As Friendfeed starts to get better and better, and people start to contribute more to the site, users will increasingly want to find ways to export that valuable data back to their own blogs.   After all, if you’re the webmaster of your own blog, your obvious first priority is to drive that traffic back to your own site.   More traffic equals more pageviews and more pageviews equals more Adsense clicks and more RSS subscribers.   So it makes sense that you would want that bustling Friendfeed activity to be moved over to your own domain.

Luckily a couple of Friendfeed users have been hard at work dealing with that very issue and if you have a blog hosted on either Blogger or Wordpress, then you are in luck.    The Blogger method is much easier as it is just a simple copy and paste.   The Wordpress method has a bit more to it.    But nevertheless, both methods have so far been receiving glowing reviews and I will shortly be installing the Wordpress version on my own blog to capture some of that Friendfeed magic for myself.

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Back in the days of Web 1.0 (along with hit counters), it was very trendy to have a guest book on your website and to invite everyone to sign it. The highlight of my 2002 was when the author Jeffrey Deaver came by my website and signed my guestbook. He and I had been chatting by email about one of his books and on impulse I asked him to sign the guestbook. But no sooner had he done so than the book began to fill up with spam and other assorted junk. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Mia Mia

Everyone measures the success of their blog in different ways - but when it comes to measuring engagement, comments and trackbacks are what really count. Granted there are other ways of measuring engagement, such as Sphinns or Diggs - but let’s be narrow minded for a moment

Seth Godin pointed out “Your readers care about someone’s opinion even more than yours… their own.” For those of you with a quiet blog - it sure doesn’t seem that way, does it?

However, it is very interesting to note that Seth has comments turned off for his blog. Yet as I write this, just one day after the aforementioned post was published, there are already 3 trackbacks. Is this a purposeful strategy to get more links, or just a way to save time on comment moderation?

Common Tactics for Comment Overload

I think Seth would get overrun with comments if he left the possibility open, because if you look at all the blogs with rampant comments, they have certain elements in common.

• Each blog post is fairly short, between 200 and 500 words with just one major point or theme.
• They leave room for comment by covering only one aspect or not sounding like a factual know-it-all with all the answers.
• They ask questions or even ask for comments.
• The blog has several hundred regular readers, at least.

That last point can be a bit deceiving upon first glance though. I’m not saying you must have several hundred readers in order to get comments - I’m saying your content has to be the kind that will get the attention of several hundred regular readers.

Not That Simple

I know I’m missing something though. Maki, Kathy Sierra, and Skellie consistently have massive amounts of comments - and yet they seem to break all the rules. All their posts are long, matter of fact, and don’t ask questions… but they do have a few thousand readers.

Their strategies are a little different. Maki is a “tell all” kind of guy - like ‘here is absolutely everything you ever needed to know about the topic.’ Kathy and Skellie use graphs and pithy pictures to say a thousand words - which might mean it’s a little more than OK to be long winded, so long as you make pretty pictures too.

They are a very special exception though, because I’ve seen many similar blogs - very informative, long, thorough posts with a personalized feel, pretty pictures, and thousands of readers - but don’t get this kind of comment overload.

I won’t name names, but a site I am extremely familiar with gets massive amounts of traffic, but maybe only 3 to 5 comments on any given post. The format and style are almost exactly the same, but there is one important element missing.

The Welcome Mat

Maki, Kathy, and Skellie talk to you. Blogger X tells and sells you. Maki, Kathy, and Skellie make a concerted effort to solve your problem. Blogger X tries to solve a problem. Both are just as useful, but the former is decidedly more engaging.

It’s a very fine line between “talking to” and “telling” though, and I would imagine this fine line would be very easy to cross if you don’t start on the right foot. I think it all boils down to your mindset.

So how do you approach writing a blog to get comments? What is that one centric thought that keeps you focused on starting a conversation?

Technorati means business with Wordpress Blogs, and rightfully so. With all the potential vulnerabilities of older, unpatched versions of Wordpress out there, many blogs have become fair game to spammers worldwide.

If you have not upgraded Wordpress since 2.3.2, and have a claimed blog on Technorati, you probably received an email from Technorati architect Ian Kallen, who writes:

“…Blogs that have been compromised by this security vulnerability are typified by having links to spam destinations inserted onto the blog page. These link insertions may be invisible to casual observations; the links are often obscured by style attributes that render them invisible. These links are still seen by crawlers such as Technorati’s, Google’s and Yahoo’s. You can find these links by viewing the source of the blog pages or, when using Firefox, looking under “Tools” -> “Page Info” -> “Links”. Blogs hosted on wordpress.com are not affected by this issue; only blogs hosted on their own installations of WordPress from wordpress.org require concern…”

The NowSourcing blog was a couple versions back and noticed a couple spam links creeping up here, so we bit the bullet and upgraded to Wordpress 2.5. For those of you that have not done so yet, be sure to at least be on 2.3.3.

The Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin was surprisingly bump-free (be sure to check all the backup files, we noticed that the wp-content folder didn’t backup automatically).

Technorati has often been criticized of not being on top of things, but this time around I must say good job, Ian and crew! Granted that many will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off

Before you say “hey, you write about social media. Where’s the social media?” I was just getting to that Technorati authority and blog search coupled with Wordpress blogging is at the heart of social media. If you woke up tomorrow and your or your client’s blog was dropped by Technorati, there could be some serious ramifications. Conversation is quickly becoming the new form of metrics in social media (sorry pageviews), and without a guide like Technorati, we’d be up a creek without a paddle.

But what if Technorati removed thousands of authority blogs en masse? Best upgrade soon, all!

(click on the tweets to go to it in a new window)

@Mark Dykeman

Amidst his guilt-ridden apology for burying a Digg submission, he makes a very good point:

“Does the desire to build credibility and authority outweigh all other guidelines and principles?”

In other words - has good content gone out the window for the next measly Mixx?

In this week’s Overheard on Twitter, we’re taking a look at branding, reputation management, and the amazing lengths some people will go to protect (or damage) that perfect image for a bit o’ traffic.

Special Note: We tag YOU, @doshdosh, @andybeard, @chrispirillo, @converseon, and @chrisbrogan to show your smug mug in your Twitter avatar for one week - and @nowsourcing will do the same. (see the “Opinions of the Week”)

Google is Crashing the Party… Again

Uh-oh.

rafiq Google to punish pagerank for Digg stories? @zoopedup http://sphinn.com/story/35232 12:19 PM March 18, 2008 from im

“Google employee says ‘Webmasters who rely heavily on bookmarking their own sites to gain traffic will likely see a drop in pagerank before the end of 2008, and we will be working closely with two major social bookmarking sites to find a solution that will have no detrimental effect on the average internet user.’” - StartupEarth

Counting Our Chickens

ProBlogger shares some numbers!

	problogger @suziecheel - #8 technorati, #9 bloglines, #10 netvibes, #11 aol organic and #12 popurls - digg was at #39, diggers hate problogger 05:06 PM March 18, 2008 from twhirl in reply to suziecheel
	problogger @susanreynolds some posts on SU - hope it answers the Q - http://snurl.com/22025 http://snurl.com/22027 http://snurl.com/22029 05:04 PM March 18, 2008 from twhirl in reply to susanreynolds
	problogger @susanreynolds StumbleUpon tffc varies from day 2 day but hs steadily grwn over the last months 4 me here’s a chart - http://snurl.com/2201x 04:56 PM March 18, 2008 from twhirl in reply to susanreynolds
	problogger #1 Google organic, #2 ‘Direct’, #3 Stumbleupon, #4 Google referral, #5 yahoo/organic, #6 delicious, #7 jobs.problogger, #8 technorati 04:47 PM March 18, 2008 from twhirl
	problogger twitter has moved up to my #13 in terms of traffic sources for ProBlogger - still not massive but increasing every month 04:42 PM March 18, 2008 from twhirl

Some People “Get It“

waynesutton Note to self: stop promoting, start thinking again (or “Scoble’s Law”) http://tinyurl.com/3aphdj via @jasoncalacanis going to try 2 about 3 hours ago from twhirl

In a nutshell, traffic went up when Jason wrote about topics within the industry, instead of himself or his latest project. Hmm, interesting…

Opinions of the Week

And the tweet that inspired it all… @BarbaraKB

ehrenc @mayobrains re: Retweeting poll: I think people should use whatever they want to best represent themselves. about 2 hours ago from twhirl in reply to mayobrains

remarkablogger @mayobrains Good question. I use face, because I plan to be highly visible: video, conferences, etc. about 3 hours ago from twhirl in reply to mayobrains

giggey @MayoBrains face for sure. Best way to represent your company is with your own face. about 3 hours ago from web in reply to mayobrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fungible @mayobrains Face, definitely. Especially good for when you see Twitterers at conferences or events. about 16 hours ago from twhirl in reply to mayobrains

asimpson @mayobrains - my 2c -a face makes the potential follow/followee more genuine somehow (what thats says about me i dont even wanna know about 18 hours ago from web in reply to mayobrains

kateritchie @mayobrains i like people to use their pic/face - shows real human connection rather than bot. I wouldn’t mind a logo or banner with face… about 18 hours ago from twhirl in reply to mayobrains

humanlever @mayobrains I use a logo just because it’s easier to identify. about 18 hours ago from web in reply to mayobrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DazzlinDonna @nowsourcing: it all depends upon what is being “branded” 11:26 PM March 18, 2008 from TwitBox in reply to nowsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . .

daver @nowsourcing I think that is a difficult question/polll - and it depends on the person 11:16 PM March 18, 2008 from web in reply to nowsourcing . . . . . . . . .

bhaelochon @nowsourcing Re: face/logo, It probably depends on whether the purpose of the profile is professional or personal. 11:12 PM March 18, 2008 from twhirl in reply to nowsourcing

dustinferguson @nowsourcing Their own face! I love to see who I’m interacting with. 09:10 PM March 18, 2008 from web in reply to nowsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . .

Krisjohn @nowsourcing Yes. I know that’s not what you meant, but either is good. As long as it’s something clear (and they stick to it) it’s all good 01:08 PM March 19, 2008 from TwitterFox in reply to nowsourcing

Conclusion: It seems people like to use logos, but see faces. As @humanlever notes, logos may well be easier to identify, but @remarkablogger quite astutely points out - using your face makes you recognizable at conventions.

But would using your face translate to being more engaging in social media, and hence lead to more followers? We shall see!

The Challenge: If you use a logo, do a little experiment and switch over to that crooked tooth smile we’ve all be aching to see, for just one week, and track the results. You’ll get to see Brian’s mug plastered on @nowsourcing - so, uhm, I guess that makes it worth it… right?

You Know It’s Not a Fad When…

Someone proposes over it. Yep. There has officially been a marriage proposal on Twitter… shocking.

In-cite-ing Riot

So what happens when TechCrunch cites ReadWriteWeb as a lead on a story? Bickering - that’s what happens. (Edited for brevity - there were about 15 more tweets)

duncanriley you lead with the source only when it’s the place exclusively reporting it. RWW was a lead, and I’ve attributed fairly,others dont 04:05 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific

rww @duncanriley, I’m not complaining about the “via”. All I will say is that we link to TC *a lot*, and never use “via”. 12:16 AM March 19, 2008 from web in reply to duncanriley

rww @duncanriley, I just think you coulda used the RWW story for more context. but I don’t wanna harp on about it, I’m just saying how I feel. 12:25 AM March 19, 2008 from web in reply to duncanriley

duncanriley @rww the reason I didn’t quote you as well is because I’m very familiar with the company from my BlogHerald days. 04:29 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific in reply to rww

duncanriley @rww if it makes you feel any better, I expanded RWW to ReadWriteWeb, probably better SEO benefits that way. 04:32 PM March 19, 2008 from twitterrific in reply to rww

Love and Hate

NewspaperGrl My business partner @paulwilson responds (and I finally post) to @Shoemoney and his declared hatred of SEOs http://tinyurl.com/2w3hww about 12 hours ago from web

chrisbrogan Oh boy - Look out… I just went OFF about social media: http://tinyurl.com/2wqb8w Full moon edition about 2 hours ago from web . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

QueenofSpain Ah that reminds me, spend your Good Friday telling the PR/marking hacks to suck it- http://queenofspainblog.com 12 minutes ago from web

And if you don’t like it, well..

doshdosh I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes… about 11 hours ago from twhirl