Apt. 11D

The Komen/Planned Parenthood Rumble

I really, really need to take care of laundry and chores today. Jonah's big toe  is sticking out of his sneakers. I need to go to the gym. Ugh. But I just wanted to throw out a couple of links to the Susan B. Komen and Planned Parenthood rumble. It's has eaten up my RSS and twitter feeds for the past couple of days. 

Check out Nicholas Jackson's post for info on why this happened. Jezebel. 

While my last post was a bit of downer as I told some of the secrets of Internet traffic, I do think that the Internet is an amazing device for organizing and mobilizing people. It was breath-taking to watch the protests against the Komen Foundation mobilize instantly and across the various Internet platforms. 

Top Komen official resigns. 

A Blogging Dinosaur

A friend sent me a link to an interesting article about online college education and the unbundling of universities. It reminded me of a blog post that I wrote years ago, and so I dug around to find it. Back in August of 2003, I predicted that we would see more and more of online college education and that it would make it even harder for people like me to find jobs. 

It's funny to read this random thought that I had nine years ago. I was such a kid. I had only been blogging for a few weeks. My kids were babies and we were living in a crappy apartment in Manhattan with annoying neighbors. I was skinny. I was writing academic papers and teaching at a university. We were house hunting. Then we moved. 

I often think I should stop blogging about my personal life. Those posts invite judgement, and that criticism hurts much more than criticism about my views of politics or pop culture. Any criticism of my kids makes me breath fire. But of all those old posts, it is the personal posts that I treasure the most. 

PIPA and SOPA? How about NOPA!

The protests are growing. More from Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Perez Hilton, Ezra Klein, more Ezra Klein, Meetup, Oatmeal.com. Minecraft is down for the day. Here's a petition from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A petition from Google. 

The Saddest Thing I've Read Today

If you read a blogger for years and years, you feel like you know them. You don't really know them, of course, but there is a closeness. 

Heather Armstrong, aka Dooce, just wrote a very sad post. Her depression problems have hit a new low, and she and her husband have separated. I've very sorry, Dooce. 

The Chatterati

This weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking and talking with Steve about what my next move will be. 2011 was a disaster for work. Disaster. Selling the house and minding the kids was an 80 hour per week job. I did make some headway on a book, but the writing happened in bits and pieces and as a result, the writing is choppy with lots of half finished thoughts. I want to keep working on it, but I need immediate gratification projects, too. Preferably projects that also bring in a little casheroo. 

A blog is fabulous for people who only have bits and pieces of time. 20 minutes and there's a blog post. In another 20 minutes, fun comments appear. It's magical and wonderful. 

I also continue to do this blog, because sometimes you feel like you make a difference. I'm not a hundred percent sure that it makes a difference, but sometimes... maybe... perhaps. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed a small article in Business Week on Lego for girls. I threw out a very quick link to it, tweeted it, put it on Facebook, and threw a note over to my buddy who specializes in writing on these topics. Erin wrote a series of excellent posts on the topic. Her posts were noticed by bigger fish. Pretty soon, the Today Show was debating whether or not Lego for girls was a good thing. 

Did my blog post and tweets directly lead to Matt Lauer and Star Jones fighting about Lego? No. But I was one part of a larger group of people that did make that happen. I am part of a network of people that can take a topic from page 14 and make it page 1. This is very, very rewarding. 

While this blog (or any blog) should not be a career goal or a long term life plan, it is an extremely fun hobby. 

Change is Good

My blog needs a face lift. The banner is 6 months old. The sidebar is full of outdated links and doesn't reflect what I'm really reading these days. I want to shake out this blog like wrinkled sheet and revamp it. 

I'm still thinking about what it should look like. Maybe something like Brain Pickings. I retweet nearly everything that Maria writes. It's embarrassing. Here's an interview with her. 

All About Blogging: Traffic

(Part Two in a week-long series on blogging. Here's Part One.)

Traffic makes blogging fun and frustrating. 

People first get sucked into blogging, because it's competitive writing. You can see how many people read your stuff. You try various things to get your numbers up. You can spend hours studying the numbers on sitemeter. For those with addictive personalities (me), sitemeter is a dangerous, dangerous thing. 

It is, however, very difficult to get people to read your stuff, especially if your stuff lacks pictures of boobs. People on the Internet are there for boob pictures, celebrity gossip, and health concerns. They aren't there to read analysis about health care legislation or trips to the zoo with your kids. They want boobs and Snooki. 

From time to time, I contemplate setting up a real bottom-feeding blog that would give people exactly what they want. But I choose to use my powers for good, so I've held back. 

So what's an average blogger to do?  You've been blogging for six months and the only people who have shown up are people googling, "weird and foot and disease and severe stink." What next? 

Well, you have to network to find the right readers. The right readers are people who like your stuff, will come back again, will comment and add to the general festive spirit that you are fostering on you blog. 

You can find them by networking with other bloggers who write similar stuff. You put those bloggers on your blogroll and leave comments on their blog. You link up with them on Twitter. Then, you'll link to each others' work and pass readers back and forth. Mutual linking doesn't happen enough anymore, but it is still the best way to have a online conversation and to bring in readers. 

The mommy bloggers are really into using Facebook and Twitter to promote their blogs. I rarely use Twitter to promote the blog. I've never mentioned Apt. 11d on Facebook, because I like to keep those worlds separate. Otherwise, there would be mad political mud wrestling at the Thanksgiving dinner table. 

It's harder to get people reading your stuff than it used to be, because there isn't as much cross linking, and the professional blogs suck up all the traffic. So, new methods must be employed, like pimping yourself out to big professional websites by writing guest posts. The big professional websites will provide a link back to your blog. 

You can do a little SEO to get people to your archives. If you do a book review, make sure the title of your post is "Book Review: Title of the Book." I tend to think SEO is a waste of time, so I don't do it much. I want loyal readers who come back over and over again, because they like the topics that I cover. Random Google Searchers show up for 30 seconds and then never show up again. They don't leave comments. Because I hate them so much, I load up those old posts that bring in Random Google Searchers with ugly and obnoxious Amazon ads. 

Good content is really the best way to bring in people and then keep them. Provide interesting, funny, original, consistent material with the occasional photo. Keep typos to a minimum, but they are a hazard of the trade. One three-paragraph post per day with two or three links is a reliable formula. Link to posts in your archives. If your interests are very narrow, then you aren't going to get many viewers. If they are too broad, then you'll be lost in the crowd. 

But do not keep score. The rise of professional bloggers and writers makes it impossible to become a superstar, unless you have a useful and unusual talent or you flash your boobs on a daily basis. So just have fun with it. Blogging can be a means to another end.  

All About Blogging: Just Do It!

I went to theBlogHer Writers conference on Friday. I arrived with seven copies of a 40-page book proposal. I was hoping to put them safely in the hands of eager editors, who would then joust each other for the opportunity to publish my masterpiece. Well, I still had fun. I met a ton of sweet, creative, supportive, smart women. The speakers were informative and inspirational. I would totally go again, but without 15 lbs of proposals.

Because I've been blogging for eight years, I ended up giving out a lot of blog advice. Over those year years, I blogged for very different reasons and in many different styles and dealt with many different topics. Then, I wrote a bunch of academic papers on blogging (which are still getting cited, she says without a trace of bitterness or resentment.) I taught politics and media college classes, where I showed the kids how to blog.  I've also been unofficially working as a blog and social media consultant. I was surprised to find myself the elder statesman of blogging at this conference, but I was. 

This is the first of a series of posts about blogging, which were based on the conversations that I had on Friday. 

Just do it. I met quite a number of women at this conference who were thinking about starting a blog, but hadn't done it yet. They were worried about how they were going to frame themselves and which design to use. Some had been thinking about starting a blog for years, but were too caught up in these worries to start. 

 One afternoon eight years ago, Steve told me about Lileks and Instapundit. That evening, I found the blogger website and started blogging. A couple days later, I found the mommybloogers (Dooce and this woman works), the academic bloggers (The Invisible Adjunct, Crooked Timber, and Easily Distracted), and other political bloggers. Eventually, I learned how to blog properly, but did any harm come out jumping in too quickly? No. Well, almost no harm.

Never blog about neighbors, extended family, or friends. Even if you don't use their name, they will still find it, hate you, kill you. I lost a friend from something I wrote during those first few months of blogging. I thought my observations about the parenting styles of over zealous NYC parents were such COMEDIC GOLD that she would love being used as a case study. She did not. 

Because I learned that lesson the hard way, I restricted the subjects of my personal posts to my husband and kids, who are used to my bloggy ways. So, as much as I really, really wanted to blog that a neighbor had a job that involved a pole, I didn't. And I really, really wanted to follow up that very true and amusing story with a follow up line like, "and she wasn't a fireman!" Again, more COMEDIC GOLD. I refrained from doing so.

Until now, because we moved. 

If you want to blog, you should just jump in to get over the fear of blogging. Even if you have zero readers, you'll build up some archives and improve your writing style. When readers finally trickle in, you'll be ready for them. The design can change as time goes on. But what about your brand? If you keep shifting your look, won't that turn off people who want consistency? You are your brand. People show up to hear your views on politics/art/literature/children or to follow your life path. They don't care what kind of font you use on your logo. Besides, lots of people read blogs through RSS feeds and never even see the masthead.

Never blog about your job. Never say rude things about your co-workers, even if they are complete asses and would again lead to COMEDIC GOLD. They'll find it and you'll lose your job. 

There are some professions, which have a large number of nasty people who would love, love, love to ridicule you for not being smart or serious enough. Because blogs are unedited and quickly written, there are lots of opportunities for you to say dumb shit. The haters will have plenty of material to make rude comments about you. My advice is to get out of that toxic environment. Life is too short to be around such idiots. 

(This is the first of week-long series on blogging.)

Next Week: All About Blogging

Apologies for neglecting my loyal blog readers and devoted spammers this week. I was at a blogging conference on Friday. Thursday was spent doing last minute prep work, like printing up business cards at Staples and figuring out the new bus route into the city. On Monday, I'll dish out the details and a series of posts about blogging. 

SNL and Internet Commenters