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Ok so Im hooked on Google Reader

A couple of days ago I asked “why do you use Google Reader”, I’ve been hearing that it’s improved for a long time now, and we get many referals from it here. After getting some damn good reasons for using it in that thread, i turned off Liferea, my Ubuntu/Gnome reader of chioce and decided to climb the learning curve of GReader.

Im very, very glad I did. Thankyou to all who helped get me on track in that thread.

Google Reader is without doubt, the fastest, most useful hosted RSS reader for the professional blogger in existence. It makes Bloglines look rather kludgy and dated.

If you’ve not tried it recently, i highly recommend you do so!

3 Reasons Why Snap Preview is Ruining Your Blog, and Hurting Your Readership

Welcome Digg readers, you can grab this sites RSS Feed here.

Snap’s preview anywhere gizmo is ruining the reading experience for millions of people. Its intrusive, obstructive and unuseful in almost every respect and use case. The fact that so many big blogs are using it, big well respected blogs, does not mean that it’s useful, it just means that they, like most bloggers, have all the self restraint of a magpie in a sparkly things factory.

That’s not to say im any better, but it is true. As a group , most bloggers are only a small step away from the flashing, rotating logos of 1997 or the neon pink backgrounds and blaring teen pop auto play bollocks of your average 17yr old MySpace user — and I include myself, though i dont use SPA, im as guilty as the next blogger of “bling envy”.

Let me point out a few truths about Snap Preview Anywhere, in the vain hope that this misguided ‘helper application’ will die a quick death as we all start to see the sense of a usable website as opposed to a trinket magnet for the design challenged.

read on…..

  1. Accidental triggers: When scrolling, or just moving from one element (maybe a link, maybe a photo etc) to another, the unintentional triggering of the SPA popup is distracting, at best. It draws the eye away from the task at hand, and causes annoyance, and loss of concentration — if you’re actually selling anything, pay close attention to this point!
  2. Click stalling: Quite often, when trying to click a link that features the Snap abomination, I have to click several times to get the damn thing to work. This is too much effort. If your site is that hard to use, you can bet I wont be back, and neither will others.
  3. I trust you: No, really I do! Im at your blog, despite like everyone else being really busy, im at your blog! I just want to follow the fucking link ok? Dont crowd me like some over-eager second hand car salesman trying to sell me a dodgy link, just let me see that its a link, read the anchor text and decide if I want to click it. I dont care what the bloody site looks like, if you’re linking to it, that’s good enough for me — really, get out of my face.

Wow, glad I got that off my chest. I’ve had this post in mind for a few weeks but Duncan reminded me, and finally pushed me in the comments of another post.

All joking aside, SPA is not helpful, it’s not cool, and it’s not winning you readers — It’s bling, a silly little shiney thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com — no bad thng, and certainly an shining example of how to use widgets to gain links and attention, but, come on ladies and gentleman, show a little self restraint, show a little consideration for your users.

Complaints, abuse and protestations of innocence, ignorance or terminal stupidity to my inbox or the comments below 🙂

Oh God No… More Blog Bling from Yahoo!

Barry points out that Yahoo! are dishing out link trinkets for those who just can’t keep the bling off their pages. You can see ours below:


Links to Site

Apparently, if you put this on your pages, wish really hard, and click your heels together three times, you'll be a popular blogger...

Heaven spare us.

MyBlogLog getting Spammed? No Shit Sherlock…

Why it surprises Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny that an exploit in newly acquired MyBlogLog is already being exploited by marketers and seo’s is beyond me. The fact that Andy Beal and quite a number of other folks are using MBL to spam blogging communities is just the inevitable consequence of the service going mainstream. Opportunities are exploited, fact of life.

Jeremy, hitting Andy’s reputation will sort him out for sure, but you can’t do it to everyone — time to start plugging holes in the MBL system wouldn’t you say?

Why do you use Google Reader?

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?

How To Blog Like Om Malik

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):

  1. Know your topic, be your topic. Read. A lot. Know as much as you can about the topic you’re blogging about. Go to conferences, if you can. Read books and magazines – remember them?
  2. Present different viewpoints. Despite my own blunders, blogging isn’t about just presenting your opinion (well, it can be, but only rare bloggers can pull it off). The thing about Om’s summaries that probably wow a lot of readers is that he goes and reads several other blogs writing about a particular topic, event, product, service, company or person and references a bunch of them in the body of his post. He doesn’t just take a single source and rewrite it in his own words. This is the type of summary that gets people to come back, and probably gets those referenced linking back.
  3. Develop cross-discipline. Your blog might be about a niche topic, but that doesn’t mean you cannot ever write about anything else, provided it’s relevant. For example, I write about VoIP for several people but they give me free reign to work in IPTV (Internet TV) and stuff about cell phones because it’s all related. Breadth of topic gives depth. This also draws people interested in related topics to your blog, through the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Of course, to actually power blog, you need good tools. Here are a few:

  1. A good web browser. I’m emphasizing the word “good”. Honestly, if you want to power/ pro blog, you need Firefox, plain and simple. The plugins that are available for it are amazing, and they make you an efficient blogger.
  2. A good blogging editor. You can use a text editor (and I do), but a good blogging editor lets you see what your post will look like. I’m partial to PFF (Performancing for Firefox), now called Scribefire, because it sits in your Firefox browser window as either a bottom pane, a browser tab, or even a separate window. Scribefire makes you an efficient blogger. I’ve also used and enjoyed Zoundry Blog Writer and Qumana Blog Editor.
  3. Feed subscriptions. In fact, use a good web feed reader (I like Bloglines and Newsgator Online edition) and subscribe to as many relevant weblogs as possible.
  4. Mind mapping. This is as much a methodology as a tool. I’m working on an intro mind mapping post for Performancing, but if you want to get started, get the free Freemind software. I’m also acid testing MindApp and MindJet MindManager and loving both. Mind mapping methodology is great for power blogging because it lets you map out your thoughts, organize them, and cross-breed stories ideas. It helps your mind build connections between seeimingly disparate ideas. It generates inspiration. (Now that I’m using mind mapping again daily, I’m finding an explosion of story ideas, though not necessarily time to write them.)
  5. Ability to write. Oh know he didn’t! Yes. Let’s face it, if you can’t write, how do you become a power blogger? But good news: you can develop your writing. I used to publish a monthly print mag in the mid 1990s, and several of “my” writers were top notch, but still more learned to become good writers. That means knowing what a run-on sentence gawd do they bug me, even though I’m guilty of writing them when I’m tired. [Anyone catch that?]

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. :]