First up, a usual Reaching a Better Place article is coming. The usual articles will keep appearing during the trial (though perhaps at slightly lower frequency). My deadline for the most pressing work here at uni is the 11th, after the 11/11/08 things will be much closer to the usual (except there will be a post every day on the trial).
That said, here’s what happened today.
Comments
This hour was all about the comments, so it may surprise readers to learn I only added two:
http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/11/05/5-simple-ways-to-avoid-regret/#comment-86777
I explain why below.
Stuff I’m learning from commenting so far
Firstly, commenting isn’t fast - not if you want to type something worthwhile. If you don’t want to say anything worthwhile though it’s pretty much instant.
I once read the quote ‘if you’re not willing to write it down and sign it, don’t say it.’ Apart from possibly turning you into the most reserved person your friends know, it applies really well to commenting.
With comments you do sign - your name and your blog. It can take less than ten seconds but your comment will be around for as long as the blog is - and even then who’s to say it can’t end up somewhere else on the internet forever more? This was the massive reservation I used to have about social media: when I had a whim to have a myspace account Sam was round my house at the time and it took a lot of arm twisting to get me to actually write up the page and click submit.
The truth is I was more neurotic then than I am now, but my point remains valid. Unless you’re a notable celebrity social network profiles are the ultimate statement in history for who you are and, after you’re dead, who you were. Yes, everyone has a Facebook profile these days (except Sam =P) and your page is just one of millions, but the internet is still the most powerful and universally accessible medium we’ve ever known. It took quite a while for me to get over my somewhat neurotic concern and type up a profile. The world has yet to end because I didn’t perfectly crystallise myself on a page asking me about favorite books and films.
In the end there has to be a balance between not taking yourself so seriously and being open, and at the same time taking self-expression on the internet seriously. Writing good comments is a result of this balance.
Secondly: Autofill Forms is great.
Thirdly, the process of finding articles to comment on is, itself, very fast if you know how to do it. I doubt I’ve discovered the perfect system yet, but since giving myself a time frame (i.e. an hour) to do comments I’ve learned efficiency quickly. I use Google Reader as my RSS reader pretty much just to go through the blogs in my list to check for new articles with appealing titles. When I find such a blog I click to go to the blog’s site - not reading the article through Google Reader. This is because I’m seriously considering commenting and there’s no time to waste reading it in the reader and then going to the main site to comment.
Still, why only two comments in an hour, you ask? Partly because I was adding many new blogs I came across through commenting to the reader. One or two I already knew about, liked and had forgotten to subscribe to through Google Reader.
http://www.healthmoneysuccess.com/
http://mikesalara.com/
http://ourbestversion.com/blog/
http://www.lifehack.org/
http://calnewport.com/blog/
The lack of comments is also partly because you hit a lot of duds when you’re looking to comment.
The ‘duds’ may be bad articles, but they can just as easily be very good articles. For example, www.thedailymind.com had an article recently on how to comfort people going through tough times. I would have liked to throw in my two cents but TDM had the area so well covered I couldn’t make a decent contribution (and of couse I could only learn this having read the whole article).
Some articles aren’t what you expect them to be and with some there is such a flood of comments present you decide to move on. Not just because your comment at the bottom would have less chance of being read but also because there’s a good chance all the other commenters (95% of whom will be bloggers in that niche) have said all the good stuff there was to say.
I’m enjoying commenting more than I did for the speed of it and for the ease at which you can find new blogs. A key aspect to me enjoying it more was just to commit to it and take it seriously. I used to be a little hard-pressed to see how people such as Dan Rowse could write so much for so long just on blogging - but like any subject there is a fascinating wealth beneath it all if you’re just prepared to look.
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Comments
Hello –
Just a quick hello and a thanks for linking to my site! Good luck with your blog promotion challenge.
ari
Thanks, yes, let’s hope it goes well.
Thanks for the great compliments!
It’s funny, that article was written because I sort of felt like venting some of my thoughts and hoped to get some more ideas from my readers. I never would have imaged that I would teach anyone anything.
Next time leave a comment anyway. What you just said above has encouraged me greatly.
Thanks.
TDM
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