The Whitehawk

Around seven months ago, Digg was any tech-blogger’s “dream”. It was much faster than Slashdot, and most of the top articles in that day were influential enough to write about. I could pretty much go to Digg, press “Top 24 Articles” and just pick 4 articles out of the list and have half of my work cut-out for me.

But it pains me to see that not only do we have to have the support of friends, to join the front page, but also the approval of the “Bury Brigade”, which is the name that Digg users, and bloggers alike, have given to the tight circle of Diggers who seem to enjoy burying the topics that don’t suit their tastes, rather than promoting new types of articles, which don’t appear very often, but instantly gain their disapproval because they don’t feature half-naked women using Apple products.

I don’t frequent Digg as I used to, but back when I used it frequently, rather than just “leeching” off information from the website, I also participated and looked for upcoming articles. This became more frequent as the quality of the front page articles deteriorated, and right now it’s simply reached a state where all of the front page articles are predictable and repetitive.

It’s very simple to get your article on the front page, just get a few dozen friends to Digg your article in a short period of time and you’re there (yes, I am aware that they changed their algorithm not too long ago so it would take more Diggs to reach the front page).

Back when I used Digg, reaching the front page was the hard part, and from there onwards, people would only Digg it more, and you’d gain your few minutes/hours of “fame” (or more appropriately, traffic). Today, your article has to gain the support of your friends or Digg-buddies, and the approval of the Bury Brigade, who instead of promoting quality content “bury” any content that doesn’t fit the “trend” of articles that we see today.

After going to Digg’s front page right now and having a quick look at what their Top Technology Articles are, here are some of the things you must have in your article to gain the Bury Brigade’s approval:

• The words “Apple”, “Mac” or “iPod/iPhone” - that’s all there is to it, write an article about whether you love or hate any Apple-related thing and that’s halfway-done to Digg stardom
• A gorgeous woman using/licking/covered with a random sexy gadget (preferably an Apple product) - do I need to explain this one?
• [Insert Random Number Here] ways to do [Insert Random Tech Related Thing here] - if I named this article “10 things I hate about Digg’s Bury Brigade”, you would have come across this article from Digg’s front page
• Photoshop/Design Tutorial/How To/”No No” or “Yes Yes” lists - a lot of people who use Digg think that web usability or good design can be learned by following a checklist or an iPhone Button Photoshop tutorial
• Linux is Good / Microsoft is bad - even though most Digg users probably use Windows, anything that can convince them of how good Ubuntu is, or how you can change your wallpaper on it, AND how much better you can change your wallpaper on Ubuntu than on Windows, is definitely an instant front-page article. (ok, maybe I emphasized the sarcasm a little too much there, but you get the picture)
• Funny chain-letter-esque images - I’m all for humor. In fact, I consider myself a humorous person. But when funny 404 pages are incredibly more relevant as tech news that an article that questions Mint.com’s security, you should realize that front page on Digg doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s more relevant or a more accurate response to what are the latest tech news or articles.

Right now, the Digg front page only lists those articles that are more popular between a small group of people and approved by the large majority of them which bury any article that doesn’t suit their tastes.

But if you follow the list above you can guarantee that your articles will suit the Digg-groupies tastes. Just don’t expect on it suiting the tastes of the “rest of us” who abandoned Digg for the “selection” of articles above.

Personal Note: Although I listed it as one of the negative items, I have to admit that I happen to visit Macenstein once a month to see their Mac girl of the month. I know that most of them are just models pretending to be Mac fans, but the illusion that somewhere in the world a girl like that exists pleases my inner-geek.

Before I start this article: yes, there weren’t any updates to the Live design today. I decided to take the day off for blogging.

I caught up with the articles I owed ForeverGeek and with the industry news in general. For the first time in days I took time to read some of my favorite comic strips like Dilbert and Pearls Before Swine, which I religiously follow.

So no, I’m not slacking off, and you can expect a lot of updates tomorrow. Now back to your regularly-scheduled program…

When I was talking with my good friend David today a thought hit me: if it weren’t for a handful of people I wouldn’t be writing this article today.

There were a lot of people who inspired or motivated me to start a blog (no, I didn’t just make it to randomly rant or talk about personal things “no one cares about”), and I thought it was about time to give them the recognition they deserve for that.

A couple of people have gone as far as to call me a “successful” blogger. Although that idea always makes me chuckle, when I consider that I am both payed for some of my articles and that I somehow managed to become a member of 9rules (a fact that amazes me until this day), I can’t say that I’m an unfortunate blogger, but that’s as far as I’ll go.

A series of curious coincidences led me to start blogging, thanks to the offer by a man, and later on that man was once again influential in what would or not become my blogging career. And had it not been for his acceptance, I might have not given this blog half of the love that it’s received (although it deserves much more, specially as a part of such a prestigious network).

That man was none other than Paul Scrivens, best known as Scrivs who is the brainchild behind the popular 9rules network and a few other popular blogs like the Whitespace, Wisdump (which was sold to splashpress media), and the very popular podcast: Scrivs Tyme.

It all started when one of the blogs I used to read was looking for new editors. As I sat in my office chair thinking about the offer and how cool it would be to write the articles that other tech-enthusiasts such as myself would read, my two co-workers, Xavier and André, both motivated me to give them an e-mail, and so I did.

At the time, ForeverGeek was owned by Scrivs. When I first started I was incredibly “clumsy” as an editor. I wrote some of the most commented, but also the most controversial, articles where I bashed or favored some company’s product. Some of the other editors, who were closer to Scrivs suggested that he’d kick me out. Until this day I don’t know why he didn’t.

A few months later, ForeverGeek was sold, and under the new ownership I started being payed a fixed amount of money. That was the first time I felt like a professional, and thus I started taking blogging much more seriously, until the point I opened my own blog, which you are reading right now.

During this blog’s early days, as you may confirm with the archive, it had little or no direction. I wrote about whatever I felt like, or whatever was having an impact or influence in my lifestyle.

At first I thought it could serve for me to comment on the newest gadgets I found appealing. Then I found out, through various comments on ForeverGeek, that the readers liked to be informed about new things as much as they enjoyed reading the editor’s opinions about them. This lead to a natural enrichment of my ForeverGeek articles, and a slight disregard towards this blog which started serving as nothing more than an outdated journal and a repository for my CV and Portfolio.

Then I met David Peralty, who I mentioned at the start. At the time he was just another editor like myself at ForeverGeek, but he had higher ambitions than I: he was attempting to make a living from blogging. Until this day, he still does, and I must commend him for that because it takes a lot of courage for a person to consider such a thing.

It didn’t take long for us to become friends, and before I knew it we were both reading each other’s blogs, and once again I felt motivated to write here again. So if you enjoy reading this blog, the kudos should go to him, and not me.

Then came 9rules…

Back in the day I joined 9rules, most people considered the network the epitome of blogging, the best of the best, the “little black book”. Although it evolved into more accessible social website, I am certain that regardless of which member site I visit on 9rules, the content there will be great.

But the best thing about 9rules’ evolution is that people no longer have to look upon 9rules members as distant “Gods of Blogging “who would look down on you from their Olympia. Now anyone can and should interact with us through 9rules’ notes, messages, or with any of the other new things that they’re bringing out with their upcoming Ali2 version the site (which will be launched on Monday).

Now that I’ve done the blatant network promotion on with the story… David (he pops up a lot in this story) convinced me that my blog was good enough to join 9rules, and that I should try to get in. I’m not sure what name I called him at the time, but I’m certain that it was something in the line of “insane”. Insanely enough, I got in. I don’t know if Scrivs favored me a little, or if Tyme thought I looked cute enough…

…all I know was that I was in. And that was the happiest day I ever had since I started blogging. Yes, my ego went up 300% for the first couple of weeks, but after that it went back to normal, and I started focusing again on bringing quality content.

(Oh my, it’s 3am already so I should think about ending this article)

Anyway, if you were paying a lot of attention to this article (although you shouldn’t really), you’d know that I mentioned that a handful of people influenced me enough to start blogging. Who would the mysterious 5th person be?

Well, unfortunately he doesn’t have a blog (he’s not that tech-savvy yet), but I can guarantee that he is a great professional in published media. He’s none other than my father, who was the Editor in Chief of my island’s most sold newspaper for many years. Thanks to him I’ve always felt attracted to publishing and writing my own articles, and this is something he has influenced me to do all of my life.

So it gives me great pride to follow his legacy on the blogging sphere, and who knows, maybe someday I’ll be half as good as he is.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything in this category, but the question above came up to me when I was talking with my friend, David Peralty. Although some might answer that question almost immediately from the top of their heads, and clearly state that right blogging is in the middle, or entering, a golden era, I have to contest that opinion.

Social networking has never been as big as it is now, and most people I know, even the less tech-savvy, have an account on at least one of those websites, and most of them keep track of the events in their lives through a chronological order. Blogging has been completely molded into those sites, and although some might claim that they never owned a blog, they may just be blogging unaware.

But what about professional blogging?

Sixteen years ago, and for 30 years before that, my father was the editor of the most popular local newspaper here in Madeira. The payments were low, the hours he put in were long (at the very least, 12 hours a day), and what kept him going the most was really the love for the profession. Is professional blogging today very different from this?

Today, most newspapers manage to succeed, whether they are printing or showing their articles online, there have never been as many journalistic sources for news as there are now. And the money that the journalists, and editors, earn, is actually quite a lot, compared to what it was a couple of decades ago.

Let’s look at professional blogging today. Despite the reports of 6 figure earnings, like those of ProBlogger.net’s Darren Rowse, not everyone is as sucessful as he is, in monetary terms. To give you a small idea, some editors may earn, some professional bloggers get payed less than $5 per article.

To write an article, you can waste as much as time time as a whole hour looking for the most accurate report, or something “worthy” of being posted on the website. But sometimes it can also be as quick as 15 or 30 minutes. But how many of these would you need to write in order to earn a good payment, enough to make a living?

Crunching the numbers…

Let’s see, imagine you can write 8 articles per day, one or two of which have to be product analysis ones. If you’re being payed 5$ per article, which is already considered a “great” payment in the blogging industry, you’d be able to earn $800 a month. Although you can write many more articles than that per day, you can only so many decent articles per an hour.

If your employer has high standards, the best you’ll be able to come with is around 6 articles in 8 hours, which would be complete product analysis, and probably earn you twice as much as a normal article would. Even so, the monthly wage you’d receive would still be very close to that of the minimum wage.

It’s not uncommon for professional bloggers, who live solemly from their blogging earnings to work over 12 hours per day, which is how long my father worked for two decades ago in journalism, and he earned quite more than the minimum wage, although it was nowhere as good as what the earnings are today (in journalism).

And don’t forget that there isn’t any “clear” way to declare your earnings for tax payment. The best thing you can do is to setup your own company for computer services, and use the earnings from that to declare your taxes.

The blogging industry is indeed blooming, and more professionals emerge each month. But I don’t think that we can call this the “golden” age yet. Right now only those with a nack for business, or a great love for blogging should consider taking it up as a professional career.

A few days ago, David Peralty asked me if I would be willing to give him an interview about pro-blogging. At first, I thought he was kidding, but when he set a date for it I started to realize that he was serious about it. And so, that day came, and today the interview was posted on BloggingPro.

The first part of the interview is mostly about myself (boring, right?), but right at the end there is something that you might be able to find helpful, or at least elucidative:

David: If you had to give a tip to all the bloggers out there looking to make a few bucks from blogging. What would that tip or those tips be?

Marco: If you are only in the blogging business in order to make money, you should realize that there are more profitable professions out there. Back when my father managed my island’s most popular newspaper, he didn’t earn a good enough payment for the amount of hours he worked for. Right now, blogging is the same.

Most professional bloggers work arduously, sometimes up to 12 hours a day, in order to make enough revenue just to make a living. There are only a select few that make a lot of money.

Some people are more business-oriented than others, others are just more popular, or better writers, or simply more fortunate. I guess that what I’m trying to say is, if you don’t have a love for this profession, a taste for writing and the yearn to discover new things every day, then this might not be the most appropriate profession for you, but if you do, I hope that you have enough perseverance, and luck, to make it.

I, and most of the people I talk to, love Chinese restaurants, and their food also, of course.

Is there some special formula for this success?

Is it the decoration, the food, the service? During this article I intend on analyzing all of these things and determine if any of the factors that make people choose Chinese restaurants, over others, can help improve your blog, and the way you write.

It’s different

As soon as you walk in a Chinese restaurant, as cheap as it might be, you know you’re entering a different place. The way people dress, the paintings, the lights, the whole decoration basically, is different. Though it may not be something crucial when you’re choosing which restaurant to go to, I think that it is a bit influential, at least for me.

It’s not only a place I like to go to eat well, it’s also a place I enjoy being at, because it’s different from everywhere else. What can you learn from this for your blog? Well, your blog’s design is important. Of course “content is king” when you’re talking about blogs, but if you can make your blog a bit different from all others, with it’s own look, yet accessible and readable enough, you’ll be making your visitors much more satisfied, and it will also help you attract new visitors which were drawn in by your blog’s design.

Don’t speak Chinese? No problem!

In the ScrivsTyme podcast a few days ago, Scrivs mentioned how he disliked not understanding what the Chinese employees speak when he goes there. Some people find that rude, and I can understand why, but what can we learn from this for blogging?

Well, first of all, we can learn that it’s important that you know how to communicate with your readers. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mother language or not (English isn’t my main language), what matters is that you are understandable. So I guess that the only thing we can learn from here is that you should always proofread what you’re about to say, but there’s still something important we can learn from this.

Don’t talk about things people won’t understand. Sorry for referring ScrivsTyme again, but they always pay attention to this issue. It’s very rare for you to hear their podcast and not understand what they’re talking about. They always take the time to explain the things that preceded their current subject. They don’t separate the users who are contributors, or avid participants in the forums, from those that aren’t. They always take the time to explain what’s behind their answers or stories. Another good example of this is the article I wrote not too long ago regarding mine and my girlfriend’s “hot chocolate” date (but don’t think that it’s anything like GTA’s “Hot Chocolate”).

Consistently Good

If you don’t usually go out for lunch or dinner, you’ll probably wonder sometimes about whether it’s worth the risk, or not, to go to a restaurant you’ve had mixed impressions about. Whether you’re out for meat or fish, and regardless of the restaurant you choose to go, the quality of the dish will never be the same.

For example, here, in Portugal, one of our traditional dishes is “roasted piglet”. Yes, we eat Babe-sized pigs, and it’s damn good… but expensive. However, there is a problem about choosing such a dish in a restaurant. You never know if it will be as good as it was last time. Sometimes you’ll get tasty and tender meat, sometimes you’ll get more bones than anything else. But the price for the dish is always the same.

In a Chinese restaurant, you know that no matter what you order, it will be almost exactly the same as what you ordered last time. Just today, me and my father were wondering about where we would go out for lunch. We stopped by a restaurant he’s acquainted with, but then ended up coming back, because the day’s special was a soup, and we wanted something a bit more “solid” than that. After idling in my Peugeot for a few minutes we ended up going to the Chinese again. My father said, and I quote:

“At least there we know that we’ll eat well.”

When we get to the Chinese restaurant, the employees there are always nice and polite. They let us feel comfortable. And since we’re regulars there, they even come talk to us a bit every time we stop by. We eat well, for a reasonable price, without sacrificing service or quality.

So if you’re writing on a blog, and expect it to be successful, even if you write about “growing pineapple trees in Malaysia”, as long as you keep your article’s quality consistently good, and released within consistent intervals, then you should be able to reach some success. Of course, these tips are not all you need to follow in order to reach a successful blog. But if you follow them, they will, at least, set you on the right track.

Inspired by the somewhat recent article from 9rules’ Scrivs’, “What WoW can teach Web 2.0″, I decided to write a similar article regarding some of the mistakes that I’ve seen some blogs making, even big ones.

Always think two, or more, steps ahead

I have not been in the (blogging) business for very long, but even so, I’ve witnessed my fair share of mistakes. If you have a, somewhat, popular blog, you should consider the opinions of your readers. If you want to change something about your blog, you should always consider what people will think of it.

A good example of this type of thought is my colleague, and friend, David Peralty, who, before changing his design (and domain), took in consideration what people thought of two designs he showed for his new personal blog. However, after changing domain name and design, and almost starting fresh he started to see some things which he might have not been prepared for. For example, since he started the new blog there is no longer any reference of him in his former site. It’s as if he’s starting a career in a foreign country. The result of that was when he tried to sign up for a new Web 2.0 service, however, they wouldn’t allow him to register because his site was “ranked too low”.

Whether it’s your design, domain name or feature, in your blog, you should always think of what may result from it. Even the best, and clearest, ideas can be deceiving.

Also, regarding articles, you should always take in consideration what you’re going to say regarding anything you post about. As a blogger, or as a modern version of a journalist, you must always remember that what you say may not please all of your readers. Because the same article will be read by both people who love the subject, people who hate it, and people who are indifferent to it. Your article should always be concise, and if you want to show your preference or the opposite for what you’re writing about, do so with evidence, or references, from other articles or news.

Another elegant way to separate the “fans” from the “haters” is to separate the content into separate blogs, like joystiq did with PSPfanboy, as an example.

Every piece is important

In chess, to be successful, you need try and make the most out of the pieces you have. In blogging, unfortunately, in order for you to have success, and make some decent revenue, you need a great number of visitors: good and bad ones.

In this blog, I have made a rule to myself to never force anyone to register in order to post a comment. Sure, Akismet can’t protect me from every spam comment there is. But if I decided to implement registered user, not only would I be helping to reduce spam, but also potential customers, or readers who have something useful or important to add.

It is a known fact that many people hate registering for sites, and even though, according to Akismet, 93% of all comments are spam, by forcing registration you’re excluding yet another big percentage from the remaining percentage of comments that aren’t.

If you write on a blog with the sole intention of gaining many visitors quickly (in order to increase your revenue) you should consider that not all people that visit your site through a referring article will click on your adds. In fact, some of the people who have been dugg (or slashdotted), without being prepared for it, have said that it caused them more harm than good, as it leeched away the traffic that their site was allowed to have and often caused the server to break down.

There is no fast lane for making great revenues from your blogs. It takes dedication, great content and time.

Learn from your experience

One of the greatest things about Chess that surpasses most games, is that when you lose, you know exactly why. You know which moves you made wrong, and which were good, and it’s very likely that you’ll learn from those moves.

In blogging, you can take the same lessons, regardless of the category you’re writing about. You are bound to meet other bloggers that are more successful than you. Unlike Chess, which only allows you to see the board as it is, or will be in a couple of turns; the Internet allows you to see how a site was in the past, how it is in the present, and how and where they’re being referred.

Whether your blog is being as successful as you want it to be, or not; you should always visit the blogs of the people that write about the same things as you. Chances are that they’re doing something better than you, or worse, and if you can perceive that, and learn from it, you are halfway ready to become a better blogger.

Conclusion

Keep your eyes open to your surroundings. If you pay attention to those that listen to you, or those that oppose, you are bound to find success.

Chess, like blogging, isn’t just a test of wits, it’s also a test of perseverance. Remember that, and blog well. It’s your turn to move your pieces now.