Complaining about free stuff

As you may (or may not) have noticed, Blogger had some serious problems last week. This caused my Thursday post and all of its comments to be deleted. My Friday post was also deleted. Blogger restored the posts sometime on Friday night or Saturday morning but didn't actually publish the scheduled Friday post. Blogger also never restored the comments that had been left on the Thursday post.

I was pretty frustrated. Ironically, I had just been taking steps a few days prior to move my blog to WordPress. This event only furthered my resolve to get off the Blogger platform.

But I also realized how quick I am to complain about services for which I pay nothing. When social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger or my free web-based email client goes down, frustration kicks in. It's provided to me for free, yet I complain!

I think we complain partly because while we don't pay dollars for these services, we do pay time. Not only do we give our time and attention to these platforms, but there are other free alternatives that we could be using. I don't have to use Gmail. I could use Yahoo or countless other platforms for my email. Besides, these companies are making advertising dollars on my use of their platforms, so it benefits them for me to choose their platform.

What free products do you use that make you crazy? What free stuff do other people complain about that they really just need to get over?

Why people don't read your blog

There's so much truth in this cartoon. Seriously, bloggers (and tweeters and facebookers), nobody - not even our friends - owes us their time.


(via)

Rules for bloggers

I've been blogging for over 5 years now. The first blog I ever read was political and I was working in politics at the time, so when I started blogging it was all politics all the time.

I soon left the world of politics with a bad taste in my mouth. For the next few years, I blogged a few times a month, but with no consistency, and the subject matter varied widely, from a video I made for my brother's wedding to an in-depth analysis of the actions of a Northern Minnesota county attorney. I debated giving it up a few times, but whenever I voiced that to anyone I was encouraged to keep going.

I've made a lot of mistakes along the way and thought it might be worth sharing a few rules I now try to follow since I decided last October to blog more regularly again. These are listed in no particular order (actually, the 5th is probably the most important).

1. Write like nobody's reading. This rule will cause most of you to ignore the rest of the rules. I guess that's okay. I ended my very first post with, "Let me hear your thoughts." No one ever commented on that post. I kept going anyway. When I became disengaged from politics, I quit blogging about it, moved to Minnesota and lost 75% of my readers as a result. While the direction of my blog underwent a major shift, the readers who stuck around have said they like it better now. And for those who care about the numbers, I now have more readers than when I was expressly political anyway.
2. Be kind. This doesn't mean you can't be passionate or denounce what you believe is wrong or enter into the fray of politics and religion. But write as though you're talking to a friend who disagrees with you on the subject. When you write about the politician or religious leader or neighbor or family member you dislike, write as if they're sitting next to you reading it. I've broken this rule before and it's not good.
3. Be consistent. You should set a course that maintains a fairly consistent pattern of frequency content. If your blog is political, stick to that. If it's photos, stay consistent. If it's random (like mine has become), at least make sense out of it. Jumping from a post on your favorite TV show's latest episode to a gardening tutorial to a scathing critique of your mayor may leave your readers a bit bewildered. Your readers are coming back because they like the content you've been posting. Changes will confuse them and cause them to abandon you. If you're going to change course (as I did in November 2006), at least communicate that to your audience.
4. Set expectations for your readers. Each blog post's title should help the reader decide if it's relevant to them. This is a tough balance to find, but reading your blog is one of many things people can spend their time doing. If your titles don't adequately reflect the content, it's tough for them to decide what's worth reading for them and what isn't, and they'll shut you out completely. Also, your blog's description or "About" section should be informative. My blog's subtitle description has evolved over the years. It began with "Unfair. Unbalanced. Uncommon Sense." It was a corny play on a well-known political news slogan, which set the tone for the content of the blog. When I abandoned an exclusively political tone I switched to "Thinking out loud since 2/11/2006." The current subtitle of "Daily brain dumps" is similar but includes an expectation of frequency. (I'm not a big fan of my current subtitle and will probably just use an "About" page for this info when I switch to WordPress.)
5. Respect your readers' time (and yours!). I like the way Jon Acuff put it:

   We'll say, "Well, they're just reading my blog or my Twitter feed, why should I worry about the quality or why should I be consistent with it?" The reality is it's free from a money point of view, but you're charging them the most expensive thing they possess: their time. ... So when you create whatever it is you create, create it understanding that this is going to be expensive for them. They're going to give me 30 seconds or 30 minutes that they'll never have back again.

   My goal is to post once a day at 6:45 AM. I came to that frequency and time based on what I thought my readers expected and what I could keep up with, but that frequency is different for every person based on their content and time commitments. If I happen to write a few posts in a day, I just schedule them to go out in the future. I don't want to bombard people with a lot of posts at one time, especially if they're longer posts. But if I don't have something worth writing, I'll let a day pass without a post. Yesterday I didn't post until 2:00 PM because I couldn't think of anything worth writing the night before, so I didn't write anything. It's not worth your time to publish something that doesn't matter or doesn't really interest you and it's not worth wasting your readers' time just to say you met your quota.

There are other rules but they are less significant to me. These are my 5 primary guiding principles.

What about you? Did I leave anything off this list? Do you disagree with any of the points here?

Double-space or single-space?

I read an article the other day in Slate that argued against the use of double-spacing between sentences. The article begins,

Can I let you in on a secret? Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.

Well, they didn't exactly leave any doubt as to where they stand.

I realize this is a pretty trivial subject, but it's something that anyone who writes has to wrestle with.

The old school way of doing things is to use double-space. That's how I was taught to type and is how I did things until sometime in the last year or two when I was called out on it by Bill. I realized pretty quickly that there really was no reason to put two spaces between sentences and it wasted a lot of time anyway. Of course it didn't waste a lot of time at once, but over time, all of those extra clicks add up.

But I'm curious, what do you do and why? I'm guessing most of us use one way or the other based on what we were taught, but I wonder if there are any other reasons or if it's something you've never even considered?

A new chapter for Wide White

Wide White has moved to a new domain, URL, web address, link, or whatever word you use to describe the space where you enter websites you want to go visit. After almost 5 years at widewhite.blogspot.com, Wide White has moved to www.widewhite.org.

First and foremost, update your links and bookmarks! There's currently a redirect in place so if you type in the old URL, you'll be brought to the new URL. However, that's only because I'm still using Blogger, which is handling the automatic redirect. It won't last forever, so update your links and bookmarks ASAP!

Second, I'm moving from Blogger to WordPress. This move isn't happening immediately. Because Blogger handles page redirects from the old blogspot address to the new .org address, I'll be leaving the blog on Blogger so Google can update its links for Google searches and people aren't sent to dead pages. Once that's complete, I'll move to Wordpress. That move won't require you to update any links again, but you will see a new blog template at that point in time. It will probably be a few months until that happens. If all works as planned, you RSS subscribers shouldn't have to change anything since Google Reader should update everything automatically.

These changes should have pretty minimal impact on readers. For now, just update any links or bookmarks you have. Once I've made the switch to WordPress, you'll find better a better platform for commenting and I'll have a much more flexible blog platform to work with, among other things.

As always, thanks for reading and thanks for taking the time to update your links and bookmarks!

Blogs: curing boredom one click at a time

I've been pretty consistent at publishing a new blog post each morning for the last couple of months with the exception of the week of Thanksgiving.

I didn't get a post up this morning either since I spent my blog time last night working on a post over at Strange Spending. (You can check it out here.)

As I glanced over the traffic on Wide White today I couldn't help but notice an increase in the number of clicks to other blogs I have linked on the right. 22% of visitors to the blog today have clicked a link on the right, double the number from yesterday.

The only reason I can come up with - and I could be dead wrong - is people are looking to fill time. When they don't see a new post here, they go looking for new content somewhere else. (I'd put in another plug for how you should just sign up for automatic updates via email or RSS, but I'd run the risk of sounding like a broken record...)

What do you think? Do those of you who check this blog regularly for updates often click links on the right when there isn't new content here? Do those of you who have your own blogs notice any trend on your own sites if you don't post content?

Social media: do I have to follow you too?

Facebook, Twitter, and even blogs all have a common question: If you follow, friend, or link me, am I obliged to do the same in response?

Each social media platform is unique in how its participants interact with one another. While Facebook has the option of hiding or assigning limited profiles to friends, I have no problem ignoring someone I'm not really friends with. Twitter has the "follow" concept where you can follow without being followed back and vice versa, and my policy is to follow only those I actually read.

Blogs are a little more free-reign. If someone is reading my blog, am I obligated to read theirs? If someone has linked to my blog from theirs, am I obligated to link to their blog from mine?

As with Twitter, I only link to blogs I actually read. If I quit reading a blog, I remove it. I'm not a fan of everything I read on every blog I follow. I rarely agree with MN Democrat and there's an occasional quote at Overheard in Minneapolis that's saltier than I care for. But there's enough humor and insight for me to keep reading and if I ever quit, I'll remove them.

I've been de-friended, unfollowed, and had links to my blog removed. I can only think of one time that it's ever bothered me, and only because it was from someone who had been one of my biggest supporters and then dropped me without saying a word. But for the most part, it doesn't matter to me. What I say isn't really that interesting to a lot of people. The potential audience for a few paragraphs of who-knows-what each morning is pretty limited, especially when that content doesn't fall neatly into any single category.

I'll keep cranking out material in my typical WYSIWYG fashion - What You See Is What You Get. I'll try to improve at what warrants a Facebook status, tweet, or blog post and what doesn't. Obviously I hope that what I have to say is valuable enough to keep bringing you back. If it doesn't, I'm glad I could at least entertain, inform, humor, or perhaps frustrate you for a short time.

A punctuation problem

The more communication moves to text-based formats - instant message, text message, email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. - the more people try to come up with creative ways to express their emotion. One of the most common - and often annoying - is the exclamation point.

Here's an example of what you may find in a text message response or Facebook response:

Thanks! Have an awesome day! I can't wait to see you!

Here's what the same response looks like without the exclamation points.

Thanks. Have an awesome day. I can't wait to see you.

This just lacks some of the pizazz that the exclamation points bring. The bland periods say, "I guess I sort of care."

So, we use exclamation points, and as our left pinkies wear out, we find that one exclamation point isn't enough, so we make it 3 or 5. If we find our a friend is expecting a baby, we throw 10 exclamation points in there.

What about moderation? What if that response said this:

Thanks. Have an awesome day. I can't wait to see you!

Would that really be such a bad thing? Can we live with just one exclamation point per paragraph - as a start?

Why the blog is called "Wide White"

I often wonder why people give their blogs the names they give them. Most people who start blogs try to think up a creative, original name that nobody else on the web is using. There are people who won't start a blog because they can't think of a good name.

I chose Wide White for a few reasons. At the time my blog was predominantly political and I was conservative. The name was a play off of "wide right," as in, "He kicked the field goal wide right." This would obviously lead people to the conclusion, "His political views are on the right." It was also a play off of my last name. I wanted to use my name in the title in a play on words and "Wide White" is what I came up with.

In hindsight the name seems a little weird, but once you've established a name it's tough to change it. There are numerous people who now find my blog by Googling "Wide White." Any changes now would screw them up.

Now I think of my blog name as representing the wide range of topics that I cover. Sort of like ABC's old "Wide World of Sports," this is the "Wide World of Joey White."

Hopefully it's a world worth living in.

Staying connected

I'm an avid user of what has been coined "social media." For those who disdain that term and its overuse, it really just identifies web-based platforms that allow users to easily and quickly share information.

I'm not looking to convert those who see no need for social media in their lives. It's not for everyone, particularly those who become easily addicted to the internet, information consumption, etc.

But for those who are curious what these social media platforms are all about, here's a list of platforms I use along with my thoughts on the value of each one and why I use it.

Each link below will allow you to jump directly to my summary of that platform.

1. Twitter
2. Google Reader
3. Facebook
4. Blogger
5. LinkedIn
6. GovLoop

I considered including video- and photo-sharing sites but they're a little different from the rest of the sites listed here so I'll table them for another post.

Oh, and each hyperlinked title below directs you to my profile on that site.

Twitter

Launched: 2006
I joined: 2009
Users: 100+ million
PROS: Quick, easy source of news, politics, sports, and other headlines; great platform for sharing and exchanging thoughts and information; character limit restrains big talkers, forces users to cut to the chase.
CONS: Big talkers sometimes just post multiple tweets; inconsistent use or overuse of Twitter features such as RT, reply, DM, hashtags, etc.; 140 characters isn't always enough; new users often get confused and don't stick with it (this includes anyone who has an account but had no idea what I meant by "RT," "DM," or hashtags).
Summary: I use Twitter daily. It's my source of news, sports, comedy, politics, religious thoughts, etc. I like to be able to scan headlines and click on links to stories I'm actually interested in reading and it's a whole lot faster and more efficient than watching the evening news. I've met a couple of people in the south metro through Twitter. As far as sharing updates with friends, it's sort of like Facebook status updates except it's not considered "stealing" and "unoriginal" to repost others' tweets (in fact, it's encouraged).

Google Reader

Launched: 2005
I joined: 2008
Users: unknown
PROS: Great RSS reader (for those who don't understand that, RSS means "Real Simple Syndication" and is a standard format used to publish information, with Google Reader being an RSS reader that allows you to read anything published to RSS - mostly blogs - in a sort of RSS inbox); simple to add and organize feeds; easy to share posts with other Google Reader users.
CONS: Clunky interface needs to be updated; not very useful for interacting with others.
Summary: I use Google Reader daily. I can't believe it took me until 2008 to start using it. It's so much more time-consuming to click through to each blog individually. Additionally, I like the feature in Google Reader where you can share posts you like with other Google Reader users. It's an easier way to share a post than actually reposting it on your own blog. Google Reader is like an inbox for any blog you read (or any other web content that's available through RSS, such as my city's press releases). New blog posts are "unread" and old ones are still visible but marked as read. I strongly recommend Google Reader to anyone who reads blogs or any other RSS content on even a semi-regular basis.

Facebook

Launched: 2004
I joined: 2005
Users: 500+ million
PROS: Great phone/email/address book; good platform for sharing and exchanging thoughts and information; good for sharing, captioning, and getting comments on photos; there's a "hide" feature for that relative whose updates you just don't care about but who really wants to see cute pictures of your kids.
CONS: Privacy is a persistent concern; settings are confusing and difficult to locate and change; too many "News Feed" changes in the wrong direction; FarmVille, Mafia Wars, etc.
Summary: I typically use Facebook daily. However, if Facebook didn't have the "hide" feature, I probably wouldn't use it (for a while, I actually didn't). When you have everyone from your high school cousins to your grandparents on a platform that offers photos, videos, status updates, messages, wall posts, games, groups, and more, the use of that platform will vary widely from one user to the next. I've hidden enough content on Facebook that I can get through an entire day's worth of updates in 5-10 minutes. Facebook is great for connecting with people you haven't seen in a while. My wife and I have met up with friends and relatives because either us or them was passing through the other's hometown and we never would have known it if it hadn't been for Facebook. Facebook is also great for connecting with people whose phone number or email address you wouldn't necessarily have. I recently connected with an aunt in California through Facebook when I was out there and wound up staying with her for a couple of nights. Facebook's photo sharing capabilities are adequate for sharing pictures of your newborn or your latest vacation, but not nearly as robust as actual photo services like Flickr. Facebook is NOT great if you're friends with people who have no filter on what they will post or people who have nothing better to do than play Mafia Wars all day. Again, the "hide" feature is essential in helping with this problem. In the end, Facebook is better than other platforms if for no other reason than it's the most widely-used social networking platform. I can only think of a few people who aren't on Facebook. I recently had someone in our church who I'd never met send me a message through Facebook to ask about our small group. If you want to say something or show a picture or share a link and you want the highest possible number of people to see it within your circle of friends, Facebook is the way to go.

Blogger

Launched: 1999
I joined: 2006
Users: unknown
PROS: Great way to communicate via a variety of channels, whether video, short thoughts, long essays, pictures, etc.; number one blog platform with many recent changes to keep it competitive with challengers like WordPress; smooth Google AdSense integration; very simple for novice bloggers with enough flexibility for the pros too; easy drag-and-drop templates.
CONS: Comments function is inadequate (I prefer Name/Email/Website format of WordPress to Username/Password format of Blogger); seems to fall behind WordPress in number of advanced users.
Summary: My use of Blogger has varied from daily to monthly, though it's typically at least once or twice a week. Blogs are sort of old school in the realm of social media, but that doesn't mean they're stale. No other internet communication method offers as much versatility. You can keep it short or write a novel, post photos or videos, build a community of commenters or shut down comments and just publish information. Blogger is a simple, easy tool for blogging, and that's really all most amateur bloggers are looking for. Those wanting more robust options often seem to switch to WordPress, but there's not much I've ever wanted to do that Blogger couldn't do for me. TIME recently named Blogger one of the five most overrated websites, saying that Tumblr is better for basic blogging and WordPress for more advanced users. I won't argue with the cool kids, but old habits die hard.

LinkedIn

Launched: 2003
I joined: 2008
Users: 75+ million
PROS: Focused on professionals; provides great summaries for candidates applying for a job; good way to maintain a connection to business partners without using Facebook, which is usually too personal for that.
CONS: Not very interactive; many users don't engage much once they've signed up; the interface could use a face lift.
Summary: I use LinkedIn monthly at most. If you aren't a white collar professional, you probably won't find much use for LinkedIn. If you are a white collar professional, you still may be hard-pressed to find much regular use for it. I use it as sort of a professional contacts list and to keep up on updates like job changes with those I know. I think it's professionally more helpful to at least have a profile in place than not as it provides a quick, easy online resume. TIME recently named it one of the 50 best websites in 2010, so that's saying something.

GovLoop

Launched: 2008
I joined: 2010
Users: 35,000+
PROS: Great network for government employees, contractors, etc.; simple, easy-to-use interface.
CONS: Those with no involvement in government will see little use in it; still growing a user base, though it's growing quickly.
Summary: I typically use GovLoop on a weekly basis. GovLoop is intended to get government employees, contractors, educators, and others together and collaborate to make government run better and be more efficient. Of course, if you're outside of government, you probably haven't heard of it. I work with government agencies so I'm engaged with GovLoop but I probably don't find the same kind of value that government workers do. Their weekly email updates are very helpful for keeping users engaged and there's a great community of users exchanging ideas and information.

Old post revived

I came across a post today that I wrote two and a half months ago and had forgotten about. At the time, hardly anyone was reading my blog. Well, hardly anyone still reads it, but that "hardly anyone" is a little bigger now than it was then.

I had to laugh at myself in reading the post. I think you have to laugh at yourself sometimes. Reading things that you've written in the past - even if it's only two and a half months ago - provide a good opportunity to laugh.

The post was called "State of the Campus." (Kind of like the State of the Union address, but for the nation's campuses.) On the heels of a ridiculous story that you can read by going to the post, I was imagining what the University of Washington Student Senate would say if they were giving a State of the Campus address.

"Our campuses are the most tolerant places on earth. We not only have banned guns everywhere, thus showing our intolerance of those who would like an automatic means of rape prevention, but we have also banned remembering and commemorating those who used guns to allow us to still have a campus. In fact, we're simply embarassed by them. We really wish our grandparents and great grandparents had simply surrendered to the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor. Afterall, Hawaii was just another territory we annexed from aboriginal peoples. Or maybe we got it from Great Britain. We can't remember."

I'm such a dork...

BlogRolling...

I finally decided to do the whole BlogRolling thing. That way, the most recently updated blogs are on top and you don't have to filter through blogs that you've already read.

This was partly based on a conversation with my mom, who thought there were too many links. It's not exactly what I want becuase I'm not willing to pay the $20/year for the upgraded service. Who can afford that?

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure it out, so there may be issues with the blogroll for a few days as this non-techie tries to pretend to have a clue.

Hello Madison

Have any of you Wisconsin bloggers noticed how many people from the "State of WI Dept. of Administration" visit your blogs? They especially like to go to "The Great Divide," presumably hoping there will be more information that wasn't there the last time they went there. Or maybe they're actually trying to change things. Who knows. Maybe one of them can clue us in?

In any event, does the high amount of traffic from the "State of WI Dept. of Administration" ever make you wonder what they do all day? I mean, it's our tax dollars paying them to be there. What are we paying them to do?

Down with the President!?

This is from three days ago, so it's not exactly "new news." I found it intriguing though, especially in light of the post I left yesterday about the CIA reading blogs.

Bush death threat tied to PU student

A Purdue University graduate student was arrested and charged with threatening to kill President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Vikram Buddhi allegedly posted the detailed and threatening messages on an online message board.

Buddhi has been studying industrial engineering at the university, having moved temporarily from India to his new home in West Lafayette 10 years ago on a student visa. He was originally hired as a teaching assistant in the math department but was removed from that position and is now a teaching assistant in the industrial engineering department.
...
Buddhi told investigators he posted the message, along with other derogatory messages aimed at the president, but Martin said Buddhi’s actions should be covered by the First Amendment since Buddhi would have never actually carried out his threats.

In the various messages posted, Buddhi urged the Web site’s readers to bomb the United States and for them to rape American and British women and mutilate them, according to court documents. Other messages called for the killing of all Republicans.
...
Buddhi allegedly posted his messages on a Yahoo finance board dedicated to Sirius Satellite radio, a site that receives 2 million to 3 million hits a day, Martin said. A concerned citizen contacted the Secret Service office in Dallas to report that a subject was posting threatening messages about Bush, according to the criminal complaint filed in Hammond’s federal court and unsealed Monday.

Smile. The CIA is reading you!

According to the Washington Times, the CIA is reading blogs.

"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.
...
"Have we got coups out of it? Close to it," Mr. Naquin said. "But certainly we've had more insight than we've ever had before."
...
A Defense Department official said Chinese military bloggers have become a valuable source of intelligence on Beijing's secret military buildup. For example, China built its first Yuan-class attack submarine at an underground factory that was unknown to U.S. intelligence until a photo of the submarine appeared on the Internet in 2004.

Nice!

First Shot

This represents my attempt at communicating to others what's going on in the world and what I think about what's going on in the world. I receive a lot of forwards from friends regarding current affairs, and I forward a lot of things that I find regarding current affairs. I eventually decided that maybe blogging would be the best way to communicate these things.

I'm probably dead wrong, and that's okay. Most blogs fail quickly, and this one is probably no exception. But I've flirted with trying it for a while, and you never know until you try....

Let me hear your thoughts.