by nickw
With partners about to be turned off, it’s amazing that at least one Performancing member would want to show his support for the community regardless and modify our house ads to display a kind of “community badge” — See the right hand side near the top on the link above.
Thanks Kirk!
by nickw
I’ve been reading a lot of comments in the last couple of months raving about how good Google Reader is, and how it just beats Bloglines hands down.
From a professional bloggers point of view, what’s all the fuss about?
by Raj Dash
Om Malik of GigaOm has grown to be a fave blogger of many people because of both his posts and the fact that he often breaks stories before anyone else. I think of him sort of as the Walter Cronkite of the Blogosphere (or in Canada, the Lloyd Robertson). Om is informed and he gives credit to his sources. Aside from his hot scoops, he’s the rare blogger that can take the lowly “summary” post and transform it into something worth reading. Om “gets” blogging.
Here are a few tips for you to blog like OmMalik (just my estimation, feel to comment/ disagree):
Of course, to actually power blog, you need good tools. Here are a few:
Now, you could clone Om, but I think that technology is a ways away. Don’t forget to get your recommended daily allowance of GigaOm. It’s the next best thing.
[Disclosure: I don’t own shares in Om, Inc. :]
by nickw
ScribeFire, our blog editor for Firefox has been downloaded over 1/2 a million times. It’s a really, really cool, open source project.
Unfortunately, our current developer, Jed Brown has gone MIA, and though we all hope he’s safe, and worry about him, we have to move on nonetheless. ScribeFire really, really needs to get up to speed with Blogger Beta, the new WordPress API’s and a whole ton of other stuff to stay current, and stay on the Mozilla recommended plugins list.
I’m looking for an FF dev that thinks she/he can take ScribeFire to the next level. If that sounds like you, we’d REALLY like to hear from you! Just drop me a line at [email protected]
I’ll also be emailing a few of the Mozilla folks for help.
Suggestions, help and pointers most welcome!
by nickw
Hard to miss the blood on the pavement left behind by Scoble and Engadget going at it like a couple of rabid dogs (well ok, Ryan BLock kept his cool) this weekend — over what? Who got a story out first of course…
I feel for Scoble, he thought he had the scoop, but whether he got his story out 1/2hr before Engadget or not, it makes no difference, they have their own sources, and they didn’t need Scoble to get their story out so in my mind, Scoble looses — and he’s making himself look a twit for getting all huffy in public over it (says the master of public huff…)
Having said that, Engadget know this to be rude. Really, really rude, so boo to them, bastards.
by Chris Berry
I added the Performancing feed to my RSS Reader almost from the very beginning and have read and watched from the sidelines during its growth. As Fall 2006 approached I was beginning to think about contributing to the community blog. It was also at that time things began to change. The awkward silence on the blog during November and December was so thick that even as a virtual outsider I could feel the tension and the pain. I don’t need to revisit the history of the last four months. I am sure I was not alone in wishing for the best yet fearing the worst. I read through the comments of recent days and I realized how helpful Performancing had been to so many people, myself included.
Now that Performancing has had its white water period, what will be the key to Perfomancing’s success?
1) User Contributions – Nick has already brought back the ability for community members to contribute to the Performancing blog. The future of Performancing exists in its ability to continue to provide quality content to help bloggers succeed. Nothing more, nothing less.
2) The Performancing community needs to contribute – While Nick has made it possible again for users to contribute, it won’t mean squat unless people actually do it. I am sure some people are upset at what has happened over the last few months. I am sure others are laughing or even mocking. However, to those that feel Performancing can continue to have a voice, you must be the ones who step forward and not only write a comment or a forum post, but actually create content.
3) Keep it Simple – Metrics, PFF, and Partners were all cool. However, the future of Performancing may not be in the cool tools or widgets. It may simply be the content. I still firmly believe, even in the age of web 2.0 cool tools and the social web, that content is still king and will forever be. Keep it simple. Focus on the content.
4) Focus on value – Sites that create value are the ones that will still exist next year and years thereafter.
5) Stay away from bunny trails – While it may be tempting for Performancing to go off and chase rabbits in hopes of finding some quick way to rescue the site, it must avoid doing so. The success of Performancing won’t depend on quick fixes but on the long term value (see #4).
6) Build a better community – with a base of members already in hand, Performancing can move forward to build a better community. What if we all had better profiles? What if we could search those profiles so that we could connect better with each other? Another website community I read regularly is actually posting tasks in their monthly newsletter for members to accomplish. These tasks are simple: complete your profile, complete a survey, etc. The purpose of these exercises is to build their community. Performancing needs to do the same.
7) Learn from the past – While portions of the past might have been extremely painful, I am sure there are lessons to be learned. It would probably be helpful to all of us, if at some point, those lessons were shared.
8) Grieve the losses, but build on hope – It’s ok to be upset and disappointed over losing Metrics and Partners. Some extensively used Metrics and others had high hopes for Partners. Sure we could all ask “What could this have been?”, but we should press forward, learn our lessons and say “Let’s move forward to something better.”
9) Be Thankful – as a user it is easy to complain. We bitch and moan about everything. We seldom take the time to be thankful for the word processors and text editors we use to write our blog posts, even if they are a bit clunky.
10) Carpe Diem – Now is the time for Performancing to seize the day, doing it six months from now will be too late.
by nickw
We’ve only had comments open to unregistered users since Wednesday this week, and already Akistmet, the Automattic/WP spam filtering service, has caught 130 pieces of commercial vandalism and made them sit in the corner facing the wall — way to go!
I’ve also put it on my personal blog and a new project im working on. What a fantastic service.
Thankyou Automattic!
Some years back I’d have said there was no way a service could keep up, but it appears that all but a very, very few hardened arsewipes are managing to get through.
by Chris Berry
Steve Rubel asks why it is that not many blogging and other social media platforms allow commenters to edit or delete the comments they make on community based sites.
Everyone sticks their foot in it from time to time. If you do this
on your own blog, you can edit the post and take it back. You could
delete the post too, but it’s not looked on very positively. Still, if
you leave a comment on some other site, you very often need to live
with it. So you better think twice before lambasting your friend for
slamming Jethro Tull on his blog.There’s really no reason why community sites shouldn’t offer this
option. It’s good for everyone involved. Three sites, at least that I
know of, allow you to edit or even delete your comments. They’re the
social saints.
These ‘social saints’ are Flickr, Blogger and Facebook.
WordPress, the engine I use for my blog, doesn’t feature the ability for commenters to edit what they write. There might be a plugin out there that does something like that, I don’t know. But for me, it should be up to the blogger – the site owner – whether a comment is changed or deleted. A commenter can always send an email to the site owner, or add another comment clarifying things.
To my mind, the person that makes the decision on the site is the person that is responsible for it. There have been countless examples of bloggers getting grief for deleting comments from their sites – allowing others to do so just clouds matters and complicates things, especially when the deleted or edited comment has already become a part of a conversation.