Today’s "Citizen of the Month" post is going to be a little different. I’m going to step from behind the curtain and invite you to do the same. Maybe I’m just being sentimental having recently met three bloggers in person — the brilliant Danny, the glamorous Megan, and the outspoken Kate. I feel like there is a strong blogging community out there, one of caring and mutual admiration, even if I probably wouldn’t let half of you crazy people into my house.
Let’s talk about blogging. I want to share with you some of the tools I use every day. Hopefully, you can share as well, with the hope that we can make blogging more enjoyable for everyone, especially new bloggers.
BLOGGING APPLICATION
I use WordPress for my blogging tool. I can wholeheartedly recommend it. There are terrific plug-ins for all sorts of enhancements. I notice that most of you use Blogger. Do you like it? Hate it? If anyone ever wants to move to WordPress, I’m more than willing to answer any questions — although I’m far from an expert. Any unique pros or cons with your blogging application?
STATISTICS
If you’re like me, you’ve become obsessed over your statistics. I use Statcounter. It does the job. Recently, I’ve noticed a whole flurry of new colorful "statistics" applications competing for our attention. Here’s a good post about some of the newer applications. Mint is becoming popular, but it costs $30. Two others with good reviews (and free) are Blogbeat and Performancing Metrics. It seems that some of the newer statistics have something Statcounter doesn’t — the ability to record where a reader is clicking TO from your site. So, for instance, if I see too many of my readers are leaving my site to head over to Rabbit’s site, I know to take that damn blogger off my blogroll.
Frankly, I’ve been avoiding switching to another statistics application. Just what I need — more blogging stuff to waste my time!
Anyone tried any of these new stat programs?
RSS AGGREGATORS
There are so many great bloggers out there, I sometimes get overwhelmed. To help me organize my RSS feeds, I use Bloglines. Bloglines helps me read several blogs at once in a "newspaper" style. While it saves some time, you still need to click onto the site to read and write comments. Lately, I’ve been using Bloglines a lot less, because I was starting to miss reading a person’s blog in his individualized template. Everyone’s blog just looks the same in Bloglines and it starts to make me drowsy.
Still, Bloglines is an essential tool for reading blogs on the go. Here’s ten cool hacks you can do with Bloglines, including such nifty actions as blogging right from Bloglines and reading your feed on your Tivo.
A promising competitor to Bloglines is Rojo, which combines an RSS aggregator with some interesting tagging features and social networking options.
Google has the Google Reader and Technorati has Technorati Favorites, but I wasn’t too impressed with either of them.
Any other suggestions for making our blog reading a little easier?
RSS FEEDS
My WordPress blog creates it’s own feed. I notice a large amount of bloggers use Feedburner to create their RSS feed, even if their blogging application already does it for them. Maybe someone else can help me understand why. I’m guessing that it’s mostly for statistical reasons — so you can know how many readers are coming from Bloglines, etc…
Can anyone explain it better than I can?
I notice that some bloggers choose not to have a feed at all. This could be a pain if you love their site, but you read all your feeds in an RSS aggregator. I’ve never tried it, but this application advertises itself a free online service that converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.
SPAM PROTECTION
I can really only speak about WordPress here. I use Spam Karma and it works great, although every once in a while — for no apparent reason — it decides a dear reader is a spammer and puts him in moderation.
I notice that most Blogger users now use that word verification. Has it been working for you?
Frankly, I don’t really understand the business model of spammers. Some of the spam is just nonsense. Is it just a numbers game, with the spammers trying to get as many links as possible? I understand that it is cheap advertising, but are there really that many people out there who are willing to buy their Viagra from some stranger on the internet? Obviously so.
NARCISSISM
Let’s admit it. We all love to know if someone is talking about us. While Technorati is the big daddy for self-checking, there’s also IceRocket, Feedster, Google Blog Search, Blogdigger, PubSub, and Blogpulse. According to the influential Steve Rubel, Bloginfluence is the latest blogging ego tool (or blego, as the insiders call it). You can go crazy seeing where your blog stands in comparison to others in the silly buy-and-sell fantasy world of Blogshares or the truly weird animal kingdom of the Truth Laid Bear ecosystem. All this stuff is very dangerous to your self-esteem. Just remember that the guy who has a million links and a zillion readers still isn’t making any money off his blog. And if he’s spending all that time blogging, he’s probably pasty-skinned and out of shape — not a hunk or hottie like you.
I do check Technorati every day, but I avoid everything else. I recommend the same.
BLOG TCHOTCKHES
This is a topic in itself — all of those weird and wonderful charts and lists and "what’s on my iPod" thingamajigs and Flickr doodads that everyone uses to make their blog unique. I think some of them are a little too cutesy for my taste — or for anyone who’s not a fourteen year old girl. I also think music playing automatically can be a problem if someone is reading your blog in their office. But who am I to talk? I write about my underwear on my blog. To each his own!
P.S. — Now I have a question for you. Am I the only one in America not to have a MySpace page? And what exactly is its appeal — making friends? Dating? Or making me feel like I’m the only one not to have a MySpace page?
I may be the only one, but for tracking software, “tracksy” is pretty dope.
It’s free unless you get beaucoup hits per month, something I do not.
I just read Danny’s comment. He’s my new favorite blogger.
(Aside from you, Neil…of course.)
Let’s see…where to begin. I have a LiveJournal account but mainly use it to keep up with friends there. I like its’ friends list (which I suppose is like aggregators). I started using Blogger because it allowed for more customizing than LJ does. I would like something with a better recent comments option as well as a simple way to add categories, but for now, Blogger is the right price for me.
I have hacks for drop-down menus and recent comments (that one works better in some browsers than others). There are links to where I got the hacks in the sidebar, but one site with lots of useful blogger hacks is called FreshBlog.
I like viewing posts in people’s individual templates, so I use “live bookmarks” in Firefox to see when people have new stuff. Live bookmarks let you see a list of recent post titles for a blog if the person has an RSS feed.
I don’t mind word verification. It’s an absolute necessity with Blogger, and it works well for me.
I use audioblogger.com for audio posts, but the quality isn’t great since it’s done over a phone line. I’d like to find a different way to do them with better sound quality, but I think it’s mostly a matter of having server space to store the files.
I started using SiteMeter since a friend had it, but their 3-D graphs are difficult to read, so I added StatCounter. I’ve left them both on because I noticed they provide some different stats and the basic hitcounts are not the same.
I started using FeedBurner after reading about it on Nickerblog. Blogger does provide a feed but it’s in atom format. Feedburner does it in xml (I think)- in any case, a format that more readers can read.
Flickr is handy for uploading photos for free since Blogger doesn’t give you a lot of space for that.
As always, I love reading about your tools Neil.
i have no idea what most of this means, i have a stats counter and it sends me reports but i don’t know how to read them or why i would want to. i’m actually more interested in reading everyone else’s blogs than in anyone commenting on mine. i only know two people on my blogroll but i do have a several that live in my area that i might meet eventually.
my space blows.
and yeah, i am on it.
Statcounter and I are joined at the hip.I use Bloglines to manage updates and I find it works better than my blogroll. I found Flickr a pain to use on my photoblog but have to come up with a better alternative to Blogger’s photo upload. I use Technorati tags but have found they’re not working well as of late.
Have to try out some of your recommendations, Neil. Thanks for the info.
Very informative post, Neil! If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have a MySpace account even though ALL of my friends do and I work in the online world. The original lure was music sharing and now I think it’s just a hodgepodge. I’m sure you’ll find something you like!
I use Site Meter, it’s easy to use and free. I use Blogger, because it generally works well for me, although if I find I’m doing more and more writing I may switch to a more pliable set of tools.
MySpace is really for teens and artists, the former to socialize the latter to promote the work.
I try to keep the clutter on my blog to a minimum, because I don’t think anyone pays attention to it but the person who put it there.
I haven’t waded into Rss feeds or Bloglines yet; thanks for the heads up.
I actually had to start moderating my comments because some absolute git hit me with ads even though I had word verification. Word verification itself tends to work well, and most of us are just used to it now.
Thanks for the tool sharing, which sounded good in my head, but kind of dirty now that I’ve typed it out.
After a year on Blogger we got our own domain and are using WordPress which is awesome. Wife still has a blog on blogger as it is easier for her to use than me driving her mad trying to explain WordPress.
Use a fair amount of plugins to do various things and seem to always being tweaking something.but I enjoy that.
I don’t have Myspace.
I prefer to read other blogs in their own templates also.
Yours everyday of course.
Mik
I was on blogger for about 9 months and then decided to switch to wordpress and my own domain. Honestly, it was mostly out of vanity. Hehe. I liked a lot of the functionality of blogger…and I found that the word verification kept out 99% of spam. But I wanted the feeling of more freedom in spreading my design wings so to speak…
And in terms of the Myspace question: I have a myspace account that I check everyday….but I have it mainly because a lot of my non-computer, non-email friendly pals use it. Basically every hipster I knew (or dated) in college is on myspace, and it’s the only way I keep up with tons of those people. It’s very strange how most of them are complete technophobes, but LOVE myspace. And damn do they love those myspace quizzes too. Hahahah.
I am too new to comment but I’m going to keep this for when I become obsessed with blogging, which is inevitable.
Right now though, I feel like the new kid in school who doesn’t even know where the bathroom is.
Neil, where were you in 1985 when I wanted to tape one show on my VCR and watch a different one? You technocrat.
A VCR? Ha ha ha. What’s that? Like a typewriter? Wait until you read about how I just wrote a blog post on my Sprint cellphone! Then you can bow down at my high-tech prowess.
(Sophia, please call me and tell me how to shut the phone off.)
I use Squarespace. It’s relatively expensive, ($12/month) but I like it a lot. They make it really easy to mess with templates and to post photos. There aren’t a lot of plugins available, but I hate plugins on other people’s sites, so that’s not a problem for me.
MySpace is for kids in high school.
What if you’re young at heart?
I don’t have a MySpace account. I think many add-ons to blogs are cutesy, but honestly, I do love my Weather Pixie. I’m currently on Blogger, but I actually started my blog running the Grey Matter software, since I have private web-hosting. However, I did not know much about the blogging community when I first started, and switched over to Blogger just to integrate myself more into a community. Now, I think I’d rather not be on Blogger. The comment pop ups often take forever to load, if at all; and lately, my blog has just been disappearing. Poof! Anyone else? If i republish, it comes back. But that’s only after several hours of me not realizing it had been missing in the first place.
“I hate Blogger!”
/sees something blue and orange in peripheral vision
“Oh, Blogger, sorry. I didn’t see you standing there. No, I don’t really hate you. You misunderstood me.”
/turns away from Blogger and mouths to Neil, “I totally DO hate Blogger!”
I don’t have a myspace – and don’t want one. I just wrote about it yesterday – it seems like a personal ad place.
Blogger works for me, but all I’m here for is to write.
I don’t have MySpace either. I use Site Meter for my stats (there may be better ones but I like it and I’m too lazy to change).
I dropped Typepad recently and went to WordPress for my Writelife blog but for my others I use Blogger (free) though one of these may change soon. I discovered today my first Blogger post was way back in December 2001!
I do use about Bloglines, in a round about way. RSS feeds and aggregators are great ideas but when you miss a day and find you have hundreds of unread posts (partly because some idiots post many times a day), you just say … ah, to hell with this.
Much as I love blogs, I’m a bit overwhelmed by their quantity and diversity. But I’m as guilty of deluging the Internet as anyone, I suppose, so I’ve only myself to blame.
Holy Crap. I’m so frikkin’ primitive over at the Dept.
Sigh.
I don’t understand MySpace at all, but apparently the kids love it.
that was great, thanks for all the new toys…i mean tools…to check out.
and i have to admit this — i love myspace
Neil-chik, read my two recent entries re: MySpace and you’ll get a very good idea of what it’s all about. MySpace is craptastically bad:
http://merujo.blogspot.com/2006/03/myspace-wretched-hive-of-scum-and.html
and
http://merujo.blogspot.com/2006/03/wait-theres-more.html
WHEW.. what a lot to swallow! Thanks all, for the killer input. Now if only I knew what a blog was.
MySpace is just cool to be able to keep track of friends and see what they’ve been up to. One click, and you see pics of them and read comments on what they’ve been doing, and it’s just a great way to keep in touch and keep that network fresh.
Feedburner provides some great stats on what people are reading, and what sources they’re using to read your feeds. Some of the other cool features include adding feed “flare” as they call it, including links to del.icio.us, email this post, etc. Pretty cool stuff.
I hate Blogger and yes I am on it.
No, I don’t use MySpace, it might force me to leave the house.
and furthermore….
Wordpress sounds cool. I may have to check it out. I have that Flikr thingy on my site as well as a counter from Sitemeter. I used to be a site counter whore myself, but then I realized I like an audience of 5 and the most hits I get are from “Sensual Liberation Army” a very smutty site, that is fraught with nakedness, so I just went down to one counter. Apparently the words “Tiny Bubbles”, sounds very naughty to some people. Oh, and I have Technorati which alright,and I used to have bloglines but I have too many sites that interest me.
MySpace for Friends of Neilochka!
I, too, was wondering what the dealio is with MySpace, so I set up an account to check it out. Big yawn. You’re not missing anything. I think it’s for teenagers, and people unclear on the concept of what a blog is. Like Microsoft.
Pingback: Citizen of the Month » Blogging Talk #2
Someone else below asked this already about antispam scripts.
I am getting nailed with Spam on my website mails and in our blog website – now its offline too
much spam. Is there anyway to stop this? If not, there really isn’t any point in leaving it up
and active. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for help, Keep up the good work. Greetings from Poland
I don’t have a MySpace either, so there are at least two of us.
Pingback: Citizen of the Month » Blogging Tools #3
Pingback: card credit debt free
Pingback: jeux de carte casino