a conference room, and equipped with a smiley pillow, endeavored to make things in the office a bit more interesting.

Gee, Sharon, who do you think they get it from?

Thanks -- Joe

[Update: In case it's not abundantly clear from the photo and accompanying text, Victoria, Olivia and Amelia are Sharon's daughters, visiting the office.]

Tags: aol, smileyface, photos, hooliganettes

Blog Your Way to a New Job?

In a switch from the usual "people getting fired for personal blogging"-stories, today's Wall Street Journal has an item that leads "How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job." [link via MediaBistro]

The story talks about how some recruiters (typically in the high-tech or media fields) search through blogs (or get referred from other bloggers) to find potential hires.

Even if the person don't blog about work or industry topics, a recruiter or hiring manager can see if the person has something to say and is a good communicator. At the very least, it helps make a potential hire look like a real human, outside of an interview room or resume.

Now, of course, all the standard pitfalls apply -- bragging and blogging about your trangressive behavior and drunken antics may not show your best side to a future employer, etc -- but it's nice to see blogs as a potential asset, and more than just a threat, to employment prospects.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogging, busted for blogging, career advice

You, With the Blog: You're Ugly and Your Mother Dresses You Funny

Hi folks -- now, I realize that I could come to regret this, but I think that Tim O'Reilly's Draft Blogger's Code of Conduct that I've been reading about yesterday and today is stupid and irrelevant to most bloggers (that is, regular folk who aren't among the so-called A-Listers, corporate or otherwise high-traffic  bloggers).

(The part that I might someday regret is if this idea grows legs, a seal of approval, a standards and sanctioning body, annual certification dues, and corporate sponsors, which AOL decides to join as a charter member, causing me immeasurable future heartache, etc. But this is unlikely.)

This all came about from the Kathy Sierra incident that I mentioned a few weeks back (with a follow-up last week).

In response to perceived death threats and generally vile and misogynistic blog nastiness directed at Ms. Sierra, some of the more prominent bloggers out there had suggested ways to try to fight this, one result we see now in the O'Reilly's Draft Blogger's Code of Conduct.

You kind of have to read it. It's a masterpiece of social engineering (the old-fashioned kind, not the "tell me your password" kind) that blends far-reaching legalistic prohibitions:

"We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
- is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
- is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
- infringes upon a copyright or trademark
- violates an obligation of confidentiality
- violates the privacy of others"

And combines it with infruriating vagueness:

"We define and determine what is "unacceptable content" on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explainwhy. [We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.]"

Here's are my initial thoughts, in the rough order they were received:

• April Fools Day was last week.
• Given those prohibitions, good luck finding anything to link to.
• If you have to explain yourself every time you delete a comment from idiots, spammers and trolls, the idiots, spammers and trolls have won.
  
• I wonder what kind of badge Wonkette would run

Yeah, they've proposed badges:

"Civility Enforced" vs. "Anything Goes"

All snarks aside, the problem with sort of thing is simply thus:

* The people who would adhere to this kind of speech code are not the people you need a speech code for in the first place.

* The stuff that is already illegal (e.g. death threats, libel, defamation) is, um, already illegal.

* For those of us who use a third-party blogging service (which is the vast majority of bloggers), we're already subject to Terms of Use; for example, the AOL Network's Terms of Use forbids activities that

1. violates or infringes the rights of others including, without limitation, patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, publicity or other proprietary rights;
2. is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another's privacy, tortious, or contains explicit or graphic descriptions, or accounts of, sexual acts;
3. victimizes, harasses, degrades, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, or disability;

Blogger's is similar (see #12, Member Conduct), as is WordPress's, etc.

So, who is this voluntary blogger speech code for? People (or companies) who run their own blogging software on their own hosted servers, who want to show they're on the right side of things by wearing a badge graphic.

Why am I worked up about this?  I despise meaningless gestures, and I especially dislike blanket statements that actually only apply to a very small fraction of people dealing with guilt complexes when they should just put the smack down on idiots, spammers and trolls.

High-traffic blogs have to deal with a lot of crap, since they get a lot of comments, and a some of those commenters just come to take a dump in the punch bowl (as they say). So the blog owners have to deal with it, even if they're legally shielded from comments posted by others in their blogs.

And there are any number of ways to deal with this, depending on your blog platform -- reviewing all comments before they go live; pre-screening commenters; even disallowing comments entirely or having volunteer, community or even professional moderators.

Blog owners have the absolute freedom to decide what kind of comments they'll allow. I've read of some bloggers who say they feel pressured to not pre-moderate comments, or to keep nasty comments, or to allow anonymous comments, out of some sense of obligation. Who are these people? It's your blog, do what you want.

Now, all that said, I do what I can to maintain a civil atmosphere in whatever blogs I'm involved in. As a relatively small-fry blogger, I don't have to worry about getting lots and lots of comments flooding in that I can't keep up with.

So, to extract a germ of usefulness out of all this silliness, I think an articulated comment and community policy is a good thing (which means I should probably spell one out somewhere: "I reserve the right to delete any comment, for any reason, including those that violate the AOL TOS, or are otherwise useless." See the blog rules my cohorts at the Community Info blog have for theirs.)

Also keep in mind that these are absolutely not new problems, and not restricted to blogs. Check out this Washington Post article from March about similar shenanigans on a law school-themed message board.

Also, since I started drafting this entry yesterday, the folks at BlogHer have a much better and more concise analysis of this, and of course, all the A-Listers are weighing in as well.

How do you feel about comments and blogger conduct codes? Leave a comment of your own below.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: tim o'reilly, blogger code of conduct, kathy sierra, speech codes, blogging

Friday Blogplugs

Here are a few more blogplugs to close out the week, which are which are entries that people label with the tag blogplugs, so that other people can find them:

* Krissy shares some very, very good news about her husband's health.

* Barbara blogplugs an entry by Kristen, Principle of Covenant.

* Jimmy wants to show you something.

* Ron changed the name of his blog.

* Paul points to the 36th edition of CarnivAOL, over at Dawn's Carpe Diem.

* Frank, a product manager here at AOL and sometimes-contributor to Web 2.0 blog TechCrunch, has an entry reviewing 5 free online video editing sites.

* Erin, over at the AIM BuddyBlog, points us to the new Easter Egg SuperBuddy icon.

Remember, if you've got entries of your own or other peoples' that you want to blogplug, just send it to me or use the tag blogplugs, so that people can find it, just by clicking the link.

Happy Easter, everyone (and welcome to spring, even if there is a freeze warning in effect for us right now).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

You Can All G -- to H --

There was a story this week from San Francisco about a visiting minivan family who had a run-in with Critical Mass, which is a monthly gathering of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of SF cycling activists who basically take over whatever road they happen to be riding on, running red lights and stop signs en masse, etc. (Link via Obscurestore.)

I'm not going to opine about the actual incident, since it involves the usual opposing "their fault/no, their fault" viewpoints -- the cyclist side says the minivan tried to run a biker down and take off, and the minivan side says it started with accidental contact followed by a biker rampage.

I do note the following, though, in a quote from the article -- I didn't realize the San Francisco Chronicle's style guide for profanity in quotes involves partially obscuring some of the naughty bits with a space and a double dash (--) [oddly masked bad words ahead]:

"I f -- hate Critical Mass,'' said Mishka Generic, 33, a bike messenger who lives in Oakland. "They give everybody who rides a bike a bad name. It's not that all of them are bad, it's just that when you put that number of people together, you get some -- holes."

It amuses me that the language is abundantly clear, despite the fact that they just use the double dash to remove part of the swearing, instead of the tried and true "[expletive deleted]", or masking it with the first letter, followed by dashes or stars (where "darn you to heck" would be "d*** you to h***").

Also, the quotee's last name is Generic, which I suspect was not her birth name.

Other than that, I agree with her sentiment, in that when you put any number of people together (in any type of gathering, including online), you're bound to get some, er, b -- a -- to spoil the bunch.

(For a more positive story from Obscurestore, check out the boss who gave his star employee a '65 Mustang, though if you want to keep it positive, don't go through the rest of the items on the main page.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: san francisco chronicle, critical mass, obscurestore, masked profanity

Announcing AOL Version 10.0?

Somehow, I don't think we would be announcing a new version of AOL on the menu board at Wegmans:

Our local Wegmans, pandering to the AOL worker clientele.

This is from lunch today at the Market Cafe (that is to say, food court) at the Wegmans supermarket across the street from AOL HQ in loverly Dulles, VA.

(It's been up for a while -- I finally remembered to bring my camera.)

By referencing the Beltway (495, though it's about 15 miles from here) and AOL, they're injecting a little local naming flavor into the offerings.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: wegmans, aol, lunch, photo

Need a Reason to Blog? Ask This Taxi Driver

Keith, a cab driver with a great reason for blogging.

Last week, I spent a few days in Boulder, Colorado for a conference on blogging and social media. (I need to blog my notes -- here were my initial impressions.)

It was very informative and enlightening, so I hope the conference folks don't take this as a criticism, but one of the most instructive things from my trip came from my cab driver as I was leaving: another reason why regular folks can benefit from having a blog.

After the conference, I got into a cab idling outside the hotel for a short hop into Boulder before I headed to Denver. I got to talking to the driver (his name being Keith), and when I mentioned that I was coming from a blogging conference, he said that he had a blog.

Now, just like everyone else, cabbies are people with stories to tell (though some of theirs may be more colorful than those of your average blogger), so why wouldn't they blog? There's a whole genre of taxicab bloggers -- I wrote about an NYC taxi blogger last year, and I check in from time to time on a local DC cabbie, Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie [language warning].

Do they do it to become famous? Probably not, though the NYC hack's blog led to a book deal (it's due out this summer.)

However, cabbie Keith has a more pragmatic reason for blogging: When you do a Web search on the term "boulder taxi", his blog is on the first page of search results. In fact, right now, it's the #1 result on Yahoo!, and it's the #2 listing on Google -- which also enhances AOL Search:

He didn't even have to give me the URL -- "Just search on boulder taxi." He was right.

Being on the first page of results for relevant search terms is kind of a big deal, since most folks don't like to click past the first few pages of results.

In fact, there's a whole industry set up around "SEO" (Search Engine Optimization) , which is all about how to make your Web pages show up better in search results, so you get more visitors. (It's kind of the Web equivalent of naming your dog-stretching company "AAAAA Dog Stretchers," so it shows up first in the phone listings.)

Now, search engines tend to like blogs, because they have lots of inbound and outbound links, and they update frequently. (Spammers figured this out, too, which is why you see a lot of spam blogs created just to point to other Web pages to try to boost their search rankings. It's a constant battle.)

Anyway, Keith figured out a way to make his blog work for him, to help bring in business. And he says it's working for him.

Now, this is not to say that if you start a blog, you'll suddenly start pulling in tons and tons of visitors from search engines. There's a lot of voodoo involved with SEO stuff, including who you link to, who links to you, what you write about, how often you update, how often you've been blogging, how your page is built, etc.

However, one thing blogging can help with is to provide a human face and personality to what you're doing. For example, in addition to all the other stuff about contact numbers and availability, I would probably get the sense that the Boulder Taxicab guy isn't the kind of person who might, say, try to rip me off or drive me to a vacant lot and beat me to death with a tire iron.

(Not to say that there aren't some potential pitfalls, too. If you start blogging polarizing opinions about stuff unrelated to your work -- say, politics, religion, or your penchant for tormenting fuzzy animals -- you might turn off potential customers.)

So, I hope this doesn't come across as a big advertisement for Keith's cab, since I'm not getting any kickbacks. There are many reasons to blog, and this is just another one. I had a pleasant (though short) trip, and I think I left a decent tip. Which is only fair, since I got a blog entry out of it.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: social media, icwsm, icwsm2007, boulder taxi, reasons for blogging, blogging, seo