April 19th, 2008

Kristi’s Ultimate Blog?

My wife has been an excellent and dedicated blogger for several years now. Her skills have grown, as have her audience. We both agree that it’s time to take it to the next level - a custom blog at a domain of her own.

I have some ideas, but I wanted to put it to you.

Update: Some great feedback in the thread - probably the most-commented post yet. Some more questions: what about photography? Should that be front-and-center, or “below the fold” and out of the way?

This has become a hybrid discussion of my site and Kristi’s potential site. Which is okay - just interesting! Thanks for the feedback!

What kind of features would you like to see? Examples might be, “a list of the latest comments”; “a link list of sites you read”; “more photos”; “more on topic x or y”; “easier search and getting to archived posts”; or, “more RSS feeds, like comments and stuff”. I’ll start: “an iPhone-compatible version!”. The content is really up to her - I’m trying to figure out a feature set. I can build pretty much anything with Expression Engine.

One thing I’m looking at is how to roll together these disparate “content pools”: Flickr photos, del.icio.us links, conversations and Twitter posts into one main page.

Another way to put this: what sites do you really like? Any world-class blogs you like? What web trends are hot?

You Blogger.com people: would you post on a blog, if it’s not a Blogger.com blog? My goal is to make it as easy as possible, but I get relatively few comments on my blog. I’ve never discovered whether it’s that people aren’t interested in what I’m writing about, or if it’s confusing or difficult to add posts. Mine’s more work-oriented; Kristi’s all about human interest and keeping up with friends & family.

Posted in Life, Site News, Tools, Toys, and Geekery

Responses

I’m personally a WordPress fan. It’s what I use for myself (the self-hosted version, so I can tinker) and for my clients.

I usually try to get my friends & family (and clients!) on http://wordpress.com—it’s easy to use, powerful, and sufficiently customizable. You can have your own domain name, your own design, shuffle around stuff in the sidebar with widgets… honestly, there’s not much you can’t do on the hosted version.

I’m not sure what your wife’s blogs requirements are, but WP would be my advice.

Oh—forgot one other important reason I like to get people blogging on wordpress.com: no maintenance. It’s always up-to-date!

I like the overall look of this one - but not grey background: http://www.flowerdust.net/.

This one’s pretty, too:
http://solofemininity.blogs.com/posts/

http://lao-ocean.com/

Okay - there’s a few to start. Dang, there’s a lot of ugly blogs out there!

Stephanie, thanks for your comments. I develop exclusively in Expression Engine. WP is free, but not nearly as powerful or customizable as EE. Are you selling something? I was asking about features, not platforms.

I like some aspects of Veerle’s blog.

“Features” don’t really add much value to a blog for me, as a reader. As long as the RSS feed works, and I have time online, I’ll be reading. The appeal (for me) lies in the content—and interesting content is something both of you do well, IMHO. Having said that, bells and whistles are fun, so add away!

As for comments… I’m learning (slowly) that there are posts which make people want to comment, and then there are posts which people read and think “Oh, cool,” and move on. What’s the difference between the two? Well, I’m still trying to figure that one out myself, but I can tell you that your posts, Allan, fall mostly into the latter category. That’s really not a bad thing, from a reader’s perspective—but if you’re craving comments, you gotta figure out ways to invite dialogue.

Lindsey - great feedback, on many levels: thank you.

“fewer features” (less buttons & whistles) is a “feature” of a sort, too. Stated another way, simplicity is an important value.

If I can get my posting volume up, I really need to fork this blog into “personal/discussion” and “work-related/neato” blogs. Time in my life is at an absolute premium right now.

Good stuff to chew on! Thanks for contributing.

I like the textures here: http://www.viget.com/inspire/

How about a small widget named “Where Is Kristi’s iPhone” that tracks the current location of her iPhone?

Randy, if only I could go back in time…

Been thinking more about Lindsey’s comments. Kristi is definitely about the comments. She’s great at eliciting them, and writes posts that are thought-provoking.

My goals are a bit different. It started as a way just to write what I’m into - for me alone. I can’t deny that getting comments feels great, and not getting them feels… a bit lousy.

I’m still compelled to blog, though. I need to “lower the threshold” of blog post effort to do more (e.g.

Randy, You suck! LOL I choose to believe that the Lord is going to take pleasure in revealing my phone to me in His time. He’s taking great effort to humble me lately. I hate it.

Followed you here from Twitter.

Have you considered Tumblr? It’s sort of a cross between a blog and a twitter account.  You can get people to follow you, and you can choose who you follow.  Content isn’t limited to text; you can have pics, music and videos. 

http://www.tumblr.com/ ...I’d post a link to mine, but it’s mostly full of big robots and dinosaurs.

Tumblr is interesting; like Twitter, I’ve not quite been sure what to make of it. To me it seems like halfway between the brevity of Twitter and the openness of blogging. It’s more visual and free-flowing.

Tumblr is really just another flavor (Flavr?) of blogging. It’s a little different, but not different enough to not call it a blog; in the same way, you might refer to Twitter as “microblogging”.

Again, we have the tech foundation down, we’re definitely going Expression Engine. But thanks!

I subscribe to too many feeds. So, the number one feature I crave is complete articles included in the rss subscription.

I’ll confess that I’ve cut some blogs out of my life just because they force me to click-through to read them.

As I *occasionally* consider authoring on my blog again, I’ve given some thought to turning off comments completely. I used to get pretty focused on my comment counts. I wonder: “would my writing be better if I didn’t even have comments?” “Am I writing to get that little ego stroke?” It is tempting to me.

Jason, that’s some great feedback. I read a lot of feeds on my phone now; full posts are a must. I also really like how I can write brief summaries that show in search results and RSS summaries.

I have too many feeds too, already. Google Reader’s stats are useful for pruning.

RSS is a reality now for how people read. I only click through when I want to comment on many.

Man, comments are truly addictive (look at this post! Woo! Conversation!) sometimes. I’m always frustrated when I read good stuff on a blog and can’t comment. I’m not sure comments help the writing, but they do help me get to know the people who do post.

Nivi says:

Kill your personal blog and start the very best blog on a narrow topic. It’s the best way to stand out.

He’s probably right. Perhaps the personal blog becomes just an aggregator for all the microblogs.

How’s that different than categories or tags? More vertical-market-ish? I suppose you can then build separate audiences for each. Good point, but a lot of work.

I’m closing this entry; I’m getting a lot of comment spam that’s getting through the defenses.