On a whim today, I took a little online discovery and decided to play with it a bit.
By listening to a recent Rocketboom podcast, and then doing a Google search and finding out some additional information, I decided to get in on what's called tumblelogging.
I went to one of the main tumblelogging site providers, Tumblr (sort of like blogger,com for traditional blogging), and within minutes I had set up my free account and designed my own tumblelog. I call it "Chain-link Deja Vu," and it's located here.
What, I hear you ask, is tumblelogging? Well, being fairly ignorant of the finer points (I still have no idea how it got started, or how many people are doing it), I can only give my impressions. From what I see, tumblelogging is designed for people who spend a fair amount of time online and who want to blog, but have very little time in which to do so. Another way I look at it is, it's blogging created by (and viewed by) people who, at least at some point during each day, have ADD-like attention spans.
Now, I still will keep on with Muley's World, this being the place where I will post when I want to really say something, especially when I want feedback from readers. But having a tumblelogging site, I think, won't really compete with Muley's World, but will complement it.
A tumblelogging site, in effect, is an online depository for all those neat or curious little things we find while surfing the Internet. We want to keep that stuff handy somewhere so we can experience it again, and we often want to let other people see it as well. But, we don't necessarily want to sit down and do a big descriptive post and manipulate a lot of screens and HTML language just to do that.
The tumblelogging site has buttons to let you add things such as quotes, pictures, videos, songs, text and even the transcripts of instant message conversations. Here's how it works. You download a little button on your bookmarks bar that says "Share on Tumblr." Then, if you happen to be surfing the Web and come across a neat photo or YouTube video or article, you just hit the "Share on Tumblr" button. You see a little screen come up with the item's URL code already entered. You give it a headline (if you wish) and maybe write a short explanatory description (if you wish), press the button, and it's automatically put on your Tumblr site. When you go later to look, it will be there.
I like quotations, and in Tumblr, all you do is hit the button marked Quotes, type in the quotation text and the name of the author, then send it to your site. It will automatically format it in quotation style for you. Neat.
Tumblelogging seems designed to be very simple, maybe too simple for some tastes. You can't do things like size photos, add tags or change posting dates and times, and there are no mechanisms for you to leave or receive comments, which I think is unfortunate. However, I think there might be a method they have of seeing what other people are "following" your blog, but I haven't investigated that yet.
I'm not sure how often I will use this. It might just be another one of those online nifties that lose their appeal after the newness wears off. But I'll still have a free way to store all my favorite online discoveries in one place, to revisit at my leisure. And that's worth something.
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, November 29, 2007
If a Blogger Posts in the Forest, and No One Reads Him, Did He Really Have Anything To Say?
Well, it finally happened. Less than a week after I started posting to Muley's World again (after an eight-month hiatus), one of my old blogger friends, for some inexplicable reason, dropped by and discovered my return.
I told her in answering her kind comment that I wasn't sure how long I would be "back" because I wasn't exactly sure why I resumed blogging in the first place. I still am not, so I'm going to try and figure that out by writing this.
I started Muley's World and wrote my first tentative post way back in May 2005. It was done totally on a whim, after a friend who had a Xanga told me how easy it was and I found out that she was correct. It was easy and fun, and didn't require lots of expensive equipment, leave stains on the carpet or lead to social diseases or flatulence.
When I began Muley's World, I knew almost nothing about the blogosphere. The only blog I visited on any sort of regular basis was Dawn Eden's, and I didn't have a good idea of just who made up the blogosphere and why they had signed on.
I got into blogging for what I now see were wrong reasons, at least given the prevailing two-way, social, chatting-over-the-back-fence nature of the blogosphere. I have been a writer since my earliest days, and writing -- whether the result was a story, a column, a poem, a song lyric or a play -- was always an invigorating and challenging activity for me. I wasn't one of those strictly discipined and motivated people who can make themselves write every single day and always keep a significant long-range goal in mind for what they produce. I just like to write. In the same way some people love to work crosswords or fashion a gourmet meal from scratch, I enjoy the challenge of stringing random words together to make something greater than the whole. It's a puzzle I enjoy solving over and over again -- can I take this one absurdly simple idea, or this somewhat humorous picture in my mind, and expand it well enough to make a cogent, readable and (hopefully) humorous piece of prose out of it?
It was in this mindset, then, that I began Muley's World. I saw this blog as a wonderful new toy. Somehow, for absolutely no cost, I had been offered my own newspaper or magazine, to do with whatever I wanted. There were no boundaries at all! I could write essays, short stories, poetry, critiques, autobiographical memoirs -- heck, I could even type out my grocery lists -- and then publish them for an audience that conceivably could include readers in every country in the world. Wow! I was brimming with ideas and couldn't wait to get my words pixelated on the page.
Of course, I hoped that people would somehow find their way to my site and read what I had written. They soon did, thanks in part to a gracious, totally unexpected and wildly ego-stroking promo by Dawn Eden on her blog, and I was most pleased with the way things were working out. In the space of a few short weeks I had gone from being a somewhat frustrated wannabe writer to the owner and editor of an online publication that was attracting notice across the country. (In a small sense, of course -- no need to cue the John WIlliams orchestral score to begin here).
It didn't take me long, however, before I discovered that the blogosphere was a bit different than I'd first imagined it to be. I learned that blogs are expected to be quite communal little creatures. By blogging, you are in effect asking people -- strangers -- not only to read what you write, but to give you feedback on what you write through comments left after each post. If you simply read those comments, but do not return the favor by visiting the blogs written by the commentors and leaving comments of your own, you stand accused of being a (gasp) "lurker," a person who is considered to be as slimy and creepy and downright nasty as that ominous term implies.
In other words, if someone writes a column in a print publication and you read it without immediately mailing off a letter to the editor, you are considered normal. However, if you read that same author's columns online without once leaving a comment, you are considered a lurker who might just as well be peeping into the shutters of adolescent girls' bedrooms around bathtime.
Now, I am as social as the next person (well, almost), but I also have a huge shy, private streak. I didn't get into blogging as the means to a social end -- to meet women (I'm married) or to find a publisher (not actively, at least) or to discover new soulmates or beer buddies. I just wanted to write, and, as a secondary goal, to see if what I wrote might by some wonderful luck be interesting to anyone else. That's all.
I think of myself as a kind, caring and fair person, however, and I could understand why neglecting to even visit the sites of people who regularly visited mine, much less neglecting to read their pieces and leave comments in turn, could be viewed as selfish and unfair. I mean, after all, if I want you to visit my site, shouldn't I return the favor? Isn't that the Monroe Doctrine? Or is that the Geneva Convention?
And so I did visit. Often. As more and more people visited Muley's World, my blogroll got larger and larger, and I began rolling up into the driveway of the sites of my newfound cyberfriends on a regular basis. I learned a lot and laughed a lot, and got to enjoy stopping in for chatty, witty téte-a-tétes.
After a while, though, all of that cyber surfing started to feel less like an enjoyable hobby and more like a job with lots of overtime. Checking my site, reading any comments left, leaving responding comments on my site, then visiting the sites of the commenters, reading their new posts, leaving new comments, checking on my previous day's comments to see if those had been replied to and leaving a set of follow-up comments if necessary -- as that routine grew to encompass more than 20 blogs a day, I started having to steal time from work and family to keep up with it all. And, like it never had before, writing began feeling like a chore, an obligation, something I had to do or else I would let people down.
So I stopped. Cold. Twice.
Now I'm back, wondering why. Am I like an alcoholic who has been sober for months, wanting to test whether he can have a few teensy weensy sips of light wine each day without ending up in the gutter again? I haven't even told my wife or my friends that I've begun posting again at Muley's World -- that's how unsure I still am about all of this.
I do know one thing. I can't get back to that incredibly time-consuming whirl of blog-checking and drive-by commenting that I was on before. I don't think that means I never want to trade thoughts with my wonderfully sharp and funny cyber friends. Why deny myself that pleasure? But I don't think I can let that aspect of blogging guide what I do. To keep writing (and to keep sane) I think I need to adopt the philosophy that I will best serve my friends by hopefully writing things they might read to add a laugh or a provocative thought to their day. Period. Anything that I might be able to do beyond that will be gravy.
[A SHORT INTERMISSION. THE LOBBY REFRESHMENTS COUNTER WILL BE OPEN FOR 10 MINUTES. PLEASE DO NOT BRING SOFT DRINKS BACK INTO THE BLOG.]
I'm reading back over what I've just written and it all sounds so smug, so incredibly selfish. "I am such a writing talent that you should feel honored and lucky just to have the chance to read what I deem you are worthy to read." But I assure you that is not my intention.
You know what this blog is for me? Above all, it's not a vehicle to allow me to attract praise, but a tool that motivates me to get off my butt and do what I know I really want to do down deep inside, which is write.
If I get what I think is a great idea or a funny scenario in my head, and all I do is chuckle to myself about it and then resume my daily drudgery, then it's gone forever, and I've remained a lazy and flabby writer wannabe. If, however, I know that I have a blog that hasn't been updated in a while, I am motivated to take that small idea, chew on it, ruminate on it, let it spur my imagination to flex its muscles, and then let it lead me running to the keyboard to see if I can somehow corral all the wild thoughts flying around my mind into something cohesive and understandable. It's an incredibly fun test of skill that I never get tired of.
Then, after I have completed whatever piece I have written, if I think it's something worth sharing, if I think it's something that might be of value to someone else, then I have this wonderfully convenient thing called Muley's World where I can throw it in and let whomever wishes look at it. They can like it, they can hate it, but either way, it now exists in tangible form and I've had fun creating it.
This, as you see, is not at all the traditional model of most blogs, which seems to be basically "tell me about your day and I'll tell you about mine." Frankly, recounting most of my days would probably bore even your dullest friends and relatives, but maybe I can conjure up enough goofiness in my imagination to make all of you smile.
If there is anyone still reading this (and that is a highly doubtful proposition) I apologize for this very atypical Oprah-like confessional from me. I don't as a rule like to make my navel-gazing public. But more than anything, I wanted to wrestle with the issue of why I am blogging again to try and find the answer in my own mind, and if sharing some of that process with you in print has left you cold (or approaching REM sleep), I apologize.
I am glad to be back -- whatever that may mean. I thank Emma and any other longtime Muley readers who want to stop by, and I look forward to doing my best to return the favor from time to time. Above all, I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to stop talking to myself in public places and once again have a socially approved outlet for my malady.
I told her in answering her kind comment that I wasn't sure how long I would be "back" because I wasn't exactly sure why I resumed blogging in the first place. I still am not, so I'm going to try and figure that out by writing this.
I started Muley's World and wrote my first tentative post way back in May 2005. It was done totally on a whim, after a friend who had a Xanga told me how easy it was and I found out that she was correct. It was easy and fun, and didn't require lots of expensive equipment, leave stains on the carpet or lead to social diseases or flatulence.
When I began Muley's World, I knew almost nothing about the blogosphere. The only blog I visited on any sort of regular basis was Dawn Eden's, and I didn't have a good idea of just who made up the blogosphere and why they had signed on.
I got into blogging for what I now see were wrong reasons, at least given the prevailing two-way, social, chatting-over-the-back-fence nature of the blogosphere. I have been a writer since my earliest days, and writing -- whether the result was a story, a column, a poem, a song lyric or a play -- was always an invigorating and challenging activity for me. I wasn't one of those strictly discipined and motivated people who can make themselves write every single day and always keep a significant long-range goal in mind for what they produce. I just like to write. In the same way some people love to work crosswords or fashion a gourmet meal from scratch, I enjoy the challenge of stringing random words together to make something greater than the whole. It's a puzzle I enjoy solving over and over again -- can I take this one absurdly simple idea, or this somewhat humorous picture in my mind, and expand it well enough to make a cogent, readable and (hopefully) humorous piece of prose out of it?
It was in this mindset, then, that I began Muley's World. I saw this blog as a wonderful new toy. Somehow, for absolutely no cost, I had been offered my own newspaper or magazine, to do with whatever I wanted. There were no boundaries at all! I could write essays, short stories, poetry, critiques, autobiographical memoirs -- heck, I could even type out my grocery lists -- and then publish them for an audience that conceivably could include readers in every country in the world. Wow! I was brimming with ideas and couldn't wait to get my words pixelated on the page.
Of course, I hoped that people would somehow find their way to my site and read what I had written. They soon did, thanks in part to a gracious, totally unexpected and wildly ego-stroking promo by Dawn Eden on her blog, and I was most pleased with the way things were working out. In the space of a few short weeks I had gone from being a somewhat frustrated wannabe writer to the owner and editor of an online publication that was attracting notice across the country. (In a small sense, of course -- no need to cue the John WIlliams orchestral score to begin here).
It didn't take me long, however, before I discovered that the blogosphere was a bit different than I'd first imagined it to be. I learned that blogs are expected to be quite communal little creatures. By blogging, you are in effect asking people -- strangers -- not only to read what you write, but to give you feedback on what you write through comments left after each post. If you simply read those comments, but do not return the favor by visiting the blogs written by the commentors and leaving comments of your own, you stand accused of being a (gasp) "lurker," a person who is considered to be as slimy and creepy and downright nasty as that ominous term implies.
In other words, if someone writes a column in a print publication and you read it without immediately mailing off a letter to the editor, you are considered normal. However, if you read that same author's columns online without once leaving a comment, you are considered a lurker who might just as well be peeping into the shutters of adolescent girls' bedrooms around bathtime.
Now, I am as social as the next person (well, almost), but I also have a huge shy, private streak. I didn't get into blogging as the means to a social end -- to meet women (I'm married) or to find a publisher (not actively, at least) or to discover new soulmates or beer buddies. I just wanted to write, and, as a secondary goal, to see if what I wrote might by some wonderful luck be interesting to anyone else. That's all.
I think of myself as a kind, caring and fair person, however, and I could understand why neglecting to even visit the sites of people who regularly visited mine, much less neglecting to read their pieces and leave comments in turn, could be viewed as selfish and unfair. I mean, after all, if I want you to visit my site, shouldn't I return the favor? Isn't that the Monroe Doctrine? Or is that the Geneva Convention?
And so I did visit. Often. As more and more people visited Muley's World, my blogroll got larger and larger, and I began rolling up into the driveway of the sites of my newfound cyberfriends on a regular basis. I learned a lot and laughed a lot, and got to enjoy stopping in for chatty, witty téte-a-tétes.
After a while, though, all of that cyber surfing started to feel less like an enjoyable hobby and more like a job with lots of overtime. Checking my site, reading any comments left, leaving responding comments on my site, then visiting the sites of the commenters, reading their new posts, leaving new comments, checking on my previous day's comments to see if those had been replied to and leaving a set of follow-up comments if necessary -- as that routine grew to encompass more than 20 blogs a day, I started having to steal time from work and family to keep up with it all. And, like it never had before, writing began feeling like a chore, an obligation, something I had to do or else I would let people down.
So I stopped. Cold. Twice.
Now I'm back, wondering why. Am I like an alcoholic who has been sober for months, wanting to test whether he can have a few teensy weensy sips of light wine each day without ending up in the gutter again? I haven't even told my wife or my friends that I've begun posting again at Muley's World -- that's how unsure I still am about all of this.
I do know one thing. I can't get back to that incredibly time-consuming whirl of blog-checking and drive-by commenting that I was on before. I don't think that means I never want to trade thoughts with my wonderfully sharp and funny cyber friends. Why deny myself that pleasure? But I don't think I can let that aspect of blogging guide what I do. To keep writing (and to keep sane) I think I need to adopt the philosophy that I will best serve my friends by hopefully writing things they might read to add a laugh or a provocative thought to their day. Period. Anything that I might be able to do beyond that will be gravy.
[A SHORT INTERMISSION. THE LOBBY REFRESHMENTS COUNTER WILL BE OPEN FOR 10 MINUTES. PLEASE DO NOT BRING SOFT DRINKS BACK INTO THE BLOG.]
I'm reading back over what I've just written and it all sounds so smug, so incredibly selfish. "I am such a writing talent that you should feel honored and lucky just to have the chance to read what I deem you are worthy to read." But I assure you that is not my intention.
You know what this blog is for me? Above all, it's not a vehicle to allow me to attract praise, but a tool that motivates me to get off my butt and do what I know I really want to do down deep inside, which is write.
If I get what I think is a great idea or a funny scenario in my head, and all I do is chuckle to myself about it and then resume my daily drudgery, then it's gone forever, and I've remained a lazy and flabby writer wannabe. If, however, I know that I have a blog that hasn't been updated in a while, I am motivated to take that small idea, chew on it, ruminate on it, let it spur my imagination to flex its muscles, and then let it lead me running to the keyboard to see if I can somehow corral all the wild thoughts flying around my mind into something cohesive and understandable. It's an incredibly fun test of skill that I never get tired of.
Then, after I have completed whatever piece I have written, if I think it's something worth sharing, if I think it's something that might be of value to someone else, then I have this wonderfully convenient thing called Muley's World where I can throw it in and let whomever wishes look at it. They can like it, they can hate it, but either way, it now exists in tangible form and I've had fun creating it.
This, as you see, is not at all the traditional model of most blogs, which seems to be basically "tell me about your day and I'll tell you about mine." Frankly, recounting most of my days would probably bore even your dullest friends and relatives, but maybe I can conjure up enough goofiness in my imagination to make all of you smile.
If there is anyone still reading this (and that is a highly doubtful proposition) I apologize for this very atypical Oprah-like confessional from me. I don't as a rule like to make my navel-gazing public. But more than anything, I wanted to wrestle with the issue of why I am blogging again to try and find the answer in my own mind, and if sharing some of that process with you in print has left you cold (or approaching REM sleep), I apologize.
I am glad to be back -- whatever that may mean. I thank Emma and any other longtime Muley readers who want to stop by, and I look forward to doing my best to return the favor from time to time. Above all, I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to stop talking to myself in public places and once again have a socially approved outlet for my malady.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
1927 Blog-a-Thon: I'm In
As the years go by, I become more and more interested in learning about America during the 1920s. It seems that so many things I enjoy, or at least am intrigued by, either started or flowered during that time -- early jazz from artists like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, silent comedies featuring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, commercial radio broadcasts, Babe Ruth...the list goes on and on.That's why I was pleased, then, when I was browsing a great new blog I've found called The Sheila Variations and learned about something called the 1927 Blog-a-Thon. It's being hosted by a blog movie critic and old movie afficionado named "Goatdog" at his blog. Here, he explains the simple rules for the Blog-a-Thon:
You're invited to take part in a blogathonic celebration of the year that changed Hollywood: 1927 saw, among other things, the beginning of sync sound, the last great silents, and the birth of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Over the weekend of March 23-25, 2007, post something pertaining to film in 1927: a film released that year, a great performance, something historical—whatever strikes your fancy, as long as you can connect it to both film and 1927. All bloggers or writers are welcome, even if you don't normally write about film. During the blessed weekend, email me a link to your post, and I'll link to all of the entries as they come in.
My mind is already buzzing with possible 1927 film topics that I can research and write about. It should be fun.
Sunday, June 4, 2006
Random Observations and Trivial Events
EVER FORGOTTEN AN ANNIVERSARY?
I guess it's a sign of how little time I've been able to devote to this blog in the last few months, but my one-year blogging anniversary came and went and I didn't even notice it. I knew it was sometime in May (May 10), but by the time I checked for the date in late May it was too late. And here I am waiting until early June to even mention it.
Like most people, I didn't have much idea of what I was getting into when I started blogging. I started hot and heavy, writing at least one post a day for the first two or three months, then slowly began to slack off. Around Christmas 2005 I abruptly quit altogether for awhile, then slowly got back into it on a "when time is available" basis, which is I guess where I still am.
Despite some frustrations, I'm glad I began blogging. I've met some of the nicest, funniest, smartest and most interesting people. I run into a few wackos along the way as well, but that happens just about anywhere these days.
WILL THE TWINKLE LIGHTS BE OUT NEXT WEEK?
It just gets earlier and earlier. I was at Wal-Mart this evening and notice that they are already selling calendars for 2007. Last year it seemed that the new calendars came out around Independence Day, but now they're not even waiting until the present year is half over.
MISFORTUNE COOKIES
We ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant today, and once again, all of the "fortunes" contained in the fortune cookies were lame as could be. They really aren't even fortunes, for one thing -- more like maxims or proverbs. "You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," "When opportunity knocks, make sure you're listening," gems like that. They apparently don't have the guts anymore to say things like "You will meet a dark and handsome stranger," or "You will come into a lot of money soon." Besides seeing some honest-to-goodness positive predictions thrown in, I'd really like to see some dramatic "mis"-fortunes thrown in as well, such as:
"You will soon lose bladder control"
"An expensive part on your car will malfunction by the end of the month"
"The meat you just ate was not quite cooked thoroughly"
and
"Your spouse is having an affair. Check their cell phone records"
I WANT MINE VOICED BY THAT GUY WITH THE DEEP, SERIOUS VOICE
I got to thinking the other day how wonderful movie trailers are. They take a two-hour movie, and skillfully condense the parts of most interest, bad and good, tragic and humorous, into a fast-paced 90-second production. A skillful editor can take a terrible, boring movie, pick out the few good parts, and make a trailer that will convince you you want to see the thing.
Why can't everyone on the planet have their own trailer? This would take your life, including your character traits, hobbies, interests and quirks, and do a 90-second overview that would be available for viewing by anyone else on the planet. Anytime you met someone new -- in church, at school, on the dating scene -- you could simply view their trailer soon afterward and get the story of their life in a dramatic, exciting yet condensed form. Next time you met them, you'd be better prepared, see? Anyone interested?
I guess it's a sign of how little time I've been able to devote to this blog in the last few months, but my one-year blogging anniversary came and went and I didn't even notice it. I knew it was sometime in May (May 10), but by the time I checked for the date in late May it was too late. And here I am waiting until early June to even mention it.Like most people, I didn't have much idea of what I was getting into when I started blogging. I started hot and heavy, writing at least one post a day for the first two or three months, then slowly began to slack off. Around Christmas 2005 I abruptly quit altogether for awhile, then slowly got back into it on a "when time is available" basis, which is I guess where I still am.
Despite some frustrations, I'm glad I began blogging. I've met some of the nicest, funniest, smartest and most interesting people. I run into a few wackos along the way as well, but that happens just about anywhere these days.
WILL THE TWINKLE LIGHTS BE OUT NEXT WEEK?
It just gets earlier and earlier. I was at Wal-Mart this evening and notice that they are already selling calendars for 2007. Last year it seemed that the new calendars came out around Independence Day, but now they're not even waiting until the present year is half over.
MISFORTUNE COOKIES
We ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant today, and once again, all of the "fortunes" contained in the fortune cookies were lame as could be. They really aren't even fortunes, for one thing -- more like maxims or proverbs. "You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," "When opportunity knocks, make sure you're listening," gems like that. They apparently don't have the guts anymore to say things like "You will meet a dark and handsome stranger," or "You will come into a lot of money soon." Besides seeing some honest-to-goodness positive predictions thrown in, I'd really like to see some dramatic "mis"-fortunes thrown in as well, such as:
"You will soon lose bladder control"
"An expensive part on your car will malfunction by the end of the month"
"The meat you just ate was not quite cooked thoroughly"
and
"Your spouse is having an affair. Check their cell phone records"
I WANT MINE VOICED BY THAT GUY WITH THE DEEP, SERIOUS VOICE
I got to thinking the other day how wonderful movie trailers are. They take a two-hour movie, and skillfully condense the parts of most interest, bad and good, tragic and humorous, into a fast-paced 90-second production. A skillful editor can take a terrible, boring movie, pick out the few good parts, and make a trailer that will convince you you want to see the thing.
Why can't everyone on the planet have their own trailer? This would take your life, including your character traits, hobbies, interests and quirks, and do a 90-second overview that would be available for viewing by anyone else on the planet. Anytime you met someone new -- in church, at school, on the dating scene -- you could simply view their trailer soon afterward and get the story of their life in a dramatic, exciting yet condensed form. Next time you met them, you'd be better prepared, see? Anyone interested?
Friday, April 21, 2006
Out, Damned Spammers
Apologies to William Shakespeare for stealing and modifying his line for my title.Awhile back, I got rid of word verifcation on Muley's World because, frankly, I myself hate having to try to decipher those melting, elongated letters on other blogs just to be able to comment, so I figured I'd do you readers a favor and save you that trouble when you are kind enough to comment on one of my posts.
However, today I have re-enabled word verification. Like a pesky form of bacteria, the spammers have not only returned to Muley's World, but they have mutated and are getting smarter.
The first blog spammers I got a year ago were pretty crude with their pitches. They would have easily identifiable names, like "BaldNoMore," and would start right in with their come-on: "I like your site. If you're losing what little hair you have left like the middle-aged frump you undoubtedly are, visit 'BaldNoMore' and learn about our incredible hair growth cream, available in three flavors."
Now, however, I've gotten comments which seem to be from actual people. I begin reading them with delight -- ah, a new visitor and possible blog buddy! -- and at first, the authors seem to have actually read the post they're commenting on. But it's soon apparent that their words of praise are very non-specific, and after I read down three or four sentences, they hit me with the pitch -- much less in-your-face than the old ones -- to come visit their site so I can learn how to buy the car wax the Space Shuttle astronauts took into space or purchase the latest in designer cow udder mittens or whatever else they are selling.
These sneaky ads are seeping in more and more often, so I've finally decided to put the kibosh on them. I apologize that you faithful friends will once again have to squint and try to decode those kooky letters, but I hope we'll both enjoy life more not having to waste our time reading comments that are really ads.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
I've Lost That Blogging Feeling (Part Two)
In yesterday's post, I detailed how I backed into a place in the blogosphere. Today, I'll look at those heady first months at the helm of Muley's World, including a development that left me challenging some of my earliest assumptions about blogging.
PART TWO: GIDDY AS A SCHOOLGIRL
After I had taken the plunge and started Muley’s World, I had to sit down and try to figure out how I wanted to use my new toy. Remember, I didn’t know much at all about the blogosphere, its characteristics or unwritten rules, so I was flying blind. Here are some of the things I resolved to do with my blog when I first began:
1. I decided to view my blog as my own personal online magazine. Forget trying to get some snooty magazine or literary journal to accept my stuff – I had my own! I was publisher, editor, writer, layout artist and circulation manager. I could print what I wanted, when I wanted.
2. As far as the content of my new magazine went, I decided I would concentrate almost exclusively on printing the essays, short stories and poetry I produced. Again, I viewed Muley’s World as my own literary journal. Or, if you like, it was my own free art gallery, open to the public 24/7, with endless wall space, allowing me to hang whatever pictures I wanted the public to see.
3. Knowing that one of my failings as a writer has always been the inability to write and produce finished works on a regular basis, I resolved to give my powers of self-discipline more muscle by committing to posting something every single day, with the exception of Sundays and times of illness, family emergency and vacations.
4. I would wait about a month or so to compile a “back catalog” before letting anyone else know about my blog (Mrs. Muley excepted, of course). When I did start getting the word out, I would begin with my closest friends, then include family, then -- maybe many months out -- include people I did not interact with every day, such as friends from church and kids’ sporting events. I thought that if any “strangers” ended up seeing my site, they would be friends of the friends I personally told about Muley’s World.
5. Because the place I work for doesn’t have a blog policy for employees, and because I was unwilling to have people I work with commenting on my daily posts, I decided to remain as anonymous as I could, without being too anal retentive about it.
6. I didn't really care how many people saw my blog site, as long as I could write the stuff I wanted and have a permanent home for it.
Alongside these early resolutions, I also had some early misconceptions about the blogosphere:
1. I pictured blogging as basically a one-way circuit. In other words, you put material out there, someone else read it, and that completed the circuit. The idea that as much time and effort would ever be spent in commenting on someone else’s blog -- or responding to comments someone else wrote on your blog – didn’t even enter my mind.
2. I thought that the blogosphere was a great home for all types of writing -- from the shortest quips to the longest, most detailed essays. I also thought it was most likely a great home for fictional work, where blog owners would post their short stories, poems and novellas for others to see.
3. I had no idea of whether the blogosphere was primarily liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. I didn’t know and I didn’t care, because getting into any kind of discussion online about politics was the last thing I felt like doing. I wanted to write and create and be whimsical and funny and lyrical.
It’s no surprise, then, that my first posts were either humorous essays I came up with on the fly, such as a piece where I imagined what the mystery element Retsyn might be, or pieces I had dreamed up years ago but had never written, such as an evaluation of great sleepers of the Bible. I was having great fun, but almost overnight I began spending a lot of time with my new hobby. I was combing through old notebooks, writing first drafts, editing, then tapping out finished versions. I would post long pieces sometimes twice a day, often written late into the night after everyone else had gone to bed.
I could tell at first that Mrs. Muley was unsure if my new mistress was going to take me away for good. Looking back now, I was so excited about finally having this creative outlet available that all I seemed to talk about to her was blogging – my previous posts, the posts I was working on now, the post I had planned for tomorrow. I started taking my lunch hour off at work to spend it either writing posts, or reading the posts of others.
I should have known it was bad when at least two or three people who read my earliest efforts said, “You sure have a lot of free time on your hands, don’t you?” To some extent I did, since May and June are very slow months for me, but in another way, no, because I was stealing time away from family and other important tasks to blog.
An entirely unexpected event happened less than a week after I had begun Muley’s World. The one blog I had discovered and become a faithful reader of prior to becoming a blogger was Dawn Eden’s “Dawn Patrol.” She was my cyber hero. I so admired her writing skill, her humor, and her passion for great causes such as the right to life. Well, lo and behold, one day that first week I was checking Dawn’s site, and there was a mention of Muley’s World! Not only a mention, but Dawn praised me and my site far more than I would ever deserve. I was flabbergasted for two reasons: one, that she would have such good things to say about what was clearly a neophyte’s attempt to blog, and two, that she knew about me at all.
I was thrilled and giddy as a schoolgirl, but a bit shook up as well. What did this mean? I had never contacted Dawn by e-mail or commented on her site, so how in the heck did she know about Muley’s World? I knew nothing about things like trackbacks and site meters, so unless you left some sort of message, I figured you remained anonymous when you looked at other people’s blogs. I didn’t know what the little “Next Blog” button at the top of Blogger sites would do if you punched it. How did Dawn find me? How?
This meant, of course, that my original planning about having no one look at my site until I’d had a month or so to tweak it and build up a library of postings was now useless. People – strangers to me – were looking at my site, now. My art gallery’s doors were opened, so I’d better have something for them to see.
I kept on writing furiously, but I also spent more and more time looking at new blogs, trying to see how others were doing things. I found indexes of conservative and Christian blogs and visited many of the sites listed. And it was these visits that started turning me away from my first plans for Muley’s World into something quite different.
Next:
PART THREE: LOOKING FOR A HIT
PART TWO: GIDDY AS A SCHOOLGIRL
After I had taken the plunge and started Muley’s World, I had to sit down and try to figure out how I wanted to use my new toy. Remember, I didn’t know much at all about the blogosphere, its characteristics or unwritten rules, so I was flying blind. Here are some of the things I resolved to do with my blog when I first began:
1. I decided to view my blog as my own personal online magazine. Forget trying to get some snooty magazine or literary journal to accept my stuff – I had my own! I was publisher, editor, writer, layout artist and circulation manager. I could print what I wanted, when I wanted.
2. As far as the content of my new magazine went, I decided I would concentrate almost exclusively on printing the essays, short stories and poetry I produced. Again, I viewed Muley’s World as my own literary journal. Or, if you like, it was my own free art gallery, open to the public 24/7, with endless wall space, allowing me to hang whatever pictures I wanted the public to see.
3. Knowing that one of my failings as a writer has always been the inability to write and produce finished works on a regular basis, I resolved to give my powers of self-discipline more muscle by committing to posting something every single day, with the exception of Sundays and times of illness, family emergency and vacations.
4. I would wait about a month or so to compile a “back catalog” before letting anyone else know about my blog (Mrs. Muley excepted, of course). When I did start getting the word out, I would begin with my closest friends, then include family, then -- maybe many months out -- include people I did not interact with every day, such as friends from church and kids’ sporting events. I thought that if any “strangers” ended up seeing my site, they would be friends of the friends I personally told about Muley’s World.
5. Because the place I work for doesn’t have a blog policy for employees, and because I was unwilling to have people I work with commenting on my daily posts, I decided to remain as anonymous as I could, without being too anal retentive about it.
6. I didn't really care how many people saw my blog site, as long as I could write the stuff I wanted and have a permanent home for it.
Alongside these early resolutions, I also had some early misconceptions about the blogosphere:
1. I pictured blogging as basically a one-way circuit. In other words, you put material out there, someone else read it, and that completed the circuit. The idea that as much time and effort would ever be spent in commenting on someone else’s blog -- or responding to comments someone else wrote on your blog – didn’t even enter my mind.
2. I thought that the blogosphere was a great home for all types of writing -- from the shortest quips to the longest, most detailed essays. I also thought it was most likely a great home for fictional work, where blog owners would post their short stories, poems and novellas for others to see.
3. I had no idea of whether the blogosphere was primarily liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. I didn’t know and I didn’t care, because getting into any kind of discussion online about politics was the last thing I felt like doing. I wanted to write and create and be whimsical and funny and lyrical.
It’s no surprise, then, that my first posts were either humorous essays I came up with on the fly, such as a piece where I imagined what the mystery element Retsyn might be, or pieces I had dreamed up years ago but had never written, such as an evaluation of great sleepers of the Bible. I was having great fun, but almost overnight I began spending a lot of time with my new hobby. I was combing through old notebooks, writing first drafts, editing, then tapping out finished versions. I would post long pieces sometimes twice a day, often written late into the night after everyone else had gone to bed.
I could tell at first that Mrs. Muley was unsure if my new mistress was going to take me away for good. Looking back now, I was so excited about finally having this creative outlet available that all I seemed to talk about to her was blogging – my previous posts, the posts I was working on now, the post I had planned for tomorrow. I started taking my lunch hour off at work to spend it either writing posts, or reading the posts of others.
I should have known it was bad when at least two or three people who read my earliest efforts said, “You sure have a lot of free time on your hands, don’t you?” To some extent I did, since May and June are very slow months for me, but in another way, no, because I was stealing time away from family and other important tasks to blog.
An entirely unexpected event happened less than a week after I had begun Muley’s World. The one blog I had discovered and become a faithful reader of prior to becoming a blogger was Dawn Eden’s “Dawn Patrol.” She was my cyber hero. I so admired her writing skill, her humor, and her passion for great causes such as the right to life. Well, lo and behold, one day that first week I was checking Dawn’s site, and there was a mention of Muley’s World! Not only a mention, but Dawn praised me and my site far more than I would ever deserve. I was flabbergasted for two reasons: one, that she would have such good things to say about what was clearly a neophyte’s attempt to blog, and two, that she knew about me at all.
I was thrilled and giddy as a schoolgirl, but a bit shook up as well. What did this mean? I had never contacted Dawn by e-mail or commented on her site, so how in the heck did she know about Muley’s World? I knew nothing about things like trackbacks and site meters, so unless you left some sort of message, I figured you remained anonymous when you looked at other people’s blogs. I didn’t know what the little “Next Blog” button at the top of Blogger sites would do if you punched it. How did Dawn find me? How?
This meant, of course, that my original planning about having no one look at my site until I’d had a month or so to tweak it and build up a library of postings was now useless. People – strangers to me – were looking at my site, now. My art gallery’s doors were opened, so I’d better have something for them to see.
I kept on writing furiously, but I also spent more and more time looking at new blogs, trying to see how others were doing things. I found indexes of conservative and Christian blogs and visited many of the sites listed. And it was these visits that started turning me away from my first plans for Muley’s World into something quite different.
Next:
PART THREE: LOOKING FOR A HIT
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
I've Lost That Blogging Feeling (Part One)
Okay, let’s clear up a few things right away:
1. I am not dead. Really.
2. I am not, thank the Lord, a refugee from Hurricane Katrina who’s been without a computer for weeks.
3. I have not had extensive plastic surgery, requiring me to recuperate, swaddled in bandages, in a secluded spa somewhere.
4. I am not holed up in a love nest with Jennifer Aniston, trying to make her forget Brad Pitt.
5. I have not been abducted by aliens. Or if I have, they have a heckuva reality simulation room in their spaceship.
No, I have none of these exciting and nifty explanations available to explain why I have been AWOL from the blogosphere for more than two weeks. This was an unplanned vacation, I assure you. If you’re wondering if I’ve decided to abandon Muley’s World, the short answer is no, at least not now. But I find it hard to come up with an equally short answer to the question of why I have seemingly disappeared into the twilight -- at least a short answer that makes sense. So, I‘ve decided to treat you few regular visitors, my patient and supportive friends, with a long answer that will hopefully suffice.
For new visitors to this site, especially those new to the blogging scene, maybe this will serve as both an entertaining cautionary tale and a look behind the scenes at “the rise and fall” of an average American blog site, with all the embarrassing parts left in.
Since I feel the urge to ramble a bit, I’ll divide up this post into three or four sections, each posted on a different day. That way, it won’t be like asking you to swallow a bowling ball all at once. And maybe some of you will even manage to read the whole thing.
PART ONE: THE BACK STORY
Maybe my story is a lot like yours. I got into blogging – became the owner and creator of a blog, in fact – before I truly knew what blogging really was. It was akin to learning how to swim by jumping off the high dive and seeing what happens next.
Of course, I had been hearing about the blogosphere for quite awhile before I joined it. About a year or so ago, I decided on a slow day to see what these “web logs” were all about. I typed in “blog” on a search engine, came up with a directory or two of blog sites, and started looking around.
Frankly, I was not impressed with what I found. Most of those first blogs I looked at were the type kept by whiny, self-obsessed teenagers (are there any other types, you ask?) who filled page after digital page with gossip, ruminations on what clothes they were buying and wearing, observations about friends and the opposite sex, cynical analyses of the latest hot shows on Fox and the WB, and minute-by-minute accounts of their seemingly boring and, like, you know, uh, tedious days. After reading a dozen or so of these, I jumped to the conclusion that blogs were simply online journals of the “Dear Diary” type, a new fad that bored teenagers had taken up after instant messaging was no longer cutting edge.
At the same time I was pooh-poohing the blogosphere, I was yearning for someplace to display my writing talents. I’ve been a writer ever since I learned how to put pencil to Big Chief tablet, and in the last five years or so I have filled about a notebook a year with poems, haiku, and detailed ideas for short stories, essays (both humorous and serious) and even a children’s book or two. A few essays I even managed to write, filing them away in a folder when I was through.
I knew very well what the fate of the average wannabe writer is when he decides he wants to be in print, and I realized I just didn’t have the heart or the stomach to send out 5,312 unsuccessful query letters before finally getting a small piece accepted by South Dakota Bovine Digest and Literary Journal for the grand sum of $10. I just wasn’t up to it, but I wanted to get at least some of the stuff I was writing (and could one day write) in front of a reader or two I wasn’t related to before I died.
The best idea I could come up with was a sort of “e-digest,” where I would ask close friends if I could e-mail them some sort of collection of prose and poetry every few weeks or so. But I knew this was problematic. It would put my friends on the spot –- how could they politely decline my offer if they weren’t interested? –- and, if they got the e-mails but soon grew tired of them, how would they ask me to take them off the mailing list without offending me?
So I was stuck. I did think about a blog, but I seriously thought that anyone with a blog site had designed it themselves, and that before you could get a blog you had to know Web programming well enough to some up with templates and headers and all that stuff, as well as being fully versed in html. Some day, I thought, when I have the time to take a Web design class, maybe I’ll get into that. But not now.
I told you I knew next to nothing about the blogosphere.
So, imagine my surprise when, in mid-May of 2005, a friend of mine here in Waco, someone who didn’t know Web design, sent me an e-mail saying “check out my new blog.” I did, and was amazed by what I saw. Here was a professional-looking web site, with daily entries and links and all sorts of wonderful things. I called this person and complimented her, saying I wished I could one day learn how to do that. “It’s easy,” she said. “Go to the Blogger web site. You choose a template, answer some questions, and push submit. It took me about five minutes to set mine up. And it’s totally free.”
That same night, after thinking more and more about this great new toy, I decided to jump off the high dive. I went to Blogger, chose a template, and came up with a name – Muley’s World – which was the name of a fake, satirical radio show I came up with and hosted during my radio station days, featuring me introducing songs and doing comedy bits with an accent that sounded quite rural Texan.
I didn’t know what to say in my first post – hadn’t thought about it, really – so I ended up tapping out a few sentences which basically announced “Here I am!” and pushed the submit button. Muley’s World was delivered kicking and screaming without the use of forceps.
Tune in tomorrow for
PART TWO: GIDDY AS A SCHOOLGIRL
1. I am not dead. Really.
2. I am not, thank the Lord, a refugee from Hurricane Katrina who’s been without a computer for weeks.
3. I have not had extensive plastic surgery, requiring me to recuperate, swaddled in bandages, in a secluded spa somewhere.
4. I am not holed up in a love nest with Jennifer Aniston, trying to make her forget Brad Pitt.
5. I have not been abducted by aliens. Or if I have, they have a heckuva reality simulation room in their spaceship.
No, I have none of these exciting and nifty explanations available to explain why I have been AWOL from the blogosphere for more than two weeks. This was an unplanned vacation, I assure you. If you’re wondering if I’ve decided to abandon Muley’s World, the short answer is no, at least not now. But I find it hard to come up with an equally short answer to the question of why I have seemingly disappeared into the twilight -- at least a short answer that makes sense. So, I‘ve decided to treat you few regular visitors, my patient and supportive friends, with a long answer that will hopefully suffice.
For new visitors to this site, especially those new to the blogging scene, maybe this will serve as both an entertaining cautionary tale and a look behind the scenes at “the rise and fall” of an average American blog site, with all the embarrassing parts left in.
Since I feel the urge to ramble a bit, I’ll divide up this post into three or four sections, each posted on a different day. That way, it won’t be like asking you to swallow a bowling ball all at once. And maybe some of you will even manage to read the whole thing.
PART ONE: THE BACK STORY
Maybe my story is a lot like yours. I got into blogging – became the owner and creator of a blog, in fact – before I truly knew what blogging really was. It was akin to learning how to swim by jumping off the high dive and seeing what happens next.
Of course, I had been hearing about the blogosphere for quite awhile before I joined it. About a year or so ago, I decided on a slow day to see what these “web logs” were all about. I typed in “blog” on a search engine, came up with a directory or two of blog sites, and started looking around.
Frankly, I was not impressed with what I found. Most of those first blogs I looked at were the type kept by whiny, self-obsessed teenagers (are there any other types, you ask?) who filled page after digital page with gossip, ruminations on what clothes they were buying and wearing, observations about friends and the opposite sex, cynical analyses of the latest hot shows on Fox and the WB, and minute-by-minute accounts of their seemingly boring and, like, you know, uh, tedious days. After reading a dozen or so of these, I jumped to the conclusion that blogs were simply online journals of the “Dear Diary” type, a new fad that bored teenagers had taken up after instant messaging was no longer cutting edge.
At the same time I was pooh-poohing the blogosphere, I was yearning for someplace to display my writing talents. I’ve been a writer ever since I learned how to put pencil to Big Chief tablet, and in the last five years or so I have filled about a notebook a year with poems, haiku, and detailed ideas for short stories, essays (both humorous and serious) and even a children’s book or two. A few essays I even managed to write, filing them away in a folder when I was through.
I knew very well what the fate of the average wannabe writer is when he decides he wants to be in print, and I realized I just didn’t have the heart or the stomach to send out 5,312 unsuccessful query letters before finally getting a small piece accepted by South Dakota Bovine Digest and Literary Journal for the grand sum of $10. I just wasn’t up to it, but I wanted to get at least some of the stuff I was writing (and could one day write) in front of a reader or two I wasn’t related to before I died.
The best idea I could come up with was a sort of “e-digest,” where I would ask close friends if I could e-mail them some sort of collection of prose and poetry every few weeks or so. But I knew this was problematic. It would put my friends on the spot –- how could they politely decline my offer if they weren’t interested? –- and, if they got the e-mails but soon grew tired of them, how would they ask me to take them off the mailing list without offending me?
So I was stuck. I did think about a blog, but I seriously thought that anyone with a blog site had designed it themselves, and that before you could get a blog you had to know Web programming well enough to some up with templates and headers and all that stuff, as well as being fully versed in html. Some day, I thought, when I have the time to take a Web design class, maybe I’ll get into that. But not now.
I told you I knew next to nothing about the blogosphere.
So, imagine my surprise when, in mid-May of 2005, a friend of mine here in Waco, someone who didn’t know Web design, sent me an e-mail saying “check out my new blog.” I did, and was amazed by what I saw. Here was a professional-looking web site, with daily entries and links and all sorts of wonderful things. I called this person and complimented her, saying I wished I could one day learn how to do that. “It’s easy,” she said. “Go to the Blogger web site. You choose a template, answer some questions, and push submit. It took me about five minutes to set mine up. And it’s totally free.”
That same night, after thinking more and more about this great new toy, I decided to jump off the high dive. I went to Blogger, chose a template, and came up with a name – Muley’s World – which was the name of a fake, satirical radio show I came up with and hosted during my radio station days, featuring me introducing songs and doing comedy bits with an accent that sounded quite rural Texan.
I didn’t know what to say in my first post – hadn’t thought about it, really – so I ended up tapping out a few sentences which basically announced “Here I am!” and pushed the submit button. Muley’s World was delivered kicking and screaming without the use of forceps.
Tune in tomorrow for
PART TWO: GIDDY AS A SCHOOLGIRL
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