billso.com

On Saturday, 5 April 2008, I discussed the issue of stress in the blogging industry. In this billso.com article, my topic is how I use my blog as a teaching tool.

My interests in technology, privacy and management are a good fit with two graduate courses that I teach at Hawaii Pacific University. My IS 6100 course is an overview of corporate information systems. I teach an advanced course called IS 7010, which focuses on technology strategy.

After several attempts at blogging, I’ve learned that I can’t write a headline-driven blog that comments on up-to-the-minute issues. As I mentioned on Saturday, I can work a bit ahead of the east coast news cycle by reading the major newspapers online, just after their web sites are updated for the next day’s print editions.

While I can write and post an article in less than an hour if the topic is timely and appropriate, it’s not fun. Writing on a tight deadline is the kind of stress-maker that I’d like to avoid. I used that model for most of my blog articles until 2 months ago.

Now, I jot down some story ideas, and edit the piece a few times before I put it on the site. I always have at least 10 stories in my inventory, and they are in various stage of editing and development.

I stumbled into this system of writing after years of printing, filing and using examples from magazines and journals in my courses. By posting articles and examples on my blog, I can point students to a growing selection of topics.

Social bookmarking

I’ve made thousands of bookmarks and favorites in my web browsers, and every year or so, I was archiving these to files. Back in 2004, I started using Bloglines to keep track of articles I had read on the Web. Bloglines had a very limited commenting tool that I started using to post blogs for my courses. I’ve been importing the best of these old articles in my billso.com blog, so I can keep using these posts in my courses.

I also started using a social bookmarking service called del.icio.us to keep track of my bookmarks in their web site. I can add or use my bookmarks from any computer, which has become a big time saver for me. Social bookmarking services also suggest new links for their users, based upon their interests. Lately, I’ve been using a similar service from eBay called StumbleUpon to save and find new pages and videos.

Knowledge management

In January 2007, I decided to move my course-related blogs to billso.com so I could create my own little knowledge management system for my courses. I don’t expect to make a living from this blog. The ad links on my site barely generate any revenue. I use this blog to test and evaluate features and enhancements. To remove the ads, I may move my course-related posts to different domain names later this year.

For now, it’s easier for me to post assignment announcements and readings for my students to this web site. The assignments are almost always papers. I haven’t been using discussion forums in my courses. Forums are an interesting tool, but my students are scattered around the world. Synchronous chats are hard to schedule, and deadlines can be difficult to manage. That’s why my assignment deadlines are listed in Hawaiian Time (GMT -10 or HT).

Also see my 28 March 2008 billso.com article on blogging as a business model.

From tomorrow’s New York Times comes a sobering examination of the dominant blogging business model.

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he said.

I discussed blogging for a living on 27 March 2008, but I didn’t discuss stress. Two prominent technology bloggers, Russell Shaw and March Orchant, have died in the last 5 months.

Some bloggers have decided to chase the headlines, and post up-to-the-minute comments about news events. For a solo blogger who is also managing their own comments and web site, the duties can pile up. Another blogger mentioned in the Times article, 22-year old Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo, sleeps about 5 hours a day, and drinks protein supplement lattes to stay buzzed.

“There’s no time ever — including when you’re sleeping — when you’re not worried about missing a story,” Mr. Arrington said.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we said no blogger or journalist could write a story between 8 p.m. Pacific time and dawn? Then we could all take a break,” he added. “But that’s never going to happen.”

One advantage of blogging in Honolulu is that I can check the news later in the day, before the East Coast bloggers really get rolling.

Exercise also helps me a lot. I go running early in the morning, partly to get away from the computer as the US news cycle is full swing.

On Tuesday, 8 April 2008, I’ll post an article about how I manage billso.com and avoid some of the issues I’ve discussed in this article. When that a

The New York Times published an article that analyzes why bloggers get into the business. More bloggers are using their sites to earn revenue from advertising links, promote their products and services, and gain authority in their fields of interest. As the economy stumbles, bloggers face a variety of choices. Should they concentrate on their regular jobs and abandon their blogs? Should they leap full-time into the blogosphere and try to make a living from the web?

One thing’s for sure: few bloggers really do a reasonable income from their blogs. It is possible to make a living from blogging, although it can take years to build enough readers and advertisers to generate sustainable revenue streams. I mentioned Perez Hilton on 20 March 2008. His income has increased quite a bit over the last year, although keeps getting sued in court over his blog’s content, according to this Wikipedia article.

BoingBoing grows

BoingBoing’s four co-editors each have paying writing jobs that they promote heavily on BoingBoing. For years, the web site has posted weird news items focused on technology and the Internet. Over time, the blog became one of the most popular sites of its kind on the Internet. According to an article on Wikipedia, BoingBoing added a business manager in 2004 to administer the site’s operations.

Advertising was added to the site and its RSS feeds soon afterwards, to defray the site’s bandwidth charges. Popular web sites can rack up a large bill for their Internet connection. Adding ads to the site’s pages and overall design is a key success factor.

In the last few months, BoingBoing’s web site has been redesigned to include discussion threads and a subsidiary blog focused on electronic gadgets. The core writers still post articles every day, but they have brought in more people to administer the site and run the site’s discussion forums. Honda has signed on as a sponsor. There’s also a video site, although BoingBoing’s writers seem stiff and uncomfortable in front of the camera. Perhaps they will get better over time, as they build an independent media empire from their quirky web site.

A uniform approach

Paul Lukas’ Uni Watch is a good example of how to build income from a blog. Paul is a freelance journalist who has appeared in the New York times. His blog is an obsessive study of sports uniforms. Paul posts one article each day, with a long trail of links and miscellaneous items. By the end of the day, users have posted at least a hundred comments as they debate the topics of the day.

The blog had been funded by advertising links and user memberships. A basic membership included a uniform-themed wallet card, while more expensive packages included a custom designed logo and an interview posted to the blog.

A few days ago, Paul announced that ESPN had picked him up as a regular contributor. Paul had been writing freelance articles for ESPN’s Page 2 web site. He had already hired an intern a few months ago to manage the discussion boards and post articles on the weekends. Paul has decided he can scale back the blog membership program to the basic level, now that ESPN is supporting him. After almost 2 years of blogging, he can take a vacation or two without shutting down the blog completely.

The New York Times published an article yesterday about an mtvU television series called Professors Strike Back. MTV purchased RateMyProfessors.com last year, and has been offering professors a chance to respond to their anonymous online critics.

Universities have become more transparent and accessible in the last 10 years, and the Internet has been a primary force in these changes. Blogging and social networks are two tools that faculty have used to develop an online presence.

It is possible for faculty to take their blogging too far. Rate Your Students is a site where anonymous moderates post snarky comments from anonymous faculty members and the occasional student. Some of the articles on that site make me cringe, because I don’t see any need to strike back or retaliate. I teach, but it’s just a job. It’s not my life.

On the other hand, I never thought I’d see the day when professors were the focus of a reality television program. Teaching and entertainment have some parallels, but they are not the same thing.

The annual SXSW (South by Southwest) music show has wrapped up in Austin, Texas. The New York Times has a great article about the show. When i lived in Austin, I never went to SXSW. The crowds and traffic around downtown were insane.

The record companies look more and more like they are waging an endgame battle. When buyers no longer want or need what an industry offers, companies must reinvent themselves or die. Lou Reed tells a packed conference hall that bands need the Internet more than a record label. Daniel Lanois raves about his ability to sell music the day he recorded the session. REM performed its entire new album at a listening party, and no one questioned whether the songs would be posted to file sharing services. The only question was how long it would take before the tracks were freely available.

Bits vs atoms

Something smells inevitable here, and it’s not teen spirit. It’s the ubiquity of digital distribution, and how quickly North American and European consumers have embraced the new business model. Consumers still buy CDs, but sales volume continues to drop while legitimate online sales volume grows every quarter.
There’s another Times article this weekend about free music downloads, with these two quotes:

“Of course a panel on online music-business models was going to degenerate into a food fight,” wrote Joseph Weisenthal of paidContent.org.

The stew boiled over when Ted Mico, the head of digital strategy at Interscope/Geffen/A&M records, declared, “I need more marketing and promotion on the Internet like I need a root canal without anesthetic.”

With an attitude like that, I’m sure Ted was thrilled that blogger Perez Hilton hosted his own listening party at SXSW this year. According to this article on the AP, Perez merely attended last year’s conference. This year, he’s an industry player who may announce his own marketing and promotion deal with Warner soon. That’s another sign of endgame desperation. The day I need Perez Hilton to pick my music will be a sad day indeed.