Entries Tagged 'un/popular culture' ↓

I just noticed that I was linked on Liz Strauss’ list of successful and outstanding bloggers! Ha ha, maybe I am being a little too hard on myself. Oh well, this is a useful exercise so I will continue. Thanks for the self confidence boost Liz! It means a lot to me that you would put me in same category as the other blogs in your hall of fame. Thanks!

What value can I provide readers to this site?

I suffer from an inability to stick with one idea for longer than a few weeks. If you have been following my blog, you may have noticed that I regularly completely change everything on this site. I think this problem may stem from the fact that I am constantly struggling to deliver content that that I think users find compelling. My inability to describe what value I provide to users makes me re-evaluate what I am doing and start over. Frequently.

So then I asked myself why do I blog? I am certainly not here to make any money. I just want to make interesting content that will engage people, and have them come back for more. I want to interact with people from all over the world and make some sort of impact on their life. I also think it would be pretty satisfying knowing that people out there value my opinion and are interested to hear what I have to say about things.

What life experiences and knowledge do I posses that I can leverage into a useful blog?

I am a full time University Student in Victoria, British Columbia. I got myself elected to the Student Government and the University’s Senate. I lived in residence, and spent a year organizing activities and events for the students there. I’m graduating with a Business degree in a few months. I spend an excessive amount of time on the Internet reading blogs and trying to understand the web. I like meeting new people – I’m pretty outgoing… and I guess I would consider myself well known on campus (in a good sense). I like going on random adventures. And the list goes on. But how does that relate to you?

The newest incarnation of this site “un/popular web culture”

I was trying to think of a “niche” or “theme” that would encompass that entire last paragraph… and what I came up with was a blog about web culture: what’s popular on the Internet, and how it relates slash interacts with the “real world”. It’s pretty vague, but it gives the the opportunity to talk about many different things. Basically, the web filtered through me.

Everyone has to start off as a blog nobody. But how does one get past that? What sort of value are people looking for, and how do you get your face out there? I think this new blog will be an interesting experience for me and you. I got myself elected to student government… let’s see if I can get myself elected to the Internet. With over fifty million blogs, there ought to be a lot of people out there looking to do the same. I hope I can help them.

I spent this most recent weekend up at a cabin with some friends. Being away from the Internet for 3 days was actually a really good thing for me. No email, no RSS feeds to read (although I have 200+ articles to catch up on)… just good times with some friends and copious amounts of food.

Before I left on I trip I was planning on writing a post about how much it sucks writing a blog that doesn’t have a wide circle of influence. I found a graph from technorati showing the number of blogs they index over time, and I drew little arrows showing when some of the A-List bloggers started. The theme of the post was basically that since there are over 50,000,000 blogs now and the Internet is completely saturated with them, it is nearly impossible to be heard among the crowd… unless you are at the top.

But my little weekend away from the Internet gave me a little perspective. I asked myself “what makes an A-List blogger stand out?” and my answer was “the summation of their contributions to the blogging community.” The reason A-List bloggers are well known is because they have provided value and service to the community. They give people a reason to read their blogs. Then I went on to think about what I have contributed to the blogging community, and I did not have to think for long because I haven’t really provided any value to the blogging community.

Stuart, one of the ten friends that went to the cabin with me, has a fantastic wealth of knowledge about music. His stories about bands and the evolution of their music was fascinating. But it made me wonder what I am an expert on. Do I have a wealth of knowledge people would be interested in? I have been going to university for four years… there has to be something I know lots about.

What value can I provide readers to this site?

… more to follow …

Sir Richard Branson offers $25 million to the person or group who finds a solution and ends global warming.

My question is, how the hell do you contact him? Send him an email? In order to reach this guy, you have to know someone and be “important”… and from what I’ve seen of “important” people, they have more important things to do than find solutions to global warming.

Well, unless you’re Al Gore.

I love Anna Nicole Smith, and she will live forever – immortalized by the press. News of her death was shocking to me. My roommates and I were watching Entertainment Tonight a few days ago and she looked terrible. I do not mean in a People’s Worst Dressed kind of way, but rather, an I feel really bad for you and I hope you get help sort of way. She looked drugged up and depressed and that is how she is going to be remembered – shrouded in controversy over her dead husband, dead son, and mystery-father baby. This makes me sad.

I will always remember her for her role in The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (my favorite slapstick comedy), and I sincerely hope people forget the “gold digger slash Trimspa spokesperson” image created by the media and remember that she was a person with issues that she never had the opportunity to resolve.

Good bye Anna Nicole. I am one person who will always keep you “good” book.