Problogger Diary

The first consideration here is whether you want to report on what’s going on all over the Internet, that is, regurgitating content, or whether you want to churn out original content. The former isn’t as bad as it sounds—“regurgitated” is just the technical word we’re using. It essentially means you’re aggregating content and links, with some of your own commentary, of course. What gets created is one place for people with a particular interest to visit, instead of them going about all over the Net looking for the interesting stuff. What will be the personal and distinguishing aspect here is, of course, your commentary: a blog that just aggregates can be pretty boring. Besides, it will not have an identity.

If you’re planning on writing original stuff, amongst other things, you should be a good writer. That’s about all we can say here. Do some introspection and self-analysis: are you a good writer? Ask your friends—close ones, who’ll tell you the truth—do they think you’re a good writer? It’s a bad idea to jump into original writing without some writing flair and experience. The idea of a blog of your own—with entirely your writing on it—may seem very appealing indeed, but it will be just lost in the clutter if you’re not what people call a good writer.

Naturally, you can develop your skills, and if you try your hand at writing, you might even discover that you do have the flair. It’s something like playing a musical instrument: it comes naturally with some people; for some, it’s just a matter of practice before they become a pro; and some people will remain mediocre players however hard they try. We’re telling you like it is!

Next up is some rather obvious advice: blog about what you’re most comfortable with, what you’re most passionate about, and what you know about. (These will help the cause if you’re a less-than-perfect writer.) Looking at it the other way, don’t create a blog on some topic just because you want to be known as a writer on that topic. It’ll show at some point or the other that the topic isn’t your core competency, as it were.

To belabor the point, the topic should be such that your hand moves freely along the keyboard as you think about it. Now passion and knowledge can, in certain cases, compensate for each other: people will read your blog even if it’s written a dry manner if it conveys a good deal of fresh, authentic information. The other way, if you’re really passionate about something, you can earn a readership even if your coverage is less than complete. Don’t let the idea of “letting your knowledge out” bother you. On a cynical but realistic note, it’s unlikely that no-one else on the Internet knows what you know—if it’s worth knowing, it probably is out there in some form or the other!
Another important point is not to fear being lost in the crowd. We’ve come across people who don’t blog on their favorite topic because “there are too many of them out there.” This shouldn’t be a deterrent—it’s a challenge! It’s a challenge on two counts—using your writing and other skills to turn the topic into something so interesting that people will read you instead of someone else, and using your knowledge to bring out at least some gems that the others haven’t touched upon.

Finally, remember that a good blog on a little-discussed topic, one that caters to a niche audience, has a good chance of being a
success. It’s as with anything else—if you don’t have too much competition, you can create your own space. Think about uncommon
things that interest you.

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Be on a constant run to improve your writing skills. Form is as important as content. You don’t need to be able to write a gripping thriller, but everyone likes to read a well-writtenblog. Grammar and punctuation is one thing—which we’ve already mentioned; maintaining a style is one thing—which also we’ve already mentioned; but the bottomline is, to be famous (which, we’re assuming, is your idealistic ultimate goal), you need to write well.

We can’t teach you how to write well. But when we say “writing well,” we’re referring to such things as twisting phrases to make them more interesting; using language to make a dull topic more approachable; making your posts gripping enough to hold your readers’ attention for at least the span of the post; avoiding cliches and cliched phrases; not going into “lyrical digression”—where the writer increases word count and wastes bandwidth by avoiding the central topic and beating round the bush and only then coming back to the point at hand, as we have done with this phrase.

Good writing is an art, nothing less—it’s as much of an art and skill as playing a musical instrument is. There are several resources on the Internet on how to improve your language and writing skills; a good place to start is www.poynter.org. It’s meant specifically for journalists, but you’ll find there more than a couple of tips on good writing.

We did say form is as important as content, but it works the other way round too—content is as important as form! If you do write well, don’t be under the delusion that that can be your selling point. Not true. No-one these days has the time to read just for pleasure—reading a post of yours should be worth your readers’ while.

A final word: fonts are important. Choose a font in keeping with your content. Avoid horrible fonts like comic sans in any situation!

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Just like you never leave the table till the last person has finished eating, blogging too has, over the years, developed its own eti- quette and mannerisms that one should keep in mind when speaking to the world. Think of the blog as your newspaper that a whole bunch of people are giving their time to. You wouldn’t want to inadvertently put them off now, would you?

1.Own Up To Mistakes.
Bloggers are an unforgiving lot, especially those who’ve been around for a few years. You’ve got to be particular about any claims you make and make sure that you’ve got your bases covered and your facts right. It’s always advisable to stray from purposeless claim making, especially if it’s about some sensitive issue. But if you do end up making a mistake, own-up and own-up fast. Mistakes are quick to be noticed and quick to be criticized. They can seriously damage your reputation as a blogger and affect the number of visitors you get at your blog.

2. You Need Street-Cred.
As with most things these days, you need to have some reputation to make a mark. And that reputation needs to be built. The easy way to build your reputation is by becoming a expert in any par- ticular area that you are specially interested in. This is easy. Choose any topic of interest and research it on the Internet for six months and you will know more about it than most people. Reputation as a consistent blogger with an informed and well articulated point of view will more or less guarantee a loyal group of frequent readers. You also need good rep to ensure that what you say is ‘bought’ by your readers. Otherwise, you’re just another chap with a big mouth.

3. Don’t Be Away Too Long.
Long spells of no updates are not recommended. If you must be away , or are unable to update for a reasonably long period (even two weeks is long in the blogging world these days), let your read- ers know that you are going to be away. You can’t expect visitors in the same numbers when you haven’t updated for a while. Consistency also pays in building your reputation as someone who can be trusted to have content regularly. The longer you stay away the more you risk losing readers.

4. Be Inspired, Don’t Copy.
One of the biggest turns offs to blog readers is plagiarized content or using somebody else’s material and passing it off as your own. You have to have your own style when blogging. Developing your own style and voice in your writing will take time. There are no shortcuts. Now this style can be ‘inspired’ from the writing style of somebody else, but it cannot be a direct rip-off. You just can’t afford to be seen as a copy-cat. If you want to use somebody else’s material be sure to cite the source and provide a link back to the site from where you got the information. If you want to directly use the text of what is said on the other cite enclose it in quotes “…” and preface it with something like “xyz.com reports” or “according to xyz.com” and so on.

5. Be Controversial, but careful.
Being controversial is sometimes a sign of independence. Of course, many times it’s an attempt to get popular quickly and cheaply. If you decide to be controversial—for whatever reason: to increase the pop- ularity of your blog, because you strongly feel about something or any other reason—do not lose your sense of civility. It’s true that your blog is like your own kingdom and what you say on it is entire- ly within your right to expression. However, if you have voices of dis- sent on your blog you should, as a matter of courtesy, allow them to be aired. Don’t just allow positive comments. Be ready to handle both the praise and criticism. Of course you may choose to edit or delete comments that are full of four letter words and foul lan- guage. Allowing both praise and criticism on your blog will send clear signals to your readers. You will jump up in their esteem as a serious blogger who is willing to allow discussion both sides of an issue. Otherwise, you risk losing their respect and being labeled as a propaganda swilling, pompous, self-adulatory windbag! Professional blogging usually means that you are becoming an authority on some specific topic area. This will mean that at times you will need to take the extra effort to do stuff which you may consider tedious, boring and not cool. For example as part of your blog you may be required to review different graphic designer soft- ware tools. It maybe that you have a preference for one particular tool and really dislike another. You will need to be objective and be able to articulate why you dislike a particular and learn to sepa- rate the “facts from the fiction” of your personal likes and dislikes. That is not to say you should not express your likes and dislikes. One of the advantages of being a popular blogger is the level of authority that you can command with your reader population. If you can clearly state why you dislike something it will get your fans thinking along those lines and they may agree with you. Of course they may also disagree.

6.To allow comments or not.
Allowing or disallowing people from commenting on your blog will depend on a number of factors including: its popularity and your personal preferences. Some blogs do not allow comments, as they are more in the information posts. In very popular blogs, comments are often disabled as the number of comments for each single post can exceed be in 100s and the blog author may not have the time to moderate all the comments. Some disable comments but provide the option of Trackback links. The trackback link will enable you to write your own blog post referring to another blog and post a link back to your post on the other blog.

7. Don’t steal bandwidth.
If you are going to use an image off a blog, save it on to your own image hosting site. It’s rude to copy the image source and link it directly to your own blog.

8. Attribution.
Always return credit where possible. If you are going to copy a text, or use an image, please return the credit and link back to where you found the material.

9. Be polite. Follow the Golden Rule.
This virtual world we’ve built allows us a bit of anonymity. We may feel like we can write anything we want because we aren’t face to face with the other person. Remember that words are tools to express your thoughts and feelings. They can be used to hurt and to help. Remember that tone is a hard thing to express with words only. Without your body language to back it up, your comment may be misconstrued.

I tell you these things not to frighten you into never commenting or joining in the discussion of a blog, but to remind you to think before you type.

10. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion.
It doesn’t hurt to belong to one side of the fence. In fact, it might make your blog more interesting. If you’re afraid of criticism, you might need to think twice about keeping a blog.

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Here are a few examples of good blogs and an explanation of why we think they’re good. Apart from the content, of course. Note that these are by professional bloggers!

www.datamining.typepad.com/
1. Just the right amount of hyperlinking.
2. External entities neatly arranged on the left, archives and categories neatly on the right.
3. Updated very frequently.
4. Excellent categorisation of posts.
5. Up-to-date; well-informed.

http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/
1. Eclectic but not disorganised.
2. Collation of stuff from the Internet, with sources.
3. Good visual support.
4. Some essay-type, original content for balance.
5. Some posts are pictures, like in a photo-blog; breaks the monotony.

http://www.dailykos.com/
1. Menu on the right, organised well enough despite a lot of material.
2. Quoted text in boxes.
3. The right balance between quoted text and original commentary
4. Good headlines for each post.
5. Relief in the form of polls etc.
6. Hyperlinks in just the right number and places.

http://www.tmz.com/
1. Excellent visual/text balance.
2. Relief in the form of polls etc.
3. Plenty of related articles and links to other resources readers
might wish to look at.
4. Very regularly updated.
5. Tightly focused on a topic.

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/
1. Good visual/text balance, again.
2. Balance of original content and quoted material.
3. Balance between long and short posts.
4. Relief in the form of animations and the occasional readers’ letters.
5. Quoted text clearly identifiable.
6. Links to essays with strong opinions.

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