After all these years I’ve finally given in and started using a feed reader. I know, I know. I’m slow. The main reason it has taken me so long to switch to using a feed reader rather than just bookmarking my favorite blogs is because I honestly have not been impressed with any of the feed readers available. It seems that everytime I opened up my reader I was bombarded with updates, and me being the obsessive person that I am couldn’t allow any story to go unread. I lost a lot of time.

After doing a bit of searching, however, I’ve found a feed reader that I actually like: Netvibes. Netvibes is more than just a feed reader, it’s a dynamic homepage. The main thing I’m using it for, however, is to organize and read my feeds. Now I have all of my nerdy blog updates, music news, and football news in one location.

Another great reason why I’m using Netvibes over other readers is the small aesthetic touches. I know it’s probably a minor point to most people but the little tab icons and the window color-coding pretty much sold the site for me. The way I have my page setup now is with my most-read feeds up top in red with my less-read feeds underneath in blue or gray.

I may finally have been sold on the delicious use of feeds, at least in the way that they’re used on a site like Netvibes. Having all of my reading in one location as well as email updates, my twitter feed, a to-do list, and a sexy calendar is what web 2.0 is all about. There are many other services similar to Netvibes out there, but this is by far my favorite personal homepage.

Popularity: 11% [?]

I’m always a little hesitant to buy into online “coaching” and the ebooks that almost always follow them. It takes a lot for someone to earn my trust in one of these sites and, although I can’t vouche personally for David Bohl of Reflections Coaching LLC, I can definitely say that he does a good job of presenting his company in a very good light.

Reflections Coaching LLC is a company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs of any sort balance their lives between work and play in a way that retains their productivity while helping them steer clear of ulcers. They have it worded slightly differently:

Reflections Coaching LLC is a privately-held life balance coaching enterprise that dedicates itself to assisting entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, and professionals to meet the ever-increasing challenges and demands of their work and private lives. Reflection Coaching LLC’s coaching sessions effectively allow clients to channel their energies, creativity, and imagination into building well-balanced, fulfilled lives.

I can’t personally say whether or not David’s coaching services are good. I’ve never used it. What I can comment on, however, is his website.

The website overall is pretty average as far as aesthetics. There is a rather large email signup on the top right which makes me a little uneasy, seeing as most spam sites have large email subscriptions like that as one of the main focal points of the site. There are, however, many legitimate websites that have mailing lists as well so it’s not that big of a deal. Exploring a little further into the website I came across the articles page which quite honestly impressed me a lot. These articles are all fairly short, but they do a great job of showing that the owner has working knowledge of what he’s talking about and is willing to share at least some of this information for free. This leads me to believe that the information you pay for (in the form of coaching and his ebook) has potential to be much more valuable. Whether it is or not, as I said earlier, I have no experience with.

Another great feature of this site is its blog. For a company that advertises its ability to teach entrepreneurs how to properly balance their lives it is imperative that the owner, David, show his personal as well as his professional sides on his blog. He does a great job of this with his blog which is updated nearly everyday. To me this was a huge selling point for his service. I really wish David would promote his blog more on the company site (aside from just a small link at the bottom of the page). I think by showing that he himself is actually able to lead a healthy life while running his own business proves his coaching service better than any presales page ever could.

As far as online coaching services go I have to say I was surprisingly impressed with Reflections Coaching LLC. Yes it has some of the elements that typically turn me away from these types of sites, but the fact that David shows tangible evidence that he knows what he talkings about does more for me than any rehearsed “testimonial” in the world. Also be sure to check out his Squidoo page.

Sponsored by: Reflections Coaching LLC

Popularity: 3% [?]

The prospect of starting a forum can intimidating, particularly for those who have had little or no experience running one before. Many are also put off by the technical side of developing a forum, or the fact that they have never advertised on the Internet before and as a result have little idea of how to attract members. Regardless of this, forums are becoming more and more commonplace on the web, which has been aided by the increasingly user-friendly systems available with which to build your very own community.

In the past, the vast majority of forums were started by enthusiasts who wished to run their own community based on a topic of their choosing. By getting together a group of like-minded people, they could initiate debate and the sharing of information amongst forum members and ultimately provide an informative resource for anybody else that was interested in learning more about the subject. However, with the development of the web and more focus on the monetisation of forums, many are now being developed with the sole aim of resale or generating significant advertising revenue. In short, many forums are now being run and developed as businesses rather than hobbies.

The advantage of this is that there is now much more scope for starting a forum. Whether you wish to start a community based on a profession or hobby, or would rather develop a forum with the aim of making an income, the decision is entirely up to you.

The main motivation for starting a forum is still out of personal interest. If there isn’t an existing community that deals with a particular passion, then why not start one? If there are existing forums but they have very little to offer and you think you can do better, why not try? Although there are countless forums across the web on a wide range of subjects, relatively few are developed and run properly. This is where you have the opportunity to step in, start your own community and develop it to a standard that will satisfy both you and your target audience. The cost of forum software, hosting and development is as low as it ever has been, and even if you can only dedicate a few hours a week to the project, it is still quite possible to develop an active, successful community.

Not only will you be able to run the community as you see fit and take it in your own direction, you will be able to look back and feel the reward of owning and running your own forum. Knowing that you built a community from scratch and are responsible for the flow of information and ideas between members is immensely rewarding and almost always worth the time and effort spent getting it up and running.

Alternatively, there is no reason why you cannot start a forum with the aim of making money. Whether you are looking to generate income from advertising or wish to sell the forum once it is up and running, there is certainly money to be made from the development of forums. Many choose the best of both worlds, with an increasing number of forums making use of adverts in order to generate income which can be used to advertise and develop their community further. The one disadvantage with starting a forum with the intention of selling it is that you have to choose a fairly mainstream topic, which may or may not fall within your area of expertise. If you choose to target too much of a niche area, it will prove difficult to find a buyer unless it has excellent potential. It should also be remembered that a forum is worth relatively little without a moderately sized, active user base, which takes time, effort and money to build quickly.

Starting a forum is a big commitment that will require time and energy to make it work. You should be prepared for an uphill battle in getting visitors to your site and converting them to active members, and you should also be aware that developing a forum takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor will your forum be! However, the rewards associated with running your own community and being able to tailor it to suit your preferences are immense. Instead of having to make do with what is currently available, you will be able to choose everything from the topic to the forum design. Starting a forum isn’t easy, but it certainly isn’t impossible, and with a little help and guidance from people that have been there and done it before, you will be in an excellent position to start your very own community.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Stuart made an interesting observation today about this website which is an obvious splog attempting to turn a profit off of the recent VA Tech shooting. He says:

I personally out of morale issues would never ever dream of using something like this to make money. Especially having the balls to ask people to send flowers to loved ones through an affiliate link.

I understand that writing about breaking events can be profitable, but when they involve death that’s where I draw the line.

I agree with Stuart for the most part. Setting up a website to monetize a tragedy is an extremely shady thing to do, morally speaking. There is also a practical side, however. If people want to find out all of the information they can in a central location wouldn’t an independent site dedicated solely to this topic be useful? Maybe so, but shouldn’t there be a line drawn when the webmaster attempts to monetize the site? The example given is that the author asks visitors to send flowers to the victims’ families while offering an affiliate link to do so. That is certainly shady. At the same time, however, there is this text on the blog:

This blog is devoted to the ongoing coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings that the took place on April 16, 2007. Any proceeds from the ads you see here will be donated to the Victims’ fund.

Can you believe that the webmaster will in fact send the ad revenue to the victims’ families? Hell no. Is it possible? Maybe. Does that justify creating this website?

So far we have a blog with seemingly accurate, updated information presented in a manner that doesn’t seem to be really trying all that hard to take advantage of its visitors while at the same time claiming that all ad revenue will go to the victims’ families. That almost seems fine, but at the same time I just have a bad feeling in my gut when I look at it.

Lets assume this webmaster was lying about donating the ad revenue or didn’t mention it at all, is it good (or at least not bad) practice to make money off of a tragedy? Really think about it. Who else monetizes tragedies? Here’s one: every television station. You can’t turn on your TV right now without seeing the shooter’s face plastered all over everything. I was even watching ESPN earlier today when about a half hour segment showed every other hour about the shooting. I’m sure this will affect the VA Tech sports schedule some, but is that worth dedicating a day of barely-related news to? Is this any better than setting up a splog to deliver the same information? I don’t think so.

My final verdict: yes monetizing a tragedy is shady, but if everyone else does it why should we target this webmaster? He’s as innocent as mainstream media, however innocent that is.

Oh and by the way, does anybody else remember this song about 9/11 that was released a week or less after the tragedy? This is the same deal to me (video below):

Popularity: 4% [?]

Alright so I have almost always avoided mentioning this blog’s Digg success here, but that hasn’t stopped me from giving out advice on how to get frontpaged to others. Fortunately NBB is now in a position where I don’t need Digg to succeed; in fact, this blog has continued to grow over the last 1 and a half months without any help from the big nerdy news portal. That being said, I figured it was about time I let you know how you can get your humble little blog Digg frontpaged without breaking any rules or using any blackhat/spammy methods. This was originally posted at WickedFire but is being reposted here because I don’t feel forums are as search-friendly as blogs, plus many of my readers don’t visit WF.

All that matters with Digg is getting those first 10-25 or so Diggs to get your article to the top of the “Most Diggs” part of the “Upcoming Stories” section. Once it gets there people will Digg the hell out of it just because it’s on the top and they’re sheepy mob instincts demand they click it.

Write a Good Article

You hear it all the damn time, but I’m gonna tell you again. The first trick to getting to the Digg frontpage is to write something worth reading. That’s not to say all Diggers will take the time out of their nerdy days to read your stories, but in the early stages of the article the content is very important. Most of your initial Diggs will be based on the content.

Word of warning: if your article blows it won’t spend more than a few minutes on the frontpage. Before you try to hit frontpage be sure to take a minute out of your day to learn how to write. Here are some of my frontpaged stories (not to say they’re the greatest, but they work):

Building a Niche Minisite (Part 1) » Net Business Blog
Building a Niche Minisite (Part 2) » Net Business Blog
Top 10 Worst Internet Marketing Videos Ever » Net Business Blog
The 14 Point Web Design Checklist » Net Business Blog
5 Blogging Methods That Work » Net Business Blog
8 Reasons Why the Masses Love Lists » Net Business Blog
ForumRank | Article | Top 10 Tips for Growing a Forum

As you can see most of these are numbered lists. Diggers like those, they make them think less. You should also know that I’ve had twice as many posts buried as “spam”, many of which were of much better quality. For example:

Domaining 101: Parking » Net Business Blog (frontpaged, buried)
Do You Have the Designer’s Eye? » Net Business Blog (frontpaged, buried)
How I Got 283k Feed Subscribers in 1 Day » Net Business Blog (never made it, but had the diggs)

Getting buried happens. Live with it. You should also know that my blog is on auto-bury now. That happens when you get enough stories to the frontpage (unless it’s exclusive news type stuff like Engadget and TechCrunch). But for those of us who don’t have access to exclusive stories, a few dozen Digg frontpages is all we’ll see. If you don’t want to be buried never: post about SEO, submit to an idiot category, or submit stories too often.

Find 15-20 (hell, 50 if you can get ‘em) Friends Who Will Digg for You

A lot of people get their accounts and sites banned for creating public Digg groups, but there’s not a damn thing Digg can do if you have a private Digg group. I have about 30 people on my MSN and AIM who I ask for Diggs whenever I get a good article up (about once a week). They ask the same of me. None of us mind it because we’re all getting good exposure.

Everyone does this. You can’t rely on the Diggers to find your article, no matter how good it is. Even if they browse the “upcoming articles” section they usually only stop by the ones that already have a few Diggs. Most Diggers sort by “Most Diggs” and will never find your article without help.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t get the same friends to Digg every post you submit, and you should also switch up which account does the submitting as Digg’s new bury algo will catch onto this.

You can find Digg friends from forums, social networking sites, or at your school/university. Just don’t be a wimp, and ask someone if they wouldn’t mind digging some stuff for you on occassion.

Submit Late at Night/Get Frontpaged Early Afternoon

This is a somewhat less obvious one. The best success I’ve had with Digg has been when I submitted the story late the night before (~11-12 EST). There are usually less stories submitted at this time which means your article will have a good amount of exposure on the upcoming stories section. But what’s more important is that your story will typically be hitting the frontpage the next day at peak hours. Digg really picks up around lunchtime EST (from what I’ve seen). Despite the increase in traffic during this time there are much fewer stories on then because so many people try to get their articles Dugg later in the day. I’ve had an article stay top of Digg’s frontpage (all topics) for 10 minutes before at this peak time.

This is assuming that it will take your story 10-12 hours to get popular. That’s the time frame my stories usually get popular in, but I can’t say that’s a rule across the board. The moral of the story is to get your story to the frontpage in the early afternoon.

Spam a Little

When I need just a couple more Diggs to hit the frontpage I post the article on a few forums I regular. Most mods/admins don’t mind you posting your article if it’s relevant to the topic and well-written (which is the first point anyway). I have yet to be warned or charged with an infraction for posting my articles on any of the forums I visit. Some people dock “rep” when you post a Digg URL but I’ve had more people give me rep than take it away - plus what the hell should you care about rep anyway?

Don’t make it a “digg this” post. Write a nice introduction to your article and provide a link. I usually provide both the Direct and the Digg link to my article. “digg this” posts usually result in account bans, so that’s a bad idea. Plus it often annoys people on the forum.

There ya go, get to the frontpage everytime. I know this stuff is common sense, but isn’t everything on the web common sense? You don’t have to solicit “top diggers” to get to the frontpage. The cardinal rule: don’t rely on Diggers to find and reward your good content, you have to shove it down their throats.

Popularity: 24% [?]

It’s that time of the week again - another blogging case study update. A lot happened in the last week with the blog, so hopefully the late installment will be well worth the wait!

Disclosing the Domain

I’ve decided to disclose the domain. For those of you who are just joining us or who were simply unaware, I haven’t announced the domain on this blog due to the fact that it may bloat the numbers. The problem with this is, however, that by not disclosing the domain you guys can’t watch the progress from start to finish which almost defeats the purpose of the case study entirely. So after much deliberation I’m going to announce the domain name right here and now because at the end of the day I think it will benefit my readers more than keeping it a secret. Plus from what I’m hearing most of my readers aren’t into rock and roll much anyway so it shouldn’t make a difference right?

The domain is RockSurge.com.

There you go. Now I don’t have to hide it anymore, and I can let you guys in on all of the nitty gritty of what I’ve been doing.

Developing Content - Slowly at First

JamesH asked me why I was posting so sparsely at the new blog, especially since I’ve said time and time again that consistent updating is the key to blogging success. I stand by that. But I learned a lesson with NBB - it’s hard as hell to make a brand spanking new blog work. I managed to do it with NBB, but I’m honestly not willing to work that hard on this blog. So for that reason I’m not actively trying to promote the blog until I get a good 20-30 posts under its belt over the course of about a month. That way when people do make their first trip to it they will see that it wasn’t started yesterday and be more willing to add it to their readers.

The content I’m posting is good, at least I think so. So when readers do make it there they should be entertained. But the main thing is just relaxing, letting the blog marinate and build some age, and then once it is at least a bit established, begin promotion.

New Writer/Old Friend

You may have noticed that the latest post up is from “David”. David is an old high school friend of mine and the guitarist for MANiC aggression. He has a passion for music and knows more about rock history than anyone I know. Aside from that he also knows a lot more people in the industry than I do thanks to his band (which is really starting to catch some small fame here in SC). He will be contributing content, getting the word out around the local SC music scene about the blog, and hopefully getting some face time with some well-knowns (he’s meeting up with a couple of the guys from Jackyl soon, for example). Obviously I’m pumped to have him on board.

Magnify & The Indie Bible

I’ve discovered two new great promotional (and potentially money-making) opportunities this last week. The first is magnify.net which is a website that allows you to create your own video mashup website dedicated to a particular genre (channel). I made one for Rock and Roll, and it already has had a few user-submitted videos - not to mention the first hundred or so that I added manually. There’s also some crap auto-filled that I have to filter out. One step at a time. You can even put a little video widget on your site (you can see it at the top of the sidebar) to advertise the videos. Plus it lets you embed them into your site which means no more handing traffic over to YouTube.

I think magnify.net is going to be a great feature of my site. Sure all of the videos you can find there can also probably be found on YouTube or Winamp music, but you get to watch them all in a targeted, genre-specific location, with no ads. How cool is that?

The Indie Bible is quite possibly the best promotional tool I have found so far. They let you submit your website for free in order to put it in front of independant bands from all over the world. The object is for bands to find ways to promote themselves by finding websites, radio stations, etc that are willing to review their albums. This in turn generates free exposure for review sites as well as a means for fresh content. They also have a commission system that allows you to sell the book on your site. Awesome right? I know.

Alright fellas, that’s all I have for you today. Sorry for the delay, but it’s bass fishing season so expect to see me very little on Saturdays for the next couple of months. I will, however, try to get the update up more consistently by Sunday at the latest.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Man it’s been a while since the last time I gave out some link love hasn’t it? I guess I’ve been too busy writing my own turbo-awesome content. Whatever the reason, here are some delicious links for you.

Tyler over at Designers Mind is doing a weekly website review. He’s a great designer with some good articles under his belt. Getting some personalized advice from him (design wise) would be well worth the time to submit your site.

Dosh Dosh has another nifty list - this time it’s 15 ways to monetize your forums. Most of you are already probably familiar with most of these as they’re pretty simple, but sometimes the simple techniques are the only ones you haven’t thought of. While you’re over there, by the way, go ahead and read the whole blog. I could include Dosh Dosh in every single link love post as his content is just so amazing. The only thing that throws me off is the cartoon chicks. Makes me feel like a dweeb reading an article with a hentai girl in the corner.

There’s another quality guest blog post over at Problogger about blog templates. I think it is a good read to go along with my post on premade templates vs. custom themes.

I continue my constant linking to Eli’s Blue Hat SEO in every single top links update with this: SERP Domination. There isn’t really a “tip & trick” (which is the only thing anybody ever seems to want) here, but a great, fundamental approach to SEO. It’s an extremely long article, so if you can’t finish it that’s fine. Better rankings for me.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I have just been using OpenAds (phpAdsNew) for years and think that every publisher should be aware of and know how to use it.

Private ad sales are by far the largest revenue generator for this blog to date. The beauty of selling your own ads in-house is that you cut out commission that third party services, such as AdVolcano, charge per sale. Of course these services sometimes have access to advertisers that you may not be able to get in contact with, and there are other pros and cons as well (but lets save that for another article).

Most of you are probably already aware of the benefits of selling your own ads privately, but do you know the best way to manage those ads? I can’t guarantee that I have the best solution for private ad management, but I’ve used a program that has worked for me for a number of years.

OpenAds (previously known as phpAdsNew) is a free ad management software and one that I have used since I started selling private ads. Some of the benefits of this program are:

• Advertiser management
• Campaign management
• Banner management
• Zone management
• Precise campaign tracking
• Login system (allows advertisers to track their own campaigns)

Advertiser management in OpenAds allows you to add, remove, and modify advertisers dynamically and with great ease. It also gives you the ability to manage not one, but multiple campaigns for each advertiser as well as upload respective banners. You then can create specific zones on your site to display these ads which can be tracked within the system (by you or your customer). Easy right?

The main problem with OpenAds is the learning curve. It’s fairly steep. In addition, I haven’t been impressed with their support documents which is why I’m going to give a very brief breakdown of how to setup an advertising campaign through OpenAds on your site.

Step 1. Setup a Publisher & Zone
The first thing you need to do is set your website up as a “publisher”. Go to Inventory > Publishers & Zones and then click on “Add new publisher”. In this field you just put in your website information and your own contact information. This part is a bit confusing because when you’re setting up ads for your own site it’s sort of weird to create another login for yourself. But you have to keep in mind that this program is setup to manage an unlimited number of advertisers and publishers. In this case, however, you’re the only publisher.

Once you have created yourself as a publisher, you continue to “Zone overview” and “Ad new zone”. This part is simple - I’ve setup 2 zones for NBB: one for the top banner and one for the sidebar block. Once you have setup the zone you need to copy and paste the code found in the “invocation code” into your website template.

Step 2. Setup an Advertiser
Go back to Inventory and click on “Advertisers & Campaigns” and then continue to “Add new advertiser”. If you haven’t actually sold any ad spaces yet for your respective advertising blocks just create one to show your default ads (ie. affiliate banners like I have above). I named mine “Default Ads” - again put in your own information here.

If and when you do sell an advertiser spot, however, this is where you would put in the information of your advertiser. It is important that you put in all of their information correctly to make sure it is easy to manage. You also want to double check the email because OpenAds automatically sends email updates to advertisers with click reports and warnings that their spots are going to expire.

Step 3. Setup a Campaign
After you’ve setup an advertiser go into the advertiser’s page and click “Campaign overview”. This is where you add in the actual banner ad that you want to appear on your site. Simply click “Add new campaign” and put in the information. You then go on to upload the banner, set the URL, and assign it to a “zone” (which is the actual location on your website as mentioned earlier).

An important thing to note here is at the bottom of “Campaign properties” where it says “Campaign weight: 1″. If you are doing as I am, for example, and displaying 5 rotating banners in your ad zone you would have 5 banners all set to a campaign weight of 1. If you sold say 3 banner spots (in the rotating zone) to one individual who wanted to run one banner then you would only need to change the weight of their campaign rather than adding the same campaign two more times. So where it says campaign weight you would change it to 3 while leaving the other 2 banners in the zone at 1. Make sense?

Now you have setup your own banner advertising campaign. Easy right? I can’t tell you how long it took me to setup my first campaign with OpenAds. I’m not exactly tech-savvy, and neither are a lot of publishers. After all, content is king, not the ability to quickly grasp software right?

One last response to a question I’ve been asked about OpenAds before I finish up: Why should I bother with all this OpenAds stuff when I can just hard code a PHP rotater script into my site? A couple reasons:

Tracking - It’s always good to provide your advertisers with up-to-date and accurate tracking. The easier you make it for them to collect information the better chance you have that they’re going to renew their subscription next month.

Ease of Management - I know it might seem like a bit of work to get OpenAds up and running on your site, but trust me once it’s up it will make managing private advertisers so much easier. After everything is operational it should only take you 5 minutes max to add a new advertiser.

Automation - OpenAds automatically sends out reports and reminders to advertisers when their campaign is about to run out. That is something that I personally have a hard time remembering to do. It’s always nice when you get an email one day saying “Thanks for the reply, I’ll go ahead and renew for another month.”, especially when you did nothing to monitor that advertiser’s campaign yourself.

Popularity: 10% [?]

No matter what industry you’re in, networking will play a major role. Who you know is often as important (if not more important) than what you know. It’s for that reason that a service like Madison Who’s Who strikes me immediately as being extremely beneficial.

Madison Who’s Who is essentially a directory of professionals categorized by industry and position.

We provide a forum for executives and professionals to introduce themselves to one another. Madison Who’s Who is also a searchable electronic registry of business leaders and professionals in virtually every industry and specialty.

Before I get into the details of this site I just want to make it clear that I like the overall professionalism of this site, and I think it has a lot of potential. There are, however, some problems mostly revolving around the lack of new web technology and services that really sell the site.

You have to be a registered member of the registry to view just about anything on the site, which is understandable considering the goal of Madison Who’s Who. Unfortunately, registration isn’t very user-friendly. There is no on-site application process; instead you have to email the administrator. There are a couple problems with this. First off, asking users to email for more information leaves room for human error. They can very easily mistype the (or miscopy) the email when they send it, and when they never hear back just forget about the site altogether. It is also conceivable that there are many potential members that aren’t even inquiring about the registry due to the unecessary step of opening up an email application and sending out an email - I know I’m guilty of completely ignoring a service the second I’m asked to open up a new window and fire off an email. However, the email registration must not be so bad because it seems Madison Who’s Who has a ton of already registered members as found on the Featured Members page. I also sent an email to the address on the site asking for temporary access to the registry (for review purposes) and have yet to hear back.

Another note about the registration process is that there isn’t really any mention that the service costs money up front, neither on the registration page or the about us page. But if you take a look at the FAQ there is mention of a cost although no specific dollar amount is disclosed. This probably isn’t a huge deal considering most professionals will expect some sort of entry fee into a service like this, but personally I always like to know what something will cost up front. Otherwise it comes across as questionable.

The main feature for unregistered visitors to Madison Who’s Who is the blog which is actually very good. It is updated almost every single weekday (not missing a beat in March) with great posts. Aside from featuring madison Who’s Who members on the blog it also contains a lot of interesting articles about entrepreneurship in general and on building your peer to peer network.

Overall I like the idea of Madison Who’s Who. Allowing professionals from all over to network and connect with one another is a great model and is obviously working for them. My main suggestion for this site is that they make registration much more user-friendly and provide at least an on-site application form. It may also be a good idea to give more web-based incentive to register. Currently it seems that the majority of the members have registered for the book because the website, in all honesty, does not provide much incentive. The main benefit of the site is the blog which is open to the public. The main advertised feature for the website is the bulletin board, and it looks like they’re running phpBB (free to download) which isn’t quite a ground-breaking service.

If Madison Who’s Who wants to break into the online world of business registry like they have with offline registry I think they only need to do a few tweaks to their website. It has potential to be fantastic, but a few aspects of old world web really hurt them.

Sponsored by: Executive and Professionals Registry

Popularity: 3% [?]

Aaron Wall wrote a nice guest post over at Problogger yesterday that got me thinking about something I learned back in English class: subjective journalism. He asks “is your blog biased?” and goes on to say:

Don’t be afraid of your bias. It is what makes you who you are, and what will attract like-minded people. Your biases, flaws, identity, emotions, and personal experiences are the only thing you can share that can’t be outsourced to a cheap worker or done by a computer.

Conventional media often attempts to present the news in an objective manner, focusing almost exclusively on the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, why). Blogging is (or should be) different. Blogging is personal. Subjectivity (which includes individual bias) is what makes blogging a better news portal than conventional media could ever dream to be. Sure there are a ton of other benefits for blogging over conventional media: response time, depth of information, etc. Personality, however, is what sets the blogging community so far apart from the rest of the journalism world. Bloggers are people, not reporters. Although their information is often backed by factual data, they have in-depth opinions to accompany it.

Why has blogging taken off so much over the last few years? I remember a time when the internet was little more than a mirror image of conventional media. Even my little video game website tried to have all of the elements of CNN with its proper objective reporting. Now blogging has come along and turned news reporting into a subjective experience. Is it the first to do so? Hell no. I would argue, however, that is is the first to do so on such a massive scale. People want personal experience and opinion with their news. Of all of the conventional media machines probably the most progressive, in my eyes, is ESPN. Color commentators are the closest thing to bloggers in conventional media. And they’re awesome. They give their opinion backed with factual data. That’s blogging in a nutshell!

I know this has ventured a bit away from Aaron’s original message. I’m not sure if he would go so far as to say that objective blogging is worthless (although that’s what I would say), but his message remains: bias is good. I love this comment left by Brad :

Being biased can be a good thing for a blog. The people who agree with you will keep coming back because they like what you say. And the people who disagree with you, will keep coming back to argue with you. Either way, your blog is still getting traffic!

Is my blog biased? You bet your ass my blog is biased.

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