Laura Scott: BlogHer, pingVision & Drupal – Part 2

Laura Scott, President of pingVision LLC is a graphic and interactive media designer with a background in print production, television and web. On the eve of the 2006 BlogHer conference and just after upgrading the BlogHer site I posed some questions to Laura and she has provided some great insight. This interview discusses a little about Laura, Drupal and her work with the BlogHer community site.

This is the second part of the interview. Part 1 is also here on Performancing. If you’d like clarification from Laura on any of the points feel free to ask them in the comments and Laura and I will do our best to get you an answer.

How did you get involved with BlogHer?

You may or may not have heard about all the hoopla that happened last year when some major bloggers basically said that no women worth reading were blogging, and that women bloggers weren’t worth reading. “Where are all the women bloggers?” was the plaint from one guy — which was, of course, a ridiculous question to anyone who was actually paying attention to more than their own echo chamber. About half of all the bloggers blogging are women, but you don’t see them in the ubiquitous Top 100 lists and those kinds of things. There are lots of reasons why, and many viewpoints, and I won’t go into that here. But the question seemed to keep coming up every few months.

So early last year, when I saw Lisa Stone and Elisa Camahort’s blog posts where they were musing about throwing a conference to celebrate women bloggers, I thought it was a great idea and I emailed Lisa encouraging her to go for it. As it turns out, I was but one of hundreds of women, and some men, apparently, who loved the idea of such a conference. Lisa and I emailed each other over the months as they were getting the first conference set up.

For the first conference, we hosted an online chatroom using a Flash-based application, as sort of an annex to the actual conference. The software was pretty basic, but we wanted something that would be easy for people, including n00bs, to use, without having to download programs and learn about IRC and all that. It was a lot of fun. We had women all over the world participating in online discussions that roughly paralleled the panel discussions at the conference itself.

After the conference, we approached BlogHer with the idea of building a new community website based on Drupal.

What has your role been since then?

We’ve been web designers, developers and admins for the site. The development has been frozen for the most part since February. After the conference, we’ll be able to do a proper profiling and analysis for an upgrade and addition of new features. I can’t say more about it at this point.

[Greg's Note: That's a good hook - I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how BlogHer grows.]

What was it that convinced the women at BlogHer to migrate their working site to a new one? And what has the reaction been to the updated Drupal site?

They knew they needed something more. They were using a Typepad blog for disseminating information — which was very effective. But to build a community, it seemed that Drupal was the natural choice.

I think the main reason was because that’s what I was pushing for. With another developer, they might have gone with another of the main Open Source CMSs. I don’t know.

Any special Drupal modules you implemented, or created during the site implementation?

There were quite a bit of little module hacks — mostly to customize the user interface. A lot of these changes we could have implemented using the locale module, but not all, and we were concerned about the hit on performance with such an approach as the site scaled.

One of the main features of the site is the blogroll. This took some custom queries to the database, drawing on weblink data, and presenting that info in different formats, from “most recently added” lists for each category to paginated alphabetical listings. This is the kind of thing that we hope to roll into a module as a complement/enhancement to the links module package, but we haven’t had the time yet. The upgrade migration path from the weblinks module in 4.6 to the links modules in 4.7 is not quite there yet, so we’ll probably start by helping out with some coding there, although it may be easier to try a migration into CCK and put the displays together using views. We’ll be looking into it after the conference.

Can you quantify the growth of the site in terms of users, nodes, popularity?

Since the site launched beta at the end of January, over 4,000 people have registered and submitted over 4,000 links to the blogrolls. There are over 7,000 nodes on the site. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down — in fact, it’s picking up. Right now we’re seeing over 16,000 unique visitors a day, and they’re sticking around, looking at many pages per visit, according to the stats. And they’re posting a lot in the forums and comments. Not bad for a site that’s not quite six months old!

What was the tipping point where you decided to get new hardware for the site?

We had a bit of a learning curve here. Lisa, Elisa and Jory may not have been surprised by the traffic — after all, they’ve always been in the middle of the BlogHer phenomenon — but we were not at all prepared for the level of interest the site would garner right off the bat. We had developed the site on a shared server, which probably was a mistake from the start, but this company had been fairly reliable and we had other sites hosted with them that were routinely hitting 10-20,000 pageviews a day without a hiccup. But we had a lot of problems, with multiple crashes. As it turned out, the culprit was a spammer on another site sending out gobs of emails, which kicked up the server load, which had a cascading effect upon BlogHer.

We ended up having to migrate to a virtual dedicated server in a hurry — like overnight — because the web hosting company decided to shut us down, and would not upgrade us because they had cancelled plans for offering dedicated and VPS hosting, which is why we had gone with them in the first place. That was crazy. So one night we had to make a quick migration. We worked with Firebright on that, and they came through for us that night. However, over the following weeks we still had crashes, and found corruption in the database. Once that was fixed, things started to stabilize … until a few weeks ago, as traffic started to push the envelope of the server resources we had dedicated for it.

Because we all expect BlogHer to grow, especially as their Ad Network expands, we thought it was best to scale up in a way that makes it easier to continue scaling. So just a week or so ago, we made the jump to a multi-server setup, again with Firebright.

What is the configuration of the site now? (e.g. multiple web servers-single database server VS. multiple web, multiple read only database).

We’re running on a 1+1 setup: one dedicated web server and one dedicated database server, and are poised to move to a load-balanced setup when the time comes. Once we’ve had time to profile the site and run some optimizations, we’ll have a better idea of what that next step will be, and when.

PFF Wins LifeHacker Blog Editor Poll

Over the weekend, i was told that Performancing Firefox, the #1 blog editor (which is also free by the way….), had won the LifeHacker blog editor comparison poll.

Pretty neat eh?

Speaking of PFF, i’ve just been test driving our candidate for 1.3, with addons, themes and localization — it’s Awesome! I can’t wait to get it released….

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BlogBridge 3.0 Now Available

BlogBridge 3.0 is officially available. BlogBridge is a nice and feature rich Java RSS reader. I am using it all day long. Users of version 2.16 or the weekly development version will be updated during the next start automagically.

BlogBridge 3.0, which is the update to BlogBridge 2.16 which we released on April 7, 2006, so about 3 months ago.

All the whistles and bells with new version might be nice to some people but my new killer feature is the pin. Only mark that article pinned and it will stay in the database forever. I’ll check the new version tomorrow for other new features (Scary, a .0).

Have fun and a nice weekend. Why not try this very nice RSS reader

Technorati Tags: Blog Bridge, update, RSS, reader, Java

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Shifting Opinions

Over the weekend as I sat in the hotel bar I got an opportunity to witness a social phenomenon, I found it quite interesting and would like to get your opinions on it.

Although I have never studied sociology or psychology academically I am quite a fan of people watching. A guy, possibly from the “smoking cessation workshop” was magnetically fascinating to me. It wasn’t just his massive frame and booming voice but what he was saying. In isolation his conversations were not out of the ordinary, they were the sorts of conversations you would hear in a bar anywhere. Loud, opinionated, and full of unsubstantiated “facts”. The part that interested me was how this 400lb social butterfly would change where he stood on any issue depending on who he was talking to. Not just subtly, moderating his more extreme stances or taking the edges off for the more timid audience. No, he actually would switch sides on debates or swing from cautious optimism to overwhelming cynicism. 

Luckily for me he would always hold court in the same place and his audience would gravitate towards him (perhaps his bulk caused a localised gravitational field). Perhaps with some self knowledge of his tactic he chose the far end of the room. Little did he realise it would not matter where in the room he chose, his voice carried right the way to the bar at the other side. Yes there was a lot of alcohol being consumed but surely another member of his party must have also discovered what was happening? Nobody seemed to mind.

As I listened to another complete conversational about-face I wondered if this man was a more exaggerated version of the rest of us. Perhaps we all do this to an extent? There are certain things we might do or say comfortably amongst friends that you would not dare in front of your in-laws for example? Perhaps when visiting your Gran you might reduce the number and frequency of cuss words that escape your lips?

I would like to think I am flexible with my view points on world affairs and am willing to bend my opinion when faced with a good argument or new evidence. Having said that I doubt I have ever changed opinion so radically or quickly. If something seems right though it should be ok to change opinion. There is actually nothing wrong with deciding you think differently when you think about it, otherwise what is the point of trying to persuade another to your point of view? If you think less of someone for changing opinion then why attempt to change it? Flip-flopping is seen as a bad thing, especially when done so swiftly and obviously as the man I was watching, but could it be a valuable, laudable trait? Perhaps it is good to have compulsive empathy?

So what does this have to do with blogging?

Well for a start if this man was a blogger then he would almost certainly need to be using a pseudonym. After going on record with his first opinion he might need another whole blog to put forth his new one. Perhaps this fear of sharing your real, most extreme opinions is why there are so many blogs written under aliases?

But the main thought I had relating this subject to blogging was how visible a change of opinion is when there is possibly years worth of audit trail for all to read. There is not just a momentary conversation but a whole backlog of thoughts and ideas to mine. My wife is an expert at remembering things I have done or said for the 14 years of our relationship but even she is no match for a quick Google.

So on the one hand, I was thinking, it is ok to change your opinion, on the other people think flip-flopping is bad. Presidential races have been affected by the accusation. In social circles it is regarded as being “two-faced”. What is the solution? I guess whenever you change your opinion in public you need to explain what you used to think, what you believe now and what changed your mind. Doesn’t seem a very elegant approach but neither does sticking to old patterns of thinking when faced with new ideas.

What do you think? Stick to your guns or flip flop? What ought a blogger do and which is better or worse? Do you blog under your own name? Why? Is it ok to shift opinions and do you moderate your thoughts in case they cause offense?

Please comment, I would really like to know …

Expertise; Is it Necessary?

Since it was asked in our forums I have been pondering on this question and thinking about the blogs I have read since the thought was raised; is it necessary to be an expert in your subject in order to have a successful blog? I have to say I am more sure now of my initial assessment than I was when I made it. Blogging is not necessarily about expertise, in fact you might be at a disadvantage if you think that is the case.

Let me explain my thinking with some examples

• The Dilbert blog
• BoingBoing

What, other than their entertainment value and popularity, do these blogs have in common? Both of those blogs have authors that are experts but the blogs are not popular because of the bloggers expertise!

Scott Adams is an expert in creating and drawing a massively popular syndicated comic but in his blog he writes funny stories about daily life or trouble in the middle east. It is actually quite rare for him to write about his work in any sort of detail.

For every serious post about freedom, copyright and campaigns on BoingBoing there is around ten that are just plain fun. Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author (a good one actually), but you never see a “how to write science fiction” tutorial on there.

OK, I know you are thinking of a bunch of blogs where the author does share his or her expertise. You might include Performancing in this category, I don’t know. Fact is for any given “expert blog” there are many non-expert blogs. I love bloggers that share their expertise, it is a good thing. Just, you know, not entirely necessary.

What I think sets apart a good blog from a bad one in most cases is not the knowledge or experience of the blogger but how interesting they make the content. If Scott Adams wrote the very same ideas in a serious political blog I would never subscribe to it, as well as his off the wall way of looking at life it is his writing style that grabs me. If you are not an expert but can be interesting or write particularly well I believe you can more than make up for a lack of expertise. Have all that and expertise you will probably do even better but don’t hold back because you don’t consider yourself an expert.

So what if your subject requires a tutorial or knowledge approach? Take a quick look at Darrens Digital Photography School blog and tell me what you see. A bunch of tutorials and tips right? His blog has quickly become probably the most popular photography tips blog on the web right now, mentioned everywhere including newspapers etc. Well he is a decent photographer but I don’t think Darren has turned into Ansel Adams any time recently! He is sharing a well-researched passion, not necessarily expertise. Much of what is in his blog is already available, what sets his blog apart is the accessible way he presents the information in daily, clear, uncluttered, simple, bite sized chunks.

For a while I attracted quite a lot of attention from tutorials, articles and books on certain programming technologies. People considered me an expert on the subject but I thought of myself as anything but. Whatever I wrote about was usually something I had only just figured out for myself. With my own photography blog part of the aim was to learn by teaching, it has certainly helped.

It is like the old joke about the two hunters being chased by a bear, one stops to put on his running shoes, “you really think those will help you out run a bear??” “No, but I might just outrun you …”. You just need to be interesting and one step ahead of your audience. There are so many resources you can turn to for the information you might not actually need to know much about your subject at all (although you might feel a fraud it is only what authors have done for years). It’s better to have both but if you do have to choose between “expert” and “interesting”, choose “interesting” every time!

Write Like an Expert

I was inspired to write this post by a terrific piece at Wired, it seemed to go well with my “some guy on the internet” post the other day. The satirical wired piece recommends the following for appearing to be an expert:

1. PICK A FIELD THAT CAN’T BE VERIFIED.
2. CHOOSE A SUBJECT THAT’S ACTUALLY SECRET.
3. GET YOUR OWN ENTRY IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA.
4. USE THE WORD ZEITGEIST AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.
5. BE SURE TO USE LOTS OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS.
6. SPEAK FROM THE BALLS, NOT FROM THE DIAPHRAGM.
7. DON’T BE AFRAID TO MAKE THINGS UP.
8. DON’T LIMIT YOURSELF TO CURRENT KNOWLEDGE.
9. GET AN HONORARY PHD.
10. MAKE A HABIT OF NAME-DROPPING.
11. BE FAMOUS. IT HELPS.

Crazy thing is I think there are bloggers out there taking his advice!

I tend to read quite a lot of technical blogs to keep my knowledge of geek stuff fresh. You wouldn’t believe how many times I sit there shaking my head at all the acronyms, “leveraging paradigms” marketese and technobabble that goes on. Most of the time it’s just not necessary and on the rare occasions it is necessary it is only polite to explain or link to a definition somewhere, right?

I’m sure I don’t have to mention any blogs by name where the author talks from the balls either. Some bloggers need to calm down on the ol’ testosterone. Sure it is great to have confidence, and go right ahead and be forthright, just don’t beat us over the head with it.

Making stuff up and dredging up old knowledge is now so refined in the SEO space it is practically an art form. Just look at the comments in Digg or Technorati over the coming days commenting on Nicks SEO post for verification.

The name dropping is the best one. Some bloggers make an art of it. Erm, just because you met Tom Cruise doesn’t mean you are suddenly an expert on acting (or Scientology), heh.

Having said this, I can do without fame or an encyclopaedia entry but I would love to get me a honorary PHD. Or a degree of any kind …

Read the full article, it is funny stuff.

Netscape.com says, “Hi to all Diggers!”

Surprised? Well, read on…

Early this morning, someone submitted a story on Netscape.com. And Digg fans all over the world erupted in laughter and glee. Ever since the story was submitted, this is what appears, when Netscape is loaded into your browser:

 

The first is a four word expletive, and the second greets “all you Diggers out there!”

The culprit?

A story titled “Unbearable Cuteness”. Ironical,eh? Here’s the what and why of the entire fiasco.

Analysis:
A quick check of the JavaScript on the page reveals this script:


via title="http://www.cute.com">"/>