At first, people thought Blogger.com must have gone bonkers. Some even thought the "evilness" of Google PageRank slapfest has taken hold at Blogger.com.
I'm sure WordPress and other non-Blogger users would have noticed the sudden change when they wanted to leave a comment at a Blogger site.
"Hey, WTF, how come I can't leave my blog address here anymore?"
That would be the most likely reactions from readers to this new surprising experience at Blogger sites. I was initially disappointed, too, after reader BlueBeaverBeer brought it to my attention in his comment in my previous post on this blog.
It would be "doomsday for comments" at Blogger sites if that was for real. But after further investigations, it turned out that Blogger.com is using Blogger In Draft to implement this latest feature that's called OpenID Commenting. Blogger In Draft is Blogger.com's experimental version that does "test drives" of new features that are being added to the Blogger platform.
The new OpenID Commenting feature can be activated now and I've done that to this site. (See screen capture below)
According to Blogger In Draft:
This feature is in Draft because we'd like to hear feedback about the implementation, and to test it further before moving it to Blogger's main site. We're also working on functionality to let Blogger's URLs (both Blog*Spot and custom domains) be used for commenting elsewhere on the web."
With OpenID services enabled, users such as those from WordPress and LiveJournal can now comment on Blogger blogs using their own accounts rather than having to register with Blogger/Google accounts.
To sign in, you use
the dropdown-menu
to select
your blog platform
Of course, if you are a Blogger user, you have to activate the OpenID Commenting feature first. And for users of other platforms, they have to acquire their OpenIDs.
What does OpenID do for you? With it, you only have to authenticate yourself once and be able to post comments not only on Blogger sites but also on other platforms without having to show your credential all over again.
The powerful aspects of OpenID is that you can do away with multiple usernames across different websites. Your online experience is simplified. The technology is not proprietary and it's free.
To know more about OpenID, you can head over to OpenID.net for a more comprehensive explanation of this new technology that may well be an industry standard in the near future.
I'm not one for pretentious mission statement like this..."I blog, therefore, I am". When I see this I cringe. When you travel far and wide in the blogosphere, you're bound to come across all sorts of idiosyncrasies coming from bloggers. Tricks and treats are everywhere.
Let's face it, there's always the good, the bad and the ugly side of blogging, being the "free-wheeling" kind of space that the blogosphere is today. But let's look at the brighter side of blogging where the dissemination of information is freely given.
Bloggers who don't hold back in sharing their knowledge are the ones that really make the whole blogging experience something to be appreciated and worth the time spent doing it.
It's a positive attribute -- and spreading the goodwill can only be good and beneficial to the blogging community.
The best part of blogging, especially for those seeking to enhance their blogging experience, is to be able to build a community and network with people who have similar interests.
If you have achieved the status of celebrity bloggers you can establish your credibility as an expert or thought-leader in your field. What else can they be but to be leaders of the pack.
When these bloggers write a post, the flood of comments that pour in says a lot about their popularity and status. They get tons of RSS and email subscribers. They are usually on top of major blogging issues.
Some of the qualities you find in these bloggers are that they know how to use personality, opinions, expressions as a way of drawing readers to read their content.
In blogging you got to know the art of writing for blog readers. These so-called thought leaders do have some tricks up their sleeves, and they know how to use them and keep us coming back for more.
Recently, Maki of Dosh Dosh wrote one of the most profound articles on blogging -- "The Secret to Building a Popular Blog" -- which is so comprehensive in its presentation it caught the attention of many bloggers. The lengthy article -- a brilliant piece of work, if I may say so -- created a huge buzz.
What Maki's detailed article boils down to is that you can overcome the barriers by spreading your wings to build a popular blog. It's all about following the right process, using strong tools, and applying smart networking to reach your objective.
The kind of blogger you are...
Author and blogger Seth Godin may prefer to switch off "comment" on his blog. Kumiko's blog at CashQuests did the same for a spell but decided to switch "comment" back on again. They have their reasons for doing what they did.
For Godin, he took a lot of flak for his surprising view that he no longer wanted to see comments on his blog. One irate blogger put it down as "a movement among the self-impressed in the blogosphere to toss up walls around themselves to avoid having to interact with the unwashed masses."
Some bloggers are so choosy about commentators that they put up "comment roadblocks" so that they can filter those people who come over to their blogs by requiring them to register first. No matter what excuses these bloggers give, they are just a big turn-off for most visitors who will most likely not come back again.
The very fact that we blog is to build bridges with other bloggers. If you're a blogger and keeps a "closed door policy" a better place to be would be a mountain cave. As they say, blogs without links are not blogs, they are the creations of arrogance and vanity.
Then there are other bloggers who behave like snobs. You can try to be friendly with them by leaving comments on their site but they never reciprocate in kind. For whatever reasons, you might think they feel you're not good enough to mix with them. Or basically, they prefer to stay within their own clique or kind.
Linkbaiting is another form of blogging trickery that some bloggers venture into to attract traffic. It can be effective but usually it is looked upon as something associated with "underhand tactics".
Can We Be Zen-wise In Our Blogging?
Bodhidharma. Woodcut print by Yoshitoshi, 1887
From a holistic point of view, would it be right to link that meditative word "Zen" with "blogging"? Copyblogger took that holistic approach when he wrote about "Zen And The Art Of Remarkable Blogging".
Brian Clark succinctly expounded in that post that "blogging and Zen are closely aligned".
Of course, he was not trying to teach you Zen Buddhism as pointed out by him. He was writing that post to "provide some insight into effective blogging, or, at a minimum, gets you to think differently about your current notions regarding content and the attention you seek with it."
He went on to discuss "The Four Noble Truths Of Blogging" -- (1) Get over your "self"; (2) Free your mind; (3) Detach from results; and (4) It's up to you.
Zen comes from the Sanskrit word Dhyana. It means a meditative state in the Buddhist tradition. Zen practice is a state of mind. It is about self-development, about experiental practice which helps us to see life directly and to act with wisdom and compassion.
Zen encourages practitioners to learn from teachers and other students to better understand how to attain truth through direct experience. The blogging community offers a similar environment," writes Brian Clark.
Would you follow the Zen path to successful blogging? Is there such a path in the first place?
Hot blog or a 'blog' of ice?
Have you ever wondered why your "just hot from the oven" blog is not that sizzling hot after all over a period of time?
If you're looking for ways to retain your readership, keep them coming back and gain more readers, maybe you need to step back and take another real, good look at your blog.
We know that building readership is a damn tough task, especially for nascent bloggers. Unless you have no compunction about taking the link farm route which is not advisable in the first place, what else can you do to improve your blog's standing or popularity?
I know what I'm saying is nothing fresh from the oven, it's just that Modern Life, a UK information blog about the World Wide Web, has this latest post: What's Wrong With My Blog?
Without further much ado, let's dig into all the reasons that Modern Life has listed for nascent bloggers. They tagline it as "A guide to common pitfalls, mistakes & faux pas in blogging."
Here's the list:
- Ensure you have enough content
- Clarify your blog's topic - diversify or focus on a niche if necessary
- Accept that some topics are just too marginal
- Controversy doesn't wash well
- Don't use a default theme if you can avoid it
- Consider your blog's brand
- Update often, but don't let quality suffer
- Ensure linkability
- Don't over-monetize
- Make sure your SEO is up to scratch
- Patience, patience, patience!
That's right. According to Modern Life, patience is "the most important piece of advice for new bloggers...It isn't going to happen overnight." To get to the details of the above list, you can visit their site and digest all you need to know.
However, I would like to add here that I may not agree to a couple of their wisdom thoughts but this I'll keep to myself. A thousand apologies!
Meanwhile, Problogger has picked up this one, too!
Over at Problogger, Darren Rowse has posted this question: What's Wrong With Your Blog? With reference links to a question that's not that new after all on his blog. If you check it out, there are tons of comments out there.
Being one of the top ranking blogs has its advantages. With due respect to Problogger, my honest take is that a top ranking blog can touch on any topic and the majority of the blogging world will rush in to make comments. Some constructive, some are just ingratiating themselves, others just spam and cleverly disguised. Go to any "big-time blogs" and you'll always see the usual suspects rushing in to supply their regular quotas of such comments.
Remember the days of the Cold War? It was a joke then among the publishing fraternity that when Soviet Union President Leonid Brezhnev coughed or when China's Mao Tse-tung coughed, the whole world shook!!!
I guess this analogy can apply to present-day so-called "big-time bloggers" as well. We all know who the rest are. So when they coughed (aka write a post of great relevancy or otherwise), the whole blogging world shook (aka the usual suspects and nascent bloggers start to flock at their gates).
Normally I don't drop by just to leave a comment unless it's a blog where I have developed a kind of rapport. But I do drop in, even at Darren's blog now and then, when I feel an urge to find out what's new over there. Same with the rest. Well, it all depends on the post topic, I guess.
Allow me to quote this comment coming from Mary-Helen Ward, an Australian woman who has a blog mainly about knitting. She posted her comment in Problogger's blog regarding the above topic:
I think that one of the downsides of blogs is the advent of celebrity bloggers. Within various parts of the blogosphere, a few bloggers who are mediocre writers with nothing much to say have somehow attracted huge followings, attracting hundreds of hits a day and adoring commenters. This hasn't happened to me (yet), so it may be that I am just jealous. :)"
If I'm a top problogger and write a post like this, can you imagine how many comments will appear here? Go figure.
