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View Full Version : Looking for blog/publishing ideas



Calmor
September 23rd, 2009, 03:00 PM
I've never really blogged before and therefore am not sure where to start.

I'm looking for a place to post about an experiment I'm undertaking - kind of a reverse on the typical switching-to-Linux effort.

As a bit of a background, I've been a largely full-time Linux user since the Gutsy release of Ubuntu. I've tried Gentoo, Debian, DSL, Puppy, Ubuntu minimal installs, etc. I have a Mythbuntu TV/media/web/print/VPN server at home. Before Gutsy, I periodically tried various Linux flavors since 1999.

I had an opportunity to use Windows 7 Pro with all the MS trimmings I can handle at the same low price as Ubuntu (helpful as a broke college student). Putting aside my affinity for the free-as-in-speech aspect of FOSS, I want to do a FUD-free blog on my experience of trying MS's latest as compared to my experiences with the Linux Community's latest Ubuntu releases.

Any suggestions for where this type of thing might get some views?

cmay
September 23rd, 2009, 03:04 PM
You could try wordpress.com

scragar
September 23rd, 2009, 03:06 PM
digg, redit, stumble upon... they'll all give you huge boosts to your readership provided you post something worth reading.

Calmor
September 23rd, 2009, 03:09 PM
digg, redit, stumble upon... they'll all give you huge boosts to your readership provided you post something worth reading.

The "worth reading" part will be my biggest challenge.

Thanks for the tips - and cmay, I'll take a look at wordpress.

t0p
September 23rd, 2009, 03:12 PM
As you're a blogging newbie, I suggest using Wordpress.com (http://wordpress.com). You get your blog hosted for free, a good user interface, and your blog will be in the Wordpress.com "community", meaning that people will be able to find it pretty easily. Also, Wordpress.com blogs seem to get indexed by Google pretty well, so if someone does a Google search for keywords that you've used in your tags or blog descriptions, your blog will appear in their results. To see this in action, do a Google (or Scroogle (https://ssl.scroogle.org)) search for "i hate hate" or "spider girl of bihar" - ihatehate.wordpress.com (http://ihatehate.wordpress.com) will appear in the top results.

So, start off with Wordpress.com. And register the blog with Technorati (http://technorati.com), which will make it even easier to find. If you find that it takes off, and that you get into the whole blogging experience, you can then buy your own domain name and get some paid hosting.

scragar
September 23rd, 2009, 03:16 PM
The "worth reading" part will be my biggest challenge.

Thanks for the tips - and cmay, I'll take a look at wordpress.

It's all about making sure you write readably(Which you clearly do from your posts here), have something interesting to say(It's a blog about switching O/S, that's always interesting for anyone who's ever switched O/Ss before or planning to, as well as anyone techy in general), make your content accessible(adverts don't obscure your message, no register to read rubbish) and keep it clean(delete any nasty comments("stop taklen bad on ms u linex looser" = delete, not because of the comment, but because it's clearly the work of some retarded troll), don't go ranting about things unless you defend your point, try to keep PG where possible, all common sense stuff).

As long as you can do all four of those you'll be fine for getting people to read it(and it's not hard to do all 4, although most people just don't understand that they need to do all 4 and try to ignore one so they can make their blog "special", then wonder why only their best friend and their parents read it :p).

PS: post a link here or PM me one when you're done, it'd be an interesting read for me at least.

Calmor
September 23rd, 2009, 03:24 PM
t0p and scragar - thanks for your insight. I'll try to keep all of those things in mind. This will be yet another learning experience for me.

As for actual content, I'm hoping to have updates throughout the semester, and then potentially some kind of conclusion. First, do the install and initial trials/tribulations... then into interfacing with a Linux network, the bright points of Win 7, what I miss about Linux, that kind of thing... then as the semester rolls on, try to wrap it up.

I'll definitely post back here when I get something up - hopefully by the end of the week, if not today.

And if anyone else has more ideas, please feel free to add them!

pookiebear
September 23rd, 2009, 04:54 PM
also put lots of pictures/videos of the process up. And research how to tag them so google indexes them as well. You might find more people find your site from pictures/videos than from the keywords. just and FYI

SomeGuyDude
September 23rd, 2009, 05:21 PM
Note: don't self-advertise too much on Fark/Digg/Reddit. The users will eventually come to resent you and everything you submit will get downmodded into oblivion. This happened with a few sites. Once a week is really the MOST you'll want to do for self-advert.

Secondly: if you're serious, REALLY put effort into it. I can't tell you how often I see blogs by people who complain that they can't get any readership that post articles that contain no original ideas and look like they were cobbled together in 10 minutes. If you're a news-oriented site you can get away with that (see: Atrios), but for actual content you need to look at each article like you're submitting it for a college paper.

Calmor
September 23rd, 2009, 07:06 PM
SomeGuyDude: Thanks for the tip. I'm not big on Digg/Reddit, though I've used them in the past. I'll work on getting the blog published and into Technorati first, then may see what those two bring.

pookiebear: Thanks to you also. I'll have to get some pictures and maybe some videos as well. Maybe some comparisons on how things are done differently between Ubuntu and Win7. Good points!

littlemog
September 23rd, 2009, 07:17 PM
if you want an easy way to publish via email, see www.posterous.com

i like it cos i usually write short random rants and post it from my gmail.

Calmor
September 24th, 2009, 02:26 PM
So, I set up a Wordpress account, set it as public and allowed Google and Technorati both to link to it. I also created a Technorati account and registered my blog with it. I didn't Digg or Reddit or anything at this point, since I only have an introduction up, and not any kind of technical data or viewpoints.

Site address is here http://calmor15014.wordpress.com for anyone that was interested.

Thank you all again for all of your ideas!