Jake Ludington’s Digital Lifestyle

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…at least on the subjects of Yahoo’s entry into the content business and Google’s supposed promise to never be in the content business. Jason’s suggesting a boycott of Yahoo’s YPN ad network over today’s announcement of Yahoo’s new women’s portal, Shine, which I first read about on TechCrunch earlier today. As Jason puts it:

Isn’t the point of the Yahoo Publisher Network to support and grow publishers and newspapers!??! What next a consumer electronics site to compete with Engadget and Gizmodo, or a sports site to compete with ESPN and Sportsline? A gossip site to compete with PerezHIlton and Gawker?

Jason seemingly forgets Yahoo has been competing in these areas for awhile, with a number of tech blogs, the Yahoo Sports Blog, and celebrity gossip site omg!.

And to the point that Google will never be in the content business, the Knol announcement in December 2007 seems to negate that idea. While it’s not live yet, Google yields over 1 million results on the topic, which makes it hard to believe Jason has forgotten it already.

I find it a big so-what that Yahoo is double-dipping from both the content and advertising side of the fence. They’ve been a content company for ages, as a top destination for both news and finance, it seems nature they’d expand on that success. I voted with my wallet on YPN ages ago when I found the payouts to be dramatically lower than several other ad network options (including Google Adsense).

In my mind, a Yahoo with solid offerings from both sides of the game is better for content publishers like Gawker, Gear Live Media, or even a Conde Nast or small newspaper conglomerate, because it makes them a viable company for buying out smaller content players with a track record for being able to monetize them. So if the content guys want out, Yahoo might be a likely candidate for writing the check.

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According to an article on TechCrunch from last night, venture capital funding for bloggers is being handed out like LSD-laced candy on a San Francisco Halloween night. Millions of dollars are going to boosting the valuations of blogs that are, not surprisingly, largely about the tech industry. Mike’s suggesting that bloggers taking these drugs funds are selling themselves short and limiting potentially more valuable opportunities in the future. Instead he proposes a dream team scenario, where TechCrunch teams up with favorite bloggers to build a mega business staged to become the next CNET. Mike’s wrong - blogger’s who blog about tech and tech business should take the money and run. The space is already over-crowded with smart people who are limited to making me too posts and analyzing the analysis of other bloggers because there simply isn’t enough news to go around.

The real problem here is venture capital throwing money at the wrong types of blogs. The blogs getting money are the ones VCs understand - tech and investing blogs. if they want the 10x multiple to pay off, they need to look outside the tech-ecochamber at blogs that are different. Smart money would bet on the same topics that are huge on television (notice tech on television is a joke). Lifestyle topics like gardening, travel, home repair, and food are where a huge percentage of advertising dollars are spent both online and off. These are also areas of wide appeal to 10 of millions of people. If venture capital wants massive ROI, they should be worshiping at the feet of the best bloggers in lifestyle topics, not taking the boring bet on tech. Think Conde Nast not Ziff Davis. Think HGTV and DIY not G4 and CNBC.

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As most of the people who know me already know, I haven’t had a “real job” in years. Instead I’ve been happily helping people solve frustrating computer problems through my blog and email newsletter. This provides a great living, I get to set my own hours, and while there’s a temptation to work more than I should, I also have the advantage of taking a few weeks off when I need to, without significantly impacting my income. In addition to knowing that I’m helping people everyday, I have the added bonus of not being stuck doing the same thing day in and day out. I can

There’s plenty of room for you to do the same thing if you want to. I’m more than happy to provide whatever guidance I can to people who want to strike out on their own. I ran across Rat Race Rebellion this morning, thanks to this Today Show interview with Dr. Danielle Babb, author of Making Money Teaching Online.

Rat Race Rebellion appears to be a great resource for people who are looking for legitimate online work (as in not the get rich quick kind). The spirit of Rat Race Rebellion is in line with 4 Hour Work Week, in that you’re leaving behind the corporate world to pursue something you enjoy on a schedule more fitting with your personal lifestyle. While I think the interview is a little basic in it’s coverage of what you need to do to work from home successfully, Dr. Babb is targeting a specific type of working from home.

If you’re willing to take the get rich slow approach to making money online, here’s a very simplistic formula to join the Rat Race Rebellion:

1) Keep you day job

2) Find a topic you’re passionate about (if you aren’t passionate about the topic don’t bother, you’ll quit).

3) Register a Domain name and find a cheap hosting provider (don’t use hosted services like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com)

4) Post 2-3 things about your topic on the blog every day. Be sure to link to interesting articles and videos you find related to your topic.

5) Post at least 1 video a week showing people how to do something related to your topic.

6) Provide easy ways for people to subscribe to your blog via RSS and email. Feedburner provides some great free tools to get you started.

7) Read other people who are active in niches similar to yours, comment when appropriate on their blogs. You can track them easily using FeedDemon.

8) Study online tips on how to get more traffic to your blog and videos. Implement these tips in a way that fits with your personal goals.

9) Sign up for advertising solutions like Adsense, Commission Junction, Shareasale.com, etc. Implement the advertising on your site.

10) When the advertising revenue from your blog is more than your current job and enough to cover things like health insurance and other perks you currently get from your employer, consider leaving your job and blogging full time. This last step will likely take 2 years to achieve, maybe longer depending on many variables.

Notice I placed advertising at the bottom of this list. While the ad revenue is how you will make money with this approach, it’s far more important to have a solid foundation before you worry about how that foundation will make you money.

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There was a recent discussion on the Yahoo Videoblogging discussion list about hiring SEO services to get your videos more views. While there might be a case for this, there are a number of things you can do quickly to help get yourself more views (and a little search engine optimization) without paying someone else. Online marketing guru Jim Kukral, host of The Daily Flip, asked me if I’d shoot some video explaining the tips, so here’s part one. They sound like common sense when you hear them, but that’s largely because they are. Most people who complain about their video views aren’t following most or all of these guidelines, so here’s part one…

BTW, subscribe to The Daily Flip, there’s even better stuff than this.

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Most magazine and newspaper articles waste our time. They start off with meat and gradually work their way to fluff, before wrapping everything up by summarizing what you just read. Instead of wading through the fluff, try reading the 100 word summaries available at Brijit.com. It’s like a Reader’s Digest for information overload. Summaries are tight. You get a good sense for what’s going on in the world without needing every word from the real article. If you want to know more, you can always click past Brijit and read the full article. Think of Brijit as a free personal assistant providing a daily summary of important topical events. Summaries include The Economist, Time, The New Yorker, Fortune, Wired, and a host of more general high level topics so you can track your favorite niche.

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As a parent, I’m regularly offering carrots in exchange for the things I want my son to do. If you put your toys in your toy box first, you can watch your favorite show; if you read me this book first, I’ll play that game with you, etc. In most cases, this is a great way to get the results you want without having to butt heads in the process.

This same methodology also works for self-motivation, if you’re willing to stick to the requirements you set for yourself. While I love what I’m doing most of the time, there are days where my projects seem somewhat tedious. To get past it I set similar rewards for myself. Finish editing that how to video and you can play Xbox games for the 30 minutes it will be encoding is a common one. For bigger projects, like the ebook I’m currently working on, I break the project down into smaller chunks and reward myself for completing a new chunk.

A more famous example of this is the Martini Method used by A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess. Burgess was a prolific writer, supposedly penning 1000 words a day every day of the year. Upon finishing his daily word count, Burgess rewarded himself with a Martini (or three) and relaxed for the rest of the day. While I’m not advocating being a functioning alcoholic, there’s method to this madness in getting what you need accomplished while still enjoying the things you love. Shane over at Academic Productivity talks about the Martini Method in more detail, along with several other ways to tackle large projects. He frames it in the context of completing your PhD, but you could easily apply the process to any large project in your life.

If you’ve got your own methods for completing tasks, feel free to share them in the comments.

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It’s exciting to see Robert Scoble is headed for Fast Company. Robert’s got the guts to push the comfort zone of what is a more traditional publishing company and Fast Company has the editing talent to help channel some of Robert’s enthusiasm in a way that should show us some of his best work to date. As a side note, if everyone made career decisions with the kind of thinking that Robert outlines in his list of reasons for going to Fast Company more people would be working at things they love instead of showing up for jobs they hate.

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I’ve never written for a newspaper, but my mom did. I held jobs at both the Des Moines Register and my hometown paper, The Altoona Herald. I still fondly remember the smell of newsprint filling the air when I stepped into the Herald’s offices each week.

I do make a living writing online, which is why I’m weighing in on the latest announcement of newspaper financial woes. Newspapers are no longer printed paper businesses. They are news gathering and distribution companies who should be engaging all viable means of delivery to reach the widest possible audience. The information provided by newspaper companies has tremendous value, which makes it troubling to see that newspapers are cutting the most important assets in their business; the people who write the news.
According to Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle,

” Eighty reporters, photographers, copy editors and others, as well as 20 employees in management positions are expected to be laid off by end of the summer.”

The Chronicle is one of the papers doing a decent job of making their Website worth visiting and apparently it’s not making a difference on their bottom line. Clearly newspapers need to do something different.

The Chronicle’s woes are being widely reported on blogs, without any real suggestions for resolution. As someone who makes a living publishing online, here are a few key observations that might save the newspaper industry from changing times:

Accountability for Search Engine Ranking - Every newspaper in the United States (the world?) needs something like a Chief Search Officer. Search drives traffic, which ultimately translates to more ad views. Search rankings for newspapers in general are abysmal, largely because papers haven’t designed their sites to make them search friendly. Search should not fall under the CTO responsibilities, it should be a separate task force. Create a search team, make them accountable for increasing traffic from both organic and paid results. This also means sites like the New York Times need to allow the search team to knock down the pay wall and make the story archives available to the world.

Newspapers Need Video - if declining ad revenue due to lost ad channels like classifieds are a problem, invent new ad channels. Every newspaper should be doing video on the Web today. The ad rates for video are significantly higher than text advertising. The newspaper sites that embrace video will be the newspaper sites still thriving for the next 50 years. Maybe it’s time for the Chronicle to get re-married to KRON to re-form (reform?) a local multimedia powerhouse.

Think Global About Your Locale - Newspapers are experts on their communities. Newspapers are lousy at promoting their communities to anyone outside the community. When I take a trip, for business or pleasure, I search the Web for information about the place I’m visiting. I almost never see newspaper sites in my search queries. If I visit newspaper sites specifically, the leisure information is almost always geared toward locals who already know the community, which makes it hard for an outsider to navigate. When people take vacations, they plan their trips around sites to see and things to do. Newspapers could be the authority on these topics if they simply focused on providing travel information to outsiders as part of their Web offerings.

Think Local about Your Locale - Better local coverage of the things people in the community care about means increased community participation. Cover the local sports teams (I mean high school and little league, not the Giants and A’s) - you’ll get relatives from all over the country reading and the pass-along factor will be higher. Cover more local business news beyond new business openings and closings. Get every writer on the staff to write about their favorite places to eat - they don’t need to be food critics to know what they like.

Keep Your Best Assets - The reporters and journalists at a paper are the papers reason d’etre. Instead of firing them, change the way they are compensated for their efforts. Many of the blogging conglomerates offer performance bonuses to blog authors based on the amount of traffic they drive to the site. This may mean picking story topics with a wider appeal, or it may mean grunt work engaging potentially interested communities by commenting on forums and blogs. Writers may resist this notion, but if they are doing their jobs, they’re already lurking in these online communities in the first place. If they aren’t willing to engage online communities, give ‘em the boot.

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