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A New Blog With An Old Friend

December 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Members of #cib (Central Iowa Bloggers) saw I tweeted about a new opportunity that I was getting involved in.  I haven’t given many details, but I think I am at the point where I can let people know about my new project, and my excitement over it.

I attended BlogWorld Expo this year, and finally met one of my acquaintances, Jim Kukral.  Jim and I have been talking here and there over the past couple of years ever since I discovered his Online Video Toolkit instructional videos.  We also have a common friend in Joel Comm.

At BlogWorld, I first met up with Jim at a party in the Luxor suite on Wednesday, where I made a joke about a tuna appetizer being bacon (someone overheard and tried to correct me, and I just rolled my eyes – it was a JOKE!) and then we ran into each other over the course of the conference.  I went to the Wiley booth and bought a copy of his book, and saw that Steve Garfield (whom I met at Podcamp Boston 2) was also there, so I took the goofy picture of me, them and their books.


Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago.

Jim sent out a tweet about a web site he was interested in partnering with someone – or outright selling it.  And it hit me.  This is what I was looking for.

With this blog, and also with my podcast, I have a tendency to talk about the medium instead of the niche I am trying to talk about. For instance, on my blog I blog about blogging, and on my podcast I podcasted about podcasting.  This can turn off readers/listeners who found your content because of your main niche, and don’t really care how much you know about the technical side of creating the content they are looking for.

So – what better way than actually doing a blog about blogging?  I had always resisted because Darren Rowse is such a powerhouse in that arena.  But this site is different in that visitors actually ask targeted questions, and those are the main basis of the content.

We are still getting things revamped and re-organized, but the new site is:

http://www.asktheblogger.com

I hope you check it out.

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Social Media

Who Are You? (who who, who who…)

November 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I was talking to Andrew B Clark (the Brand Chef and new owner of Create Wow Media) at the monthly meeting of Central Iowa Bloggers on Friday about how I am almost the “Anti Social-Media Expert.”  We laughed about it and his response was simply “write a post about it!”  After my series of volatile social media posts the last couple of years, I think I will pass on anything controversial, but it did get me thinking.

I get frustrated by the success others have within their niches, but truth be told I don’t really HAVE a niche.  Not so much anyway.  Let’s face it, unless you are Wil Wheaton (hi, Wil!) having a “personal blog” is never going to reap the monetary or statistical rewards of one focused within a personal niche.  The entire category of “personal blogs” is not filled with many success stories.

I have struggled over the years to find my “niche.”  So much so I sat in a room with Joel Comm, Dan Nickerson and Joel Ownby in the offices of InfoMedia in Colorado asking them “am I just boring?”  Their response was swift and decisive: “You have a book.  You’ve sold over 2,000 copies.  Leverage that – there’s your niche!”  Yes, I could do that.  But I am so far removed from the niche living here in Iowa, that I don’t feel what I say would actually matter.

So I have struggled in finding that niche.  Maybe it is “filmmaking in Iowa” and I can blog about the state of the film’s film industry, etc. since the incentives dried up.  But there is already a blog on that. Besides that, there is really only one other niche I am willing to devote the amount of time to:

Making money on the Internet

And try to break into THAT. It is one of the “no no’s” of trying to start a blog.  Everybody tries to get into that and everybody fails. Besides, I don’t have a product, list or network built up that would support that.

Attending Blogworld was inspiring, but it still did not yield many ideas for my “perfect niche.”  I am still looking for that one “thing” that will hold my interest (and readers).  I admit I was very jaded about blogging a few months ago and was resigned to the fact that the only people making money on the internet were people selling products on making money on the internet.  While I know there is room for “real people” to be successful blogging… I still wonder at times whether I am “interesting” enough to do so.  It isn’t a lack of knowledge on the fundamentals – perhaps it is a lack of understanding and knowledge of MYSELF.

Definitely something worth investigating and cause for more introspection.

Dartboard photo by Loutsu

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Blogworld 2010: Are Daddybloggers the New Mommybloggers?

November 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I attended a panel called “Are Daddybloggers the New Mommybloggers” at Blogworld Expo 2010. My good friend CC Chapman was one of the panelists.

I sat down, and for the first time that weekend did not take notes. I wanted to hear what CC had to say, and didn’t think any of the actual “topics” would appeal to me, or warrant writing down (for me).

Boy was I wrong!

Immediately at the start of the panel, the panelist expressed their distaste for the term “daddybloggers.” I have known CC a long time, and despite being a really smart social media maven, he has always blogged about his kids in an entertaining way. I heard he was starting up this new site/network called Digital Dads, but I figured it was just going to be a bunch of dads talking about parenting.

Yeah, I believed the stereotype.

As CC and the others explained, Digital Dads is not just about parenting, its about guys being guys. It’s a far cry from The Man Show, but just because they are guys, and they happen to blog once in a while about parenting, that doesn’t mean every post has to be so.

But the panel also ended up being an example of what not to do.

During the Q&A session, a representative from Disney who worked with the mommybloggers  recently, asked a question to the panel.  After it was answered, another attendee of the session got up and started pitching the Disney rep while the session was still going on near the front of the room, just feet away from the panel.  I could feel the tension rising, and each of the panelists shot looks of disdain in the direction of the man, but he persisted.  Rude, unprofessional and BAD FORM.

So what did I learn from a panel on daddybloggers?

- Don’t pigeonhole yourself or others based on a specific blogging “label”

- Don’t be a DB and interrupt a panel to pitch yourself to someone else at the panel

- Wearing a dress, wig and high heels isn’t for everyone

Did I mention CC also has a book coming out called Content Rules? More on that later…

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Social Media

Doing the awesome – purging unused domains

October 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

After attending BlogWorld Expo this past week, I had some time to stop and think about my efforts in trying to “make money online.”

I’ve been through it all – associate programs, affiliate programs, made for adsense sites, information sites, link portals, blogs, product launches, etc.  I’ve tried so many things on so many websites I finally had a realization:

I had been trying to make this mega-domain/site portfolio with hundreds of sites, but I didn’t spend enough time on even one.

So, I logged into my Hostgator account and saw I had 76 websites set up, most of which I never use. I started deleting.  Was I going to ever work this?  Am I willing to give it the kind of attention it would need to actually go somewhere?

I deleted 38 hosting accounts. The remaining 38 consist of a variety of sites currently making money, my blogs, and other websites I actively work on.

Now to tackle GoDaddy.

I’m a domain name junkie.  With discounts I can register domains for $7 so I pick one up here, another there.  Then February rolls around and boom – they want hundreds of dollars for renewals.  When I logged into Godaddy.com I had 126 domains.

Yikes.

It used to be you just let domains expire, but with godaddy if you just want to be rid of them you can actually delete them from your account. I took a good, hard look at the domains in my account and deleted a bunch. Then I let it sit for a few hours, went back and deleted more.

I am now the proud owner of only 46 domain names. Yep, I deleted 80 of them. 80 domains that I was not using and probably never would. 80 domains I thought would “be a good idea” but fell to the wayside or were never even started.

Now its time to find “the awesome” in what I have.

Filed Under: Blog

What Your Blog Is Missing

October 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A special post from BlogWorld Expo 2010 in Las Vegas.

People often wonder what their blogs are missing. There must be some reason why they aren’t getting the massive numbers visiting their blog, right? The answer is usually plain and simple:

You aren’t writing anything of value.

I’m guilty of this too. One look at the past posts on TroyRutter.com and you will find posts on everything from Babylon 5 to writing my book, to the proverbial and cliche what I had for dinner.

And I wondered why I didn’t have the kind of traffic I wanted.

Then there are the posts that DO generate traffic.

Posts such as my tutorial on how to run Firefox 2 and 3 at the same time. Posts such as the one entitled What’s Holding You Back which was tweeted by Chris Brogan.

The common theme spoken of during all of the sessions at Blogworld revolved around a core piece of advice:

Write awesome.

People don’t come to a blog to read “ok.” People don’t retweet “meh.” People read and recommend awesome.

So, write awesome!

And don’t worry about the search engines… more on that later.

Filed Under: Blog, Featured