Just Trying To Keep Up

Keeping up is hard.

I'm trying to keep up with a more than hectic work schedule which includes travel, meetings, calls and the hardest part... dodging bullets.

I'm about to move which comes with an entirely new set of challenges. I've been in my current place for over 3 years - the longest I've lived in one place. Ever. Now I'm off to Bushwick from Bay Ridge to live with Rachel. You can buy us a housewarming gift here.

And then, of course, there's the social graph that we all love to hate and hate to love. RSS feeds. Twitter. Status updates. Startups launching, funding and failing. And this blog. That's the most difficult, because I actually do care and now I realize that I need to prioritize what this is all about.

I won't even get into trying to keep up with friends and family.

But, it's nothing new, right? We all face the same challenges every day. I'm just now learning that I can be happy and not have to do it all. It's about balance and I'm slowly getting there.

Quoted on RWW

I was quoted on ReadWriteWeb. Just noticed it.

I've already asked this question on Twitter itself and am getting some great responses (my Twitter id is rww). Several people have suggested that their family members may use a Twitter-like messaging system embedded in a social network. On this point, Andrew Baisley noted that "the barrier to entry must be much lower". However, said Andrew, if family members "could update Twitter from their Facebook status" then yes it might be used.

Click here for the full post.

Getting Down to Business

My friend Patrick wrote up a funny little post about an IM conversation we had yesterday. Besides the fact that he is getting damn old (he's not really, mind you), I found the whole discovery process interesting:

First, some background, Patrick and I worked together at WPTV around 2001-2002. He had a brief stint in New York where we would hang from time to time, but since then, we largely keep in touch via the intertubes.

1. I IM him a link, followed by a quick conversation
2. I follow link, buy pants, twitter the link
3. This morning, check my twitter feeds, see that he's twittered about his blog post
4. I try to comment, but can't figure out how to log in to do so (we should discuss that offline, Patrick)
5. I try to trackback, but Blogger doesn't support that (boo!)
6. So, I write this blog post
7. Patrick will probably find out about it via this blog's RSS feed (but, I'm just guessing)

I have two thoughts about this. One, it's super cool that we're able to keep in touch in such dynamic and constantly evolving ways. Two, it's super annoying that there's no (perfected) central location to manage all of this.

I'm still figuring out how to deal with comments on this blog and am considering writing a post today replying to several questions asked in the comments of various posts. Of course, if I do that, and people comment, then I'll need to somehow reply to those... this could spiral out of control! I'm not convinced at all that posting a comment on the same, old post is the best way to reply to a specific comment. The person likely has no idea that I responded and readers are missing out on what could be interesting and useful dialog.

Ah, I suppose I need to look for something a little more robust than Blogger.

Marketing to Bloggers

Editor's Note: get comfortable, this is a long one.

You have a product and it's aimed at the average blogger. How do you market it to bloggers? Your widget, your embeddable video player, your content management system; they're all aimed at bloggers. So, how do you reach them? How do you let them know about your product?

It's not easy. I've noticed that we're a fickle bunch. This is a fairly young blog, only about 2 months old, but I've been creating personal websites for about 10 years (they weren't called blogs back then). I've noticed that we tend to gravitate towards a close bunch of friends. And, I suppose that's why this is worth my time and yours.

So, the questions is, how do you market to bloggers? I'm not entirely sure. I'm not a marketing genius, but I what I can do is tell you what I read, where I go and what is important to me in this space. When it comes to my blog, which often includes my professional live, and sometimes my personal life, this is what matters to me. This is where you can reach me:

• Meetups:
• NY Tech Meetup
• NY Video 2.0
• NY P2P 2.0 Meetup Group
• New York Online Advertising and Marketing Group
• New York Web 2.0 Social Networking Tech Meetup
• The Advertising Club of New York Meetup
• The Bay Ridge Friends Meetup Group

Notice a pattern? I care about New York. I live / love / breathe / dream / commute / work / love / love New York. If you want to market to me, market to the New York startup community.

• RSS Feeds:
• Mashable
• BuzzMachine
• Read/Write Web
• Signal v. Noise
• Online Video Watch
• NewTeeVee
  
• Beet.TV
• FASTForward Blog
• The Business of Online Video
• Mapping the Web
• This is Going to Be BIG
  
• Joel on Software
• Digg - Top Stories
• Engadget
• MacOSXHints
• ProBlogger
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog
• WCBS
• Andrej Gregov's Weblog
• evhead
• Paize Digital Design Journal
• Rahoi
• PaidContent
• A VC
• VentureBeat
• VC Ratings
• Susan Wu
• Genuine VC
• Silicon Alley Insider
• Alley Insider Twitters
• Feld Thoughts
• Mark Pincus
• Napsterization
• The Gong Show
  
• Brightcove
• Deitte
• ROO Blog
• Chartreuse
• Copyranter
• Outside.in 11209
• TNM Video News
• VideoCafe Blog
• Facebook Friend's Status

Whew! That's a lot. I read those every single day. Most are what you would call work related, but I really love this stuff. If you want to reach me, reach these guys.

• E-mails / Newsletters:
• Cynopsis Digital
• Cynopsis International
• Cynopsis
• MediaPost's Section One, Media Daily News
• MediaPost's Section One, Online Media Daily
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Two, Around the Net in Online Marketing
  
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Two, Around the Net in Media
  
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Three, People on the Move
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Three, Accounts on the Move
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Three, Media Classifieds
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Three, Letters to the Editor
• MediaPost's Online Media Daily, Section Three, Media Events Calendar
  
• MediaPost's Just an Online Minute...
• MediaPost's Online SPIN
• MediaPost's Video Insider
• MediaPost's Behavioral Insider
  
• Center for Media Research, Research Brief
• Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog
• Bulldog Reporter's Winning PR Campaigns
• Bulldog Reporter's PR Jobmart
  
• AdAge Daily News
• AdAge MediaWorks
• AdAge Digital
• TVNEWSDAY
• The Bowery Presents
• NY Chapter PRSA, Notice of Upcoming Events
• Sunbelt Software's WXP News
  
• Pacha NYC
• Creativity Online
  
• SPJ PressNotes
• Adrants Daily
• Lijit Weekly Stats
  
• American Express Rewards Watch
  
• eMarketer Daily
• MediaBistro Daily Media News Feed
• Apple Newsletter
• ROO News
  

Obviously MediaPost sends way too many e-mails and no, I don't read all of these word for word, but I do look at them. The Daily Dog makes the best use of advertising space. If you stopped me on the street I could probably name the companies listed across the top from memory.

I always read Adrants Daily all the way through. The writing is good, the commentary is funny and I look forward to it each day. I also usually read MediaBistro's Daily Media News Feed. It's a great recap of media related news in a nice layout that looks great on my iPhone.

So, the point of all this is two fold. First to give my readers some insight into where I get my news and entertainment, but more importantly, to illustrate that there is no central place to market to bloggers. We are part of a community and that community directly reflects the things we're interested in. If you want to reach us you have to go super-local. You have to take the time to find out where we are and become part of our community.

Morning Notes

I ran across a few cool things this morning that I wanted to share.

Outside.in provides super-local aggregation. I've always wanted to find a source of news for my little corner of Brooklyn, but I didn't want to read everything, everyday on blogs like Gothamist. Using Outside.in I can enter my zip code and get a news feed pertaining only to items in Bay Ridge. Even better, I can subscribe to an RSS feed. Super cool - I love it.

Blogger Play is a Google service which is, simply, a photo stream of pictures people are uploading to their Blogger blog. It's a time-suck, but you see some interesting photos you wouldn't have otherwise. Plus, if you see something you like just click on it and it takes you to the original post.

The Clog

AdAge publisher Scott Donaton posted on his blog today, When Trains Fly, the concept of The Clog. The Clog stands for The Column Blog (which I suppose would further translate to The Column Web Log). Basically, Scott is bucking the argument that bloggers must constantly post, at least once a day, to keep readers. He argues that this leads to posts of, let's say, lower quality.

Scott's plan is to combine the idea of a magazine column with a blog. I think he came up with a great name; it's funny because, really, the aim is to unclog the blog. However, I don't think this is anything new. While it's true that the most successful blogs (Engadget, Mashable) have heavy post volume, others, like AdAge, use the blog platform as a publishing technology, but aren't really blogging in the traditional sense.

My point is, just because you're using a blog platform to facilitate posting, doesn't automatically mean that you have to be a blog or conform to the "blogger's code."

Blogger Doesn't Support Trackback

This site is being powered by Blogger (a Google product) and I noticed today that Blogger doesn't support trackbacks. Trackbacks, if you don't know, are an innovative way to link to posts on other blogs. Say, for example, you read a blog post somewhere that sparked an idea that you would like to write about. Instead of posting a long comment on the original blog you post on your own blog, use the trackback link and a link to your post automatically appears on the original blog.

The benefits are obvious: networking and blog growth, driving traffic, raising content value for both sites, etc. Blogger has a trackback-like feature called Backlinks, but this is specific to Blogger, so I can't 'backlink' or 'trackback' to blogs outside the Blogger network.

Why can't I use trackbacks? Seems silly to me, Google.