MappingTheWeb //

A few days ago, Mark Evans wrote a post outlining some of the blog lessons he has learned since he began. I can definitely relate to most. In light of that post, I will now outline some of the lessons I have learned since I began blogging in September 2006.

1. Content is king. This cannot be over-emphasized enough. Always provide quality content for your readers. If you find that you are unable to come up with interesting, pertinent content on a regular basis, post less often. Do not allow the quality of your content to degrade.

2. NEVER take your readers for granted. Your audience is your basis for being. Thank them for their participation, be sure to respond to their e-mails, and never insult their intelligence.

3. Blogging is a huge time commitment. Well, it can be if you post regularly and plan on successfully marketing your blog. Often, new bloggers underestimate the time needed to successfully operate a blog.

4. Become a part of the blogosphere community. This means commenting on other blogs, adding trackbacks to your posts, linking to other blogs via your blogroll, and leveraging community widgets to enhance your blog experience for readers. This will help build your traffic, provide incoming links, and ensure a certain level of exposure for your blog. Furthermore, community participation will also provide valuable networking opportunities with other bloggers, Internet enthusiasts, and company exceutives.

5. Have a goal and a vision when you begin blogging. What is your reason for blogging? Do you want to provide an update for friends and family, or do you want to write articles on a given niche? Everyone has a different reason and underlying motivation for blogging. Money and financial returns should not be a primary motivator, nor should notoriety and fame.

6. Make yourself extremely accessible to readers. By prominently displaying your contact information and allowing easy communication with readers, you will be bridging the gap and creating a more loyal, trustworthy following. Having said that, you must also make a strong effort to reply to comments and e-mails in a prompt, thoughtful manner. 

7. Post on a consistent basis. This doesn’t mean you need to post daily. What it means is that you must post on a consistent basis, whether it be once every two days, weekly, or even monthly. This way, your readers will know when to expect another post and do not become frustrated by an inconsistent posting schedule.

8. Stay on topic. Don’t sway too much from your initial niche and begin posting off topic. This not only disgruntles readers, but also ruins trust and loyalty. Providing high quality content in a given niche will help shape your space in the blogosphere and showcase your expertise.

9. Don’t regurgitate other blogs’ content. Numerous blogs simply choose to paraphrase other blogs or re-write articles in their own words. This provides no value to the reader, as he/she can simply visit the cited location. Every post must provide a unique perspective or view.

10. Don’t be discouraged by stats. It takes time to build a reader base. By posting quality content on a regular basis and participating in the blogosphere community, increased readership is inevitable. Stats can be discouraging at times, but you must stick with your initial vision. Quality and consistency will translate into surprising success.

11. Make design changes every once in awhile. In other words, keep a fresh look. This may mean changes to the overall design, colour schemes, widgets, layout, etc… By making regular changes, you will be providing a fresh look for you and your readers, creating a more enjoyable experience.

What lessons have you learned from blogging? What have been your biggest hurdles and obstacles to overcome? I encourage you to write a list of your own.

Once again, rumours are swirling about a potential Facebook acquisition. This time, Google is the culprit. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has expressed interest in the exploding social network. This isn’t the first Facebook takeover rumour we’ve heard so far this week. Already, reports surfaced that Microsoft has been in talks with Facebook. In addition, acquisition talks between Yahoo and Facebook have been going on for what seems like forever. The future of Facebook is uncertain to say the least.

What would a Google takeover mean for the search giant? Access to a large, highly sought-after market and ownership of a respectable social network (finally). Orkut just didn’t cut it. What would a deal mean for Facebook? Lots of money for Zuckerberg and more targeted advertising.

Let’s be honest though. This is an information deal - it’s all about the data. Facebook is a marketer’s dream. The amount of information available is ridiculous. Regional, demographic, social - Facebook has it all. Google would simply be adding another database of information to their arsenal. It’s all part of their master plan to take over the world. Muhuhaha…

Other rumours are circulating that indicate Google is laying back and waiting for Facebook to come to them. Still, others are saying that Zuckerberg and co. are sticking with their initial plan of staying indepedent, shunning all takeover offers, and planning to go public later this year.

Perhaps this is simply another Google PR stunt to raise awareness about the company. We haven’t heard much from the company in the last week or so. Ha. Having said that, they fooled me when they bought YouTube. It seems that the search giant is always looking to buy the cream of the crop in any given space, not only to acquire a large user base, but also to generate excessive amounts of PR and buzz.

Money always seems to be the big issue when it comes to Facebook acquisition talks. Because the social network is growing at such a phenomenal rate, it always seems to have the upper hand in takeover talks. What this means is that it can call the shots - i.e. the only way Facebook will sell out is if they are offered a huge sum of money. As mentioned, Zuckerberg has indicated an unwillingness to sell. But we live in a capitalist society. If the price is right, it is pretty hard to say no. Don’t forget that Google has deep pockets and a track record of getting what they want. Will Google be the one to finally pull the trigger? Can we say hello to GooBook?

Over the years, major players have emerged from specific spaces: Google in search; YouTube in video; Amazon in books/e-commerce; eBay in auctions; Facebook in social networks, etc… These giants are very hard to compete against for all kinds of reasons. Firstly, they benefit from economies of scale. Secondly, their resources are vast - not only in terms of financial, but also human. For these reasons, start-ups are refusing to compete head on, but rather choose a smaller vertical or niche to compete for.

We’ve already seen this trend occur in at least two of the biggest spaces: search and social networking. There are now search engines and social networks tailored for nearly every group. These narrow, highly-specific offerings provide huge value to the target audience, as well as lucrative revenue opportunities for the company due to the targeted nature of the group.

My guess is that we will continue to see this process occur over and over again. Once a given niche begins to fill out, we will started to see micro-niches - and the cycle continues… In other words, there will always be opportunities to compete against the big guys. Extracting a small subset of their user base and providing a more tailored offering is the key. If a new company is able to do this, expect satisfied users and financial success for the founders.

So what is next for verticals? Which industries will they invade? What trends and strategies will emerge?

Everyone is comparing newcomer Pownce to various existing services. Names such as Jaiku, Tumblr, and Box.net keep arising. In particular, Twitter has been mentioned the most. Furthermore, comparisons are being made to IM clients, e-mail applications, and P2P programs. None of these seem to fit the bill for me. After some hard thinking and due diligence, it became abundantly clear to me that Pownce is more like Digg than anything else. This should have been obvious from the start, as Kevin Rose is the mastermind behind both operations.

When you think about it, Digg is nothing more than a link-sharing network. Users are encouraged to share links that they think the community and other users will find useful and valuable. Pownce is no different. However it takes the concept a couple steps further.

Firstly, Pownce enables sharing with a select group of people that you have control over. You can share with one individual, a group, or your entire contact list. With Digg, you are forced to share with everyone. Taking this concept one step further, one could say that Pownce is a Digg-like social network - the main difference being that stories (i.e. links) are not voted to the front page, but rather viewed by a select group of individuals.

Secondly, Pownce further expands upon what you can share using Digg. The service allows you to share links like Digg, but also messages, files, and events. These cannot and will not be shared using Digg for several important reasons:

• Messages often provide little value unless you know the author;
• Files may be corrupt or copyrighted;
• Events are only relevant to certain people and regions.

Furthermore, these three categories do not bode as well as stories and links for creating hype and buzz. This is the very basis for Digg.

My guess is that Kevin Rose an his team recognized these downfalls and wanted to create a more personalized method of sharing. Hence, Pownce was born. Instead of sharing a generic link with the world, you are now able to share more meaningful, relevant content with a select group. The core idea of sharing remains the same. However, the target group and item of interest have changed.

Is this a reasonable comparison or are there other services that Pownce is more closely related to that I have overlooked?

This is a question I seem to keep asking myself. Nearly every video site or portal has copied the YouTube interface in some way, shape, or form. The other day, Mashable compared MySpace TV’s new interface to that of YouTube. The verdict: nearly identical. Add to that the fact that foreign YouTube clones are popping up on a daily basis. Again I ask myself, “Does YouTube have the perfect interface?”…

My answer is no. I don’t believe there is such thing as a ‘perfect interface’. There is always room for improvement. Having said that, interfaces should be judged relative or in reference to other players in the space.

I think there are two main reasons why many are copying the YouTube interface:

1. Familiarity - Users are familiar with the YouTube interface. I would wager that 99%+ of regular Internet users have visited YouTube at some point. In other words, people are familiar with the navigation, layout, player, etc… By re-inventing the wheel and designing a completely new experience, users are subject to a learning curve. For this very reason, it can be a huge advantage to copy an interface that is already well-known and mainstream.

2. Budget - Most small start-ups do not possess a huge R&D budget, nor do they have an entire team of interface designers at their disposal. The cost is unjustifiable so early in the process. YouTube, on the other hand, is a large player and has the backing of Google. Simply put, YouTube now has deep pockets and a large talent pool. This allows the company the opportunity to churn out a high quality interface with much testing and tweaking happening behind the scenes.

I guess the conclusion we can pull from all of this is as follows: though it may seem like a questionable, unethical form of business practice to copy such an interface, the subsequent benefits may be appealing to any site looking to enter a given space. I am not vouching for or against this strategy, but rather outlining the perspective from both sides. There is always an opportunity cost to every decision made. By copying a well-known, understood process or system, you are essentially decreasing the learning curve, facilitating the adoption process, and creating a shorter path to critical mass.