This is a test post.

One of the problems with blogging is that your words never come out sounding the same as if you were speaking them.

You can't hear the changes in pitch, loudness, the emphasis on certain words, you can't even see the hand gestures, or eyebrow movements. Without all that, you leave it up to the reader to fill in those blanks and make their own assumptions.

That causes people to misinterpret things.

Especially if you're like me, someone with an opinion who makes a living voicing his opinion.

Every now and then, I post something on one of my blogs that gets misinterpreted. Part of it is my own fault, because there are days when I feel like I don't give a s**t, and then I read an article where someone else is spouting off their pompous attitude. So I follow up with an article on my own blog, and spout back at them.

Except, my articles always sound like I'm the loud mouth with the attitude, and no one seems to pay attention to the first loud mouth that I was responding to.

In any case, as a blogger you have to take great care in crafting your words the right way so as to get your point across while minimizing any margin for misinterpretation.

1. Read your writing before posting it. Do as best as you can to put yourself in someone else's shoes to see if they can misinterpret it.

2. Take a look at your previous post. If you post articles several times a week on the same blog, people will follow it like a diary. So they'll read your newest article under the context of the previous one. Often times, if you're aware of your previous posts, your readers will find contradictions.

3. If you feel really pissed off about something, go ahead and write your article, but don't publish it until the following day. The re-read it the next day, and decide if you still want to say all that. (I've got tons of articles still saved in draft, that'll never get published).

Labels: Writing

Kelly Samardak, who writes the blog, "Just An Online Minute", attended the IFC Media Project Lunch Panel to hear some of the largest news people talk about blogging...

This is also how traditional "we were in the trenches during the civil war" journalists treat bloggers. Gauging from many an eavesdropping session and even at the panel that inspired me today, matured career reporters, journalists, and columnists still view blogging and online news dissemination as kid stuff.

True, blogging is looked down upon by the traditional media people. But if you ask bloggers, you'll get a similar reaction, that traditional media is old and stodgy, and soon to be dead.

The biggest difference between blogging and traditional media is that there's a lot less money being made in blogging. The whys on this fact can lead to another larger discussion.

But there are indeed news networks out there that exist solely on a blogging platform, or on some kind of Internet medium. But because the advertising income for these networks is still so much less than the traditional media outlets, it's tougher to compete.

News blogs have to spend their money very carefully, making sure everyone they hire can justify the expense. Personnel at a popular news blog often wear multiple hats. It also means they can't supply enough reporters to cover every news angle out there.

But that doesn't mean they are less serious about reporting, nor that they are less professional in what they do.

So what news blogs have done instead, is focus on "narrow verticals", which simply means focusing on niche topics that get less coverage in the traditional media channels. This is why you see news blogs just for custom choppers, or just for the Southern California motorcycle scene.

Likewise, traditional media outlets can't earn an income catering to such narrow markets. They hire so many people, that they need larger, broader, advertisers to pay for it all.

Google AdSense is doing well to help provide advertising income for news blogs, as are several other Internet advertising networks. And more than likely, it's going to take the continued success of AdSense to help bring about credibility to news blogging. Perhaps this downturn in the economy will encourage advertisers to give the cheaper, more transparent, online medium a try.

Labels: Business

There's an interesting court case pending regarding a website publisher who built a parody site that criticizes a company's attempts to build a restaurant in Manhattan's Union Square Park.

This isn't the first time someone built a parody site that criticizes a company for doing something. In fact, bloggers have long criticized companies and organizations for a variety of personal reasons. Most of the time those companies don't mind because the bloggers have pretty small audiences compared to newspapers and magazines. But sometimes, you get a blogger with a large audience that wants to make a parody.

While the First Amendment usually protects our right to free speech, there are still ways for companies to go after bloggers. In the case above, the company claims that the publisher made illegal use of their logos and trademarks.

How many times have motorcycle bloggers criticized Harley-Davidson, Orange County Choppers, or RevTech Engines? How many times have we used their logos, catch phrases, and photos of their products? While most of us are still too small make any serious impact on Harley's sales, somewhere, sometime, someone is going to create a site, or blog post, that'll grow legs and walk all across the Internet that will actually hurt The Motor Company to some significant degree.

And what will Milwaukee do about it?

It'll be interesting to see what happens to this particular website publisher and her parody site. How will the court rule on this? Will they defend the "fair use" doctrine of our Copyright laws?

Labels: Copyright-Laws

The answer to that question seems to turn up as "no" more and more often.

Max Kalehoff writes on his Online Spin blog...

First, Q1 of 2009 is destined to be downright bloody in the online ad economy, amidst a larger U.S. recession. Keep in mind we're still riding the wave of a relatively strong 2007, as well as 2008 spending commitments that have been baked in for almost a year. We're also buffered partly by election-season ad spending.

Any strong income you might be seeing from ads placed on your blog are still due to advertisers having spent big chunks of cash several months ago, and have not yet depleted that spend. We're just now starting to see that spend deplete itself, with more advertisers opting to cut back, or not advertise online.

In October 2003, I made the decision to quit my day job, and work 100% as a blogger/website publisher. It's a decision that I had been mulling over for perhaps a couple of years, but was just too cautious to pull the trigger. Even though back then, I was making some great money blogging. The longer I delayed, the easier the decision became.

So where does leave motorcycle blogging as a way to generate income for writers?

The good news is that many businesses are still going to need advertising to sustain business; it's just a matter of finding the most cost-effective type of advertising. Each business will have to find its own way. There are indeed businesses out there that will see online advertising as being most effective for their unique set of circumstances.

Affiliate marketing is seen by many advertisers as a cheap, and effective way to advertise. Since advertisers can pay publishers on a percentage of sale, the publisher ends up eating the cost of advertising to the 99% of visitors who didn't click. But don't expect large brands like Honda or Harley to get into affiliate marketing. It'll be accessories, like jackets, helmets, parts, and tools.

Online ad space is going to get way cheap due to advertisers wanting to spend less, and so many more websites continuing to get built. Today, it's still common to find CPM rates of $0.25, but I'm sure we'll be seeing $0.10 as the going rate.

To keep your online ad space valuable, you've got to focus your audience. It's not enough to run a motorcycle blog in general. There is already a glut of motorcycle blogs and websites. Think about starting a "motorcycle leather blog" where you announce new leather goods. Get manufacturers to put you on their press distribution list. You can convince the motorcycle leather retailers to buy ad space with that kind of focused audience.

For that matter, look at implementing a banner rotator that will allow you to manage ads that you sell directly.

Labels: Making-Money-Online

NBC News announced yesterday that it's relaunching its network of television websites into something called, "Locals Only", where it puts more focus on tapping into its users to create content....

Content will be aggregated from the best available sources – in many cases linking to outside content providers or contributed by the audience itself – in order to provide consumers with the best and most informed user experience. The online features will also be created with a more integrated approach, using text, videos, blogs, or whatever medium is appropriate, to tell the full story.

At the heart of all this change is that NBC no longer plans to feature only its own content, but now, feature content from other providers as long as it provides as much as local news as it can. In that sense, they've realized that they can't build the best local news website using only their own content, they need to rely on the "whole web".

The "whole web" approach is largely what modern-day blogging is about. One blogger, for example, is able to build a following of loyal readers by simply focusing on one subject, and using the entire Internet as a source for material. Instead of just writing about his/her own experiences in riding a motorcycle, for example, he/she examines everyone else's motorcycle blogs, shares his/her opinion, and links to them.

Traditional news websites tended to utilize a closed-door policy where it featured only their content. As a result, users tended to visit them, read what they have, and then move on to another news website to get more news.

There are some motorcycle blog aggregators out there, such as FAST3R, that look at hundreds of motorcycle blogs, feature the best content, and link to them. It gives the reader a central source for all things new in the world of motorcycle riding. Whether or not FAST3R finds success in becoming the top web destination for motorcycle news remains to be seen, however.

Still, as a blogger, you're better off writing about the "whole web", and not just about what you're doing, in order to build a popular destination. Many bloggers get into the habit of protecting their Google Page Rank, by not linking out to other bloggers, and writing about what their saying.

Labels: Audience-Building

If you're thinking about starting a new blog, one of the first decisions you'll make is picking out a domain name.

How important is the domain name towards the overal success of your blog?

Very, but it's not mission critical.

The most successful blogs out there are remembered by domain name. The people who read them all the time are one's who've memorized the domain name, and can get there by typing a few letters of it into their browser. And that's not a function of the domain name however, that's a function of a blog's popularity.

That is, it really doesn't matter what the domain name is, as long as you love reading it. So, a blog with a domain name like, "jklpoefhhguwpoe.com" will be remembered, and revisited consistently so long as it has great content published frequently.

To prove that point, take this blog for example. I picked out the domain name "motorcycleblogging.com". Note that since today, the last time I posted something new on this blog was way back in June, that's four months ago. So, I did a Google search for "motorcycle blogging", and this site showed up way down in the listings, around 103. That proves that the domain name is not a mission critical measure of success.

However, if I were to publish this blog regularly, maybe 2-3 posts each week, and write original material, I'll guarantee you I'll get that #1 spot.

That's because the domain name does indeed help towards your SEO. Having the same keywords in the domain name that match what someone is Googling for, will indeed boost a website higher in the listings. It's just not the panacea of SEO.

The other important aspect of domain names is getting people to click through from Google's search results. In other words, if someone is looking at a set of search results, how will they decide which website to click on first?

Just ask yourself that question. You might look at the Title, the description, and the domain name, to figure out if that website is going to provide you with what you're hoping to find. So, if you ran a search for "motorcycle helmets" and you saw a website with a domain name of "ksdojeufjslfjdf.com", and another website of "motorcyclehelmets.com", you'll probably click on the latter, first.

So, it's not enough to just be listed #1 on Google. You have to convince that person to click through to your site, instead of someone else's.

Labels: Domain-Names