Testing, Testing - Sibilance - Testing

Pay me no mind. I am playing with RSS and Twitter. Trying to get right with the community and stop spamming them with shameless plugs for my own stuff.

In an effort to streamline the multiple channels that I offer, I had hoped to maximize the user experience by facilitating a symbiotic relationship, allowing a single input to multiply by three.

Little did I know, the Twitter community finds this spam-like and offensive.

And....Go Dog, Go!

Your Title Was Boring - And I'm Busy

Most blog readers these days are perusing their RSS readers, quickly glancing through their subscriptions for something worthy of their precious time. It is helpful if your post title is engaging. If you're in advertising particularly, and you're blogging about advertising, why not practice your craft in your blog? Try to create headlines that grab your readers. Think of the RSS reader as a very crowded field where you are competing for attention - because it is and you are. If you're writing, "Jaguar's New Commercial," you've lost me right away. If you write, "Jag's New Spot Sucks Balls," or "Jag Smacks Me in The Face with Awesome Ad," I might venture further.

One blog that never fails to grab my attention through titles alone is Public School Intelligentsia, formerly known as "Hey Be Us." Here's a random sampling of recent PSI post titles:

• If regret had a face, it would be that tribal sun tattoo wrapped around a belly button.
• Lessons In Congeniality: “I don’t want to kill everyone…Just my enemies.”- Micheal Corleone
• Elements of Good Advertising: Simple. Pink. Sticky.
• On Nailing People’s Asses To The Wall: The 5 Staffers McCain Should Fire
• Take That, You Button-Nosed Shiksas! First Ever Jewish Girls Swimsuit Calendar

Sort of intriguing.

And here's another note on RSS readers that might help your blog: Give your readers the whole post in your feed. Don't shorten it as some tease that I'm supposed to chase to improve your blog stats. If your post is interesting enough, people will click the "show original item" link and comment on your blog. Cases in point: I subscribe to a couple of political blogs. One is "The Caucus" at The New York Times. the other is "The Daily Dish" at The Atlantic. "Caucus" gives me a one line tease that I very rarely click on. "Dish" gives me the whole post, and I appreciate that. "Caucus" may end up off my subscription list very soon.

Enrage The Consumer

I know there has to be a way to utilize blogs, vlogs, RSS, etc. to "engage the consumer," but it has to start with worthwhile content. Nobody cares about your corporate blog or any of your other social media efforts unless you are saying something worth talking about.

Or as Toad puts it, your brand is not my friend.








The latest installment in the royalty-free clipart comic called "Where's My Jetpack?" (You'll note a severe lack of diversity in these comics. That's not my fault. This particular series of clipart I'm ripping off appears to have been drawn in Idaho. Although, the guy above could be Hispanic.)

I Think the Name is Luddite

I'm the kind of guy who goes dragging his feet into the next technological advance. I'd jump on the jetpack before anyone, but when it comes to software upgrades, I'm pretty averse to change. I have Photoshop CS2, but I never use it, preferring instead to use version 7 simply because I know it and I don't want to learn a new version. I was forced to upgrade my Dreamweaver and it's still pissing me off when I try to do things the way I learned to do them. I don't need Vista; XP works just fine. I'm not joining Twitter, or MyBlogLog, or adding a thousand trendy widgets to this site. I caved to Technorati, but that's it for now.

Which brings me to RSS readers. I'm afraid it's time for me to get one. As my blog favorites list grows, I need to be more systematic about what I'm following. Any of you bloggers who see a lot of traffic from one IP address in Central Florida can thank me, since I check up on you through bookmarks usually, sometimes getting to you through links on other sites. I call it my "Daily Reads" folder (pictured below - it grows and shrinks all the time as I find new ones I like or as old links go dormant) and I just jump to one of them when the mood strikes me and time permits, not necessarily when you update your blog. So, if you're watching website stats and analytics and you're wondering if you've got a stalker on your hands, it's just me...and I know where you live!

And speaking of stats, the guy who wrote the book "Where's My Jetpack?" (or his publicist/publisher) has been searching the term "where's my jetpack?" every day from Portland, in every possible way. Quoted, no apostrophe, capital letters, no question mark. He's hoping that he can eventually beat me for top spot on Google for the term. Please help me crush his dreams by linking to this blog. I'm inclinced to agree with this review of his book.