Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I think it's worth underscoring Suzanne's observation that very few bloggers
do this for money. As someone who blogs as a primary professional outlet,
the only ways I could live while doing so have been, in order:

* Generous support of the wife.
* Foundation grant to the non-profit org built to support the blog.
* Using the blog as a way to maintain visibility within the professional
community, so as to generate consulting work.

Very, very few blogs get enough activity to generate even poverty-level
income; those that do so have visitor counts that number in the millions. If
Cory manages to swing by, he might be able to say a little bit more on that
count, as one of the voices on BoingBoing, which regularly ranks among the
top five blogs in the world in terms of both traffic and links.

Suzanne, how do you go about finding interesting new blogs?
  

    
Assertion: the average number of readers drawn by blogs is ... one.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=758
  

    
> how do you go about finding interesting new blogs?

I've found three main avenues for finding new blogs of interest.

* Links from blogs I already enjoy and trust.

* Searching blog search engines like Technorati or IceRocket using specific
search terms. Technorati is particularly useful for this in that you can
search on tags, which really help to focus the search results.

* Links sent to me by friends.


> the average number of readers drawn by blogs is ... one.

ha! further underlining that the primary satisfaction in blogging needs to
come from the act itself rather than any grand expectations.
  

    
Tell us a bit more about tagging, Suzanne.
  

    
I'm a big fan of tagging, a phenomenon sometimes called "folksonomy." The
latter term comes from a mashup of "folks" and "taxonomy." A bit of history
is probably the best way to explain tagging.

It used to be that we would find a resource on a topic of interest by
consulting a hierarchical taxonomy like the Dewey Decimal System or the
Yellow Pages. In these top-down environments, "experts" come up with a set
of categories that ostensibly cover all possibilities. Then other "experts"
decide which category a given resource should fall under.

The good news is that you can go to the library shelves holding books with
numbers beginning 560 and you'll find all the books about dinosaurs and
fossils. The bad news, particularly in digital arenas in which millions of
new entries are piling on top of each other, is that there are only so many
"experts" and many of the new publishers couldn't afford to hire them even
if there were enough to go around.

So a few years ago, tagging started to catch on among the user-generated
content crowd. Flickr was the first to really make a success of it.
Recognizing that image search is a conundrum, they started to allow users to
"tag" their photos with whatever words they chose. This seems like it would
result in chaos, but in fact the mechanism has proven amazingly useful.

if you go to Flckr's popular tag page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/),
you can see the terms used most often displayed in larger type and those
used less often in smaller type. This kind of display is called a "tag
cloud" and you'll see them popping up all over. They provide a kind of
topography of interest for any service choosing to support tags.

Technorati began tracking tags for specific blog entries a little over a
year ago and it changed how I search for blog content. Tag search is just so
much more focused than the usual keyword searches.
  

    
As it happens, I hacked together a tag cloud for Open the Future a
week or two ago, and I've found it quite useful, both as a way of
quickly sorting content and as a way of giving an at-a-glance depiction
of what I talk about on the site.

But tagging isn't just for blog writers, right? There's the whole
del.ico.us and digg.com phenomena of reader-tagging, too...
  

    
Apparently my blog got 72 hits today...after a month of single-digit
days. Listed as referrer was the Well. I can only assume this occurred
primrily from this topic, since I only posted the URL in one other conf
where I'm a regular, and nobody's mentioned going there. Maybe the
"72" is a total for all my days? Wordpress isn't that clear....I mean,
the way it's written, it appears to be for today, but I just can't
imagine getting that much traffic today. I did just get approval for
Blogorama....but that wasn't listed as a referrer. 

I'm not blogging for dollars. How would one go about making money with
blogs anyway? But if all I wanted was to record my life for myself,
I'd do it in my journal. My goal with a blog is to subvert the
publishing process I've found so difficult all these years...my book
reviews, features and stories have been widely published, but not the
brief opinion pieces I'm posting on the blog.

I'm also kind of frustrated trying to learn the posting process of my
blogsite.
  

    
sounds like you're on your way.

I've been introducing blogging to people at an art salon in bolinas.  the
first thing they told me when they saw the well screen on a laptop was to
make the type real big.

I've been poking around there with a site called sighbo.org for about a
year, putting up pics and words about what's up.  this is a town that takes
down the highway signs leading in, runs off the sheriff, and wants to be
left alone.  The artists all have some kind of website though and would like
to get more control of what goes on them.  DSL has just arrived so now
there's some interest in doing something.  we just put up pics of the artist
open studios.  the salonistas made a few posts.  we're going to publish
what's happening.

I'd like to put together a town blog that would make it easy for an artist
or someone who wants a blog of their own to start one.  maybe it's easier to
just link to what's there and let everyone do their own thing.  is there
such a thing as a town blog software niche, and if so who owns it?
  

    

what is it about blogging that attracts the Japanese, Suzanne?

The 37% figure is a surprise to me.  
  

    
100 mbps to the home would be one reason.
  

    

> Apparently my blog got 72 hits today.

Depending on how hits are counted, I was two or three of them!
  

    
>100 mbps to the home would be one reason.

Web browsers and decent displays in every cell phone is another.
  

    

Thanks!  That makes perfect sense.  
  

    
jimcarline: thanks for stopping by!
  

    
Howard's observation about cell phones in Japan points to a bigger question:
how does the rise of relatively powerful mobile information devices change
the blogging landscape?
  

    
So much to say about blogging...

I got the book over a month ago, read it cover to cover, and now get
to read it again for this discussion! Yay!

I've been blogging for nearly three years now, at
http://www.sbpoet.com -- Watermark|A Poet's Notebook -- which makes
'staying on topic' easy, as there isn't one. There are surprises,
though. 

Early on, I discovered Friday Cat Blogging, and jumped right in,
enjoying the debates about whether one ought to post pictures of one's
cats -- how ... kitschy. And that, of course -- not the poems, not the
commentary -- is what got picked up by The New York Times, and still
brings me most of my search engine hits. 

Cats. 

I love blogging. I'm mostly home-bound, so it connects me to the
world. And, though I do not have ads and have no expectation of making
money, my readers (and friends) bought me an iBook when my old computer
crashed. Hard to beat that, I'd say. 

One of the things I love about blogging and bloggers (generally
speaking) is the generosity -- like you, Suzanne, posting your book
online for your readers, and adding your oomph to Blogging Blog
(http://bloggingblog.org). I do realize it's a constant balance, to
protect one's own work while offering it to the world -- but I think
the balance, usually, is a good one. 

And I'm betting that offering your work increases your book sales. 

[The Well spellcheck does not recognize "blogging"!]
  

    
Oh, and Marcy -- I'm one of those who went to your blog, from the
other conference.
  

    
> I hacked together a tag cloud for Open the Future

Nice, Jamais! There's something so compelling about the way tag clouds
provide a map of what's of interest at any given moment. Linear narrative
writing is never going to go away, but these new ways of envisioning and
sharing information certainly add to our overall grasp of topics under
discussion.

> But tagging isn't just for blog writers, right?

Right. Jamais mentioned del.icio.us and digg.com as examples. I'm among
those who had almost given up bookmarking websites because finding specific
bookmarks among the cascading sets created by my browsers was just too
cumbersome.

And in truth, I didn't fully get the advantage of del.icio.us until I was
beginning to do research for this book. I'd find a webpage with valuable
information on, say, legal issues or a new tool, topics I wasn't going to
write about until later. I wanted to make sure I'd remember to look at the
page later and so I gave del.icio.us a whirl. I was wowed.

Once I'd installed the simple bookmarklet, when I landed on a page I might
like to visit later, I would just click on the del.icio.us bookmarklet in my
tab bar and it would take me to a personal del.icio.us page that allowed me
to type any descriptive tags that I might predictably remember to check
later. It added any new terms to my overall list, which could be viewed as a
handy tag cloud. Not only that, I found that by searching on other people's
tags, I was able to find some pages I'd never have found in any other way.
I'm now a very big del.icio.us fan.

Digg.com is a little different. Digg is a "user-driven social content
website." What that means is that anyone can submit a link to a news story.
Digg users who think the new story is worthwhile can "digg it," meaning that
they give it a kind of thumbs-up. Or, conversely, they cay demote a story.
Stories with the most "diggs" end up on the front page and are read by
millions of readers. Digg keeps adding more tools that allow users to
control which kinds of stories and comments they see and that let them
define circles of friends.

The "diggcloud" isn't exactly a tag cloud. It offers a chronological
depiction with newer stories at the top. The larger a story name, the
greater the number of diggs it has received.

Digg is proving to be a very important news aggregation site. Again, by
calling on the user community, the body of information returned is more
timely and better represents the interests of the engaged community. Digg
has many imitators, but none have the heft of the original site. At least
not yet!

> is there such a thing as a town blog software niche, and if so who owns
it?

That's a great idea. If there is such a software, I don't know about it. Do
keep me posted on any progress. I'd love to report on it.

> what is it about blogging that attracts the Japanese

The 100mbps is certainly important, as is cell phone use in Japan, but I
think it's also a cultural temperment. This is a nation that loves
electronics. The adoption rate in that tiny island country often allows it
to outpace nations with much greater populations.

>  how does the rise of relatively powerful mobile information devices
change
 the blogging landscape?

During the period that I was working on the book, mobile blogging, or
"moblogging" really took off. The ability to snap a photo, attach a brief
caption and send it to your blog was just too appealing to many bloggers.
Also, people are sometime trapped in long commutes or the doctor's office
waiting room and those with enabled phones and blogs make use of the time to
compose longer blog posts.

This results in a wider population of bloggers. People who might not feel
they have the time to sit at home writing blog entries, seem to find the
time when their phone can be used as a composition and upload device.

Some complain that blog entries posted from phones are less cogent. I'm sure
that's true to some extent, but hey, not all carefully composed blog posts
are all that cogent. A good writer will post something of interest no matter
what the tools being used.

>  I got the book over a month ago, read it cover to cover,

Yay! Thanks, Sharon. Writing books is so weird. You do it all alone for the
most part. And then after it's out, you're lucky to hear back from one in a
thousand readers. Associated blogs help some, but not everyone comments.

> Cats.

Haha. The whole cat blog phenomena is so charming. I can say that because
I'm a cat person. Although I've never personally blogged about my beautiful
creature, I can completely understand the urge.

> I'm betting that offering your work increases your book sales.

I think that's probably true. I was determined to keep putting up sections
of the book because that just seemed like the right thing to do with a
blogging book. My publishers were a little perplexed at first, but seem
happy enough to see if this works for me.
  

    
Blogging has come to the attention of for-profit companies as a way of
both marketing and making connections with customers.

It's come to the attention of non-profit organizations as a way of
communicating their goals and mission.

It's come to the attention of political figures as a way of
galvanizing support.

Moblogs offer blogging from phones, Vlogs offer video blogging, even
the awkwardly-named "glogs" -- from cyborg logs -- offer updates from
people using wearable tech.

Suzanne, where do you see blogging going over the next year or two?
  

    
How about the term "flogs" for marketing blogs?
  

    
(Just a quick note: I'm about to hop on a plane, so won't be back online
until tomorrow.)
  

    
This is a fascinating topic! Thank you for setting up / managing this
conversation.  I have a few comments and questions.  I too am stuck
with the utility / efficiency aspect of blogging.  I don't blog, but I
read them, and I am looking for blogs with useful information about
topics of interest to me.  I'm intrigued by your statistic of 30-50% of
bloggers doing it for personal enjoyment -- and to me that is really
reflected in the dearth of useful blogs out there (in my opinion).  I
guess, to me, this indicates people are reaching out and feeling a need
to create another group of "friends" in a different world completely
--- so curious.  I would love to have a focus group -- confessions of
serial bloggers -- and ask them what personal need this is serving...

A second note: I am a professor at Penn State University and I use
blogs as assignments in some of me courses.  Students have to post what
they are up to and in essence, these become journals, but they are so
much more -- sort of interactive journals.  I've not read anything
about the use of blogs in this fashion and I am curious about your
comments on this -- do you cover any of this in your book?

Thanks so much,
Thomas J. Chermack
  

    
sbmontana, I just visited your blog. I'm fascinated and impressed by
all your little graphics. I wish I knew how to do these things; hell, I
don't even understand half the terms in this conversation!
  

    
Marcy, all those "little graphics" are quite controversial; what you
see now is about 10% of what I once had (check out
http://milieux.sbpoet.com for the rest.) Now my blog loads more
quickly, and incites less snark. And I am happy to assist you with
adding to your blog, anytime! It's easily done. 

Thomas, Suzanne covers pretty much all sorts of blogs in her book --
I'll let her tell you about that -- but there is a blog specifically
about using blogs in educational settings: Kairosnews - A Weblog for
Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy, at http://kairosnews.org/

I'm interested in those blogs that least interest you -- personal,
creative blogs. I'm interested in blogging as an art form. 

I don't mean photo blogs, or painting-a-day blogs, or po-blogs -- all
of which fall under the "enthusiast" category, I think -- but blogging
as a new means of expression, incorporating many of our old means, but
still -- a whole new thing, requiring a new aesthetic, a new way of
approaching expression. 

Not that I'm doing that -- I'm not. But I think it is possible.
  

    
> Suzanne, where do you see blogging going over the next year or two?

Phew! That's a big question. The phenomenon has evolved so quickly -- and
unpredictably -- that it's difficult to say with any surety what direction
blogging will take. I would imagine that with tens of millions of blogs
already out there, that the overall number will stop doubling every six
months as its been doing the past three years, but there's still room for
many more bloggers to enter the scene and each contribute to new directions.

I would assume that among these, many will continue to be the personal
journals of individuals just glad to have a place to record some of the
minutiae of their lives. The ones that will have more impact on cultures are
harder to predict, but I'll take a stab at a few.

Consumer blogs -- Before blogging, if you had a problem with a product you'd
purchased, or even if you loved it and wanted to tell the world, there
wasn't really a venue. Now, if a computer manufacturer ships a model that
explodes 0.1% of the time, the world knows about it within hours because
bloggers all around the world are reporting on it and commenting on each
others' blogs. This is bound to have a profound effect on the way companies
address consumer satisfaction.

Political blogs -- Pundits telling the world what they think are unlikely to
disappear. Indeed, we will probably see more pundit blogs. I can see these
having both positive and negative results. On the one hand, citizens have a
chance to debate topics not generally covered by the political machines and
to expose malfeasances and contradictions on the part of the politicians. On
the other, there is the potential for demogaugery, for persuasive bigots or
corporate shills to win over a portion of the population and skew electoral
results in some sectors. For good or bad, pundit blogs are likely here to
stay.

Knowledge-base blogs -- I think these types of blogs are going to explode.
We already see enthusiast blogs where individuals with particular interests
and expertise share their knowledge with others. I think an online tool that
falls somewhere between blogs and wikis will evolve that will allow
individuals to better share and organize information. One of the weaknesses
of blogs is the reverse chronological order of the entries. This is great
for news forums, but not necessarily so great when you want to look up some
particular topic within a blog. Tags help some, but particularly for
knowledge-based environments, a more coherent, logical organization could
really help to build bodies of useful information that could be updated and
corrected on the fly.

Another thing I see coming down the pike isn't necessarily tied to blogs
alone, but to collaborative online environments in general, and that is
reputation-building. Websites like digg.com, mentioned above, allow
individuals to accrue reputation over time. If the stories you regularly
submit make it to the top page, your "diggs" carry more weight. This can be
gamed, of course, and that's the danger, but overall I think that
individuals who are persistent and well-informed may well be rewarded in
ways that enhance their standing within a community or even a company.

Wow. As I start thinking about this, a jumble of ill-formed ideas start to
come to mind. I'll save you my mental meanderings, but will wind up this
little prognostication section by noting again that the evolution of these
social network environments has been so fast and so without precedent that
it's going to be difficult to know ahead of time just what direction new
forms and tools might take. What's important for those wishing to
participate in this grand experiment is to be open-minded and flexible, to
keep reaching out to learn more, and to try things ourselves. None of the
myriad blogs out there would have come to be if someone hadn't one day said
to themselves, "Hey, why not?"

> How about the term "flogs" for marketing blogs?

OK. That's really funny.


> this indicates people are reaching out and feeling a need to create
another group of "friends" in a different world completely --- so curious.

My mother reminded me that when I was a kid, I had this fantasy that when I
grew up, people would all physically move to environs where there were
others like themselves. I guess in a way I did that when I moved to San
Francisco all those many years ago, but one reason that I could pick up a
couple of months ago and move to a whole new city after all those decades
happily in the Bay Area was that I have a community online that is already
so spread out, all over the world, and I had confidence that we would remain
in contact no matter where I might physically plug in my computer.

Given this, I think blogs are one way that people are, indeed, finding
simpatico others, others they in all likelihood would never have met in,
well, you know, meat space.


> Students have to post what they are up to and in essence, these become
journals, but they are so much more -- sort of interactive journals.

Good observation. This seems to be what really set off the whole MySpace and
Facebook worlds. Whether directed by a professor or just because it seems
like fun, millions of kids are starting to keep journals that either the
world can read or a select number of individuals chosen by the author. This
is at odds with the place we've generally granted privacy in our culture.
This tension between privacy and openness has always been philosophically
interesting, but now we're seeing it played out on a daily basis in very
real life situations.


> all those "little graphics" are quite controversial

In the end, a blog should reflect the aesthetic and interests of the
blogger. This sometimes draws criticisms from others, but hey, as the old
fairy tales told us over and over, you just can't please all the people all
the time. That said, there are certain sins that ought to be avoided and
Sharon mentions one -- including too many graphics or graphics that haven't
been optimized for the web, thereby slowing down page load. Many people will
wait only a couple of seconds for a page to display. If it doesn't, they're
on to the next link.


> blogging as a new means of expression, incorporating many of our old
means, but
 still -- a whole new thing, requiring a new aesthetic, a new way of
approaching expression.

This is the bottom line. We can refer to the old rules for narrative writing
and image display, but we're entering a very new world that requires
bravery, dedication and, hopefully, a sense of humor.