I had the misfortune recently of sitting through a discussion of the policies of both Presidential candidates on data protection and cybersecurity. Or so I thought.

While the representative from the Obama campaign, a respected law professor and privacy expert who I have seen testify before Congress many times, was direct but cautious in his answers to the moderator’s less-than-pointed questions, the representative from the McCain side, a former FTC commissioner who has also done good work on privacy issues, filibustered, brought up irrelevant things like ACORN instead of talking about problems with the REAL ID Act, and managed to mention taxes 3 or 4 times at least. I’ll have to check my tape while I write the straight news article on the event.

So I left the Rayburn building feeling a bit down about our prospects for achieving things like more broadband access or sane copyright enforcement. But then I got a call from an acquaintance familiar with some of my older blogging work, asked me what I think about Network Neutrality.

Now, I make my living as a journalist. I strive to be objective, which to me means being fair and yes, balanced in how I report on events. This doesn’t mean I give equal time to both sides, or I don’t find a way to debunk a statement or ask a tough question when I hear someone lie to me. It means I keep an open mind, observe, and report. If something is wrong, I find out and report that. I don’t opine for myself. For someone who is self-taught and started as a blogger, it’s not easy. But even as a blogger, I try to be nuanced. There’s too much “hate speech” going around on tech policy topics, whether copyright protection, network management or intercarrier compensation (don’t ask). And topics as complex as these can’t always be boiled down to right and wrong, black or white, A or B.

Back to my phone call. I was giving my personal opinion, based on my years of experience following the telecommunications industry in the private sector, as a journalist, and as someone who enjoys thinking about the law.  Actually, I wasn’t giving much of an opinion at all. How can I?

Surely, there are legitimate issues in dealing with things like network management or network neutrality. They’re complex. They’re often overblown and turned into political footballs. But it’s perfectly reasonable, I said, to believe in things like equal opportunity, rule of law and honesty. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal. Don’t tip the scales on either side. Do the right thing. Simple, right?

Does that translate into specific policies I advocate? Absolutely not. I’m no more in favor of specific regulations than I am of total deregulation. If you ask me what I really think about a specific net neutrality bill, I honestly don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Really. I just told you what I think one paragraph ago.

I’ll boil it down to this: Look at any policy issue and ask what the right thing to do is. It’s right to make sure the consumer gets what he pays for. It’s right to make sure if someone owns something and another uses it (outside of fair use), the owner gets paid. How do we get there? I’ll let others talk about it and I’ll sit back and report. And if I see bullshit, I’ll ask about it.

What’s my opinion? I don’t know, and I probably don’t care. The wonks and the businesses can hammer out the details. But I think we can all agree that there are things we can agree on in technology.

Agreed?

Here’s a question for discussion this weekend:

Do you use your real name when leaving comments on a blog or do you use ‘keywords’?

I was moderating comments last night here on ProBlogger and noticed almost a 60/40 split between these approaches (with 60% using ‘real’ names).

My personal preference is to leave my real name - that’s partly because I feel it is more personal and also because I guess inadvertently over the years my name has become a brand of sorts - so it makes sense.

My personal preference for people leaving comments on my blog is also for ‘real names’ - although I’ve not moderated comments based upon people using keywords.

A Spectrum of Approaches

There is a spectrum of approaches that I see people using when it comes to what ‘name’ they leave on comments:

1. Key Words Only - For example some people are obviously just using words that they are attempting to rank for in Google. In my mind when you leave a comment under the name of something like ‘Bad Credit‘ or ‘Interior and Exterior Painting‘ or ‘Steel garages sheds‘ or ‘revenue‘ (all names used here on ProBlogger in the last 48 hours) you’re coming close to looking like you are spamming and doing it purely for SEO, even when your comments are on topic and genuine. I don’t honestly see the point in doing this. Most blogs (including ProBlogger) have nofollow tags in their comments so your links and the words you use have no SEO benefits what so ever. I doubt you’d get many people clicking on words like those either.

2. Brands/Site Names - Also on the spectrum but more acceptable in my mind are people who use keywords in more subtle and in ways that help brand themselves or their blogs. For example ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy‘ who is a commenter on ProBlogger. I don’t mind this type of approach because it is more personal and is tied to his brand (rather than just being an attempt to rank well for certain keywords).

3. Brands and Personal Names - The next step along the spectrum is people who use their name AND a keyword of blog name. Examples including ‘Vered - MomGrind‘ and ‘John Hoff - eVentureBiz‘ and ‘Janice (5 Minutes for Mom)‘. To me this works reasonably well as it gives a personal touch as well as some branding benefits.

4. Personal Names - The lastly there are those who leave just their name. This is my personal favorite and I find myself much more drawn to reading and interacting with these comments. I can understand that some don’t like to use their name as they want some level of anonymity - but for me a name actually makes me feel like I’m interacting with a human being.

Of course there are other approaches. Some use pseudonyms or nick names - I’m sure others will tell us about other options that they use too.

The above spectrum and ordering are based upon my own personal preferences and approaches - but I don’t have a monopoly on the truth and am interested in your personal approach.

What name do you leave comments by and why?

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OK, since I preach about the benefits of online advertising all day, moreover, blog advertising, I figured I should ‘drink the kool-aid’ so to speak. 

Anyway, the first part of my online advertising experiment will be to by a few ads on various blogs.   A lot of people complain that they don’t have enough money or any budget to spend money on advertising, so I’m going to do this on a super shoestring and see what kind of bang I can get for just a few bucks, and prove my argument, that anyone can afford advertising.

First step I’ll need a banner.

- I’m going to head over to 20 dollar banners and get a 125×125 done up for my blog.  http://www.20dollar.com  This is a great site I’ve used over the years to get cheap quick banners made up.   You get several revisions as well and it’s hard to beat that price.

- Next, I’ll head to a few of the blogs I read and see what they charge as well as some high traffic ones with good prices.

Stay tuned to see which sites I buy ads on and the results.

~Chad

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There are two sides to every story, and two unenviable roles to a firing. While I don’t expect newly aroused sympathies to change anything, awareness of each other’s perspective can help make the process a little less painful. That is, if you believe yanking off a band-aid is less painful than pulling it off slowly . . .

Cutting expenses is one thing — delaying purchases, ditching the PR agency (God, they hate being the first to go), abolishing free soft drinks (really?). But cutting people is, well, personal. Leader truly get their mettle tested in the process. But since it’s not something managers do that often, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising how badly most of them handle it. Email? Over the weekend? Like the pink-slips of old, big-company cowardly. Bad form.

Notes for the ‘choppers’

All you managers under pressure –though I don’t expect arrogant CEOs to read this, much less heed the points — it’s time to act, or be acted upon. Look on the bright side: a headcount reduction gives you the opportunity to reshape the organization. Let’s face it, not everyone you hired ended up exceeding expectations. Even if the hiring process included a probationary period (it always should) to admit a mistake was made, during a RIF you get to lop off anyone close to the line.

Encourage yourselves with the conviction that the organization will be better, leaner, and more dedicated than ever before. Just remember that the folks you want to stick around will judge very carefully how you handle the process.

Some observations and considerations (nothing comprehensive) for you unenviable leaders:

1. Once the decision is made, move swiftly.

Bring all your appropriate managers into the process — they’ll surely have something to contribute. Then meet with them 1:1, provide them a directive (e.g., 20% cut), and let them own the decision for their people. Complete this process all on one night, off site — no closed doors, which only feed the rumor mill.

2. HR (if you have one) may or may not know best, but should be completely involved.
The HR managers that I hired for recruiting skills turned out not always to be the best HR administrators; nonetheless, they are employee advocates, and should be your sounding board. If you’re big enough to have hired an experienced HR person, they will have the forms and know the laws. On the other hand, if you’re a startup taking 20 people going down to 15, you probably won’t (shouldn’t) have an HR person. I’ve used PEOs (Professional Employer Organizations) such as TriNet (which make business sense up to a couple dozen employees, beyond which the fees dictate you wean yourself of them), and when we went through our Bubble 1.0 layoff (40%), they knew their stuff — had done quite a few, in fact. Helped us think of everything.

3. All the packages and details for outgoing employees should be complete before the button is pushed.
Prewire everything. Most of all, your IT guy/gal (if they’re on the hit list, you’d better solve that problem first). All the letters (I’ve found that including recommendation letters in the package buys a lot with people), instructions (such as the consequences of their stock options), copies of the Confidentiality Agreement that they signed at hiring, etc., should be bundled together. I’ve learned to lean towards trusting people to behave (although it hasn’t worked out 100% of the time), so I wouldn’t immediately cut off email, or block access to their computer. Big companies will always do this; if you’ve managed your startup well, with full transparency, there shouldn’t be a need. Sales and marketing people will often want to send out an email blast to customers and contacts; let them. Blocking them will only result in them doing it from their personal email. But passwords to Salesforce.com, VPNs, etc. need to be covered. Provide your managers with a comprehensive checklist for each employee.

4. Execute as simultaneously as possible — and with military precision.
This was impossible during my first big layoff, when we went from 175 to 125 (not to mention things were so out of hand, my finance director — who obviously did not expect to be terminated — ran around the building, screaming epithets, while I chased after him . . . swear to God), but for most situations it can be done, late afternoon, at most in two or three passes per manager. Have two people in the room, if you can. Everyone’s rehearsed, the package is delivered, and the whole thing takes two minutes. Remote workers will have to be done by phone (not email). Don’t expect anyone to sign anything on the spot — just collect keys, passes, etc., and don’t shame them by making them clean out their desks in front of others. Let them come back. Treat them with dignity.

5. Don’t drop another shoe
Make your cut deep enough to last. And when it’s done, gather everyone together and have a state-of-the-company address. Tell everyone what the runway looks like from here. Make them comfortable that you won’t be nicking away at things over the next few months, which only leaves everyone paranoid.

I expect there are more and more of you out there coming up on a crappy experience like this. (For more good reading on the topic, go here.) But there’s a happy ending. When it’s over, you’ve done your job (as described by Sequoia, at right), and you’ve done the very best you can for the outgoing — and bonded with the keepers — you not only attain a pride of passage, but things get better very quickly.

Notes for the ‘choppees’

Now, let’s take the other perspective. Some of you are going to be on the receiving end. And most of you — who thought everything was cool a couple of weeks ago — will be stunned to hear it. (Things probably were cool.) But the pressure from investors, coupled with genuine fear about the marketplace, has instilled a new mindset in your leaders: survival.

Some observations and considerations (nothing comprehensive . . . and this is not to be construed as legal or even professional advice) for you who are about to find the axe befall you:

1. Don’t flip out
Yeah, never thought you’d be on the list. Neither did I. But the highly charged moment of termination, when your stomach is knotted and blood is rushing to your head, is not the time to seek answers (much less revenge). Cooperate. No, I wouldn’t sign anything — there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a day or two to read everything. Just know that, in the end, the company has the leverage — in your paycheck, severance, stock, and references/recommendations. If you really feel you’ve been wronged, get a lawyer.

2. Don’t expect much
Leaving the corporate world for the startup world, you said goodbye to lots of resources and perks. When I was fired from my corporate job (by a back-stabbing son-of-a-bitch bastard who needed my P&L because his was dying and oh, yeah, I didn’t see that one coming), I got nine months’ severance, outplacement services, and a glowing recommendation letter. When the VCs pulled the plug on a startup I joined as Senior Vice President of Marketing, I got two week’s pay. (I appealed to the CEO — who was obviously on the way out himself — and they upped it to three weeks.) In startups, you hope for two-weeks pay. (It’s all about conserving cash, remember?)

3. Center yourself
Go for a run, or take it out in the gym. There’s anger that needs to be processed, and you need to move past that to get to the next stage: excitement about what you’re going to do next. What make things especially hard for people in startups is that your world is pretty much tied up in your work. Sure, you have loved ones, but on an hours-per-day basis, when the company you worked for — the thing you were so passionate about being part of and helping build — suddenly goes away, that’s a big hole in your life. Take advantage of it. Indulge your family or loved one with some time. Plot your next moves. Maybe, start something yourself.

4. Move on quickly
You know what they say about a broken heart — nothing cures it like something sweet and new coming along. The sooner you get on with your life, the better. Spend as little time looking back as your mind will allow. The remarkable thing is, nine out of 10 times, people say (maybe not Stuart Sutcliffe) that life got better after leaving the organization. Whether or not you subscribe to the ‘everything happens for a reason’ theory, everyone I’ve crossed paths with who’s been through the shock of getting fired — even at my hand — ended up with no regrets.

There’s a lot of nuances I’m skipping over, some are location-specific, some company-specific.
Whereas California has nixed non-competes, they’re alive and well on the East Coast . . . and they suck. Companies may hold stock grants and severances (by law, they can’t withhold back pay owed) hostage to get non-competes signed, and they’re usually at least a year, sometimes longer. Ridiculous.

Then there’s your vested stock options. These conditions can be all over the map — now might be a good time to reread your Stock Plan and Stock Option Agreement. Is the company entitled to repurchase your vested shares? (I hope not). At what price? If not, you may have only 30 days to purchase them yourself. But again, at what price? The recent Fair Market Value may not reflect the economic crash . . . and you might find yourself having to write a check for several hundred (or thousand) dollars, or forfeit the ownership.

Just a heads up. But hey, things could be fine. Just because a half-dozen startups have already had major layoffs, doesn’t mean yours is about to . . .

Forewarned is forearmed.

Last week I spoke with a blogger who had thrown the towel in on his blog. One day he simply stopped posting with no explanation.

I emailed to ask him why he stopped and his response was:

“I can’t keep up with the advances in technology. Every day there is a new tool, widget or social networking site to test out. I can’t keep up. I’m feeling overwhelmed by it. So I gave up.”

This is a sentiment I’m hearing a lot lately. Bloggers are increasingly feeling the pressure to have their fingers in lots of pies at once and are feeling overwhelmed by the choice and effort needed to ‘keep up’.

We look at people like Robert Scoble who manage to keep blogs afloat, produce videos, engage with thousands of people on Twitter, FriendFeed and who knows how many other social accounts - all while having a family and traveling the world speaking at conferences! Our efforts in comparison to people like Robert pale by comparison….

If you’re feeling this pressure I’d like to talk to you today and give you a few words of encouragement.

Image by danielgebhart

5 Tips for Overwhelmed Bloggers

1. You’re Not Alone

There are days when I look at the things that I do and feel like I’m going backwards. I’m lucky enough to be able to dedicate full time hours (in fact I’m probably doing this 60-70 hours a week) to what I do - and I there are times when I can’t keep up!

You’re not alone. I hear stories of people who can’t ‘keep up’ every day.

2. Focus Upon Your Core Tasks

My Mum isn’t on Facebook, she’s never heard of Twitter, she thinks YouTube is a deodorant stick and things RSS is something most people keep in their boxer shorts.

Sometimes it feels like we’re falling behind in adopting technology but it is good remind ourselves that what we do do online is actually ahead of the curve of the majority of ‘real people’.

What I remind myself on those days when I feel overwhelmed by it all is that 95% of the people who read my main blog don’t really care that much about social media or web 2.0 - they’re coming to my blog to read information on how to use their cameras.

As a result my core task is to develop that content and to distribute it using mediums that they are familiar with. My core task is NOT to have my finger on the pulse of every new technology. While it can be helpful to know about the latest widgets and tools to become distracted by them could actually be taking me further away from my audience.

3. Be Smart, Establish Boundaries and Focus Your Energies

I am not suggesting that we all ignore social media, emerging web technologies or forget about Web 2.0.

There is a lot to like about Web 2.0 and it can bring a lot of life to your blogging. However unless you’re blogging about Technology or have a very Web Savvy audience you’d do well to pick and choose what you do and don’t focus your attention on and to put boundaries around these activities.

I wish I could list the 3 tools and technologies that you should focus upon - but it will differ for each blog and every topic - but rather than focusing upon everything, narrow your focus and pick a few achievable technologies to ‘play’ with at a time. My approach with social media has always be to pick up new technologies one at a time rather than to start with multiple ones at once.

Picking new tools to play with one at a time allows you to fully understand it, work out how it might work for you and to add it to your natural work flow. Do too many new things at once and you’re not likely to be able to integrate them into your life to it’s potential.

Remember my post from last week on Home bases and Outposts and how it relates to Social Media - while spending time on outposts can be useful you also need to spend time on your home base - that needs to be your priority.

On Boundaries - One of the techniques that I use to help me to put boundaries around the things that I do is to use Batch Processing. Put most simply it is about setting aside blocks of time to work on tasks in a focused way instead of flitting from one thing to another all day.

4. They are Tools - Refocus Upon Your Goals

Sometimes the tools and technologies become bigger than they need to be. I am constantly reminding myself to spend less time focusing upon the tools and more time focusing upon my goals.

If you know what you want to achieve you can then decide how to move towards that desired goal. In doing so you can select the best tools for the job. If you start with the medium or the tools and try to fit it to your ‘goals’ and objectives you’ll just get muddled.

Web 2.0 technologies can help you achieve your goals - but they are much more effective if you know what you want to achieve.

5. Have Fun

Sometimes I take things too seriously. Sure - blogging has become a business and a way of sustaining my family so there needs to be some element of taking it seriously - but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Social media is a space that is at it’s best when it is fun and playful. Let it bog you down and you’re kind of defeating the purpose of it all.

What would you add as a tip for people feeling overwhelmed by social media and Web 2.0 technologies?

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“I’ve always treated the first two years of Digital Photography School as its launch phase.”

This was a statement that I made in a session at Blog World Expo that I’ve been asked about many times since - so I thought I’d expand upon it a little here in a post.

2006-2008: The Launch of Digital Photography School

I launched DPS back in April of 2006 (I first spoke about it here on ProBlogger in one of my first video posts). As you’ll see from that initial post - I always saw DPS as something of an experiment and a long term project. Having built numerous blogs before starting that one I new that building a blog to it’s potential takes a lot of time and hard work.

As a result, I gave myself a goal to get that blog two years to get through it’s ‘launch phase’.

That might seem like a long time to get a blog up and running but for me the ‘launch phase’ meant more than simply getting the blog designed and announcing it - for me the ‘launch’ is all about these sorts of things:

• building a foundation of solid content (the blog now has 713 posts, most of which are ‘how to’ or ‘tutorial’ style content)
• getting an initial design up (I launched with a free design and quickly upgraded to a purpose built one. It’s now dated and we’ve outgrown it - but it has served us well).
• building a loyal readership and subscribers (the blog is now read by around a million readers a month and subscribed to by over 100,000. The forum has around 200,000 visitors a month.)
• building community (this takes time. Initially I did it with a Flickr group and then leveraged that to start a forum - now with 23,000 members).
• building a ‘list‘ (at the heart of DPS is a newsletter which drives traffic and builds community. It is sent to around 48,000 subscribers per week).
• establishing a publishing routine (I started off posting 3 times a week and have built it up to posting 7 times a week)
• building a content creation team (originally I wrote every post - now the blog is written by a team of 5 paid writers (each doing one post per week) and a number of regular guest contributers)
• building a team of community leaders (the forum is moderated by a wonderful team of voluntary members)
• building relationships with other bloggers and partners (something I was slow doing, mainly due to being time poor - more recently however I’ve been more intentional building relationships with others in the industry)
• experimenting with monetization - (making money from the site hasn’t been high on my priority list to this point - rather in this launch phase it has been more about working out what types of monetization works and what the community responds to. The site does make money, but more importantly I’ve been learning about monetization)

Most bloggers probably don’t see a lot of this as a ‘launch phase’ - but for me it has definitely been more about building foundations for what is to come than seeing anything I’ve done so far as an ‘end result’.

While I’m really happy with (and surprised by) what we’ve achieved so far at DPS - seeing it as being in it’s launch phase reminds me to keep lifting my sights and to keep on building and dreaming.

One of the Results of Building Good Foundations

Over the last few months I’ve been approached on 3 occasions by potential buyers of DPS. It has actually been quite strange because they all came very quickly and quite out of the blue. The offers ranged quite considerably in terms of numbers but a couple were tempting.

In each case the potential buyer commented that they wanted to buy DPS because it was ’solid’. Each one was less interested in what the site was making in terms of income or how much raw traffic it had than other factors. They were looking more at things like brand, community, reader loyalty, influence, reader morale and user participation.

In fact what surprised me is that the valuations that they put on the site (very high six figure sums) were not based upon what it was currently earning at all. They made offers based upon these other factors - factors that made their offers much higher than a valuation based upon traffic or monthly income alone.

What Will Phase 2 Look Like?

While a couple of the offers were very tempting I realized as i deliberated that the potential for DPS was far greater than what it had yet achieved. I’ve only just begun. To sell now tempted me (and I probably would have sold at the right price) but I realized that for me to take it beyond where it has grown to will see it rise exponentially in value.

It has been 2.5 years now since officially launching the site - so it’s now time to move into the next ‘phase’.

I’m not ready to fully announce all of the details of the next phase of DPS - however it will involve a redesign (hopefully to go live around the end of the year) and a fairly significant ‘expansion’. In essence the way I’m viewing the last 2.5 years is that I’ve been building foundations and that now it is time to expand and leverage what has already been built.

To do so means significant investment back into the site financially but with the solid base of readership, community and relationships that I’ve been working hard to build I’m pretty confident that Phase 2 will be successful. I’m also really excited about what’s coming!

Build Solid Foundations

When I speak with many bloggers I get the feeling that all they’re really thinking about is growing traffic and subscriber numbers as fast as possible. While these are definitely things to work hard on I attempt to convey to them that there are other ‘foundations’ that need to be built into a blog than just traffic.

Most bloggers put a lot of energy into building blogs with high readership - but how about setting goals and strategies in place for some of the other areas mentioned above?

• Take a long term view of your blogging
• Take your time to build strong foundations that go beyond traffic and income

As you do these two things you’ll put yourself in a position to build a site of significance.

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I have a thing for tattoos. The more the sexier. I kinda like piercings too. I went out with a guy once who had some sort of tribal symbol (I couldn’t tell you what his nationality was) that spanned his entire chest, and that alone probably got him a date or two more than he deserved.

A new thing I do at the gym to pass time is to guess which guys have tattoos, of what, and where on their body. I’ve developed a crush on a guy that I’ve seen at the gym a million times, but never noticed until I decided he probably has a massive panther across his back. Ok, maybe panthers aren’t the coolest tattoos, but whatever, I don’t know anything about tattoos and I know that’s a common one.

A girlfriend of mine is totally into tattoos (on herself…she also has piercings in places you wouldn’t expect on a Senior Manager at one the the big four accounting firms in Canada). Her tattoos are very symbolic to her and whatever time of her life she was in when she got them. When I told her that my brother has a tattoo on his upper chest of a man and woman embracing, she asked what it symbolised for him. When I said I didn’t know, she freaked on me and told me that I need to ask. So I did. His answer “Dunno. Just thought it looked nice.” (Note: Tattoos on my brother, not hot).

I was considering getting a tattoo, but, like my brother, I am not deep and don’t know what to get. Then there’s the whole “tramp stamp” thing, which I don’t get. The small of my back is a place as intimate as some other parts of my body no one gets to see, and I think it’s sexy to have one there, but I don’t want people to think I’m a tramp.

Do you think tattoos are sexy? Do you think tramp stamps are trampy? Any suggestions for what I should get?

Several months ago, I decided to give Disqus a try. Disqus is a company that provides a social commenting functionality to blogs. It replaces/hijacks a blogs comments and replaces with their own commenting system. I really liked the ability to reply to comments via email as well as comment threading.

Jason Yan and Daniel Ha have been extremely helpful over the past months in helping me with comment syncing (that is keeping a store of my comments inside WordPress as well as in their system) and being extremely attentive to suggestions and feedback.

However, I’ve decided to drop Disqus and return to native WordPress comments. I told Daniel I’d write this post as a point of feedback for him and his team and to hopefully provide some structure around my thoughts.

Spam

Recently, there has been an onslaught of spam here and yes, I have the ability to remove comments but they should never make it to my blog at all. I was under the impressions that Akismet was being used to control spam flow but now I’m told they moved away from it. This could explain the onslaught of spam. However, I’m just not comfortable with lack of spam moderation functionality and the lack of “assume is spam” mentality when a comment is unknown to the system. If there’s a hint that it is spam, it should be held for moderation at all costs.

Lack of Theme Integration

The common response to my complaint of lack of theme integration is that most of the elements of the Disqus comment form are stylabe, and while that’s true, I don’t think it’s enough. Really, I don’t want the comments that Lisa designed for me to be displayed any other way. I like them that way. In fact, I like the WordPress form and behavior. It’s comfortable and familiar.

A benefit to the Disqus commenting system was threaded comments, however, WordPress 2.7 is coming with threaded comments so the point is moot.

Comment Moderation Panel

I always feel like I’m stomping through someone elses house when I go to my comment moderation panel. I imagine this is largely due to the cumbersome iframe that houses the Disqus moderation panel. Really, a WordPress plugin should be tapping into API that manages this stuff and allows a native user experience. This is the least of my problems, but it doesn’t feel right at all.

At the end of the day, what I really want is Disqus-lite. I want the social functionality of Disqus with the assumption of native WordPress benefit. I want reply by email and comment moderation by email in a WordPress context. My WordPress context.

I love the Disqus guys over any of the competition and I don’t close off the possibility of returning as a user one day. But for now, I’m going to shelve the idea and come back at another time.

Good luck to you, Daniel and Jason!

Last week I decided to find some quality Australian blogs to subscribe to. I used a newly compiled list of Australian Marketing Blogs that Julian Cole put together as the basis for my search.

I was excited by the quality of some of the blogs on that list - but it struck me as I surfed through the list that there were three frustrations that I had with quite a few of the blogs on the list (definitely not all of them, but enough for me to notice).

None of these problems are issues that just Australian bloggers or Marketing bloggers face - I see them every day around the web (although I did find it ironic that a list of ‘Marketing’ blogs would have some of these problems).

1. Hidden Subscription Options

I was on a mission to subscribe to great blogs - but one disappointing thing that I noticed was that quite a few of the bloggers didn’t make this easy for me simply because they ‘hid’ their subscription methods way down the page (and a couple didn’t even show them at all). Most browsers these days give those who use them the ability to subscribe by clicking the RSS icon in their address bar - but many web users don’t know that they can do this (or are using old browsers).

If one of your goals as a blogger is to grow your readership then one great way to capture first time readers is to get them to subscribe (whether that be to an RSS feed, an RSS to Email service or a newsletter. If you hide or obscure these options you’re not likely to get the conversions.

My own approach with getting subscribers is to place these subscription options prominently in a sidebar and then under posts on single post pages (usually below the fold). This means that whether a new reader is above or below the fold they are invited to subscribe.

Further Reading - 11 Ways to Get New RSS Subscribers for your Blog

2. No Way to Contact the Blogger

There were a number of blogs on the list that I was really impressed with - so much so that I wanted to contact the blogger and congratulate them on their blogs. The only problem was that on a couple of occasions I found it difficult to find any way to contact the blogger other than to leave a public comment.

I understand some bloggers desires to have privacy or to cut down the admin of their blogs by keeping themselves difficult to contact but in doing so you not only filter the loonies approaches but also legitimate opportunities, potential partnerships etc

Contact options don’t necessarily have to be giving out your email address - you could have a contact form, give Twitter details, have an IM option or give other social networking profiles (the key is to give ones that you actually check).

Further Reading - Why Your Blog’s Readers Should be Able to Contact You

3. No About Page

This one is probably more my personal preference and less essential than the first two points - but when I find a blog that I’m interested in one of the first things that I like to do to help me decide whether to subscribe to it is to search for more information about the blog and who writes it.

Some kind of an ‘About Page’ is a great way to satisfy and draw in curious potential readers (like me) and to deepen the connection with them.

Your About page is a wonderful opportunity to make a connection with new people to your blog, to sell yourself and give reasons why people should read you.

You can of course do this in other ways (an intro in your sidebar perhaps) but a page dedicated to sharing your information in this way can really work well.

Further Reading - Add an About Page to Your Blog, How to Write Your “About Me” Page and Conduct an About Page Audit

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I have my first eHarmony date tonight. I am not excited for it, other than for tomorrow’s blog post. Marc from Toronto. In his profile, he wrote things like “I love experiences.” “I recently learned to surf” (yes, Toronto. No, we don’t have beaches), and “I really believe that two people should “click”".

Just so you know, I’m doing this for my readers.