eXtra For Every Publisher

It has been a long time since I last did a commenter appreciation post, but with the recent comments I have been getting from two people in particular, I had to take some time out of my day to feature them. Bloggers that I have known for some time have, for some unknown reason, taken time out of their life to add their thoughts and opinions to this blog, and I wanted to make sure that they know I appreciate it.

So a big thanks from me goes out to Kevin and Jeff.

Kevin Muldoon

Linking to his personal blog, System0 from the comments he leaves here, Kevin is better known in my mind as the owner of BloggingTips, a popular multi-author blog that covers all aspects of blogging. I have watched as he changed the staff and the design of his popular blog, and yet he still found time to come over here and say “hello” more than once. A great guy to get to know and I am glad he keeps stopping by.

His personal blog covers the interactions he has with technology, video games and his day to day life. His opinions are usually in line with my own, which is always a plus in my book.

Jeff Chandler

Jeff, or Jeffro, runs the WordPress Weekly podcast, and writes for the very popular Weblog Tools Collection. He also works on his own blog Jeffro2pt0, where he talks about what is going on in the web 2.0 world, as well as covering blogging, and from time to time, WordPress.

I have been on his WordPress Weekly show more than once, and I really appreciated the opportunity recently to break the news about my new career. Jeff has quickly become one of the voices online that I really enjoy tracking, and I see nothing but success for this guy. I have a feeling that he will be one of those people I will one day be telling people “I knew him before he became famous online”.

Wrap-up

If you aren’t watching what both of these guys are doing online, you are missing very important things. They both have different levels of experience, but they keep their ears to the ground when it comes to all things blogging.

I wanted to try to start something new on this blog by highlighting the various things going on in other Grand Effect member blogs, especially now that our membership is pretty much complete at this point and time.

So here, for your enjoyment, is the first Grand Effect Member News Roundup.

The first good news is that both Sarah in Tampa and SheGeeks have been added to the very popular AllTop aggregation site. This, in my opinion is recognition of the hard work and great content that they have both produced.

gHacks lets everyone know that EA Games is going to add even more copyright protection to their upcoming titles in the form of a Securom protection program that requires internet access to validate your copy of the game, not only during install, but every ten days thereafter. This is a bit ridiculous and no doubt crackers will find a way around it just as they have with Windows genuine advantage and other such systems, but it is near and dear to my heart because Spore, a game I am very excited about will be protected in such a way.

It made me wonder what it would be like if blogs had the same type of protection systems, where not only did you have to log in to a site before reading it, but the site was so paranoid that you had to re-login every ten minutes. I doubt many of us would be able to make a business around those types of restrictions. Penny Arcade makes good fun of the security issue at EA’s expense.

ParisLemon asks for multiple account switching for Gmail and with the number of Gmail addresses I have for various things, I have to admit that his idea really appeals to me, though I doubt it would ever sit very high on their priority list. I mean, who needs more than one e-mail account with multiple gigs of storage space?

Over on The Last Podcast, I suggest you all check out episode seven of the Elite Tech News Podcast which includes two members of Grand Effect.

WinExtra makes a great comparison between Twitter and IRC, which makes me go “wow, so true” as I realize my youth was wasted on various IRC channels, and now Twitter has become the replacement for me as an adult. Scary, but true.

Joe Anderson of Webby’s World asks, how would you describe modern technology to someone from the 18th century? It really made me think, as even just describing my job to my parents has been complicated.

Mark Evans echoes my problems in a post dedicated to not having enough time on Mark Evans Tech. For me, time isn’t really the issue, but instead I suffer from lack of extended periods of focus. I know I can get a lot done, but it comes in spurts and short periods. On a bad day, I do ninety percent of my work in ten percent of the day. Maybe I just have too many time sinks in my life.

Negative comments

We’ve all received a comment or two that was at best not so positive and at worst downright evil. It’s only human nature to become defensive when it comes to negative comments but are these comments really a bad thing?

My theory is that controversy is interesting. People love controversy, this can be witnessed by any number of examples in everyday life. Take a look at (gag) Britney Spears for example. More revenue is generated due to people following her ridiculous antics than some entire countries Gross Domestic Product.

Britney is an economy unto herself. Dennis Rodman, Madonna, Howard Stern and a host of others only serve to show you how much success moderate talent combined with a lot of controversy might bring.

Uhh So What?

So what does this have to do with negative comments on your blog? Well nothing and everything at the same time. If you are one of those who are unfortunate enough to NOT receive a lot of negative comments then this might be the best blogging tip you would ever get, if you keep reading.

Let’s take a look at the evil John Chow. He’s one of the most successful bloggers of all time, at least if you use revenue as an indicator of success. You cannot read the comments section of ANY of his posts without having some little sniper take a shot at him in some way, shape or form.

I have a theory that negative comments can be inspired by not only controversy but Success. Jealousy is the root of all evil and that shows itself in almost any negative comment you ever read. So in reality, what you are looking to get, what you should be hoping to receive…are negative comments.

They are a sure sign that you are either writing controversial content (aka interesting) OR you have achieved enough success that people are jealous of your efforts.

What Next?

I’ve said all that to say this, if you rarely receive negative comments or if you rarely receive comments at all, then that is a sure sign that you are writing a vanilla blog. You need some zest, some pizzaz, some drama and most of all, a healthy dose of controversy.

Am I telling you to turn your blog into the Jerry Springer show? Absolutely not, although that might make some interesting reading. What I am saying is that you need to write articles that push the boundaries of traditional thinking.

If your niche is about Making Money Online, then write an article about why Make Money Online blogs suck. Controversy comes in many forms and unfortunately most bloggers aren’t that good at it. Rookies will most often try to dog a well known blogger hoping they will retaliate.

Honestly, that’s overdone and frankly, it’s boring. Something far more effective would be to take a typical subject, spin it 180 degrees and present a completely opposite view than the norm.

Some people might be familiar with the term playing Devils advocate, and that would be a very appropriate way to describe what I am thinking. Present the other side, the other opinion, the other view. Argue it, defend it, stretch the way people think about a particular subject.

These kinds of blogs are FAR more interesting to read than “10 Ways to Write Titles that Make You Tingle.” Good lord, if I read another stupid list post that has ZERO value to anyone I think I will gag. Maybe you could write a list post about why List posts stink.

That might be interesting and it would definitely be different.

Conclusion

A lot of readers will read this post and just not get it. It’s far easier to be a lemming and follow the crowd than it is to go your own way. Darren from Problogger recently tweeted a very profound statement that sums up what I am saying.

“Do not follow where the path leads, Rather go where there is no path, and leave a trail.”

Do you blaze your own trail or do you write “10 ways to Bore Your Readers to Death” type posts? If so, then change your tune. Write a post about “10 Ways reading a Problog is a Complete Waste of Your Time” type post, at least, a Problog other than THIS problog.

So the next time someone leaves a less than pleasant comment on your site, take it as a compliment rather than an insult. It’s a sure sign that you’ve been noticed.

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If you enjoyed reading this post then check out my own blog at The Blog Entrepreneur where you can feel free to leave me all of the negative comments that you want.

Tags can still be very useful, despite being less and less prevalent in some circles. Because like I said In an earlier piece, some are bringing tags from the cloud and into the content. It’s such a simple idea that is too rarely used.

The easiest way to implement this is to simply add the link yourself. So say you are writing about mobile phones, and you happen to mention the Samsung D-807, an item which you’ve written about before and have a tag for already called “d807″. You’d simply wrap the mention in a link to that tags archive, and voila. There are also a few plugins that make this brainless, auto-magically turning the key words into links to the appropriate place.

KB Linker is one plugin, that with a little configuration will do it for you. You do need to set up each tag and the link to the tags archive, but you only need to do it once and it will do the rest for you without any more effort on your part.

Simple Tags, Embedded Tag Thing is a little more automated. Though I am not sure if the latter plugin works with version 2.5. The former though is a bit more then you need, it does however do it all for you.

Ideally, you would only use the link to the tag if you are not referencing a specific post, and you’d only have the word linked at the first instance instead of it being linked every instance throughout the article.

If you try out the last two options let me know how it works out.

The tag is dead, long live the tag.

Guest Author Bio: If you liked this post, please check out the writer, John Leschinski, someone who is both great at web design and a friend of mine. John Leschinski is a designer & consultant with almost a decade of experience, on the forefront of modern design, focused on creative opportunities and solutions for challenges facing businesses today.

Grand Effect has added three great members to the mix, bringing our total to the odd number of nine. We are likely only leaving one spot left open for the perfect addition to the network, so jump over to our contact page today if you are interested.

The big news though is the new members we have added which includes some brilliant, interesting, and powerful bloggers.

Joe Anderson of Webby’s World is a tech blogger from the U.K. His current site has been around since 2005. He is also a 9rules member, and thankfully neither network has a ban in place on being part of both, and I think that he has been selected by both is a credit to his blog and its quality.

Next, we have Steven Hodson of WinExtra. Steven is a self-described “cranky old fart” but his analysis of technology and the web is definitely not old. He will definitely be a fun addition to the team, and I have a feeling he and I will get along just fine.

Lastly, we have someone that I am a fan of, and it also helps that like Steven, he is Canadian, bringing Grand Effect to a membership that is one third Canadian: Mark Evans of Mark Evans Tech. Mark is one of the organizers of the Mesh Conference in Toronto, and the director of community with PlanetEye Inc.

I couldn’t be happier with the new additions, and I owe Sarah Perez a lot for organizing member submissions and whatnot, and the other members for their continued support and patience. I really believe we have one of the best groups of bloggers ever and I hope we can put that talent to good use.

Lastly, now that we have filled out our membership to a respectable level, I will be collecting statistics from the various bloggers, and working on advertising sales and helping support their various blogs. I have also set aside some time for members to come to me with blogging and WordPress related questions, as a service I am willing to give freely to them in hopes of making their blogs even better.