Building Websites, Traffic, and Income
Your Opinion on Reblogging
I don’t like rehashing. Most of the time I wait until I had something to add to a topic before I jump in, whether it be a new technique or some research results or maybe just a point of view, which may be closer to an attitude. I’ll leave that to you to define.
But I also want people who happen upon my blog to get a complete picture of what I am trying to present. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it can only help down the road to know enough about SEO, css, WordPress, and everything else it takes to make money like I do. Plus, if you are starting on a shoestring, you can’t hire anyone. So you can either do it yourself or use "some day". "Some day" never works. And even as I start outsourcing some of the duties, I will know exactly what I want and how I want it done because I could do it myself if I had to. Talking to a developer or designer is about the same as talking to your auto mechanic when you know nothing about cars.
About 90% of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned right here. So I like throwing out links. I think it makes my blog well rounded with some subjects better covered by experts. But throwing a bunch of amorphous links into a delicious account that posts to this blog limits things a little. I literally could bookmark 30 or so pages a day on 10 different topics. I know this seems like a waste of time, but I know where I am going in the future. When I can knock out some of the research before I get to it and have it waiting for me, it helps. One post like that and it could look like superspam, so I don’t bookmark that much any more.
Another option is what you see on my Cre8buzz page. I could put up a OPML widget of all the feeds I subscribe to. Worthless. Not everyone is that much of an information junkie. Wading through those feeds will just stop most people in their tracks. And I haven’t found a filter system that has an element of randomness. Too many filters and you get tunnel vision.
But for a while, I have been thinking about a reblog. This brings up images of scraper sites and MFA sites. But some don’t get the label. So where is the line.
The software I was thinking of using is located here which lists a few more reblog sites. This I would put on a site of it’s own, like Bloglot, which is just hanging out now collecting spam.
Meme trackers do this with an algorithm but I see that akin to following Fortune picks to trade stocks instead of doing your own research. The most popular is not necessarily the most valuable.
Another option I might look into is here.
Tumblr was an option because I can feed it my delicious links one at a time, but there are no categories.
My utopian idea of what I am trying to come up with is that my posts and my projects can run parallel to my research and footnotes for them (i.e. bookmarks and comments on them) so that I can create a more complete whole. That way those who want to can go further.
And this is how I get moving. I see the picture of what I want, then I start looking for tools. If I don’t find the perfect tools, I see what I can start with and jump into the php.
In an effort to provide a complete overview, there are other options for information aggregation that I found while I was writing this and I will be exploring some unique WordPress installations.
So if anybody has an idea, let me know.
10 Responses to Your Opinion on Reblogging
Leave a Reply
Stephan:
Lot of good points for one post! I am looking for a couple answers and Googled a few things and your blog came up.
I started a site 6 months ago and have worked like crazy to build traffic and unique content. My page rank is 5 (without any “tricks”) and I’ve had almost 600,000 pageviews in that time.
I just moved to a .com for expansion reasons (I was on blogger). And now I have to build everything up from scratch again–probably another 6 months and a little luck.
Do you have any suggestions on how to 1)speed up the process? and
2)make any money? For 600,000 views, I only made about $50 on Adsense.
From reading your site, you seem pretty down-to-earth and knowledgeable.
You can be vague if you charge for specific info, but I’d be grateful for any help.
Thanx!!
mondoreb’s last blog post..Barack Obama: New Campaign Slogan and Poster?
I personally believe that such a prospect is as useless as spam itself. What’s it good for? Not for traffic, and as such not for profit. I started out blogging with aggregated reblogs and I got good profit for one month and once google found out I got search penalties, banned from adsense – and the site was useless after that. I have one I kept all this time just to see what happens and it never gets more than ~100 visitors per day (at one point it got more than 25,000 per day).
Reblogs and aggregated sites are nothing but trouble (and bad karma)…
=)
JTPratt’s Blogging Mistakes’s last blog post..7 Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers
mondoreb,
Damn, that’s why I hate Adsense anymore. It’s great for filler. To pick up the pocket change left by real transactions. For now all I can say is affiliate programs have made me the most. I run Adsense side by side with links to affiliate product landing pages. Adsense accounts for about 1%. Just off the top of my head, you could have a potential of at least $5000 a month depending on your niche and picking the right products.
I am working on a system of matching right now similar to the parallel posts/research ideas. It’s a parallel post/research/affiliate link idea. Tags and feeds are amazingly simple yet can do a big job. I looked at Yahoo Pipes last night after this post. I will probably using Pipes to test the concepts then build my own.
JT,
I make money. I make traffic. I am not looking for that. This blog makes 1% of my online income. If I was here to make money here, I would need a shrink.
I am talking about the effect you get when someone starts speaking in the middle of their thoughts. Posts on many blogs are like this. If the person reading the post doesn’t have the background to understand the process that led to the post, you have lost a reader.
Or you could refer to other’s sites for the research leading to the post, like a bibliography or footnotes. Posts use tags. Bookmarks use tags. Using a specific set of tags would create an evolving bibliography for past and future posts.
Blogs are not books. Most are not planned out ahead of time. Even big bloggers have gaping holes in their subject matter. I am just looking for a solution. That is what I do.
Change can have varying results. Not changing has a definite result, fading away. So I always go for the first, because it’s the odds on favorite.
Plus I think I have a better idea after this post. It starts with this idea I learned from Pipes: Everything can become a feed.
Difficult subject with probably lots of people having varied opinions. Like most subjects, I tend to see the reblog as having a place in the blogosphere. Whether or not it has a lot of utility may be an entirely different can of beans. I guess I would lean towards the lifestream plugin…but then again I’m a plug it in and forget it kind of guy…LOL
Tommy
Tommy’s last blog post..Are Gas Station Owners Getting Rich?
I am too. I just want to explore all options before I settle on a decision.
I do not know if I understood the topic of your post, but all I can say is this:
Your blog was one of the first and it has been one of the major influence in my experience in blogging since I first started. As I have stated before, I am in this business to make money but I am not in “The” business of “Making Money”. I tried to find a niche in the blogosphere about security, and that’s what I am sticking with, because that’s the knowledge that I can share. If 90% of what you have learned, you did here, so have I.
Even though you are much younger then I am, I like to come here and get a lot of knowledge and new perspectives about blogging and everything else.
Keep up the good work.
The Twentieth First Century Man
21stcenturyman’s last blog post..Do you trust your antivirus?
Thanks. To tell you the truth I am not sure of the point of this post either. I have written a few like this. They are just one big question, but no real answer. But, then again, maybe a point makes things to concrete and breakable. A question keeps you looking. An answer makes you stop.
I just have always been the type of person who reads a book and then reads some of the books referenced by the original book. It gives me a bigger picture and more background.
Let’s say I wrote a post on promoting feeds. A post like that will be out of date in a week. But if I found something new related to promoting feeds, it may not be enough to write a whole new post. I could bookmark it and it would be nice to have widget or something to show the “update”.
I was thinking I could do this with tags. The post is tagged “feeds” and the bookmark is tagged “feeds”. Wouldn’t been cool if someone reading the post sees the newest bookmarks I have found relating to the post.
Or as I research a post, the bookmarks will be waiting to be matched to the post once it is published.
In essence, the value of the post will go up, as more links get attached to it. I think I could just use the concept of the “Related Posts” plugin for a “Related Bookmarks” plugin. But, then again, maybe I am trying to turn a blog into a wiki.
Pingback: A Question of Semantics | Stephan Miller
Pingback: Adding Related Feeds to Your Wordpress Posts | Stephan Miller
Pingback: Organic Social Media Marketing | Stephan Miller