A blogging addiction???
Recently I found myself spending much more time on the internet (moreso than before, and that says a lot) reading other blogs, writing comments, looking at who visited my site, looking at John Chow’s blog, etc. And of course I’m constantly looking for new topics to write about. Now, let’s keep in mind that I am a businessman who does have other tasks to do in order to pay the bills and rent, and that includes web design as well as other print material design, database development, etc. I currently have 2 newsletter templates, 1 letterhead, 2 newspaper ad designs, 1 website, 2 translation jobs (I also happen to be a top-of-the-line linguist who translates and interprets between English and Korean flawlessly at an industrial level), and I also need to figure out how to use Joomla for a client of mine.
That’s a lot on the table and I find that I often spend too much time tracking my blog records, looking at the search engine query statistics, hits, and reading up about other things online.
It’s gotten to a point where sometimes I need to switch the wireless switch off in order to be able to perform my tasks I need to do on Word, Photoshop, and Illustrator!
… And then of course I say “oh I need to search stock photos…” and I end up turning it on, and then after spending 5 minutes on stock photo websites, I’m already on my blog’s statistics page, technorati, mybloglog, and other pages and 30 minutes passes by. It’s ridiculous!
Of course, it does have its upsides - I’m learning new tricks from other blogs, and reading other people’s thoughts on things is always an entertaining thing! Also I’ve discovered lots of other blog community sites that can help me grow, and found other blogs that I added to my RSS because I found them to be useful.
This blogging thing better pay off one day, because right now it’s prolonging my work hours even longer!
I thought I was the only one who buzzed about in a crazy blur. I get online and as you said, checkin every stat and blog related thing out there.
I’m workin Joomla right now with the community builder extension. I find that Joomla might be the key to all these social community sites that I want to put up.
You really have a full plate. And I think blogging does pay off if it’s not the only thing going for you. Everyone wants to know how you did it. It’s that ignorance thing we talked about before. Do something that others want to achieve and they’ll hang on your every word.
I have to keep coming back to this blog because I want to be a web designer and online community builder someday. You already do some of the things I want to do for a living. And because we are somewhat on simular levels with our blogs, it’s natural that I want to know what you do to increase your readership. This is one of those blogs I can’t get away from!
Thanks Jim for the kind comments. I too look at your blog more or less every day. We’re sort of on the same startline and it would be great to grow together. I have a different kind of care that i assert when I read your blog as oppposed to John Chow’s.. not that I dont’ respect him but still, he’s at a different league and I try to find my niche, sort of.
I’m starting 2 sites soon - when i have time -
whygodmademorons.com
and
teamdrinkalot.com
The first one is my sole ownership - the second one is a domain my friend owns and would like to market for him to get a split of the profit.
Should be interesting..
Funny you should mention community sites… 3 years ago I created a huge online car enthusiast’s community site. Memberships, validation through email, adding up to 10 favorite cars and up to 10 photos per car, rating the car (1vote per member OR IP) as well as buddy systems… car specs, etc. It was nuts. All custom coded.. now we have things like Joomla.
But then being a custom PHP coder all the time, I do tend to gravitate towards custom coding of everything bcause at teh end it’s more flexible for me. And I know where everything is.
I’m the exact same way. I go to work and spend at least 4 hours of my day researching other blogs, commenting on Chow’s site, writing material, checking my stats, submitting articles and creating more friends on MyBlogLog. It’s a lot of work to keep up a blog, but I’ve noticed the results of my labor. The numbers are finally starting to come, but with that comes more research on other advertising.
You’re doing a great job Jeff. keep it up so you can motivate me to keep mine up
Yes we will all be successful!
Also did oyu know that you and I are both at 40 comments on John’s comments? haha… we’re rivals too!!!
I have found myself not only addictied to the actual posting but also to my rank. I can’t go a day without checking my alexa and technorati and have been competing with my friends as to who can get an article with the most diggs(my high is an abysmal 12)
ya that too.. I check my technorati rank, digg #’s, posts, etc. all the time.. it’s quite time consuming but oh well. at least we all enjoy it.
my high for diggs i believe was 10 at one point…