News.Com: Blogs and German Content

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This morning I’ve spend some time reviewing the new CNET News.com layout, and of course I set my main focus on their Blogs section and the German tech news area. I guess I was inspired by John Roberts from their own product development team – thanks for noticing me! Let’s see if you’ll catch this feedback.

CNET’s Blogs
Fortunately, their authors write alot. They really do and its an interesting news grabber site. So far I’ve observed hundreds of blogs, yet within their main Blog site are things beneath the content. First of all, reaching the blog section is easy by using the main navigation-bar. At that point, I’ve been directed to excerpts and summaries of their entire totality of blogs. These excerpts lead to the articles or you can click at a major category for further topical research within these themed blogs. So far so good, now comes the problem.

  1. Leading RSS Feed
    I cannot aggregate the entire blog section via RSS (or any other feed). CNET is only offering to aggregate the categories as independent feeds or the other main non-blog-related categories at their site. And I’m not likely going to add every to my RSS aggregator! On top of this, the link to their XML led to a 404-not-found page.
  2. Comment Requirements
    I understand the legal issues that come along once you’re allowing your visitors to comment on the site, but I’m not interested in using a fully-featured CNET account for this. On the other hand, the Pingbacks/Trackbacks are available for everyone. Where’s the comment regulation on these? Seems like a puzzle of illogicalness…
  3. Main Page
    Yes I’ve been rambling about the main blog section page already above. But in comparison to the individual categories (blogs), the same layout would be applicable. Without information about how many comments already exist and who wrote the post, I’m less interested in clicking to expand the post.

The German Section
I’m not going to doubt the integrity and quality of ZDNET as a sister site for CNET. Please let your readers know the publishing date of the linked articles. They already do it on their own site, and if a sister site offers to integrate their feeds to you guys at CNET, I’m sure they or you can modify the final appearance on how their feed appears on your site, or not?

/von

WordPress.com: They got me!

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Today I received my invite by Anonymuis to become a WordPress.com-User! I was quite excited to test-try-and-error the newish system and created my new account named BeLoved. I plan to write on this account with a third person perspective, and aggregate thoughts which don’t really belong to the MikeSchnoor.com at all. But as being a user on WordPress.com, I noticed a few things that keep upsetting me. Not in an angry way, but I’m missing functionality from this installation here. While the optical illusions of the new semi Web2.0 interface are quite handy for adding new posts and editing the old ones, there is no chance to install plugins or other themes such as a fully customized one.

On top of this, I made the following two feedbacks to the WordPress.com administration:

Redirect Problem
Upon using „http://beloved.wordpress.com/wp-admin“, it redirects me to „http://wordpress.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=%2Fwp-admin%2F“… ;) Its no real problem for me, but perhaps for other people, since the redirected URL won’t let me sign up with my username.

User Management?
There seems to be no chance to add more users to my account on this multiple-user-based plattform. I mean – I cannot maintain the blog being accompanied by my beloved girlfriend, and my original thoughts about creating the BeLoved-Blog cannot be met anymore. Is there any chance of being able to add a sub-user to my account or is this one of my irresistable hopes and wishes?

I’m curious on their answers, and we’ll see what happens with my BeLoved account.

/von

Blog Crush – Is this some „Bullshit Overload“?

This sounds evil, but is not intended as it. I decided against the „blog crush“ thing made up by Darren. It’s in my eyes somehow worthless because its just another push-and-pull promotion for blogs.

Let me point out why I think so, and why I believe I have a very different opinion on this matter compared to all the readers of his (or my own) blog. I’m not going to use all points, but those that just… make me wonder if that push-and-pull promotion is nothing else but a game for bored kids.

you like the way they blog
I read over more than 200 blogs each day and scroll through various ones each day and night. But there’s not been something in a blog that would make it so uber-special for me to like somebody that much to admire them for what they do. Writing is an art, writing is a profession, and writing can be personal or anything else. But to admire one for what they do will not help yourself with your own writing, or will it?

their RSS feed is at the top of your list
Well, with that increasing number of RSS feeds, I could list about a dozent of authors who are good at their work, and as many who are not. If I’d judge in a radical way, none of even the blogrolls should ever exist.

you leave more comments on their blog than you write posts on your own
I like giving comments, but as an author of a blog, you should clearly maintain your blog and not increase the comments of somebody else just because he/she is your beloved author. Where will this end, would one expect to be invited to co-blog?

you let them know about posts you’ve written in the hope that one day they’ll notice you
Trackback, Pingback – the most beloved tools for every advanced blog author. Why should I email somebody about something I wrote if I can ping or trackback them in a modest way? The author will notice it – either by finding that ping in their moderation queue or by reading their own comments.

So this is it. While I know my daily reads and love to read them, there’s no benefit of endlessly promoting other people with this or that campaign. Why? Because they clearly do not understand how much value that brings for them – as in new readers. And on the other hand, most people do not visit those who link to them at all, nor acknowledge what other authors do.

Considering this above, I’m not in favor of having a blog crush. Why should I admire people for being what they are? I am who I am, and this is equal to what any other blog author or reader is. There’s nothing special in all of us but ourselves. No need to admire this ;) On the other hand I could easily transform a couple of blogs of my daily reads into a blog-crush related post. But who needs such? It’s yet another link farm development. In the end, traditional methods are much better than these push-and-pull campaigns.

/von

Being a Blog Pirate

Ahoy, bilge rats! T’day is Talk Like A Pirate Day! Arrr! Sippin‘ my grog and thinkin‘ about preparing to board my lovin‘ beauty Katharina in two weeks. But now, get a hold of that night. Aye, I guarantee ye, I’m goin‘ to sleep well with that grog! :D Arrrr!! Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Ayyy!

/von

Signatures in Weblog Comments

Should this be allowed? Darren polled and fetched us the result: The majority would accept individual signatures, but I have one dearing problem with this:

Weblogs are no Webboards!

The idea of discussion is wonderful, but people already get their chance to enter a name, an url and an email for any communication below the level of using the comment section of a weblog. And most of the users which might want to use signatures here will simply end up in the moderation queue of my blog. I’d choose between manually erasing their signatures (if these exceed more than 2 lines or contain problematic content), or I’d simply squish them by deleting the entire comment.

  • I still have concerns that such practices makes fighting spam comments difficult
  • I do wonder where the practice will end up (I really hope we don’t end up with comment threads being like the terrible mix mash of signatures that we see on many discussion forums)

    • And while using anti-spam plugins like BadBehavior ;), I’d fear the users get thrown out for their signatures… not sure how BB reacts to a massive load about signatures. And always remember, there’s the good old Comment Policy awaiting the commenters…

    /von

    German Blogger gets threatened by his Troll

    One of Germany’s bloggers, Thomas Gigold, got threatened by one of his Trolls A. S.. According to the Troll A.S., today yesterday’s September 13th was Thomas‘ „entire personal fatal day“ („ganz persönlicher Unglückstag”). My advice to such threat is to consult either your lawyer or directly inform the police. This is clearly not legal.

    /von

    Die Bloggerwahlparty 05

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    So muss es sein! Wenn die Prominenz aus der Politik es uns seit Jahren vor machen kann, ist Klein-Bloggersdorf noch lange nicht auf die Nase gefallen. Daher lädt Sandra Wiegard am kommenden Sonntagabend zur Bloggerwahlparty ein! Die Bedingungen sind einfach und für jeden machbar, sofern man entweder Autor oder Leser von Blogs ist. Nebenbei sollte man auch für Speis und Trank sorgen, was bitte in der jeweiligen Parteifarbe (oder Koalitionsfarbe) mitzubringen ist. Ich würde mich wohl auch für Rotwein und einen Guacamole-Dip entscheiden.

    Auch wenn keine Köpfe eingeschlagen werden, wenn jemand mal Schwarzen Peter und gelblichen Zitronensaft trinken mag, scheint’s wohl in Hamburg schon kurz vor Wahlschluss abzugehen! Viel Spaß dabei, und hätte ich Benzin im Tank, wäre ich bestimmt auch in den Süden gefahren! ;)

    /von

    Copy Cats: Thieves among ourselves

    I feel this is a „class C“ post, since there’s a bunch of words that start with the letter C. Believe me! But for now the question for the weekend is cryptic? Cryptic! Duncan suspects content theft from his site. And according to him, these minions of darkness are other bloggers – who behave like copy cats. After setting up an article with a term of phrase which was simply grammatically incorrect, the same phrase appeared on his suspect’s content. That’s a fabulous search for all those who have nothing else to do on the weekend. Read on my dear and find out who the Staff Writer is. Plagiarism is on its way!

    But besides talking about a cryptic copy cat, Duncan did one thing I’d like to slap him for. The URL to his original article is absolutely way too long… weekend-cryptic-question-which-leading-website-continues-to-steal-content-ideas-without-credit – oh my god! Wasn’t there some function in WordPress to cut off these lengthy post slugs?

    /von

    Bloggers don’t need Therapists

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    Brian Williams is the author of The Daily Nightly and was recently quoted as saying: „I don’t have a therapist. I have my blog.“

    Now if that’s not the truth. Who can afford a therapists if you develop your own almost natural social network based on blogs and similiar communicative software systems? Interactivity saves the expertise. Who else can give you more input than those people with who you share your daily life – or as another option – your professional life?

    [via Recruiting and LightWithin]

    /von

    Query: Loonatics


    To be honest, I don’t understand why Technorati’s Top Searches for the last hour contains the word „Loonatics“ – what is this all about? Are people just mad? Does the blogosphere evolve into nonsense? And do I have nothing else to do? Now I’m tagging that strange word on my own, and if that’s not going to be something special about the Looney Toons from Warner Bros., I don’t know anymore…

    Update: Now I found it… it’s an upcoming show called Loonatics Unleashed. ;)

    /von