HTTP 302

Let's stop kidding ourselves. The battle for control over conversations and the silo of discussions is done. Any blogger who believes that they can control the conversations and prevent discussions in far-flung social networks is deluding themselves. And yet, every few months, a new innovation, be it comments in Google Reader, or something like this, freaks the old guard out.

Jeff and Steven's comments are mirrored by Josh Schnell, who in a guest post for Tamar Weinberg on Techipedia cries out that Content Aggregators are Killing Content Creators.

Here's the reality: Conversations have moved to where the reader wa nts them to be - and the best content creators shouldn't care if they get to have conversations on their content in any of these networks. The best content creators and the best Web brands shouldn't care about what people may say on their SideWiki, any more than they should panic over reviews that happen on Amazon's Marketplace or in the iTunes store. People are entitled to their opinions and their commentary, and any further efforts to try and force people to have these conversations in a single place should be extinguished.

Strike one there for Louis Gray. Thing is, I read both Jeff Jarvis' blog and follow all the different online presences of Steven Hodson, and I appreciate both of their opinions and insights, usually. But this...

This reminds me of "old/big media" and their desperation caused by the online (r)evolution of their business.

Stop it. Just stop.

The era of "look at me, I have more comments per post than you do" (hence, *cough* more AdSense and/or referral money, right?) has turned into "look, I have more Twitter followers than you". And we all know how, when (puberty) and with what particular comparison this all started. So go brag about Twitter followers, and stop saying that comments are of any real use to anyone other than the blog's owner. Because they're not. I'm sorry that people may start building you statues anywhere else on the internet, but you'll just have to live with it. And I bet Mike Arrington will be happy to know he (or his team) won't have to delete all idiotic comments aimed at him anymore.

So just grow up.

Or perhaps, Jeff and Steven, you'd rather I invite you by when I'm discussing your thoughts with my friends, offline? Or should we just record the whole thing and post that as a comment on your blogs? Would that do? Is that "fair use"? Does it tingle your egos enough? Or will you call that copyright infringement, like some other individual would want you to?

The big buzzword for the past few years in the blogging kingdom has always been "conversation". See, this is not really a blog post, it's a conversation starter. Heck, let me even end it by making the entire final paragraph into a question! Because I care so much about you, the reader. So come, come to my blog and comment, since I value your insight so much... No, it's not about the pageview... Or the ads you may click on while you're there... No, no, my dear reader, it's all about you. It's not about me making a living out of this because, well, it's easy, oh no... One day, when you grow up, you'll be a blogger too. You can be just like me. It's all about you, see? Never about me.

I don't mind people making money. Hell, even with Google! What I do mind is hypocrisy. So stop it. And you'll still be here in 5 years. Otherwise... Goodbye... I'm sure you'll be laughed at in the future. So, in a way, you'll still be with us. I guess you can count that as a Win.

It's usually funny to see how people react to the world changing. In some cases, though, you just have to quote Bill Maher and say "but... you're smart! you're actually smart! why, then, why oh why??!".

I don’t know what your problems are, but look, I had 3 and I came through it. I believe my strength came from the fact that I never hid those disadvantages, on the contrary, I shouted on the roof whenever I could that I was lebanese and a pharmacist, I also emphasized on my gender more times than I could remember. By acknowledging them, I was able to build an identity that is even more unique and more unforgettable than many others. 10 days ago, during Nokia World 2009, it became clear to me that I was now picking up the fruits of this strategy: when you’re the only girl in a room of 15 male bloggers, the impact is much easier to make, on everyone.

I’ve been around long enough to see many blogs and writers rise incredibly fast, and fall even faster. Plus, we’re now at a time where it takes one original article, a Twitter identity and a couple or retweets to become known. The success is much more easy than it has ever been, but don’t fool yourself. There are a thousand others who also have an original article, a Twitter identity and some retweets You have to find in yourself the will to continue despite the tough times, as well as the originality to differentiate yourself form what the others have to offer.

Rita El Khoury shares her blogging story. A very interesting one.

Now I'm known for taking a rather more 'pessimistic', people would say, approach to handing over advice to would-be bloggers (not that I am one, let's get that straight). I'd say I'm a realist more than a pessimist, but anyway, Rita's take is much more optimistic than mine could ever be.

Which, I guess, is rather easy when you have succeeded. It's a great accomplishment that she describes, at least in my opinion, and I'm really happy to read what I know is a true blogging success story. And I do agree with the points she makes in the first paragraph of the excerpt above. Turn what you perceive are weaknesses into your strengths. And just keep going.

But, I have to add a couple of things. You have to be ready for the possibility of nothing good ever happening even if you keep going for years. My opinion now is that you shouldn't attempt writing if you don't enjoy writing in itself, and also the subject(s) you're focusing on. It also helps if you don't know what AdSense is. Or are able to make yourself forget.

Also, one original article and a couple of retweets... are absolutely nothing. Trust me. I know.

As for the thousands of people creating original content... I don't know where they are. I'd really like them to exist. But honestly what I see most in smaller blogs is just the constant strive to out-Engadget Engadget. And I'll say it again: drop it. It will never happen. Don't be 'them', be yourself. Whatever that means. I for one am sick of reading press releases in blogs. I subscribe to PR feeds for that, you know?

Congratulations, Rita, and keep up the good work!

I think the biggest part is nobody has a unique story and everyone is trying to be a “news” site. BORING.

I don’t sit and think about a blog post for hours.  When catch myself doing it I stop and I start writing or record myself on my iPhone using Voxie (dictation translation service).

If I have an opinion about a topic I write about it.

If I think someone is an asshole I write about it.

If I think some company sucks balls I write about it.

Other then Firefox’s spellchecker I don’t spell check my posts.

One of the biggest things is you have to be willing to stick your pecker out.  Quit being so scared.  Quit trying to be what you think people want you to be and be yourself.

Are people going to disagree with you?  Absolutely!

Are people going to make blog posts about how you don’t know what your talking about?  For sure!

But if you are willing to be yourself and show the world your a regular dumb ass like them, before you know it people will start to connect with you and subscribe to your blog.

I really could not agree more. In fact, I'm trying (sometimes it can be quite hard, believe me) to do all those things. I even wrote about this a while ago.

Being unique is what gets you noticed. Or so I think right now. Check back in a few months, and you might see a post over here saying how wrong I was to think this.

It's a great achievement if you can write in (a) neutral tone, a la old media (at least that's what they preach, ask David Pogue how much they apply that please), Mashable or (most of the time) TechCrunch. It's great that you can master this style. If you work for any of these publications.

If not, think about this for a minute. Why would I visit your blog if I see the same story, written in the same way, as on 'big' publications that I'm already subscribing to? And even if I somehow stumble across it, why would I subscribe? You're bringing nothing new to the party (greetings, Paul Carr, I love your sick joke of a blog title, because it's anything but true).

So be yourself. Other than that...

You're not going to be the next anything. Especially without proper funding. And even with funding, you might fail in becoming a better copy of a model than its inventor(s). There's a nice life lesson to be learned there.

You won't make money online blogging. You will only do this if your content is unique enough to be instantly differentiated in your readers' minds from anything else on the web. And even then, they might have heard of ad blockers. At which point, you can start whining on Twitter and FriendFeed about how these people steal your brain's valuable output. No, wait, you have to already be a web celeb to do that. My bad.

Anyway, even if you do start making money from ads, for a long while it will be a very tiny amount. You'd make a lot more if you worked for any of the 'big guys' in blogging. Or media, whatever.

So what's left? You either come up with something new enough, or you desperately hope you'll be hired at Engadget.

Or, people may start noticing you, as Jeremy Schoemaker described in his post linked above.

But you have to be very patient. Even this may never happen.

Reality sucks, I guess.

But as I've begun to (re-)dabble in punditry, I think it's telling that private conversations (and the occasional ranting blogger) direct so much vitriol at the people who lead much of the conversation in the world of technology. it would seem the more effective form of criticism is obvious, effective and relatively easy: Just do better yourself.

English isn't my first language, but I'm really not sure of the use of the word "pundits" here, in this case meaning the 'web celebs' we all know and love (?).

Leaving that aside, it's an interesting read, so to speak. And the excerpt above is his conclusion.

So. Here's my conclusion.

"Just do better yourself" is what caught my attention.
Do better at what? Report "news" better than Arrington, for instance? How? How many ways to re-write a press release can there possibly be? How many linkbaiting titles can one possibly come up with? And, in this example, isn't Mashable already doing, well... the same thing?

The general news bits on such blogs - there are thousands of people who can write at the same quality level. At least thousands.

As for the scoops - no one outside the rather limited Silicon Valley tech circle will ever get access to these before they do.

So, wrapping up this example, on one hand, there is no 'better' (for news), on the other hand no one else can be 'better'.

Now. If by "better" Anil meant content of higher quality, which in my view is based on more context... well then, fine.

I'll do it. I'll do better myself.

And you, Anil, shall give me the pageviews. Deal?

now the company's tackling another need by offering rudimentary banking and money transfer services by way of the handset. Noting that of the four billion cellphones in the world there are only 1.6 billion bank accounts, Nokia's so-called Nokia Money service will bring electronic money management to some areas of the world for the first time -- a customer need only know the phone number of the intended recipient to send a payment.

Rudimentary.

I would not have written this (go ahead, say I shouldn't have anyway) had it not been for this word.

Rudimentary.

How exactly is being able to transfer money only needing the recipient's phone number rudimentary?

The whole 'making the phone your wallet' thing has been tried over and over again. No one got it right to this day.

This is not that.

And this does not compete with PayPal. It can't.

Let me tell you a little something. I live in a "developing nation", and PayPal is next to useless to me because I can't get money from PayPal to my bank account. Only the other way round.

Rudimentary? Why, because it requires no computer, no bank to go to, and will be as easy to use as SMS?

Yeah, that's really rudimentary. All things in "developing nations" are. Take my 50Mb/s completely unlimited, un-capped, and un-filtered internet connection for $13/month.

Oh, and one more thing (I just love doing that!). Nokia's services for the "developing nations" (yeah, I hate how it sounds, so I'm going to keep repeating it) are unrivaled, unmatched, whatever you want to call it. And they won't be for years to come. Because while everyone is so focused on a certain state in the US of A, some companies understand where future growth comes from in this technology business.