Successful Blog

Great NEWS!

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Great News
to Announce

It is with great pride and sincere thanks
that I announce that Mr. Paul Scrivens and I
have reached an agreement in which I will become
the sole owner of

Successful Blog

What that means for our community is that Successful Blog
will be getting a new design and a new host.

Thank you, Paul Scrivens.

It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.
I hope to do so again in the future.
Sincerely,
ME Strauss

Holiday Prezzies

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fabulous presents

One little way to say Happy Two-Month Blogiversary! Happy Holidays! and Thank you, Readers!

To get into the holiday feeling, click the picture christmas lights

to read a short, short story about Christmas lights and stars.

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Click this picture suduko to play the game

people are saying is the next Tetris–most addictive game of the year.

And here are the mobile versions of Suduko.

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If you want to track Sants’s progress tonight, click his letter to Google Track Santa

It will take you to the official “Track Santa Google Earth.”

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If you really wanted blogging presents:

From Improbulus at A Consuming Experience, How to postpone your posts, even at Blogger.

From Article Dashboard.com, Top 10 Innovative Web 2.0 Applications of 2005.

From Zopheus.com, Sightsee Famous Landmarks from Space.

From fasticon.com, more cool icons to download.

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If you’re confused about who left these presents,
click this heart heart box and then you’ll know.

[research via digg.com]

Checklist for Starting a Directory Listing

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Have you ever thought about starting a small topical directory of blogs in your niche?

Done with consideration, a small directory of resources that you’ve hand-picked with your readers in mind can be a real service. The service, often called “pre-selection,” saves readers time when they’re looking for something they need. Here’s how to do it well.

    1. Study your niche to determine the resources your readers might find useful to have in one place.

    2. Determine the strategy for defining your listing–Will it have one or more category of resources? How many blogs do you wish to include? What choices you will make for readers? How many options will you offer them of each kind of thing? Know where and how you will set up your directory listing. Know how you will tell readers that the directory is available to them.

    3. Use the Checklist for Linking to Quality Blogs here at Successful Blog or develop your own set of criteria for deciding whether a blog should be included. You want your directory to be small and to have a reputation for quality and relevance.

    4. Invite publishers of appropriate blogs to join your directory. Be prepared to explain tactfully why others in your niche might not fit in the mix. It’s important that you hold the line here, not allowing links or friendship to tempt you to include blogs outside your strategy. You always have the option to reconsider by expanding slightly once the directory is known and its reputation is established.

    5. Wait for at least three months, but begin planning how you might expand your directory list in logical ways outward from the resources you currently offer.

Keep in mind that quality needs to be top-notch as always, and you need to choose your links carefully. Your challenge is to prove that you’re not making a directory only for the links they bring.

Done right and well, however, a professional listing can offer readers a resource they come to depend on. Your own credibility will be enhanced by the value of the listing you’ve given them.

You’ve built a community center at the very same time. That can’t hurt, now can it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Collaboration Link 6: Media Events

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Collaboration Link 6: Media Events
Two or more bloggers specialize on their coverage of an ongoing media event

In the time of a serious media event or tragedy, it seems that too many bloggers are blogging the same things from the same sources. Whatever the newsworthy cause how much more useful and interesting for readers if a group of blogs worked together to collaborate on posting. Each blog might report on a specific aspect of the event to avoid the pervasive problems of redundancy. Anyone who surfed for news during Katrina knows how redundant redundant can be.

Quality needs to be top-notch as always. So it becomes the main criteria for choosing collaborators. Still, if you choose with care, you might find that you develop a news team that has some expertise. What a service you would be performing actually offering some depth and planning to what people could be reading. It’s sure to get your team noticed and gain readers for the blogs in your collaborative group.

All collaborations are a great way of building community, but they can’t be your only form of linking–and you shouldn’t collaborate only with the same people continuously. Finding new people to collaborate with is a relationship-building activity. Besides everyone should have the experience of collaborating with me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text
Collaboration Link 2: Topical
Collaboration Link 3: An Event
Collaboration Link 4: Movable Posts
Collaboration Link 5: An Interview
Collaboration Link 5: Begs the Question

Collaboration Link 5 Begs the Questions

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Link 5 Begs the Questions

So I’ll ask them.

If you could meet anyone in the blogosphere world–living or dead–and ask one question . . .

Who’s the person?

and

What’s the question?

Oh and . . .

Do you suppose you’d get a complete and totally truthful answer?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text
Collaboration Link 2: Topical
Collaboration Link 3: An Event
Collaboration Link 4: Movable Posts
Collaboration Link 5: An Interview
Collaboration Link 6: Media Events

Collaboration Link 5: An Interview

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Collaboration Link 5: An Interview
A Question and Answer format posting

You have probably seen the typical Q&A collaboration done in various formats. We’ve done multi-day interview and single-day interviews at Successful Blog. Here are a few examples.

Collaboration Link–1. 5 Indie’s Advice–the fifth of a six part interview with the owner of The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy.

Collaboration Link–2.3 The Audience is Royalty–The third of a six part interview with the owner of The Reign of Ellen.

I’ve also seen the Five-Question Interview and the Ten-Question Interview. But you know me, I like to change things up a bit.

I’m working with Koray of Koray.ws to show us around his new design in a walking-tour interview fashion. So look for that in the next few weeks.

In a more creative collaboration, a fiction-based interview can a be fresh and entertaining way to pass on solid information. Okay so, this might not work on the most business of business blogs. But don’t give it up without thinking about it. You’d be surprised who might enjoy hearing you have a conversation with a paperclip. Look around. My point is not every interview has to be boring. I only make them that way to torture you. Here’s what we did.

In a collaboration with Teh Blogfather, Eric Mutta, we agreed that the interviewer should be The 65th Crayon, a character on my blog who has among his credits an interview with such the legendary toy, Mr. Potato Head. We thought it might be fun to have The 65th interview Eric’s character, the Blog Father. The resulting interview allowed for questions that were a little less ordinary and still led to answers about the man behind the blog. You’ll find that interview here.

Collaboration Link–Scribbles: Interview with Teh Blog Father

Who knows? Maybe I’ll send my colorful friend to interview Mark Wade next–now that his new design proves that he’s over his fear of crayons I’ve been wondering what his favorite color is. He should have one or two. After all, his company is called R Web Designs. I’m betting it’s red.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text
Collaboration Link 2: Topical
Collaboration Link 3: An Event
Collaboration Link 4: Movable Posts
Collaboration Link 5: Begs the Question
Collaboration Link 6: Media Events