wordpress

Don’t Abandon Your Blog for Tumblr

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Social Media 2 Comments Tags: , ,

TumblrThere’s an awful lot of excitement these days about Tumblr, which is now attracting 400 million pageviews/day and 8.4 billion pageviews/month. The buzz around Tumblr has been cranked up by people such as Steve Rubel, who recently decided to abandon his blogs to embrace Tumblr, calling it the “next great social network”.

But here’s the thing: Tumblr may be described as a micro-blog or a quasi-blog but it’s not a blog and, as a result, it shouldn’t been seen as a replacement for a blog.

Instead, Tumblr is a wonderful and valuable complement to a blog because it offers another way to publish and share content using a platform that is user-friendly and, of course, increasingly popular.

In my case, I’m using Tumblr to share content that isn’t quite right or not a good fit for my blog but, nevertheless, has some value or strikes me as interesting. As a result, it’s a place where I publish photos (a recent one featured a new Krispy Kreme Doughut Cafe), info-graphics about social media and the Web, and stuff on the Web I find interesting such as cool sign-up forms. I guess in a sense it’s a personal/professional life-stream platform.

Unlike Rubel, there is no way I would abandon my blog to exclusively use Tumblr. Here’s why:

1. When you use Tumblr, the content is posted on their platform so you don’t have complete control. On the other hand, a blog is personal or corporate asset that you can control, move, etc.

2. While Tumblr does provide a fair degree of flexibility, it doesn’t have the developer or design ecosystem that WordPress offers.

3. A blog can be tightly integrated into a Web site, providing a lot of SEO goodness that a standalone platform such as Tumblr.com can’t offer.

For thoughts on Tumblr vs. a blog, check out this post from Spin Sucks.

My Approach to Writing Multiple Blogs

By Mark Evans in Blogs 3 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

At WordCamp Toronto on Saturday, I did a presentation on how to effectively write multiple blogs. Given that I juggle five blogs these days, it seemed like a pretty obvious topic to talk about.

Whether you write one blog or five blogs, the most important consideration is being organized. It sounds like a straightforward concept but having a plan and then making it happen makes blogging a lot less stressful and a lot more fun than trying to do it on the fly.

There are a few organizational pillars that keep me on the straight and narrow:

1. Defining Priorities: When you’re writing multiple blogs, the reality is some need more attention than others. Blogs that are part of your job or a play a key role in your personal branding need constant nurturing, while blogs that are hobbies that can be written semi-regularly.

2. Creating an editorial calendar: Not that you have to be totally anal about when each blog needs a post but having a solid idea of an overall editorial calendar makes it easier to get organized and plan things in advance.

3. Capture ideas anywhere and everywhere: Clearly, one of the challenge in writing multiple blogs is coming up with enough material to support them editorially. This means that all those great and semi-great ideas that emerge need to be captured, otherwise they’ll disappear.

My idea tools include “new” ones such as Google Reader, Twitter, Packrati.us (a personal favorite that connects links within your tweets to your del.icio.us account), Evernote, Instapaper, Twitterfeed, Tweetbeep and Google Alerts, as well as “old” tools such as a Moleskin, newspaper clippings and a whiteboard.

4. Cross-pollinate: One way to get more people aware of your blog is simply promoting them in multiple places. People reading this blog, for example, might be interested in my Twitterrrati blog so I promote both of them on both blogs.

I’m also big on using desktop writing tools, although I do go back and forth between them and WordPress’ publishing tool, which still needs some improving. Some of the desktop tools that I’ve used include Ecto, Mac Journal and Blogo. It sounds heretical but I’d love to see a version of Microsoft Live Writer for Mac.

Another key part of my multi-blog approach is using a variety of blog posts based on the idea that variety is a good thing for me and my readers. Some blog posts are long thought pieces, some are quick four-paragraph rants, some are simply one or two sentences with a great photograph or graphic, while others are a Q&A.

Finally, I’m a big believer that ideas flourish when you’re out and about talking to other people about their ideas, interests, thoughts and business endeavors. As much as you can get many ideas from reading online, socializing is a great way stimulate the mind and idea generation.

Here’s my presentation via SlideShare:

How to Write a Bunch o' Blogs

Next Up: A Bigger WordCamp Toronto

By Mark Evans in Blog Services, Blogs 7 Comments Tags: , , ,

I attended WordCamp Toronto yesterday, and did a presentation on how to write and manage multiple blogs. The event, which continues today, is extremely well organized, teeming with enthusiasm and at $35 offered terrific bang for the buck.

That said, I think there’s a place for a bigger and even better WordCamp Toronto. If you were relatively new to blogging or WordPress, yesterday offered a great opportunity to get a lot of solid knowledge and inspiration, and an opportunity share ideas. But for people experienced with WordPress and looking to do more creative, innovative or sophisticated things, it wasn’t the place to get it.

In an ideal world – and something that should be seriously explored given the size of Toronto’s tech and WordPress communities – WordCamp Toronto should be a one-day, multi-stream event that meets the needs of everyone from newbies to WordPress ninjas.

There should be a WordPress 101 stream that provides the straight goods on why to use WordPress, the different ways it can be used, and basic information about the worlds of plug-ins, themes, hosting, etc.

A second stream would be for designers and people looking for insight on how to take their blogs and Web sites to the next level, offering insight into creating new themes, and rolling out innovative features and functionality.

The third stream would be for developers with sessions on the guts of WordPress MU, the development of themes and plug-ins, hacks and security.

WordCamp Toronto would become a place for the entire WordPress community to gather to meeting new people and exchange ideas – a place where the new WordPress users could talk to experienced designers and developers to learn about how WordPress can be used, and a place where experienced WordPress users could learn from peers and gain insight into the things that users are looking to do.

Toronto’s technology community has tons of enthusiasm, energy and a hunger to learn. In the right venue, WordCamp Toronto could be a much bigger event with a larger mandate that would be a roaring success.

Reality Check: Blogs Haven’t Lost Their Mojo

By Mark Evans in Blog Services, Blogs, Social Media 4 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

One of the downsides of the hype about Twitter (aka the glamor girl) is how it makes blogs look downright dowdy. It’s easy for everyone to get all hot and bothered about 140-character (or less) messages because anyone can do it fairly well. Blogs, however, require time, a nugget of an idea, some work and, hopefully, solid writing.

In other words, Twitter is easy; blogs are difficult. Twitter is dessert; blogs are dinner. Twitter is paint-by-numbers, blogs are a canvas, some paint and an easel.

Nevertheless, millions of blogs continue to be created every day because they’re a low-barrier platform for anyone to ruminate, pontificate, speculate, opine and babble about anything and everything. Unlike Twitter, there are no arbitrary restrictions on the length of a post. You can go long, you can go short (a la master blogger Seth Godin), you can post a photograph, or comment on someone else’s blog post.

As Peter Kim outlined in a recent blog post, there are plenty of reasons why blogs appear to be losing their mojo. But I believe Kim’s thesis ignores some basic truths – the blogosphere continues to expand, and blogging continues to be the social platform to demonstrate insight, and the ability to create a community around it.

This is the reason that I encourage most of my clients to seriously consider writing a blog to show customers and potential customers who they are and what they think. To me, blogs are the perfect business card, white paper and marketing brochure in one tidy package. It also helps that Google loves blogs so blogs are a great SEO tool.

Sure, blogs aren’t easy because you’ve got to work them on a regular basis. (Note: “work them” means staying committed, which could mean one post/week or several posts/week). But in the long run, the rewards from blogging outweigh anything you’ll get from Twitter.

For more counter-thoughts on Kim’s blog thesis, check out the Future Buzz. As well, the chart below that shows how WordPress.com and Blogger.com have grown over the past year (27.7% and 28.2% growth respectively in unique U.S. visitors).

A Long Weekend of Deep Thoughts

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , , , , ,

As my consulting business has become busier, it has been challenging at times to give this blog as much time and attention even though I believe blogs can be a very effective digital business card to show people what you think and know.

That said, I had some time over the long weekend to write four pretty good posts – two on blogging and two on social media:

1. WordPress Takes it On the Chin, which looked at WordPress dropped the ball from a public relations and message standpoint after Robert Scoble complained that his blog had been hacked. WordPress’ response was that he should have upgraded to the latest version.

2. Blogger: The Rodney Dangerfield of Blogging, looking at how Blogger recently celebrated its 10th anniversary but probably doesn’t get the credit and attention it deserves.

3. Why Does the NFL Hate Social Media, which looks at some of the rules made by the National Football League, including a ban on fans using Twitter to do play-by-play inside a stadium.

4. Community Managers: The Workhorses of Social Media, which talks about while being a community manager appears as a hot and glamorous position, it’s a lot of work and long hours.


WordPress Takes It On the Chin

By Mark Evans in Blogs 10 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

Over the weekend, Robert Scoble had a public (and well warranted) temper tantrum after his WordPress blog was hacked. Not surprisingly, the experience left him upset and digitally vulnerable. But what really disappointed Scoble was WordPress’ casual and, arguably, cavalier, reaction it could have been avoided if he had upgraded to version 2.8.4.

This led to a lively discussion on Friendfeed between Scoble and WordPress domo Matt Mullenweg.

Looking back, WordPress was technically correct in stating that blog users must be diligent by upgrading to avoid any security attacks. There’s a never-ending war going on between software makers and hackers, software makers new to keep counter-attacking.

That said, WordPress dropped the ball by publicly “shrugging its shoulders” with the you should have upgraded message. When your blog has been hacked, the last thing you want to be told is you’ve done something wrong by not upgrading.

From a PR perspective that doesn’t help the situation or make anyone feel any better about things. Instead, many WordPress users wanted to be told what to do, how to fix things, and whether there was anything else they should be worried about such as rogue plug-ins.

If there are lessons to be learned, WordPress has to be more pro-active approach to Web security. If it’s not safe to use versions of WordPress that may only be a few weeks old, then WordPress has to really spread the word – and more than a short message on the WordPress dashboard.

As Elliott Ng suggests, WordPress also needs to create a directory or system that identifies what plug-ins are “safe and which ones are funky”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m big WordPress fan and user, and respect the work that Mullenweg has done to create and evangelize the technology. But WordPress needs to re-load on how it handles security, and how it deals with its millions of users from a communications and PR perspective.

More: Daring Fireball has some thoughts, including an observation that Movable Type users don’t get penalized for not upgrading, while econsultancy’s Patricio Robles offers some security tips.

(Note: This blog was hacked a couple of weeks ago, apparently by Black Hat SEO hackers. As you can imagine, it spooked me about the security of everything I do online, not just my WordPress blogs.)


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