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Learning The Hard Way

Over the past few days, I’ve been busy Googling away, trying to figure out all of the various methods of migrating content from a Drupal installation into WordPress. The results are few and far between. I did find a MySQL script here and there to migrate bits and pieces of one version of Drupal to one version of WordPress but there are no tools available to make the process simple, manageable, or effective on the first try. I’ve looked all over the modules section of the Drupal website, along with the forums for help but I have come up empty. Drupal does not contain any way to export your data which makes me wonder why they prefer to have people locked into their open source software. When I say locked in, in this case I mean, not easily being able to leave their platform. This isn’t so much of a problem with WordPress.

Let me give you the summary of the problem in which you as a blogger must think about before publishing that first post. Performancing has been running on Drupal since 2005. This site contains thousands of registered users, thousands of comments, thousands of posts ect. At it’s current stage, Drupal no longer satisfies the needs of the site and the purpose along with the direction of the site has changed. Because of the enormous backlog of content, we have been facing a critical decision. Do we stay with Drupal, upgrade the software, redesign it and deal with it? Or, do we pay a freelancer or an established company to migrate the important data off of Drupal and into WordPress. This is a task which is by no means cheap. (I’ve come up with yet another idea but a little more research is warranted before I can claim that it’s doable.)

To bring things back full circle. If you are a beginning blogger, make sure that you plan ahead a year or so with whatever platform you decide to use. Before using that publishing system, check to see how portable your data is. Will you be able to easily take your data out of the publishing system and transfer it somewhere else? Check around on forums as well as the web to see how people have faired in transferring content from one platform to the one you are interested in using. Check to see if plugins, tools, or scripts are available to make the process easier. If none of these options are present, I highly suggest not using that software no matter how great it is. You don’t want to end up in a position where you are stuck, indefinitely with a publishing system.

Those of you who are established bloggers, (The ones who have been around the block a few times) have you come across these same crossroads? Perhaps you found yourself in a similar situation. If so, I’d love to hear your experience in how you solved the problem. Some bloggers start from scratch while others simply deal with the issues at hand until they have no choice but to do something about it.

Ever hear that saying, “The choices you make today help shape your tomorrow”. This rings true, even in the world of blogging.

Building RSS Group Writing Project

GroupWritingProjects.com is now holding their Building RSS Group Writing Project/Contest. The contest started on July 1st and ends on July 13th which doesn’t leave much time for you to get your entry in. The list of prizes looks pretty impressive with the chance of winning a 30 minute subscriber consultation with none other than Liz Strauss and a 30 minute design consultation with David Airey.

The goal of the contest is to create an awesome guide on how to grow subscriber numbers. They are aiming for the guide to be so good, every blogger will want to link to it or save it as a reference. Be sure to check out the site for more details.

Thanks to Perfomancing user jshare for pointing this out in the public forums.

Proof That You Don’t Have to Write on a Daily Basis to Be a Success

Think Simple Now—Tina Sue really has perfected the art of infrequent and successful blogging. Previously, she used to write around two articles per week, but now she writes around a single article per week. However, all of her content is absolutely phenomenal. It is very well written and presented. She also has a great blog design that I can see is effective at giving her traffic things to do on her site other than simply leaving after they are done reading an article. The fascinating thing is that I am interested in very little of what she writes about, but it so written beautifully that I just have to read more. If that isn’t a sign of amazing writing, I don’t know what is.

DoshDosh—Maki published around six blog posts per month. The DoshDosh blog features a truly unique style by associating anime characters with posts, and, ironically enough, it turns out to be a truly unique experience. As I’ve said before, it is up to you to find your unique style, and DoshDosh is a pure example of this. The content is also very well written. Again, I must emphasize that the posting frequency is low, but the content is great.

Self Made Chick—Christine OKelly has a wonderful assortment of in-depth blog posts about making money, working from home, and improving your life. The one thing that is consistent on her blog is the fact that all of the content is in-depth and detailed. Her posting frequency is very low for today’s standard, but it also proves that you don’t need to post on a daily basis to be a successful blogger. Christine also makes great use of pull-quotes, images, and lists throughout her content.

From Ordinary to Extraordinary

Ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things and experiencing success are those who take the time to create great content. There are many similarities with these blogs, but the one that stands out most is that the content is superb. This echos what I have been stating on Performancing that the quality, not quantity, has taken the leading role in promoting a blogger’s success.

What I am saying is to consider forgetting about posting frequency if it is going to prevent you from creating the highest quality content you can publish. After all, New York Times best sellers take months, even years to develop into what they become; why should this be any different with individual blog content?

Take as long as you need to write truly unique and quality content. Take that extra time to properly present content like Christine OKelly and Tina Sue now does. People come to your site for the words, and you have to be on your ‘A’ game to get there. However, adding those extra touches to emphasize your content is also an amazing skill all great bloggers should have.

From personal blogging experience, I have taken on these very same concepts with my personal blog. It is working just as I expected. Even more amazing is the fact that I don’t feel pressured to get something done and cut corners; I just write great quality content.

The previously mentioned blogs have reassured me that this is the future of success. Chances are just as high that it will work for you. If you blog on a daily basis, why not consider slowing down to every other day if you believe you could create content that is much better?

Think about it! Let me know what your feelings are on this subject in the comments below. Point out any other blogs that post relatively infrequent but create superb content. I’m interested in finding these types of authors.

Greetings To Those of You Visiting From TWiT

TWiT

I had the pleasure of interacting with my favorite tech journalist who has inspired me to get into the career of writing in the first place—Leo Laporte. Leo currently dedicates a majority of his time running his TWiT Live network, and he streams live video over 25 hours week.

Leo is well known for being one of the pioneers in popularizing podcasting, and he also spent years making technology a fun and unique learning experience.

For well over 7 years I have watched Leo Laporte from TechTV’s The Screen Savers and Call for Help, and I am glad that he managed to make a comeback after the downfall of TechTV. It appears that his netcast and live streaming networks are very healthy and constantly growing.

I had the opportunity to talk to Leo Laporte for around 10 – 15 minutes yesterday while he was—and still is—doing his live coverage of the iPhone release. I also almost won an iPhone!

Good luck to you Leo on your 24 Hours of iPhone coverage. Unfortunately, even I will not be able to remain up for the full 24 hours, but I hope you are able to last.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, and thanks for the mention of Performancing and OnlyJames. Never has it been so much of a pleasure to have my site brought down within a few seconds.

To all of you who have visited and subscribed to Performancing from the TWiT Army, I welcome you.

Is It Possible To Disable FeedBurner

I’ve spent the past few hours playing around with trying to export Drupal posts through XML or RSS into WordPress. However, I’ve run into a problem where I can only import posts from Performancing through the Feedburner XML file. This results in posts successfully being imported into WordPress with all of the FeedFlare options. Not only that, the links within the posts (when linked to older posts on the same blog) show up as FeedBurner URLs. So, I’ve spent some time trying my best to figure out of you can disable the FeedBurner redirect so that I can get access to the raw XML file being produced by Performancing but for the life of me, I can’t find one.

You simply can’t turn FeedBurner off. Sure, we could delete the feed from FB but then we risk losing all of the RSS stats and if we create a new feed, we would have to redirect readers to the new Feed address. What an unnecessary pain in the rear.

Knowing that many readers of Performancing use FeedBurner on a daily basis, have you noticed anyway to temporarily disable the redirection service? If not, does this mean that those who have used FeedBurner for an extended amount of time are locked into the service when a need for access to the raw XML file is needed?

Direct Ad Sales from Performancing

Performancing has spent the first half of 2008 building strong relationships with advertisers across a variety of niches. We are now in a position to offer certain blogs and other websites direct ad sales representation.

Requirements

  • Topics: Tech, Entertainment, Auto, Business/Finance, Sports
  • Traffic: Minimum of 100,000 pageviews per month

What we offer

  • We go direct to the advertiser and you get more money
  • High quality, big brand advertisers
  • We optimize the ads you run to get you more money from your traffic
  • Non-exclusive: you are free to run ads from any network you’d like

Interested?

If you have a website that meets the requirements listed above and are interested in having Performancing sell ads for your site, please contact Ryan Caldwell to get the ball rolling – [email protected]

Blog Networks: Great Work Opportunities or Worthless Scams?

Blog networks are a dime a dozen these days. From job boards to Facebook advertisements, there seems to be hundreds of these blogger networks willing to pay you handsomely for your content. That is great and all, but are they really worth the time and energy or are they just scams?

Well, some of these sites put on a great first impression. They look like great places to work. Sleek designs, flashy graphics, and text from other members contributing. They are all getting paid for their hard work, right?

Many of these sites state that “you will be paid for your content” and similar. However, there are catches: for one, there is no guarantee they will actually feature your work, and I’ve seen sites that claim the rights to your content even if they don’t feature it (they essentially get your content for free without pay); next, these sites usually determine how much you will be paid on an article by article basis, and this just doesn’t seem right as the writer should set the rate; finally, many of these sites don’t have a chance of making it to the big time and won’t promote your brand in the process.

My Thoughts

I would say that if you were going to join a blog network, regardless of which one it was, make sure they are legitimate. Scour their website to ensure great content is on that site. If possible, email the authors of some of the content and ask how they are compensated.

Ask this network if they will pay you how much you are asking for instead of the other way around. Determine how the bonuses are calculated. Finally, ask what you will be paid, how you will be paid, and when you will be paid.

Determine who owns the content. Find out what will happen to an article you submit that isn’t featured. Ask who is liable for the content. Ask if you are notified if your content is edited, and determine what will happen to that content if you decide to leave the blog network.

Also, don’t work somewhere where you won’t be paid for your hard work. You know how much you and your content is worth. If you are only going to make a few bucks after months of work at a site where your content will not be exposed to many people, just move on.

Finally, don’t forget to read the fine print. There is usually a catch, and it is your responsibility to read everything before you agree to the terms.

In my opinion, it all ends up being a big waste of time. There are plenty of other paying opportunities around, and wasting your time working for a site that has that attempts to nickel and dime you is not the way to do things.

Keep your eyes on the Performancing Job Boards.

Have a better experience with one of these types of blog networks? How about a legitimate blog network? Let us know!

[Update: I want to make it clear that I did not intend to generalize all blog networks with my previous statements. I am not talking about respectable blogging networks like Splashpress Media, b5media, Gawker, and the like. I’m talking about those types of networks you would, for example, read about in a Craigslist advertisements: “You could earn hundreds of dollars from working at home!!!” Blog networks whose name would resemble something like “Blog4MoneyNow.com”. Hopefully this clears up any confusion.]