Blogging Presence
I have been maintaining three blogs:I have a few links between these blogs, so finding one can help people find the others. I also have been updating regularly. I only have gone more than a day without posting while on vacation, and even then I can make up for it with scheduled posts. This means that I can create posts more frequently and use additional posts to keep that rate up while on vacation. I also maintain nature logs for these vacations that I don’t count in my every-other-day schedule. Ultimately, I end up with more posts while on vacation that normal.
These blogs do not see much traffic. There are a number of reasons for this. For starters, I do not have a social life. As a result, my online presence is pretty much unknown. I also am uncomfortable promoting myself through most means. Since I do not conform to socially acceptable standards, I feel that others might be insulted if I so much as hint that they might want to connect with my blogging. The only ways to learn about my blogs right now is either through a search engine, from my Flickr account, and maybe my Google+ account.
Traffic is usually factored into the algorithms of search engines. Without traffic, searches will rarely direct people to my blogs. I have had hits before, but it seems that I would need someone to search for a set of words that are not commonly used together that I just happened to use in a post.
I will discuss how Flickr and Google+ relate to my blog traffic in their own sections below.
I have used different templates for each blog, but I have included a common layout. I haven’t revised the layout since starting, but I probably should because the layout was developed before I really knew how my blogs were going to work. I think that it’s time to make a few changes.
I think that it’s best to keep the links between my blogs and a description of who I am. I feel that the blog archives provide too much clutter that I really don’t need. Labels are also a little too cluttered, but I will probably revise them as I will explain with the individual blogs below. With how old my blogs are without any followers, some people might think that there’s something seriously wrong with my blog. It’s probably best that get rid of that as well. This might be replaced with a Google+ gadget (or two).
Random Rants and Ramblings
I knew that this was always going to be a problem, but my personal blog is just too random. There’s a reason for that. My personal blog is about venting about anything that I feel that I need to vent about. I intend to keep that random feel.This brings up another problem. My personal blog is by far the most likely entry point to my blogging presence since Flickr and Google+ point to it. I don’t think that I have enough Flickr-related posts to justify dividing this blog, so I’m probably going to keep this as it already is. The random approach could turn people away the moment they find my blog.
Revising my use of labels could partially address this problem. I have used labels for two primary reasons: to identify a legitimately related series of posts and to provide a loose connection between posts that have related topics. Since I can be somewhat random within a topic, I can probably get rid of the latter. This would free up labels for posts that are more closely connected. I can also remove items from the label gadget if I feel that a series is no longer relevant with my current posts.
I should also try to increase my connections to my other blogs. I already have a link to my Mental Exercise blog in my monthly Washingtonian Weather Index posts. More specifically, I link to the post where I explain how the index works. The idea behind this is that I might be able to point someone to one of my better organized blogs before they get lost in the clutter of my random posts.
The War Between Schooling and Education
Even though this blog is more focused than my personal blog, there is still a degree of randomness. I’m not going to add a separate blog just to keep the more focused posts organized, but at least I’m dealing with a common topic. On a personal level, this is the most important of my three blogs. I am trying to raise awareness of a very real and serious problem.Labels have a similar problem to how I have been using them on my personal blog. I also think that the solution is pretty much the same.
Mental Exercises
Conceptually, I really like how this blog works. There are a lot of mental exercises out there, but I’m not limiting myself to exercises that you can get either right or wrong. Unfortunately, I have been struggling a little to include everything in a pleasing way. I also have had a couple specific exercises that I feel were letdowns.My other blogs have so much more for me to worry about. This is my most structured blog. It is also the only blog to be started after I had started developing a feel for how Blogger works. Since this is clearly my best organized blog, changes aren’t nearly as important.
My use of labels are a good example of how this blog is better organized. Instead of using the gadget, I am using pages for each type of exercise. Within these pages, I link to both the exercise and a follow-up. I am still using labels, but they are primarily used to go from one exercise to a list of similar exercises with the introductory text. Perhaps one change that I can make is to add links to the actual labels from the pages.
With a full year complete, people have had access to at least two of every exercise type. To add some interactivity, I might want to add a poll. I don’t want it to be a poll of the day, but an overview of the blog’s content. More specifically, I can ask people to vote on their favorite exercise types.
With the Mental Exercises, I have tried one thing a little differently. I have developed a survey for each exercise that doesn’t require any sort of account (if I did everything right). The hope was that people who didn’t want to leave comments due to the registration requirement (even though Blogger allows the use of openID) could still be involved. The surveys don’t even require all of the questions to be answered. They can be used just to rate an exercise. This hits the same problems that I keep encountering elsewhere. You have to have traffic before people will get involved in any way.
I should also take a quick look at my exercise types. Self-exploration is one of my most simplistic exercises. I don’t think that they will push mental activity too much, and most exercises ask a simple question. I already have one specific exercise type and a few other ideas in mind that could require a little more work, but these will never be my biggest challenges. Even so, I do feel that there is mental value in asking questions about yourself, especially if these aren’t questions that you haven’t properly explored.
Challenges are a little more demanding, but I don’t think that I have enough variety. While I try to take advantage of Excel, I normally don’t like asking people to buy products just to complete exercises. I really don’t have any ideas for additions right now, but I should note anything that pops into my head.
Random Creativity doesn’t have as much of a sample size as I would like right now. It’s hard to evaluate. For example, I still don’t have any text creation exercises. Even with these limitations, I have found a potential flaw. I have been basing exercises off of random pages from both Wikipedia and Wiktionary. When I use Wikipedia, I will not use stubs since they don’t provide enough detail. Even with this quirk, I don’t think that all of my random entries are suitable for mental exercises. This is a problem that will appear in June. I think that Wiktionary is a better source for the random words and phrases, and I intend to use Wiktionary only starting in exercises developed in 2013 and posted in 2014.
Rethink is probably my biggest letdown. I feel like I have some decent ideas, but I have to turn to weaker exercises to ensure variety. I’m not ready to detail the quality of these exercises until I try out more of my ideas.
My Puzzles are the closest to what people normally think of when they think of mental exercises since there is always a definitive answer. I have two standard puzzle types, Hanjie and Logic Problems (first logic problem will be posted in March). I also have an exclusive, Send Away. Send Away puzzles turned out to be fairly simplistic, perhaps to a fault. It’s also versatile enough that I can at least deviate from the most simplistic puzzles (I believe August will have a variant posted). That means that right now, my Mental Exercise blog is the only place where you can find Send Away and variants. I also have another trick up my sleeve, but it has not yet found it’s way to any puzzles (even for the year ahead). I think that this one is best left as a secret.
I have ideas for two other exercise types. One requires traffic, so that’s not going to work right now. The other would mean that I would have six exercise types. That means January would be the same type every year. So would February. So would every other month. I would love to add it, but I don’t think that I can justify it at this time.
Flickr
My online presence is not just the three blogs. My Flickr account is easily the busiest part of my online presence. I might want to expand my presence in the future with favorites, comments, and maybe galleries. For now, I think that my traffic is healthy enough (by my current standards).I have added a few links to my personal blog. My Flickr profile is in a bit of a redesign process. I intend to turn it into a series of links to related blog posts. For example, I have explained why I started taking pictures and my primary goal and linked to more detailed explanations.
I have links from sets when appropriate. My Osprey set links to pages each year that put that year’s pictures in chronological order with additional information. My vacation sets link to vacation summaries that provide additional links to pages within my nature log.
On rare occasions, I might link individual pictures to my blog. This will generally be a blog post featuring a picture. Most likely, I will take this approach when I want to provide more detail about a picture than I feel comfortable including as a caption.
This is probably the correct approach for me. The problem is that my personal blog is random. Someone could click on a link hoping for a photoblog, but they will wind up finding text that is meaningless to them. I should probably consider this when revising my use of labels.
Google+
I am not a social creature, and I don’t have real world friends. I personally find social networking to be kind of boring. Since there is no implication that Google is connected to my beliefs, I view Google+ as an acceptable tool for steering people to my blogs. I just can’t force myself to use the service actively.Among the problems that I’m encountering is the nature of my blog posts. A lot of my posts are made for the sake of keeping active. I don’t want to advertise every single post when I know that most won’t stand out. I also don’t want to fill my stream with redundant text when anyone who is interested should just go to the blog. This is even more of an issue with my Mental Exercise blog. My posts are on the 1st and 15th of every month. Why do I need to repeat that on a social networking site?
I knew that I would have a hard time forcing myself to post to Google+. Some blog posts actually seem worth posting links. To ensure at least some content on a semi-regular basis, I added Washingtonian Weather Index updates. These are blog posts that were created for the purpose of sharing data monthly that seemed noteworthy enough to justify an associated Google+ post.
I’m not getting nearly enough out of Google+ right now. It would help if Flickr added tools for Google+, but I think that my lack of contacts is a bigger issue. When you have nobody to share with, it’s more difficult to make the effort to share. Even so, perhaps I should be more aggressive in posting Flickr updates (caught up, finished vacation pictures, new set)
If I can force myself to update half as regularly as I update my blogs, then some people could theoretically bump into me in a similar manner as the search engines. Since Google+ is nowhere near the size of Facebook, that could theoretically be to my advantage. My posts won’t drown in nearly a big of sea as they would on Facebook. As of now, however, I am not imposing any mandate on myself for post frequency.
eBird
Although I am not adding to my online presence at the start of the new year, I will probably see an added presence in February. Perhaps this should be considered my mid-year addition. The Great Backyard Bird Count is using eBird this year, and I intend to participate.What does this mean? It means that I will be able to share my bird sightings more easily. This could give me more content for Google+. Also, eBird allows embedded pictures from services such as Flickr. This could potentially give me more hits on my Flickr account.
Since there may be times that I want to add a little more information regarding bird sightings, I might become even less picky when it comes to pictures to upload and add to eBird checklists. This means more pictures, some lower quality images, and delays in lower priority work.
I have a lot of information regarding old checklists. If I’m going to fully utilize eBird, I might as well add what I have. Not everything is in proper format, and embedding Flickr images will slow me down. I also have a lot of old pictures to go through to help add to my all-time lists (for shots taken before I kept track).
How do I prioritize? I have already created modified lists to meet eBird’s uploading process (although I’m not entirely sure that I will take that approach). I am now going through my old pictures that are still on my. I need to get through these because I will eventually want to burn them and free up some hard drive space. Newer pictures are higher priority than eBird, but uploading old pictures is currently on hold. When I get through this phase, I will probably switch between working on old uploads and working on checklists. Older checklists will only be posted after going through my old discs. During this time, newer pictures will remain a higher priority.
Recapping changes
I intend to make a few changes. In case you didn’t want to read text that was partially written to help me figure some things out, Here is a summary of what to expect.- Delete blog archive gadgets from my blogs
- Remove blog labels from some of my more random posts
- Alter blog labels to better reflect that certain posts are related
- Streamline list of labels in blog gadgets to only include active labels
- Remove followers gadgets from blogs
- Add Google+ Gadget(s) to blogs
- Add links to labels from pages in Mental Exercises blog
- Add poll for favorite exercise type on Mental Exercise blog
- Random Creativity mental exercises will only use Wiktionary starting in 2014
- Update Flickr profile to include links to more detailed explanations (already in progress)
- Update labels for personal blog to help categorize posts that Flickr users might want to read
- I will likely add an eBird account in February
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