Successful Blog

The Blogging Goals Project

by

The Writing Project

Darren Rowse suggested a Group Writing Project in which participants considerted and shared their writing goals. I thought is was a worthwhile and timely event. So I did my part, My Father’s Saloon — a Blogging Story, about the place I want blogging to hold in my life. Other folks took other routes. All together there were 130 posts written, if I counted right.

Here are the highlights, most from folks we know. Stop by a few; have a read; leave a kind comment, if you time. I’m sure that everyone would appreciate hearing from you.

Inquisitive minds wanted to know.

James Martin starts everyone out with the crucial question. Why Do Blogs Exist? Meanwhile Yehuda is working on his own question — How I plan to take over the world. While Melly asks Is it True I should have Blog Goals?

Analytical ones were quite focused.

Ann Michael took a Sanity Check! Hock Ng considered Being a Purple Cow. Trisha discussed Blogs, my Goals and Everything. Rod at Wintermute added perspective in Blogging for Myself. Sheila Scarborough was quite clear. She said to Prevent a Midlife Crisis – Blog!

Manly men took up the challenge.

Easton Ellsworth put a prize possession on the line. If I Don’t Keep This Blogging Goal, You Can Have my PEZ Dispenser. Ben Yoskovitz vowed to Get Rich or Die Trying (OK not really, but it sounds cool, No?) Jack, on the other hand, took the opposite approach. 365 days left to kill this blog – this is what I call a killer Blog Goal.

Rugged individuals did their thing.

KimBahLee says Blog less. Kristonia Ink! speakth the 11 Commandments of blogging in the Blog Bible. jason Boog confesses in the latest blockbuster film, “Jason Boog Always Screws Up His Goals.”

In the end it all comes down to a small list of priorities. Mayvelous has hers down in
The Great Determinations of Mayvelous.

Why Do This?

Group projects like this worth are always worth considering. If you have the time to participate — they are often a win-win-win for a small investment. Knowledge shared here is wide and varied, highly useful and fun. Links made here strengthen the web-like connections of the Internet. Connections shared by us — folks in the middle are sharing these links, not A-Listers.

Collaborations like these are also great promotion for every blog involved. It’s branding, letting people know you exist, who you are. Relationships start. New discoveries are made. It’s participating becoming part of the conversation. Imagine commenting on that many blogs in just a few seconds. The impact is exponential and lasts a long as any blog reader who reads your blog, any blog writer that links to yours.

The best part is I’ve already discovered new blogs and new bloggers I really like. Nothing can top that as a reason to participate. This is one more way to be part of the conversation.

How might you carry this home to your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
See the NEW BLOGGER PAGE, if you’re looking for serious.
See the category ZZZ-FUN if you’re not.

Net Neutrality 6-10-2006

by

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Hands off whose Internet?

I find it fascinating that whenever corporations are forced to act in an egalitarian manner they resort to the ‘stifling innovation’ argument. Yet it is patently absurd to assume that governmental enforcement of net neutrality or lack thereof will have any marked effect on this hypothetical ‘next generation’ internet. It will come when it comes, no sooner and no later, and it will be the telecom companies who pay for it or somebody else will swoop in and do it for them. Why? Because there is money to be made and an entire global economy with which to keep pace, that’s why.

Assume if you will that net neutrality fails and the big telecoms are allowed to run amok with their plans to create a tiered internet system. With all that extra money, is it more likely that they will reinvest in the infrastructure and create a better product? Or will they do the same thing they do with their Bush tax cuts and buy an extra Porsche or twelve? Besides, do you really want your next-gen internet molded in the vision of telecom corporations or would you rather have one created democratically, even if it takes a few months (at the most) longer?

To take the other side, if net neutrality passes and the big telecoms are forced to keep the internet traffic moving as it already is – in other words, do nothing different than they have been doing from the beginning – do you really think they won’t lay the infrastructure for next-gen internet? Of course they will! They are just as much in competition with each other for your patronage and when the technology comes of age they will all battle to be the first to offer enhanced service. And if they act like spoiled brats and follow through with their threats then other companies and investors will seize the opportunity and render the existing telecoms obsolete. I mean, how many wagon wheel companies refused to get into the auto trading business. Adios Antiguos!

Defeat for net neutrality backers

US politicians have rejected attempts to enshrine the principle of net neutrality in legislation.
Some fear the decision will mean net providers start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use.

The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon which wanted the net neutrality principle protected by law.

Setback for Internet coalition
House OKs bill to make subscription TV market more competitive

The measure spells out new rules that would create national franchises, allowing telephone companies to get into the cable television business without first having to obtain licenses from municipal authorities, as is currently the case.

In the floor debate Thursday, several Democrats spoke out in favor of the bill’s trade-off — a free hand to telephone companies when it comes to pricing new Internet services in return for their entry into the cable market.

“This bill does a lot and goes a long way to making sure that the cost of cable television will be reduced,” said Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill.

Reps. Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto and Zoe Lofgren of San Jose expressed bewilderment that the House would vote, as Lofgren said, to “turn the Internet into the equivalent of cable TV.”

Now the Internet coalition, which includes such Silicon Valley giants as Google, eBay and Yahoo, must focus on the Senate, where it faces an uphill battle. The House added language that acknowledges the importance of network neutrality but stopped short of giving the FCC the regulatory powers that Markey had sought.

The current Senate bill has less language on network neutrality.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

A Silly Left Right Brain Test

by

Here’s a Fun Test

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

Here’s a fun test on right and left brain thinking with only a few questions. If you know this stuff you can easily skew it. I tried not to, but I did anyway. We know that I am very right brain. But I also have left brain qualities. I won’t give you my results before you take the test.

Have some fun with it, but don’t plan your life on the results. Click on the title below to try it out.

Right or Left Brained

We all use both sides of our brain and we can develop the side that we don’t use.

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Related Articles
Knowing How People Think — As a Business Tool
Right Brain Creative? Business Needs You

SOB Business Cafe 06-09-2006

by

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the title shots to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Chartreuse explains that the real Internet Revolution hasn’t started yet.

Sabine sets out a roadmap of goals for new bloggers that I’ll be adding to the NEW BLOGGER PAGE.

609 CTBizBlogs Goals for new bloggers

Martin offers the advice that we should make it easy for clients to pay us.

609 EPublishingDaily Make It Easy for People to Pay You

John is looking for help from a “few good bloggers.”

Related ala carte selections include

Eric is seeing the world through children’s eyes.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Net Neutrality 6-09-2006

by

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

House rejects Net neutrality rules

The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.

By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.

Of the 421 House members who participated in the vote that took place around 6:30 p.m. PT, the vast majority of Net neutrality supporters were Democrats. Republicans represented most of the opposition.

The vote on the amendment (click for PDF) came after nearly a full day of debate on the topic, which prominent Democrats predicted would come to represent a turning point in the history of the Internet.

“The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google…are going to have to pay taxes” to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change “the Internet for the rest of eternity,” he warned.

A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality:

. . . In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.

Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard. . . .

No Tolls on The Internet By Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney [via MediaCitizen]

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use — all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and distribution of independent news and community information through broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of network owners?

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves monopoly power. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars on inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists; coin-operated think tanks; and sham “Astroturf” groups — fake grass-roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org.

They’re opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have rallied in support of net neutrality at http://www.savetheinternet.com/ .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Knowing How People Think — As a Business Tool

by

Creative Logical

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

Hardly anyone is right brain or left brain only. Some of us lean heavily one way or the other.The side favored by most people is the left-brain. It’s also the side that schools spend time developing. Most of us, however, use both sides of our brain when we need them.

Here are some interesting facts about the brains of men and women.

  • Men have more brain cells than women–about 4% and 100 grams more.
  • Women have more dendritic connections between their brain cells.
  • Women have a larger corpus collusum, which is the organic network between the left and right brain hemispheres.This means women have a faster data transfer pipeline between the two sides.
  • For most men, the left side is their dominate side.
  • For most men, language skills are only in their dominate side. However, more women seem to develop language skills on both sides.

Different not better is the key here.

Knowing about Thinking

We all have brains. It’s easy to assume that all brains workthe same like legs and arms do, but that’s just not so. Still we tend to think that people who think the way we do are smart . . . and those who don’t, well, they’re not. [Read more…]