I’ve thought about it. I checked out Disqus and pondered the idea of using it for this blog. I see that some other bloggers are using it. But, it is a bit of a scary proposition at this point. Why?

I generated some talk in the last couple days about comment fragmention. There are comments on your blog and then there are the ones out on FriendFeed and other similar services. At the end of the day, I don’t personally care where a conversation takes place. At the same time, though, it is nice having comments ON my blog.

What bothers me about Disqus is the notion of completing hosting my comments elsewhere. That is like the complete end game of fragmentation, leaving nothing left at the source. Of course I can display the comments here, but they are stored somewhere else.

So, could I bring the comments back into Wordpress if I chose? From this discussion, it seems the answer is no but they are working on it. And what happens if Disqus goes the way of the dodo? Did I just lose everything? Also, it seems as if you can’t moderate your own comments inside WP anymore. Apparently, they are working on a plug-in for that. So, not only are all my comments now on a remote server, but I have to separately log into a remote server to moderate them?

Fred, from “A VC”, listed his 3 reasons to use Disqus. Problem is, only one of those reasons is compelling: the ability to have shared profiles across blogs. I like the centralization. Kinda like FriendFeed. The other two reasons are mute because it can easily be done with a plug-in. Scott points out the drawbacks of Disqus quite well, actually.

So, it leaves me wondering, why the hell are so many bloggers (over 4,000 of them, according to their site) converting? Do they want the centralization so bad that they’re willing to throw out the baby with the bath water? It seems to me like you would be completely killing all the benefits from having comments on your own site.

Seems like a bonehead move to me at this point.

Yesterday, in the FriendFeed noise pool that I started with my post on FriendFeed, Scoble reacted to my post and ultimately ended up posting a well written response on his blog. That’s great and all, but I noticed (and pointed out to him) that he decided to link to the FriendFeed conversation rather than my blog. I saw this as complete snobbishness. And he was clearly practicing the “no Scoble Google Juice for you!” approach.

But, what was interesting was this response:

David: I wanted my readers to see the conversation that’s happening in both places. I guess you didn’t read Steve Gillmor’s “links are dead” piece. I used to be disappointed that people didn’t link to me either. I got over it.

It got me thinking. Are links dead? I can certainly see the point to Gillmore’s piece, but I also think he jumped to the end game prematurely.

Links are not dead for one reason: That’s how the Internet works! Ever thought about why it is called the INTERnet? Also, links are how Google exists and how it generates its search index (for the most part).

Yes, we do live in an attention age. The best commodity there is online today is eyeballs. When you demand attention, that is good and it is much more valuable than direct links. I gotcha, Scoble (and Gillmore). BUT, the conversation is different than the source. If the entire Internet revolves around conversation, then that would be like newspapers creating their entire frontpage based on what people said at the water cooler rather than the source for a news story.

The new media douchebags of the world get so engrossed in the social part of the new media that I think they sometimes get snobby about the way the Internet does work and how it was built. Gillmore put it this way in a piece:

Links are dead. What I mean by that is that I often choose not to link not as a measure of disrespect but as a measure of an increased recommendation or gesture of authority. In essence I’m suggesting you link to or follow the person, not the individual post or item.

That’s fine, but again, it ignores the source. It is a via. It is more noise pollution, in a weird way.

To me, linking to the source (when you’re a blogger) is not about respect for the person you’re linking to (or not linking to). It isn’t about Google juice. It is about accuracy as a blogger. And this is completely aside from the fact that I, as a blogger, have a certain code of etiquette. Namely, if I’m going to talk about somebody’s viewpoint, I LINK TO THEIR VIEWPOINT. Then, my readers can see what they say, see what I say, and draw their own conclusions.

I have a lot of respect for Scoble. I like the guy like a lot of other people do. But I think his response and handling of that was snobby. And, as Corvida put it, apparently some of the others on FriendFeed are snobby as well. I guess its a good ol’ boy club and I came in yesterday and took a shit in their koolaid. Or at least that’s the way some took it.

That kind of link inbreeding is why my post about A-List bloggers last night is so spot on. I’m just saying.

Think about the metaphor.

I credit Jeremiah Owyang for Twittering this last week and giving me a good laugh. Enjoyed meeting you in Tampa, dude.

My last post about FriendFeed unleashed a storm over on FriendFeed. And it drove a whole bunch of new people over here to check out the post. And, yes, I realize the irony.

I want to make a few clarifications.

1. I have no wish to control the conversation. I’m a blogger and I realize that the business is all about generating conversation. I don’t really care where it is. At the same time, though, it IS a via. It is a little like having a bunch of people talking about you in the other room rather than talking to your face. Again, you can think what you want about that. Homie don’t care.
2. The FriendFeed conversation about this got a lot of commentary and that means the same entire thread popped up at the top of my feed over and over again today. That is NOISE. I mean, look, it is logical that you see a comment and then move on. Not have the same comment continually thrown in your face. When somebody replies to your tweet on Twitter, you don’t have the entire conversation tree re-tweeted back at ya every time, do you? That is my major reason for calling FriendFeed excessively noisy.

Aside from that, I appreciate all the conversation the topic has generated. I was a little surprised at the attitude some of the folks had about me questioning their precious medium, but what do you do. That’s just part of being a blogger sometimes.

I am a happy user of Twitter. Like a lot of people, it took me some time to realize the value of Twitter. My initial reaction was somewhere between “This is stupid as hell” and “It’s useless”. Today, however, I have been using Twitter for a little while. I do use it to network with people, get scoops and keep my blog audience informed on things. Twitter has come through for me more than a few times when I needed something. Having followers that respond is a nice asset.

With Twitter, I am probably in the last quarter of the users that would qualify as “early adopters”. I certainly wasn’t in at the ground level, but I was most certainly in before it catches on as a popular thing online. Most of my audience at PCMech are unaware of Twitter.

FriendFeed, though, is a different story. I got in on FriendFeed early. The A-list bloggers of the world had a virtual orgasm over FriendFeed. But, was it overblown?

I like FriendFeed because it allows me to easily consolidate my activity across various mediums into a single feed. The right side of this site is pulling my FriendFeed into Wordpress (using a plug-in) so that anybody can follow everything I do (pretty much).

But, as a social medium, FriendFeed has drawbacks. And as a blogger, it has drawbacks.

Really High Noise Level

Because FriendFeed consolidates activity, the noise level is HIGH. For example, many bloggers (including myself) announce new blog posts over Twitter. But, they also have their blog RSS feed tied into FriendFeed. This means we see the same announcement twice. Also, when people use Google Reader to share a blog post, we see the story AGAIN. If the post is popular, we see it MULTIPLE TIMES.

The post about Duncan Rily leaving Techcrunch showed up on my FriendFeed SEVERAL times. This is because I follow the feeds of other bloggers. Bloggers always follow what other bloggers are saying and doing. It is part of the business. But, with FriendFeed, that means we get a MAD ECHO EFFECT.

I also follow FriendFeed (sometimes) in Twhirl. When somebody comments on a story, that story again pops to the top of the list. Just more noise.

Sucks For Bloggers

OK, well it doesn’t suck in ALL aspects for bloggers. But, think about it. Bloggers WANT comments on their blog, right? FriendFeed, though, serves to move a lot of those comments OFF your blog and onto FriendFeed.

This does blow serious chunks.

My article about Google Reader and the new Notes feature, of course, went onto FriendFeed. I had some well-known bloggers commenting on my story. Scoble. Louis Gray. Others. But, those comments were on FriendFeed! I’d MUCH rather have those guys here on my blog.

FriendFeed Is Not Orgasm Worthy

It simply isn’t. It is cool, yes. It is a social tool. Yes. But, it certainly isn’t the new Twitter. Twitter is a much better medium. And while some say Twitter is noisy, it doesn’t hold a candle to FriendFeed when you consider that you get the same stuff recycled continuously for your questionable enjoyment.

But, what is your opinion of Friendfeed?

I had an interesting (and frustrating) conversation (aka argument) with my wife last night. To anybody with kids, this will probably sound all too familiar.

My wife is a stay-at-home mom and that means she is pretty much with our 4 month old daughter all the time. This is a necessary and downright invaluable job. The fact that we don’t have to put our daughter into a daycare is simple awesome. But, from mom’s viewpoint, the job can seem claustrophobic. And that leads to arguments that I’m not helping her enough.

For my part, I am a professional blogger and I make my entire living by running a blog site. This is HARD WORK. My wife would prefer that I work a “normal” 9-5 schedule. That isn’t very workable as a blogger. I’m trying to GROW my business and I simply can’t do that working 9-5. So, I am a blogger trying desperately to balance our my family life with my business life. I really enjoy what I do for a living. I also, of course, like spending time with my family.

My typical day is that I start work around 9 AM. I work all day (with a break for lunch) until around 6 - 6:30. I then hang out until around 8 - 8:30, at which time I will usually do a little work at night out on my laptop with my family. At night, it is a bit of an integrated life. I try to spend time with the family and work at the same time.

So, bloggers, how do you balance your business time with your family time? How long do you work per day?

Pro blogging isn’t a picnic. It can be rewarding, but it is a constant race to stay on top of what is happening, raise traffic, look for and develop new revenue models, keep your subscribers happy, answer emails, yada yada and more yada.

Oh, and don’t get me wrong. My wife and I are cool now. But, the problem is that she has essentially NO reality with what I do for a living. To her, I just sit there and pound on keys and stare at my screen. She has no idea what I’m doing. So, I guess another portion of my question would be this: How do pro bloggers deal with their significant others who know nothing about blogging?

Feel free to post a comment and DO TELL!

I have been a long time user of Google Reader. It is really convenient for monitoring all the various blogs that I want to keep track of. It has some drawbacks (like not being able to nest folders), but one that Google decided to solve was a problem I didn’t even think was a problem.

Being that it is an RSS reader, the stories that you could share out were limited to the RSS feeds that you subscribe to. You couldn’t share a single story without subscribing to the site’s feed and sharing just the story you are interested in. With things like FriendFeed out there which provide new portability to your Google shared items, Google decided it was time to allow easier sharing of a single link without requiring a corresponding RSS feed. Their fix puts Google Reader just a bit more into the category of, say, FriendFeed.

Google Reader now has “notes“. Basically, you can copy and paste any link you want into your Reader and share it. When you click on Notes, you get a simply textarea box where you can type/paste anything you want. You can free-form type or paste a URL. It looks like it is essentially setting up your own RSS feed within Google Reader and using that to share out to your friends.

It is a cool addition (I guess), but too little too late. FriendFeed still blows Reader away in terms of allowing easier sharing of single items from the web.

Reader is also adding the ability to choose an icon to represent your page in your shared items. Say what?

Google is trying to make Reader do too much. It isn’t really supposed to be a social networking tool. It is an RSS reader and in that mission it does very well. These little add-ons to make it more FriendFeed/Twitter like are borderline lame.

Source: Google

I have been doing some things on the laptop today. Posted three blog posts to PCMech (along with a Youtube video) and am now posting this photo from where I’m sitting right now in Weirsdale, FL.

There is always something cool about being able to “work” while sitting outside in a place like this. And it is no different than sitting right in my office. Technology is cool like that.

Yesterday, I did some research into some business development strategies. One of the things that crossed my radar was the idea of merging an online store with a blog. My situation is this…

PCMech gets a lot of traffic. The online store, however, is linked in the top menu but is otherwise a completely separate system. Being that there is already so much going on on the main PCMech site, the store gets lost. While the main site sees thousands of people every day, the PCMech store sees only a few daily. That definitely affects sales.

So, the idea is to bring the store into PCMech itself. Into Wordpress. The traffic to the store would most definitely increase. Also, being inside a blog means I can use all the standard blog features for the store, including the flexibility that Wordpress allows. And trust me, Wordpress is infinitely more flexible than X-Cart (the store software I’m using).

Two store options that have gotten my attention are:

• 1ShoppingCart. Has a wide following and offers a nice, integrated package of store, affiliate management and email list. I would not move my mailing list into 1ShoppingCart, but it would be nice to have a better system of automated followup.
• E-Junkie. I cannot find any evidence of large mainstream blogs using E-Junkie, but the service looks pretty good. It is nowhere near as powerful as 1ShoppingCart, but their setup for integrating with another website (such as a blog) is much more automatic.

I will, then, probably set up a new category in Wordpress for the online store. Perhaps I will use static pages. It will be more manual labor at first, but since I’m not managing a large catalog, I think it would be fine.

So, that’s my ramble on what I have in mind. Blogs are powerful mediums. Hosting ads seems to be the de-facto way to make money with a blog, however there are MUCH better ways to do it. Integrating it with a store and shopping cart system is definitely one of those ways.

I will follow up as I proceed with this concept. Stay tuned.

We had a great time last night at the Tampa Blogger Meetup. I got an opportunity to meet up with:

• Josh (@SIGEPJEDI) who just bought TampaBloggers.com (be interested to see what he does with the domain)
• Robert Nelson (@robertnelson)
• Robert Payne (@rpayne)
• Tony Katz (@tonykatz) who is moving out to L.A.
• Tara who writes Marketing Artfully (@TARAdactyl)
• Sarah Perez (@sarahintampa) who writes for ReadWriteWeb as well as Microsoft’s Channel 10.
• Real estate blogger Cyndee Haydon (@cyndeehaydon)
• Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) who works for Forrester Research and actually was the impetus for putting this meetup together.
• Rich Menga (@frostedside). Rich works for me over at PCMech and came along.
• Norman Dalager (works for the New York Times)

* Jeremiah, I ripped off your list of attendees. Sorry, was lazy.

It is nice to meet up in real life with some folks that do the same thing I do for a living. We have a nice community and too often bloggers stay too alienated in real life despite being connected online. So, I welcomed the chance to take some online relationships into real life and share some food and drink with them. There is another blogger meetup coming up toward the end of May I may try to hit, too. Let’s get all these people connected up!

And now, my super video: Calamari with Dave. This was recorded by Norman (the New York Times guy) with my Flip Video. We’re actually doing an informal review of the Flip. Enjoy!