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If you want to boost traffic to your site, become recognized as a leading authority in the blogosphere and make lots of money, then the list offered here is a must-read. If you’re not blogging about blogging, Twittering about FriendFeed, FriendFeeding about FriendFeed, or Plurking on and off and then Twittering about Plurking on and off, you will fail as a blogger.

Successful bloggers must stand out. Distinguish yourself. If you don’t stand out, you’ll be stood up. So what can you do to avoid being stood up?

There are several ways to avoid being stood up by your readers. But to help you best your focus and your passion for blogging about blogging, here are the 13 Blog Topics that will boost your readership 40,404%:

1. Write an interesting blog post about blogging
2. Write a post detailing 23 ways to use Twitter
3. Write a post about FriendFeed and Robert Scoble
4. Write a post about how FriendFeed is better than Twitter
5. Tweet your post about FriendFeed being better than Twitter.
6. Write an interesting blog post about how to write an interesting post about blogging
7. Make sure that FriendFeed is pulling in your Tweets and tell your readers which service updates first
8. Offer a “Best Of” post with an introduction about how to SEO the title of your “Best Of” post
9. Post about the pitfalls of a guest blogger
10. Have a guest blogger write a post on your blog
11. Survey your readers about why Twitter is still flapping its wings after of these crashes
12. Write a post about why FriendFeed and Twitter can’t be compared after all
13. Write a post about the how Twitter and FriendFeed are ruining metablogging, comments and your productivity

If you keep these 13 Blog Topics at your fingertips, you won’t be stood up. You’ll stand out. And so will your competition.

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Obviously, I’m goofing around here. And I’m not maliciously picking on any one or group of bloggers. Most of the meta bloggers are doing an invaluable and rermarkable service to the blogging community and this post should not be taken as a slight on those professionals by any means. Still, it’s fun to meta blog. Which is what this post is doing, ironically.

Happy blogging! Ciao!

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, metablogging, Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, traffic, money

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Tags: Blogging, Web 2.0 by Phil Baumann
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The answer is long, so I won’t really give it here.

Twitter’s the latest craze. It’s a strange thing too because so much is being blogged about it and so many people are stumped as to what Twitter is for. Google “Twitter” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

As I said, I won’t give my answer yet. Instead I’ll let Andy Rooney mention something:

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.

If Twitter can save lives, then it might be necessary. I have an idea I’m nursing. If you follow me, maybe I’ll Tweet it.

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Tags: Blogging, Web 2.0, technology by Phil Baumann

After listening to the webinar presented by authors Chjarlene Li and Josh Bernoff of groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies, I have more faith that more of Corporate America will embrace the promises of the new marketing approaches possible with Web 2.0. Groundswell offers a good segue into social marketing for businesses that have yet to catch up.

I listed some of the key points the presenters made over at ReadWriteWeb. Essentially, they advocate an approach to marketing that emphasizes people first followed by clear objectives with an intelligent strategy using appropriate technology. Their acronym for this approach is POST. (I guess when you blog, your POSTs should keep these steps in mind–not a bad meme for blogging general by the way.)

They also discussed the analogues of the roles of traditional marketing with the objectives of groundswell:

• Research by listening to your customers on your blogs, forums, groups, etc.
• Market by talking with your customers on your chosen web platforms
• Sell your products or services by energizing your customers
• Support your efforts and customers with the right kinds of supporting technlogies
• Develop your business needs by embracing your customers through the new platforms

All of this is common sense really. But Forrester Research, the firm that Charlene and Josh’s represent, provides a remarkable service to business executives who need to get up to speed with the merciless curve of change coming down on all enterprises.

I’d love to see more of the kinds of services emerge because those businesses which “get the web” (e.g. those who “get” Seth Godin’s attitude on marketing) will thrive. Heck, I’d love to get into this business myself because I really want to see the fundamental projects of capitalism and democracy succeed.

An acquaintance of mine recently attended a presentation by the Charlene and Josh and came away very impressed with their personable, approachable style and felt that her company could greatly benefit from what they have to say. Ultimately, successful adopters will realize the enormous potential offered by the socialization of billions of people and the dangers of misplaced attempts.

Groundswell is an excellent start for newbies and pros. I plan to offer a succinct review of their book in a future post. In the meantime please visit their sleek blog and start your groundswelling campaign the right way.

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Tags: Blogging, Business, Web 2.0, technology by Phil Baumann

Finally a new design for viewing the web through clean well-lighted places! Hemingway meets search.

Addict-o-matic is a new search tool that offers users a simple but cleaver design for search results. Pages are returned that display tiny elegant windows of live sites. It’s sleek and from what I’ve seen reliable.

Aside from the visual appeal of the layout, the concept of aggregating search results by source benefits users’ ability to better determine the reliability, quality and relevance of content. Users can personalize their view of the web. For publishers this could be a rich source of blogging beats.

It’s an amazing service that helps us confront the problem of abundance of data versus scarcity of meaning in a world heading toward infinity.

URL: http://adictomatic.com

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Tags: Blogging, Web, Web 2.0, improvement, technology by Phil Baumann

Web designers are all over the the web business anymore. And yet if you really look at the whole world wide web experience, there is actually only a small percentage of websites that could really be considered remarkable places to interact. If there are so many web designers, how come the web doesn’t seem, overall, to be designed very well?

Perhaps because what is typically called web design is a very limited and misunderstood label for appearance as opposed to what web design aught to be about: function. Interacting with a website, because of its visual primacy, certainly benefits greatly from appearance. If it looks like scratchy wool, it won’t wear well on users. But it’s really interactivity and usability and attractiveness of a site’s entire experience that matters. Design is about flows, functions, engineering, purpose. It is beyond appearance and means something entirely different from what it generally purports to be.

Jeffrey Zeldman at A List Apart offers a succinct, thorough and accurate definition of web design:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity

That’s poetry. Imagine how much better the web would be if designers viewed their tasks from this kind of definition. Wouldn’t things look and work much better for us? Isn’t what we really want from the web are experiences that “facilitate and encourage human activity”? Isn’t’ that where all of the advances are leading us (or should lead us)?

I think all of the fuss over whether to use phrases like “Web 2.0″ or “Web 3.0″ amounts to basically confused talk about something very simple: Web Design. Google works because of its design (it’s appearance is simple and fairly bland, but the design is complex and remarkably useful). Apple works for the same reasons. We really do need to change our minds about web design if we all are to enjoy a productive, meaningful and beautiful experience–not just on the web, but in our lives. Understanding design is understanding our world.

Perhaps we should introduce a new phrase into our parlance, one that encourages us to live our dream of a better world wide web: Web Design Really. After all, a dream is a fantastic design. And web design is a dream made real. As technology changes exponentially, design will become increasingly important. Eventually the web will open up through other portals besides desktops, laptops, iPhones: radio frequency tags (or their future equivalent) will enmesh and embed us tightly and deeply into the web. Bad designs lead to bad dreams. Bad dreams fast turn into nightmares.

So what is web design really? It’s our gateway out of dystopia.

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Tags: Web 2.0, improvement, technology by Phil Baumann