February 22, 2006

Self Referential World

I am a bit disappointed in myself for creating a blog about blogging…jumping into another hyper-saturated market prior to having adequate exposure in my first hyper saturated market.

The best part about being able to write a blog on whatever topic you are interested in is that you have a free responsive outlet.

The downside on not grabbing a niche topic is that people expect frequent publishing (and that may be required if your blog is a large part of your business model). That leads to…

Where you run into problems with that sort of stuff is that people can not separate themselves from their own experiences. I think Mike and Jeremy are both spot on in those posts, but the people with broad reach which they are refuting probably are writing what I would be consider misinformation which to them seems 100% true…based on their own experiences.

It is a problem we all have as writers / authors / bloggers / story tellers. Who we are defines why people like us and why they hate us. Given a podium and no time limits or restrictions it can be a bit easy to go on even after the good original inspiring stuff is all gone.

It is really hard to see past your own nose, and once you get successful you want to tell other people that if they do what you did that they would do well too, but in many cases that is not the truth…in many cases some things (like market timing, prior reputation and employer) can not be replicated by most other people.

Please note I probably make the same errors the others do…it is so hard to give advice without giving at least a bit of bad advice.

Update: looks like I am losing my edge. Jeremy Z said what I was trying to say, but a bit better.

I’m becoming more and more sickened by the increasing number of articles and blog posts I’ve seen in the last few months that are self-proclaimed “HOWTOs” on making your company, PR folks, or Marketing Department blogger friendly.

After all, there’s nothing like a few excited bloggers to kick off a good viral marketing campaign, right?! Who cares if your product is lame. Just get some bloggers to talk about it!

How long can it be before some new Web 2.0 startup (old maybe a desperate Old Media company) offers up the chance to “win a date with a supermodel” for anyone who blogs about their newest product. What after that?