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Drupal Module for Performancing Metrics

Dave Reids PMetrics WordPress Plugin has been very well received but what about users of other blogging systems? Well Drupal is the particular favourite of the Performancing team so I have put together a module for Drupal.

I would love for you to try this module out, have a look at the code and give me some really good feedback.

Features:

  • Automatic Metrics script inclusion
  • Exclude hits from a specified user role
  • Show charts and/or text stats in a “block”
  • Choose the blog to show stats for
  • Select the chart you wish to display

Due to the change in the way forms work between Drupal 4.6 and 4.7 there are two versions of the code unfortunately. Just download the  appropriate zip for your version and extract and upload to your modules directory.

After enabling the module in your “modules” control panel you should see a new “block” plus “Metrics” under “settings”. You will need to enter your Performancing username and password in the settings, after submitting your user details the remaining settings will appear to allow you to select your blog and display choices.

Typepad Hacks: Typepad Introduce CAPTCHA’s

Well, heck. Here I spent the week working on anti-spam hacks only to find that today TypePad added the ability to require CAPTCHAs for unauthenticated commenters. From Everything TypePad:

You can now require unauthenticated commenters (who don’t sign in through TypeKey) to pass a CAPTCHA test
before their comment is posted to your blog. The CAPTCHA (a
""completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans
apart") will help prevent automated robots from posting comment spam to
your blog.

You might want to read the original post to see the five new bug fixes that were announced today also.

To enable CAPTCHAs:

  1. Go to the Configure tab for the blog you want to change
  2. Click on preferences in the sub-menu
  3. Scroll down to Comment and TrackBack Preferences
  4. Check the box that says "Require unauthenticated commenters to validate with a CAPTCHA."
  5. Don’t forget to save changes at the bottom of the page and republish your blog.

This is a good step forward, though I don’t feel that CAPTCHAs are the best strategy long-term for eradicating comment spam. Personally, I hate having to fill in CAPTCHA fields because they
are often hard to read. So far, I’ve always managed to get the
word right the first time with TypePad’s CAPTCHAs, so I’m gonna call
this a very good thing.

What I’d really love to be able to do is prohibit specific URLS from being used in comments or trackbacks— it’s easy to fake a name, it’s simple enough to use dynamic IPs,but since the URL is the only reason spammers hit blogs, blocking the links would just ruin the game for them. Also, names and IPs can be generated for free. Blocking URLs would require spam commenters to register massive numbers of domain, making spam less profitable.

Meanwhile, I’m still working on an advanced template hack that will turn off trackbacks site-wide. It’s proving to be a bit more difficult than expected, but should be ready soon.

Is Blogging “Technical”?

It’s no secret that I am a geek. Guilty as charged, I have been since I was about age 9 so it is a bit late to start denying it. Because of this aspect (flaw?) of my character I seldom notice when things are “techy”. I take for granted things that I know others find tricky. Setting the timer on a VCR for example. Knowing this I ought not be surprised but I was shocked today to hear someone tell me that blogging is “techy”. Is it really?

Now don’t get me wrong, I know there are some things that hold back a great deal of people from getting into blogging. There is a base level of “web skills” that need to be mastered first for a start. There are conceptual things like “logging in”, “posts”, “links”, “comments”. Of course this all has to be understood and to learn it you either need a VERY friendly and helpful blog system or a friendly blogger.

But is it harder than, say, signing up for and using a hotmail account? If it is, it shouldn’t be.

Back in the day, yes it was too hard for absolutely everyone but the most determined or techy to blog. You had to know HTML and FTP, needed to negotiate the minefield of web hosting, perhaps know a bit of scripting if you wanted to be really fancy. With Frontpage and Dreamweaver, and the first content management tools more people were able to join the club. It was only really Blogger and most recently WordPress.com though that really made it accessible to most.

I usually benchmark these things using my Mum and Dad. My Dad managed to blog for a while before he ran out of steam with it. My parents do pretty well with their computer, they email, use office, MSN chat, scan, make greetings cards, that kind of thing. Surely blogging is no more difficult than those things?

This is an important question for those of us who want to make money out of blogs. Judging the correct time when blogging has reached the tipping point could be a big difference in when to invest and how much we earn.

So tell me, is blogging still “techy” or is it something everybody can do now? Is blogging ready for the masses or is it still in the nerd-zone? Is blogging “techy”?

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Sifry: ‘Sphere 60x Larger than 3yrs Ago

That’s great, but being the miserable party pooper that I am, i need to point out that the figures on Dave Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere post just aren’t reliable, as the amount of spam in the ‘sphere doesn’t appear to be accounted for, and Technorati certainly dont’ seem to be able to spot it.

Not Judging by the state of my rss subscriptions to Technorati results anyway.

Still, I DO like these things he puts out every quarter.

One thing that I wonder about every time i see these types of things is when will we finally stop gazing at our blogging navals in awe? I mean, really, the ‘sphere is growing, bloggers are human, people are arseholes, bloggers are saints… it goes on.

For a classic example see the headline over that BH this morning: Blogger arrested for Murder in Oklahoma – Heaven spare us all…

Typepad Hacks: Compose Post & Typelist Hacks

Hack One: Using the Compose Post tab to copy styles

One of the things I love most about TypePad’s compose window is the ability to cut and paste text or images from other sites and maintain the formatting. The most useful aspect of this is that it often allows me to figure out how something is formatted without having to scroll endlessly through the source code for a page. It’s also a time saver… Say I want to center an image— there’s no easy way to do that without using CSS code in the edit HTML tab. Not a big deal, but I use TypePad largely so I can avoid writing HTML. So if I cut and paste a centered image from an earlier post into the compose window, then I can just replace the copied image with the new one I want and save the trouble.

I frequently use the compose window as a way to copy styles… I’ll paste into the "compose post" window, then copy the HTML from the "edit HTML" window when I want to easily use styles in another web document. It’s also a great way to format links without having to manually link to pages. Again, just a little bit of a time saver, but useful.

Hack Two: Adding new Typelists to Advanced Templates the easy way

Using the above trick, I discovered a neat little hack the other day, purely by accident. I was putting together a list of links for another site, and copied one of my typelists into the Compose Post window to save the trouble of formatting the links. I also copied the title of the Typelist… When I went into the Edit HTML tab, I discovered that the tag for Typelist titles is:

<h2 class="module-header">Participate</h2>

When you view it in the Compose Post window, it looks like this:

Participate

But when you use it in the body of a Typelist, it creates a heading that looks as though you’ve added a new Typelist.

Why is this a big deal? Well, one of the big complaints about Typelists is the difficulty of adding new Typelists to a blog that uses advanced templates. It’s easy to modify existing Typelists, but not always so easy to find the right file name to add a new one to your template. Now you don’t have to. I don’t know about you, but this is gonna make my life much easier!

Guy Kawasaki: It’s Hard to Make Money Blogging

First off, if you aren’t a regular reader of Guy Kawasaki, head on over. There’s a reason why he rose to stardom in his first few months of blogging.

Now, Guy is sort of an outside/n00b in terms of webmastering, and he brings a fresh perspective on issues we old hats have beaten to death since 2001.

His recent post The First 100 Days: Observations of a Nouveau Blogger, is a succinct but accurate collection of truisms. In particular:

10. It’s hard to make money blogging. The advertising revenues don’t add up to much, but there are other significant rewards like helping people change the world..

Amen to that. One of the major themes of Performancing is that of making money from blogging. But the truth is that the vast majority of people do not make much money from their blogs… and even if they do make a decent bit, if you amortize it over the hours they put, it’s still likely they’re effectively earning less than minimum wage while blogging. (There are exceptions of course, but they are outliers.)

I think all of us in this space are driven, in part at least, by something besides money. (Well, except for me and Rich.)

What motivates everyone to blog? Are you mostly in it for the money (or something that could bring money, like if your blog gives you exposure that leads to a job offer)? Or do you do it for fun? A passion? A hobby? A part time job? A bit of all of the above?

(I’ll go first… I’m in it 90% for the money… 10% as a hobby…)

Pride, the 6th Deadly Sin of Blogging

Nick told me last night about a debate that is raging over a company displaying and critiquing customer support emails. I don’t want to stir things up any more than has already happened but suffice to say a lot of their customers feel they are being disrespected. I am 100% sure the company in question, darling of web2.0 that it is, will recover from this and be even stronger but it did get me thinking. My last “blogging sins” post, Sloth, the 7th Deadly Sin of Blogging wasn’t really meant to be a series but I think this leads me neatly into another blogging sin; pride.

When we begin to receive the first signs we are on the right track and a little of the rewards of success it can easy to start believing we have all the answers. After all, things are going so well we must have done the right things which means of course we are “good at this stuff”.

Problem is that might not be so near to the truth as we think. Yes we might have made some right moves but also there is a great deal of luck involved as much as preparation, skill and intelligence.

We are all learning about blogging, it doesn’t matter how long you have been at it we can all learn something new every day. In fact I have learned more about blogging from questions asked here on the forums and PM system than I knew before we started.

Is there a possibility the guys I mention above have bought into their own hype and believe they know better than their customers about what their customers need? Are they so confident of their own worth that they don’t need feedback?

It seems in my experience that the phrase “pride comes before a fall” usually is very true. The best bloggers seem to retain a level of humility. Companies and bloggers who get more arrogant the more successful they become are usually due a kicking and inevitably get knocked down off their pedistals.

OK, I might be mixing up my definitions here, let’s dig out the dictionary:

“A desire to be more important or attractive to others“

I think most bloggers can recognise that. One motivation for blogging is to have our voices heard. While it’s important to serve your audience it is a temptation to make it all about the popularity contest and less about putting out good content.

There is a difference between aiming to please and playing to the crowd but it is not always easy to see where that line is. How do you avoid this? I guess deciding your own opinions, sticking to your guns, knowing when to change your mind or apologise? Be true to yourself? And don’t chase the approval of the A-List.

“failing to give credit due others“

We have all seen this one play out over and over. You see another blogger quote your content with no attribution or wholesale copy your work. Another is where you just know someone got their story from your blog but you don’t get a link or when someone thanks someone else for your story. Not much you can do about it as the victim but we can all make sure we link accurately and generously. Another reason to not use no-follow too.

“Vanity and narcissism“

Not much to say about this that hasn’t already been discussed here, hah.

“love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbor“

Perhaps this is a cause of all the back biting and sniping going on. When some people see others doing well they want to pull them down to elevate their own standing? The best way we can counteract this is by applauding good work by others and helping others get more visible. We do this in a small way by promoting good posts to our homepage for example.  Another thing that we can do is to stand up to bullies when we spot them.

“a prideful person believes him/herself to be in complete control of things“

I think this is where the company mentioned in the intro are at. They look at their sales figures and feel vindicated in everything they do without realising there are such things as “reputation equity” and “lifetime value”. Sometimes the publicity from a negative story can give a short term lift but the long term damage to public opinion can ruin the company. There are many examples of companies who did well in their “honeymoon period” then suffered in the backlash.

Bloggers can often believe their “following” have inpenetrable loyalty but in fact human beings are fickle. Any one of us can find we have limits to our loyalty when we see someone do things we disagree with. The best bloggers listen to their feedback early and comprehensively so the damage is minimal and short term, the most prideful end up falling on their swords.

So what to do?

I know we at Performancing, while often giving out advice, never feel like we have all the answers as we are constantly being shown that we don’t. You guys do not let us get too full of ourselves, hah. That has got to be the answer, listen to those around you who keep you grounded and be careful if you seem to have a cheering squad. It’s nice to constantly receive congratulatory feedback but it’s also essential to have balance, to know where you are going wrong. If you are not hearing it perhaps ask for it? If you think you have all the answers perhaps you are asking the wrong questions?

Being Three-Dimensional

In Nicks The 80/20 Rule of Focus post he recommends against too many off topic posts

bloggers start off very focused on their core topic. But as they run dry of things to say, usually at around the same time that their subscriber base starts to really get into interesting figures, they start to wander wildly off-topic.

I want to talk about the other side of the coin, the problem where all your posts stick too rigidly to the main topic. Contradictory? Not really.

While I quite agree that we should stick to the theme most of the time, as in Nicks post where he suggests it is ok for one out of five posts to stray off topic I would suggest every now and then you talk about something other than your main subject. My preference would be something that provides some insight into you.

This thought came this morning as I was catching up on my news feeds. When I am away I do not read the majority of my feeds, I have a dislike of web based news readers plus if I am away it is for a reason and that reason is very unlikely to include reading blogs. When I got back from this trip I have been programming a couple of small things for Performancing (one of which will be revealed soon). Subsequently I had a couple of weeks backlog waiting for me this morning.

When you read a lot of blog posts all at once you start seeing patterns. It has been a source of a couple of my posts in the past. The pattern I saw this morning made me realise something I knew before but it really hit home. My favourite bloggers and blogs tend to be the ones where the blogger makes an effort to be three-dimensional.

What do I mean by that?

Well I don’t mean that all they post about is themselves. Although having said that one of my favourite bloggers perhaps over-shares (even down to posting pictures of her new hairstyles, complete with Flickr gallery of same). I mean colouring in the lines so the blogger comes across as human. Small details, back story, likes and dislikes. Stuff that is happening to them.

It is not necessary to devote entire posts to personal updates, in fact I think it works best when this stuff is dropped in as support for an idea.

As an example, if you are a gadget blogger you might talk about not just the gadget you are reviewing or previewing but about what you might use it for, what context in your life might it be just the thing you need. It doesn’t need to be over personal either. One of my blogs is on Photography so when we are planning to go away we talk about what we are buying in preparation and when we are on trips we tend to post about how our equipment performed on location.

It’s easy to forget that bloggers and blog readers are first and foremost people. Blogs are about people communicating, some times we focus too much on the communication aspect and forget the people aspect.

There is a delicate balance to strike between showing that you are a real person and opening up too much. I would not recommend providing too many details about where you live, your spouse, children and your movements for example, that opens you up to dangerous situations with strangers appearing on your doorstep like happened to Darren. Also do not turn your blog into a journal if it is not meant to be, people subscribe for the content they expect not pictures of your cat.

I think though if you do manage to share just a little bit of a picture of who you are your readers will feel closer to you, will be more likely to take on board what you say and be more inclined to return for more.