w00t! For the past three weeks, I’ve been private beta-testing the spam-filtering Wordpress plugin, Defensio, built by some peeps from Montreal. Today, their site goes live.

What’s great about this plugin is that it actually displays the percentage chance of any comment being spam, so the process of filtering is significantly more transparent and interesting to the user. Geeks will probably find it more interesting than Akismet, the current default.

So if you’re looking to try an alternative to Akismet, go to their site and poke around. Maybe you’ll find something you like; I did. :)

Filed by Julien at 10:38 am under blogging
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Neat. Despite doing totally not a hell of a lot on my blog this month, I ended up #6 on the list of most influential blogs in Quebec (fr), which you can download here. Mitch, who actually does work on his, was at #4– far more deserved, I think. I suspect the rating is highly influenced by Technorati. If so, this stuff shouldn’t surprise anyone– English-language bloggers will always get more links than francophone ones.

If you want to get higher up on the next list, getting involved early in a niche, like podcasting, will really help. “General bloggers” aren’t doing spectacularly these days, I suspect. Likewise, showing up at events generally ensures people will link to you a fair amount… sorry to give up the secrets, guys. :)

Filed by Julien at 4:41 pm under blogging
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It appears that an old feed from this blog has been left orphaned– this one:

http://inoveryourhead.net/wp-rss2.php

Anyone know how to get it to update properly? Right now, it’s pointing at Feedburner, but Google Reader doesn’t seem to be able to update it.

Filed by Julien at 3:36 pm under blogging, technical
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Yulblog, the oldest regular gathering of bloggers on the planet, is turning 7 this Friday! The party is at 8pm, here, following the launch party of three Québec bloggers who recently got book deals.

I’m in Austin, of course, but my heart is still over there (well, mostly). :)

Filed by Julien at 3:52 pm under blogging
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Sorry, I’ve got no links as of yet, but I met with Roberto Rocha, author of the recent piece The Invisible Industry, today. He says the Gazette have agreed to launch a blog focusing on the local technology industry, which he hopes will gain local entrepreneurs and early adopters some exposure.

Weirdly, it also turns out Roberto has been playing capoeira for a little longer than I have– small world, eh. Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing what they put together. The way I see it, this is probably the best thing the Gazette will have had available in a while.

Filed by Julien at 10:56 pm under blogging
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Mitch Joel today points us to a Canada.com article which ended up on the cover of the Montreal Gazette today. Quoting Michael Keren, a professor from the University of Calgary, whose random anecdotes are supported by the fact that he has a degree and absolutely no blog whatsoever:

Bloggers think of themselves as rebels against mainstream society, but that rebellion is mostly confined to cyberspace, which makes blogging as melancholic and illusionary as Don Quixote tilting at windmills […]

Keren has recently published a book titled Blogosphere: The New Political Arena. The cover of the book, which I would suggest you take a look at, shows an alien in a suit and tie, sitting at a computer terminal. This is no doubt to pile on the pejorative nature of the tome, as well as the insult to the people who had the grace to speak with him.

Mitch retorts:

Hey, Michael Keren, lean in when you read this, because I really want your attention: This Blog gets over twenty-thousand unique visitors a month - and that doesn’t include people who are grabbing it through RSS subscription feeds or the thousands of downloads the Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast gets. I have a hunch that more people will visit this Blog in one month than the total number of sales of your book, globally… ever.

Mitch isn’t the only one. As Keren does his best to deceive the public into believing his fabrication that bloggers are introverted, solitary losers, bloggers are in fact exerting increasing amounts of influence over the ivory tower Keren happens to be rotting in. No wonder he’s defensive.

Filed by Julien at 10:13 pm under blogging
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The Librivox blog was hacked this week, along with a number of other well known SEO sites. All of them were using old versions of Wordpress, so I’ve updated to the newest version– it should have all the holes plugged up. Let me know if you see anything weird.

Filed by Julien at 11:32 pm under blogging, technical
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So I’ve added a search function to this website, due to no small pressure from Marko, who couldn’t find my old stuff. Do we like it where it is? I tried putting it in the sidebar but it was basically invisible. Comments appreciated here.

Also of note: Turns out this thing is great for searching for tracks I’ve played in past podcasts. That rules.

And yes, I know it looks like hell in Safari.

Filed by Julien at 11:37 am under layout, blogging
1 Comment

I just had an idea about comment spam. What if, in our blogs’ comment forms, we had a pulldown menu that asked “Is this spam?” that was automatically set to yes? As a temporary measure, at least, it would be an interesting way to get spammers to identify themselves as such.

Filed by Julien at 3:38 pm under blogging
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(And I’m not being facetious here.)

Here is a list of some A-list bloggers I read and enjoy: Smart Mobs (because of flashmob and mobile stuff), Dave Winer (yeah yeah, laugh it up), Seth Godin (marketing, branding, etc.), and Scobleizer (no idea why, really - but at least he admits it). There are others I can’t think of right now, but the point remains the same whomever we’re talking about: Why are some bloggers ‘allowed’ to be boring?

The question could more precisely be phrased as follows, though: Why are A-list bloggers allowed to break all the rules that regular bloggers would get chastized for? Consider the following ‘rules’:

Choose a topic or niche (link)

High traffic blogs have the liberty of talking about whatever, while regular bloggers have to narrow themselves to a niche in order to attract traffic. Regular bloggers can do nothing but narrow their focus more and more to attract traffic. Lord knows what effect this has on their work on pride in it.

Write snappy headlines (link)

Many A-list blogs write the vaguest headlines imaginable, or no headlines at all, yet the traffic continues and the devotees increas in fervour.

Be respectful of your readers’ time

I have found that some of the highest traffic bloggers post the most often possible, occasionally with one-sentence posts. Some of these may be good, but others could be strikingly banal.

Conclusion

Some could argue that ‘regular’ bloggers don’t have the audience, so they need to strategize more and find niches where they can gain some interest. They may say that the time for vague blogs is done. Bloggers that have somehow caught the attention of large audiences already have those readers, don’t need to struggle to attain more, so they have a lot more liberties than we have.

But let’s try phrasing this otherwise: In order to be successful, they’re saying that you should blog unnaturally, using only a few dimensions of your interests and personality, so that when you get up to the top you’ve either forgotten you wanted to have a wide-ranging blog in the first place (like A-list bloggers appear to be allowed to have), or are too afraid of breaking out of your niche for fear that you’ll lose the audience you built as precariously as a house of cards.

My manifesto is this:

I will talk about whatever I want, whenever I want, attempting to amuse my readership (and podcast listnership) as I amuse myself, without constraints. Never mind niches, and never mind rules - I want to be part of a trend of bloggers that are uninterested in strategies and constraints, in niches or blogging as if it was a 12-step program.

Traffic be damned; social media, blogging, podcasting - all of these are about people, and people are who I want to get to know. Niches? No thanks. I intend to retain my right to be boring. I suggest you do the same.

If you have any other rules you hate, or want to break, leave a comment.

Filed by Julien at 9:32 pm under blogging, community, podcasting
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