Repositioning ItSeemstoMe Yet Again

This site makes me feel like Prince Hamlet.  I keep wondering whether it was meant to be or not to be. It’s hard to serve two masters, as my friend Loic advised me recently and Naked Conversations is doing quite well by any measure.  When I restarted ItSeemstoMe about two months ago, I had a clear picture that it would focus on the intersection of technology and culture—for better or worse, on serious and funny issues.  Nice, tidy and well-focused like everyone says a good blog should be.

Fat chance.

But for my 11 or so regular ISTM readers, this is a pot luck blogsite. I veer all over the road like bald tires on ice. In recent postings I hit tech-culture, George Bush, hurricanes and yes, I even did a dog blog once. At least I spared you the cat.

I angst that over on Naked, Robert and I have given specific advice about how blog successfully: Do it often, be brief and stay focused. Here, I skip entire weeks, then blog in binges. I climb soap boxes, am occassionally as long-winded as a marathon runner and the dirty little secret is I love it. I also use ISTM to try out new ideas to see what other people think. IThe result is that I have roughly five times the following on Naked that I do on ISTM.

Then it dawned on me. Ratings can be over-rated, particular on a personal blog like this. Naked is really a business blog.  It's about bring open source thinking into the book-writing process.  It's about using trusted networks to ignite a word-of-mouth engine. This is about whatever crosses my mind and lingers long enough for me to have timne to write it.

Sometimes I get a good deal of feedback--pro or con. Usually I'm deafened by the silence the blogosphere gives me.

Screw the rankings, I say.

I can just write what I feel like writing about any subject I wish to share, or any idea I wish to test out in public. This is very liberating. Blogs are not just about the 10 blogs  that get 12 million readers. It’s also about the 12 million blogs that get 10 readers. That’s what makes us so different from so many of the mass media.

So here’s ISTM’s new position.  This blog will cover whatever interests me that it’s not about business and blogging.  Naked will cover that extensively and often.  This one will cover everything else in the universe. 

Screw the ranking, I say... unless mine improve.

Comments

[Jim Minatel]

Welcome to the long tail Shel. :)
I can see you way up ahead of me in the distant middle of the long tail. Newsgator seems to think you have at least 31 subscribers just there, which is an order of magnitude greater than what it says about wroxblog.

[Evan Erwin]

Haha, well said Shel.

No matter how hard I fight it, I still crave readers as much as anyone else who blogs. I guess it's just in the blood.

Either way, you keep writing and I'll keep reading :)

[Niti Bhan]

*the sound of applause*

Isn't it liberating? :)

[Dave Copithorne]

Keep typing Shel, and don't worry about your rankings or positioning. You've always had a lot more to say than most other people I know, and very much of it is edifying and/or entertaining, even if often unsolicited and/or unexpected. I believe the moment I became one of your ten (or 31) regular loyal readers was somewhere in the middle of your post on your all-terrain-vehicle excursion in Latin America somewhere. But that's just me. As for rankings, I imagine they're fun to follow if you're a rankee, but otherwise in the long run I'll bet they won't count for squat.

[David Copithorne]

One other thing: "...and yes, I even did a dog blog once. At least I spared you the cat." Hey, wait a second! What about your Sept. 4, 2005 post on Kinko, your cat. It was a good one, too.

[shel]

Dave,
I'm flattered that you have become a fan. I didn't realize that anyone had ever read that ATV post because it received neither comments nor links. And you are right--I am guilty of posting both a dog and a cat blog--talk about pandering to the masses.

[Perry Nelson]

When I came here to "catch up" on you and what you were saying, I did so via a newsreader, which is how I usually read you. I'm not sure how that behavior affects your rankings.

This post led me to actually open your site, in my newsreader (FeedDemon), to make a comment, because my blog is also all over the place, mostly focused on technology, but frequently about whatever is in my consciousness at that time. I post to "share myself" with those who care to read what I write. Like a lot of writers, I write to "get it out of me" more than because the world needs to hear it. I'm always surprised, though pleased I confess, when I learn that someone has read it.

In reading this blog of yours, I feel I've gotten to know you personally, and I think that is reason enough to blog, even if it doesn't meet the criteria for becoming a highly ranked blogger. So from my perspective, I hope you'll continue to write about your travels, your point of view, and yes, even about your dogs and cats.

[Ivan Chew]

Screw the rankings? Yeah, I'm with you on that, now that I've dropped to 49th from 4th place in Pubsub, LOL! Seriously, rankings give me an ego-boost but it's the meaningful comments that make my day every time. Oh, I was wondering if there's a correlation between changing one's photo on the blog and rankings... :)