Postcards from the Funny Farm

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Great blogs should be heralded. 9Rules.com does that. I’ve written a bit on 9Rules here in the past but I never really “got” what the thrust and vision of the company was … until now.

I recently asked Mike Rundle, co-founder of 9Rules, Chawlk.com and several exciting subsites, to answer some of my questions. After reading his answers and trying out Chawlk.com for months now I can tell you I think 9Rules.com is exciting, worth sharing, and absolutely something I endorse. See what you think as you read Mike’s insightful and engaging answers below.

Damien Riley: Hello Mike, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start with that from your perspective. What was your involvement in the beginning of 9Rules and what was the original 9Rules meant to be as a service?

Mike Rundle: Paul Scrivens and I have been friends and business partners since Winter 2003, originally founding one of the first blog-focused design and development firms in May 2004 (sold in March 2007.) At SXSW Interactive in Spring 2005, Paul had an idea about creating a spot that would aggregate great content from the multitude of blogs that were out there and allow bloggers to have a space to collaborate and work together. We invited about a dozen friends of ours to join the original 9rules, and they all happened to be designers, so for awhile we solely highlighted design content, but soon thereafter we branched out to business, technology, marketing, etc. Over the years the 9rules membership base has expanded and we’ve separated blogs out into individual “communities” for easier browsing. We’ve always hand-picked blogs to become members of 9rules and it’s been a great advantage for us and our readers as they know what they’re reading has met some difficult criteria.

Damien Riley: My understanding is that 9Rules started out as a promotion of member blogs and nothing else. Is that a correct understanding?

Mike Rundle: We promoted member blogs, but the big service we provide is the ability to reach out to great thinkers on the Web and have a common bond as a 9rules member. Many of our members are respected artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, investors, and because of this it puts you directly in touch with some of the best minds on the Web. If a member has a question or is in need of some feedback, there’s certainly no shortage of that in our private 9rules member forum.

Damien Riley: What was the intention of adding “Notes” and “Clips” and making 9Rules look much more like a social network?

Mike Rundle: The addition of Notes, Clips, and other social features were a way to get 9rules readers more connected with each other, similar to how our 9rules members are connected. A strong community of members and readers already existed around 9rules, so the addition of social features to the site was just a way to try and foster the community. We added Notes to 9rules long before social sites like Twitter and Facebook took off, so we never really had the intention of making 9rules look or act like a certain site, we just wanted to provide a way to get people more involved with the site and with each other.

Damien Riley: Recently, about 3 months ago, I joined 9Rules for the facet called “Notes.” My hope was to drive some readers to my site. Was this social network style a move away from the old 9Rules?

Mike Rundle: It certainly was a big departure from the “old style” 9rules that readers were used to, but it was an important evolutionary step for us. After seeing how people have used Notes and Clips over the past 2 years, we’re able to apply that knowledge to Chawlk and the other subsites and hit the ground running with them.

Damien Riley: I’ve been reading a lot, particularly from Scrivs, that this move is as a direct result of what former 9Rules folks have requested. How much of those suggestions influenced the decision and how much of your own vision played a part.

Mike Rundle: People have different reactions to change, and there will always be a fence separating the opinions of one group from another. Many 9rules members and readers think that the split of 9rules from the social features was a great move, but many of those same people thought that the addition of Notes and Clips to 9rules was also a great move. In the end it came down to what would best allow us to move ahead with our plans for the future, and the split allowed us to do that in the best way possible. People who love just having member content at 9rules are happy, and if they want to get involved more with like- minded people, they can head to Chawlk or to one of our subsites. We’re always interested in hearing what our members and readers think.

Damien Riley: Now that 9Rules is being restored to its original format and the Notes etc. will be relegated to Chawlk, what is the vision for both services?

Mike Rundle: 9rules is pure content from great, hand-selected blogs. We recently finished a membership round (our 6th since we started 9rules) and it’s great to be adding new members again, especially to a new site that highlights them and nothing else. 9rules.com is the place to find interesting content written by people who have a proven track record for producing interesting content, and we’re extremely proud of each and every 9rules member because they are a reflection of the quality and ideals that 9rules has stood for since we started. The current group of new members is definitely no exception, and I’m honestly envious of all their writing abilities. We really have a great bunch in this new group.

Chawlk.com is the portal that pulls in all the content from our 9 subsites and it’s mainly there for the hardcore readers that want everything. Our subsites are where people are really going to want to be if they’re looking for great discussion and interesting links on a specific topic. Over time our goal is for each subsite to have its own persona, features, and community, and be more than just “one of the subsites”. We just launched Chawlk and the subsites so right now their designs are only a bit different, but we’ll be revisiting each as time goes on.

Damien Riley: I won’t pry too much, but how does 9Rules determine if a blog should be granted membership or not.

Mike Rundle: Not prying at all! The first thing people want to know when they visit 9rules is what the membership criteria is, and fortunately our partner Tyme has been writing a great series on just what we look for when evaluating sites for membership. We have an entire category in our blog dedicated to “Site Tips”: blog.9rules.com/category/site-tips/ The general overview is we want blogs that are focused on one particular topic area and write great original content on a consistent basis. We evaluate sites by reading many articles from their blog, not just the recent ones, so sites that are only a few months old should wait until they have some more posts under their belt before submitting. We only accept submissions for 24 hours a few times per year, and our next submission round is on August 6, 2008. Your readers can find out more about joining 9rules here: 9rules.com/aboout/join/

Damien Riley: There are so many social networks out there. What does 9Rules offer the decent blogger out there looking to add quality to his/her blog and posts?

Mike Rundle: Our new subsite Wriging.com (writing + blogging) is dedicated to making you a better blogger so I’d highly recommend your readers check it out and subscribe if they’re interested in that topic and want to join a community of other bloggers.

If you’re looking to see how some great blogs operate, I’d definitely start by checking out our Members page (9rules.com/members/) and subscribing to some blogs that hit your interests.

Damien Riley: Finally, what is your hope that people will get out of 9Rules. What would you personally like to get thank you emails about ;)

Mike Rundle: I love when people find great, new blogs at 9rules that they’ve never seen before. We really take pride in being democratic about how gets into 9rules — it’s not about your traffic or RSS readers, it’s just about your writing. Because of this we usually highlight a lot of great, lesser-known blogs that end up becoming big hits once they get more people visiting their site. Personally I like finding great blogs before everyone else discovers them, and then helping them achieve some success.

This article is Part II of my series “Finest Hour of Social Networks” where I examine social networks and their effectiveness in raising real traffic (low bounce rate/readers who stay more than the duration of two clicks!) This goal is important for monetization and for building a following to your blog. If these ideas are something you’re interested in, this series will help you achieve those goals.

In this article I review and offer some tips on using: Facebook and Fuel My Blog. Here at the second article, I have found I am learning a lot about what a social network is and can be for me as a blogger. I am looking forward to looking at more of the leading social networks for bloggers and sharing my findings with you in future articles. Stay tuned!

Facebook started buzzing around the sphere about 2-3 years ago as I recall. It looked like a vanilla MySpace. For that reason, I never bothered with it much back then. I have a myspace music account that I barely update, how could another “buddy” system get any of my attention? Eventually about a year ago, I joined the service and found it visually slick looking, less cluttered than Myspace. But Facebook is really pointless unless you have “friends” there.   I emailed everyone in my Yahoo! address book and found that out of 30-something people, only three signed up to make me their friends. Then after a long tome of not logging in, I began to get requests from old friends from high school. Some people I only vaguely even remembered. Since gettingonlne now with friends I have found all the addon applications to be really fun. You can waste hours playing around on Facebook.  But, alas, killing time is not one of my 2008 goals, so I limit my time there to about once a week. The good news is though, the service emails you where there are new notices or emails from your friends. You don’t have to hang out there all the time.

In conclusion, I think making a FaceBook account and pimping it as much as you can will help your blog’s traffic. I’ve had at least two comments this past month from people who say they surfed in through Facebook. I recommend it! If you do decide to register, feel free to make me your first friend: I am rileycentral on Facbook.

Thumbs up for Facebook! Now, what about this other mysterious service they call “Fuel My Blog?” Let me tell you what I have found:

Fuel My Blog is a quasi social network where you can “fuel” blogs you like thereby bringing them closer to the top of the list in their category. Sort of like trying to scale Google, this process can make you feel powerless over your own success. Once you join, you can put a widget in your blog that shows your favorite blogs on the service. People can “fuel” the blogs there through a three-click process that is fairly easy. My hope is that their great idea of boosting blogs through clicks will develop further. Three clicks away is too much clicking when I am trying to make merss reading rounds. It’s also discouraging when you know that your clicks probably won’t do much to boost the blog anyway. Fuel My Blog is very new and has a small number of blogs in their system. You can’t be part of this unless you are registered with them and you have their widget. I’ve been good about fueling my 7 a day, but is time consuming. In the end with Fuel My Blog you have a great name with a marginaludea that looks like all the other social schmoozing sites. It would be fine to have it if it offered something new, but as of yet they haven’t. I’m getting a little tired of clicking 10-20 times a day just to boost sites I have only just met through the service. When I find someone I know , I get excited and fuel them immediately just because I know them but that is not the best motive for promoting a blog, it should be spectacular right? Finding blogs to fuel is very cumbersome and the blog must be a registered member of Fuel my Blog for your to fuel them. This lags in much the same way Alexa lags in requiring it’s toolbar to build rank for a site.

My final word on Fuel My Blog is a “sideways thumb”: a little up and a little down. They seem like very nice people (they asked me to guesblog as a regular contributor and I have done 2 blogs for them) and the company looks good on the screen with nice bright graphics. Because of reasons I listed, however, I haven’t found their service to produce the best blogs. Then again, neither does DIGG, SU, or any of the other netwrks I use. I’m alwasy on the lookout for that company who can create and innovate a social system that really gets the good stuff to the forefront. I think much has to evolve for Fuel My Blog to be something the masses will spend their precious online minutes on.

Coming next in the series:

Part III

Twitter - What can that little light blue “t” do for ya! In addition to writing on Twitter next, some may recall I was going to write on 9Rules. I changed my mind and and instead, I’ll be writing something about IZEA and Social Spark. Stay tuned!

Now it’s your turn!

What do you think of using Facebook and Fuel My Blog to build traffic?

This article is Part I of my series “Finest Hour of Social Networks” where I examine social networks and their effectiveness in raising real traffic (low bounce rate/readers who stay more than the duration of two ckicks!) This goal is important for monetization and for building a following to your blog. If these ideas are something you’re interested in, this series will help you achieve those goals.

It’s time for another series because I have a lot to say and I don’t want to burn out trying to say it all in one article. I hope you get something out of it. As always, your discussion is invaluable to the series’ evolution throughout. I really appreciate your comments. Ok, well here goes: One common thread that seems to run through every site I run across these days is the topic of building blog traffic. “How can I do it!” Whether you are growing your internet business or just trying to get more readers for your online publishing, it is the burning question in everyone’s mind. There are many ways published out there that you can take and use and make your own. Most of these ways really do work. Depending on how much a blogger puts into it, (including sometimes unholy amounts of time at the comp away from your family) they can work astoundingly well. At the same time, I myself have tried others of them only to come up exhausted and without a shard of new traffic. In the year and a half that I have been blogging, I’ve tried almost everything. I have tricks up my sleeve that I could share until the cows come home. I don’t get to them that often these days because there is other content I need to get to, content about psychology and inspiration and education. The stuff I am passionate about is my favorite stuff to share on here. At the same time, my primary audience here (as measured by visits and referrals) has always been innovative bloggers and noobs. Social networking can literally explode the traffic of my friends ad cohorts out there. It behooves me to share what I know about blogging. With content on this site it is a lot like my family and my work, I try to find a happy balance.
Because I have so much to share about social networking and traffic for bloggers, I am penning this series which will ultimately consist of IV parts as outlined below:

Series: Finest Hour of Social Networks
Part I
BlogCatalog
Entrecard

Part II
Facebook
Fuel My Blog

Part III
Twitter
Social Spark and other monetized social networks.

Part IV
Final Thoughts

Taking these on in ABC order, today’s part focuses on two powerful social networks: Blog Catalog and Entrecard. Join me as I analyze how these 2 services can increase your blog’s traffic no matter whether you are a noob or someone who’d been doing it so long you are starting to burn out … or maybe you are somewhere in the middle. I believe these services can revolutionize the traffic of your blog.

Blog Catalog has been around at least as long as 2005 when I first started checking them out. They have been through normal gradual changes for a company run by young guys and they have emerged in 2008 to be a daunting force for the Technoratis and MyBlogLogs of the world. Blog Catalog has stayed solid at listening to the customers and at innovating the marketplace as best they can. They have come up with some really fun widgets that I use along with so really helpful services in their site for bloggers. The end result is a giant set of tools to increase your blog’s traffic. Here is how I use Blog Catalog to reach out and increase my blog’s traffic:

1. Friend’s list - This is such a great feature. When someone decides they like my blog they add me as a friend on BlogCatalog. I get an email alter and I check their blog out. If I like their blog I can add them if not, they remain my one-way friend anyway. This is a great way to access networks of bloggers with your like-minded favorites etc.

2. Discussions - I hang around BC Discussions daily. It is an excellent way to promote your blog and get help or givehelp with blog issues. more important than anything, it’s a way to sample people and their blogs so you can develop relationships that last. I have commented on blogs through this service years ago and to this day they are still visiting my blog and I theirs.

3. Widgets - BC offers incredibly designed blog widgets. You have to try them all to see which work for you. For me, I like the discussion widget because it shows where I have been talking out in the sphere for those would be interested. I suppose it’s a status message kind of like Twitter or Facebook that way. The difference is that there is no limitation of characters and the thread can interact indefinitely (as many do!)

Through using these three facets of Blog Catalog I have met hundreds of people but just between 15-20 people who remain friends and/or fans of mine and who frequent my site. I get backlinks (this refers to when another site links to you) that bring in traffic perpetually and that increase your ranks with the search engines. I highly recommend you join Blog Catalog, pimp out your profile there and then take part in the three amazing service I listed above. You will see an increase in your traffic.

Now for the second and newer of the two in our discussion today: The sophisticated looking Entrecard.

Entrecard works like this: You create a 125×125 “Entrepeneur Card” or Entrecard for your site. Then you upload it to your profile and pimp out the other parts of the profile. At that point you need to do two things for the service to get you traffic: 1) You need to “drop” your Entrecard on other blogs, and

2) You need to advertise on other blogs. These two actions are theoretically harmonious because every time you visit another Entrecard site and drop your card on it, you get 1 “ec” point. The site you dropped on also gets 1 ec in the process. It is good etiquette to return the drop, but not everyone does it. In your profile, there is a section called “Drop Inbox.” This shows the last 80 or so drops on your site. Many people use that page as the way to “drop back.” The idea of dropping back on everyone is really a foolish idea. It can take hours sometimes to go through them all. I have developed a way to drop every day that takes me less than half-an-hour and I drop over 80 a day. If you are interested in hearing how, just look at the button below my Entrecard that contains the words about “Above the Fold.” It’s something I am trying to promote and hope it catches on.

You get ads on other sites by paying for them in “ec’s” In other words, the more dropping you do and selling of your own space, the more ec’s you have to buy ads.

My traffic has grown nearly 50% through Entrecard which has felt really good. On the other had, the bounce rate for those hits is remarkably low so. People click through like wildfire just to get ec’s. I must admit however that I have received some ad business through Entrecard and many comments by new readers. So I can’t say it’s just empty traffic. I guess the higher the numbers, the better the chance you have of gaining new fans. In the same way, how can anyone know if they like you if they never see you? Entrecard can be a little complicated and clicking through all those sites can be cumbersome. It works for me to raise traffic and to get my 125×125 “Messy Marvin” PostCards avatar out there. I’m not sure if one day’s link actually registers with the search engines, but that isn’t really why I do it.

Social networks like these are exploding traffic for many people I know. If you want more people coming to your site, to read the words you write or buy the things you sell, I doubly encourage you to start with these two. Get registered and begin to explore what works for you. If you have questions, contact me or leave a comment. I firmly believe these two social networks can and will revolutionize your traffic records. Let us know how it goes. I’ll leave you with this: We spend a lot of hours on the computer with internet businesses our and blogs: why not try and make each one our finest!

Next time in my series: Finest Hour of Social Networks

Part II
Facebook
Do people actually use this blue book? If so why? Can it help my traffic?

Fuel My Blog
Somethings Cooking! Will it help my traffic?
And much more to say on these two services I have used for some time now.

What do you think using Blog Catalog and Entrecard to build traffic?

This article attempts to relate how cool the new browser on the block is: Flock. Anyone who blogs should use all the major browsers. This helps you stay abreast of what your code looks like across the board. I have Firefox, IE, and now Flock all installed on my computer and while I use them all to some extent, the new “Social Web Browser” called Flock is my favorite. This is by no means a tutorial, I have much to learn about its many hidden features. Instead, it’s simply a review and a recommendation to you. I say everyone should go check this amazing browser out.

This feature is the reason I left Firefox. You can subscribe to feeds within Flock and the interface for doing so is so much simpler than anything I have used from Bloglines to Google Reader. You can auto subscribe with a click or just select the XML source and add it to your feed favorites.

It’s nice when you can have features in the browser rather than all over the places with shortcuts in your toolbar. Mine fills up fast! That’s why I like Flock. It has most the major social networks embedded as features and the ones that aren’t, you can access in Flock through the add-on “Shareaholic.”

All Firefox addons are compatible with Flock and it has features that Firefox does not yet have. I will always be a fan of Firefox but I think the current Flock is better.

This cut of the buttons and toolbar shows some of the groovy features of Flock. Don’t you want to see what each button does? Flock is so cool. How often in our blogging day to we come across truly new surfing and networking tools? Flock has a lot of them.

Flock can be downloaded here. What do you think of it?