How to beat Scoble on WordPress.com

I beat Scoble!

It can be done, but you have to catch a meme. I’ve done it once, maybe twice (I didn’t check that time). What does this mean? Not a raging snotload of a lot unless you’ve got something to keep people coming back.

Scoble always gives value to his readers; I’m the least techie person you’ll meet, but I read him when his topics are blogosphere-related, because I’m very socially oriented.

I can tell you from experience that getting in the top ten WordPress blogs is awesome for hits, but that if you don’t follow that up with something of interest to that community within four days you are walking dead.

In related news, I’m one of the premiere crusaders for an even playing field at WordPress. I think that either all WordPress blogs should be allowed affiliate links like Amazon OR that affiliate linked blogs should be siphoned off to their own category, because such options don’t exist for regular WordPress bloggers.

I’m probably the only communal anarchist blogger who’s ever beaten Robert for #1 WordPress blog. As such, I can say authoritatively that those blogs with such kickback links should be in a different category. There may only be three or four of them, but they should be separated out because they’ve got a vested interest in pimping the hits.

I haven’t seen any major examples of this in this particular blog, but if you’re going to make a special exemption, make it exempt from ALL categories is my thinking.

Oh yes, I must add: if you’ve seen ads on my blog, rest assured I’ve complained about them VOCALLY to WordPress, as they weren’t a possibility when I signed on. I make no money from them.

I have, however, suggested a revenue sharing model to WordPress, which I understand they’re considering. I, personally, want no ads and no revenue; I just want to know how much it’ll cost me to get the no-ad model I had to begin with.

I’ve had a self-hosted WordPress blog for quite a while, but when my wife got fed up with her poems getting lost amongst the technical stuff I tend to post she set up her own on WordPress.com (called et Uxor)

I have to say that I do have to spend a bit of time every month upgrading all the various plugins and things I have on our main blog, and whenever a new version of WordPress or K2 comes out I have to be careful to not break the existing customisation, but it does give a lot more flexibility in what you can do.

However from my wife’s point of view, all she wanted is something that looks good, is straightforward to use, and is generally no hassle, where she could post her poems, occasional thoughts and so on, without getting buried amongst all of my stuff, for which the hosted service offered by WordPress.com is great. What you’re trading for the convenience of having someone else doing the upgrades, and worrying about spam, is the flexibility to install any of the multitude of WordPress plugins that are around.

@ paul — September 18, 2006:

“Robert, maybe we can take up a collection from all these new Web 2.0 millionaires and send you to the Moon.”

No, No, and NO! He’ll interview the first aliens he comes across and we’ll be treated to a vlog or podcast of truly alien proportions!

More facetiously: I don’t have a blogging schedule set up, so I’ve left blogging alone for the time being. I’ve considered blogger and wordpress, and might reactivate my “anonymous” livejournal some time or other.

Besides, does anyone _really_ have an urgent need to read my every word? Some of my very best are already being published at antisf.com; and at a mere 500 or so words a story, it’s a real bargain!

There has been quite a bit of update on the Presentation section of WP hosted lately, with new templates,blank templates, and CSS editing for a small payment.

@13, i’m on Spaces too. And a real blogger.

Very interesting information.

Yeah, I have to agree. I started my blog a couple months ago on WordPress cause you did, and I figured you knew what you were doing. Love it. My only open question really is about customization – I can write my own code – but it’s not a huge priority. I once bought a car without sitting in it based on Consumer Reports reviews, too. Loved it.

I know this is off topic.
Please keep your text width. If not please add a function when the window is sized down you do not have to scroll to read (left to right) .
The reason I am asking is so I can watch your videos in another window while reading your text. It is easy to stop reading once a jewel pops up in the videos.
Blogg blogg blogg …jewel… blogg blogg blogg. etc.

I wish channel 10 followed your video format. You can not jump ahead when you hit a blah blah spot in the video. Makes content searching harder. This feature is good for long tech content videos.

Just a thought!

I just think you’ll a bunch of nuts.

And Scoble isn’t #1 every day.

Guess, I will never be #1 then since you have to go to space to do it. That is actually a good thing though.Less pressure on the bottom!

AXE

Hey Scob – I think I sneaked past you once for a couple of hours. So if you write about something as funny as why Mary Kay Sucks, it’s possible to beat you. If only for a fleeting moment!

MKS
http://marykaysucks.wordpress.com

Robert, I just started blogging and looked at Blogger and Windows Live Spaces in addition to WordPress. Currently, WordPress wins for me.

My goal is to create a “personal” portal with things like my recommended book and tools list in addition to my blog. Windows Live Spaces has a number of components that I liked initially, but the customize limitations did them in. I also dislike the web parts that cannot be removed.

Now, like you, I am searching for additional components for WordPress.

Greetings,
I’m self-hosted on WordPress (Akismet pwns!), but let me explain (for those who don’t already know) why hosted WordPress can’t allow Javascript.

Blogs are served from {name}.wordpress.com. The WordPress cookie is delivered to any site that ends in wordpress.com. Any Javascript on the page is legitimately allowed to look up cookies that would be sent to the domain it’s served from.

This means that if you can run Javascript on a hosted WordPress page, you can retrieve the login cookie from another WordPress user, and then pass it to an external site. (Generally by creating an image reference that includes the encoded login cookie.)

This is just a basic part of the underlying technology of the web browser, and it’s required for sites like gmail, Yahoo!, and others to operate.

There are ways a site can avoid this problem (generally by constantly changing the login cookie data with EVERY response, and invalidating the old ones immediately), but they require more horsepower on the backend than the blogging sites are really able to provide, and there’s still usually a small window of opportunity.

This is why Livejournal, WordPress, and most other hosted sites disallow Javascript on their pages.

I hope that helps!

Robert, I’m not very technical and I spend very little time on my hosted WordPress blog as far as admin stuff goes. Once you get it up and running ok, there’s not that much too it. Sure, you can tweak templates for hours but I don’t see it as much of a time drain to just keep it running. I tried a number of others before moving to WordPress; Radio, Expression Engine, Graymatter and Moveable Type to name a few. WordPress has been the best choice for my blog mostly because of the excellent community and ability to tweak to my liking.

Robert, why you – just for fun – don’t start a new blog starting from nowhere ?

Leave this “void” of capital’s contents and give us them in the new “space ghost” blog.

We could learn a thing or two on quality energy to emerge on a 300k+ blog arena, don’t you think so?

I spent a fair amount of time looking at other free hosted services, and WordPress is definitely the way to go. I’m also on WordPress.com, but I plan to switch to a self-hosted version of WordPress one day.

And congrats on #2! I was getting bored of always seeing your blog at the top, too.

a) free wordpress accounts suck.
b) becuase you can do SHIT with them

I have apopular blog and want migrate it to a paid for server, real instal of WP andall that. I can’t do redirect of the traffic or attcess HTACCESS to do this myself

I know its free and I shouldnt complain

But I am

Let us bastard well redirect you gits

xxx

I use WordPress:
http://doanair.wordpress.com/

Hey, Looks like your # 3 now. that’s the first time since I have been here that I’ve seen you at #3!

yes, using a hosted wordpress is better. lots of plug-ins

it seems i cannot open the spaceblog site. maybe too much traffic sent the site down

Community Server user since the early betas of 1.0, and was .Text before that. Before .Text I was using a homegrown solution. Self hosted for a couple of years but got sick of the administrative overhead so I moved to ASPnix.

For everyone who loves Akismet (me included) CS2.1 has full support for Akismet, and CS3.0 (last I checked at least) will have support built in natively for Akismet.

WP is just too lightweight IMO, but it’s still a great service.

Robert-
You’re just teasing me with the title. You really didn’t tell me how to beat you on WordPress. And Lord knows, I’m trying. I can’t afford to go into space. So new plan, K?