Raj Dash

Are you planning to port (move) your blog between blogging platforms. It’s no easy task under certain circumstances. Eric Giguere offers some great general tips for moving your blog.

I have a large port of seven sites from Typepad to WordPress that I’ve been putting off since last December. WordPress to WordPress is relatively easy, even between versions. However, between platforms often means a change in URL/permalink structure. In this case, I cannot just add WordPress to the existing hosting because of how Typepad works – AFAIK. So the blogs have to move to new servers.

I’ll catalog each step in the process, and will post some tips here when I’m finally done. I’m hoping to also offer a couple of free web-based tools that will help generate the necessary URL redirect rules for your .htaccess file. That means no ridiculous manual tweaks. That’s handy when you have several hundred blog posts.

If you cannot wait for my tools, however, here’s a general algorithm for redirecting your URLs (note that I’m leaving out a lot of technical details):

1. Build a list of existing permalink URLs a la the current blog platform.
2. Build the same list but with each URL paired with the post title. This is primarily for your reference.
3. Create the URL redirect rules for your new platform’s .htaccess file using the first list. (This will be the same .htaccess file you have now, if you are not moving to a different server.) Keep this list in reserve. (This is a tedious a step to do manually, but many blog platforms do not help you generate this. Unless you have a tool – such as the ones I’m working on – the only choice is manual generation.)
4. When you have time set aside for the porting between platforms – and possibly web servers – turn off commenting on your blog and stop posting. I prefer to do this sort of thing on weekends.
5. Backup the current posts using your standard method.
6. Export the content into a format that the new blogging platform can import.
7. Set up the new platform.
8. Import your old blog posts to your new platform.
9. Add the URL redirect rules to your .htaccess file.
10. Test at least a dozen old URLs and see if they redirect correctly. Use the list you created in step #2. Category pages may give you the greatest problems. In fact, some blog platforms may not have categories, so if you’re moving in that direction, your URL redirect rules may have to be manually tweaked no matter what. Either that or leave the old blog and start a new one.

There are other ways to do the redirecting – including tweaking your platform’s code – but they tend to be more complicated. Of course, if you’re fortunate enough to be moving to a blog platform that can preserve your exact URLs on it’s own, then you can ignore this list altogether. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to come across such a platform.

Eric points out that if you can keep the old blog up, do so. For example, some of my old blogs used Blogger but the .html files were hosted on my own domain. When I switched over to WordPress, I kept the old blog and just started posting new content in WordPress. It means building up a new blog from scratch, but it’s less hassle for some people. So you have to weigh the consequences of either decision: fresh new blog, with all the work that goes with building it up, or port the old one and preserve posts, authority, etc.

If you’re interested in adding some visual content to your blog, such as a music video channel, Mark, aka Thetafferboy83, a member at Digital Point Forums, has posted a very detailed, informative thread about making money with a video blog. It’s most definitely one of the best how-to posts I’ve come across, period. Maki at Dosh Dosh offers a bit of summary of Mark’s post, along with a bit of commentary. Both are must-read articles, if you’re planning to get into video blogs.

Sourcing Videos

Video is hot, and it can be a great way to induce editorial backlinks, if you put in some thought as to the presentation, or how you organize the videos. Apparently, you don’t even have to come up with original videos. You can just source great ones:

1. YouTube.
2. Google Videos.
3. DailyMotion.
4. Dovetail.
5. VideoJug.
6. HowTo.tv.

and many, many more sites. That’s hardly a complete list, what with all the new video sites popping up, but it’s a starting point for you. Warning: there are NSFW (Not Safe for Work) videos on some of these sites, so source content with some discrimination, or post a notice on your site.

Promoting Your Video Blog

As current editor at Tubetorial (started by Chris Pearson and Brian Clark), I’ve seen how such sites can draw traffic. However, I’m not sure if I agree that everyone can reach the 25% ad CTR (clickthrough rate) that Mark says you can easily get. To do that, I think that you’ll need to promote your site on social sites, to get enough traffic:

1. StumbleUpon.
2. Reddit.
3. Digg.
4. Del.icio.us.
5. Netscape.
6. etc., as appropriate.

Do it yourself or get a friend. [Although note that Digg is banning users that vote on stories without apparently spending enough time. And Reddit keeps dropping my account after a couple of weeks, if I haven’t used it.]

Standing Out

Still, while you may not reach 25% ad CTR, if you’re clever, innovative, and/or unique, you will likely do well. You’ll do even better if you post original content – that’s my feeling. Or at least be innovative in how you present videos from YouTube, etc. Theme them, maybe in the form of a directory.

Depending what player(s) you are using, there may be something innovative about them (such the aggregating player SplashCast, which allows you to present numerous videos in a single player, as part of a show, with multiple shows per channel, if you like. It’s still free, though there are signs a pro package may be rolled out soon, for a small yearly fee. You can see an example of multi-show SplashCasts at NewMediaJones (NMJ) and a larger version of the same content at my personal blog. (Others can subscribe to your shows, if you allow it.)

What I’ve done at NMJ is create music video playlists, then use SplashCast to grab each video from YouTube and build a real playlist. I also publish the playlist at NMJ, so you can browse and determine whether to listen. If you need some help to quickly find related songs/ artists, there’s always Pandora – but for the present, only if you’re in the US. I’m not, so I use the very cool MusicMesh web app. Try it, and you’ll know what I mean. It helps me build a text playlist fairly quickly, and I can then use SplashCast to build the actual music video “show”. [If there’s enough demand for it, I could create a Tubetorial for how to use MusicMesh, SplashCast, and YouTube as a followup to creating your own MTV music video channel. Be your own Net VJ.]

Finding Videocasting Tools

Aside from the applications and tools mentioned above, I use a few others for creating original screencast content, where I record actions I take while using a particular piece of software. If you’re good at using some software and can explain to others how to use it, screencasting is the perfect vehicle. Record your software in use, then record voice narration over it. Many of the tutorials at Tubetorial are created this way.

For simple videos with no panning, zooming, or other special effects required, try the free CamStudio, which is similar to TechSmith’s Camtasia ($299), but not as full-featured. I use both. Camstudio is quick, and I can upload to YouTube and SplashCast in AVI format. Camstudio gives loads of video format options and special effects, but takes a bit more work. However, take note that SplashCast has become so popular in the past few weeks that I’ve have a very, very hard time getting my files to load. For some reason I’ve yet to discover, I’ve never been able to upload Camtasia-generated files to SplashCast, and I think the support staff is either pissed at me or overwhelmed or both, as they don’t answer my emails anymore. I’m also now unable to load CamStudio AVI files at certain times of day. I’m on cable Internet, whose access speed is affected by the number of currently active users in the neighborhood. So I’ve been forced to use Camtasia to generate Flash files and have to self-host them.

Assessing Bandwidth Costs

Of course, self-hosting video files can bankrupt you. Say that you build up a video blog with self-hosted video files. For simplicity of example, say that each is exactly 10Mb. (AVI and WMV equivalents can be much larger, and CamStudio isn’t always efficient in the AVIs it generates.) If you have 100 visitors per day and each only views one video, that’s 10 Mb/video x 100 visitors/ day x 1 view/vis = 1Gb/day, or about 30 Gb/month. Most cheap hosting plans probably cover that amount. But what happens if you get a sudden surge of visitors? Someone Diggs one of your videos, or the site, and you get 1,000 people in a single day. That’s 100 GB in only one day – well over your limit, and asking to have your account suspended.

Well, there are hosts that’ll give you unlimited bandwidth for a reasonable price. Though I’ve yet to find any. The closest I’ve come is Site5 (non-affiliate link), who have a special US$5/month shared hosting plan that gives you 5TB/month of bandwidth. Yes, only $5. I bought a plan on the weekend, and plan to get a couple more, as well as one of their multi-site hosting plans. There are a couple of catches/ caveats about Site5 that I should point out:

1. Their promo text is a bit confusing. The US$5/m plan is actually $50/m or so, unless you pay for 24 months up front. In this case, it’s $5/m, or $120. This is far, far better than the $3.95 – $14.95/m that I pay for three different types of GoDaddy accounts (or anywhere else I’ve tried.) That is, if you don’t mind paying for two years. There’s also an $8/m version, if you want to pay for fewer months upfront.
2. They don’t accept PayPal for payment, only a select group of credit cards.
3. You can only put one domain on a single account, unless you get one of their multi-site hosting plans or use domain pointers. (Both are beyond the scope of this dicussion.) So where I can create one customer account at, say, GoDaddy, and register loads of domains and/or hosting accounts, for convenience of access from a single control panel, I have to sign up over and over at Site5.

For me, these are minor issues. If it’s not for you, there are many other option video hosting options, including TechSmith’s Screencast.com, for Camtasia video file hosting. There’s a free trial, but the fact is, if your video blog gets popular, and you’re self-hosting, you need a plan like Site5 or something even better – such as unlimited bandwidth. (Screencast can be costly if you go over your limit, but they won’t cancel your account, I don’t think.) If you find an unlimited plan, please tell everyone here, by dropping a comment. Have fun creating your video blog.

Writing is nothing like computer programming. The latter is scientific yet was relatively easy for me, when I did it for a living. I could reuse code fragments and thus produce large, functioning programs in just a few days. Writing isn’t like that. While hyperlinks are probably the equivalent of code reuse, writing involves a wholly different process. There is only so much “system” you can apply. In thirty years, I’ve never suffered coder’s block. Ever. I used to brag that I’ve never suffered from writer’s block, either. At least, not until I started writing full-time for a living. That is, multi-blogging professionally.

Mind you, it’s not that I don’t know what to write about. I’ve done a lot of research into what topics are popular and/or profitable, and my blogging contracts already define my topic parameters. So you think it’d be easy to write, right? Wrong. The problem is, there’s more and more “invisible” pressure to be linkworthy, and when you write on as many blogs as I do, it’s not easy. That doesn’t mean that every one I write for is expecting linkbait out of each article, considering that most of what I write is a combination of news summary and my spin. So, in fact, much of the pressure is of my own creation, my drive to be a better blogger.

Still, if you let such feelings carry too far, you do suffer from writer’s block – or whatever you’d like to call it. And then you end up with unproductive months, which is bad for your clients and bad for your business. So what do you do when you’ve got some sort of writer’s block? Here are some suggestions that have worked for me in the past, and a few of which worked for me this week, after a month of bad writer’s block.

1. Take a break and treat yourself.
   If you work from home, get up and get away somewhere. I headed downtown a few days ago to try out a new restaurant and treat myself to blank sketchbooks, a packet of original Moleskines journals, and some new rollerball and fountain pens. And you know what? It worked. I started writing this article you’re reading on the bus ride home.

2. Draw a diagram.
   Despite my writer’s block, I’ve been producing a lot of diagrams lately, as well as screencasts. Your diagrams don’t even have to serious, as this hilarious Venn diagram attests to. [via Digg] If you’re not having any luck in this area, maybe you’ve got a spreadsheet that helps you in your daily blogging activities. Consider sharing that with your readers by using a web-based spreadsheet app such as ZohoSheet or Google Spreadsheets.

3. Record a podcast.
   Do something other than writing. If you have something to say, try actually speaking it instead of writing it. You can find cheapo $1 microphones that do almost as good a job as a better $50 mic. Maybe not broadcast quality, but okay for an occasional podcast, or just for fun. And go get Audacity, the very well put-together cross-platform audio recording software for free, to help you record and convert audio formats. There are also a multitude of blogging platform plugins to help you publish your podcast files.

4. Produce a screencast.
   If voice work isn’t your thing, maybe you’re good at using a piece of software and you can capture a screencast of how to use a certain feature. (Practice up, because later this year, I’ll be looking for paid contributors to Tubetorial, which is a SplashPress site that I’m currently editing.) You can use the free Camstudio to record a screencast.

5. Make a SplashCast.
   Have a number of images and screencasts that you’d like to integrate together into one presentation? Try SplashCast or other tools.

6. Blog some TV.
   There’s nothing like blogging a show while you’re watching it to really fire up your creative juices. There’s really very little planning needed – it’s all stream of consciousness. Reality shows are good for this, and if you pick the right ones, you can build a bit of seasonal traffic to your blogs.

7. Go see a movie.
   It’s partially the simple act of getting away from your unproductive writing activities, but also the opportunity for some different creative input.

8. Read a book.
   Since I started blogging full-time, I’ve barely read anything in print, and miss doing so sorely. I find lately, though, that if I actually take 15-30 minutes per day to read offline, not only does it relax me, but it doesn’t seriously affect my work time. Do this and you can even blog about the book.

9. Write fiction, lyrics or poetry.
   When I was a  paid technical writer, between programming gigs, I found it very hard to come home after work and write fiction. They involve two different mindsets, at least for me, and the activities couldn’t coexist on the same calendar day. But blogging is much more creative in nature, the way I do it, and can coexist with fiction writing. Try it. Start by creating a story premise, writing down a list of events in sequence (and which characters are involved) and see where your story goes from there.

10. Write something irrelevant but fun.
    Make up something to write. Or try Jason Rekulak’s The Writer’s Block (non-affil.), which is a small, cube-shaped book of writing inspiration. There’s also Naomi Epel’s The Observation Deck (non-affil.), which contains an instruction book and a packet of flash-style cards to help spark your creative juices. When I remember to use these, they’ve helped me considerably.

11. Write something important.
    Maybe you’ve never written your will. Or is there anything else important that you might write?

12. Write a list.
    Write it point form, without details, and see what develops over time. It might turn into listbait, once you beef it up with details and relevant hyperlinks. (A list is only a list. Turn it into a useful resource to become linkworthy.)

13. Write your future bio and/or obituary.
    Imagine that if you were, say, a subject of A&E’s Biography show, what would people say about you? What do you want them to be saying? Write that down. Now go a step further. What do you want to be remembered for, when you leave this mortal coil? Write that down.

14. Write summaries of other bloggers’ posts.
    When I can’t decide some days what to blog about, I start by reading a batch of posts by other bloggers, then writing a few sentences of summary for each post. A topic may catch my interest, and a post will form on its own out of one or more summaries.

15. Laugh.
    Laughing relieves stress and tension, and brings down inhibitions. It’s long been touted as a curative for many reasons. Laugh heartily and you’ll see why. I make it a habit to watch at least an hour of comedy every day.

What works for you, when you’re suffering from writer’s block?