Blogging and podcasting
- 1. Blogging and Podcasting: Personal syndication for fun and profit Alek Davis Copyright © 2008
- 2. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit2 of 27 Introduction • Stats – According to the PEW's 2008 spring survey: • 58% of internet users have never read an online journal or blog • 88% of internet users have never created an online journal or blog
- 3. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit3 of 27 Topics • Why – Read blogs and listen to podcasts – Write blogs (and produce podcasts) • How to – Find quality blogs and podcasts – Read blogs and listen to podcasts – Start blogging (and podcasting)
- 4. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit4 of 27 Technology • RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) – XML-based format for delivering regularly changing web content (blogs, audio/video podcasts) – Version 2.0 • Atom – Alternative to RSS – More recent specification – Version 1.0 • Differences – RSS and Atom • RSS 2.0: specification is closed; Atom 1.0: specification can be updated • RSS 2.0: no way to distinguish plain text from escaped HTML (escaped HTML looks ugly, e.g. AT&T looks like AT&T); Atom 1.0: format of content is explicitly labeled (as plain text, XHTML, …) • More…
- 5. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit5 of 27 Reading blogs • Why – Knowledge, fun, convenience • How – RSS aggregators/readers • Web based – Google Reader (supports offline browsing with Gears enabled) – Bloglines (really nice interface) • Desktop based – FeedDemon – RSS Bandit – Built into browser • More – Wikipedia: List of feed aggregators (RSS readers)
- 6. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit6 of 27 Recommended technical blogs • Software development – Coding Horror by Jeff Atwood – Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky – Stevey's Blog Rants by Steve Yegge • Software, productivity, and GTD (Get Things Done) – Lifehacker – MakeUseOf – Online Tech Tips • Information+technology – I, Cringely by Robert X. Cringely – IS Survivor by Bob Lewis – SuperSite Blog by Paul Thurrott • More recommendations – Top 100 Blogs for Development Managers – See sidebar of Alek Davis: Technoblog
- 7. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit7 of 27 Information overload • Behavioral approach – Mark all as read • Use capabilities of RSS Tools – Google Reader (show collapsed unread items) • Use special RSS tools – Twitter search • What people are talking about – Dapper (DAta maPPER) • Customize feeds and subscriptions • Review by FreewareGenius – Yahoo! Pipes • Similar to Dapper, but more powerful • RSS tools for smart shoppers • More fun with Yahoo! Pipes • Demo
- 8. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit8 of 27 Starting your own blog • Why – Direct benefits • Financial • Name recognition • Gain and share knowledge • Personal growth • Creative expression • Productivity tool (custom search, references, …) – Indirect benefits • Carrier • Opportunities • Why not – Time – Effort – Commitment
- 9. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit9 of 27 Money • How much can a pro blogger make – Joel Spolsky: Joel on Software (programming; blog) • Contributes success of his company Fog Creek Software to his blog – Jeff Atwood: Coding Horror (programming; blog; 100K readers/day; 60K subscribers) • Quit regular job – Amit Agarwal: Digital Inspiration (tech blog; 1.25 million hits/month; 4.5K subscribers) • Earnings: >$250K/year – Steve Pavlina: Steve Pavlina (personal development; blog; audio podcast) • Earnings: ~$40K/month (~$1K/day) • Steve Pavlina's wife makes ~$5K/month from her blog
- 10. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit10 of 27 Money (continued) • Sources of money – AdSense (and similar programs) • Q: How much money 100 visitors per day should bring? • A: About $1/month. – Affiliation programs • Amazon affiliate – Sponsorship – Text ads – Contracts • Other alternatives – Blogs by multiple authors • Lifehacker (computers and productivity; blog) • MakeUseOf (computers and productivity; blog; audio podcast)
- 11. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit11 of 27 Insight • Steve Pavlina – From the Skill post: • "During my first six months as a blogger, I earned a whopping $167. That’s about 17 cents per hour… not exactly what you’d call an unqualified success. But about a year and a half later, my blog’s income was passing $10K/month and kept going up from there. What if I’d given up during the first few months? Why didn’t I give up? Partly it was because I wasn’t doing it for the money to begin with, so I didn’t define success in financial terms. Probably the main reason though is that I felt this line of work was such an excellent fit for my passion and skills that I couldn’t fathom doing anything else. It’s a virtual certainty that I’d be writing about personal development today in some fashion even if I was still making only 17 cents an hour. What really drove me was the desire to creatively express myself in a way that might help people."
- 12. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit12 of 27 Blogging essentials • Platforms – Self-hosted • WordPress (PHP, MySQL) • dasBlog (ASP.NET 2.0, file-based) • BlogEngine.NET (ASP.NET, many databases supported) • Moveable Type (Perl 5) • See comparison chart – Externally hosted (free) • MySpace, Bloglines, … • LiveJournal (social blogging) • Intel Software Blogs • WordPress • Blogger/Blogspot
- 13. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit13 of 27 WordPress vs. Blogger/Blogspot • Reviews – Blogger vs WordPress: Review for the Newbie Blogger – Which Blog Service is the best? WordPress vs Blogger vs LiveJournal • WordPress (free hosted version) – Nice editor (supports full screen) – Navigations takes getting used to – Fewer templates, limited customization, no CSS support – JavaScript is not allowed – Categories = tags – Example: Alek Davis: Personal Blog • Blogger/Blogspot (hosted by Google) – Easy to customize/hack templates, CSS support – JavaScript is allowed – Easy navigation – Example: Alek Davis: Technoblog
- 14. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit14 of 27 Resources for new bloggers • General recommendations – How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog) by Steve Pavlina – 10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber by Chris Pirillo – Thirteen Blog Clichés by Jeff Atwood • Technical tips and tricks – 8 steps to a more professional Blogspot blog by Download Squad – 12 no crap tools to make your blog better by MakeUseOf – 5 ways to increase Internet traffic to your blog or web site by Online Tech Tips – How to get more traffic to your blog from Google, Yahoo and MSN by Online Tech Tips – Blogger FAQ and Help – Tips for new bloggers (Blogger/Blogspot hacks) • Statistics – Performancing Metrics – Google Analytics
- 15. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit15 of 27 Writing • Language tools – The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. – Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, Third Edition (PDF) – Daily Writing Tips (blog) – Cliché Finder (online tool) – Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing (article)
- 16. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit16 of 27 Legal • Legal and ethical aspects – Employer, coworkers, friends, family, … • Copyright tools – Copyscape • Search for your content on copycat sites – Infringement Notification for Google Blogger • Notify Google about plagiarism – Google Report a Spam Result • Report sites which plagiarize your content • Copyright issues – Be careful linking to or using external media
- 17. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit17 of 27 Media files • Pictures (photos) – Blogger/Blogspot and WordPress allow certain amount of image files – If you exceed the limit, use external image hosting sites • Manage Blogger Image Storage Space • Music – Avoid • Add Music to Blogspot blog – Use external playlists/streaming • Video – Use widgets from video sharing sites • Vodpod, … – Use embedded Flash player • YouTube, Google Videos, …
- 18. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit18 of 27 Widgets • Polls – Built into Blogger/Blogspot – Vizu, … • Books and more – Shelfari, Amazon, …
- 19. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit19 of 27 Blogging recommendations • Search engine optimization (SEO) – Blog post URLs (tied to titles) – Meaningful titles – Keywords – Tags • Site layout and navigation – Keep it simple – Keep it clean – Make it fast
- 20. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit20 of 27 Listening to podcasts • Why – Information, entertainment, makes your daily driving time fly • Recommended technical podcasts – Software development • Hanselminutes by Scott Hanselman • .NET Rocks by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell • StackOverflow by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky – More: • Dmitry Lyalin's recommendations: Q&A: Excellent Podcasts
- 21. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit21 of 27 Podcasting tools • Hardware – MP3 player (Zune, iPod, any other) • Wait wait... fix this podcast! • Zune (iPod?) – Keeps track of paused, listened, saved podcasts – Aux input line, cassette adapter, FM transmitter, and more • FM transmitters or cassette adapters? • Software – Zune (iTunes, …) – Tools/utilities (RSS aggregators/readers, …) • Juice – Downloads podcasts to your hard drive – Handy for podcasts which limited public availability (lifespan) • Freecorder Toolbar – Saves streaming (non-downloadable) podcasts (or other audio)
- 22. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit22 of 27 Producing your own podcast • Steps – Record – Normalize audio (remove silence, add music, etc) – Publish • Equipment – Microphone • Noise-cancelling is recommended – Headset • USB-based is recommended – Recording software • Audacity • Tutorials – Create your own podcast – What is Podcasting – How to Podcast
- 23. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit23 of 27 Podcast hosting • Free podcast hosting sites – OurMedia – Odeo Studio (ad-based, max file size: 50 MB) – PodcastSpot (free for up to 25 MB of uploaded files per month) • Podcast from your blog – Use existing space – Use external host • Internet Archive (use under Creative Commons license) – Use Feedburner to generate RSS feed for podcast from existing blog
- 24. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit24 of 27 Podcasting services • GCast (free, ad-based service) – Create podcast over the phone or on computer – Upload podcast file to GCast – Podcast is automatically published
- 25. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit25 of 27 Podcasting via Skype • When – For conference calls (2 or more participants) • Why – Great quality for free (or cheap) • How – How to Record a Podcast Using Skype (video/audio) – eHow: How to Podcast with Skype – Think Vitamin: How to Podcast with Skype
- 26. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit26 of 27 Podcasting recommendations • Audio quality – Keep bit rate at ~64 kbps (for voice only) – Use VRB (Variable Bit Rate) if it helps – Use ~44.1 KHz sample rate – Does it have to be stereo? If so, make it Joint Stereo • Audio (MP3) files – Define appropriate ID3 tags (genre, title, year, …) – Add album art – Use meaningful file names • Tips – 8 Professional Podcast Production Tips from SitePoint TechTimes Newsletter #214 – 6 Steps to Professional Podcast Publishing from SitePoint TechTimes Newsletter #216
- 27. 09/03/15Blogging and Podcasting: Personal Syndication for Fun and Profit27 of 27 References • Articles – How To Achieve Ultimate Blog Success In One Easy Step by Jeff Atwood – How To Advertise on Your Blog Without (Completely) Selling Out by Jeff Atwood – A New Model For Getting Rich Online by Yuki Noguchi (Washington Post) – How Much Money Do I Make From Adsense & Blogging? by Amit Agarwal – Skill by Steve Pavlina – How to Make Money From Your Blog by Steve Pavlina – Podtastic! Professional Podcasting for the Rest of Us by Jon Watson • Videos (short and informational) – Blogs in Plain English by Common Craft – RSS in Plain English by Common Craft – Podcasting in Plain English by Common Craft
Editor's Notes
- #10: Earning estimates are based on info compiled at Paula Neal Mooney lists: Paula's New List of Blogger Salaries (and Webmasters, Affiliate Marketers, Content Scrapers, Domainers and any other title you can think of) June 2007 (http://paulamooney.blogspot.com/2007/06/paulas-new-list-of-blogger-salaries-and.html) Paula's List of Blogger Salaries...Are you on the list? (http://paulamooney.blogspot.com/2007/05/paulas-list-of-blogger-salariesare-you.html)