Blogging Rules

Posted by on 17 November 2008 under Technology | 332Read the First Commenthttp://jake.roeckerfam.com/?p=332Blogging+Rules2008-11-17+03%3A15%3A07

Around this time of year people start putting up their Christmas lights.  A few weeks ago they were putting up their Halloween decorations.  In America, we have certain social expectations of our neighbours.  For example, if someone doesn’t pass out candy on Halloween they are generally shunned.   With Christmas lights it’s a little bit different.  You don’t get shunned for not putting them up.  I think there’s some economic reasons for this.  Instead you’re usually praised by the neighbourhood for putting them on display.

Everyone who blogs participates in a social network, an online neighbourhood.  Unfortunately for this society we don’t have a Moses to deliver 10 commandments from on high.  There are those that have tried to construct a “10 Commandments of Blogging.”  The generally include things like telling the truth, don’t copy someone elses entire post, don’t post obtrusive advertising, and don’t use technical jargon [ref].

In general these are good pieces of advice, but I would hardly call them commandments.  I find many solutions to online questions through forums and other people’s blogs.  If they didn’t use the jargon I wouldn’t be able to get answers. As far as obtrusive advertising goes, people are smart enough to avoid crap.  Telling the truth is over rated.  I’ve got a rough draft of a post for this blog called the “Island of Malarky” about intentionally making up ridiculous lies so people can tell you’re lying.

No, I don’t think there’s an easy solution to blogging rules, and most of the commandment sites avoid sharing a key component:  “Thy blog shall look goodeth!”

At least one picture per post: It just makes the blog look better.  On top of that here’s some other tips of things to do and avoid doing with your picture:

• Don’t make it a link to someone else’s blog.  Take the time to download and re-upload.  Sometimes those files will change on the original site and this would cost you cool appearance posts.
• Tweak the photo a bit before uploading.  On the right here you’ll see a photo that was tweaked using google’s picasa.  I’d recommend picasa because it’s free and allows for some really simple editing.  It’s also a great way to find the photos on your machine.  [download]
• What’s the best tweak for appearances?  It’s a feature called a “drop shadow.”  This is a really nice feature for blending and distinguishing your photos from your background.  Unfortunately Picasa doesn’t have this feature built into it yet.    There are other programs which do, but I’m not comfortable recommending any particular one.  Usually if it’s got the ‘drop shadow’ feature it’s a much more complicated program.  If you’re looking for it in your photo editing software you’ll probably find it among the available ‘filters.’
• Copyrights apply.  This is a big one.  Don’t steal someone else’s work–if they’re still alive.  Remember how earlier I was talking about online archives?  Well, they’re great photo repositories.  The library of congress has a great deal of photos.  Searching the site using their pre-google designed search tools is obnoxious.  So, use google to do it.  Let’s say you were looking for a picture of “mormons.”  Type mormon site:loc.gov into google’s the search box.  It’ll pull up all the results at the Library of Congress for the word “mormon.”  This isn’t what we want, we just want the pictures.  So at the top click on “Images.”  This will apply your search to all the image files at the Libbrary of Congress.  Unless otherwise stated, these images are public domain.  You can print and re-print them as you see fit.  Wanna cheat?  Click here and change the world “mormon” to whatever it is you’re looking for.

Fancy Backgrounds: You’ve seen them.  They look cool.  Just beware this is a two edge sword.

• Fancy backgrounds seem to be popping up all over the place.  You can download them from several websites.  Pyzam, cutestblogontheblock,  Mashable, here, here and here.  There’s really too many to list.  What you’re doing when you use one of these backgrounds is increasing the advertising revenue of the site that you downloaded it from.  Use a cutestblogontheblock background and in the upper right hand corner you’ll see a link to cutestblogontheblock’s website.  Why?  Google religiously searches the blogs it hosts on blogspot & blogger.  As soon as your post is published the search engines know it’s there.  Links from your blog increase the ratings of other sites.  The more sites that use cutestblogontheblock the more likely people are to click on it after searching google.  It’s like buying a shirt from Old Navy that says “Old Navy” on it.  Why are there so many sites that gives these away for free?  On their homepage they have advertising. The more people they can get to their homepage, the more they can make ends meet.
• So far this post assumes that you want to use a fancy background.  There are some out there who don’t understand why you should change.  It says something about your blog if you’re using the original background.  It looks like it’s your first week blogging.  Most folks that don’t like to change things are afraid they’ll “break” their blog.  OK it’s possible to ‘mess things up’ a bit, but you have to actually work pretty hard to delete your posts.  Go ahead and experiment.  Change things up.  Most blogging software has a ‘backup’ feature.  Backup your stuff before you play, then have fun playing!
• Busy-busy backgrounds aren’t always the best.  Remember, your blog is primarily text.  Text gets difficult to read if there’s too much going on in the background.  This pyzam background for myspace is a good example.  It makes it rather difficult to read the navigation text that occurs on the page.  If you don’t want people to read you post, get a busy background.  If you’ve written something you want people to read, then pick something to accomodate the older eyes that may be reading.

A couple more random tips

Turn the music off: Ok it’s cool that you found a thing that plays some of the songs that are a part of your life’s soundtrack.  Really, that’s neat.  It’s just a pet peeve of mine, but I don’t want to automatically hear your soundtrack when I’m reading your blog.  I might be surfing at work or in a library where audio is frowned upon.  I used to find people I didn’t like and post a comment on their myspace pages.  In the code of the page I’d include a link to a song–a rather obnoxious song–that would overlap any of their own music.  It’s like digitally TPing someone’s house.

Be Yourself: When I look at your blog I should see you.  Don’t be someone else.  It’s rather hard to maintain an alter ego.  There’s nothing wrong with exploring an online personality that is an extension of who you are.  Just remember not to create a new one while you’re exploring.

Keep posting: Make a commitment to post regularly.  If you’re thinking that nothing happened start your first sentence as “Nothing happened today” and publish it.  Odds are before you get to the “.” you’ll realize that something did happen, and someone out there wouldn’t mind reading about it.

Google Smoogle: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. We all explore the internet and often have some great finds.  Google’s good, but they don’t always sort things in the same priorites.  It’s ok to make blogs that just share your finds.  Like this mid century public service video.  It’s a classic!!!

So if you’re one of those neighbours that doesn’t put up the Christmas lights as a sign of protesting the holiday season, I’m ok with that.  You probably don’t hand out candy on Halloween either.  If you’re in the habit of ignoring social rules, then you probably quit reading this blog a while ago, and aren’t going to even listen to a single one of my suggestions.  If you have read this far, take what I’ve written a bit farther and give it a whirl.  Leave a comment to let me know how it goes.