Archive for blogging
October 11, 2008 at 10:49 am · Filed under Blogs and tagged: audience, blogging, tags
Yesterday I discovered my misuse of the tagging feature in blogs. Upon viewing my blog-based doco, my supervisor David commented on the fact that I have too many tags that direct to the same thing, creating confusion.
Filtering through each of my posts I realised that more often than not I’ve tagged entries with around six-to-eight associated words. Yet I did so in hope to generate traffic for my blog, so that it would come up in blog searches for related terms. Perhaps I overlooked how doing this actually disadvantaged the overall user experience.
Having many tags for the one post is potentially misleading and annoying, as one reader has informed me, since the user may click on words of interest and end up at the same entries. Because entries are published with the most recent first, there is greater probability that the user thinks they are viewing the exact same page if that most recent entry has been heavily tagged with a variety of words, especially if they don’t scroll down to see if there are any changes. If only there was such a thing as tag or blog post shuffle.
This becomes even more problematic if there is not yet a substantial amount of entries that the user can filter through, in the way my blog is at this point. The reader/viewer may feel like the blog lacks depth when coming across the same material over and over again.
Perhaps tagging is something that should be thought of more carefully. Categories also. Although I feel that I can get away with over-tagging in this research blog, a blog-based documentary must be a bit more neater, as the links are crucial in allowing the user to have the best experience of the story as possible.
October 10, 2008 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: blogging, perfection, practice, voice, Writing
One of the pieces of advice I was given many a time during my childhood. Mainly by Mum and my piano teacher.
I just came across this post about blogging practice (funnily enough, published exactly two years ago today) that confirms the validity of this common phrase in all aspects of life where skills and talents are sought, acquired and developed. I never thought to apply it to blogging.
I can safely say that I have been a blogger for a good three or four years now, and in all that time I didn’t really reflect on the fact that I was involved in a ‘practice’ that I could improve in. Indeed, I’ve regretted on various occasions that I don’t blog as often as I should and could, but it is only through my research this year that I’ve come to appreciate the practice, art and craft of blogging. Just like any activity, there are certain techniques and abilities required and involved in being a blogger.
Much more, being a blog-based documentary-maker.
October 10, 2008 at 3:29 pm · Filed under Blogs and tagged: blog, blogging, Blogs, personal, purpose, voice
As it stands, I am the owner of four different blogs. A personal/academic blog, another inactive one, this research blog, and a blog-based documentary. Each serve their own purposes and I’ve realised that communicating these purposes is an important element in blogging practice.
A blog visitor should get a sense of what type of blog from skimming recent posts. It is upon this initial impression that the visitor decides whether to keep searching through the blog or close the window. The Internet user is very much in control here. In a way, it’s advertising. Show them what you’ve got in the most convincing way possible to lure them in, otherwise, they’ll just walk away.
Docoscope 
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