Bulgarian Translation

Mike Ramm has been kind enough to translate a few of my blog posts into Bulgarian and comment on them. Thanks, Mike!

• Hard-coding and soft-coding: English version here
• The Dilemma of the Capable: English version here
• When Murphy Strikes: English version here

Many of us, in our Anglo-centric view of the world, do not pay attention to other languages and cultures. But the principles of business management and software development are not restricted to people living in English-speaking countries. We must make the literature and knowledge accessible to all. People like Mike perform an important function here.

More importantly, there is much knowledge that we do not have, because we are not aware of the knowledge base in other cultures. Very few important works created in other countries get translated, if at all. As I have mentioned a few times before, the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe invested heavily in science and technology, but much of this knowledge is hidden in book shelves and the minds of students and professors.

If you look at the invention of programming languages, Ruby was invented in Japan, Python in the Netherlands, PHP in Greenland, and Pascal in Switzerland, none of which are English-speaking countries. There is much innovation and invention going on across the globe, but we are only partially aware of such happenings.

I believe that a fundamental next step of evolution of the Web should be in the direction of making all information accessible in each person's language. Search engines have a responsibility here of understanding queries written in one language and being able to retrieve related information in all languages. I know Google does fetch results from multiple languages, but I think it works only with proper nouns like Rio de Janeiro, Estonia, Claude, etc., not with common words.

Also when browsers display content in another language, they should be able to translate that automatically into the user's language of choice. Although this sounds hard, natural language parsers and translators are getting more intelligent and able to convey the right meaning. I have been using a plug-in for the Altavista Babel Fish translator (seen on the right), but in future, browsers may already come integrated with that functionality, instead of having separate buttons for translations.

As I write this, I did a search and found FoxLingo, a Firefox plug-in that seems to do a lot of this work.

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Technorati tags: language translation, mike ramm, internationalization

Posts by Smarter People

In the last couple of days, Phil Haack and Guy Kawasaki (separately) have written beautiful posts on subjects that I mentioned in my latest posts.

On validation, Phil writes "Don't Be a Validation Nazi" to follow on his "... How to Validate an Email Address ..." post. My article on the subject of unnecessary field validations here.

On hiring, Guy writes "How to Not Hire Someone Via Craigslist" explaining, among other things, how a more detailed job description can drive away job applicants. My article on hiring here.

The last few comments on the blog have been interesting, giving me some ideas for new articles. Alexey Linkov (who has a good blog on outsourcing) has suggested an article on best tips for hiring programmers. Bruce has remarked about how Agile methodology may require dedicated requirements personnel at all times, which lead me to an idea about writing about how to make Agile successful in an organization. I have added a new section on the right side that lists possible topics for the future.

If you look carefully at my links above, you will notice that I have finally bit the bullet and bought the www.thoughtclusters.com domain. My primary motivation was not having to change the title of this blog, supposing someone else buys the domain. :-) Google makes the buying process very easy through Blogger itself. It costs around $10 per year and you get Google Apps Standard Edition with it. Blogger also takes care not to break old links and forward them appropriately. Not bad.

Finally, I signed up for Bookswim. At around $20 per month, it could potentially save a lot of money on buying business and technology books. The site has been slow for the past week because of heavy traffic and has some hiccups with search. But they seem to be responsive in email communication and I already have my first set of books shipped to me. Overall, it seems like a good deal for customers.

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Technorati tags: haack, kawasaki, hiring, bookswim

The Full Feed Problem Again

Steve McConnell, the author of the programming Bible, "Code Complete", has a blog called "10x Software Development". I am a huge fan of McConnell and actually buy his books to use as reference material, instead of my usual method of borrowing them from a library. His blog is pretty good and I would encourage you to subscribe to it, except that it has the irritating flaw of not offering a full RSS feed.

So if you want to read his article, you have to click through to the blog website. The only advantage of subscribing to his blog is to know when he has posted a new article. McConnell is not the only one to do this - others include the web design site A List Apart, the New York Times technology Pogue's Posts site and Paul Graham. Also, people like Jakob Nielsen do not even seem to believe in blogs or feeds; instead, Nielsen loves email newsletters.

I don't understand this for several reasons:

1. First of all, some of these sites do not seem to have any tangible benefit for the author by forcing you to visit the website to read the article. As far as I could see, there didn't seem to be any ads on McConnell's and Graham's sites.
   
   
2. A typical user who reads blogs subscribes to many blogs. It is very tiresome to keep switching from the blog reading software to separate browser windows or tabs to read the articles. This increases the probability of losing readers, especially during inevitable periods of poor quality posts.
   
   
3. The number of feed subscribers is a small minority of the total readers of a blog. So offering full subscription does not hurt page views or visitor count at all. At the same time, it offers a great benefit to people who like your content.
   
   
4. Feed subscribers are more tech-savvy. They may have blogs themselves and link to you, share your post or email it to others. For example, Google Reader offers the ability to email a post directly from within the application. When there is no full feed, it takes more effort to do the same thing and many people do not bother.
   
   
5. Feed subscribers are more likely to participate in the conversation. If you have a good post, they will come to your website and post comments, or email you. That increases the value of your blog.
   
   
6. There are many ways of getting people to visit your website even if you offer full feeds. You can provide links to similar articles in the past. You can also have ads in your feeds if your intention is to make money. You can blog about your work or company if it brings value to your audience.
   
   
7. Finally, offering only partial feeds affects search results in blog search engines like Google Blogsearch, Ask and Technorati. Don't believe me? Search for the heading of the blog - you will find it. Search for some words within the content - the post will be missing.

I could get mad and unsubscribe from these blogs. But that is rash - many of the articles on these sites are really high-quality and I wouldn't want to miss them. But I sincerely wish that they would make it easier. Turning off full feeds just seems like a really unnecessary thing to do.

Technorati tags: blogs, full feeds, RSS, Atom

Using Web Site Analytics Data

I have previously blogged about Google Analytics ("Experience with Google Analytics", "Google Analytics Rebooted") in various posts. I have been using it for several months now for my website and blog. Initially meant to be just a site visitor counter, it has evolved into providing many other pieces of useful information. I would like to say that other analytical tools may also provide such information, but since I am most familiar with Google Analytics, my primary reference will be that.

The fundamental benefit of using analytical data is that it is your data - real numbers that are relevant to you. You may read highly authoritative reports about market studies on the web, but you really don't know whether those same numbers apply to you. For example, a report says that 5% of people who visit a product summary page click to view its details. That is a totally useless statistic to you, because you don't know if that is relevant to your industry, your product types, your price range, etc. When you cater to a niche, having your own data is very important.

Benjamin Disraeli once said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." The problem with statistics is accentuated when the data used to provide them is in someone else's possession. When you own your data, you can make your own determination about facts without relying on other experts.

Website and blogs, including not-for-profit ones, exist for other people. Let us be honest here. If someone didn't want other people to visit their online content, they would make it password-protected or not even put it on the web. Also, the idea is that the more visitors, the better - since it makes the content popular. The more time they spend on the website, the better - since it allows each visitor to understand the content better. And so on.

Analytical data provides answers to important questions to aid in this purpose. Here are some of those questions?

1. How many pages do people view per visit? Which pages encourage them to explore the site more? What is special about those pages? Is it because they have meaningful content that matters to the visitors and makes them want more? Or do they have relevant links to other pages? How is the content presented on that page? For example, I noticed that placing a prominent link on my review of Louis Gerstner's book led to people going on to read more of my book reviews.
   
   
2. Another related question is which pages are more popular? Why are they more popular than other pages? If you didn't intend for those pages to receive so many hits, do you need to reconsider the target audience? For example, I noticed that the puzzle pages on my website are very popular although most of the content is on other pages. This may mean presenting the other information in a different, more user-interactive format.
   
   
3. From what geographic locations do people visit your site? If a significant number come from non-English-speaking countries, is the content accessible to them? Is the content offensive in some way (like the type of ads displayed)? What are the localization needs? Do you need a translation software? For example, after noticing that many of my visitors did not come from English countries, I added an AltaVista translation widget.
   
   
4. What are the main sources of user visits? If there are many direct visitors, it means that people are either visiting your site by entering the URL or by a bookmark. This greatly emphasizes the need to be careful about breaking links to existing pages when you redesign the physical structure of your website. If traffic comes from search engines, what should you do to make your pages more visible to them? For example, consider using Google Webmaster, Yahoo! Site Explorer, etc. Pinging sites such as Technorati and other blog search engines also brings more visitors.
   
   
5. To understand the technical needs of the website, you should look at the operating systems, browsers, screen resolutions and JavaScript/Java/Flash support of your visitors. Sometimes, your actual audience may have different needs than the intended audience. For example, a technical site may have a significant number of users who are unable to play video because of their internal security guidelines. It may therefore need to provide such users a simpler version of the content using text and images.

There are literally hundreds of questions you can ask by looking at the various facets of visitor data. Of course, because of time and effort constraints, you will need to prioritize the important ones and keep looking at them constantly. But as you start observing other minor reports, you will notice trends and patterns that will allow you to continuously tweak the content, layout and organization of your website or blog, inviting more users as well as making it more useful to them.

Technorati tags: Google Analytics, site statistics, Google Webmaster, pageviews, visitors

Creative Commons

This is something I have been meaning to do for a long time. I just added a Creative Commons license for the content of this blog - "Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License". The link leads to a simple description of the license - there is another link on the same page that leads to the full legal verbiage of the license.

Basically, if you write or publish anything in the United States, you are automatically entitled to the copyright of your work. Others may not copy or use your work, except under "fair use" doctrines, which provides limited use of copyright material without explicit permission.

The idea behind Creative Commons is that it provides an easy, accessible way for the general public to create a license for their creative works without the help of a lawyer. The license can be tailored to various considerations, such as if you are comfortable with someone copying and selling your work. You can choose your license through this simple interface here.

From the perspective of users of creative works (like articles, photos, etc.), Creative Commons makes it very convenient to consume and share good content. It removes the worry about violating someone's copyright by over-extending fair use. Many sites, including Flickr, allow you to search for such content.

The best way to use Creative Commons content is to extend it further. For example, you could combine text and photos to create your own work and share it with friends or publish it for others.

There are also other documentation licenses, notably the GNU Free Documentation License used by Wikipedia. Here is a list of such licenses.

Technorati tags: creative commons, free documentation, licenses

A Collection of Bad Blog Behavior

Having subscribed and unsubscribed to several different blogs over the last few months and using different feed readers (Google Reader, Internet Explorer 7 RSS Reader, Thunderbird, intraVnews, etc.) and tools like Yahoo Pipes, I thought I would take a stab at the kind of blogs that I don't really like. Here is some bad behavior - though not in any particular order of dislike.

1. Lack of Conversations and Community: A good blog encourages conversations between the author and the readers. A blog that doesn't allow comments makes it a monologue. A blog with moderated comments or one that only accepts comments from logged-in users is a little better, but it still makes it difficult to establish a community. Because I only have 24 hours a day, I can only participate in a limited number of sites. The more logins and passwords I have to create and remember, the greater the burden - it is not really worth my while to do that.
   
   Another situation is where the author gets into arguments with the commenters on the site and even writes blog posts on the commenters. This has been happening a few times recently on Robert Scoble's blog. My feeling is that an author should be grateful for all the readers he or she has and improve using their comments. Getting into fights with abusive commenters only brings one down to their level.
   
   
2. Lack of Full RSS feeds: I really don't understand why people would put up blogs with poor syndication capabilities. A blog without a feed is nothing more than a static website. In terms of search engine optimization, it plays poorly with regard to blog search engines like Google Blogsearch or Technorati. A partial RSS feed may seem like a cunning way to get the subscribers to visit the website often (thus boosting the page views), but it can backfire very quickly.
   
   Sometimes the partial feed has little content to help me understand what the author was trying to say and doesn't excite me enough to make me visit the site. Also, I just tune out the person after sometime and cancel my subscription. The truth is - there are other ways to get people visit your blog site like providing links to other interesting content on the blog. As an author, I must do something that appeals to you enough to make you visit my site.
   
   
3. Inaccuracy: A good blog must always strive, within reason, to research an issue and explore all aspects of it. Sometimes time constraints may not make this feasible. But if the author decides to use generalizations without backing them up with facts, it lowers the value of the blog. Furthermore, if the author hasn't been forthcoming about the limited research done, he or she can be easily exposed.
   
   A form of this problem happens when the author has a conflict of interest, such as being employed at or affiliated with a company or product that is being reviewed. Wrong facts can also occur if the blogger has a beef with or personal agenda against the company or product. And I don't even want to get started on blogs that support hate and prejudice based on race, language, geographic region, color, gender, caste, etc.
   
   
4. Lack of Originality: Sometimes I like it when a blogger points me to a useful website or interesting YouTube video. But when the blog is just about links and contains nothing from the author's brain, I wonder why I bother to read that person. I read blogs to learn something from that author - something entertaining, refreshing, surprising - whatever, but it should be something new and original at least most of the time.
   
   I sometimes run across blogs that display content from other sites without any attribution to the original author or website. It is actually pretty easy to figure out if the content has been stolen. The writing will be quite different from the author's regular style and a quick search on Google is enough to confirm the suspicion. I am not really sure why people do this - is it ignorance of copyright rules or do they think they can get away with it?
   
   
5. Poor Content: Frequently, a blog author really tries hard. They have frequent posts. They have a good web design. But the content and writing just doesn't cut it. Perhaps it is because I am not the target audience, but sometimes I see sites on technology and management where the content doesn't appeal to me.
   
   There is no one particular cause. Sometimes it is the frequent use of clichés and catch-phrases. At other times, it is lack of language appropriate for the blog content - like using out-of-place slang and colloquialisms. That is the low end of the spectrum. On the other side, we have very erudite academic posts that need to be labored through to understand the point they are trying to make.
   

So what constitutes good blogging behavior? I would say it is about writing content that has meaning. Write with good flow and language. Write from your heart and what you believe in. Be humble. Be honest. Converse with your audience. Open up. People like me will rush in to hang onto every word you say.

Technorati tags: blogging, bad bloggers

Corporate Blogging Research

Recently, I came across CorpBlawg, a blog maintained by Cornelius Puschmann, which seeks to explore the linguistic aspects of corporate blogging. On reading his blog, I realized that this is the first time I thought about blogging "genres" - a word which is typically associated with movies. So far, I have thought more in terms of "blog types", "blog audience", etc. Of course, there have always been blogs handling different issues like politics, culture, technology, etc. But I think the "genre" concept is more interesting as it talks about a style of writing blogs.

In his recent post "Visualizing blog language data", Cornelius used the concept of an "f-score" that parses the content of a blog and derives a value based on the count of which part of speech (noun, adjective, verb, etc.) a word belongs to. Among other things, the f-score attempts to understanding the quality of formality, information, involvement and content-dependency of the content matter. He has analyzed a huge collection of public blogs, including several newspapers, popular bloggers and corporate executives so that he can do better comparison. On request, he was very kind to analyze my blog and post the contents at Many Eyes.

I am very fascinated by the analysis done. As I mentioned to Cornelius, a trivial analysis of the visualization would be that the more frequently a person posts, the lower the f-score. Since time is fixed, one has to sacrifice content for frequency. However, as Cornelius points out, this is not necessarily true. A person may have a more conversational style that results in less nouns and adjectives been thrown out.

For example, I could say one of the following things:

• "I think this is easy."
• "The complexity of the task is relatively minor."

Both say the same thing, but the latter has more adjectives and nouns. Corporate blogging may tend towards the latter because executives are often involved in legal matters, marketing and public relations, which is often very rehearsed and involves use of sophisticated and grandiloquent language. The more one is exposed (in the best possible sense of the word) to such environments, the more one's own conversational style changes.

Another aspect of language is that sometimes to express the exact meaning, you have to use obscure nouns and to express a nuance, you have to use adjectives that people don't use in day-to-day language. For example, "laugh" could mean so many things, but "laughing smile", "giggling laugh", "smirking laugh", etc. all express different emotions.

The complexity of language exists not because some people are pretentious and want to sound different (maybe they do), but because life and people's behavior is essentially complicated and has different levels of subtle variations.

I am looking forward to more of Cornelius's research. Good luck to him.

Your Public Blog is really Public

I came across the blog of an acquaintance today. My emotions when I read it went like this, "You have got to be kidding me. Are you really putting this on public view?" I don't want to link to the blog, but here is some information. The guy has put his real name on the blog. He has talked about his termination from a company, how he was NOT hired in a bigger technology MNC (including his stupid answers), his work "ethic" and his personal life - all sprinkled with expletives throughout the blog.

If you are maintaining a dairy on the web, understand this:

• A blog is NOT a private email account or document storage. It is publicly available to anyone who can search for your name on Google.
  
  
• Once you are indexed, your page will remain in Internet history for everyone to look at. This is not "Mission Impossible", you are not Tom Cruise and it is not just one server.
  
  
• Anyone can archive your blog, web page or RSS feed through any of the various tools out there.
  
  
• If you are working in Information Technology, it is very likely that a prospective employer will search for you and find your blog.
  
  
• Yes, bloggers are supposed to be sincere and show their true feelings. But using swear words shows that you have no control over yourself.
  
  
• Using slang and colloquial language is not so bad, but who are you trying to position yourself as? If you want to be treated seriously, then try to write with maturity. A little fun and joking is good, but if it becomes your standard, then you will only lower your image and branding in front of an employer.
  
  
• How difficult is to spell-check? How difficult is to read the post for grammar and meaning before you post it?
  
  
• Most people don't want to know about your personal anguish or concerns unless your story has some meaning to it. Unless you can offer something to the reader, don't post your personal stuff online.

 

If you really, really want to write your private thoughts online, for your own sake, put it in a private blog that can only be accessed by logging in.

A public blog means it is "public". If you don't want someone to see it, make it private.

Worry about Free Web Applications

This blog is hosted on Blogger. It is a great platform and I love many of its features. It is also free, as in "totally free". No monthly fees. No advertisements. Nothing.

That scares me.

Sooner or later, someone at Google is going to point out the tremendous expense that Blogger is incurring with its infrastructure without producing any tangible revenue. Maybe it is a loss leader for Google's other features like AdSense, but how many bloggers are using AdSense? Many people I know blog because of interest or for fun, not for money. What happens if a blogger gains a large audience in the thousands, but does not want to monetize it?

What happens then? Will Blogger automatically start showing AdWords in the screen? Will they start charging for the account based on data transfer?

I don't want to single out Blogger or Google. As I said, I use Blogger because I love it. But I don't know what will happen when they finally decide to cash in on the community of people who are using Blogger. The uncertainty is very worrying. I can imagine many reasons why they would not want to say when it will stop being free, but that does not lessen the confusion.

Every free application on the Internet will face this problem. An application may be offered for free to attract a lot of new users. It could also be used to attract an audience to another application sold by the company. Regardless of the reason, the application is losing money. All the time, the company incurs costs of development and infrastructure.

As the application becomes more popular, these costs go up tremendously. For example, scaling the application may need a lot of time from specialized development and administration teams, not to mention expensive hardware and networking equipment. Once the application crosses a certain threshold of popularity, the floodgates can potentially open to thousands or tens of thousands of users. Since the application is free, there is hardly any barrier for a new person to start using the application.

Somebody has to pay these costs. When the application is free, that "somebody" can be the VC or other private and public investors. They may keep eating the cost until they can sell the company to somebody bigger like Yahoo! or Microsoft. But this is just shifting the burden: Now the bigger company starts emptying its pockets. Eventually, the pyramid scheme has to break - somebody has to stay "stop" because the application is just hemorrhaging bucketloads of money without bringing in anything.

There are many ways of bringing revenue such as paid user accounts or serving up ads. For blog hosting software, I am in favor of paying money, because I think having paid advertisements on the site can sometimes conflict with the content on some blogs. Also with advertising systems like AdWords and Panama, the blog author has no control over what advertisements are displayed. Sometimes, there may appear advertisements of companies that the blogger disapproves of or disagrees with.

In an application like Yahoo! Mail where the content is private, advertisements are not a huge problem as I can easily ignore them. But on a blog, the site author doesn't even get to know the ads that site visitors see. However, many bloggers may have the opposite opinion - they may very well prefer AdWords or even join AdSense instead of having to pay money for an account. 

In a capitalistic society, one should do exactly that. If you have an audience benefiting from your blog's content, it makes sense to use an ad (pun intended) system to gain some reward for the efforts you are putting in. After all, that is what this whole post is about, isn't it? I would suggest that someone should do a study about people's preferences if they haven't already. I remember Yahoo! asking me long time back about how much I would pay to use one of their applications.

With a cash-rich company like Google, it will be some time before they wake up to all the money-losing applications they have. On the other hand, Yahoo! is always all about getting hold of your wallet or advertiser's dollars from Day One of the application. Beware of the other free applications out there who have no clear strategy on how they are going to pay their expenses. And if you are developing a web-based application and plan to give free access, start thinking today of how you will be making money to pay for the product.

A final link on the topic: Google to charge businesses for Google Apps: Seems that they are slowly embracing reality.

Technorati tags: Yahoo!, Google, Blogger, Monetization, AdWords, AdSense, Panama

Link Rich get Richer

The Hawthorne effect is the principle that "when people are observed in a study, their behavior or performance temporarily changes." As Google Search has become the de facto search engine, webmasters and web designers have changed their activities to meet the requirements of obtaining higher ranks in Google search results. Mostly, strategies have revolved around getting as many incoming links as possible.

One of the key components of the Google search engine is the PageRank algorithm. In Google's words,

"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important.""

In day-to-day life, this concept will be familiar to most people. Say, there was no Internet and everyone that we know were equally accessible (without constraints of time, money, distance and social status). If we were in college and we needed accurate information about the rings of Saturn, we would first contact the head of the Physics department. If he was not available, we would contact a lesser professor, followed by a teaching assistant, high-grade student, medium-grade student, etc. Why? Because each person in this pecking order would point to the higher authority as the first line of authority.

Now, if the Physics head had designated a student, John Smith, as an authority on Saturn. Then more queries would be directed to John. If a person below the Head had recommended John, he would still get more attention than when not recommended, but less than if the Head had recommended him.

So far, so good.

At this point, let us muddy the waters a little bit. Let us say that another student Mary Jones joins the school and is more knowledgeable on Saturn than John. The problem here is that her incremental knowledge on the subject is not of interest to most students. Hence the Head has no reason to change his recommendation of John. Other students also continue to recommend John, although they may benefit from Mary's extra knowledge, because the main authority, the Physics Head, has not changed his mind.

Applying this to the web link structure,

1. A better, newer authority (say "A") on a subject has fewer incoming links compared to the older authority (say "Z") because it has just started. Pretty obvious.
2. "A" will get fewer new incoming links compared to "Z" because the incremental gain is not important to the majority of users.
3. If a person wants to link to an authority on the subject, "Z" will get the new link because "Z" appears first on the search results. So Z starts hoarding more links, making it more difficult for A to displace Z.
4. "Z" has a significant headstart over "A" in terms of web pages and web links. The only way that "A" can overtake "Z" is if "A" can consistently outperform "Z" in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) activities. This is not guaranteed. For all we know, "Z" may be more web and SEO-savvy than "A".
5. "A" is very likely to abandon or pay less attention to the subject matter as it continues to sport lower search rankings and attract less visitors than "Z".
6. As competition from "A" & others becomes less, "Z" is also likely to reduce efforts to maintain the lead. Practically, this means producing just the necessary level of content to keep up the reputation.
7. This does NOT mean that "Z" will sit idle while someone slowly builds up momentum. With tools like Google Alerts, it is very easy to stay on top of keyword searches to be aware of competition.

This is a phenomenon, not necessarily a problem. The first reasonable authority on a subject has a first-mover advantage that is very difficult to shake off. As that authority tops the ranking, more and more people link to it, making it a de facto "top" authority. Yes, there will be people who break the trend and link to other authorities (who are lower on the search results), but statistically speaking, they can be discounted. Very soon, the first authority has amassed a fortune of incoming links and can rest on that.

The other aspect of link fortunes is the issue of "sub-authority". If I am the authority on the solar system, it doesn't mean that I am the authority on Pluto. But with my first-mover advantage, I have enough links to make myself the first result on Pluto and then gather more links. You might say, "That is fine, but there will be Pluto experts who can produce more content than you do. And soon they will rise to the top." So let me explain with an example.

Let us take Wikipedia. In most simple searches, the Wikipedia article will be the first result or at least on the first page of results. I have great trust in Wikipedia pages and hence my initial reaction (which I usually follow) will be to link to the Wikipedia article. Unless I myself am an expert in that topic, I cannot differentiate between a Wikipedia page and another web page on the same subject or issue. Because of my trust in Wikipedia (coming from other sources) and the fact that Wikipedia is high on the results already because of PageRank, I throw another link at Wikipedia. Suddenly, Wikipedia has one more recommendation for its page which reinforces its position in the search results.

As I mentioned before, this need not be entirely a bad thing. The greater authority's benefit comes from the incremental knowledge that it brings. By recognizing the de facto authority on the Web, this website or page can concentrate on more specialized information that will benefit expert audiences. The current authority can link back to the niche or expert sites. Essentially, this will reduce duplication of content.

The point I was trying to make is that a first-mover advantage on a subject on the Internet coupled with a good understanding of SEO techniques is very difficult to trounce. The first mover quickly gathers links which in turn fuels additional links to the site. One suggestion is to perhaps have a "Random Results" box in the Google search results that are based on text content and have no relation to incoming links.

Technorati tags: Google Search, Wikipedia, PageRank, Google Alerts

Blog Changes

My friend and colleague Murugan provided some feedback about the site last week - based on which, I am making some changes to the site. He felt that site visitors may find it difficult to locate items that interest them specifically because my blog contains various subjects. I agree - some of the titles I am using are not helping either since they don't give a clear indication of the subject matter.

So, I have added a new section "Topics" on the right hand side. You can view the topic that you are interested in. A few of the blog postings belong in more than one topic - so you may see the count exceeding the total number of posts. The Blog Archive is still present in case you want to view a blog in a particular month.

I also got rid of the photo in the Technorati section and renamed that to "Search Content". I recommend you use that to search this blog because it presents a List view compared to Blogger Search (on top) which directly shows you the blog results. On the other hand, if you want to eliminate a step in searching, use the Blogger Search.

The link to my website has been de-emphasized and shifted below the topics and search boxes as I want to give greater importance to the content on this blog. I will probably be adding links to other web content that I have created, such as photos.

The landing page now contains 5 posts so that loading is faster. I don't know if people actually scroll down to read more content or they click the links in the Blog Archive more. Maybe, I will try changing this number and see what the statistics say.

Finally, there is no change in the comments. Feel free to post your comments anytime. There is no moderation. You can post anonymous blogs if you like. I have a CAPTCHA provided by Blogger just in case some spam routine hits the site. But apart from that, it is free for all.

[UPDATE - Feb 9, 2007] I have removed the Technorati Search as it doesn't seem to be working recently. Also I moved the links back up again. I added a link to the home page of this blog as I think it is difficult for people to spot the "Home" link on the individual post pages.

Technorati tags: blogger, technorati search, writing blogs

Internet Video and Audiences

First of all, thanks to Robert Scoble for putting me on his link blog. Considering the recent controversy regarding the Intel videos, I thought an analysis of video blogs in terms of its potential audience may be an interesting topic to think and write about. Videos are a big hit on the Internet - the recent acquisition of YouTube has only fueled this trend. But every format has its challenges.

From my personal experience, here are the challenges faced by content providers who use video as their output:

1. Video places a greater demand on the time and effort of the individual. While a person is watching a video, they can rarely do any other work with their eyes or ears. Only activities that can be performed non-consciously like eating or exercising can be done at the same time. This means
   
   
   • It is very difficult to see longer lengths of video at work. And I mean this for both the junior team member as well as the top level executive. The former cannot be seen watching videos while they are supposed to be doing their work. And the latter is busy with activities like meetings, emails, phone conversations, etc.
     
     Compare this with a text posting. It is easy to browse through text while talking to someone on the phone. You can subscribe to RSS feeds in your email and read them along with other emails.
     
     
   • It is not possible to see video while driving (duh!). And that is if the video can be downloaded. If it is being streamed, you cannot take it with you on a device to view while commuting on a train or so.
     
     
   • And don't even attempt to see videos (especially technical videos) at home without making your family mad at you. Here is how it goes: You are sitting with your partner on the couch and watching TV. Now try switching on your laptop and playing a video. And yes, you can go to your work area and watch videos there. But now you are adding the video-watching time to the "other work" you are bringing home. Soon, you have no life.
     
     
2. Videos on the Internet are very different from videos on TV. I am not talking about image quality, size or resolution. When you watch a video on TV, the only input device you have is a remote which is primarily used to enhance the watching experience (volume, contrast, etc.) Also there is nothing else playing at the same time on the TV that can divert your attention. When you watch Internet video on a computer sitting at a desk, you typically have many other applications (email client, blog reader, instant messaging) that make your experience interrupt-driven. The input devices also act as a temptation to drive you to do something different. Hence the "stickiness" factor is missing.
   
   
3. An Internet video typically does not come with a trailer or packaging that helps you identify what you are getting into, unlike a TV program or DVD. A text post has the benefit of quickly browsing the entire text by a simple drag of the mouse. To get a feel of the Internet video, you need to watch at least several seconds or a few minutes.
   
   
4. If a person likes the information in a video and wants to share it with other people, it is difficult to email that video to people as an attachment unless it is very short. They must provide a link. It is not easy to ensure that the person actually saw the video. With text, there is a greater hit ratio that people saw at least the general content of the message - such as bolded text.
   
   

How can this be remedied?

1. Provide different formats for the same content - a transcript and a downloadable audio file along with the video file. Each format attracts a different audience. Some content consumers (i.e., audience) may even use all three. They may start with the transcript, find that perhaps it is too long and download the audio file to their iPod. They find that the audio is about a medical procedure which encourages the person to go back and view the video file. The reverse may happen - someone sees the video of a speech and doesn't quite get a sentence or two and can refer back to the transcript.
   
   To do this is HARD WORK and TIME-CONSUMING. But it will pay off.
   
   
2. Internet videos must be "rich" to keep the user engaged. For example, using shorter takes and incorporating music can make the experience better. It is also useful while doing an interview to use other footage instead of showing the person who is talking. Using strong emotions like humor, fear or excitement can help users stay on while the video runs.
   
   Once again, this is HARD WORK. In addition, it also requires good video taking, editing and mixing skills
   
   
3. If you have a large video, break it down into manageable pieces. I would suggest using 2-4 minute segments. Make sure that the first segment is really interesting and inviting. And do the same for the rest too. Do an usability test with people to understand if it can be bettered.
   
   
4. Provide a synopsis of the video and tell people why they must watch it. I am ready to watch funny cats on YouTube all day long because I already know what will happen. But if I have to see an interview with the CEO of a startup, I need to know why it is important that I tune in. Should I listen to him because his company is a good place to invest in? Or is it a potential vendor, partner, supplier, competitor?
   
   
5. Allow users to simultaneously email the transcript and link to the video. Use a video format that will not require end users to do something new with their browsers.
   
   

Different formats of communication co-exist. For example, newspapers were not made obsolete by radio. Same for radio by TV. And TV by the Internet. Each has its unique advantages and disadvantages. The challenge is to understand the limitations and rise above that.

If video blogs find an obstacle in constraints of time, effort and viewing habits of end users, then it must accept those constraints and work to turn them into its advantage. It is futile to fight reality.

[UPDATE: I remove the word "formats" from the heading as it made it seem as if I was talking about the technology like Flash, AVI, MPEG, etc.]

Technorati tags: Video Blogs, Scoble, video format constraints and remedies

A Malayalam Blog and Kerala Information Technology

One of my college juniors, Sijith Nair, who is now in Los Angeles, has started writing his blog http://kuttanskadhakal.blogspot.com in Malayalam. Great Work, Sijith. This is the first non-English blog I am reading and Sijith's narration of his travel difficulties in Paris makes it very interesting. BTW, use Firefox to view the blog as I am having difficulties viewing it in Internet Explorer.

For those who are unfamiliar with Malayalam, it is the language of Kerala, the state lying below Karnataka (read "the state where Bangalore is") state on the southern tip of India. The state is an aberration in India - it has 100% literacy and is the most educated (percentage-wise) state in India. It is also governed by an elected Communist government (one of the three states in India which has a sizeable Communist presence) - not that it matters as economic policies are set by the Central (Federal) government.

The state is densely populated. Past lack of good employment opportunities for educated youth led to massive emigration to other states in India and countries, primarily the Persian Gulf (or Arabian Gulf, based on your point of view) and the United States. A running joke among Malayalees and Keralites is that if every Malayalee comes back to Kerala from all over the world, there will not be any standing space there. The physicist George Sudharsan and writer Arundhati Roy are two famous people from Kerala.

The Information Technology industry has been slow to set up shop in Kerala, but things have changed in the past few years. Trivandrum (known as Thiruvananthapuram) and Cochin (or Kochi) are establishing themselves as IT centers building upon good engineering talent from the nearby engineering and technology universities and colleges (CUSAT, MGU and CET). Higher education tuition fees is heavily subsidized by the government. When I completed my Masters Degree in Computer Science, I paid the equivalent of just $50 (repeat, fifty US dollars) for two years tuition. My books and daily travel cost more. However, competition for the college seats is very tough - admission is based on performance in a standardized mass entrance exam usually heavy on logic and advanced mathematics.

One of the great advantages of the state (other than high education and health levels) is its natural beauty. While Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai are bigger centers, they do not compare favorably with the tropical forests, and lazy backwaters in Kerala. Every drive is a scenic drive - it is green everywhere all the time. :-)

I am writing this from southern New Hampshire - another beautiful place which explodes into glorious heavenly colors when fall comes along. If you work in a scenic place, feel free to post links to pictures of your place in the comments section.

Technorati tags: Malayalam, Kerala, Information Technology, New Hampshire

Review of Scoble's Book

I recently finished reading the book "Naked Conversations" by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. As an introduction to the various facets of business blogging, it fulfils its purpose. People who have already read "Blog!" (by Kline and Burstein) and "Permission Marketing" (by Seth Godin) will be familiar with some of the ideas expressed in it. Most avid blog readers and news followers will be familiar with a lot of the content - so for them, I would suggest skimming (rather than reading) the book for useful information.

The book starts with explaining about the growing importance of blogging in today's business environment. While people who write or read blogs comprise a small minority of the population, nevertheless, they are a vocal and influential minority. Like "Blog!", the book uses several examples of bloggers and their experiences and thoughts. One of the key differences is that "Naked Conversations" covers business blogging only and not culture and politics.

The authors discuss how organizational and national cultures can influence the prevalence of blogging. For example, the French blog more than Germans because the latter apparently dislike talking about themselves. There are more blogs at Microsoft and Sun than Apple and Google. The book suggests that the latter two companies, while highly respected for their innovation, may have a less open culture than people are led to believe.

My personal opinion is that this opinion about company environments may not necessarily be an accurate assessment. Google is currently the No. 1 employer to work for. Its brand is universally recognized and the perks are amazing. I don't think that most reasonable employees would want to alienate their co-workers and managers by washing the company's dirty linen in public. When you have a great thing going, why ruin it? Secondly, Google has a reputation for listening and acting on consumer feedback. It is highly probable that the way internal employee feedback is handled does not create a situation where people have to blog about the company to get someone to listen.

I was not very convinced that public blogs are a good forum to have such conversations within a company. Scoble was famous for making Microsoft seem more down-to-earth, but then Microsoft had a bad reputation to lose. Companies should have internal mechanisms to listen to employee concerns - if someone has to resort to public airing of grievances to draw attention, then something is wrong. Having a public conversation introduces very unique personality dynamics like ego into the discussion.

In fact, this principle can also be applied to customer complaints. Regardless of how well you think of your product, consumers will have problems with using the product or aspects of your service, packaging, pricing, return policy, etc. Such information comes through various sources (service desk, email, phone, etc.) and can be handled at different points and through different means in the organization. What I am trying to say is that customers must have easier ways of getting your company to listen to your complaints than blogging about it on the Internet and then you having to react.

Scoble and Israel provide the examples of Kryptonite and Intel to show that companies should pay close attention to any negative talk in the blogosphere. That is fine, but I really wonder what real options does a company have in such situations. In the Kryptonite case, once it was proved that the locks could be picked easily, the only option for the company was to fix the problem and change the locks. Period. Lack of a quick response may have cost some goodwill, but even if they had responded quickly, they would still have to incur the cost.

The situations where responsiveness can help is when the bad news is factually incorrect or is an aberration in the company's service or products. If the company's products and services are intrinsically poor, then any response will in fact be just a bunch of PR double-speak.

In summation, it is an easy to read, introductory book to the world of business blogs. Not inspiring, but just enough to make the user want to read more about the subject - which he or she should. A final thought: I really wish the name of the book could have been different - using the current name in a web page title is a sure way to get a reader in a business setting to close the browser window 2 seconds after they view it.

Technorati tags: Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Naked Conversations book, Kryptonite

High Volume of Blog Reading

Since I am an ardent fan of Google Reader, it was nice to see a good plug on it by Robert Scoble. But do read the rest: He reads 29 thousand items in 30 days. Even if that is 1 second per blog, it is 8 hours worth of reading. Looking at his blogroll, he reads blogs like Joel on Software which have non-trivial long posts. That is amazing - is that a record? I would be really interested in knowing how he is able to read so much and digest all that information.

Now, here is the kicker: Scoble also posts at the rate of 5-6 posts per day - stats as reported by Google Reader. Admittedly, some of the posts are short, trivial or personal, but, in my opinion, he has a very high percentage of relevant and informational posts. I have just completed reading "Naked Conversations" (on which I plan to write a review) and Scoble seems to be putting his advice in that book into action, especially the passion part.

His high volume of reading reminds me of a story:

There was a professor who would collect long papers from all of his students in the morning and return them with his comments in the afternoon. One of the students could not believe that he actually read all the material he received. So he inserted a sentence "I bet you don't read everything" in the middle of his paper. When he got his paper back, the comments had a sentence "Oh, yes, I do!"

I now subscribe to around 50 feeds, but some of the posts are very detailed and tough to read. I usually star them for future reading during the weekend. In addition, there are some blogs that have information that can be used as reference. I use IE bookmarking (and recently, Live Favorites) to link to items that I want to read and keep or discard. Probably will write another post on bookmarks, but right now, for me, Live Favorites (better than) IE Bookmarks (better than) Google Bookmarks (better than) Del.icio.us (better than) Yahoo! Bookmarks. Yahoo! had a decade to get it right - what were they doing?

On reading blogs, the biggest problem is perhaps not actually reading a lot of posts - it is possible to divert more time to the activity. The real issue is assimilating that information into something meaningful. Some of the information can be easily processed - like if someone provides reasons to continue doing something you are already doing OR provides reasons against doing something you have already decided not to do. Reinforcement of ideas is good, but doesn't add a lot of value.

It is more meaningful to learn something new or contrary to what you are doing now. Translating that into action is time-consuming because it involves changing personal habits or, when organization-specific, requires change management to be done carefully. Keeping a personal Task List or even creating a manifesto can help refine oneself or the organization.

In the last respect, it is very useful to remove some blog feeds periodically, especially the ones who have nothing new to say. The blogs that I really like are the ones where the author talks about different topics and writes at some length. The longer posts lays bare the writer's thoughts - Since each person is unique, such posts usually provide some new insight or idea.

Technorati tags: reading blogs, scoble, bookmarking

Experience with Google Analytics

Ever since I started my website long back, I have been interested in knowing statistics about site visitors. I have gone through different software, from using basic counters to downloading web logs and using AWStats with Perl on IIS. Last year, I switched to using Google Analytics. Recently, I also added the code to my blog using the new template customization features.

In both cases, the move has been really easy. On the website, I just had to update my XSL header file. (Aside: Although the site is ASP.NET, I use XSL templates to drive some of the common content). Blogger provided the ability to add an HTML/JavaScript "page element" where I could embed the script. All this is pretty much invisible and unobtrusive to users hitting the site. Although counters were cool when the web started, nowadays, it is mostly ignored by new visitors or interferes with the site design & look.

Google Analytics presents three different perspectives to the visitor data - Executive, Marketer and Webmaster. The Executive view (like an "executive summary") provides quick information like geographic location of visitors, top sources, keywords, contents, entrances and exits. The Marketing and Webmaster views provide a lot more detailed information with regard to these.

A detailed analysis of how to use Google Analytics is provided here by Dennis McDonald. Some of my observations and thoughts:

• There are a lot of reports - amazing, considering the fact that Google does not monetize the site using AdWords. I believe that Analytics acts as a loss leader for marketers to purchase Adwords since they can better manage their campaigns.
• The Executive views are well thought out. Many big-bang-for-the-buck changes to the website can be easily arrived at from the information provided. For example, if a high percentage of users are leaving a page, it may be necessary to change the layout to make follow-on links more conspicuous or enticing. I found doing this on one page reduced exits by about 8%.
• Linking content from Wikipedia (like my book reviews) has resulted in a lot of traffic to my website. I find this has also increased the Page Rank of those pages. Obviously, if you are trying this, you have to submit a link to something relevant, otherwise your entry will be edited out. [Aside: Original Google paper]
• A lot of blog traffic seems to come from Google and Technorati. A related fact is that the average page/view is lower for the blog than the website which seems to suggest that people come searching for a particular content and blogs are not well organized to provide additional links on the same content to visit.
• I suppose at least some blog visitors have subscribed to the feed, but neither Google Analytics nor Blogger provide any ability to know that. I can track if someone is reading the FeedBurner feed, but it doesn't provide anywhere near the same information - even if I subscribe to TotalStats.
• There are a lot of vanity searches for "krishna kumar" leading to the website. That way, it is good to have a common name, but it is not easy to be on the top of the search results. Right now, I (site or blog) seem to be on the 1st page of Google (out of 1.3 million results), Live.com (450K), Ask.com (320K) and Yahoo! (2.5 million). [Aside: Yahoo! seems to have more sites/pages indexed than Google, but having compared the cached pages on both, I can state from personal experience that Yahoo! is really behind on crawling.]
• The above sounds really egotistical, but maybe not - I suppose everyone has Googled themselves. In fact, there are some good reasons you probably should Google yourself. (And according this guy, some reasons not to.) Also, here is Eric Sink with a blog that, in part, discusses about the visibility of your name due to technology, regardless of how influential you actually are in real life.

Since neither my website nor my blog is commercialized, understanding to use Analytics is purely academic. It is nice to understand some aspects of how SEO (search engine optimization) works. I also use Google Webmaster tools - which provides some search information not available to Analytics. It is also encouraging to see more hits some days so that I can keep writing. Hopefully some people find some of the information on the site and blog useful.

Technorati tags: Google Analytics, Google Webmaster, SEO

Hair Down

Well, back to work tomorrow. So, posting a few random thoughts here. While navigating through Orkut, found a few of my friends who were blogging. Here is a list:

• Prashant Danda (colleague): http://icameisawiblogged.blogspot.com/ (his personal blog), http://fresh-ant.blogspot.com/ (technology-related) and http://dotnetfx3.blogspot.com/ (.NET 3.0 and Sharepoint - this is really good - lot of outgoing links and information on resources)
• Babu Sathish (colleague): http://healthcareinus.blogspot.com/
• Vipins Gopinathan (collegemate and colleague): http://vipins-online.blogspot.com/
• Ranjith Antony (former colleague): http://sunran.com/blog/
• Aravindhan Damodharan (colleague): http://mraravinth.blogspot.com/

Some of you guys haven't been blogging in quite a while! If you are reading this, here is a fan talking: More!

I have been taking good advantage of Blockbuster's Total Access (Read the first few comments in the post) which allows you to return DVDs at their store and get movies in return for free. As a uneducated consumer, I think that the only thing between Netflix and bankruptcy is the number of titles Netflix has in comparison with Blockbuster. The Blockbuster website is now Ajax-driven, but site performance has taken a nosedive. Not that I really care as I had create a huge queue already.

Watched "Lagaan" again today. The last time I watched this was in 2001 on the side of the front row in a small theatre. To understate it, I didn't "get the whole picture" - if you know what I mean. There was a deleted scene as part of the DVD's Special Features - actually a string of unnecessary scenes that perhaps would have spoiled the movie. "Lagaan" felt better on a second viewing - a mark of a well-made movie.

Is it better to post 7 times on the weekend or once every day? I mean, from a web visibility standpoint. I suppose it is the latter, but it is really tough to focus and blog every day, especially after a tiring day at the office. Geez, I don't even feel like exercising.

Finally, are we going to have some snow in New England this year? Maybe this week? After the especially hot summer, I don't think there are going to be any disbelievers in global warming here anymore. Of course, in Colorado, it is a different story...

12 more minutes to "24". Have a nice week!

Technorati tags: blockbuster total access, netflix, snow in new england, lagaan

Experiences with Reading Blogs

Recently, some of my friends have asked me about what the best way to read blogs is. My answer was to use the software I am using, namely, Google Reader. Since its recent updates, Google Reader has become increasingly powerful and easy to use. Among my favorite features are the following:

• The shortcut keys (j, k, ga, s) so that I can easily navigate while eating or while using a laptop.
• Starring allows me to read longer articles later while blowing through the rest.
• Tagging helps me archive articles for future reference.
• The recent "Personalized Trends" allows me to view my reading habits and change my subscriptions accordingly.

Although I have added it to my Personalized Google Home Page, I don't use the Home Page very often since I am using the Google Sidebar. The integrated Gmail feature is good, but it doesn't work the way I want it to, i.e., send the whole content instead of the link - and it doesn't retain the text formatting very well. I also don't like the way the tag delete functionality and subscribing work. For example, when I am reading a blog and I find 3 blog links and want to subscribe to all three of them, each time, the reader takes me to the new subscription while I just want to stay in the current blog and add the rest. And there are some performance problems, too - though it is much better on Firefox than IE.

Despite the negatives, I still like and recommend it. Previously, I tried the SharpReader RSS Reader - which however meant having to run another application. The intravNews reader was much better because it integrated with Outlook, but I was hampered by the fact that I could not access an important blog post when I was on another system. When Google Reader came out, I tried it out, but it was until only recently that I have started using it in a big way. Also, the release of Internet Explorer 7 also helped because you can now keep multiple tabs open in one single application. I usually have one IE instance open all the time at work or home - so it becomes rather easy.

Since I started using Google Reader, here are some of my observations and habits in reading blogs:

• Generally I don't subscribe to blogs that have a high frequency of daily posts (Boing Boing, Engadget, The Gothamist) or that have a very low weekly frequency. Robert Scoble is the major exception (in the high-frequency category) because his posts are shorter and more relevant - though sometimes he deviates into stuff like the Edwards campaign (which is really irrelevant to me in late 2006/early 2007).
  
  On the other side, I still subscribe to Stevey's Blog Rants (now infrequent), because although I don't quite like his one-sided bombasts, his writing is really good and entertaining. The "Good Agile, Bad Agile" rant is particularly ironic now for its talk of "relatively rare crunch periods" since Stevey seems to be really busy nowadays.
  
• Generally, I like longer posts - when they are well-written and flow logically. Most end up starred initially and then find themselves tagged for reference.
• Shorter posts are good when they present an idea in the form of a story or metaphor. These are useful representation of real-life events or things, but usually cannot (and perhaps should not) be extended too far to fit all scenarios.
• I quickly unsubscribe from posts that want me to go to their website to read the full posts. The only exception is Pogue's Posts. I do visit sites when the post is interesting enough to make me want to leave a comment.

I am slowly adding more blog feeds, seeing how it goes. I tend to remove feeds when it becomes more difficult to manage. After a few weeks more, I plan to post a list of my twenty most favorite/relevant blogs.

 

Technorati tags: Google Reader, reading blogs, Stevey's Blog Rants, Scoble, Pogue's Posts

On Writing Blogs Frequently

It has been around 10 months since I started blogging. My first post was on March 20, 2006. I was a little late to the game because previously, I had been updating my website (http://www.krishami.com) with my writings. Blogging made this much more convenient. I registered with Blogger and initially set it up to post to a sub-folder under my website, but I later abandoned that for Blogger hosting itself. Here are some thoughts on the experience of trying to write posts regularly.

My initial resolution was to have one blog posting per day. This didn't seem too ambitious at that time. If I missed one day, I would just post two the next day and I would meet my target. I even decided to use the facility in Blogger to change the blog post dates so that each day from March 20th would have a post - this way, I wouldn't have to manually keep track. Needless to say (you can just look at the right side showing the blog archive to see what happened), it didn't go the way I wanted.

I got really busy with work and other stuff. I was still optimistic after a few months that all I needed was a long holiday and I would catch up. Once October hit, I dropped the charade and the blog postings reflect the actual dates and times. Since December, I have been more frequent in my blog postings. I still wish to have 1 blog per day, but it is really hard work to write a blog entry that I feel is good for posting. Although blogs are meant to be more free-flow, I feel guilty if I try to post something that is half-baked.

The recent update to Google Reader provides a useful functionality for statistics about blog subscriptions. Among the 30-odd blogs I read, the subscription trends for the last 30 days indicate that Robert Scoble leads the way with almost 6 posts per day, followed by a distant second Google Blogoscoped at 4 posts/day and Freakonomics at 2.5 posts per day. Matt Cutts is at 1 post per day - which is my writing target. I find Scoble's statistics amazing, but it is explained by the fact that blogging is his full-time focus in terms of marketing (nod to the "Naked Conversations" book). Scoble seems to be remarkably consistent in the count and size of his posts (ref: Yuvi's analysis).

My first-hand impression of the blog frequency from my subscriptions is that most of the frequent bloggers have smaller posts that link to interesting news, websites and other blogs. The posts themselves can be read in a few seconds, but the links need more time to explore. The bigger the size of posts in the subscription gets or the more detailed the analysis, the blogger seems to take greater time between posts. I don't mean to denigrate the importance of the posts based on their size. For example, Google Blogoscoped offers a wide variety of important information about Google services much better than the official Google Blog.

My experience with trying to write smaller blog entries is that many times, even a simple point can have many different perspectives to it and it is very difficult to distill it to a few words. Sometimes, a message can have different nuances and exceptions - easily making it run into multiple paragraphs. For example, in my previous (only-half-joking) blog about 24, each management principle could have been easily expanded into an entry by itself with so many examples from the series which probably has run to 90 hours worth of programming.

Sometimes a blog entry will take several weeks to shape up. I have been using Windows Live Writer to create a draft entry whenever I get an idea. I work on some posts multiple times over several days before they become coherent narratives. Posts can take from around 30 minutes to several hours to get right. Hopefully, by writing more often, I can get over the writer's block and write faster.

Technorati tags: blogging frequently, Google Reader, subscription statistics