"Just use ping.fm and update both Twitter and identi.ca and monitor both sites for responses. You should also take a look at Plurk.com and Kwippy.com." - Greg K.
"I'll add another comment. Links from other blogs has never ever been the main source of a blog's traffic. Louis Gray probably got most of his traffic from other blogs initially as he was just getting started and now his traffic looks more like that of a typical blog where most traffic comes from search engines, social media, bookmarks and feeds. So to really know if bloggers are linking less we need another measurement other than traffic.
That said links from other blogs are obviously very important because they can boost search rankings and because if other bloggers notice you they are more likely to link to you, etc." - Greg K.
"Bloggers are still checking inbound links and referrals from other blogs. Look a little farther down your list of referring sites and technorati (although not as useful as it once was) is probably there somewhere. :-)" - Greg K.
"As usual Mathew makes some great points in his post. I think FriendFeed has some unique qualities but it is also endanger of being something people use primarily when Twitter is down. If Twitter totally drops the ball then maybe FriendFeed or another service will benefit but so far Twitter has managed to stay alive enough to continue growing. The biggest Twitter rival is probably Jaiku - if Google ever lets it compete." - Greg K.
louis, i'm with you on this. unless the blog actually DOES offer some kind of boutique service, or merch or a comic or whatever, it's done for self interest and entertainment not for monie$ ...via AlertThingy - Snipergirl
The other thing is that how many of us in the tech world us actually click on the ads? - Andy Davies
You're right. I made $100 from Adsense after 12 months but I didn't deserve it so I gave it to charity. It was more of an experiment than a desire to get rich (which was just as well) - Andy C
I honestly believe I would have had more luck writing about my positive experiences with Bluehost, noting new BH features, writing hints, tips etc and referring new customers to BH using the affiliate program ($65 per individual referral). Might make for another interesting experiment one day. - Andy C
Most bloggers don't add any value with their blog..quite often it's vanity publishing - I've been guilty of all the above in the past. I still defend my right to do it though (even if I only made $100 in one year like someone above!) ...via AlertThingy - Pete Gilbert
My name's Colin and I ... have an Adsense unit. Most blogging definitely IS about vanity, who doesn't like a bit of recognition from their peers? I don't think I'm owed anything but a little bit of change every few months comes in handy. - Colin Walker
I'm considering putting maybe one or two small ad units on my blog once I get my own domain. Hopefully the ad(s) would make just enough to cover the cost of registering the domain name. Barring significant increases in traffic, they won't make much. - Voyagerfan5761
Can I get an Amen! I've never run any ads on any of my blogs, and have no interest in doing it. It's never been about the money, or even about the vanity, it's always been about creating a small group of peers to share information with. (The peer groups being different for the different blogs) The costs associated with doing it aren't a problem for me, I definitely don't feel like anyone owes me for those costs, they are just the costs of my hobby. - Mike McBride
I have a thing of ads on my site, but mostly as an experiment to see how many views they get as another statistic (because I love numbers). I actually have a number of posts on what to use to block ads on different browsers, and often tell people that if they're seeing ads on my site they're doing something wrong. - Jeremy Herbel
One of the pieces I was going to include, but forgot to, was the issue of blocking ads. I touched on that with my December article, but I think there is a trend of intentional ad avoidance and blocking, which is only going to make this process harder. - Louis Gray
There are sites that block the browsers like Firefox because of that. - Alejandro S.
@Alejandro, adblocking isn't limited to Firefox, though. I use IE7 for most of my browsing (I know, but I like it), and via IE7 Pro I can block ads just as easily as Firefox + Adblock Plus. - Jeremy Herbel
@Alejandro: I remember reading about those sites. There was a huge argument on one of them where it was noted that, if you use AdBlock, you wouldn't be clicking on ads anyway, so the webmaster/blogger isn't really losing any revenue. - Cyvros/fyc
@Andy C BlueHost is awful, Lunarpages FTW! :) @Louis Gray: nice to see the tables turned this weekend! ;) (i'm kidding, i'm kidding.) - Matt Shaulis
What? Where is the I Don't Like This button? Facebook deserves ads but bloggers don't? People shouldn't cover topics that have already been covered? Who cares how many different bloggers blog about the latest Microsoft acquisition? Just because someone at TechCrunch got up at 4am to read the press releases first doesn't mean they "own" a headline and no one else can jump in. Most bloggers won't get much if any ad revenue (very true) but "don't deserve" is way too harsh imho. - Greg K.
@Greg Knollenberg Note the author said "most". If you are dealing with 5 million bloggers, then "most" is no less than 2,500,001. In that case, I am inclined to not only agree with Louis but to say he took it easy on the blogosphere. There are way more than 5M bloggers, and WAAAAAY less than 2,499,999 that are worth a lick of revenue (ad or otherwise). I think what he has done is promote added value to the original voices by taking value away from the echo chamber. Kudos for honesty, as always, Louis. - Matt Shaulis
@Matt Wouldn't you tell a little lie for $65 ? Seriously though, I have been with BH for 18 months. Hardly a problem. Previously with Dreamhost (8 weeks) which rapidly turned into a nightmare. - Andy C
@matt Most of the world's bloggers aren't even trying to blog for money so it is pointless to say they don't deserve any. I think Louis has a great blog and great ideas - i just didn't care for this post particularly the part that says Facebook deserves ads more than blogs do. :-/ - Greg K.
@Andy lol @ "little lie". I've had my personal site on lunarpages for years and their service & support are 2nd to none. - Matt Shaulis
@Matt: A trusted recommendation for LunarPages is valuable. I think I looked at them prior to BH. Thanks. - Andy C
Good observation Mark. My personal view is that conversations will happen in places you never imagined or can control It would be nice to know about it (trackbacks or anything). But as a B (or maybe C-) list blogger I am not concerned about pageview. I'm interested in conversations. I'd rather have 5 comments of people that are willing to invest time and react, than 1000 anonymous surfers that don't add anything to the post. But hey, I don't have or want ads on my blog so pageviews aren't a concern for my income anyways ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
I think you're definitely onto something - a service that tracks all the places where conversations about your content are happening - perhaps a social aggregator for social aggregators or something like that. :) And I'm with you when it comes to comments - traffic is nice but it's more satisfying when something you write prompts people to make a comment. - Mark Evans
I'd made this comment in last night's story. I expect my RSS feed views eclipsed my page views, and I'm 100% okay with that. We need to be flexible and not cling to the old ways of communicating and measuring. - Louis Gray
Unique visitors and page views are still relevant. Traffic to a domain will continue to be relevant. If blogs are losing traffic by losing comments or losing the conversation to new services than that could become a problem for blog publishers in terms of lost revenues. Of course, Friendfeed, Twitter, news readers, etc. can also drive traffic to blogs. I've never had comments at bloggersblog.com so it's fine with me if the conversation takes place elsewhere. - Greg K.
I bleleive traffic is overrated, but then again, I don't have to make a living out of it. I can fully understand that bloggers that create an income out of traffic have a different opinion. But in my opinion, getting traffic is easier to do than writing original or good posts. - Alexander van Elsas
yeah this is a problem i've talked with a lot of bloggers about. rss and social aggregators driving down pageviews...driving down revenue. cool technology may provide more readers but less revenue to keep the train moving. i'm waiting for a real rss/social ad network to pop up - Marco
I think we can try to have a standard for comments, so that the comments are interoperable, like opensocial for comments. That way, it will be easy to aggregate all the comments at one place - Varun Mahajan
@Steven -- so despite all your blog posts saying it isn't about the money, it IS about the money. This is why Louis will fare better than you. And I'll add, the commenting traffic is BS. If you need the page views that your comments generate for revenue, Blogging is NOT the way to go. - Robert Seidman
This is as much to show growth as the new 4-digit number (probably 3 digits tomorrow). Did you know it took Corvida like... 30 days to get 200 subscribers, when it took me 23 months? Spikes happen. - Louis Gray
Niiiice, congrats. How much do you chalk up to the "Scoble Effect"? - Robert Seidman
@Robert, in 2007 some of it for sure. But in 2008, almost zero. - Louis Gray
I'm counting on the 'Seidman' effect :) Congrats Louis - Charlie Anzman
I haven't blogged in two weeks. How could I have an effect? :-) - Robert Scoble
Scoble, it's a 30 day chart! Charlie if you get good numbers on how many people watched BSG via the Internet and write about it, I'll link to it for sure. Louis -- will you say what % of your feed is e-mail subs? We're at 448 and a bit over 50% is e-mail subscribers. It surprises me the % is so high, I am just curious if it's that substantial a % for more "tech oriented" feeds. - Robert Seidman
@Louis I had an awesomesauce marketing team though to help me out a lot! - Corvida
congrats! (still around 20 on my blog :) - Amund Tveit
congrats! I always wonder when I look at my miniscule by comparison numbers, how much actual attention / actual reading eye balls the subscibed number equates to? - Seek Ground
congrats!! this is awesome and very well-deserved :) - Mia
Great work - you're just 779k away from TechCrunch! - Greg K.
Congrats! The email subscriptions will be next - Anthony Farrior
Not for me. Everything just keeps going up! Twitter activities… FriendFeed… Google Reader… nothing ever goes down. - Louis Gray
Louis you can't consume an ever increasing amount of information indefinitely - but you might discover new efficiencies by trying. - Greg K.
I find myself sacrificing one service for another. My Google Reader useage is slowing now that I am using FriendFeed. I recently closed my Facebook account. - Jason Kaneshiro
I agree Daryl. By RSS, you mean # of RSS items *read* per day. Thanks to FriendFeed, I now consume more info via FriendFeed. It's not my main "client" for Twitter, too. I'm devoting more focus on links related to current discussions and behaviors of others. As such, in Google Reader, my skimming rate has increased from very-very-fast to very-very-very-fast. .... And I don't think Google cares that much about this trend. In fact, they'd rather I read articles on the sites since they can serve ads. - Mike Reynolds
Thanks for all the points of view. I have to agree with Greg though. I'm feeling I'm just about reaching the limits of the amount of information i can take in a day and i'm having to trim some out. - Daryl Tay
"If you're using the service, you can use this Greasemonkey script to filter FriendFeed by service." Doesn't FriendFeed include that option now? Anyway, good article, a couple of sites I didn't know about. - Alejandro S.
@Alejando: Friend Feed does have filter by service, my script makes the links a *lot* more obvious. So instead of having to find an item of that service, you can just click it from the sidebar. - engtech
Is there a way to not get a link twice if people (especially the same person) posts a link on delicious and shares it on Google Reader? - tomio geron
I use the Greasemonkey script, didn't know FF did this. I like the script though. - Mike Reynolds
oh, I get it now. ;) Sarah, you can write service:googlereader (for example) in the search to filter the content. - Alejandro S.
@tomo: I have a Greasemonkey script that automatically hides any links you've already seen. Not quite the same thing, but pretty effective: http://internetducttape.com/20... - engtech
"Who Are You People? What I can't figure out is why so many people I've never heard of are following me. Frankly, given the nature of how I post on various services--which is to say, in bursts followed by long periods of nothing while more pressing work and play beckons--I don't think I'm providing much of anything worth paying attention to." - Louis Gray
Ah, interesting question of the day...been wondering that myself - Todd McKinney
you can see their avatar - ain't that enough? :) - Jason Kaneshiro
Yeah, a few people who have subscribed to me are obviously trying to subscribe to everybody on friendfeed, but a couple others leave me wondering... one guy who subscribed to me the other day doesn't even post in English. And really, I'm only mildly interesting :) - Shannon Jiménez
I commented (comment awaiting approval) that the "friends of friends" feature often contributes to expansion of your FriendFeed network. - Ontario Emperor
To answer the question, why not have FriendFeed get an "About Me" box that people can fill out, like Twitter's microbio? - Voyagerfan5761
I'm new to FriendFeed, and I'm following people who post articles or items which catch my fancy. I haven't followed the blogosphere during 2000-2008, so I don't know any major bloggers (except Guy Kawasaki). I find FriendFeed a bit more personal than reading Slashdot/Digg/Fark, and interesting comments sometimes motivate me to check out blogs, LinkedIn pages, Del.icio.us collections etc... - Mitchell Tsai
Totally agree with Mitchel. I'm following the bloggers who post the intriguing articles or article that inspire me. The idea that Friendfeed could be personal Techmeme is interesting. http://tinyurl.com/3xxe2c - Roger Chen
Where is Rob Hof's FriendFeed so we can follow it? - Greg K.
Who am I? Sorry can't say. Why do I follow you? In short, you have your moments. :) - timepilot
Probably because you were recommended? http://friendfeed.com/settings... I think a lot of people, including me, used that in the beginning to get a "base" number of people to follow. - Vince DeGeorge
I find it fascinating how many people have the "who are all you people" discomfort, when many of these people have their own public blogs already. The anonymous masses aren't threatening (in fact folks feel pride when their traffic goes up) but when you see the names -- and not much else -- of the people lurking around your content it feels completely different. - Kevin Fox
Kevin, for me it isn't discomfort. Rather, it is curiosity, and maybe even a bit of vanity. :) We all love to know as much as possible about who is in our community interacting with us. I think you guys are off to a great start by encouraging real names. That has already created some closer connections. But, I agree with folks above who encourage the creation of profiles where users can tell us more about themselves. - Sacca
FF feels to me like a new mutant form of The Well without the Rheingold. - Kevin D. White
"The one thing FriendFeed lacks that I crave is a mandatory bio for people who are following you." I would argue that your feed serves as a mandatory bio. Sure, it isn't where you work (necessarily) or your various trappings of style and prestige, but what you chose to share, like, and comment on is at least as revealing as anything you might think of while sitting down to a blank bio box. If he wants to know who is following him, he should follow them, or at least check out their feed. - Clare Dibble
I also find The Google quite useful when I have a "Have I heard of them?" moment when someone new follows me or is recommended. - Clare Dibble
Louis, guess most people here also have presence at other online services with biographical info. - Amund Tveit
@Amund, that was #1 on my list back here (http://tinyurl.com/2g6zar) "Add a small bio or profile to each person's individual feed page." - Louis Gray
The service links are bio enough for me. I can see their blogs, their user names on other sites, and their interest. - engtech
Like other users said, I follow the people that I find interesting, not only because of who they are, but because of what they share, especially links to interesting articles and stuff shared with Google Reader. Twitter is the last thing I read, If I feel like it. - Alejandro S.
What is he talking about? At least on FF you can see who is following you in one simple interface... compare that to a meaningless Feedburner subscriber count where it requires far more effort to look up "bios" of your readers or whatever - Aviv
I would like the idea of a "TechMeme" FriendFeed account. (obviously, given my prior note). But it might not be appropriate to live under "Gabe Rivera". There are bot Twitter accounts, so why not here? - Louis Gray
I think it would be perfectly fine - the group of people subscribing to the TechMeme firehose account would be pretty self-selecting anyway. - Frederic
I think this posting highlights the need for permalinks for FriendFeed "events". - Sam Davyson
Sam: you can get a permalink under the More menu. So much good stuff hidden under that menu - too bad it is so undiscoverable! - Bret Taylor
Sounds like a good idea to have non-human friendfeeds. Does that mean there will a commercial Indiana Jones friendfeed movie tie-in this May? - Greg K.
I have no problem with non-human accounts. I think boingboing created one recently: http://friendfeed.com/boingboi.... I think their success may be rooted in how interactive they (how many people subscribe to them and comment on the entries). - Bret Taylor
I have non-human friends. I should have non-human friendfeeds. - Amit Patel
@Bret: any plans for a "Tab-control" API? I would love to have the ability to add tabs and inject them custom data (without the use of Greasemonkey hacks, of course) - Aviv
Bret - In my experience, non-geek computer users tend not to explore menus, dropdowns and the like, being content with what they see in front of them. My fiancee, for instance has yet to change a single setting from the default on her computer - which she's been using for 3 years. Words like "options", "more", "actions" and the like elicit no response from her. Still, a "tip of the day" floating in the whitespace on friendfeed might point a few more users towards some of the fun things you can do here - Slippy Lane
Is there a difference between "judgement" and "execution" except for the scope of the decisions being made? I'm not sure there's a sharp line anywhere between deciding the structure of a for-loop and deciding what product you're building in the first place. - ⓞnor
Louis, I think Timing is a combination of Judgment and Luck. I've updated the equation accordingly. :) - Paul Buchheit
Dan, I don't know that there is a sharp line, but I think of judgment as deciding what to do and execution as doing it. To use the mountain climbing analogy, judgment is choosing the path, and execution is following it. Maybe I'm misusing the words though... - Paul Buchheit
Your analogy would make a good children's book. Mountains are the new black! If you can figure out how to incorporate a zebra into the story, Pixar may buy it. (according to the ew Shaw Report, zebras are the new "pandas", which were formally the new "penguins.") - Ginger Makela
I like the fact you added luck. And that I wasn't dismissed outright! - Louis Gray
Good point. This equation keeps getting more complex :) (though I think it's a multiplicative effect, and determination and persistence seem pretty similar) - Paul Buchheit
Is there any way - besides bookmarklet-ing it myself - to get this entry into my FB mini-feed? Nothing hits better than a well constructed visual allusion... Certainly on par with Buffet's Squanderville letter - http://tinyurl.com/2dnkn7 for the pdf - :) - Will DeLuca
"The idea has value because it comes from someone who has a history of being right." I'm not sure that the picking-good-ideas skill transfers over from past successes as much as good judgment or execution. The idea seems like the most nebulous part of the equation after luck. A skilled climber who finds gold at the top might have been a lousy prospector, and he wouldn't necessarily be able to recognize another gold-rich mountain while staring up at it from the ground. Overconfidence from past climbs might even make him prone to quixotic diversions in the future. - Mark Ayzenshtat
William, we're planning to add a "reshare" feature, but for now you just need to either paste the info into the share box at the top of your feed, or use the FriendFeed bookmarklet (or share from delicious, reader, etc). - Paul Buchheit
Mark, having heard product and startup ideas from a lot of different people, it's pretty clear that some people have better judgment about these things than others. That said, the biggest successes often come from people with no history (in part because there are so many of them). - Paul Buchheit
There's one thing with these mountains though: unless you already found gold, you never know if you already reached the top. I.e. it will be almost impossible to know the difference between a bad idea on which you might want to give up trying, and a good idea which you haven't pushed through with long enough. Real mountains have a rather very well-defined top, compared to that. - Philipp Lenssen
Paul, Why is success only measured in pots of gold, couldn't it also be something else, like knowledge, friendship, feel good factor? - Shakeel Mahate
Financial outcome is the standard criteria for startup success, so it's reasonable to talk in that direction. If your goal is something else entirely (like simply keeping yourself and some friends amused, or having a major impact regardless of personal wealth, or getting invited to cool parties), then it's hard to talk reasonably about questions like "so how important are ideas versus execution". - ⓞnor
Liked this post. Good, well thought out and balanced Good job Paul - Mukund
I see we've found a new meme for this week. Ironically, we'll all be discussing original thought, but there will be 400,000 blogs on it - Bwana McCall
This originality meme strikes me as eerily similar to the "innovation" debates for software vendors. At EOD, who cares? Fast followers and people improving on the original happen all the time across all kinds of endeavors - usually it's a good thing. Originality is overrated. - Todd McKinney
I'm pretty sure that somehow they were all inspired by or lifted something from an old southern blues/folk song circa the Great Depression. ;-) - Andy Sternberg
It's ok to be second, tenth or even one thousand and fifty-third. - Greg K.
10 of my last 10 posts were based on my thoughts, or breaking news. Tell me I'm wrong @ www.louisgray.com. - Louis Gray
The idea of a thought suddenly appearing out of ether runs contrary to logic. But, I'd say the value isn't thinking something first–it's executing well. - Drew
As I Photoblog I guess all of them aren't as they merely represent other things, hmmm All confused now! - Phill Price
@Scobleizer's comment hits at the heart of the argument. Throughout history, inventions have sprung up simultaneously and originally in different parts of the world. The difference now and online is that it's easy to prove that someone else had a similar thought but it is not so easy to prove that the writers new of each other's throughts when writing their own. Even the great thinkers of the past synthesized knowledge that they had accumulated into their own writings. - Seek Ground
Many original thoughts...for me.But what about my friends?:) - Igor Poltavskiy
That's kind of a silly question, as technically, everything coming from a unique individual is original in some way. My posts are very personal, so although I may comment on something 100 people have also mentioned, my provocation to do so and how I express it are quite likely somewhat original. - JM (Nettie) Daum
The relationship one establishes with the audience is most important to me, including intention. I know certain "social media experts" are reading the same material, which influences their writing; however, because I follow various modes of their expression, I can better determine whether I trust them and want to continue listening. - JM (Nettie) Daum
All my blog posts are original and personal - I haven't yet been able to wrap my my head around the concept for "the conversation" which is constituted by hundreds or thousands of people saying the same thing on hundreds of blogs and in hundreds of different comment streams. What's the point of that, again? - Teel McClanahan III
Most of them. I don't write about what other people write about; I write about what interests and engages me. Sometimes tech, sometimes politics, always my own thought. - Francine Hardaway
a next page would be enough. i get why they recommend them, but i want more. ;) - Nicole Simon
I TOTALLY agree that a next button is hugely needed. I'll talk with them about this on Monday when I go to interview them. - Robert Scoble
Just put a "Show another suggestion" button along with "Subscribe" - Mete Donmez
By the way, liking a comment should be possible, and while there why not the capability to comment on a comment? - Mete Donmez
Mete I assume their algo is setup to disply the most relevant users to you. Random shuffling would not be the same, which is why pagination of it makes more sense. And for the commenting - because that would be a forum then. ;) - Nicole Simon
Should say "Hit me again." ('and give a wack to these users if u never want to see them recommended again') - Also whats with the 'imaginary' tab, thats a bit star trek meets jennifer aniston. - ben barren
well some i just do not want to subscribe to now - for example because they do not have anything in there yet. but later i might. i do check out for similar reasons the friendfiender app in facebook and prefer to ignore them every single time. ;) - Nicole Simon
How about a nice "random friend" button? You know, just for kicks. - Vince DeGeorge
Here are some people that none of your friends follow ;-) - Greg K.
This is complete bullshit. Damn, our society has gotten so freaking litigious and run by stupid people who have no clue about anything. The power levels here aren't even close to large enough to get a good black hole going. - Robert Scoble
These tiny black holes won't be able to sustain themselves and will evaporate. H5N1, climate change are bigger, genuine threats to peeps. - Greg K.
