Attention Whoring

[vovat]

As I've said before, I'm probably going to get my own Web domain soon. Knowing me, "soon" might well mean in a year or so, but it's definitely in the works. If I manage to get that set up, I'll have one more venue for posting stuff, and I'm wondering how you readers would prefer to see my updates. Also, I was thinking today about how I'll often post links to my LJ posts in other places, like Facebook and Tumblr. Does anyone actually follow the links from these other sites, or am I just wasting my time in doing so? Not that it takes much time, mind you; I guess I'm more concerned about wasting YOUR time with links you have no intention of investigating. I'll generally only post an LJ update to Twitter if I think it will be of particular interest to one or more people that I know read that. I guess I see my LJ as currently being my main writing repository, with the other social networking sites being secondary. But is that necessarily true? I'm pretty sure there are people who read my Twitter updates but not my LJ posts. And Tumblr is another kettle of fish entirely, as I'm more likely to add people there when I don't know them at all, as long as I like the pictures they're posting. If you're reading my LJ, you can see everything I put on Twitter, but I've seen some people say that they purposely avoid tweet-collecting posts. I've considered removing my replies from those posts, as they often make no sense out of context, but as nobody said anything when I suggested it, I didn't bother.

I'm also interested in attracting more traffic to what I write, but I'm not sure there are really too many people interested in it. After all, most of the information I include is readily available online, so the main thing you'd get out of reading my posts is my own spin on various subjects. And is that really something that people who have no idea who I am want to see? Maybe I'm underestimating myself, though. It does seem like most of the blogs I read that get high traffic and large amounts of comments are topic-specific. Still, there are some personal blogs I follow that seem to attract more comments from people who stumbled across the page than my LJ (and perhaps anyone's LJ) does. So what is it that makes a blog more successful? Is it content? Format? Writing style? How it's indexed on search engines? Maybe it's a combination of those things, but I don't really know.

Anyway, here's a poll you can answer:
[Poll #1532448]

Comments

[nova-one.livejournal.com]

This isn't picking on you - it's the case with everybody I read: I very rarely actually visit people's sites or blogs because I just syndicate everything through my LJ friends page. My friends page is pretty much where I get all my long-form updates and the Twitter feed the short-forms but I do follow my Facebook feed sometimes (but most of that is inane crap). I do follow your LJ and Twitter feeds, but because of that I don't need to go to your sites very often - kind of a shame, because I know some people put a lot of design work into their homepages but in the end more and more people just subscribe to the feeds instead of manually visiting the pages.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would count reading my LJ through a feed as visiting my LJ. It is true that some people put a lot of work into their individual pages, but I can't say I'm one of them. {g}

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

this is pretty much exactly my answer too. Except I don't go to Twitter at all. And while I voted for both lj and Facebook on the first question, that's only because I do go to Facebook OCCASIONALLY and you're there, but by the time I get there I've already seen what you've posted on lj!

[burningofroissy.livejournal.com]

I'm personally fine with what you've got here; if you put a bunch of your content on another blog, I might or might not remember to read it, but I check my friends page every day. That being said, if you have designs on writing professionally for a living [and I certainly think you could, if anybody could], it could be a good thing to have essays and reviews on, say, a Wordpress blog that will show up in search results and have more personal stuff or other content on LJ and so on. Just my 2¢.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, you could always subscribe to the feed for whatever my new site is, right?

[burningofroissy.livejournal.com]

I don't do feeds. I have never used one and I don't know how they work. I just go to the sites when I remember to.

...and somehow I have a feeling that in 2010, I should be ashamed of that.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think I started using them until last year or so.

[travspence.livejournal.com]

I'm probably in the minority but I only read the personal stuff. I don't give a hoot about Oz or video game character bios and I scroll right past those entries. If those kinds of posts were off-loaded to your new blog and you kept the personal stuff here where it's semi-private, that would be good for me. But it's your web presence. If the Oz and other stuff ever bugs me too much, I can always defriend you.

My point is, it's not your responsibility to please me or anyone else. :-) It's your LJ.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

My point is, it's not your responsibility to please me or anyone else. :-) It's your LJ.

Yeah, but if I want traffic coming here (or wherever I'm posting), it kind of is, right? Nobody is going to look at a site that doesn't interest them.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I only don't check the tumblr because I don't have a tumblr account, acause I guess I don't really get Tumblr. It's for posting quick links 'n' such, right? I usually just use FB for that. Unless I'm missing somethin'.

As for the success question, if you ever figure it out, let me know. A'cause I've been wondering that myself. KS has picked up a few folks I think, at least just from the traffic stats, but there's very little in terms of commenting, so I don't know. My main plan for getting popularity is to branch out with other writers, so basically I have my "fans" (i.e. internet friends), and then you have your fans, and so and so has their fans, and then if they all are at the same site, then (in theory) your fans will read my stuff and my fans will read your stuff, and hopefully will become fans of the other. I don't know if this works, though.

For best platform? I don't know. FB/MS is right out for any longform thing. MySpace is ass anyway (fucking HATE that site, fucking ALWAYS hated that site, fucking GLAD it's failing hard now finally); FB isn't as friendly for writing or reading long posts. I don't mind setting it up to import LJ stuff automagically, but I couldn't see writing for that site.

LJ is wicked easy, but you know that, seeing as, um, this is LJ.

Blogger I've used in the past, and I quite like it. If I were going to do another blog-type thing, I'd do it as another Blogger site.

I haven't used WordPress or Moveable Type much, but I remember trying to set them up and having difficulty. THAT SAID: If I had to do Kittysneezes all over again, I'd probably use WP/MT rather than Joomla.

Joomla's quite powerful, and I think it's more powerful than I need it to be. Joomla's VERY customizable (to the point of not having a native comment app -- that's something you have to go and download from a 3rd party... but you get your choice) -- but the documentation is typically kinda ass. Most stuff installs well, but if you have tech issues with it, it helps to have a friend who is hardcore tech guy. Like, there's a reason that toddler_hiway has Admin status. Aside from him being my best friend since small times.

TypePad I've never used. Slacktivist is on that, though, and it seems that every so often Fred has trouble with it. But I don't know how frequent it is, and, too, it's not like anyone ever posts to say "HEY! My CMS is working great!"

Tumblr, I again, just don't get. Can you even do longform stuff with it?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I actually started out on Blogger, and I liked the LJ interface better, but I think Blogger has improved since then. Especially in terms of actually letting you know when you have comments, I believe.

I don't like MySpace either, but I think it does have a blog function. At least it did when I last looked at it however many months ago. Facebook is really better for links than for actual posts, although it is possible to write longer entries as notes. I wouldn't use either of them as my main blog, but I wanted to leave the option just in case somewhat really DID like blogging there.

As for Tumblr, it's pretty liberal in terms of what you can post, and you can write longer text posts (how long, I couldn't say). I use it mostly for pictures, though, and that seems to be the case for most of the other Tumblr folks I follow, too.

[carvinkeeper12.livejournal.com]

I feel like LiveJournal has a perception by the general public of not being "professional", and having the stereotypical user base of teenage emo kids whining about their lives. That's kinda why I still like having one myself. Not that many random people will stumble across me, and I can keep what I feel like musing about to a fairly contained and hand-picked group of people.

Like the person above, I mainly read your personal posts, but I'm fairly sure you could find an audience for the other posts. That might be easier to build/attract if you posted on a WordPress or a Blogger or something under your own domain rather than on LJ (Or cross-posted.)

I also follow your Twitter, and see what stuff of yours pops up on my FB news feed, but in general it seems to be pretty similar to the stuff that's already on LJ or Twitter.

Tumblr still confuses me a little, though I did get one the other day since it seems fairly easy in how it lays it out for you to post different media to it. However, as I figure it out I'm really only following a couple close friends on it.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't really check Facebook as much as I do the other sites, and it does seem like a lot of people just cross-post the same stuff they write elsewhere. On the other hand, I have a fair number of Facebook friends who apparently don't use any other networking sites.

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

I mostly like reading the personal stuff, reviews of books/movies/video games, and so forth. I sometimes skip the Oz stuff even though I like Oz, just because ... well, I'm not sure why. But I do think that might work best in its own blog form. Mythology and religion might too, but I do like reading those... hm, I guess if you do start a new blog you should probably keep most of the stuff on LJ or most of us might never see it. :)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I do kind of think it would be appropriate to get a blog for the Oz stuff, as it's a pretty specific subject that people typically either are or aren't interested in (as opposed to video games and mythology, which are more general topics).

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

So I read some "big name" blogs, mostly mommy blogs- dooce.com and pioneerwoman.com being two of them. I get most of their content through an RSS live bookmark, however what I notice that both of them do well is separate the various content areas that they write about. Some people want to read the personal stuff, while others are just there for the photography or the recipes, and they make it easy to filter out the things you are not interested in. They also are both fairly humorous and include a fair amount of photography, but I suspect that is just a personal preference of mine. The posts of yours that I find the most insightful and interesting are the posts about religion and politics. Partially I think that is because those are areas where our interests overlap, but partially I think it is because you do have a talent for pointing out absurdities and picking apart a topic to make it interesting and informative. I think in some of your other posts you have a tendency to write them book report style, without including your own spin and opinion and your perspective is what is going to make you more interesting to read than say wikipedia. Just my two cents. :-)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, I do use tags to give an indication as to what each post is about, but you really can't arrange your friends page by those. So maybe separate categories wouldn't be a bad idea, if I can manage to arrange that.